David Sanger, "John Kerry, in a Final, Pointed Plea, Will Outline a Vision of Mideast Peace": Blind Man's Bluff

Tweet

In a myopic New York Times article entitled "John Kerry, in a Final, Pointed Plea, Will Outline a Vision of Mideast Peace," David Sanger writes of John Kerry's speech today, which is intended "to shape the outlines of a Middle East peace deal":

"The decision to go ahead with his speech in the waning days of the administration is characteristic of Mr. Kerry, a serial negotiator who over the past four years traveled the world on three major missions: an Israeli-Palestinian accord, the Iranian nuclear accord, and a cease-fire and political accord for Syria. He will leave office on Jan. 20 having achieved the nuclear deal, but having tried and failed on the other two."

Kerry's nuclear deal with Iran was an achievement? Oh really. As reported by Jenna Lifhits in a December 25, 2016 Weekly Standard article entitled "U.N. Agency Publishes Secret Iran Deal Docs On Exemptions Obama Admin Dismissed":

"Iran was given secret exemptions allowing the country to exceed restrictions set out by the landmark nuclear deal inked last year, some of which were made public this week by the United Nations nuclear watchdog and others that are likely still being withheld, according to diplomatic sources and a top nuclear expert who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday posted documents revealing that Iran had been given exemptions in January that permit the country to stockpile uranium in excess of the 300 kilogram limit set by the nuclear deal, experts said. The agreements had been kept secret for almost a year, but recent reports indicated that the Trump administration intended to make them public."

In fact Kerry's unsigned Swiss cheese arrangement with Iran, negotiated in Geneva and shot through with holes, was anything but an achievement.

Sanger goes on to say concerning last week's Security Council resolution denouncing Israeli West Bank settlements:

"'We did not discuss the substance of the resolution at any time with the United States,' Gerard van Bohemen, New Zealand’s ambassador to the United Nations, said later, disputing Mr. Netanyahu’s account that the vote was orchestrated in Washington. 'We did not know how the United States would vote.'

The surprise was palpable. Román Oyarzun Marchesi of Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council, asked for a show of hands in support of the resolution: 14 hands went up. He asked for a show of hands against: zero hands went up. A gasp was heard in the Council chamber. It meant that the United States, which can unilaterally veto a resolution as a permanent member of the Security Council, had not done so."

The surprise was "palpable"? Yeah, right. As reported today in a Times of Israel article entitled "Israel: US pressured Ukraine to support anti-settlement resolution":

"An Israeli official said Wednesday that highest-level US administration officials phoned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko directly to pressure him to support the United Nations Security Council resolution against Israeli settlements.

'Either Obama or Biden spoke to Poroshenko about the matter,' a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel, elaborating on Israel’s claims that the US worked behind the scenes to bolster the resolution and to ensure that it was supported by all the other countries on the council.

According to one highly placed Israeli official who spoke to Tablet Magazine, it was Biden who personally intervened to ensure that Ukraine would support the resolution. 'Did Biden put pressure on the Ukrainians? Categorically yes,' said a source within the Israeli government. 'That Biden told them to do it is 1000% true,' he said."

Nauseating. Enough said.

Ruth Margalit, "How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel’s Free Press": The New York Times's Ongoing War Against Israel

Tweet

Maybe you missed it ...

In a loathsome July 30, 2016 guest New York Times op-ed entitled "How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel’s Free Press," Ruth Margalit, an Israeli living in the United States, would have us know:

"Efforts to stifle freedom of the press can be seen as part of a broader attack by Mr. Netanyahu and his ministers on Israel’s democratic institutions, including the Supreme Court and nongovernmental organizations. Dissent from the official government line is consistently called into suspicion. In this climate, the news media has become a personal battleground for Mr. Netanyahu. Nahum Barnea, a pre-eminent Israeli columnist, said last year that Mr. Netanyahu’s 'obsession' with the news media showed him to be 'gripped by fear and paranoia.'"

Evidence of this stifling of freedom of the press? Margalit says it can be found in "the outsize influence of Israel Hayom ('Israel Today'), a free daily newspaper owned by the American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and widely believed to promote the views of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." Oh my goodness, Israel allows a free newspaper, owned by Adelson and supportive of Netanyahu, to be disseminated! Publication of this popular newspaper should be banned immediately ... not!

