Saying Kaddish for Hamas.

On May 16, about 50 Jewish activists gathered in London’s Parliament Square and, in a public display of phoney grief, davened Kaddish.

This gathering was less about a genuine empathy for dead Palestinians. It was more an exhibition of Jew hatred for the Jewish state.

How do we know that? Well, these people proved they are not equal opportunity grievers. They did not gather to mourn the 1242 Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists since the year 2000. Instead, they collected together to publicly show their support for Palestinian terror. Of course, these useful idiots would protest vehemently at such a suggestion but what other conclusion can we reach when it was announced, from the Palestinian side, that at least 53 of the 58 rioters shot by IDF soldiers were, in fact, either members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

So, in mid-May, we had the spectacle of Jews meeting in the heart of British democracy to pray for the souls of those that were prevented by Jewish soldiers from slaughtering Jews.

Don’t take my word for it that this was their intention. Hamas Gaza chief, Yahiya Sinwar, incited his people by telling them, “We will tear down their borders and then tear out their hearts from their bodies.”

The grief in Parliament Square was by those who mourned the failure of Sinwar, Ismail Haniya, and others to rip out any Jewish hearts according to the Hamas vow to “fight the Jews until the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry out, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me. Come out and kill him!’”

While these Jews gather to mourn the death of Islamic terrorists, the parents of the dead Hamas terrorists celebrate their sons’ deaths.

“My son died as a Martyr defending Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. …Allah willing, all of them will follow this path, all the youth of Palestine. Allah be praised.”

These were the words of the mother of Mohammad Tarareih who butchered 13-year-old Israeli girl, Hallel Yaffa Arieh in 2016. There are many such words of praise from parents of the Palestinian butchers of Israeli Jews. Yet no public or private Kaddish were made by these fools for the soul of Yaffa.

Yet we witnessed the sickening gimmick of young progressive (read “regressive”) Jews gathered to mourn and honor dead members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in a faux display of moral superiority based on fake human rights values. They said they were expressing “Jewish values of justice,” and about the “Jewish principles of the sanctity of life.”

What sanctimonious hogwash! What they were doing was feeling sad for Palestinian who set out to murder Jews.

As for their “morality,’ Seth Frantzman asked in his Jerusalem Post article, “had these fifty Jews ever held a Kaddish for the dead of the Rwandan genocide or the thousands of Yazidis machine-gunned to death by ISIS, or for the hundreds of Israelis killed during the Second Intifada” or since by Palestinians? Or the Jewish victims of antisemitism?  Highly unlikely.

As for these Jews who never publicly mourned for the many hundreds of Israeli Jews murdered by Palestinians, shouldn’t they be told that Kaddish is a Jewish form of mourning normally held for ones one people, and certainly not for those dedicated to slaughter Jews? If that were so, the forefathers of these Parliament Square exhibitionists would surely have been holding Kaddish for the Nazis.

Let’s be very clear about it. This grotesque exhibition was a perverted form of anti-Semitism. When one mourns for those who set out to murder Jews this is, indeed, a deep form of Jew hatred, even if it is performed by Jews.

Who said you can’t be Jewish and an anti-Semite? With our superior sense of Jewish cunning even this is something we do better than the goyim.

It is shameful that, among the fake mourners, and those who later spoke and tweeted their support for them, were members of organizations that are officially represented in the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

By their words and actions, they shame and stain British Jewry.  It is high time that such groups be outlawed rather than welcomed into the bosom of British Jewry.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism.’

He is also the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Want to know why Israelis have little patience for Jewish Democrats?

Want to know why Israelis have little patience for Jewish Democrats?

First, none of their leaders accepted the invitation to attend the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel's capital.

Second, Bernie Sanders just agreed with Hamas that they have the right to return to Israel, which would spell the end of Israel.

Third, Dianne Feinstein endorsed the Fatah-Hamas call for a UN investigation of what happened on the Gaza border after all the delegates, except Nikki Haley and Israel had roundly condemned Israel and not Hamas.

So when Jewish Democrats wonder why Israel ignores their views on Israel or take their protests to be pro-Israel with a pinch of salt they will understand why.

These actions from their political leaders are as lame as they were when they backed the awful Obama-Kerry nuclear deal with Iran.

Or when Obama stuck the knife in Israel's back when voting against Israel.at his final session of the  UN Security Council and the Demos stayed silent.

