Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 07, 2018

05/07 Links Pt2: Most Israelis Understand That Israel Can Be Right and the Whole World Wrong; Time to Retire the False Palestinian Narrative; Giro d'Italia in Israel: Far more than a cycling race

From Ian:

Most Israelis Understand That Israel Can Be Right and the Whole World Wrong

As the Hamas-led protests at the fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip become increasingly violent, the Jewish state finds itself in the familiar position of facing worldwide condemnation for minimal efforts to defend itself against its enemies. Yossi Klein Halevi, reflecting on today’s situation and its recent historical precedents, reflects on the dilemma Israel faces:

In 2002, when much of the international community was severely criticizing Israel for its tough military response to the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings known as the second intifada, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, asked with rhetorical exasperation, “Can Israel be right and the whole world wrong?”

Most Israelis would have surely answered: of course. . . .

Israelis view [the current Gaza] demonstrations as part of a wider assault that includes continual attempts, along every border, to penetrate the country’s defenses—whether through tunnels from Gaza, periodic waves of missiles and rockets fired from Gaza and Lebanon, or, most worrying of all, threats from the growing Iranian military presence in Syria. Those assaults are part of an increasingly successful Iranian plan to surround Israel’s borders with what Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has called “the golden ring in the chain of resistance.” . . . The presence of terrorist enclaves on almost every one of Israel’s borders helps explain the determination of the IDF to prevent demonstrators from trying to break through the fence. . . .

The promise of the state of Israel to the Jewish people was to end its seemingly eternal otherness and restore it to the community of nations. Part of remaining faithful to that vision is to heed the warnings of outsiders, especially friends, and not withdraw in bitter isolation. But no less important for the fulfillment of Israel’s promise is to ensure that those who seek to destroy it are kept from breaching its borders. How to balance those two imperatives defines the challenge facing Israel today.

JPost Editorial: Giro d'Italia in Israel: Far more than a cycling race

The second stage of the Giro d’Italia bicycle race found riders navigating the coastal plain of Israel. They began in Haifa and rode next to the ancient Crusader city of Acre, then headed south, passing Zichron Ya’acov to finish in Tel Aviv. It was 167 km. of easy terrain. The official site of the race described the main obstacles as “roundabouts, traffic islands and sometimes speed bumps.”

On Sunday, the riders continued to the Negev where they zipped passed Sde Boker and the Nabatean city of Avdat, taking in the vistas of the Mitzpe Ramon crater along the way.

Traveling outside of Europe is a first in the 101-year history of the Giro d’Italia. Israeli-Canadian philanthropist Sylvan Adams, co-owner of Israel’s professional Israel Cycling Academy team, played the key role in bringing the competition to Jerusalem. He said he sought to bring the race to Israel to show how beautiful the country is to the billion television viewers who watch cycling.

“Unlike a soccer match or a basketball game, which takes place inside a stadium, cycling takes place outdoors. So for three days, with 16 hours of TV coverage starting in Jerusalem, our beautiful and important national capital, and then going from Acre in the North all the way down to Eilat, they will literally see all the country,” Adams told The Jerusalem Post.

The coverage of the cycling was only one of many positive outcomes. The attendance of UAE Team Emirates and Bahrain-Meridas was another. Although the riders from these teams are not from the Gulf states, their participation was symbolic. It shows that sports can be a form of diplomacy, as well as a way to put Israel on the map as a place removed from news of the conflict that generally drowns out other coverage.

That doesn’t mean the conflict was entirely ignored. The Guardian noted that Israel was “one of the most contested territories in the world” and said the race took place on a “complex political landscape” overshadowed by violence in Gaza. In general, the unprecedented sporting event appears to have emerged unscathed by political controversy. No boycotts or protests interdicted the riders. This is a testament to the work of the organizers and likely symbolic of the overall change in attitudes toward Israel globally.

Israel Unveils the Middle East’s First Velodrome That Meets Olympic Standards

The Sylvan Adams Velodrome in Tel Aviv, touted as the most advanced indoor cycling arena in the Middle East, was unveiled a few days before the Big Start of the Giro d’Italia road-biking race in Israel, scheduled to begin in Jerusalem on May 4 and reach Tel Aviv on May 5.

The arena, still under construction, will meet the Olympic standards of 250 meters in circumference and aims to develop and promote competitive and recreational cycling in Israel.

