Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

07/15 Links Pt2: Dershowitz: BDS Opposes Israel's Existence; Europe’s Jews: Unwanted, Dead or Alive

From Ian:

As Israel’s security forces remain embroiled in the ongoing conflict with Hamas along the country’s southern border, students at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya (IDC) are engaged on another equally important front: hasbara or public diplomacy.
The Student Union at the IDC opened a “Hasbara Room” on Thursday – the first day of Operation Protective Edge – with the purpose of providing factual information about the situation on the ground to people around the world, as well as countering the misinformation and lies being disseminated on social media sites.
“Israel is not very strong at hasbara, while Hamas and the Palestinians are very good at spreading the word in the media,” said volunteer coordinator Karen Yoseph, a 27-year-old masters student at the IDC. “We are trying to combat that and we are trying to expose that a lot of times Hamas is lying.”

Dershowitz: BDS Opposes Israel's Existence

In a recent educational video for Prager University, famed Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz stepped across the aisle to fight on behalf of the one issue connecting him to the right: strong support of Israel.
Unlike most pro-Israel videos, Dershowitz refrains from soliloquies praising Israel's achievements, but instead attacks a movement most familiar to him as a University professor, namely, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement and the dark, genocidal motives lurking beneath it.
At the outset, Dershowitz makes it clear he supports the creation of a Palestinian state and also opposes the settlements in Judea and Samaria, but also strongly condemns the BDS Movement, calling it immoral in "singling out Israel of all the world's countries for economic strangulation." He attacked the movement on four fronts:

BDS: The Attempt to Strangle Israel

Anti-Semite Ali Abunimah Calls Egyptian Ceasefire A 'Ploy'

Ali Abunimah, the anti-Semitic editor of the anti-Israel blog Electronic Intifada, called the Egyptian ceasefire proposal a pro-Israel ploy on Tuesday morning.
"I didn't say in my post, but Egypt "ceasefire" ploy also attempt to create conditions for Israel-backed Abbas militias to return to Gaza."
This is not the first time that Abunimah has taken aim at Israel during Hamas' offensive. In one tweet, Abunimah accuses Israelis of "cowering" as they hide from Gazan missile fire:

Pew Research: Republicans Support Israel Much More Than Democrats

A Pew study conducted during the first week of the Israel/Hamas conflict (7/8-14) and released on Tuesday reports support for Israel among Americans remains strong. What has changed is the gap between Republican Party supporters (73%) and Democratic Party supporters (44%), which is wider than ever.
Tuesday's poll reports that 51% of Americans say they sympathize more with Israel, 14% sympathize more with the Palestinians, 15% do not sympathize with either side, and 3% sympathize with both.
However, Republicans are much more likely to sympathize with Israel, an alliance that has gotten stronger. The percentage of Republicans who sympathize more with Israel has risen from 68% to 73%; while the support of Democrats has fallen since April from 46% to 44%. The share of independents siding more with Israel than the Palestinians has slipped from 51% to 45%.The study also demonstrated the more conservative the respondents are the more likely they are to support Israel.

If Israel didn't exist, this is what "Palestine" would look like today

Let's pretend that the Arab fantasy of Israel disappearing came true. All the Jews leave and go to the US and Canada. The PLO is awarded their own country from the river to the sea. The UN and EU fully support the new moderate regime. Finally, the Arab vision of peace - get rid of the Jews - comes true.

What would "Palestine" look like a few months later?

Libya.

Several rockets have reportedly hit the airport in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where fighting between rival armed groups has been raging since Sunday.

Several Grad rockets struck the airport late on Monday, destroying 90 percent of the planes parked there, government spokesman Ahmed Lamine said.

"The government has studied the possibility to bring international forces to enhance security," he said.

The rockets damaged the airport's control tower and two people were killed in the attack, the Reuters news agency reported.

Authorities had closed the airport due to previous fighting on Sunday, which medics say killed at least seven people .

Rival militias have clashed for control of the airport. The powerful Zintan armed group, which has been in control of the airport since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, was still holding it by Monday.

Meanwhile, the United Nations mission in Libya said it was withdrawing its staff from Libya "temporarily" because of the deteriorating security in the country.

Tripoli has been witnessing one of its worst spasms of violence since the ouster of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Militias, many of which originate from rebel forces that fought Gaddafi, have become powerful players in post-war Libya, filling a void left by weak police and security and cooperating with the government to provide order.

Everyone knows that the Islamists of Gaza want to join a caliphate, not a state; that the Muslim extremists will enthusiastically kill fellow Muslims, that Christians would be threatened and forced to flee, that neighboring countries will not stand for instability crossing the borders and would be willing to fight to keep that out. Yet everyone chooses to close their eyes and pretend that a Palestinian state would be peaceful and secular and respect human rights and it would keep the Islamist groups at bay and would not allow Al Qaeda to build cells in any power vacuum.

The PA, as bad as it is, only exists because of outsiders propping it up. As soon as a state is created the outside interest would go elsewhere, as it always does. The fact is that most Palestinian Arabs are not willing to die for the PA. Yet most Hamas and Islamic Jihad members are willing to die for their ambitions for an Islamist state/umma. A leadership that cannot rally the people to its side is doomed, and all the Western military aid in the world cannot change that.

