Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 14, 2014

08/14 Links Pt2: Rebuilding a Demilitarized Gaza Is the Road to Peace; Reagan & Israel the Real Story

From Ian:

Alan Johnson: Rebuilding a Demilitarized Gaza Is the Road to Peace

Britain, France, and Germany have now proposed a plan. Gazans would not just get emergency humanitarian assistance, but long-term and large-scale economic development, as well as much greater freedom to trade and travel. Hamas, on the other hand, would get disarmed. The Israeli government and opposition are in favor of the idea, so too the United States, and the policy would likely attract support from regional Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.
Crucially, it also offers a framework to re-establish the authority of those Palestinians who oppose terror, recognize Israel, and want to negotiate a two-state solution—the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.
I interviewed six Israeli and American policy experts this week—Matthew Levitt, Michael Herzog, Gershon Baskin, Jonathan Spyer, Jonathan Rynhold, and Asher Susser—about the viability of “reconstruction for demilitarization.” Could it be a political solution to the Gazan tragedy? As I sat and edited the transcripts, I identified these ten rules for success.
1. Only this policy paradigm can avoid the next round of violence. “If you want to stabilize Gaza over the long run and prevent the repetition of violent rounds of conflict, you have to support this,” said Michael Herzog, a former adviser to several Israeli defense ministers. The periodic restoration of deterrence over Hamas by airstrikes and ground invasions is simply “not a tenable plan anymore,” Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute told me. Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Argov Center for the Study of Israel and the Jewish People at Bar-Ilan University, argued that it is vital to show that “Israel’s war is against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people.” The policy “puts the onus on Hamas to explain why they are unprepared to give up their rockets in exchange for reconstruction.“

Spoerl Captures Insanity of Hamas Coverage in New Hampshire Union Leader

Joseph Spoerl, Ph.D., a professor of philosophy at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire, highlights a huge problem in the coverage enjoyed by Hamas during the ongoing conflict in Gaza. In a piece published today in the New Hampshire Union Leader, Spoerl puts forth the following scenario:
"Imagine that [during World War II American and British reporters had sent back a steady stream of news stories and photos highlighting the plight of German civilians: photos of ruined homes and apartment blocks, wailing women and children, overwhelmed hospitals and so forth. Suppose, further, that these reporters never mentioned anything about the ugly ideology of Hitler and the Nazis, their genocidal hatred for Jews, their plans for world conquest, their persecution of political opponents, etc.
We would all agree that reporters acting in this way would be guilty of a serious breach of journalistic ethics. They would be actively misleading their audience by telling only a small portion of the truth."
Spoerl observes that such a scenario is taking place today as reporters highlight the suffering of the residents of the Gaza Strip without addressing the agenda of the fascist organization that controls the territory. “As absurd as it sounds, the imaginary scenario sketched out here has been unfolding before our very eyes in the Gaza strip over the past month.”
He concludes his piece as follows:
Hamas is an imperialistic, totalitarian political movement driven by genocidal hatred for Jews — in short, an Islamic Nazi Party. It exists beside the world’s only Jewish state, a liberal democracy.
No aspect of the conflict is more important, or more ignored by the mainstream media, than this one.

Mark Steyn: Young Turks

A Tweet from Yasmina Haifi:
"ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. It's a preconceived plan by Zionists who want to deliberately blacken Islam's name."
Who is Yasmina Haifi? She's an official at the Dutch Ministry of Justice who serves as project leader at the Netherlands' National Cyber Security Center. And she thinks Isis is a Zionist plot to make Islam look bad.
She could be right. On the other hand, maybe Yasmina Haifi is a Zionist plot to make Islam look bad - or at any rate deranged. Presumably the many Dutch Muslims out on the streets holding pro-Isis demonstrations would disagree with her - because they surely wouldn't be demonstrating in favor of a Zionist front group, would they? Unless, of course, they're also in on the Zionist plot...
Look at Yasmina Haifi in the photograph at right - she's not a burqa-wreathed crone, but a modern western career woman in a foxy red jacket with just a hint of cleavage. And yet she cannot bear the truth about her religion and what is done in its name. So she takes refuge in the laziest conspiracy of all. In the Netherlands, an "extremist" Muslim supports Isis because it's chopping the heads off infidels, but a "moderate" Muslim opposes Isis because it's a Zionist front group.
This is the human capital with which the Netherlands has chosen to build its future.

Dutch Official Suspended for Saying ISIS is 'Zionist Plot'Elad Benari Thursday, August 14, 2014

The Ministry of Security and Justice and the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) responded by saying they were opposed to Haifi’s tweet.
“Security and Justice and the NCTV distance themselves from her remarks,” the government said in a statement quoted by NL Times. “And since [the comment] relates to the work of the NCTV and the National Cyber Security Center, cause is shown to terminate her assignment NCSC/NCTV and outsource her work with immediate effect.”
In an interview with the local Radio 1 on Wednesday, Haifi said she will not take back her statements, saying she has the right to speak her mind.
“Freedom of expression is apparently only for certain groups,” she was quoted as having said.
“I have taken the liberty to express myself and obviously I have to pay for it. I do not know why I should take it down; this is what I think,” Haifi declared.

Let's riot and ransack French embassies worldwide!

This story came out a couple of days ago:

A Jewish group has petitioned to change the name of La-mort-aux-Juifs.

A Jewish organization is petitioning French officials that a small hamlet outside of Paris change its name from what translates in English as “Death to Jews.”

“[The fact that the name] was unnoticed during seventy years since the liberation of France from the Nazis and Vichy is most shocking,” Shimon Samuels, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s international relations, wrote to France’s Interior Minister.

But the deputy mayor of Courtemaux, the village of 289 people that oversees the contested hamlet, is resistant to a name change, arguing that the tradition should be respected.

