Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 15, 2015

"Nakba survivor" admits she fled without seeing a single Jew

Every year, on "Nakba Day," Arab newspapers scramble to find old people who can act as eyewitnesses to the horrors of how Israel treated their people who would become to be known years later as "Palestinians."

Al Watan Voice published an interview with 80-year old Mrs. Kalhout, who lived in a village called Ni'ilya which was near Gaza.

She describes how her family fled the town - and makes an interesting admission.

Residents of the village and surrounding areas tried to prepare themselves battle. Leaders gave them clubs to go out and attack the Jews. But they didn't find any, and returned to their homes.

Then, she says, after hearing about the massacre by Israel in Deir Yassin and in other Arab towns and villages up north, home towns of the northern region and carrying out massacres there, everyone fled to Gaza without seeing a single Jew enter their towns.

In fact, this happened in November 1948, many months after Deir Yassin, and the IDF fought with Egyptian forces in the area. Mrs. Kalhout says that they thought they would be able to return after a day but they couldn't.

In fact, this was the pattern for the large majority of the Arab refugees - they left their homes based on wild Arab rumors or direction from Arab leaders, promising that they would return in no time. But the vast majority of Arabs who left what became Israel were not expelled and never even saw an Israeli soldier.

I don't recall ever seeing a first-hand account of Arabs who were told to or forced leave their homes by Israeli soldiers. It definitely happened in some cases, especially where the areas were critical for Israel's defense, but that was by far the exception rather than the rule.

And that goes as well for none other than Mahmoud Abbas, who admits that his family left Safed voluntarily:

"Until the nakba" (calamity in Arabic - the loaded synonym for Israeli independence), he recounted, his family "was well-off in Safed." When Abbas was 13, "we left on foot at night to the Jordan River... Eventually we settled in Damascus... My father had money, and he spent his money methodically. After a year, when the money ran out, we began to work.

"People were motivated to run away... They feared retribution from Zionist terrorist organizations - particularly from the Safed ones. Those of us from Safed especially feared that the Jews harbored old desires to avenge what happened during the 1929 uprising.... They realized the balance of forces was shifting and therefore the whole town was abandoned on the basis of this rationale - saving our lives and our belongings."

When people say that the Nakba is the anniversary of the Arabs being expelled from Palestine, they are lying.

Turkey's foreign trade with Israel keeps growing as its trade with Arab countries shrinks

From Foreign Affairs:

Hardly a week goes by without some barb or insult traded between Turkey and Israel. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly slights Israel on an almost daily basis to drum up domestic political support, for example asserting that Israel’s treatment of Gaza surpasses the brutality of the Nazi regime. Things weren’t always this way. The 1990s and most of the 2000s saw warm diplomatic and political ties between Israel and Turkey. But these days there seems to be a diplomatic standstill.

Even so, despite harsh rhetoric and a suspension of top-level diplomatic engagement, Israeli-Turkish trade has grown by 19 percent since 2009, while Turkey’s overall foreign trade for the same period grew by 11 percent. Since few nations with strong trade ties escalate conflicts to the point of going to war with each other, Israeli-Turkish economic ties may signal the prospects of improved bilateral relations. With the economic and political outlook remaining bleak throughout the Middle East, the two nations have more reasons than ever to resolve their political differences—or to at least separate them from economic relations.

Better ties with Israel are especially appealing to Turkey now that it has burned its bridges with the Arab world. Ankara’s failed “zero problems with neighbors” policy has resulted in Turkey having no ambassadors in Cairo, Damascus, or Tripoli. It only appointed an ambassador in Baghdad after former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was replaced by Haider al-Abadi in September 2014. Syria suspended its free trade agreement with Turkey in December 2011, when Bashar al-Assad became Ankara’s main enemy. Since then, trade between Syria and Turkey has dropped to half a billion USD in 2014, from almost two billion USD in 2011.

In Egypt, Turkey’s refusal to recognize Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the President of Egypt has hurt Ankara’s economic interests as well. For instance, Turkish exports to Egypt have shrunk by 10 percent between 2012 and 2014. Furthermore, Egypt did not renew the roll-on/roll-off ferryboat agreement, a trade route that circumvents expensive passage through the Suez Canal, after it expired this April, hampering the transportation of goods between the Turkish ports and Alexandria. This move cuts off Turkish goods from arriving at lucrative markets in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. This agreement also allowed Turkish companies to circumvent Syrian territory controlled by the Islamic State (also called ISIS) while also bypassing the Suez Canal and therefore reducing transportation costs.

