A content-rich information fact and opinion blog that advocates, educates, professes, affirms, defends and furnishes facts while restoring truth to the Middle East narrative about the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel. On the internet with news and opinions from the right since 2003, and on forum boards, blasting Arabists, neo-nazis, Islamists and other Jew-haters, since 1999.
November 03, 2018
We Are Back
SmoothStone is excited to announce that we have moved to our new site at:
https://smoothstoneblog.net
Look forward to seeing you there
October 26, 2018
The Jewish People Are Entitled to Self-Determination
Read This First
Our goal is to educate the world and to place intense pressure upon the entity calling itself “Palestine” to respect the human rights of the Jewish people who have returned to their restored homeland.
Jews are entitled to self-determination, to live freely in their homeland. Zionism is just as valid as Palestinianism, even moreso.
Unlike the political “Arabian nation”, the Zionist movement to “Palestine/the Land of Israel” represents a return – not an invasion.
Here are some facts:
We are told that there is a difference between extremist Islam and peaceloving normal Islam.
Yet if we look at their behavior, Muslims are anti-West, anti-Democracy, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Buddhist, and anti-Hindu.
Muslims are involved in 25 of some 30 conflicts going on in the world: in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Cyprus, East Timor, India, Indonesia (2 provinces), Kashmir, Kazakastan, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Macedonia, the Middle East, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Sudan, Russia-Chechnya, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan.
This indicates that extremist Islam is the norm and normal Islam is extremely rare.
On Nov. 29, 1947 the United Nations General Assembly voted to legitimize the sovereignty of the restored state of Israel.
If the 1.3 million Israeli Arabs are a model of peaceful coexistence, why are the 250,000 Jews living in Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights an obstacle to peace?
If the uprooting of Arab communities within the Green Line constitutes a blatant human rights violation, why is the uprooting of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria viewed as a contribution to peace?
There is not, nor has there ever been, a distinct “Palestinian” culture or language.
Further, there has never been a Palestinian state governed by Arab Palestinians in history. Nor was there ever a serious Arab-Palestinian national movement, until 1964, which was three years before the Arabs of “Palestine” lost the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and Gaza as a result of attacking Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, a war which the Arabs started.
Even the original so-called leader of the “Palestinian” people, mass murderer Yasser Arafat, was Egyptian.
In short, the so-called Arab “Palestinians” are a manufactured people. They are a people with no history and no authenticity whose sole purpose for existence is to destroy the Jewish State.
It’s ethnocentric to claim that only a certain ethnic group has rights to own land, as is the claim made by the Arabs. Why are Arabs the only ones entitled to self-determination?
What would have happened if Jews had repopulated their homeland, and the Arabs opened up their arms and expressed brotherhood as their response to Europe’s genocide of European Jews?
It would have proven that it was not Zionism that caused this ongoing conflict, but the pan-Arabic racist reaction towards it.
Terror is not something one learns to live with. It is something which the Israel and US governments are obligated to completely destroy. No decent government should sit down and negotiate with murderers.
“We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement…We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.” — The Emir Fayzal to Felix Frankfurter of the American Zionist delegation, Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Reprinted in “The Arab Israeli Conflict: Documents Vol III, pages 42-49, John Moore, editor.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas: We Left Galilee on Our Own in 1948
Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas says the Arabs of the Galilee city of Tzfat left in 1948 not because they were driven out, but on their own volition.
Many biographies of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas imply that his family became “refugees” because of the War of Independence in 1948. For instance, a BBC profile on Abbas when he succeeded Yasser Arafat as PLO chairman in 2005 writes, “In the light of his origins in Safed in Galilee – in what is now northern Israel – he is said to hold strong views about the right of return of Palestinian refugees.” Answers.com states, “As a result of the Arab-Israel War of 1948, he became a refugee.” Wikipedia articles on the topic say the same – all giving the impression that the Abbas family was driven out and became homeless.
It is notable that the Abbas family moved back to Damascus, as that is likely the place where it had originated less than 90 years earlier.
However, Abbas himself – co-founder of Fatah with Arafat, and known as Abu Mazen – now tells a different story.
Speaking with Al-Palestinia TV on Monday, Abbas admitted that his family was not expelled or driven out, but rather left for fear that the Jews might take revenge for the slaughter of 20 Jews in the city during the Arab pogroms of 19 years earlier.
