The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), with support from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), will convene the International Conference on the Question of Jerusalem “Preserving the cultural and religious character of Jerusalem” on 27-28 June 2019 at the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG).
The Conference will address the issue of Israel’s policies and measures aimed at changing the character of Jerusalem, which have significant political, legal and socio-economic ramifications, including the threat of derailing prospects for a peaceful solution to the Question of Palestine. The Conference will seek to formulate concrete actionable recommendations and ways forward among the relevant stakeholders for the preservation of a City, considered sacred by three religions.
The Conference will bring together Palestinian, Israeli and international experts, representatives of the diplomatic community and civil society to discuss viable and practical strategies to (1) stem efforts to alter the demography and character of the City, (2) provide viable alternatives that preserve the religious and cultural character of the City, and (3) ensure that all its Palestinian inhabitants enjoy their inalienable rights.
This is an annual conference; last year it was held in Rabat, Morocco. You can see a synopsis of the discussions here.
Of course, no one in history has preserved Jerusalem's historic, cultural and religious character more than Israel has. A look at how Jordan destroyed every single synagogue in 1948 and almost banned Jews from visiting for 19 years (not Israelis - Jews!) is all you have to know about how well Jerusalem was "preserved" under Arab rule for Jews.
In 1953, Jordan restricted Christian communities from owning or purchasing land near holy sites, and in 1964, further prohibited churches from buying land in Jerusalem...In order to counter the influence of foreign powers, who had run the Christian schools in Jerusalem autonomously since Ottoman times, the Jordanian government legislated in 1955 to bring all schools under government supervision. They were allowed to use only approved textbooks and teach in Arabic.Schools were required to close on Arab national holidays and Fridays instead of Sundays. Christian holidays were no longer recognised officially, and observation of Sunday as the Christian Sabbath was restricted to Christian civil servants.
Under Israeli rule, Muslim, Christians and Jews have simultaneous rights in Jerusalem for the first time in history.
Yes, we all know the UN is a joke, but it is worth being reminded every so often.
(h/t Irene)
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.
Besides the hyena story referenced earlier, there have been a lot of other anti-Israel stories floating around that are simply made up.
For example this tweet from someone anonymous received over 20,000 retweets already:
The only part of this that has any truth is the National Cultural Center, which was bombed last August (not last weekend) because it also housed Hamas offices. It also had a library but that it not what the tweeter is referring to.
A building that was meant to be the Palestine National Library was never completed. Instead, the partially-built structure became a Hamas training camp and tunnel hub, which was bombed last July.
The only Azhar Library I can find in Gaza is the library at Al Azhar University. It was never bombed.
Here's another made up story:
I have searched high and low for any Arabic or English news story that mentions Fatmah Hjazi. There were two protesters killed last Friday, none of them had her name. No stories in Arabic news about any girl shot in the head. I see a number of pictures of this girl holding a flag, but none of her injured (which would normally be featured prominently.)
But I found lots of other tweets that repeated the lie, often followed with tweets about how inhumane Israel is to do such a thing.
These Israel haters literally make things up. They lie as easily as they breathe. And the thousands of people who are so anxious to believe them are either idiots, antisemites or both.
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.
After raining down some 600 rockets that killed four Israelis this past week, the Netanyahu government responded with overwhelming force, deploying jet fighters to carry out multiple air strikes, killing 23 Gaza residents including a pregnant woman, according to Palestinian Authority officials. (The pregnant women and her child, however, are now confirmed as having been killed by a Palestinian rocket that feel short.)
And, so, the cycle of violence makes another cruel revolution. What makes the events of the past week different from earlier rockets-and-retaliation episodes? The reaction of Arab intellectuals and other thought leaders in Muslim world.
Consider the tweet of Dr. Turki Al-Hamad, a well-known Saudi author and thinker. He tweeted: "It's a repeating loop: rockets [are fired] from Gaza into Israel, Israel bombs [Gaza], someone or other mediates, the fighting stops – and the common Palestinian folks pay the price. This is 'resistance,' my friend. Iran and Turkey are in trouble, and the Palestinians are paying the price."
Note his use of scare quotes around resistance and his willingness to blame Iran and Turkey, two Muslim-majority nations, instead of the Jewish state. This marks a real rhetorical change.
And many influential Arab voices echoed the thoughts of Dr. Al-Hamad.
Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh, a frequent contributor to the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, tweeted: "The Persian ayatollahs have instructed their servants, Hamas, to escalate [the conflict] with Israel, and they obeyed. The result is seven Palestinians dead, versus one Israeli wounded. [The death toll increased after his tweet.] The Persians are tightening the pressure on the U.S. and Israel in retaliation for Trump's decision, and the victims are the people of Gaza."
[The Jordanian mayor] went on to say that he believes in the "liberation of Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River" – meaning that he supports the elimination of Israel.
The campaign against the Jordanian mayor is the direct result of anti-Israel incitement in Jordan and most of the Arab and Islamic states. While some of the leaders of these countries may appear to be relatively moderate in their views towards Israel, their people continue to reject any form of normalization with the "Zionist enemy."
For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have been radicalizing their people on a daily basis against Israel. They have delegitimized Israel in the eyes of their people to a point where they can no longer be seen talking to or making peace with Israelis.
