Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 04, 2015

12/04 Links Pt2: Telling a distorted story; Theater tightens security for Matisyahu concert

From Ian:

The Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is complicated, and would be even without the bad faith that is the region’s chief export. Many elements in the conflict go back to the 1930s, and are layered one atop the other, making peace impossible and even cease-fire difficult.
The European elites and the blind left in the United States argue that the mere Israeli presence on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem is a form of violence. No one can ignore the constant interplay between the Israeli military power, which maintains its presence there, and the Palestinian population. Many Palestinians, who dare not say so, welcome the security these Israeli forces offer. They can see the alternative, of descent into the chaos in nearby Muslim countries, close at hand.
The outbreak of knife attacks during the Jewish High Holidays this fall, often against civilians and sometimes against the wrong brand of Muslim, was clearly terrorism by the Palestinians. The fact that the knife fighters are often adolescents, schooled from infancy to hate Jews, in schools sponsored by the United Nations, is particularly reprehensible.
The Israelis are usually accused of using “excessive force.” The bare statistics are used as an argument that, since more Palestinians die than Israelis, it’s obvious that the Israelis are the aggressors. But self-defense often results in “collateral damage,” and whose fault is that?
Presenting these episodes by identifying the Palestinian dead as victims — as is done often in the international media — distorts reality. The London Guardian, which is reliably left-wing, reported the death of a Palestinian who stabbed an Israeli guard under a typical headline: “Palestinian shot dead at Damascus gate in Jerusalem after stabbing Israeli guard.” The severe wound the assailant inflicted on the guard was barely mentioned. A similar account in the London Daily Mail was only a little better: “Jerusalem’s streets run red with blood: Israeli police shoot dead man who stabbed border guard at Damascus Gate — the 99th Palestinian to die in latest wave of violence.” The attack on Pearl Harbor might have been headlined: “Americans slay two Jap pilots taking Sunday-morning flight over Pearl Harbor.”

Andrew Bolt: Bob Carr and the cleansing of Jews from the history of Jerusalem, “this great Arab city”

Labor’s campaign for Muslim votes in western Sydney is corrupting its values - and betraying our own:
Former foreign minister Bob Carr has lashed out at Israel, accusing the Jewish state of fabricating history and bribing Australian politicians, in an attack condemned by the Turnbull government.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop hit back at Mr Carr’s tirade, describing his remarks as deeply unhelpful and provocative.
The one-time titan of the Labor Right let loose at a dinner in Sydney late last month at an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People function in a speech that has appeared online, accusing Israel of eliminating the Arab character of Jerusalem.
Mr Carr praised Greens senator Lee Rhiannon, the leader of the party’s so-called “watermelon” faction and an arch-foe of his old NSW Labor colleagues. “The people of Palestine are seeing street by street the character, the nomenclature, of Jerusalem being changed,” Mr Carr told the gathering. “The story of Jerusalem is now being fabricated. Judaising and eliminating the Arab character of this great Arab city is a shocking thing to take place.”

EXCLUSIVE: 13-Year-Old Israeli Girl Boycotted by British Professor: “I Was Speechless”

“I don’t want to be an icon,” says Shachar Rabinovitz. But in the space of a few days this week, the 13-year-old has already started to become a poster girl of sorts.
She’s siting on her sofa, shell-shocked at the international media frenzy that has taken place this week. On Sunday, she went to school, went to the dentist, returned to the northern Israel kibbutz Regavim where she lives, opened her emails, and then suddenly found herself propelled in to the news.
To many, her experience this week sums up the case against the BDS movement. Over the weekend, she became the youngest ever subject of the academic boycott of Israel. A former Cambridge University academic, Marsha Levine, had written to Shachar refusing her request for information on horses because she is Israeli. “I’ll answer your questions when there is peace and justice for Palestinians in Palestine,” Levine wrote, going on to add: “You might be a child, but if you are old enough to write to me, you are old enough to learn about Israeli history and how it has impacted on the lives of Palestinian people.” Shachar’s father posted the reply on Facebook, and it went viral.
“When I saw the response I was speechless,” Shachar recalls, glancing at the old desktop computer where she saw the message as if to relive the moment. “I got upset. I don’t think an old and wise person needs to put her political opinions in an email to a 13-year-old who asks her about horses.”

Legal complaint made against pro-BDS prof. who snubbed Israeli schoolgirl

An anti-Semitism watchdog organization in the United Kingdom has filed a complaint with the police against Marsha Levine, the British-American former Cambridge University professor who rebuffed a request for information from an Israeli schoolgirl, citing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism filed the complaint with the Cambridgeshire Constabulary following the recent media storm that erupted when the mother of 13-year-old Shachar Rabinovitch posted a message on Facebook detailing Levine’s response to an email from her daughter.
Shachar, a horse enthusiast, had contacted Levine, an expert on the domestication and history of the animal, asking for information about breeding patterns and the use of horses by humans in ancient times.

Jewish life in Morocco, 1880 as documented by Congress

Here are some letters that were included in the 1880-81 Executive Documents of the House of Representatives, Foreign Relations, Volume 1.

[Inclosure 2 in No. 362.] Mr. Cobb to Mr. Mathews.
City Of Fez, February 3, 1880

Dear Sir: I regret to state that a sad affair took place at this city just on my arrival, and I now beg to give an account as related to me by an eye-witness, and which has been corroborated by many respectable Moors and Jews during this day, which is as follows:

An Algerine Jew, strongly under the influence of liquor, walking near the Sultan's residence at the city of Fez, met a Moor with a woman; the Jew made an attempt to take the woman with him; the Moor retaliated by striking him; the Jew then drew a pistol and fired it off, not injuring any one; he was then set upon by a number of passers-by and severely beaten and taken off to prison; soon after, three Jews were passing by the Sultan's residence, when they were suddenly surprised by a party of Moors in a most violent manner; two of the Jews being young and strong made good their escape, but the victim, some eighty-five years old, was stopped; he inquired why ho was to be dealt with in this foul manner, assuring them that he was not aware he had committed any wrong; when they told him they wanted to show him about that, and immediately threw him down, saturated his clothes with petroleum, set fire to him, and there and then he was burned to death. A Moor of a most respectable appearance to-day informed me that he was an eye-witness to this operation.

