Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, August 22, 2014

How valid is the ISIS=Hamas equivalence?

A lot of people have been comparing Hamas to ISIS lately, and Hussein Ibish lashed out at them yesterday:

This Hamas=ISIS Israeli hasbara campaign is beyond pathetic. Really miserable stuff, and no need for it. Hyperbole is transparently idiotic.
— Hussein Ibish (@Ibishblog) August 21, 2014

In response to a question from Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies , Ibish said that the answer was "too basic:"

@CliffordDMay I cannot give you Middle East and IR 101 on Twitter. Too basic. If you want to hold a panel on this and discuss with me, ok.
— Hussein Ibish (@Ibishblog) August 22, 2014

The thread went on:

Ibish didn't really argue anything in this thread, he's just making assertions.

There are some differences between Islamist groups. Hamas has fought against Salafi groups in Gaza, for example. Al Qaeda once criticized Hamas - believe it or not, for targeting civilians!

But while the tactics of the groups differ their goals do not. Perhaps to Ibish these are fundamental differences, but I believe that the differences are tactical, not strategic.

The overriding goal of an Islamic caliphate is the most important issue. Of course they disagree with each other; when have Arabs ever been unified? But given the same goals and roughly the same disregard for human rights, the differences are much less than their commonality.

Because all three groups will do whatever they deem necessary to reach their goals.

Would the NYT have published this yesterday?

Yesterday, Richard Behar at Forbes published a blistering attack on Western media coverage of the Gaza war, specifically the New York Times.

It seems more than coincidental that the first paragraphs of today's NYT piece are a 180-degree change in style from everything we've seen for the past six weeks:

Hamas is the party that keeps extending this summer’s bloody battle in the Gaza Strip, repeatedly breaking temporary truces and vowing to endlessly fire rockets into Israel until its demands are met. But the latest round of fighting appears to have given Israel the upper hand in a conflict that has already outlasted all expectations and is increasingly becoming a war of attrition.

Barrages of rockets from Gaza sailed into Israel nearly nonstop on Thursday, but they did little damage, and a Hamas threat against Ben-Gurion International Airport failed to materialize. Israel, meanwhile, killed three top commanders of Hamas’s armed wing in predawn airstrikes, and by afternoon had called up 10,000 reservists, perhaps in preparation for a further escalation but in any case a show of strength.

Israel’s advantage has never looked more lopsided. In contrast to the earlier phase of the war, Israel this week deployed its extensive intelligence capabilities and overwhelming firepower in targeted bombings with limited civilian casualties less likely to raise the world’s ire.

To flatly state that Hamas is the party that is at fault, without caveats, would have been unthinkable yesterday.

There has been no difference in the percentage of civilian casualties this week compared to any other week. The "world's ire" came from biased reporting of "civilian" casualties who weren't civilians and people killed while legitimate military targets were being hit, not in a small part because of the New York Times.

Behar's meticulously researched article seems to have struck a nerve.

Of course, the haters at Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss will mobilize the tens of thousands of anti-Israel bigots at their disposal to complain to the NYT and the paper will back down from reporting the truth, claiming that "are getting complaints from both sides."

I don't expect this to change the reporting at the NYT for more than a day or two, but this shows that when publicly shamed, the media will at least pretend to change.

(h/t EBoZ)

Hamas executes 14 "collaborators" - will their deaths be blamed on Israel? (UPDATE: 21, real photo)

Times of Israel reports:

A Gaza security official announces Hamas has killed 11 suspected informers for Israel.

The security official says the 11 were killed early Friday at the Gaza City police headquarters. He says all the men had previously been sentenced by Gaza courts.

He speaks on condition of anonymity, because he is not authorized to discuss the incident with reporters. The killings of the 11 are also reported by al-Rai and al-Majd, two websites linked to Hamas.

These are in addition to the 3 reported executed on Thursday - which was reported separately in the same Al Majd website.

A witness said he saw their bodies lying on the ground near Al Azhar University before the bodies were transferred to the morgue at Shifa Hospital.

