Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Bibi/Kerry statements in Jerusalem (video and text)

Sec. Kerry: I want to thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for, first of all, his extraordinary hospitality yet again. We had an extremely friendly, very productive, long discussion last night. I think it's fair to say that we made progress, that we were pleased with the substance of the discussion and agreed, each of us, to do some homework. And we're going to do our homework over the course of the next weeks, and today we're going to continue some of that discussion with a view to seeing how we can really pull all of the pieces together and make some progress here.

And I want to thank the Prime Minister for his good faith efforts here. It's been serious; it's been focused; and I would characterize it as very productive.
We have been talking about some economic initiative, but I think both of us, and the Prime Minister just said this: we want to make it absolutely clear that whatever steps we take with respect to economics are in no way a substitute, but they are in addition to the political track. The political track is first and foremost; other things may happen to supplement it.

Secondly, with respect to Iran, I have reiterated to the Prime Minister, as I did yesterday to the President, President Obama could not be more clear: Iran cannot have and will not have a nuclear weapon. The United States of America has made clear that we stand not just with Israel, but with the entire international community in making it clear that we are serious, we are open to negotiation, but it is not an open-ended, endless negotiation. It cannot be used as an excuse for other efforts to try to break out with respect to a nuclear weapon. And we are well aware and coordinating very, very closely with respect to all of our assessments regarding that. But President Obama doesn't bluff. He's made that very clear to me, and we hope the Iranians will come back to the table with a very serious proposal.

PM Netanyahu: Thank you, John. It's good to see you again in Jerusalem and to work at our common goal for peace. I am determined not only to resume the peace process with the Palestinians, but to make a serious effort to end this conflict once and for all. This has economic components. We welcome any initiatives that you and others will bring forward in this regard, but it also has a political component – political discussions that will address a myriad of issues, foremost in our minds the questions of recognition and security. This is a real effort, and we look forward to advance in this effort with you.

We've been talking about several other issues, and I'll only mention two. First, we've been talking about Syria and the human tragedy there, but the fragmentation of that country is creating a situation where one of the most dangerous stockpiles of weapons in the world is now becoming accessible to terrorists of every shade and hue. This is of great concern for both of us, for both the United States and Israel, and we are talking about addressing this problem specifically.

And last and certainly not least, we've been talking about Iran. I think everybody understands that Iran has been running out the clock, has been using the talks to continue to advance its nuclear program. We've just heard by Iranian state television about a new production facility for nuclear material and two new extraction sites. I think we also understand what it means for the world to have rogue states with nuclear weapons. Iran cannot be allowed to cross into that world. It cannot be allowed to continue its nuclear weapons program, and we must not allow it to continue to do so in defiance of the entire international community.

These are the three most obvious subjects we have been talking about. You may not believe it, but we have actually talked about a few others as well, and it's good to see again, John.

Video by US Embassy, text by Prime Minister's Office

(h/t YM)

WaPo says Bibi's "red line" speech delayed Iranian enrichment

A very interesting Washington Post editorial:

THE LATEST round of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program was, by all accounts, a
disappointment. Tehran’s negotiators did not spell out a full response to a proposal by the United States and five partners for limiting its enrichment of uranium, and what they did say revealed a wide gulf between the two sides. In essence, the international coalition is offering Iran a partial lifting of sanctions in exchange for a freeze on the production of medium-enriched uranium, while Iran wants a complete lifting of sanctions in exchange for token steps that would leave its nuclear work unfettered.

The meetings left the diplomatic process in limbo; the Obama administration and its allies rightly refused Iranian requests to schedule further meetings. Yet for now, at least, there is no crisis: Neither Israel nor the United States is under pressure to consider immediate military action against Iran, and there is time to wait and see if Iran’s position will soften following a presidential election scheduled for June.

For that, proponents of diplomacy over war with Iran can thank a man they have often ridiculed or reviled: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mr. Netanyahu’s government is not a participant in the talks with Iran, of course; Iran won’t parley with a nation it aspires to “wipe off the map.” But the Israeli leader’s explicit setting of a “red line” for the Iranian nuclear program in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September appears to have accomplished what neither negotiations nor sanctions have yielded: concrete Iranian action to limit its enrichment.

