Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, September 20, 2014

09/20 Links: Israeli Tactics Greatly Reduced Civilian Casualties; How to defeat ISIS? Ask Israel

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: If the West denies what it’s up against, it will lose

Westerners cannot grasp the nature of religious fanaticism. They can’t believe that other cultures may be unlike themselves and motivated not by reason but by dogma. They cannot take seriously the notion of a holy war.
But Islamic State is the purest expression we have seen of precisely that, because all the usual alibis have been stripped away. The fundamental goal of Islamic State is not to remedy some geopolitical grievance against Israel, America, India or Saudi Arabia. It is to establish a caliphate and force the world to submit to Islam. What Islamic State openly stands for is mass murder and barbarism in the name of God.
Neither air strikes nor ground troops will defeat the religious idea for which Islamic State stands and which is inspiring thousands of Muslims to join it and other such militias. To defeat Islamic terror, that idea has to be defeated. The free world needs to help truly reformist Muslims to purge it from their religion.
We must hope Islam can be reformed. If not, the alternative is brutal: either we defeat Islamic extremism or it defeats us. But for sure, denying what it is will hand it victory.

Gaza: The Proto-Palestinian State – That Wasn’t

The Arab and Palestinian leadership, with the UN’s help, was brilliant in ensuring that the world would never forget Palestinian refugee story and, indeed, it is as fresh today as it was in 1948.
A 1959 news report, gleaned from the New York Times archive, provides a revealing illustration of this cynical public relations stunt, which was as destructive as it was effective.
That year, then UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold proposed a massive international development project to resettle Palestinian refugees. As the Times reported on August 9, 1959, Mr. Hammarskjold suggested that $1.5 – $2 billion (approximately $11-$15 billion in 2014 dollars) be spent over the next five years to “make productive jobs for the 1,000,000 refugees in Arab lands.”
It was not to be. The Arab League, supported by Palestinian refugee leaders, opposed the UN plan. They not only rejected the development concept, they demanded that UNRWA “drop all of its resettlement operations and become exclusively a relief agency.” Echoing exactly what we hear from today’s Palestinian leadership, the Arabs insisted that refugees be permitted to return to homes in Israel or receive compensation if they chose not to.
The Times story left no doubt as to what motivated the Arabs’ position:

Israeli Tactics Greatly Reduced Gaza Civilian Casualty Rates

Israel's detractors engage in moral inversion, falsely accusing Israel of crimes and sins that the enemies of the Jewish state commit. In the recently concluded summer war of 2014 between Israel and Hamas, the usual clique of UN organizations, human rights groups and media organizations accused Israel of recklessly causing disproportionate civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, while paying less attention to Hamas crimes against both Israeli and Palestinian civilians. Groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch demanded investigations of Israel for war crimes and called for embargos against the Jewish state. But a web site that specializes in military analysis, DefenseNews, describes innovative Israeli tactics that significantly reduce civilian casualties. The article quotes Israeli Brig. Gen. Amikam Norkin, Israel Air Force chief of staff, who explained that

Protective Edge marked the first time fixed-wing fighters were used as dedicated assets to division- and brigade-level forces.
“Over the last year, we drilled in a very substantive way with the ground forces and we built a process where our fighters could attack at much closer distances … We did this hundreds of times during the operation.”
The result according to Norkin was that Israel was able to far surpass

"an international average of five innocents killed for each targeted terrorist. He said preliminary data from Protective Edge indicates “we’re slowly closing in on numbers of one to one."

Is the UN Fair to Israel?

Israel is a vibrant democracy with full rights for women and gays, a free press and independent judiciary. You would think that the United Nations would celebrate such a country. Instead, the UN condemns Israel at every turn to the point of obsession. How did this happen? Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights, explains in five eye-opening minutes.

