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Tuesday, November 04, 2014

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Why is the Obama Administration Provoking Israel?
Beyond the damage done with regard to Iran, is the damage done to United States-Israel relations by the insulting and demeaning words used by senior Obama administration officials to describe the Prime Minister of a close ally. Benjamin Netanyahu fought bravely for his country in one of Israel’s most elite and dangerous military units. He has rescued hostages, defended his country against terrorists and lost a brother at Entebbe. To call him a “chickenshit” or a “coward” is beneath contempt. Having seen the heavy cost of warfare, he has always been cautious and prudent about committing Israeli troops to battle. For this he should be praised rather than condemned.
Netanyahu may soon have to make an existential decision about whether to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons that might be used against Israeli citizens or to authorize a dangerous military attack designed to destroy and delay Iran’s capacity to develop such weapons of mass destruction. This decision would be difficult for any leader, and it is even more difficult for a leader of a tiny country surrounded by enemies and isolated by much of the international community. To trivialize and reduce this decision to name-calling words like “chickenshit” and “coward” demonstrates extraordinary bad judgment on the part of those who used the words and those who may have authorized their use.
There are legitimate and important differences between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations over issues such as building in Jerusalem and the stalled peace negotiations. Each side has criticized the others position on their merits and demerits. But scatological name-calling on the record has no place in an alliance between friends. Those responsible for these provocative and dangerous ad hominems and for the unwarranted disclosure of classified intelligence assessments must be held accountable by the American public and by all those who care about peace in the Middle East.
Caroline Glick: Obama and the definition of 'Islamic'
Moreover, Obama had befriended radical Islamic leaders who openly support terrorism, including Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
And of course, as we see more and more clearly each day, the centerpiece of Obama’s foreign policy has been appeasing the Islamic Republic of Iran in the hope of achieving détente with the nuclear weapons pursuing state sponsor of terrorism.
The likes of IS, with its love of the video camera, discredit Obama’s narrative that radical, terror- supporting Muslims are peaceful. Since IS is openly evil, it is un-Islamic.
On the other hand, despite the fact that it is nearly as barbaric as IS, the Iranian regime is Islamic, because as far as Obama is concerned, it is good. And it is good because he wants to make a deal with the mullahs.
In other words, Obama is neither an expert on Islam, nor a man moved by moral indignation.
He opposes IS because IS makes it hard for him to defend Islam from bad public relations. And he coos about the “Islamic Republic of Iran” because he is dedicated to his mission of whitewashing and mainstreaming the regime born of an Islamic revolution.
Hamas opposes UN involvement in Gaza reconstruction
Hamas is opposed to UN involvement in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following Operation Protective Edge and has requested that the Palestinian unity government, rather than the international organization, carry out building projects, a Hamas official said late Sunday night.
Deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau Moussa Abu Marzouk claimed that Hamas was never shown the “Serry plan,” named for United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry, insisting that reconstruction work estimated at billions of dollars remain in Palestinian hands.
“A number of officials have claimed that Abu Marzouk agreed to the plan, which is a bald-faced lie, so I say the following: during the indirect negotiations in Cairo we rejected the UN as a recognized party to construction,” Abu Marzouk wrote on his Facebook page, referring to the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas in August. “Everyone insisted that the Palestinian Authority, through the national unity government, is to be responsible for construction.”
“The international envoy’s plan was never presented to us,” he added.

Wednesday, October 08, 2014

From Ian:

Isi Leibler: The Obama administration’s unprecedented outburst against Israel
The exceptionally vicious US condemnation of Israel with regard to housing construction in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem is not merely misguided, but also reflects irrational bias.
Incidentally, this behavior also has many ominous parallels to the inhumane incarceration of Jonathan Pollard, despite pleas for the commutation of his sentence from all sectors of American society.
The harsh outburst relates to a 2,600-unit housing project planned as an extension of an exclusively Jewish neighborhood adjacent to the suburb of Talpiot and Kibbutz Ramat Rahel, both within the Green Line. It incorporates primarily barren land on which Ethiopian and Russian immigrants had been housed temporarily in mobile homes. Highly significant – but a fact that is ignored – is that nearly half of the construction was designated to provide housing for Arabs. Construction permits were approved two years ago, but it was the far-left group Peace Now that saw fit to highlight the issue in a press release on the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Barack Obama in a calculated effort to embarrass the prime minister and provoke tension.
The successive statements by both the White House and State Department spokesmen must be considered among the most bitterly prejudiced and unbalanced condemnations of Israel ever expressed by the US. They make a mockery of repeated claims by the Obama administration that it considers Israel to be a close ally.
ISIS: Can the West Win Without a Ground Game?
The United States and its allies have launched a military campaign whose stated goal is, in the words of President Barack Obama, to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State (I.S., also known as ISIS or ISIL) established by Sunni jihadis in a contiguous land area stretching from western Iraq to the Syrian-Turkish border.
As the aerial campaign begins in earnest, many observers are wondering what exactly its tactical and strategic objectives are, and how they will be achieved. A number of issues immediately arise.
Any state—even a provisional, slapdash, and fragile one like the jihadi entity now spreading across Iraq and Syria—cannot be “destroyed” from the air. At a certain point, forces on the ground will have to enter and replace the I.S. power. It is not yet clear who is to play this role—especially in the Islamic State’s heartland of Raqqa province in Syria.
In Iraq, the national military and the Kurdish Pesh Merga are now having some successes at chipping away at the Islamic State’s outer holdings. The role of U.S. air support is crucial here. But the center of the Islamic State is not Iraq, and both the Iraqi forces and the Pesh Merga have made clear that they will not cross the border into Syria. This leaves a major question as to who is to perform this task, if the objectives outlined by President Obama are to be achieved.
Who Does Turkey Support?
The Mavi Marmara incident was a wake-up call to Jerusalem, where diplomats had earlier been unrealistically optimistic about building a working relationship with Erdogan despite several other, earlier, warnings, including Erdogan's famous tirade in Davos against (then) Israeli President Shimon Peres that, "You (Jews) know well how to kill!" The Turkish government has since frozen ambassadorial-level diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel, and Erdogan has increased his calculated explosive rhetoric against Israel.
Erdogan's principal argument was that a foreign military had killed Turkish nationals outside of Turkey; that those who were killed were martyrs; and that he would never allow a foreign military to harm one single Turkish citizen. Once again, he was wrong.
One of the lucky survivors of the Mavi Marmara was Yakup Bulent Alniak, an Islamist activist for the Turkish "humanitarian aid group" IHH which organized the Gaza-bound flotilla. IHH is listed by many Western countries as a terrorist organization; but its members, including Alniak, were simply heroes for Erdogan.
Alniak survived the IDF raid in 2010 but lost his life recently, at the end of September, when a U.S.-Arab coalition struck one of the largest ISIS camps in Syria. A coalition of foreign armies had killed a Turkish citizen whom the Turkish leader had declared a hero, but since then Erdogan has remained mute.
Will Erdogan downgrade Turkey's diplomatic ties with the U.S. and five Muslim nations because their militaries killed a Turkish citizen outside of Turkish territory? No. Probably because, in the pragmatic Islamist thinking, one does not properly qualify as a "martyr" if he gets killed by an army (or armies) other than Israel's.
As of this writing, on the Turkey-Syria border, CNN correspondent Phil Black hourly beams pictures of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, with a black ISIS flag atop a building in the eastern part of the city, as Turkish soldiers in tanks lined up along the Turkish border "observe" ISIS troops close in for the approaching massacre.
Washington is expecting Ankara wholeheartedly to fight the rougher boys of the Islamist camp to which it belongs? Good luck.

