Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, August 08, 2015

08/08 Links: Crossing a Line to Sell a Deal; I am a Zionist because I am an Arab

From Ian:

As heated as the arguments between us can get, we can all agree that all of these positions, and their many variants, are entirely within the bounds of legitimate political debate—and that none of them are evidence of anyone’s intent either to rush America to war or to obliterate the State of Israel.
What we increasingly can’t stomach—and feel obliged to speak out about right now—is the use of Jew-baiting and other blatant and retrograde forms of racial and ethnic prejudice as tools to sell a political deal, or to smear those who oppose it. Accusing Senator Schumer of loyalty to a foreign government is bigotry, pure and simple. Accusing Senators and Congressmen whose misgivings about the Iran deal are shared by a majority of the U.S. electorate of being agents of a foreign power, or of selling their votes to shadowy lobbyists, or of acting contrary to the best interests of the United States, is the kind of naked appeal to bigotry and prejudice that would be familiar in the politics of the pre-Civil Rights Era South.
This use of anti-Jewish incitement as a political tool is a sickening new development in American political discourse, and we have heard too much of it lately—some coming, ominously, from our own White House and its representatives. Let’s not mince words: Murmuring about “money” and “lobbying” and “foreign interests” who seek to drag America into war is a direct attempt to play the dual-loyalty card. It’s the kind of dark, nasty stuff we might expect to hear at a white power rally, not from the President of the United States—and it’s gotten so blatant that even many of us who are generally sympathetic to the administration, and even this deal, have been shaken by it.
We do not accept the idea that Senator Schumer or anyone else is a fair target for racist incitement, anymore than we accept the idea that the basic norms of political discourse in this country do not apply to Jews. Whatever one feels about the merits of the Iran deal, sales techniques that call into question the patriotism of American Jews are examples of bigotry—no matter who does it. On this question, we should all stand in defense of Senator Schumer.

Amnesty UK’s Campaigns Chief In Hot Water Yet Again Over Anti-Israel Tweets

The Israeli Embassy has lodged a complaint with Amnesty UK after one of its senior directors launched into an anti-Israel tirade on Twitter. This is not the first time that the staff member, Kristyan Benedict, has been criticised for his views, which in the past have been investigated for anti-Semitism.
Eitan Na’eh, charge d’affaires at the embassy sent a letter to Amnesty UK director Kate Allen after Benedict, who works as campaigns manager for Amnesty UK, tweeted repeatedly about the arson attack on a Palestinian home in the village of Douma last week which resulted in the death of 18-month-old Ali Dawabshe, the Jewish Chronicle has reported.
One of the tweets accused the Israeli government of “getting away with murder”.
Mr Benedict has form on this matter. Last year he used the hashtag #JSIL, sometimes used by extreme anti-Israeli groups to draw parallels between Israel and ISIS.
In 2012, Amnesty International’s disciplinary panel cleared Mr Benedict of anti-Semitism after he tweeted: “Louise Ellman, Robert Halfon and Luciana Berger walk into a bar…each orders a round of B52s … #Gaza” When fellow twitter users pointed out that he had named only Jewish Members of Parliament, he responded that it the tweet was “a giggle” and “light-hearted,” adding: “apols to those who booed.”
Amnesty ruled that “the tweet in question was ill-advised and had the potential to be offensive and inflammatory but was not racist or anti-Semitic.” The incident came a year after Mr Benedict was forced to apologise by Amnesty’s disciplinary council after he threatened to “smack” a pro-Israel activist.

I am a Zionist because I am an Arab

I am sometimes asked how despite being an Arab, I support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. My answer is that I support Israel because I am an Arab.
Israeli Arab and Muslim Sarah Zoabi said, “I want to say to all the Arabs of Israel to wake up. We live in paradise. Comparing us to other countries, to Arab countries – we live in paradise.” Sadly, we cannot all live in Israel, and even if we could, unless we change ourselves first, Israel would become one more failed Arab state.
Palestinian-Jordanian Mudar Zahran argues that we need Israel for strategic reasons, concluding that “if the day were to come when Israel falls, Jordan, Egypt and many others would fall, too, and ‎Westerners would be begging Iran for oil.‎ We can hate Israel as much as we like, but we must realize that without it, we too would be ‎gone.‎” While I agree with Zahran, Israel has no obligation to defend the whole Arab world while we Arabs keep demonizing her.
The reason I support Israel is because I want good things to happen not only in Israel but in the whole Middle East. Israel is a role model that we can emulate. Unlike fake “pro-Palestinian” activists, I want an end to hate, violence, oppression, destruction, and deaths.

