Israel

Are Palestinians Indigenous to “Palestine”?

Published by Papa Giorgio

The Middle East conflict is framed as one of the most complex problems in the world. But, in reality, it’s very simple. Israelis want to live in peace and are willing to accept a neighboring Palestinian state. And most Palestinians do not want Israel to exist. As Dennis Prager explains, this is really all you need to know. In 5 minutes, understand how Israel was founded, and how, since that auspicious day in 1948, its neighbors have tried to destroy it, again and again.

The below video has some weird warp to it… maybe it was jittery and the editors incorporated a video stabilizer FX to stop the originally cut from moving all over the place?

The following in from Ryan Bellerose (who is in the above video, and on TWITTER) and expands on his idea of what makes a people connected [indigenous] to a land ~ via TABLET MAGAZINE:

…An anthropologist named José Martínez Cobo, who served as the UN’s special rapporteur on discrimination against indigenous populations, developed a simple checklist in order to make indigenous status easier to understand. Even though that checklist has since been adjusted—I would argue, to fit the UN’s anti-Israel agenda—it remains the standard for most anthropologists in the field today:

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present nondominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system.

This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present of one or more of the following factors:

a) Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them;

b) Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands;

c) Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.);

d) Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language);

e) Residence on certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world;

f) Other relevant factors.

[….]

Archaeology, genealogy, and history all support the Jewish claim to indigeneity. A debate on this issue only even exists because we’ve been fed a false narrative that Palestinian Arabs also hold a claim to the land of Israel. Not to say that two peoples can’t be indigenous to one land. The Palestinians do indeed have the legitimate “rights of longstanding presence” in Israel, but this does not trump the indigenous status of Jewish people, 90 percent of whom can directly trace their genetics to the Levant. The cultural genesis, spirituality, language, and ancestral ties of Palestinian Arabs, however, trace back to the Hejaz (a region in present-day Saudi Arabia). In the Quran, the Hejaz is where Muhammad was born and where he established a community of followers.

To say that Palestinian Arabs were the first inhabitants of the land of Israel is problematic for actual indigenous people like the Jewish people, the Amazigh, the Copts, the Assyrians, the Samaritans, and others who were forcefully conquered, subsumed, and converted. It would literally be akin to white Europeans in North America making that same claim. Conquering peoples can still become indigenous through cultural genesis and coalescence. They cannot, however, become indigenous simply through conquering indigenous people.

[….]

It appears that once Palestinian Arabs realized their claim to being descendants of the Philistines was false—as the Philistines, derived from the Hebrew word peleshet, have no connection ethnically, linguistically, or historically to the people of Arabia—they decided that they were descended from Canaanites instead.

In a 2012 speech, a spokesperson for Mahmoud Abbas said, “The nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7,000-year history B.C.E. This is the truth, which must be understood, and we have to note it, in order to say: ‘Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.’ ”

This comment from the Abbas camp is complete rubbish, just one on a laundry list of Palestinian misnomers. First, the Canaanites have been extinct for 3,000 years and little is known today about their direct descendants. Second, pre-Islamic Arabs—of whom Palestinians are direct descendants—first appeared only in the 9th century BCE, not in 7000 BCE. Third, in 1946, before the establishment of Modern Israel, Palestinian-Arab leaders themselves only claimed a connection to the land of Israel dating back no further than seventh century CE—when Muhammad’s followers conquered North Africa and the surrounding region. You may also want to ask: What spiritual, cultural, or traditional constructs of the Canaanite people have Palestinian Arabs maintained? The answer is none.

But this should not be surprising. Even the most novice researcher looking into falsehoods perpetrated by Palestinian leaders would quickly find other blatant lies aimed at delegitimizing the history of the Jewish people, like the time Yasser Arafat told Bill Clinton there was never a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, or the time Ekrima Sabri, former Jerusalem mufti and chairman of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, said, “After 25 years of digging, archaeologists are unanimous that not a single stone has been found related to Jerusalem’s alleged Jewish history.”

These are the proponents of the false narrative attempting to rebuke the indigenous status of the Jewish people in the land of Israel.

I got involved in this struggle because I was seeing nonindigenous people make arguments that are detrimental to actual indigenous people, arguments that attempt to rewrite our history. The idea that “Palestinian Arab” conquerors could become indigenous through conquering the Jewish people, even though the term “Palestinian” was only used in reference to Jews before 1948, is anathema. While Arabs claim to be related to the descendants of Israel through blood, it’s just another way to say that they acted like all conquerors, raping and pillaging and then settling and subsuming the locals. Native North Americans especially understand that simply conquering indigenous people does not grant one indigenous status…..

(Read It All)

How many times have you heard that Israel “occupies” the West Bank? But have you ever asked yourself whether that’s true? Or even what it means? Eugene Kontorovich, professor of law at George Mason University, dives into these questions and uncovers some surprising answers.

Despite having a border with Gaza, Egypt is current building an even bigger border wall and refuses to accept any Palestinian refugees. Here’s why.

Plus:

Was there ever a “Palestinian State”/People”

  1. Before the modern state of Israel there was the British mandate, not a Palestinian state.
  2. Before the British mandate there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state.
  3. Before the Ottoman Empire there was the Islamic Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, not a Palestinian state.
  4. Before the Islamic Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt there was the Ayyubid Dynasty, not a Palestinian state. Godfrey of Bouillon conquered it in 1099.
  5. Before the Ayyubid Dynasty there was the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, not a Palestinian state.
  6. Before the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem there was the Fatimid Caliphate, not a Palestinian state.
  7. Before the Fatimid Caliphate there was the Byzantine Empire, not a Palestinian state.
  8. Before the Byzantine Empire there was the Roman Empire, not a Palestinian state.
  9. Before the Roman Empire there was the Hasmoneans Dynasty, not a Palestinian state.
  10. Before the Hasmonaean Dynasty there was the Seleucid Empire, not a Palestinian state.
  11. Before the Seleucid Empire there was the Empire of Alexander the 3rd of Macedon, not a Palestinian state.
  12. Before the Empire of Alexander, the 3rd of Macedon, there was the Persian empire, not a Palestinian state.
  13. Before the Persian Empire there was the Babylonian empire, not a Palestinian state.
  14. Before the Babylonian Empire there was the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea, not a Palestinian state.
  15. Before the kingdoms of Israel and Judea there was the kingdom of Israel, not a Palestinian state.
  16. Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea there was the theocracy of the 12 Tribes of Israel, not a Palestinian state.
  17. Before the theocracy of the 12 Tribes of Israel there was the individual state of Canaan, not a Palestinian state.
  18. Before the Kingdom of Israel, there was the Theocracy of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, not a Palestinian state.
  19. Before the Theocracy of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaanite city-kingdoms, not a Palestinian state.

