Wednesday, July 09, 2014
Caroline Glick: Fighting enemies from within and without
Sixteen-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir was doing his own thing last Tuesday when he was abducted by Jewish terrorists, who slaughtered him. They killed him because he was an Arab, and they are racist murderers.The honesty of war
The police made solving Abu Khdeir’s murder a top priority. In less than a week, they had six suspects in custody. Three confessed to the murder.
There are dark forces at work in Israeli society. They need to be dealt with.
And they will be dealt with harshly.
They will be dealt with harshly because there is no significant sector in Israeli society that supports terrorism.
There is no Jewish tradition that condones or calls for the murder of innocents. In Jewish tradition, the line between protecting society from its enemies and committing murder is long, wide, unmistakable and unmoving.
There’s something about war that can make intelligent people look foolish. I’m thinking right now of all those smart people in Tel Aviv who analyzed the subtleties of peace at the Haaretz Peace Conference—only a few hours before Jew-hating terrorists from Hamas began firing rockets all over Israel.Naftali Bennett reportedly assaulted at peace confab
I wonder if they even considered having a session at the conference called, “What happens when people want to kill you no matter what you do?” That session might have included, for example, a panel of experts discussing the Hamas Charter, which calls for “the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.”
But there was no such panel at the conference. Instead, they had exclusive contributions from important people like President Barack Obama, who expressed the well-worn mantra of the sophisticated man: “Peace is the only true path to security.”
Well, maybe not, Mr. President. For the millions of Israeli residents now making sure they’re 15 precious seconds away from their bomb shelters, it’s more the other way around: “Security is the only true path to peace.”
Bennett was heckled when he went on stage to speak at the conference, to the point where he could not begin his talk.
Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken went on stage to quiet the crowd. “There are people here who were prepared to speak with [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat. You can also listen to Bennett,” he said.
Once the crowd quieted down, Bennett delivered his talk, which was interrupted multiple times by shouts of “fascist” and “murderer” from the audience, according to Jewish Home officials.
When Bennett left the stage, he was jostled by multiple members of the audience, the sources said. The crowd reportedly had to be pushed aside by Bennett’s security detail to allow him to leave.
During the jostling, Bennett was reportedly punched in the back; he spun around and demanded to know who had punched him. Before he could receive an answer, his security detail spirited him out of the hall. (h/t Yenta Press)
Israel's double world
Over 100 rockets have been fired at Israel in the last 24 hours, some of them aimed at Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and even Haifa in the north (to believe Hamas spokesmen). But not to worry, since at this week's Haaretz Conference on Peace in Tel Aviv (kudos to the newspaper for its great timing), the biggest concern has not been that most of populated Israel had become a free-fire zone for Hamas. The big story at the event is that Economy Minister Naftali Bennett was invited and had the gall to show up, which led to angry cries of "murderer" and "fascist" from audience members, and ended with the minister being punched in the back by one of the peace-loving Israelis in attendance.Israeli ‘Peace Conference’ Marred by Violence, Support for IDF
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas made his remarks to the conference in a prerecorded interview. Had he appeared in person, it is unlikely that any of the attendees would have questioned him about the peace-loving bona fides of his new coalition partner, Hamas. This crowd knows why there are kidnappings and rocket launches. These are, of course, a result of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the rapid and extensive growth of settlements. Gaza, of course, has not had an IDF presence or settlers for almost a decade, but strangely, tens of thousands of rockets have still been fired at Israel since the withdrawal from Gaza. One might almost think that there had to be another reason for Hamas' violent behavior.
Left-leaning government officials who spoke at the conference condemned Hamas’ aggression and said that Israel must take action to defend itself from these attacks, a message not necessarily shared by many in the audience.Top Obama official blasts Israel for denying Palestinians sovereignty, security, dignity
Haaretz officials—who publish a paper known for its hostility to Israeli military action, sympathy to the Palestinians, and opposition to the current Israeli government—may have been surprised to see their “peace conference” become a platform for condemnations of Hamas and endorsements of Israeli military strikes on Gaza.
The conference opened as Israeli air raid sirens went off, signaling a Hamas attack on Tel Aviv. This followed the launch by Israel of Operation Protective Edge, a narrowly targeted military campaign that comes in response to weeks of rocket attacks by Hamas.
