Not quite Good News Friday

After the terrible news from yesterday, with the murder of young Hallel Yafa Ariel by a despicable terrorist, followed by another terrorist stabbing of two Israelis in Netanya yesterday evening, badly injuring one of them, I can hardly bring myself to post good news about anything, Shabbat or no Shabbat.

UPDATE: Just as I was about to publish this post, word reaches us of yet another terrorist attack: an Israeli man has been shot dead, his wife seriously wounded and two other family members also injured, on route 60 between Bet Haggai and Otniel in the Hebron Hills.

One person was killed and three others wounded in a shooting attack at the Adorayim Junction south of Hevron in Judea.

Scene of the shooting attack

The fatality has been identified as a 40, who was traveling in his car with his family when it was targeted.

His wife was seriously wounded in the attack, and was evacuated to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital with multiple gunshot wounds to her upper body.

Two other family members were also wounded in the attack, one moderately and the other lightly.

…The attack bears a chilling resemblance to the drive-by shooting which targeted another Jewish family in the same area in November last year.

Rabbi Yaakov Litman and his son Netanel were murdered in that attack, as they were traveling with their family. Thhat deadly attack also took place on a Friday, not long before Shabbat.

The latest attack comes just hours after an attempted stabbing at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in nearby Hevron.

In that incident, a female Arab terrorist was shot dead when she drew a knife and attempted to stab Israeli soldiers guarding the holy site. There were no Israeli casualties in that incident.

So this week’s Good News Friday installment is going to have a slightly different flavour, on a more minor note than usual.

Quite amazingly there have been two items of (sort of) good news from the UN. The first is from a couple of weeks ago, when for the first time in history, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, was voted in as chair of the Legal Committee:

On Monday, Israel Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon made history, becoming the first Israeli representative ever chosen to lead a permanent committee at the UN.

Ambassador Danny Danon

Following months of diplomatic efforts, Danon was elected to lead the United Nations Legal Committee.

The UN Legal Committee, the international organization’s sixth committee, manages all of the United Nations’ international law operations, covering everything from enforcement of the Geneva Conventions to coordinating the global fight against terrorism.

As chair of the Legal Committee, Danon will be charged with be to expand the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

“I am proud to be the first Israeli elected to this position,” said Ambassador Danon.  “Israel is a world leader in international law and in fighting terrorism.  We are pleased to have the opportunity to share our knowledge with the countries of the world.”

The election was preceded by a long and strenuous diplomatic effort by Israel’s Mission to the UN, working in tandem with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem and Israeli embassies around the world.

Despite efforts by members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which include many member-states hostile to Israel, to block Ambassador Danon’s election, enough votes were secured on Monday to ensure Danon would chair the committee.

The efforts, as mentioned above, by Israel’s enemies, the Islamic countries and the NAM, caused their scheme to backfire, forcing an election instead of a simple appointment, which the West did not take kindly to, as Reuters explains:

Normally committee heads are elected by consensus without a vote. Opponents to the Israeli candidacy called for a vote, prompting a sharp reaction from the deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N., David Pressman.

“Even a chair from (former leader Muammar) Gaddafi’s Libya was elected by acclamation,” he said in a statement. “A vote should not have been called today.”

“We need a United Nations that includes Israel, that brings Israel closer, not one that systematically pushes Israel away,” he added.

The Arabs whined and complained, as they always do when things don’t go their way, but this time they couldn’t run to the UN!:

The chief Palestinian delegate at the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, complained about the results of the election, saying Arab and Muslim countries had tried to prevent an Israeli victory.

Speaking to reporters, Mansour described Israel as “the biggest violator of international law” and predicted that Danon’s election was “threatening the work of the Sixth Committee.”

“Hoist with their own petard” is what comes to mind.

Well done Ambassador Danon! Kol hakavod to you and to all the civilized Western nations who elected you. May you continue to be a strong and proud representative of our country.

The second item of good news from the UN (please scrape your jaws off the floor) is that Western countries boycotted the annual Hate Israel Day, aka the debate under the “special agenda” of the Human Rights  Wrongs Council dedicated to bashing Israel:

GENEVA, June 27 — While Arab and Islamic states today blasted Israel at the UN Human Rights Council— in a debate held under the special agenda item against the Jewish state, a permanent fixture of every meeting—UN Watch, the first non-governmental group to take the floor, welcomed the fact that not a single Western democracy participated in the debate.