“It’s ridiculous. This name has always existed,” Marie-Elizabeth Secretand told AFP. “No one has anything against the Jews, of course. It doesn’t surprise me that this is coming up again. Why change a name that goes back to the Middle Ages or even further? We should respect these old names.”

Secretand also noted that the municipal council was petitioned to change the name of the town, which consists of two houses and a farm, 20 years ago, but that request was denied.

Oh, those wacky Jews, thinking that writing a letter would get the town to take them seriously.

I mean, it would be hard to find a bigger insult than a call to genocide. Jews are insulted. And being insulted is a perfectly valid reason for acts of violence in today's world.

If only Jews would just take their cue from those who know how to get things done. They would riot, ransack French embassies worldwide, to send letter bombs to the leaders of the town. They would boycott everything remotely French, and to threaten anyone who disagrees.

I mean, that is the proper reaction to insults, isn't it? Not only are reactions like that expected, but they also get results. The fear that is placed in people's hearts at the prospect of being on the receiving end of a bullet or a bomb causes many of them to decide that their lives are more important than their principles - and to change their principles to align with the new reality. And that is fine, as long as they do what we want.

If nations are against your reign of terror, the response is obvious: target them. They'll come into line.

If other nations try to say you are violating international law, threaten them too. In a decade or two international law will magically change towards your viewpoint as long as you keep the pressure up.

It helps if you have a billion people who support you, but it is not a necessary condition to get results. The major components of success are terror, threats and targets who value their lives.

Face it. Terrorism and incitement work. Diplomacy and polite letters don't. Airplane terrorism combined with energy extortion was enough to turn modern Europeans into supporters of the terrorists and extortionists.

Jews are so 21st century. They really need to learn that the only way to get results is to go back to the 7th century way of doing things.

Playing by the 21st century rules is clearly a game for suckers.

(If anyone reading this thinks my advice is serious, please go away. Modern societies need to recognize the real threat and to stick to their principles, not run away from them. The goal is to punish terror in a way that turns it counterproductive, not to cave in.)

South Africa Jews threatened with boycott - and violence - by COSATU officials

COSATU, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, issued this statement on July 30 threatening to boycott Jewish stores and companies unless the Jewish community stops supporting Israel:

The Jewish Board of Deputies is allowed to spread their Zionist-supporting lies with impunity in South Africa. ... If the Jewish Board of Deputies wants to advance a Zionist agenda, they should leave South Africa and go advance their agenda elsewhere. To let these funders of a war against a defenceless people act with impunity in South Africa, is against South Africa’s commitment to the people of Palestine. The Jewish Board of Deputies must be advised in no uncertain terms that if they are not part of the solution then they are part of the problem.

The Jewish Board of Deputies are given until the 07 August 2014 to stop their Zionist propaganda in Cape Town, failing which we will boycott and call strikes at all of their member - and supporting companies and organisations. The Jewish Board of Deputies should know that just because Premier Zille supports them, it does not mean that they can act with impunity against the will of the majority of South Africans.

With questions, please call COSATU Western Cape Provincial Secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, 0827733194

There is no fundamental difference between this threat to blacklist and boycott Jews and the similar call by neo-Nazis to boycott and target Jewish stores in Rome last weekend.

But then Tony Ehrenreich went even further - to actually physically threaten Jews. He wrote on his Facebook page:

The time has come to say very clearly that if a woman or child is killed in Gaza, then the Jewish board of deputies, who are complicit, will feel the wrath of the People of SA with the age old biblical teaching of an eye for an eye. The time has come for the conflict to be waged everywhere the Zionist supporters fund and condone the war killing machine of Israel.

The SA Board of Jewish Deputies is responding:

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) is in the process of instituting both criminal and civil charges against Tony Ehrenreich, Provincial Secretary of COSATU (Western Cape branch), for hate speech and incitement to violence against the elected, representative leadership of the SA Jewish community. This will include laying charges of incitement with the police and lodging a formal complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission.

Ehrenreich denies that his statements were inflammatory:

I am not anti simetic or calling for violence against jews. I do say stop being polite in responding to Isreali war crimes. +JBoD endorsment
— Tony Ehrenreich (@TonyEhrenreich) August 14, 2014

There is one way Ehrenreich can successfully defend himself in court. Both his tweet and his Facebook post are filled with spelling, stylistic and grammatical errors. He can claim that he is functionally illiterate and therefore has no idea what words actually mean. Because there is no way to interpret his actual words as anything but a call, twice, to physically attack Jews who support Israel.

08/14 Links Pt1: US livid with Israel? Hamas can’t believe its luck; WSJ Hypes False Story About Israel

From Ian:

The New Romantics: "Being Fair" to Terrorist Groups

It is now fashionable to be anti-Semitic again, so long as you disguise it as anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism. Here, the Romantics can join hands, not only with the Islamists but with the anti-Semitic new Nazis in Europe, where, over the last several years, hatred of Jews has re-emerged as a major political force.
What sort of pink-tinted spectacles do you need to march while chanting, "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas"? Or to march alongside the black flags of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that terrorize millions and threaten to slaughter thousands as those who hold them dream of glory and triumph? Throughout Europe, it is not just the new Romantics that bow down to the myth of Islam as the path to peace. Governments, church leaders, do-gooders of every stripe accommodate every demand made by Muslim minorities. "Shari'a Law? No problem." "Islamic banking? Why not?" "Muslim prayer groups obstructing our roads and pavements? They have every right."
This all illustrates a different sort of acquiescence: infatuation probably born out of fear rather than out of revolutionary zeal and hatred of the abominable West. Both are dangerous, but there is still time for democratic publics everywhere to turn back the tide of submission to Islam. Given its history and predilections, the Romantics will cling to the coat-tails of Hamas, Hizbullah, the Islamic State, and the Muslim Brotherhood until they triumph. When that happens, the Gays for Palestine, B'tselem, the Marxists, the Presbyterians, the Socialist Workers Party, EAPPI, the Quakers and everyone else will smile as they are led to the gallows, knowing they have wrought a great change in the world but destroyed democracy, love and liberty, and personal freedom in their tragic journey to romantic fulfilment.