A host of commentators both in the United States and Israel scoffed at what they called Mr. Netanyahu’s “cartoonish” picture of a bomb and the line he drew across it. The prime minister said Iran could not be allowed to accumulate enough 20 percent enriched uranium to produce a bomb with further processing, adding that at the rate its centrifuges were spinning, Tehran would cross that line by the middle of 2013.

Iran, too, dismissed what its U.N. ambassador called “an unfounded and imaginary graph.” But then a funny thing happened: The regime began diverting some of its stockpile to the manufacture of fuel plates for a research reactor. According to the most recent report of international inspectors, in February, it had converted 40 percent of its 20 percent uranium to fuel assemblies or the oxide form needed to produce them. As a result, Iran has remained distinctly below the Israeli red line, and it probably postponed the earliest moment when it could cross that line by several months.

Mr. Netanyahu’s red line is only a partial and temporary check on the Iranian threat. The ongoing installation of a new generation of faster centrifuges could soon make it obsolete by providing a new means for Iran to quickly produce bomb-grade uranium. But the lesson here is twofold: The credible threat of military action has to be part of any strategy for preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon, and clear red lines can help create the “time and space for diplomacy” that President Obama seeks. Mr. Obama, who last year stiffly resisted pressure from Mr. Netanyahu to spell out U.S. red lines, ought to reconsider.

Iran is working more towards increasing its uranium mining and production, but the main point of the editorial is correct: clear red lines and a credible military threat is essential to slow down the Iranian nuclear weapons program. People who say that Bibi has been crying wolf about Iranian nukes for over a decade refuse to accept that his actions have helped to ensure that Iran does not yet have the Bomb.

Cyberwarfare and good old fashioned sabotage help a great deal, too.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

Gratuitous "Apartheid?" poster - Miss Israel Universe 2012

How could I resist?

From here.

(h/t Yoel)

Video: Jimmy Carter blowing off Noam Shalit in 2010

I had never seen this before.

What a humanitarian, huh?

(h/t Lauri)

Times of Oman editorial denied Holocaust; calls critics "Zionist termites"

A March 27 editorial by Debasish Mitra, opinion editor at the Times of Oman:

World would be a better place without Israel

An otherwise masterpiece, Merchant of Venice, perhaps suffers from one blemish. In Act one scene three Shakespeare should have added one line to Antonio's speech wherein he says about Shylock: "Mark you this, Bassanio, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!" Shakespeare should have added one more line here — Hypocrisy thou art is a Jew.

And indeed, hypocrisy has always been the weapon with which Israel has bestridden the world, fooled us and misled the international community. With lies, damn lies, the zionists have screened the obvious. With chilling and appalling cynicism it has always abused humanity, defended its "institutionalised racism" and continued with its policy of expanding Jewish settlements on grabbed Arab land in complete moral turpitude delegitimising the existence of the Palestinians and their right over their ancestral land.

With hypocrisy Israel has legitimised zionism, used holocaust on the sly to subterfuge its moral and intellectual cretinism and have sought to manipulate history...

We will never accept fabrication of holocaust to legitimise zionism and occupation.

A Western blogger in Oman, who blogs about tons of topics, was offended by this obvious anti-semitism:

I see the Opinion Editor at the Times of Oman, Debashish Mitra, is continuing to spread the hate for all things Jewish at the Times of Oman in his latest piece titled, “World Would be a Better Place without Israel“. Seems that he is continuing the legacy of Times of Oman editor, Essa al Zedjali, (who recently passed away) who at one point said that Hitler was justified in his actions against the Jews! (Reported by Muscat Confidential way back in 2009) I wrote before about this rising hatred for Israel/Jews in June of 2010.

What do you think someone is implying when they say the “world would be a better place without Israel“? Does that not sound like someone who would agree with the absolute destruction of that country and its people into the sea? Is that the kind of dialogue and solution that the Opinion Editor of a major English publication in Oman should be encouraging?!

