German University course: Israelis harvest 'Palestinian' organs
Those of you who thought that German anti-Semitism died in Hitler's bunker were sadly mistaken.
I am currently reading German reporter Tuvia 'Tobi' Tenenbaum's Catch the Jew, in which Tenenbaum, who grew up as an Israeli Haredi, poses as a German reporter to gain access to 'Palestinians' and self-hating Jews. One of the things that's striking about the book is how much of the 'Palestinians' day-to-day activities are financed by European government NGO's (yes, that's why we just adopted an NGO law), and how many of those NGO's are financed by Germans.
Why?
Because many Germans, including those in power, have never forgotten Hitler's aspirations. Here's more proof.
“Our sons were robbed of their organs,” was the title of a part of the
seminar’s course material, Rebecca Seidler, an academic who blew the
whistle on the anti-Israel material, told the weekly German-Jewish
newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine Zeitung in a Thursday article.
The paper reported that the University of Applied Sciences and Arts
(HAWK) offers a course on “The Social Situation of Youths in Palestine,”
which contains the allegedly anti-Semitic material.
After reviewing the content of the course, Seidler, who was
slated to conduct the seminar, complained to the university’s
management. The Dean of the faculty of Social Work and Health, Christa
Paulini, dismissed Seidler’s criticism in a telephone conversation as
being overly-sensitive.
Seidler told the JAZ that
material showed “a picture of a genocide on the Palestinians, an ethnic
cleansing as well as a complete disenfranchisement of Palestinians by
Israel.”
The seminar syllabus also covered the “victims of torture in Israeli prisons,” said Seidler. The JAZ wrote the seminar conveyed “anti-Semitic stereotypes.”
Jerusalem Post press queries to the HAWK media
department on Sunday were not immediately returned. The HAWK instructor
Ibtissam Köhler prepared the seminar material, which also contained an
anti-Israel essay from a right-wing extremist magazine titled “Compact.”
The seminar was slated for the semester 2015/2016. It is unclear how long the HAWK has conducted anti-Israel seminars.
The HAWK is located in Hildesheim, a small city in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, with a population of nearly 100,000.
HAWK’s
president Christiane Dienel told the German wire service DPA on Friday
that an ethics commission examined the seminar and it in “no way
propagates anti-Semitic or anti-Israel content.”
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen has in essence now admitted that lied when he told the European Parliament on Thursday that a 'rabbi' ordered Jews to poison 'Palestinian' water. The 'rabbi' doesn't exist, the organization he 'represented' doesn't exist, but none of that stopped Abu Bluff from telling the lie, nor did it stop the European anti-Semites who make up the European Parliament (including a grinning ear-to-ear foreign policy chief Federika Mog - a pity you can't watch the video anymore).
Mr.
Abbas’s retraction was sent to reporters early Saturday morning, issued
by the P.L.O., of which Mr. Abbas is the chairman. It said that Mr.
Abbas “rejected all claims that accuse him and the Palestinian people of
offending the Jewish religion.” It added that he “also condemned all
accusations of anti-Semitism.”
“After
it has become evident that the alleged statements by a rabbi on
poisoning Palestinian wells, which were reported by various media
outlets, are baseless, President Mahmoud Abbas has affirmed that he
didn’t intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around
the world,” the statement continued.
It
was not immediately clear why Mr. Abbas repeated the allegation on
Thursday, days after it was widely debunked. Neither the rabbi who
supposedly made the claim, nor the organization quoted in the original
P.L.O. article, appear to exist.
And of course, this is not the first time that 'Mr. Abbas' has invented a lie. In fact, the entire existence of a 'Palestinian people' is one great big lie.
In October, Mr. Abbas erroneously accused Israeli forces of killing a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who had taken part in the stabbing of two Israelis. The boy had actually been wounded and later recovered.
So what's the genesis of this particular lie (aside from the Bubonic plague in 14th century Europe)? Here's where it came from.
The story was discovered to be false by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW),
an Israeli NGO that monitors Palestinian incitement. PMW claims that
Abbas’ accusation is based on an article published last week in Anadolu,
a Turkish news service, which claimed , “Rabbi Shlomo Mlma (sic),
chairman of the Council of Rabbis in the West Bank settlements(sic), has
issued an advisory opinion in which he allowed Jewish settlers to
poison water in Palestinian villages and cities in the West Bank.”
PMW reported that the story in Anadolu was based on a claim by Yehuda Shaul, a leader of the extreme left-wing Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence. Shaul was quoted in the Hebrew news service, NRG, as saying that “settlers poisoned” the water of a Palestinian town a number of years ago causing the Palestinians to leave”.
The story was confirmed as incorrect by several news services including Reuters and Haaretz. No such rabbi or council was found to exist.
Shocked. Just totally shocked... to see the Turks and the self-hating Jews at 'Breaking the Silence' involved in this....
