Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 18, 2014

Visa responds to the blood libel story

I, and a bunch of other people, received a response from Visa Middle East about the apparent Visa sponsorship of El Kebar, where a vile blood libel was published this week.

We are aware that a Visa-branded advert has appeared in Egypt's El Kebar magazine. We can confirm that the advert was not placed by Visa, nor do not directly advertise in this magazine. Visa provides marketing materials and use of its logo to its partners who wish to market Visa-branded products. We are investigating whether this is another parties' advertisement making use of our brand and will address accordingly. Visa condemns intolerance of any kind and is working to resolve this quickly.

There was a similar reply on the comments section of the blog by Andy Woolnough, a Visa employee based out of the UAE (whose position I did not catch.)

I called Woolnough up to understand more about how these partnership agreements work and who the partner might have been. I also wondered how a partner would link back to a Visa website itself.

He told me that Visa has no direct relationship with the consumer, and all of the cards it issues are through banks. When Visa is promoting a product or sponsored events it doesn't do it directly but creates marketing materials and their partners (usually banks) market it directly to consumers.

They are working hard to figure out who the partner is for these ads. The Egypt Post seems likely as their name is on the ad, but since this is a Friday as well as Easter weekend this is taking longer than it normally would. "This content is intolerant, we can all agree to that."

Once the partner is determined they will "have a conversation" about it. When pressed for more details, Andy said that everything is dependent on the specifics of the partnership agreement they have to figure out what can be done. When I asked what would be done if the partnership agreement didn't cover circumstances like this - would Visa sue to protect its brand? - he responded that he highly doubts that the agreement has such an omission; as Visa is one of the top brands in the world.

He emphasized that certainly Visa did not place the ad directly and it has no direct relationship with El Kebar.

Woolnough also said that "the highest levels of the company are aware" of this situation.

For my part, I told Andy that my goal was not to denigrate Visa's name but to pressure Arab media to understand that publishing hate has consequences, and that Visa was my lever to get their attention. So I am keenly interested in finding out who this partner is and in contacting them for a statement about how this happened and what they intend to do about it. Unfortunately, if it is The Egypt Post they probably don't give a damn about an antisemitic article, which is why I need Visa to protect its own brand and dissociate itself from a magazine that publishes such hate.

He promised me that he would keep me informed as he finds out more, and I told him I would keep my readers informed as well.

From Palestinian Media Watch, translating Al Hayat al Jadida:

Released prisoner Issa Abd Rabbo has enthusiastically resumed his hobby, which the occupation had prevented him from [pursuing] during the 30 years he spent in the occupation's prisons.

Abd Rabbo told our correspondent: 'I have resumed my hobby of stamp collecting with enthusiasm, to make up for what I lost during my time in prison'...

Before his arrest, Abd Rabbo collected stamps, and among them was a collection of Jordanian stamps he had cut out of postal envelopes. After his arrest, he tried to pursue his hobby in prison, because he was certain he would be spending a long time in the new place. Indeed, after the period of interrogation, he started collecting stamps from letters sent to prisoners...

Abd Rabbo said: 'I asked each prisoner to save the envelope for me so I could cut out the stamp or stamps attached to it. During my long time in prison, I collected 100 stamps, which accompanied me whenever I moved between nearly all of the occupation's prisons'...

He said: 'I'm proud of the stamps I collected in prison, but it was difficult for me to pursue [my] hobby in prison, because there were many restrictions, few letters arrived, and the quality of the stamps [was poor]. Prison also affects our hobbies, and I had no special albums to put the stamps in properly, so I put them in an envelope - the same one that left prison with me.'

In the interview he also complains about not having chewing gum in prison.

Abd Rabbo had another interview shortly after his release where the stamp collector describes how he murdered two Jewish hikers:

An Israeli car approached, with two in it. I said, here's a chance and I don't want to return empty-handed. They left the car... and walked towards the valley, and sat down under a pine tree. I went down to them. Of course I was masked and was carrying a rifle. He asked me: Are you a guard here? I told him: 'No, I'm in my home.' I told him: 'You are not allowed here. This is our land and our country. You stole it and occupied our land and I'm going to act against you.'
They were surprised by what I told them. I tied them up of course and then sentenced them to death by shooting, in the name of the revolution. I shot them, one bullet each, and went [hiding] in the mountains... I went to my aunt and told her: 'We have avenged Muhammad's blood.'"