David Horovitz: US livid with Israel? Hamas can’t believe its luck

After the abandonment of Israel by the UK, with its promise to limit arms sales to Israel if Hamas restarts its attacks on our civilians, we now learn that the US is already restricting arms sales to Israel, having halted a planned supply of the Hellfire precision missiles that enable Israel to strike at the rocket launchers set up by Hamas in the heart of Gaza’s residential areas.
While we seek to ascertain just how grave the crisis now is between Israel and its most important ally — is the case of the non-delivered Hellfires a procedural delay or the beginning of an embargo? is the relationship between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations ruptured or just very heavily strained? — nobody is going to believe the prime minister the next time he claims, as he did two weeks ago, that US support throughout this campaign has been “terrific.”
It becomes ever harder to understand what the US administration thinks it is doing in the Middle East. Its influence is waning across the region. It appears insufficiently robust — to put it mildly — when dealing with the region’s most dangerous regimes, notably Iran. Its ill-judged lack of enthusiasm for Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi — apparently blamed by Washington for ending an elected Muslim Brotherhood presidency, even though president Mohammed Morsi would likely have ensured no further elections — is pushing Egypt ever closer to Russia. And now ties with the region’s only democracy are fraying.

Israeli official confirms US nixed arms shipment; pols argue over who’s to blame

A senior Israeli official confirmed to Israeli media that the US had suspended a shipment of Hellfire missiles to Israel amid worsening ties over fighting in Gaza.
The decision to hold off on the transfer was most likely on grounds of increased diplomatic tension, the official said, corroborating a Wall Street Journal report earlier in the day that claimed the White House and State Department had been angered by a transfer of arms to Israel and had ordered greater oversight into future sales.
The report claimed that US-Israeli tensions are at a record high, with US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to hold a “particularly combative phone call on Wednesday” and officials on both sides resorting to name-calling.
The accounts sparked an internal debate between Israeli politicians.

WSJ Hypes False Story About Israeli End-Around The White House To Grab Munitions

Dominating the front page of Thursday's Wall Street Journal is a story called "Israel Outflanks White House in Pressing Gaza Strategy" which contends among other things that Israel has been doing an end-around the White House by securing munitions directly from the Pentagon. Buried in the twenty-first paragraph of the piece as an end run around is actually standard operating procedure.
On Thursday's Morning Joe, NBC's Pentagon Reporter Jim Miklaszewski agreed that the end around story was not true:
When this issue arose people at the Pentagon were discussing it openly because at the time it was considered a pro forma exchange. These weapons, primarily munitions actually are forward located in a stockpile in Israel that are under the control of the U.S. government so that in an emergency, if the Israeli government needs munitions in a hurry, it's there.
(…) I don't know that it happened that way but officials here [the Pentagon] at the time, described it as a prearranged pro forma exchange between the U.S. and Israel in terms of providing them ammunition. And I can tell you when we asked questions about it here at the time, there was nobody that was attempting to side step the issue, doing the tap dance. They said, oh, yeah, we did it, blah, blah, and here it is. So I can't tell you if, in fact, there was anybody here at the Pentagon that was trying to undercut the State Department or the White House. And quite frankly, with the iron hand in which the White House rules this building, they don't sneeze here without waiting for the White House to say gezuntheit. That is not far from the truth. For a minute I can't believe personally that people here at the Pentagon were trying to purposely hide this transfer of munitions or undercut the White House.

Fatah says it kidnapped a soldier. Soldier disagrees.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades came out with a video where they claim to have abducted an Israeli soldier named Yaron Snitman:

For proof, they show this nameplate:

Meanwhile, Snitman is on Facebook telling people he is OK.

Apparently, according to one of the YouTube commenters who is a friend, Snitman's shoe plate was lost in battle in Gaza.

(h/t Bob Knot)

Donald Macintyre (Independent, New Statesman) corrects a Gaza lie with another lie

From The New Statesman, in a long report by Donald Macintyre:

[T]en-year-old Mohammed Badran... was blinded in an Israeli air strike but at the hospital he seemed unaware that his entire family had been killed when a missile destroyed their home at the Nuseirat refugee camp. Not understanding the nature of his injury, he repeatedly asked staff, “Why have you switched the lights off?”

But there is a correction:

Update, 12 August: Mohammed Badran’s family turned out not to have been killed in the strike on his home, as had been reported here. In the confusion of a packed Shifa Hospital, the doctors treating him in the burns unit thought he had lost his parents and all his siblings. In fact, although seven of the Badrans’ nine children were also injured in the attack, including their 17-year-old daughter Eman, who is now also in Shifa with serious leg injuries, Mohammed’s parents Tagorid and Nidal Badran both survived to take care of him. That is until Nidal, 44, a policeman, was killed in another air strike, this time on the Qassam mosque in Nusseirat refugee camp, in the early hours of Saturday, 9 August, as he prepared to attend dawn prayers.

So the bloodthirsty Israelis, not satisfied with only injuring members of this upstanding family, ruthlessly murdered the patriarch as he was innocently preparing for dawn prayers.

However, Nidal was not at the mosque for dawn prayers. He was there at 3:30 AM meeting together with two other senior Hamas members, as my story earlier today showed. It is clear that the destroyed mosque held some other secrets that Hamas was trying to keep reporters away from.

The three terrorists killed in the mosque were Nidal Badran (نضال بدران), Maaz Zayed (معاذ زايد) and
Tariq Jadallah (وطارق جاد الله).

Suddenly, the targeting of the Badran house seems a little less random, doesn't it?

By the way, the Arabic media never refers to the three Hamas members killed at the mosque as being anything other than civilians. PCHR and AP mentions that they were militants but doesn't mention their names.