In an unusually harsh major foreign policy address, Philip Gordon, a special assistant to US President Barack Obama and the White House coordinator for the Middle East, appealed to Israeli and Palestinian leaders to make the compromises needed to reach a permanent peace agreement. Jerusalem “should not take for granted the opportunity to negotiate” such a treaty with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has proven to be a reliable partner, Gordon said.US official: Slain Israeli teenagers shot 10 times
“Israel confronts an undeniable reality: It cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely. Doing so is not only wrong but a recipe for resentment and recurring instability,” Gordon said. “It will embolden extremists on both sides, tear at Israel’s democratic fabric and feed mutual dehumanization.”
The killing last month of three Israeli teenagers was likely premeditated, and the terrorists who abducted them probably never intended to hold them hostage, a US official involved in an FBI investigation of the case said.Faux Fairness at The New York Times
The official pointed to 10 silenced gunshots fired at the teenagers that were heard in an audio recording of the incident to support this assertion, Reuters reported Wednesday. Investigators gleaned the information about the shots from the recording of an emergency call to police from Gil-ad Shaar, one of the victims, minutes after the abduction.
Given that The Times editorial writer did not accurately report events recorded last week in the paper’s own news pages, it’s unsurprising that s/he trips up on a Hebrew poem written more than a century ago.State files charges against Shelley Dadon murder suspect
Thus, The Times’ cites Netanyahu’s recitation of a line from Chaim Nachman Bialik’s poem “The Slaughter” as an indication that, he, like the crowds chanting “Death to Arabs” also gave in to his “worst prejudices.” In fact, Bialik’s lines, and Netanyahu’s quotation of them, are widely understood as a call for heavenly justice and a rejection of human vengeance for the killing of a small child. The full stanza in question and the preceding stanza (in translation), which Bialik wrote in response to the Kishinev pogrom) are:
The state’s attorney filed charges Wednesday against a taxi driver accused of murdering Afula resident Shelley Dadon in a high profile case.Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer Rips New York Times Editorial as ‘Embarrassment to Journalism’
Yousef Hussein Halifa was arrested on June 16 after over a month of speculation over the nature of the attack. Halifa, 36, admitted he drove Dadon, 20, on May 1 to the Migdal Haemek industrial center, where she was headed to a job interview, and later stabbed her to death.
The motive has yet to be determined, but police and the Shin Bet assess that the killing was likely nationalistically motivated. However, in excerpts of the indictment published by Israeli news source Ma’ariv, there was no mention of motive.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, attacked The New York Times for an editorial it published on Monday entitled Four Horrific Killings. Questioning the integrity of the paper in a BuzzFeed post, Dermer highlighted five key points of contention:NY Times Corrects: Netanyahu Immediately Denounced Murder
1. The New York Times writes that “after days of near silence,” Prime Minister Netanyahu condemned the murder of a Palestinian teenager on Sunday. But Netanyahu called the murder “reprehensible” on Wednesday, the day it occurred, and the next day, in his first public appearance since the murder, again forcefully condemned the killing on prime-time national television. Early July 4th weekend for the entire New York Times editorial board?
Following communication from CAMERA's Israel office, The New York Times today corrects yesterday's editorial which falsely claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slow to condemn the murder of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir.Exclusive: Status Quo Changed at David's Tomb
In a Knesset Interior Committee meeting on Monday chaired by MK Miri Regev (Likud), it was revealed that Christians received permission to hold fixed prayers in the David's Tomb Compound, in a breach of the status quo that threatens Jewish prayer rights.Shots Fired in Jerusalem, Police Arrest 'Victim'
Rabbi Simcha Hacohen Kook, chief rabbi of Rehovot and rabbi of the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City, took part in the Committee meeting and told Arutz Sheva about the serious implications of what was revealed.
"Last Thursday the Israeli government announced there is a status quo. In practice, last Sunday they let them (the Christians) pray from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon non-stop; Jews who wanted to pray there were not allowed to enter the David's Tomb Compound," revealed Rabbi Kook. (h/t Canadian Otter)
Residents of the southeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Nof Tzion are in an uproar after terrorists opened fire on local homes Monday, at which point a security officer fired in the air to scare them off - only to be arrested by police.IsraellyCool: Max Blumenthal Has Twitter Thugs
Police officers arrived on the scene 20 minutes later, well after the terrorists opened fire on the Jerusalem neighborhood. Instead of arresting the terrorists, they arrested the security officer, and reportedly only after the involvement of MKs was the man released.