I think that Oxfam and Amnesty and HRW need to put out some 100-page reports about these shocking revelations from Israeli prison.

Can you imagine a place where confessed murderers don't have the simple human right to put stamps into proper albums and to chew gum whenever they want to?

It is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and numerous UN resolutions. At least, the lawyers for "human rights" NGOs will find a way to say that it is, since they are not bound by what international law actually says.

Iran plans terror attacks as it negotiates with the West

From the Bangkok Post:

Investigations into two suspected foreign terrorists are progressing swiftly as one of the men admitted to a planned attack on Israeli tourists in Khao San Road during Songkran, according to an investigator.

The source announced progress in the probe after Thai media yesterday reported the suspected terrorists have been held for questioning since the beginning of Songkran.

They were arrested on suspicion of links to militant Islamist group, Hezbollah.

The men have been identified as French-Lebanese national Daoud Farhat and Lebanese-Filipino national Youssef Ayad.

The source said Mr Farhat held a French passport and Mr Ayad carried a Philippines passport.

According to their passports, both were born in Lebanon, though authorities have yet to confirm if the travel documents are genuine.

Mr Farhat is visiting Thailand for the first time, while this is Mr Ayad's 17th visit to the country.

Both arrived several days before the Songkran festival started on April 13.

Assistant national police chief Winai Thongsong said the men were arrested at different locations in Bangkok after Thai police received intelligence from Israel about a planned attack on Israeli tourists during Passover, the Jewish festival which coincided with Songkran.

The source said investigators believe at least nine suspected foreign terrorists connected to Hezbollah are somewhere in Thailand. Authorities are attempting to track them down, he said.

The source also said Mr Ayad had given useful information to police.

He admitted his group entered Thailand to carry out a bomb attack against Israeli tourists and other Israeli groups on Khao San Road during Songkran.

"Now we can seize materials, such as nails and bolts, used in making bombs from their homes in Bangkok.

"We are taking the holder of the Philippines passport to Rayong province to search for more bomb-making material kept there," the source said.

The location of the stash in Rayong has not been revealed as the suspect did not know the name of the place, but told investigators he could remember where it was.

"If we had been unable to arrest the men during Songkran, a bomb attack would certainly have taken place somewhere on Khao San Road," he said.

Khao San Road is a popular destination among Israeli tourists.

Pol Lt Gen Winai said the two suspected foreign terrorists will be deported back to the last countries they travelled from immediately after Thai police finish questioning them.

He did not name the countries.

"They are still being questioned thoroughly. We have not yet pressed any charges against them.

"Once we finish questioning them, we will deport them," Pol Lt Gen Winai said.

Meanwhile, National Security Council chief Lt Gen Paradorn Pattanatabut confirmed Thai authorities are focusing on the capture of another foreign terrorist.

Both Mr Farhat and Mr Ayad are listed on the website Stop910.com, which collects information on suspected terrorist cells operating in Asia, and carries notices of financial rewards for information.

According to immigration police, the third suspect, Bilal Bahsoun, may not have entered Thailand.

Actually, he did:

The three suspected foreign terrorists held for questioning regarding their possible involvement with the Islamist Hezbollah militant group will be deported back to Lebanon.

The three suspects - identified as Daud Farhat, Yousef Ayyad and Bailal Bahsoun - were held after their plane landed at Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Hezbollah does nothing without Iranian approval, and in cases of terrorism outside Lebanon, almost certainly Iran plans and provides logistics for the attacks.'

While Western nations continue to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear program, Iran continues to plan and sponsor terror attacks.

So far, I have not found any indication that Hezbollah denies this plot.

Fighting BDS: Tips and Strategies (Honest Reporting)

A new slideshow by Honest Reporting:

Fighting BDS - Tips and Strategies from HonestReporting

Egyptian "expert" pushes Passover blood libel. Sponsored by Visa.

Hafzi

MEMRI translates an article from Egyptian magazine El Kibar by Firnas Hafzi, a supposed expert on Hebrew who also writes about fashion, beauty and health.