Turkish relations in Libya, too, are in a dire state. Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani has accused Turkey of arming the ISIS auxiliaries in Libya, driving Turkish companies and expats out of the country. On top of this, Ankara’s recognition of the Islamist-controlled National General Congress over the democratically elected al-Thani government has cast a shadow over Turkish business interests in large parts of the nation.

05/14 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism in a liberal disguise; Should American Jews Embrace the Evangelicals?

From Ian:

How Israeli ‘Human Rights’ Groups Threaten Our Very Existence

Im Tirtzu has issued a number of position papers to counter the narratives slandering Israel, including: Nakba Nonsense, which refutes the Nakba narrative; a report on Palestinian funding of organizations which produced “evidence” against the IDF and Israel during Operation Protective Edge; a report that revealed the organizations behind and the funding of the migrants’ protests; and position papers focusing on foreign governmental funding of Israeli organizations.
A comparison of the issues that are emphasized by these organizations with those they choose to ignore reveals a completely different picture from what one might expect from a human rights organization. In fact, these organizations, which speak in shrill tones in the name of equality, are actually and deliberately perpetrating ethnic discrimination as part of their political agendas.
Organizations that scream in favor of basic living conditions for every infiltrator are encouraging the distress of the residents of entire neighborhoods (and, ironically, of the infiltrators themselves). Adding in the reality of foreign funding produces a frightening picture in which European governments have deliberately sought to promote racist attacks against Jews and their rights in their national home.
The appropriate name for these organizations is actually “organizations for the exploitation of the issue of human rights as a political objective.” Not only the State of Israel, but also its supporters all over the world, must understand the threat that hangs over it from foreign funding intended to prejudice the country’s identity.
Above all, Israel must stop the destructive influence exercised by anti-human-rights “human rights” organizations.

Belgian groups condemn airing of video featuring anti-Israel guide at Auschwitz

Belgian anti-racism groups condemned a public broadcaster’s airing of a video showing a guide at Auschwitz telling visiting youths that she is pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic because of Israel.
The video was aired by the Flemish VRT network on May 8 as part of the program Terzake. It was about a trip organized by the “Trein der 1000” nongovernmental group for 1,000 teenagers from Belgium to the former Nazi death camp in Poland. The program is meant to teach adolescents about the Holocaust in order to educate them about the dangers of racism.
At the camp, the group’s Jewish guide, Lydia Chagoll, 84, is seen saying: “I am pro-Palestinian. I’m anti-Semitic.” Chagoll made the statement while talking to 18-year-old Fida’a Temraz, a Belgian high school student of Palestinian descent, and several other students. Referencing Israel, Chagoll added: “I am an anti-Semite, because I think it is a scandal that cannot be permitted. It cannot happen.”
In a statement, the Flemish Forum of Jewish Organizations wrote that Chagoll’s statement about being anti-Semitic was probably sarcastic, but that because of her actions, “an activity meant to be educational turned into a disgusting and historically incorrect statement.”

‘Rubble-washing’? Israel’s disaster outreach does little for its image

Providing emergency disaster relief has become something of an Israeli tradition. Jerusalem sends help almost wherever and whenever calamities occur: Rwanda, Haiti, Japan, the Philippines and even Turkey and Egypt (in 2004, members of the IDF’s Medical Corps and search and rescue teams rushed to Taba in the Sinai peninsula and stayed for three days after several explosions killed and injured dozens, including 13 Israelis).
Each aid delegation that rushes out brings with it accusations from critics of the Israeli government of “rubble-washing” — that Israel is providing aid in far-flung areas, at least in part, to distract from human rights violations at home.
Others argue, though, that Israel, which has mastered the art of emergency medicine, altruistically yearns to help those in need, simply because it’s the right thing to do.
A look at recent disaster relief operations shows that Israel could not have realistically expected any diplomatic dividends beyond slightly improving its image through worldwide coverage of its field hospitals. And that’s precisely how things have played out: A little bounce in Israel’s standing, but no substantive benefit; just the satisfaction of doing the right thing.