09/19 Links Pt2: Former AP Reporter Confirms Matti Friedman's Account; Israeli hackers ‘scary talented’

From Ian:

Former AP Reporter Confirms Matti Friedman Account

Last month, former Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman published an essay in Tablet highlighting how, and why, news organizations get Israel so wrong. The AP’s Jerusalem bureau, where Friedman used to work, was the subject of much of his criticism. He argued that the bureau stuck to a preexisting narrative of Israeli extremism and Palestinian moderation. One of his examples that his former employer stifled stories that presented a divergent narrative came from 2009, when two of his colleagues had a story about a peace proposal from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Palestinian leadership rejected. Both the Israelis and Palestinians confirmed this, but editors pulled the piece.
Steven Gutkin, the former AP bureau chief in Jerusalem, who hired Friedman in 2006, wrote a response in which he denied the charge that the story was pulled due to editorial bias, asserting that the information discovered by the reporters, namely a map depicting a proposed land swap, was old news. (Friedman addressed Gutkin’s response here on the Scroll last week. Gutkin has since published a rebuttal.)
Now, Mark Lavie, a former colleague of Friedman’s at the AP in Jerusalem and the author of Broken Spring, has weighed in, identifying himself as one of the reporters involved in writing about the 2009 peace offer blog post directed to Gutkin. He confirms Friedman’s account of the story being pulled.

Awaiting the verdict

If former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s Holyland trial was the Israeli corruption trial of the century, the Arab Bank trial that has been taking place in a federal court in Brooklyn for the last five weeks could be the terrorism finance trial of the century.
The trial has a master villain, Hamas, which carried out the August 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem, killing or wounding 130, and a range of horrid terrorist attacks during the second intifada.
There are the victims, 297 plaintiffs who were wounded or are family members of those murdered in the 24 terrorist attacks from 1998-2004 financed via Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah’s al-Shahid Foundation, using the Jordanian bank as a conduit.
Also, there is a 10-year history of intense legal battles, including trying to get the bank’s “secret” client documents located in Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian areas.

Military Occupation To Continue

Scotland rejects the two state solution. Backed by the nuclear armed British army, navy and air force, the once sovereign state of Scotland is to continue as just another large neighbourhood of the United Kingdom.
Israel has so many great friends amongst the Scottish people (we assume) because the ones who make the most noise don’t seem to like the prospect of an independent homeland for the Jews remaining here.
Lets hope that Yvonne Ridley’s dream of a “Zionist free zone” in Scotland is now sunk too.

Hagee: Israel is not an 'occupier' but the owner of the land

One picture captured my heart this past Sunday. The sight of Pastor John Hagee, the leader of tens of millions of evangelicals in the United States and around the world, and Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg, a great scholar and veteran rabbi of the Orthodox community in San Antonio, embracing during a joint prayer at the Western Wall.
This picture joins the mounting evidence of a theological earthquake occurring in parts of the Christian world pertaining to relations with the Jewish people and the State of Israel. While some of us have difficulty opening up to these changes, considering the bloody historical account of the Jewish people with the church, it is important to know of this revolution and the righteous among the nations who come to our assistance.
In 2006, Hagee established Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a growing organization that currently numbers 1.8 million members. The group's activists regularly approach their representatives in the U.S. government in Washington on behalf of Israel. The organization has branches on many campuses in the fight for the hearts of the next generation, and starting this year will launch a program bringing Christian student missions to Israel to become directly acquainted with it.
CUFI convenes a huge annual conference in Washington and throughout the year holds dinners honoring Israel in every major city. Hagee emphasizes that they condition admission to the organization and its meetings with the stipulation that "they are not to be conversionary in any way, but are to communicate to our Jewish brothers and sisters our love for them and our desire to help them in any way that we can."

As I look at the stories I covered this week, I always ask myself whether - in a normal universe - the news stories I report would be considered newsworthy to the mainstream media.

So, let's play the game:

When the highly-paid leader of one of the world's major human rights organizations tweets hundreds of times about a war, and yet manages to ignore most of the human rights violations being done by one side - Is That Newsworthy?