Thursday, October 02, 2014

From Ian:

Jennifer Rubin: White House ‘appalled’ no more by civilian casualties
Don’t get me wrong. The current U.S. practice is entirely legitimate. It is hard to argue with the assertion that “like all U.S. military operations, [airstrikes on the Islamic State] are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.” However, this does underscore how misguided and unfair U.S. condemnation of Israel was. Perhaps Ben Rhodes, the politically minded national security official who took it upon himself to lecture Israel, should finally apologize.
There is something else to be said here about the choice of airstrikes as the main U.S. tactic. The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for pursuing an air campaign that cannot possibly destroy the Islamic State. If that is a strategy with limited efficacy, what is the moral argument for continuing to employ it when civilian casualties result? It is one thing when a strategy is well-designed to achieve a specific military objective (e.g. destroying Gaza terrorists’ tunnels and rockets), but quite another when it is not. Imagine if Israel had conducted bombing raid after bombing raid resulting in civilian casualties rather than send in ground troops at great risk to them in order to strike with precision. I’m sure the Obama administration would have been appalled.
The irony of endorsing Palestinians while bombing ISIS
Even while bombing ISIS, aka the Islamic State, Mr. Obama continues to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, a plainly jihadist country that would inevitably be run by some adversarial combination of Hamas and the PA. Somehow, Mr. Obama doesn’t want to acknowledge that any Palestinian Arab state would promptly exhibit the very same jihadist tendencies as our own current terrorist targets in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Why, it is time for him to inquire, should we be fighting Islamist terrorists in one part of the Middle East, and simultaneously supporting distinctly similar others, just a short distance away?
Where are we now heading? At some point, if they can finally reconcile, the PA and Hamas will declare the existence of a fully sovereign Palestinian state. Any such state, however, whatever its theoretical “self-determination” rationale, and whatever its finally agreed-upon administrative form, would enlarge the risks of terrorism and war.
Already, Palestinian orientations to aggression are very easy to decipher. Official PA maps identify Israel as merely a part of Palestine. In essence, both the PA and Hamas have agreed upon a cartographic destruction of Israel proper — not a “two-state solution,” but rather a conspicuously “final solution.”
Any Palestinian state could have a directly detrimental impact on American strategic interests and, of course, on Israel’s physical survival. After Palestine, Israel, facing an even more expressly formidable correlation of enemy forces, would require greater self-reliance. Any such enhanced self-reliance would then call for a more coherent and more openly disclosed nuclear strategy, one focusing comprehensively upon deterrence, pre-emption, and war-fighting capabilities; and a corollary and interpenetrating conventional war strategy.
Edelstein: While Islamic State slaughters, West is focused on building in Jerusalem
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein blasted the West for criticizing Israel for building homes in Jerusalem when there are more pressing security issues, in a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Vienna Thursday.
Edelstein slammed Western leaders' "Pavolovian reaction" to the anticipated construction of 2,700 homes in the southeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, which was planned two years ago, but Peace Now released a report on the topic Wednesday.
"It's too bad that while the Islamic State is slaughtering, murdering and threatening the West, everyone is interested in a few homes being built in Jerusalem," he stated. (h/t MtTB)

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

From Ian:

David Horovitz: Bleak Netanyahu warns of militant Islam’s global ambition
There were no gimmicks. Few excruciating one-liners. Just a single visual aid: a photograph of three children in Gaza at play right next to a rocket launcher.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a no-nonsense address to the United National General Assembly on Monday — presenting himself as the leader of a “proud and unbowed” nation, charged with the “awesome responsibility” of ensuring his much-threatened people’s future in a brutal, unstable region.
It was not a speech entirely bereft of hope. He reached out “to Cairo, to Amman, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and elsewhere” and asserted that a rapprochement with Israel by such Arab players could in turn yield a peace agreement with the Palestinians, which, he also said, “will obviously necessitate a territorial compromise.”
But the outlook he presented was immensely grim, nonetheless. His bitter overview, he said toward the end of his remarks, “may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but it is the truth. And the truth must always be spoken, especially here in the United Nations.”
As spoken by Netanyahu, the truth is that “militant Islam is on the march,” that its ambitions are global, and that all its many, sometimes competing factions are “branches of the same poisonous tree.” Thus it is ridiculous and self-defeating for countries to support the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State but criticize Israel for tackling Hamas. If not stopped in its tracks, he indicated, Islamic extremism would come for everyone.
Caroline Glick: Kicking the PLO habit
The signs are everywhere that the time has come for Israel to abandon the PLO.
So long as the PLO remains in power, the lives of Israelis and Palestinians will only get worse.
PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s speech last Friday at the UN General Assembly where he repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide was not merely an abandonment of direct peace negotiations with Israel. Abbas abandoned the very concept of peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians.
Abbas called for the UN to pass a resolution that will require Israel to cede Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in their entirety to the PLO within a set period of time. No Israeli consideration can be taken into account. No Israel concern can be attended to.
As he put it, “Palestine refuses to have the right to freedom of her people, who are subjected to the terrorism by the racist occupying Power and its settlers, remain hostage to Israel’s security conditions.”
As is always the case, the immediate victims of Abbas’s blood libels are the Israeli Left. The politicians and media elite that have hitched their horse to the PLO were again left stuttering by the wayside.
For some, like Meretz chair Zehava Gal-On, stuttering is a fine option. So she pushed out an endorsement of Abbas’s genocide speech.
Mahmoud Abbas’s dangerous grandstanding
For several years Mr. Abbas has oscillated between half-hearted participation in peace talks and attempts to advance the Palestinian cause through unilateral action at the United Nations. The latter initiatives have no chance of substantive success and risk being self-defeating, as the Palestinians should have learned from Mr. Abbas’s last such gambit in 2012. Then their lobbyists were unable to win enough support for a U.N. Security Council resolution even to force a U.S. veto, and a compensatory symbolic measure in the General Assembly provoked Israel to impose painful financial sanctions.
Mr. Abbas nevertheless is trying the Security Council again, after refusing to respond to a U.S. framework for peace talks painstakingly developed by Secretary of State John F. Kerry. He proposes a resolution that would mandate the creation of a Palestinian state based on Israel’s 1967 borders in a set period of time; when it is voted down or vetoed by the United States, the Palestinians hint that they will seek a war crimes investigation of Israel by the International Criminal Court. That, in turn, would almost certainly prompt retaliatory sanctions by Mr. Netanyahu’s government and possibly by Congress, which supplies the Palestinian Authority with much of its funding.
Mr. Abbas has repeatedly rejected violence, and he has convinced a series of U.S. and Israeli negotiators that he has a realistic view of the terms for a Palestinian state. Yet he has now rejected platforms for a settlement on two occasions from two U.S. presidents. He persists in grandstanding gestures that he must know will only delay the serious negotiations that must precede the creation of a Palestinian state and that undermine those in Israel who support such talks. He has spoken for years of retiring but, at 79, he clings to his post four years after his elected term expired. Hamas has done the most harm to Palestinians and their cause in recent years. But Mr. Abbas has done little good.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

From Ian:

Radical Islam, Israel and Agitprop
Many Europeans who would laugh at the idea of negotiating with ISIS or al-Qaeda say that Israel should negotiate with Hamas.
Almost nobody sees that the invention of the "Palestinian people" has transformed millions of Arabs into a genocidal weapon to be used against the Israelis, and even, as in Europe recently, the Jews. Transforming people into a genocidal weapon is a barbaric act.
Israel was urged to find ways to coexist peacefully with people who did not want to co-exist with it. Terrorism against Israel fast became acceptable: a "good" terrorism.
Hamas's stated aim is the destruction of Israel. Its stated way to achieve this aim is terror attacks, called "armed struggle" by Hamas leaders. To this day the Palestinian Authority has not ceased praising and promoting terrorism.
If hatred of Israel is increasing in the U.S., it is largely confined to academics and other extreme radical circles, many of which are funding or receiving funding from Soviet-style agitprop organizations. Journalists are recruited to disseminate descriptions of "facts" as if they were real facts. Pseudo-historians rewrote the history of the Middle East. The falsified version of history replaced history.
Netanyahu headed to NY to counter 'slander and lies' after Abbas, Rouhani UN speeches
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu heads to the United States on Sunday to battle Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and Palestinian unilateralism, when he addresses the UN General Assembly in New York and meets with US President Barack Obama in Washington.
“After the Iranian president’s deceptive speech and [PA President Mahmoud Abbas] Abu Mazen’s incitement, I will tell the truth about Israel’s citizens to the entire world,” Netanyahu said on Saturday night. “In my UN General Assembly speech and in all of my meetings I will represent the citizens of Israel and will – on their behalf – refute the slander and lies directed at our country.”
Netanyahu is to address the General Assembly on Monday and meet with Obama on Wednesday.
Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said Abbas’s speech was not that of a man who seeks peace.
“It’s a speech that is full of incitement and lies,” the sources said.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who also is heading to the UN General Assembly, accused Abbas of engaging in political terrorism against the State of Israel and warned that, as long as Abbas is president, it would not be possible to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Abbas does not want and can not be a partner to a logical diplomatic settlement,” Liberman said.
Abbas is the problem, not the solution
Netanyahu must not return to paying protection money to the enemy in Ramallah, in the form of the release of terrorists, a freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria or aiding the reconstruction of Gaza. If, God forbid, Netanyahu is tempted by the reckless advice from the Left, he could lose his support from the Right. Likud ministers will refuse to publicly back him if he is suspected of marching down the foolish Oslo path, and the heads of Habayit Hayehudi and Yisraeli Beytenu will continue to bash him for not toppling Hamas.
If it becomes clear that Netanyahu's diplomatic horizon is what the Left and many media outlets hope it will be, the disappointed Right will not fall in love with Netanyahu again and he could pay a heavy political price. But if Netanyahu wants to improve the country's situation, he must mold the diplomatic horizon in line with his promises and advance Israel's interests. As I see it, he must, first and foremost, deny the theoretical connection between peace and a Palestinian state, as these are a contradiction in terms.
The Zionist vision, not "peace," must be Israel's top priority. The government should focus on gathering the Jewish people in their homeland, which would increase the chances of true peace.
Abbas has ended the peace process
There is no doubt that at this point, Abbas has abandoned the path of negotiations. He strives to impose some sort of solution on Israel, and he fails to understand that the tumultuous developments in the Arab world, including the conflict between Ramallah and the Gaza Strip, have plunged the Palestinian stock to a new low.
Many in the world still subscribe to Abbas' criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, especially when it comes to settlement construction during the peace talks, but the Palestinians' demands no longer seem as poignant given Abbas' refusal to hold earnest negotiations.
The majority of Israelis who subscribe to the two-state solution would probably allege that Netanyahu's insistence to forge ahead with construction outside the main settlement blocs has made it difficult of the Palestinians. I would also hedge that Netanyahu is not keen to pursue the two-state solution, but that no longer matters, since Abbas has beat him to the punch by debunking it.