The Demos are coming after Israel on two counts.

Our relief and massive appreciation for a president that keeps his promise and affirmatively stands with Israel is being threatened by Democrats who warn us not to get too close to Trump and stop applauding him because there could be a price to pay when they get back into power.

The other warning is that Israel had better adopt the Dems pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli, identity politics, that Israel should take measures that are against our security and strategic interests because the Dems know better and if we don't toe their line we can expect to have our defense allocation radically cut.

The Democratic Party is swinging irrevocably to the radical left. The DNC is looking increasingly like the UK Corbyn Labour Party but with greater emphasis on gender and racial politics. Achievements and ability have less merit that what you are. If you are a woman and black you are a shoe in for a top spot.  I am ready to place a wager that the next Democratic nominee for president will be a black woman, and if she has been sexually harassed by a white guy that only increases her chances of making it to the White House, which will immediately have a name change because the traditional name is blatantly racist. That would be fine if it didn't mean dividing America and the world along gender and racial lines. Increasingly in America, identity politics is about image, not substance. It is the image that you have to support. If not, you are an alt-right racist.
This does not auger well for Israel because the Dem mantra is that Palestinians are black oppressed victims meaning their cause is automatically just and right, meaning Israel is perceived as white and powerful and therefore unjust and wrong. See my recent article 'South Africa. It's not all black and white.' The same applies in spades to American far left politics.

Finally, I am not prepared to be lectured to on morality by JStreet and Jewish Bernie supporters who want to teach us how to become ethical people. They are quick to lecture us with their moral superiority about our "disproportionate use of force" in "killing peaceful protesters in Gaza," but then go quiet days later when it is shown that at least fifty three were either Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists.
They preach to us about Tikun Olam, their secular form of Judaism about repairing the world. Except, they don't repair the world. They only talk about it. It is tiny Israel that actually practices Tikun Olam on a global scale.

So what is Israel to do about the Democrat warnings and threats?
We Israel should do as we always do to those who lean on us. We tell them, "Lech likfotz li."

Loosely translated, this means "Go take a jump!"

Barry Shaw is the author of 'BDS for IDIOTS,' a seriously funny humiliation of anti-Israel BDS nonsense.

https://www.amazon.com/BDS-IDIOTS-BOYCOTT-ISRAEL-honestly/dp/152372157X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527318873&sr=8-1&keywords=bds+for+idiots

This is Israel’s insurmountable Palestinian problem.

        This is Israel's insurmountable Palestinian problem.

Thank you Czech Foreign Minister, Martin Stropnicky, for being a rare European leader with clarity of thought and the courage to state the obvious, that inciting thousands to tear down a nation's border fence in order to murder its citizens is an act of terror and that, in Gaza, it is Hamas that is guilty of international crimes, and not Israel.  

Stropnicky, in an official statement entitled "Gaza: Telling things as they really are," wrote that the concern is not only about the victims of the ongoing violence, "but also about its causes, including who initiates it. The fact is that Hamas, designated by the EU as a terrorist organization, is fully responsible for the form and objectives of the violent actions that have taken place on the border between Israel and Gaza for weeks."

The Czech minister called out Hamas for coming up with "provocative actions that no state in the world could accept."

"The persistent effort of the attackers to break the border fence and enter Israel can be considered an act of terrorism." Stropnicky also said that burning tires and setting fields on fire cannot be ignored. He also included Palestinians setting fire to the Kerem Shalom Crossing and sending minors to the fence so that Israel could be accused of killing children were also Hamas crimes.

Martin Stropnicky concluded what all this shows is that Hamas is not concerned about the people in Gaza and that its actions do nothing to contribute to a resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. 

His statement is in stark contrast to much of the European diplomatic bleating class who simply refuse to get it and prefer to dump the blame on Israel.

To support the courageous statement of the Czech Foreign Minister please watch what actually happened last week on Israel's border with Gaza. In this short video by my friend and colleague, Pierre Rehov, you will better understand what Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is up to, and how European diplomats have rewarded Hamas with a diplomatic and publicity victory by placing the blame onto the Jewish state. 

https://vimeo.com/271215407

The political incompetence of the EU simply emboldens Hamas to continue their violence. The inevitable outcome of such fake diplomacy will be if armed and indoctrinated Gazans manage to break into Israel and begin killing Israeli civilians and drag hostages back into Gaza, for these are the orders given by Hamas to the "protesters" on Israel's border.