The article breaks new ground in the classic Passover blood libel, recycling the historic medieval blood libels as fact and adding new accusations against Jews.

The article, along with illustrations from antisemitic and even Nazi sources, is online.

Excerpts:

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.

Based on this false [narrative] in the Torah and this barbaric behavior anchored in delusions, we can understand what motivates the Zionist leaders to kill Arab children in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said, insolently, 'whenever I hear of the birth of an Arab child I cannot sleep at night.'

...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.

The Jews have tried denying that they drain the blood of non-Jews and use it in their holiday matzas, and they continue to deny it. Rabbi Moussa Abu 'Afia [one of the Jews implicated in the 1840 Damascus blood libel] converted to Islam during the investigation into the [murder] of Father Toma in order to escape punishment. He gave important testimony regarding the Talmud and the directions it contains that hint at crimes and barbarity.

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.

Out of hundreds of millions of Arabs, I cannot find a single one denouncing these lies and incitement.

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:

I emailed to Visa's media relations departments for Egypt (nbaradhy@visa.com) , the US (globalmedia@visa.com) and Europe (europeanmedia@visa.com).

Dear sir or madam,

Visa Middle East is a major advertiser for Egypt's El Kebar magazine. Every online article seems to pop up your ad for the FIFA World Cup promotion.

The current issue includes a sickeningly antisemitic article by Firnas Hafzi that calls Jews "vampires," that claims that Jews kill Christian children to drink their blood and mix them with Passover matzah, and that the Dracula story was made up by Jews to deflect from people realizing that they are the ones who suck people's blood.

And that is just the beginning.

The article is here, the translation is here. Your ad is linked from the front page of the El Kebar website and pops up when viewing this vile antisemitic article.

I would hope that now that you are aware that your brand is being associated with the most disgusting kinds of incitement, that you will not only drop all sponsorship of this magazine but also demand that El Kebar issue a strong apology for publishing this filth.

What do you plan to do about this, and when?

I am a news blogger with thousands of readers, and I am writing about this article and your sponsorship of it.

I look forward to your speedy reply.

I urge you to write to Visa as well.

Here is a chance to make a difference.

(h/t Irene)

UPDATE: Visa responds.

04/17 Links Pt2: Ed Miliband is No Friend of Israel; More Flights to T.A.; SodaStream Stocks Surge (update)

From Ian:

A perplexing rewriting of history

“The Encyclopaedia of Jewish-Muslim relations from their origins to the present day” was launched in November 2013. There is a more modest English version, published by Princeton.
Critics such as the authority on Sephardi Jews, Professor Shmuel Trigano, have charged that the encyclopedia is nothing but a work of propaganda. It is all the more insidious because so much money has been spent on its promotion. Unusually for a book, the encyclopedia has a website all to itself and was the subject of a TV series on the French channel Arte.
Among the sponsors are The Alliance of Civilisations (co-sponsored by Spain and Turkey, and adopted as a UN initiative which excludes Israel from its Council of Friends), whose task is to change the ‘narrative’ by promoting the Spain of the Three Religions, the Andalusian Golden Age, and so forth.
As far as Arab collaboration with the Nazis is concerned, Dr. Roth accuses Henry Laurens, the author of the two pages on the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, of minimizing his role. There is no mention, says Roth, of the pro-Nazi Palestinian leader Fawzi al Qawuqj, or the Mufti’s broadcast calls for genocide on Radio Berlin, nothing on the Mufti’s creation of the SS Handschar division staffed by Bosnian Muslims, nothing about the part he personally played in condemning 20,000 European Jewish children to the death camps, and nothing about the Mufti having contact with the Nazis as early as 1936.
Regrettably, the Encyclopaedia is typical of the politicization of the study of Islam and its treatment of non-Muslims. Young minds are being brainwashed by a sanitized version of history with a huge promotional budget – replete with distortion, minimization and omission. Are we going to sit back and let it happen?