Macintyre mentioned Nidal Badran's death in an earlier story for the Independent, describing the strike this way:

Israeli bombing this morning destroyed one of the largest mosques in central Gaza, killing at least three Palestinians preparing for dawn prayers, including the father of a severely injured ten year old boy blinded in an earlier strike on their home a week ago.

Two bulldozers are searching through the mountain of rubble left by the F16 air strike on the Al Qassam mosque in the heart of the crowded Nusseirat refugee camp for the last of four men who had been in a room set aside for customary washing before prayers when the bomb struck shortly after 3am.

Among the three bodies recovered was that of Nidal Badran, 44, who had been desperately hoping that his son Mohammed, who is currently in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital suffering from serious cranio-facial injuries, including the loss of his sight, would be transferred for urgently needed surgery to Europe.

The PCHR article describing the men killed as being "members of an armed group" was already published at that time, so Macintyre did not bother to do even the least amount of fact checking about the terrorist Nidal Badran before describing him sympathetically - twice.

Macintyre did report that Israel issued a warning before destroying the mosque, but that it did not reach the Hamas members in time.

And it wasn't as if Macintyre didn't have a clue. He knew Badran was a policeman, and every decent reporter in Gaza should know that the vast majority of policemen have traditionally also been members of the Al Qassam Brigades.

Just another media whitewash of Hamas.

Oh, and check this out:

{T]he dead man’s brother Kemal Badran, 45, who works for the information office of the UN refugee agency UNRWA, said that his brother had had 20 years’ service as a policeman in Gaza... “He was a religious man,” he added, saying that he frequently went early to the mosque before dawn prayers to wash and read the Koran. “Maybe [the Israelis] did not know that there would be anyone at the mosque at this time,” he said.

PCHR clearly knew that Nidal was a terrorist...and so did his UNRWA brother.

You cannot trust anything Gazans tell a reporter. Too bad reporters are so eager to believe the lies.

(h/t Honest Reporting, Bob K)

"The Qualities of Jews in the Quran"

Muslims never tire of saying to the Western media that they have no problem with Jews, they have wonderful Jewish friends and supporters, and all they are against are Zionists.

In Arabic, the story is a little different.

Dubai-based pan-Arab news site Moheet interviews a professor who discusses how Jews are portrayed in Islam's foundational text, the Quran.

Among the attributes of Jews that Muslims memorize every day:

Jews steal money
Jews use usury to enrich themselves and impoverish non-Jews
Jews don't care about human life
Jews are cowards, hiding behind fortified walls
Jews betray all agreements and covenants
Jews distort words of holy books
Jews are killers of prophets and other fine people
Jews want to extinguish the light of Allah
Jews bring corruption to the lands they are in

Just in case you think that the article is really talking about Zionists and this was all a big mistake, here is their illustration:

As usual, this article did not cause a ripple of disagreement ot an ounce of discomfort in the Arab world. No condemnations, no distancing, no quibbles.

And, in the West...no coverage.

Because it would be really awkward to notice that Arabs are far more antisemitic than anyone else, and that the antisemitism has nothing to do with Israel. If that was true, peace would be impossible, and to say that is sacrilegious - since holding on to the unfounded belief of this being a purely political conflict than can be solved with diplomacy is as irrational, and as irrationally defended, as any religion is.

Al Qassam Mosque with a conveniently placed child

From AP:

Only the minaret still stands after an Israeli airstrike reduced Gaza's Al-Qassam Mosque to a heap of concrete, iron rods and dust. Hours after the pre-dawn attack, rescue workers searched in the rubble, residents gathered — and plainclothes Hamas security agents mingled among them.

Also known as the Grand Mosque, it was one of 63 that Israel has destroyed in its monthlong war with Hamas, according to Palestinian officials. The reason, Israel says, is that Hamas is using mosques to stockpile weapons and rocket launchers, and to hide tunnels used to infiltrate into Israel and carry out attacks.

Gaza's Hamas rulers deny the accusation, saying Israel is waging a war against Islam. On the ground, many Gazans react the same, saying Israel is attacking their faith.

In its determination to go after what it says are militant arsenals, Israel is throwing aside any reluctance it had in the past to hit religious sites for fear of a diplomatic backlash. In Israel's week-long 2012 air campaign in Gaza, not a single mosque was hit. In the three-week 2008-2009 war with Hamas, Israel shelled 17 mosques and toppled 20 minarets, saying they were used as Hamas military antennas.

During recent visits by The Associated Press to a half-dozen Gaza mosques destroyed by Israeli strikes, residents categorically denied they were used by Hamas as hideouts for its fighters or as storage places for its hardware.

"None, absolutely none," or "I never saw members of the resistance anywhere here" were the most common responses to queries about whether the militants used them for military purposes.

And, indeed, most of the targeted mosques did double as social, education and health centers for residents, offering them medical care, classes to memorize the Quran and eradicate illiteracy, as well as sports events like soccer and table tennis tournaments.

...Standing atop the ruins of the Al-Qassam Mosque in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, Abu Bilal Darwish, the director of Islamic Endowments for central Gaza, echoed the same argument.

"This is aggression against Islam," he declared. "The occupiers realize that our mosques raise men and people who desire martyrdom for the sake of God."

Then, in paragraph 18, after the reader was exposed to information of how mosques are important to gaza's social fabric as well as perfunctorily mentioning that Israel says they are often used for terror, AP actually reports some facts - the only paragraph in the entire article that indicates the slightest deviation from the theme of Israel attacking mosques to hurt Gazans:

Of the mosques visited by the AP, Al-Qassam stood out as the most suspicious given that three senior Hamas officials perished in the pre-dawn airstrike Saturday and judging by the heavy security presence in the aftermath of the attack. Underlining the tension, an AP reporter was briefly detained by plainclothes Hamas security men after he took down the names of two religious books recovered from the rubble.

The strike was at 3:30 AM, according to PCHR.