Professional cyclists from the Israel Cycling Academy did the first test run of the tracks as Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai watched along with Yoni Yarom, chairman of the Israel Cycling Federation, and Sylvan Adams, co-owner of the Israel Cycling Academy and honorary president of Giro’s Big Start in Israel.

Palestinians condemn UAE, Bahrain presence in cycle race in Israel

Palestinians have expressed outrage at teams from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for taking part in the opening legs of the Giro d'Italia cycling race in Israel over the weekend, which they say undermined Arab solidarity with their cause.

The presence of the Gulf states' teams in the top cycling race -- which has now moved on to its home territory in Italy -- broke a boycott of Israel in place since the start of the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948.

In an unusually barbed statement to a fellow Arab country, the Palestinian Olympic Committee said their participation was "a stab in the back to the great sacrifices made by the Palestinian people ... and a free service for the occupation."

UAE officials did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment and Bahrain's ministry of information referred questions to the team itself. Neither of the teams immediately responded to emailed inquiries.

None of the cyclists in either of the 8-men teams -- Bahrain–Merida and UAE Team Emirates -- appeared to be Bahraini or Emirati citizens and were almost all European, according to profiles on the event's official website.

One of the things that makes debate over whether BDS is winning or losing so confusing is lack of common agreement regarding what constitutes success and failure.

For example, this year we saw more BDS votes in student government than in previous years, and more of those votes go in favor of the BDSers. Needless to say, a movement like BDS which demands we treat everything (including defeat) as wins for them insists that more student government votes going their way constitutes unstoppable momentum for their cause. And, from our side, it’s difficult to totally dismiss more student votes against Israel as irrelevant.

Yes, school administrations have held the line by condemning and insisting they will never act on the non-binding requests made by this year’s Student Senate. And after two decades of effort, it is relevant to point out that all BDS has to show for itself are some toothless measures passed by transient student leaders through votes often taken behind the backs of constituents (meaning they cannot be said to represent campus opinion).

But this assumes that the goal of the BDS “movement” is to actually cause financial harm to the Jewish state. While that may be an ultimate desire or dream, their main or current goals might be different, requiring us to tease these out before measuring success or failure (or selecting our own strategies and tactics to fight them).

The most obvious goal the boycotters are trying to achieve is to brand Israel as a racist, repressive state akin to South Africa (which, it should be noted, ended its Apartheid system years before most of today’s college students were born). Given this, anything they can do to poison the minds of the young against the Jewish state represents furthering their actual goal. So even if a student government vote does not go their way, the speeches they make and letters in school papers condemning Israel in harsh and unfair terms represent the actual political activity they are engaged in designed to further their real goal of making Israel seem so loathsome that its elimination should be seen as virtuous rather than horrifying.

Another goal was best labeled by William Jacobson at Legal insurrection who described BDS as a “Settler Colonial Ideology” which strives to colonize and dominate the entire Left end of the political spectrum and make anyone who considers themselves left of center subservient to their will.

This goal has received a boost over the last year as anti-Trump “resistance,” coupled with the emergence of the ideology of intersectionality (which insists all progressive causes be linked), provided the most aggressive activists (which tend to be anti-Israel partisans) the opportunity to make demands on those with whom they join in “common cause.”

The scare quotes I just used around “common cause” was meant to illustrate that for a Settler Colonial Ideology like BDS, finding common cause is a one-way street. This is why women and gay groups must sign onto the anti-Israel agenda to be considered intersectional partners in good standing, while those pushing the intersectional agenda will never mention – much less fight for – women and gays repressed throughout the Middle East (including in “Palestine”).

In many ways, ground-level successes – such as the aforementioned student government votes – are a result of the success the BDS colonial project over the last year. And, as we have seen in the UK, the fully colonized anti-Israel/anti-Semitic Left can end up just one election away from obtaining genuine power.

So now that we know what the most important goals of the BDS project really are, how best to fight it? Having our own goals clearly articulated is a first step, a subject I’ll discuss next.

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This seems to have flown completely under the radar.

From Egypt Today, May 1:

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi received a delegation from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) on Tuesday in the presence of Abbas Kamel, interim president of Egypt’s intelligence services.

During the meeting, President Sisi expressed Egypt's keenness to be in constant contact with all sects of the American society in order to enhance common understanding and intensify consultations on the diverse challenges facing the region, noting the decades-long strategic relations between the two countries.