Since which the authorities have asked the Jews to let the matter pass, offering $400 to the family of the deceased, and say no more about the affair. The Sultan liberated the French Jew who, during his state of intoxication, fired the pistol, without inflicting upon him any punishment whatever. After this affair the Jews all remained in their houses four days with barred doors, not daring to show their faces outside, under a terrible state of excitement, fearing death was to be dealt out to them all in the same cruel manner; but now they go out unmolested, otherwise than by occasional threats from Moors that soon the day will come when they will all share the fate of the aged victim.

From the Melah, where the Jews are quartered, to the house where I now reside, as you know, is a long walk, and many of them have come to lay their complaints before me, and, although the weather is cold for this country, the streets muddy, and very toughly paved, they all, rich and poor, male and female, come barefooted, assuring me that they would be murdered if they attempted to walk the streets of Fez otherwise; - which is truly a barbarously cruel state of affairs and should be noticed by the more civilized governments, and a matter which I believe could most easily be remedied.

You have no doubt, ere this, been made aware of the petroleum murder, but as these reports an they travel come in to yon so conflictingly. I give it to yon as I believe it actually occurred, and shall give yon further information if such appears. I have, &c,
JOHN COBB

When the US issued a complaint to the Sultan, he replied through his vizier with this flowerly letter:

Praise be to the only God! To our dear friend the judicious, the gentleman, the honorable mediator for the welfare between the two nations, the representative of the powerful American nation,
Mr. Felix A. Mathews:

We always inquire for you, and we pray to God for your preservation and welfare. We received your letter relative to the Jew that was burned, and we have taken note of all you have said and heard, and that His Majesty should take more care of his Jewish subjects, and that those that committed the crime were not punished, also that we should see that the Jews are well treated, &c. We have informed ourselves of all you have stated, which is all due to the good friendship which exists between us: and you also state that we must punish the aggressor, and you recommend us the safety of the persons and property of the Jews and that we should write to our governors so that they be well treated and that no injustice should be done to them.

We have read your letter to His Majesty the Sultan, who attentively took note of all its contents, and His Majesty recognizes and considers that your good advice emanated from the good friendship which you profess towards him, and His Majesty the Sultan ordains us to make known to you his acknowledgment, which we now do in his name.

You must be acquainted of the fact of the matter as we have been informed: that Moor of the suburbs of Fez came into the Yames Market in company with his wife to make purchases, and on returning in the afternoon the husband remained behind and she waited for him alone, when a French Jew appeared in her presence intoxicated, and the woman got frightened and called for help; her husband came up and pushed the Jew away, and the latter drew a pistol and wounded the Moor on the head, and afterwards threw stones at him; when those present arrested the Jew, who was imprisoned by the authorities. Soon after an old Jew made his appearance, insulting the government and menacing the people with an arm, then the crowd gathered, and it ended in his death and in his being burned.
From the foregoing you will observe that the fault rests on the Jews. His Majesty the Sultan was much annoyed when he was informed of what happened, and he gave orders for the arrest of some of those who were present, both of the country people as well as those of the city, but they could not make out who were the guilty parties and when the Jews became acquainted with the facts they came to an understanding, and the prisoners were set free, and the governor of Fez was deprived of his official position for being a man of little energy, and we appointed in his place Kaid El Arby Usef Urbah Mohamed Shergin.

The husband of the woman, who was wounded, died from the effects of the wounds inflicted on him by the Jew; and there was a settlement of the affair with the widow of the Jew who was burned, for the life of her husband, but there has been no settlement for the life of the Moor. You will thus see how well behaved are the people of Fez, which, if it had not been for those of good sense, we cannot imagine what would have taken place, as the populace never reflects upon consequences, therefore the Jews must behave well with the Moors.

You arc one of the oldest representatives in this happy empire, and you know what difference is in the present behavior of the Jews from what it was; and His Majesty, the protected by God, does not countenance injustices, and heeds what you advise us as to ordain our governors recommending the Jews. His Majesty the Sultan has issued strict orders on behalf of the Jews, and any one molesting them will be severely punished.

His majesty wishes you much happiness, and for friendship and peace.
The Sultan's vizier, protected by God,
MOHAMED BEN LAKBY EL MAJTAR.

According to the American witness, this letter is full of lies:

No. 509.
Mr. Mathews to Mr. Evarts.
No. 302. United States Consulate At Tangier,
April 17,1880. (Received May 17.)

Sir: Referring to my dispatch No. 354, dated the 8th of March, I have the honor to transmit to you herewith a copy and translation of the reply to my letter addressed to the Sultan through his prime minister on the occasion of the recent persecution of the Jews of this empire.

From most reliable information on the subject of the burning of a Jew aged eighty-five, at Fez, the statement in the Sultan's prime minister's letter to me is incorrect. It is well known that no Barbary Jew would ever dare to even carry a walking stick at Fez; they are only allowed to use a reed as a cane to walk, and it must be of a certain length.

The well known timid character of all Moorish Jews who are obliged to walk barefooted and never permitted to ride any kind of an animal through the streets of Fez, makes it ludicrous to learn from a Sultan's minister that au old Jew, eighty-five years old, insulted and threatened a erowd of Moors at the fanatical city of Fez, when they are pent up in a ghetto, in constant fear of their lives. I have the most reliable evidence of the fact that no Moor died, nor even was wounded at the hands of a Jew, and that the story is a fabrication got up to extenuate the magnitude of the crime.