Not too many table tennis tournaments happening then.

But instead of a story about how it proved that Hamas indeed uses mosques for military means - why else would Hamas security be detaining the reporter - AP buried that fact and highlighted how Israel seems to be targeting them for no reason, or as an attack on Islam itself.

EoZ lecture at Manhattan Jewish Experience (video)

Last night I gave a lecture at the Manhattan Jewish Experience. The venue was standing-room only, which was cool.

The topic was "New Media and the Gaza War."

It was a 45 minute talk, but for some reason I lost about 10 minutes when I accidentally turned off my recorder at some point. Despite that, I hope you enjoy the talk:

There were a full 45 minutes of questions afterwards, and given that the questions were what was between the audience and the wine and cheese - that's a lot of questions! If there is a lot of interest I can upload that too.

08/13 Links Pt2: It's Anti-Semitism, Stupid; Israelis Infiltrate 'Israeli-Free' Bradford; Lauren Bacall RIP

From Ian:

Efraim Karsh: It's Anti-Semitism, Stupid

The truth of the matter is that since anti-Semites have never really distinguished among Zionists, Israelis and Jews (notwithstanding repeated protestations to the contrary), and since Israel is the world's only Jewish state, it has been tacitly construed as epitomizing the worst characteristics traditionally associated with Jews and has attracted the full brunt of anti-Jewish bigotry and hatred hitherto reserved for individuals and communities, not least because it has reversed the millenarian Jewish condition of dispersal, minority status and powerlessness. If prior to Israel's establishment Jews were despised because of their wretchedness and helplessness, they have hitherto been reviled because of their newly discovered physical and political empowerment.
So much so that 64 years after its establishment by an internationally recognized act of self-determination, the Jewish state remains the only state in the world whose right to self-defense, indeed to national existence, is constantly challenged.
In Lord Byron's memorable words: "The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cove, mankind their country – Israel but the grave."

Hamas manipulated and intimidated the media in Gaza. Why was that kept from us?

Let's review what we know.
Indian television station NDTV broadcast and posted on its internet site on 5 August a report by Sreenivasan Jain showing rockets fired from a tent next to his hotel. In the accompanying text on NDTV’s website, Jain wrote that it was published "after our team left the Gaza Strip – Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired. But just as we reported the devastating consequences of Israel’s offensive on Gaza’s civilians, it is equally important to report on how Hamas places those very civilians at risk by firing rockets deep from the heart of civilian zones." In an article published subsequently, Jain wrote of "the fear which hobbles the reporting such material: fear of reprisals from Hamas against us", asking "how long do we self-censor because of the fear of personal safety in return for not telling a story that exposes how those launching rockets are putting so many more lives at risk, while the rocket-makers themselves are at a safe distance?"
The long Hamas record of shutting down news bureaus, arresting reporters and cameramen, confiscating equipment and beating journalists has already been documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists. In the latest conflict Hamas wanted to reduce the reports coming out of Gaza to what Reinhold Niebuhr once called "emotionally potent over-simplifications". Journalists from India, America, Norway, Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada and elsewhere are complaining. Will we now hear from the Brits?

Doublas Murray: Are "Integrated Muslims" Integrated?

Examples such as these seem to demonstrate what many people had already begun to observe on the streets among the anti-Israel crowds: that the protestors, who turn out in their thousands to spend weekend after weekend screaming hatred against Israel and Jews, are perhaps not, in fact, Islamists. Certainly, some of them are, but many are simply enraged Muslims. Some – just like Zayn Malik of One Direction – are people whom you would ordinarily have described as models of integration. Yet if it comes to any action of Israel's, they behave in a way no ordinary British person does or would.
This of course makes the challenge vastly bigger than many people may have thought. The problem is that a whole generation -- perhaps several -- has been taught to hate. What is notable, though, is that in a country such as Britain, most Muslims are descended from the Indian sub-continent. What is "Palestine" to them? It should have been nothing, or at least no more concern of theirs than anywhere else. But they do care differently about it. Perhaps it is part of the anti-Semitism that one British Muslim recently admitted to being "rife" and "the dirty little secret" among British Muslims.
What seems clear is that these otherwise '"integrated" people hate Israel and Jews because they have been taught to. They have been trained to carry over a bigotry and a bias that they may not even be aware of. It is a lot of hate to tackle, but it needs to be tackled, and it is important to start. The best place might be by tackling the lies and defamations that are allowed to go on underneath everyone's noses, such as the wholly frivolous -- and false -- accusations of Israeli "genocide," "war-crimes" and the like. It is going to require a lot of work, leadership, and the realization that the problem is worse than anyone had thought.

Noa Tishby: Artists without borders. Or facts.

It is challenging for someone who did not grow up in the region, as I did, to decipher what the hell is going on over there. However I wonder if Cruz and Bardem got a chance to read the Hamas Charter before signing their letter. They would’ve found that when Radical Political Islam reaches Spain – and we all know that it eventually will – Ms. Cruz and Mr. Bardem may find themselves on the very wrong side of history. After all, folk singer Pete Seeger and actor Paul Robeson did find Stalin to be highly admirable at first, and when American POWs claimed to have been tortured by the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda rushed to publically call them hypocritical liars. They were in fact brutally tortured. And I don’t think I need to get into Stalin.
Media is to blame as well: it covers Israel and Palestine obsessively, largely because Israel, as a flourishing democracy, provides a safe place from which to do that. You won’t see Selena Gomez make fact-finding tours in, say, Syria or Iraq. Skewed coverage results in skewed perception and artists are as susceptible to misinformation as much as everyone else.
Should public personalities choose to get acquainted with the facts, they will also find out that Israel is the only Western Democracy in what is effectively a whole region of failed states. More so, they may actually decipher values from propaganda. What do these people you say you support stand for? What do they want? How naked does Rihanna think she can get if Political Islam achieves its international goals? (h/t Yoel)

More reporters notice Gazans criticizing Hamas

Once again...after the fact but at least a little bit of belated reporting, from the Washington Post:

Ziad Abu Halool says he is tired of seeing his neighborhood destroyed. He’s tired of having no running water for 10 days, no electricity for even longer. He’s tired of watching Hamas and other Palestinian militants fire rockets into Israel from his neighborhood — and tired of praying that Israeli retaliation won’t obliterate his house.