Iraqi Writer: The Jews Are Behind All Confrontations Worldwide

In an antisemitic article titled "Al Qaeda – a Zionist Product," Iraqi writer 'Amr Hadi Al-'Issawi argued that the Jews viewed other peoples with arrogance, following the directives of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that they have deceived other peoples –the Arabs in particular – and fed them poison for decades. Al-'Issawi added that the Jews and the Hebrew state are responsible for stoking conflict in all the world's hotspots, and are behind all major events in the world, including the toppling of the constitutional monarchies and the deposing of Arab dictatorships – this, in a bid to transfer control to political Islam and set the entire region ablaze as a prelude to the establishment of Greater Israel.

Obama Apologizes To Muslims For Anti-Jewish Kansas Attacks (satire)

“In is unconscionable that in twenty-first century America a man can, with the pull of a trigger, manage to generate solidarity, even empathy, for non-Muslims,” read the statement. “In the name of all Americans of conscience, we beg the forgiveness of our Muslim countrymen and resolve to work diligently to prevent any cause for sympathy for anyone else, especially Jews.”
Muslim representatives welcomed the apology as a necessary first step. “We would have liked to see a more comprehensive expression of solidarity with our worldview,” said the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Mahder Fahkir. “But this is at least a suitable preliminary indication that we are headed in the right direction, that eventually the non-Muslim establishment will acknowledge that no other religious or ethnic group is worthy of protection. We encourage our non-Muslim co-citizens to embrace their status as dhimmi.”
Other leaders said the statement did not go nearly far enough. “Where is the open condemnation of Israel? Where is the naked justifying of the act as a natural consequence of Jewish behavior?” wondered influential political commentator Max Blumenthal, whose Jewish followers number at least in the teens. “The president squandered a golden opportunity to state openly that violence against Jews can only be blamed on Jews, since nobody else has any agency.”

Lucknow, India shows how entrenched Muslim antisemitism is

Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi is an Indo-Judaic Studies Scholar and Muslim-Jewish Relations Activist, employed as an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Gautam Buddha University, Greater NOIDA, India.

He writes in Café Dissensus:

I grew up in Lucknow, a major centre of Muslim scholarship and culture, home to prestigious institutions of Islamic studies, Nadwātul Ulamā and Firangi Mahal. Except for a Jewish writer from Ahmedabad, Sheela Rohekar, who publishes in Hindi and has settled in Lucknow, and a few American and Israeli Jewish converts to Hinduism, there are no Jews in the city. Yet they find frequent mention in the Muslim discourse there. The mention is almost always negative in nature. Anti-Israel protests are common in the city and, during the American led invasion of Iraq, flags of Israel and America were drawn on the floor at the entrance to the biggest tourist attraction there, the Shia Muslim monument, Asafi Imambara (also called Bara Imambara), so that nobody could enter it without trampling the flags.

The attitudes of the Muslims of Lucknow towards Jews, like anywhere else in India, except in Mumbai, where they happen to be neighbours, are shaped by secondary sources of information and not as a result of any direct contact with them. The Muslim press in Lucknow is openly prejudiced against them. Its bias against Jews can be illustrated by a number of examples.

My doctoral research on “The Indian Jewry and the Self-Professed ‘Lost Tribes of Israel’ in India”, was misrepresented in the Urdu (the lingua franca of a large number of South Asian Muslims) press as a Zionist conspiracy against Islam aimed at depriving it of its bravest followers, the Pathans/Pashtuns, as they see themselves, by convincing them of their Israelite roots and then persuading them to migrate to Israel and populate the disputed territories there. The Freemason Temple in Hazratganj in Lucknow is perceived by Muslims to be Jewish-owned and that is exactly how it is represented by the Muslim journalists in Lucknow. A movement has been initiated to liberate its building, which used to be an imāmbārā before being leased to the Freemasons, from the alleged Jewish control....

While a Holocaust film retrospective, the first ever in South Asia, was in progress at two universities in Lucknow – the Bābāsāhéb Bhīmrāo Ambédkar University and the University of Lucknow – in September – October 2009, the two most popular Urdu daily newspapers there, Rāshtriya Sahāra and Aag, published stories denying the Holocaust. The articles were largely based on the arguments made by the well-known Holocaust deniers, viz., David Irving, Harry Elmer Barnes, David Hoggan, Paul Ressinier, and Arthur R. Butz. A large section of South Asian Muslims deny that the Holocaust ever took place, or raises doubts about its magnitude and scale, and even if it does acknowledge it as a historical fact, any serious reference to the Holocaust is often accompanied by a comparison with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Maulana Kalbé Sādiq, the veteran Shia cleric, once said in an interview, “…the Bush administration certainly is anti-Islam. This owes, in large measure, to the power of the Zionist lobby in America. Pro-Zionist Jews control large banks, many industries and much of the media in America, and if they leave America, the country will collapse. And it is this lobby, in addition to the extreme right-wing Christian lobby, that is behind the clearly anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim policies of the Bush government.”
...

Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, who was the rector of Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow and Founding Chairman of the Trustees of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, wrote in his book, Islam and the World (u.d.): “…they [Jews] were destined always to live in subjection to other nations and ever to be exposed to injustice, oppression, chastisement, extradition, troubles and hardships. Political serfdom, oppression and anguish suffered indefinitely had produced in them a typical racial character. They were notorious all over the world for excessive pride of blood and greed. Meek and submissive in distress, they were tyrannical and mean when they had the upper hand. Hypocrisy, deceit, treachery, selfishness, cruelty and usuriousness had become the normal traits of their nature. In the Qur’an we find repeated references to the extent to which they had sunk into degradation in the sixth and the seventh centuries” (pp.22-3).

Because of wonderful organizations like MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch, Muslims in the Arab world are a bit more careful about openly espousing hatred for Jews, instead pretending that they are only against Zionists. When you get out of the Middle East, however, you can often see that Muslim hatred of Jews is endemic.

Aafreedi does end his piece on an optimistic note mentioning a few Indian Muslims who are reasonable and open-minded about Jews. It is always nice to see that there are some Muslims who can think independently and who can shake off the hatred they grew up with, even to a small extent. The New York Times just featured one such tiny group in Gaza which is somewhat more moderate than their fellow Gazans. Certainly such people should be applauded, if for nothing else than their bravery.

But no one should mistake the existence of such small, anomalous pockets of sanity as a trend.

From the World Council of Churches:

Observing Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on 17 April, the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary expressed solidarity with some 5000 Palestinian men, women and children, languishing in Israeli jails.

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day arises in response to a call from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. In an open letter to the WCC’s member churches issued on Thursday, 17 April, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the WCC general secretary, said, “As people of faith, we are called to pray for, visit, and tend to the needs of all prisoners, no matter the reason for their detention. For Israel and Palestine, prisoners have taken on even greater significance than in the past.”

“We were disappointed when the government of Israel cancelled the scheduled release of prisoners who have been in Israeli jails even before the Oslo Agreement of 1993,” he said.

Tveit encouraged the WCC member churches to join in calling United Nations member states to insist Israel end arbitrary detentions and torture, and provide medical care to Palestinian detainees. In the letter UN member states were also urged to persuade Israel to abide by the 1955 standard rule of prisoners’ treatment, respect the 4th Geneva Convention and ratify other human right conventions.

In commemoration of the Palestinian Prisoners Day, Tveit invited the churches in the Holy Land to remember Palestinian prisoners through “prayers and acts of solidarity that restore to them their freedom with justice and dignity”.

Every single slander about how Israel treats prisoners is repeated here without any skepticism. And if you look at Tveit's actual letter, you learn even more outlandish things - like this:

Some prisoners have been in Israeli jails since 1948.

Wow, people in Israeli prison for nearly 66 years? How many? What are their names? I'm dying to know how they got that little nugget of information and how much effort they went through to verify that. Because Jesus emphasized how important truth is so it is inconceivable that the World Council of Churches would lie. It would mean that they are a bunch of hypocrites, and that would cause a huge scandal among Christians. So of course it is true. QED.

The WCC also repeats the absurd claim that 750,000 Palestinian Arabs have "faced detention in Israeli jails" since 1967.

The WCC is not merely talking about improving the conditions of Israeli prisons, which are already better than those of most countries. They want Israel to release the prisoners irrespective of their crimes. The WCC has not the slightest concern that some of the prisoners they want to see freed are convicted mass murderers.

Yet surely, the WCC must care about prisoners worldwide, right? I mean, they say "As people of faith, we are called to pray for, visit, and tend to the needs of all prisoners, no matter the reason for their detention," so undoubtedly they have similar press releases about the 2.2 million prisoners in the US, or the 1.5 million in China, or even the 60,000 in Turkey or Egypt or Cuba. Certainly they aren't singling out Israel's less than 5,000 security prisoners, are they?