Even if you believe the worst lying propaganda about Israel, the death toll in the area without Israel would be orders of magnitude higher if Israel didn't exist.

(h/t Yoel)

What "proportionality"means

From CNN via Newsbusters:

CNN
New Day
July 15, 2014
6:02 a.m. Eastern

CHRIS CUOMO, host: Proportionality is a big part of this story always when there's conflict. Israel obviously has the advantage militarily. Uh, yesterday, actually mistakenly reported that there had been deaths in Israel. None so far. Some reports of light casualties. Accurate?

PETER BEINART, CNN contributor: Right.

CUOMO: Now, on the other side from the Ministry of Health there, close to 200 deaths, 1,400 injured, many women, children, civilians, schools supposedly damaged. It takes us to the issue of proportionality. How does that play here?

BEINART: Right, well this is always the problem for Israel. Israel does send leaflets and phone people in order to get them to leave their buildings so as to try not to kill innocent civilians but Gaza is a very heavily crowded place and so when you launch all of these missiles, and there has been a very intense barrage by Israel, more intense than in previous conflicts, you're gonna kill a lot of innocent people and that undermines Israel’s image in the world. On the other hand, Israel has this very effective Iron Dome program and the Hamas rockets are very inaccurate and very primitive so every conflict like this, we've seen a huge disparity in death toll.

What does this have to do with the concept of "proportionality"?

Absolutely nothing.

The ICRC has a page dedicated to "proportionality in attack." It has nothing to do with the (frankly obscene) idea that each side must suffer similar casualties. Cuomo (and to an extent Beinart) seem to have a puerile viewpoint that war must be between equally matched side. Even more obscenely, the implication is that Israel's defensive measures like Iron Dome that limit Israeli casualties is somehow vaguely unfair and things might be better if Israel would just let some more Israelis get killed.

Interestingly, the word "proportional" is not used in any accepted international law, although it was proposed and many nations use that word in their own laws of war. Here is the source text, from Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions of 1977 (Israel is not a signatory but accepts the definition):

Additional Protocol I
Article 51(5)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I prohibits "an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. "
Under Article 85(3)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, “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) is a grave breach. "

There is lots of other good information on that page about the concept of proportionality, all of which proves that Cuomo and Beinart have no business pretending that they are knowledgeable about anything.

Israel’s Manual on the Rules of Warfare (2006) states:

In any attack, it is a duty to ensure that:
…
- That the military gain expected from the attack is proportional to the expected damage that would be caused to civilians as a result of the offensive.
The manual further states: “Proportionality must be maintained: an act must not be performed if the damage to civilians/the environment exceeds the concomitant military benefit.”

(It isn't a manual, it is a study guide. h/t Gidon at the front.)

And this:

In 2008, in a briefing to the Diplomatic Corps on Israel’s operations in Gaza, Israel’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs stated:

I think that Israel is the only state in the world in which its Minister of Defense has today, during a time of almost war, met with the Attorney General, the Minister of Justice, and Foreign Ministry experts on international law, in order to speak about and understand the terms of proportionality in accordance with how the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] works and will continue to work on the ground. So, basically, it is not something that can be judged. I hope that the international community knows that we are trying to avoid civilian casualties … .
Now, it comes down to different examples. We can discuss them. The situation in which you have a family living in a factory where I know there are rockets that can kill Israelis – is this proportionate action? I think that it is proportionate. But these are the decisions that the Israeli Chief of Staff needs to decide on a daily basis.
…
So, yes, I believe that what we are doing is proportionate but I don’t know how you can measure proportionality when you are in this kind of situation. In a way, a war against terrorism is unfair because, on one side, there are these terrorists. Believe me, proportionality is something that isn’t part of their vocabulary, and international law is not part of their vocabulary and the Geneva Convention is not part of their vocabulary. We are working with our hands tied because of all these rules, and because we are part of the free world, and because this is part of our values as well. But accidents can happen and civilians are also being killed by Israeli operations. I am not going to ignore it but I hope that there is a better understanding of what we are trying to avoid.
In 2008, in a background paper on Israel’s operations in Gaza, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated:

In practice, two key questions arise in relation to the legitimacy of the … execution of an operation: 1) Is the target itself a legitimate military objective? and 2) Even if the target is in itself legitimate, is there likely to be disproportionate injury and damage to the civilian population and civilian property.
3. Proportionality
The second legal requirement is that any attack be proportionate, in the sense that incidental loss and damage expected to be caused to civilians and civilian objects must not be excessive in relation to the military advantage anticipated.
…
While the principle is clear, in practice weighing an expected military advantage against possible collateral damage can be an extremely complex calculation to make, especially in the heat of an armed conflict. In their report to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Committee established to review NATO bombings in Yugoslavia highlighted the particular difficulties which arise when military objectives are located in densely populated areas:

The answers to these questions are not simple. It may be necessary to resolve them on a case by case basis, and the answers may differ depending on the background and values of the decision maker. It is unlikely that a human rights lawyer and an experienced combat commander would assign the same relative values to military advantage and to injury to non-combatants. … It is suggested that the determination of relative values must be that of the “reasonable military commander”. [Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee established to review NATO bombings in Yugoslavia para. 50-1]
Furthermore, in making this determination, a military commander is not required to ignore questions relating to the safety of his own forces. To the contrary, As Bothe et al note:

The concept of military advantage involves a variety of considerations including the security of the attacking force. [ibid]

International law accepts that civilians will get killed - it is not a war crime when it happens. When Hamas places weapons and explosives underneath people in the expectation of protecting them (which is a war crime,) warning the people to leave to minimize the casualties is a supremely humane thing to do that goes way beyond anything required by international law. If anything, the amount of effort Israel puts into minimizing civilian deaths while waging a legitimate military campaign is literally unprecedented.

