Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 01, 2014

05/01 Links Pt1: Richard Kemp: The Fatah-Hamas Agreement; Iran becomes UNESCO's M.E. Rep.

From Ian:

Gaza terrorists have seized every available opportunity for other forms of attack against Israeli soldiers and civilians including kidnappings, shootings, suicide bombs, anti-tank missiles and Improvised Explosive Devices [IEDs].
Iran, sworn to Israel's destruction, as are its Gaza-based proxies, has funded, armed, energized and directed both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As we saw with the Israeli interdiction of the Iranian arms shipment aboard the Klos-C only last month, Iran's sponsorship of terrorism continues unabated -- even as the international community is rehabilitating its extremist regime.
Especially in a region and among neighbours that are becoming even more unstable, violent and unpredictable, Israel must ensure that in the event a Palestinian state should ever reach fruition, the West Bank does not become a second Gaza. The bloody consequences of that for the Israeli people would be far greater than from anything Hamas could hurl out of the Strip.
Kerry has proposed international troops to provide security against attacks on Israel from the West Bank. Few Israelis believe that they could rely on such a force to protect them. There are the historical precedents for the failure of peacekeeping forces in the region and beyond, especially when the going gets tough. And in the West Bank, the going would get very tough very soon and very often.
There is the criminal failure of the international community, as both accomplice and accessory before the fact, to make any meaningful effort to prevent endless salvoes of lethal terrorist rocket attacks against Israeli civilians for over nine years.
Worse still, when Israel has been forced to respond to protect its citizens, it has been stabbed in the back by the international community, who have accused it of war crimes.

Getting Rid of National Borders in the Middle East Won’t End Sectarian Warfare

Borders aren’t moving. Rather, populations are moving to accommodate borders. We all know about the exodus of Arab refugees from Israel in 1948 and 1967, as well as the often forced emigration of Jews from Arab lands to Israel in the years after the Jewish state was established—but Christians have been in flight from Lebanon since that country’s 15-year-long civil war, from 1975 to 1990, and the subsequent Syrian occupation, from 1990 to 2005, one of the aims of which was to disempower the Christian community. In Iraq, Assyrian Christians fled in large numbers after the fall of Saddam, largely to Syria, and then on to the West.
But the Christians’ trail of tears pales in comparison to the departure of Sunnis from Syria.
Conservative estimates show that there are more than half a million refugees now in Turkey and Jordan and nearly a million more in Lebanon, which is still home to another 450,000 Palestinian refugees from 1948 and 1967. It’s not difficult to imagine how this crisis may come to shape the region. Take Lebanon: With roughly one-third of Lebanon’s population now made up of Syrian refugees, the vast majority of whom are Sunnis, the country’s sectarian balance between Shiites, Christians and Sunnis is now tipped in favor of the Sunnis, perhaps irrevocably. That in turn may force Hezbollah to move in the other direction, from what is certain to be a Sunni-majority Lebanon to a Syria or Iraq ruled by Shiites.
Even if, or when, Assad falls, the Syrian conflict hasn’t erased borders. What it’s done is destroy homes and families—and confessional communities with longstanding and in some cases ancient ties to the lands they’re now leaving. The real Middle East crisis isn’t about the failure of democracy in its nation-states, but the private disasters its citizens are facing.

The Pal "unity" agreement includes Islamic Jihad

Ma'an reports:

Three senior Islamic Jihad leaders traveled from Gaza to Egypt via Rafah crossing on Wednesday, sources within the faction told Ma'an.

Islamic Jihad sources said that Muhammad al-Hindi, Nafith Azzama, and Khaled al-Batsh traveled through Egypt to convene with other faction leaders for meetings on the recent Hamas-PLO reconciliation deal.

The leaders will consider the ways Islamic Jihad could be involved in the unity government, which is due to be set into place within four weeks, the sources said.

Ramzy Baroud, a pro-terror Palestinian Arab writer, confirms:

On April 23, top Fatah and Hamas officials hammered out the final details of the Beach Refugee Camp agreement without any Arab mediation. All major grievances have purportedly been smoothed over, differences have been abridged, and other sensitive issues have been referred to a specialized committee. One of these committees will be entrusted to incorporate Hamas and the Islamic Jihad into the fold of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Islamic Jihad is even more publicly extreme than Hamas is. It was Islamic Jihad (along with Fatah) that shot dozens of rockets against Israeli communities in the micro-war in March, while Hamas sat that action out.