Hamas is calling this initiative "Operation Neck Choking."

No doubt, Israel's targeting of senior Hamas officials has gotten the remaining Hamas leaders very jumpy - and trigger-happy. They are now executing anyone who looks at them the wrong way, or using this as an excuse to kill off their political rivals, especially from Fatah.

In the al-Majd post about the story, they write, "It is prohibited to publish photographs or names of the executed in order to preserve the social fabric; and the criminal is by himself and his actions should not affect the other members of his family."

Which means that these "collaborators" will be counted as "civilians" killed by Israel. As we've seen before, the bodies of the murder victims are transported to a hospital morgue without telling anyone the circumstances of their death, so they are naturally assumed (and presumably reported by the Hamas health minister) as having been killed by Israel.

UPDATE: Reuters says, and the Al Majd site notes, seven more were executed:

Hamas militants killed seven Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel in a public execution in a central Gaza square on Friday, witnesses and a Hamas website said.

The victims, their heads covered and hands tied, were shot dead by masked gunmen dressed in black in front of a crowd of worshippers outside a mosque after prayers, witnesses and al-Majd, a pro-Hamas website, said.

Ma'an says "Seven men were shot dead in front of a mosque by men in Hamas military uniforms after Friday prayers, witnesses said."

Caption contest

What is the Emir of Qatar thinking as he looks at Khaled Meshal?

Egyptian soccer star turns down the Pope game because of Israeli player

From Haaretz:

Retired Egyptian soccer star Mohammed Aboutrika has refused the Vatican's invitation to play in an interfaith soccer match promoting peace - because Israeli player Yossi Benayoun is taking part.

The “Inter-Religious Match for Peace" will take place on September 1 at the Olympic Stadium in Rome.

Aboutrika tweeted his refusal with the invitation letter he received from the Vatican. The tweet said, "This is a photo for the match invitation which I turned down because of the Zionist state. Pardon us, we are raising new generation."

Among the top players, active and retired, who did accept Pope Francis' invitation are Argentine greats Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi. Maradona told Argentine media that the pope called him personally and asked him “to play for the peace between Israel and Palestine.” Francis also called Messi to request his participation. Players from Russia, Cameroon, Italy, France and Brazil, will also participate.

Aboutrika once revealed a "Sympathize with Gaza" T-shirt after scoring a goal.

08/21 Links Pt2: ‘Non-kosher’ Islamists and ‘kosher’ ones; Palestinians Should Boycott Hamas

From Ian:

David Horovitz: Netanyahu’s vital message, and his marginal one

“Hamas is ISIS; ISIS is Hamas. They’re the enemies of peace; they’re the enemies of Israel; they’re the enemies of all civilized countries. I believe they’re the enemies of the Palestinians. And I’m not the only one who believes it,” he concluded.
The degree to which the Israeli leadership can impress upon the international community that Hamas is one of the tentacles of Islamist terror along with the likes of Islamic State and Al-Qaeda may well prove critical to the way this conflict, and thus Israel, are perceived in the weeks, months and years ahead.
Netanyahu has clearly internalized the imperative to stress that this is not a war against Gazans, but a war against the terror group that took over Gaza — in the same way that IS seeks to take over Syria and Iraq, and that Al-Qaeda spreads its rapacious territorial and ideological agenda. Critically, for an America stomach-churned by the Foley beheading, and for a Britain belatedly realizing that many of its own citizens are now engaging in Islamist jihad, this places Israel on the front line of the battle against terrorism — challenging the false narratives critics so successfully peddle of obdurate, aggressive Israel as a root cause of that terrorism.

