March 2018 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, March 30, 2018

03/30 Links: 12 Gazans said killed, in clashes at massive border protest; Glick: Western Media Are Hamas's Partners in the War Against Israel; Phillips: Corbyn isn’t the cause of Labour’s antisemitism – he’s its product

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Western Media Are Hamas's Partners in the War Against Israel

On Friday, the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is inaugurating what it is calling “The March of Return.”

According to Hamas’s leadership, the “March of Return” is scheduled to run from March 30 – the eve of Passover — through May 15, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s establishment. According to Israeli media reports, Hamas has budgeted $10 million for the operation.

Throughout the “March of Return,” Hamas intends to send thousands of civilians to the Israeli border. Hamas is planning to set up tent camps along the border fence and then, presumably, order participants to overrun it on May 15. The Palestinians refer to May 15 as “Nakba,” or Catastrophe Day.

The first question that observers of this spectacle need to ask themselves is whether Hamas believes that it will be able to overrun Israel.

The obvious answer is, of course it doesn’t.

So this brings us to the second question.

If Hamas doesn’t expect its civilians to overrun Israel, what is it trying to accomplish by sending them into harm’s way? Why it the terror group telling Gaza residents to place themselves in front of the border fence and challenge Israeli security forces charged with defending Israel?

The answer here is also obvious. Hamas intends to provoke Israel to shoot at the Palestinian civilians it is sending to the border. It is setting its people up to die because it expects their deaths to be captured live by the cameras of the Western media, which will be on hand to watch the spectacle.

In other words, Hamas’s strategy of harming Israel by forcing its soldiers to kill Palestinians is predicated on its certainty that the Western media will act as its partner and ensure the success of its lethal propaganda stunt.

Given widespread assessments that Iran is keen to start a new round of war between Israel and its terror proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is possible that Hamas intends for this lethal propaganda stunt to be the initial stage of a larger war. By this assessment, Hamas is using the border operation to cultivate and escalate Western hostility against Israel ahead of a larger shooting war.

Evelyn Gordon: Use UNRWA’s financial crisis to end its shameful apartheid system

The status quo is also bad for Israel—and not just because of the anti-Israel incitement taught in UNRWA schools and Palestinians’ use of UNRWA facilities as weapons depots. By denying Palestinians the ability to assimilate into Jordan and the P.A., UNRWA effectively tells them that “returning” to Israel is their only hope of escaping refugee status. Nurturing such fantasies of mass relocation merely perpetuates the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; peace is obviously impossible if Palestinians condition it on turning Israel into a Palestinian-majority state.

Yet the status quo is even worse for millions of Palestinian “refugees,” who are forced into dead-end lives with no hope of ever integrating into the places they should be able to call home.

Admittedly, there’s no guarantee that UNRWA will implement constructive reforms; it might instead slash essential services to blackmail the world into coughing up more money. But even in this worst-case scenario, at least America will no longer be propping up UNRWA’s shameful apartheid system and its perpetuation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If European or Arab countries want this abomination to continue, let their taxpayers fund it.

There’s also a risk that even constructive reforms could produce enough short-term pain to provoke violence. But Israelis understand that sometimes, you have to do what’s right, even if it comes with a price. That’s why, in a poll published just last week, 69 percent of Jewish Israelis said the U.S. Embassy should move to Jerusalem in May as planned, despite the fact that most believed the move would spark violence.

UNRWA reform is no less critical. And after 70 years of stasis, it’s clear nothing short of a financial crisis has any chance of bringing it about.

Melanie Phillips: Corbyn isn’t the cause of Labour’s antisemitism – he’s its product

This lie embodies the deeper calumny that the Jews falsify history to serve their own interests by oppressing and dominating another people. The “dispossession” lie thus leads directly to the deranged and paranoid conspiracy theories about the Jews with which the left is now riddled.

For this view of Israel is their default position and championing the Palestinian cause is their signature motif. And that means these British “progressives” all support Palestinians who pump out Nazi-style antisemitism, incite the mass murder of Jews and are led by a Holocaust denier, Mahmoud Abbas, who venerates the Arab Nazi ally Haj Amin al-Husseini.

Why then are these Labour “moderates” shocked when Corbyn’s friends spew out identical bigotry against the Jews? The Left thinks it embodies virtue itself and so it is impossible for it to be viciously bigoted toward Jews. But it is.

Corbyn may be an extreme ultra-leftist with the most extreme anti-Israel baggage, but he is not the cause of Labour’s antisemitism.

He is its product.

The Left embraced antisemitism when it embraced Palestinianism. And that’s without factoring in the Muslim voting bloc which is becoming ever more significant for British politics and for the Labour Party in particular, and which is infused with hatred of Israel and the Jewish people.

The antisemitism in Labour’s ranks is an existential crisis not just for the party but for the Left as a whole.

It is a delusion to imagine that purging the most demented antisemites will make the Labour Party safe again for Britain’s Jewish community. It’s not just Jeremy Corbyn who poses such a threat. It’s the party itself and the left wing culture it embodies.

The Conservative Party may be in power in Britain, but the Left controls the universities, the BBC and the artistic and cultural world. It is Britain itself that’s no longer safe for Jews.

Melanie Phillips: OPEN AND SHUT CASE

An open letter backed by more than 2,000 supporters of Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that the Jewish community’s protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party was the work of a “very powerful special interest group”, the Independent reports.

Some 2000 people turned up at Monday’s demonstration. There are around 65 million people in the UK. The Jewish community numbers about 270,000. There are an estimated 2.8 million British Muslims.

The letter says the organisers of the demonstration had mobilised its “immense strength” to “employ the full might of the BBC” in order to launch an “onslaught” against the Labour leader. It also says the organisers sought to use their “history” and ”influence” to “dictate who the rest of us can vote for or how we vote”.

So 2000 people said that those falsely accusing Jeremy Corbyn of facilitating deranged claims that the Jews were an all-powerful and malign conspiracy manipulating events to serve their own interests were an all-powerful and malign Jewish conspiracy manipulating events to serve their own interests.

I think that is what is called an own goal.

Chag sameach!

Wishing all my Jewish readers a chag kosher v'sameach, a wonderful Passover.