Islamic Jihad was included in previous attempts of unity between supposedly moderate Fatah and other terror groups that form the PLO.

From the UN's perspective, the PLO is the State of Palestine. Which means it is the only "state" in the world that is run by a terrorist organization, soon to be joined by two other terrorist organizations.

Latest Egyptian conspiracy theory: Jews hiding Israeli flag in plastic cups

Egypt's Foreign Minister, Nabil Fahdy, apparently met with a Jewish group in the US this week. Here's a photo of the visit from his party's Facebook page:

Egyptian paper Al Mesryoon is upset over part of the scene:

What an insult!

You mean, you don't see it?

Come on, its obvious. The Jews purposefully put two stripes of blue cups around the water bottles to evoke the Israeli flag!

How much more humiliation are Egyptians expected to take???

I'm surprised that Al Mesryoon didn't notice that there were exactly six water bottles between the blue cups - obviously meant to symbolize not only the six-pointed Star of David, but also the Six Day War and Egypt's humiliating defeat at the hands of Israel.

Notice also that there are four cups in each row, for a total of eight. This is clear reference to 1948, the year of the Nakba!

And there are two sets of drinks, which symbolizes the two [alleged, according to Arab media] Jewish Temples and Israel's desire to destroy Al Aqsa Mosque to build the third Temple!

How transparent those Jews are in their evil plots!

Saeb Erekat's lie of the day, in Time magazine

Saeb Erekat published an anti-Israel screed in Time claiming that Israel is not interested in peace and the PLO, trying to merge with terrorist group Hamas, is.

Among the many lies comes this gem:

Frankly, it is difficult to understand how anyone could expect us to negotiate with such a government. And yet we have, in good faith, offering concession after concession for the sake of peace.

The list of Israeli concessions for peace since Oslo is quite long - giving full autonomy to parts of Judea and Samaria, accepting the idea of two states for two peoples (something even Yitzchak Rabin refused to do,) offering unprecedented concessions of disputed land even in Israel's capital. These concessions are well documented by the Israelis who offered them and the Americans who were there at the time.

But can Saeb Erekat name a single public concession that the PLO has made to Israel since the Oslo accords?

Erekat says they have offered "offering concession after concession for the sake of peace." So it should be simple for him to name, say, one of them.

Saeb Erekat heads the PLO Negotiating Unit. If he offered a concession remotely comparable to what Israel has conceded since 1993 in the possibly reckless pursuit of peace, wouldn't we know what it is by now?

It will be hard for Erekat to specify a single solid concession that he claims he has made - because his boss Mahmoud Abbas has publicly bragged, in Arabic, more than once, that he has not changed the PLO's positions one iota since 1988.

So we have proven for the umpteenth time that Saeb Erekat is a liar.

Too bad the Westerners whom he talks to don't have the guts to call him on his litany of lies that continue to be spouted every time he opens his mouth. .

04/30 Links Pt2: Despite everything, Zionism won; Admit J-Street? May as well let in PLO and Fatah

From Ian:

Despite everything, Zionism won

The days between Holocaust Remembrance Day and Israeli Independence Day tend to reveal the true faces of the many who oppose the modern era's biggest humanist endeavor: the movement to bring Jews back to Israel. The Jewish people have returned home after many years in exile, but our ship, which constantly navigates the tempestuous sea, nearly drowned forever in history's biggest massacre.
The gates of Israel were shut when the survivors came knocking, but the gates did not shut themselves. The British, and their friends, made sure those gates were locked tight. The U.S. did not lag far behind in the race to win over the hearts of the Arab states, be it out of greed for oil or a fundamental lack of understanding of the global order, and more specifically, of the Middle East. Immigration ships were ejected back into the stormy sea as they tried to enter the land of freedom and equality.