Analysis: ‘Non-kosher’ Islamists and ‘kosher’ ones

While some might think that the sudden surge of Islamic State will give Israel a greater degree of understanding in the world – it was indeed telling to hear French President François Hollande on Wednesday talk about convening an international conference to fight the Islamic extremists – this should not be overstated.
In the fight against the Islamic extremists, there will be those in the international community who will want to signal to the world’s Muslims that they have nothing against them. One way to do this might be to differentiate between the bad evil folks, such as Islamic State – which beheads American journalists in front of video cameras – and the good evil folks: Hamas, which “only” executes kidnapped Jewish youth, something some out there find possible to “understand,” because those youths wore kippot and were hitchhiking near a “settlement.”
All those who think that as a result of the Islamic extremists’ killing of Yezidis, and the gruesome beheading of US journalist James Foley, the West will now take a more understanding view of Israel’s battle with Islamic extremist Hamas, should think again. Hamas will always be given leeway by some of the world’s “progressives” because – after all – they are fighting the “Zionist occupation.”

The Beheading of James Foley and Other Unintended Consequences

Secretary of State John Kerry followed the President with an equally harsh statement. "There is evil in this world, and we all have come face to face with it once again. Ugly, savage, inexplicable, nihilistic, and valueless evil. ISIL is the face of that evil, a threat to people who want to live in peace, and an ugly insult to the peaceful religion they violate every day with their barbarity."
Both the President and Mr. Kerry took pains to sever ISIS from the religion of Islam. That is not an appropriate distinction for American political figures to make. Ours is a country that is secular in its governance and does not truck in "true religions" or parsing other people's religious beliefs. The organization speaks precisely in Islamic terms and holds itself out to be authentic Islam. Muslims themselves will either accept ISIS as part of their religious family or drum it out.
It is only possible for the United States to declare ISIS, whether part of Islam or not, to be an enemy organization to the United States and to declare our intention to destroy it. If the President now needs to recalibrate our military intervention in Iraq to include the decimation of ISIS, either his earlier promises of limitations will be broken or the chances of American success are slim to none.
Here is another unintended consequence, perhaps the only positive one to emerge: In the President and Secretary's words resides the basis for "recalibrating" on Hamas. They appear to have (belatedly) come to an understanding that the appropriate Western position toward unacceptably aggressive, "evil," behavior, is to not to negotiate with it, plead with it, "reform" it, or buy it off -- but to destroy it.
The terrorist group Hamas also massacres innocents. That Hamas cannot kill as many Israelis as it would like and cannot currently impose its version of Islam on West Bank Palestinians is irrelevant.

MUST READ: Forbes withering criticism of US media coverage of Gaza

Richard Behar of Forbes has a dazzling analysis of the media coverage out of Gaza. It takes everything I've been mentioning, and much more, into a single article damning US media, especially the New York Times.

As more than a month has passed since Israel began its Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, it’s high time to dig through the carnage that many of my colleagues from major U.S. media outlets are leaving behind—especially the New York Times.
...
Since late July, I’ve conducted an in-depth look at the credibility of the media coverage, plus interviews with military experts and some journalists covering the war. Among other things, I’ve discovered that the Times’ most important reporter in Gaza for the past few years has used the late Yasser Arafat as his profile photo on Facebook, and, in a second photo, praised the former Palestinian leader. This suggests that the Times may have less to worry about in terms of Hamas intimidation than others in the press corps. Indeed, this Times reporter’s parallel pieces for Qatar’s Al Jazeera since the war began can only be pleasing to the terrorists.

It's long but well worth it.

Fares Akram, the NYT's main Gaza correspondent, has a photo of Yasir Arafat on his Facebook profile.

Egyptians worried that Jews might "buy citizenship"

There has been a recent rumor in Egypt that the government might start selling Egyptian citizenship:

Economic experts have recently begun discussing the idea of selling of Egyptian citizenship to foreign investors as a solution to the deteriorating investment climate in Egypt.

Following the 25 January Revolution, official figures show Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) fell drastically due to instability, from approximately $13.2bn in the 2007/2008 fiscal year to around $5bn in the last fiscal year (FY). A total amount of $2.8bn of the $5bn was in the first half only, according to chairman of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI) Hassan Fahmy. In FY 2012/2013, FDI had marked $3bn.

Although the rumors have been denied, the Egyptian street is in an uproar about it.

Because they are worried that Jews will become Egyptian citizens.

In late 2012 there was a similar uproar when an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood official said that Jews who used to live in Egypt should be able to return when Israel is properly destroyed.

