Friday, July 11, 2014
Sarah Honig: Eerily déjà vu
Directly below is an op-ed I wrote in 1990, right after the murder in Rishon Lezion of seven Arab itinerant laborers by Ami Popper (who’s still doing life and who unlike homicidal Arabs hasn’t been released to ransom hostages or to win a presumed peace-partner’s goodwill).Getting the law right on the Israel-Hamas conflict
"Unlike our own, Arab society is unbothered by the pluralistic niceties of moral-relativism. Allah is exclusively on their side and they are the only interpreters of his will. The murder of Jews is divinely decreed and this isn’t only Hamas ideology.
By this precept, Jews must die and have no right to resist. That’s their lot. Not only do they possess no right to avenge, they posses no right to self-defense, to at all fight. Their very existence is a provocation, a casus belli.
This is key to understanding today’s Mideast. It’s axiomatic that Arabs have the right to inflict incalculable harm on all Jews – and to do so in the most sadistically inventive ways – but the Jews’ attempts to deflect such blows are evil, outrageous and deserving of merciless punishment.
Failure to admit how selective Arab rules of warfare are precludes making sense of anything in our region and dooms to failure any so-called peace drives and mediation initiatives. The tragedy is that not only is the fundamental asymmetry between Jewish and Arab mindsets not comprehended abroad, but there’s no inclination to even consider it. Worse yet – one-sided ferocious Arab indignation inevitably arouses empathy overseas."
International law has quite a lot to say about the latest violence that has flared up between Israel and Hamas. So do the media. Unfortunately, they rarely match, leading to unfortunate — and sometimes egregious — misrepresentations. In an age when both real and perceived violations of international law have a substantial effect on the legitimacy of state action, getting it wrong is way more than just bad journalism.How the Liberal West Turned on Israel
The core purpose of the law of war — a centuries-old framework regulating conduct during wartime — is to protect civilians and minimize suffering during wartime. In any conflict, all parties — states, rebel groups, terrorist organizations — have obligations to minimize harm to civilians. For each party, these obligations take two primary forms: protecting civilians in the areas where it is attacking, and protecting its own civilians from the consequences of attacks by the enemy party. Attacking parties must 1) attack only enemy personnel and objects; 2) refrain from any indiscriminate attacks; 3) refrain from attacks in which the expected civilian casualties will be excessive in light of the military value of the target; and 4) provide warnings for civilians of attacks where feasible. In their own territory, militaries and armed groups must refrain from locating military objectives in densely populated areas and take other steps to keep civilians out of harm's way. Specifically, the law also criminalizes the use of civilians as human shields.
The Middle East is exploding in mayhem and savagery. The region’s system of nation states is disappearing before our eyes, perhaps to be replaced by one or more jihadist movements pledged to the destruction of Western civilization. In the upheavals to come, only one civilizational force, one stable democracy, has the will and the means to fight back and to defend the values of the liberal West. It is the tiny nation state of Israel.The difference between a society that sanctifies life and one that worships death
A key moment in this development occurred at a private dinner party in 2001, when Daniel Bernard, France’s ambassador to England, was overheard remarking that “All the current troubles in the world are because of that shitty little country Israel. Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?” That ugly episode is, in turn, the starting point of a slim ebook by Joshua Muravchik, a fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, published last January under the title Liberal Oasis: The Truth about Israel. An important contribution in its own right, Liberal Oasis is also an indispensable companion piece to Muravchik’s newly released Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel. Together, the two add up to a powerful indictment of the West’s serial moral failures regarding Israel and the Middle East conflict.
Almost a hundred years ago, as the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey was staring out of the windows of the London Foreign Office on a hot summer’s day, he remarked “the lamps are going out all over Europe, we may not see them lit again in our lifetime.” The occasion was of course the eve of the First World War – Grey’s worrying prediction was to be proven unnervingly accurate.
Today there is no need for such terrible prophecies. In the maelstrom that is the modern Middle East, the lamps have already gone out. Spring has skipped two seasons and beckoned a dark and cold Winter that has lasted three years. Aggressive Iranian designs have left the beleaguered people of Lebanon and Syria stricken by bloodshed and continued strife, leading to one of the worst humanitarian disasters of our time. Radical Sunni extremists have poured into the deserts of Syria and Iraq to take advantage of the vacuum left by weak and discredited governments.