The harsh truth is that Hamas is on a messianic mission to destroy Israel and kill Jews. Take a look at the screenshot which is the opening caption to this report. It shows one of the "peaceful Palestinian protesters" who managed to breach the border fence and was on his way, in his words, to slaughter Jews in the name of Allah.

This is the real face of "protests" along Israel's border with Gaza. They are not spontaneous. They are not peaceful. Their relentless propaganda is that a holy war against the Jews has to be fought to liberate Palestine "from the river to the sea." 

This dangerous nonsense must be seriously challenged. This, and this alone at this time, must be the principle aim of diplomats everywhere, but particularly European diplomats and politicians because this is, and always has been, the principle obstacle to any progress in solving the insurmountable Palestinian problem.

Until that happens, we Israelis must send our sons and daughters to do whatever is necessary to protect us and defend our country against the avowed enemies across our borders.

Barry Shaw is the author of 'Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism' and '1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel.' He is also the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. 

https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Hamas-BDS-Anti-Semitism-violence/dp/1508595534/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527243093&sr=8-1&keywords=fighting+hamas%2C+bds%2C+and+antisemitism

Your future will be run by Israeli innovation.

Not a week goes by without the Israeli press headlining major investments and partnerships between global corporations and Israeli start-ups and tech companies.  This may fly under your radar but pay attention. Today’s Israeli innovation will impact how you live your life tomorrow.

The opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem hit the global headlines but the news that 270 venture capitalists visited Jerusalem didn’t make a ripple. But this event will affect the lives of many millions of people going forward. 

There are currently 470 start-ups in Israel’s capital alone, and that number is growing.

How about these headlines. 

Intel plans to build a $5 Billion production center in Israel this year. Volkswagen opened a new technological center in Tel Aviv last week. Oil giant BP invested $20 Million in Israeli firm, StoreDot, which developed a battery system that could charge an electric car in the same time it takes to fill a gas tank. This was on top of the $60 Million it received from Daimler last September. The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance agreed to invest $50 Million this year in Israeli start-ups to find technologies for tomorrow’s self-drive vehicles.

The Israeli genie (technological genius) didn’t come out of a bottle. It emerged out of the IDF special 8020 unit. This unit is charged with developing technological solutions for Israel’s multiple security threats on various fronts in real time, often during actual operations, from aerial threats from Iran and other bad actors in the north and east of the country to Hamas headaches from their underground terror tunnels to their mass incursion attempts on our southern border.  Platforms had to be designed to intercept incoming missiles. Spyware to assist Israeli intelligence agencies in observing targeted enemy personnel. Aerial and ground cameras, interconnected ipads for field officers displaying the movement of terrorists, tracking suspects and movements with drones, cybersecurity, robotics, and automated equipment. The pressurized 8020 environment induced creative thinkers to come up with solutions that were immediately battle-tested in situations as varied as violent riots to cockpit advancement to enhance the ability of Israeli top gun fighter pilots.

What was used to guide and intercept missiles, keep computer systems secure from hackers or malfunction ,is being redeployed by 8020 operatives in civilian life into the development of automated vehicles.

Investment and partnerships are pouring into Israeli auto-tech from Samsung, Ford, GM, Daimler, Continental, Kia, and many other major companies. As Ford Executive chairman, Bill Ford, Jr, told Reuters, “A lot of entrepreneurs are coming out of the IDF and they tend to be older than their traditional Silicon Valley colleagues.” 

He could have added that the Israeli entrepreneurs have the edge over their Silicon Valley rivals by being battle-tested.

Investment in Israeli auto-tech, including venture capital, acquisitions, and joint ventures, last year amounted to $3.5 Billion. This figure will be surpassed by the end of 2018.

So what are these foreign auto and computer companies looking for from Israel for their cars of the future?  Security, imaging, location finding, analytics software, vehicle computers that keep hackers out, radar, sonar, sensors, and positioning systems to keep cars on the road and stop them crashing into other vehicles and objects. Israeli cyber and fraud detection techniques came out of its counter-terrorism needs. Optical and sonar software came from Israel’s missile defense requirements.

Korea’s Samsung and Kia have built a test road at Shefaim, just north of Tel Aviv, to evaluate self-drive cars with in-built Israeli technology. The CEO of one Israeli start-ups, supported by Samsung, spent seven years in an elite technology unit of the IDF Intelligence Corps.