In fact, in this corner of the earth there was everything but a Palestinian state!

This short audio compliments the above

We often hear claims that Palestinians are “native” or indigenous to the land of Israel, but does history back this up? It’s worth taking a look.

 

What’s Holding the Arab World Back?

Published by Papa Giorgio

What’s holding the Arab world back? Why, by nearly every measure, are Muslim nations so far behind the West economically, culturally and scientifically? Bret Stephens, Global View columnist for the Wall Street Journal, explains.

See my LARGE POST on the topic of Israel…

JIHAD WATCH notes this about the above video:

TV host Mataz Matar demanded that El Shehaby withdraw: “My son watch out, don’t be fooled, or fool yourself thinking you will play with the Israeli athlete to defeat him and make Egypt happy. Egypt will cry; Egypt will be sad and you will be seen as a traitor and a normalizer in the eyes of your people.”

A normalizer. Islamic supremacists are determined never to treat Israel normally. They want it destroyed. That is all. No negotiated settlement will ever mollify them. But Western leaders persist in their fantasies nonetheless.

The WASHINGTON TIMES notes this anti–Semitism at the Games:

…The 2016 Olympic Games have been billed as an opportunity to put politics aside in the spirit of international camaraderie, but that’s not necessarily how it’s working out for Israeli athletes.

Animosity toward the 47-member delegation has triggered a reprimand from the International Olympic Committee and alarm from Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, which issued a statement this week decrying anti-Israel “hostility” in Rio de Janeiro.

“Shocking but not surprisingly, the Lebanese and Saudi delegations obviously have the wrong idea about the Olympic Games,” said a statement Wednesday by Roz Rothstein, CEO of the pro-Israel group Stand With Us.

“Instead of using the events to forget animosity and promote peace between people, they have brought their brainwashed minds to Rio,” she said. “How unfortunate that they could not implement the good, peaceful intentions of the Olympics, and instead have used it as a forum to spread hate and continued rejection of peace.”

[….]

On Sunday, however, the IOC issued a reprimand to the head of the Lebanese Olympic delegation after he blocked Israeli athletes from entering a bus that the teams were supposed to share to reach the opening ceremony.

Instead, Olympic organizers placed the Israeli athletes on a “special vehicle,” said Israeli sailing team trainer Udi Gal.

“The bus driver opened the door, but this time the head of the Lebanese delegation blocked the aisle and entrance,” Mr. Gal said on Facebook. “The organizers wanted to avoid an international and physical incident and sent us away to a different bus.”

He said he was “enraged and shocked by this event.”

“How is it possible that they let something like this happen and on the opening night of the Olympic Games?” he said.

Miri Regev, Israeli minister of culture and sports, blasted the Lebanese incident as “anti-Semitism, pure and simple, and the worst kind of racism.”

The Lebanese delegation head, Saleem al-Haj Nacoula, who was reportedly hailed in Lebanon as a hero, told Arabic media that he was “surprised to see the Israeli delegation approaching and trying to get on.”

“I told the bus driver to close the door, but a trainer who was with the Israelis prevented him from doing so,” he said, as reported by The Times of Israel. “I had to physically stand at the door and block him and the rest of the delegation from boarding, knowing that some were trying to force their way through and were looking for trouble.”

Days later, Joud Fahmy of Saudi Arabia forfeited a first-round judo match Sunday in what the Israeli press described as a tactic to avoid facing Israel’s Gili Cohen in the second round.

The Saudi team disputed the charge, insisting on Twitter that Ms. Fahmy had sustained injuries to her arms and legs during training, although episodes of Arab and Muslim athletes refusing to compete against Israelis are relatively common in international sports.

In June, Syrian boxer Ala Ghasoun refused to participate in an Olympic qualifying match against an Israeli, saying that to do so “would mean that I, as an athlete, and Syria, as a state, recognize the state of Israel.”

“I quit the competition because my rival was Israeli, and I cannot shake his hand or compete against him while he represents a Zionist regime that kills the Syrian people,” Mr. Ghasoun said in Arab media, according to Jerusalem’s i24 News.

During the 2012 London Olympics, Iranian judo champion Javad Mahjoud withdrew from a match against Israeli Arik Ze’evi. Mr. Mahjoud cited health concerns, but he previously admitted to throwing matches to avoid facing athletes from Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Israel’s national soccer team and its clubs have to compete in the World Cup and the continental tournaments in Europe rather than Asia, as geography would dictate, because so many Middle Eastern countries refuse to play them….

(WASHINGTON TIMES)

BOOM! Tammy Bruce Lays Bare Leftist Arguments

Published by Papa Giorgio

NEWSBUSTERS reports on the issue:

Following the release of the intelligence report detailing Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election late last week, the Sunday morning shows were all abuzz with commentary with most of it critical of President-elect Donald Trump. But things were slightly different on CBS’ Face the Nation where radio host Tammy Bruce ripped in President Barack Obama for his meddling in the democratic election in Israel, all in a futile attempt to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“In 2015, we spent over 350,000 taxpayer dollars funding an organization in Israel called OneVoice, which we learned once we gave them those grants they immediately began to build up an infrastructure to oppose Netanyahu in Israel,” recalled Bruce.

Bruce’s claim is accurate, and not only did Obama use taxpayer money to undermine a staunch US ally but the news broke around the same time as the Russian meddling was occurring. “This is not unknown, it was widely reported in the summer of last year that it was an Obama-aligned group of people that worked with his campaign that were the consultants to that effort to dislodge Netanyahu, an active campaign in Israel,” she continued.

According to The Washington Times a Senate investigation found, “OneVoice used the money to build a voter database, train activists and hire a political consulting firm with ties to President Obama’s campaign.” And if that wasn’t bad enough, the US’ top official in the country was discovered to have “…regularly deleted emails with large attachments — a striking violation of open-records laws…”….