I am no fan of Netanyahu, and I don't read Israel Hayom, but I'll be damned if publication and dissemination of Israel Hayom or any other newspaper should be halted. This would be an attack on freedom of the press.

In response to Margalit's op-ed, David Keyes, Netanyahu's spokesman, retorted yesterday:

"Ms. Margalit’s attack obscures the real story: A longstanding media monopoly in Israel with one-sided views seeks to shut out alternative voices by stifling market competition that would give choices to viewers and readers.

The introduction of the newspaper Israel Today broke this enduring monopoly in the print media and gave Israelis the same choice that readers have in other democracies."

But in fact, Keye's letter misses the real point, to which he, owing perhaps to the proximity of an arms deal with the US, cannot refer: How dare darling Ruth complain of the stifling of the Israeli press when back in the US, from where she is writing, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes recently acknowledged that the Obama administration built an "echo chamber" within the media to sell the unsigned nuclear deal with Iran. And Margalit finds fault with Netanyahu?

You might also want to have a look at a Tablet article entitled "Sorry, ‘New York Times,’ But Israel’s Press Is Doing Just Fine" by Liel Leibovitz. Providing hard facts evidencing the left-leaning tendencies of Israel's media, Leibovitz concludes:

"Did you hear the one about the Middle Eastern country that really cracked down on its freedom of the press? Not Turkey, where 42 journalists were arrested last week in the latest assault on the tenets of democracy; I’m talking, of course, about Israel, the subject of yet another grim opinion piece this weekend in The New York Times.

. . . .

It’s sad to see a reporter [Margalit] who should’ve known better abandon any attempt at insight or nuance and turn instead to the Times for the most banal sort of affirmation, and it’s sad to see the Times continue to publish such drivel without attempting any real depth or understanding. Nevermind, and godspeed: Keep your opinion pages, which, like your opinions, are but sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing."

"Sad to see"? How about sickening?

Lara Friedman, "Israel’s Unsung Protector: Obama": With Friends Like Lara, Who Needs Enemies?

Tweet

"Only the daring of the Jews founded this country and not some Um-Shmum [stupid UN] resolution."

- David Ben-Gurion on the establishment of the State of Israel, March 29, 1955

With the Jewish holiday of Passover, a festival of freedom from slavery, just around the corner, The New York Times has "graced" us with a guest op-ed entitled "Israel’s Unsung Protector: Obama" by Lara Friedman. Friedman, the director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now, would have us know that President Obama has "completely shielded" Israel from UN Security Council resolutions "specifically critical of Israel." Friedman's conclusion:

"The two-state solution is the only path to preserving Israel’s security and its character as a Jewish state and a democracy, while delivering freedom, dignity and sovereignty to the Palestinians. We can hope that President Obama may now recognize that preserving this solution for the future is the most important legacy he can leave in this arena. But to accomplish that, he must be willing to resist, rather than court, the anti-peace bullies in Israel and the United States; he must be willing to stand up for American interests in obtaining a Middle East peace, and to stand with America’s allies in the Security Council in supporting a two-state solution.

If he does that, President Obama will not be betraying Israel. He will be Israel’s true friend. And he will walk in the footsteps of all eight other presidents since 1967, Democrat and Republican alike."

Guess what? I also support a two-state solution, but what doesn't Friedman tell us? Back in 2008, Palestinian Authority President Abbas refused Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's peace offer, providing the Palestinians with an independent state along the 1967 lines together with agreed upon land swaps and Palestinian control of east Jerusalem. One year later, after Netanyahu declared a 10-month settlement freeze "to restart peace talks" at the request of Obama, Abbas delayed entering negotiations until the last moment and then walked away from the discussions.

Apparently unbeknownst to Friedman, it is hard to make peace with someone who doesn't want to make peace.

Obama has protected Israel from the United Nations? Perhaps Friedman would do well to read Yair Rosenberg's November 15, 2013 Tablet article entitled "Caught on Tape, a U.N. Interpreter Wonders Aloud at its Israel Bashing," which noted:

"Yesterday was 'bash Israel' day at the United Nations–which is to say, Thursday. The U.N. General Assembly, which last year passed 22 resolutions condemning Israel and only four against other individual countries, approved nine such resolutions lambasting the Jewish state. Naturally, it had nothing to say about violations in the rest of the world, though it did manage to lament the situation in Syria–that is, Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights.