In an earlier post, I reported that Time Magazine had recycled a 2009 blood libel from the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, which accused Israel of harvesting and selling 'Palestinians' organs. Having been called on their slander, Time has now corrected the video in question.
On Sunday, the magazine deleted the
allegations from a two-minute video on its website about the Israel
Defense Forces and added a correction, writing at the end, “Correction:
The original version of this video cited a contested allegation in a
2009 Swedish newspaper report as fact. The allegation has been removed
from the video.”
The video, titled “The IDF: A look inside
Israel’s powerful military,” said the “IDF is not without controversy,”
reporting that “in 2009 a Swedish report came out exposing some Israeli
troops of selling organs of Palestinians who died in their custody.”
The reference is to a completely made up tabloid style article in an obscure Swedish paper, that even the author admitted was not based on any evidence.
...
Unfortunately, we also wrote at the time that despite the author’s own
admission that he had no evidence to back up his horrendous accusation,
the story would continue spreading.
The original story is here. The author's admission that he had no evidence to back up his story is here.
Video: Wolf Blitzer grills Hamas' Osama Hamdan over blood libels
Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan has been making infrequent appearances on
CNN in the past few weeks, but today Wolf Blitzer really held his feet
to the fire. At issue here was what Blitzer called “disturbing” comments
Hamdan made on television saying that Jews use Christian blood to make
matzoh, a charge generally referred to as blood libel. Hamdan had said,
“We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians in order to
mix their blood in their holy matzoh. This is not a figment of the
imagination or something taken from a film. It is a fact acknowledged by
their own books and historical evidence.”
Blitzer confronted
Hamdan over that remark today. Hamdan, repeatedly, refused to directly
answer Blitzer’s question. Instead, he argued that the truly disgusting
rhetoric is coming from the Israelis. Hamdan told Blitzer, “They are
misusing the words. I’ve said on the same occasion that we don’t have
problems with the Jews… I have Jewish friends who are supporting the
Palestinian rights.”
At no point did Hamdan address those
controversial remarks themselves. But what Blitzer noticed is that not
once did Hamdan issue any kind of denial for uttering such “an awful,
awful smear.”
Let's go to the videotape.
Kind of tough when your Arabic gets translated into English, isn't it?
Islamic Jihad spokesman: IDF soldiers use 'Palestinian' children's blood to bake bread
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Here's an Islamic Jihad spokesman claiming that the IDF uses 'Palestinian' children's blood to bake bread. Straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Let's go to the videotape.
The descent into classic anti-Semitism shows conclusively that this is not a dispute about land. It is long past time to admit that this is a religious war, and no 'peace agreement' is possible.
More Hamas use of Israeli terror victims as their own
Another disgraceful use by Hamas or its supporters of Jewish terror victims - this time from the March 2002 suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Cafe Moment - to claim that they are actually 'Palestinians' victimized by Israel.
Even the Palestinian Authority, despite its declarations, is not hastening to assist in finding out the truth. After two weeks, the Palestinian security forces have yet to hand over to the IDF the bullets removed from the bodies of the two young men during the autopsy in the Ramallah hospital.
And still, the shooting of rubber bullets, for which the soldier was suspended, reveals a few things about the conduct of the army during violent clashes with demonstrators. The soldier was suspended from his job, and a Military Police investigation was opened against him, because the firing of rubber bullets was not part of his assignment during the demonstration. Although he was trained as a combat soldier, his job (the precise nature of which cannot be disclosed due to a military court gag order,) is connected primarily to communications.
The Border Policeman and the other soldiers who fired rubber bullets during the demonstration were authorized to do so; the communications soldier was not. His suspension, which under ordinary circumstances would not have aroused any interest, attracted media attention because it took place in the wake of an incident that was to a great extent documented by security cameras and television cameras. Had it been a matter of soldiers who killed unarmed Palestinians in undocumented incidents — which take place almost on a monthly basis on the West Bank — there probably would have been no news coverage.
But the soldier is not so exceptional. A fact that is not widely discussed is that for quite a few soldiers who participate in dispersing demonstrations it’s a chance to take part in the “action” - firing shots, albeit it with non-lethal ammunition, in the midst of the chaos, and the adrenaline rush of a confrontation. We can reasonably assume that the soldier was seeking an exciting experience, or an escape from boredom, and that the Border Police acceded to his request to allow him to fire rubber bullets at the demonstration.
In recent years, most of the clashes between the IDF and the Border Police on one hand, and Palestinian demonstrators on the other, take place at times and in locations that the two sides have chosen in advance — what the army dubs “focus points of friction.” Although the encounter takes place repeatedly, sometimes on a weekly basis, the commanders do not have total control over the soldiers. There is always a possibility that a soldier will violate the rules of engagement, without his commanders knowing exactly what he is up to during the demonstration.
