Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 30, 2006

The perfect weapon

The perfect Hezbollah weapon is lots of dead Arabs.

This morning's events in Qana underscore the basic asymmetry of fighting an utterly immoral organization and the major advantage Hezbollah has in this war.

As I mentioned before, the fact that international law does not fully address a situation such as this gives the terrorists a gift. Human Rights Watch pretty much says so, in an article about Afghanistan that mixes international law and their restrictive interpretations of that law:

Q: What are the legal constraints on methods of attack?

A corollary to the principle of civilian immunity is the basic prohibition of indiscriminate attacks. An attack is "indiscriminate" when its effect is not or cannot be limited to military targets and so it harms military targets and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. Typical examples would be the carpet-bombing of populous areas where military targets are interspersed, or the laying of anti-personnel landmines, which cannot distinguish between civilian or military feet. Indiscriminate attacks also include those which, as noted above, may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects which would be excessive in relation to the "concrete and direct military advantage" anticipated from the attack. Human Rights Watch considers that the evaluation of whether an attack may cause excessive harm to civilians must be conducted for each attack and potential target, and not with regard to the conflict as a whole.

The law requires precautions and choices where civilians are at risk from attacks. The duty to take all feasible steps to minimize injury to civilians and civilian objects requires commanders to choose the means of attack that will minimize incidental harm to civilians. Where a party to the conflict has precision weapons at its disposal, it is under a duty to use "smart" rather than "dumb" bombs in or near populated areas. Likewise, where various military targets offer a similar military advantage, commanders must choose the target that threatens the least danger to civilian lives and civilian objects. Each party to the conflict also has the duty to provide "effective advance warning" of attacks that may affect the civilian population, "unless circumstances do not permit," such as where the element of surprise is critical to the success of the attack. So, for example, if a bridge or major highway is useful to the military as well as civilians, the opposing military is obliged to determine whether there are alternative targets whose destruction offers a similar advantage but less risk to civilians, or whether warnings are feasible before bombing, or whether there is a time of day for attack that would minimize potential harm to civilians. Finally, where an attack would be indiscriminate, or the target questionable, the attack must be cancelled or suspended.

Q: What about the use of civilians as "shields" for military targets?

Parties to the conflict are required to take precautions against the effect of attacks on civilians to the maximum extent feasible. Among these precautions are removing the civilian population from the vicinity of military objectives and avoiding locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.

Should one party violate this rule by using the presence of civilians to shield military targets, the opposing force is not excused, in calculating the legality of an attack, from taking the risk to civilians into account. That is, it is still necessary to weigh the concrete and direct military advantage of any attack against the prospective harm to civilians.

We see from here a some pertinent facts:

International law, at least HRW's interpretation thereof, confers a great advantage on a party that cynically and maliciously places civilians into harm's way.
Israel's actions are still within international law, in the sense that they have warned residents for weeks to leave the area and did everything humanly possible to avoid civilian casualties while still attempting to stop Hezbollah from firing rockets directly at Israeli civilians.

While on paper both Israel and Hezbollah are responsible for avoiding civilian deaths, in reality only Israel suffers repercussions for those deaths.

Hezbollah has learned a very important lesson from the Palestinian Arabs in the territories - the military and propaganda advantage of dead civilians on the Arab side is enormous. The one side that gains the most from Arab deaths is the Arab side. Israel has no incentive to kill civilians - it has great disincentive to do so - but Hezbollah and Hamas want to show dead Arab kids on TV and the Internet.

The visceral disgust in the West at seeing dead civilians makes Qana a perfect storm for Hezbollah. While no one in the Arab world mourns Western civilian deaths (in fact, they often celebrate them), well-meaning dupes in the West will naturally react with compassion and anger at seeing dead innocents - and the kneejerk reaction is not to blame those that put them in harm's way deliberately, but the ones who killed them accientally.