In 2014, Google bought the Israeli mapping company, Waze, for $1.2 Billion. Anyone who has driven can attest to the amazingly accurate innovation that Waze has brought to everyday driving pleasure. The miracle of this Israeli technology is today considered commonplace. 

Then, last year, Intel spent a whopping $15.3 Billion on Israeli autonomous vehicle technology firm Mobileye and moved all its operations in the auto-tech field to Jerusalem.

For a country not known for its automotive industry, it is miraculous that tiny Israel now has over five hundred start-ups dealing with the global automotive industry alone. 

The Chinese have been attracted to Israel, as has Porsche and Honda. “We are going to do more here,” said Honda’s Innovations chief.

The Israeli tech sector employs over 270,000 highly trained engineers and programmers. At least another 10,000 will be needed within the next few years. 

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the author of ‘BDS for IDIOTS,’ a seriously funny humiliation of BDS activism.

https://www.amazon.com/BDS-IDIOTS-BOYCOTT-ISRAEL-honestly/dp/152372157X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527146683&sr=8-1&keywords=bds+for+idiots

In South Africa, someone needs to get an education.

Yaakov Amidror, the former national security adviser, told an Israel Project conference that “relations with South Africa are not that important to Israel so, if they want their ambassador back, they are most welcome.”

This undiplomatic statement was made after South Africa pulled its ambassador out of Israel following the Hamas promoted violence.

Having met the ambassador, I can attest that Amidror is right. I have never met such an unpleasant and provocative ambassador as Sisa Mgombane who came to Israel with a heinous anti-Israel stance and began to off load his “Israel is a racist apartheid state’ venom on the two shocked guests I brought to him on a courtesy visit.

As we left the meeting my guests, two black South African pastors, embarrassingly apologized to me for their ambassador. They happened to view Israel completely differently.

The problem in South Africa is that the ANC has veered desperately away from the path of Nelson Mandela. Now they have the reins of power, they wield them with a radical ideology. Everything is black or white, and what they perceive as white has no legitimacy.

Currently in South Africa, Afrikaans farmers are being threatened, tortured, and brutally murdered for being white. They are either driven from their farms and out of the country, or they live in very real fear. The recent murder of an elderly white couple has triggered a furious debate about the growing crimes against white land owners. The woman was strangled with a wire cord, and the intruders slit her husband’s throat. There were six such murders within 3 days of this incident. The perpetrators of many of these brutal murders go unpunished. 

South Africa voted to seize the land of white farmers without paying them compensation. This was a step that led Zimbabwe to economic ruin under Mugabe. The ANC Government seems keen for South Africa to follow in Zimbabwe’s failed path. And they pick on Israel for their scorn. They really have strayed too far from the path of Mandela.

In 2015, Leila Khaled was invited to South Africa by BDS to help them in their fundraising efforts. When you need a Palestinian terrorist and convicted plane hijacker to raise money you know you have a troublesome organization, Yet this did not stop the ANC South African Government, that walks in lockstep with BDS, to officially welcome Khaled as a hero.

Amidror is right. There is little economic or political will in South Africa to reach out to Israel, an Israel that extended its hand to help them with their drought and lack of clean water, a hand that was rejected. An Israel that can improve their quality of life with our technology and science. Apparently, they don’t want to improve their people’s future with Israel’s help and innovation.

They won’t change until someone tells them that their simple notion that the world turns on   black is good and white is bad, and black is right and white is wrong. This sadly misplaced nonsense positions Palestinian Arabs as black and therefore right, and Israel as white and therefore always in the wrong.

South Africa used to call itself the Rainbow Nation. Not anymore. If the South African government, a government that is persecuting white farmers, want to see a Rainbow Nation north of Cape Town it has to search up the immense dark continent of Africa, across the vast north African zone of conflict and poverty, and through the Muslim Middle East until it reaches the only spot, a tiny spot, that can truly be called the Rainbow Nation. The State of Israel.

Israel has welcomed and absorbed unwanted Jews of all color and culture from the Muslim world, from Asia, South America, Russia, even black Jews from war torn Ethiopia. All are fully integrated Israeli citizens. Among Israeli citizens are Christians, Muslims, Druze, Bedouin, Bahai, Aramean, people of all color and faith. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population has grown. Israel is not an apartheid state. It is a diverse Rainbow Nation. Compare that to the Muslim states in the Middle East. Show me one without a dwindling Christianity. Show me one with a working, thriving Jewish community, if they have any Jews at all? Yet South Africa calls Israel an apartheid state!