Oh, yes, they are. Except for letters written on behalf of a couple of dozen Argentinian prisoners in 2000, the WCC has been silent about 99.95% of the prisoners "languishing" in jails worldwide.

What can explain this obsession with Israel, to not only single it out but to lie so egregiously about it? What would make a world church body decide that only the Jewish state is guilty of these laughably inaccurate accusations? How could a church group - men and women of God - write such egregious lies, distortions and blatant discrimination?

It is a real mystery.

(h/t Dexter Van Zile)

04/17 Links Pt1: Daniel Pipes: Antisemite Max Blumenthal Incites Murder of Three in Kansas

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: "Antisemite Max Blumenthal Incites Murder of Three in Kansas"

Daniel Greenfield suggests that Miller referred here to "a Blumenthal interview on Putin's propaganda channel RT, which he has since defended, in which he claimed that Netanyahu was targeting Ron Paul and Obama." (That interview, from January 2012, can be seen on YouTube.)
Greenfield found in total 382 results for "Max Blumenthal" on vnnforum.com. One discussion is titled "Max Blumenthal is insightful & sometimes funny." Participants at Stormfront, the premier American Neo-Nazi site, mentioned Blumenthal 80 times, often approvingly.
Breivik, it is now clear, intentionally sought to discredit counter-jihadis like me; but Miller gives every appearance of being a true believer inspired in part by Blumenthal's ravings. And so, applying Blumenthal's own standards to him, I wrote the headline of this weblog entry as "Antisemite Max Blumenthal Incited the Murder of Three in Kansas."
Next is for Blumenthal's fellow leftists to denounce him and shun him. But will they?

Two in Thai custody over possible Hezbollah ties

Two Lebanese men suspected of having ties with the terror group Hezbollah were detained in Thailand this week by authorities apparently skittish over possible plans to attack Israelis during the Passover holiday.
Lebanese-French citizen Daud Farhat and Lebanese-Philippine citizen Yousef Ayyad, both who have been on the Thai immigration watch list for possible Hezbollah ties, were taken from their homes in the Bangkok district of Sukhumvit for questioning on Tuesday, Thai daily The Nation reported.

Merah affair: Sister and mother of Islamist terrorist arrested

Most of the suspects have been released, except for three that are still under arrest: Abdelkader Merah, the older brother of the killer, Muhammad Mounir Miskine, a friend, and Fetha Malki, the arms supplier.
The website of the local daily, La Depeche du Midi, reported on Tuesday that the sister was arrested on Monday evening in Toulouse.
The sister, Souad, had been arrested once before for condoning terrorism, after she was secretly recorded – in a conversation with another one of her brothers – saying she was proud of Muhammad. Following the arrest she condemned the seven murders.
The national radio station, Europe 1, said that the mother, Zoulikha Aziri, had also been interrogated for by police two weeks ago, for 24 hours, then released.

Why did Haaretz take down its article on Kansas killer's admiration for Max Blumenthal?

Haaretz, picking up on a piece in the Washington Free Beacon, briefly posted this article yesterday:

According to the Washington Free Beacon, an online news source that describes itself as being "dedicated to uncovering the stories that the professional left hopes will never see the light of day, Frazier Glenn Cross, the Hitler admirer and Klansman who is accused of the murders, often praised Blumenthal's work.

According to the report, a search of the VNN Forum – a prominent white supremacist website run by Cross – finds over 300 references praising Blumenthal's criticism of the State of Israel and American-Jewish support of Israeli policy.

There is no doubt that leftist Israel-haters like Blumenthal give lots of material - and inspiration - for right wing antisemites like Frazier Glenn Cross. Both groups claim, disingenuously, that their criticisms of Israel are meant to defend human rights when it is the other way around - they use the language of human rights to attack the Jewish state, a nation whose record on human rights would be the envy of any other nation at war in history.

Some antisemites see no contradiction between the extreme right and extreme left manifestations of Jew-hatred. Someone named "Rehmat1", for example, has hundreds of comments both on Cross' VNN forum and on Mondoweiss, both linking back to his own blog.