From Facebook:

I'm breaking the silence. Here is my report, continuing an important initiative under the Hashtag #האמת_שלי (Hebrew for #My_Truth).
**
Beit Hanoun, the Gaza Strip, 2006. Operation "Autumn's Clouds". We're entering a home. At the entrance, we meet a man and his wife. We take them to a side room and offer them something to drink. We ask the man if he has anything to do with Hamas. "No, of course not, we have no connection to them." Then we ask if they have any weapons in their home. "No, of course not," he replies. The team stays at the house for a few hours. Before leaving it, soldiers who stayed in one of the rooms decide to move the couch, revealing an explosive device aimed at detonating armored vehicles. The man is safe and sound.
**
Beit Hanoun, the Gaza Strip, 2006. Operation "Autumn's Clouds". We are searching for weapons in the town center (Kasbah) and are advancing from one house to the other. In one of them, a middle-aged civilian man doesn’t feel well. Our medic, Roi, diagnoses possible heart problems. We halt the weapons search and advancing to other houses so that Roi can treat him. With the assistance of the man's daughter, a fluent English speaker, we call the Red Crescent and prolong our stay in his home, thereby exposing and endangering ourselves even further.
Shortly after we hear a powerful boom and shrapnel flies all around. An IDF team from an adjacent team operating nearby who has not received word that we are still providing emergency medical treatment to the man in the previous house accidentally activates a break-in device on the door of the home just a few meters from us. It is a miracle that nobody is injured.
**
Zaytoun neighborhood, the Gaza Strip, 2009. Operation Cast Lead”. My team is ordered to take control of an apartment building home to a prominent Hamas operative was living there with his family. The IDF could have easily bombed it from the air but we endanger ourselves and search the building by foot. On the second floor, in the in the parents bedroom there is a large clothes cabinet with a big mirror over it. In a compartment in the cabinet we find grenade launchers, mortar shells, hand guns, rifles, hand grenades, army vests, two-way radios, cell-phones and thousands of bullets.
In the backyard we find two rocket launchers nestled between the olive trees, likely where the sons of the Hamas operative play. In a corner of the yard is a suspicious hut, which, upon searching it, we identify as a factory for assembling rockets. The hut is filled with rockets, explosive devices, fertilizers used for preparing explosives and Arabic manuals for assembling and launching rockets - all this in a private home in which the operative lives with his wife and children. Though the IDF had strong suspicions about what we will find in the home, all of which – and more - ultimately proves to be true, the house is not bombed from the air. IDF soldiers – myself and my team – are dispatched to search the house, thereby minimalizing damage to property and Hamas.
**
I'm writing here after sitting and reading dozens of pages of anonymous testimonies given by "Breaking the Silence" which, like many other testimonies are out of context, lack proof, do not explain the complexities of war and ignore the reality of Hamas’ cynical use of civilians. They are simply ignorance and another opportunity to bash Israeli soldiers.
**
There are stories that are a thousand times more heroic than mine. I am not looking for, nor do I need, any attention. I'm doing this because I am proud of the IDF, I have full trust in the soldiers who fought beside me, and I believe in their high standard of morality. I refuse to allow a tiny, anonymous minority, to slander the IDF. I am aware of mistakes and errors conducted by soldiers in the battlefield. These cases represent a tiny fraction of Israeli soldiers. They are an exception and do not represent IDFs soldiers and officers – including myself - in any way.
**
It is about time we Israelis scrape off our cynicism and start telling our personal stories. “Breaking the Silence” does not tell my story. I recently had the chance to share my story in the U.S. on the StandWithUs Israeli Soldiers Tour. Israeli soldiers: share your story and add the hashtag #האמת_שלי #My_Truth.
**
In the picture: Entering the home of the Hamas terrorist that was not bombed from the air, Zaytoun, Gaza.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Are Israelis paranoid? Much of the world is out to get us, and I’m not talking about the Arabs.

In his travels about Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Tuvia Tenenbom (Catch the Jew) tells of encountering massive European-funded projects, costing millions of Euros. They arrange propaganda tours (including one to Yad Vashem that is all about how Israelis are the new Nazis), pay for illegal Arab construction in Judea/Samaria, fund lawfare against the state and IDF personnel, support dozens of NGOs that work overtime generating material to demonize Israel, interfere with IDF soldiers and try to provoke violence, bring international volunteers to act as human shields in violent protests against the security fence, encourage boycotts and divestment, and — above all — support those Jewish left-wing extremists that are so important to the overall objective: to take down the Jewish state of Israel.

Ah yes, those Jewish left-wing extremists. Tenenbom interviews many of them, some well known like Gideon Levy and Arik Ascherman, and others that you never heard of, like tour guide Itamar Shapira, whose job is to take Europeans to see how Jews have ‘stolen Palestinian land’ and are the new Nazis. Tenenbom sometimes calls them ‘self-haters’ and sometimes ‘narcissists’, but I think the second description is better. These are people whose pathological obsession — there’s no better description — is to present themselves as great moral beings, saints as it were, by virtue of their unique ability to perceive the inherent evil of the Jewish state in which they live and take action against it.