In the words of Abbas:
“I am among those who were born in the city of Tzfat (Safed). We were a family of means. I studied in elementary school, and then came the naqba [calamity, namely, the founding of the State of Israel – ed.]. At night, we left by foot from Tzfat, to the Jordan River, where we remained for a month. Then we went to Damascus, and then to our relatives in Jordan, and then we settled in Damascus.
“My father had money, and he spent his money systematically, and after a year, the money ran out and we began to work.
The “rebellion” Abbas referred to was a series of brutal Arab attacks on Jewish towns in the summer of 1929. Nearly 70 Jews were slaughtered in their homes in Hevron, 20 in Tzfat, 17 in Jerusalem, and others were murdered in Motza, Kfar Uriah and Tel Aviv.“The people’s basic motives brought them to run away for their lives and with their property. These [motives] were very important, for they feared the violence of the Zionist terrorist organizations – and especially those of us from Tzfat felt that there was an old desire for revenge from the rebellion of 1929, and this was in the memory of our families and parents.”
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Here is a PowerPoint Presentation on Mahmood Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, via Israel Behind the News. (You will need to have a PowerPoint Player to view this). The 22 slain youths are referred to as the “22 Flowers”. They are buried together in a special enclave in the Safed Beit Olam.
October 25, 2018
How Iran Attempts to Cloak Its Oil Exports
Oil tankers departing from Iran have been "cloaking" their movements by turning off their global transponders, says Samir Madani who co-founded TankerTrackers with Lisa Ward.
Many tankers connected to the National Iranian Tanker Company have been spotted going into port but not coming out, Madani says. "Then you look at the export terminal with a satellite and see the tanker's no longer there."
"Today, nearly the entire fleet [trading with Iran] is working in this manner in order to throw off the trackers."
Why Palestinians Do Not Have a Parliament
For the past 11 years, the Palestinian Authority has been without a functioning parliament. The 132-member Palestinian Legislative Council was established after the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993. It has not been functioning since 2007, when Hamas violently seized control of Gaza and toppled the Palestinian Authority regime there.
In the absence of a functioning parliament, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has been passing laws by "presidential decree." He has effectively replaced the PLC as the sole lawmaker for the Palestinians, making him into an autocratic and totalitarian president unaccountable to anyone. Worse, Abbas has also used his powers to punish those members of parliament who dare to criticize him or his policies.
The Fatah Revolutionary Council, dominated by Abbas loyalists, recommended on Oct. 14 that the Palestinian president dissolve the PLC. By sidelining the PLC, Abbas and his loyalists have destroyed any dream the Palestinians ever had of having a functioning parliament.
May 24, 2018
The Real Palestinian Catastrophe
The main achievement of the Gaza border attacks is to remind Israelis that Hamas considers all of Israel's borders illegitimate. The dispute with Hamas isn't over settlements or the "occupation" or Gaza itself. It is over Israel's existence. Yasser Arafat's Fatah party rules in the West Bank and controls both the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. On April 30, PA president and PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas called a meeting of the Palestine National Council (PNC), the PLO's legislative body. After he delivered a three-hour speech replete with explanations that the Jews have no real historical tie to the Middle East and that European anti-Semitism was caused by the Jews, Abbas had himself reelected by acclamation. The entire scene was a throwback to Castro or Ceausescu. In 2003, Abbas looked like an alternative to Arafat and a potential Israeli peace partner. Fifteen years later those hopes are long gone, which helps explain why the Trump administration has not yet released its peace plan: Abbas would reject it instantly. Whatever the criticism, Israelis will certainly not abandon the West Bank to chaos or to a possible Hamas takeover. Today the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state is simply too dangerous to Israel and to Jordan to be contemplated. The mishandling of Palestinian affairs by their leaders has been the true Palestinian catastrophe.
US weighs UN funding cuts after Palestinians join agencies
The U.S. is considering whether to cut funding to UN agencies after the Palestinians joined three UN organizations last week, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. The PA joined the trade development organization UNCTAD, the industrial development agency UNIDO, and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). U.S. legislation bars funding for UN agencies or affiliates that grant membership to the PA. "It has been the consistent position of the United States that efforts by the Palestinians to join international organizations are premature and counterproductive," a U.S. official said. The U.S. withdrew some funding for UNESCO when the Palestinians joined in 2011.
May 23, 2018
Demolishing the Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel
Get your free PDF download from FrontPageMagazine here:
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/media/pdf/biglies.pdf
December 29, 2013
Back to the 1930′s; a Must-See Wake-Up Call
Her name is Chloe Valdary and in this video, she drives a point home that desperately needs to resonate with more people. The incremental increase of anti-Semitism in the years leading up to the extermination of six million Jews during World War Two is back.