One is left wondering how any Arab leader would accept any peace plan with Israel when a mayor is being widely condemned and shamed for being caught on camera in the company of Israelis.
In order to achieve peace with Israel, Arab and Muslim leaders need to start preparing their people for peace, and not inciting them against Israel.
When Syrian and Egyptian forces launched simultaneous attacks on Israel on Yom Kippur of 1973, the IDF found itself woefully unprepared. The high command, just ten days before the war began, finally acted on repeated warnings of imminent war and ordered Colonel Avigdor Ben-Gal to move his tank brigade from the Sinai to the Golan Heights; the last units were still arriving when the fighting began. Even with Ben-Gal’s tanks, Israel had a single, understrength division on the Golan, which faced an onslaught from three battle-ready Syrian armored divisions. Abraham Rabinovich tells the story of how Ben-Gal’s troops held the line:
The Syrians calculated that Israeli reserve units could not reach the Golan in less than 24 hours. Damascus expected to capture the Heights before then. Until Israel’s reserves joined the battle, the main burden of holding the enemy at bay would fall upon young conscripts—draftees—and their regular army commanders.
Informed by [his superiors] at 10 a.m. on Yom Kippur of the warning [that Syria would attack], Ben-Gal summoned his battalion and company commanders by radio to a meeting at the main army base in the northern Golan, Nafakh. . . . The officers would meet again at 2 p.m., by which time the situation might be clearer. With that, the brigade commander drove to the front. . . . The officers were just arriving for the 2 p.m. meeting when MiGs dropped bombs on the camp. “Everyone to your tanks,” Ben-Gal shouted. A sentry already lay dead at the gateway. . . .
After days of [intense fighting], Ben-Gal’s control was unraveling as officers were hit and orders not passed on. There appeared to be no alternative but to have the tanks fall back. Even if they managed to outrace the Syrians to a new line, however, they would not be able to hold it for more than half an hour, he estimated, in the absence of proper defensive positions. He decided on a last desperate bid to shore up the collapsing line. . . .
The bid worked, and the remnants of the brigade managed to hold the northern Golan for five days, at which point reinforcements arrived and the Syrians retreated. Three-quarters of Ben-Gal’s tank crews were killed or wounded; he managed to get the survivors a one-day respite before beginning a counterattack.
The Israeli occupation forces together with the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority have this week set wild thirty hyenas in the northern Jordan Valley that are attacking the farmers and Palestinian communities in the area.
The animals have started attacking the communities and are a threat to the farmers and especially their families and children.
More often than hyenas, Israel uses the placement of wild boars so they destroy the crops and attack poultry and even people.
While wildlife protection, including the protection of the striped hyena would be a laudable act, using these animals as part of a systematic strategy to ethnically cleanse people from their homes is despicable.
There have been no reports even in Arab media about anything close to this. It appears that the Israel haters have decided not to bother with twisting stories, and instead make them up from scratch. Why not? Their fans will retweet even the most insane stories by the thousands before anyone can even begin to fact check.
The only recent hyena-related story was when an Arab from Hebron says he found an injured hyena, chained him up in a dirty warehouse and posted proud photos on social media. Israeli authorities found out and confiscated the animal.
The reason they confiscated the hyena proves that the absurd story is wrong. Hyenas are a protected species, and the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority receive word about once a month about Palestinian Arabs abusing hyenas, so they attempt to save them when they can and nurse them back to life. Apparently there are some superstitious Palestinians who believe that hyenas can hypnotize people so they try to run them over or torture them.
The Zionist Attack Zoo now includes eagles, wild boars, lizards, dolphins, rock hyraxes, storks, "super rhinoceroses," vultures, puffer fish, dogs, jellyfish, sharks, sheep, cows, lions, wolves, rats, squirrels and pigeons in addition to hyenas. A fairly impressive menagerie!
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.
Know Thy Heritage is a program for Arabs of Palestinian descent in the West which "seeks to empower Diaspora from around the world by offering opportunities to become actively involved in the movement for a vibrant and flourishing Palestine."
One of its programs is "Know Thy Heritage (KTH) Leadership Program to “Explore and Live Palestine” [which] offers Diaspora Palestinians aged 18-30+ the opportunity to strengthen their knowledge of their Palestinian identity, culture, history, and traditions, as well as their understanding of Palestinian economic, political and social conditions. Over the course of a two and a half week educational tour, our KTHers bear witness to the lives of their fellow Palestinians, learning about their challenges, their struggles and their successes, but most importantly, about how to get involved in our movement. For many of them, this is the first time they have ever set foot in the land of their ancestors. The KTH journey is a life-changing experience that has a deep and lasting impact. "
Sound familiar? Yes, this is a direct copy of Taglit Birthright for Jewish youth.
Here's a group from 2017 visiting terrorist Yasir Arafat's grave.
KTH is supposedly planning their next trip to Judea and Samaria in July. Its Twitter account has not been updated in nearly a year.
Since the pro-Palestinian crowd is insisting that Birthright allow anti-Israel viewpoints, then Zionists have the same right to protest this organization to force them to allow pro-Israel messages to be given.
Just like IfNotNow/Jewish Voice for Peace proudly tried to block the building that houses Birthright offices, perhaps Zionists should go to Bethesda, Maryland and protest outside KTH's office.