How about when the side whose violations he all-but ignores is a terrorist group?
How about when he insists that he is even-handed?
How about when he snidely dismisses his critics instead of honestly responding to well-documented criticism?

When the world media parrots reports that the Gaza power plant was "destroyed" and will not be repaired for a year, and yet it is back in operation two months later - Is That Newsworthy?
When the world's biggest NGOs, as well as the UN, explicitly reject the use of standards that would ensure that their fact-finding missions aren't biased - Is That Newsworthy?
When a purportedly pro-American Muslim parade is held in New York, but it includes insults against America as well as realistic replicas of guns and a representation of a lynching - Is That Newsworthy?
When terror groups who were quoted as credible during a war brag immediately afterwards about how they manipulate the media - Is That Newsworthy?
When there are reports that a de-facto government is stealing aid meant for their people, and extorts money from people who want to leave - Is That Newsworthy?
When a UN agency goes out of its way to traumatize hundreds of thousands of children in order to incite them to hate - Is That Newsworthy?

How about when their spokesperson talks about a child who lost his father without mentioning that his father was a terrorist, meeting with other terrorists in military center that disguised as a mosque?

When newspapers worldwide reported about a person who saved Jews from Nazis criticizing Israel for killing his innocent relatives, but don't do basic research to find out that there were at least two terrorists in the house - including one of his relatives - Is That Newsworthy?
When a former MP of a Western-friendly government goes on a TV show run by a terrorist organization and says that Jews kill Muslims and Christians for Passover matzoh - Is That Newsworthy?
When it is proven that the statistics on civilians killed in Gaza were not only wrong, but were obviously manipulated by human rights NGOs in Gaza to inflate the number of "civilians" killed, causing every single news organization to report the war completely wrong - Is That Newsworthy?
When the leader of the Palestinian Arabs praises a woman terrorist who bragged about hiding bombs in watermelons at a circus to kill as many Jewish children as possible - Is That Newsworthy?

What about if he was an actor or an athlete - would that make it newsworthy then?

Hey - I'm not a professional news reporter or editor or publisher. Maybe I'm missing something, and for some reason these stories don't reach the threshold of newsworthiness.

I would really, really love to have a media professional explain to me exactly why, though.

Felesteen, a Hamas newspaper, has an op-ed by Prof. Naim Al-Safadi.

Safadi is a "professor of hadith" at Islamic University of Gaza.

His article, entitled "Jews only understand the language of force," uses Koranic "proofs" for how Jews think.

After the usual praises for Allah and confirming the supposed Hamas "victory" he says "The Muslim religion and the methods of the beloved Muhammad peace be upon him teaches the mechanism to deal with the Jews so we can achieve victory after victory."

As he narrates, the Jews of Medina spurned the generous offer of Mohammed to have them convert to Islam, or else they would be killed. The obstinate Jews declined this generous offer and they instead chose to resist, proving their hatred. (Those Jews who didn't convert were eventually beheaded, in Allah's mercy.)

After giving another example of similar Jewish recalcitrance to do the reasonable thing, Safadi says that clearly negotiating with Jews today will not result in the desired end result that he describes in the beginning: "the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine."

Can you imagine the nerve of those Jews for not surrendering meekly to crazed Islamists?

He's not being antisemitic - he's just describing the character of the Jews as seen in the Koran. It is very scientific!