Mitra, quite literally, freaked out at this criticism:

They have been lurking in the shadows and their plan was to corrode society in Oman from within, like termites in wood works. They are the Zionist zealots who have been living like parasites in the Sultanate running blogs that, more than anything else, seek to justify the atrocities Israel has been perpetrating —sans remorse— against the humanity in general, and Palestinians in particular. These termites, nay Zionist virus, have recently been exposed, caught red-handed in their attempts to contaminate people's minds, polluting Oman's social mosaic. Their sinister design to malign Arabs and muffle voices that expose Israeli shenanigans now lie completely stripped of all camouflages.

A blog, Anti-Semitism continues at Times of Oman, is a classic example of how these Zionist zealots have been clandestinely operating in the Sultanate. The blog, oozing out malice and hatred against Arabs and Palestinians in overdose, was posted on March 30, 2013, in response to an opinion piece, World would be a better place without Israel published in Times of Oman on March 27, 2013. The blogger not only accuses Times of Oman of propagating anti-Semitism but also heaps upon the Arabs and Palestinians unspeakable insults saying: "Israel was created legally in 1948 and the few Arabs who moved to that area only after the Jews started coming to avoid the death camps of Germany refused to accept land and peace and attacked Israel from every direction. At that time (and many times to follow) Israel continued to not only survive but defended herself admirably even at 100 to 1 odds!"

That is indeed an unpardonable travesty of truth, a sinister attempt to malign the Arabs, belittle the Palestinians' struggle for independence, and deny history. The comments against and about Hamas and Palestinian Authority smack of malice and are loaded with lies worthy of challenging in any court of law. On behalf of every Arab and Palestinian, we demand an explanation from the blogger on the proclamation that Palestinians have never been a "partner for peace" in West Asia.

He goes on in this vein for another eight paragraphs. The slightest skepticism about the Palestinian Arab narrative made Mitra go off the rails.

Another Western blogger in Oman notes something funny:

The reality is this, these opinion pieces incite hatred towards a religion and insults an internationally recognized state.

Which, as it happens, breeches the 1984 Press & Publications law. Amongst many other things, the law states:

1. Newspapers are not to publish anything that is politically, culturally, or sexually offensive;
2. Newspapers are not to publish anything that ... creates hatred toward ... any ethnicity or religion;
3. Newspapers are not to publish anything that ... promotes religious extremism;
4. Newspapers are not to publish anything that ... insults other states.

Furthermore, these same requirements are stipulated in Omantels (at the behest of the TRA) terms of service which all businesses must sign and adhere to. Oops.

Oops, indeed. Although I doubt that the editorialist is the slightest bit worried about prosecution.

Carter at YU/Cardozo media update

After being pretty much my own story for days, this is finally getting some legs:

YU issued a fairly predictable statement:

...President Carter’s presence at Cardozo in no way represents a university position on his views, nor does it indicate the slightest change in our steadfastly pro-Israel stance.

That said, Yeshiva University both celebrates and takes seriously its obligation as a university to thrive as a free marketplace of ideas, while remaining committed to its unique mission as a proud Jewish university.

Richard M. Joel

President and Bravmann Family University Professor

Times of Israel blogpost by Jonathan Feldstein:

[D]id anyone at YU or Cardozo read the section of Carter’s book where he sanctions terrorism against Israelis? Carter is clear, and deliberate, when he writes, “It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.” Rather than decrying Arab and Islamic terrorism, Carter actually sanctions terrorism against Israelis, albeit based on Carter’s own twisted and dishonest version of reality.

Washington Free Beacon:

“I can’t imagine a worse candidate for any kind of a human rights award,” Harvard law professor and pro-Israel author Alan Dershowitz told the Washington Free Beacon Monday. “He has more blood on his hands than practically any other president.”

Carter, author of the controversial book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, has met with the terrorist group Hamas and rallied against Israel on the international stage, providing much fodder for the Jewish state’s fiercest critics.