Qatar, speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, “deplored decisions by certain states to boycott this agenda item, which encouraged Israel to continue committing crimes against the Palestinians.”

But others welcomed the gesture. “In 1968, René Cassin, at the 20th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which he helped to create, left early in protest at the singling out of Israel,” UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer told the council.

“Today, on the 10th anniversary of the Human Rights Council, the free world has protested the vilification of Israel by not showing up at all.”

If you have the stomach for it, you can read, at UN Watch‘s link above, the revolting reactions of those backwards and uncivilized countries, bastions of enormous human-rights abuses  who all condemned Israel and the West’s decision to boycott the debate.

A huge Kol Hakavod to Hillel Neuer of UN Watch for his unstinting defence of Israel in the face of massive hostility and hatred. And kudos too to the Western countries who have finally come to their senses about Israel – at least for the moment.

Talking about delegitimization, not to mention hoist with his own petard, the following is too good not to share. Mahmoud Abbas chose to present Saudi King Salman with a “commemorative gift” of Palestine. And presented him with a framed copy of the Palestine Post. Which is the precursor of the (Zionist, Jewish, Israeli) Jerusalem Post.  You couldn’t make this stuff up! 😀

I love the way the Jerusalem Post takes the mickey out of Abbas:

Mahmoud #Abbas presents Saudi King Salman with a framed copy of 'The Palestine Post'. Wonder if he's a subscriber. pic.twitter.com/B02y7RlrRV

— David Brinn (@davidbjpost) June 20, 2016

All kinds of brilliant @Jerusalem_Post! cc. @yaakovkatz @stevelinde @LahavHarkov @sfrantzman https://t.co/wy8g4alKMc—
Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) June 23, 2016

The Elder of Ziyon managed to actually identify which edition of the newspaper is involved:

I actually found the date of the newspaper: August 13, 1935.

It details a visit by the Emir Saud to Palestine, which is why Abbas chose that date. But it also has stories that Abbas might not want the king to read, like “Lucerne Beehive of Activity as Zionist Delegates Arrive” and “Health Spas Ban All Jews” in Germany which was written by the very Jewish “Palestine Telegraphic Agency,” or “Vienna Police Seek 2 Arabs” – not calling them “Palestinians” for some odd reason.

The Elder makes an extremely pertinent point, very useful when arguing with Israel’s denigrators:

Why couldn’t Abbas find a non-Zionist newspaper with “Palestine” in the title to show the King this article?

And of course we all know the answer – because there was never any Arab state called Palestine, not then and not now.

And now as a fitting finale to this sad Shabbat, I bring you two very encouraging stories from amazingly brave people:  one is a Muslim Arab woman, one is a Muslim Arab youngster, both of whom have expressed their disgust with the violence and hypocrisy of their own society and proudly declare their love for Israel.

Nadiya Al-Noor

First we have Nadiya Al-Noor in the Times of Israel: ho writes an open letter on Palestinian terrorism and Muslim hypocrisy:

I am a Muslim, and I know that when it comes to Palestinian terrorism, too many Muslims are hypocrites. I have seen firsthand the casual, destructive anti-Semitism that plagues the Muslim community. I have heard it from the mouths of our religious leaders, from our politicians, and even from our otherwise peaceful, liberal Muslim activists. I have witnessed in horror the desperate attempts to justify Palestinian terrorism from people who I once respected. Why? Why do we decry all other types of terrorism, but bend over backwards to legitimize violence against Israeli Jews?

We blame it on “Zionism.” We blame it on “occupation.” We blame it on “apartheid.” We lap up the tired, anti-Semitic lies fed to us by Al-Jazeera: “Israelis cut off the water supply!” “Israelis are going to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque!” We’re not even willing to admit that Israel is a country. We call it “Palestine.” We refuse to call violence against Israelis “terrorism,” and we hypocritically scream, “Resistance is not a crime!”