For their part, the American attendees stressed the importance of the strategic relations between Egypt and the United States in all fields, expressing appreciation for Egypt’s efforts on various fronts, especially in addressing terrorism in general and the framework of Comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018 in particular.

The delegation also praised Sisi's efforts in countering extremist ideology and realizing economic development through the steps undertaken as part of the country’s economic reform program, stressing that the economy is back to the recovery path.

The president also stressed the importance of supporting the national institutions and working on enabling them to carry out their roles and responsibilities in maintaining security and combating terrorism.

He also reiterated Egypt's support for the international efforts and initiatives aimed at achieving a just and comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian issue, which lies at the heart of priorities for the Arab world.

President Sisi stressed that a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue will provide a new reality by shaping public opinion, which will contribute to the stability and security of the region as a whole.

JINSA is a hawkish group, supporting withdrawal from the Iran deal and with seeming unwavering support for Israel.

This visit is not mentioned on their webpage as of this writing. I'm curious why not.

(h/t Michelle)

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05/07 Links Pt1: IDF: 70 Years of Defending Israel; Abbas honors mother of 5 terrorists, including 2 murderers; Regev: The Iran Nuclear Deal Was Based on Lies and Is Untenable

From Ian:

IDF Blog: 70 Years of Defending Israel

On May 1948, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officially began acting as Israel’s military organization, rather than the assortment of separate groups that had preceded it. Led by the first Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Yaakov Dori, the IDF took on the role of the official defender of the State of Israel and its citizens.

Since its founding, the IDF has fought in seven wars, sent humanitarian delegations to more than 25 countries around the world, began a large effort to help Syrians in need, and created revolutionary technology.

The Givati Brigade participating in a parade. Pictured from right to left: IDF Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Yaakov Dori, Ben-Gurion, Major General Yigael Yadin, and Major General Yigal Allon - 1948

IDF Wars:
The War of Independence:
The IDF was established at a time when the entire country was at war for its very survival. The IDF drew its forces and weapons from the various Jewish paramilitary organizations that were active prior to the founding of the state, and began as a hastily cobbled together, ill-equipped army. By the end of the 1948 War of Independence, the IDF had defeated five invading Arab armies and became what it is today.

PMW: Abbas honors mother of 5 terrorists, including 2 murderers

In keeping with Palestinian Authority policy to honor terrorists and glorify terrorist attacks, PA Chairman Abbas himself met with Um Nasser Abu Hmeid - a Palestinian woman who is famous and admired in the PA for being the mother of 4 terrorist prisoners serving multiple life sentences. In total they are serving 18 life sentences for murdering 8 people and carrying out numerous terror attacks. The PA refers to her fifth son, a terrorist who was killed by Israel, as "a Martyr."

Abbas welcomed Abu Hmeid in his personal headquarters. She is also known in the PA as "Khansa of Palestine," - a name that refers to the woman Al-Khansa from early Islam, who sent her four sons to battle and rejoiced when they all died as Martyrs.

Official PA TV newsreader: "President Abbas welcomed in the [PA] presidential headquarters in Ramallah Um Nasser [Abu] Hmeid ''Khansa of Palestine,'' mother of five (sic) prisoners."
[Official PA TV News, April 25, 2018]

Palestinian Media Watch exposed that the PA chose Abu Hmeid to launch the PA's statehood campaign with the UN in 2011, and also honored her in 2010 and again in 2015. Recently, the official PA daily singled her out in a report on an event for mothers of "Martyrs."

In its report, official PA TV News also included a statement by Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki who, while standing with Abu Hmeid, praised her and her terrorist sons:

Mark Regev: The Iran Nuclear Deal Was Based on Lies and Is Untenable

Last Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed a vast repository of over 100,000 documents and files that Israeli intelligence obtained from Iran's secret nuclear archive in Tehran.

The documents all attest to the Iranian regime's clandestine plans to build nuclear weapons. One document proclaimed the ominous mission: to "design, produce and test five warheads, each with ten kiloton TNT yield for integration on a missile." That is like five Hiroshima bombs.

Under the terms of the nuclear deal, Iran committed to coming clean about all prior military nuclear activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The material that Israel has uncovered provides overwhelming documentary proof that Iran lied to the IAEA, deliberately concealing its true intentions and activities.

As it stands, the Iranian nuclear deal does not prevent proliferation. On the contrary, the deal paves a clear path for the regime to build nuclear weapons. The deal also allows Iran to continue to develop ballistic missiles, enabling them to reach cities in Europe.