MEMRI: Arab Writers Praise Israel's Technological Superiority, Morality And Democracy, Call To Learn From It And Mimic Its Success

Arab media is known to be unsympathetic towards Israel. It even avoids using the country's name, usually using terms such as "the Zionist entity" or "the Hebrew state" instead. Furthermore, reports and editorials in Arab press are rife with expressions of hatred and hostility towards Israel. However, the Arab press occasionally features articles by Arab intellectuals and pundits praising Israel, listing its achievements – mainly in hi-tech – and urging Arab countries to learn from the Israelis in order to better their own global standing.
This report will include excerpts from recent articles praising Israel.

Greetings from Apartheidia
We just need some help here getting with the Apartheid program. This place looks too much like one of those Benetton ads.

So, as that master of diplomatic acrobatics John Kerry so aptly pointed out, there is nothing left for us to do but to come out of the Apartheid closet.
There is just one problem we are all grappling with. Who are we exactly “apartheiding,” if I can put it that way. There have been numerous concerned citizen meetings in our town and others trying to get answers to this.
We asked our Ethiopian gardener about it and he said that he is saving up for an apartment, so if the country goes to hell, it should drive down the price of real estate. Our Arab family GP said no more antibiotics, get out and get some fresh air, even if it meant rubbing elbows with the apartheided.
Our Druze contractor did say that many of his family were being apartheided to death across the border in Syria, but he admitted that this didn’t have much to do with events on this side of the Golan.

Israel’s Navy Transforms Itself

A neat overview of the history and future of Israel's navy, from Ehud Eiran in World Politics Review:

Last month, the Israeli navy took control of a Panamanian ship off the coast of Sudan that was carrying Iranian munitions to Gaza. The Red Sea operation underscored the growth of the navy’s role in Israel’s power projection, which has accelerated in the 21st century after many decades in which maritime strategy was something of an afterthought for Israel’s military.

A maritime perspective was central in pre-state Zionist strategic thinking, because the seas were the gateway for Jewish immigration into Palestine. However, once the state of Israel was created in 1948, the seas and the navy lost their significance in the eyes of Israel's security establishment. The wars that followed featured mostly challenges and responses on the ground and in the air.

In these early years, Israel's military leadership defined five goals for the navy: to guard the coast, to protect ports, to "take action" against a possible naval blockade by Arab states, to "land from the sea, against enemy targets," and to secure Israeli "maritime transportation." With these rather minimalist goals, the navy possessed until the early 1970s a small number of platforms, mostly destroyers. The force reflected a haphazard approach to planning and procurement, rather than a clear vision.

This period also set the contours of the major internal debates the navy would have for decades to come, mostly between the supporters of a surface fleet and the supporters of a force that would focus on maritime sabotage by frogman. These debates were part of what led to the navy’s ethos of maximum utilization of the naval force with an emphasis on technology, an offensive approach, forward deployment of commanders, operational flexibility and a significant investment in training.

One other legacy the navy has retained from these early days is that of viewing the Mediterranean as the main area of operations. This view is also a result of geography: Israel has a 120-mile Mediterranean shore dotted with more than 10 ports serving the nation's major population centers. On the Red Sea, Israel has only a 9-mile shore, serving the underpopulated southern end of the country, with only one port.

The Israeli navy's performance in its early decades was mixed. Alongside achievements such as the capture of an Egyptian destroyer in the 1956 Suez crisis, the Israeli navy suffered a number of major failures: poor performance in the 1967 War and the loss (in action) of a destroyer and a submarine (probably in an accident), both in 1968. In part due to these failures, by the mid-1970s Israel’s navy had transformed itself into a missile-boat based force, supplemented with advanced electronic warfare systems. These changes contributed to the navy's successful performance in the 1973 War.

Also during the 1970s, the navy began to participate in the armed conflict between Israel and the Palestinian national movement. The latter's armed elements then operated mostly from Lebanon. Israel’s navy SEALs conducted dozens of raids on Palestinian targets in Lebanon. Other elements of the navy tried to prevent penetrations of Palestinian combatants from the sea into Israel. The 1982 Israeli-Palestinian War saw Israel’s navy conduct the only large-scale amphibious assault in its history, when it transported Israeli ground forces to northern Lebanon.

