Saturday, July 30, 2016

Shocking Palestinian child abuse

Going viral, for good reason

A Palestinian father urges his toddler to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers,  while taunting them to shoot the young child.  The child has been identified as 3 year-old Muhammad Suroor. The father doesn't get quite the photo op he's looking for- instead, the soldier high-fives the little boy.



Why would any parent exploit their child in such a cold-hearted and callous manner?

This is why:
This is why context matters.

Friday, July 29, 2016

Gaza Amusement Center Opens

Among the social justice warriors of the hard left and the hard right,  the Gaza as "open air prison" meme predominates. They paint a vision where a besieged people live a hard scrabble life among the rubble, completely cut off from the outside world.

Its a false narrative. Just yesterday there were 1,085 crossings of foreigners, merchants and others between Gaza and Israel.

Where are the merchants heading? Some are off to China.

From  Xinhua   
Dozens of Gaza merchants and businessmen are importing Chinese-made goods by traveling to China to buy products, ship them to an Israeli port and then deliver them to Gaza through Israeli-controlled crossing points.
There are no official figures to show how big the scale of the import is. However, Maher Taba'a, the man who is in charge of public relations in Gaza Chamber of Commerce, told Xinhua that more than 50 percent of the general import of goods is coming from China.
In spite of the big challenges and deterioration of economy, around 2,000 Palestinian businessmen are seeking opportunities in Chinese goods, because the Chinese products are "special and distinctive" ...
Highlighting some of these Chinese imports, the StarsCenter - an indoor amusement park has recently opened in Gaza, featuring bumper cars, rides and arcade games.






Photos from Stars center Facebook page
Its so pleasant to see the happy smiling faces of the children of Gaza, which provide a welcome contrast to the usual summertime activities we see in Gaza.
More snapshots from Gaza. You won't find these in the Western media

New Mall to open in Gaza

Oh, that cruel, cruel "siege".

The mass media and  social media are full of testimony claiming the "siege" of Gaza has prevented rebuilding and construction. The reality is quite different.

Gaza is anxiously awaiting the grand opening of its new "Capital mall"


The new plan was designed by Gaza's Innovative Design team


It seems modern and quite luxurious.


Its yet another snapshot from Gaza that you'll never see in the mainstream media, because it doesn't play into the Palestinian narrative of eternal victimhood.







Thursday, July 28, 2016

Carlos Santana lands in Israel

Carlos Santana has landed in Tel Aviv, defying an unrelenting campaign of bullying directed not only him,   but his Milagros non-profit as well.   The Mexican music legend will rock HaYarkon Park Saturday night, and will be performing with his original 11 member band. 

photo from the Creative Community for Peace
In an interview  with Ynet,  Santana announced that the majority of the proceeds from his show would be channeled back into the community, to help Israeli and Palestinian children.

Who could possibly object?

In a last ditch effort to bully the Grammy award winning guitarist into caving to their demands,  BDS holes orchestrated  an onslaught on social media,spamming both his Twitter feed and his Facebook page with their spurious claims. It  wasn't exactly a spontaneous grassroots effort.




In response to the vitriol directed towards him, Santana responded:

I'm doing something constructive and productive with my light and my energy. The majority of the funds from this concert will go back into Palestine children and Israeli children. There was a friend of mine who used to say 'Stop whining complaining and bitching. Do something construction or shut the heck up'...I'm doing something from the center of my heart ...

Thousands are looking forward to hearing more of Carlos Santana's light, love, and magic at HaYarkon Park tomorrow.



Monday, July 25, 2016

New AMCHA Initiative Report reveals alarming surge in Campus anti-Semitic incidents


The Amcha Initiative is releasing a new  report  tomorrow that reveals a large surge in campus anti-Semitism during the 1st six months of 2016.  It includes strong evidence linking student government divestment resolutions and anti-Jewish activity, a huge uptick in expression opposing Israel’s right to exist, and an alarming spike in shutdowns and suppression of speech compared with 2015. Specifically:

Incidents involving suppression of Jewish students’ rights, including the right to free speech and free assembly  have doubled;
·
Expression denying Israel’s right to exist tripled and is highly correlated with conduct targeting Jewish students for harm;
·
Divestment resolutions are fueling an increase in campus anti-Semitism; and
·
Schools with the largest increase in anti-Semitic activity from 2015 to 2016 are Columbia, Vassar, U of Chicago, NYU, U of MN, UMass, U of WI, U of FL and U of WA.


These trends are  frightening for Jewish students but also very illuminating to those  battling this threat.  Those who promote anti-Zionism on campus are becoming a great deal more brazen in their tactics and are exposing their true colors. Understanding this shift provides us valuable information on how to fight it.

For a copy of the full report click here

Friday, July 22, 2016

A Nation is Born; the View from San Francisco

Throwback Thursday

Another reminder that while we have history, the other side has  "narrative".