09/19 Links Pt1:The TBS of the TSS, A chronicle of irrational fanaticism; Hamas's Violations of Int'l Law

From Ian:

The TBS of the TSS - A chronicle of irrational fanaticism

Time to remove kid-gloves
The aftermath of Operation Protective Edge leaves little room for niceties in the conduct of the public debate on Israel’s security and on the measures it should adopt to preserve its security. This is no time to call a spade as a manually operated device whose principle function is to create elevation differentials in the surface of the Earth.
We can no longer afford to recoil from the unpleasant necessity of calling a spade a spade.
The recent – and likely-to be-repeated – round of fighting in Gaza should have driven home to anyone with a smidgen of common sense and common decency that conceding territory to Arab control is both futile and fatal.
The revelations of the terrorist capabilities developed in the wake of the 2005 abandonment of Gaza – in terms of overhead missiles and underground tunnels – underscored just how dangerous, detrimental and dysfunctional it is to exchange Jewish land for some wisp of hope of peace with the Arabs. The truth is so glaringly apparent that this nefarious, nonsensical notion can no longer be excused or condoned by assuming well-intentioned naiveté.
It is imperative, therefore, to conduct an open public debate – however heated and blunt, even brutal – about the motives of obdurate adherents of this disproved dogma and the reasons for them clinging so doggedly to it.

Sarah Honig: Hey diddle, Fatah and the fiddle

In her authoritative clipped cadences, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni admonishes those of us who refuse to sweeten Ramallah figurehead Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah cohorts with “daring initiatives.” She sternly disapproves of Israelis who “are not willing to pay the price of a diplomatic arrangement.”
We might of course nitpick and wonder whether a diplomatic arrangement is in fact attainable. And if so, we might further press and inquire why such arrangement hadn’t already been attained.
We might point out that the moderation Livni ascribes to Abbas connotes goodwill and that a minimal supply thereof should have facilitated some arrangement long ago – long before the advent on our scene of Hamas’s religious bad-guys. Secular enemies, as per Livni’s idiosyncratic political lexicon, aren’t quite enemies – certainly not extremists or terrorists.
So why then the absence of peace? Are we to understand that she pins the blame on Israel’s supposed small-minded stinginess? *We could ask in what gospel it’s written that diplomatic arrangements (which are hardly irrevocable) must be purchased with hard territorial and strategic currency (which cannot thereafter be recovered). But since in her world Livni writes the rules, this question is unlikely to be answered.

Released: The "Official" List of Hamas Violations of Int'l Law

In advance of the UN Human Rights Council investigation of Israeli "war crimes" in Gaza this summer, the Lawfare Project has compiled a detailed list of "Hamas's Violations of International Law."
The New York-based Lawfare Project attempts to safeguard against the abuse of the law as a weapon of war. It turned its attentions this month to ensuring that international law is not turned against Israel, in the face of Hamas indiscriminate rocket and tunnel attacks against Israel.
It is well-known that Hamas used, in various ways, its civilian population as shields in the face of Israeli missile attacks, while firing rockets at Israeli population centers and tunneling into Israel for the purpose of facilitating terrorist attacks. However, the exact international laws that Hamas has violated are not widely understood, and the Lawfare Project has prepared an 11-page document to fill in this gap.
The document lists the specific rule violated by Hamas, and provides documentation of the violations. For instance, Rule 1 of Customary International Humanitarian Law is the Principle of Distinction between Civilians and Combatants. The Lawfare Project notes that the U.S. State Department has condemned Hamas rocket fire on Israeli civilians, and Hamas itself declared that all Israelis had become targets for its missile attacks.
Hamas has admitted violating the rule requiring advance warning of attacks, and the UN Relief and Works Agency said it found rockets hidden by Hamas in a school – in violation of Rule 22 (Precautions Against the Effects of Attacks).
The full Lawfare Project report can be seen here.