The potential for damage is exacerbated when the shooter is a soldier attached to a force and is not part of an organic unit. In the IDF there are many such job-holders — drivers, dog handlers, intelligence operatives and others — who wander among the units and join them for a few hours or a few days. This is potentially dangerous because the soldier is not part of the regular chain of command. The operational commander in the field didn’t know him before they were teamed up for the assignment, whereas his commanders are at the base and are unable to supervise him and to make sure that he is following orders.
During the years of the second intifada there were several incidents in which non-combat soldiers who found themselves in the line of fire caused problems for the unit to which they were attached, whether by firing irresponsibly on civilians or by operational mistakes (and even firing inadvertently at other soldiers). This is a weak point which almost invites mishaps, although judging by what the investigation has found until now, the soldier from the communications unit is not connected to the killing of the demonstrators.
The items I highlighted in bold reflect unsubstantiated allegations by Haaretz. The first paragraph (that I quoted - there were a couple of others before it) and the last half sentence reflect reality. And with good reason: There is no proof thus far that the IDF is responsible for the alleged killings.
I'm not into watching TED talks, but many people I know - mostly brilliant people - including Mrs. Carl, are very much into watching them. This week, media watchdog CAMERA took TED to task for airing a talk by one of its fellows, Gaza photojournalist Eman Mohammed, which accused Israel of maximizing casualties during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09. This is from the second link.
CAMERA wrote: “During Operation Cast Lead, Israel dropped over 2.5 million leaflets throughout Gaza and phoned residents in order to warn them of impending attacks. Israel likewise dropped warning fliers during the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank.”
The watchdog quoted testimony from Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, who addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2009, praising the “extraordinary measures” that Israel took in Cast Lead to avoid civilian casualties.
Kemp said, that “based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”
“Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population,” Kemp said. “Hamas, like Hezbollah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.”
“The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls,” the former British commander said. “Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy’s hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.”
An Israel Defense Forces investigation into the army’s conduct during Cast Lead discussed the precautions that Israel took in this particular strike to safeguard civilian lives. The investigation noted “the unfortunate deaths” of four civilians in the Al Saraya strike, but it also maintained that the strikes were in accordance with international law.
Mohammed said she was injured during the strike, breaking her nose. It was not from IDF fire or shrapnel, but from her own camera.
In another stage of the Passover celebrations, [the Jews]
combined the preparation of matzas and the offering up of sacrifices
with their enmity towards non-Jews, especially Christians, and mixed the
blood of one of their victims into the matza [dough. This was done]
especially on Passover, Purim and circumcision rituals. They also used
blood in acts of sorcery and witchcraft…
…The draining of the
victims’ blood is done in [several ways. One method is] by means of a
barrel lined with needles. This is a barrel the size of the victim’s
body, with sharp needles that stick into all his limbs when he is placed
in it, so that his blood slowly trickles down from every part of his
body. This entails excruciating torment, which gives pleasure to the
Jews who become drunk with joy at the sight of the blood dripping from
the victim’s [body] to the bottom of the barrel and into a container
placed there to collect it. [Another method] is to slaughter the victim
like a sheep and collecting his blood in a vessel, or else slashing the
victim’s veins in numerous places so that the blood flows from the
wounds into the vessels. Then the blood is handed to a rabbi who
prepares a matza laced with human blood in order to please the Jewish
god, Jehovah, who thirsts for blood.
The Jews can rejoice in their holidays only if they eat matza laced with the blood of non-Jews.
...
…The Jewish crimes which came to light throughout history and which were investigated and tried are a drop in the ocean compared to the Jewish crimes that no one knows about. The
thousands of children and others who vanish around the world are
probably victims of Jewish rituals. Their blood surely lies in Jewish
stomachs along with the holiday matzas.
...
As part of the efforts to deny [the Jewish crimes], Jewish
Americans wrote stories about vampires in the 1970s, in order to
disassociate themselves from the accusation of sucking human blood and
deceive [the mechanisms of] justice. During that period they
spent millions on Dracula films, in order to deceive world public
opinion. They claimed that those who slaughter children and adults and
suck their blood are lunatics and that all this has nothing to do with
them and their religious rituals. On February 14, 1964, the [Egyptian]
magazine Al-Musawwar published a story about vampires in Colombia after
many [Colombian] children had been slaughtered to shed their blood.
Neither the magazine nor the investigators in Colombia dreamed that the
vampires might be Jews, rather than [people who] sell blood to
hospitals.
Nasty stuff.... But what's truly shocking about this is what the Eretz Yisrael blog discovered about its sponsorship.
We know from past experience that such naked antisemitism in
Arab media cannot be solved by merely publicizing it. Most Arabs are not
even aware that there is anything offensive about describing Jews as
murderous bloodsuckers.
However, a major advertiser for Al Kibar is Visa, with this ad popping up on most articles and shown on the main page:
The ad is the one at the top of this post.