May 14 1948, Israel's Independence day, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle


The Chronicle  documents the coordinated attacks on the nascent state by 5 of her neighbors


On  Israel’s independence day, Syrian forces were reported across the northern border (map at right arrow No. 1) The Jewish army conceded loss of Kefar Tzion (2) Egyptian Trops were ordered to invade from the South. Other Arab armies of Lebanon, Iraq and TransJordan were reported ready for action

High Muslim Call for "Holy War"

The Arabs considered this a “Holy War”. Sheikh Mohamed Mamoun El-Shennawy, rector of  Al Azhar University and chief of the Moslem Theological institute announced  “The Hour for Jihad has struck”.adding “This is a holy war for the sake of Allah. He who dies for God will live forever at the side of the Lord”

S.F.Zionists to celebrate on Monday


Locally,   there were celebrations in the Jewish community, who declared “We are with you”
A local attorney, Bartley Crum declared  “We have fought long and hard for this day. There may be many obstacles ahead, but May 15 1948 will live in history with July 4 1776”
Rabbi Saul White called Israel’s independence   the “fulfillment of prophetic utterances of distant days”

Conspicuously absent from any of these articles, or any article in any paper is mention of a "Palestinian" people. I challenge any anti-Israel activist to go to any  of the historic newspapers now widely available and fully digitized to find any evidence of a "Palestinian" people before the 1960s.

Good luck with that





Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Gaza: Summertime and the Living is easy

Hamas, the terror group in control of the Gaza strip has proudly posted photos of its 2016 summer camp on its twitter feed.




There are no lanyards or art n' crafts in a Hamas run summer camp. The children are there for one purpose only- to learn to be soldiers.

Does anyone still think we have a partner for peace?

For more photos of Hamas run summer camps in Gaza, check out : 
Pictures: Summer camps are a bit different on the Gaza strip


Monday, July 18, 2016

Another Work Accident. Pity the tunnel-rats of Gaza

Pity the tunnel-rats of Gaza. They've had a rough few months. In the last year, 18 Gaza militants have died in tunnel collapses. There have been 2 collapses this month alone.


Hamas Tunnel Rats Before


Hamas Tunnel Rats After

Several times this year, Israel has discovered and destroyed terror tunnels stretching from Gaza into Israel. The latest was 90 feet below ground. Hundreds are employed to dig these tunnels, with concrete and supplies diverted from humanitarian projects in the impoverished strip.  

Hamas makes it perfectly clear what the tunnels are meant for.



From Dry Bones



Sunday, July 17, 2016

Another UC Berkeley Student falls victim to Arab terror

Tragedy has struck Cal Berkeley again.

Nicolas Leslie, a UC Berkeley student who had been studying in Nice, France, has been identified as among the 84 people killed in Thursday’s terrorist attack in Nice, France.

Just 2 weeks ago, 18-year-old Berkeley sophomore Tarishi Jain also lost her life in a  terror attack at a restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Nicolas and Tarishi are not the first Bears whose lives were cut short by Arab terror. This month is the yahrzeit (anniversary)of the death of Marla Bennett, who along with 5 other Americans, was murdered in an attack on Hebrew University.

On July 31, 2002, Marla Bennett was one of nine people killed killed when a bomb exploded in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria on the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus campus. 85 others were injured. The cafeteria was gutted by the explosion . Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Nicolas, Tarishi and Marla were all idealistic, bright compassionate students who died too young, victims of an ideology of callous extremism.

May their memories be a blessing.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Oh, those silly BDS holes and their silly BS antics.

So, JVP and Code Pink. Were you lying then or are you lying now?

If on June 27,  JVP shill Liza Behrendt announced that  Re/Max was no longer "profiting" from Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria,



then why is Code Pink still protesting them on July 14?



I sense a BDS hoax in the making.


Thursday, July 14, 2016

Je Suis Nice

The hate that starts with Jews never ends there.
The "car intifada"- a  revolting act of terror began with Palestinians deliberately ramming Israelis and has now moved to  Nice, France. Reports indicate that as many as 60 people have died after a large white truck deliberately ran down Bastille Day revelers.




Israel has had 46 incidents of vehicular terror attacks in the past year, spurred on by incitement in the Palestinian media and in social media

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

We Won.

From Humans of Judaism. Like them on Facebook

A very old man came in to my Starbucks. Halfway through struggling to understand his order through his thick accent, he noticed my necklace. He stopped and said "Your star is beautiful.", and I thanked him. There was a long pause before he spoke again. When he did, he said "It is beautiful, but I am having a hard time looking at it. The last time I wore one, it was mandatory."

We then spoke to each other in Hebrew for a bit. But soon enough he stopped again, and looked back to my star. With one hand he held mine, and used his other hand to shakily touch the sapphires on my necklace. His lip shook, and tears rolled down his cheeks. In a shaky, heavily German-accented whisper, he said "I am so happy you are here. Your generation is here. We won." and kissed my hand.



Thursday, July 7, 2016

Jews may buy land in Zion

Throwback Thursday, from the San Francisco Chronicle, 1908.







There was no Palestinian state in this territory in 1908- it  was in the control of the Ottoman Turks. In 1908 the Sultans private estates went on sale, and a Jewish group negotiated their  purchase. The Chronicle reports:

"There is little doubt that the Jews will soon once more be in possession of the site of ancient Jericho, the land which was the first fruits of their conquest in Canaan"

This is not "stolen land".  The Jewish people have come home, and are home to stay.


Iran. Anti-Semitic or Anti-Zionist?

Photos from the streets of Tehran, Iran taken on Quds Day. Got a good feeling about that Iran deal, yet?