The inspection mechanism is wholly inadequate. Iran has never declared its enrichment facilities voluntarily. This was true of the uranium enrichment sites revealed by another source in Natanz in 2002 and Fordow in 2009.

The deal's restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities expire in just a few short years. Then, Iran will be free to enrich unlimited quantities of uranium, using thousands of centrifuges. This sunset clause will reward the regime for its deceit.

Iran's continued encroachment and aggression in the region, along with the major pitfalls in the 2015 agreement, and the dramatic new revelations from Iran's nuclear archive, all attest to the folly of basing our common security upon Iranian duplicity and mendacity.

Antisemitic op-ed in Salt Lake City Tribune (UPDATE)

An op-ed at the Salt Lake City Tribune by a Michael S. Robinson crosses the line into direct antisemitism:

Well folks, we don’t have to worry about Freddy Krueger or Chucky. We have our own real monsters to deal with.
Whether it’s a passive complicity or active participation, our country is partnered with one of the worst human-rights violators in our world. There’s a very logical reason The Donald has wooed Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. Oh, sure, it’s partly our president’s narcissistic need to cultivate anyone who’s willing to tell him he’s wonderful. But it’s equally probable that Trump has noticed the Israeli leader’s strategic positioning in fomenting, even at the price of outright lies, a more precipitous situation with Arab nations.

Saying that Netanyahu is one of the worst human rights violators in the world is absurd, but not antisemitic. Comparing him to Hollywood monsters is insane, but not antisemitic.

This is antisemitic:

Can the power of the U.S. Jewish lobby really be so strong that we are blinded to Israel’s atrocities? Aside from the votes that are paid for by that lobby, there seems to be a mindless philosophy that, because the Jews have historically suffered so much, we must never criticize them. Even Dr. Spock would frown on this type of parenting. It doesn’t make a naughty child any better when parents decline all discipline, just because little Suzie had a nasty owie two weeks ago.

Yes, Robinson is comparing the Holocaust with "little Suzie's nasty owie two weeks ago."

This is antisemitic:

Oh, yes, the Jews know all about concentration camps, but they seem unable to muster any human compassion for the suffering of their neighbors. Instead of a normal and healthy outgrowth of empathy, Israel has instead become the monster.

The "Jews are acting like Nazis" meme is a modern blood libel.

I wrote a response although I concentrated more on his lies than his obvious problem with Jews.

Already at the beginning of this absurd article we see how ignorant and hateful the author is.

Netanyahu is "one of the worst human-rights violators in our world"? Really? even if you believe every single lie about Israel in this article - and rest assured, there are dozens of them - the number of people killed or injured or displaced by Israel in 70 years is minuscule compared to its Arab neighbors, let alone Russia or Iran or Rwanda or even the US. In fact, Arabs have killed more PALESTINIANS than Israel has (Black September 1970, Syria now, Lebanon over years of civil wars.) Kuwait expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians for supporting Saddam. Arab countries refuse to give Palestinians citizenship, forcing them to remain stateless no matter how many generations live in their borders. The list goes on and on - and that's just Palestinians, not other Arab on Arab violence.
When you actually look at things objectively, Israel has a better human rights record than any country you can name when at war. A higher percentage of those killed by Israel are militant (vs. civilian) than in nearly every war in history. Israel works harder than any nation in history - including Great Britain and the US today - to minimize civilian casualties. I have the facts to back this up.
But Robinson isn't interested in facts.No, he wants to compare the murder of six million Jews to "an owie that little Suzie got two weeks ago." He wants to say that the only people who support a liberal, progressive nation are "the powerful Jewish lobby." He freely admits he hates Israel. He doesn't seem to have the same hate for suicide bombers, rocket launchers or bus bombers. I wonder why.

UPDATE: Robinson responded to my comment, and I responded back:

I clearly hate the Netanyahu government and its flagrant human rights abuses. Obviously the holocaust is not a mere owie. At the same time you can't justify Israel's brutality by events that are 70 years old. I think I made it clear. The sad plight of the Jews as victims of the Third Reich should have taught them some empathy and compassion. The persecuted, instead, are now the persecutors.