Resolution 2334: A Victory of Jihadism

Published by Papa Giorgio

A must read GATESTONE article:

  • Led astray from their primary mission, these international organizations have become tools of corruption or terrorism, reinforcing global Islamic power. Those who vote are heads of state, motivated by interests and ideologies that are often criminal, and not all of which represent the opinions of their people whom they tyrannize, including those from European “democracies”.
  • In 1948-49, Egypt seized Gaza, Syria stood their ground on the Golan, and Transjordan colonized Judea, Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem. Their Jewish inhabitants were killed or driven out by the Arab colonists, who seized their homes and destroyed their synagogues and cemeteries. Fighting ceased on armistice and cease-fire lines, there was no peace and no international borders were recognized.
  • Europe rushed to adopt the French position in 1973 and, along with the OIC, planned political measures designed to destroy the Jewish State by denying its sovereign rights and its cantonment on an indefensible territory. Resolution 2334 is now the icing on the cake of this policy, which forms the basis for a Euro-Islamic policy to merge in all EU political and social sectors, as well as in promoting globalism and the enforcement of the UN’s supranational decision-making powers.
  • In 1967, once again, the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan invaded Israel to destroy it, but this time Israel took back all the land that had been lost in 1949, that had becomeJudenrein [free of Jews], Arabized and Islamized. These were areas from which the Palestinian Jews had been driven out, and that Europe referred to as Jewish colonies. They are called Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
  • No European nation protested against the Islamic colonization of Jewish-Palestinian areas, the expulsion of their Jewish inhabitants and the seizure of their belongings, or against the persecution of Jews in Arab countries.
  • An artificial Palestinian Arab “people” was created in order to replace the people of Israel. A European army of forger-historians and Arab Christian dhimmis transferred the historic characteristics of the Jews onto them. Names of towns and regions were Islamized: Jerusalem was called Al-Quds and “the West Bank” replaced Judea and Samaria.
  • Israelis, guilty of existing, were expected to apologize for that, humbly to maintain their enemies and suffer their terrorism without protesting or defending themselves. Their crime? They refused to mingle with and disappear intodhimmitude by giving up their rights and their history to the people created by the Euro-Arab alliance to replace them.
  • It is the turn of Europeans to see a replacement population be created in their countries, with all the rights that are being taken away from them. It is their turn to be forced to renounce their national, historic, cultural and religious identity, to apologize and take the blame for existing. It is their turn to be forced to monitor their borders and guard their airports, their schools, their trains, their streets and their cities with soldiers. European governments that contemplated the destruction of Israel worked together with the enemies of Israel to destroy their own people, their sovereignty, their security and their freedoms.
  • The recognition of the legitimacy of Israel’s return to its homeland is the essential condition of Islamic peace with the world, because it will abolish the jihadist ideology.

[….]

…To begin with, an artificial Palestinian Arab “people” was created in order to replace the people of Israel. A European army of forger historians and Arab Christian dhimmis [non-Muslims who have surrendered to living under Islam] transferred the historic characteristics of the Jews onto them. Made the symbol of salvation from the purported Occupation and the Colonization symbolized by Israel, the Palestinians were compared to Jesus, crucified on the cross of a supposedly “Zionist Nazism.” The French Islamophiles and anti-Zionists, Louis Massignon and Jacques Berque, were the promoters of this role-reversal between the Jewish victims of Nazism and the Nazi persecutors, assisted by their Muslim allies on the battlefields and in the extermination camps, under the guidance of the Mufti.

Names of towns and regions were Islamized: Jerusalem was called Al-Quds and the West Bank replaced Judea and Samaria. Jihad and dhimmitude became taboo words. The OIC and its satellites, including Europe, had ordered the planned elimination of Israel. No argument could hinder its condemnation and the hateful campaign, by subverting words and language, that justified it. There was no point in pleading. Neither truth nor morality would change this verdict: Israel was the cause of the war, the terrorist attacks, injustice, all the evils suffered by the Islamic world and Europe, victims of jihadist terrorism – which it attributed to the existence of Israel. The fight to eliminate Israel was referred to as a just cause, a fight for peace.

The Euro-Arab alliance did its best to criminalize the Israelis for having restored their State to their historic homeland. The Israelis’ national sovereignty, their cultural and historic roots, their survival, their successes and spectacular military victories earned them reproaches and denigration. Reinvigorated by Palestinian hatred, the post–war Nazi-Islamic alliance did its best to neutralize the success of the Jewish State on a political level, to make sure it remained unstable and insecure. Endlessly harassed by European governments and their armies of dhimmis, the Israelis, guilty of existing, were shamed for it, forced to apologize for it, and expected humbly to maintain their enemies and suffer their terrorism without protesting or defending themselves. Their crime? They refused to mingle with and disappear into dhimmitude by giving up their rights and their history to the people created by the Euro-Arab alliance (Eurabia) to replace them.

The PLO was the jihadist arm of the Ummah [the Islamic community], the embodiment of its theological ideology which justified Islamic expansion and its appropriation of all spaces, while wiping out the previous cultures and people, imposing its law, its customs and its beliefs everywhere.

Heads of state, European ministers, the clergy, dhimmi Christians who had become its courtiers, offered it their help, more than happy to collect its gold, while sweeping away the debris of people and history before its feet, obstacles to its progress as they finally managed to rid it of Israel. And – so they believed – they would rid them of nothing but Israel, and thereby achieve a Holocaust that began in Europe so that at last a world, a humanity, would emerge, without Israel. The dream of Hitler and the Mufti would be realized.

The European governments, allies of the Palestinian anti-Israeli terrorists, whom they called a “just cause” – thus feeding them spiritually and funding them – believed that they were safe. But guess what? This Ummah policy against Israel, actively supported by its European and dhimmi courtiers, was unleashed against the people of Europe. Did terrorists attack Israelis during their festivities? Now it is the Europeans who have to celebrate their festivities protected by an army of soldiers. It is the Europeans’ turn to see a replacement population being created in their own countries, with all the rights that are now being taken away from them. It is the Europeans’ turn to be forced to renounce their national, historic, cultural and religious identity, to apologize and take the blame for existing as they are. It is the Europeans’ turn to be forced to monitor their borders and guard their airports, their schools, their trains, their streets and their cities with soldiers. Ironically, the European governments that contemplated the destruction of Israel worked together with the enemies of Israel to destroy their own people, their own sovereignty, their own security and their own freedoms. The OIC pandered to their unconfessed hatred of Israel, blinding them with its gold and unwaveringly led the cowards and the fainthearted, under the whip of terrorism, towards dishonor and oblivion.