08/07 Links Pt2: To Hamas, destroying Israel justifies sacrificing their people

From Ian:

'To Hamas, destroying Israel justifies sacrificing their people'

It is not the first time that Edelstein, now the commander of the main training base in Zeelim and possibly soon be promoted to the general staff, has given an interview to Israel Hayom. Last time was during the lull between 2012's Operation Pillar of Defense and 2014's Gaza operation. This week he wanted to revisit that conversation.
At that time, there were attacks on Israel from Gaza almost every day. Between the two operations, there were nearly 300 attacks, dozens them in the first year. In the year after Protective Edge, he says, there have only been eight attacks. Last time it wasn't clear whether Hamas was instigating the attacks or only turning a blind eye while other groups did. This time it is very clear: Hamas is not interested in any terrorism coming out of Gaza.
But the picture is more complicated than that. Edelstein describes it as a "battle over narratives."
"Beyond the fact that we have to combat terrorism -- literally prevent terrorist attacks -- there is a war underway, and it is over legitimacy," he says. "At the highest level, the war is over their desire to destroy the State of Israel. To them, this objective justifies everything, mainly sacrificing their own population."

MEMRI: Israeli Druze Intellectual: The Israel That The Arabs Call 'A False Entity' Is The Region's Most Stable, Advanced Country

"Uttering the name 'Israel' has not been easy for Arabs, from their leaders to their mouthpieces to their intellectuals. Israel's name is sometimes written in scare quotes, as part of the attempt to ignore the reality that writers see on the ground. Dealing with this reality has become a kind of rhetorical contest in Arab discourse; some have not settled for using scare quotes but have gone so far as to ban mention of that name in Arab writing, replacing it with the term 'the state of gangs.' Later, the Arab rhetoric became even more impassioned, and to this series [of epithets] was added a new term – 'the false entity.' All this arrogant stubbornness in Arab discourse is not ended, and continues to this day, with the addition of such epithets as 'the deviant state' or 'the artificial state.'
"In this context, it should be mentioned that when the state of Israel was established, the number of Arab states could be counted on the fingers of two hands, but that now the region has hatched a substantial number of fledgling Arab countries that are also artificial, and counting them requires the digits of both hands and feet, perhaps even more. Does it not stand to reason that all the countries of this region, and, in fact, all countries of the modern world, are artificial?
"Thus, while the propagators of this Arab discourse kept their heads buried in the sand, Israel continued to deepen its roots in the region – while on the other side, the [Arab] discourse aimed at arousing emotions and at mobilizing [these emotions] to serve those who silence common sense in the minds of people continued. In fact, the discourse on Palestine... was obviously no more than a tool used by the Arab leaders to avoid [admitting] that these Arab entities are just as false... And so the years passed, and here we are some seven decades later, during which we were born, grew up, and got old on this plot of land, and what do we see around us? Undoubtedly, any Arab with a smidgen of understanding finds himself facing the same questions: 'Where are the states of the gangs – and where are the false entities?'

Douglas Murray: Here’s more evidence that the left might be screwed

Friends of mine who still call themselves ‘liberals’ or ‘leftists’ occasionally confide in me that they think the left might be screwed. Depending on how I feel on that particular day I tend to reply either that (a) they must stay and fight their political corner and make the left decent again or (b) one day they will realise that this is because the left is wrong.
Anyhow – evidence for the (b) answer seems to grow by the day. The Labour leadership race aside, consider the Guardian newspaper, which is a pretty good weathervane for what has gone wrong with the left. In the last fortnight the paper has interviewed two prominent British Muslims. One is the UK head of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamist organisation which is banned in many countries. The other interview is with someone who used to be in Hizb ut-Tahrir but who now opposes the Islamist mindset and has spent recent years arguing against the extremists and for moderation and tolerance within the Islamic faith.
Now here is a test. Which of the two do you think got a fawning interview, relaying his thoughts with barely a whisper of dissent? And which do you think got the full-on Guardian hatchet-job treatment with endless ‘anonymous sources’ smearing the subject of the interview? If you have taken the most pessimistic route to the answer then you will have got it right. The head of the extremist group got the full open arms and legs treatment, while the reformer got the hatchet job.
Perhaps the left really is just screwed.