The only difference is that the right-wing antisemites are more willing to admit that they hate Jews. The leftist antisemites prefer to use Israel as a proxy for Jews and are, too often, Jews themselves, which all stripes of Jew-haters love to quote to give their hate an air of authenticity.

Haaretz took down this article very quickly after it was posted online. Why?

Perhaps the reason is that Haaretz has provides at least as much comfort and aid to the VNN antisemites as Blumenthal does!

While Haaretz doesn't seem to be as explicitly praised as Blumenthal was by Cross, according to Mondoweiss, Haaretz itself is mentioned on the VNN site over 11,000 times and Cross mentions Haaretz himself scores of times in his antisemitic rants! (I did not check either the Free Beacon's or Mondoweiss' claims about the number of citations of Blumenthal/Haaretz.)

Haaretz provides at least as much of aid and comfort to antisemites as Blumenthal does, and perhaps that is what prompted it to silently pull this story.

The UN has responded to Israel Ambassador Ron Prosor's letter I reported on demanding that Rima Khalaf be fired:

Rejecting Israeli criticism of Jordanian Rima Khalaf, Head of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), a UN official on Tuesday said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has "full confidence" in her and in her work.

"The Secretary General has full confidence in her and her ability to do her work," UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told the daily press briefing.

Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor demanded in a letter to Ban Khalaf's suspension from ESCWA, following her recent public statements and the release of a UN official report which "promotes anti-Israel incitement and anti-Semitism." The 200-page ESCWA report, Prosor claimed, "systematically mentions Israel in almost every chapter, blames it for the failings of the Arab world in all spheres of life, and claims that Israel is the main cause for the divisions among Arab states." Prosor also said the report draws an implicit comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany, arguing that "Israel propagates the concept of the religious or ethnic purity of states, a concept that inflicted on humanity the worst crimes of the last century.

"These accusations represent the epitome of modern day anti-Semitism and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. Ms. Khalaf may have a Ph.D. in Systems Science, but she deserves a Ph.D. in science fiction for her 200-page report filled with conspiracy theories," Prosor said in his letter.

He added "it is unacceptable that inflammatory anti-Israel messages continue to be produced under the banner of the United Nations and using UN resources. By demonizing Israel, Ms. Khalaf is advancing a personal agenda rather than furthering the cause of peace or advancing regional Arab development. Senior UN officials should lead by example and demonstrate tolerance rather than prejudice".

It's easy to have full confidence in her work when she is parroting how the UN has been acting towards Israel since the early 1970s.

On Wednesday, a reporter tried to follow up on the issue, only to be shot down by the open, liberal, transparent UN:

Q: Okay, so something more current, Rima Khalaf? Yesterday you said that the Secretary-General stands behind her, but her… the gist of her argument was that she objects to Israel’s definition as a Jewish State since this is a General Assembly resolution since 1947, does the Secretary-General stand behind that?

Spokesman: I have nothing to add to what I said yesterday.

Work accident! 3 Hamas members killed! Candy time!

From Ma'an:

Three Palestinian men were killed and four others injured in an explosion in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

A spokesman of the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health told Ma’an that the circumstances behind the explosion were not clear.

Ashraf al-Qidra added that ambulances evacuated two dead men and one critically injured person. The third victim was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at the European Hospital in Kahn Younis.

Eight others sustained minor wounds caused by shrapnel. They were in stable condition.

Hamas sources told Ma'an that the victims were members of the group's al-Qassam Brigades militant wing, and were killed while preparing explosive devices.

They were identified as Rami Mishmish, Yousif Thabit and Abu Ashour Hajji.

Hamas' Al Qassam website freely admits that they were killed in a "jihadist military manufacturing unit."

Note that the Gaza ministry of health, which is run by Hamas, knows very well how they were killed but they prefer to say that "circumstances were unclear" in case they can find a way to blame Israel. Sometimes they claim that leftover Israeli ordnance causes injuries and deaths when they don't want to admit that it is from their own people.

Their faces must have been ripped apart by the explosion, because unlike in most cases of "martyrs," the photos of the bodies do not show their faces but only their weapons.

This makes at least 15 Gazans killed by work accidents or Hamas rockets this year, more than have been killed by the IDF.