And under the principle of proportionality, the terror groups are the ones who are violating international law, because the military advantage of attacking an airport or a nuclear plant is zero compared to the expected (and, in this case, desired) civilian impact.

This should be basic knowledge. But when it comes to Israel, anyone can make up anything and not be expected to back it up.

Beinart, although I disagree with him on many topics, is not stupid, and he should not acted this ignorant on TV. He should have known better than to answer the way he did, implying that the question was valid.

(h/t MtTB)

07/15 Links Pt1: Gaza refuses Israeli Medical Supplies; Jerusalem Cleric: Israel Defends Us from Hamas

From Ian:

Reflections on Gaza From an Israeli Mother

This crisis, like others that preceded it, has united the Israeli people. In normal times we tend to be a contentious lot, neighbors arguing against neighbors, political parties bickering bitterly in the Knesset and in the media. But all of that has disappeared, ideological and personal differences blurred or suspended. Israelis know that they are all in this together.
It is precisely as a mother that my heart goes out to the innocent Palestinians in Gaza. A cruel and inhumane Hamas regime has deprived them of freedom and dignity, and endangers their lives in the name of radical jihad. It commandeers their homes for military posts, and to store and fire rockets, using them and their children as human shields to die for propaganda purposes.
I am proud to live in a country that makes phone calls to the residents of buildings that have been targeted, warning civilians so they can get out in time; a country that even now, in the midst of battle, continues its ongoing practice of providing medical care for sick and injured Gazans, just as it does for Syrians fleeing the bloody civil war there.
The average Israeli would like nothing more than peace and quiet. But that will have to wait. I just learned that another barrage of rockets was fired moments ago toward Beersheva.

'Human rights activists' at Hamas' service

Most of them have good intentions. They want peace and reconciliation and want us all to make love and not war. Hamas loves them.
In October 2013, Ismail Haniyeh delivered a thanksgiving address: "We put our trust in the support of the liberals in the world… Greetings to all the civil society organizations and human rights organizations."
In that exact speech, he presented the "Palestinian national strategy," which will include "an armed struggle and a PR struggle in all regional and international arenas."
The strategy works. Hamas has launched another round in order to play its role in the "armed struggle" front. Only several hours passed before "writers and intellectuals" began filling their own role in the "PR struggle" front. The first petition has already hit the road. No to violence. Not to war. All they want is to "probe the incitement," Israel's of course. And they are demanding "an end to the fighting in Gaza."

NGO Monitor: The Gaza numbers game

Five days into Operation Protective Edge, the out-going UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, issued a statement that the number of casualties in Gaza raises “serious doubt about whether the Israeli strikes have been in accordance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”
In a similar vein, UNWRA Spokesperson Chris Gunness has a running commentary of casualties on his Twitter feed, including the plea to “Imagine being a 5 year old in #Gaza This is the 3rd terrifying bombardment in your short life. Where else have 5 year olds suffered thus?” These numbers and emotional appeals, however, are seriously misplaced.
If many civilians are being killed in Gaza, it is because Hamas is storing and launching deadly missiles from within populated areas and exploiting the population there as a human shield. Conversely, if even one civilian were to be illegitimately targeted, that single killing would be illegal.
Thus, the UN officials’ emotive statements are entirely disconnected from the legal and moral implications of Israel’s actions.

Red Alert visualization

This is a great visualization of Hamas war crimes over the past week.

And it updates in real time, too.

(h/t dabney_c)

The Abu Nidal Brigades of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement are taking credit for shooting two rockets at Kerem Shalom - the crossing where Gazans get their food and fuel - as well as rockets towards Ashdod.

All of these occurred well after Israel accepted a ceasefire.

Why can't a single reporter ask Mahmoud Abbas or Saeb Erekat about why the supposedly peaceful faction that Abbas leads is shooting rockets?

Why can't a single Western politician publicly call for Abbas to dismantle the terror groups that he leads?

Either Abbas supports terror rockets or he has no control over his own factions. Either way, this is important news that is being hushed up.

The communique also uses religious language and Koranic quotes to justify their targeting Jewish civilians. But we are always told they are secular, so we'll ignore that too.

Hamas says cease fire proposal "not worth the ink it is written with"

Here is the response of the Al Qassam Brigades of Hamas to the idea of a ceasefire, that the Israeli cabinet accepted:

A military statement issued by the
.. ::: Brigades of the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam ::: ..

Battle of Eaten Straw

On the initiative of the alleged cease-fire between the resistance and the Zionist enemy

There is talk in media interviews and the news about the initiative for a cease-fire between the resistance and the Zionist enemy, and we in the Brigades of the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam want to give clarification for our people and in order to prevent confusion we emphasize the following:

First: the (terms) of this alleged initiative were not presented at any point to the Qassam Brigades, formally or informally.

Second: The true content of this initiative is one of bowing and meekness, the Qassam Brigades rejects in toto, which for us is not worth the ink that it was written with.