Another related factor that works in Hezbollah's favor is the famous double standard by the West towards Israel. While Israel is expected to do everything possible to wage an oxymoron of a humanitarian war, there are no such parallel expectations from Arabs. The enlightened, Western world assumes that Arabs are crazy anyway and therefore the world doesn't hold the Arab world accountable for its immorality. The word "responsibility" only applies to one side. Arabs bombing children are just a "dog bites man" story, and the overwhelming pressure is always, inevitably towards the side of the conflict that actually exhibits morality.

So there we have it. A combination of Arab cynicism and Western compassion combine to place the one side of the conflict that has moral and even legal justification for what it is doing at a great disadvantage compared to the cold-blooded murderers and terrorists.

According to the international community, the Israel has no defense against a Hezbollah that fires rockets at Israeli civilians and runs into apartment buildings immediately afterwards. Israel is expected to accept the losses indefinitely rather than risk the lives of the civlians that Hezbollah is using.

Ultimately, such misplaced compassion will end up resulting in more 9/11s, more Madrids, more Balis as the perceived Hezbollah victory emboldens terrorists worldwide to accelerate their war against the West.

CAIR shows its colors, again

There is a marked contrast between the condemnation of the Seattle terrorist done by the local Seattle Muslim community and the "condemnation" done by the national CAIR, front for Hamas.

Here's the Seattle condemnation:

The Muslim community of the Greater Seattle area watched in horror as news broke of a shooting at the Jewish Federation building. While many of the details of this shooting remain to be determined, what is clear is that a senseless and ruthless act of violence has taken place and resulted in the loss of at least one life.

We categorically condemn this and any similar acts of violence. We pray for the safety and health of those injured and offer our heartfelt condolences to the family of the victims of this attack. We also hope that the perpetrator of this crime is brought to justice.

There is no room for such acts of violence in our city and community. When one of us is attacked, none of us are safe. We refuse to see the violence in the Middle East spill over to our cities and neighborhoods.

We reject and categorically condemn any attacks against the Jewish community and stand in solidarity with the Jewish Federation in this tragedy.

It is unequivocal, it has no wiggle room, no big BUTs, and seems heartfelt. (The only nit to pick was not admitting that the shooter was Muslim with the "While many of the details of this shooting remain to be determined" phrase. But that is pretty minor because the statement itself is very strong in support of the victims.)

Now, look at what the national CAIR said:

We condemn this senseless attack on a religious institution and offer sincere condolences to the loved ones of those killed or injured. The American Muslim and Jewish communities must do whatever is within their power to prevent the current conflict in the Middle East from being transplanted to this country. We also urge local, state and national law enforcement authorities to step up security measures at synagogues, mosques and other religious institutions of both faiths.

As they have done countless times, CAIR takes an action done by Muslims and tries to spin it into a situation where Muslims are the victims. It tries to take advantage of the situation to score political points.

Most abhorrently, it implies that the Jewish community in America is threatening the Muslim community in America, to the extent that they need "security" protection.

This disgusting, sickening, terror-supporting organization is beyond contempt.

Some weekend links

Too many interesting things today to comment on, but here are a few worth looking at:

Arab columnist says Israel's leaders are descended from Nazis who impersonated Jews

Map of Greater Beirut and exactly how much of it was destroyed by Israel

Krauthammer's latest essay

Video of Hezbollah using civilians as human shields

A demonstrator with an Israeli flag holds a sign reading 'I am a terrorist' during a protest to call on Israel to stop its military strikes against Palestinian people and Lebanon, on Friday, July 28, 2006, in downtown Vienna.

He's probably not a real terrorist, just a terror-supporter. But a man can have dreams, can't he?

Reminds me of an old joke:

A Jew accidentally bumped into an anti-semite while crossing the street.
"Asshole!" said the anti-semite.
"Goldberg," bowed the Jew.

By the way, notice how the AP characterizes Israel's defensive actions - not as strikes against Palestinian Arab terrorists and Hezbollah, but against "Palestinian people and Lebanon." No bias there at all!