Given FIFA's past history, we can't be too surprised to see them involved in this. But Visa?
Your Federation donations at work: Lies trump truth again in Washington, DC
Caroline Glick relates the sad saga of The Admission, a play that is based on lies, and tries to change the narrative we all know in the Middle East.
Israel’s rights and justness are grounded in truth. But today truth
isn’t worth as much as it used to be. Those who fight for it find
themselves routinely maligned as close-minded extremists. Those who
trounce it are congratulated for being open-minded and fair.
Last month Theater J announced its Spring 2014 schedule.
The schedule includes a play called The Admission.
Authored by an Israeli named Motti Lerner, the play is a dramatization of what is euphemistically known as the “Tantura Affair.”
In
2000, Maariv published an article describing the Master’s thesis of a
student at the University of Haifa named Teddy Katz. Teddy Katz’s thesis
purported to document a previously unknown massacre during Israel’s War
of Independence. He alleged that in May 1948 the IDF murdered 250 Arab
civilians after winning a battle in the town of Tantura.
The
article caused an uproar. Veterans of the battle sued Katz for libel.
They won. Indeed, in testimony before the district court judge Katz
admitted his thesis was a fabrication.
Katz later recanted his
admission and appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. The Supreme
Court upheld the ruling that Katz had libeled the soldiers. The
university appointed a panel of scholars to review his research
materials. They found Katz had fabricated statements he alleged came
from interviews with eyewitnesses.
The university cancelled its acceptance of Katz’s thesis.
Had
that been the end of that, the “Tantura Affair” – that is, Katz’s blood
libel against the IDF – would have been long forgotten. But Katz’s
academic supervisor, then-senior lecturer at Haifa and celebrated
anti-Israel propagandist Ilan Pappe, refused to let the truth get in his
way.
Pappe rewrote the history of the “Tantura Affair.” In
Pappe’s telling, Katz heroically revealed the truth about the evil core
of the Jewish state, and was then persecuted for going against Zionist
orthodoxy.
...
For his part, Lerner, who has dramatized Katz’s blood libel, was quoted
by The Washington Post saying that his purpose wasn’t to tell the truth,
either. “The play is trying to suggest that these historical memories
[of what happened at Tantura] have to be explored and revised
continuously in order to create a solid basis for reconciliation between
the two people.”
The “revised” – that is, false – memory Lerner
seeks to create serves a clear purpose. By portraying the Jews as
murderers and as the aggressors in 1948 and the Arabs as their victims,
he wishes to convince everyone that it is okay for the Arabs to continue
seeking Israel’s destruction, and for the world to keep pressuring the
Jewish state for more unilateral concessions. Only if justice is solely
on the side of the Arabs is it possible to promote “compromises” in
which the Jewish state makes endless concessions to the Arabs, and in
return receives terrorism, war and hatred.
The true history of
Israel’s War of Independence in which local Arabs, assisted by invading
Arab armies attacked the Jews of Israel with the declared purpose of
annihilating them, is inconvenient for the likes of Lerner and Pappe.
They have no use for the fact that every area conquered by the Arabs was
rendered Jew-free, by massacre or expulsion. They certainly don’t want
anyone to know about the heroism of Jews who defended themselves and
their nascent state, and prevailed, albeit at great cost.
If you live in the Washington DC area, your Federation donations are funding Theater J. Makes you want to send your money elsewhere, doesn't it?
The apology says "We are whole-heartedly committed to fighting racism,
hatemongering, discrimination and persecution of any kind wherever it
should exist, and especially in our own society."
Yet the original offensive article was written and published in Arabic.Two days later, Miftah's Arabic website shows no indication of regret, apology or condemnation of the classic blood libel against Jews that it published. Readers of the Arabic website have only been exposed to the original blood libel article and to Miftah's justification for it
but they have not been informed by NGO that claims to "fight
hatemongering" that there was anything wrong about the original article.
(In fact, their attack against me and original justification for the
blood libel article as part of "its mandate for open dialogue" remains on its website as well. Was that also written by a "junior staff member"?)
As we saw back in the days of Yasir Arafat, saying one thing in English
and another in Arabic is a classic way to appease the West while keeping
the status quo to the intended audience.
Unfortunately, they waited until the 7th day of Passover to do it, so Elder of Ziyon, who broke the story, will likely not even have seen the story yet when the holiday ends in the US after sundown on Tuesday, but Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah, which receives massive western funding, has finally apologized for the blood libel against Jews that was published on the group's website (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
This is from the third link.
Miftah at first defended its right to post the article in a statement titled, “MIFTAH denounces smear campaign against it.”
“The obscure pro-Israeli website ‘The Elder of Ziyon’ has wrongly
accused MIFTAH and Dr. Ashrawi of promoting Jewish blood libel during
Passover through its publication of an Arabic-language article that
briefly addressed the subject,” the defense stated.