ISIS’s declaration of a ‘Caliphate’ in Iraq has been celebrated with mass summary public executions. ISIS also poses the single greatest threat to the heroic Kurdish people who have long deserved an independent sovereign territory of their own. As Douglas Murray of the Spectator has put it, it is as if the collective Islamic world has declared a ’30 Years War’ on itself.
Apologies overdue and overdone
Abbas’s decision to craft a unity government with the Hamas is the ultimate blow to the Oslo peace process, and makes him culpable for the war crimes of the Hamas terrorists raining rockets down on Israel.NPR Suggests Israel Fired 160 Rockets, Hamas Fired 2
The man who once denied the Holocaust had the temerity this week to invoke Auschwitz when talking about the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir and then to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza. Ugh. Now Abbas is going to The Hague to criminalize and isolate Israel.
Since apologies from this man are not forthcoming, and peace with him is unrealistic, Israel must be careful about investing too many more hopes in the Palestinian Authority.
The rockets are flying in the Middle East. Yesterday morning, NPR listeners were told that Israel had hit 160 targets. And they were informed that Hamas had fired... two missiles?Foreign Press in Sderot Gets a Taste of Rocket Sirens
The introduction to a July 9 Morning Edition segment described the "violence that unfolded overnight" as follows:
"Renee Montagne: Hamas claimed responsibility for two rockets fired at Tel Aviv. Both rockets were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.
Steve Inskeep: Israel says it has struck more than 160 targets in Gaza. Officials in Gaza say at least three dozen Palestinians have been killed this week."
Foreign journalists on Thursday got a first-hand taste of what it's like for Israelis living under constant rocket fire by terrorists in Gaza, as rocket warning sirens sounded while the journalists were taking a tour of Sderot.
The group was being given a tour of a factory in Sderot that was completely burned down last week after taking a direct hit by terrorists' rockets.
During the tour, the "Color Red" missile warning sirens sounded, and the journalists documented the explosion overhead as the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system intercepted the rocket in mid-air.
Gaza war seen rather differently in US, UK newspapers
The international English-speaking media had plenty to say Thursday concerning the spike in violence between Israel and the Palestinians. Three days into Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, commentators on either side of the issue poured ink into the growing sea of opinion about the validity of Israel’s campaign to defend itself, the prospects of a ground invasion, and the rising death toll from Israel’s air campaign on the Gaza Strip.World’s Media Is Anti-Israel
Broadly speaking, there was more far more empathy for Israel in the north American press, and far more savage criticism on the British side of the pond.
Some thoughts:The New York Times' Wretched Anti-Israel Bias Comes in All Too Clear
There is an undue obsession with Israel: In Israel there are far more journalists, both foreign and domestic, than in many larger countries and there are more foreign journalists in Israel than any other country in the region.
Unlike anywhere else in the Middle East, there is a “free press”: In Syria, Iraq, Libya and other countries where there are truly bad governments, reporters get followed by the police, tortured, intimidated, etc.. In Israel, reporters are free. They twist the truth constantly – with no fear of reprisals.
The liberal New Republic weighed in on the editorial, with an erstwhile Times defender calling it a "collection of errors and misrepresentations." For one, the Times got the meaning of Netanyahu's poem quote precisely wrong – "the very phrase quoted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly rejects the possibility of human revenge." The editorial also falsely accused Netanyahu of being silent on the murder of the Palestinian teen, when in fact he spoke out against it, a fact itself recorded by the paper itself.Facebook Allows Neo-Nazi, Pro-Terrorist Threats Against Israel
Israel's ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer took to Buzzfeed to lambaste the editorial, and CAMERA's Tamar Sternthal wrote her own fact-check for the Times of Israel. In fact, pro-Israel media watchdogs have been all over the New York Times for the paper's slanted coverage of Israel counterattacking against murder and rocket attacks by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. (h/t MtTB)
Need more evidence that progressive political correctness only extends to favored groups? Look no further than Facebook.Hamas & IDF agree: Guardian wrong on usefulness of Israeli ‘knock on the roof’ warnings
Amidst a mounting Israeli campaign against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, Facebook has become a hotbed of anti-Israel sentiment. While Facebook’s official community standards forbid hate speech and threats of violence, the social media site has so far failed to remove repeated insults and vicious threats against Israel and Jews in general.