Egyptians are paranoid that the Jews they expelled will come back and claim all the land and buildings that were stolen. In early 2013 there was a rumor that the Muslim Brotherhood had burned down a museum that included state archives in order to allow Jews to come back and claim their stolen heritage.

At the same time there was another rumor that the US ambassador said that King Tut was Jewish, and that Egypt will go bankrupt and Jews will return and enslave the Egyptians.

So for some reason the idea that Jews are going to go to Egypt really freaks many Egyptians out.

Perhaps it is guilt - because they know that they stole so much from so many.

08/21 Links Pt1: ISIL and Hamas Are Branches of Same Tree; IDF Blog: Hamas Human Shield Policy

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Why Does President Obama Condemn ISIS But Ask Israel to Accept Hamas in Unity Government?

At the same time that President Obama has called for an all-out war against the “cancer” of ISIS, he has regarded Hamas as having an easily curable disease, urging Israel to accept that terrorist group, whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction, as part of a Palestinian unity government. I cannot imagine him urging Iraq, or any other Arab country, to accept ISIS as part of a unity government.
Former President Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu have gone even further, urging the international community to recognize the legitimacy of Hamas as a political party and to grant it diplomatic recognition. It is hard to imagine them demanding that the same legitimate status be accorded ISIS.
Why then the double standard regarding ISIS and Hamas? Is it because Hamas is less brutal and violent than ISIS? It’s hard to make that case. Hamas has probably killed more civilians—through its suicide bombs, its murder of Palestinian Authority members, its rocket attacks and its terror tunnels—than ISIS has done. If not for Israel’s Iron Dome and the Israeli Defense Forces, Hamas would have killed even more innocent civilians. Indeed its charter calls for the killing of all Jews anywhere in the world, regardless of where they live or which “rock” they are hiding behind. If Hamas had its way, it would kill as least as many people as ISIS would.

Michael Lumish: Eliminate Hamas

The western liberal-left has been consistently wrong about almost everything when it comes to foreign policy under the Obama administration, particularly the Arab-Israel conflict, yet they never admit a mistake and excoriate those who point them out.
We need a new paradigm to discuss the long Arab war against the Jews, because relying upon the terms of Oslo is to rely upon the enemy’s terms. It is not merely that we yield the home field advantage, but that we concede the debate before it begins.
What I suggest, as a preliminary to even thinking about the question, is to remember to expand the context historically. It is exceedingly important to include thirteen hundred years of dhimmitude in the conversation if Jews wish to have any hope of appealing to rational liberals… which, in itself, does not seem very likely.
It is also exceedingly important, and for the same reason, to get them to understand the conflict is not some Jewish “Goliath” against a thumb-sucking and helpless Arab “David.” Arabs outnumber Jews 60 or 70 to 1 in that part of the world and are more than willing to use their cousins in Gaza, and in Judaea and Samaria, as a club against the hated Jewish prophet-killers.
We can never win the argument so long as we fight on progressive-left anti-Israel rhetorical turf and, yet, with few exceptions, we almost never seem to fight anywhere else.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Bringing Abbas Back to Gaza Not a Good Idea

A third reason Abbas still does not trust Hamas is the revelation this week that that the Islamist movement had planned to overthrow his regime in the West Bank. Even if the Palestinian Authority were to return to the Gaza Strip, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups would not disappear.
This is precisely what Hamas wants, a weak Palestinian authority that would manage the day-to-day affairs of the Palestinians and pay salaries to tens of thousands of employees, while the Islamist movement and its allies continue to smuggle weapons and prepare for the next war with Israel.
Such a scenario would only strengthen Hamas: it would absolve it of it responsibilities toward the residents of Gaza Strip by laying the burden on the Palestinian Authority.

On August 21, 1969, a messianic Christian named Denis Michael Rohan set a fire on the pulpit of the Al Aqsa Mosque. He was declared insane by an Israeli court and was held in a mental hospital until 1974 when he was transferred to another facility in his native Australia.