I will resume blogging iy"h on Sunday night or Monday morning.

And wishing my Christian readers a happy Easter.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Jordan-Israel diplomatic crisis seems resolved

From Arab News:

Jordan has accepted Israel’s choice of a new ambassador for the kingdom, another sign of improving ties after a months-long crisis.
Government spokesman Mohammed Momani said on Thursday that the envoy, Amir Weissbrod, “can start his mission any time now.”
The posting of a new Israeli ambassador would end one of the tensest episodes since the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1994.
It began last summer when a security guard at the Israeli embassy in Jordan shot and killed two Jordanians, alleging one attacked him with a screw driver. The Israeli guard and Israel’s then-ambassador were given a hero’s welcome by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, infuriating Jordan.
Earlier this year, the two sides said they found a way to overcome the crisis, including appointing a new Israeli ambassador.

There's populist anger and there's reality.

The anger gets the media attention, but the reality - where cooler heads usually prevail - is downplayed.

The Arab nations aren't implacably opposed to Israel any more. On the contrary, they are looking for ways to work together. This is a remarkable achievement for Israel on the eve of its 70th anniversary.

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PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat stated yesterday that paying terrorists were an obligation under international law.

And it isn't the PLO that should pay them - but Israel!

However, if Israel refuses to pay the terrorists, then the Palestinians must pick up the slack.

Yes, he really said this.

“Palestine pays a financial price for the occupation because Israel refuses to uphold its international obligations regarding prisoners. We will not abandon our prisoners. We consider this a moral and legal obligation enshrined by Article 81 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. While Israel will not make these payments, as required by international humanitarian law, Palestine will provide for the families through the Palestinian social welfare system – as any other nation worldwide provides for the maintenance of their citizens.”

OK, let's look at Article 81 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

Art. 81. Parties to the conflict who intern protected persons shall be bound to provide free of charge for their maintenance, and to grant them also the medical attention required by their state of health.

No deduction from the allowances, salaries or credits due to the internees shall be made for the repayment of these costs.

The Detaining Power shall provide for the support of those dependent on the internees, if such dependents are without adequate means of support or are unable to earn a living.

This is not about prisoners. It is about people who are internment camps for whatever (security) reason the occupying power decides to place them there. The Conventions make this clear, as it talks about entire families should be kept together in internment. it distinguishes between internment and imprisonment, which is what happens after conviction for crimes.

Beyond that, the Palestinians are obviously not paying the prisoners and their families a normal social security expense, but an additional salary based purely on their status as terrorists, on a sliding scale based on how heinous their acts were.

As usual, Erekat is a liar. But he knows that paying terrorists looks very bad for the PLO, and he wants to throw as much dust on the concept as he can.

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03/29 Links Pt2: Richard Landes: Middle east pack journalism: Everybody agrees; Labour can’t tackle anti-Semitism under Corbyn; BDS movement takes on hit Israeli Netflix series 'Fauda'

From Ian:

Richard Landes: Middle east pack journalism: Everybody agrees

One of the journalist’s favorite responses to being criticized for bias is: “As long as we anger each side equally, we’re doing something right.” It’s a favorite among journalists covering the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. “We’re on the right track because both sides complain.” And sure enough, there’s ample literature “on both sides” complaining that the press favors “the other side.” After all, as one New York Times correspondent puts it, it’s all about “dueling narratives” in a “land of few facts.”

In reality, however, this “both sides complain” meme has operated as a fig leaf concealing just how far off the rails the mainstream news media have gone when it comes to reporting from the Middle East. In fact, journalists have, over the past two decades, actually produced an inversion of reality: not only do “facts” reported by Israelis get turned into an Israeli “narrative,” but Palestinian narratives get reported as facts.

For example, journalists, basing themselves on casualty figures provided by Hamas-run institutions, using footage at the hospital shot under Hamas’ watchful eye, repeat the jihadi (and UN, and NGO) narrative that “the vast... overwhelming majority of victims are civilians.”

Some of this comes from pure intimidation. In 2014, during Operation Protective Edge, Hamas intimidation of journalists became so extensive that the Foreign Press Office, normally much quicker to denounce Israeli intimidation than Palestinian, issued a protest against Hamas’ behavior.

In response, the New York Times correspondent tweeted: “Every reporter I’ve met who was in Gaza during war says this Israeli/now FPA narrative of Hamas harassment is nonsense.”

In 119 characters, she dismissed ample empirical evidence and credible testimony of Hamas intimidation as an “Israeli narrative,” now also adhered to by the FPA, and instead gave us the Palestinian narrative as news.

In other words, the real nonsense comes across as the reporter’s voice, and the accurate assessment comes across as Israeli narrative nonsense.

So consistently did the media pass on this narrative that Hamas actually based its war strategy on their cooperation. As Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh gloated in 2014, Palestinian sources “constituted the river from which the global media quenched its thirst for information about what was happening.”

David Collier: Conflation – Labour Party antisemitism is in the details and the media

An insult to British Jews

It is a direct insult to the 99.998%, 99.98%, 99.8% or 98% of the Jewish population who are not being represented. More importantly, it is to spit in the face of the 93%+ of Jews who actively disagree with the views of this small cult, and it gives an infusion of adrenaline to antisemites desperate for legitimate cover.

This cult are eerily similar to the Russian communist Yevsektsiya, an arm of the Russian propaganda, who set out to ‘destroy traditional Jewish life’. So what steps have the BBC, Sky, the Guardian and James O’Brien taken to ensure that they are not acting as mouthpieces for such a group? Have they done anything? Or is spirited debate ALWAYS WELCOME when it comes to racism? Will they place far-right people on a chair in their studio, every time there is a victim of anti-black racism or anti-Muslim hatred? How would that be received?

The problem of course is fueled by the deliberate confusion created in conflation. All it takes is one person, one, in a studio, media department, union, school, council session or strategy meeting, to utter the words that ‘anti-Zionism is not the same as antisemitism’, and we are back on that slippery slope. These have become empty terms used by people who do not understand them, that have allowed anti-Jewish racism to become normalised in our society. This mantra is of course promoted and propagated by groups like JVL who benefit for all the confusion they manage to create.