You don’t have to be a Zionist or a supporter of Israeli policy to recognize the profound injustice at work in the U.N.’s treatment of the Jewish state. In fact, as it turns out, even an official U.N. interpreter would be hard pressed not to notice it. Thus, during yesterday’s session, between the sixth and seventh resolution against Israel, the interpreter on the floor expressed her mystification with the body’s obsession with Israel at the expense of other global concerns, not realizing her microphone was still on:

I mean, I think when you have five statements, not five, like a total of ten resolutions on Israel and Palestine, there’s gotta be something, c’est un peu trop, non? [It’s a bit much, no?] I mean I know… There’s other really bad shit happening, but no one says anything, about the other stuff.

As you can see in the video below, the remark was greeted by laughter among the assembled delegates, after which the mortified interpreter apologized. The proceedings then continued, with Mauritania asking to retroactively add its voice to the sixth resolution condemning Israel’s human rights abuses. Mauritania, of course, boasts nearly a million people in chattel slavery. It is also the vice president of the U.N. Human Rights Council."

The UN Human Rights Council? Throughout its illustrious history, it has condemned Israel more times than all other countries combined.

Indeed, Um-Shmum.

But more to the point, what about Friedman's claim that Obama is Israel's "protector"? Friedman forgets to mention how, at the height of Israel's 2014 war with Hamas, which was busy firing missiles at Israel's towns and cities, Obama blocked arms shipments to Israel. Friedman also forgets how Obama attempted to force Israel to accept Turkey and Qatar, countries implacably hostile to Israel, as arbiters of that same conflict with Hamas. At the time, Obama remarked: "I trust Qatar and Turkey. Israel is not in the position that it can choose its mediators." Yup, Obama was one heckuva "protector."

More recently, as part of his unsigned nuclear deal with Iran, Obama bargained away the language prohibiting Iran from conducting ballistic missile tests. As a consequence, Iran has conducted ballistic missile tests in October, November and March, and one of the two missiles fired last month had "Israel should be wiped off the Earth" written on it. What did Obama do about this? Effectively nothing. After all, this narcissistic president's foreign policy "legacy" is at stake.

In short, with friends like Lara Friedman (and "protectors" like Obama), who needs enemies?

Tom Hamburger, "How Elizabeth Warren picked a fight with Brookings — and won": No Mention of Brookings, Indyk, Qatar and Hamas

Tweet

In a Washington Post article entitled "How Elizabeth Warren picked a fight with Brookings — and won," Tom Hamburger writes:

"The hero of the country’s liberal movement launched a surprise attack Tuesday against Washington’s most revered Democratic-leaning think tanks — and drew blood.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, stepping up her crusade against the power of wealthy interests, accused a Brookings Institution scholar of writing a research paper to benefit his corporate patrons.

Warren’s charge prompted a swift response, with Brookings seeking and receiving the resignation of the economist, Robert Litan, whose report criticized a Warren-backed consumer protection rule targeting the financial services industry."

A pity that Warren was not equally incensed by Qatar's $14.8 million donation to Brookings in 2014, which goes unmentioned by Hamburger. As was reported by The Algemeiner in a September 7, 2014 article entitled "Revealed: Hamas-Backing Qatar, Also Funding Brookings Institute, Home of Former U.S. MidEast Envoy Indyk":

"Questions are emerging over possible conflicts-of-interest after The New York Times highlighted Qatari funding for U.S. think tanks, including the Brookings Institute, employer of former U.S. envoy Martin Indyk, who was directly involved in recent negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

'Qatar, the small but wealthy Middle East nation, agreed last year to make a $14.8 million, four-year donation to Brookings, which has helped fund a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world,' according to The Times.

The report comes just weeks after Israel vociferously voiced objection to Qatar’s funding of its major adversary, terror group Hamas."