Resolution 2334 is the culmination of this policy, but it is not the last chapter of the story. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Libya no longer exist, Egypt is scarcely hanging on. In its cauldron, jihad is burning Muslims who once dreamed of carrying it out against Jews and Christians. Arab dhimmi clergy and intellectuals, who inspired the Euro-Arab alliance against Israel and the Palestinian falsification, are seeing their communities decimated by their own lies. In a ruined Europe, butchered by hostile “sectarians,” the people are rising up to send the zealous servants of the OIC to the scrap heap of history. Worried about popular anger, ministers no longer dare to lie and are forced to recognize jihadism and blame the terrorism on it instead of on Israel….

Muslim vs. Jewish Terrorism | Time-Lines

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Caroline’s Book: The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East)

There is a conversation going on elsewhere on the “InterWeb,” that is giving me an opportunity to import some information from a previous post on my old blog in mid-2009 regarding Arab/Muslim terror. Here is the statement I wish to address with history:

. . . JUMP TO . . .

i. “Ancient History” (really, the newest world religion on the scene);

ii. or to Modern History.

  • “Hamas came AFTER Jewish terrorism. Even the Jewish leaders’ documented admissions demonstrate as much.” — Tim W. 

This statement just is not true. I will mention some past history first, then dive into more modern Zionism.

…OKAY… FIRSTLY… out of the worlds “World Religions” Islam holds the distinction of being founded by a terrorist. Muhammad personally dug graves for men, women, and children he likewise assisted in slitting the throats of and “marrying” off (sex-slaves) female children to his men. Remember, Muhammad married a 6-year old and consummated that marriage when she was nine-years old.

He instructed his followers to lie, to kill satirical poets (today known as stand up comedians) for speaking negatively of him. Orders to steal and thieve, rape and pillage, were the norm — as well as making treaties with the knowledge that they would be broken when Muhammad’s forces were stronger. You can see a a handout I made for a adult Sunday School class (linked in pic to right).

There is also this history relating to terror in the caliphates from Robert Spencer and Bill Warner. First Robert, then the video by Bill:

The Third Crusade (1188-1192). This crusade was proclaimed by Pope Gregory VIII in the wake of Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the Crusader forces of Hattin in 1187. This venture failed to retake Jerusalem, but it did strengthen Outremer, the crusader state that stretched along the coast of the Levant.

The almost Political Correct myth is that the crusades were an unprovoked attack by Europe against the Islamic world are dealt with in part:

The conquest of Jerusalem in 638 stood as the beginning of centuries of Muslim aggression, and Christians in the Holy Land faced an escalating spiral of persecution. A few examples: Early in the eighth century, sixty Christian pilgrims from Amorium were crucified; around the same time, the Muslim governor of Caesarea seized a group of pilgrims from Iconium and had them all executed as spies – except for a small number who converted to Islam; and Muslims demanded money from pilgrims, threatening to ransack the Church of the Resurrection if they didn’t pay. Later in the eighth century, a Muslim ruler banned displays of the cross in Jerusalem. He also increased the anti-religious tax (jizya) that Christians had to pay and forbade Christians to engage in religious instruction to others, even their own children.

Brutal subordinations and violence became the rules of the day for Christians in the Holy Land. In 772, the caliph al-Mansur ordered the hands of Christians and Jews in Jerusalem to be stamped with a distinctive symbol. Conversions to Christianity were dealt with particularly harshly. In 789, Muslims beheaded a monk who had converted from Islam and plundered the Bethlehem monastery of Saint Theodosius, killing many more monks. Other monasteries in the region suffered the same fate. Early in the ninth century, the persecutions grew so severe that large numbers of Christians fled to Constantinople and other Christians cities. More persecutions in 923 saw additional churches destroyed, and in 937, Muslims went on a Palm Sunday rampage in Jerusalem, plundering and destroying the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), pp. 147-148; 122-123 (respectively).

More via Robert Spencer:

  • Early in the eighth century, sixty Christian pilgrims from Amorium were crucified;
  • around the same time, the Muslim governor of Caesarea seized a group of pilgrims from Iconium and had them all executed as spies – except for a small number who converted to Islam;
  • and Muslims demanded money from pilgrims, threatening to ransack the Church of the Resurrection if they didn’t pay
  • Later in the eighth century, a Muslim ruler banned displays of the cross in Jerusalem. He also increased the anti-religious tax (jizya) that Christians had to pay and forbade Christians to engage in religious instruction to others, even their own children…
  • In 772, the caliph al-Mansur ordered the hands of Christians and Jews in Jerusalem to be stamped with a distinctive symbol;
  • Conversions to Christianity were dealt with particularly harshly;
  • In 789, Muslims beheaded a monk who had converted from Islam and plundered the Bethlehem monastery of Saint Theodosius, killing many more monks;
  • Other monasteries in the region suffered the same fate;
  • Early in the ninth century, the persecutions grew so severe that large numbers of Christians fled to Constantinople and other Christians cities;
  • More persecutions in 923 saw additional churches destroyed;
  • and in 937, Muslims went on a Palm Sunday rampage in Jerusalem, plundering and destroying the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection

More on this can be found in at my The Crusades vs. The Three Caliphates (Moral Equivalence)

PIVOT TO RECENT HISTORY

Before continuing however, here are some recomended books from my book shelf… click to enlarge:

Besides the myth that the “Palestinians” are being displaced (see many presentations of the myths surrounding modern-day Israel HERE), the myth that “Zionism” perpetrated terror prior to “Hamas” or the Arab-Muslims is simply a false narrative. For instance… here are terror attacks by Muslims BEFORE the first Irgun (Jewish extremist) attack ~ again, click to enlarge:

(WIKI)

Nor are these attacks warranted on the typical Leftist drivel… and this is only a decade of examples:

1968

  • June 5 – U.S. presidential candidate Robert Kennedy murdered by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, in Los Angeles, which causes further terrorist attacks, as Arab terrorist groups demanded his release.

1969

  • Feb. 18 – Boeing 707 attacked at Zurich, Switzerland, killing the pilot and 3 passengers.
  • Aug. 29 – TWA 707 hijacked from Rome to Damascus, released with only wounded.
  • Nov. 27- EL AL office in Athens, Greece attacked. Innocent bystanders killed.