The 1990s marked the next phase of change in the Israeli navy. An era of peace talks between Israel and its immediate neighbors contributed to the further decommissioning of the navy’s surface fleet. By the 2000s, Israel’s navy operated only 13 missile boats, down from 24 in the 1980s.

The more significant change, however, occurred under the surface, with the 1990s launch of an ambitious expansion plan for the submarine fleet. The 1991 barrage of Iraqi ballistic missiles on Israel ushered in a greater awareness of the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. In response, the navy was reshaped to meet Israel's most fundamental threat. Though the reports have never been officially recognized, according to the foreign media the six Dolphin- and Dolphin 2-class submarines that Germany is supplying to Israel will be able to carry nuclear warheads, thus providing Israel with a second-strike nuclear capability. If true, this would mark the first time that the navy will play a central role in Israeli deterrence. Moreover, given that Israel does not share a border with Iran, the submarines can also serve as an instrument for other forms of Israeli power projection directed at Iran.

The 2000s brought with them three more changes that are bound to shape Israel’s navy in the coming decades. First, since 2004 Israel has been exploiting massive gas deposits in its exclusive economic zone in the Mediterranean. The centrality of the deposits for its economy led Israel to commit to defending the gas production facilities at sea. The navy will lead this effort and has already requested to expand its surface force. The gas issue has also led to some maritime tension between Israel and Lebanon, as the two countries disagree over the demarcation of their respective exclusive economic zones. American mediation has not resolved the issue, for now.

Second, during the 2000s Israel began to operate militarily in a more pronounced way over the horizon. This was both a response to the rise of the Iranian threat, but also in an effort to thwart the supply of rockets to Palestinian-controlled Gaza. The navy became an important actor in this form of power projection, as illustrated by the March 2014 Red Sea operation to interdict the shipment of munitions to Gaza. Finally, during the 2000s the navy began deploying an unmanned naval combat system, the Protector, perhaps marking the future direction for some of its platforms.

As the Israeli navy moves into the 21st century, it is in the process of transforming itself. From a secondary service operating within a military that saw "an Israeli war fleet as an unnecessary expense," in the words of Vice Adm. Yedidia Yaari, commander of the navy from 2000 to 2004, it is becoming a strategic arm that is entrusted with dealing with Israel's most significant threats.

"Erdogan abandoning Gaza for a few Zionist dollars"

The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday:

Turkey and Israel could move towards reconciliation within days or weeks, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview aired Tuesday.

Erdogan told PBS’s Charlie Rose that the issue of the amount of compensation Israel will pay the families of the nine Turks killed on the Mavi Marmara in 2010 as they tried to break the blockade of Gaza has been resolved.

He said that the “other step of the negotiations,” was the issue of sending humanitarian aid to Palestinians through Turkey.

“With the completion of that phase we can move towards a process of normalization,” he said. “I think we’re talking about days, weeks.”

In Jerusalem, however, officials – who have heard Turkish leaders talk for the last five months about an imminent agreement – were more skeptical.

“We have yet to hear that this is concluded,” one source said.

Another official pointed out that while Erdogan in the past spoke about the need for Israel to remove the naval blockade of Gaza before there would be a reconciliation, in this interview he only talked about “sending humanitarian aid to Palestinians through Turkey.”

The official said this may indicate that Erdogan is no longer demanding that Israel lift the naval blockade as a condition for resuming full ties, something that would make an agreement easier.

An editorial in Firas Press shows that this news, whether it is true or not, is being received with dismay by Palestinian Arabs.

Seemingly overnight the tone of [Erdogan] changed. Before he was demanding a written pledge in which the Occupying Power would lift the siege on the Gaza Strip, as a prerequisite for the normalization relations with the state of the occupation and the restoration of diplomatic ties...

The remarks of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proves that he is a man without principles who abandoned his previous demands to break the siege on Gaza, after being hailed by the Palestinian people as their savior and as a "Superman for this day and age," capable of ending the siege and stopping the military machine of Zionism.

Now his words have been proven to be the promises of a clown. He is selling the issue of Gaza for a fistful of dollars and decided to restore relations with the occupation. Are there enough of those dollars to erase the shame that will be attached to the man and throw him into the dustbin of history?

