Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

07/01 Links Pt2: What Happened at Lydda; How Abbas Duped Kerry and Indyk

From Ian:

In his celebrated new book, Ari Shavit claims that “Zionism” committed a massacre in July 1948. Can the claim withstand scrutiny?
Others have found Shavit’s account of Lydda “riveting” (Avi Shlaim), “a sickening tour de force” (Leon Wieseltier), and “brutally honest” (Thomas Friedman). As I read through it, however, the alleged actions and attitudes of Shavit’s Israeli protagonists struck me as implausible. To me they seemed to personify much too readily Shavit’s broader thesis: that “Zionism” had been preprogrammed to depopulate the country of its Arabs, and that this preprogramming filtered down even to the last soldier. In Lydda, soldiers licensed by “Zionism” then became wanton killers of innocents, smoothing the work of expulsion.
Perhaps my suspicion was stoked by the fact that, time and again over the decades, Israeli soldiers have stood accused of just such wanton killing when in fact they were doing what every soldier is trained to do: fire on an armed enemy, especially when that enemy is firing at him. That such accusations might even be accompanied by professions of “love” for Israel is likewise no novelty. (See under: Richard Goldstone.) When such charges are made today, they tend to be subjected to rigorous investigation. Could Shavit’s narrative withstand a comparable level of scrutiny?
Shavit relies largely on his interviews, conducted those many years ago. Since he doesn’t cite documents in a public archive, I have no way of knowing whether he fairly represents his subjects. But it did occur to me that these same protagonists may have told their stories to others. And, with a bit of research, I discovered that they had.

Khaled Abu Toameh: How Abbas Duped Kerry and Indyk

Abbas appears to be the only player who benefited from the botched U.S.-sponsored peace process. Not only did this peace process get 78 prisoners released, but it also paved the way for Abbas to embark on unilateral moves and wage a diplomatic war against Israel in the international arena.
As if that were not enough, the peace process eventually drove Abbas into the open arms of Hamas: Abbas would rather join forces with Hamas than succumb to U.S. pressure to reach a "treacherous" agreement with Israel.
Kerry and Indyk failed to understand that no Palestinian leader has a mandate to make real concessions to Israel as part of a peace agreement.
Instead, they chose to endorse the false assumption that Abbas would be able to deliver a deal. By doing so, they actually forced Abbas to mislead them into thinking that if only Israel released more prisoners, he would be able to make concessions. The question now is whether Kerry and Indyk will be prepared to admit that they were duped by the Palestinian Authority president. Probably not.

State Dept Claims Palestinian Govt ‘Making Every Effort’ to Abide by U.S. Requirements

While AP reporter Matt Lee pressed State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on the United States’ relationship with Palestine, Psaki maintained that President Abbas and his technocratic government “are making every effort” to abide by U.S. requirements, including the rejection of violence.
Lee questioned Psaki about the recently confirmed deaths of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers, but Psaki declined to predict how the matter might weigh into the United States’ relationship with Palestine. Lee continued, “There also, I think — for — more than a dozen rockets that were fired into Southern Israel from Gaza today. Is that something that would make you rethink your position as it relates to the Palestinian government?”
Psaki replied that the State Department would “continue to review and take a look at the circumstances at the ground on a daily basis”, but that “I don’t have anything new to predict for you or outline”, indicating that the United States maintains its support for the Palestinian government.
“Do you think right now that they are abiding by the requirements?” Lee asked.

State Dept: Palestinian Govt 'Making Every Effort' To Abide By U.S. Requirements

Even as the nation mourns, Israel is planning to improve the lives of Arabs living in Jerusalem.

From Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

The Cabinet, at its weekly meeting today (Sunday, 29 June 2014), approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan for the socio-economic development of Jerusalem.

This is the first time that a comprehensive socio-economic development will be formulated and implemented for eastern Jerusalem.

In the field of socio-economic development, the plan will focus on four fields of action:

1. Improving physical infrastructures: Improving the level of infrastructures in eastern Jerusalem in all areas - drainage, sewage, water, electricity, roads and sidewalks, as well as carrying out an infrastructures survey in the area.

2. Education, vocational education and higher education: In order to work toward improving the socio-economic situation of the population and in order to create an economic alternative for residents of the eastern part of the city, it has been proposed to advance plans in the field of education, higher education and vocational training including pre-academic classes, increasing the study of Hebrew in schools and enacting plans to prevent dropping out. It was also decided to enact a city-without-violence plan in five neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.