Tenenbom interviews numerous Arabs, including Hanan Ashrawi, Jibril Rajoub, taxi drivers, university students and professors. All of them appear secure in their belief in the rightness of the ‘Palestinian cause’ (getting rid of the Jews) and in its ultimate success. In fact, he finds them much more appealing in their straightforwardness — for example, for the way they make up outlandish stories to support their position, and are completely unfazed when they are shown to be false — than the anti-Zionist Jews, who are self-absorbed, hypocritical, angry, bitter and consumed with hatred.

He also talks to Haredim, members of the Knesset, whores, journalists, soldiers, etc. But the one theme that recurs — in addition to how annoying the Israeli left-wing intellectuals are — is the presence of foreign money put to destructive purposes.

The line between criticism of Israel and Jew-hatred is a fine one which has long since been crossed by the anti-Israel establishment. Tenenbom’s book is anecdotal, but there is hard evidence, collected by the NGO Monitor organization, that the anti-Zionist project of the European Union, its member countries, church groups, the American New Israel Fund and other foreign sources have done much to ignite and fuel the wave of Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred that is sweeping the West today. When European football fans chant “Jews to the gas,” behavior that their governments officially deplore, they are only expressing the logical outcome of the demonization that these governments are paying for.

Recently, it was revealed that the group Breaking the Silence, which travels the world telling exaggerated, decontextualized, undocumented and plain made-up stories about IDF behavior has actually contracted to provide such ‘testimonies’ in return for payments from European government funded charities! BTS reports are used as ‘evidence’ for UN condemnations of Israel, to demonize her and to provide justifications for actions to limit her ability to defend herself.

The degree of irresponsibility shown by the governments — or maybe the out-and-out evil motive behind their project — is shocking. While the EU ambassador to Israel tells Tenenbom about solving conflicts and improving the lives of all the residents of the Middle East, Jews and Muslims alike, the concrete actions that Europeans and Americans are buying with their taxes and donations, if successful, will be the violent destruction of Israel and its replacement by an Arab Muslim entity.

Although we can do little to prevent the dissemination of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda in the West, in Israel we still have the ability to rein in the pervasive anti-state groups operating here.

Naturally, the Left in Israel, many of whom depend on foreign money for their livelihoods, oppose any such action as “anti-democratic” and claim that it restricts free speech. But I fail to see how ‘democracy’ extends to inviting hostile foreign elements to operate in our country and paying home-grown traitors to subvert it.

Israel’s new Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, has made the control of foreign money one of her highest priorities. This is probably one of the reasons that she has been viciously attacked with fabricated accusations of racism and support for genocide (as well as crude sexist insults). As a result of death threats, it has been necessary to provide her with bodyguards. Even her sworn political enemy, Zahava Galon of the left-wing Meretz party, found it appropriate to defend Shaked from the slime being thrown at her.

There have been attempts to put limits on foreign-financing for left-wing NGOs before, which have been bitterly opposed (and derailed) by the Left. In 2011, a bill was passed that required NGOs in Israel to report foreign donations, but enforcement has been spotty.

I’m hopeful that the new government will strongly support a law to control this practice, and to limit access of foreign activists to the country. What other country in the world would permit this?

We don’t have to. Let’s stop the flow of money and kick out foreign saboteurs.

05/14 Links Pt1: BTS Report Isn't Journalism It's Propaganda; Palestinians' Anti-Peace Campaign

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians' Anti-Peace Campaign

Palestinian activists on May 11 broke up a conference in east Jerusalem where Israelis and Palestinians met to discuss the two-state solution. The activists belong to the "anti-normalization" campaign, which aims to thwart meetings between Israelis and Palestinians.
The conference at the Ambassador Hotel was organized by the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), a non-governmental organization (NGO) think tank based in Jerusalem. It has been working towards a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Entitled, "Is The Two-State Solution Still Relevant?," the conference was supposed to include a discussion on the issue from the perspectives of the Palestinian side and the Israeli Left.
Organizers said the event was made possible by the support of the Government of the Netherlands.
The Israeli side was represented by Dr. Alon Liel, former Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ambassador to South Africa. The identity of the Palestinian representative was not announced before the discussion, apparently to avoid pressure from the "anti-normalization" activists.
Liel is an outspoken critic of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. Two years ago, he told The Times of Israel that he supports cultural boycotts of Israel, and that he himself started boycotting goods produced in the settlements to protest the lack of progress in the peace negotiations.
But all this did not stop the "anti-normalization" activists from disrupting his speech and forcing him to abandon the podium at the Ambassador Hotel.

Matti Friedman: The Latest "Breaking the Silence" Report Isn't Journalism. It's Propaganda.