Of course I'm joking. People of Palestinian descent are obviously allowed to organize their own trips, filled with propaganda and stories about their nonexistent history as a people and photo-ops at the gravesite of the 20th century's leading terrorist. It is free speech and insisting that outsiders control the agenda is oppression. We can point out the lies, but we cannot tell them what to say.
But for some reason, Jews are not extended the same rights, according to the crazed haters of Israel at IfNotNow and JVP.
If someone thinks that Birthright must accommodate other viewpoints on their trips, but they don't insist on the same for KTH, then the lofty moral standards they pretend to be advocating is nothing but dressed-up hate.
Similarly, anyone who thinks that protesting a Palestinian heritage organization is bigoted, but that protesting a Jewish heritage organization isn't, is the real bigot.
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.
Last night I gave a Yom HaAtzmaut lecture in Kew Gardens Synagogue in Queens.
Titled "Bazman Hazeh - Miracles of Modern Israel," I discuss various improbable things that have happened since the mid-1800s that led to the rebirth of Israel as well as things that have happened since then.
I wante to make ure that my readers could get to hear it while it is still the holiday.
Sorry, no slides, only audio.
Enjoy!
1753 British book on restoring the Jews to Israel
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.
Earlier this week I wrote a long article explaining why dealing with Gaza is such a difficult task, and describing a solution in general terms (short answer: a massive blow to force Hamas to disarm, followed by a “light” military occupation).
I thought that this time – after all, for once we have an American administration in our corner – it would be different, this time the IDF would follow through, and do more than just “mow the grass.” Bibi was talking tough, armored forces were poised at the border, and, after all we had just absorbed some 690 rockets, $14 million in damage, and four dead Israelis.
But I was wrong. We barely trimmed the weeds, with the IDF ordered to end the fighting before the Memorial Day and Independence Day celebrations this week, and the Eurovision song contest which will begin next Tuesday in Tel Aviv. In particular it is being reported that the IDF was forced to “give up on striking Hamas' long range missile storage facilities,” which seems to me remarkably counter-productive if one wants to prevent disruption of events in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Some kind of ceasefire deal was reached, which probably means that Israel must facilitate the transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas from Qatar, and who knows what other concessions.
Government officials insisted that nothing was less important to their decisions than Eurovision. But of course, nothing was more important.
Bibi and the others are absolutely aching to present Israel as an advanced European or North American style country, a country where (perhaps unlike the Europe or America of today) the chance of terrorism or war is minuscule, and where we put on massively excessive spectacles like Eurovision as a matter of course.
This isn’t true. We are a small country that has been at war since 1948, where successive negligent governments have allowed dangerous terrorist proxies of our enemies to flourish on our borders, and where terrorism and flare-ups of violence happen on a regular basis. We are not quite the first-world country we aspire to be, either (you can see this in the poorer neighborhoods of our cites or the so-called “periphery”).
Do you get the feeling I think we have our priorities wrong? You’re right.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad organization understand the reasons for our reluctance to engage with them: because we fear a wider multi-front war, because we don’t appear to have a satisfactory plan for Gaza if Hamas collapses, and because we don’t want to be embarrassed by terrorism during – or even aimed at – Eurovision. So they made their demands and we gave in. Call it extortion or call it jizya, but they got what they wanted.
The residents of Sderot and other communities near Gaza have been remarkably patient as this happens over and over. It has been going on for decades: the first rockets were launched at Sderot in 2001, and the attacks increased in frequency after Israel abandoned the Strip in 2005, and still more after the Hamas coup in 2007. Every few months the residents’ lives are massively disrupted. Their children – who have been insecure since birth – are suffering from PTSD. It’s remarkable that so few families have fled. How long can we expect them to be patient? Of course it is hard to get a fair price for a home in the region, so maybe many of them not only feel anxious, they feel trapped.
And the zone of conflict is growing as Hamas and Islamic Jihad improve their rockets and increase their range. It used to be only Sderot and the local kibbutzim and moshavim, and now it is as often Ashkelon, where two of the four deaths – murders – occurred this week. They have rockets that can reach Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, although there are fewer of them. Today.
The government tells us that yes, it’s terrible, especially for those who have lost family members, but it’s not existential. And look at how many people are killed every year in traffic accidents. Meanwhile there are so many reasons that nothing can be done now; but we have a plan and it will be implemented real soon.
No. Enough. The most basic obligation of a government under the social contract is to protect its citizens, and they aren’t doing it. Don’t tell me that it is impossible. Why are the barbarians of Hamas and Islamic Jihad able to outthink us, to put us in a trap that we can’t escape? Do we have the wrong generals? The wrong government? Are all the smart people in high-tech? Is the problem, as some say, that every commander must have a lawyer by his side? We are stronger, we have an air force that is qualitatively the best in the world, we have a fleet of drones, tanks, the best weapons in the world. Why can’t we fix this?
Tuesday night will begin Israel’s Memorial Day for 23,741 fallen soldiers and terror victims with a ceremony in Jerusalem. This is a deeply moving event for Israelis, since there are few families that have not lost a friend or family member to war or terrorism.
An organization called “Combatants for Peace” (CFP) organized an “Alternative Memorial Day” event in which both Israelis and Palestinians from the territories who lost relatives in the conflict will mourn them together. CFP is funded almost entirely by foreign contributions, from the American New Israel Fund, and German and Swiss groups.