“He has encouraged terrorism and violence by Hamas and Hezbollah,” Dershowitz said, who dubbed the school’s desire to award Carter as “immoral.”

Carter “has done more harm to the cause of human rights than anyone I can think of,” Dershowitz said. “It’s a terrible, terrible choice.”

Breitbart.com and WND.com

Jewish News - JNS.org

American Thinker:

After the Holocaust, the world finally recognized the Jewish people's historical and Biblical ties to the Holy Land. Israel won its first war, its War of Independence and the Jewish State was reborn. Israel has been attacked from all borders, demonized by all cultures, and fights for its survival daily. And less than seven decades later, Yeshiva University's The Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School is presenting an award to the most anti-Israel president since Israel's founding.

National Review Online:

Major Jewish institutions show a marked propensity to promote and celebrate the enemies of Israel and even anti-Semites. Here are some examples, working backwards chronologically:

Cardozo Law School of Yeshiva University: Plans to give its International Advocate for Peace Award is going to Jimmy Carter, author of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, on April 10.

The Forward:

Enraged alumni have threatened to physically block Jimmy Carter from entering Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, where he is due to receive a peace award on April 10.

Daniel Rubin, 62, said about a dozen former alumni are planning an act of civil disobedience to prevent Carter, a harsh critic of Israeli policies on the occupied West Bank, from picking up the International Advocate for Peace Award, given annually by Cardozo’s Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Rubin said former alumni would use their knowledge of the building layout to outmaneuver any attempts to stop them.

“Mr. Carter ain’t going to get anywhere,” Rubin said.

“There’s no reason for a school that has any sense of Jewish integrity to have a guy like that around,” he added.

And a Jewish Press followup, an interview with Alan Dershowitz as well.

Monday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Jerusalem's Decreasing Isolation - Israel in the World

However, the anti-Israel behavior of international organizations and opinion makers is not the only element in Israel's interactions with the world. A closer look at Israel's relations with countries near and far, as well as with international institutions, belies the claim that it is isolated. In fact, Israel is increasingly acknowledged as a world player in view of its social, economic, technological, financial, and diplomatic achievements over the past sixty-five years. Continued high Israeli Jewish fertility rates, immense new energy reserves, innovative water technologies, and a frenetic pace of cultural production are all prominent features of modern Israel. There are significant parts of the world that appreciate what the Israeli state is doing and try to emulate its successes. Israel's struggles against its implacable opponents also touch many responsive chords around the world. Moreover, even its use of force is largely accepted as legitimate in the West as exemplified by the support lent to Israel during the October 2012 "Pillar of Defense" operation in Gaza against Hamas.

Barry Rubin: The Region: What American Jewish leaders got wrong
The April 3 letter 100 American Jewish leaders have sent to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is distressing.

The problem is that the language used parallels the misrepresentation of Israel’s situation and positions. The way it is written, this letter seems to be not about influencing Netanyahu or Israelis, but about enhancing the social and political credentials of those involved, Israel’s security and interests be damned.

Argentine Jewish groups petition against Iran pact

State prosecutor urged to release report containing ‘irrefutable evidence against Iran’ in the 1994 terrorist attack

Samaria Jews, European MPs Find Common Ground
Samaria Jewish leadership travels to Europe to appeal to the EU against anti-Israel boycott, EU funding for far-left groups.

Parliamentarians were particularly receptive to the idea of reexamining the EU’s donations to Palestinian Authority and Israeli groups. They said they would work to ensure that in the future, all donations are considered carefully to ensure they will be used for a practical benefit.

Moses' Gift: Israel Could Use Gas to Its Advantage

Golda Meir once quipped that Moses could have done the Jewish people a better service. "He took us 40 years through the desert," she said, "to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil."
Today, Golda Meir's quip has lost its punch. Last week, natural gas began flowing out of the Tamar gas field, discovered off the coast of Israel in January 2009. Tamar and Leviathan, its neighboring gas field, discovered in June 2010, are among the world's largest recent offshore natural gas discoveries. The Israeli companies controlling the fields are even considering exporting gas to neighboring countries.