Since then, across the board, Palestinian Arabs have claimed that Rohan was Jewish.

One can perhaps understand the terrorist organization Popular Resistance Committees saying that the arson was done by "sons of apes and pigs." Many other newspapers are also claiming Rohan was Jewish, as they do every year.

But PLO mouthpiece and official news agency of the Palestinian Authority has also said year after year that Rohan was a "Jewish extremist." And this year is no exception.

Which pretty much tells you all you need to know about how much Israel can trust any agreement with the PLO.

BBC's Jon Donnison loses what little credibility he still had

On July 25, Jon Donnison of the BBC tweeted

Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership1/2
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) July 25, 2014

This became a sensation, spawning articles about how Israel knew that Hamas leaders knew nothing about the kidnapping and used it as an excuse to start a war.

BBCWatch contacted Mickey Rosenfeld, who replied that he said nothing about a lone cell:

“I said and confirmed what is known already, that the kidnapping and murder of the teens was carried out by Hamas terrorists from the Hebron area and the security organizations are continuing to search for the murderers.”

Donnison stood by his story despite his source saying it wasn't true.

Yesterday, after a Hamas leader admitted that the kidnapping was carried out by their Al Qassam Brigades, Eyal Ben Cohen asked Donnison if he would apologize for clearly being wrong and starting a completely false meme, linking to a Times of Israel story about the revelation. Here was Donnison's response:

@eyalbencohen I dont believe anything in a newspaper that published a piece called "When Genocide is Permissible."
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) August 20, 2014

He is referring to an episode where a blogger at Times of Israel posted a stupid article that the site took down within minutes, condemned it and discontinued that blogger's right to post.

Donnison knows very well that it was a blog post, not a newspaper article. And he also knows very well that the Times of Israel was not the source of the story, but Arabic websites reported it first and video is available.

The dishonesty of this supposed journalist is breathtaking.

As people piled on asking him to explain himself, instead of defending his reporting or apologizing, Donnison retweeted people calling him an antisemite and highlighted those to discredit the legitimate criticism of his dishonesty that most people were complaining about.

Instead of addressing the issue, Donnison insulted one of his most credible and intelligent critics:

Always tickles me that the utterly ludicrous bbc hating @BBCWatch (1 woman in golan heights) must watch more BBC than our director general.
— Jon Donnison (@JonDonnison) August 20, 2014

This is another deflection. It is also a bit sexist - what exactly disqualifies a woman from making accurate criticisms of the BBC? Anyone who reads BBCWatch knows that it is anything but sensationalist. There is no hysteria at BBCWatch and they transparently bring proof for everything they write - quite unlike Jon Donnison.

Donnison is scared of the truth and is working overtime to change the subject. This is not how a journalist is supposed to act, and it shows far more about Donnison than about his critics.

This is not the first time that Donnison reported based on his bias rather than the facts. He was the one who insisted that the son of fellow BBC employee Jihad Mishrawi was killed by an Israeli missile, even after the UN and Gaza NGOs admitted that he was killed by a Hamas rocket.

As I mentioned in my talk last week, reporters seem to think that they maintain credibility by sticking to their stories and lose credibility by admitting their mistakes. The opposite is the case. Everyone makes mistakes; the question is whether you admit it or whether you stubbornly choose to pretend that all the criticisms are some sort of conspiracy to be dismissed out of hand. People forgive honest mistakes; but piling lie upon lie and attacking the critics rather than addressing the criticism is a sure way to lose people's respect.

Donnison has made clear how he reacts to being proven wrong. The question is why the BBC keeps someone like this around while they claim that their stories and reporters are unbiased.

Which is the forged death certificate?

There have been two photographs of the supposed death certificate of the Deif family being circulated. One of them shows Mohammed Deif being killed along with his wife and son, and the other one shows only the wife and son.

Clearly one is a forgery. But which?

Here, I placed parallel lines from each horizontal line on both of the photos. I am looking for inconsistencies in the photos.

Clearly the tops of the photos are identical. So the forgery must have occurred on the bottom half.