Elder of Ziyon in a few secondsIsrael doesn't justify any violence because of the Holocaust. That's a straw man. You seem to find it too inconvenient to remember exactly what Hamas has done to Jews in pizza shops and birthday parties. Terror attacks that Palestinian media celebrate every day in their media.
Israelis are interested in peace. Palestinians are interested in destroying Israel.You have shown which side you are on.
I challenge you to find a single map in a Palestinian schoolbook that shows Jaffa, Tiberias, Safed or Tiberias as Israeli towns. Just one.
Israel's human rights record compares favorably to ANY nation during wartime. Compare the statistics of percentage of civilians killed in any of Israel's wars with any other war you care to name.
No nation is perfect in how it fights wars, but if you actually did the research you would see that Israel does a better job than any nation you can name - Middle Eastern, Asian, European or North American.
Yet you are only upset at the one nation that spends more time and money trying to minimize civilian casualties than any other you can name. Go ahead - I'm waiting to hear you name one nation that tried harder to avoid civilian casualties, in all of human history. Certainly you can name one.
Sorry for bringing up actual facts rather than empty slogans. You are not interested in facts. You are interested in demonizing Israel.
Now, why would you be so obsessed with the Jewish state that happens to have a better human rights record in wartime than any other nation?

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From Haaretz:

The United Nations Security Council declined on Friday to adopt a request by the United States to condemn recent remarks by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that were widely criticized as being anti-Semitic, according to AFP. Diplomats said Kuwait rejected the U.S. draft and killed it, arguing that Abbas had already apologized and that it was one-sided.

There are no other details, but one can surmise a bit from this.

Abbas and the Palestinian media showed no remorse over his blatantly antisemitic remarks. His "apology" was insulting and not an apology at all.

Kuwait, a member of the Security Council this year, was drafted to stop a UNSC condemnation which would have made Abbas look very, very bad. A minimal "apology" was created specifically to allow Kuwait to claim that the issue was over and Abbas apologized.

The most important part of this story is the idea that the proposed condemnation was "one-sided." This means that, according to the UNSC that allowed the Kuwaiti move to kill the resolution, that Jew-hatred is not to be condemned unless it is balanced by - Jew-hatred.

The UN is a worthless organization, but this incident proves that it believes that there are two sides to every antisemitic statement.

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Egyptian magazine uses antisemitic caricature to incite against Israel 70 anniversary event

Egyptian magazine Rose al-Youssef has this on its cover:

The article is about a 70th anniversary celebration that the Israel embassy is throwing, using a classic antisemitic caricature of a Jew to get Egyptians angry that such an event could take place in Egypt.

YNet reports that Egyptian officials tried to get the event canceled, ostensibly for "security reasons" but in fact because of their insane hatred of anything Israeli. When Israel pushed back and insisted that the event would go on, the officials apparently leaked the invitation to Rose al-Youssef with the intent of inciting Egyptians to be angry.

The article included a photo of the Israeli ambassador David Govrin, in a thinly veiled attempt to tell Egyptians to attack him if they see him.

It also included a copy of the invitation so that Egyptian bigots can go and try to stop or spoil the event, which is scheduled for Tuesday evening.

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British Medical Journal publishes lots of anti-Israel lies

A response to an anti-Israel paper originally published in 2014 by the formerly prestigious British Medical Journal contains out and out lies about Israel and Gaza.

Written by Derek A Summerfield, David Halpin, Swee Ang, Andrea Balduzzi, Franco Camandona, Gianni Tognoni, Ireo Bono, Marina Rui, and Vittorio Agnoletto of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College, the reply is called The Maiming Fields of Gaza and says:

Since 30 March 2018, Palestinians civilians living as refugees and exiles in Gaza ever since they were driven out from Palestine have been gathering in mass, unarmed demonstration about their right of return to the homeland they lost in 1948. Confronted by the Israeli army, including 100 snipers, the toll of dead and wounded Palestinian civilians is mounting at a shocking rate as we write.

1. They aren't refugees nor exiles according to the definition of refugee accepted by the UN.

2. Demonstrations that include firebombs cannot be called "unarmed."

3. There is no "right of return" for descendants of people who fled their homes voluntarily, which most of their ancestors did.

4. Israel has the right to defend its borders with deadly force, as does every other state. If these doctors can come up with methods to keep Israel's borders safe that are more effective and less damaging, they are invited to give Israel advice. They do not.