Users have been allowed to blanket Israeli pages with rants like “F### YOU ISRAEL F### YOU ISRAEL,” “I wish Hitler wiped you off the map your time is coming again” and “Oh, Allah, destroy the Jews around the world.”
Many of the comments on Israel’s Facebook page or the Israeli military’s profile endorsed terrorism and called on Hamas and other Muslim terrorists to massacre Jews. (h/t MtTB)
A post from about two hours ago at the Guardian’s Live Blog on the war dismissed as ineffective Israeli measures to warn Palestinians in Gaza before launching attacks on terror targets.BBC’s John Humphrys on Gaza conflict: it’s the settlements, innit?
The post begins:
“warnings do not help save civilians lives as the Israeli military claims, according to the University of London’s Forensic Architecture centre at Goldsmiths which carried out a UN study into how the tactic operated during Operation Cast Lead in 2009.
As Ambassador Taub pointed out, Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip nine years ago and what the BBC terms ‘occupied territories’ are not the issue as far as Hamas is concerned. Nevertheless, we see a senior and experienced BBC presenter electing to promote the misleading and simplistic smoke-screen of “settlements” rather than clarifying to audiences the real background to and reasons for Hamas terrorism against Israeli civilians.BBC’s Knell again passes up on telling audiences about Hamas’ human shields
Whilst audiences learned little about the actual topic to which this interview ostensibly relates, those with existing knowledge of the issue did gain insight into the irrelevance of the BBC’s grasp of what lies behind the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Yet again, no effort is made to explain to viewers that the houses targeted also act as command and control centres for assorted terrorist organisations and in some cases as missile storage and/or launch sites – as Knell herself documented the previous day in another BBC report - and that fact makes them legitimate targets.BBC Promotes Lie that Israel is Targeting Civilians in Gaza (VIDEO)
“Nearby a house had just been damaged by an Israeli air strike. Two ambulances whizzed by carrying away the injured.
“[Militants] used to launch rockets from here. [The Israeli military] targeted these houses several times,” a local man told us.”
The BBC News website’s main article on the second day of Operation Protective Edge - July 9th – underwent amendment numerous times (available to view here) until reaching its fourteenth and final version. Currently going under the title “Hamas fires rockets amid Israeli air strikes on Gaza,“ its first four versions were titled “Hamas fires rockets at Israeli cities after Gaza offensive”, thus misleadingly suggesting to BBC audiences that the firing of missiles by terrorists from the Gaza Strip is a response to Israeli actions, rather than the exact opposite, which is actually the case.ICJ Advisory Opinion Relied on Founder of “Gaddafi Human Rights Prize”
The first eleven versions of that article used the sub-heading “War crime” – as did the previous day’s main report – in the section of the report relating to the incident on the morning of July 8th in Khan Younis in which Palestinians acting as ‘human shields’ were killed after a warning had been given to the building’s occupants to vacate the premises.
On the 10th anniversary of the PLO-requested World Court advisory opinion that declared Israel’s security barrier illegal, and which declared that Israel could not invoke the right of self-defense, it’s worth recalling one of the opinion’s most underreported flaws: its reliance on the findings of UN official Jean Ziegler — founder and 2002 winner of the “Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights” — as a credible source of fact and law. (ICJ Opinion, p. 190)Remaining Senate support for PA unity erodes in face of rockets
The court invoked the Swiss clown as an expert only two years after Ziegler went to the annual Tripoli ceremony for the Gaddafi regime to place the human rights award around his neck, something he completely denied until UN Watch found the video.
Dermer and Ayish briefed members of US Senate’s Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees on Operation Protective Edge at the invitation of Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs.On Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Hillary Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ Offers the Same Choices
Kaine, who is considered a progressive Democrat and is on J Street’s list of endorsed candidates, wrote in a statement after the briefing that “the deteriorating situation in Gaza is one of grave concern.”
“I support Israel’s right to defend itself against unprovoked rocket attacks launched by Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” he continued. “I grieve for the Israeli and Palestinian citizens – especially the young – who live and die under constant security threats.”
Curiously, it wasn’t Clinton’s State Department, former U.S. senator and Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell, or former Ambassador Dennis Ross insisting on this hardline stance on settlements, according to the book. Rather, it was Rahm Emanuel, the Jewish former White House chief of staff and onetime civilian volunteer with the Israel Defense Forces.Who is the Trojan horse here?