Monday, September 22, 2014

From Ian:

The West’s axis of evil friends
Over the past six decades the US and its Western allies have fallen entirely under the spell of a few sheikhs who, in other times, would have been laughed off as characters conjured up by Dante or Euripides. It is madness, like watching a world turned upside down, to see the leaders of the free world bowing to people whose main accomplishment in life is getting religious police to hold down women to be whipped in public; whose main contribution to culture, philosophy and art are the blood stains on the ground following executions and whose bravest achievement is finding a way to confiscate the passports of foreign indentured servants and working them 12-hour days.
Americans teach themselves back home about Abraham Lincoln and democracy and the Bill of Rights and then proudly eviscerate every American value the second they search out foreign allies such as these. In the old days politicians in the West were concerned about working with despots, they actively campaigned against close alliances with the Turkish Sultan, “butcher of the Armenians,” or the Russian czar. Newspapers spoke out against injustices. But the West has become entirely inured to this today. Is it too much to ask of the leader of a democracy not to shake hands with the foreign minister of a country that lashes women for appearing in a dance video? That might jeopardize our relations with them and offend them? So what. Let them be offended. We are talking about regimes run by modern-day versions of the KKK, the Inquisition and Ray Rice... all rolled into one.
Will we never be rid of the cowardly foreign policies of countries that have become helpless democratic giants with no moral compass? The least we can do is continue to be shocked by the pandering to the abusers. It is like the Dark Ages. Yes, the world has become savage and full of abuses of humanity, but some people have to preserve the memory of what it could be and the knowledge that one day the men with dark sunglasses in Riyadh will meet with the fate that they so richly deserve.
How Independent is a Think Tank Funded by Hamas-Backing Qatar?
Although Indyk resigned from his Brookings post to assume the special envoy role, he returned to the think tank following the peace talks’ collapse. Critics say Indyk’s relationship with Qatar should have prevented his appointment by the State Department in the first place. Some also say Indyk was the source of leaks on the peace talks that were anonymously cited in media reports as coming from “a senior U.S. official” who blamed Israel for scuttling the negotiations.
Mark Rom, who worked for two years as a research follow at Brookings about 25 years ago, told JNS.org that Indyk should have considered that concerns over a conflict of interest would be raised before he took the job of U.S. special envoy.
“If someone at Brookings receives a lot of money from Qatar and then the person leaves and becomes a negotiator [in the Middle East], it’s hard not to see how that wouldn’t be perceived as a conflict of interest,” said Rom, who is currently the associate dean for academic affairs, co-director of undergraduate studies, and director of the MA in American Government program at Georgetown University. “I’m not questioning the integrity of [Indyk], but people of great integrity still can be in conflict-of-interest situations.”
A May 2013 Bloomberg View column by Jeffrey Goldberg challenged Brookings on its overly gracious treatment of the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. Goldberg described his attendance of a private, off-the-record dinner hosted by Brookings to honor Al Thani, writing that it was a “cringe-worthy” event.
“I went to the dinner that night embarrassed on behalf of Brookings, which, like many institutions in Washington, shouldn’t be taking money from despotic Middle Eastern regimes, yet does,” wrote Goldberg.
FIFA exec: World Cup will not take place in Qatar
Qatar will not host the World Cup in 2022, according to Theo Zwanziger, the German member on the executive committee of world football’s governing body FIFA.
“I think that at the end of the day the 2022 World Cup will not take place in Qatar,” Zwanziger said in an interview with Sport Bild Plus.
The former head of the German Football Federation cited high summer temperatures as the reason Qatar would lose the right to host football’s global showpiece.
“As Mr Zwanziger himself says, it’s his personal opinion,” a FIFA spokesman responded to AFP subsidiary SID when asked about the German’s statement.
UNHRC on Qatar: “I see no objection”


Saturday, September 20, 2014

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: If the West denies what it’s up against, it will lose
Westerners cannot grasp the nature of religious fanaticism. They can’t believe that other cultures may be unlike themselves and motivated not by reason but by dogma. They cannot take seriously the notion of a holy war.
But Islamic State is the purest expression we have seen of precisely that, because all the usual alibis have been stripped away. The fundamental goal of Islamic State is not to remedy some geopolitical grievance against Israel, America, India or Saudi Arabia. It is to establish a caliphate and force the world to submit to Islam. What Islamic State openly stands for is mass murder and barbarism in the name of God.
Neither air strikes nor ground troops will defeat the religious idea for which Islamic State stands and which is inspiring thousands of Muslims to join it and other such militias. To defeat Islamic terror, that idea has to be defeated. The free world needs to help truly reformist Muslims to purge it from their religion.
We must hope Islam can be reformed. If not, the alternative is brutal: either we defeat Islamic extremism or it defeats us. But for sure, denying what it is will hand it victory.
Gaza: The Proto-Palestinian State – That Wasn’t
The Arab and Palestinian leadership, with the UN’s help, was brilliant in ensuring that the world would never forget Palestinian refugee story and, indeed, it is as fresh today as it was in 1948.
A 1959 news report, gleaned from the New York Times archive, provides a revealing illustration of this cynical public relations stunt, which was as destructive as it was effective.
That year, then UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold proposed a massive international development project to resettle Palestinian refugees. As the Times reported on August 9, 1959, Mr. Hammarskjold suggested that $1.5 – $2 billion (approximately $11-$15 billion in 2014 dollars) be spent over the next five years to “make productive jobs for the 1,000,000 refugees in Arab lands.”
It was not to be. The Arab League, supported by Palestinian refugee leaders, opposed the UN plan. They not only rejected the development concept, they demanded that UNRWA “drop all of its resettlement operations and become exclusively a relief agency.” Echoing exactly what we hear from today’s Palestinian leadership, the Arabs insisted that refugees be permitted to return to homes in Israel or receive compensation if they chose not to.
The Times story left no doubt as to what motivated the Arabs’ position:
Israeli Tactics Greatly Reduced Gaza Civilian Casualty Rates
Israel's detractors engage in moral inversion, falsely accusing Israel of crimes and sins that the enemies of the Jewish state commit. In the recently concluded summer war of 2014 between Israel and Hamas, the usual clique of UN organizations, human rights groups and media organizations accused Israel of recklessly causing disproportionate civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, while paying less attention to Hamas crimes against both Israeli and Palestinian civilians. Groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch demanded investigations of Israel for war crimes and called for embargos against the Jewish state. But a web site that specializes in military analysis, DefenseNews, describes innovative Israeli tactics that significantly reduce civilian casualties. The article quotes Israeli Brig. Gen. Amikam Norkin, Israel Air Force chief of staff, who explained that
Protective Edge marked the first time fixed-wing fighters were used as dedicated assets to division- and brigade-level forces.
“Over the last year, we drilled in a very substantive way with the ground forces and we built a process where our fighters could attack at much closer distances … We did this hundreds of times during the operation.”
The result according to Norkin was that Israel was able to far surpass
"an international average of five innocents killed for each targeted terrorist. He said preliminary data from Protective Edge indicates “we’re slowly closing in on numbers of one to one."
Is the UN Fair to Israel?
Israel is a vibrant democracy with full rights for women and gays, a free press and independent judiciary. You would think that the United Nations would celebrate such a country. Instead, the UN condemns Israel at every turn to the point of obsession. How did this happen? Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights, explains in five eye-opening minutes.


Wednesday, August 27, 2014

From Ian:

Step Away, Do Nothing, Pat Self on Back
Obama administration officials spent much of the spring and summer trying to position themselves as grand strategists. The president's West Point speech was the test drive of their revised national security strategy. It cautioned that "our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences -- without building international support and legitimacy for our action, without leveling with the American people about the sacrifices required." The speech was panned by both the right and the left, precipitating a reconsideration of releasing the National Security Strategy on which it was based (the last was delivered in 2010); it sounds even more laughably self-satisfied in light of the costly mistakes their "restraint" has occasioned in Libya, Syria, and Iraq.
The White House likes to defend its inaction by reiterating that there are no good options. And that is true, although it is not newly true. Windows of opportunity open and close, as Helmut Kohl famously worried about German unification. Options get better and worse with time and with opportunities taken and missed. But the Obama administration's philosophizing is cold comfort to the people experiencing the consequences of our inaction. We should beware buying another whole generation of mistrust from the people of the Middle East by our callous indifference to their problems and solipsistic attempts to ennoble our inaction.
If there actually is an Obama Doctrine -- and it's a debatable point, given the contradictions in the administration's policies -- it is this: Step back, criticize others who step forward, and laud our own moral superiority for doing nothing. Meanwhile, Islamist militias have encircled Tripoli and taken control of the airport. The Western governments that signed the statement encouraging a cease-fire are setting Libya up for continued humanitarian catastrophe and themselves up for another rush-to-the-crime-scene intervention. America is not incapable of devising and executing grand strategy. But the Obama administration evidently is. (h/t Alexi)
Who Occupies Gaza?