In analyzing trends in the press I have found it most helpful to keep an eye on the mainstream and avoid extreme cases. So let’s look again at the Washington Post, a good U.S. paper, to see how a report of this kind becomes major international news.
The Post receives a document about Israel’s conduct in the 2014 Gaza war that has been produced in English by a group of Israelis funded by European organizations and governments. The paper’s correspondent, recently arrived in Jerusalem from a posting in Mexico, takes at face value that this is an “Israeli” organization and also an organization of “veterans,” perhaps not grasping that, because Israel has a mandatory draft, the term is quite meaningless; most people can plausibly claim to be “veterans.”
The correspondent then selects some of the most egregious examples in the report, summarizes them, and presents them as representative not only of the report but of the entire Gaza operation. He takes the words of people whose identity is not known to him, who have been interviewed by people whose identity is similarly not known to him, the interviews edited and redacted in a process not known to him, and pastes them into his article. As a reporter, you wouldn’t be able to get away with publishing purely anonymous testimony that you have collected, but it is one of the peculiarities of Israel-related journalism that you are allowed to use anonymous material if it has been pre-packaged for you by a political NGO.

Michael Lumish: Pope Francis Recognizes anti-Semitic Genocidal Organizations

To European Jews: If you can go, you should go. Europe is hostile territory and things seem to be getting worse. There are only a few places on this planet where Jews, as a people, can live without significant hostility. These places, for the moment, include North America and Australia. They do not include Great Britain.
In the Middle East, of course, Obama and the West has given the signal to Arabs that it's Jew Killing Season.
They honestly think that 300 to 400 million Arabs have every right to go after 6 million Jews because they tell themselves that those Jews were mean to the "Palestinians."
To American Jews: Your faith in Barack Obama was misguided from the start, as was mine. One thing that differentiates you from your more thoughtful co-religionists is that some of us were not so ideologically blinkered as to fail to acknowledge that which is before our nose. Now that the Pope has turned on Israel we can expect American Catholic support for the Jewish people to erode, with the full passive-aggressive support of the American President until, hopefully, the next election.
To Israeli Jews: Declare the final borders of the State of Israel and defend yourself without apology.
Eliminate Hamas and point to their charter, which calls specifically for the genocide of the Jewish people on religious grounds.

Palestine Today, an Islamic Jihad media outlet, reports that the families of dozens of "martyrs" tried to break into branches of the Bank of Palestine in Gaza today, saying that their payments from charities abroad have been stopped for several months.

Bank employees and police tried to calm them down.

Bank staff said that the bank has nothing to do with the issue, saying that the issue comes from the countries of origin of the payments, not the bank.

Some of the families who are complaining about not receiving funds to rebuild houses from Gaza, even though well over 80,000 homeowners have received cash and/or construction materials.

At the very end, the article mentions that some charities have resorted to opening up accounts directly at the Gaza banks rather than transferring the funds from foreign banks, because many of their accounts were shut down.

This indicates that these aren't real charities. The organizations paying these funds are specifically paying a twisted form of life insurance for the families of terrorists.

The article implies that there has been some effort to close down "charities" in the EU, USA and perhaps even Arab countries that pay the families of terrorists as well as more direct funding of terror groups, and that these efforts have been having an effect.

While Arab countries have been slow to pay their pledges for rebuilding Gaza - the only bottleneck in its reconstruction, not Israeli restrictions - it seems that they or other countries have also been making a serious dent in funding from pro-terror "charities."

Usually a story featuring wailing women is not cause for celebration, but reading between the lines of this story make it look like there is some actual good news behind their cries.

However, the PA still pays the families of their terrorists 100% of their stipends, even when they had been paying only 60% to their actual workers.

Iran cheated under the interim agreement, and multilateral "snapback" is dead

Going back again to Joe Biden's speech at the Washington Institute, where he defended the Obama administration's negotiations, he stated:

The second argument I hear is that no deal is worth the paper it’s written on, because Iran will simply cheat. And it’s true that Iran could try to cheat, whether there’s a deal or not. Now they didn’t cheat under the interim deal -— the Joint Plan of Action -— as many were certain they would. But they certainly have in the past and it would not surprise anyone if they tried again.

Sorry, Joe:

The Czech Republic blocked an attempted purchase by Iran this year of a large shipment of sensitive technology useable for nuclear enrichment after false documentation raised suspicions, U.N. experts and Western sources said.

Some details of the attempted purchase were described in the latest annual report of an expert panel for the United Nations Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, which has been seen by Reuters.