3. Offering accessible employment possibilities: Due to the severe socio-economic situation in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods and due to the difficulty of integrating with the conclusion of academic studies, in light of clause two above, many young people drop out of studies in order to assist in earning a living for their families. The difficulty of concluding studies, alongside the negative expectation of integrating into the labor force with a Palestinian matriculation certificate and limited employment possibilities, significantly reduce the motivation to conclude studies and lead to a high drop-out rate and a smaller chance of in finding quality employment.

4. Social affairs: Adding social workers and youth workers, building recreational facilities and operating youth recreation programs, enrichment classes and programs for children and youth at risk.

Isn't this awful? Improving the Arab sector, helping the Arabs (most of whom refuse citizenship) to live better and get better jobs, is obviously part of the Judaization of Jerusalem.

I expect OIC and UN resolutions condemning this.

(h/t Irene)

We've looked before at sixth-rate "academic" Juan Cole before. We've shown him to be a liar a number of times. He twists statistics, and sometimes he just makes them up. He compared an Islamist dictator to Thomas Jefferson.

Once, because he was apparently so sick of how many times I showed him to be a lying piece of garbage, he even (falsely) accused me of inspiring a mass murderer.

Cole lies as easily as he breathes. And he never corrects his lies, a sure sign of someone for whom ideology trumps facts.

Now he is justifying terrorist acts and blaming the victims, all the while pretending that he isn't doing exactly that:

The kidnapping and killing of three Israeli squatter youth whose parents usurped Palestinian land has produced a paroxysm of hatred and calls for reprisals in Israel. Whoever is responsible for it, the killing of the youth was a horrid and inexcusable crime, and the heart of any parent goes out to the bereaved families.

Can there be a more backhanded "condemnation" of terror than this?

Besides the utterly disgusting implication that Jews who live in Judea and Samaria do not have the same human rights that everyone else on the planet does, and the utterly loathsome implication that most Zionists are responding to the news of the murders with vengeance rather than deep sadness, Cole appears not to know that two of the murdered boys lived in central Israel!

But why should Cole bother himself with mere facts? He has other fish to fry, and mere facts just get in the way. Cole lives in a post-factual world. He is more interested in what he calls "context."

But assuming that Palestinians were the culprits, the social and political structures fostered by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party form an essential context here. Social scientists always contextualize, an anathema to propagandists and the more glib of the journalists, who confuse it with excusing things. To put things in context is not to justify anything, it is to seek and understanding of human actions beyond the simple demonization of the Other.

Hate to break it to you, Juan, but when all of your "context" is in the same direction, against Jewish Israelis, it is just a slightly more sophisticated kind of propaganda. Don't kid yourself - there is no "social science" involved here at all. It is all propaganda. And here's proof.

The Likud has a policy of keeping the Palestinians stateless.....Since the stateless lack a state, they also lack law and order. What most struck me from my last visit to a Palestinian refugee camp was how much of a frontier situation it was. There are no police. Everyone has to fend for themselves. And it is easy for predatory gangs to form.

That is, statelessness produces small violent groups such as Islamic Jihad and perhaps the Palestinian branch of the so-called “Islamic State” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It produces them because in the absence of formal state structures, such groups thrive in the interstices of society. And it produces them because statelessness and the consequent deprivation of basic human rights produces potent grievances.

What a great social-science theory!

Except that Al Qaeda members, and ISIS members, and the members of Egyptian Salafist groups, and most of those of the PLO and Fatah before 1967, and pretty much every other terror group in history have been made up of full, card-carrying citizens of states!

Now, who else has been against the establishment of a Palestinian state? Well, the entire Arab world before 1967, for starters. Yet the Palestinian terror groups that emerged then were aimed at Israel, not at Egypt and Jordan.

Imagine that - Cole's entire thesis completely destroyed by a little "context."

Who else is forcing Palestinian Arabs to be stateless? The leaders of every Arab nation that refuses to allow Palestinians who want to become citizens from doing so. No, they prefer that they remain stateless in order to justify and foment hate against Israel.

Exactly what Juan Cole is doing in this very article.

After all, if he is so upset over Palestinian Arabs being stateless, why won't he demand that Lebanon or Syria allow people who have lived there for generations become citizens if they want to? Why doesn't he encourage the Palestinian Arabs to accept one of Israel's many peace plans put forward - which would have resulted in a Palestinian state?

No, Cole doesn't give a damn about statelessness - he only cares about slamming Israel, and all his other "facts" are being twisted and used for only that purpose.

Which is the definition of propaganda.

What kind of "social science" is it when you cherry-pick your facts to come to a predetermined conclusion? Ah, the fraudulent kind!

Hypocrite Cole is flattering himself when he calls himself a "social scientist" - I've just proven, in a few minutes, that Cole is cares nothing for facts, for social science, for context, or for anything except for propaganda.