And as Lee Smith is quoted in an October 2, 2014 Tablet article entitled "Brookings Responds to Tablet Piece on Qatar Funding":

"The fact that Ambassador Indyk’s employer raised $14.8 million from the same Arab regime that funds Hamas, a mortal enemy of the two parties—Israel and the PA—whose negotiations he was to mediate, should have been enough to tell Secretary of State John Kerry that Dr. Indyk would be, at the least, a questionable choice for the job. This judgment might have been further supported by Mr. Indyk’s strange demeanor in casting Israel, both anonymously in news articles and publicly in hotel bars, as solely responsible for the failure of peace talks.

Why Ambassador Indyk veered so widely from the normal practices of statesmanship is unclear. Perhaps he thought his own behavior to be above reproach, even when others might say it violates commonly accepted norms, and creates the appearance of a conflict-of-interest so glaring that it would be legible to a nine-year-old. Or perhaps one of the most influential think tanks taking money from one of the leading state sponsors of terrorism was taken as a sign that the rules of the Washington DC foreign policy influence-peddling game have changed, and become even more gross and venal?"

You will recall that Obama and Kerry sought to impose Qatari and Turkish mediation upon Israel during its conflict with Hamas during the summer of 2014. As reported in a July 30, 2014 Hudson Institute article entitled "John Kerry Has Hamas’ Back: So, Who Has Israel’s?" by Lee Smith:

"'Qatar and Turkey are the biggest supporters of Hamas,' Netanyahu told President Obama, according to an Israeli transcript of a recording of the phone call. (A transcript the White House and prime minister’s office now claim is false.) 'It’s impossible to rely on them to be fair mediators.' To which Obama snidely responded: 'I trust Qatar and Turkey. Israel is not in the position that it can choose its mediators.' When Netanyahu objected to Obama’s high-school mean-girl treatment—'I protest because Hamas can continue to launch rockets and use tunnels for terror attacks'—the president of the United States simply ignored him: 'The ball’s in Israel’s court, and it must end all its military activities.'"

Personally, I "believe" that the transcript accurately reflected the content of the conversation, although it involved translation back and forth between English and Hebrew.

Tablet Magazine, "Crossing a Line to Sell a Deal": Moderate Jewish Journal Accuses Obama of Anti-Jewish Incitement

Tweet

In a Tablet article entitled "Crossing a Line to Sell a Deal," with the subheading "The White House and its allies shouldn’t need to smear American Jews–and a sitting senator–as dual loyalists to make their case," the editors of this moderate Jewish journal, some of whom support Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, conclude:

"What we increasingly can’t stomach—and feel obliged to speak out about right now—is the use of Jew-baiting and other blatant and retrograde forms of racial and ethnic prejudice as tools to sell a political deal, or to smear those who oppose it. Accusing Senator Schumer of loyalty to a foreign government is bigotry, pure and simple. Accusing Senators and Congressmen whose misgivings about the Iran deal are shared by a majority of the U.S. electorate of being agents of a foreign power, or of selling their votes to shadowy lobbyists, or of acting contrary to the best interests of the United States, is the kind of naked appeal to bigotry and prejudice that would be familiar in the politics of the pre-Civil Rights Era South.

This use of anti-Jewish incitement as a political tool is a sickening new development in American political discourse, and we have heard too much of it lately—some coming, ominously, from our own White House and its representatives. Let’s not mince words: Murmuring about 'money' and 'lobbying' and 'foreign interests' who seek to drag America into war is a direct attempt to play the dual-loyalty card. It’s the kind of dark, nasty stuff we might expect to hear at a white power rally, not from the President of the United States—and it’s gotten so blatant that even many of us who are generally sympathetic to the administration, and even this deal, have been shaken by it.

We do not accept the idea that Senator Schumer or anyone else is a fair target for racist incitement, anymore than we accept the idea that the basic norms of political discourse in this country do not apply to Jews. Whatever one feels about the merits of the Iran deal, sales techniques that call into question the patriotism of American Jews are examples of bigotry—no matter who does it. On this question, we should all stand in defense of Senator Schumer."

Sorry, but this is not only about "stand[ing] in defense of Senator Schumer." Rather, this is about decrying Obama's surreptitious style of anti-Semitism based upon innuendo and insinuation, which is all too easily assimilated and adopted by his "progressive" audiences. Needless to say, Obama's anti-Semitism is not the overt kind professed by Iran's mullahs, but it is nevertheless again making anti-Semitism socially acceptable in the United States, and yes, it's dangerous.