So, after more than a month of war and devastation, Abu Halool speaks words that once seemed unthinkable: He says that although he despises Israel, he also blames Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for his woes.

They have “committed many mistakes,” said Abu Halool, a government employee. “All the Palestinian factions should stop firing rockets. It’s enough. We’ve been suffering.”

As the Palestinian death toll tops 1,900, more and more Gazans are questioning the decisions and strategies of Hamas, the militant Islamist group that tightly controls the Gaza Strip and is known to intimidate — and sometimes harm — those critical of its policies. Most of the disapproval is still beneath the surface, hinted at only in private conversations. But in battered enclaves such as Beit Lahiya, discontent is bubbling up openly, fueled by a sense of helplessness and fatigue.

The criticism does not necessarily reflect a loss of support for Hamas. Most Palestinians, even Hamas’s biggest detractors, say they back the current war against Israel, believing it is the only way to achieve the short-term Palestinian demands of lifting the Israeli and Egyptian economic blockades of Gaza and opening the strip’s border crossings. No Beit Lahiya residents accuse Hamas of using them as human shields, as Israel claims, even as they acknowledge that militants are firing rockets from their neighborhoods.

Yet the growing frustration among Palestinians suggests that, despite their fervent nationalism, many hold Hamas partly accountable for the humanitarian crisis. That resentment could build if Hamas reignites war during the 72-hour cease-fire — one of several truces in the conflict — that was holding for a second day Tuesday.
...
When Hamas and other Palestinian militant factions rejected an Egyptian-crafted cease-fire a week into the conflict, a cessation that Israel accepted, there was no public criticism from Palestinians, but only a sense that Hamas was on the right track toward pressuring Israel into accepting Palestinian demands. In the days after, as Israel launched a ground invasion, Hamas’s popularity soared.

Now, some Palestinians are questioning the decision to reject the first truce. Roughly 200 Palestinians had been killed in the fighting at that time. Today, amid another Egyptian-led truce effort, the death toll is nearly 10 times greater, and Gaza is a wasteland of destruction that exceeds that left behind after the previous two
Israel-Hamas conflicts, in 2009 and 2012.

“All the people are whispering, ‘Why didn’t Hamas accept the Egyptian initiative in the beginning of the war when the casualties were still low?’ ” said Hani Habib, a Palestinian journalist and political analyst.

Those sentiments can be heard around Beit Lahiya, a sprawling, hilly enclave of large houses abutting the border with Israel. Many residents said they were exhausted from bearing the brunt of the war, noting that the fighting had done much less damage to Israel.

“They should have accepted the cease-fire,” said Hathem Mena, 55, a teacher, referring to Hamas and other Palestinian militants. “It would have stopped the bloodshed. We are the ones affected by the war, our houses and our lives. The destruction is over on this side, not the Israeli side.”

Other residents said they wanted the militants to stop shooting rockets from their neighborhoods because that often brought a far more forceful reaction from Israel.

“When they fire from here, Israel repays us with an F-16 airstrike,” said Rafaat Shamiya, 40, adding that he largely blames Israel. “We are tired. We don’t have the power to fight the Israeli. While he is sitting in his office in Israel, he can destroy all of Gaza by remote control.”

Abu Halool, the government employee, said Hamas should have foreseen the consequences for the Palestinian people of supporting Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an offshoot.

“Now we don’t have relations with any other Arab country,” he said. “We should have stayed out of it.”

Some residents said they don’t expect Hamas and other Palestinian militant factions to help rebuild Gaza.

“They just fight Israel, and then they leave everything,” said Mahmoud, 20, who asked that his last name not be used. “The people will pay the price.”

The New York Times sees a few glimmers of grumbling too:

After more than a month of war, the people of Gaza are sad, of course, at 1,900 lives lost. They are angry, too: at Israel for destroying some 10,000 homes, at the Arab leaders who seem unmoved, the Western ones who seem unable to move, and even, quietly, at the Palestinian militants who built tunnels under their neighborhoods.

...Lima Diab, 27, said that under Hamas’s rule of Gaza over the past seven years “everything went bad,” and she sees the movement as “failed in politics.” But though she would prefer that rockets be fired from open areas to reduce risk to civilians, Ms. Diab described as “genius” the tunnels through which Gaza gunmen attacked Israeli soldiers and shook an entire society with new fear.

A Hamas rally on Thursday during the temporary cease-fire drew only a few thousand people, and few have raised the movement’s green flags during the fighting. Open dissent, though, is seen as dangerous.

When Suhair al-Najjar, 32, said, essentially, “I curse both sides,” and described Hamas as “shoes,” a sharp insult, an older man strode over to scold her. “Don’t say ‘Hamas,’ say ‘the Arab leaders,’ ” he yelled.

Ms. Najjar, who lost 30 relatives along with her home in Khuza’a, a village of 10,000 on Gaza’s eastern border that was demolished, was not deterred. “I’m angry at the two sides,” she repeated. “I’m angry at everybody, all the countries.” The bearded man in a gray jalabiya came closer and demanded, “You need someone to teach you how to talk?”

...Mr. Abu Asun, 34, is a barber and father of six who loves to play soccer. The Israelis left behind food cans and other detritus at his home, too. He thinks they slept in his bedroom, whose outer wall was blown out; he found earphones, and figured they wanted to block the sound of their own bombs.

“It’s not worth it,” he said as he surveyed the damage. But a relative, Mahmoud Barbah, 28, countered: “The destruction is not important, the importance is that we kill Jews and capture them. Those who kill our children must be killed.”