“[Emanuel]… had a deep personal commitment to Israel’s security. Drawing on his experiences in the Clinton Administration, he thought that the best way to deal with Netanyahu’s new coalition government was to take a strong position right out of the gate; otherwise he’d walk all over us,” Clinton writes. “Mitchell and I worried we could be locking ourselves into a confrontation we didn’t need, that the Israelis would feel they were being asked to do more than the other parties, and that once we raised it publicly Abbas couldn’t start serious negotiations without it.”
Last week, a prominent member of Israel's leftist elite telephoned me and said: You should know that the settlements are a miracle that happened in the State of Israel. Imagine, he continued, if ISIS, which wants to establish an Islamic caliphate in the region, were to knock on our door from the east, on our border with Jordan. It could have easily infiltrated the Palestinian Authority and taken it over. Even Hamas looks like a bunch of vegetarians next to this group, which puts its own people on cattle trucks and shoots them as they lie in mass graves. It's lucky that there are Jewish communities on the mountain ridge and in the Jordan Valley. That is how they can be stopped on our eastern border.Congress to Offer $5 Million for Info on Hamas Kidnappers
Now back to the debate. According to the writers of the peace conference pamphlet, the "occupation" is the root of all problems in the Middle East and in Israel. That is why they are doing everything they can to make it difficult for Israel to impose sovereignty on territory within our homeland.
So why haven't they managed to convince the majority of the Israeli public?
Congress is seeking to offer a reward of up to $5 million dollars for any information that leads to capture of Hamas terrorists responsible for the recent kidnapping and killing of a U.S.-Israeli citizen, according to a copy of new legislation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.Israel remains remarkably moral
Bills working their way through the House and Senate would order Secretary of State John Kerry to offer a cash reward of up to $5 million for any information on the kidnapping and murder of Naftali Fraenkel, a dual U.S.-Israel citizen who was abducted by Hamas and found murdered along with two other Israeli teenagers last month.
The bills are being sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R., Colo.) in the House and Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) in the Senate.
Indeed, Horovitz thinks that this admittedly horrific, bestial crime tells us something about Israelis in general that we didn’t know, or care to think, before: “We Israelis knew we had nothing in common with those Hamas killers who so callously ended the lives of three innocent Israeli teenagers; we were wrong.”Christian and Canadian Support for Israel Defies Propaganda
But it is David Horovitz who is wrong. First, Israel’s national existence, like that of other countries, is not conditional on a “distinctive moral superiority” — which Israel actually possesses over its enemies. Second, the way to gauge whether a society supports or reviles terrorism is to observe its reaction to it. Comparison here is instructive.
On the heels of the murder of three innocent Israeli teens, Hamas began pounding Israel with rocket fire, while Israel retaliated with defensive airstrikes on Gaza. As expected, however, Hamas and other Gaza officials -- including the head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, Raji Sourani -- have accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, while the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC] announced plans for an "extraordinary ministerial meeting" to discuss "the intensifying and fierce Israeli campaign against Palestine."Life Sentence for Murderer of IDF Soldier Tomer Hazan
Despite the sustained and typical propaganda campaign against Israel, Canada has condemned "the brazen and indiscriminate attacks that Hamas continues to wage on Israel." Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird repeated Canada's unwavering position that "Canada believes that Israel has every right to defend itself from such belligerent acts of terrorism."
Meanwhile, as many Christian Churches vote for divestment from Israel, the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem [ICEJ], with offices in 60 nations -- among Israel's thriving Christian supporters -- sent mobile bomb shelters to protect residents of southern Israel.
Nadal Amar, the terrorist who murdered IDF First Sergeant Tomer Hazan hy''d last September, was given a life sentence this week by a military court, after being found guilty in May of murder charges, in addition to a 20-year sentence for other offenses.Fatah Facebook page glorifies female fighters, suicide bombers
The IDF Spokesperson Unit reported Wednesday that a military court in Samaria handed down the ruling. The terrorist illegally entered Israel and worked at a restaurant in Bat Yam, next to Tel Aviv, where he met Hazan and deceived him into driving with him to his village, before strangling him to death in an open field and hiding his body in a water hole.