The implication is that there’s no moral difference. Someone who is shot to death trying to stab a random Jew in the street is a victim of the conflict, just like the Jew he stabs. The Palestinian who is killed when he plows into people waiting at a bus stop deserves the same respect as the ones he murders.
Unsurprisingly, many Israelis find it obscene to equate fallen soldiers, police officers, and terror victims with the Palestinian terrorists that murdered them. PM Netanyahu rejected a request for entry permits to allow Palestinians to enter the country for the ceremony. He cited security reasons, but I suspect that he felt that national self-respect required it.
The Supreme Court, in response to a petition from CFP, overruled the PM and ordered the government to grant 100 permits.
The members of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad want to win. They want to kill Jews and eliminate the Jewish state. They want this with all their hearts.
Do we want to survive as much as they want to destroy us?
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.
After the defeat of Nazism in World War II, the Soviet Union and its satellites became the main European incubators of anti-Semitism, a doctrine they soon repackaged, with great success, as anti-Zionism. Asael Abelman tells this story in a sweeping and penetrating essay that can be read in its original Hebrew here or in a rough English translation at the link below:
After 1945, and even more so after 1948, the war against the Jews ceased to be one against a people scattered and dispersed among the nations but instead against a people who had returned to their land. The banner of this war against the Jews was now borne by the Arab peoples as well as Muslims throughout the world, and even though a wide chasm separated most of them from the European left, all parties found in this struggle a common denominator. . . .
Take Poland, for example, in the late 1960s. During this period, Polish students were expressing their resentment of the Communist regime in their country. When the regime sought a way to rally its ranks and divert attention from its critics, it found it in anti-Semitism. By then, most of the Jews of Poland had been exterminated [in World War II]; many others had left for Israel and other countries; and many of the remaining Jews in Poland did not see themselves as Jews, were themselves unaware that they were Jews, or were completely indifferent to their Jewish identity. But none of this prevented the leader of Poland, Wladyslaw Gomulka, from looking for a way to use anti-Semitism to serve his political needs.
His opportunity arrived with Israel’s victory over the Arab states in the Six-Day War. Immediately thereafter, Gomulka publicly announced that “Polish citizens of the Jewish nation are not prevented from returning to Israel if they wish. Our position is that every Polish citizen should have one state: the Polish People’s Republic; . . . we do not want a fifth column.” Thus, parallel to the Arab desire to destroy the state of Israel, anti-Semitism came out of the mouth of the leader of the Polish Communist regime, a man who no doubt considered racist Nazism to be the absolute evil, [who was himself married to a Jewish woman], and who subscribed to an ideological doctrine strongly opposed to national hatred.
The Muslim Association of America, designated by the United Arab Emirates as one of 84 terrorist groups with Muslim Brotherhood ties, was caught red-faced after posting a video on Facebook of Muslim children conducting a musical performance in the Philadelphia Islamic center glorifying Islamic jihad, suicide martyrdom, and jihad on Israel.
Martyrdom songs and indoctrination of youth are a hallmark of Islamist organizations. It’s commonplace in Gaza, but shocking when found in the home of the Declaration of Independence. The songs romanticize both martyrdom and the destruction of Israel — classic Muslim Brotherhood Islamists tenets.
Such indoctrination of Muslim children in Islamist ideology leads directly to violence, such as the assault on Israel over the last weekend. More than 700 rockets were fired on sovereign Israeli territory by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — both extremist Islamist terror groups.
For the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad movements to remain alive, in addition to generous funding from both Iran and Qatar, these Islamist groups require support from youth, including those here in America.
The children in Philadelphia sang songs demonizing Israel while claiming to be the “Army of Allah,” yet disregard that the Quran documents the Israelites as the chosen people to whom God promised the Holy Land. Muslims must accept their legitimacy, their prophets and their Holy Book.
These children in Philadelphia are being indoctrinated in Islamist anti-Semitism — a cosmic, not mortal, form pursued as a divine mission to combat a cosmic, not mortal, enemy. This anti-Semitism is among the most virulent and rapidly growing forms today.
Long before the Mossad became known as one of the world’s greatest intelligence agencies; before the capture of Eichmann and the raid of Iran’s nuclear archive; before Eli Cohen and Rafi Eitan; before Fauda captured audiences around the world, Israel’s first spies were dispatched to Beirut without so much as a radio to contact home. In the spring of 1948, before the State of Israel had even been declared, a handful of young Mizrahi Jews were recruited to serve in the Palmach’s Arab Section and charged with going undercover among the Arab population of Palestine and neighboring countries. Sent back into the Arab lands they had left behind, these brave Jews risked their lives to become spies for a country that was yet to be born.
In Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, journalist and author Matti Friedman tells the story of these mista’aravim, Jews who went uncover as Arabs. Focusing on the lives of four of these men, Friedman transports us back to a world without a State of Israel or an IDF, where the fate of Palestine’s Jews remained uncertain and the project of Jewish statehood hung in the balance. This was the world of Israel’s first spies, the unsung heroes of the nation’s founding.
In this podcast, Matti Friedman joins Jonathan Silver to talk about his new book. They discuss the challenges and risks the spies faced while undercover, the complex identities of these Mizrahi Jews who had to pose as Arabs, and the importance of telling the stories of these Jewish heroes from Middle Eastern lands.