Third: Our battle with the enemy is ongoing and will increase in ferocity and intensity, and we'll be loyal to the blood of the innocent martyrs of the battle of "Eaten Straw" and all the martyrs of our people, and we promise our people that the blood and sacrifices will not be lost in vain.

It is a Jihad, victory or martyrdom.

I have no idea what "Eaten Straw" means*, but that is the official translation of the operation from Hamas' viewpoint.

The Google autotranslate options of the term "العصف المأكول" could mean "storming eaten" or "blast urinate."

Which may be the real reaction of these brave mujahadeen when they hear the sound of a missile approaching them.

As Avi Issacharoff notes, the terms of the Egyptian proposed ceasefire addresses none of Hamas' demands but if Hamas rejects it then the Arab world will lose whatever little sympathy they have for the group and they will not actively oppose an Israeli ground invasion.

So far, the Gaza terror groups continue to shoot rockets while Israel is holding fire.

*UPDATE: "Eaten Straw" comes from the same Koranic story of the birds dropping stones on their enemies I mentioned yesterday when discussing the name of the drone Hamas introduced.

The Koranic chapter "The Elephant" (105) says:

1 "Have you not seen what your Lord did with the companions of the elephant?"
2 "Did He not make their plot to go astray?."
3 "And send down on them birds in flocks."
4 "To throw down on them stones of baked clay ('sijjil')."
5 "And He made them like eaten straw."

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Arab writer justifies Palestinian terrorism as mere "anti-colonialist counter-discourse"

Sometimes, pseudo-intellectual haters of Israel use their pretentiousness to justify the most heinous crimes.

Introducing Rana Baker.

Baker writes regularly for Electronic Intifada, and she has also written for The Guardian. When the three Israeli teens were abducted, she gloated.

This article by Baker is in Open Democracy:

I wonder whether, when the settler-colonial army of Israel is pounding Gaza, Palestinians should grab guitars, pianos, and white ribbons, look up at their oppressors flying over their heads in apaches and F16s, and sing a lullaby of peace. Perhaps, then, we can impress Middle East "experts" and "non-violent resistance" -mind you, I am using the V word- butterflies. I wonder, moreover, what authority, defined by what experience, entitles these experts and butterflies to ask us, the Palestinians, to put down our arms. Nonsense.

...Resistance rockets fired from the Gaza Strip provide a necessary counter-discourse. The Israeli Jewish public must understand that there shall be no security so long as they do not turn their anger and frustration at their very supremacist privilege and ideological system which is embodied in the Israeli government, left-wing, centrist, or right-wing. No one is asking them to leave, but they must accept Palestinian resistance insofar as they accept the arrogance which characterises the Zionist ideology. The radical potential of Palestinian rockets, of sirens going off, lies in these rockets' ability to disrupt a system of privilege which Israeli Jews enjoy at the expense of colonised and displaced Palestinians. Rockets, in other words, are a radical declaration of existence and unmediated expression of self-determination.

...Israel was born in May 1948 after a mass wave of ethnic cleansing which led to the expulsion of more than half the native Palestinian population. This is the aggression to which every Palestinian rocket, demonstration, and burned tire, is a response. Until Palestine is liberated, and by Palestine I mean historical Palestine, Palestinian resistance cannot be expected to wane. To be clear, Palestinians fire rockets into what belongs to them in the first place.

There is a lot more nonsense in the article, but this is enough to demonstrate the lengths some people will go to in order to justify the rabid antisemitism that the Arab world has towards Jews - which is the real root cause of the conflict.

To perverts like Baker, terrorism is moral, and the only self-determination that means anything is that of a newly-minted people whose existence is impossible to find in any literature that is over a century old. Jews, of course, aren't a people at all.

Baker's invocation of "historic Palestine," whose borders were drawn by her hated colonial powers, proves as well as anything that she is not really interested in justice or self-determination - she's interested in only the land that happens to be controlled by Jews. The complete silence of these supposed ideologues regarding any part of Transjordan is all the proof you need that their agenda isn't as pure as they pretend.

But this essay is more than just about Baker's hypocrisy.

Rana Baker is creating and pushing her own, new model of morality, where Palestinians - and only Palestinians - do not have to adhere to any laws, ethics or standards.

Once you justify terror rockets in whatever bizarre and disgusting worldview you have, you justify everything. Arabs can rape Israeli Jewish women for the cause. Gazans can strap bombs to newborn babies and throw them over the fence. Hamas is allowed to place Arab women and children in mortal danger in the hope that Israel will be blamed. (Oh, right, they already do that.)

This is the perverted moral universe that Rana Baker is advocating.

Not surprisingly, it is the exact same moral universe that Hamas and Islamic Jihad operate in. Just they use the Koran to come up with their justification, and Baker uses a twisted concept of liberal values like "self-determination" and "anti-colonialism." It doesn't matter - because the justification isn't improtant, only th results are. And both Baker and Hamas want a lot of dead Jews.

If Jews who believe that the land belongs to them would adopt Baker's mindset, then flattening Gaza is not only allowed, but morally necessary. Israel's morals interfere with Baker's morals? Well, too bad, she made the rules. Now that anyone can do anything they want if they consider themselves oppressed, we can dispense with such irritating constructs as international law or the laws of armed conflict or The Golden Rule. Baker justifies living in a post-moral world.

