Wednesday linkdump

From Ian:

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Bercovici: Palestinian leaders don’t care who wins in Israel
Many western governments hold onto a misguided fantasy: that the persistent obstacle to Mideast peace is Israel, not Palestinian leaders.

"Hamas, the PA and just about every government in the Middle East make no secret of their collective ideological commitment to the total destruction of the state of Israel, which they regard as a blasphemous blight on the Arab and Muslim worlds. The political charters of Hamas and the PA, the two main negotiating parties, unequivocally call for the repatriation of all of the historic land of Palestine. Despite commitments made by former chairman Yasser Arafat to amend its founding charter to explicitly recognize the right of Israel to exist within secure borders, the PA has yet to do so.
So in the end, it really doesn’t matter to them who wins and leads in Israel. There is no willing negotiator on the Palestinian side.

(from the Canadian, Toronto Star!)

Douglas Murray: Should Jews leave Britain?

"Much of the comment on these latter cases has focussed on the ‘inappropriateness’ of running an anti-Semitic cartoon or making an anti-Semitic comment so close to Holocaust Memorial Day. I cannot help thinking that this is missing the point. Ward and Scarfe should be excoriated not for their sense of timing but for the fact that they are wrong. Wholly, completely and outright wrong. There is absolutely no connection between, for instance, the liquidation of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto and the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank. There is absolutely no connection between the situation in Gaza and the herding of six million Jews into concentration camps. The wonder then is not over Scarfe or Ward’s sense of timing, but why at any point in any year they would be so keen to spread lies and to bait Jews by comparing the actions of the Jewish state with those of a genocidal doctrine of Nazism which sought to annihilate the Jews."

Melanie Phillips: Britain's infernal cocktail of hate

"When future historians come to record Britain’s tragic decline, they will surely place its sickening behaviour towards the Jewish people, first under its control in Palestine and then in the State of Israel, as both symptom and cause of its moral and civilisational collapse."

Outrage over a cartoon... and yet no one died
The blood libel cartoons and the Mohammed cartoons, even if equally offensive, show the difference in the reactions of two peoples at loggerheads

Jewish Riots Erupt Following Netanyahu Cartoon
Okay, not really

"In the wake of a controversial cartoon published in the Sunday Times of London, massive crowds of angry Jewish protestors gathered in Hyde Park yesterday and, whipped into a fervor by local rabbis, took to the streets of London."

CIF Watch: A place where Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell can find “real” anti-Semitism

"Of course, if Bell did decide to direct his righteous ire at those who engage in such “real” antisemitism – and perhaps even at arrogant, hypocritical media groups which have actually championed the cause of such crude and unrepentant racists – he’d be hitting just a wee bit too close to home.
A ‘Comment is Free’ essay by the extremist who evoked the “real” medieval blood libel cited above, Raed Salah, was published on April 19, 2012, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial day."

Sunday Times Editor Apologizes ‘Unreservedly’ for Timing of ‘Blood Libel’ Cartoon

"Ivens implied that his regret was specifically a product of the timing of the cartoon rather than for the content itself, saying, “The timing – on Holocaust Memorial Day – was inexcusable. The associations on this occasion were grotesque [...]”

British MEP Formally Censured Over Jewish Slur
A British MEP who compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to Nazis' treatment of Jews has been formally censured for his remarks.

BBC still airbrushing David Ward’s remarks

"The BBC’s report on this latest development has been relegated from the UK Politics and Middle East pages of its BBC News website to the regional ‘Leeds & West Yorkshire’ page. However, the BBC is still trying to pretend that Ward’s remarks pertained to Israeli Jews – as it did in its two previous reports on the incident."

Kindergarten Attack and Other Incidents In and Around Jerusalem Spread Fears of Increasingly Violent Atmosphere

"Israeli security officials have noted a significant rise in the number of attacks in and around Jerusalem in which assailants use such weaponry, as opposed to the more traditional guns and knives."

French police arrest two in Toulouse killings probe
Police arrest accomplices of gunman who killed soldiers, rabbi, 3 Jewish children; French minister says Merah not a "lone wolf."

Clinton: 'Great Hope' To One Day Work With Terrorist Group Hamas
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told her "townterview" at the Newseum in Washington, DC on January 29 that she hopes Hamas will turn into a "political entity." She said it is her "great hope" that they will be "at the table" of negotiations in the future.

'Hamas leader Mashaal seeking presidency of PLO'
'Al-Quds Al-Arabi' quotes Palestinian sources as saying Jordan and Qatar are pushing for Mashaal to chair PLO.

The Times: Don’t mince words. Hezbollah are terrorists, by José María Aznar and David Trimble

“Jihadi terrorism is still alive and, as events in Mali and Algeria show us, poses a direct threat to us. The turmoil in North Africa reminds us that jihadism has no boundaries and that when confronting terrorism it is always better to prevent it rather than deal with its consequences. The EU, however, sometimes refuses to face the reality of terrorism. One strong case in point is Hezbollah."

German deputy: Hezbollah must feel the pressure
Missfelder criticizes EU counter-terrorism official for playing down need to list Hezbollah as terrorist entity.

Iran and Hezbollah learning from terror mistakes
A new report indicates that ‘amateurish’ Hezbollah or Quds Force attacks around the world are giving way to more polished operations

Iranian monkey launch ‘a publicity stunt,’ Israeli space expert says
Sending unguided rocket 120 kilometers into suborbit says nothing about Tehran’s ballistic missile capabilities, Tal Inbar contends

Defected translator sheds new light on Iran’s global reach
Tehran challenging US presence in East Africa and bypassing sanctions in the Indian subcontinent, says Ahmad Hashemi

China and North Korea Working to Modernize Egypt's Missile Systems
Reports indicate that China and North Korea are helping Egypt "modernize [its] short-range missile systems."

Egypt army chief warns state headed for ‘collapse’
‘Conflict between the different political forces,’ which has killed 60 in five days, is tearing the country apart, says minister

New York Congresswoman Leads Opposition to Release of Terrorist Who Killed Israeli Diplomat

"The letter, which was sent to France’s Ambassador to the United States, urges French officials to stop the release of George Ibrahim Abdallah, the former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade who was convicted in 1987 of killing an Israeli diplomat and a U.S. military attaché. The U.S. State Department has also expressed its opposition to Abdallah’s release."

IDF Blog: 79 Football Fields Long: 1,138 Trucks Entered Gaza This Week
This week, 1,138 truckloads of supplies entered Gaza from Israel. An average pickup truck is 25 feet long. That means if you put all the trucks that entered Gaza this week in a straight line, you would need more than 79 football fields to fit them all in. Think Gaza is under siege? Think again.

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Also:

The Volokh Conspiracy quotes my findings from legal expert Ian Kelson in 1952 and what it migh mean for Israel

Upon request, I wrote a press release for the Hasby Awards announced last night.