There Is No Israeli Siege On Gaza


National Founder of SJP Calls To Silence Jewish Groups The Evening Before The Jewish New Year
University of California at Berkeley professor and founder of the national student group “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) Hatem Bazian announced an “International Day of Action” to call for a complete academic and cultural boycott of Israel on September 23rd- the Eve before the Jewish New Year.
The anti-Semitic nature of the day included calls for “No joint research or conferences with Israeli Institutions, No to University Presidents' Visits to Israel, No Campus Police Training or Cooperation with Israeli Security” in addition to demanding the elimination of all study abroad programs in Israel. The effort is to prevent all academic interaction with the Jewish state and to limit people’s ability to interact with Israel and Israelis.
The attempt to isolate Israel extends to a boycott of Jewish and Israeli on-campus organizations as well. Professor Bazian has also commanded his group to demand “No to University Coordination and Strategizing with the ADL, JCRC, AJC, Stand With US, ZOA, Israeli Consulate to Limit Students Pro-Palestine Constitutionally Protected Activities.”
VIDEO: Gazan Children Cheer For Rockets To Hit America
A video from Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Israeli-Hamas war in July has recently circulated, showing footage that no mainstream American news outlet would dare cover: Gazan children cheering as rockets are fired into Israel, saying they wished the rockets would hit America instead.
CNS News reports:
For Al Jazeera's "America Tonight," foreign correspondent Nick Schifrin reported during an older segment entitled "Israel invades Gaza" on July 17. "Palestinian fighters fire a barrage of rockets," he noted, with two flying towards Tel Aviv. As the camera focused on children clapping and cheering, Schifrin translated, "They tell me they hope they land not on Israel, but in the United States."

Friday, August 22, 2014

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Stop blaming Israel and wake up: The black flag of jihad is the REAL threat to the world
Jews are attacked here in Britain, they are blockaded into a synagogue in Paris and the chant ‘Death to the Jews’ is heard in Germany for the first time in 70 years.
But too few people seem to want to notice this or admit what it means. They think this is just about Israel, or just about Jewish people. It isn’t. It is about all of us.
The decision last month by the Israeli government to respond to Hamas rocket-fire from Gaza is the response any government would choose if rockets were fired at its citizens. The Israeli government has the right - as does any government - to stop the bombarding of its people.
However, in recent weeks it has become plain that much of the world expects a different response from Israel. They expect Israel not to fight for the safety, security and survival of their people, but to lie down in front of the Islamic extremist enemy.
JPost Editorial: Treating terror
The beheading of American photojournalist James Foley, apparently by a British member of the Islamic State terrorist group in Iraq, is yet another shocking example of the danger posed to Western countries by their own citizens who have joined the forces of jihad.
It follows several recent chilling incidents involving Western jihadis, including Twitter photos published by an Australian fighting for Islamic State holding the severed heads of two Syrian soldiers.
Estimates of the number of Western “jihad tourists” in Syria and Iraq reach as high as 3,000. Others have traveled to Yemen to join al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab. They have been involved in countless atrocities including beheadings, executions and suicide missions.
As former British foreign secretary William Hague noted in a February statement to the House of Commons, some of them “may return ideologically hardened and with experience in weapons and explosives.”
Three months later, Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-yearold Frenchman of Algerian origin, returned from a stint in Syria, where he is believed to have fought with Islamic State – in its previous incarnation, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – and shot dead four people, including two Israelis, at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
It was the first instance of a “blowback” attack by a jihadi returning from Syria.
Israel's UN Envoy: Radical Extremism Affects Us All
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, warned on Thursday that terrorism has doubled its power.
Speaking at a Security Council Debate on the subject of conflict prevention, Prosor said that radical extremism affected the entire world and not just Israel. He called for a “war against radical ideology”.
“Radical extremism has touched every part of the world from Buenos Aires to Burgas and from Bangkok to Burkina Faso,” said Prosor.
“Oppression and extremism are not bound by borders. Nowhere is this threat more obvious than in the Middle East.
Full Speech: Prosor at the Security Council Debate- Conflict Prevention 21/8/14


Friday, August 15, 2014

From Ian:

4 Types Of Anti-Israel Leftists
In recent weeks, debates have been flaring up on social media about who is to blame for the Arab-Israeli conflict in Gaza. Even celebrities such as Joan Rivers and Selena Gomez have gotten involved, dividing friends and fans. As someone who leans pretty left myself, I have always been baffled at how people who have rational, intelligent viewpoints that I agree with on every other issue somehow lose their minds when it comes to this conflict. The scientist that I am, I have investigated the reason for this discrepancy, and have noticed some patterns. The four categories displayed below seem to follow their own distinct flavour of anti-Zionism. They all have common threads in that they love to cite the heavily-biased UN for “evidence” of Israeli war crimes, to argue that criticizing Israel or even being anti-Zionist doesn’t make them anti-Semitic, and to nitpick at even the smallest of Israel’s faults, while obscuring the far more egregious faults of Hamas, to use as reasons for its nonexistence – something I never see done about any other country. However, the four schools of anti-Zionist thought are distinctive in their approach.
4. The Leftie Who Is Actually A Right-Winger
Common Giveaways:
-Mention of the “AIPAC lobby” or other implications that Jews control the government through their pockets.
-Accusing you of being paid to be pro-Israel by the Israeli government or Hasbara.
-“Jews love to accuse anyone who is anti-Zionist or has legitimate criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic in order to invalidate any opposition” – all four types of anti-Israel leftists use this line, but this wolf in sheep’s clothing has a particular affinity for it, as they are quick to try to hide that they are anti-Semitic knowing full well know that if their anti-Semitism was revealed, it would invalidate their claims.
Tunnels as war crime
The tunnels built by Hamas in Gaza, in particular, present novel issues for international law. Gaza’s tunnels are different from traditional military objectives like army bases or weapons depots. In their design, the tunnels burrow under an internationally recognized border, they traverse civilian areas, and their primary objective and effect – contrary to international law – is to harm and endanger civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian.
While being constructed, Gaza’s tunnels pose a substantial risk to those building them – often children – and to the civilian structures under which they are dug. The last few weeks have shown us that most tunnel digging begins within homes, hospitals, mosques and other “protected objects”. Filled with explosives and weapons, tunnels can detonate at any time, risking not only the lives of the diggers and operatives who use them, but also the civilians living above them. And this is only on the Palestinian side of the border.
Equally challenging are the conditions in which these tunnels may be eliminated. In Gaza, which does not have the open spaces found in Vietcong-controlled Vietnam or al Qaeda-controlled Afghanistan, the destruction of a tunnel inevitably results in the destruction of civilian structures above the subterranean passage, and in many cases the loss of civilian lives.
My Jewish Family’s Incredible Shrinking World
The Middle East is even more fraught, of course. “You can go to United Arab Emirates, certainly to Dubai,” people say. Can I? “Don’t be too open about being Jewish but they don’t care there. They’re very modern.” My husband was born in Israel and it says so on his American passport. They don’t allow Israelis into the United Arab Emirates, at least that’s the official policy of this “modern” country. Even if he wasn’t marked for exclusion, I’m not keeping my Jewishness a secret. If Saudi Arabia opened its doors to me tomorrow, I still wouldn’t go. I’m not covering my head. I’m a woman of the free world, I have spent my life being grateful for this, knowing that a twist of fate gave me freedom I could have so easily not have had.
I wore a Star of David around my neck the entire time I lived in Scotland. I think I’d be uncomfortable doing the same now. The rage emanating from Europe toward Jews is white hot. A synagogue in Surrey was defaced. Another synagogue was vandalized in Miami of all places. But what’s lacking when it happens in Europe is any sense of outrage from the Europeans. In Miami the atmosphere was “how could this happen here?” In Europe there is no such question. Of course it happens there. In France, when synagogues get firebombed, as they do with alarming frequency, there isn’t a national movement to say they won’t stand for it. They very much stand for it. French Jews are the scapegoats for the real problems in France, between the French and those the French call “the Arabs,” even though “the Arabs” have lived there for decades and should just be French by now. Forget Turkey, a country I once enjoyed visiting. They went off the rails years ago. It’s an election year in Turkey now, so obviously Israel is the top issue in a country with 9% unemployment.
Israeli performers get disinvited from a festival in Edinburgh as if disinviting artists from countries whose politics you don’t like is a normal thing to do. Where is the outrage? They pretend it’s because of Israel, not because they’re Jews. Then the Jewish Film Festival gets canceled in London. An embarrassment. Britain should hang its head in shame. It doesn’t. A crowd in Germany (in Germany!) shouts “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.” Where is Germany’s soul-searching that this goes on within its borders? Forget Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem signing an anti-Israel letter in a Spanish newspaper. No big deal when the second-biggest newspaper in Spain prints a piece arguing Jews “are not made to co-exist,” with references to how good they are with money, how they deserved expulsion, wondering how they still exist (“persist”) at all.(h/t Phil)