Many of us knew what lay beneath the president's mantle of moderation, which has now been cast aside as he nears the end of his second term. In a nutshell, it was all waiting to happen.

Matthew Duss, "Iran’s Nixonian Anti-Semitism, and What It Means for the Nuke Deal": Making the Case for Impotence and Naivete

In a Tablet article entitled "Iran’s Nixonian Anti-Semitism, and What It Means for the Nuke Deal," Matthew Duss, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, would compare the anti-Semitism of President Nixon with that of Iran's mullahs. Contending that Iran's leaders are not willing "to risk national suicide in order to achieve anything," Duss concludes:

"As with Nixon, and unlike Adolf Hitler, there’s no evidence that hatred of Jews is so foundational to the Islamic Republic’s governing ideology that they would drop everything else to pursue it. (Indeed, shortly after taking power in 1979, as the Ayatollah Khomeini was in the process of wiping out political competitors and consolidating control of the revolution, Khomeini received a delegation of Iranian Jews and promised them protection.) None of this is to say that Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric should be ignored; it certainly shouldn’t. Iran should continue to be treated as a pariah and sanctioned until this threatening rhetoric, along with a whole range of other behaviors, ceases. But the nuclear agreement now being negotiated isn’t based on trusting that Iran won’t act upon its rhetoric, but on ensuring, through the deepest and broadest nuclear inspections regime ever created, that it can’t."

Yeah, right. As if Nixon ever threatened Israel with annihilation as does Iran on a routine basis.

As reported earlier this week in a Times of Israel article entitled "Ex-Iran president: Israel a fake, temporary regime" by Tamar Pileggi:

"Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told a Hezbollah-affiliated outlet that he was confident that the 'forged and temporary Israeli entity' would be wiped off the map, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. According to the report, Rafsanjani, often described by Western media as a moderate in Iranian politics, said that Israel was an alien existence forged into the body of a nation which would eventually be destroyed."

Rafsanjani? He's the cleric who declared, "Israel is much smaller than Iran in landmass and therefore far more vulnerable to nuclear attack." No mention of Rafsanjani by Duss.

And then there's also that "small matter" involving the supply to Hezbollah, Iran's Shiite proxy in Lebanon, of some 100,000 missiles, all pointed at Israel. In fact, the existential threat to Israel today is greater than that presented by Egypt, Syria and Jordan immediately prior to the Six Day War. Iran can instruct Hezbollah to let these missiles fly, to the accompaniment of Hamas rocket and missile fire from Gaza, without suffering any repercussions. No mention of Hezbollah or Hamas by Duss.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is rational and would never do anything that might threaten its own existence? No mention by Duss that Iran hangs gay men, stones to death women accused of adultery, savagely persecute Baha'is, Christians, Kurds and Sunnis, jails and brutalizes journalists and political opponents, backs Shiite militias in Iraq that are engaged in ethnic cleansing, bombed a Jewish community center in distant Argentina, and executes poets for "waging war on God." Yes, I know, none of this has caused Iran to "risk national suicide." On the other hand, should the United States place its trust in an agreement with a regime that engages in such actions?

Duss, of course, suggests that America need not place its trust in Iranian adherence to the upcoming deal, inasmuch as Obama and friends are negotiating "the deepest and broadest nuclear inspections regime ever created." However, Russia will not agree to the "snap back" of sanctions, "anytime, anywhere inspections" have been whittled away, and Kerry has dismissed the need to obtain information concerning the past military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program.

Go back to sleep, Matthew.

The Latest Gaza Flotilla: The Freedom Flotilla Coalition Makes a Laughing Stock of The Washington Post

Tweet


Must reading from beginning to end!