The article was about promoting dialogue, Miftah maintained.
“The disclaimer at the opening of the ‘News and Analysis’ section
clearly states that, ‘The views represented in [News and Analysis] are
solely those of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views
of MIFTAH but rather fulfill its mandate for open dialogue,’ ” the
statement continued.
...
Miftah on Monday recalibrated its position, issuing a full apology and blaming a low-level staffer for the situation.
“It has become clear to us after investigating this incident that the
article was accidentally and incorrectly published by a junior staff
member,” the apology stated. “The said staffer has been reprimanded and
all our staff has been informed as to the disgusting and repulsive
phenomena of blood libel or accusation, including its use against Jews.”
“Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, as founder, has nothing to do with the day to day
management at MIFTAH and was no way involved in this incident,” the
apology maintained.
I don't buy the 'low-level staffer' nonsense. Name me one 'Palestinian' organization that is not tightly controlled by the people behind it. I can't believe that Hanan Ashrawi didn't know about this article until it was published.
Second, if it was truly 'accidentally and incorrectly published,' why did the apology take so long and require so much condemnation of the article before it was issued?
Third, note the one thing they don't admit: That the article itself was a blood libel.
And by the way, when was the last time you saw a blood libel about anyone other than Jews?
Newest 'Palestinian' blood libel: Jews brought pigs and donkeys to al-Aqsa mosque
The latest blood libel by the 'Palestinians' comes from an Egyptian web site, which is claiming that the Jews brought pigs and donkeys to al-Aqsa mosque.
Which, translated, reads:-
A numberofyoungIsraelidesecrationpartsclose to theAl-Aqsa mosque, whentheyhadcarriedarangeofanimals, includingpigs, donkeysandgoats, andplacedthemnear the mosqueduringthecelebrationofEaster...
The newspaper pointed out that a group ofyoung Israelis andputagroupofanimalsinsidethecourtyardofthemosque, duringtheperformanceofJewishprayerin front oftheWailingWall"Wailing", butIsraeli policemanagedtocontrol them andexpelledthese animalsoutofthemosque.
That wouldn't be religious hatred incitement?
Besides being factually incorrect?
Now what did happen, on the eve of Passover, was that Jews tried to bring a sheep to the Temple Mount for the Passover sacrifice, But the people and the sheep were turned away long before they got there.
You don't think the Arab Muslims would make up something like this, do you?
PLO 'moderate' Hanan Ashrawi's group claims Jews use Christian blood for Passover
MIFTAH, a group whose Secretary General is none other than PLO National Council member Hanan Ashrawi, has published an article that claims that Jews use Christian blood for Passover.
Al-Zaru asks:
Does Obama in fact know the relationship, for example, between "Passover" and "Christian blood" ..?!
Or "Passover" and "Jewish blood rituals..?!
Much of the chatter and gossip about historical Jewish blood rituals in Europe are real and not fake as they claim; the Jews used the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover ...
He then quotes a 2007 Haaretz article
on a book by a Bar-Ilan University professor that bizarrely claimed
that a few blood libels could have had a basis in fact, without noting
that the same professor recanted those claims a year later.
The upshot is that a journal run by "moderate" Hanan Ashrawi is pushing
the Passover blood libel, and you will be hard pressed to find a
"moderate" Arab condemning this article. I couldn't.
Unfortunately, CNN won't think to ask her about this the next time they trot her out on TV.
Folks, this is classic, classic anti-Semitism. Anyone who thinks these people are suddenly going to live in peace with Israelis when this is how they think is simply fooling himself.
Tissue samples were taken Tuesday from the remains of Yasser Arafat,
the longtime Palestinian leader who died in 2004, as part of an inquiry
into whether he might have been poisoned, Palestinian officials said.
The probe was ordered after an investigative report on the Arabic
satellite channel al-Jazeera in July presented what it said was evidence
of possible poisoning, reviving suspicions surrounding Arafat’s death.
Did the reporter have to withhold a chortle when he wrote "investigative
report ... on ... al-Jazeera?" Rumors that Arafat have been poisoned
have been part of Palestinian rhetoric over the past eight years. Just
because the Islamist channel al-Jazeera claimed to have more rumors
doesn't make the charge any more credible.
(I don't believe that Israel is the main target of these rumors. The
story that Arafat was poisoned lately has been peddled by his former
henchman Mohammed Rashid who is engaged in a feud with Mahmoud Abbas.)
On Tuesday, as part of an inquiry into whether he was poisoned, Mr.
Arafat’s remains were exhumed in a subdued, reflective atmosphere, with
his people more fractured and less certain of their future than when he
was alive.
Mr. Arafat died in a Paris hospital in 2004 at the age of 75, an event
that was swiftly surrounded by contention and mystery. Israeli officials
have categorically denied Palestinian accusations of involvement. And
though lab test results are expected in about three months, according to
experts, they may leave open more questions than they resolve about the
Palestinian suspicions.