Not that she would admit that. She believes that her cause is unique and only Palestinians can act in any manner they choose in order to take away Jewish human rights. She is advocating a form of Palestinian supremacy, where the rules that apply to the rest of the world do not apply to Palestinians, and anything goes.

If a Zionist Jew would write essays using the exact same language justifying terror against Palestinian Arab civilians as a necessary part of their right to self-determination, he or she would (rightly) be called racists, while Baker's paean to the beauty of terrorism is considered merely "anti-colonialist." You see, after decades of Palestinians believing that they do have a unique set of rules that apply only to them, many in the world actually start to believe it.

Isn't that interesting?

Consistency in rhetoric isn't important to Baker and her ilk, except for in a single, narrow dimension. The only moral or rhetorical consistency for people like Baker is that, to them, the existence of Jews maintaining anything other than their natural status of dhimmis is unnatural and must be fought, with whatever means is necessary: rockets, suicide bombs, nuclear weapons, or tendentious essays that give the Jew-haters a means to justify their sickening immorality. As one cheerleading commenter writes:

Rana, I wonder if you realise what brilliant piece you just penned down. As Arundhati Roy wrote " Gandhi get your gun" in Walking With The Comrades I say keep those rockets from Gaza coming and let the siren echo in every stolen corner, square, street, park and home.

Baker provides the veneer of intellectualism to justify terror for those who are still uncomfortable with the concept. The murderous rampages in Paris and Frankfurt are a natural result of the sickening supremacist of Rana Baker - because if proudly targeting civilians is a moral obligation, then so is attacking Jews wherever they might be.

What is scary is that so many so-called "progressives" would never think about calling Baker what she is: a disgusting cheerleader for murder.

(h/t Geuzen1)

UPDATE: I forgot that I fisked her before.

UPDATE 2: Best comment on the thread at Open Democracy from Podein: (h/t Alexi)

If rockets are the way Palestinians engage in discourse, then Apaches, gunships and assassinations are simply the way Israelis correct their grammar.

07/14 Links Pt2: Another Blood Libel from the PA; Sticks And Stones Do Break My Bones

From Ian:

Official PA daily: Jews' God demands "Passover Matzah made from the blood of our children"

The following is the article in the PA daily claiming that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion teaches Jews that their God wants Passover "Matzah made from the blood of our children"

"Under the fire that has been burning against us for a month now, our national unity has endured in an exceptional manner. Our unity, which extends from the northern tip of the Galilee (northern Israel) to the southern tip of the Negev (southern Israel); from Gaza to the West Bank and Jerusalem, from the farthest place of exile to the homeland...
We are one nation, one cause, one entity, one hope and one right, and we will not leave this land, for it is our land. All tales and myths can go to hell; Jerusalem will remain our capital, even if they use their nuclear bombs against us...
We have nothing with which to speak to these Israeli murderers, who go too far with their crimes, and whose God, 'Yahweh', is called the Lord of Hosts and demands, according to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that they offer him sacrifices during Passover in the form of Matzah made from the blood of our children. We have nothing with which to open a dialogue but these rockets. Have all the Arab, Islamic and Palestinian peace initiatives managed to draw even a single voice to engage in dialogue with us?"

EXCLUSIVE: Inside Brandeis University's Faculty Listserv

This listserv, entitled “Concerned,” was created in 2002. It began “out of concern about possible war with Iraq.” It contains 92 subscribers, including professors from outside of the university. Participants express their fear and disdain on issues ranging from United States foreign and domestic policy, the “American system,” and “the Israelists,” to “President ‘Obomber’” and “ Hillary ‘Obliterate Iran!’ Clinton.”
“Houston, we have a problem,” warned Mary Baine Campbell, a Brandeis English professor. “Ayaan Hirsi Ali claims to have had a difficult early life, and it may be true. However, she's an ignorant, ultra-right-wing extremist, abusively, shockingly vocal in her hatred for Muslim culture and Muslims, a purveyor of the dangerous and imaginary concept, born of European distaste for the influx of immigrants from its former colonies, ‘Islamofascism’ – which has died on the vine even of the new European right wing. To call her a ‘woman's rights activist’ is like calling Squeaky Fromm an environmentalist.”
“To honor someone at graduation who is notorious for inciting hate, defending violence and insulting the bearers of one of the world's most populous faiths, including many students and faculty, not to mention parents, is not 'hosting.' It's complicity in defamation,” she added.

Giving Turkey a dose of its own medicine?