The panel said that in January Iran attempted to buy compressors - which have nuclear and non-nuclear applications - made by the U.S.-owned company Howden CKD Compressors.

A Czech state official and a Western diplomat familiar with the case confirmed to Reuters that Iran had attempted to buy the shipment from Howden CKD in the Czech Republic, and that Czech authorities had acted to block the deal.

The U.N. panel, which monitors compliance with the U.N. sanctions regime, said there had been a "false end user" stated for the order.

"The procurer and transport company involved in the deal had provided false documentation in order to hide the origins, movement and destination of the consignment with the intention of bypassing export controls and sanctions," it added.

The report offered no further details about the attempted transaction. Iran's U.N. mission did not respond to a query about the report.

How many cheats weren't noticed?

And how come the UN itself - the specific committee that is charged with enforcing the sanctions - didn't publicize this report, and it had to be leaked to the media?

That is in many ways more troubling than the cheating attempt itself.

Also, the "snapback sanctions" idea is pretty much dead.

Biden said:

And there will be a clear procedure in the final deal that allows both the U.N. and unilateral sanctions to snap back without needing to cajole lots of other countries -– including Russia or China –- to support it. That will be written in the final deal.

Uh, not really:

The Obama administration is trying to sell a nuclear deal with Iran to skeptical Arabs, Israelis and U.S. lawmakers by saying that United Nations sanctions will be restored automatically if the Iranians are caught cheating.

Not so, say the Russians, who have one of five vetoes in the 15-member UN Security Council.

“There can be no automaticity, none whatsoever” in reimposing UN sanctions if Iran violates the terms of an agreement to curb its nuclear program, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told Bloomberg News on Wednesday. He didn’t elaborate.

While the Obama administration maintains that Russia agreed “in principle” to the need for a sanctions “snapback” mechanism if Iran fails to comply with the agreement now being negotiated in final form, the Russian government has offered no corroboration.

Instead, President Vladimir Putin on April 13 lifted a ban on exporting missile defense systems to Tehran, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said lifting all the sanctions against Iran is good business for Russia.

Now there is very little incentive to stop Iran from cheating, which is the entire point of the nuclear agreement.

And don't assume even American sanctions would "snap back" immediately upon evidence of Iranian cheating. For example, the Czech discovery of the illicit compressor deal isn't 100% clear-cut for those who prefer blindness. The compressors have non-military use, after all. Just because they were imported using dummy companies and false paperwork isn't proof that they were meant for nuclear purposes, it is just a string indicator of cheating. How would the Obama administration react to cheating like that which can be rationalized away?

Iran knows the answer, and deep down, so does everyone else.

(h/t Yenta, Omri)

The great sell-out (poster)

This quote, which I mentioned tangentially a couple of days ago, deserves a lot more prominence:

Or, in the words of a Yiddish proverb I heard in relation to this issue yesterday, if one person says you are drunk, you can ignore him. If two people say you are drunk, you should go to sleep.

When the Arabs and Israelis agree on something, the world should listen.

Talking to senators and aides about Iran

On my trip to Washington on Wednesday for the NORPAC Mission I ended up going to two senators' offices.

We had a handout for all the members of Congress we met - which was probably about 90% of them in total. It was a scorecard that went through a number of issues about the Iranian nuclear agreement, saying that unless every single question is answered adequately, they should vote against it.

The questions (along with lots of supporting documentation for each one) were:

a. ‘ANYTIME, ANYWHERE’ inspections regime: The final agreement calls for inspectors to determine whether Iran is complying with the agreement. Will those inspectors have the right, with minimal/no notice and no veto right to visit any site they suspect may be involved in any aspect of nuclear weapons research or production?

b. Phased lifting of sanctions: Will economic sanctions previously imposed on Iran be lifted upon signing of a final agreement or, instead, only over a period of months and years, conditioned on Iran’s compliance with the agreement, and in a way that gives Iran a continued and strong economic incentive to comply?

c. Lifting of sanctions conditioned on fully disclosing PMD (possible military dimensions of past nuclear related work) Will Iran be required to disclose all research and substantive work that it has previously done on nuclear weapons before sanctions relief?

d. Severe limits on nuclear related research & development and on use of advanced centrifuges - Will the final agreement strictly limit Iran’s ability to research, develop and acquire (a) faster and more efficient centrifuges (the machines needed to enrich uranium, the key ingredient of a nuclear weapon) and (b) any other components of a nuclear weapon?

e. Shipping of enriched uranium out of Iran - Will the final agreement definitively cut off Iran’s ability to access its stock of enriched uranium, the key ingredient of a nuclear weapon, by requiring Iran to ship that uranium out of the country?