In any normal situation, society would rely on the victims themselves to define what they are and what they see as racism. With Jews that simply is not happening. Instead Jews are being accused of subverting democracy. Haven’t we all been down this road before? Surely now #enoughisenough

Labour can’t tackle anti-Semitism under Corbyn

The Labour Party brings to mind any number of Yiddish expressions — most of them involving the performance of lavatorial functions — but none more so than the proverb Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht. Man plans and God laughs.

The Almighty’s black humour is surely at work in the resignation of Christine Shawcroft, chair of the Labour Party disputes panel. The woman responsible for rooting out anti-Semitism has been caught defending a council candidate accused of posting Holocaust-denying content on social media. In a leaked internal email, Shawcroft called for Peterborough’s Alan Bull to be reinstated after suspension for ‘a Facebook post taken completely out of context and alleged to show anti-Semitism’. One of Bull’s alleged posts read ‘International Red Cross report confirms the Holocaust of six million Jews is a hoax’ and a link to a neo-fascist website, Renegade Tribune. Bull insists screenshots of his Facebook page have been doctored. The Renegade Tribune has reported his plight under the headline: ‘UK Labour Candidate Shared Holohoax Article from Renegade Tribune, Suspended by Party’.

Shawcroft was put in charge of the disputes panel just 71 days ago, after the far-left ousted Ann Black, who is herself a left-winger but had seemingly displeased her comrades with her handling of membership rules and suspensions for, among other things, anti-Semitism. Her resignation, and the fact it came about via the leaking of an email sent only to fellow far-leftists, is being spun as proof that there is now an appetite among some Corbynistas for tackling Labour anti-Semitism. Undoubtedly, they are a ruthless, power-hungry bunch who make New Labour look positively unambitious by comparison. They would surely say or do or feign anything to get into Downing Street. Asked on Sky News this morning, John McDonnell would not say whether Shawcroft should also recuse herself from her NEC seat. (He later said she shouldn’t step down).

I hate to be a pain but it’s been three days now. Three days since Jeremy Corbyn acknowledged ‘pockets of anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party and pledged himself as a ‘militant opponent’ of Jew-hatred. What has happened since then? Apart from Labour’s anti-anti-Semitism chief quitting after defending an accused anti-Semite, the answer seems to be nothing much. Richard Angell, head of the centrist pressure group Progress, has suggested a programme of actions to take on Labour anti-Semitism. Wes Streeting and John Mann have done likewise. Indeed, there seem to be more plans for ridding Labour of Jew-hatred than there are figures at the top of the party with any interest in or motivation to adopt them.

Is it antisemitic to murder a Jew because of his kippah? Or "anti-Israel"?

Times of Israel reports:

Itamar Ben Gal and his wife

An Arab Israeli man was charged Thursday with the murder of Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, who was stabbed to death in a terror attack at the West Bank settlement of Ariel last month, with the indictment saying that the victim was chosen because of his appearance as a Jew.
On February 5, 19-year-old Abed al-Karim Assi is believed to have attacked Ben-Gal, 29, at a bus stop outside Ariel. Assi fled the scene, leading security forces on a month-long manhunt that ended with his arrest last week in the Palestinian city of Nablus.

According to the indictment filed at the Central District Court, Assi decided to commit a terror attack and kill Jews after he had an argument with an IDF soldier at a junction outside Ariel.

Later on the same day, Assi is said to have purchased two 27-centimeter-long knives at a store in Nablus and returned to the same junction, where he spotted Ben-Gal at a bus stop and recognized him as Jewish by kippa.

He then closed in on Ben-Gal and stabbed him “with great force” in his chest and abdomen, continuing to pursue his victim even after the latter attempted to flee. A passing driver noticed what was happening and hit Assi with his car, prompting him to flee the scene.

Most people would recognize someone murdering a Jew because of his kippah to be antisemitic.

But when a Palestinian Arab does it, suddenly it is a nationalist and patriotic act. If they have any Jew-hating tendencies, well, it's understandable.

Funny how that works.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Western Jew-hatred is making a major comeback today on both sides of the Atlantic.

Muslim antisemitism, which is written into the Qu’ran, has always been there, has always expressed itself violently, and is only attracting particular attention today because of the increasing number of Muslims in Western countries.

But non-Muslims in greater and greater numbers, in Europe and North America, have recently been discovering the joy of hating Jews. There are various reasons for this. One is contagion from Muslims. This particularly applies to the political Left, which is rushing to embrace what they see as the oppressed, colonized Muslim world, despite the clear evidence that its culture is generally violent, anti-democratic, misogynistic, homophobic, and almost everything they purport to despise. Muslims, for their part, have been quick to pick up anti-Jewish themes that first developed in Christian Europe – and then these ideas get fed back to post-Christian progressives, who lap it up.

The documented horrors of the Holocaust for a time served to immunize the West against traditional Jew-hatred (this is why Gen. Eisenhower went out of his way to publicize the atrocities of the Holocaust). But constantly repeated descriptions of horrible events caused those descriptions to lose their impact; and even had the opposite of the desired effect, causing recipients – especially in Europe where there are residual guilt feelings – to say “shut up, we’re tired of hearing about it.”

This is the paradox of “Holocaust education” and why there can be too much of it. On the one hand, it’s important to know the historical facts and to understand how genocide develops from popular hatred plus governmental, connivance (South African whites should pay attention to this dynamic). On the other hand, it can dull the feeling of horror evoked by those facts and even produce more hatred of targeted groups like Jews. Look at the veneration of Hitler by some Muslim students, or the prevalence of Holocaust denial in both traditional “right-wing” Jew hatred and the Islamic variety.

In recent years, the memes of Jew-hatred mutated into anti-Zionism. Instead of hating individual Jews, which is taboo, it’s possible to hate their collective expression of identity in the form of the Jewish state. This mutation did not trigger the same immune response, and anti-Zionism became the most common expression of Jew-hatred by progressives who wouldn’t be caught dead on the Stormfront website. But an interesting thing happened: hating Israel led to hating Zionists, and what is a Zionist but a Jew? Some of the old themes came back, like the blood libel – only instead of making matzot from the blood of Christian children, the IDF was accused of stealing organs from dead Palestinians, or deliberately targeting Palestinian children.