There is a background to this. Firstly, there is the ongoing impact of the 12 year long Israeli blockade of Gaza on the care and health of her people, and the degrading of its health services. The violence and destruction inflicted by Israeli military action in Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9 marked a distinct turning point in the pauperization of Gaza, against a backdrop of an ever tightening blockade since 2006.That assault in 2014 killed over 2,200 civilians, a quarter of whom were children, wounded 11.000, destroyed 15 hospitals, 45 clinics and 80,000 homes.(1)

5. The degrading of Gaza's health services are nearly all because of the Palestinian Authority, not Israel. For the past five years at least, Israel has not blocked any medicine or medical equipment from entering Gaza with very small exceptions of dual use devices, and even those almost always get through after a delay. The PA has directly blocked basic medicines and equipment and stopped salaries of support staff, which has directly hurt Gaza medical services. This is all well documented and the authors not mentioning that fact is indeed the single biggest indication that this essay is not meant to reflect the truth but anti-Israel propaganda.

6. The "blockade" (more precisely, closure) has not been "ever tightening" since 2006.It has been significantly loosened in recent years. The authors are lying.

7. The authors are claiming that every single person killed Operation Protective edge was an innocent civilian. This is absurd - nearly half of the dead were militants. Even the article referenced admits that at least 1/3 of those killed were militants. .The authors are lying, and knowingly lying.

8. A significant number of the women and children killed were human shields for the terrorists. While the war was still raging I documented 108 of the children who were killed in houses where the terrorist was the target and the children were used to protect them.

9. 15 hospitals destroyed? This is a laughable lie. The source cited does not make that claim. The authors simply made it up.

Since 2014 Israel has further tightened the passage of essential medicines and equipment into Gaza, and of the entry of doctors and experts from abroad who offer technical expertise not available locally.

10. As mentioned, Israel has not tightened passage of medicines at all. This is a complete lie.

Gazan hospitals have been depleted of antibiotics, anaesthetic agents, painkillers, other essential drugs, disposables, and fuel to run surgical theatres. (2)

11. The footnoted article notes indeed falsely blames Israel, but it adds that the crisis in Gaza is "caused by the severe crisis in the relations between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which leads to denial of funding and deliveries of medical supplies and medicines by the former – at the expense of the civilians in the Gaza Strip." The authors purposeful omission of this section again proves that they are not in the least objective reporters, and this is not fit for publication.

All elective surgery has been cancelled since last January 2018, and 3 hospitals have closed because of medication, equipment and fuel shortages (3).

12. The footnoted article for this does not mention Israel as being responsible at all. The workers went on strike because they were not paid by the PA.

Medical personnel have been working on reduced salaries.

13. See above. Nothing to do with Israel.

Gazan health professionals find it almost impossible to get Israeli permission to travel abroad to further their training.

14. Whether this is true or not, there is another border to Gaza - Egypt. The authors refusal to mention that Egypt also blocks Gazans from coming in or traveling through it, also for security reasons, is yet another indication that this is a polemic that does not belong in a medical journal.

The regular episodic military assaults on Gaza and the current targeting of unarmed demonstrators are part of a pattern of periodically induced emergencies arising from Israeli policy.

15. Exactly how did Israeli policy force violent demonstrators to storm Israel's border, to set Israeli fields on fire, or - previously - to shoot thousands of rockets towards Israeli civilians? This is again propaganda, not worthy of the BMJ.

This appears to be a strategy for the de-development of health and social services impinging on all the population of Gaza.

16. Israel has actually proposed solutions to Gaza's problems that have been caused by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Israel is not served in the least by the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that was inflicted by the infighting between the two parties. This is just another lie.

.The current systematic use of excessive force towards unarmed civilians, including children and journalists, is provoking a further crisis for the people of Gaza.

17. 80% of those killed have been linked to terror groups. That is a strong indication that Israeli defensive actions are very specific towards violent rioters who pose a risk. It is not at all the way these authors represent it.

Derek Summerfield has been obsessed with promoting anti-Israel propaganda for at least 20 years. He says he has "always been angry at Israel." As this letter proves, he is not interested in the truth - his entire purpose of writing this is to bash Israel and to obscure the truth.

The BMJ should at least read the footnotes of the letters it publishes and not assume that every doctor is an objective observer. Summerfield and his co-authors obviously are anything but.

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05/06 Links: The Left Only Cares About Palestinians When It Can Blame Israel; Abbas is not the problem; The Golden Calf of Leftism

From Ian:

The Left Only Cares About Palestinians When It Can Blame Israel

For the past two weeks, horrifying images of Palestinians being murdered have surfaced on social media. Jets have dropped bombs, sending flames and black smoke into the air, followed by helicopters dropping improvised and unguided barrel bombs. On the ground, in the besieged Palestinian camp, buildings collapsed burying civilians alive underneath them.