“Our people are convinced that Israel committed this act,” Tawfiq
Tirawi, a Palestinian official who leads the Palestinian investigating
committee, told reporters here in a news conference. “We are seeking
evidence.”
(Really, if someone wants to do an investigative story about Arafat why
not find out how much the perpetually cash-strapped Palestinian
Authority is funding Suha Arafat's lavish expatriate lifestyle.)
Barry Rubin made an important observation as to why these rumors are treated as "news."
In the case of any other alleged perpetrator, the kind of claim being
made against Israel in this case would have been ridiculed. Yet part of
the world seems to believe that the Jews are capable of anything.
There is even a special name for such tales, blood libel, and its echoes
can be found in the fabricated or exaggerated tales about Israel
deliberately murdering children, most recently just now in the war with
Hamas. Stories of Jews murdering people out of religious hatred—often
to use their blood allegedly to make Passover matzos—go way back. One
example is in Thomas Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, published first in the
late fourteenth century. About 130 years ago, one of my ancestors living
in Czarist Russia was accused on the basis of no evidence of the ritual
murder of a teen-aged Christian. The local peasants rioted, wrecked the
Jewish workshops and stores, and beat up several Jews. Fortunately no
one was killed. According to then-prevalent tales in the region, the
Jews had a barrel whose inside was studded with nails so as to extract
the blood efficiently.
This past week the ombudsman of the Washington Post defended the
decision to publish a front page picture of an anguished Palestinian man
holding his dead son. He wrote about
how the photograph told "part of the 'truth." The Washington Post
didn't report much on the years of rocket fire from Gaza targeting
Israel's south. It didn't report much on the supply of materiel from
Iran and other sympathetic sources to Hamas. Only when Israel finally
struck back did it see fit to report comprehensively on the conflict
between Israel and Hamas. (The Post is not alone. Once Operation Pillar
of Defense started, there was a migration of journalists to Gaza.)
Hamas locates its terror infrastructure in civilian areas knowing that
it will lead to dramatic pictures. Media organizations obliged Hamas
with boots on the ground to record Israel's response. All was left was
to wait for the inevitable civilian casualties and Hamas's strategy
would be vindicated. (In this case it isn't even clear if it was an Israeli bomb, as the ombudsman claims, that killed the baby.)
By reporting on Arafat's exhumation news organizations are giving
credence to rumors. By extravagantly claiming that they're exposing some
essential "truth" news organizations are furthering Hamas's media
strategy. The mainstream media has become an ossified relic driven more
by cynical calculations than any sort of enlightened principles.
First and most importantly, Arafat's symptoms are well documented and completely inconsistent with 210PO (polonium) poisoning. Unlike Litvenenko, he didn't lose his hair and his bone marrow was found to be undamaged. He also staged at least one brief recovery, which wouldn't be possible in the case of polonium poisoning. It should be added that his symptoms were also completely inconsistent with AIDS.
Second, the Swiss lab report on which the Al Jazeera story relies, clearly states that its findings are inconclusive and provide no basis for concluding polonium poisoning, especially since his symptoms were inconsistent with that. The report also states that further testing may reveal that the 210PO levels detected may prove to have been naturally occurring, albeit unusually high.
Third, the provenance of the items in question is not well-established, and therefore the relationship between the 210PO levels discovered on them and Arafat's condition is very much in doubt. Even an exhumation of the body, which the Palestinian Authority (PA) is reportedly considering, may not prove conclusive, as 210PO has a very short half-life of 137 days.
Finally, the timing of the Al Jazeera story is extremely suspicious. The PA leadership is currently embroiled in a series of controversies involving police brutality against demonstrators, suppression of dissent, potentially politically motivated corruption trials, and a growing financial crisis that has made paying the salaries of public employees extremely difficult.
...
Al Jazeera has a history of trying to discredit the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, most notably with the release of a dump of often undated and unsigned documents from the PLO negotiation support unit in January 2011. The current report, which fails to make a convincing case that Arafat was killed by 210PO poisoning, seems to be only the latest iteration of this pattern.
Rumor has it that MJ Rosenberg now believes that Ibish has now joined AIPAC. Heh.
"That category includes Russia — producer of the polonium believed to have killed Litvinenko — and Arafat’s foe, Israel." "Israeli author Michal Karpin has claimed that the cancer deaths of several Israeli scientists were the result of a leak at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1957. " "But he says it would still be much higher than normal background levels, and with an autopsy it should be possible to tell “with a pretty high confidence” whether Arafat had polonium in his body when he died."
In addition a couple of contradictory points were glossed over.
"The symptoms shown by Litvinenko — nausea, hair loss, throat swelling and pallor — are also typical. "
As the photograph here shows, Arafat, at the end of his life, had a beard and a ruddy complexion.