I herewith beg to inclose copy of a letter from Captain John Cobb, our consular agent at Casablanca, who happened to be at Fez at the time this affair took place (above).

I am happy to state that my letter to the Sultan has been productive of good in preventing thus far further ill-treatment on the Israelites, and it has been a source of satisfaction to the European Jews, who have expressed their gratitude and thanks to me through their various delegations, and through the press. I have, &c,
FELIX A. MATHEWS.

Mathews had earlier given a long description of life in Morocco. Here are some parts about Jewish life there:

The Jews, calculated in number to 200,000, descend for the most part from those who were exiled from Spain in 1492, and from Portugal in 1496, and are, except those under foreign protection, persecuted, oppressed, hated, and degraded here more than in any other part of the world; they are even compelled to walk barefooted in the Moorish section of the cities, and with a handkerchief tied over their heads and chin to prevent the Moorish boys from tossing their caps in the air. My last address to the Sultan on their behalf has done much in the way of preventing, at least for the present, unprovoked personal ill-treatment. They exercise various arts and trades and display the ingenuity, pliability, and tenacity of their race, finding in the possession of money earned from their oppressors a recompense for all their woes.

...

Finally, here is a letter from the Jewish community of Morocco to the King of Spain, begging for help:

Exposition of the Grand Rabbi, the elders, and several Israelite! of high standing in the city of Tangier to Don Antonio Cdnocas del Castillo, prime minuter of His Majesty the King of Spain.
Most Excellent Sir:

Convinced of the high degree of humanity, impartiality, and justice which distinguish your excellency, we have the honor to expose through your excellency's worthy channel to the illustrious representatives which will form the diplomatic congress which in to take place in that court, that the object of the Hebrews of this empire in soliciting so earnestly the foreign protection has never been, nor is, to exempt themselves from the payment of taxes, as some of the newspapers have wished to conceive, but only to secure their lives and properties. Moreover, even the tax of capitation (Guezzia) [Jizya - EoZ] imposed exclusively to the Hebrews is religiously paid by those who are protected as well as by those who are not, and they would equally submit themselves to pay any other tax imposed on them by the Sultan's Government, should it be sanctioned by the representatives of foreign nations.
May God preserve your excellency for many years.
Tangier, April 1-2, l880.
Most excellent sir, yours, &c,
(113 signatures follow.)

They didn't seem to happy with how they were being treated by their Muslim overlords.

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12/04 Links Pt1: Glick: America’s pathological denial of reality; ISIS's Jihad Against Music

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: America’s pathological denial of reality

How much lower will America sink before it regains its senses? Wednesday, two Muslims walked into a Christmas party at a community service center in San Bernardino, California where one worked. They were wearing body armor and video cameras and carrying automatic rifles, pipe bombs and pistols. They opened fire, killed 14, and wounded 17.
The murderers, Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik were killed by police.
Speaking to the Daily News, Farook’s father said his son, “was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.”
Farook’s neighbor told the paper that over the past two years, Farook exchanged his Western dress for Islamic gowns and grew a beard.
These data points lead naturally to the conclusion that Farook and his wife were jihadists who killed in order to kill in the name of Islam.
But in America of December 2015, natural conclusions are considered irresponsible, at best.
In an interview with CNN following the shooting, US President Barack Obama said the massacre demonstrates that the US needs stricter gun laws. As for the motives of the shooters, Obama shrugged. “We don’t yet know the motives of the shooters,” he insisted.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Who Is Stealing Palestinian Land?

So what Hamas is actually saying is: If the Palestinian Authority was able to steal large portions of land in the Gaza Strip in the past, there is no reason why Hamas too should not have a taste of the cake.
The Palestinian Authority and many Palestinians have expressed shock over Hamas's decision to compensate its employees with parcels of land. But besides strongly condemning the move by Hamas, Abbas and his lieutenants in Ramallah know that there is nothing they can do to prevent the land-grab.
The Palestinians are once again paying a heavy price for the continued power struggle between Fatah and Hamas and failed leadership -- both in the West bank and Gaza Strip. By stealing their people's land and distributing it among their followers, Hamas and Fatah are further undermining the Palestinian dream of establishing a proper state based on the principles of democracy, accountability, transparency and the rule of law.

Aaron David Miller: Does the World Need a Weak or Failing Palestinian State?

Henry Kissinger recently asked an intriguing and politically incorrect question: With the state structure weakened in several Arab states and having collapsed in others, with Iran and Islamic State rising, and amid general instability in the Arab world, why create another potentially weak, dysfunctional Arab state in Palestine?
A decade or so ago, when I was a Middle East negotiator, even posing such a question would have been considered a hostile act among peace advocates or, worse, would have been seen as shilling for Israeli right-wingers and neoconservatives.
But amid so much disorder in the Middle East, it’s worth pondering–even if there are several reasons to be cautious or openly skeptical about the prospects:
Negative trend lines: In the Arab world, several states are melting down (Syria, Libya, Yemen); polities are run by authoritarian kings, emirs, or generals (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar); and a few, such as Tunisia, are struggling to reform. The region will be unstable for years to come, thanks to widespread dysfunction and/or plain bad governance, lack of respect for human rights, systemic corruption, and the absence representative institutions. Maybe a Palestinian polity would be different, being nudged up against Israel, the region’s only democratic state (however imperfect). But the challenges are enormous.

Evidence mounts for Hamas/ISIL ties

From Times of Israel:

The commander of Islamic State forces in the Sinai is currently on what was intended to be a secret visit to the Gaza Strip, meeting with Hamas terror leaders to widen their cooperation and coordinate attacks on Egyptian and Israeli targets, Israeli television reported Thursday.