Food supplement can fight Parkinson’s disease

Scientists from Tel Aviv University say a nutritional supplement commonly sold in health food stores — produced from beef, seafood or soy – can delay the advance of degenerative brain disorders.

Netanyahu at Shoah ceremony: ‘We won’t leave our fate in the hands of others’

Israel will defend itself with its own forces and prevent a Holocaust from ever happening again, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day Sunday night, echoing a familiar refrain that the Jewish state won’t tolerate an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Is the way Arabs perceive the Holocaust changing?

A recent trend, possibly spurred by the Arab uprisings, is that “people in the Arab world are now accusing each other of being Nazis.”

20 Photos That Change The Holocaust Narrative

But in the end, they do one thing that we desperately need as a people: they tell the real story of the Holocaust. A story that goes beyond victimhood and into our present-day lives. And today, on Yom HaShoa, 2013, it’s about time that story got told.

Two years ago, the Yisrael Medad of the My Right Word blog published a funny Photoshop of theTemple Mount, with the golden dome replaced with the ubiquitous large kippah used by some Breslov chasidim with their slogan Na-Nach-Nachma- Nachman MeUman.

He wrote, tongue in cheek, "I hope theWaqf doesn't see this" - and then gave the address of the Waqf in Jerusalem.

Well, it took a couple of years, but the Muslims have finally seen this joke.

Ma'an Arabic reports of this image seen on the Facebook page of Yehuda Glick, who works to restore Jewish rights to the holiest spot in Judaism.

They "report" that the photo shows "the Dome of the Rock golden dome replaced with the hat worn by Jews and settlers with Talmudic slogans written. This counterfeiting comes within the continuation of Jewish religious leaders targeting the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and trying to harm it through multiple ways, including daily incursions and the Talmudic rituals with preparation for building the so-called "temple" on its ruins. The "Al-Aqsa Foundation" commented on this photo by saying: "These malignant actions demonstrate the size of the conspiracy that surrounds Al-Aqsa Mosque in its entirety and confirms the ambitions of the occupation of desecration and targeting of the Haram al Sharif."

It is normal to see such hysterics from the Al Aqsa Foundation, but Ma'an styles itself as a Western-style media outlet. Um, not so much.

By the way, the Facebook page now has a lovely threat of a new Holocaust against Jews in Israel, thanks to our peaceful Muslim cousins!

This is not the first time a Photoshopped image of the Dome raised the ire of Islamists.

Deadly clashes between Muslims and Christians in Egypt - again

I wonder, are any Arab Christians considering this season "spring"?

From Al Arabiya:

Egypt was on edge Monday after a night of violence outside Cairo's Coptic cathedral following the death of six people in clashes between Christians and Muslims, with President Mohammed Mursi promising an immediate investigation.

Calm was restored to the central neighborhood of Abbassiya in which police deployed in force outside St. Mark's cathedral and where several Copts were still gathered on Monday morning.

On Sunday, Coptic mourners had packed the cathedral for prayers to honor four Copts, who had been killed in sectarian clashes in a town north of the Egyptian capital that also left one Muslim dead.

As the mourners left the cathedral, they came under attack from a crowd who pelted them with stones, sparking violence that killed a Christian, 30-year-old Mahrus Hanna Ibrahim Tadros as well as a second victim who has not yet been identified.

Four of the Copts killed earlier were shot by automatic weapons.

Al Ahram adds:

Shops belonging to Christians were reportedly smashed by angry protesters. Reuters stated that some Christian and Muslim properties were burned.

Mourners exiting the Abbasiya Cathedral funeral on Sunday were first pelted with stones, which they responded to by throwing stones back. Soon gunshots were heard.

Monday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Enlisting child stone throwers, soldiers is a war crime

As stone-throwing Palestinian children have been in the news lately it is relevant to observe that enlistment of children to carry out these violent acts is in effect no different than enlisting child soldiers, which is a war crime in terms of Article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The time has come to recognize that encouraging children to hurl stones and firebombs, as well as using them as human shields, as practiced by Hamas, cannot be described as anything but enlisting them to participate actively in hostilities and therefore a war crime.