On the right, the themes are reminiscent of the 19^th century political antisemitism that Hitler adopted. It features hook-nosed Jewish financiers (“Rothschilds”) running the world, financing wars and revolutions, Jews controlling media, the arts and education, “polluting” the culture with sexual deviance, atheism, and of course communism. Tying it all together is an overarching conspiracy.

Today’s proponents of this theory blame the Jewish conspiracy for trying to destroy “white” culture by importing Muslims into Europe and the US, and empowering racial minorities (exemplified by the Movement for Black Lives in the US). They point to the over-representation of Jews in finance, media, academics, and – importantly – leftist political movements. As the taboos against individual Jew-hatred have weakened for Muslims and the Left, they have also been lifted for the extreme Right.

The explosive growth of social media has been accompanied by an ideology that nothing is out of bounds anymore. The internet’s filter bubble effect has driven both Left and Right to greater extremism, and the widespread reach of the net, augmented by Twitter and Facebook, has resulted in a perfect storm of Jew-hatred in the developed world.

An interesting example is the controversy over an article by the conservative psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, in which he tackles the question of whether the theory of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy makes sense. Peterson grants the over-representation of Jews in critical areas, but argues that the explanation lies in the higher average intelligence and prevalence of the personality trait of “openness to experience” (in part, creativity and intellectual curiosity – here is a test for this trait*) in Ashkenazi Jews. Combined with the principle that one should favor the simplest explanation for a given phenomenon (“Occam’s razor”), he concludes,

So, what’s the story? No conspiracy. Get it? No conspiracy. Jewish people are over-represented in positions of competence and authority because, as a group, they have a higher mean IQ. The effect of this group difference (approximately the difference between the typical high school student and the typical state college student) is magnified for occupations/interests that require high general cognitive ability. Equal over-representation may also occur in political movements associated with the left, because high IQ is associated with Openness to Experience, which is in turn associated with liberal/left-leaning political proclivities.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Ashkenazi Jews are over-represented in any occupations/interests for reasons other than intelligence and the associated effects of intelligence on personality and political belief. Thus, no conspiratorial claims based on ethnic identity need to be given credence. [emphasis in original]

As you can read in the comments to Peterson’s article, many of his readers (and almost all those who commented aren’t buying it). Some of them argue that the over-representation of Jews is a result of “cultural nepotism,” the propensity to hire or appoint people that are like yourself. There is a great deal of offensive antisemitism in the comments, but cultural nepotism is real and can’t be discounted. I have noticed that Hispanics are over-represented in non-academic staff at Fresno State University, and Yemenite Jews among municipal employees here in Rehovot. These are not exactly conspiracies, but they didn’t happen by accident either.

However, regardless of the way the over-representation developed, it is not proof of a conspiracy. As Peterson implies in the second paragraph above, a conspiracy is collusion for a purpose, and there is zero real evidence for such collusion. In addition, there is one very important personality trait that characterizes Jews which both Peterson and the conspiracy theorists ignore.

That is what I call, for lack of a better word, the fractious nature of the Jewish people. Everyone knows the joke about the two Jews marooned on a desert Island who immediately build three synagogues: one Ashkenazi, one Sephardic (a variation has Orthodox and Reform), and one that neither will set foot in. Jews tend to violently disagree about almost anything – a visit to Israel’s Knesset will establish this – and especially politics.

In particular, they disagree about Israel. The greatest anti-Zionists are always Jews: two newspapers that attack the Jewish state on a daily basis, the New York Times and Ha’aretz, are both owned by Jews and have numerous Jews on their staffs. Jewish anti-Israel organizations include J Street, If Not Now, Jewish Voice for Peace, and more. Anti-Israel Jews in more mainstream organizations like university Hillel Foundations and Jewish Community Relations Councils work to subvert previously pro-Israel groups.

Virtually all the Jewish Hollywood moguls that are often cited by conspiracy theorists supported the presidency of Barack Obama, the US president least friendly to Israel since its establishment.

Even inside Israel, there is an active contingent of Jews who work for Israeli NGOs that accept funding from hostile foreign governments to produce propaganda against the state and to promote “lawfare” against the government and the IDF.

The state is just one of the subjects that Jews bitterly disagree upon, but it is central to the conspiracy theories. One of Israel’s greatest enemies, the financier George Soros, is of Jewish extraction (although he is not a practicing Jew in any sense). Conspiracy theorists who almost always include Soros as one of the leaders of the conspiracy also believe that the conspiracy influences the US to provide military aid to Israel. Believe me, no conspiracy that included Soros would do that!

The Jew-hating Right and Left are often in violent opposition, but they came together in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which I was surprised to find was supported by the American Nazi Party and David Duke, as well as leftist groups, Hezbollah and the Council on American-Islamic relations.

Similar conspiracy theories have been around since the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were forged in the 19^th century, and probably before that. The Protocols themselves, although known to be fiction, are still popular, especially in the Arab world but also in the West.

There have certainly been conspiracies in history, but the idea of a massive, worldwide cabal with great power that would have to include hundreds of members, and yet about which there is no real, documented evidence – although plenty of made-up stories – is so unlikely as to be considered impossible.

Peterson notes that “It hardly needs to be said that although conspiracies do occasionally occur, conspiracy theories are the lowest form of intellectual enterprise.” He’s right.

_________________

* I took the test and came out “average,” because my high intellectual curiosity was balanced by my preference for routine and my conservative politics! So I am not sure about the utility of this concept.

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03/29 Links Pt1: PA officially rejects Taylor Force Act; Why Hamas Will Never Give In to the Jews; The Secret World of the Palestinian Authority; Dore Gold: The UN and the Distortion of International Law

From Ian:

PMW: PA officially rejects Taylor Force Act

On March 23, the United States enacted the Taylor Force Act which cuts almost all aid to the Palestinian Authority if it continues paying salaries to terrorists and allowances to families of dead terrorists. Even before the final vote in the US Congress, PA leaders announced that they rejected the Taylor Force Act and would not stop rewarding terrorists as the United States demanded.

The following are some of the reactions before and following the US passing of the law.