Why Cole is still employed and occasionally quoted as if he adds any value to the world is beyond me.

(h/t Ezra)

07/01 Links Pt1: Tens of thousands stream to cemetery for burial of three teens

From Ian:

Live Blog: Tens of thousands stream to cemetery for burial of three teens

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon vows the Israeli security forces “will not rest” until the operatives behind the deaths of the teenagers are brought to justice. Speaking at the funeral for Eyal Yifrach, 19, in Elad, the defense minister says the teenagers “were kidnapped and murdered just because they were Jews.”
“The grief and agony that envelops you since receiving the bitter news, envelops the entire country,” he says, after the recitation of a Natan Alterman poem.
“In the past three weeks that have passed since the kidnapping of Eyal, Gil-ad, and Naftali, we discovered daily a bit more about their unique personalities: Their warm and loving connection to their families, their hobbies that were their trademark among the families and friends, all the small things that remind us, at the end of the day, that they were youngsters at the beginning of their lives, which was cut short.”
The defense minister addresses the Yifrach family directly, saying “these are the hours when the personal grief is in the public domain.”
Ya’alon says he had the “privilege” of meeting the Yifrach family during these tumultuous, difficult times, who embody “all that is good and noble,” and are “a symbol for us all.”

Rabbi Lord Sacks: In memoriam Eyal, Gilad and Naftali

Eyal, Gilad and Naftali were killed by people who believed in death. Too often in the past Jews were victims of people who practised hate in the name of the God of love, cruelty in the name of the God of compassion, and murder in the name of the God of life. It is shocking to the very depths of humanity that this still continues to this day.
Never was there a more pointed contrast than, on the one hand, these young men who dedicated their lives to study and to peace, and on the other the revelation that other young men, even from Europe, have become radicalised into violence in the name of God and are now committing murder in His name. That is the difference between a culture of life and one of death, and this has become the battle of our time, not only in Israel but in Syria, in Iraq, in Nigeria and elsewhere. Whole societies are being torn to shreds by people practising violence in the name of God.
Against this we must never forget the simple truth that those who begin by practising violence against their enemies end by committing it against their fellow believers. The verdict of history is that cultures that worship death, die, while those that sanctify life, live on. That is why Judaism survives while the great empires that sought its destruction were themselves destroyed.
Our tears go out to the families of Eyal, Gilad and Naftali. We are with them in grief. We will neither forget the young victims nor what they lived for: the right that everyone on earth should enjoy, to live a life of faith without fear.

Follow Golda's lead

Following the news, the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet convened in the exact same place where it met 41 years ago, headed by then-Prime Minister Golda Meir. It was the day that conflicting reports about a possible terror attack at the Munich Olympics started pouring in. At the end of that day, the murder of 11 Israelis by Palestinian terrorists was confirmed. The elderly, heavy footed woman turned to the generals around her and declared that the murderers and their accomplices must not be allowed to live. She spoke plainly, and the world knew that the Palestinian murderers were dead men walking, with targets on their foreheads just waiting for an Israeli bullet.
The full execution of Meir's instructions stretched out over 20 years. In 1992, the last of the terrorists who took part in the Olympic massacre was killed. To their dying day, they were frightened and on the run.

Netanyahu Spokesperson: Murder of Israeli Teens 'Demonstrates Clearly What Hamas is All About'

Just a little religious intimidation by Muslims. Nothing to see (video)

Ammon News reported yesterday:

Groups of Jewish settlers on Monday raided the al-Aqsa Mosque’s compound through the Al-Magarbah Gate, under the protection of Israeli soldiers.

The settlers stormed the compound and carried out provocative tours inside the compound grounds.

The intrusion angered the Palestinian worshippers and the mosque's guards who stay inside the mosque, and they tried to prevent the extremist settlers from entering the yards of the holy mosque.

The Palestinian worshippers confronted the settlers at Bab Al-Rahma and Bab Al-Silsila and forced the settlers to leave the mosque.

Here is what the "raiders" looked like:

Here is the peaceful reaction by Muslims, including (at about 0:25) women using the three-fingered gesture of support for the kidnapping of Jews:

And here is a picture of more peaceful Muslim worshippers silently saying their prayers, from today (possibly a file photo)

Allowing people access to their holy sites is recognized as a human right - except for Jews.