This morning, I sent another letter to the editor in chief and the managing editor of The Washington Post, inquiring why there had been no correction of William Booth's June 29 article that stated that Israel had intercepted an "aid ship" on its way to Gaza:

Dear Mr. Baron and Mr. Marida,

On June 29, 2015, on the Washington Post homepage under "More Headlines," there was a link "Israel intercepts Gaza-bound aid ship" which took you to the article "Israel intercepts Gaza-bound aid ship in Mediterranean" by William Booth. Booth states in his article:

"The Swedish-registered Marianne of Gothenburg was attempting to enter Israeli-controlled waters in the Mediterranean Sea and deliver aid packages to Gaza."

Israeli Defense Minister Ya'alon, however, according to The Times of Israel, declared on June 29, 2015 that there was no aid aboard the said ship:

"There was no aid on board."

I have asked WaPo to correct this article (I received two Washington Post ticket numbers pertaining to my request for a correction), but I have received no response from your newspaper.

Does The Washington Post wish to contend that Israeli Defense Minister Ya'alon was lying? I would appreciate a response from a WaPo editor.

Moreover, I would appreciate any evidence forming the basis for Mr. Booth's contention that the Marianne was delivering aid packages.

I understand that in January 2013, three senior editors of The Washington Post sent a memo to the newspaper's staff regarding practices and standards for online corrections, which stated:

We are committed to accuracy and transparency. We generally revise the story to make it accurate AND append a correction to the file. Typically, online corrections read like this: “Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported …”

I kindly ask to be informed if you believe Mr. Booth's article was accurate and that Israeli Defense Minister Ya'alon was lying.

Yours sincerely,
Jeffrey

. . . .

Today, I received the following reply from Mr. Martin Baron:

We handled the matter this way:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/did-the-flotilla-to-gaza-have-humanitarian-aid-aboard-or-not/2015/07/01/4ce7418e-05b0-49c3-ae5d-602e28bd6927_story.html 

The link is to a second article, also written by William Booth and published by WaPo yesterday (no one from WaPo notified me that it had been published), observing that the Marianne carried two cardboard "aid" packages:

"The Gaza activitists said the larger cardboard box contains a solar panel, donated by a Swedish magazine, ETC, which also runs an 'environmentally-friendly electricity company.' The panel was bound for Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Ighe said the Swedish Association of Midwives also donated a nebulizer, a machine used to inhale medicines, often used to calm asthma attacks. That is the small cardboard box."

. . . .

My response to Mr. Baron:

Dear Martin,

First, thank you for getting back to me.

Mr. Booth writes in his new article:

"The Gaza activitists said the larger cardboard box contains a solar panel, donated by a Swedish magazine, ETC, which also runs an 'environmentally-friendly electricity company.' The panel was bound for Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City."

However, as reported by Tablet on July 29, 2014 regarding Al-Shifa Hospital:

"The idea that one of Hamas’ main command bunkers is located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is one of the worst-kept secrets of the Gaza war. So why aren’t reporters in Gaza ferreting it out? The precise location of a large underground bunker equipped with sophisticated communications equipment and housing some part of the leadership of a major terrorist organization beneath a major hospital would seem to qualify as a world-class scoop—the kind that might merit a Pulitzer, or at least a Polk.

So why isn’t the fact that Hamas uses Shifa Hospital as a command post making headlines? In part, it’s because the location is so un-secret that Hamas regularly meets with reporters there. On July 15, for example, William Booth of the Washington Post wrote that the hospital 'has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.' Back in 2006, PBS even aired a documentary showing how gunmen roam the halls of the hospital, intimidate the staff, and deny them access to protected locations within the building—where the camera crew was obviously prohibited from filming. Yet the confirmation that Hamas is using Gaza City’s biggest hospital as its de facto headquarters was made in the last sentence of the eighth paragraph of Booth’s story—which would appear to be the kind of rookie mistake that is known in journalistic parlance as 'burying the lede.'"

Or stated otherwise, the solar panel was intended for a building that serves not only as a hospital, but also as Hamas headquarters and a command center. This is "humanitarian aid"? Why didn't Mr. Booth refer in his second article to the dual function of the 'hospital'?"

Also, why did Mr. Booth accept the claims of the "Freedom Flotilla Coalition" in his first article without checking the facts?

In addition, his first article, claiming that Israel intercepted an "aid ship," was provided a homepage link. Was his second article also provided a homepage link?

Best wishes,
Jeffrey

Stay tuned . . .