An Israeli NGO has assisted Cypriots in filing a war crimes complaint with the International Criminal Court prosecutor against Turkey over its occupation of Northern Cyprus. The complaint, filed on Tuesday and referred to as a communication, was made on the 40th anniversary of Turkey’s occupation of the northern part of Cyprus.
The NGO, Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, has been involved in a wide range of human-rights cases and substantially assisted in researching and drafting the complaint on behalf of Greek Cypriot groups, including Cypriots Against Turkish War Crimes (CATWR) and MEP Costas Mavrides.
CATWR is an association comprised mainly of Cypriots and refugees from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
The petitioners call on the ICC prosecutor to open an investigation into ongoing alleged Turkish crimes against Cyprus, in particular the continued maintenance and establishment of Turkish settlements in the occupied territory. (h/t Bob Knot)

Israel Under Fire: HonestReporting Statement on the Media

As the IDF’s military operation enters its second week, HonestReporting is increasingly concerned about media coverage casting Israel as the aggressor against innocent Palestinians in Gaza.
We emphasize that the casualty figures reported in the media do not represent the true intentions of the two parties. Israel has made and continues to make every possible effort to save the lives of civilians on both sides while the Hamas terrorist organization fires rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians and calls on its own people to act as human shields, even at the cost of their lives.
Regardless of the outcome on the ground, victory in the current conflict will be determined in the court of public opinion. We therefore call on all media outlets to report fairly and accurately on the conflict, provide proper context, and acknowledge the true aims of both sides so that people can be informed enough to make a proper assessment of the conflict.

Egyptian TV hosts slamming Hamas; Hamas might try to fire from Egypt

From MEMRI:

Following is a compilation of various hosts of Egyptian TV shows slamming Hamas, which aired July 9-12, 2014:

Al-Nahar TV, July 9, 2014

Talk show host Khaled Salah: We want to stand by [the Palestinians], but we don't want to pay a price for this. Our hospitals will receive their [wounded], and the Rafah crossing is expected to be opened for humanitarian needs. The position of our Foreign Ministry is very clear in favor of convening the U.N. Security Council in order to discuss the Israeli aggression against our people in Gaza. Our people there are one thing, and the Hamas movement is another.

But our people n Gaza must come to the realization that such idiotic decision-making pertaining to religion and politics forces the Gaza Strip and its people, as well as the entire Arab Nation in its entirety, to pay a very steep price in fragmentation, in humiliation, in martyrs and, unfortunately, in blood - shed in vein, with no prospects for victory.

We pray for Allah to bestow upon the Hamas leaders a bit of common sense, so they will get a grasp of the map of the region, and of the degree to which the Arab nation is fragmented. Unfortunately, it was they and their ilk in other Arab countries who caused this fragmentation.
[…]
Sada Al-Balad TV, July 12, 2014

Talk show host Ahmad Musa: Khaled Mash'al is waging Jihad from Qatar, along with his brother, Al-Qaradhawi. Guess the number of Israeli casualties. Give me your best guess. Who wants to say 200? Who says 400? Who says 5? The grand total of Israeli casualties in the past few days is four: Three yesterday at a gas station, and another one I don't know where. That's it. So what's next? What is the solution?
[…]
Khaled Mash'al commented a couple of days ago about the Egyptian army…

An image of Khaled Mash'al exercising at a gym

You can see how Khaled is waging Jihad in Qatar.

Image of Mash'al eating a lavish meal

This is brother Khaled Mash'al's version of Jihad. Khaled, the Jihad is in Gaza…

Image of Mash'al watching TV

Or, of course, he is watching their TV channel. This is the Jihad of Khaled Mash'al and his comrades, the honorable and great mujahideen. As they wage this sort of Jihad, they abandon the people to get killed. If you were a real man, you would be back in Gaza first thing tomorrow morning.

You should take the first flight tomorrow morning. We will let you in. Come to Egypt, and we will open the Rafah crossing for you. We will let you in, safe and sound, to the other side of the Rafah crossing. Your Palestinian brothers will welcome you, and you will go hide underground with your brother, what's his name… Ismail Haniya.
[…]
Image of Ismail Haniya playing soccer

When his weight still enabled him to run, Ismail used to play soccer. You can see how he plays with the ball, Allah be praised…

Image of Haniya sitting next to a blond young woman

This is his Jihad, Allah be praised… This is the greatest Jihad performed by Isamil Haniya and his brothers in Hamas.
[…]
Why do you, in the Al-Qassam Brigades, [hide] among civilians? Why do you use people's homes? You should keep your hideouts away from people's homes. You know full well that when you launch a missile form a home, a missile will land on that home within one minute. You are bringing another nakba upon your people.
[…]
Al-Mihwar TV, July 11, 2014

Talk show host Mohamed Mustafa Sherdy: None of them apologized for the thousand tunnels they had dug, and through which they smuggle all of Egypt's wealth [into Gaza]. None of them said a word, because they are all on the take. All of them! They are all being paid off for their statements. They are all on the take. They all fly luxurious planes, and keep Swiss bank accounts.
[…]
Al-Tahrir TV, July 12, 2014

Talk show host Mazher Shahin: Just like we died in the past in defense of the Palestinian cause, we are ready to die today in defense of the Palestinian cause – but we are not ready to die in defense of Hamas. Not a single drop of blood will be shed… Sorry, a drop of blood is too precious… We are not prepared to sacrifice even a single hair from the eyebrow of an Egyptian soldier or civilian, for the sake of Hamas and all the people who wage Jihad, while indulging themselves in all kinds of dishes at the swimming pool.
[…]
We are afflicted with a bunch of people who pretend to be Muslims, but do not understand anything, or else, they think people are stupid. They goad people into fighting, terrorism, and violence, under the pretext of "Jihad," while they themselves sit at a hotel, a swimming pool, or a nudist beach, eating a variety of dishes, marrying four wives, and driving the latest model luxury cars. What is this?! What kind of men are you?