Caroline Glick: Why Rouhani loves NY

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s trip to New York next week will be a welcome relief for the Iranian leader. Finally, he’ll be somewhere where he’s appreciated, even loved.
Ahead of his trip to America, the US media continued its practice of presenting Rouhani as a moderate, and a natural ally for the US. NBC News’ Anne Curry interviewed Rouhani in Tehran, focusing her attention on his dim view of Islamic State.
Rouhani told Curry, “From the viewpoint of the Islamic tenets and culture, killing an innocent people equals the killing of the whole humanity. And therefore, the killing and beheading of innocent people in fact is a matter of shame for them and it’s the matter of concern and sorrow for all the human and all the mankind.”
The US media and political establishment’s willingness to take Rouhani at his word when he says that he’s a moderate is one of the reasons that Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz was in such a desolate mood on Wednesday.
One of Steinitz’s chief concerns was the US’s insistence that Rouhani is a moderate.
In his words, “The only thing that has changed [since Rouhani replaced president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] is the tone. The only difference is that the world was unwilling to hear from Ahmadinejad and [his nuclear negotiator Saeed] Jalili, what it is willing to listen to from Rouhani and [Iranian Foreign Minister Javad] Zarif.”

Gazans reveal Hamas war crimes

Mudar Zahran at Gatestone Institute interviewed Gazans over the phone and Skype to find out what they really thought of Hamas.

The interviewees tend to be more Fatah leaning, and some of their stories seem a little exaggerated (like Hamas beheading a political opponent,) but the main thrust of what happened in Gaza shows that Hamas actions, directly or indirectly, caused many Gazans to die - and lots of Gazans are very angry.

Here are some of the interviews:

S. a medical worker, said:

"The Israeli army sends warnings to people [Gazans] to evacuate buildings before an attack. The Israelis either call or send a text message. Sometimes they call several times to make sure everyone has been evacuated. Hamas's strict policy, though, was not to allow us to evacuate. Many people got killed, locked inside their homes by Hamas militants. Hamas's official Al-Quds TV regularly issued warnings to Gazans not to evacuate their homes. Hamas militants would block the exits to the places residents were asked to evacuate. In the Shijaiya area, people received warnings from the Israelis and tried to evacuate the area, but Hamas militants blocked the exits and ordered people to return to their homes. Some of the people had no choice but to run towards the Israelis and ask for protection for their families. Hamas shot some of those people as they were running; the rest were forced to return to their homes and get bombed. This is how the Shijaiya massacre happened. More than 100 people were killed."

K, another graduate student at an Egyptian university who had gone to Gaza to see his family but was unable to leave after the war started, said on July 22:

"When people stopped listening to Hamas orders not to evacuate and began leaving their homes anyway, Hamas imposed a curfew: anyone walking out in the street was shot without being asked any questions. That way Hamas made sure people had to stay in their homes even if they were about to get bombed. God will ask Hamas on judgment day for those killers' blood."

S., a Gazan businessman, said:

"The cease-fire Hamas agreed to carried the same conditions the Egyptians and the Israelis offered during the second week of the war -- after only 160 Gazans had been killed. Why did Hamas have to wait until 2,200 were killed, and then accept the very same offer? Hamas has blackmailed the world with the killed Gazan civilians to make itself look like a freedom fighter against an evil Israel. Hamas showed Gazans that it could not care less for their blood and their children. And why should Hamas care? Its leaders are either in mansions in Qatar or villas in Jordan. Mashaal [Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas] is in Qatar, Mohammad Nazzal is in Jordan and Abu Marzouk is in Cairo: why should they want a ceasefire? Everyone here in Gaza is wondering why Hamas rejected so many ceasefires. Hamas knows it will not defeat Israel's army, so why did it continue fighting? The answer is simple: Hamas wanted us butchered so it could win the media war against Israel by showing our dead children on TV and then get money from Qatar."

I asked S. if other Gazans shared his view. He said,

"Gazans are not stupid. We are now telling Hamas: Either you bring victory and liberate Palestine as you claim, or simply leave Gaza and maybe give it back to the Palestinian Authority or even Israel -- or even Egypt! We have had enough of Hamas's hallucinations and promises that never come true."

A first-aid volunteer, E., said that Hamas militants had confiscated 150 truckloads of humanitarian supplies the day before. He said the supplies were donated by charities in the West Bank and that their delivery was facilitated by the IDF. He commented: "This theft angers all of us [Gazans]. The Israeli army allows supplies to come in, and Hamas steals them. It seems even the Israelis care for us more than Hamas."