f. Effective ‘snapback’ mechanisms - Will the final agreement ensure that any Iranian violation will be (a) swiftly identified and (b) met with rapid reimposition of sanctions so that (c) Iran is deterred from violating the agreement in the first place?

g. Sunset provisions tied to changes in Iranian behavior - The final agreement will likely provide that many of the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will lapse after 10 years, while others will lapse after 15. Will that lapse be automatic or will it be conditioned on Iran’s behavior – such as its support for terrorists and murderous regimes – having changed by the end of the given period?

h. Disposal of “extra” centrifuges - The April 2 framework agreement says that Iran will reduce its installed centrifuges from 19,000 to 6,104, with 5,060 enriching uranium for the first ten years. Will the 12,000+ centrifuges that will not be needed during the first ten years be dismantled (and, ideally, shipped out the country) or, alternatively, disabled in some other way?

i. Trade-off of permanent sanctions relief for temporary restraints - The fundamental premise of the April 2 framework, and almost certainly of any final agreement, is that Iran will get (what is very likely to be) permanent relief from the most crippling sanctions in exchange for temporary restraints in its nuclear behavior, while leaving all major elements of its nuclear infrastructure intact. Is that a sound trade-off?

My group's first meeting was with a Democrat who was very pro-Israel but also very pro-Obama. He had strongly supported Pillar of Defense, for example.

We spoke mostly to his aide (which is normally how these things go; actually speaking to the politicians does not happen as often) but he did come in and gave a monologue. He said that as long as the Iran deal will push off their nuclear weapons capability for ten years, he would sign on. He also said that he met with Bibi in 2012 and told him that he felt that he was injecting partisan politics in the US-Israel relationship; saying that he felt that Netanyahu was campaigning for Romney.

Whether it is true or not, the fact that this was his perception is something that the Israeli leadership must pay attention to.

It is easy to get people like this to support Iron Dome, for example. But to get them ti understand the problem with Iran is much harder.

The other meeting I had (our bus came late so there was only time for two meetings) was with another Southern senator's office, but he was a Republican freshman senator. The Iran issues were preaching to the choir.

In that meeting I spoke to points G, H and I to the aide, making particular note that there was only a 12 year window between President Clinton's announcement of a "good" deal with North Korea and their first atom bomb test. I said that if Iran doesn't change its behavior of supporting terror, increasing its ICBM capability and generally taking over the region, there should be no way that things should be considered perfectly OK after ten years.

I don't know how much of a difference this mission made for the Iran agreement, but it certainly didn't hurt. And when members of Congress see so many Jews coming to visit them they know that this is an issue that many people care passionately about - enough to take a day off of work to help advocate for what we feel is so important not only for Israel but for the US and the world as well.

05/13 Links Pt2: NGOs and the return of antisemitism; The Hijacking of the ICC

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: NGOs and the return of antisemitism

This week in Jerusalem, politicians, journalists, diplomats, educators, and civil society will gather at the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism (GFCA), a biannual meeting to assess the state of antisemitism globally. For the hundreds of participants, including many non-Jews, it is essential to expose those responsible for fueling antisemitism and those that enable it in order to formulate effective responses.
In this form of racism, powerful non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that claim to promote human rights and humanitarian agendas, as well as the European governments that fund them, play a central role. The NGOs lead the demonization campaigns that target Israel, and despite the extensive evidence of the moral damage caused by these NGOs, European governments irresponsibly continue to fund them with hundreds of millions of pounds, euros, and kroner.
In advance of the Global Forum, NGO Monitor published a detailed report addressing these issues. The report addresses different types of antisemitism that are manifest in some medical aid organizations, church groups, and major human rights organizations.