Those who have attempted to flee the camp have been arrested. No food or medicine has been allowed into the camp since July 2013. About 200 residents have starved to death or died due to lack of medicine. The airstrikes and shelling have not stopped for two weeks, preventing rescuers from retrieving the rotting corpses.

And yet, despite these horrors, no significant protests took place anywhere in the West or Arab world. The traditional champions of the Palestinian cause — those same people who have protested Israeli attacks on Gaza — have remained silent as the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus in Syria was shelled by Russian and Syrian air forces, while militias loyal to the Assad regime enforced a brutal siege.

The silence surrounding the brutalization of an entire Palestinian population exposes something few have spoken about: that pro-Palestinian sentiment is often just anti-Israel or anti-American sentiment dressed up in disguise. And when it comes to Syria’s starving, dying Palestinian population, the pro-Palestine left is nowhere to be seen.

It’s a glaring double-standard: When Palestinians in Gaza endure Israeli airstrikes and a decade-long blockade, their suffering galvanizes mass protests in Western capitals. When Palestinians in Syria and Syrians are being bombed and starved, the anti-Imperialist Left either goes silent, or even worse, stands on the side of the oppressor.

Daniel Gordis: Netanyahu and Abbas Clarify Israel’s Choices

Iran and Israel share no border, and there is no territorial dispute between the two. Yet nothing about radical Islam’s appetite for Israel’s destruction can be sated, and ultimately, Israelis believe, the same is true of the Palestinians as well. What Abbas’s diatribe did was simply to confirm that Palestinian lust for Israel’s demise has not abated in 70 years; in an ironic way, there is relief in Abbas’s ending the charade.

The Mossad heist, the Iranian drone that followed a few weeks later (perhaps in response to the Mossad operation) and Israel’s bombing raids over Syria may be the first shots across the bow in a much larger conflict to follow. No one knows.

What unites Israelis, interestingly, is their largely shared sense that other than ceasing to exist, there is nothing that Israel can do to end the calls for its destruction and avoid periodic armed conflict. In 1923, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the father of revisionist Zionism, wrote his famous essay, “The Iron Wall,” arguing that the Arabs would never accept the existence of a Jewish entity in their midst, and that to survive, Zionists would have to put up an iron wall and be willing to fight, perhaps forever.

Increasing numbers of even left-leaning Israelis sense that Jabotinsky, sadly, may have been right. Few Israelis want a war with Iran. If war does come, however, most will see it not as a fresh conflict, but as the latest tragic battle in the now century-long conflict over whether the Jews have a right to a national home in the Middle East.

Abbas is not the problem

The struggle against Zionism is at the root of Palestinian identity and is at once national and religious in nature. It is just that for now, Abbas believes certain means of struggle are less beneficial to the Palestinian cause. The Palestinians are the only victims in this conflict, and they must fortify this status through the perpetuation of their refugee status and the strengthening of the public's consciousness of the Nakba. As victims, one should not demand the Palestinians take responsibility for their actions and their plight.

Palestinian incitement is the effort to instill this narrative into their consciousness; and the campaign to deligitimize Israel in the international arena is the campaign to instill this narrative in global opinion.

It is not enough to replace Abbas. We must replace the Palestinian narrative, which is a much harder goal to accomplish. As the Fatah party's last living founding father, Abbas could have tried to change the narrative, but he has preferred to deepen his commitment to the narrative by connecting it, and rightly so, to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husseini.

"The March of Return" in Gaza and the Nakba Day events next week reflect the Palestinian commitment to the long-term goal of putting an end to Zionism. Whoever believes they can promote peace under these conditions by merely presenting some plan and sermonizing to the Palestinians, as some senior U.S. officials continue to do today, is continuing to ignore the problem.

Yisrael Medad: Nazi Insinuations

For Gideon Levy, Zionism was like Nazism, sort of.

He has a new column up defending, but, of course, Mahmoud Abbas.

Here's the lead in:
"Not one Israeli statesman today intends to apologize for the Nakba – not for the ethnic cleansing, nor for the exiling. But Abbas had no choice but to apologize for his Holocaust remark"

Let's count the ways Abbas needed to apologize:

a. The Mufti was a partner in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust with Hitler and a supporter of Nazi ideology (not to mention the killing of Jews in Eretz-Yisrael in the previous years).
b. Abbas' doctorate is a classic Holocaust denial and revisionism tract.
c. As I noted already, he has apologized previously for the same content but keeps on saying the same things.