04/30 Links Pt1: Prosor: PA Funds Will Go to Hamas; Syrian dissident 'Israel is our last hope'

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas Pumps New Life Into Hamas

Chief PLO Negotiator Saeb Erekat this week went as far as arguing that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. "We might agree or differ with Hamas," Erekat said. "But Hamas is not a terrorist organization. The occupation, according to international law, is the worst form of terrorism."
Abbas's "reconciliation" accord with Hamas is most probably aimed at exerting pressure on Israel to make far-reaching concessions at the negotiating table.
But Abbas's move will soon prove to be counterproductive. Hamas's goal is to seize control over the Palestinian Authority and replace Israel with an Islamic empire. Abbas is deceiving himself and others when he says that a unity government with Hamas would recognize Israel and renounce violence. Hamas has already made it clear that the deal with Abbas does not mean that it would change its ideology or renounce terrorism.

Bibi Reminds Al Beeb's Bowen of the Core of the Conflict (video)

With hectoring naivety, the BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen interviews Bibi Netanyahu:
And is reminded of the hard facts.
"The core of the conflict is the persistent Arab refusal decade upon decade ... to recognise the Jewish State in any boundary" ...

Benjamin Netanyahu interview - In full

'Palestinians have a pattern: Demand, delay and desert'

"When I think about the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, there is a predictable pattern on the part of the Palestinians -- demand, delay and desert," Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor told the Security Council on Tuesday, the same day that the nine-month period allotted for the latest round of peace talks elapsed.
"While Israel makes tangible concessions to advance peace, the Palestinian leadership has let every window of opportunity fly out the window. This goes to the very heart of the problem. The Palestinians pledge dialogue while fermenting hatred. They promise tolerance while celebrating terrorists. And they make commitments almost as quickly as they break them.
"As we speak, millions of dollars are being channeled to the Palestinian Authority. Now that the Palestinians have signed a unity agreement, that funding will be at the disposal of Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization.
"I wonder how taxpayers in London, Luxembourg and Paris would feel knowing that they will enable Hamas to launch more rockets into Israel, kidnap more Israelis, and send more suicide bombers into our cafés."

Hamas Al Qassam websites very different in English and Arabic

Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades terrorist organization has two separate websites for English and Arabic.

The English-language website highlights topics like human rights:

But its Arabic site shows its real priorities with lots of photos of masked terrorists, "martyrs" and violence that they celebrate:

They are more similar that you might think. Both of them are advocating using the most convenient weapons they have against Israel - suicide bombs and rockets on one hand, and useful Western idiots on the other.

It is amazing how many people get fooled by soothing statements meant for Western consumption and are willing - or anxious - to ignore reality.

Israel secretly hands over body of Sbarro's suicide bomber, Arabs celebrate

Arutz-7 reports:

Israel has returned to the Palestinian Authority (PA) the bodies of four terrorists who carried out deadly terrorist attacks against Israelis, including the body of the terrorist who blew himself up in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001.

The PA-based Safa news agency reported on Tuesday that the terrorists whose bodies were returned include brothers Adel and Imad Osallah, Hamas terrorists who planned attacks against Israel and who were eliminated near Hevron by IDF soldiers in 1998.

In addition to Izz al-Din al-Masri, the Sbarro suicide bomber, Israel also reportedly handed the body of suicide bomber Tawfiq Mahamid, who carried out a suicide attack west of Umm al-Fahm and who belonged to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the so-called “military wing” of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.

The attack at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in August of 2001 was one of the deadliest terror attacks in Israel’s history.

15 people were killed in the Sbarro attack, including five members of the Schijveschuurder family from the community of Neria in Binyamin.

The ever so peaceful Palestinian Authority gave these terrorists an honorable military welcome.

Arnold and Frimet Roth are the parents of one of the Sbarro's attack victims, their daughter Malki. They write:

For the record, the Israeli decision to hand over the body of Al-Masri, the human bomb whose explosion caused so much devastation, grief and ongoing pain to so many Israelis, was made on the basis of zero consultation with the families of his victims. There was also no pre-hand-over official notification to the news media or to the judicial system as far as we know. The Arab media are the sole source of the news.