Residents claim that in recent nights molotov cocktails have been thrown at homes in the neighborhood, and police simply are not arriving after being contacted. (h/t Canadian Otter)
A couple days ago Max Blumenthal retweeted a photo of Gaza under fire…from 2012. Throughout the twitter-sation I chimed in that this was indicative of how thorough Maxy’s research tends to be. He was included in the mentions, saw my response and decided to follow me. I prophetically joked to some fellow (what I refer to in my head as ) ‘Israellycoolers’ that I was about to get trolled.BBC Bias in Gaza
That moment came when I made the following tweet last night:
But that’s all you’ll get by way of relevant context. Even the New York Times reports that the house was one of a number targeted by Israel of Hamas members involved in rocket firing or other military activities. What’s more, the IDF actually telephoned a warning to the house’s occupants before carrying out the air strike, as well as firing a flare at the roof to give a further warning.Hundreds of Hamas Rockets Go Missing for Australian Broadcaster
While Yolande Knell talks of the victims as simply protecting the house from an Israeli air raid, she also fails to note that the casualties willingly went up to the roof, despite the Israeli warnings, to act as human shields for Hamas.
Having set the scene of Palestinian suffering, we then find Knell reporting from the funeral of so-called Palestinian “militants”:
"Just a few hours ago, the three men, all Hamas militants, were driving along a street in Gaza City. Now, they’re being carried into the graveyard. They were killed in an Israeli air strike. And just look at the crowds that have turned out to pay their respects."
Knell then refers to a video of Israel “targeting Gaza.” Israel is not targeting Gaza, which would imply the indiscriminate targeting of the area’s entire population. Israel is targeting Hamas terrorists and the terror infrastructure.
"At least five rockets fired from Gaza were shot down over Tel Aviv by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, army radio reported."George Galloway caught in a Twitter Fautography
But what’s missing from the rest of the story?
How about the hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza (some 500 since 2014 began) that led to this military operation?
A reader lacking in background may conclude that with the number of rockets in single digits and clearly harmless, having been shot down, the danger is negligible.
How could ABC leave out possibly the most important and vital statistic of the lot?
Earlier today, as part of his social media advocacy on behalf of Hamas’s efforts to defeat the ‘Zionist entity’, he re-Tweeted the following from a pro-Palestinian propagandist who – her timeline demonstrates – continually Tweets old images of Palestinians casualties and passes them off as photos taken during the current war.Guardian thinks life for Israelis under fire is a day on the beach
The problem of course is that the photo (whatever its origins) appears to be at least 8 years old.
Indeed, though it’s hard to trace the precise origin of the photo (as we were unable to find the image used by a reputable news source), it’s quite tellingly used frequently by anti-Israel extremists online, as indicated by the first three results in our Google search of the image.
An entry at the Guardian’s Live Blog on the Gaza War, at roughly 18:00 (Israeli time), provided a wonderful illustration of a tendentious photo choice clearly illustrating the media group’s bias.Guardian Gaza War blog cites ‘expert’ on…platitudes and distortions
The following photos were posted without comment by the blog’s editor, Matthew Weaver:
In the early hours of Tuesday, Israel launched a military operation against Hamas, Operation Protective Edge, in response to incessant Hamas rocket fire and the terror group’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire. Though the Guardian was relatively slow to respond to the story, at 13:45 Israeli time they finally launched a Live Blog on the war, titled ‘Israel steps up offensive against Gaza – live updates‘, edited by Matthew Weaver.Sunday Times journo gets caught with a Twitter faxutography
One of the first blog entries highlighted the analysis of Chris Doyle, Director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). (As BBC Watch has noted, CAABU is a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, and a well-established part of the Arab lobby in the UK “with no fewer than three MPs and two former MPs sitting on its executive committee“.)
Courtesy of blogger JudgeDan, here’s a tweet by Sunday Times ‘award winning’ reporter Hala Jaber:BBC News describing Hamas command & control centres as ‘houses’
As Dan pointed out, the photo was from the Gaza War in November 2012.