In new project, pro-Israel voices opt for satire over polemic

Presenting Israel’s case to the world is a difficult endeavor, especially now when the country finds itself increasingly isolated diplomatically and culturally.
A new online initiative takes a different approach to Israel advocacy, however, striving to explain Israel’s case through satirical caricatures rather than emphatic argumentation.
Using Israeli cartoonists who volunteered their creative talents to the cause, The Israeli Cartoon Project has already garnered over 7,000 fans since its Facebook launch in June.
Asaf Finkelstein, 38, said the initiative was born out of a deep sense of frustration over the British Student Union’s vote to boycott Israel, and a statement by the CEO of mobile giant Orange, Stephane Richard, that he would pull his company out of Israel “tomorrow” were he not bound by contracts.

The one truly moderate Palestinian Arab politician (video)

We've previously discussed Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, the Arab professor who is seemingly the only public official under PA rule who is willing to truly accept Jews as having equal rights to living in the land as Arabs do.

He heads the tiny Wasatia party.

He took students to Auschwitz under withering criticism. He got expelled from his union He was forced to resign. His car was set on fire earlier this year.

Here he discusses his journey and his trip to Auschwitz.

From Hurriyet Daily News:

Locals in the central Turkish province of Malatya have been relieved to learn a UFO they spotted in the skies was not actually transporting evil Martians, but however voiced concern over possible espionage as it carried an Israeli flag.

The balloon, which fell into a house’s garden in Malatya’s Hekimhan district, read the touristic-sounding remark “Welcome to Israel,” Cihan News Agency reported on Aug. 6.

According to the report gendarmerie forces seized the balloon, as some locals complained Israel might have been using it to spy on them.

Moments before the balloon landed, it had triggered a brief round of UFO excitement. A local named Ersin Evren even filmed the balloon’s slow descent.

It is time for some enterprising Israeli to make hundreds of custom mylar balloons saying "Israel Spy Balloon" in English, Arabic, Turkish and Farsi, release them and see what happens.

UPDATE: Video! (h/t Bob K)

08/07 Links Pt1: Chuck Schumer: Why I will vote against Iran deal; Glick: Obama’s enemies list

From Ian:

Sen Chuck Schumer: Why I will vote against Iran deal

Admittedly, no one can tell with certainty which way Iran will go. It is true that Iran has a large number of people who want their government to decrease its isolation from the world and focus on economic advancement at home. But it is also true that this desire has been evident in Iran for thirty-five years, yet the Iranian leaders have held a tight and undiminished grip on Iran, successfully maintaining their brutal, theocratic dictatorship with little threat. Who’s to say this dictatorship will not prevail for another ten, twenty, or thirty years?
To me, the very real risk that Iran will not moderate and will, instead, use the agreement to pursue its nefarious goals is too great.
Therefore, I will vote to disapprove the agreement, not because I believe war is a viable or desirable option, nor to challenge the path of diplomacy. It is because I believe Iran will not change, and under this agreement it will be able to achieve its dual goals of eliminating sanctions while ultimately retaining its nuclear and non-nuclear power. Better to keep U.S. sanctions in place, strengthen them, enforce secondary sanctions on other nations, and pursue the hard-trodden path of diplomacy once more, difficult as it may be.
For all of these reasons, I believe the vote to disapprove is the right one.

Caroline Glick: Obama’s enemies list

In President Barack Obama’s defense of his nuclear deal with Iran Wednesday, he said there are only two types of people who will oppose his deal – Republican partisans and Israel- firsters – that is, traitors.
At American University, Obama castigated Republican lawmakers as the moral equivalent of Iranian jihadists saying, “Those [Iranian] hard-liners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal... are making common cause with the Republican Caucus.”
He then turned his attention to Israel.
Obama explained that whether or not you believe the deal endangers Israel boils down to whom you trust more – him or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And, he explained, he can be trusted to protect Israel better than Netanyahu can because “[I] have been a stalwart friend of Israel throughout my career.”
The truth is that it shouldn’t much matter to US lawmakers whether Obama or Netanyahu has it right about Israel. Israel isn’t a party to the deal and isn’t bound by it. If Israel decides it needs to act on its own, it will.
The US, on the other side, will be bound by the deal if Congress fails to kill it next month.