The Qawasameh family, which includes suspected kidnapper Marwan Qawasameh, has a long tradition of terror:

Notable Qawasameh Hamas members:

Mahmud Amaran Qawasameh (suicide bomber in Haifa bus 37, dead)
Hazem Qawasameh (committed shooting attack in Kiryat Arba, dead)
Fuad Qawasameh (suicide bomber in Gross square in Hebron, dead)
Hamza Qawasameh (killed Netanel Uzari, dead)[1]
Muhasan Qawasameh (committed attack on Negohot settlement, dead)
Raad Misk Qawasameh (suicide bomber of Jerusalem bus 2 massacre, dead)
Abbedallah Qawasameh (leader, dead)
Bassal Qawasameh (leader, dead)
Ahmed Abed Qawasameh (suicide bomber in Beersheba, dead)
Imad Qawasameh (leader, arrested October 13, 2004)

The Hamas in Hebron is led by a family from the Qawasameh tribe. Two of its prominent leaders, Abbedalla Qawasameh and Bassal Qawasameh were suspected of/involved in many terrorist attacks, including the Jerusalem bus 14A massacre and Jerusalem bus 2 massacre, which claimed the lives of 40 Israelis.[citation needed] They were later killed by Yamam and IDF forces.

Shlomi Eldar writes a well-researched article in Al Monitor where he argues that the Qawasameh clan has a long tradition of ignoring Hamas leadership attempts at ceasefires with Israel, calling them a "rogue Hamas branch":

Though the clan is known for identifying with Hamas, it also has a well-earned reputation as troublemakers. Not only does it tend to ignore the movement’s leaders. It even acts counter to the policies being advocated by the movement.

That is why officials in the Palestinian Authority (PA) were shocked by the timing of the three boys’ abduction, just two weeks after the establishment of a Palestinian unity government. After all, the very creation of this new coalition came with the assumption that the Hamas leadership had come to terms with reality and moderated their positions.

Enter the Qawasmeh clan. The total number of people belonging to the clan is estimated at about 10,000, making it one of the three largest clans in the Mount Hebron region. At least 15 members of the family were killed during the second intifada, nine of them while committing suicide attacks against Israel. All of the terrorists lived in the Abu Qatila neighborhood, within a radius of less than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) from one another. Whenever the head of the terrorist organization within the clan was assassinated or arrested by Israel, one of his brothers or cousins was selected to replace him.

Marwan Qawasmeh, the man behind the abduction, emerged as a dominant figure in the clan after Israel arrested Imad Qawasmeh and sentenced him to life in prison.

Each time Hamas had reached an understanding with Israel about a cease-fire or tahadiyeh (period of calm), at least one member of the family has been responsible for planning or initiating a suicide attack, and any understandings with Israel, achieved after considerable effort, were suddenly laid waste. If there is a single family throughout the PA territories whose actions can be blamed for Israel’s assassination of the political leadership of Hamas, it is the Qawasmeh family of Hebron.

On Aug. 19, 2003, after a tahadiyeh was reached between Israel and all of the Palestinian factions, with the support of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, two suicide bombers blew themselves up on the No. 2 bus in Jerusalem. Some 23 Israelis were killed in the attack, including seven children. All of the passengers on the bus were on their way back from prayers at the Western Wall to mark the end of the Sabbath. Most of them were yeshiva students. The attack put an abrupt end to the tahadiyeh just 52 days after it was announced. The bombing was intended to avenge Israel’s assassination of Abdullah Qawasmeh three days before the tahadiyeh came into force. The Qawasmeh family planned and implemented the attack during a cease-fire, which was supposed to have ended the second intifada, a cease-fire that had the support of Yasser Arafat, then-PA chairman, his Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and, of course, Yassin, the leader of Hamas.

But Hamas refuses to distance itself from the clan.

Indeed, Hamas tries to have it both ways. They might claim (privately) that the Qawasamehs are not part of the movement, but they are quick to take credit for actions by the family.

The Al Qassam website mentioned the Qawasamehs hundreds of times (before a recent revamping of the site. ) Here, for example, is a loving Hamas tribute to the family and to their track record of terror attacks.

Hamas cannot take gleeful credit for the many atrocities performed by the Qawasamehs and then claim ignorance when there are going to be consequences for their actions. If Hamas really wants a ceasefire, they need to denounce the clan. Otherwise, their distancing themselves now after celebrating and taking credit for the family's many terror attacks over 20 years rings more than hollow.

(h/t Oren Kessler)

How NGO's make up lies about Israel

We've looked before at the Euro-Mid Observer, a Geneva-based organization that has no compunction about lying about Israel in order to push its agenda.

We've seen that one of its members openly celebrated a Hamas murderer.
We've seen them write a report blaming Israel for Gaza men beating their wives.
In the same report, they falsely claim that Israel limits medical equipment to Gaza.
We've seen them count Gaza terrorists as "children" who were killed in Gaza.

Clearly, Euro-Mid Observer is not too interested in truthful reporting.