Mr. Abu Asun complained that the tunnels were made from “the cement that we are demanding for our home.”

More from the humor site PreOccupied Territory. Please remember to support that site since Facebook took away their page.

Paris, August 12 - High-ranking officials in countries such as Britain and France are openly siding with Palestinians against Israel in an effort to maintain political power by appealing to Muslim immigrants, recalling the pre-World-War-II days when appeasing the uncompromising demands of Nazi Germany was so successful in stemming Hitler's expansionist ambitions.

A coalition of left-wing and immigrant elements across Europe has unequivocally voiced demonization of Israel against the backdrop of recent fighting in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and the IDF. Israel has conducted artillery and airstrikes against Hamas fighters launching rockets at Israeli towns and attempting to infiltrate Israeli communities through tunnels, with the fighting taking the lives of nearly 2,000 Palestinians.

Though roughly half the death toll represents Hamas and allied militia members, the images of dead and injured civilians have aroused fierce anti-Israel passions around the world and prompting European leaders to condone, if not outright endorse, the outpouring of anti-Israel vitriol, in the hopes that siding with the Muslim population on the issue will render the establishment immune to the stated aim of Islamists in Europe to expand Muslim hegemony throughout the Continent and undermine the same liberal values ostensibly underlying the solidarity between the groups. As precedent, they cite the 1938 agreement to grant Hitler the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, thereby satisfying his territorial ambitions and securing peace in Europe for that entire era.

"Our own history demonstrates the wisdom and prudence of this approach," said George Galloway, a British politician who has taken a staunch anti-Israel stance. "It was only when Europe stopped resisting Nazi Germany's rightful territorial claims that all the tension melted away and the continent enjoyed an unprecedented period of prosperity." He noted that just a few years later, American investment in Europe skyrocketed, highlighting the advantages and growth that await a Europe willing to sell out its liberal values for vague promise of avoiding further unrest.

08/13 Links Pt1: UN Audit Finds Construction Funds “Black Hole”; Is Carter's Support of Hamas a Crime?

From Ian:

UN Audit Shows “Black Hole” in Supervision of Gaza Construction Prior to War

Fox News reported yesterday that an internal United Nations audit of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Gaza found that UNDP “allowed at least five non-staff contract employees to handle ‘core’ procurement processes that only staffers are supposed to handle, including those for ordering up ‘significant’ civil construction activities.”
The report notes a number of other irregularities that that the audit turned up, included charges for construction projects “at far less than … full value,” allowing the projects to avoid scrutiny, as well as failure to track receipts and expenditures properly.
"Taken together, the findings in the carefully manicured audit report — which was vetted by UNDP management at the affected office — point to a possible black hole in the supervision of civil construction, and perhaps other programs in Gaza and the other Palestinian territories for at least a year before the current explosion of terrorism."
The upshot of all of these irregularities, according to Fox, is that they lend “credibility to Israeli accusations that internationally-managed relief supplies to Gaza were diverted into construction of the elaborate and highly-engineered tunnels under the territory that were used by Hamas terrorists to launch and coordinate rocket attacks and incursions into Israel that dramatically escalated in March.”

Senators want UNRWA investigated over 'troubling' Gaza role

Accusing UNRWA of maintaining active and extensive ties with Hamas— and of supporting its activities throughout the month-long war— Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote a letter this week to US Secretary of State John Kerry accusing the UN agency of bias and characterizing its role in the conflict as "troubling."
UNRWA, an ostensibly neutral agency tasked with administering aid to Palestinian refugees throughout the region, adopted a political role in the heat of the conflict, during which at least four of its facilities were badly damaged and many of their inhabitants killed. During the deadliest days of the war, UNRWA officials went on record accusing the Israeli government of violating international humanitarian law.
UNRWA also publicly declared the discovery of three caches of rockets stored in Gaza schools during the July battle. The organization did not identify a responsible party for the crime, however, noting that the schools used as weapons depots were "mothballed" for the summer months.

Dershowitz Asks: Does Jimmy Carter's Support for Hamas Constitute a Criminal Offense?

While Jimmy Carter was busy accusing Israel of war crimes and encouraging greater international support for the terrorist group Hamas, a noted legal expert and civil rights advocate claims the former American president may have committed several criminal felonies that ban the provision of material support to terrorist organizations.
Recently retired Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz told J.D. Hayworth at Newsmax TV that Carter’s recent article in London’s Guardian Newspaper, urging international recognition for Hamas, may have constituted recruitment for an organization classified as ‘terrorist’ under US law.
Dershowitz accused Jimmy Carter of being "an all-out supporter of Hamas," warning that if his advocacy turns into material support for the terrorist Hamas, Carter will be committing a felony.
"Jimmy Carter wants the United States and the European community to legitimize Hamas," said Dershowitz. “It's against the law in the United States, even if you're a former president, it's against the law to provide material support to a listed terrorist organization."
Dershowitz claims that Carter’s call for the recognition of Hamas as an equal with Israel “defies logic. But leave it to Jimmy Carter,” said Dershowitz to defy logic. “It's as if one would want to recognize and legitimate the Mafia or al-Qaida or the Taliban," he said.

David Horovitz: When the history of this war is written

It will not reflect well on Britain, journalism, and the struggle against anti-Semitism
Britain abandoned Israel.
The principled initial position of Prime Minister David Cameron in support of Israel was gradually eroded to the point where, on August 12, the British ministry of trade announced that if Hamas attacked Israel again, it would halt some of its arms sales to Israel. No, you did not misread that. If the terrorist government of Gaza, sworn to destroy Israel, initiated new violence against Israel, Britain will stop selling Israel some of the arms it needs to keep its people safe.
It goes without saying that the UN mustered all of its skewed forums to harm Israel, and that most of the Arab world piled on energetically too — even those countries who know to their own bloody cost the sheer inhumanity of Islamist terrorist organizations. The hostility demonstrated elsewhere in the international arena was shocking, but not surprising either. But Britain, central to the revival of the Jewish homeland in the last century, took a step that, were it not for Israel’s own capabilities and other alliances, would begin the process of rendering Israel helpless in the face of those who seek to annihilate it. And that is beyond reprehensible. It is a moral failure of the first order. It should shame all those who played a part in producing such a move. And quite apart from the impact on Israel, it must profoundly trouble all those of us who love and appreciate Britain and who care for Britain’s future.