...Stand by for more of the same as the Palestinian Authority, probably with its new business partner Hamas (who long ago claimed al-Masri as one of its heroes), prepares to celebrate the life and death of the human bomb who murdered 15 innocents. In fact, it's begun...

(And this side question: Will the world's most important organization of Protestant churches take part in the celebration? Will they condemn it? Or sit on the fence? Does their theology teach that "freedom with justice and dignity" applies to people like our daughter's cold-blooded killers and those who stand proudly with them? But not to the victims?)

And prepare - as we will - to scour the news reports for expressions of disgust and rejection from within the Arabic-speaking world for this upcoming latest chapter in the orgy of hate and bloodshed. But be ready to wait a long, long time.

The PLO's lawyer whitewashes Hamas terror

John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who advises the PLO, is now defending Hamas. You know...unity.

In a laughable "analysis" in Ma'an, Whitbeck shows that he can ignore the most elementary rules of logic and the English language itself in order to defend terrorists:

When, in response to the threat of potential Palestinian reconciliation and unity, the Israeli government suspended "negotiations" with the Palestine Liberation Organization on April 24 (five days before they were due to terminate in any event), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement asserting: "Instead of choosing peace, Abu Mazen formed an alliance with a murderous terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of Israel."

...The extreme subjectivity of the epithet "terrorist" has been highlighted by two recent absurdities -- the Egyptian military regime's labeling of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has won all Egyptian elections since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, as a "terrorist" organization and the labeling by the de facto Ukrainian authorities, who came to power through illegally occupying government buildings in Kiev, of those opposing them by illegally occupying government buildings in eastern Ukraine as "terrorists."

In both cases, those who have overthrown democratically elected governments are labeling those who object to their coups as "terrorists."

It is increasingly understood that the word "terrorist," which has no agreed-upon definition, is so subjective as to be devoid of any inherent meaning and that it is commonly abused by governments and others who apply it to whomever or whatever they hate in the hope of demonizing their adversaries, thereby discouraging and avoiding rational thought and discussion and, frequently, excusing their own illegal and immoral behavior.

Check out how deceptive Whitbeck is. He is claiming that since some people may misuse the word "terrorist" and since the word has no "agreed upon definition" then the word becomes meaningless when Israel uses it.

However, there are generally agreed upon definitions of terrorism. For example, the draft UN definition:

1. Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person, by any means, unlawfully and intentionally, causes:
(a) Death or serious bodily injury to any person; or
(b) Serious damage to public or private property, including a place of public use, a State or government facility, a public transportation system, an infrastructure facility or the environment; or
(c) Damage to property, places, facilities, or systems referred to in paragraph 1 (b) of this article, resulting or likely to result in major economic loss, when the purpose of the conduct, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.

The FBI says that international terrorism involves violent acts that "appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping."

There are plenty of other definitions. While the definitions may not be identical and they may not be 100% perfect, it is clear that - for example - the 9/11 attacks fall under all definitions of terror. (Although Whitbeck says 9/11 is a hoax. Really.)

Whitbeck is trying to say that the word "terrorism" is meaningless, but it isn't. Just because boundary cases aren't defined doesn't mean that some acts aren't clearly cases of terrorism.

Suicide bombings, rocket attacks aimed at civilians and other acts meant to intimidate and instill fear in a population for political purposes all fit in under every single serious definition of terrorism from both a legal and dictionary perspective. Which makes Hamas, by definition, a terrorist organization.

Indeed, Whitbeck is using a silly semantic argument to whitewash Hamas acts which fall under every single definition of terrorism.

He continues in the same vein:

Netanyahu's assertion that Hamas "calls for the destruction of Israel" requires rational analysis as well.

He is not the only guilty party in this regard. The mainstream media in the West habitually attaches the phrase "pledged to the destruction of Israel" to each first mention of Hamas, almost as though it were part of Hamas' name.

In the real world, what does the "destruction of Israel" actually mean? The land? The people? The ethno-religious-supremacist regime?