Thursday, August 14, 2014

From Ian:

The New Romantics: "Being Fair" to Terrorist Groups
It is now fashionable to be anti-Semitic again, so long as you disguise it as anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism. Here, the Romantics can join hands, not only with the Islamists but with the anti-Semitic new Nazis in Europe, where, over the last several years, hatred of Jews has re-emerged as a major political force.
What sort of pink-tinted spectacles do you need to march while chanting, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas"? Or to march alongside the black flags of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that terrorize millions and threaten to slaughter thousands as those who hold them dream of glory and triumph? Throughout Europe, it is not just the new Romantics that bow down to the myth of Islam as the path to peace. Governments, church leaders, do-gooders of every stripe accommodate every demand made by Muslim minorities. "Shari'a Law? No problem." "Islamic banking? Why not?" "Muslim prayer groups obstructing our roads and pavements? They have every right."
This all illustrates a different sort of acquiescence: infatuation probably born out of fear rather than out of revolutionary zeal and hatred of the abominable West. Both are dangerous, but there is still time for democratic publics everywhere to turn back the tide of submission to Islam. Given its history and predilections, the Romantics will cling to the coat-tails of Hamas, Hizbullah, the Islamic State, and the Muslim Brotherhood until they triumph. When that happens, the Gays for Palestine, B'tselem, the Marxists, the Presbyterians, the Socialist Workers Party, EAPPI, the Quakers and everyone else will smile as they are led to the gallows, knowing they have wrought a great change in the world but destroyed democracy, love and liberty, and personal freedom in their tragic journey to romantic fulfilment.
David Horovitz: US livid with Israel? Hamas can’t believe its luck
After the abandonment of Israel by the UK, with its promise to limit arms sales to Israel if Hamas restarts its attacks on our civilians, we now learn that the US is already restricting arms sales to Israel, having halted a planned supply of the Hellfire precision missiles that enable Israel to strike at the rocket launchers set up by Hamas in the heart of Gaza’s residential areas.
While we seek to ascertain just how grave the crisis now is between Israel and its most important ally — is the case of the non-delivered Hellfires a procedural delay or the beginning of an embargo? is the relationship between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations ruptured or just very heavily strained? — nobody is going to believe the prime minister the next time he claims, as he did two weeks ago, that US support throughout this campaign has been “terrific.”
It becomes ever harder to understand what the US administration thinks it is doing in the Middle East. Its influence is waning across the region. It appears insufficiently robust — to put it mildly — when dealing with the region’s most dangerous regimes, notably Iran. Its ill-judged lack of enthusiasm for Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi — apparently blamed by Washington for ending an elected Muslim Brotherhood presidency, even though president Mohammed Morsi would likely have ensured no further elections — is pushing Egypt ever closer to Russia. And now ties with the region’s only democracy are fraying.
Israeli official confirms US nixed arms shipment; pols argue over who’s to blame
A senior Israeli official confirmed to Israeli media that the US had suspended a shipment of Hellfire missiles to Israel amid worsening ties over fighting in Gaza.
The decision to hold off on the transfer was most likely on grounds of increased diplomatic tension, the official said, corroborating a Wall Street Journal report earlier in the day that claimed the White House and State Department had been angered by a transfer of arms to Israel and had ordered greater oversight into future sales.
The report claimed that US-Israeli tensions are at a record high, with US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to hold a “particularly combative phone call on Wednesday” and officials on both sides resorting to name-calling.
The accounts sparked an internal debate between Israeli politicians.
WSJ Hypes False Story About Israeli End-Around The White House To Grab Munitions
Dominating the front page of Thursday's Wall Street Journal is a story called "Israel Outflanks White House in Pressing Gaza Strategy" which contends among other things that Israel has been doing an end-around the White House by securing munitions directly from the Pentagon. Buried in the twenty-first paragraph of the piece as an end run around is actually standard operating procedure.
On Thursday's Morning Joe, NBC's Pentagon Reporter Jim Miklaszewski agreed that the end around story was not true:
When this issue arose people at the Pentagon were discussing it openly because at the time it was considered a pro forma exchange. These weapons, primarily munitions actually are forward located in a stockpile in Israel that are under the control of the U.S. government so that in an emergency, if the Israeli government needs munitions in a hurry, it's there.
(…) I don't know that it happened that way but officials here [the Pentagon] at the time, described it as a prearranged pro forma exchange between the U.S. and Israel in terms of providing them ammunition. And I can tell you when we asked questions about it here at the time, there was nobody that was attempting to side step the issue, doing the tap dance. They said, oh, yeah, we did it, blah, blah, and here it is. So I can't tell you if, in fact, there was anybody here at the Pentagon that was trying to undercut the State Department or the White House. And quite frankly, with the iron hand in which the White House rules this building, they don't sneeze here without waiting for the White House to say gezuntheit. That is not far from the truth. For a minute I can't believe personally that people here at the Pentagon were trying to purposely hide this transfer of munitions or undercut the White House.


Wednesday, August 13, 2014

From Ian:

UN Audit Shows “Black Hole” in Supervision of Gaza Construction Prior to War
Fox News reported yesterday that an internal United Nations audit of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Gaza found that UNDP “allowed at least five non-staff contract employees to handle ‘core’ procurement processes that only staffers are supposed to handle, including those for ordering up ‘significant’ civil construction activities.”
The report notes a number of other irregularities that that the audit turned up, included charges for construction projects “at far less than … full value,” allowing the projects to avoid scrutiny, as well as failure to track receipts and expenditures properly.
"Taken together, the findings in the carefully manicured audit report — which was vetted by UNDP management at the affected office — point to a possible black hole in the supervision of civil construction, and perhaps other programs in Gaza and the other Palestinian territories for at least a year before the current explosion of terrorism."
The upshot of all of these irregularities, according to Fox, is that they lend “credibility to Israeli accusations that internationally-managed relief supplies to Gaza were diverted into construction of the elaborate and highly-engineered tunnels under the territory that were used by Hamas terrorists to launch and coordinate rocket attacks and incursions into Israel that dramatically escalated in March.”
Senators want UNRWA investigated over 'troubling' Gaza role
Accusing UNRWA of maintaining active and extensive ties with Hamas— and of supporting its activities throughout the month-long war— Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote a letter this week to US Secretary of State John Kerry accusing the UN agency of bias and characterizing its role in the conflict as "troubling."
UNRWA, an ostensibly neutral agency tasked with administering aid to Palestinian refugees throughout the region, adopted a political role in the heat of the conflict, during which at least four of its facilities were badly damaged and many of their inhabitants killed. During the deadliest days of the war, UNRWA officials went on record accusing the Israeli government of violating international humanitarian law.
UNRWA also publicly declared the discovery of three caches of rockets stored in Gaza schools during the July battle. The organization did not identify a responsible party for the crime, however, noting that the schools used as weapons depots were "mothballed" for the summer months.
Dershowitz Asks: Does Jimmy Carter's Support for Hamas Constitute a Criminal Offense?
While Jimmy Carter was busy accusing Israel of war crimes and encouraging greater international support for the terrorist group Hamas, a noted legal expert and civil rights advocate claims the former American president may have committed several criminal felonies that ban the provision of material support to terrorist organizations.
Recently retired Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz told J.D. Hayworth at Newsmax TV that Carter’s recent article in London’s Guardian Newspaper, urging international recognition for Hamas, may have constituted recruitment for an organization classified as ‘terrorist’ under US law.
Dershowitz accused Jimmy Carter of being "an all-out supporter of Hamas," warning that if his advocacy turns into material support for the terrorist Hamas, Carter will be committing a felony.
"Jimmy Carter wants the United States and the European community to legitimize Hamas," said Dershowitz. “It's against the law in the United States, even if you're a former president, it's against the law to provide material support to a listed terrorist organization."
Dershowitz claims that Carter’s call for the recognition of Hamas as an equal with Israel “defies logic. But leave it to Jimmy Carter,” said Dershowitz to defy logic. “It's as if one would want to recognize and legitimate the Mafia or al-Qaida or the Taliban," he said.
David Horovitz: When the history of this war is written
It will not reflect well on Britain, journalism, and the struggle against anti-Semitism
Britain abandoned Israel.
The principled initial position of Prime Minister David Cameron in support of Israel was gradually eroded to the point where, on August 12, the British ministry of trade announced that if Hamas attacked Israel again, it would halt some of its arms sales to Israel. No, you did not misread that. If the terrorist government of Gaza, sworn to destroy Israel, initiated new violence against Israel, Britain will stop selling Israel some of the arms it needs to keep its people safe.
It goes without saying that the UN mustered all of its skewed forums to harm Israel, and that most of the Arab world piled on energetically too — even those countries who know to their own bloody cost the sheer inhumanity of Islamist terrorist organizations. The hostility demonstrated elsewhere in the international arena was shocking, but not surprising either. But Britain, central to the revival of the Jewish homeland in the last century, took a step that, were it not for Israel’s own capabilities and other alliances, would begin the process of rendering Israel helpless in the face of those who seek to annihilate it. And that is beyond reprehensible. It is a moral failure of the first order. It should shame all those who played a part in producing such a move. And quite apart from the impact on Israel, it must profoundly trouble all those of us who love and appreciate Britain and who care for Britain’s future.
British government threatens Israel with arms halt
What’s most astonishing here is that the suspension is not conditioned on which party breaks a ceasefire. If Hamas starts firing rockets at Israel again, it seems, the UK’s position is that Israel should not respond, lest this lead to “a resumption of significant hostilities.”
Even as an outsider, I could see something like this coming from the moment the Tory-Lib Dem coalition came into office.
By contrast, and despite the well-publicized tensions between Obama and Netanyahu, military cooperation between the US and Israel remains strong, and continued military aid to Israel is one of the few matters on which most Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as Obama, agree.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