So I totally reject the myopic prattle of BDS-supporting ANC South Africa and their nonsensical notion of Israel as an apartheid state. So while the South African government practices a reverse apartheid policy against their own minority white farmers, if the ANC really want to see where genuine apartheid is being practiced against the Palestinian Arabs they so passionate support, let them look no further than Jordan.
In Jordan, over a million Arabs, who call themselves Palestinian, still live in refugee camps after 70 years into their fifth generation, stateless, deprived of higher education and government jobs. This is real apartheid but ANC has nothing to say about that. No Jordan Apartheid Week on South African campuses. Hypocrites!

Or the biggest shock of all. Palestinians living in refugee camps under the full civil and security administration of the Palestinian Authority! BDS-loving ANC are completely silent about this apartheid abuse of Palestinians by Palestinians. Instead, they invent a non-existent apartheid screed against the Jewish state.

There is a psychological asymmetry between South Africa and Turkey. Under Erdogan’s rule, Turkey suppresses their own people, are killing the Kurds, support Hamas while condemning Israel for Hamas committed crimes, as the ANC suppresses their white farmers, support Hamas, and condemn Israel for anything and everything. This is the similarity between ANC and a Turkey guilty of the  genocide against Armenian Christians.

Black Christian ANC members are so color sensitive in persuading us that Arabs are black like them, and therefore in need of their support and protection. They offer them a special dispensation in the killing of "whites" (in our case, Israelis) in an effort to drive them off their land (in our case, the Land of Israel).  But, let them consider this.

The ANC South African government shamefully turns a blind eye to the butchery of white South African farmers at home while also turning the other blind eye to the slaughter and slavery of fellow Christian Africans at the hands of Arab Islamic terrorists, some, like Erdogan, of the Muslim Brotherhood persuasion.

In Africa, Arab Muslims today still force black African Christians into slavery as they have been doing for centuries. Yet the black South African Christian ANC ignores the plight of their fellow African Christians and compliment Arab Palestinians by falsely calling them black.  Clearly this is an uneducated nonsense used only to portray Israel as being white as they heap more false charges against the Jewish state in support of the terror tactics of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, just like Turkey.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, BDS, Leila Khaled, Fatah. This is the company that the South African government prefers to keep. 

Somebody needs to get an education. Tell the South African government it's not all black and white, as they mistakenly make it out to be.  

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism’ and ‘BDS for IDIOTS.’  He is also the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

I

Why does the Western media always fall into the Hamas trap?

Did you notice, during the recent mass riots on Israel’s border with Gaza how the Western media played their knee-jerk role of turning the violence into an emotional defense of Palestinians and an attack on Israel?  Why do the media always fall into the terrorist trap?

They always talk of Palestinian civilian deaths instead of dead Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists. The latter would be more truthful, but it wouldn’t make such tear-jerking headlines, would it? 

If truth be told, telling the truth would put Israel on the moral high ground but that would be against editorial intentions. Tales of dead babies win every time against a tale of Jews defending their country against a fomented mob of 40,000.

So take a good look at the photo. These are the real faces of those killed during the Hamas-motivated suicide riots. They are three of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists killed by Israeli IDF snipers during the so-called “protests” on May 14. Of course, they didn’t wear their uniforms as they herded excited Gazans to the border fence to burn tires creating choking black smokescreens to blind Israeli soldiers as they feverishly snipped at the border fence or placed explosive devises there.

The vast majority of those killed were paid up members of the Hamas terror group. This was admitted by both senior Hamas official, Salah Bardawil, and by Yahiya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Mahmoud Rantisi, a Hamas terrorist who had been caught and imprisoned by Israel but released in a prisoner exchange for captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, while grieving over the death of his son, admitted that his son was a “jihad fighter” and “an operator in the nukhba,” the Hamas elite force. Like father, like son. Killers, or potential killers, of Jews.

Of course, you wouldn’t know these things if you read the Western media or watched their frenetic reporters dressed in flak-jackets and wearing helmets in front of a background of dramatic bellowing smoke. They never talk of “jihad,” or “armed struggle,” or that “The Zionist enemy is our adversary, and there is no room on our land for it. This is jihad – victory or causing death in the way of Allah!”

