A United National Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) school in Gaza City held a ceremony that celebrated stabbings of Jews by Arabs.

Elder of Ziyon, an American blogger and researcher who writes about antisemitism and the Arab-Israeli conflict, reported on March 7, 2016, that while “Israelis were being stabbed and run over daily by Palestinians,” the UNRWA school held a function on Oct. 20, 2015 that supported the attacks.

The blogger notes that timing of the ceremony leaves no doubt that it was “specifically to support the wave of terror that was then reaching its height.”

On his Web site, Elder of Ziyon shows pictures of UNRWA students—most of who appear to be younger than ten years old—holding signs praising attacks against Jews. The images were posted to the school’s Facebook page. Among them are:

A young girl, kneeling and holding a sign reading, “We heed your call, oh al-Aqsa, our blood and souls we will sacrifice for you, oh al-Aqsa.”

A smiling girl displaying a sign saying, “(We) are masters and not slaves, we are the ones from among whom a shahid [a “martyr”; someone killed while attempting a terrorist attack] is born every day.”

Two young boys jointly lift a placard: “My soul is a sacrifice for you, oh al-Aqsa, Jerusalem is in our hearts, al-Aqsa is in danger, everybody rise in order to save Jerusalem, let us join hands in order to liberate and save Jerusalem.”

Elder of Ziyon noted that none of the signs held by the children spoke of “despair” or any of the other excuses frequently offered by journalists and policymakers as the reason for Palestinian violence against Jews. Instead, the majority of the signs referred to the “al-Aqsa libel.”
(more…)

By now, most people have come to expect that officials from the Palestinian Authority will speak words of peace when addressing foreigners and words of hate when they speak to their own people. And most people realize that PA officials will level outrageous charges at Israel every chance they get. This is what the PA does. Governing through the use of misinformation and demonizing propaganda comes with the territory if you’re in charge of the Palestinian Authority.

But even the most hardened and cynical observer of the Palestinian Authority would be shocked at the speech given by a PA official at the opening session of the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference that began today, Monday, March 7, 2016. (This conference, organized by the Bethlehem Bible College, a non-denominational Evangelical school located in the West Bank, has taken place every even-numbered year since 2010.)

The speech was given by Hanna Amira, who serves as the chairman of the Higher Presidential Committee for Christian Affairs for the Palestinian Authority. During his speech, he stated “The Israeli government is giving the green light to the Army and to the settlers to continue the acts of killing and attacking the Palestinian people, in particular, the children and the young and the women.”
(more…)

International wire services and American news media have failed to report an incident involving the killing of several terrorists in a Palestinian camp in Jordan by Jordanian forces. Such an event almost surely would have been reported if it had involved Israeli forces in the West Bank or Israel proper. Notice the penchant for headlines like “Palestinian shot dead” referring to a Palestinian killed by Israeli authorities after murderously assaulting Jews. It suggests a double standard, by which Palestinian terrorists “victimized” by Israel make news, those killed by non-Israeli forces in similar circumstances do not.

According to a March 2 (9:08 a.m.) Al-Jazeera America news hour report, “Jordanian security forces killed seven men while targeting fighters in the city of Irbid [in Jordan]. They were hold up inside a Palestinian refugee camp in the heart of the city… These were described as outlaws by Jordanian officials indicating, because it didn’t say that they were a different nationality, that they are in fact Jordanian.” In other words, they were most likely Jordanian Palestinians since more than half of the Jordanian population are of Palestinian Arab lineage (including Jordan’s Queen Rania) and they were hiding in a Palestinian camp.

Al-Jazeera Web site reports (March 2), “Security forces kill seven men in northern city of Irbid in series of raids that also left a police officer dead.”

The Jordan Times Web site reports (March 3), “Security and civil defence apparatuses on Thursday carried out operations in Irbid to ‘cleanse’ the area in which Tuesday’s anti-terror raid took place, according to an official… Irbid governor noted that bodies of three out of the seven outlaws were identified as Jordanians, while the rest were ‘unrecognisable.’”

It’s hard to imagine the wire services and other major Western news media not at least mentioning, if not headlining, an Israeli operation targeting and killing seven Palestinian terrorists in hiding. Did an especially busy news day account for omission of the Jordanian story, or was something else at work?

(Note: The letter below was sent to USA Today staff)

“USA Today’s “Palestinian children as young as 11 join attacks on Israel” (Feb. 25, 2016), by Asma’ Jawabreh and Jacob Wirtshafter, features omissions, minimizes anti-Jewish violence and relies on a questionable source without offering a counterbalancing view.