From Ian:

Palestinian Columnist: Hamas Did Not Win The War, Only Brought Suffering Upon Gazans
In an August 7, 2014 article titled "We Did Not Win," which was posted on the Amad.ps website, Palestinian columnist Dalia Al-'Afifi challenged Hamas' claim that it won the Gaza war. She wrote that Hamas had shown ignorance of Israel's rationale, had caused innumerable losses and damage to the Palestinians, and had erred in rejecting the Egyptian initiative. She added that the immense destruction in Gaza cannot be called a victory by any standards, and that Hamas' tactics are not likely to bring about an improvement in the Gazans' living conditions, not to mention promote the larger political goals of the Palestinian people.
Khaled Abu Toameh: The Real "Siege" of the Gaza Strip
Egypt has not only turned Gaza into an "open-air prison." It has prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip before and during the war.
Last year, more than 100 Muslim scholars signed a petition accusing Egypt and Arab countries of participating in the siege of Gaza by keeping Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza closed and preventing medical and humanitarian aid.
Egypt does not want anyone to talk about its blockade of Gaza. At the cease-fire discussions taking place in Cairo, the Palestinians have been asked not to talk about the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
The Egyptians want the world to blame only Israel for the "siege" on the Gaza Strip, and turn it into an Israeli, and not an Egyptian, problem.
While Egypt continues to impose strict restrictions, hundreds of trucks of food and basic supplies — and ambulances and medical staff from Israel — are being transported into Gaza through border crossings with Israel.
Whatever is ultimately decided, Hamas's leaders will find ways to smuggle weapons into Gaza: their goal is to destroy Israel.
Times of Israel Live Blog: Defense chief says Gaza op not over, unclear if deal will be reached
Despite Gazan claims, IDF ships fired warning shots at boat, not Rafah; ceasefire deal expected tomorrow, says Islamic Jihad source, others contend that gaps remain; UN investigator Schabas defends record; new flotilla announced

Monday, August 11, 2014

From Ian:

Foreign Press Assoc protests “blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox” Hamas intimidation
The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month.
The international media are not advocacy organisations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground.
In several cases, foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories or information they have reported through their news media or by means of social media.
We are also aware that Hamas is trying to put in place a “vetting” procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific journalists. Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA.
Douglas Murray: Owen Jones is lying about Israel. Plain and simple.
I am sure that, if Israel ‘wanted’ to carry out ‘indiscriminate slaughter’ in Gaza, they could. But they don’t want to, which is a major reason why they don’t. Israel’s aim is to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas’s aim — in Israel and in Gaza (where at least 10 per cent of Hamas’s own rockets fall short and hit Gazans) — is to maximise civilian casualties.
But this is of no apparent interest to Owen or the thousands of people who turned out again last weekend to protest against Israel. To these people Israel is committing a ‘massacre’, an ‘atrocity’, ‘war-crimes’, ‘genocide’ and even a ‘Holocaust.’ There is no evidence for these claims. They are a wild and wilful distortion of the facts on the ground. The claim that Israel is engaged in ‘the massacre of children’ is not just a lie. It is precisely the sort of lie which makes its way into the body politic and then persuades some people that they must act on this outrage. After all, if you knew of a friendly government which was wilfully engaged in the deliberate ‘indiscriminate slaughter’ of children, what would you not do to stop it?
Here, in a nutshell, you can see the moral sickness of a portion of the Left. For good form’s sake — and doubtless with sincerity — they stress how much they loathe anti-Semitism. But as they hold one hand up in a scout’s promise that they oppose all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, there they are with the other hand busily feeding the furies. Anybody really concerned about avoiding anti-Semitism should take another course. An honest person would realise that if you stop the lies then, although you might never entirely stop the anti-Semitism, you may at least subdue it.
Father of Slain Israeli Teen Slams Buzzfeed
Ofir Shaer, the father of 16-year-old Gilad Shaer, who was abducted in June with two other teens, questioned the motives of outlets such as BuzzFeed, which has come under scrutiny in recent weeks for publishing reports claiming that Hamas was not involved in the incident, despite mounting evidence presented by Israeli authorities indicating otherwise.
Following the first BuzzFeed report that claimed Israeli political leaders had fabricated Hamas’s involvement in the abductions in order to create a pretext for the current Gaza war, Israel’s Shin Bet security service disclosed that one of the Palestinian suspects had been in Israeli custody for weeks and had admitted to Hamas’ involvement in the terror plot.
BuzzFeed’s reporting on the crime helped fuel accusations by Israel’s critics that the Gaza war had been started by Israel, not Hamas.
IDF Reserve Officer Describes Experience in Face of Terrorists in Gaza
Ohad Elhelo, a junior at Brandeis University, left his summer internship to serve as a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces during Operation Defensive Edge and spoke about his experience at a Boston's "Rally in Solidarity with Israel" last Thursday.
Elhelo described the steps that Israel's military takes to ensure civilian safety, including one terrifying experience in which a terrorist fired a missile and then retreated to an ambulance. He also noted that two of his friends lost their lives in the war and that 18 year old soldiers have "to make the hardest decisions possible."
"I refuse to believe there is a Jewish heart that was not broken for the death of each Palestinian child," explained Elhelo
He called for the elimination of Hamas and for the international community to afford moderate Palestinian people a chance to build infrastructure and a better future for Israelis and Palestinians.
J Street refused to join with the Boston community and rally in support of Israel and against terrorism.
IDF Reserve Officer: "New Infrastructure of Hope" (Hebrew Subtitles)


Sunday, August 10, 2014

From Ian:

Dennis Ross: Hamas could have chosen peace. Instead, it made Gaza suffer.
The Israelis will certainly resist an outcome that offers Hamas any gains. Having destroyed the tunnels that could penetrate Israel, the Israelis have pulled out of Gaza and were willing to extend the 72-hour truce that ended Friday. Hamas was not willing to do so. If Israel hopes to build broader international pressure on the group to stop firing, the Israel Defense Forces will need to avoid targets such as U.N. schools and hospitals. Of course, that is easier said than done, given that Hamas often fires rockets from or near such sites.
At some point, Hamas will stop firing rockets — if for no other reason than its arsenal is depleted. For the people of Gaza, however, the price has been staggering. But Hamas’s leaders have never been concerned about that. For them, Palestinians’ pain and suffering are tools to exploit, not conditions to end.
When relative calm returns, there will understandably be a push for a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now even less able politically to tackle the core issues , a permanent agreement between the two sides is not in the cards. U.S. diplomacy, therefore, needs to be guided by several considerations and achievable aims. (h/t Alexi)
Exclusive: New Details Surface in Hamas Murder of IDF Soldier Hadar Goldin (update)
The officer explained how, after the suicide bombing that killed Lt. Goldin, a second kidnapping team of Hamas terrorists grabbed parts of his body and ran back into the tunnel from which the terrorists emerged. The tunnel led back into a mosque. From the mosque, they escaped in a clearly marked UNRWA ambulance. The terrorists then made contact with high-ranking Hamas officials hiding in the Islamic University.
As a result Abu Marzook, a senior member of Hamas, announced in Cairo that Hamas had kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israeli intelligence intercepted a conversation between the kidnappers and the Hamas officials at the Islamic University and thus got all the particulars regarding the hiding place of the kidnappers. Within minutes, the IAF attacked both the kidnappers' location and the Islamic University.
In the midst of this attack, a second force of IDF soldiers--which had gone into a mosque looking for weapons, explosives, and rockets-- encountered a female suicide bomber who was about to detonate the belt she wore, which would have resulted in the deaths of the soldiers. One of the soldiers instinctively recited the opening words of the holiest Jewish prayer “Shema Yisrael”. The female suicide bomber hesitated and began trembling, giving the soldiers a chance to grab her and disable the device.
The soldiers then took her prisoner and turned her over to a counter-intelligence unit. Their investigation uncovered that the female suicide bomber’s mother was a Jew who had married a Palestinian in Israel and, after the wedding, was smuggled against her will into Gaza. There she lived a life filled with abuse and humiliation, and was basically a captive. In addition to the female suicide bomber, there were two smaller children as well. An armored force went in and rescued the two small children.
UPDATE: People I trust are telling me that this story does not add up to the known facts about the attack. There have been a lot of rumors going around as fact to try to make up for Israeli censorship and this story very well may be an example of that.