Melanie Phillips: The West’s deadly culture of unreason

The most frightening aspect of this anti-Israel ideology is the way it takes over the mind so that those in its grip are intrinsically unable to recognize their own irrationality.
Accordingly, the BBC really does think that its anti-Israel position and wider knee-jerk leftism represent the political center-ground. So those who actually occupy the center-ground and who uphold truth against lies are dismissed as extreme or “rightwing” – and so cannot ever have truth on their side.
Since this mind-bending left-wing prism is the default position amongst the intelligentsia in Britain and the Democratic Party in the US, Israel and its supporters are in the nightmarish situation of being the only people telling the truth about what is happening – and yet being disbelieved or smeared simply because it is they who are saying it.
In the US, Israel is engaged in a desperate struggle to alert American legislators to the awful truth that their president has empowered the world’s principal terror regime and is making a nuclear war much more likely.
In Britain, it finds itself up against a general culture of unreason. Much nevertheless can still be done if Israel develops a coherent strategy to combat this culture. But to do that, it has to be prepared to delegitimize the delegitimizers and hold their feet publicly to the fire – even when they are ostensible allies.
And that will take a shift of perception that Israel has not yet quite made.

Rocket fired at Israel lands in south; no injuries reported

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel Friday afternoon landed in open territory north of the Kissufim crossing with the Palestinian enclave in southern Israel.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. IDF forces were scanning the area to locate the precise impact site.
Two more rockets were also launched in the volley, landing on the Gazan side, according to Hebrew media reports.
“A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit southern Israel,” a statement from the Israeli army said. “No injuries reported.”
On Thursday night, two rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip falling short of the border and landing in the Palestinian enclave.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility from Gaza for either of the volleys.

Ma'an reported earlier today:

Israeli authorities on Friday prevented Gaza's Ittihad al-Shujaiyeh football team from leaving the besieged enclave to face West Bank rivals Ahli al-Khalil in the second leg of a cup game, a spokesperson for the club said.

The Gaza-based team was scheduled to leave the coastal territory together with Hebron's Ahli al-Khalil after having played an historic game a day earlier at the Yarmouk stadium.

But four of the players and three of the team's staff were refused travel permits, spokesperson Alaa Shamali said.

For once, it actually updated the story with part of the truth:

But the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories Unit (COGAT) said in a statement that it had coordinated travel permission for 37 players from Ittihad al-Shujaiyeh and had required four players to attend a preliminary inquiry and so arranged their crossing a day earlier.

Palestinian Football Association President Jibril Rajoub canceled their permission to cross, COGAT's statement added, saying that coordination was once again arranged for Friday but canceled by the Palestinian official.

"Palestinians are giving a cynical use to sports, damaging only the Palestinian public," the Israeli statement said.

Reuters adds:

Israeli authorities said they had allowed 33 of 37 players to cross but wanted to ask further questions of the remaining four. They were invited for screening on both Thursday and Friday but refused, an Israeli border affairs spokeswoman said.

“They will be allowed to cross on Sunday after questions,” spokeswoman Hadar Horen said. The border is closed on Saturdays.

Jibril Rajoub, whose only interest in sports is to use it to demonize Israel, canceled the trip - and postponed the match - in order to get news headlines saying that Israel blocked them from leaving!

5000 killed in Syria every month

From AFP:

More than 240,000 people, including 12,000 children, have been killed in Syria's conflict which broke out in March 2011, a monitoring group said Thursday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it has documented the deaths of 240,381 people, up from its tally of 230,618 announced on June 9.

The fate of 30,000 people who have gone missing in Syria, including 20,000 said to be held in Syrian jails, was not documented in the toll.

That means that every month some 5000 Syrians are killed. You must have missed the headlines.

Time for NGOs to spring into action and write more reports condemning Israel, where Jews living in their historic homeland is the source for all problems worldwide.

Amnesty's Twitter obsession with Israel by the numbers, part 2

Yesterday I noted that 46 out of 100 Amnesty International's previous tweets as of Wednesday were about Israel.

Interestingly, since I mentioned that, there have been more tweets than usual, none about Israel or Gaza. Apparently Amnesty is starting to realize that their obsession with Israeli actions from a year ago using false data looks bad.

Well, it looks really bad when you see it graphically.