“Shakked was really scared,” my
son said, when asked how he and his young family had managed during the rocket
attacks on Shabbos and Saturday night.
That was more than it would be
usual for my quiet son to volunteer. Which is how I knew that what he’d written
on the family Whatsapp group was an understatement. But since I am a writer and
my mind runs wild, I could picture how it was that night, in a small room in Southern
Israel. Two young parents, a sleepy three-year-old, and an exhausted one-year-old,
with sirens and explosions going off all night long, one siren interrupting the
next, explosions upon explosions, some farther away, some much too close,
making the people in the room, jump. I imagined my granddaughter crying--perhaps
screaming in fear--and her parents trying so hard to comfort her while being
helpless to reassure her in any real way, or to do anything about the endless
sirens and explosions: to do anything to stop the night.
My mind kept going back to that
picture though they were safe now, the next day, having gone to stay with my
daughter-in-law’s family in the center of the country, until things were calmer.
That bothered me, too. What
kind of life is it really, if you have to leave your home to get a break from
danger? What kind of home sweet home can you really have when living there puts
you and your children in mortal danger? And here were my brave children,
building a home in Netivot, in the Gaza Envelope. How should I feel about that?
Proud, of course, even as my
mind wrestled with competing narratives: Is it right to raise children in a
dangerous part of Israel? Is it right to build a home in a place that suffers
from near constant rocket attacks, sirens, and Molotov balloons? Is it right to
live in a place where kindergartens suffer direct hits and oncology wards are a
target?
This kindergarten in Sderot suffered a direct rocket hit on Shabbat. The writing on the blackboard says: "My Eretz Israel."
What happens, on the other
hand, if they leave? If many leave? Will we lose our hold on the land? Which
begs the question: shouldn’t more of us move south to strengthen the area, and
live under fire, too?
I called my mother in
Pittsburgh. I didn’t say a lot. I didn’t need to. She has long wrestled with
the same concerns. This is how she felt when I moved to Gilo, and she couldn’t
figure out if it was over the Green Line. It's how she felt when I moved to
Gush Etzion, which is indisputably over the Green Line. She worried that it was
dangerous. That I and my children were in danger.
And yet she came to visit us
many times, staying in our home or nearby. Her friends worried about her. During the Second Intifada, when
they voiced their concerns on the eve of yet another one of her trips, this
time for my daughter’s wedding, Mom dismissed their worries with a wave of the
hand, saying, “What’s the difference if a 75-year-old-woman blows up?”
Just the idea of this makes me
laugh. My mom is such a Litvak, possessed of such a dry sensibility and humor. She
deals with things by making light of them, by minimizing their impact. It’s not
that she’s unaware of the danger. It’s that she sees the bigger picture.
And the bigger picture for her
was being there for a granddaughter’s wedding.
The bigger picture for me is
the mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisroel. I believe in this mitzvah with all of my heart and soul.
And if someone said to me: “we need you to move to the South” I would totally
go there, in spite of the missiles, the need to be near a shelter at all times,
heart racing whenever there is a siren, living to the accompaniment of
explosions, lack of sleep, interrupted sleep, interrupted business, interrupted
education, interrupted showers, interrupted love,
for crying out loud—yes. I would do it.
My daughter in-law said to me, “Every
place here in Israel has its own risks. We choose to live here for many other
reasons and we shouldn't let anyone stop us from doing that.”
This is also true. My friend
Ari was murdered for being Jewish while talking on his phone, next to our local
supermarket. And his family didn’t leave. None of us did. Efrat is a beautiful
place, with great neighbors and every convenience. We doubled down. Our
community had more children and named them after Ari. Ari’s daughter got
married.
You can’t extinguish us. Not
with your sirens, your rockets, your knives, balloons, petrol bombs, stones, kidnappings,
decapitations, rapes, terror tunnels, and car-rammings. Not in Auschwitz with gas. And certainly not
in Israel, no matter what you do.
We won’t go. And we will keep
getting married and having children. Our children will have children, too.
Couples, on the other hand, should not be getting married in bomb shelters, but in beautifully appointed wedding halls. My granddaughter, not yet four, should not be losing sleep, afraid in a bomb shelter to the tune of sirens
and explosions. She should not have to take shelter, to
cower and fear. It is not 1948.
Scout leaders should lead. Children should not have to, with their own bodies, shield other children
But mistakes have been made. There
was the Gaza Disengagement, perpetuated against the will of the people, by a former hero
of the right, under suspicious circumstances. A deed not so different from an earlier one, hailing back to 1967: What Ariel Sharon did was not so
different from what Moshe Dayan did.
Back in 1967, Moshe Dayan gave away the
Temple Mount. We’d just wrested it from the enemy after centuries of longing.
No one gave Dayan permission to do that. He just did it. And we are left to
deal with the aftermath.
Many years later, it was Ariel Sharon, expelling thousands of his own people from Gaza, after promising he would not
do so. Sharon’s actions have brought us here, to a small room in Netivot where my
granddaughter can’t be lulled to sleep with a lullaby of sirens and explosions.
