You Couldn’t Make It Up

Even given that we live in an insane world, the following story beggars belief. Apparently Yahoo! and Apple have decided that they get to decide the fate of Jerusalem.

Yep. Never mind that Jerusalem had a Jewish majority long before Islam even existed.

Never mind that Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel both legally, and morally.

Never mind that when Jordan controlled Jerusalem, it turned holy Jewish sites into horse stables.

Never mind any of that. Apparently Yahoo! and Apple feel that they – not international law, not the Israeli government, and certainly not Jews – get to determine what is part of the Jewish capital of the Jewish nation, and what is not.

Read it and weep, folks:

YAHOO! AND APPLE DIVIDE JERUSALEM ON IPHONE

by Hana Levi Julian

Internet giant Yahoo! and the Apple computer firm have apparently decided to pre-empt those pesky Israel-Palestinian Authority negotiations and divide the holy city of Jerusalem on their own.

Yahoo! — which runs the weather software application for the slick Apple iPhone — last month removed Israel’s capital city from its list of international locations from which to view weather conditions.

Instead, one must now choose between East Jerusalem or West Jerusalem in order to figure out what the weather is going to be in the city.

The latitude and longitude coordinates for both locations are exactly the same, as is the temperature and other weather details.

On the Yahoo! weather page, which is linked to The Weather Channel, one is offered two Middle East options when requesting weather information for Jerusalem – Jerusalem, Yerushalayim (IL), Jerusalem, and Palestinian Occupied Territories > West Bank, Jerusalem (PS).

Clearly Yahoo! and Apple executives have decided to recognize the Palestinian State long before direct negotiations have even been contemplated by the parties themselves, let alone conducted to determine actual borders.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, expressed his disappointment with the fact that “Jerusalem, which has been united for 43 years, has been divided by the computer giant and the popular search engine.”

Oren sent a letter of protest to both Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Apple CEO Steve Jobbs. He added that he and the rest of the Israel Embassy staff use the iPhone.

Readers may write to both to protest as well at the following emails: to Yahoo!’s Carol Bartz, care of: cc-advoc@yahoo-inc.com and to Apple’s Steve Jobbs through filling out the customer feedback form by clicking here.

Shame On You, Panorama…

Some of you will, like me, have watched in horror as the BBC’s Panorama show recently twisted the history of Jerusalem to obscure any Jewish connection to the city.

Indeed, the bias was so blatant it’s a wonder that the BBC wasn’t embarassed to air this pitiful excuse of a programme.

Here’s just one of many articles that has been written on this appalling piece of ‘journalism’.

Via Isrelate:

BBC’s Inaccurate Panorama

| Author: David Soakell

The BBC’s Panorama programme this week once again proved just how biased the British Broadcasting Corporation have become.

The documentary clearly distorted the Jewish history and rights to Jerusalem while promoting a one-sided and biased agenda.

Many groups have been ‘up-in-arms’ this week over the Panorama programme, which focused on tensions in the area of eastern Jerusalem adjacent to the Old City.  One report by HonestReporting stated:

“Any pretence at balance is thrown out of the window as reporter Jane Corbin makes it clear that, under the BBC’s own interpretation of ‘international law’, anything that Israel does in that part of the city is illegal, setting the tone for the entire 30 minute program.”

Thus, Israelis are presented as usurpers of Palestinian rights and property in eastern Jerusalem in a one-sided piece of agitprop. As analyst Robin Shepherd writes: “Rarely will you get a clearer insight into the flagrant institutional bias inside the world’s most powerful media outlet than this. The slipperiness of the tactics employed, the unabashed censorship of vital historical context, and the blatant pursuit of a political agenda constituted a lesson in the techniques of modern day propaganda. It was something to behold.”

In the HonestReporting article, they state, “The BBC’s institutional anti-Israel bias often manifests itself not in what is broadcast but what is left out. Panorama is no different. The BBC reports events as though Jewish history in Jerusalem begins in 1948, thus omitting thousands of years of Jewish attachment to the city, including those areas of eastern Jerusalem that are the subject of Panorama’s investigation.

“The only time that the eastern part of Jerusalem was exclusively Arab was between 1949 and 1967, and that was because Jordan occupied the area and forcibly expelled all the Jews.  As Mitchell Bard makes clear, before 1865, the entire population of Jerusalem lived behind the Old City walls (what today would be considered part of the eastern part of the city).

Later, the city began to expand beyond the walls because of population growth, and both Jews and Arabs began to build in new areas of the city.  By the time of partition, a thriving Jewish community was living in the eastern part of Jerusalem, an area that included the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. This area of the city also contains many sites of importance to the Jewish religion, including the City of David, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. In addition, major institutions like Hebrew University and the original Hadassah Hospital are on Mount Scopus — in eastern Jerusalem.”

We see on a daily basis how the Palestinian Authority [PA] continues to revise the history of Jerusalem. For example, Dr. Al-Tamimi, Chief Justice of the PA’s religious court, said, Jerusalem is the religious, political and spiritual capital of Palestine – Jews have no right to it. Statements like this, and programmes like the BBC’s Panorama back up the Palestinians propaganda which attempts to erase 3,000 years of Jewish history, enabling them to present Jerusalem as an exclusively Muslim city.

If the EU, UN, and UK, along with US President Obama insists on saying areas of Jerusalem are occupied territory, it will be disastrous for us all.

Jerusalem is Israel’s sovereign capital, and as the Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, declared:

“Israeli law does not discriminate between Jews and Arabs and between east and west Jerusalem. The demand to specifically halt construction for Jews is not legal in the US or in any other enlightened country… The attempt to demand this of Jerusalem constitutes a double standard and is unacceptable.”

Obama Administration: No More Jews Allowed To Be Born In Judea And Samaria

(hat tip  EMET NEWS   )

 

So now we’re told by George Mitchell, Middle East envoy to Obama, that America will be ‘closely monitoring’ Israeli birth statistics…  So much for Obama ‘not meddling’ in what other nations do.

Mitchell has apparently suggested that Jewish births in Judea and Samaria would be violations of Obama’s prohibition on ‘natural growth’. Let’s translate, shall we? If any Jewish parents dare to have more Jewish children in Judea and Samaria, Obama will be angry.

Since when is it acceptable for America to mandate how many children parents living in a sovereign nation can have…?

And why isn’t Obama cracking down on the truly illegal Palestinian Arab settlements in east Jerusalem…? You know – the ones built on land purchased fairly and owned legally by Israelis…?

I think the obscenely unfair nature of Obama’s stance on Israel is best summed up thus:

 

“Something must be wrong with a man who is far more concerned with a Jew building a house in Israel than with Muslims building a nuclear bomb in Iran“ — Bert Perlutsky.