Not disclosing that most Palestinian Arab attackers incarcerated by Israel have been held for terrorist plots or attempts targeting Jews, the report uncritically quotes a “human-rights” lawyer who complains that incarcerated Israeli minors have rehabilitation options whereas Palestinian minors have “almost none.” This misleading comparison omits that all Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs, have equal access and rights under the law. But Palestinian Arabs are not Israeli citizens; in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) their daily activities fall under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Why that authority chooses not to invest in rehabilitation measures, but in anti-Jewish violence by giving honors and money to terrorists and their families—while using state media to condone their acts—is a question USA Today should ask of the PA, not Israel.

The newspaper minimizes continuing Palestinian attacks against Israelis using cinder blocks, knives, meat cleaver, vehicles and guns, among other items, that have claimed 28 lives and wounded many more since September 2015, as merely a “spate of stabbings and other assaults.” Further, it claims without substantiation that the violence is “over Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank.”

In fact, since 1993 when the PA was established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, given limited self-rule and a chance for statehood in exchange for promises of peace with Israel, Palestinian attacks have only increased. Since the PA’s creation and refusal of peace and statehood, it has persisted in ceaseless demonization and dehumanization of Israel and Jews—encouraging terror.

Contravening established journalistic practice, the report uncritically quotes only Israel’s critics and defamers. Not a single Israeli official is provided space to counter claims from questionable sources like Gerard Horton of Military Court Watch (MCW). NGO-Monitor, a non-profit watchdog group, has noted that MCW traffics in testimonies that are “anonymous, unverifiable, and lack credibility.”

USA Today tried to tackle an important story. Unfortunately, this one-sided effort fell far short.

Sincerely,

Sean Durns
Media Assistant
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America”

A letter posted online from an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighter appears to confirm that the terrorist group has ties with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit organization that translates Arab and Persian media, reports that a letter from an ISIS fighter to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the groups’ head, “protests the close ties and cooperation between ISIS’s Sinai province and Hamas, particularly Hamas’s military wing.” MEMRI notes that the letter is the “first confirmation of ties between the two organizations that comes from ISIS itself.”

Abu ‘Abdallah Al-Muhajir, a Gazan Arab who joined ISIS in Syria, wrote the letter. In it, he says that ISIS in the Sinai is smuggling weapons into Gaza for Hamas, and that Hamas is making weapons and explosive devices for ISIS Sinai. Al-Muhajir also states that Hamas is providing communications systems and hospitalization in Gaza for wounded ISIS fighters.

The letter from the ISIS terrorist states that ISIS Sinai leaders are visiting Gaza and even are treated as dinner guests at the homes of Hamas leaders.

MEMRI reports that the ISIS fighter “considers these Hamas-ISIS Sinai ties a violation of the principle of loyalty to the Muslims and rejection of non-Muslims (Al-Walaa Wal-Baraa), stating ISIS considers Hamas a movement that has betrayed Islam and that as such there is no justification, even on the pretext of tactical, operational, and logistical necessity, for maintaining ties with it.” In the letter, Al-Muhajir says he’s writing to al-Baghdadi because, “matters have reached a point where it is no longer possible to remain silent, and providing advice in secret would not have helped.”

Al-Muhajir writes that the ISIS “Sinai province is a pawn of Hamas” and accused Hamas of torturing and ridiculing “Salafi jihad fighters” while taking advantage of cooperation with the Islamic State. The terrorist bemoans ISIS reliance on Hamas, stating, “The relationship between Sinai province and Hamas has crossed all limits, and has reached the point where the province is asking Hamas to manufacture the uniforms for its soldiers.”

In August 2014, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared ISIS to Hamas, noting their shared traits of “barbarism.” Yet, Netanyahu’s conclusion that “Hamas is Like ISIS, ISIS is like Hamas” was mocked by some journalists and anti-Israel pundits.

As recently as January 2016—while ISIS and Hamas were collaborating according to Al-Muhajir—the anti-Israel Web site Mondoweiss, which has long trafficked in conspiracy theories (see, for example, “ISM (and Mondoweiss) Demonstrate How to Propagandize with YouTube,” CAMERA, July 5, 2011), called Netanyahu’s statements a “lie.” Mondoweiss author James North pointed to journalist Sarah Helm’s article in the New York Review of Books, “ISIS in Gaza (Jan. 14, 2016).”