They just released a new report with this graphical summary:

Let's look first at the cartoon. Notice that the word "Israel" on the soldier's jacket is backwards. The original cartoon was a mirror image. Why did they flip the cartoon?

The cartoon is one of Latuff's most famous antisemitic cartoons, which is meant to evoke the famous photo of a Jewish child being arrested by Nazis (although edited to take out the dish and fork):

Euro-Mid is using an antisemitic cartoon to illustrate their anti-Israel report! But since the original cartoon is so obviously a product of a sick Jew-hating mind, they were considerate enough to flip it so as to not be so explicitly antisemitic.

Let's look at one of the statistics, that 75% of Palestinian Arab children detained by Israeli forces are supposedly tortured. Going through the report, they do not give a source for this statistic: they merely say that "International humanitarian agencies have documented that 75 percent of Palestinian children
detained by Israeli forces are subjected to treatment that meets the definition of torture."

What agencies might these be?

It turns out that the main source for this statistic is another rabidly anti-Israel NGO, called DCI-Palestine. We have looked at them before, too - they lied about the number of children killed in Operation Cast Lead, and they consistently report kids killed by Palestinian Arab rockets as being killed by Israel. DCI-Palestine openly admits that it "develops its programs and acts according to Palestinian children's needs and Palestinian priorities."

In other words, its objectivity is zero.

DCI-Palestine describes its methodology here:

Initial identification of potential human rights violations

Al Mezan and DCI-Palestine identify potential violations through two main avenues: victims’ reports and field monitoring. Al Mezan is a well-known Gaza-based human rights organisation in operation since 1999 and victims of human rights violations regularly contact one of Al Mezan’s three offices located across the Gaza Strip for assistance; in addition, Al Mezan’s five experienced fieldworkers based throughout the Gaza Strip use their strong community links to identify potential cases of human rights violations. Similarly, DCI-Palestine receives reports from children and parents in any of its four West Bank offices and through Gaza-based fieldworkers; however, most investigations are initiated following ongoing and proactive field monitoring from nine fieldworkers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This means that the way DCI (and Al-Mezan) work is that every case of "torture" that they document is either self-reported or they go out of their way to find them. And if there are inconsistencies, what do they do?

Fieldworkers frequently go back to the source in order to verify details and correct any data inconsistency.

An organization that admits up front that it is biased says that rather than discard any inconsistent testimony as being unreliable, they go back and massage the reports until they fit together better with the other facts!

This is a fancy way of admitting that they coax the "witnesses" to lie, or at the very least to shade the truth until they fit the agendas of the Israel-hating NGOs.

The 75% statistic (actually, in 2013 the number increased to 76.5%) comes from "affidavits" that DCI-Palestine coaxes "victims" to give, and then coaxes "eyewitnesses" to corroborate in turn. They pretty much say this explicitly. There is nothing scientific about their methods, the "victims" are all but handpicked for their fanciful stories, not chosen according to any objective criteria of children detained. A real statistician would cringe at this methodology.

So DCI-Palestine coaxed about 100 Palestinian Arab kids to say what they wanted them to say. Then they published a statistic saying that about 75% of the kids they interviewed - not all the kids, but the ones they handpicked - claim that they are tortured.

Euro-Mid Observer runs with that statistic as if it has any validity, and expands it to the (unverified) number of Palestinian Arab kids who are supposedly detained, to claim that Israel physically tortures thousands of Palestinian Arab kids a year.

It is a lie built on top of previous lies, but they are lies that no journalist bother to follow back to the source. I fully expect there to be articles today about this report without the slightest bit of skepticism.

Now that we know the methods that these NGOs use, how valid is the statistic that "95% of children are forced to admit to charges they did not commit"? Or any of the other bogus statistics mentioned?

Given the published methodology and the knowledge that Palestinian Arabs often lie to NGOs, and knowing that DCI-Palestine and Euro-Mid are anything but unbiased, the only conclusion is that every single statistic in this paper is not only suspect but can be assumed to be knowingly false.

The idea that Euro-Mid Observer, or DCI-Palestine, or Al Mezan, or PCHR, any of dozens of other biased anti-Israel NGOs can produce verifiable facts, is a joke.

IDF wishes Muslims worldwide a happy Ramadan

The IDF Arabic spokesperson, Avichai Adraee, has posted a YouTube message wishing Muslims a happy and blessed Ramadan, saying that true religion rejects terrorism.

Nearly 10,000 people watched it in one day.

Adraee has nearly 100,000 followers on Twitter and his Facebook page has over 430,000 "Likes."

(Sorry, not translated)

One Arabic newspaper marveled at the message, and while saying it is clearly propaganda it asked if there are any Muslim nations that are trying to communicate directly with Israeli Jews?