Fatah official: Without Oslo, no intifada

The ZOA quotes MEMRI (but I cannot find this on the MEMRI page yet):

A senior leader in Fatah, Ziyad Abu ‘Ein, the Palestinian terrorist group lead by Palestinian Authority (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas, has admitted that the Oslo peace process provided the Palestinians with the means to launch what he termed a “great Palestinian intifadah,” the campaign of suicide bombing and terrorism against Israeli civilians since September 2000 that has claimed the lives of almost 2000 Israelis and wounded and maimed over 10,000 more.

Abu ‘Ein made this statement in an interview on Al-Alam TV earlier this month, stating that, although the Oslo accords had not been the “liberation of Palestine” [ i.e., the destruction of Israel] that the Palestinians sought, “there would have been no resistance in Palestine if not for Oslo. It was Oslo that strongly embraced the Palestinian resistance … If not for Oslo, there would have been no resistance. Throughout the occupied territories, we could not move a single pistol from one place to another. If not for Oslo, the weapons we got through Oslo, and if not for the “A” areas of the Palestinian Authority, if not for the training, the camps, the protection provided by Oslo, and if not for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners through Oslo -- this Palestinian resistance could not have carried out this great Palestinian Intifada, with which we confronted the Israeli occupation” (Al-Alam TV, July 4, translation courtesy of Middle East Media Review Institute (MEMRI), July 27).

To these people, the words "dialogue," "peace" and "truce" are just code-words for "strategies to destroy Israel ."

With the help of the gullible West and leftist Israelis.

UN/terrorist collusion in Gaza (video)

Here is a video that clearly shows (at the end) Palestinian Arab terrorists, with guns, hiding in a UN-labeled ambulance.

I don't know the source or date, but it doesn't look faked.

(H/T Seraphic Secret)
UPDATE: LGF identifies it as being a Reuters video shot on May 11, 2004.

The challenge has been met - but is still ongoing

Mazel tov!

This morning we reached our goal of matching $1000 in contributions towards various Israeli charities. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

I'm keeping it going for now, so I will still match anything given at least through the beginning of Shabbos. I am speaking with others who are interested in continuing this challenge; it would be nice to coordinate a larger project with multiple matchers but I'm not a very good organizer and this was mostly on the honor system anyway. If anyone wants to pledge their own matching contributions, let me know at the elderchallenge-at-gmail.com address and I will, IY"H, try to find the time to increase the scope.

Another idea is if anyone wants to donate gifts (like T-shirts or other tchatchkes) for people who contribute a minimum amount.

But for now, let's see how high we can go today! Thanks again to my readers - you rock!

The elephant in the room of international law

There is a fair amount of literature concerning violations and grave breaches of international law, mostly centered on various Geneva Conventions. For example:

Article 85.-Repression of breaches of this Protocol

3. In addition to the grave breaches defined in Article 11, the following acts shall be regarded as grave breaches of this Protocol, when committed wilfully, in violation of the relevant provisions of this Protocol, and causing death or serious injury to body or health:

(a) Making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack;

(b) Launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects, as defined in Article 57, paragraph 2 (a) (iii);

International law also addresses how those involved in a conflict should treat prisoners from enemies who do not subscribe to Geneva and some other peripheral issues.

And it addresses how war crimes are determined and tried in an international court.

But, as far as I can tell, international law does not address the possibility of one party of a conflict that continuously and explicitly ignores all the norms of war - one that uses its civilians as human shields, one that specifically and deliberately targets civilians, one that would use illegal means such as chemical weapons if it had the means.

In other words, if a state is fighting against a rogue terrorist entity that does not accept Geneva and in fact flouts it, the state still is bound by its own acceptance of Geneva. So terrorists have an automatic advantage in methods and tactics against any signatory of international law conventions.

On the face of it, it seems ridiculous. The purpose of international law of war is to place restrictions on warfare for everyone's benefit, for humanitarian and practical reasons. But if one party has a tactic that violates international law, it would seem reasonable that the war should be fought according to the rules that the violator themselves made. If the violator uses poison gas, for example, they can no longer expect to be protected from being attacked by poison gas.

This does not mean that the state has a right to do anything immoral, and there should be rules restricting what a state can do in this case. But from what I see, interntional law has failed miserably in this regard in the current Lebanon/northern Israel conflict. The idea of an eventual war-crimes trial for Nasrallah being a disincentive for him to continue to endanger Lebanese civlians and target Israeli civilians is laughable.