Here is the past month of tweets from @AmnestyOnline, the official Amnesty International Twitter account, and how many times various words/topics occurred:

About 10,000 Syrians were killed in the past two months- but Syria was only mentioned four times.

Saudi Arabia continues to bomb Yemen, killing civilians. Barely a blip.

If I would include only tweets from Amnesty itself, and not retweets from others, the numbers would be even more lopsided.

The only other one-year anniversary I saw them tweet was a retweet about the abduction of the Yazidi girls that caused a stir a year ago. But Amnesty's website didn't mark the anniversary. Instead, it launched two separate major anti-Israel projects - Gaza Platform and "Black Friday" accompanied with press events.

Remember that Amnesty recently excluded antisemitism as a topic of their concern because they simply didn't have the resources. But for bashing Israel they can find all the money they want.

The donors to Amnesty should be aware of how their charity dollars are being spent. If they think that Amnesty is working hard to eliminate injustice throughout the world, then they need to ask why Israeli actions from a year ago are so disproportionately targeted compared to every current crisis on the planet.

(UPDATE: I was double-counting some of the Gaza and Israel tweets, so I combined them and recounted in a more accurate manner.)

08/06 Links Pt2: PA: Murdering Jewish children is for Allah; Double-standards: Gaza vs. Yemen

From Ian:

PMW: Murdering Jewish children is for Allah, according to the Palestinian Authority

Every society has murderers and extremists who would kill even children. The test of a society’s morality is how it responds to those murderers.
Israel loathes, ostracizes and prosecutes Israeli terrorists who murder Palestinian children. The Palestinian Authority honors, embraces and rewards Palestinian terrorists who murder Israeli children.
Last Friday, a terrorist, apparently an Israeli, set fire to a Palestinian home, killing an 18-month-old boy. The arson and murder has been condemned by Israel’s prime minister, president, political and religious leaders and everyone who has spoken about it. When the murderer is found he will be prosecuted and will spend the rest of his life in prison.
On March 11, 2011, five members of the Fogel family were killed in their home by Palestinian terrorists from the Awad family. Hakim Awad led the attack, killing the parents, Ehud and Ruth, and three of their children, aged 11, four and two months.
From the day Awad was arrested the PA rewarded him with a monthly salary, which eventually will reach $3,000 a month, four times the average Palestinian civil servant’s salary. Official PA TV then invited his mother and aunt to talk on the PA TV program dedicated to honoring and sending greetings to imprisoned terrorists. They referred to Awad and his accomplices as “heroes” and Hakim Awad himself was called “the hero, the legend.” The PA TV host added: “We, for our part, also convey our greetings to them.”
Dalal Mughrabi led a terrorist attack in which 12 children and 25 adults were murdered in a bus hijacking. To teach Palestinian children the value it places on murdering a large number of Israeli children the PA has named dozens of places in her honor, including three schools, summer camps, sporting events, a town square and much more.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself funded a computer center named after her and sponsored a birthday party in her honor, as the banner shown on PA TV highlighted: “Under the auspices of President Mahmoud Abbas: The Political and National Education Authority Ceremony on the anniversary of the birth of the bride of the cosmos, The Martyr Dalal Mughrabi.”

Michael Lumish: A "Statement of Interest"

The truth is that the PA-PLO is an enemy to the Jewish people, an enemy to the Israeli people, and an enemy of the United States and the West. They danced in the streets when the World Trade Center came down in Manhattan. While we were mourning our dead they were handing out candy to their children and rejoicing in the comeuppance of the Great Satan.
{I lost one of my neighbors growing up that day.}
Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the PA-PLO is entirely counterproductive to the national self-interests of Americans, Israelis, and the entire western world. It was ex-US president Jimmy Carter that initially bolstered the career of PLO chieftain Yassir Arafat and we've been stuck with these guys ever since, but they certainly aren't helping anything.
How is it possibly in the best interest of the American people to support an organization that calls for the murder of Jews and Americans? What kind of honest cooperation can we possibly expect from a group that names schools and public squares after the murderers of innocent civilians?
It is long past time for the US government to acknowledge the fact that the Oslo "peace process" is over. It is done and it is now time to move on.
In my opinion, at this point the US should stay out of Israeli affairs vis-à-vis the internal Arab problem. (Happy, Shirlee? ) Siding with terrorists against Jews - which seems to be an Obama administration forté - only makes things worse, but one would think that would be obvious.