Disengagement means there is no
easy solution. No matter the good intent we sense in the naming of this latest military
operation, there will be no “enduring silence” in the South. Not as long as we
continue this pattern of letting Hamas build up its arsenal, shoot up the
South, and then agree to a ceasefire after one or two operatives are killed and a bunch of empty buildings are taken out.
Can we go on like this for
endless years?
The answer is yes. We can, and
if we must, we will. In spite of feeling exhausted and blue at this endless
battle.
Because that is what it is to
be a Jew. To be an Israeli.
It’s why we have stiff necks. And
we also hope. We hope that if we do not know what to do about this state of
affairs in the South, someone else will, and if not, we still hope that God
will preserve us.
To live in this country one has
to have hope. And this is what the children of the South will be hearing
tonight, on the occasion of Israel’s 71st birthday. They’ll be hearing
the sound of hope, sung louder than ever before. It is a sound that is louder
than sirens or explosions or even a little girl’s fear. They will hear no
voices faltering, as our anthem is sung, Hatikva.
It’s a song of hope, of two
thousand years and counting. And this is the lesson our children are learning tonight.
That to be alive and in Israel
is to hope.
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.
Damascus, May 8 - Few living things remain on Earth, but the small number of protozoa, bacteria, and other microscopic life forms inhabiting an area best-known for a sprawling Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the Syrian capital continue to follow the age-old practices that long characterized the locale by engaging in deadly violence.
A loose, shifting coalition of single-cell organisms calling itself the Eukaryotic State in the Levant has besieged Yarmouk for years, as rival factions within the camp fight micron-by-micron to gain or regain control of territory they held at some point during the age-old conflict. Humans abandoned Yarmouk eighty thousand years ago, but the remaining creatures maintained the ancient fight, whose origins remain shrouded in mystery but whose continuation gives the area the only character and identity it has ever known.
"We're hoping to defeat the infidel enemy by the end of Ramadan," stated General Staphylo Coccus of the Al-Staphylococcus Front, which now controls about two thirds of Yarmouk, but faces supply shortages amid the siege. "I have no idea what Ramadan is, but that's the term we've inherited, and it would be kind of shame to relinquish that piece of our heritage."
"Victory will be ours and the kufar will die or flee in everlasting shame," countered Colonel Cyano Monera of the Petri Mujaheddin. "We will liberate the Dar-al-Islam from the Zionist usurper once and for all. I hope you're writing this down and can look it up later, because in my 36-hour lifespan I don't really have time to learn what all those things mean. I have infidels to kill."
The last multicellular organism in Yarmouk succumbed to the fighting ten thousand years ago, leaving only the microbes and a slew of viruses to keep going at one another. "The so-called higher life forms despaired of living - or even dying - here a long time ago," observer Proka Ryota recalled. "Earth became unable to sustain complex life about fifty thousand years ago, possibly because of something called climate change but also possibly something called nuclear holocaust. We're not sure, because all records were destroyed in the fighting, and who cares, anyway?"
Representatives of the warring microbial colonies vowed to bring glory to Allah and their ancestors one ruptured enemy cell wall at a time, and to hoist the flag of their movement over Al Aqsa in triumph, though none of those involved could say for certain where or what Al Aqsa is or was.
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.
Israelis stood in silence on Tuesday night as a one-minute siren sounded nationwide to mark the start of the annual Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism.
A total of 23,741 soldiers have died defending Israel, while 3,150 civilians have lost their lives in terrorist attacks throughout the country’s history.
Another siren — two minutes in length — will be heard in the morning on Wednesday, when many Israelis will visit military cemeteries to pay respects to departed family members and friends.
At an official state ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said in remarks addressed to the bereaved, “Our wellbeing is bound up in yours. I know that you think and believe that we do not understand. That we will never understand. But today, we ask you, despite everything, to tell us.”
“Tell us about her, about him, tell us about the person,” he continued. “Take us to that space which is so full, crammed full, that they left behind in your hearts. Allow us to remember them.”
At the same event, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi said, “This is a unique moment that makes it possible to feel the heart’s screams and the storm of emotions.”
“There is no consolation, but there is meaning,” Kochavi noted. “We have a state, an army that defends it and, therefore, the [bereaved] families have an eternal right to exist.”
Tonight marks the beginning of Israel's National Memorial Day. Together, we remember the fallen, the courageous, and the brave. The IDF soldiers that fell while defending their homeland. pic.twitter.com/IzrgTr3FMN
With the red alert sirens triggered by Gaza rocket fire over the weekend still fresh in their ears, bereaved families in Ashkelon slowly filed into the southern coastal city’s military cemetery Wednesday morning to visit the graves of their lost loved ones on Memorial Day.
The official ceremony would not start for two hours, so the grieving parents, siblings and children had some private time with their fallen relatives before the cemetery would fill with over a thousand members of the general public.
Dozens of young soldiers dispatched to the burial ground in order to participate in the municipality’s official ceremony sat at benches near the entrance, talking among themselves.
Just days earlier, two more people in the city had been added to the rolls of those killed in war or terror attacks. By Memorial Day, calm had returned to the city, the wisps of smoke in the sky from rockets and interceptors replaced by downy clouds, but anger over the deadly round of violence still bubbled.