International law is giving terrorists a great tactical advantage and it needs to address this issue adequately.

Intel in Haifa produces the "world's best processor"

The people who follow these things are buzzing about the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor that was introduced today.

Intel had been falling behind rival AMD over the past couple of years, both in processor speed and in power consumption. The only bright spot was the Pentium M, which was designed in Intel's Haifa labs.

Intel is now betting the company on the same wizards who designed the Pentium M, and from early reviews, the new architecture out of Israel appears to blow AMD and all other competitors away.

More amazing is that Intel's Haifa workers have remained on the job continuously even while under constant rocket bombardment. Some worked from home, some worked from bomb shelters with Wi-Fi connections, but all of them continued to work with no loss of productivity.

Intel never explicitly trumpets Israel as the source of its innovations, but a small acknowledgment comes from the name of the laptop version of this chip: Merom, named after a lake in Israel during Biblical times.

How to deal with adversity, part 2

Three months ago I posted about how the Jewish hydroponic farmers expelled from Gaza took only six months to re-create their industry and turn a profit again. I wrote then:

Yes, Jews were forcibly kicked out of their homes, 16 years of their work and livelihoods destroyed, and six months later they are completely back up to speed - without the EU or the UN giving them a dime, without whining constantly to the world about how bad their lot is, without insisting on handouts and resolutions.

How many decades will it take Arabs to learn the same lesson?

Well, now we have hundreds of thousands of Israeli refugees forced out of their homes again, this time by Iranian rockets. Some of them ended up in refugee camps - but these hastily constructed camps have nothing in common with the ones we hear so much about in the Middle East:

"Check her out, she's the most beautiful girl from northern Israel," Ilan Faktor says, practically swooning, his white teeth beaming from his tanned face. He's girl-hunting with his buddies, and the women are everywhere -- all in bikinis and most with long, curly hair. "The best part," Ilan says, "is that they can't run away."

Ilan and his buddies live in a crowded refugee camp set up on the beach in Ashkelon, Israel. All along the street, flags flap in the breeze from the sea. People here seem to love showing off their gym-toned bodies. Tents have been set up everywhere. In one, people practice yoga; next to it others are getting their bodies painted. In another tent Orthodox Jews try to recruit young people. One could easily mistake the place for a nightclub if it weren't for the fact that everyone here has been displaced by a war. Hordes of young people under 25 mill around wearing the same kind of colorful armbands you might see in a hip urban club.

Ilan isn't happy with the color of his armband -- the blue has already faded. Worse yet, blue means he's scheduled for the day's earliest meal-time. Organizers in fact adopted the idea of arm bands from night clubs; here, though, it's a way of arranging staggered mealtimes. In the end that's only difference between this camp at the Israeli beach resort of Ashkelon, just south of Tel Aviv, and an all-inclusive holiday resort.

Make no mistake, though -- it's no holiday resort. It's a refugee camp, in spite of the sun and the sound of waves pounding the beach. Everyone here has fled the rain of Hezbollah rockets that are showering northern Israel. First they came from Nahariya, then Carmiel and later from Haifa and Tiberias. In total, more than 2,600 have converged here. On Monday the camp was expanded, with new tents and toilets being set up on the white sand dunes right next to the sea.

Still, for those fleeing the north, there are worse places to land than Ashkelon. A Russian immigrant generously allowed the camp to be set up on his property; he hired Ilan Faktor to help run it. Normally Faktor works as a rave promoter, and he's brought a lot of those ideas along with him. Live bands play each night, and during the daytime, the thumping base of techno music can be heard along the beach. On Friday, the stars of Israel's "Pop Idol" stopped by. "We have to keep the people entertained," says Faktor.

Now as before all of this was done without a single penny of aid from the UN or the EU, without whining to the world about how horrible life is, and without insisting on handouts and resolutions.