Another aid worker, A., confirmed that Hamas steals the humanitarian supplies given to Gaza. "They [Hamas] take most of it, sell it to us, and just give us the stuff they do not want."

A Gazan mosque's imam said that the most precious aid item Hamas stole was water. "Gazans are thirsty and Hamas is stealing the water bottles provided to us for free and selling them at 20 Israeli shekels [approximately $5] for the big bottle and 10 Israeli shekels for the small one."

Read the whole thing.

(h/t many people)

This week, female terrorist Zakiya Shammout died in Algeria after an illness.

She was involved in multiple terror attacks in the 1960s and early 1970s, before being arrested in 1971. As JTA wrote then:

Forty suspected terrorists, including the pregnant wife of the alleged ringleader, Mohammed Shamout, were arrested today. Detention warrants have been issued for 19 of them by a Nazareth magistrate. The gang is believed responsible for various acts of sabotage during the past two years, the most recent being an explosion that destroyed a bus in Haifa last week.

Mrs. Zakiya Shamout, 25, who is the mother of four children and is seven months pregnant with her fifth, is suspected of sabotage in the Afuleh market place in October, 1969 when an explosion killed one man and Injured 25 persons. She is also suspected of having planted explosives in watermelons at the Haifa circus in 1969. The explosives failed to go off. Other members of the Shamout family are among those arrested.

Here is the account of how Shamout intended to kill children at the circus in 1969:

A 14-year-old Israeli boy’s curiosity was credited by police today with frustrating saboteurs’ plans for a major blast in a circus here which was timed to maim and kill hundreds of the circus-goers.

Benjamin Peretz and a youthful friend had been looking at the Tokyo Fair from the street but apparently did not intend to watch the performance. They wandered over to one of the numerous watermelon stands looking for “spare” melons. Benjamin opened a melon and observed a pencil-like object embedded in the opening. He removed it and playfully threw it at his friend. It exploded, injuring the boy slightly.

Police were called to the melon stand and began a search. They found the suspected melon and inside of it a kilogram of explosives. A second melon was found with three times that much explosive. An old coat, to which no one had paid any attention, was found to have 20 sticks of gelignite sewn into its lining. The circus performance was halted immediately and the audience followed instructions to leave by the tent through its back entrance while the search for more explosives continued. No more were found.

The police said that the pencil-like object was a timing device which had been set to detonate the explosives as the circus audience was leaving the performance. They said a major catastrophe in damages, injuries and death could have occurred.

I don't know how many deaths she ended up being responsible for. Arabic sites are saying that she was sentenced to 12 99-year sentences but was released in 1985 in a prisoner swap. However, Israel would not allow her to stay in the country and the only Arab country that was willing to take her was Algeria.

Her terror career is being exaggerated in her obituaries, but her happiness at targeting Jewish civilians is clear. She claimed that the watermelon bomb at the circus exploded and killed many Israelis and described how happy she was, dancing around with her husband and chanting Allah Akbar.

Shammout also described how she chose to attack the market, waiting until there were no Arabs there and supposedly putting four bomb-laden baskets covered with fruit on different locations, while pretending to shop with her children.

The official PA news agency reports that Mahmoud Abbas sent condolences to her family, praising the terrorist who targeted Jewish children at a circus as a pioneer in the "struggle" who was "dedicated to the service of her country and committed to its objectives."\

Yes, its objectives of killing Jews.

As usual, none of the "human rights activists" who support the Palestinian Arab cause are the least bit bothered by the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas praising a cold blooded murderer who literally targeted children.

(h/t Joshua Fox)

Fake Gaza Civilian of the Day

PCHR on July 12 said that "civilian" Haitham Ashraf Zo'rob was killed.