1970

  • Feb. 21 – Swiss airliner blown up over Switzerland, killing all 47 people on board.
  • Feb. 23 – PLO terrorists open fire on a busload of Christian pilgrims killing 1 and wounding 2 Americans.
  • April 21- Bomb explodes aboard a Philippines airliner. All 36 aboard are killed.
  • Sept. 6 – “Skyjack Sunday” in Jordan. 3 planes (TWA, Swissair, Pan Am) en route to the U.S. hijacked, 400+ hostages, planes blown up in Jordan, Governments agreed to PFLP’s demands, released terrorists from jails and hostages released.
  • Sept. 14 – The PFLP hijacked TWA flight to Ammon, 4 Americans injured.

1971

  • Nov. 28 – Jordanian prime minister Tal killed by terrorists at the Sheraton Hotel in Cairo, Egypt.
  • Dec. – Jordanian ambassador to London, England is shot by hit squad.

1972

  • Jan. 26 – Bomb explodes on a Yugoslav plane killing all but one passenger.
  • May 30 – Ben Gurion Airport, Israel attack killed 26, and wounded 78 U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico.
  • Sept. 5 – Palestinian terrorists seize 11 athletes in the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany, 9 hostages and 5 terrorists killed, plus David Berger from Cleveland.

1973

  • March 2 – Khartoum, Sudan. Cleo Noel, Jr., U.S. ambassador, and George C. Moore, U.S. diplomat, were held hostage and then killed by terrorists at the U.S. Embassy.
  • Aug. 5 – Suicide squad attacks Athens airport, Greece, killing 3 civilians and injuring 55.
  • Dec. 17 – Bomb explodes at Pan Am office at Rome, Italy killing 32 and injuring 50+. The terrorists take 7 Italian policemen hostage and hijack an aircraft to Athens, Greece, killing one of them.

1974

  • March 1 – Diplomats taken hostage from Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, 2 that are killed are Americans.
  • April 11 – Kiryat Shmona Massacre at an apartment building killing 18 people, 9 were children.
  • Sept. 8 – Athens, Greece. TWA Flight 841 exploded from bomb in cargo hold, all 88 passengers killed, including 32-year-old Steven Lowe, an American citizen.
  • Nov. 23 – British DC-10 hijacked at Dubai, UAE, flown to Tunisia where a German passenger was killed.

1975

  • Jan. 19 – Arab terrorists attack Orly airport, Paris, France, seizing 10 hostages from a bathroom. French provided the terrorists with a plane to fly them to safety in Baghdad, Iraq.
  • Sept. 30 – Hungarian airplane explodes killing all 64 persons on board.
  • Dec. 21 – Carlos “The Jackal” holds 11 oil ministers and 59 civilians hostage during the OPEC meeting in Vienna, Austria. Flew to Algeria, got $300,000,000 in ransom money, Carlos and his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorists escape.

1976

  • Jan. 1 – 82 innocent travelers are killed aboard a Lebanese plane.
  • June 27 – Air France airliner hijacked, forced to fly to Uganda. Some 258 passengers and crew are held hostage. 3 passengers killed. July 4th, Israeli commandos rescue the remaining hostages.
  • Aug. 11 – Terrorists attack Istanbul airport, Turkey, killing 4 civilians (1 from U.S.) and injuring 20.
  • Dec. 4 – Terrorists occupied the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands, 1 official killed.
  • Dec. 14 – Passenger train hijacked and passengers were kept hostage, 3 were killed.

1977

  • Jan. 1 – F.E. Melov U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, and Robert O.Waring, the U.S. economic counselor, kidnapped and later killed in Beirut.
  • Oct. 13 – Palestinian terrorists hijack a Lufthansa Flight 181 Boeing 737 and order it to fly around a number of Middle East destinations for four days, pilot is killed by the terrorists, 90 hostages rescued.

1978

  • March 11 – Gail Rubin, niece of U.S. Senator Ribicoff, among 38 people shot to death by terrorists on a beach near Tel Aviv.
  • June 2 – A bomb kills 2 people at the CHOGM meeting in Sydney Australia.

(More examples here FREE REPUBLIC)

So, the contention that Jewish extremism or foreign policy or removing a non-existent people from one-place to another just does not comport with the historical evidence. Not only that, but similar “evictions” of the “Palestinians“‡ do not garner U.N. attention nor the attention of the media, as is explained here:

Much has been made of the Palestinian exodus of 1948. Yet during their decades of dispersal, the Palestinians have experienced no less traumatic ordeals at the hands of their Arab brothers. As early as the mid-1950s, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Libya expelled striking Palestinian workers. In 1970, Jordan expelled some 20,000 Palestinians and demolished their camps; in 1994-95, Libya expelled tens of thousands of long-term Palestinian residents in response to the Oslo process; and after the 2003 Iraq war, some 21,000 Palestinians fled the country in response to a systematic terror and persecution campaign. As recently as 2007, Beirut effectively displaced 31,400 Palestinian refugees when the Lebanese army destroyed the Nahr el Bared refugee camp during fighting between the militant Fatal al-Islam group and the Lebanese army.

But the largest forced displacement of Palestinians from an Arab state took place in 1991 when Kuwait expelled most of its Palestinian residents in retaliation for the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) endorsement of Iraq’s brutal occupation of the emirate (August 1990-February 1991). It mattered little that this population, most of which had resided in Kuwait for decades, was not supportive of the PLO’s reckless move: From March to September 1991, about 200,000 Palestinians were expelled from the emirate in a systematic campaign of terror, violence, and economic pressure while another 200,000 who fled during the Iraqi occupation were denied return. By September 1991, Kuwait’s Palestinian community had dwindled to some 20,000.

Yet while this expulsion was near the order of magnitude of the Palestinian 1948 flight (estimated by the Israeli government at 550,000-600,000 and by the Arab League at 700,000), driving PLO chairman Yasser Arafat to declare that “what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories,” it was largely ignored by the international community with neither the U.N. Security Council nor the General Assembly doing anything to assist the newly displaced refugees and punish their ethnic cleanser….