Reasonable viewers or readers would of course interpret those references to “houses” or “homes” as meaning just random civilian dwellings occupied by residents of the Gaza Strip. That, however, is not the case.BBC WS journalist tells Israeli official to how run Gaza operation
All those “houses” are in fact terror command and control centres used by the following known terrorists:
One of the recurrent phenomena associated with media coverage of outbreaks of conflict in this region is the proliferation of journalists who suddenly transform into self-appointed ‘experts’ in military strategy and ‘international law’ and the rest of this item shows a prime example. BBC journalist Rebecca Kesby – who “studied politics at The University of Leeds” – uses her questions to the Israeli spokesman to advance the inaccurate and defamatory notion of “collective punishment”, to suggest that there is no need for Israeli action against missile fire from the Gaza Strip because Israel has the Iron Dome missile defence system, to yet again promote the falsehood of Israeli attacks on ‘civilian’ houses and to suggest some distinctly off the wall alternatives to current Israeli military strategy.James Reynolds tells BBC viewers about Hamas’ ‘crudely made rockets’
Reynolds’ description of the missiles fired as “crudely made” is obviously attempt to portray them to BBC audiences as ineffective and to downplay the danger they present. Some of Hamas’ approximately 10,000 strong missile arsenal is indeed locally produced: the M75, for example, with its 60 kg warhead and 75 km range, was responsible for the deaths of three people in the apartment shown in the picture below in 2012.ISIS is about to destroy biblical history in Iraq
Soon afterward the minions of the self-appointed caliph of the freshly self-declared Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, paid a visit to the Mosul Museum. It has been closed for years for restoration, ever since it was looted along with many of Iraq’s other institutions in the wake of the culturally oblivious American-led invasion of 2003. But the Mosul Museum was on the verge of reopening, at last, and the full collection had been stored there.US-Backed 'Moderate' Free Syrian Army Factions Join ISIS Terror Group
Indeed, museum curators and staff were no better prepared than any other part of the Iraqi government. They could have learned from al-Baghdadi’s operations in neighboring Syria that a major source of revenue for his insurgency has been the sale of looted antiquities on the black market. As reported in The Guardian, a windfall of intelligence just before Mosul fell revealed that al-Baghdadi had accumulated a $2 billion war chest, in part by selling off ancient artifacts from captured Syrian sites. But the Iraqi officials concerned with antiquities said the Iraqi intelligence officers privy to that information have not shared it with them.
So the risk now—the virtual certainty, in fact—is that irreplaceable history will be annihilated or sold into the netherworld of corrupt and cynical collectors. And it was plain when I met with Rashid and his colleagues that they are desperate to stop it, but have neither the strategy nor the resources to do so.
Reports coming out of eastern Syria Monday revealed that several factions within the Syrian opposition force known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have pledged services to the Islamic State, the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Sources and eyewitnesses said that the FSA has handed over its weapons to the Islamic State in large numbers.Iran’s supreme leader: We want 190,000 centrifuges
The Free Syrian Army was said to be a “moderate” and “secular” force, which was used as the rationale by U.S. officials to supply the opposition force with weapons and training. (h/t Canadian Otter)
Iran’s supreme leader revealed Tuesday that it ultimately wants 190,000 nuclear centrifuges — a figure he said was 19 times higher than world powers want to allow under a deal being discussed in Vienna.Man wearing Star of David attacked in Berlin park
The comments, published on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website on Tuesday, represent a dramatic intervention in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany.
A man wearing a Star of David pendant and cap was attacked in a Berlin park in what investigators suspect was a right-wing hate crime.Valley of the Giants
The unidentified victim, 67, was sitting with a friend on a bench in Berlin’s Tiergarten park on Monday afternoon when two men approached and began to harass him, he said. The assailants then repeatedly punched him. He was treated in a hospital for multiple lacerations to the head.
The assailants were able to flee.
Hidden on a small side street between the central thoroughfares of Ben-Yehuda and Dizengoff Streets lies one of the jewels of Tel Aviv; a quiet tribute to the first Hebrew city in over 2,000 years and the men who made it. It is a valley of giants, and they speak softly from among the graves of Trumpeldor Cemetery.
Trumpeldor Cemetery takes up most of the small and usually overlooked street from which it takes its name. Surrounded and mostly concealed by a stone wall with only three small gates, only one of which is ever left open, it is easy to pass by it without a second thought. Indeed, I myself found it purely by chance, when a random sideways glance through one of the gates revealed a huddled mass of gravestones rising up a small hill.
The sight was so unusual in a city whose graveyards generally lie far to its eastern suburbs that it instantly aroused both wonder and curiosity. So it was, in effect, completely accidental that I entered the main gate and discovered the resting place of what the cemetery’s official webpage calls “gedolei yisrael”—the Great Ones of Israel. The phrase, in this case, is something of an understatement.