“At least these bereaved families can be comforted by the fact that their sons’ deaths stood for something. Think about that man killed Sunday when his home was hit by a rocket. What did he die for?” one fresh recruit asked in reference to 58-year-old Ashkelon resident Moshe Agadi, one of four Israeli civilians killed in attacks from the Gaza Strip over the weekend.
Last week on Holocaust Memorial Day, we remembered the cost of not having a state.
Today, on Memorial Day for our Fallen Soldiers, we remember the price we pay to have one. pic.twitter.com/dWZV2Clnbu
When wars -- and even battles -- are over, we naturally ask: who won?
Normally, victory brings with it the acquisition of advantages like increased power and land, while losing brings not only a certain degree of humiliation, but also surrendering land and control.
And stalemates -- those often bring recriminations and political headaches, especially when you are more powerful and are expected to win.
o Operation Summer Rains / Operation Autumn Clouds (2006) o Operation Cast Lead (2008–2009) o Operation Pillar of Defense (2012) o Operation Protective Edge (2014)
And now, another clash -- one that wasn't even given a name.
At The Jerusalem Post, Anna Ahronheim describes it as A Deadly Weekend Which Wasn't Even A War. She describes it as a case of terrorism and retribution where "both sides upped the ante to a deadly level not seen since 2014’s Operation Protective Edge." After snipers wounded an IDF officer and a female soldier, Israel responded with an Air Force to strike on a Hamas target in Gaza, killing two terrorists.
But matters did not end there.
Hamas responded with almost 700 rockets, during which 4 Israeli civilians were killed:
Moshe Agadi, the first Israeli civilian killed since 2014, was killed outside his Ashkelon home by shrapnel to his stomach and chest; Moshe Feder, 68, from Kfar Saba, was killed after a Kornet anti-tank guided missile struck a car near the Gaza border between Yad Mordechai and Sderot; Ziad Alhamamda was critically injured in his chest by shrapnel from a direct strike on an Ashkelon factory; and Pinchas Menachem Prezuasman was killed after he suffered severe shrapnel injuries to his chest while running to a shelter in Ashdod.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad tried new tactics:
o Overwhelming Iron Dome with massive, simultaneous firings. (They claim they were successful. Israel denies this.) o Aiming an explosive-laden drone at an Iron Dome battery. o Launching a Kornet anti-tank missile into a civilian van (Hamas tried this last year, but fired on the bus only after IDF troops had gotten off.)
For its part, Israel did something different too. It renewed the practice of targeted assassinations, killing Hamed al-Khoudary, the money man who brought funds from Iran to Gaza. This was the first such assassination since 2014, and it was carried out despite the possibility of leading to all-out war. Instead, Israel warned that the policy would continue -- and another Hamas terrorist was later killed while riding his motorcycle and the IDF also targeted the homes of other senior terrorists.
Apparently, Hamas tried to get a ceasefire early on, and Israel refused, wanting to make sure that this time around the ceasefire would be on Israel's terms.
Israel stood strong in the face of Hamas pressure, and resisted a ceasefire, under adverse conditions; a lesson Hamas will remember before renewing fire the next time its demands are not immediately met
He contends that Israel accomplished its objectives, and that "Hamas begged for a ceasefire, for a full 24 hours, before Israel agreed to one."
According to Yishai:
o It was Hamas that needed a ceasefire before Ramadan, more than Israel needed it in order to be able to hold the Eurovision song festival o By targeting military targets, even when those were the homes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders, Israel was able to defend the legitimacy of their operations in Gaza o Unlike in other operations against Hamas in Gaza, leaks to the media were prevented
A key to Israel's response to the Hamas rocket barrage was preparation, which gave the IDF "the upper hand in dictating events":
In this round of fighting, the IDF came prepared with a list of high-quality targets. It also had a planned schedule of escalation, to respond to the militants' actions, including attacking their cyber capabilities and hitting their attack drones. Some of IDF's actions are still under wraps.
This time around, the IDF was not limited to bombing empty buildings and bases.
But Yishai does have a major criticism. Lives could have been saved if Israel had evacuated residents from the border and if more Iron Dome batteries had been deployed.
And of course, the ultimate goal must be to remove Hamas.
Finally, there is retired general Amos Yadlin, who wrote on Twitter that "the balance sheet...with Hamas is mixed" because Israel still follows the strategic goal of "quiet for quiet" instead of actually restoring deterrence.
On the positive side:
o The IDF was more aggressive o The policy of targeted killings was restored o Weapons production and storage facilities in Gaza were struck o Rocket launching terrorists were hit o Key military buildings were brought down o The international community blamed Hamas for firing heavily at civilians o Criticism of Israel was minimal.
But Yadlin's list of negatives is longer:
o 4 Israelis were killed and dozens were wounded o Daily life was disrupted in a significant portion of Israel o Hamas determined the start and -- according to Yadlin -- the end of the fighting, making Israel hostage to Hamas demands o Israelis don't know the contents of the previous ceasefire agreement, nor of this one o Israel may still have deterrence against all-out war, but not against these sporadic conflicts o Israel is still allowing payments to the terrorist groups, while not speaking with more moderate groups of Palestinian Arabs o The issue of disarming the Palestinian-controlled territory has apparently been forgotten o There seems to be no effort to deal with Hamas' military build up o These battles send the message that using terror is more successful than preventing it in achieving goals
Yadlin's conclusion is that the strategy of "quiet for quiet" has outlived its usefulness and instead deterrence must be restored by hitting Hamas hard and sending the message that using terrorism carries with it a heavy price and does not get results.