Before the enactment of the Taylor Force Act:
Mahmoud Abbas to PLO Central Council: “We will continue to pay them”
"There is something that the Americans are telling us to stop - the salaries of the Martyrs and the Martyrs' families. Of course we categorically reject this. We will not under any circumstances allow anyone to harm the families of the prisoners, the wounded, and the Martyrs. They are our children and they are our families. They honor us, and we will continue to pay them before the living." [Official PA TV, Jan. 14, 2018]

Issa Karake, Director of Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs:
“We are proud... it's our national, human, and moral obligation”

“I’ll quote [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas: ... “Until the last day of my life, we won't stop this support. It's important” ... The family of every Palestinian prisoner receives social aid. We’re proud of this, not ashamed of it, and we say this openly, because it's our national, human, and moral obligation, and the obligation of the struggle. It is supported by the Palestinian leadership and by the Palestinian government.”
[Official PA TV, PLO Institutions, Feb. 26, 2018]

MEMRI: Cape Town Imam Riyaad Fataar Calls On All Muslims, Free People Worldwide To Support Jihad In Palestine

In a Friday sermon delivered at the Masjid Al Furqaan in Cape Town, South Africa, Sheikh Riyaad Fataar said that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was "slipping from the hands of the Islamic nation... because the plans of the Jews are moving [ahead]." Quoting Saladin and saying that Muslims "are staying in Jihad in order to get rid of the Zionist occupier," Sheikh Fataar, who is the Deputy President of the Muslim Judicial Council of South Africa and the imam of the Husami Masjid in Cravenby, a suburb of Cape Town, called upon all Muslims in the world to support them and "show your help in whatever different ways there are." "All other free people of the world are called: If you think that holy sites are important in your religion... you should be standing with them," said Sheikh Fataar, a graduate of Al-Azhar, who serves as the lifetime president of the South African Students' Association in Egypt. The sermon was delivered on March 16 and posted on the YouTube channel of Masjid Al Furqaan, which is part of the Islamia College in Cape Town.

To view the clip of Sheikh Riyaad Fataar on MEMRI TV, click here or below.

"All Muslims Around The World Are Called To Support Them – To Show Your Help In Whatever Different Ways There Are"

Sheikh Riyaad Fataar: "Today we speak about Palestine and we speak about Al-Quds, and you know Al-Quds means Jerusalem – the Al-Aqsa Mosque – because it is in continuous danger. It is in continuous danger, oh Muslims. It is slipping from our hands. It is slipping from the hands of the Islamic nation, it is slipping from the hands of the Muslims, because the plans of the Jews are moving [ahead], are moving, while the Muslims are sleeping.

"[Israel] is busy, and it is continually changing the features around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Al-Quds, and Palestine – changing anything that looks Islamic, Arabic, or Christian, and so on – because the ultimate objective is: 'Let's remove these Muslims from here. Let's get them out of here. Let's get the Christians out of here.' This is the road of the Jews, this is the road of the Zionists, so that they will make sure that they are going to end up with something that is pure... purely, only for them – for the Zionists and for the Jews.

"The Zionists are as fierce as always in their violence. They are armed terrorists, and at the end of the day, say the ulema, their whole objective is to wipe Islam out of [Jerusalem].

Cape Town Imam Riyaad Fataar Calls on All Muslims, Free People Worldwide to Support Jihad in Palestine pic.twitter.com/MY53l5iAsY
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 28, 2018

"Neutral" UNRWA voices support for Gaza "great return march"

UNRWA's Chris Gunness once said that "UNRWA’s neutrality is the family's silver".

Here's another example of UNRWA giving away its family's silver, without a peep of protest.

UNRWA's Gaza director, Matthias Schmale wrote a letter to the organizers of tomorrow's "Great Return March" where thousands of Gazans are expected to try to walk into Israel, a violation of Israel's borders.

He told the organizers that the protest can be a very strong initiative once its seriously adopted. Schmale added that UNRWA supports the right of peaceful gathering and nonviolent protests of the Palestinians.

He didn't say that Gaza authorities should ensure that the protesters stay on their side of the border. He knows their aim is to enter Israel. But he is fully supportive of them.

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German gov't allows employees to post anti-Israel memes - but fires one who defends Israel

From JPost:

The German Corporation for International Cooperation in Amman fired an employee for her pro-Israel comments on a Facebook page in December.

The former employee, who asked not to be named, told The Jerusalem Post this month that her contract was not extended because she posted a personal Facebook post stating if the Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi slapped a Jordanian soldier, “she would have been immediately shot.”

The former employee told the Post that “it is not fair that we can’t talk about it [the Tamimi case].

She faced a wave criticism on Facebook, including wild conspiracy theories that she is a “spy.” She worked for the German Corporation for International Cooperation for seven years without any complaints.

When asked about the employee’s alleged discharge for defending Israel, Michaela Baur, the head of the corporation’s office in Amman, said that she “was not fired, her contract expired.”

When asked about anti-Israel, including alleged antisemitic, posts, on Facebook by corporation employees, Baur declined to answer.

Anti-Israel posts by GIZ were cataloged by NGO Monitor:

In January 2016, Luke McBain, head of GIZ’s “Civil Society Programme Palestine” and of the program for “Strengthening Women in Decision-Making in the Middle East,” described Zionism as a “settler-colonialist movement,” claiming that this “explains everything,” including the “endless occupation.”

Referring to the 2014 Gaza war, McBain accused the Israel Defense Forces of adhering to an “illegal military doctrine,” and claimed that “Responding to violence originating from a territory which you occupy is not self-defense.”

Mohammed Al-Mutawakel is currently a project manager at GIZ headquarters in Germany and was previously a project manager in Jordan. He has used social media to compare Israel to the Nazis and to threaten Israel’s destruction.

Safa Kamal el Naser is a GIZ regional advisor in Jordan. In December 2017, he shared a Facebook post claiming that a “Hebrew spring” was behind the downfall of Arab dictators Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Before joining the GIZ program “Values for Religion and Development” in 2016- a program that he heads, Ulrich Nitschke led the Local Governance and Civil Society Development Program and Future for Palestine at GIZ Palestine” and the chairperson of the GIZ’s Sector Network Governance for the Middle East and North Africa region.
He has used Facebook to promote BDS, advocate for Ahed Tamimi, deny the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, accuse Israel of misusing the term “antisemitism” and stake out other anti-Israel positions.