These were official Hamas quotes to the people as they bused them to the border and led them onto the battlefield with the declared intention of breaking through the flimsy fence to kill soldiers and settlers and, using concealed knives and guns, to kidnap Jewish villagers and drag them back into Gaza.

Instead, the media fell into the trap of describing unarmed Palestinian civilians being killed or injured with “disproportionate force” by Israelis.

As international law professor, Alan Dershowitz, who went to visit the border, asked, “Why does the media keep encouraging Hamas violence?” by their misreporting of the facts.

The reason is that lazy journalists can’t be bothered to do investigative reporting. Had they done so they would know that the IDF does not open fire indiscriminately.  Rather, the snipers are under the command of an officer and each shot required approval. What is not known by the lazy journalists is the technology in battle conditions that enables the soldier to identify and pinpoint terrorist individuals, some armed, hiding among supportive civilians and leading them in their quest to get to the border fence. The IDF soldiers may not know the identity of the terrorists while events are unfolding but, with the use of technology, they can see how the battlefield is unfolding and who are the major operatives leading the charge. In numerous cases, the IDF units can see with technological aids who is carrying weapons, explosives, or items designed to breach the fence. Without divulging too much about the sophisticated employment of battle technology by the IDF,  which aids the military intelligence in real time on the battlefield, it is possible to kill or maim with accuracy to prevent life-threatening situations against soldiers or the Israeli civilian population they are defending and who are living very close to the border. That is why, days later after the frenzied shallow journalists have printed and aired their emotion-laden reports, the actual facts slowly emerge that the vast majority of those killed are identified as known terrorists. But by then, the anti-Israel damage has been done and Hamas declares a huge propaganda victory.

The sad gap between emotion grabbing headlines and facts was exhibited by the British Daily Express which portrayed Israel as baby-killers with the lurid headline, “Mother’s agony as baby dies in Gaza gas horror.”

The problem with this troublesome and gruesome lie was that it conflicted with the Gazan doctor who told AP that the baby in question had a pre-existing heart condition and that he didn’t believe its death was caused by tear gas.

Equally repulsive was the nonsense put out by The Independent newspaper. Referring to the baby’s death, it wrote, “In this context it is worth reminding ourselves of the worldwide wave of revulsion against chemical weapons we have seen in recent weeks.”

What has this to do with non-lethal tear gas to break up a demonstration? This was falsely explained in the article. “Palestinian victims deserve the same sympathy and protests as anyone else when their children suffer from gassing.”

Get the picture? The grotesque Independent equates Israel’s use of non-lethal tear gas to break up a mass riot of 40,000 Palestinians to the deliberate barrel-bombing of Syrian civilians by Assad with deadly chemical weapons. Assad, who has so far killed 600,000 of his own people and thousands of Palestinians.

Honest Reporting rightly called this Independent piece, “utterly despicable.”

It took the Arab media to force Hamas into an admission that, overwhelmingly, the majority of the dead that resulted from their suicide riots were Hamas members. An Arab TV interviewer demanded to know why Hamas had allowed “people’s children to go to their deaths while Hamas reaps the fruit.”  Why didn't the Western media ask that question?

To protect the reputation of Hamas,  Bardawil claimed. “It cannot be said that Hamas was ‘reaping the fruits.’ It paid the highest price. Fifty were from Hamas. The figures are official.”

As such, papers such as The Independent and the Daily Express have become propaganda sheets of the Hamas terror organization and Islamic Jihad, while some in the Arab media know exactly what is going on.

Shame on the Western media. They have totally lost the plot with their fake news. And they consistently fall into the Hamas trap with their shallow journalism.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism.’ He is also the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Hamas-BDS-Anti-Semitism-violence/dp/1508595534/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526610515&sr=8-1&keywords=fighting+hamas%2C+bds%2C+and+antisemitism

The Bible Predicted the Opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

The Bible Predicted the Opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

The May 14 celebrations surrounding the opening of the United State Embassy was predicted in the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament.

Both the circumstance and the location are mentioned in Jeremiah 32:42-44.

Following the awful prediction of the fate of the Jews that they were to suffer the loss of sovereignty in their land and suffer unspeakable degradation in exile, the prophet Jeremiah quoted G-d as saying “As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I promised them. Fields will flourish and be bought again in this land which you describe as a desolate waste without people or animals.”