As Anti-Semitism Runs Wild in France, the US Presbyterian Church to Divest From Companies Doing Business in the West Bank

In a Tablet article earlier this month entitled "Jewish Teen Wearing Yarmulke Tasered in Paris" (http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/175622/jewish-teen-wearing-yarmulke-tasered-in-paris) by Stephanie Butnick, we were told of a wave of anti-Semitism sweeping France. After describing a Taser attack on a Jewish teenager in Paris, the article listed other recent anti-Semitic outrages:

"• In May, a Jewish woman with a baby was attacked at a Paris bus station by a man who shouted 'Dirty Jewess' at her.

• In March, a Jewish teacher leaving a kosher restaurant in Paris had his nose broken by a group of assailants who also drew a swastika on his chest.

• One week earlier in March, an Israeli man was attacked with a stun gun outside a Paris synagogue.

• A week before that in March, a 28-year-old Jewish man was beaten on the Paris metro to chants of 'Jew, we are going to lay into you, you have no country.'

In January, anti-government demonstrators shouted 'Jew, France is Not Yours' as they marched through the streets of Paris."

Yesterday, a Washington Post article entitled "A ‘new anti-Semitism’ rising in France" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-new-anti-semitism-rising-in-france/2014/06/19/1da8ae34-1a71-4f50-893a-9842af51e3ce_story.html?hpid=z1) by Anthony Faiola, described the popularity of the anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, who makes light of the Holocaust and created an inverted Nazi salute (the "quenelle") which has taken hold throughout Europe. The article continues:

"In Western Europe, no nation has seen the climate for Jews deteriorate more than France.

. . . .

This month, authorities arrested Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French national, and charged him with the May killings of four people inside a Jewish museum in Brussels. The attack was the deadliest act of anti-Semitism in Western Europe since a gunman killed seven people, including three children at a Jewish day school, in Toulouse in 2012. Nemmouche allegedly launched his attack after a tour of duty with rebels in Syria, prompting fears of additional violence to come as more of the hundreds of French nationals fighting there make their way home.

In a country that is home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, the first three months of the year saw reported acts of anti-Semitic violence in France skyrocket to 140 incidents, a 40 percent increase from the same period last year.

. . . .

A recent global survey by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League suggested that France now has the highest percentage in Western Europe — 37 percent — of people openly harboring anti-Semitic views. That compares with 8 percent in Britain, 20 percent in Italy and 27 percent in Germany."

It should come as no surprise that 75 percent of French Jews are considering emigration (see: http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Poll-Three-out-of-four-French-Jews-mull-leaving-France-352779)

Worrisome? Absolutely, but it obviously doesn't trouble America's Presbyterian Church, which voted on Friday to divest from three US companies, Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard, which, according to the Presbyterian Church, profit from the sale of equipment used in the occupation of Palestinian territory. As reported in a Times of Israel article entitled "Presbyterian Church votes in favor of divestment" (http://www.timesofisrael.com/presbyterian-church-votes-in-favor-of-divesting-from-israel/) by Rebecca Shimoni Stoil:

"[Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism] referenced the Church’s sponsorship and dissemination of 'Zionism Unsettled,' a booklet condemned by a number of Jewish groups and complimented by former Klansman David Duke for its use of the term 'Jewish supremacism' to describe Zionist thought."

Remarkable how the Presbyterian Church should be so preoccupied with the West Bank at a time when more than 100,000 civilians have been murdered and millions more have been forced to flee their homes in neighboring Syria.

A ballooning number of "honor killings" perpetrated against women in Gaza and the West Bank (see: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/upsurge-palestinian-honour-killings-gaza-201432372831899701.html)? The Presbyterian Church doesn't give a damn.

The murder and persecution of gays in Gaza and the West Bank (see: http://www.timesofisrael.com/gay-palestinian-to-hcj-boot-me-and-theyll-kill-me/)? Again, of no concern to the Presbyterian Church.

Even more remarkable, the Presbyterian Church apparently does not care about intimidation and harassment of Christians in Gaza and the West Bank (see: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2838/palestinians-christians and http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/us-palestinians-christians-conversion-idUSBRE86P0J420120726 and http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/04/gaza-christians-safety.html#).

After all, hatred of the Jews must always come first.