"Scientists caution that traces on Arafat’s clothing aren’t sufficient proof of poisoning. Exhuming his body would a surer method. Derek Hill, a radiological science expert at University College London, said eight years after Arafat’s death in 2004, any polonium would have decayed and would be far less radioactive than it was at the time."
This would make sense if the polonium readings from his clothing were low; but they weren't. They were unusually high.
The authors note that 1 GBq will kill a man in a month. They then note that this amount would yield about 1.4 mBq in the urine after some 20 half-lives of decay, in February 2012. And then they say that they measured 180 mBq in February, over a hundred times more! But doesn't that mean that Arafat ("Mr. Louvet" in the report) would have ingested over 100 Gbq of polonium in 2004 - 100 times the dosage that kills within a month? If so, how did he survive as long as he did after he took ill?
“If it had been used for poisoning, minimal levels should be seen now. Yet much higher levels were found. Someone planted the polonium much later,” Karmon said. “Because of the half-life of the substance, the conclusion is that the polonium is much more fresh,” he added. Karmon added that the Al Jazeera report raised additional unanswered questions. Referring to the fact that Arafat’s widow, Suha, provided the researchers with Arafat’s belongings, Karmon asked: “If Suha Arafat safeguarded these contaminated materials, why, after seven years, was she not poisoned too? She touched these things and Arafat in hospital.”
Somewhat better is Inside the Arafat Assassination Conspiracies by Harvey Morris at the New York Times website. At least Morris acknowledged the existence of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories prevalent among Palestinians. (Not all of them, that would have taken too long. But Palestinian Media Watch has a comprehensive list.)
Unfortunately Morris ruins his essay by asserting:
Israel’s Jerusalem Post came up with its own conspiracy theory this week, claiming Mr. Abu Sharif’s contributions to the poisoning debate were part of an attempt to pin blame on Israel and divert any possible link to Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Arafat’s successor as president of the Palestinian Authority.
The sixth General Assembly of Fatah unanimously adopted a proposal on Thursday calling for the establishment of a committee to investigate the death of Arafat. The panel will abide by the following guidelines: Israel bears full responsibility for Arafat’s death, the issue continues to remain open, and the investigation will enlist international support. One Foreign Ministry official quipped that if the convention already determined that Israel was guilty, what exactly was it going to investigate? The proposal was raised by Bassam Abu Sharif, Arafat’s former political adviser, and was motivated both by demands from a number of Fatah delegates at the gathering, and by estranged PLO leader Farouk Kaddoumi, who in an interview in mid-July claimed he possessed a document proving Arafat’s death was the result of an Israeli-Palestinian conspiracy….
The ubiquity of unfounded conspiracy theories is a hallmark of the Palestinian political culture. Even if Morris were correct that the Jerusalem Post's assertion was such a "theory," it hardly matches the scope of what is disseminated officially and unofficially in the Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately, people in media tend to treat the paranoia cavalierly rather than as a problem to be exposed and challenged.
One final note: yesterday I observed that there was supposed to be a second test of Arafat's personal effects. Given that the results were not reported, I speculated that it might have been because the test showed too little radiation, so the results were quashed. That speculation isn't consistent with the evidence reported. However, I still wonder if a second test was ever administered.
Boualem Sansal had been due to receive the Editions Gallimard Arabic Novel prize for his book “Rue Darwin” [Darwin Street] earlier in June. A15,000-euro cheque was to be given by the Paris-based Arab Ambassador’s Council, which founded the award in 2008. But between being nominated and being awarded his prize, Sansal attended the Jerusalem Writers Festival in May – as guest of honour.
Sansal may not think he's at war with Israel, but the Arab leaders certainly do. And they act accordingly.They do it for one reason...because of what it says about Jews in the Qu'ran and Hadiths. And there's no getting away from it. Contrast this with the attitude of the Israelis, who had no problem cordially inviting a prominent Arab writer to come to Israel as the guest of honor to a literary festival in their capitol. That's the key to the Middle East situation in a nutshell..not 'land for peace', not 'settlements' or the so-called occupation, but the widespread Islamic hatred of Jews and the very fact Israel exists at all.
Is the Arab Spring a harbinger of greater openness? Not if Tunisia is an example, as Barry Rubin reports:
The much-touted, Islamist-led coalition government in Tunisia is showing how little has changed. It is imposing the regime’s power on the media, choosing loyal editors and censoring the news. The liberal and independent National Authority for the Reform of Media and Communications (INRIC) is so disgusted that it’s closing down. Leaders of the INRIC openly accuse the government of trying to control the media ensuring that it spreads the government’s message, ideology, and misinformation. In fact, the Independent Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HAICA) is supposed to appoint editors. The INRIC also points out that the government is not implementing previous decrees to protect journalists. The Islamist, Ennahada party which leads the government is the main offender. Reporters without Borders has also complained about the censorship and takeover of the media.