British government threatens Israel with arms halt

What’s most astonishing here is that the suspension is not conditioned on which party breaks a ceasefire. If Hamas starts firing rockets at Israel again, it seems, the UK’s position is that Israel should not respond, lest this lead to “a resumption of significant hostilities.”
Even as an outsider, I could see something like this coming from the moment the Tory-Lib Dem coalition came into office.
By contrast, and despite the well-publicized tensions between Obama and Netanyahu, military cooperation between the US and Israel remains strong, and continued military aid to Israel is one of the few matters on which most Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as Obama, agree.

Why would Hamas allow civilians - and journalists - near unexploded bombs?

From AP:

An Associated Press video journalist has been killed in an ordnance explosion in the Gaza Strip, together with a Palestinian translator and three members of the Gaza police.

Simone Camilli, 35, died Wednesday when Gaza police engineers were neutralizing unexploded ordnance in the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya left over from fighting between Israel and Islamic militants.

Ma'an adds:

At least five people were killed and another six were critically injured after an unexploded Israeli missile blew up in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, witnesses and a health ministry spokesman said.

Ashraf al-Qidra identified three of the dead as Bilal Muhammad al-Sultan, 27, Taysir Ali al-Hum, 40, and Hazem Ahmad Abu Murad, 38.

Hazem Abu Murad was the head of Hamas' bomb disposal unit.

He achieved a bit of celebrity last week as he showed off his skills in front of other journalists and Gazans.

An anxious crowd watched on Thursday as Hazem Abu Murad and his team stood over a unexploded one-tonne Israeli bomb in a field of tomato and potato plants.

The tension increased as Mr Abu Murad calmly approached the bomb, seemingly unfazed by the task. Moments later, he reassured the crowd in a rather dramatic fashion.

“It’s already been disabled! Don’t worry – it won’t explode!” he shouted, jumping up and down on the bomb.

Why is there a crowd only a short distance from an unexploded one ton bomb?

If Abu Murad wanted to do his job without a protective suit or specialized materials, that's his problem. But the news stories about him before his death indicate that he - and, by extension, Hamas security - was very cavalier about the lives of Gazans that he is pretending to protect.

I don't think it is purposeful, but it is an indication of how little Hamas prioritizes the safety of the people it is supposed to protect. And that should be a big deal.

The AP reporter is dead because of Hamas' disregard for the value of human life.

One other small fact revealed in the late Abu Murad's showing off to reporters last week:

Mr Abu Murad said his team has also dealt with “tens” of rockets launched at Israel by Hamas and other militant groups that failed to reach their target, falling instead back onto Gaza.

Really? because judging from Western media dispatches for the past month, there were no such thing! Every civilian was killed by Israel, without exception!

Tens of unexploded terror rockets translate to hundreds of exploded terror rockets in Gaza.

(h/t Gary, Bob K)

UNHRC declares Israel the aggressor - BEFORE the inquiry

Here is the statement from the UN Human Rights Council establishing a "commission of inquiry:"

The President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Baudelaire Ndong Ella (Gabon), announced today the appointment of Amal Alamuddin, Doudou Diène and William Schabas to serve as members of the independent, international commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014. William Schabas will serve as Chair of the three-person commission mandated by the Council at its last special session.

June 13th? Operation Protective Edge began on July 8. So why is the UN choosing June 13th?

The answer tells you all you need to know about how biased the UNHRC is.

Hamas kidnapped and murdered Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah on June 12th.

Israel started searching for them in the Hebron area on June 13th.

The commission is being given a framework where they are supposed to believe that the kidnapping and murder were not acts of aggression, but Israel's response was.

While it is true that the next paragraph tries to stave off this criticism by saying "whether before, during or after," the very mention of that date and not the day before shows that its mandate "to establish the facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes perpetrated and to identify those responsible, ...all with a view to avoiding and ending impunity and ensuring that those responsible are held accountable, and on ways and means to protect civilians against any further assaults" is directed only at Israel and not Hamas.

Hamas has never been accused of "impunity." That is a NGO keyword that only applies to Israel in the context of this conflict.

This is not a mistake. Diplomats are very careful with statements like this, and using the words "military operations conducted since 13 June 2014" shows that the UNHRC does not consider the kidnapping and murder of the teens to be within the mandate of the commission - only the Israeli response.

Kidnapping and targeting civilians is a war crime, by the way, so the choice of June 13 is a very deliberate attempt not only to portray Israel as the initiator of the hostilities but to whitewash Hamas war crimes.

The mandate for the Goldstone inquiry was more explicit in blaming Israel for starting the 2008-2009 war, calling to "dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip" - even though Hamas had declared war on Israeli civilians two days before Cast Lead.

Creating a false framework is a favorite methodology of diplomats to stack the deck against Israel without having to lie. When a commission is told what to look for, they will generally not expand that mandate to look elsewhere. And this commission is being told clearly that Israel's response to terror is not a response at all, but a military aggression for no other reason besides Israel being inherently aggressive.

Of course, it also means that the commission can include the West Bank in their kangaroo court so as to maximize Israel's perceived aggression and minimize any importance of Hamas rockets and terror tunnels.

The UNHRC knew exactly what it was doing when it created this commission, and its anti-Israel bias is built in to whatever the report says just from the mandate itself, without even going into the obvious bias of a chair who refers to defenders of Israel's right to exist as his "enemy."