We hear so much about the famed "Arab hospitality" and yet Palestinian Arabs have been rotting in "refugee camps" for decades in their hospitable host countries of Egypt and Syria and Lebanon, not to mention Gaza and the West Bank. What Israel accomplishes in two weeks is completely beyond the abilities of these Arabs, it seems.

Nasrallah thinks he is hurting Israeli morale, but he has no concept of the meaning of the word. He defines morale as the ability to kill and terrorize others, but morale is keeping one's spirits up in times of trouble - and it is something he and his thugs are utterly incapable of.

Once again, one side proves that they are all about creativity and happiness and the other side is all about destruction and inflicting pain. Israelis can rightly feel proud at how they react in the face of terror.

(H/T OceanGuy, who writes a wonderful posting about the same topic.)
UPDATE: OceanGuy, in the comments section, expanded my theme much better than I did:

No running to the UN...
No whining for refugee status...
No begging the EU for help taking care of a genocidal humanitarian crisis...
No claiming victimhood...
No display of gory dead and wounded people...
No militant children parading around as suicide bombers...
No screaming for vengeance...
Always accepting responsibility for ourselves, even when hardships are caused by others...
Not even asking to be loved...
Just to be left to mind our own lives...
Only asking to live in peace.

Muslim terror envy

Hamas gets power, kidnaps an Israeli soldier and shoots some rockets into Sderot and Ashkelon.

Hezbollah gets jealous and kidnaps 2 Israeli soldiers and shoots thousands of rockets into Kiryat Shmona and Haifa.

What's a self-respecting uber-terror gang leader supposed to do?

al-Zawahri wants some of this action! It's an insult to see these small-time Shi'ites grabbing the headlines!

As if to emphasize the point, his little al-Jazeera exclusive interview showed him in front of a picture of the burning World Trade Center.

Apparently, all terrorists never got over their teen years, as they preen and try to prove their masculinity by who can kill the most infidels. And it is not hard to imagine what deficiencies they may have that they are trying to compensate for.

We're reaching our goal

Thanks to all who helped contribute to the Elder Tzedakah Challenge. If you didn't do it yet, all you have to do is click on one of the charities listed on the sidebar, or one of the others listed in this posting, give money, let me know about it by sending me a receipt (after you remove your personal information) to elderchallenge -at- gmail.com and I will match that amount to the same charity.

Boruch Hashem we have raised over $800 since last Friday and I want to get to at least $1000 by tomorrow. Every little bit helps so give today to the charity of your choice!

Also, a big yasher koach to the bloggers that have contributed so far:
Life-of-Rubin
Garbanzo Tunes
Bat Flattery
Boker tov, Boulder!

(apologies if I missed someone - let me know)

Hezbollah's "honor"

From a comment by "Hassan" on a Lebanese-American blog "From Beirut to the Beltway": (HA probably stands for Hizb Allah, "Party of God")

I just finished talking to an old friend of mine back in Lebanon. He is shia from Tyre and as long as I can remember, he has always been sympathetic with HA. I always related this sympathy to the fact that he was in a HA elementary school.

Our brief discussion quickly turned into him "lecturing" me about the importance of not being swayed by the propaganda and aligning my position with HA since, due to the lack of choice, I was born a shia, "a 220" Volt (yes, in lebanon, the shia run on 220 volt AC power, unlike the rest of the population who run on 110 volts). The fact that I don't believe in God (a precursor to I don't believe in Shia, Sunni, Islam, Christianity, Judaism) never registered in his brain.

Anyways, after our blame game and my "disappointing" stance, my friend reverted to reminding me of the pictures of death and destruction that have befallen Lebanon due to the Israeli aggression. But after I questioned how someone (HA) that was there to (allegedly) protect us, ended up bringing all this destruction from "the enemy", and questioning what we gained from the destruction, his answer was brief and swift: "Honor"

So to my HA shiite friend, Honor is the vice that would make a community die, leave their homes, and starve. It's sad to see an entire community live and die by such a definition of Honor. It's even sadder to see an entire country being dragged into serving such Honor.

I for one choose not to be Honorable.