There can be no doubt that virtually all Palestinians -- and probably still a significant number of Native Americans -- wish that foreign colonists had never arrived in their homelands to ethnically cleanse them and take away their land and that some may even lay awake at night dreaming that they might, somehow, be able to turn back the clock or reverse history.

However, in the real world, Hamas is not remotely close to being in a position to cause Israel's territory to sink beneath the Mediterranean or to wipe out its population or even to compel the Israeli regime to transform itself into a fully democratic state pledged to equal rights and dignity for all who live there. It is presumably the latter threat -- the dreaded "bi-national state" -- that Netanyahu has in mind when he speaks of the "destruction of Israel."

For propaganda purposes, "destruction" sounds much less reasonable and desirable than "democracy" even when one is speaking about the same thing.

...In the real world, the Hamas vision (like the Fatah vision) of peaceful coexistence in Israel-Palestine is much closer to the "international consensus" on what a permanent peace should look like, as well as to international law and relevant UN resolutions, than the Israeli vision.

You see? In Whitbeck's conception of "the real world," Hamas isn't calling for the destruction of Israel - Hamas is calling for democracy and peaceful coexistence!

Unfortunately for Whitbeck, Hamas leaders' own words show a slightly different story. They say quite clearly and explicitly that they don't quite esubscribe to Whitbeck's fantasies as to what they believe and what they want to do to all Jews in the area. (And Whitbeck knows this very well.)

"The armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel]... We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine."

Expulsion of all Jews from Israel. Hmm. It sounds so peaceful and democratic!

Here a Hamas commander calls on Israeli Arabs to destroy Israel from the inside.

Congratulations to our people of 1948 [Israeli Arabs] on the liberation of Gaza. You wish to destroy them [the Israelis] from their inside...

He must mean by voting in elections.

Here's another example of how Hamas cannot possibly mean anything offensive:

"Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah"

Only a fanatical right wing Zionist could possibly interpret that as anything but puppies and flowers and rainbows, right, John?

There are many Israel haters that would read this ridiculous article and sagely nod their heads as if it makes perfect sense.

But that is because they want to justify Arabs killing Jews.

Just like John V. Whitbeck.

Why J-Street should not be admitted to the Conference of Presidents

The Forward writes:

Several large, mainstream Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, have to decided to vote in favor of admitting the dovish Israel lobby J Street into organized Jewry’s primary umbrella group on Israel. Others, like the Jewish Federations of North America, are leaning towards voting that way, according to informed sources.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which is scheduled to vote Wednesday on J Street’s request for admission, is conducting its process under a shroud of secrecy. The decision will be made in a closed-envelope ballot, and most of the member organizations remained tight-lipped regarding their expected vote.

There is no problem with "dovish" organizations being members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

There is a problem with admitting a member that consistently misrepresents itself as being "pro-Israel."

J-Street pretends that it is being vilified because it supports a two-state solution, and that is its constant refrain, in its press releases and on its website.

But the State of Israel also accepts a two-state solution.

Yet on every substantive issue where there is a disagreement between Israel and the PLO, J-Street sides with the PLO. In no universe can that be considered "pro-Israel."

As if that weren't bad enough, J-Street demands that Americans lobby their elected representatives to pressure Israel, and only Israel, to make concessions - to those who happily admit that they consider Israel their enemy.

J-Street has no respect for Israeli democracy. It wants third parties to force a solution on Israel that most Israelis have proven - with their votes - that they do not support.

The only reason that J-Street has any traction is its deception in pretending that it is merely interested in two states. But the two states it wants would involve the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Jews, it would create a situation where Jewish holy places are off limits to Jews, it would create borders that are indefensible. And it would empower people who brag in Arabic that their state is merely a stage to destroying Israel.

If that is what Israelis want, that would be fine. But they don't.

Why would the Conference of Presidents want to admit a deceptive, anti-Israel organization?

Even though Americans for Peace Now is already a member, and they also lobby US officials to pressure Israel, at least their parent organization tries to work within Israel's democracy to some extent. J-Street is beyond the pale.

Although the vote will be secret (which is outrageous - members of the organizations deserve to know how their leaders vote!) you can still write to the member organizations of the Conference and let them know why they should vote against J-Street's admission on Wednesday.

And demand that they make their vote public.