Following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews from their ancient land, the wandering Jew endured hate, injury, punishment, and death wherever they roamed in exile seeking shelter and sanctuary from persecution. 

Even less than a century before the Holocaust, visitors to Palestine, a backwater of the fading Ottoman Empire, but attracted by the spiritual quotations of the Bible, reported that it was a place devoid of people and prosperity. In 1867, Mark Twain called the place, “A silent mournful expanse. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We never saw a human being the whole route. There was hardly a tree of a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the shrub, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

But Jeremiah quoted G-d’s prediction in powerful words that have a profound truth today, “Thus says the God of Israel. I will gather them out of all the countries and I will bring them again to this place. And I will cause them to dwell safely. And they shall be My people, and I shall be their God. And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and the good of their children. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them. I will rejoice over them and do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with My whole heart and with My whole soul. For I say, like I brought upon them all this great evil, so will I bring on them all the good that I have promised them.”

Then, predicting the location, Jeremiah writes, “Fields shall be bought in this land. Men shall buy the fields for money and subscribe evidence, and seal them and take witness (hence the ceremonial opening of the US Embassy), in the land of Benjamin and in the places around Jerusalem.”

The map of the tribe of Benjamin in centered on Jerusalem. 

It is no coincidence that Jimmy Morales, the President of Guatemala will be in another part of Jerusalem on May 17 to officially open his countries embassy in what was the land of Benjamin. 

Also this month, President Horatio Carter will inaugurate the new Embassy of Paraguay later this month.

All display the realization of Jeremiah’s prophecies made more than two millennia ago as Israel and Jews have stood steadfast to the notion of Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people through pain, suffering, and triumph.

It should also be noted that it was on May 14, exactly seventy years ago, that, against enormous opposition, President Harry Truman defied his political rivals, including many in his own party, by signing off on the following statement.” This government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.”

David Ben Gurion recorded that when he met Truman at a New York hotel in 1961 to tell him of his immortal place in Jewish history the former president broke into tears.  Ben Gurion wrote of this incident, “I had rarely seen anyone so moved. I tried to hold him for a few minutes until he became more composed. A little while later, after we left, a reporter came to me to ask, ‘why was President Truman in tears when he left you?’”

Standing in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people has an awesome effect on a major world leader and, in becoming the first world leader to officially declare Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State of Israel, Donald J. Trump became the most consequential American president since Harry Truman.

Barry Shaw is the author of ‘1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel’ and ‘Sarah’s Story. A Tale of Love and Destiny,’ both available on Amazon and at Steimatzky bookstores in Israel.

He is also the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Meet Brett McGurk. The ISIS Exterminator.

Meet Brett McGurk. He is the president's man ordered to defeat ISIS. In other words, he is the ISIS Exterminator!

Speaking at the Herzlia Conference in Israel in May 2018, McGurk presented a couple of maps. 
One showed the ISIS areas of influence in Iraq and Syria in January 2017, colored in orange.

At that time, McGurk was ordered by the incoming president to "step things up" in the fight against ISIS.

The second map shows the diminished areas of ISIS influence as of last month (April 2018).
Orange indicates ISIS occupied territory.

McGurk confided that a new campaign began a couple of weeks ago with air strikes against ISIS targets colored orange numbered 2 on the April map.
This is one of the remaining locations where ISIS leaders and hardcore fighters are holed up. 

The other remaining ISIS stronghold is in the orange area in south west Syria close to the borders of Jordan and Israel. (see the 3rd map called the Southern Syria Ceasefire lines) 

This will be the next area to receive the attention of Brett McGurk, the ISIS exterminator.

Barry Shaw, 
Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
Author of 'Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism' and '1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel.'

Israel and Bike Racing. A New Love Affair.

The second greatest bike race was replete with significance in 2018.

One man deservedly garnered praise for bringing the Giro d’Italia, a cycling race with a 110-year history, to Israel, the first time it has started outside of Europe.

Sylvan Adams is an Israeli-Canadian real estate investor with a passion for cycling. Adams is a man with a dream. He dreamed as he raced in long distance road races of having an Israeli team competing in the major cycling events and he created an ambitious plan. He funded the Israel Cycling Academy putting together a logistics team and recruiting some of the prominent professional racers as well as searching out promising young Israeli cyclists. And then he went one step further. He went to the organizers of the famous Giro d’Italia, second only to the Tour de France, with an offer they couldn’t refuse. He gave them a huge sponsorship deal, some say to the tune of $20 million, on condition they organize the ‘Big Start’ of the event in Israel. That is how, on May 4, 2018, the world’s best riders and race teams lined up for the twisting eight kilometer individual time trial prologue through the streets of Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.