3) Other than being Jewish, what do Weiss, Blumenthal, Silverstein, Rosenberg, Beinart and Friedman have in common?
But Rosenberg, Weiss, and Beinart take a different view of their place in the media conversation. They believe themselves to be fearless truth-tellers who actively resist a censorious tribal culture that bulldozes any hint of discord. Rosenberg offered a pithy insight into this in an April 2012 opinion piece for the website of Al Jazeera. After claiming that pro-Israel advocacy organizations were hindering efforts to secure a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, he concluded with an exhortation. “Being pro-Israel means caring about Israel,” wrote Rosenberg, whose career has been built on the fact that he briefly worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee three decades ago. “It does not mean using it as an excuse for power brokering and suppressing dissident voices.” Dissident voices? Properly understood, the word dissident describes intellectuals and activists operating in oppressive societies. What they do frequently results in imprisonment, torture, and even death. The dissidents of whom Rosenberg speaks so modestly, since they include himself, are not silenced, but rather celebrated, by media establishments ranging from the Huffington Post to the BBC. The persistent inclusion of these “dissident voices” in discussions of America, Jews, and Israel has proven very useful indeed, since their membership in the tribe is deemed to give them special standing in presenting their indictment of Israel—and, somewhat more subtly, inoculates Gentile critics of the Jewish state against the charge that their attacks on Israel might be anti-Semitic. How can they be if they are merely echoing the arguments made by such passionate, such moral, such fearless, such dissident Jews?
One man's "dissident voices" are another man's useful idiots.
4) The C-130 pilot
Joshua Shani piloted the led plane - a C-130 Hercules transport - in the Entebbe rescue mission, this week in 1976. The IDF blog interviewed him in honor of the anniversary of the miraculous rescue. Here are some highlights:
The flight to Entebbe is about 2,500 miles (4,000 km). How’d you do it?
We had to fly very close to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, over the Gulf of Suez. We weren’t afraid of violating anyone’s air space — it’s an international air route. The problem was that they might pick us up on radar. We flew really low — 100 feet above the water, a formation of four planes. The main element was surprise. All it takes is one truck to block a runway, and that’s all. The operation would be over. Therefore, secrecy was critical. At some places that were particularly dangerous, we flew at an altitude of 35 feet. I recall the altimeter reading. Trust me, this is scary! In this situation, you cannot fly close formation. As flight leader, I didn’t know if I still had planes 2, 3 and 4 behind me because there was total radio silence. You can’t see behind you in a C-130. Luckily, they were smart, so from time to time they would show themselves to me and then go back to their place in the formation, so I still knew I had my formation with me. ... How were you greeted in Israel?
The plane with the hostages landed at Ben-Gurion Airport, where they were reunited with their families. The other three planes remained for a debrief. Here comes Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel, walking up to me. I had been in my flight suit for 24 hours straight, in temperatures over 100 degrees in the airplane, sweating and smelly, and here walks the prime minister with big open arms. I’m thinking — please don’t hug me — he may die from this! He hugged me for what felt like a full minute, and said only “Thanks.”
What was it like returning to Israel as a hero?
After my father’s death, I found his letters from Bergen-Belsen that he sent to Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek. The letters describe his experiences during the Holocaust, what happened to his family, etc. I won’t discuss it here. One of his letters said, “My only comfort is Joshua. He gives me reason to continue.” The reason I mention this letter is because, 30 years later, when I returned from Entebbe, my father hosted a party for me. Family and friends were all there to celebrate the success of my mission. My father was in a great mood. I know what he was thinking, a Holocaust survivor. His son at the time was a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Air Force and had just flown thousands of miles in order to save Jews. It probably added ten years to his life.
Senior counter-terrorism analyst says Polonium on Arafat's belongings was planted recently
A senior counter-terrorism analyst has told the Jerusalem Post that the levels of Polonium found on Yasser Arafat's belongings indicate that the substance was planted on the belongings long after Arafat's death.
Dr. Ely Karmon, of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center's Institute for Counter-Terrorism, is a specialist in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism.
Responding to an Al Jazeera report published Wednesday, which said that specialists at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, discovered abnormally high levels of polonium on Arafat's belongings, Karmon said that the half life of the substance would make it impossible for polonium to have been discovered at such high levels if it had been used to kill Arafat eight years ago.
According to the Al-Jazeera report, polonium has a half-life of 138 days, "meaning that half of the substance decays roughly every four-and-a-half months."
And yet, eight years after Arafat's death, the Swiss scientists reported finding polonium levels of 54mBq and 180mBq on his belonging, considered to be high levels.
"If it had been used to for poisoning, minimal levels should be seen now. Yet much higher levels were found. Someone planted the polonium much later," Karmon said.
"Because of the half life of the substance, the conclusion is that the polonium is much more fresh," he added.
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