Valdary has partnered with Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) to raise more awareness of just how dangerous the times are in which we live. As we have often stated, Hitler / Nazi comparisons are often overdone but when you’re comparing Islamic fundamentalism to Nazism, it’s spot-on.
Here is more information via APT’s YouTube page:
As part of the increasing focus of Americans for Peace and Tolerance on countering the hostile campus environment for Israel and its supporters, we have partnered with an outstanding student leader, Chloe Valdary, to produce a short video that features her powerful call to action against anti-Jewish bigotry.If you’ve ever wondered what it must have been like in the 1930′s, it was probably quite a bit like today. Apathy and denial are the only emotions that would prevent someone from seeing this.
Chloe is a Christian Zionist whose solidarity with Israel is borne out of the shared histories of struggle against oppression by both Jews and African Americans. While a student at the University of New Orleans, she founded the student group Allies of Israel. After graduating, she co-founded the new campus-focused Israel advocacy group, Here Is Israel. Here is Israel is behind the viral music video “Boycott Israel,” which exposes the hypocrisy behind the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. When she heard of a BDS conference being held at Brooklyn College, she felt compelled to speak out about the parallels she sees between BDS and the Nazi boycotts against Jews in the 1930s. We were inspired by Chloe’s clear moral message to produce this video with the goal that it reaches a broader audience.
April 15, 2013
Hamas Damages Gaza Heritage Site to Build a Terrorist Training Camp
Last month Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades bulldozed a part of the ancient Anthedon Harbor in northern Gaza in order to expand its military training zone. The Anthedon seaport, which dates back over 3,000 years to the Mycenaean era, was designated an international heritage site by UNESCO in 2012.Click here for more on the demolishment of the ancient Anthedon Harbor in order for Hamas to build a terrorist training camp.
February 18, 2013
Hizbullah Unmasked
- On Feb. 5, after more than six months of investigations, the Bulgarian government announced that it believed Hizbullah was responsible for the attack last July that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver and injured dozens more in the resort town of Burgas.
- This report is significant because a European Union member state, Bulgaria, explicitly pointed a finger at Hizbullah and lifted the veil on the group’s continued terrorist activities. Europe can no longer ignore the threat that this group poses to the Continent and to the world.
- Hizbullah first gained notoriety in 1983 after bombing the U.S. Embassy in Beirut – an attack that killed 63 people. Shortly thereafter, Hizbullah bombed the American and French Marine Barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans and 58 French service members.
- European governments must respond swiftly. They must disrupt its operational networks, stop flows of financial assistance to the group, crack down on Hizbullah-linked criminal enterprises and condemn the organization’s leaders for their continued pursuit of terrorism.
- The U.S. applauds those countries that have long recognized Hizbullah’s nefarious nature. Europe must now act collectively and respond resolutely to this attack by adding Hizbullah to the EU’s terrorist list.
November 18, 2012
PMW special report on Operation Pillar of Defense #4
Hamas to Israelis:
In response to Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense that aims to
cripple the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and protect Israeli
civilians, Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, has produced
videos addressing Israelis.Click to view

Part of a song on Al-Aqsa TV also encourages suicide operations:
“Strap on your [explosive] belt, brave one, and burn them with
fire.See Palestinian Media Watch‘s earlier reports on Operation Pillar of Defense:
issed the suicide attacks. Expect us soon at bus stations and in cafés.From the Al-Qassam Brigades to the Zionists: Don’t go to sleep, because we may get you in your sleep.
From the Al-Qassam Brigades to the Zionist soldiers: On the edge of Gaza, [your] grave is waiting for you.
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[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Nov. 18, 2012]
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[of Israel].”
“Hamas’ military wing Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed that an ‘Israeli’ F-16 fighter plane was shot down… A reconnaissance aircraft was shot down as well.”
![]() |
| [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Nov. 15, 2012] |
Likewise, on Thursday, when Israel launched the operation, Hamas immediately set out to create an illusion of its own success by reporting on TV and on a Hamas website that one of its missiles had hit Tel Aviv, falsely claiming that it had cut off electricity in the city:
“Al-Qassam Brigades shelled Tel Aviv for the first time with a locally made rocket. The electricity network in the southern part of the city was hit.”