Tobias Thiel heads GIZ’s “Strengthening Reform Initiatives” project. He has shared articles claiming that Israel committed a “deliberate massacre” in Gaza, and arguing that Israel does not have the right to defend itself.

The former employee told me that when she got in trouble for her completely accurate post about Tamimi, she told her supervisor that many GIZ employees post horrible things about Israel all the time. Her country director replied it's a security issue...saying anything pro-Israel could upset the Jordanians and therefore puts all GIZ employees at risk.

However, the security of the employee who was vilified for a pro-Israel post was not a concern. She was the one called to the carpet for her actions. Her original comments were in a private Facebook group, a Jordanian reported it publicly, putting her in danger. Instead of showing concern for her, GIZ complained about her post in a private group!

But virulently anti-Israel posts? That's just fine! (Even though they also violate GIZ guidelines, where they are told not to say anything political on social media.)

She also told me that these are not isolated cases, and not only on social media. "You have people on the level of regional director for MENA, who have not only 1 but 3 public Facebook accounts with their picture and reference to GIZ, that are entirely dedicated to spreading anti Israel hate," she says. She emphasized that they say these things in person as well. And it is reflected in their policies, in who they choose to partner with and fund, and who knows how many other decisions.

This is thoroughly rotten, and it is only a single organization.

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In December, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein commented on the death of wheelchair-bound Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh at a protest on the Gaza border:

Shocked at the “incomprehensible” killing of a wheelchair-bound amputee protester by Israeli security forces, the top United Nations human rights official has called on the country to open an independent and impartial investigation into the incident.

“International human rights law strictly regulates the use of force in the context of protests and demonstrations. The lethal use of firearms should only be employed as the last resort, when strictly unavoidable, in order to protect life,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Tuesday.

“However, as far as we can see, there is nothing whatsoever to suggest that Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh [the protester] was posing an imminent threat of death or serious injury when he was killed,” he added, stressing: “Given his severe disability, which must have been clearly visible to those who shot him, his killing is incomprehensible – a truly shocking and wanton act.”

I noted at the time that Abu Thurayeh had told his family the night before that he planned to die:

The Palestinian’s brother told Ruptly that Thurayeh knew he would not be coming back from the protest alive. “Yesterday my brother said to me while he was eating dinner us: ‘Brother, forgive me. This is the last night you will see me. And you, my mother, forgive me, and you my sisters, you all forgive me...’
“He kissed the hand and the leg of my father and said to him: Father, forgive me. This is the last night you will see me, as I intend to be a martyr. I am bored of this life, I have no legs and I have nothing. I want to die and rest from life.”
His mother told Ruptly that her son wanted to “sacrifice himself for the homeland,” adding that “he has become a martyr.” His father said that his son died for Jerusalem.
....The older bereaved brother, who took part in Ibrahim’s funeral, recalled for Mondoweiss their last conversation during breakfast last Wednesday. Ibrahim saw that the demonstrations were becoming deadly. “Mom, bro… please forgive me for any mistake I have ever did, I have lost my legs for my country and I think that is not enough, I must sacrifice my whole body for the sacrifice of the homeland,” Ibrahim said.

No comment from Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.

Now Israel has completed its investigation, an investigation that Hussein insisted upon:

Findings of a Military Police investigation into the death of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a double amputee who was killed during a violent protest near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip in mid December, reveal that the sniper fire had ended at least an hour before the time Abu Thuraya was hurt according to Palestinian reports, Ynet has learned.

Two snipers from the Maglan special forces unit were questioned under caution by the Military Police Investigations Division in recent weeks on suspicion of causing Abu Thuraya's death. One of the snipers told his investigators, "There's no chance we killed him. We have been trained to detect injuries."

According to the findings, Ynet had learned, the sniper fire that day was halted at least one hour before the Palestinians claim Abu Thuraya was shot and hit. The snipers fired at key instigators only three times that day.

Gaza Division officials have also detected the growing participation of many disabled Palestinians, including people in wheelchairs, in these protests. The fighters have been instructed to avoid hitting the disabled protests, who are usually positioned in the centers of friction, so as not to provide Hamas with the image it is hoping to gain.

The bottom line of the military investigation is that no fault was found in the forces' conduct during that incident. One of the assumptions, which hasn’t been proved as part of the investigation, is that Abu Thuraya died from a ricochet of a certain crowd dispersal mean used by the forces to drive the rioters away.

The two Maglan unit snipers were questioned under caution by the Military Police following Palestinian claims that an autopsy found Abu Thuraya had been struck in the head by a bullet while attending the weekly fence protest.

The two fighters and their commanders argued that no shots had been fired at the disabled protestor. "We are trained to accurately hit our targets," one of the snipers told his investigators. "And in any event, the instruction is to shoot at the lower part of a key instigator's body. There's no chance we killed him. We are trained to detect injuries after every shooting, and when that happens we see people gather around the wounded person. In this case, it didn't happen."

I also noted that Abu Thuraya was depressed for years over not being able to provide for his family and to find a wife.

All evidence points to his staging his own death so he could appear to have "died for Jerusalem" and to ensure financial help for his family as he would become a "shahid."

Which means that someone in Gaza shot him in the head, away from the protests (the IDF soldiers did not see a crowd gather around him during the riots.)

Will the UN call for an investigation into a society that encourages people to die so they can be regarded as heroes? Will Hussein demand that Hamas open an "independent investigation" into who actually killed Abu Thuraya?

The very question is absurd. The UN doesn't really care about dead Palestinians when Israel cannot be blamed for their deaths.