Assuming that the top half is legitimate, then we see that the first horizontal line is pretty much parallel with the top of the page. The dip from where the thumb is is fairly consistent with the dip on the top edge.

In the photo showing all three members of the family, the dip remains fairly consistent on all four horizontal lines. The photo showing only three is inconsistent, as each successive line ends up higher and higher.

If the photo was taken from a slight angle, it is possible that in perspective the lines would get closer together, as they do in the second photo. But one would also expect the same perspective effect between the top edge and the first horizontal line, which is not there.

If the second is the forged one, it seems unlikely it was done totally in Photoshop. It would have required someone creating a document in a word processor and then having a photo taken, and then Photoshopping that photo on top of the original. The inconsistencies are too hard to do digitally.

The monkey wrench is that the 2-person certificate was publicized first.

So I'm still on the fence. Based only on the photos alone I would tend to think Deif is dead, but given the timing I am not at all certain.

Algerian paper claims Jews are burning Algerian flags in France

Algerian newspaper El Chorouk is covering the Muslim attacks on Jews in France - but it is claiming that it is violence between the groups, not the one-sided would-be pogroms we have seen.

According to the paper, French Jews have been burning the Algerian flag in response to French Muslims burning the Israeli flag. According to the article, French Jews and Muslims have lived together in peace, but (Zionist) French TV coverage of Muslims burning Israeli flags, along with them carrying Algerian flags, has caused all the problems of Jews returning the favor.

"For the first time by the Jews of France protests are not against the Palestinians and against Hamas, but against Algeria and its symbols," the article says.

The article helpfully adds that Algerian Jews - who lived in Algeria for centuries - were colonialists who helped the French during the revolution and who were therefore expelled.

We are told that Algerians are afraid of the Jews in their midst, and that - get this - Jews in France are trying to gain the trust of French Tunisians, Moroccans and Turks in an attempt to isolate the Algerians.

Looking through photos and video, I could not find a single instance of a Jew burning an Algerian flag. Lots of videos of French burning the Algerian flag during the World Cup. And Egyptians burning the Algerian flag, also over football. And Wahhabis in Syria. And Moroccans (who helpfully changed the five pointed star in the flag to a six-pointed one.)

Yes, those aggressive French Jews, out for blood against a Muslim population that outnumbers them 10-1.

08/20 Links Pt2: UNRWA Completely Controlled by Hamas; No Ice, ALS Patients Live Longer in Israel

From Ian:

Report: UN Palestinian Refugee Body Under Complete Control of Hamas, Islamic Jihad

The Center For Near East Policy Research documented how the controlling union of UNRWA is led by Hamas jihadi Suheil Al Hindi. It also noted that eleven of fourteen positions in the UNRWA teachers’ union have been filled by Hamas members.
The report said of the UNRWA union leader, “Al Hindi, who in the past also headed the teachers’ sector at UNRWA, does not hide his affinity for the Hamas organization and takes part in overt political activities as its representative. In his capacity and as a supervisor of student summer camps, Al Hindi has a tremendous impact on the UNRWA education system and the contents taught in it. UNRWA’s management is well aware, at least since 2004, of the fact that Suheil Al Hindi, who headed the UNRWA teachers sector, is a senior Hamas activist who supports jihad against Israel and suicide bombings...”
“Hamas’ takeover of the UNRWA institutions and UNRWA staff should set off alarms regarding the possibility of funding given by donor countries – primarily the United States – finding its way to financing the salaries of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists,” the report concluded.