Hillary Clinton Criticizes Obama Foreign Policy, Slams ‘Unfair’ World Response to Gaza War
Much of my conversation with Clinton focused on the Gaza war. She offered a vociferous defense of Israel, and of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well. This is noteworthy because, as secretary of state, she spent a lot of time yelling at Netanyahu on the administration's behalf over Israel’s West Bank settlement policy. Now, she is leaving no daylight at all between the Israelis and herself.
“I think Israel did what it had to do to respond to the rockets,” she told me. “Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has taken to embed rockets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult.”
I asked her if she believed that Israel had done enough to prevent the deaths of children and other innocent people.
“[J]ust as we try to do in the United States and be as careful as possible in going after targets to avoid civilians,” mistakes are made, she said. “We’ve made them. I don’t know a nation, no matter what its values are—and I think that democratic nations have demonstrably better values in a conflict position—that hasn’t made errors, but ultimately the responsibility rests with Hamas.”(h/t Bob Knot)
Doctors for terrorism
The one-sided campaign waged by Physicians for Human Rights Israel is also supported by several European governments as well as the New Israel Fund.
It is possible to diminish the influence of these bodies by exposing their misuse of medical ethics and holding the Norwegian, British and other bodies who fund them to account. This is not a simple process, but it has been proven effective in the long-term.
The Lancet medical journal is a financial body, therefore, the most effective (and certainly the most complicated) strategy would be to cancel subscriptions and to pull advertising in protest of the misuse of medical ethics. Those who use their professional status and prestige to promote anti-Semitism and support terrorism are dishonoring the Hippocratic oath they took, vowing to "never do harm."

Friday, August 08, 2014

From Ian:

Israel Does Not Exist to Make Liberal Jews Feel Good
In one of the most important pieces written during the course of this conflict, Shmuel Rosner has taken to the website of the New York Times, where he is a contributing opinion writer, with a profoundly thoughtful riposte to the disapora Jews who have expressed their disaffection with Israel as a result of the goings-on—from Jon Stewart to Ezra Klein, from Peter Beinart to Roger Cohen.
Rosner says these men may be right that Israel is in danger of losing its bedrock support among American Jews in particular. He says that would put Israel in a difficult position and represent a near-tragic development. But his central point is this: Israel is not actually their country. They do not live in Israel, they do not vote in Israel, their children are not in the Israeli army. Israel is a nation of 8 million people, and it must act in accordance with the views of its electorate and the existential needs of its people as Israelis define them.
Douglas Murray: The black flag of ISIS is flying in London
There is a phrase used of, and by, jihadists: ‘First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.’ Well there’s a fine example of this on display at the moment in East London. Even the Guardian has picked up on it.
At the entrance to a council estate near Canary Wharf, amid the banners of the hilariously misnamed ‘Stop the War coalition’ (‘End the Siege on Gaza’) the Black flag of Jihad is flying. Yes, that’s right, at a major council estate in the East End of London the black flag of ISIS is flying. Here is an excerpt from what one might hope is the Guardian’s learning curve:
This isn’t the first such sighting. A couple of weeks ago I drew attention on Twitter to the fact that the black flag of jihad had been hoisted when young Muslims from the East End of London blocked the Blackwall Tunnel in a gesture of anti-Israel activity. There, among all the Palestinian flags, also flew the black flag of Jihad. The black flag has been on display elsewhere in Western Europe in recent weeks, notably at pro-ISIS and ‘pro-Palestine’ demonstrations in Holland.
Humanitarian Pressure Helped Create Terror Tunnels in Gaza
Lt. Col (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi, an expert on the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), explained that some of the materials, including cement and iron, were smuggled into Gaza by Hamas through other tunnels from Egypt. Yet due to pressure from international human rights organizations, until recently Israel itself was also providing Gaza with those materials. While the materials were earmarked for civilian construction projects, Halevi said that in reality, they were diverted by Hamas to create the network of attack tunnels.
“The pressure [on Israel to transfer building materials] was enormous and [was put on] by several [local] human rights organizations and international [ones], and was very effective in reaching out to the world’s public opinion, including the EU (European Union) and the U.S. administration,” Halevi told JNS.org. “And that, in a way, helped Hamas’s efforts in building these tunnels.”
The Japanese have some questions for ‘Palestine Supporters’…AND OH ARE THEY AWESOME
You are lamenting the “low sinking” of a “once proud” nation. Please tell me, when exactly was that “nation” proud and what was it so proud of?
And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call “Palestinians” are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over — or thrown out of — the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?
I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day “Palestinians” to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won’t work here.

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: Some truly hated truths
The truth is that Israel’s cardinal sin is not allowing its genocidal enemies a deluxe war. This has earned us wrath in censorious capitals and yet another preposterous summons from the UNHRC’s kangaroo court.
The truth is that none of the moral relativists out there will admit that the only imbalance in our equation is between the morality of an ultra-liberal democracy and the immorality of the primeval fanatics who beleaguer it.
The truth is that Gaza’s piteous plaintiveness must be juxtaposed with the riotous rejoicing over a single Israeli’s “capture.”
But these unvarnished truths are unwanted in the smug societies that turn up their sneering noses at us. As George Orwell is reputed to have warned mankind, "the further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it."
BBC and NYT Admit Gazan Civilian Casualty Stats Not Credible
Since the conflict in Gaza began, many in the media have become obsessed with publishing “body count” casualty statistics, especially showing the number of Gazan civilian casualties. This data has been used to support those accusing Israel of committing “war crimes.” They say that the huge numbers of “civilian” deaths proves that Israel is being indiscriminate in its military operations.
Now both the BBC and the New York Times (which has been particularly fixated on the daily casualty stats) are admitting that there are serious problems with these numbers.
The BBC’s head of statistics Anthony Reuben, asks:
"If the Israeli attacks have been ‘indiscriminate,’ as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women…
In conclusion, we do not yet know for sure how many of the dead in Gaza are civilians and how many were fighters. This is in no sense the fault of the UN employees collecting the figures – their statistics are accompanied by caveats and described as preliminary and subject to to revision.
But it does mean that some of the conclusions being drawn from them may be premature.
UN Watch: Letter to Navi Pillay about her silence on Hamas
Dear Navi Pillay,
Every minute of your silence since Hamas attacked Israel this morning and broke the ceasefire only confirms what we already knew: You are a fraud.
Sincerely,
Hillel C. Neuer UN Watch

Thursday, August 07, 2014

From Ian:

Gaza Bishop: Hamas fired rockets from church compound
Israeli missiles targeted an area close to the church sanctuary.
In this video released today, Archbishop Alexios of Gaza describes how Hamas had fired rockets from the church compound (at 1:12)(h/t ColRichardKemp)
"Alexios took CBN News to the roof terrace outside his office to show how Hamas used the church compound to launch rockets into Israel. He refused to discuss details on camera for security reasons, but days after the war started, Israeli missiles targeted an area close to the church sanctuary."
Gaza Bishop: Hamas Used Church to Fire Rockets


Hamas Leaders Hide Behind ISM Activists
This first was apparent at the WAFA hospital where Hamas command and control leaders and weapons caches could be found being guarded by ISM human shields. The ISM sent out emails to its world members to contact the foreign ministries from the many EU countries from whence they came asking their pro-Hamas colleagues to write and call, urging them to demand the IDF not attack the hospital because to do so would violate “international law.”
Good sense prevailed though, and after the IDF gave warnings to allow the ISM-ers and their Hamas charges to flee and escape, the hospital was destroyed. Rumor had it that as they evacuated the hospital, local Arabs threw garbage and insults at the ISM and Hamas for bringing a bombing down on their neighborhood.
The ISM and their Hamas charges then went by ambulances to the Beit Hannoun hospital. They started the same scenario, writing ISM supporters worldwide that they needed to write foreign ministers and demand Israel be criticized for bombing hospitals. This time the issue was protecting “medical personnel” at Beit Hannoun hospital. According to the ISM itself, there was only one patient there attended by 60 “doctors” and the rest were ISM activists from all over Europe, and one in particular, Joe Catron from the USA.
GAZA DOME