You know where the border between Israel and Palestine is. If there is a real man among you, I am willing to drive him in my own car and at my own expense to the Gaza border. I will drop him there and say: "Go. May God be with you. Gaza is there. Jihad awaits you. Go in and show us you're a real man."
[…]
You are a bunch of liars. We don't believe you anymore. People are revolted by you. Get lost. You make us nauseous. The whole world goes to hell because of you.

Meanwhile, the Rafah crossing was opened last Thursday but only allowed 11 people to cross. Today it was opened for pilgrims en route to Saudi Arabia.

And there were these two stories:

Egypt's security forces seized 20 Grad rockets being smuggled in from the Gaza Strip through a tunnel by militants in northern Sinai, security officials said Friday.

The rockets, along with their launch pads, were seized late Thursday after a firefight between security forces and militants in the town of Rafah bordering the Palestinian enclave, they said.

Smugging Grad rockets out of Gaza to Egypt? Why would they do that?

Egyptian military sources in Cairo told Ma’an that the army raided a rocket launching center south of Rafah near the Israeli border and seized two grad missiles and two rocket launchers.

Either Hamas is trying to shoot rockets from Egypt where Israel is less likely to fire back, or they are recruiting Sinai jihadists to do the job.

Either way, it won't make Egyptians love Hamas any more.

I reported yesterday about the antisemitic rally in Paris that turned into a full attack against the Jews holed up in the Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue in Paris.

During the rally, protesters chanted "Death to the Jews" and "Hitler was right" and "Palestine must finish the job (that Hitler started.)"

Here are some details on how the murderous rioters were not able to get in, no thanks to the French police:

“The attackers splintered off an anti-Israel demonstration and advanced toward the synagogue when it was full,” Alain Azria, a French Jewish journalist who covered the event told JTA.

Azria said that when the demonstrators arrived at the central Paris synagogue, the five police officers on guard blocked the entrance as the protesters chanted anti-Semitic slogans and hurled objects at the synagogue and the guards. He said nearly 200 congregants were inside.

“They were determined to enter and the police did not have enough forces,” he said.

Azria said the mob was kept away by men from the SPCJ Jewish security unit, the Jewish Defense League and Beitar, who engaged the attackers in what turned into a street brawl.

“Thank God they were there because the protesters had murder on their minds and it took awhile before police reinforcements arrived,” he added.

So it is entirely predictable that the Muslims who wanted to kill a couple of hundred Jews are now claiming that they were attacked:

From the pan-Arab JBC News:

Jewish extremists on Sunday evening attacked Paris demonstrators denouncing the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

The French media said that 15,000 demonstrators turned out in demonstrations condemning the Israeli aggression on Gaza and demanded that it stop, prompting a group of Jewish extremists to attack them with sticks and stones, and the police intervened to break up the clash.

I imagine that the media will now start to take into account this competing narrative when describing what happened. Because truth isn't nearly as important as allowing violent rioters to be given equal time.

Meanwhile:

A demonstration in Frankfurt against Operation Protective Edge erupted into violence, with protesters tossing stones at the police.

According to the Frankfurter Rundschau paper, about 2,500 protesters appeared in downtown Frankfurt, screaming “God is great,” and slogans such as “freedom for Palestine” and “children-murderer Israel.”

Eight police officers were injured. One sign at the rally was titled, “You Jews are Beasts.”

German media reported that after the protests, groups sought to locate Jewish institutions. The Frankfurt police said Jewish institutions would be protected. It is unclear if the goal was to attack said institutions.

I'm sure they just wanted to toss flowers.

07/14 Links Pt1: Bibi: We use missiles to protect civilians, Hamas use civilians to protect their missiles.

From Ian:

Bibi On Fighting "The Rocketeers" & On "The Preeminent Terrorist Empire Of Our Time" (video)

"[H]ere's the difference between us. We are using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles. That's basically the difference. They're embedding these rockets that they're firing wholesale into our cities, terrorist rocketing, trying to kill as many as they can.
They're not succeeding because of two reasons. One is because we've developed this incredible missile defense system, which I think is a historic development in the history of defensive warfare ...
But the other reason we're succeeding, you have to understand some of the rockets do pierce through this shield. The reason we're succeeding is also because we're targeting the rocketeers. The rocketeers are firing from homes, these homes are actually command posts of the Hamas and Islamic jihad army. So, that's where they have their secure communications, weapon caches, rockets hidden, map rooms, so on. These are the command posts.

Benjamin Netanyahu Fox News Sunday We Use Missiles to Defend Civilians Hamas Uses Civilians..

Netanyahu: Imagine 80% of Americans in Bomb Shelters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday from Tel Aviv just as another round of sirens sounded, sending the city under yet another red alert. The prime minister asked viewers to imagine this scenario happening in every city in America:
Well, the sirens went off because Hamas have fired rockets on Israel's major city. They're firing rockets at all our cities. I want your audience to imagine what it would be like if all the cities of the United States -- I'm not just talking about New York and Washington, I'm talking about all the cities of the United States from the East Coast to Colorado. 80% of your population would be in bomb shelters, with a minute to a minute and a half red alert warning time to get into those shelters. That's what we're experiencing right now as we speak. So this is an unconscionable terrorist attack on civilian populations and of course we have to act to defend ourselves.