Shadi al-Menei is meeting with leaders of the Hamas military wing, and discussing the ongoing supply of weapons sought by Hamas, the Channel 2 TV report said.

For its part, Hamas has smuggled weaponry from Gaza to al-Menei’s terror group in Sinai, including Cornet anti-tank missiles, which have caused heavy losses to Egypt, including considerable loss of life, at least one naval vessel and numerous tanks and armored personnel carriers, Channel 2 news said.

Al-Menei has also been responsible for occasional incidences of rocket fire from the Sinai on the Israeli southern resort town of Eilat, the TV report said.

The deepening cooperation between Hamas and al-Menei’s Islamic State hierarchy is infuriating to Egypt and “worrying for Israel,” the report added. It said that al-Menei was behind a 2011 terrorist attack in southern Israel in which four groups of terrorists targeted a bus and several Israeli army vehicles, killing six Israeli civilians, two members of the Israeli security forces and several Egyptian soldiers. Ten terrorists were killed.

Al-Menei was one of the founders of the Sinai terror group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which later joined Islamic State.

He was said by Egypt to have been killed in an ambush in May 2014, but the claim proved false.

Hamas “formally opposes” Islamic State,” the TV report noted, “but in practice they are cooperating.” The close interaction between Hamas and IS in Sinai is “one of the most carefully guarded secrets of the Hamas military wing in recent months,” The Times of Israel’s Avi Issacharoff reported in July.

The Channel 2 report apparently mentioned specifically that Hamas was supplying Daesh with Cornet missiles.

Egypt has been accusing Hamas of working together with the Sinai jihadists for years, even before they joined ISIS. Hamas has always strenuously denied this.

Recently, Hamas released dozens of Salafist prisoners sympathetic to ISIL who were involved in shooting rockets to Israel but no reasons were given.

It is looking more and more like Hamas and the Islamic State are on the same side. Of course, outside Egypt and Israel, no one will say that out loud.

JPost and JNS reported last Saturday:

A group of anti-Israel activists in the northern German city of Bremen on Saturday visited stores to ensure they marked their products as originating from Israeli settlements.

The Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment (BDS) group stated in a press release: “With an ‘inspection tour’ on November 28 we want to examine which businesses are selling ‘products from Israel’ and to call upon them to comply with the EU labeling obligation.”

The activists, dressed in white overalls, visited downtown shops such as fruit stands and department stores in the German city of Bremen to enforce the rule. One spokesperson for the BDS group, Claus Walischewski, said the inspectors would guess which products were actually imported from beyond Israel’s 1967 lines because it is generally difficult to recognize products imported from Israel.

According to TAZ, the BDS group marked products on the shelves with notes that read, “Caution: The product could come from an illegal Israeli settlement.”

The photos show that the BDSers dressed as if they were health inspectors, trying to keep customers away from dangerous, contaminated Israeli products that might infect consumers with Jew-cooties.

The Liza's Welt blog notes that the leader of this action, which is arguably antisemitic, was Claus Walischewski.

Walischewski is the district spokesman for Amnesty International in Bremen.

Just more proof that Amnesty has long ago ceased being concerned with human rights and now is obsessed with demonizing Israel.

(h/t Vandoren)

UPDATE:
A complaint has been filed against against Walischewski. "The inspection of retail stores and the products therein is the sole responsibility of public authorities. The suspect, Claus Walischewski, and his accomplices (including, it is presumed, his wife, Doris Flack) are therefore charged with exercising a public office without authorisation and performing actions reserved for public officials by labelling goods that they considered to have originated in Israeli settlements."
(h/t Rab iBurns)

Hamas terrorist preparing rocket fuse with kids

From The Daily Mail:

Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq are using human shields to stop British RAF pilots killing them with drones operated from nearly 3,000 miles away, it can be revealed.

Barbaric militants are exploiting Western rules of engagement by travelling around the war-torn region with women and children or moving in civilian crowds so laser-guided Hellfire missiles are not fired to wipe them out.

New tactics mean high value targets on a British kill list may be watched by an 'unblinking eye in the sky' at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire for days on end waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Last week, RAF personnel seated behind screens from the comfort of a high-security hangar in either Lincolnshire or Nevada in the US took part in a US-led top secret mission to wipe out Jihadi John.

Although they did not fire the missiles that killed him - as they came from a US drone - they helped watch him for months until an opportunity came to strike him without injuring any civilians.

He was nearly killed twice before but on one opportunity he entered a crowded street and on the second he was deemed too close to women and children.

A defence source said: 'It is fairly obvious that the West prides itself on its strict adherence to international law and that is clear to anyone with common sense.

'It doesn't take rocket science for those who are medieval enough to exploit that and use women and children as human shields.'

As I wrote recently in light of the news that the US was also refusing to launch attacks unless there were no civilians around, this is an absurd and wholly incorrect interpretation of international law when dealing with high value targets.

The UK Laws of Armed Conflict Manual (2004), as amended in 2010, states:

[C]ivilian immunity does not make unlawful the unavoidable incidental civilian casualties and damage which may result from legitimate attacks upon military objectives, provided that the expected incidental casualties and damage are not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. This is the principle of proportionality.

As the ICRC documents, Great Britain has never had a policy of "no civilians killed" but rather that the target must be a military target and the damage to civilians not be excessive in proportion to the military advantage:

In 1991, in reply to a question in the House of Lords concerning the Gulf War, the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence stated:

The Geneva Conventions contain no provisions expressly regulating targeting in armed conflict. The Hague Regulations of 1907 and customary international law do, however, incorporate the twin principles of distinction between military and civilian objects, and of proportionality so far as the risk of collateral civilian damage from an attack on a military objective is concerned. These principles and associated rules of international law were observed at all times by coalition forces in the planning and execution of attacks against Iraq

Some 3000 civilians were killed in the first Gulf War.