Fatah prides itself on its “young women,” who “part from their children, leave their homes and go to the battlefield carrying burial shrouds to fight in the ranks of the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip,” a narrator can be heard saying, according to a translation provided by NGO Palestinian Media Watch, as a group of Palestinian women are seen training, assembling and setting up rockets, shooting and engaging in physical training.Fatah glorifies female fighters and suicide bombers
“Another aspect of the Palestinian woman’s role in all areas is being created here,” the narrator continues.
“She is not merely the man’s partner in domestic life, but his companion wherever he is; on the battlefield, she is at his side on the frontline, and fulfills an active role in training generations of resistance [fighters], who will confront the ‘invincible’ army.”
Jewish Teenage Girl Pepper Sprayed in Paris
In the latest in a growing list of anti-Semitic attacks in Paris over the past few months, a 17-year-old Jewish girl was attacked Tuesday at Paris’ Place du Colonel-Fabien square.Brussels Shooter Drops Appeal Against Extradition
According to the French National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, a local anti-Semitism watchdog organization, the victim said in a statement that the attacker grabbed her by the jaw and sprayed pepper spray in her face while making anti-Semitic remarks before she managed to escape. She described the attacker as a young man of North African origin. (h/t Canadian Otter)
Mehdi Nemmouche, 29, had filed an appeal against the June ruling that ordered his extradition from France, but his lawyer Apolin Pepiezep said he had decided not to go ahead with the challenge as he now considered the court's decision "satisfactory," because it contained guarantees Nemmouche could not be sent to another country from Belgium.New Photos Released For Epic Biblical Film 'Exodus: Gods And Kings'
The court ruled in June that Nemmouche, who spent more than a year fighting alongside radical Islamists in Syria, should be handed over to the Belgian authorities for killings "with a terrorist connotation."
Biblical-themed movies seem to be the latest trend coming out of Hollywood. After the Son of God and Noah, now it's Moses and the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt in Exodus: Gods and Kings.Qualcomm Acquires Israeli Chipmaker Wilocity
“The biblical account of Moses is extraordinary, and there was lots of room for us to go to places that The Ten Commandments never dreamed of going,” said Oscar-winning actor Christian Bale to Entertainment Weekly.
Bale will be throwing off the Batman armor to don new armor as he plays Moses opposite Joel Edgerton as Pharaoh.
According to Qualcomm’s website, the merge with the Israeli startup will now introduce the industry’s first tri-band wireless solutions that combine Qualcomm’s dual-band Wi-Fi with Wilocity’s WiGig and advance next-generation wifi networks. The agreement will also deliver multi-gigabit wireless with 60 GHz technology for mobile, computing and networking devices.Rockets no barrier for US-Israel tech matchmaker
Financial details surrounding the agreement were not released but Israeli media reported in May that Qualcomm had offered $300 million for a potential acquisition of the Caesarea-based Wilocity. Wilocity is a leader in development of 60 GHz wireless chipsets based on the IEEE 802.11ad standard also known as WiGig technology.
In an act of faith in Israeli technology as Hamas continues to pound Israel with rocket fire, the BIRD (Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development) Foundation has approved $8.9 million in funding for 11 new projects between Israeli and American companies. In addition to the grants from BIRD, the projects will have access to private sector funding, boosting the total value of the projects to about $25 million.Robot writes Torah in Berlin museum
BIRD is the high-tech version of an old-time wedding matchmaker. It searches out promising Israeli technologies, exposes them to potential US partners, and then supplies assistance to get the project going — up to a third of the total projected cost. Once the right partner is found, BIRD will also lend the companies money to fund projects, boosting not only specific projects and technologies, but also helping to further cement the relationship between the United States and Israel, as well as making a significant contribution to the lives of people helped by the technology in both countries and beyond.
The robot’s quill runs across the paper scroll, from right to left, scribbling down ancient Hebrew letters with black ink. It is penning down the Torah, the Jews’ holy scripture, and it is doing it much faster than a rabbi could because it doesn’t need to take breaks.Israel Innovations
The Torah-writing robot was developed by the German artists’ group robotlab and was presented for the first time Thursday at Berlin’s Jewish Museum. While it takes the machine about three months to complete the 80-meter-long (260-foot) scroll, a rabbi or a sofer — a Jewish scribe — needs nearly a year. But unlike the rabbi’s work, the robot’s Torah can’t be used in a synagogue.
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