Clifford Rosen: Jewish privilege vs. Palestinian privilege

Since these accusations of Jewish “privilege” are also used to attack Israel, I thought I would list examples of Israeli “privilege” I thought up of as well:
1 Being told you have no right to live in the country you currently live in, and in most cases, were born and lived your whole life in.
2 Being told your country is illegitimate and has no right to exist.
3 Being told you must either return to the country where your ancestors were oppressed for centuries or must live as a minority under a people of whom 93% are anti-Semitic.
4 Being constantly demonized and dehumanized on university campuses around the world.
5 Being the target of a campaign to boycott you in order to force you to commit national suicide.
6 Being the only country unable to serve on the UN Security Council and other UN bodies.
7 Being subject to disproportionate scrutiny by several UN bodies, including the UN “Human Rights” Council, which has some of the worst human rights abusers on the planet currently serving on it.
8 Being held to much higher standard than the rest of the world.
9 Being told you must come up with peace soon or else you will be forced to give up your self-determination.
10 Being subject to threats of annihilation.
11 Being subject to rocket attacks and other terrorist activity.
12 Being denied the right to defend yourself and being accused of “war crimes” when you do so.
On the other hand, Palestinians are seen by progressives as an “oppressed people of color” who have no privilege. However, here are the privileges they and only they have:

Terror chic at UNRWA protest

There have been increasing protests against possible cutbacks in UNRWA services across its areas of operations. Instead of protesting, say, Arab embassies demanding that they pay their unfulfilled pledges to UNRWA, the protesters are protesting UNRWA itself.

This is because, to them, UNRWA represents the West, and the West owes them free services forever because it allows Israel to exist. The billions that UNRWA spends to help out Palestinians is not aid - it is a jizya tax that the dhimmis must pay, or else.

Yesterday there was a protest in Amman, Jordan.

UNRWA employees observed a one-hour stoppage and a sit-in in Amman on Wednesday, voicing their concerns over “schemes” concocted against the “incubator of millions of Palestinian refugees”.

Held in front of the agency's headquarters in Amman, the rally, which is part of series of measures to escalate protests, was called upon by the UNRWA workers union in Jordan.

"We are petrified over the options the agency's administration is entertaining now. UNRWA services, especially education, are what we thrive on," one of the agency's teachers, who preferred anonymity, told The Jordan Times.

The protest isn't over lack of education options for kids. It is the curtailment of a work program.

I found this photo from the Amman rally interesting:

The sign just says "Protest of the Jordanian Union of Workers in the Aid Agency [UNRWA]" - but why are they wearing masks?

Apparently, they cannot distinguish between terror and protests - protest is just a form of "resistance" and you must dress up the part.

They must have learned that terrorist costume is admirable from UNRWA schools.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Israel’s Cabinet has authorized security officials to use “administrative detention” and “aggressive questioning” against suspected “Jewish terrorists,” following the arson attack at Duma that left an Arab baby dead and other family members in the hospital.

This was done against a background of national mea culpas by everyone from the President and Prime Minister on down, both for this crime and for the stabbing murder of a young girl and injuring of several others at the Jerusalem Gay Pride march.

I know I’m not the first to point out that all of this is happening despite the fact that there are as yet no suspects, Jewish or otherwise, for the Duma arson. It is also true that no connection can be demonstrated between homophobic murderer Yishai Schlissel and any Jewish nationalist movement or ideology.

The coincidence of two terrorist murders, one committed by a Jewish fanatic whom I would call ‘criminally insane’ and the other by unknown perpetrators capable of spraying graffiti on a wall in Hebrew, has given rise to a national paroxysm of guilt.

President Reuven Rivlin, in particular, connected the murders, attributing both to “incitement” and “hatred.” He accused “Jewish terrorists” of the Duma firebombing. He called for Israeli Jews to express their shame (for being Israeli Jews?):

On the eve of the 15th of the month of Av, the Jewish festival of love, six Israeli citizens were cruelly stabbed, in the heart of Jerusalem. To my great horror and shame, the letting of blood, the path of hatred and murder, did not stop there. Over the course of the same night, Jewish terrorists burned down the house of the Dawabsheh family in the village of Duma, killing their baby son Ali.