In 1993, in reply to questions in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons about the launching of “around 40 Cruise missiles by the Americans which resulted in the killing of innocent civilians in places like the Al Rashid Hotel”, the UK Minister of Foreign Affairs stated:

I do not believe the action was disproportionate. You know what it was aimed against; it was aimed against a plant that the Iraqis had themselves admitted was producing material for their nuclear programme … It seemed to me a proportionate target. It looks and sounds as if … one of the Cruise missiles went astray and killed innocent civilians in the Al Rashid Hotel. That clearly is to be deplored but I do not think the action as a whole can be regarded as disproportionate

In 2003, in reply to a written question in the House of Commons, the UK Secretary of State for Defence wrote:

The military campaign is crafted around the principle of minimum use of force. We attack only military objectives and combatants subject to the constraints of proportionality. If there is any expectation that harm will be caused to civilians, this must not be excessive when set against the direct and concrete military advantage anticipated from the attack.

But when discussing Israel in more recent operations, something funny happened. The British position changed from minimizing civilian casualties to avoiding civilian casualties:

In 2006, in a written answer to a question concerning, inter alia, “the implications under the Geneva Conventions of the targeting by Israel of civilian facilities and infrastructure in Gaza”, the UK Minister of State for the Middle East, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, stated:

We are opposed to the targeting of civilian facilities and call upon Israel to respect international law and, in particular, the requirement of proportionality and the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.
In 2006, in a reply to a question in the House of Lords concerning “[w]hat representations [the UK Government] have made to the Government of Israel regarding their military response to the kidnapping of one Israel Defense Force soldier”, the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, stated: “Any military steps taken should avoid civilian casualties, abide by international law and observe the principle of proportionality.”

In 2006, in a written ministerial statement, the UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, stated:

While Israel has the right to defend itself and to secure the release of Corporal Shalit, its actions should be proportionate and in accordance with international law, as we, the G8 and the EU have made clear. We call on Israel to exercise restraint and to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that both Great Britain and the US have changed their rules of engagement so as not to look like hypocrites for condemning Israel for doing what they themselves had done in the Gulf wars, in Iraq and in Bosnia.

The Geneva Conventions allows for civilian deaths in war as long as the target is military and the number of deaths is not excessive, as determined by the military commanders. To change that rule into one where civilian casualties are to be forbidden might make HRW and Amnesty happy, but it results in the ability for ISIS to mimic Hamas' use of human shields to avoid being targeted altogether. And we are seeing that now.

Wars cannot be won this way.

(h/t Elchanan)

The joke of the day, translated

Everyone's been sharing this so I decided to actually translate it.

By the way, I am speaking on Sunday morning somewhere in the northern half of New Jersey. If you want to come, send me an email and I'll forward you the info. (Suggested donation to the venue is $10.)

12/03 Links Pt2: Why It Matters That Iran Lied; Blaming Jews gets you in the news

From Ian:

Why It Matters That Iran Lied

With the leak of an International Atomic Energy Agency report about Iran’s work on military research to the Associated Press, the last obstacle to implementation of the nuclear deal struck by the West with Tehran has been removed. The good news for the deal’s advocates is that the IAEA says there is no proof that Iran worked on creating a nuclear explosive device after 2009, although it admits its work is inconclusive. There are reasons to doubt that Iran stopped working on nukes at sites that we don’t know about. But even if we accept the notion that they did stop at face value the UN agency’s work gives us plenty of reasons to worry. After a decade of denying that it had ever worked on a nuclear weapon, the IAEA’s conclusions about the pre-2009 period are definitive. There is no longer the slightest doubt that Iran was working to create a nuclear weapon before 2009. In other words, the Iranian government lied. And it continued to lie throughout the negotiations with Obama administration and Western allies. The question the president and others who actually think the nuclear deal is a reasonable solution to the problem of the nuclear threat must answer is if Iran lied for so long, what makes them think the Islamist regime is willing or even capable of telling the truth and abiding by the terms of the pact they’ve signed with it?
There are two big problems with the IAEA report.
One is that we know that the IAEA’s access to the one Iranian site where work on “possible military dimensions” — PMD — of their nuclear program was limited due to the terms of a side deal struck with Iran. As we learned over the summer while the debate over the deal was going on, the IAEA agreed to serious restrictions on its access to the Parchin military site. Even more troubling, when the IAEA did their best under the circumstances to find out what had happened at Parchin, they discovered that there had been new construction had taken place at a place that apologists for the agreement claimed had long been moribund. Just as bad was the fact that during the course of their investigation, the IAEA discovered that some important equipment known to have been at the site was now missing. That makes it more than obvious that Iran was making efforts to sanitize the site and make it difficult if not impossible for the UN to test the site for activity. Yet it doesn’t appear that the new report will solve either of these mysteries. It seems that the nuclear watchdogs have simply thrown up their hands

Think you're on the moral high ground by opposing air strikes in Syria? Sorry but you couldn't be more wrong

Somehow, we have allowed the doctrine of inaction to claim monopoly on morals. While the last Iraq War was declared and fought on a false premise, a perpetual dispute on whether Blair lied in 2003 is meaningless in today’s terms. For two wrongs do not make a right. If we become a pacifist nation now, we will not resurrect the lives lost in Iraq, yet may well cost lives that could otherwise have been saved from Isis.
“Ah, but we must learn the lessons of history,” opponents of air strikes would say. But what lessons are we learning exactly? Who is learning from the history of 1990s, when up to 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda as the world watched on? Who is learning the lessons of the Srebrenica Massacre, where more than 8,000 Muslims were massacred, again amid the apathy of the world? Above all, who will listen to the Syrian activist who lived under Assad who could not afford to choose between two evils?
While Parliament voted for military action last night, the public debate has indicated that the monopoly on morals is now a disease running in our collective memory. 12 years on, it is high time we learn the right lessons of Iraq, for our moral compass has been pointing in the wrong direction for far too long.