Dermer: Hamas Deliberately Targets Civilians, Israel Does Not

Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and Face the Nation guest Ron Dermer said Sunday while Hamas was deliberately targeting civilians during its fighting, Israel would continue to make all efforts to avoid killing or hurting civilians on its end.
Host Bob Schieffer played a video during the interview from the Israel Defense Forces of a pilot being told that a target set to be attacked in Gaza had children inside, and thus he backed off.
“When our pilots are targeting a particular site, they try to make sure that it’s clear of civilians,” Dermer said. “There are many, many military operations that are called off, because we see that there are civilians that are going to come into harm’s way. That’s the difference between us and Hamas. Hamas is deliberately targeting our civilians. They want to kill as many civilians in Israel as possible.”

Danny Ayalon: Lessons learned

The relatively low number of casualties in Gaza during the operation so far, despite the IDF’s’ intensive attacks, which are even stronger than the IDF attacks during “Cast Lead”, result from the precise and optimized use of advanced warning such as “Knock on the Roof”, and avoiding direct hits on schools, hospitals and mosques, even when it is a known thing that rockets and other weaponry are being hidden there.
In light of the IDF’s responsible conduct, Hamas is finally seen, not only in Western media, but in the Arab media as well, as a cynical, cruel, and irresponsible terror organization. An organization that uses a civilian population as human shields, and even calls for them to use their bodies to protect Hamas leaders and their rockets, while the Hamas terrorists and leaders themselves stay well-hidden and protected in underground tunnels and warehouses set in the midst of a civilian populace.

This morning Hamas announced that it had deployed drones to Israel. One drone was shot down over Ashdod.

Hamas also claimed to have sent a drone that performed a successful reconnaissance mission towards the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, as well as other drones. Those claims are unlikely. (Hamas did release some video of some generic farmland as proof.)

Hamas named the drones as the Ababil-1, with three configurations: the A1A for reconnaissance, the A1B for dropping bombs and the A1C for "suicide missions."

It turns out that Iran has named drones the Ababll since at least 2006. They were used by Hezbollah as well as Sudan.

The naming could be a coincidence, although if the drone has any sophistication is very possibly did come from Iran. (On the other hand, mail-order remote controlled airplanes have become pretty sophisticated in recent years, although I don't know if they can be guided for 60 km.)

The Ababil in Muslim mythology is a bird that dropped bricks of shale on enemy elephants to protect Mecca from a Yemeni invasion. Operation Pillar of Defense was called "Shale Stones" by Hamas to recall the same event.

A couple of suspected Hezbollah drones have been intercepted over Israel in recent years, and a Hamas plot to send drones from the West Bank was foiled by PA security forces.

Ten days ago we saw images of Arabs rioting and destroying the light rail system in Jerusalem that served - them.

Arab rioters in Shuafat, the hometown of murdered Arab teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir, launched bombs at three light rail stations over the July 4th holiday weekend and severed the train lines to ensure that the system is beyond repair, according to sources on the ground who toured the city.

Shuafat has been one of the main epicenters of violence and riots in Jerusalem since it was announced that Israeli citizens killed Khdeir in an apparent revenge attack for the recent kidnapping and murder by Hamas of three Jewish teenagers.

Rioters in the city were spotted pulling up pieces of the sidewalk near the rail station and using handheld saws to cut into the rail line, which was completed about three years ago.

Others spray painted violent messages against Israel, including one that read: “Death to Israel,” according to photographs.

A new IMRA report shows that not only did Israel manage to get the light rail up and running again, but it appears that these attacks were anything but spontaneous:

The CityPass Jerusalem light rail service wasn't just trashed by rioters in the Arab Shuafat neighborhood, it was systematically destroyed.

Arab teams came in with jackhammers to reach the copper cable wire running by the tracks while other teams came with equipment to saw off massive electric poles as others brought in trucks to pour cement on tracks while fuel was poured on the tracks to burn off the rubber elements. Discussion groups on the Internet speculated that it would take up to a year to restore service and that service would run next to Shuafat rather than through the middle of the neighborhood.

Why the systematic destruction? One veteran Israeli reporter told IMRA that Fatah was behind the move as they control the taxi service from Shuafat to the rest of the city and destroying the light rail was a move to restore a major source of income.

But it didn't take a year to restore service.

This Sunday CityPass was already running their trains per the regular schedule.

CityPass COO Shay Eisenberg told IMRA that while the service is up and running that there is a lot of work yet to be completed. Since the traffic lights in the neighborhood and communications were destroyed, the train "has to cross intersections like a car without a traffic light". The two stations in Shuafat were completely destroyed so passengers board in a
makeshift arrangement.

Spontaneous rioters don't usually form into teams to grab jackhammers, cement trucks and chainsaws.

It seems to me that some people have been hoping for and planning a third intifada for a while, and the light rail was a natural target:

It helps unify Jerusalem
It is a symbol of Jews and Arabs traveling together
It was the object of BDS wrath

So while I don't know about the taxi service claim, the idea that the light rail had been chosen ahead of time to be a focus for an uprising seems quite likely.

(h/t Elihu)

Hamas' message is a bit different in English and Arabic

Here is Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades official English website, filled with headlines about supposed Israeli atrocities and human rights violations:

Here is their (autotranslated) official Arabic website. It is a little more...militaristic. It is filled with press releases bragging about every rocket and missile they fire towards "usurped" Arab lands, about how Zionists are being killed and living in fear.