Here he is in his Hamas and Al Qassam Brigades martyr poster:

Interestingly, Zo'rob was also apparently a member of the Palestinian Authority security services, based on logo in his beret and poster here:

Hamas terrorist dies in a tunnel accident

From Ma'an:

Hamas' military wing said that one of their members died on Thursday evening in an "accident" in a tunnel below the Gaza Strip.

Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement Thursday that Ahmad Riyadh al-Haddad, 21, from Tel al-Islam in Gaza City, died in a "resistance tunnel," without giving any further information.

The flowery language at the Hamas Al Qassam website in describing this heroic death has a funny Google auto-translation, saying something about "believers in Allah's victory and his private parts."

09/18 Links Pt2: Simon Schama tells UK Jewry to stop living in a bubble, “we live in dark times”

From Ian:

Simon Schama tells UK Jewry to stop living in a bubble

Simon Schama, one of Britain’s most prominent historians, has called on British Jewry to engage more forcefully with the non-Jewish world as a counter to rising anti-Semitism and hostility towards the State of Israel.
Speaking at the annual fundraising dinner for the United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA) on Monday evening at Grosvenor House in London, Schama warned “we live in dark times.” While stressing he understood that “the situation in this country could be worse – it could be France,” Schama said that “right now, we’re a little bit on the back foot.”
UJIA is the largest charitable organization in Britain focused on working with young people and focusing on strengthening Jewish identity and a connection to Israel through formal and informal educational programming.
“We’re faced not just with criticism of Israel. What is new and poisonous and dangerous is that we are faced not with criticism of what Israel does, but what Israel is,” said Schama at the dinner.
“We need to reclaim the word ‘Zionist’ as if it is word to be ashamed of – it is not a word to be ashamed of and it is not a word to run away from,” said Schama, whose five-part documentary series “The Story of the Jews” and the first of two written volumes on Jewish history were released last year.

David Horovitz: Lady Gaga, we f*cking love you too

I’ve no idea how much of this is known to, or even interests, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta — aka Lady Gaga. I do know that this summer, when all other artists about her were canceling their Israel visits, or having them canceled by our rocket-battered homefront authorities, the good Lady kept her head… and kept her Tel Aviv date optimistically in her calendar. So that when the rocket fire did subside less than three weeks before showtime, and we were finally able to emerge from our bomb shelters, she could fly in, perform, and tell us she loved us. (Kudos, as well, to Tony Bennett, a special guest at the Gaga show, and the star of his own sold-out Mann Auditorium concert on Sunday night.)
That took strength, bravery, confidence and more clear-headed morality than any international statesman managed to muster this terrible summer, when world attitudes to Israel ranged from half-hearted support to vicious, unjustified criticism. If they’re inclined to search for their moral compasses, Messrs. Kerry, Fabius, Miliband et al might care to consult with the singing star our reviewer magnificently described as “pop’s most promiscuous provocateur.” So thank you, Lady Gaga, and we f*cking love you right back.

Why the Palestinian Arabs lack civil rights

Sheizaf is right that the two-state solution idea is dead. He is right that Palestinian Arabs living in the territories do not have the same rights as Jews and Arabs in Israel. He is right that this is bad for Arabs and Jews alike.
But what he doesn’t understand is that ending the conflict isn’t up to us. Israel has already done more than what ought to be expected of it, and result has only been wars, intifadas, and the further radicalization of Palestinian Arabs.
The root of the problem is the Palestinians’ adherence to a false historical narrative and to ideologies that do not accept the existence of a Jewish state (and in some cases, like Hamas, the physical presence of Jews) in the Middle East. It is nurtured by the continuous propaganda coming from the terrorist organizations that own Palestinian politics, the anti-Jewish attitudes that permeate international institutions like the UN, and the complicity of the West.
Israel didn’t create this situation, and it can’t fix it.
The key to the solution to the problem, if there is one, is in the hands of the Palestinian Arabs, who will have to give up for good the idea of replacing Israel with an Arab state. Unless a Palestinian leadership arises that understands this, the conflict will continue, and so will the limitations on the rights of Palestinian Arabs.