Col Kemp: Ex-army head: ISIS negotiation is fools option but we'll need troops on ground for victory

Airstrikes must be part of a wider strategy encompassing ground operations, economic warfare and the political landscape at the end of the conflict. But if we wait until everything is in place before we join the fight we will be too late, as we sit and watch IS gain momentum and support.
Denying that support is crucial. Muslims from across the Middle East, Asia and Europe are flocking to fight with IS. They do so because they see jihadists standing up victoriously to the ‘apostate’ Arab regimes and to the West. Only when IS are exposed as bloodied losers, and fighting with them a path to certain death, will this life-blood of new recruits be cut off.
Will British air strikes in Syria provoke terrorist attacks at home? Yes, because the publicity-obsessed IS will be desperate to be seen to hit back at us. But they are trying to kill us anyway. Seven attacks in the UK have been foiled by MI5 in the last 6 months alone.

Jewish Student Under Ethics Probe for Confronting Anti-Israel Demonstrators: ‘I Acted for Those Who Felt Marginalized, Unsafe’ (INTERVIEW)

The Jewish University of Michigan student at the center of an ethics probe for arguing with anti-Israel demonstrators on campus told his side of the story to The Algemeiner on Wednesday.
“My actions came from my own place of hurt and that of a sizable portion of my constituency’s,” said Jesse Arm, a University of Michigan sophomore and Central Student Government (CSG) representative. “I am saddened that my fitness for office has been called into question by virtue of my opposition to a purposefully inflammatory protest.
“To suggest that I am not suited to be a member of Michigan’s Central Student Government because of my public opposition to Students Allied for Freedom and Equality’s protest on the Diag [quad] would be to undermine the core principles of democracy and pluralism on which our nation was founded and our University rooted.”
Last month, Arm confronted fellow protesting students who assembled an anti-Israel display on campus. The demonstration took place on Nov. 19, the day that 18-year-old American student Ezra Schwartz was killed in a Palestinian terrorist attack in Israel.
The altercation between Arm and the demonstrators was caught on video and resulted in SAFE, the group responsible for the display, calling on the student government’s ethics committee to dismiss Arm. During a CSG meeting on Tuesday, a number of university students and former student government representatives spoke in defense of Arm.

"Dancing Israelis" lie is revived after Trump comments

In the wake of Donald Trump's comments that he saw hundreds of Muslims celebrating on 9/11, some anti-Israel websites are saying that he was remembering a mythical story of "dancing Israelis" that you can find all over the Internet.

Mondoweiss, while not directly saying there were any "dancing Israelis," uses the phrase as if it is true (it also calls them "laughing Israelis."

Albawaba refers to them as "grinning Israelis" and calls them "dancing Israelis" several times.

I described the facts a few years ago when a +972 writer accused Israelis of celebrating 9/11:

Apparently, Gurvitz likes to spend time on 9-11 truther websites, because those who actually remember the story know that there were no dancing Israelis on 9/11. The woman who reported them to the police described them this way:

MARIA: Like a few minutes must have gone on, and all of a sudden down there I see this van park. And I see three guys on top of the van, and I'm trying, you know, to look at the building but what caught my attention, they seemed to be taking a movie.

MILLER: (VO) Maria says the three young men were kneeling on the roof of a white van. It was parked right here. They were taking pictures of each other with the World Trade Center burning in the background.
MARIA: And I could see that they were, like, happy, you know? They--they--they weren't--they didn't look shocked to me, you know? They didn't look shocked. I thought it was very strange.
If I would have had a camera with me that day, I would have been taking photos as well - and hundreds of people did. But there was no dancing and no celebration (although there does seem to have been excitement at witnessing such an event, and somewhat bad taste at taking tourist-type photos in front of the smoke.)

The Israelis denied dancing to the US authorities and went on Israeli television and denied it again. But "truther" websites started the rumor that there were "dancing israelis" - and 972 mag now pushes that lie as well. And, of course, they weren't arrested for "dancing," as pseudo-journalist Gurvitz asserts.
...
To be fair, I have no doubt that Israelis have mixed feelings at terror attacks abroad. They hope against hope that the victim country will now have an inkling of the fear that Israelis had to go through for years, before going on the offensive to stop daily terror attacks. In other words, they naturally hope that Europeans will start to empathize with what Israelis have had to live with and notice that they have common enemies. This is human, but it is a not close to the happiness that Gurvitz is describing in this sickeningly vile piece of garbage.

Then, after spending paragraphs about five supposedly happy Israelis, Albawaba mentions this:

Then in a CNN segment Tuesday, former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani said his city had actually witnessed some Arabs celebrating on the day.

"We had pockets of celebration," he told the CNN, including one situation in which a "candy store owned by a Muslim family was celebrating that day."

But these were groups of 10 or 20 people, the former mayor said. Still a pretty far cry from Trump's thousands.

Actually, Giuliani said between 10 and 40.

Trump is certainly wrong in saying that thousands of Muslims were celebrating publicly in the New York area. But the man who would know confirms that there were perhaps dozens of Muslims known to be celebrating. So why is that not getting anywhere near the the same coverage as the mythical "dancing Israelis?"

Of course, there were thousands of Muslims celebrating 9/11 - in the Middle East and even in Europe as this Wall Street Journal article from 2001 showed in grim detail and as these videos from Fox News, CNN and MSNBC showed on that day.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

The headline story in today’s Israel Hayom is about how the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorists tortured and mutilated their Israeli hostages.