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03/28 Links Pt2: New Book Exposes Depth of Anti-Israel Hate on American Campuses; Let’s Not Forget Farrakhan’s Shameful Stance on Slavery

From Ian:

ITP: New Book Exposes Depth of Anti-Israel Hate on American Campuses

About six months after Andrew Pessin posted on his Facebook profile a defense of Israel during its 2014 war against Hamas, the once popular Connecticut College philosophy professor was subjected to an academic smear campaign. The school paper published articles defaming him. The administration hosted condemnations of Pessin from across the campus community on the school's website, and tolerated other anti-Semitic activities that only worsened the climate for Jews and Israel supporters. Pessin received death threats and, in the spring of 2015, took a medical leave of absence. The Connecticut College administration offered no meaningful protection or support to Pessin, and never issued any apology for its role in his abuse.

The Pessin affair was part of a growing trend of anti-Israel hostility on U.S. campuses, but at least his story has a somewhat happy ending. Pessin resumed teaching last fall after an extended paid sabbatical, and – together with a colleague – convinced the school to establish a Jewish Studies program. Moreover, he has edited a new book with Fordham University's Doron Ben-Atar on the general campus trend: Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS. Ben-Atar, who is part of Fordham's American Studies program, protested at a faculty meeting about the 2013 passing of a resolution calling for a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) targeting Israel, only to find himself soon being investigated for unspecified charges, resulting in a Kafkaesque campaign of intimidation and vilification. This volume of essays, by faculty and students who have confronted anti-Israelism on their campuses, documents and analyzes how this movement masks an underlying anti-Semitism that creates a hostile environment for Jews while undermining free speech and civility.

Writer Noah Beck interviewed Pessin via email.

Q: Your book catalogues the many underhanded tactics used to promote the anti-Israel agenda on college campuses, which should help Israel advocates prepare for what awaits them. Did your personal ordeal inspire you to create a potential resource for campus Israel advocates? Or did you have the idea for such a book even before what happened to you?

Pessin: I had been observing the general campus scene for some time, but passively; like many professors, I preferred to spend my time teaching and doing my research, rather than get involved in the mess. And so, when I read about Doron's affair at Fordham, being persecuted for standing up for Israel, I simply thought, "That's terrible," then clicked on the next story. It was only six months later, when I began to receive hundreds of emails of support from around the world, that I realized how important it is to hear from people off campus. So I wrote to him, belatedly, to offer my support—and he wrote back immediately to suggest we collect narratives from faculty members who have been on the receiving end of anti-Israel nastiness on their campuses. Though the book evolved from there—we include several more analytical essays, as well as some narratives from students—that's how it was born.

‘Zionism Is a Humanist Movement, Not a Colonial One’: Prominent French-Tunisian Movie Producer Said Ben Saïd Reflects on Arabs, Jews and Islam

Last November, the Tunisian-born French movie producer Said Ben Saïd briefly found himself thrust into the center of the Arab world’s conflict with Israel as a result of his work with Nadav Lapid, an Israeli film director.

In an op-ed for the French daily Le Monde, Ben Saïd revealed that an invitation to preside over the jury of the 28th Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia had been curtly rescinded because of his cooperation with Lapid, as well as his participation on the judges panel at the 2017 Jerusalem Film Festival in Israel. That decision provided an opportunity for Ben Saïd to articulate some home truths.

“[I]t must be admitted that the Arab world is, in its majority, antisemitic,” Ben Saïd wrote at the time. “This hatred of Jews has redoubled in intensity and depth not because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the rise of a certain vision of Islam.”

Four months on, Ben Saïd, who was on a visit to New York, seemed unfazed that his critique of the widespread, socially acceptable antisemitism that has endured throughout the Arab world for more than a century had not become more commonplace.

“I’m talking as an Arab and as a Muslim, and that’s what I am,” Ben Saïd explained during an interview with The Algemeiner at his hotel in Manhattan’s Soho district. “But I am talking against a majority of people who do not think as I do. Those people who need to think completely differently about their relationship with Israel, they are the same people who are at present convinced that they are not antisemitic. They think they are merely anti-Zionists.”

Charles Jacobs: As Passover Nears, Let’s Not Forget Farrakhan’s Shameful Stance on Slavery

In 1995, as Research Director of the American Anti-Slavery Group, I co-authored a New York Times op-ed with Mohammed Athie, an African Muslim refugee, that first brought broad national attention to the plight of black chattel slaves in North Africa. In Sudan, for decades, as part of a war waged by the Arab north against the black, mostly Christian south, militia armed by Khartoum stormed African villages, killed the men and captured the women and the children. These served their masters as goat-herds, domestic servants, and sex-slaves. In Mauritania, Arab Berbers who had conquered the area centuries before had always kept African slaves, even though these were Muslims. As our Times piece explained, Western rights groups had thoroughly documented human bondage in these two countries, but did next to nothing to marshal their constituencies to act. No one was trying to free the slaves.

As interest in the issue grew, especially in the black press, Mohammed and I were invited on PBS’s Tony Brown’s Journal, a popular news show where we described our experience and research. We cited reports on current day slavery from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the State Department in Sudan, Mauritania, and Libya.

Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam immediately demanded to have its spokesperson—Akbar Muhammed—come on the show with a different view. Akbar claimed this was all a “big lie,” part of a Jewish conspiracy against Minister Farrakhan. Akbar was particularly upset about our mention of human bondage in Libya; It turned out that he was Farrakhan’s emissary to that country. According to the Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page, Khadafi had loaned Farrakhan $5 million in 1984 and later promised to give the Nation of Islam a billion dollars for “Muslim causes” in America which, Clarence Page suggested, was what kept Farrakhan mute on African slavery.

“I could never live in Israel,” is something people often drop in conversation. In some respects, they mean this as a compliment. They’re calling me brave. At the same time, they’re calling me foolhardy and worse, because what they really want to know is how anyone could choose to raise children in a dangerous neighborhood: could put their children’s lives at risk.

I could do what some do and answer with statistics that prove it’s more dangerous to live in New York than in Jerusalem. Statistics are infinitely malleable that way. But that would be dishonest. The fact is, in New York, there aren’t a lot of people getting killed in horrible ways because they’re Jewish.

In Jerusalem, on the other hand, if someone is the victim of violence, God forbid, it’s almost always because that person is Jewish.

Which is kind of crazy, if you think about it, and in some ways, defeats the purpose of living in the Jewish State. Isn’t the idea to escape antisemitism? To live and breathe free in our own land?