The sinister syntax of stone throwing

According to Hass, my son Koby’s murder by stones is not only an act but a metaphor. Koby’s teenage body was bludgeoned to death. Was that a simile or a metaphor? Was a beating with stones like cruelty? Or was it cruelty? Are you, Amira, condoning his murder? Or is it like you are condoning his murder?
Perhaps Asher Palmer and his son Jonathan were killed because of a synechdoche, the rock as a symbol of a whole people’s arm, Palestinian rage?
And the child who is still in the hospital because his mother’s car was in an accident because Arabs threw stones – an act of resistance?

Activists Demonstrate Outside Haaretz Offices Against Hass

Activists demonstrated outside the Tel Aviv offices of the Haaretz newspaper over column which encouraged terrorist rock-throwing attacks.

PMW: YouTube restores PMW video that was blocked after exposing hate speech

Yesterday, Palestinian Media Watch reported that YouTube had blocked a PMW video, defining it as a "violation of YouTube's policy prohibiting hate speech." Within 24 hours, YouTube removed the block on the video. PMW thanks all our readers who contacted YouTube about the issue.

Syria: One More Case of Land-for-War

Consider Syria. From 1948 to 1967, the Syrians regularly fired artillery shells from their dominant positions on the Golan Heights down at Israeli border communities and Fatah used the territory to launch terrorist raids into Israel, until Israel captured it in 1967. But since the US-brokered talks between Israel and Syria began in 1999, peaceniks have posited that a full withdrawal by Israel from the strategic plateau in exchange for peace with Syria involved a risk worth taking.

Kerry tries to woo Abbas with land-for-talks deal

United States Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday offered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a package of Israeli concessions, including the transfer of land from Israeli to Palestinian control, in return for agreeing to return to the negotiating table.

Abbas to Kerry: Israel Should Release Terrorists Before Talks

The “free the terrorists” precondition comes just two days after Abbas demanded that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu present a map for a future Palestinian state before any peace talks can resume.

Soldiers Arrest Terrorist With Firebombs, Explosives

Soldiers from the IDF’s Kfir Brigade arrested a Palestinian Authority Arab terrorist, who was carrying four firebombs and three improvised explosive devices, at the Hawara checkpoint near Shechem on Sunday night.

After rockets, Israel closes Gaza crossings

Israel said Monday it would close one of the main commercial crossings into Gaza, and partially close another one, in response to rockets fired from the Strip the day before.

Egypt: Clashes outside Copt cathedral leave one dead

Christians angered by the killing of four Christians in weekend sectarian violence clashed Sunday with a mob throwing rocks and firebombs, killing one and turning Cairo’s main Coptic cathedral into a battleground.

Egyptians demand an end to ties with Iran and 'Shia Islam'

The protestors demanded cutting off all relations between Egypt and the “Iranian entity” and declared that Shia Muslims were not welcome in Egypt. They also demanded the expulsion of all Iranian tourists from the country.
The Salafi protestors also chanted against the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohamed Morsi for “normalizing” relations with Iran and “aiding the spread of Shia Islam”.

Claim of Turkish ‘sensitivity’ astonishes Israelis

Israeli officials expressed astonishment on Sunday that US Secretary of State John Kerry praised Turkey for responding “sensitively” and without triumphalism to Israel’s apology for the Mavi Marmara incident.
“They have taken steps to try to prevent any sense of triumphalism,” Kerry said at a press conference on Sunday with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “It has not come from the government. In fact, there has been limited response by the government itself and I think it’s important for everybody to take note of that.”
“What country is he talking about?” one Israeli official responded. “I’m afraid the State Department did not show the secretary of state the press reports from Turkey following the apology.”

+972 goes whole-hog in defending Amira Hass

Noam Sheizaf in +972 does everything he can to justify Amira Hass' disgusting piece in Haaretz that said that throwing stones is a fundamental right, at least when the target is Jews in Israel.