On Friday, I visited the family in Tel Hashomer hospital, I visited, silently, ashamed, ridden with dread for the power of hatred. Ashamed that in a country which has known the murder of Shalhevet Pass, of the Fogel family, of Adele Biton, of Eyal, Gil-ad, Naftali and Muhammad Abu Khdeir, there are still those who do not hesitate to ignite the flames, to burn the flesh of a baby, to increase the hatred and terror.

This morning a Hebrew poem appeared on Facebook in which the writer described removing the mezuzot from his doors, putting them and other Jewish ritual objects in a plastic bag and throwing them out in the street. Take your religion, I don’t want it, he wrote.

It is a little early for all of this. There are good reasons to suspect that the Duma arson may not have been perpetrated by Jews. In addition, there are many other cases – the alleged shooting of Mohammad al-Dura in 2000 stands out as particularly successful – in which Jews have been accused by Arabs of crimes that they did not commit. In particular, false accusations against ‘settlers’ are a major part of the demonization enterprise against the Jewish state.

Which brings me to actual misbehavior by extremist Jews, ranging from graffiti to arson (usually of unoccupied buildings): it needs to stop.

“Price tag” attacks and similar acts aren’t going to drive Muslims and Christians out of the land of Israel or make Arabs stop committing acts of terrorism against Jews. They do nothing for our side. They simply provide the best ammunition for the demonizers. Every actual incident is used as ‘proof’ that ten made-up ones occurred. Every one is claimed as justification for ten acts of Arab terrorism.

It needs to stop, but we don’t need to go overboard. I have been reading about a “Jewish underground” made up of “hilltop youth” – teens and twenties that want to overthrow the state and replace it with a kingdom governed according to halacha (Jewish law). This isn’t going to happen. It’s a fantasy and some of the fantasists have already been arrested. I could be wrong, but I am willing to bet they are not the ones that threw the firebombs in Duma. We’ll find out.

If I am wrong, if it turns out that these are the ones that burned the Arab child to death, I will retract my words and apologize. But at this point I see a nation unnecessarily bursting at the seams with hysterical guilt.

Let me add a few words about the maniac, Schlissel. He exists, and so do others that share his beliefs, although very few would take violent action on them. But Israeli society is not so different from others; people are regularly murdered for being homosexual in the US and other countries. The fact is that Israeli society as a whole is far more tolerant than most of the others; we have no need to engage in collective self-flagellation.

There is a pathology here, and it’s in addition to the pathology of Schlissel and of whomever is responsible for the Duma arson. It is a pathology of self-hatred, a need to find a reason to leave the country, to renounce Judaism, to apologize, to agonize, to be ashamed of ourselves, to blame the whole society for the crimes of a few.

It is a sickness, a Jewish sickness.

Pathological guilt isn’t a problem only because it leads to stupid Woody Allen movies. The demonization of the Jewish state by our enemies has a purpose: to provide reasons to oppose our self-defense, which is presented as just another war crime. By feeding and supporting it, which we do every time we apologize for yet another non-existent ‘crime’ – al Dura, the Gaza beach incidents of 2006 and 2014, shelling the Lebanese village of Kfar Kana in 2006, the Mavi Marmara affair, etc. – we participate in our own demonization, and amplify it.

The damage isn’t confined to the international arena. What other country is so obsessed, in its public discourse, journalism, art and literature, with its supposed moral failings? While other countries – think of Turkey or Russia – try to write embarrassing episodes out of history books, our historians, sometimes very creatively, look for sins to put in. We have a major newspaper – Ha’aretz – dedicated to besmirching our nation, every day. How many serious films made in Israel have you seen that don’t suggest that something is rotten here? What do most academic researchers in the social sciences and humanities prefer to write about? Do we even need to ask?

Possibly because of my American background, I am really attached to the principle that an accused is innocent until proven guilty. Here a crime is committed and before there is even any evidence, we fall over ourselves demanding that we be punished!

Naftali Bennett was right: stop apologizing. We don’t need the unearned guilt. We live in a great nation, which, like any other nation, has some bad people in it. Let’s punish the criminals, not the nation.