But did Jews bomb Berlin cafes, Hamburg supermarkets or Bavarian beer halls in an effort to dislodge Germans from their property, land and possessions to "deserve" gas chambers? Did Zionists term Arabs ideologically as untermenschen?

There is no comparison.

A bit of a difference between Hamas terror websites in English and Arabic

Hamas doesn't look like it has updated its English-language Al Qassam Brigades website in months, but here is the image it wants to give to the English-speaking world. It is a site that is heavy on alleging Israeli human rights abuses.

And here's how it appears to Arabic-speaking readers, with stories of glorious martyrdom and terror attacks:

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From Reuters:

Hamas’s armed wing blamed Israel for an explosion in the Gaza Strip on Saturday that killed six of the group’s gunmen.

A statement from the Palestinian Islamist group’s armed wing called the incident a “deplorable Zionist crime” perpetrated against its fighters.

“During a complicated security and intelligence operation conducted by Qassam Brigades to investigate a serious and a grave security incident conducted by the Zionist enemy against Palestinian resistance, a deplorable crime took place against our Mujahideen in the area of Zawayda in central Gaza Strip,” it said.

Hamas provided no further details.

During the funerals of five of the terrorists, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh explained a little more:

Ismail Haniya, head of Hamas' political bureau, said that the six martyrs of the Qassam Brigades are the solid building blocks of a special section in the Al-Qassam Brigades, in a battle of minds to thwart intelligence operations carried out by the occupation, which many people aren't aware of.

He added: "We are fighting on several fronts, including security, popular, political and media and on more than one level."

Haniyeh revealed during the funeral of five martyrs in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, that the Qassam Brigades thwarted hundreds of [Israeli] security operations thanks to the efforts of the martyrs.

Haniyeh said: "These martyrs are heroic jihadis, not today and yesterday, but they have been engaged in this work of years."

Haniyeh's statement implies that some or all of these men were involved in intelligence activities.

YNet's sources give a more prosaic explanation:

A Gaza source told Ynet, meanwhile, that the casualties were members of an engineering group that attempted to dismantle an Israeli rocket that had not detonated. As they were working to defuse it, it went off, he added.

Denying any culpability for the explosion and consequent deaths, "The IDF is not involved in this incident in any way," a military spokesman said.

It is possible that Hamas is blaming Israel for the deaths because they were trying to dismantle (or more likely reverse-engineer) an old Israeli rocket at the time. It was a major explosion, bigger than most "work accidents."

Either way, though it doesn't matter - the world has six fewer terrorists, and if Hamas thinks that Israel killed them, all the better.

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This past Friday's riots made clear that the "March of Return" is a literal smokescreen to divert the IDF's attention from separate attempts by smaller groups of militants to breach the fence and enter Israel.

This is a situation that Daled Amos described in an example of international law mentioned in an ICRC document:

One expert expressed the view however that, in some wholly exceptional cases, rioting civilians can be considered as directly participating in hostilities if they are performing acts of violence which are specifically designed to harm directly the State having to face the riot in support of its enemy. This would be the case, for example, if a riot is led by the enemy in order to destroy the military equipment of the State’s armed forces or in order to divert attention of the armed forces and conduct a military operation in a nearby village. In this exceptional situation, the rioters are actually civilians directly participating in hostilities and become targetable under a conduct of hostilities paradigm.

Here's video from Al Jazeera showing a group of men on Friday breaching the fence and entering Israel - some with large knives - before an IDF patrol sees them and they retreat back into Gaza.

Perhaps it could have been argued in earlier weeks that the participants in the riots were not aware that there were others using the riots as a means to go to quieter areas and attempt to breach the fence. However, by now thousands of people have watched this video, and there have been others like it, meaning at the very least many of the Gaza rioters know quite well that their actions are diverting IDF attention away from other sections of the border.

So under international law, the main groups of rioters that knowingly are diverting the army's resources away from the military actions of the others - and breaching a border is a military action by any definition. Which makes those rioters also military targets, according to the ICRC expert quoted.

Perhaps it could be argued that not all Gaza rioters are aware of this military dimension of their activities. However, as the number of rioters have been decreasing every week, and the number of people who view the videos showing breaching the fence increase, the percentage of rioters unaware of the military dimension of their actions is diminishing rapidly.

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