Father Gabriel Naddaf: Supporting Middle Eastern Christians is Zionism

This clearly Zionist value is expressed today in Nepal, but not only there. For example, the non-governmental organization Rescuers without Borders, headed by Rabbi Aryeh Levi from Beitar Illit (a hareid rabbi living in a settlement), is operating in Kathmandu right now. At the same time, he is working with me (an Aramaic Greek-Orthodox priest and the head of the Christian Empowerment Council) to collect basic supplies for Christian refugees who escaped the clutches of the murderous terrorist organization ISIL, eventually escaping to refugee camps in Jordan and northern Iraq. Surprisingly (or not), the main source of our manpower for this blessed activity is volunteers from the Zionist non-governmental organization Im Tirtzu,
The combination of a hareidi rabbi, a priest who encourages Christian Israelis to enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces, and a secular pro-Israeli organization all working together is the aim of the Zionist story. Members of all ethnicities and sectors joining together to help those being unjustly persecuted.
This is true, honest, and real mutual responsibility. Israeli mutual responsibility, capable of bringing light even to those populations who are not Israel’s first priority every day.
It upsets me that even on these topics the vast majority of organizations who claim the title of “human rights” organizations, who in reality focus only on the vilification of the State of Israel and Israeli soldiers, are not heard.
Not Adalah, not Physicians for Human Rights, not Rabbis for Human Rights, not B’Tselem, not Breaking the Silence nor any of the other organizations supported by the New Israel Fund (NIF) have found in themselves at least the honesty to praise the amazing and inspiring Zionist activity being done here. Because why should they praise Israel or its Zionist organizations working for Nepalese refugees or downtrodden Christian refugees living in Jordan and in Syria?
After all, this doesn’t serve the international propaganda against Israel that they are primarily and completely committed to.

The Hijacking of the International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court’s acceptance of Palestine as a state party is the latest example of a noble institution hijacked into serving political ends.
Headlines published on April Fools’ Day are often reserved for pranks, hoaxes, and fake news stories. Yet the many headlines that stated something like, “The State of Palestine formally joins the International Criminal Court, launching investigations into Israel’s War Crimes,” were no laughing matter. The State of Palestine is now officially listed as a state party to the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court. So hold the laughter, this is no joke.
Beyond being an accomplished reality, Palestine’s accession to the ICC is being hailed by some as a triumphal step on the path to the universalization of human rights norms and the Rome Statute, which established the court itself. Yet this latest bid by the Palestinian Authority to circumvent negotiations with Israel should give champions of human rights no cause for celebration, for it places more than the Jewish state’s international standing in jeopardy. As all of the Palestinians’ political bids have done in the past, this move only serves to weaken the legitimacy of the ICC and the international legal system.

From Avihai Shorshan, translated on Facebook by Tomer Elias:

I'm also breaking the silence.

Here is my report, nothing special, just the tip of the iceberg.

During our operation in the Kasbah of Schem, while we were stationed inside a house for an ambush, an old man, one of the residents of the home started feeling pains in his chest. Because the Red Sahar are a group of useless golems, against orders we evacuated the old man in the middle of the night on a stretcher while seriously risking the troops in the area, and risking exposing the our ambush location.
**
During our duty in Gaza, the battalion commander decided that all the food supply crates that were sent to the unit for lone soldiers would be distributed to the Palestinian families during our next operation. (We received many more food crates as compared to the amount of lone soldiers in the unit). During one of our operations before Rosh Ha'ashana, we entered the Jabalia area by foot, and the armored vehicle that came in after us brought the crates with all the food supplies. Every home we entered during the operation received a gift for the holiday.
**
During one of our operations in the outskirts of Sajaia (city in Gaza), our location was discovered. Hamas didn't wait long and sent towards us a 10 year old boy with an explosive belt on him.

Against protocol and orders to kill the terrorist, a friend from the crew that was guarding the door at the time, decided not to open fire. He took cover and ordered the boy to strip and take off the explosive belt. We arrested the boy and after an interrogation in Israel he was released safe and sound. (By the way, during the interrogation it turned out that his brother, a senior Hamas member, paid him 10 shekels to go and blow up on us).
**
After preparing for two weeks for an operation that was a little crazy, we left to arrest the Hamas leadership in Janin. We had intelligence that they were all going to meet in the same coffee shop.

After a long walk, and two weeks of combat readiness, the force reached its destination and we were all locked on the target location. But only then the intelligence realized that the coffee shop and the surrounding area were packed with uninvolved people, and the order was given to cancel the operation, and return empty handed in order to avoid harming innocent people.
**
What I wrote here is not rare, and not an outlier, I can write an entire book just from the cases that we personally experienced in our crew.

Every soldier that served in these areas can share many more similar experiences.

I'm not closing my eyes, during combat, especially in an urban environment, innocent Palestinians are hurt. However, I know, with a full heart, that the commanders on the ground, and the higher ups, will go beyond what is necessary in order to minimize the number of casualties. Even when it does happen, it is a mistake and an error, things that unfortunately happen in every way, all around the world.

"Breaking the Silence" is trying to defame and make a controversy, and nothing else. The organization is not willing to work together with the IDF or to share its investigation material, despite the IDF constant pleas that they share the information. Besides all the testimonies are anonymous...

Every person with a head on their shoulders will come to their own conclusion...

Everyone that fought in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), and Gaza knows what really happens on the ground, and what the orders are.