The following are the articles from the
Al-Risala website:
“Hamas’ military wing Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed that an ‘Israeli’ F-16 fighter plane was shot down in the Al-Wusta Governorate. A reconnaissance aircraft was shot down as well. Abu Ubeida [the Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades' spokesperson] said that the resistance and the Al-Qassam Brigades are doing well, and the occupation’s claim that the power of the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip has been destroyed is merely a lie. He described the Iron Dome (Israeli system that can intercept and destroy missiles in the air), which was built by the occupation and which costs it millions in order to intercept Palestinian rockets, as the ‘Paper Dome.’”
“Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, officially announced that occupied Tal Al-Rabia (“Tal Al-Rabia” is the Palestinians’ Arabic translation of Tel Aviv, to wrongly imply the existence of an Arab village of that name prior to Tel Aviv – Ed. ) was shelled with an improved Fajr-5 rocket on Thursday morning. Yesterday, Al-Qassam [Brigades] stated that Tal Al-Rabia was shelled with a locally made rocket. They emphasized in an announcement that what comes next will be worse. Hebrew (i.e., Israeli) media sources said that the rocket cut off electricity in ‘Tel Aviv,’ which is 70 kilometers from Gaza.”
August 10, 2008
Jerusalem Dig Turns Up Gold Coins from Second Temple Period
Last month, archeologists from Tel Aviv University digging at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel near Jerusalem found a hoard of coins dating from the time of the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE). A ceramic cooking pot from the 1st century CE containing 15 large gold coins was found under the floor of a cave. Dr. Oded Lipschits described the find: "We discovered the hoard with a metal detector, and then we went down into the niche and found this small cooking pot inside it." According to Lipschits, the pot was covered up in a way that indicates that it had been concealed in a hurry.
Ordinary Israelis Can Read 2,100-Year-Old Hebrew Scroll
Some Israelis have described being moved almost to tears by a rare viewing of the Great Isaiah Scroll, the best preserved and most complete Dead Sea biblical scroll, on special exhibit this summer at the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum for the first time in 40 years. Ordinary people are able to read, and at least partly understand, the ancient Hebrew text on the 2,100-year-old scroll.
"The Bible is first of all our connection to the land," said Ruvik Rosenthal, a popular Israeli language guru.
August 09, 2008
Al-Qaeda Is Shifting Its Tactics and Finding New Followers
Nearly seven years after Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda is bloodied, but not bowed - leaving it still capable of dealing a devastating blow. Al-Qaeda is a different organization than it was in 2001. Today, bin Laden is more inspirational than operational. Although he is still dangerous, for the moment, he is more of a terrorist icon than a terrorist operative. It is believed he is not directing al-Qaeda's day-to-day terrorism operations around the world like he did before 9/11.
Al-Qaeda has long sought to recruit terrorist operatives already in place in the West and bin Laden has been especially keen to recruit converts to Islam. These new adherents can often easily overcome the challenges of racial profiling. There is a sinking sense that Islamist radicalization is catching fire in Europe, based on the increased number of plots in recent years involving homegrown terrorists there, as well as Europeans serving in violent jihad overseas. An April Europol report indicated that terrorist attacks in the EU were up almost 25 percent in 2007 and that Pakistan-based al-Qaeda groups are the main drivers of extremism and terrorism concerns in the EU.
We've also had terrorism attempts in the U.S., too, by "self-radicalized" people who were inspired by, but had little or no physical contact with, al-Qaeda. Terrorist cells in Ohio, Illinois, California, New York and New Jersey targeted the U.S. government, the military and critical infrastructure.
The writer is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.
No More Gestures
On Wednesday I met with Noam Shalit, the father of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. The same day, we heard about Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' request for a goodwill gesture. Abbas asked that Israel release 150 prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat, the man who planned Minister Rehavam Ze'evi's assassination.
We too want gestures. We want Gilad Shalit to be handed over to the Egyptians. We want Gilad to be granted the basic humanitarian right of Red Cross visits. We have made plenty of gestures already. Sick Gazans receive medical treatment in Israel, and Israeli doctors have been saving lives in Gaza without asking whose children they are saving. The children of Hamas men have also been treated. Yet somehow we do not get any gestures. Goodwill gestures must secure something in exchange.
Miki Goldwasser is the mother of fallen IDF reserve soldier Ehud Goldwasser.
August 08, 2008
Why Do Arab Nationalists Demand the Liberation of Palestine If They Gave Up on Other Occupied Regions?