Most of his negative criticism is not focused on the conduct of the battle, but rather Israel's overall policy towards Hamas. And unlike Yishai, Yadlin does not think deterrence has been restored at all.
Also, Yadlin believes that Hamas in fact, did dictate when the fighting ended.
Just 10 years ago, during Operation Cast Lead, Netanyahu was in the opposition, and clear in his criticism of how the government was conducting the war with Hamas.
o Hamas was controlled by Iran and it should “ultimately be removed” o "Hamas is at the service of Iran and militant Islam...Israel cannot tolerate an Iranian base next to its cities." o “If Iran has nuclear weapons then a forward base like 'Hamastan’ in Gaza becomes 10 times more dangerous." o Toppling Hamas from power should be a long-term goal, and “if the government also decides to adopt this goal, we will back it.”
Yet even then, Netanyahu at the time did not insist that removing Hamas had to be the goal during that particular operation.
And putting aside who would replace them, removing Hamas once and for all will require more than just sending in the airforce and using targeted attacks. It will mean sending in troops -- and incurring loss of life.
Netanyahu has tried that before, in Operation Protective Edge.
Is he willing to do it again?
Yaacov Lozowick wrote in 2014, when he was the state archivist, about bringing Netanyahu a commemorative volume of documents dedicated to Menachem Begin. Professor Arye Naor, Begin’s Cabinet Secretary, came too and discussed with Netanyahu how Begin managed the war in Lebanon compared with Netanyahu's own methods in Protective Edge.
The discussion turned to Begin’s agony at the deaths of IDF soldiers, and Netanyahu's own difficulties in sending men to die.
It proved harder than he had expected. “I thought a lot about Begin this summer, and I understood him better”
“I spoke to each of the parents [of fallen soldiers]. If they were divorced, I spoke to each of them separately. It was very hard”.
There is a profound difference between hearing about bereaved families, and actually being in one: he knows about that difference, and understands it from personal experience. But to his surprise – this was my impression – sending soldiers to their death turned out also to be hard to a degree that one cannot appreciate in advance.
We had expected to spend ten minutes in his office. The ten minutes became fifteen, then twenty; the twenty minutes became thirty, and the prime minister spoke of the horrible price of war, and of the difficulty in deciding to pay it.
“The soldiers fear death. They try to strengthen each other, and try together to be strong as a group, but they are afraid.” He knows they are afraid, and that some of them will be killed, and he sends them. A ground operation, he knows what awaits them, what preparations the enemy has made: “Some of them will die. It is inevitable.”
“They must be sent only when there is no other choice left. They must be brought back at the very first possible moment, as soon as the immediate goal has been achieved. Later, once they’re out, we’ll see what happens, but first, get them out, out, out.”
“And every night I’d get home in the wee hours, and my wife would be awake, waiting for me. She spent the days visiting the bereaved families. I only spoke to them on the phone, with each and every one of them, but she sat at their side, and at night she would tell me about them. We must send them, and we must bring them back, and I didn’t appreciate how hard it would be. A leader who loses the understanding of how difficult it is, ought to lose his job.”
We say that one of the reasons for the existence of Israel is that it serves as a refuge and defense for Jews. We say that if only Israel existed during WWII, Jewish lives would have been saved. The pressure now on Netanyahu must be enormous for him to show that he and IDF are up to their task.
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.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
The neglected Jewish history of Qamishli
-
Although the community could not compare to those in Aleppo and Damascus,
some 3,000 Jews at peak lived in the French-built city of Qamishli, in
Kurdista...
High Court Decision
-
[image: Dry Bones cartoon, Jew, Jewish, Army, Yeshiva, War, HighCourt,
Israel, IDF,]
Jewish Unity in a Time of War.
* * * *DO YOUR PART.* *SUPPORT DRY BON...
Red-handed: Catching the BBC pushing fake news
-
This time I caught the BBC red-handed. I actually have a growing pile of
BBC ‘gotcha’ articles waiting to be written. The situation is so bad these
days ...
Hamas and the Nazis: Disturbing Parallels
-
Fathom just published a shorter version of the article I post below. At the
time it accepted the piece it dropped some of the specific criticism of
Omer Ba...
Guest Post by Netivotgirl
-
*Some of you may remember the wonderful posts my dear friend aka
"Netivotgirl" had posted in the past about living in Netivot. Here's
something she sent...
An Excess of Democracy
-
The State of Israel is more endangered today than at any time since 1948,
including 1973. She is tied down in Gaza while her enemies wait their turn
in Leb...
Yom Hashoah 5784 – 2024
-
Israel’s Yom Hashoah began at sundown this evening with the annual ceremony
at Yad Vashem with torches lit in memory of the 6 million Jewish victims of
the...
Closing Jews Down Under Website
-
With a heavyish heart I am closing down the website after ten years.
It is and it isn’t an easy decision after 10 years of constant work. The
past...
‘Test & Trace’ is a mirage
-
Lockdown II thoughts: Day 1 Opposition politicians have been banging on
about the need for a ‘working’ Test & Trace system even more loudly than
the govern...
Thursday, May 09, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