Let me tell you something. Stabbing pregnant women in the stomach is not “resistance.” Shooting people at a cafe is not “resistance.” Driving your car into pedestrians is not “resistance.” Bombing a bus is not “resistance.” Breaking into a woman’s home and murdering her in front of her children is not “resistance.” And stabbing a little girl to death in the one place where she was supposed to be safe is certainly not “resistance.” Terrorism is not resistance. Terrorism is an unjustifiable crime.

… We will sob to the heavens if a Palestinian is killed, but when it comes to Palestinian terrorism against Jews, we either turn a blind eye to it, or we twist the story to make the terrorists into the victims. This is unacceptable.

…

When you make excuses for terrorists, you support terrorism. Period. Until we stand against terrorism in all its forms, against terrorists from every background, we Muslims are hypocrites. Allah does not love hypocrites.

The world lost a beautiful little girl on Thursday. We must not let Hallel’s death be ignored. We must fight anti-Semitism in all its forms, and that includes fighting against Palestinian terrorism. This was a terrible tragedy, and we must work to prevent it from happening to someone else’s child. In the words of my friend Afshine Emrani, an Iranian-American, “Dear God. Help us. We are not supposed to say Kaddish for a bat mitzvah girl.”

Nadiya’s open letter literally brought tears to my eyes. I wonder if she knows how comforting it is for an Israeli to read these words of support from a Muslim woman. Kol hakavod to her for her bravery in writing these strong words in condemnation of Muslim violence and for calling out Islamic terrorism in clear terms, without obfuscation. I hope she stays safe as she continues with her excellent interfaith work.

Mahdi Satre

The second Arab writer  that I wanted to bring to your attention is a guest-poster at Israellycool: Mahdi Satre, an Israeli Arab who talks about his Zionism and support for Israel in the face of huge hostility back home:

I’m the son of a Palestinian Arab Muslim who born in Gaza and came to Israel for political asylum. He married my Israeli Arab mother, and I was born in Tel Aviv. A few years later, we moved to my village, a racist hateful village. When they found out that my father helped the IDF, they started a war on us.

Why? Because my father decided to be a patriot of his own country.

…

By the time I was in the 9th grade, I started to think that it was not true what they were saying, how they promote hatred against our country and against the Jewish people, how they spread things I knew were lies based on the evidence that was all around me. From here I started to stand against their thoughts and I joined the Likud youth, inspired by my father.

So they started to hate me more and more and they did terrible things to me. They threatened me, they hit me, they beat me… my friends and many loved ones turned their backs on me when I started to get more involved on a national level. I’m now 17-years-old and starting 12th grade.

Despite these hardships, nobody has succeeded to calm me down. After 3 years of violence against me after coming out publicly with my Zionism and I’m still the last man standing, standing against my village. So what happened to my father is happening with me now.

…

And I’ve one message for these people:

I can’t be stopped, no one can calm me down, no one can forbid me from defending my country for their silly tribalist reasons that are based on emotion and cultural ties and not on truth, not on what would be best for their futures, for their standard of living, for their human rights.

I’ll keep fighting my country’s enemies until the last drop of blood in my body.

Do whatever you want, if you want to threaten, threaten. I have every right to refuse to listen to these baseless threats.

Everyone should know the truth about Israel

And how we’re not living under a brutal occupation as the haters claim.

We’re living in a paradise.

Israel is home to everyone: Jews and Arabs. We live better under Israel’s government than ever before in our history. Meanwhile if a Zionist Jew wanted to live in Ramallah he would worry about being killed, and wouldn’t be allowed to buy property.

I’m here to not only tell my story but also tell it like it is. The truth as I see it.

AM ISRAEL CHAI

LONG LIVE ISRAEL

Young Mahdi’s words are breath-taking in their honesty and clarity. I can’t imagine the hardship that he has suffered, the violence and threats that he still undergoes because he will not give up his love for Israel. If only Palestinian society would take their cues from Mahdi instead of from their corrupt and bigoted leaders, what a paradise we could all have – not only in Israel but in all the region.

Kol hakavod to Mahdi on his courage and outspokenness. I hope he too stays safe and enjoys continued success in his studies and future endeavours.

With these warm words of support against the background of more terrible news, I wish you all a peaceful, safe and quiet Shabbat Shalom.