(MIDDLE-EAST FORUM)

‡ “An Invented People” — The Jamie Glazov Show w/Daniel Pipes and David Meir-Levi (there can be no two-state solution, BTW):

“One Of The Worst Foreign-Policy Presidents Ever” ~ Dershowitz

Published by Papa Giorgio

 

HOTAIR h-t

DERSHOWITZ: What he did was so nasty, he pulled a bait and switch. He told the American public this is all about the settlements deep in the West Bank. And yet, he allowed he representative to the U.N. to abstain –which is really a vote for– a resolution that says the Jews can’t pray at the Western Wall, Jews can’t live in the Jewish Quarter [of Jerusalem] where they have lived for thousands of years. And he’s going to say, ‘Whoops! I didn’t mean that!’ Well read the resolution! You’re a lawyer, you went to Harvard Law School.

It’s nothing more than a petulant swipe at Benjamin Netanyahu, and as Dershowitz explains, it’s going to backfire — badly:

DERSHOWITZ: This will make peace much more difficult to achieve because the Palestinians will now say ‘we can get a state through the UN, we can get a state through the BDS movement,’ because this will encourage that. ‘We can get a state through the International Criminal Court,’ because this will encourage that. ‘We don’t have to negotiate, we don’t have to make painful compromises.’ He will go down in history, President Obama, as one of the worst foreign-policy presidents ever.

Declaring War on Judeo-Christian Civilization

Published by Papa Giorgio

See other Prager University insights:

The officials said that business with the embassies of those countries — Britain, France, Russia, China, Japan, Ukraine, Angola, Egypt, Uruguay, Spain, Senegal and New Zealand — will be suspended… (CNN)

Here is an excellent article by GATESTONE on the issue of the United Nations trying to undermine the Judeo-Christian West:

✦ How is it that Western jurisprudence, created after the Second World War to prevent more crimes against humanity, is now being used to perpetuate more crimes and against democracies?

✦ It is a dreadful manipulation to try erase all Jewish and Christian history, to make believe that all the world was originally and forever only Islamic. That is what a jihad looks like. It is not just orange jumpsuits, beheadings and slavery. If one can erase and rewrite history, one can redirect the future.

✦ If Palestinian men beat their wives, it’s Israel’s fault, argued UN expert Dubravka Simonovic with a straight face.

✦ Last month, the President of the UN General Assembly sported the famous keffiyah scarf, a symbol of the “Palestinian resistance” (read terrorism). This is simply the continuation of the cultural obliteration of Israel, which is supposed to justify next its physical obliteration.

✦ The UN’s war on the Israel’s Jews is, at heart, a war against the West. The UN and its backers are briskly paving the way for the European Caliphate.

2016 has been a sumptuous year for the anti-Semites at the United Nations. The UN Security Council just targeted the only democracy in the Middle East: the State of Israel. The outgoing Obama Administration reportedly orchestrated what even Haaretz called a “hit and run” campaign in UN to denigrate the Jewish State and leave it to a fate where only conflict and hate loom. This is a cultural genocide that is no less dangerous than terror attacks. It is based on anti-Semitic lies and creates the atmosphere not for achieving “peace”, as disingenuously claimed, but for perpetuating war.

UNSC Resolution 2334 is the culmination of a dizzyingly fruitful year for anti-Semites. Last November, committees of the UN General Assembly in a single day adopted 10 resolutions against Israel, the only open society in the Middle East. How many resolutions have been approved against Syria? One. How many against the rogue state of North Korea? One. How many against Russia when it annexed Crimea? One.

Hillel Neuer, of UN Watch, observed:

“Even as Syrian president Bashar Assad is preparing for the final massacre of his own people in Aleppo, the U.N. adopted a resolution — drafted and co-sponsored by Syria — which falsely condemns Israel for “repressive measures” against Syrian citizens on the Golan Heights. It’s obscene.”

Not a single resolution was approved for those states which really abuse human rights, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Venezuela, China or Cuba, not to mention many virtual tyrannies throughout Africa. Only one resolution was approved for the “Palestinian refugee properties”, but not even a single mention for the property of the Iraqi Christians in Mosul.

Another resolution in this racist banquet of the United Nations concerned the “application of the Geneva Convention in the occupied territories”. There are hundreds of territorial disputes in the world, from Tibet to Cyprus, but only Israel deserves to be called out?

According to the liars at the United Nations, the most evil country in the world is Israel. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad, and Jordan’s Prince Zeid al Hussein are sponsoring even now a “blacklist” of international companies that have ties with Israeli companies in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, to facilitate boycotting Israel in the evident hope of economically exterminating the only democracy and pluralistic nation in the region: the Jewish State.

The UN Envoy for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui of Algeria, suggested also including the Israeli army in the blacklist of countries and groups that regularly cause harm to children, along with Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Islamic State, the Taliban, and countries such as the Congo and the Central African Republic, infamous for their child-soldiers — but of course not the Palestinians, who continue to promote using children as combatants and children as “martyrs“. How is it that Western jurisprudence, created after the Second World War to prevent more crimes against humanity, is now being used to perpetuate more crimes and against democracies?

The UN women’s rights commission condemned Israel as the world’s only violator of women’s rights. Not Syria, where Assad’s forces use rape as a tactic of war, or the Islamic State, which enslaves women from religious minorities. Not Saudi Arabia, where women are punished if they do not wear the Islamic full-covering clothing in scorching temperatures, or drive a car or even leave the house. Not Iran, where “adultery” (which can include being raped) is punishable by being stoned to death. And if Palestinian men beat their wives, it’s Israel’s fault, argued UN expert Dubravka Simonovic with a straight face.

The UN’s World Health Organization also singled out Israel as the only violator in the world of “mental, physical and environmental health”, despite Israel being the only state in the world actually to give medical care to its enemies (ask Hamas leaders’ children).

Canadian law professor Michael Lynk was then appointed as the UN’s “impartial” investigator of alleged Israeli human rights violations despite his long record of anti-Israel lobbying, including his board membership on many pro-Palestinian organizations, including Friends of Sabeel and the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations.

Last October, the UN cultural agency, UNESCO — by magically declaring ancient Biblical Jewish sites “Islamic”, even though Islam did not historically exist until the seventh century, hundreds of years later — pretended, with the villainous complicity of the West, to erase the Jewish-Christian roots of Jerusalem.

It is a dreadful manipulation to try erase all Jewish and Christian history, to make believe that all the world was originally and forever only Islamic. It is a jihad. That is what a jihad looks like. It is not just orange jumpsuits, beheadings and slavery. If one can erase and rewrite history, one can redirect the future. If you do not know where you are coming from, what values will you defend or fight for?….