Why Hamas denies the kidnappings

Hamas continues to deny that they were behind the kidnappings and murders of Eyal, Gil-ad and Naftali:

A Hamas spokesman denied responsibility Monday evening for the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers, threatening to “open the gates of hell” against Israel if it launched an attack against the Gaza Strip.

“The story of the disappearance and killing of the three settlers is based on the Israeli narrative only,” Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP. “The Israeli occupation is trying to refer to this narrative in order to justify its wide-scale war against our people, against the resistance and against Hamas.”

It looks like Hamas is taking its talking points from Mondoweiss and Ali Abunimah, who sickeningly claimed a week after the kidnapping that it was equally likely that Jews had abducted the boys:

Abunimah writes that the Israelis have an obligation to satisfy the public mind before making such accusations:

Reminder that the occupiers vandalizing Palestinian communities have still produced no evidence Palestinians “kidnapped” the settlers.
Abunimah also asked a very logical question: Why aren’t Israeli soldiers raiding the Israeli colonies on the West Bank? Are Jews really immune from suspicion of foul play in connection with missing teenagers?

But now we know that Hamas was behind it. The two missing kidnappers and their families are Hamas associates, and even Hamas doesn't deny that.

Normally, Hamas is proud of their terror attacks. This time they are denying it. The question is, why?

This can now be answered, based on the background information now being revealed:

Eyal Yifrach, 19, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, and Gil-ad Shaar, 16, the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers whose bodies were found on Monday, realized very quickly that they had been abducted on the night of June 12.

The three teens were waiting at Geva’ot Intersection, west of the settlement of Alon Shvut in the Etzion Bloc south of Jerusalem, soon after 10:15 p.m, looking to catch a ride heading west on Route 367 toward Beit Shemesh and from there to locations in central Israel where each of them lived.

The prevailing assessment within the defense establishment is that the kidnappers, at least at first, only saw one of the hitchikers, perhaps Yifrach, who did not know Shaar and Fraenkel. Only once the kidnappers’ Hyundai i35 came to a stop did the kidnappers realize that they would be outnumbered by their hostages within the small confines of the car. This may be what changed the nature of the crime from kidnapping to murder, security sources suggested.

Inside the Hyundai, Israel alleges, were Hamas terrorists Amer Abu Aysha and Marwan Kawasme.

Recognizing, too late, that the car was not an innocent Israeli vehicle, one of the teens called the police at 10:25 p.m. and whispered, “We’ve been kidnapped.” The call was transferred immediately to a senior female officer, who continued to ask questions but received no reply. The call lasted for 2:09 minutes and was then cut off. The officer called the number eight more times, but received three busy signals and reached voicemail five times.

The kidnappers, apparently realizing that a call had been made, shot the three teens dead soon afterwards in the backseat of the car, military sources said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday night that they were murdered “in cold blood.”

Early assessments by some regarding the professionalism of the terrorists appear to have been misplaced: the killers seem to have panicked. The three teens did not fulfill the role Hamas sought for them, security officials indicated, to serve as bargaining chips that would free thousands of Palestinians prisoners and promote the Hamas brand throughout the West Bank.

The killers then drove a further 10 minutes or so before switching vehicles. They abandoned the Hyundai i35, a relatively new vehicle, and set it on fire.

They transferred the bodies to the second vehicle, and drove close to the field in the Halhul area where the three corpses were ultimately discovered, bound, partially buried, and in what eyewitnesses said was “in not good condition,” on Monday afternoon. The land where the bodies were found belongs to the Kawasme family, Channel 2 news reported.

Unbeknownst to the killers, the emergency call had not prompted an alert by Israel’s security forces. The senior officer did not pass on the information to her superiors or listen to the recording for further evidence, concluding that it was a prank call. The security forces realized there had been a kidnapping, and began what became an 18-day search operation, only some seven hours later.

Assuming that they were being hunted down right away, the kidnappers quickly abandoned the three bodies, and made their escape.

Hamas is denying the murders because it was a botched operation.

The goal was to kidnap a soldier or a "settler" to bargain for the release of prisoners. Hamas has made no secret of that desire, and even published handbooks on how to best accomplish a kidnapping.

The appearance of two more teens, the panicking over the phone call, and the murders in the backseat (from where it would have been nearly impossible for them to escape or fight back) were not planned. I'm not sure that the torching of the stolen car was planned either.

The named kidnappers are associated with Hamas, as are their families. It is clear that they felt they were being pursued, they got rid of the bodies as quickly as they could - in lands belonging to one of their families - and they hightailed it out of the area as fast as possible, no doubt at the behest of their Hamas handlers. They could have waded to Jordan by the time the Israeli police recovered from their serious errors of judgment regarding the phone call.