Arabs themselves are occupiers in the Middle East. Arabs belong in Arabia and have no right to Egypt, Syria, Jordan, or Lebanon.
In addition the tactic of Muslims to usurp synagogues and churches and supplant them with mosques is all part of the Islamic warlord tradition and a telling example of Islam's iconoclasty. Islam thrives on symbols and symbolism and reinventing history. "Palestine" has a fabricated neo-history and the use of the word is part of Palestinianism. It only became injected into America's lexicon in 1964 when Arafat reinvented and revised the history of the Middle East, and the rest of the world, which was already being gobbled up by hippies, communists, radicals and Jane Fonda-types, all fell for The Big Lie.
Via MEMRI:
Following are excerpts from a TV debate with Oslo-based Palestinian author Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar and former head of the Arab Writers Union 'Ali 'Oqla 'Orsan. The debate aired on Al-Jazeera TV on July 22, 2008:Click here for more facts about the tenuous Islamic identification and "connection" with the Jewish and Christian Holy Land.
To view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1827.htm.
Ahmad Abu Matar: "Where are all the masses with regard to the Alexandretta province, which was occupied 80 years ago?! When the Turkish-Syrian border was demarcated a few years ago, any mention of the occupied Alexandretta province was erased from the Syrian curricula - from elementary school to university.
[...]
"They have forgotten all about occupied Al-Ahwaz, the Alexandretta province, and about Sabta and Malila. Who is against normalization? The resistance and Hamas, you say? Examine this shameful paradox - several months ago, Hamas would launch 'decorative' missiles, and would accuse the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas of oppressing resistance fighters. Now, for the past two or three months, Hamas has given normalization a cute nickname - tahdiya - which sounds slightly nicer than 'normalization,' and it began to arrest people who launched missiles. What is this paradox?"
[...]
'Ali 'Oqla 'Orsan: "A people that participates in a campaign on the scale of the Arab-Zionist conflict and whose land is occupied cannot open a second front in Alexandretta or anywhere else. This does not mean that it has forgotten its rights, but that it would be crazy to open several fronts simultaneously all over the world. We learned this lesson painfully in 1967, when our army fought both in the south and in the north. We must not live in delusions."
[...]
Ahmad Abu Matar: "My colleague, Dr. 'Ali 'Oqla 'Orsan, said, regarding the question of why we have forgotten Alexandretta, that it is all a question of priorities. To be honest, I do not understand these priorities. Alexandretta was occupied in 1936, and we have forgotten about it, and Al-Ahwaz was occupied in 1925, and we have forgotten about it. Palestine was occupied in 1948 - so what are the priorities? Do you want to liberate the first region to fall, or the last? If you want to start with the last region - go ahead and issue just one statement about the UAE islands occupied by Iran. This proves that there is a defect in the thinking of the anti-normalization committees."
August 07, 2008
Who is Baruch Spinoza?
In 1656, the Jewish elders of Amsterdam issued an excommunication notice against Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was a philosopher who postulated that God and nature are equivalent, and that the Bible is purely allegorical. Spinoza is known as the "Jewish Atheist," and he is considered the founder of modern biblical criticism. Spinoza believed that there is no Divine intervention, and that all events are fatalistically destined to occur (thus there is no free will).
For these and other heretical ideas, Spinoza was officially shunned by the Jewish community.
Get inspired!
Author Howard Rotberg
I am writing to you in the hopes of you writing a few words of support for Canadian author Howard Rotberg. He was invited to give a lecture at a Canadian book retailer on his book, The Second Catastrophe, when pro-Palestinians supporters showed up and caused a disturbance.
The book retailer cancelled the lecture and later issued a press release accusing the author of racism. Consequently, his books are no longer being carried by Canada's largest retailer and his good name is being unjustly maligned. Howard Rotberg decided to fight back and his trial is set to start August 27th and 28th.He is more or less been on his own and left hanging in the wind. He could use all the support he can muster. I have written a blog post for him but I would like to enlist your aid as well. I don't need a link to my piece, a few words about his case, or even a suggestion to buy his book would go a long way to help. He also has just starting blogging and his blog can be found here.
We Are Back
SmoothStone is excited to announce that we have moved to our new site at: https://smoothstoneblog.net Look forward to seeing you th...
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SmoothStone is excited to announce that we have moved to our new site at: https://smoothstoneblog.net Look forward to seeing you th...
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"Hinei ma tov uma na'im shevet achim gam yachad." "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is to be united like brothers and...