(read it all)

Some PLO/Fatah/Palestinian History

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Below) Haj Amin al-Husseini is the father of the Palestinian Movement. He created PLO/Fatah (now better known as the ‘Palestinian Authority’), the organization that will govern any future Palestinian state. And he was mentor to Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, the leaders of that organization. Husseini was also, during World War II, a top Nazi leader who co-directed with Adolf Eichmann the death camp system that murdered between 5 and 6 million European Jews, also known as the Final Solution. These facts are not widely known or understood. Neither has their implication for our understanding of Israeli ruling elite behavior been properly appreciated.

(Below) There are certain myths concerning the origin of the name ‘Palestine’ and of the ‘Arab Palestinians.’ It documents that the ‘Arab Palestinians’ are in fact mostly from other places, and migrated to what is now Israel at the same time as the Zionist Jews, many of them because of the economic boom that the Zionist Jews produced in what was then British Mandate Palestine. The Zionist Jews did not steal the “best” land from Arab landowners but in fact purchased abandoned desert and swamp land from absentee Arab landlords who were quite eager to sell. This was explained by Hajj Amin al Husseini himself. Husseini, father of the Palestinian movement, launched his fourth terrorist attack against the Jews of the Mandate in 1936-39. The violence was so great that the British sent a team to investigate. When questioned, Husseini admitted that the Zionist Jews had not stolen anybody’s land but in fact had bought it. In fact, Husseini had been among the major consolidators and sellers of land, and growing tremendously rich by it.

(Below) PLO/Fatah, now better known as the “Palestinian Authority,” will govern a Palestinian State in the militarily strategic territories of Judea and Samaria (or “West Bank”) if the Middle East “peace process” concludes with a “Two-State Solution.” Given that Iranian leaders daily promise the destruction of Israel, most people assume that PLO/Fatah has nothing to do with Iran. It would be absurd, they implicitly reason, for Israeli leaders to give strategic territory to an Iranian proxy. And yet, it is a historical fact that PLO/Fatah helped install Ayatollah Khomeini in power and helped create the current Iranian Islamist regime. It has maintained a close relationship with this regime ever since.

The following is from GATESTONE:

  • Palestinians and their families are being financially rewarded by the West for taking part in terror attacks against Jews. It does not take a brain surgeon to figure out that this promotes terrorism.
  • Palestinian terrorists released from prison have far higher chances of getting a job with the Palestinian Authority (PA) government than people who went to university, because by carrying out an attack against Jews they become heroes, entitled to a superior job and salary.
  • The more time you spend in an Israeli prison, the more prestigious the job you will receive. Graduating from an Israeli prison is better than graduating from an Ivy League university.
  • These people have not been imprisoned for running a red light. Most of them are behind bars because they have masterminded suicide bombings and other terror attacks that have killed and maimed hundreds of innocent civilians during the past few decades.
  • So, when you hear that it is the PLO, not the PA, that pays the terrorists’ salaries, you might want to mention that this statement is a sleight of hand designed to dupe unsuspecting and well-intentioned American and European donors.
  • It is time to tell Abbas and his associates, in terms that they understand, that the West will no longer fund terrorists. This message, above all others, will discourage terrorism — and perhaps even encourage peace.

Killing Jews has become a profitable business. Palestinians who think of launching a terror attack against Jews can rest assured that their well-being and that of their family will be guaranteed while they are in Israeli prison. Here is how it works:

The Western-funded Palestinian Authority (PA) government, through its various institutions, provides a monthly salary and different financial benefits to jailed Palestinian terrorists and their families. Upon their release, they will continue to receive financial aid, and are given top priority when it comes to employment in the public sector. Their chances of getting a job with the PA government are higher than those who went to university, because by carrying out an attack against Jews they become heroes, entitled to a superior job and salary.

For the record, these people have not been imprisoned for running a red light. Most of them are behind bars because they have masterminded suicide bombings and other terror attacks that have killed and maimed hundreds of innocent civilians during the past few decades. In the U.S., these convicted Palestinian terrorists would have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty. What they would not be receiving are the privileges offered to them by Abbas and the PA leadership.

Ready for a dose of linguistic reality? In addition to his title as president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas is also chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). So it makes no difference at all whether the PA or the PLO is paying salaries to the terrorists: the same man is authorizing the funds. In reality, the PA and the PLO are one and the same. Israel signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO, and as a result of these agreements, the PA was created. We are dealing with the same people and same ideology.

So, when you hear that it is the PLO, not the PA, that pays the terrorists’ salaries, you might want to mention that this statement is a sleight of hand designed to dupe unsuspecting and well-intentioned American and European donors.

Let us look beyond the smoke and mirrors: Palestinians and their families are being financially rewarded by the West for taking part in terror attacks against Jews. It does not take a brain surgeon to figure out that this promotes terrorism. A Palestinian who kills or wounds a Jew can lie comfortably in his prison cell, secure in the knowledge that his future and that of his wife and children taken care of.

Welcome to the world of President Abbas and his government. By providing financial and other aid to those involved in terrorism against Israel, these leaders actively encourage Palestinians to choose the path of violence, and not peace, in dealing with the Israelis…..

A Quick Commentary On the Middle-East (Larry Elder)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is some of the WALL STREET JOURNAL article “The Sage” was reading from (followed by a portion of his article):

….As a historical phenomenon, this is not unique. In a 2005 essay in Commentary, historian Paul Johnson noted that wherever anti-Semitism took hold, social and political decline almost inevitably followed.

Spain expelled its Jews with the Alhambra Decree of 1492. The effect, Mr. Johnson noted, “was to deprive Spain (and its colonies) of a class already notable for the astute handling of finance.” In czarist Russia, anti-Semitic laws led to mass Jewish emigration as well as an “immense increase in administrative corruption produced by the system of restrictions.” Germany might well have won the race for an atomic bomb if Hitler hadn’t sent Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller into exile in the U.S.

These patterns were replicated in the Arab world. Contrary to myth, the cause was not the creation of the state of Israel. There were bloody anti-Jewish pogroms in Palestine in 1929, Iraq in 1941, and Lebanon in 1945. Nor is it accurate to blame Jerusalem for fueling anti-Semitism by refusing to trade land for peace. Among Egyptians, hatred of Israel barely abated after Menachem Begin relinquished the Sinai to Anwar Sadat. Among Palestinians, anti-Semitism became markedly worse during the years of the Oslo peace process.