The discovery afterwards that two of the victims were children and even some Arabs might object to murdering minors ensures that Hamas will not take credit for this attack, even though it was clearly planned by them. Hamas is already on thin ice with Egypt accusing it of being a terror group and the unity government not working out very well.

If they had successfully kidnapped a soldier, or a Jewish adult, Hamas would have unlimited prestige and it would gain the protection of the PLO and Fatah, which have made the exchange of prisoners a major platform. Two dead children would not engender the amount of sympathy Hamas required from its erstwhile partners in "unity." Right now, with the outrages by Islamists in in Syria and Iraq, Hamas does not want to be associated in anyone's minds as another version of ISIS.

This is why Hamas must lie about its involvement in this hideous murder of children, to maintain a tiny bit of deniability as it attempts to raise its profile in the Arab world as a major political player and not as a terror group.

06/30 Links Pt2: International leaders condemn murder of kidnapped teens

From Ian:

International leaders condemn murder of kidnapped teens

Politicians and leaders throughout the world fiercely condemned Monday the murder of three Israeli teenagers, Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel and Gil-ad Shaar, whose bodies were found several hours earlier near the Palestinian village of Halhul, north of Hebron. The three had been abducted on June 12 while they were hitchhiking from a bus stop in the Etzion Bloc in the West Bank.
“We obviously condemn in the strongest possible terms violence that takes the lives of innocent civilians,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
French President Francois Hollande condemned the “cowardly murder” as well, and went on to offer his sincere condolences to the slain teenagers’ families and to Israeli authorities, AFP reported.
Prime Minister David Cameron stated that the killing was “an appalling and inexcusable act of terror perpetrated against young teenagers,” according to AFP.

Daphne Anson: Isi Leibler's Insights Into European Antisemitism, Jewish Leadership Reactions, & Other Critical Current Issues (video)

Here's the highly articulate and characteristically forthright veteran international Jewish leader and Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler in conversation with Rabbi Mark Golub on Shalom TV. The topics range from the kidnapping of the three teenage Israelis in the West Bank, to the New York Metropolitan Opera's planned restaging of the despicable opera "The Death of Klinghoffer", to the crisis of European antisemitism and the head-in-the-sand attitude of what passes for the Anglo-Jewish leadership.

BDS Activist Admits: Boycott Call Limited

A senior official in the BDS movement has admitted that the “boycott” of Israel is limited to areas that don’t hurt the boycotters too much.
In a series of emails obtained by The Jewish Press, a leader of the BoycottIsrael.info website confirmed that “the BDS campaign, supports a boycott of Israeli institutions, not a blanket boycott of all Israeli individuals.”
The emails were prompted by a news article about Israeli doctors from Haifa who volunteered their time in May to treat hundreds of patients in northern Ethiopia. BDS activists were asked whether Ethiopians would have correctly boycotted the Israeli doctors, in order to show their disgust with the Zionist enterprise and support for the “Palestinians”.

Famed Rock Star Bashes BDS 'Real Racists'

Famed rock musician Phil Soussan, a bass guitarist songwriter and producer who has worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol and other popular singers, spoke out against the BDS boycott movement targeting Israel.
On his Facebook page last Friday, Soussan compared several recent events, noting the crackdown on Donald Sterling, owner of the NBA team Los Angeles Clippers over his racist remarks that were revealed in a recording, and the recent outrage over the name of the NFL football team Washington Redskins over its perceived negative portrayal of Native Americans.
"Sterling - a racist? …shock, horror, disgust, public outcry, fines. The Washington Redskins ? …NOT in our country!" wrote Soussan.
"But, here in Los Angeles, in an attempt to target, harass and intimidate Jewish students at UCLA, Students for 'Justice' in Palestine (SJP) have just demanded that candidates for student government positions sign a statement pledging they will not go on any trip to Israel sponsored by Jewish organizations," continued the rock musician.

Will the US react to the murder of an American by Hamas? Oh, please!

I see some tweets wondering whether the White House will react strongly to the murder of an American citizen by Hamas.

You gotta be kidding.

The US treated a case where three Americans were killed in a diplomatic convoy in Gaza with kid gloves!

Back in 2003:

A powerful remote-controlled bomb detonated beneath an American diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing three American security specialists assigned to the American Embassy by a private military contractor and wounding an American diplomat. The bombing was the first fatal attack on an official American target since the current Palestinian uprising began three years ago.

The explosion shortly after 10 a.m. hit one of three armored Chevrolet Suburbans carrying American diplomats and a security detail to Gaza City for meetings with Palestinian candidates seeking Fulbright scholarships for graduate studies in the United States.