Wednesday, August 06, 2014

From Ian:

Ryan Bellerose: Of Skullcaps And Asshats
I had people tell me they didn’t think I should wear something so offensive, which I found odd. I have some T shirts that even I think are offensive, yet nobody in Canada has ever said a word to me, even when I wore a T shirt with a woman in a hijab saying “ Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lusts.” Or “Save the trees, wipe your ass with an owl.” So can someone explain to me why a simple cap with some Hebrew on it is considered to be so damn offensive?
The last one is the most annoying, the “reasonable” guy who explains how he doesn’t hate Jews, he hates Zionists, and the Rothschilds and the people who control the banks and the media who happen to be Jewish. I met two of those guys, the asshats not the Rothschilds. On the asshat scale they are about a 10.5. I have no doubt they tell themselves they aren’t bigots, but what they say is every bit as offensive to me as the one guy who told me I was a genocidal baby killer. The odd thing is that wearing a kippah doesn’t mean you support Israel. I have debated Jewish people like Lucas Koerner who wore a kippah and hates Israel. I wish that kid would walk through one of these neighbourhood wearing his kippah. Maybe he would understand why the world needs Israel.
I am halfway through the week, the week I decided to wear a Kkippah. I have had some good experiences but they have been vasty outweighed by ignorance and outright bigotry. I think people are unaware of the bigotry. I have to believe that this is the case because if they knew and still said nothing , I would have to say they are asshats.
College Democrats of America Student Leader Equates Israel With Nazi Germany
In a shocking exchange uncovered by citizen journalist Aaron Robinow, high ranking student officials in College Democrats of America equated Israel with Nazi Germany and told a pro-Israel member of the CDA to "go f**k himself." Robinow highlighted the exchange on his website:
[S]enior officers from College Democrats of America took to Facebook to bully a colleague for supporting Israel’s right to defend itself. Giovanni Hashimoto, a member of CDA’s national communication team posted on Facebook to support Israel as a “peace loving.” Within minutes he was harassed, name called with classic leftists tactics–by his colleagues at CDA. Chris Woodside, a social media coordinator for the national organization, equated Israel with Nazi Germany, exclaimed Israeli PM Netanyahu is a war criminal and perpetuating genocide and declared being pro-Israel and a “good person” mutually exclusive. Evan Goldstein, also listed by College Democrats of America as a social media coordinator, told the pro-Israel student to “go (f**k) himself” and described him as a “douchebag” for supporting the Jewish state.
The Poisoned Lancet
These are the people whose Israel-hating letter was featured by the Lancet, ostensibly a medical journal. Not one is identified as the lifelong defender of Israel’s enemies and radical activist against Israel’s existence that each one is.
Lancet has a history of poisoning medical reporting with its radical left-wing politics. It made worldwide headlines in 2006 by reporting what were ultimately deemed wild exaggerations, if not outright lies, about the number of Iraqis killed during the American war in Iraq.
Lancet perfectly embodies four observations about our world.
One is from the prophet Isaiah: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”
The second is from the legendary American screenwriter Ben Hecht (1894–1964), a two-time Academy Award winner: “How sad that in the warmest hearts I knew lurked always a little cold spot for the Jew.”
The third, if I may quote myself, is one of the earliest realizations of my life: “Those who don’t fight evil hate those who do.”
And the fourth is that, from the universities to the arts to religion, the Left damages everything it touches. Lancet was once a great medical journal.
Kent State Under Fire For Anti-Semitic Professor Who Likened Israel To 'Nazism'
On Tuesday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent a letter to Kent State University asking that they condemn professor Julio Pino. Pino wrote a letter to “academic friends of Israel” holding Israel responsible for deaths in Gaza and claimed Israel was the “spiritual heir to Nazism.”
“We urge you to condemn the recent, highly offensive and blatantly anti-Semitic remarks of Julio Pino – an Associate Professor of History at your university," the organization wrote to Kent State University president Beverly Warren.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center highlighted that "Pino addressed the ‘academic friends of Israel’ with the following vitriol: 'Your names are scrawled on every bullet fired, bomb dropped, body buried and burnt forehead in Gaza. May your names become a curse word on the lips of every justice-loving person on earth, along with 'Obama' and 'Netanyahu.' Pino then went on to remark, “Jihad until victory!” and '[Zionism is] a regime that is the spiritual heir to Nazism.'"
Anti-Israel Prof. loses job offer at U. Illinois over hateful tweets
We previously featured Virginia Tech, and soon-to-be U. Illinois (at Urbana-Champaign) Professor Steven Salaita, someone committed to the destruction of Israel, for his tweet partly blaming Zionism for anti-Semitic outbursts around the world:
That was not even the worst of his tweets. I’ve been following his account for months now, and his Twitter action was hateful against Israel to the point of deranged (view his tweets at the bottom of the post and see if you agree).
Apparently, these tweets have cost him his job offer at U. Illinois, but not before he resigned from Virginia Tech. It appears that because his “offer” was contingent on various approvals, he thought he had an actual “offer” but really only had nothing but a promise to consider hiring him and a departmental recommendation to hire.

Sunday, August 03, 2014

From Ian:

Richard Kemp: Gaza's Civilian Casualties: The Truth Is Very Different
With few exceptions, reporters, commentators, and analysts unquestioningly accept the casualty statistics given by Gaza's Hamas-controlled medical authorities, who ascribe all deaths to the IDF. We have never seen so much as a glimpse of killed or wounded fighters.
Analysis of casualty details released by Qatar-based Al Jazeera indicate that so far most of those killed in Gaza have been young men of fighting age, not women, children or old people.
All Palestinian civilian casualties in this conflict result ultimately from Gaza terrorists' aggression against Israel, and Hamas's use of human shields — the most important plank of Hamas's war-fighting policy.
How Gaza became one big suicide bomb
Gaza is a suicide bomb. It is rigged by its leaders to explode.
This is not a metaphor. It is a war crime. It makes the calculus of proportionality in the use of armed force by the Israeli Defence Forces complex and uncertain.
The Hamas use of suicide bombings is well-developed. A decade ago, it involved the leadership preparing vulnerable Arab individuals to end their lives by blowing up Jews in Israeli cities. The use of Hamas towns and local populations in their entirety as huge suicide bombs to kill Israeli soldiers drawn into them by repeated Hamas provocations is an innovation.
There is clear and abundant evidence of this strategy in leadership declarations of it and in the use of civilian shields, booby traps, refusal of humanitarian ceasefires and lack of civilian protections. In a single street last week, 19 of 28 buildings were found to be booby-trapped. More than 1000 improvised explosive devices have been used by Hamas in Gazan cities so far.
Hamas's Blood-Drenched Cynicism
If, however, there is silver lining to the dark clouds hanging above Israel and Gaza it is the belated recognition – by Palestinians, other Arabs and credulous Westerners – that Hamas has nothing to offer Palestinians, Israelis and the region but death and destruction. Already blacklisted as a terror group by the UK, US and EU (for starters), Hamas has now lost its main backer in Iran (the terror group having sided against the Syrian government against Tehran’s wishes), and its Muslim Brotherhood ally that briefly ruled Egypt. Indeed, Egyptian media now denounce Hamas with vitriol once reserved only for Israel.
Even among Gazans themselves support for Hamas is plummeting. A new survey by a credible Palestinian pollster shows just 15% support Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal, while an overwhelming 88% want the PA to take over administration of their enclave. Most striking, 70% believe Hamas should maintain a ceasefire with Israel in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Hamas has fired more than 2,000 rockets at Israel, sending millions of Israelis into bomb shelters, and is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Gazans. As the Gaza fighting enters its third week, it should be clear that Hamas offers neither ‘resistance’ nor national liberation, but blood-drenched cynicism and despair.
Times of Israel Live Blog Ahead of funeral, PM calls Goldin ‘a great hero’; rockets fired at Tel Aviv
The IDF late Saturday night confirmed that Givati Brigade officer Hadar Goldin, who according to initially assessments had been captured in Gaza on Friday morning in a Hamas attack, had been killed, and IDF Chief Rabbi Rafi Peretz and other officials broke the news to the family. Prime Minister Netanyahu announced earlier Saturday that the IDF would redeploy when it completes demolishing Hamas tunnels, but that the operation in Gaza would continue for as long as needed to ensure sustained calm for Israel. He indicated that Israel would not seek ceasefire agreements with Hamas, which he said deliberately breached a truce on Friday morning with the “pre-planned” attack in which Goldin and two other soldiers were killed. The deaths in Rafah brought the IDF toll to 64; three civilians have also been killed on the Israeli side. Gazan health officials put the death toll there at some 1,600. Israel says hundreds of those are Hamas fighters.

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