AFP's fractured history lesson

AFP publishes a nice convenient chart for newspapers to reprint:

For some reason, AFP can't seem to mention that it was the Palestinian Arabs who created the civil war in Lebanon, or any of their rocket attacks against Israel, or anything else relevant. Let's fill in some of the missing pieces and try to see why AFP chose the events they did, and chose to ignore the events they did: (Most of these are from CNN.)

November 1969: Lebanese army commander in chief Emile Bustani and Arafat sign an agreement in Cairo that recognizes the "Palestinian revolution" and allows Palestinians in Lebanon "to join in the armed struggle without undermining Lebanon's sovereignty and welfare." This agreement will stay in effect for nearly 20 years, until Lebanon rescinds it in May 1987.

1970-1971: Faced with fighting in Jordan that left thousands dead, the PLO moves its base to Lebanon, where it carries out raids on Israel. A Palestinian terrorist group linked to the PLO is formed. Its name is "Black September" -- a reference to the Jordanian crackdown on Palestinians in September 1970.

1975: Civil war breaks out in Lebanon, pitting Palestinians and pro-Palestinian Lebanese militias against Lebanon's Christian militias. The war would last nearly 15 years, officially ending in 1990.

1976: Syria sends military peacekeepers during the early months of the civil war to help end it. The troops would remain there nearly 30 years, until April 2005.

March 1978: A PLO attack on a bus in northern Israel prompts Israeli military forces to move into Lebanon to push the PLO back from the border. Israel withdraws after the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces. Under the leadership of Lebanese army Maj. Saad Haddad, an Israeli ally, a 12-mile wide "security zone" is established to protect Israeli territory from cross-border attacks.

1981: The PLO repeatedly violates a US-brokered cease fire by firing rockets into Israel.

May 17, 1983: Lebanon and Israel sign a U.S.-brokered peace agreement, spelling out terms of Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, conditional on the withdrawal of Syrian forces. Syria opposes the agreement.

October 23, 1983: A Hezbollah suicide bomber blows up the headquarters of U.S. Marine and French forces in Beirut, killing 298 people -- 241 of them U.S. Marines and other military personnel. U.S. troops are withdrawn from Lebanon a few months later.

January 18, 1984: American University of Beirut President Malcolm Kerr is assassinated.

March 1984: With pressure mounting from Syria, Lebanon cancels the May 17, 1983, peace agreement.

September 20, 1984: The U.S. Embassy annex in East Beirut is bombed, and 23 people are killed.

June 1985: Israel withdraws from most of Lebanon but keeps control of the 12-mile-wide security zone in the south. Israel remains there until May 2000.

July 2006: Hezbollah militants cross into Israel, kill three Israeli soldiers and kidnap two others in a bid to negotiate a prisoner exchange, a demand rebuffed by Israel. Another five Israeli soldiers are killed after the ambush.

So, can the astute reader find any pattern whatsoever in the AFP's choices for its timeline? Why the PLO is not mentioned, nor Hezbollah? Why the only times Palestinian Arabs are mentioned are for Sabra and Shatila (with the AFP inflating the likely figures)? Why the only protaganist mentioned is Israel?

Anyone notice any, shall we say, consistency in the AFP message?

Hezbollah fundraising in America

The Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, MI has an "emergency relief fund for the victims in Lebanon."

A gathering will be held on Friday, July 28, 2006 at 6:30 p.m at the Islamic Center of America (Ford Road) to raise donations.

If you are unable to attend please donate today by,
Transfer:
Beneficiary: Islamic Center Lebanon
Relief Fund
Bank Name: Comerica Bank
PO.Box 75000 Detroit, MI 48275
Account #: 1850029784
Routing Number #: 072000096

It goes on the print a letter from the mosque's imam, condemning Israel's attacks and not saying a single word about "terror", "rockets" or "Hezbollah." It is also interesting that they accept direct wire transfers - the same methods that Hezbollah terrorists use to transfer money.

Since Dearborn is the US center of Hezbollah supporters, with its local Arab newspaper printing articles that lionize terrorists, where a local Muslim "cultural center" is named after the "capital" of Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is a safe bet that not all of the money raised is going to food and shelter.