I didn’t bother to read it. I don’t need further reinforcement about the degree to which the Palestinian movement is all about hate. Mahmoud Abbas, who organized the financing for the Munich attack, and Yasser Arafat, who approved it, went on after Oslo to create a hate-education apparatus probably matched only by Pol Pot’s indoctrination of child soldiers. While Israel changed its school curricula to “educate for peace,” de-emphasizing Zionism and emphasizing the new ‘reality’ of coexistence brought about by Oslo, the Palestinian Authority went full speed in the opposite direction, teaching their students that ‘Palestine’ would be redeemed from the Jewish usurpers by their blood.

In the 22 years since Oslo, the PA/PLO hasn’t backed off one iota in its campaign to make its children candidates for martyrdom, despite agreeing to stop numerous times. That’s why today Arab teenagers in Jerusalem go looking for Jews to stab as an after-school activity.

The diverse Arabs that have called themselves ‘Palestinians’ since the 1960s talk a lot about their cultural traditions. But what are they, in addition to the Arab culture they brought to the land from Syria, Egypt, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, Yemen, and other places, mostly after the beginning of Zionism? The unique Palestinian part of their culture is the mythic presumption of victimhood at the hands of the Jews, their burning hatred of us, and their intention to get revenge. Their heroes are terrorists, and the most important qualification for a Palestinian politician is how strongly he opposes Israel (and how many Jews he has personally murdered). Their founding fathers were pogromist and Nazi supporter Haj Amin al-Husseini, and Yasser Arafat, a man responsible for several wars and countless acts of terrorism.

The rest of the world has consistently made wrong decisions in its relationship with them, and as a result massively increased the number of Palestinians, fed their grievances and encouraged them to continue their conflict. And it paid the price. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, Palestinian terrorism was international in scope; the PLO was not the first group to hijack airplanes for political purposes, but it popularized this form of terrorism, as well as attacking airports and even cruise ships. In 1968, a Palestinian terrorist named Sirhan Sirhan even assassinated American presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.

Literally billions of dollars every year are pumped from the pockets of Western taxpayers into the Palestinian Authority, UNRWA and EU initiatives, out of alleged humanitarian concern. Most of this money pays the salaries of thousands of policemen, teachers, bureaucrats, and soldiers whose primary function is to support the Palestinian movement to destroy Israel and only secondarily to provide services to the Arab refugees and the populations of the territories. Much of it is siphoned off to support the various terrorist militias and the lavish lifestyles of the leadership.

Palestinians are the only group of people in the world for whom refugee status is hereditary. By providing per-capita welfare payments to them, UNRWA insures that the dependent, disaffected, frustrated, angry and often murderous population will continue to grow over the years. As a result, the number of Arabs with refugee status has increased from about 700,000 in 1948 to about 5,000,000 today. The total number of ‘Palestinians’ in Israel, the refugee camps and the rest of the world is claimed to be more than 12 million! Meanwhile, the millions of non-Palestinian refugees from WWII were resettled within about 10 years, as were the 850,000 Jews forced out of Arab countries after 1948.

The UNRWA educational system is no better – probably worse – than that provided by the Palestinian Authority. This isn’t surprising, because many of its employees are members of Hamas.

This is a sick society, a very sick society, which openly worships death and sends its children out to die in the service of its hatred. And yet, the West has coddled it, supported it, fed it and helped it grow – and then come back time and again to pressure Israel, the target of Palestinian hate, to give up land, to release murderers that it has imprisoned to protect itself, and to pretend that Palestinians are a normal people, not a hate-filled fanatical cult whose reason for being is to kill the Jewish state.

The Palestinians have found an effective strategy to attract left-wing support, which is to claim that Israel is guilty of every social ill that is opposed by progressive people anywhere. So they claim absurdly that Israel is a racist and apartheid state, that it oppresses women and children, and that it is an environmental polluter. Recently, Mahmoud Abbas told the climate summit in Paris that Israel was “destroying the Palestinian environment.”

Palestinians often falsely accuse Israel of precisely the crimes that they themselves commit. The world ignores the facts that the PLO’s and Hamas’ essence is anti-Jewish racism, that they wish to establish a Jew-free state, that Palestinian Arabs are often guilty of honor killings and sexual violence against women and children, and that the Palestinians massively pollute their environment (funds given to them to mitigate environmental problems have been stolen by corrupt officials or used for military purposes).

One of their favorite accusations is that the IDF deliberately targets Arab children. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but what is true is that there have been numerous Palestinian terrorist attacks aimed at Israeli children, schools, nurseries, school buses, outings, and young peoples’ clubs. For a Palestinian, a Jew is a Jew and a child is a soft target.

Palestinians inject their Israel-hatred everywhere. Palestinians have even assimilated the grievances of the Ferguson, MO protests to their movement, claiming that both are “fighting a common system of injustice, control and racism.” Regardless of the absurdity of their claims, Western academics, religious leaders, trade unions, and other organizations eat them up and pass resolutions to boycott or divest from the Jewish state.

Why does the most of the world consistently take their side? There are multiple reasons, including some brilliant PR decisions – to appropriate the anti-colonialist mantle from the Jews, to claim to be an oppressed indigenous people seeking national liberation, to turn the racism/apartheid label around and apply it to the Jews – and some practical tactics, like intimidating the West with terrorism. And of course there is always the advantage that they have the right enemy, the Jew among nations.

But in any event, it is stupid for the West to continue feeding this monster. And it is even stupider for Israel to do so.

I would like to see Israel publicly denounce the fake Palestinian historical narrative, and refute their claims to be the original indigenous people of this land. I would like Israel to officially end the farce of the Oslo ‘peace process’, shut down the Palestinian Authority, outlaw the PLO, throw its leaders out of the country and dismantle the indoctrination system established by Yasser Arafat. I would like to see Israel assert its historical, moral and legal rights of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

Now everyone will come up with reasons why this is impossible. How can we rule over these Arabs? Do we give them citizenship? Do we administer a loyalty oath and kick out the ones who don’t sign it? Where to? Nobody wants to do reserve duty in the territories. And on and on and on.