100 years of failure: The Middle East since WWI

The outcome of the Arab Spring was to wash away the “nationalist” Arab regimes and replace them with chaos, extremism and death. What the West and other major powers must realize is that ISIS represents not an end self-cannibalizing of radical extremism; but a force that will continue to shape weakened regimes from Morocco to Pakistan; states such as Yemen and Afghanistan will continue to weaken.
To be sure, the West underwent similar catastrophes such as the Second World War. But the trajectory was towards quick rebuilding and economic integration, not more chaos. Iraq has spent more than a decade in total chaos, similarly Libya and Syria. Algeria never really recovered from the trauma of the 1960s and civil war of the 1990s. In many cases the best and brightest or secular moved to Europe, only be followed by Anatolian peasants and Islamists (ironically they were persecuted back home and offered ‘asylum’ in Europe). Their children growing up in the banlieues of Paris didn’t create a new generation of Arab and Muslim thinkers and reformers. The theory once heard in the West that “Islam needs a reformation like the Catholic Church went through,” never came to fruition.
The royal Arab regimes, meanwhile, have become the big winners of the Arab Spring. Considering the general trajectory of the world they should be anachronisms. But they are not. Qatar has won hosting of the World Cup, it runs Al-Jazeera. They import the Louvre and NYU and Western museums like the Guggenheim, while using a 19th century form of virtual slavery to run it all. It would be like if the Old South had not only won the US Civil War but prospered. That is another sign of the 100 years of failure; royal regimes relying on forms of Apartheid were supposed to go away, not flower with success.
The only lesson for policy makers in the Middle East is to prepare for another 100 years of chaos. Western policymakers have been looking for quick fixes to long term symptoms. A bombing here to keep ISIS out of Erbil, some weapons there, some medical supplies. But when one looks at the region one finds a lack of lasting vision among local leaders and a lack of interest in broad sweeping changes among local elites, as well as a deeply conservative society who will cooperate with any tyranny so long as their institutions are left intact. A hundred years of failure will likely be followed by 100 years of stagnation, war and implosion. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Israel, the scapegoat of a hostile, impotent UN

Operation Protective Edge put the United Nations into a time machine that screeched to a halt in the 1970s. It was a period scorched in the memory of Israel's diplomatic history as one of the hardest, most humiliating and painful periods the country ever experienced in the UN arena in New York. The signing of the first Oslo Accords softened hostility towards Israel, opening wide the cracks in the wall of isolation that surrounded it and started a new era of relative comfort and reconciliation in the organization’s attitude to Israel.
The war in Gaza will be remembered, however, as the event that triggered a significant shift in Israeli-UN relations. For Israel, it is a shift that does not promise good tides, to say the least. As far as the UN is concerned, the war shattered the barriers of diplomatic speech. When it comes to the war in Gaza and Israel's perceived blame for its results, all politeness and restraint has disappeared from the political jargon.
Official statements published recently by senior UNRWA officials, speeches delivered at the UN emergency session held two weeks and statements commonplace in private conversations with veteran diplomats, paint a picture of a UN that has returned to its old ways regarding its long-time member state, Israel. Resurfacing are patterns from the 1970s, where displays of hostility and alienation of Israel were at their peak.
The atmosphere at the UN in recent weeks recalls the days when the Israeli ambassador was a persona non grata and diplomats were careful not to be seen conversing with him in public. The mood towards Israel at the organization's headquarters brings to mind the celebratory mood in the time that Yasser Arafat was welcomed at the UN General Assembly as a hero, delivering a speech with a pistol holster on his hip; or the time the UN approved by majority the notorious decision that equated Zionism with racism.

Hamas takes responsibility for #EyalGiladNaftali kidnapping, murder (video)

From JPost:

A senior Hamas official admitted for the first time on Wednesday that the organization's armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, was behind the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teens Nafatli Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah in the West Bank in June.

The Hamas official, Salah al-Aruri made the comments during a conference of Islamic clerics in Turkey. He praised the "heroic action of the Qassam Brigades who kidnapped three settlers in Hebron."

Some Arabic media covered this story, but it has not yet been widely reported.

Salah al-Aruri has been a senior member of Hamas for decades. He was arrested in 1992 and imprisoned in Israel for 15 years. He lives in Ramallah but Israel destroyed his home on June 20 as they were searching for the teens.

If the Qassam Brigades were behind the kidnapping, that means that their leader Mohammed Deif - who may have been killed yesterday - was behind the kidnapping.

Once again, we see that the IDF is a far more reliable source of information than biased, agenda-driven journalists who swore up and down that Hamas had nothing to do with the murders.

(h/t Bob K)