Did the US push hard to find the murderers?

Not at all:

After Parsons' body was brought back to Wayne for a funeral at his Roman Catholic parish and burial in a Franklin Lakes cemetery, his family figured the killers would eventually be tracked down.

"We believed that as time went by the perpetrators would be caught," John Parsons said.

But nothing happened.

"It just fell off the radar screen," he said.

Or perhaps it was blocked by Palestinian authorities.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism show that the FBI and State Department officials tried to respond quickly. A team of seven FBI agents arrived a day after the bombing.

But Palestinian authorities had not secured the crime scene, the documents say. As the agents tried to collect evidence, they were pelted with rocks by Palestinian youths. Fearing they might be harmed, the agents quickly scooped up as much material as they could and left.

The Associated Press reported that the Palestinian crowd chanted "Allahu Akbar" - God is great - as the U.S. agents retreated to their cars surrounded by rifle-toting Palestinian police.

The FBI documents offer no clues about possible suspects. But investigators are quite sure of one critical element of the story: The bomb, containing 150 to 200 pounds of TNT, was set off by a remote control device. In other words, the bombers targeted the convoy.

A few months after Parsons' death, Palestinian authorities charged three members of the Palestinian Revolutionary Council with manslaughter for possessing explosive devices connected to the bombing. A Palestinian judge ordered that three suspects be released for lack of evidence, but Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat kept them in jail.

The three were later freed by a mob, reportedly led by the PRC, and have never been caught. Several months later, the head of Palestinian military intelligence announced that he knew the names of the killers. But he declined to arrest them, claiming that Palestinian police "cannot act against the factions while the fighting with Israel continues."

As the years went by, a litany of U.S. officials called on the Palestinians to solve the case - or allow American investigators back into Gaza to track down suspects and witnesses.

So the PA protected the murderers, and the US backed off....because the idea of publicly upsetting the idea that the Palestinian Authority is anything but peaceful is not to be considered.

Real peace cannot ever happen while the world allows itself to be taken hostage by lies. And the ideas that Fatah is "moderate," that the PA wants peace, that Abbas accepts Israel's existence in any real way, that Hamas is "pragmatic"...all of them are lies.

Bodies of teens found (updates)

From NYT:

Israeli military searchers found three bodies believed to be those of the missing Israeli teenagers who disappeared more than two weeks ago in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, senior government officials said Monday. The Israeli government called an emergency Cabinet meeting.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the official announcement, said the Army had found the three bodies buried “in a field near Hebron” and were waiting to inform the families before releasing information.

“They know it’s the three, they will know for sure after they do the autopsy."The official said the three appeared to have been shot to death, likely “very close to the kidnap” time, and that the prime suspects had still not been caught.

Times of Israel confirms.

The bodies were found in an area between Halhul and Karmei Tzur on Monday afternoon. Israeli security forces, which had been conducting extensive searches in the area, closed it off and declared it a closed military zone.

There are no words.

UPDATE: Apparently investigators pretty much knew that the news would be bad, according to Sheera Frankel at Buzzfeed (although she is not always the most reliable reporter):

Israeli officials have imposed a gag order on many details of the search for the teens. That gag order initially included a phone call made from one of the teens to police, as well as evidence found in a burnt-out car in the Hebron area.

BuzzFeed spoke to an Israeli official involved in the case, who confirmed that during the police call a gunshot can clearly be heard. The car, he added, had clear evidence of foul play. Over the last week. Israeli soldiers could be seen digging through rocks and dredging wells in Hebron in the search for the teens.

“We have been operating, for some time now, with evidence that these boys were killed,” he said. “It is with a heavy heart that we realized we were looking for bodies.”

And the police dispatcher didn't report it???

UPDATE 1.5: TOI contradicts this account, which is why I don't usually trust Frankel.

Recognizing, too late, that the car was not an innocent Israeli vehicle, one of the teens called the police at 10:25 p.m. and whispered, “We’ve been kidnapped.” The call was transferred immediately to a senior female officer, who continued to ask questions but received no reply. The call lasted for 2:09 minutes and was then cut off. The officer called the number eight more times, but received three busy signals and reached voicemail five times.

The kidnappers, apparently realizing that a call had been made, shot the three teens dead soon afterwards in the backseat of the car, military sources said.

UPDATE 2: The Muqata reports:

8:44pm IDF Ambulance humvee transporting the bodies of the boys attacked by arabs....windows smashed

Imagine anyone at +972 will condemn attacking an ambulance? No, they are too busy predicting that Israel will react to the coldblooded murders of three boys.