08/06 Links Pt1: Obama is sincere, but he's wrong on Iran deal; Mr. President, you're no Jack Kennedy

From Ian:

3 Israelis hurt in vehicular terror attack in West Bank

Three Israeli soldiers were wounded when a terrorist plowed his car into them as they stood at a hitchhiking post in the northern West Bank on Thursday afternoon.
The attack took place at the Sinjil junction on Route 60, near the settlement of Shiloh and the Palestinian village of Sinjil, at around 3:10 p.m.
Two of the wounded were taken to Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem neighborhood, both in serious condition; the third — with light-moderate wounds — was taken to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
The terrorist was shot by IDF soldiers at the scene and trapped in his car when it subsequently flipped over. He was also said to be in serious condition and being treated by IDF troops at the scene, once security forces had established that his car was not booby-trapped.
Magen David Adom said the two victims in a serious condition were suffering from head and chest injuries, were sedated and being kept on respiration.

Alan Dershowitz: Dershowitz: Obama gets personal about the Iran deal

President Obama, in his desperation to save his Iran deal, has taken to attacking its opponents in personal ways. He has accused critics of his deal of being the same republican war mongers who drove us into the ground war against Iraq and has warned that they would offer “overheated” and often dishonest arguments. He has complained about the influence of lobbyists and money on the process of deciding this important issue, as if lobbying and money were not involved in other important matters before Congress.
These types of ad hominem arguments are becoming less and less convincing as more democratic members of Congress, more liberal supporters of the President, more nuclear experts and more foreign policy gurus are expressing deep concern, and sometimes strong opposition to the deal that is currently before Congress.
I, myself, am a liberal Democrat who twice voted for President Obama and who was opposed to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Part of the reason I was opposed was because I considered, and still consider, Iran a much greater threat to the security of the world and to the stability of the Middle East than Iraq ever was. In my newly published e-book The Case Against the Iran Deal: How Can We Now Stop Iran From Getting Nukes?, I make arguments that I believe are honest, fair and compelling. I recognize some advantages in the deal, but strongly believe that the disadvantages considerably outweigh them and that the risks of failure are considerable. My assessment is shared by a considerable number of other academics, policy experts and other liberal Democrats who support President Obama’s domestic policies, who admire Secretary Kerry for his determination, and who do not see evil intentions in the deal.
The President would be well advised to stop attacking his critics and to start answering their hard questions with specific and credible answers. Questions that need answering include the following:

Mr. President, you are no Jack Kennedy

In stark contrast with Kennedy's inspired address in 1963, the current president was belligerent and argumentative, attacking opponents of the Iran nuclear agreement both domestically and abroad. Instead of being presented with a new vision of the world order he hopes to achieve, his audience was treated to the same old tune. A tune designed to mock political rivals and terrify the American public with all sorts of apocalyptic scenarios that would unfold as a result of Congress thwarting the deal.
Indeed, at the heart of Obama's speech was the warning that the failure of the agreement would lead to war. The threat implicit in this warning was directed first and foremost at the Democrats in the Senate who are still on the fence about the deal and whose votes will ultimately decide the entire debate in September.
But then, after a long, detailed and exhausting overview of the reasons to support the deal, sounding more like an attorney's closing argument than a visionary president, the cat came out of the bag. Obama the politician called on the American public to exert pressure on their representatives in Congress, thereby stripping away any vestige of the official tone he was going for. By doing so he also pushed himself further and further away from Kennedy's memorable address.

Why Obama Is Wrong to Compare Himself to JFK

Speaking at American University today in defense of his nuclear deal with Iran, President Obama twice invoked President John F. Kennedy. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, while we did not serve with Jack Kennedy, here are five reasons why President Obama is wrong to compare himself to Jack Kennedy:
4. During his speech, Obama said the world was “more dangerous” during the Cold War. True, the threat of mutually assured destruction (MAD) was a palpable fear. But however aggressive and even evil the Soviets might have been, they did not believe in martyrdom — they did not believe that sacrificing their lives for their revolution would bring great rewards in the afterlife. The fundamentalists of Iran — and their Arab proxies, such as Hezbollah — most emphatically do. As historian Bernard Lewis has pointed out, for religious extremists, mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent — it’s an inducement.
5. President Obama ended his remarks by citing President Kennedy’s “wisdom” and lauded Kennedy’s “warning” that we should see conflict as inevitable. But President Kennedy also said that there was “one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.” Iran’s rulers have caused thousands of Americans to be killed and maimed in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They continue to openly proclaim their long-term goal: “Death to America.” They believe that the U.S. has indeed submitted. If Congress approves this agreement, that perception will not be without justification.
So much for following in the footsteps of JFK.