Tourists in Rome, where the Giro traditionally ends, frequently visit the Arch of Titus located in the Roman Forum to view the relief panels depicting the Roman rape of Jerusalem just over two thousand years ago. Jews that were not slaughtered were dragged into captivity and slavery in Rome. Some were fed to wild animals as entertainment for the masses in the Colosseum. The treasures of the destroyed Jewish Temple were pillaged and brought in triumph to Rome. The panels of the famous arch show “The Spoils of Jerusalem” with Jewish captives and some of the treasures, particularly the heavy gold menorah that lit the temple, a symbol that has become the national symbol of the modern Jewish State, being carried in triumphant procession.

Romans are a proud people. One taxi driver in Rome boasted to me about his family history. He said he was so Roman that he could trace his heritage back to the Roman days in Jerusalem. A wild claim, but one that is typically Roman.

Following the pillage of Jerusalem by Titus there was a Jewish Revolt that defied the Romans but Emperor Hadrian put down the resistance with overwhelming force and cruelty and as a final insult he renamed ancient Israel “Syria Palaestina.”

Now, thanks to Sylvan Adams, the Roman road led back to Jerusalem and Stage One of the Giro d’Italia.

The link between the Giro and the Jewish State is not new. It was reflected in a special ceremony in which Italy’s greatest cyclist was honored. Gino Bartali won the Giro three times, straddling World War Two between his victories. He also won two Tour de France events in the same vein. But it was his courageous covert activities during the war that made him a hero to Jews. Risking his life, he helped rescue hundreds of Jews from the ravages of the Holocaust by using his bike and his fame to courier messages and documents across Nazi occupied Italy to the underground who were smuggling Jews to safety in Palestine, now Israel. Many of the survivors and their children paid tribute to Bartali at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial site that honors “the righteous among nations.”  Many of the Giro organizers and riders attended. Some rode through a special 14 km biking trail through a forest by Jerusalem named in Bartali’s honor.

And so Italy and the Giro came full circle with Israel, Jerusalem, and the Jewish people in the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia. Enthusiastic crowds lined the route. New to the world of professional road race cycling, Israelis took the sport to their hearts as the 179 riders set out on the following day’s stage leading them 169 km from Haifa to Akko, the ancient Roman port of Caesarea, before finishing between Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
It was during this stage that another cycling miracle occurred when the Israeli team riders began to appear prominently at the head of the field. Guillaume Boivin narrowly lost the intermediate hill stage in Zichron Yaakov. But the miracle burst into force on the gruelling Stage 3, the 229 km testing ride from Beer Sheba through the Negev desert to Eilat. The breakaway group of three included Boivin, riding for the Israeli team, who forced himself to victory in the intermediate sprint stages. The leading trio were caught by the main group just 5km from the finish line after being out in front for over 220 km.

The race moved to Italy, but it has left behind an Israel that is enthused about professional cycling and a global viewing audience thrilled with the race and the breath-taking sights that the amazing cameramen have taken from their seats on the back of motorbikes and from the air in their helicopters.

The Giro will surely give a boost to Israeli tourism. It as a positive rebuttal to the fraudulent anti-Israel BDS narrative that tries to cast a stigma on Israel as an oppressive, racist, country. Instead viewers saw the real diverse Israel with its wonderful churches, temples, and mosques, Arabs, Christians, Bahai, Druze, and Bedouin.
The Giro opened Israel to a billion people who were seeing Israel, many for the first time, beyond the conflict.

As a delighted Sylvan Adams put it, “Israel has already won this race, as it afforded hundreds of millions of TV spectators to see our beautiful country, and feel the warmth of our people, bearing witness that Israel is a diverse, open and free country. This was a Giro d’Israel, a three-day tour around our special country. I could say that Israel found the Giro, but the Giro also found Israel.”

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.  He is the author of BDS for IDIOTS, a former marathon runner, and an admirer of road race cyclists.

https://www.amazon.com/BDS-IDIOTS-BOYCOTT-ISRAEL-honestly/dp/152372157X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525711248&sr=8-1&keywords=bds+for+idiots