In his essay, Mr. Johnson called anti-Semitism a “highly infectious” disease capable of becoming “endemic in certain localities and societies,” and “by no means confined to weak, feeble or commonplace intellects.” Anti-Semitism may be irrational, but its potency, he noted, lies in transforming a personal and instinctive irrationalism into a political and systematic one. For the Jew-hater, every crime has the same culprit and every problem has the same solution.

Anti-Semitism makes the world seem easy. In doing so, it condemns the anti-Semite to a permanent darkness.

Today there is no great university in the Arab world, no serious indigenous scientific base, a stunted literary culture. In 2015 the U.S. Patent Office reported 3,804 patents from Israel, as compared with 364 from Saudi Arabia, 56 from the United Arab Emirates, and 30 from Egypt. The mistreatment and expulsion of Jews has served as a template for the persecution and displacement of other religious minorities: Christians, Yazidis, the Baha’ i.

Hatred of Israel and Jews has also deprived the Arab world of both the resources and the example of its neighbor. Israel quietly supplies water to Jordan, helping to ease the burden of Syrian refugees, and quietly provides surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to Egypt to fight ISIS in the Sinai. But this is largely unknown among Arabs, for whom the only permissible image of Israel is an Israeli soldier in riot gear, abusing a Palestinian.

Successful nations make a point of trying to learn from their neighbors. The Arab world has been taught over generations only to hate theirs….

And here is Larry’s aforementioned article excerpt:

Recall that the United Nations commissioned Arab scholars and analysts to publish the Arab Human Development Report. What causes the backwardness, the scholars wondered, of 22 Arab states, covering nearly 300 million people? Their conclusion? Of all world regions, the Arab countries scored the lowest in freedom, media independence, civil liberties, political process and political rights. The report found 65 million illiterate adults. Half of Arab women still cannot read or write. Ten million children between 6 and 15 years of age are not in school. The report points to a “severe shortage” of new writing. In the last 1,000 years, the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in just one year. Only 1.2 percent of the population uses a computer, and only half of those access the Internet. In short, the peoples of these countries lack economic and political freedom.

[….]

Democracies tend not to attack each other. The future of Iraq, the defense of America, and a successful prosecution of the War on Terror mean this: repressive, brutal, un-free, non-transparent governments must fall. A free Iraq threatens to ignite what the president called, in this most historic inaugural address, the “fire of freedom.”

Anti-Semitic “Air” at 2016 Rio Olympics

Published by Papa Giorgio

JIHAD WATCH notes this about the above video:

TV host Mataz Matar demanded that El Shehaby withdraw: “My son watch out, don’t be fooled, or fool yourself thinking you will play with the Israeli athlete to defeat him and make Egypt happy. Egypt will cry; Egypt will be sad and you will be seen as a traitor and a normalizer in the eyes of your people.”

A normalizer. Islamic supremacists are determined never to treat Israel normally. They want it destroyed. That is all. No negotiated settlement will ever mollify them. But Western leaders persist in their fantasies nonetheless.

The WASHINGTON TIMES notes this anti–Semitism at the Games:

…The 2016 Olympic Games have been billed as an opportunity to put politics aside in the spirit of international camaraderie, but that’s not necessarily how it’s working out for Israeli athletes.

Animosity toward the 47-member delegation has triggered a reprimand from the International Olympic Committee and alarm from Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, which issued a statement this week decrying anti-Israel “hostility” in Rio de Janeiro.

“Shocking but not surprisingly, the Lebanese and Saudi delegations obviously have the wrong idea about the Olympic Games,” said a statement Wednesday by Roz Rothstein, CEO of the pro-Israel group Stand With Us.

“Instead of using the events to forget animosity and promote peace between people, they have brought their brainwashed minds to Rio,” she said. “How unfortunate that they could not implement the good, peaceful intentions of the Olympics, and instead have used it as a forum to spread hate and continued rejection of peace.”

[….]

On Sunday, however, the IOC issued a reprimand to the head of the Lebanese Olympic delegation after he blocked Israeli athletes from entering a bus that the teams were supposed to share to reach the opening ceremony.

Instead, Olympic organizers placed the Israeli athletes on a “special vehicle,” said Israeli sailing team trainer Udi Gal.

“The bus driver opened the door, but this time the head of the Lebanese delegation blocked the aisle and entrance,” Mr. Gal said on Facebook. “The organizers wanted to avoid an international and physical incident and sent us away to a different bus.”

He said he was “enraged and shocked by this event.”

“How is it possible that they let something like this happen and on the opening night of the Olympic Games?” he said.

Miri Regev, Israeli minister of culture and sports, blasted the Lebanese incident as “anti-Semitism, pure and simple, and the worst kind of racism.”

The Lebanese delegation head, Saleem al-Haj Nacoula, who was reportedly hailed in Lebanon as a hero, told Arabic media that he was “surprised to see the Israeli delegation approaching and trying to get on.”

“I told the bus driver to close the door, but a trainer who was with the Israelis prevented him from doing so,” he said, as reported by The Times of Israel. “I had to physically stand at the door and block him and the rest of the delegation from boarding, knowing that some were trying to force their way through and were looking for trouble.”

Days later, Joud Fahmy of Saudi Arabia forfeited a first-round judo match Sunday in what the Israeli press described as a tactic to avoid facing Israel’s Gili Cohen in the second round.

The Saudi team disputed the charge, insisting on Twitter that Ms. Fahmy had sustained injuries to her arms and legs during training, although episodes of Arab and Muslim athletes refusing to compete against Israelis are relatively common in international sports.

In June, Syrian boxer Ala Ghasoun refused to participate in an Olympic qualifying match against an Israeli, saying that to do so “would mean that I, as an athlete, and Syria, as a state, recognize the state of Israel.”

“I quit the competition because my rival was Israeli, and I cannot shake his hand or compete against him while he represents a Zionist regime that kills the Syrian people,” Mr. Ghasoun said in Arab media, according to Jerusalem’s i24 News.

During the 2012 London Olympics, Iranian judo champion Javad Mahjoud withdrew from a match against Israeli Arik Ze’evi. Mr. Mahjoud cited health concerns, but he previously admitted to throwing matches to avoid facing athletes from Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Israel’s national soccer team and its clubs have to compete in the World Cup and the continental tournaments in Europe rather than Asia, as geography would dictate, because so many Middle Eastern countries refuse to play them….

(WASHINGTON TIMES)