If peace isn’t arriving any time soon, what’s the point of sticking out one’s neck to live in a place where you might be blown up, stabbed, stoned to death, or rammed by a truck because of your religion?

Where’s the advantage in that??

After all, I might have stayed in Pittsburgh. My mom has, in the past, wondered at my Aliyah, “Israel is for people who have no other place to live, persecuted people, poor people. People from places like Morocco, France, and Russia.”

A lot of Israelis agree with her. These Israelis have no love for Western immigrants. We look like show-offs, brandishing our bravado. Trying to be oh-so-tough and Israeli. We’re not fooling THEM, the real Israelis. The ones who don’t speak Hebrew with cringe-worthy American accents.

But I’m here in Israel a long time now. I’m what’s called a “vatik.” A veteran.

I know it’s dangerous. I know it’s a dangerous place to raise children.

And still: I choose to live in Israel. I choose to raise my 12 children here.

In spite of the danger.

Because some things are more important than even life itself.

The land, for instance.

If someone dies, God forbid, in order to strengthen the Land of Israel, this is a huge mitzvah. It’s a mitzvah no one aspires to and everyone dreads. But a mitzvah all the same.

Which is the difference between Jews who come to live in and raise families in Israel, and the 700,000 so-called Arab “refugees” who fled Israel in 1948.

The Economist, October 2, 1948: "Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit ... It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."

Near East Arabic Radio, April 3, 1948: "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees to flee from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, and that certain leaders . . . make political capital out of their miserable situation . . ."

Nimr el Hawari, Commander of the Palestine Arab Youth Organization, in his book Sir Am Nakbah (The Secret Behind the Disaster, Nazareth, 1955), quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said as saying "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

Golda Meir famously traveled to Haifa to try to convince the fleeing Arabs to remain during the Arab offensive on Haifa. But they didn’t listen. They were afraid they’d be accused of being traitors. By the time the fighting in Haifa was over, more than 50,000 had turned tail and fled to neighboring countries.

A British police report from that time notes that "every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives.”

You see? They weren’t expelled. They fled. They fled at the behest of the invading Arab armies, even though Israeli leaders begged them to stay, and pledged their safety. They were afraid.

And it wasn’t just Haifa. It happened everywhere in Israel. The few Arabs who did stay were granted full citizenship after the war ended. Because they stayed the course.

The rest fled because they put their lives and their safety ahead of the land, ahead of their beautiful homes . . .

(photo credit: Dov Epstein)

. . . many of which now, as a result, belong to Jews: Jews who stayed the course, stayed in Israel, risking their lives.

Now it’s understandable that Arabs put their lives ahead of the land. They don’t have that tie to Eretz HaKodesh, the Holy Land. Jerusalem isn’t mentioned in the Quran. Many Arab inhabitants of the Israel of 1947, had only a brief history there. They arrived because the Jews were beginning to arrive. The Arabs were poor. They hoped that following the Jews might mean riding Jewish coattails to prosperity.

Arab hopes were indeed born out. They made money, prospered. Built solid homes. They still prosper in a sense, pretending to be refugees, getting gazillions in aid, getting money to kill Jews.

The Jews prospered, too. They prospered because they stayed. They won the wars, won the land, got the beautiful homes the Arabs built and left. Left because the Arabs had their priorities straight: life, not land.

Yes, for them, life is more important than land. But religion is king above all. Jews and Arabs have a symbiotic relationship in that respect: Jews are willing to die for the land. Arabs are willing to die killing Jews.

Yet the Arabs fled the land at the first sign of trouble. It’s not their abandoned homes they mourn, as their crocodile tears are shed for the TV camera, as they hold out a key, the symbol of return. Because if they really cared so damned much about the land and their homes, they would not have left in the first place.

Left of their own volition.

Which is why they must now pretend they are refugees, that they were expelled. Because the truth doesn’t look so great: Jews stayed the course, stayed in Israel, no matter what. But the Arabs turned tail and fled. Except for the small number who stayed. They received Arab citizenship, a prize from a democracy that wants to live with the Arabs in peace. They got citizenship because they placed Israel above their most genuine fears and concerns.

As did I.

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Logistical Problems: Only Some Hamas Units Equipped With Human Shields (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Gaza City, March 28 - Tension gripped the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades this week in advance of operations against the Zionist Entity, as several platoons of fighters discovered they had not received their allotment of women and children to use as human shields.

Commanders in the Gaza City, Sujaiyya, and Rafah districts complained this week that their requisitions for the proper number of noncombatants to accompany their units had gone unfulfilled, leaving the rocket-launching, tunnel-digging, and roadside-bomb-planting squads without the cover that those human shields provide. Without the women, children, and elderly Gazans, they note, the units are unable to leverage their presence to score either political or military victories against Israel.

"My orders, and the battle plan, call for placing the women and children in harm's way, either to deter Israeli fire or to capitalize on the deaths to depict the Zionists as brutal fiends," explained Mustafa Massiqr of the Rafah district. "Without the children to either prevent or absorb enemy fire, I can't proceed according to plan. I can't expose my men to enemy fire like that."

"That's not how our training has taught us to fight," seconded a commander near the Kerem Shalom crossing who gave his name as Ali. "We can pretend it's our glorious, courageous warriors taking the fight to the Zionist infidel pig all we want, but without the women and children we're essentially naked. What am I supposed to do, send our fighters out to confront enemy soldiers while not violating six or seven laws of armed conflict? Not happening."

Hamas's command center inside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City has remained mum on the cause of the supply snafu, leading those in the field to speculate. "There have been rumors of dissatisfaction with Hamas rule, so maybe some noncombatants have just stopped 'volunteering' to put their lives on the line for this glorious cause," suggested a lieutenant in Rafah. "For some reason, I've heard grumblings, it's never the wealthy, high-ranking Hamas people who suffer, despite their constant repetition of the sanctity and importance of sacrificing oneself. You'd think they could spare a Mercedes or two for the purpose. But no, it's always us peons in harm's way."

Others blame Israel. "They must have found a way to disrupt the movement of these vital supplies," worried Muhammad al-Kalb of Gaza. "When the next war comes, I don't envy our fighters, who will have to actually fight and not cower like girls behind, well, girls."

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