I don’t have the answers. But this is what we need to do. We can’t cooperate with the monstrous culture of cruelty whose reason for being is to destroy our state. We can’t let them keep getting stronger while we pretend that some day we will be able to live at peace with them.

Nothing has changed since 1972 except now they have produced a generation of children who can stick a knife in a Jew as easily as kicking a football.

It won’t get better. The lesson we should have learned since 1972 is that ultimately it’s going to be them or us. Let it be us.

12/03 Links Pt1: PA: Killing Israelis is good, but must choose place and time so world accepts it

From Ian:

Fatah Knives and ISIS Knives: Palestinian Child-Sacrifice

Instead of educating our children, as they do in the West, to be part of the Startup Generation, we follow the lead of darkest Africa, where children are armed with assault rifles and sent out to kill other children.
If the Palestinians really want to pick a fight with Israel, why do they send children to fight a "holy war" instead of fighting it themselves, like men?
The only difference is that the members of ISIS go out themselves to kill; the Palestinians send their young. Why are these not "war crimes"?
We sacrifice our sons and daughters in the name of Allah, as though Allah were a pagan statue with an altar and had to be appeased with the blood of children.
Here, the Islamists want to "liberate" Jerusalem from the infidel Zionist-Crusader occupation. Next, they want to "liberate" occupied Spain, once Muslim Andalusia, and return it to the bosom of Islam. After that, they want to occupy the Vatican and establish the Islamic Emirate on the ruins of Christianity.

PMW: Abbas’ Fatah honors “heroic” killer of “11 Zionists”

PA Chairman Abbas' Fatah movement never misses an opportunity to glorify terrorists who have murdered Israelis. Fatah found such an occasion last week, when the movement released a new photo of a "heroic" terrorist who killed 11 Israelis 13 years ago.
Thaer Hammad is a Palestinian terrorist who is serving 11 life sentences in an Israeli prison for shooting and killing 7 soldiers and 3 civilians with a sniper rifle from a hilltop in Wadi Al-Haramiya in the West Bank on March 3, 2002. Fatah posted two photos of the murderer Thaer Hammad on its official Facebook page:
Text on right picture: "The first day in captivity"
Text on left picture: "After 13 years in captivity"
Text below pictures: "The heroic prisoner Thaer Hammad, who carried out the Wadi Ah-Haramiya operation (i.e., terror attack), in which he killed 11 Zionists, in a new picture after 13 years in captivity. He is still sitting in the Zionist enemy's prison."[Official Facebook page of the Fatah Movement, Nov. 21, 2015]

PMW: PA: Killing Israelis is good, but must choose place and time so world accepts it

Jibril Rajoub, Head of PA Sport and Youth Affairs: "The international community does not agree to a bus exploding in Tel Aviv. But the international community does not ask what happens to a settler or soldier in the occupied territories at the wrong time and in the wrong place. No one asks about him! Therefore, we want to fight in such a way that the world and the international community will remain by our side." [Official PA TV, Oct. 17, 2015]
Hafez Barghouti, columnist and former editor of official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida:
"After the events of September [9, 2011] in New York, [Ariel] Sharon
applied the term 'terror' used to refer to those attacks, to our national struggle (i.e., terror campaign - Intifada). I warned about this at the time, and called to keep a low profile until the New York turmoil had passed...
Now, after the Paris attacks, we must keep a low profile so that we are not charged with the crimes of ISIS... We must learn our lessons and wait." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 24, 2015]

PA official on Palestinian terror attacks: They are “acts of bravery, I am proud of them”

An addition to the Palestinese Lexicon - "Surrounded"

In 2012, Philippe Assouline wrote a brilliant piece in Times of Israel called "A BDS Palestinese Lexicon" where he shows how words that have one meaning in English have completely different meanings in Palestinese. Here are his first five entries:

Aboriginal/Native: Any non-Jew, preferably Arab, who has immigrated to Israel/Palestine within the last 150 years or is a remnant of Arab colonial conquests. For example, Yasser Arafat and Edward Said who were both born or raised in Egypt are “Native” Palestinians.

Apartheid: The only system in the Middle East which is democratic and grants Arab citizens full equality under the law, including the right to become a Justice of the Supreme Court, an ambassador, a military officer or a Minister in the Cabinet., i.e. a form of “Racism.” Not to be confused with the widespread discrimination and exclusion of Palestinians on ethnic grounds in Lebanon, which is not “Apartheid.”

Apartheid Wall: A separation fence erected in response to countless terror attacks in order to protect both Jews and Muslims from suicide bombings as a manifestation of “Zionist Aggression.”

Checkpoint: An absolutely gratuitous, cruel and malicious security measure erected in the West Bank in response to years of deadly suicide bombings, which saves countless innocent lives and is therefore to be equated with the worst forms of human torture. Not to be confused with security checkpoints at airports and international borders which, though identical in the inconveniences they cause, are perfectly acceptable.

Civilian: To BDS, an armed Palestinian terrorist in the act of planning or staging a terror attack who is targeted or killed by Israel.

The Judean People's Front recently wrote their own version on Israellycool:

While it is funny, it is also serious. When the very meaning of words is routinely twisted, the truth is lost.

Which brings us to an article in Ma'an about Hizma, where a non-violent protester (another example of Palestinian newspeak) shot two Israelis:

The town of Hizma [is] completely surrounded on the west side by the Israeli separation wall.

By definition, nothing can be "surrounded" on only one side. But in Palestinese, not only can you be surrounded on one side - you can be completely surrounded!

While the articles I linked to are humorous, this hijacking of language itself is deliberate, and insidious.