In it, Helm used the oxymoronic term “Hamas moderate” to describe Hamas spokesman Ahmed Yousef. According to Palestinian Media Watch, a non-profit organization that monitors Arab media in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), the Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem, in July 2012 the “moderate” Yousef said that Palestinian TV broadcasts about suicide attacks “increased honor for Palestinians.” Noting tensions between Hamas and ISIS, Helm concluded that they couldn’t possibly be cooperating—a sentiment North fully endorsed when he noted that Helm “regularly visits Gaza.” It’s now apparent however, that ISIS has a similar travel itinerary.

Shortly after Netanyahu’s remarks, Larry Derfner, writing for Web site +972 (“No, Hamas isn’t ISIS, ISIS isn’t Hamas,” Aug. 24, 2014) charged that anyone who accepted Netanyahu’s comments was a “shill for Israel” for believing in “a crude attempt to brainwash people, to put the most horrifying image in their minds and associate it with Gaza.” Derfner charged Netanyahu with “insulting people’s intelligence.”

However, Netanyahu clarified his comments in October 2014: “I didn’t say that Hamas and ISIS are twins, I said they are brothers. They’re branches…of the same poisonous tree of militant Islam.”

Like family members, Hamas and ISIS can be quite different—even rivals with differences of opinion and who fight for influence. Infighting between Islamist groups, often for territory and dominance, is common as ongoing battles between al-Nusra Front and ISIS in Syria attest. Yet, this “family feud” doesn’t stop them from cooperating on shared goals, like seeking to destroy Israel and attacking the Western world. That’s worth noting.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) ambassador to North Korea has offered effusive words of praise for the brutal dictatorship that rules the country.

Elder of Ziyon, an American blogger who researches and writes about antisemitism and the Arab-Israeli conflict, reports that Ambassador Ismail Ahmed Mohamed Hasan hosted a reception at the PA embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea.

The occasion for the PA-provided festivities? To celebrate the birth anniversary of Kim Jong Il, the deceased previous dictator and father of current leader Kim Jong-Un. Elder of Ziyon reports that in a speech, Hasan toasted the deceased North Korean leader as “a state leader possessed of brilliant idea and creative caliber. He devoted himself to the freedom of the country and its people’s happiness and the victory of the oppressed people’s struggle.”

North Korea, is one of the world’s most repressive countries. According to The Wall Street Journal, it operates a system of city-sized gulags that are thought to hold as many as 80,000-120,000 people (“North Korea Plans Report on Human Rights,” Aug. 11, 2014). A 2014 report by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner found that the regime is guilty of committing “arbitrary detention, torture, executions” of its own people, in addition to starving them in mass famines. Free thought and dissent are punishable by torture or death and a personality cult surrounds the North Korean leader. Potential rivals, including Kim Jong-Un’s uncle, have been murdered. The commission found that DPRK officials misused international aid by “imposing conditions” on delivery of food aid that was not “based on humanitarian conditions.

The chair of the commission, Michael Kirby, remarked: “The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.” The report concluded that “institutions and officials involved are not held accountable. Impunity reigns.”

The PA also rules in a repressive, undemocratic fashion, if not as pervasively as North Korea. PA President Mahmoud Abbas is currently in the eleventh year of a single elected four-year term. He has refused to hold new elections.

As CAMERA has noted (“Palestinian Children Wear Suicide Belts to Celebrate Fatah’s Anniversary,” Jan. 12, 2016), the PA has imprisoned Palestinian Arabs for Facebook posts critical of Abbas and the PA. Possible Abbas rivals, like his former Gaza security chief Mohammad Dahlan, have been forced into exile in Abu Dhabi. Abbas’ predecessor and the first head of the PA, Yasser Arafat, purportedly murdered critics and potential rivals like Abu Iyad, who disagreed with Arafat’s supporting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the first Persian Gulf War.

Arab-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh recently has written about PA use of international aid to construct a police state in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) (“U.S., Europe Fund Torture by Palestinian Authority,” Gatestone Institute, Feb. 26, 2016). Toameh notes a recent report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor that documents 179 cases of torture in PA prisons and 1,274 cases of arbitrary detention. He adds that “among those arrested were 35 Palestinian journalists and civil rights activists, and 476 students and academics.” The PA security forces, funded by the United States, the European Union and others are responsible for these detentions and for the torture that purportedly frequently accompanies it.

Perhaps when the PA ambassador praised North Korean leadership as “devoted to freedom” he was applying the term as the Palestinian Authority seems to understand it.