First, he tries to say that her words might have been misinterpreted. he claims that her article (which starts off with the words "Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule") "can be read as a description of the reality in the occupied territories – or even the situation under any occupation – but it could also be seen as a call for action. Many on the Right chose the latter interpretation."

I think I understand English pretty well, and I have no clue how anyone can interpret that sentence as anything other than a call to action - how else can one define "duty?". But when you are an extreme leftist and an Israel hater, anything goes.

Then he states, as fact, that "In the Israeli political conversation, all forms of Palestinian resistance are forbidden," trying to deflect from Hass' justification for stoning civilians, ambulances and the like. (Which is, incidentally, a war crime.)

Yet Hass' article mentioned many other kinds of "resistance," with this loaded quote:

...how to build multiple “tower and stockade” villages in Area C; how to behave when army troops enter your homes; comparing different struggles against colonialism in different countries; how to use a video camera to document the violence of the regime’s representatives; methods to exhaust the military system and its representatives; a weekly day of work in the lands beyond the separation barrier; how to remember identifying details of soldiers who flung you handcuffed to the floor of the jeep, in order to submit a complaint; the rights of detainees and how to insist on them in real time; how to overcome fear of interrogators; and mass efforts to realize the right of movement.

The entire furor was only over her justification of throwing potentially deadly stones. Sheizaf is simply trying to distract from the issue because, frankly, it embarrasses him that Hass said something so stupid - and he likes Hass.

Finally, Shezaf - desperately trying to find some justification in international law for Hass' preferred method of "resistance" - links to Richard Falk, whose lies and incredible hate for Israel hardly need to be listed again here. Sheizaf says that Falk "tried to make a legal case for the legitimacy of the first Intifada as a rare exception" - but he fails to note that Falk says rocket fire from Hamas is justified as well, if not quite "legal" yet.

But the most ridiculous defense that Sheizaf offers came a few days later:

As some readers noted in the comments to my previous posts, there were several UN resolutions (not all of them having to do with Israel/Palestine) that affirmed this right, but there wasn’t much legal writing on the issue. However, John Locke, an English philosopher and one of the fathers of Liberal thinking, had very clear words to say (Second Treatise of Civil Government, Locke 1690, emphasis mine):

Over those then that joined with him in the war, and over those of the subdued country that opposed him not, and the posterity even of those that did, the conqueror, even in a just war, hath, by his conquest, no right of dominion: they are free from any subjection to him, and if their former government be dissolved, they are at liberty to begin and erect another to themselves.

First of all, Locke - for all his importance - is not a source for international law by any stretch of the imagination.

Secondly, Locke says nothing here about the right to target civilians as resistance; only the right to reject the rule of the conqueror. Surprise - the PA and Hamas both have governments, and some 98% of Palestinian Arabs live under their rule!

Thirdly, and most importantly, if one is going to use John Locke as a source to justify "resistance," turnabout is fair play. Locke also writes:

I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.

If Locke is accepted as a source for international law today, then Sheizaf should have no problem with Israel utterly destroying Hamas and Fatah - whose charter, today, calls to "liquidate the Zionist entity".

After all, Locke said so! Fire up the tanks!

It just goes to show - when you hate Israel, there is no limit to how much you will twist facts to justify the unjustifiable.

Egyptian army uncovers "largest weapons depot" yet in Sinai

From Egyptian People:

The Egyptian authorities revealed the seizure of the largest store of explosives zones yet, at dawn today, in the Rafah and Sheikh Zuwaid area in the Sinai.

After receiving information about the existence of a large explosives store in the Jura village in Sheikh Zuwaid, the Egyptian forces launched a large security crackdown using armor and many soldiers in the early hours of Monday morning and raided the depot. Jura is the single most dangerous area in confrontations between security and militants, which lies about 5 km from the border with Israel.

The secret underground warehouse has reinforced concrete walls and inside was a half-inch cannon that was used by insurgents in clashes with the army and the Egyptian police.