Some random headlines from the Arab world

A supposed failed plot to assassinate Islamic Jihad secretary-general Dr. Ramadan Abdullah in Beirut, involving a female protagonist.

Egypt started snooping on all of its citizens online - and then denied it.

Saudi Arabia says it will donate $500 million to rebuild Gaza. (They are notorious for not paying their pledges.)

A Palestinian female terrorist who was exiled to Algeria (Zakia Shammout?) has apparently died. She was said to have been involved in numerous bombings in the 1970s but I couldn't find anything about her. (I'm sure some of you will, though.)

09/18 Links Pt1: Bibi: ‘We’ve Seen This Before. There's a Master Race, Now There's a Master Faith’

From Ian:

Netanyahu: ‘We’ve Seen This Before. There's a Master Race; Now There's a Master Faith’

In a speech on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Islamist terrorist groups such as ISIS, Hamas and Hezbollah to Nazis: “We know this. We’ve seen this before. There's a master race; now there's a master faith."
“The tactics are uniform. Terror first of all against your own people,” Netanyahu told attendees at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism's (ICT) 14th annual conference held at Herzliya, an Israeli technology center located about six miles north of Tel Aviv.
“There's a master race; now there's a master faith. And that allows you to do anything to anyone, but first of all to your own people and then to everyone else,” Netanyahu continued, in a reference to Nazi ideology stemming from Adolf Hitler’s belief, detailed in his speeches and writings, that Aryans were the “master race.”
"And what do you do to everyone else? For that you use new techniques. And the new techniques involve first of all, taking over civilian populations, putting yourself inside civilian areas, contravening the laws of war and the Geneva Convention; using your people as human shields, the same people you execute; and then firing indiscriminately at civilians. You hide behind civilians, you fire on civilians. And you fire rockets and missiles.
"And this creates a whole new set of problems. And these problems are born of the fact that it's much harder to fight this kind of terror - much harder. It's much easier to fight an army: tanks, artillery, command centers, open spaces. You destroy that, you destroy the army. End of war.
"But these people, because they're forcing you to face up to the moral limits that democracies obey, are basically forcing you to fight a new war."

Mordechai Kedar: Get Ready for the Real War

The battle against the problematic tenets of the Islamic faith is not bound in place or time and like the genie that comes out of a bottle, cannot be put back in it. Muslim emigration to Western countries unsettles those governments internally due to the Islamic takeover of public space, politics, economics and its image in the politically correct media. In many parts of the world one can say that "Islamic State is here", in neighborhoods that the local police do not enter, in the cities where a Muslim majority forces Sharia on supermarkets, pharmacies, bars and churches – and in the parliaments where the presence of the Islamic State is becoming more and more influential and solidly based.
The really significant battle is not in Iraq or Syria, where what is happening is just the introduction that follows the preface acted out in Afghanistan 13 years ago. The real war, far-ranging and dangerous, will develop once "Islamic State" is eliminated and the vengeance resulting from that success begins to be exacted in America, Europe, Australia and every place where man-made laws are in force. Its goal will be to impose the law of Allah as it is spelled out in Islamic sources.
Anyone who thinks that destroying "Islamic State" in Iraq and Syria will solve the problem had better think again, because the problem is not this or that organization or country. The problem is the ideology that today motivates one and half billion people who believe that the "religion of Allah is Islam" (Qu'ran chap.53, v.19). This ideology will not be eliminated even if we get rid of the jihadists in Iraq and Syria down to the last man. Their followers are to be found in most parts of the world and that world must be prepared to change the rules of the game, otherwise it will find itself putting out fires instead of apprehending the pyromaniacs.

Alan Dershowitz Says Bill Clinton is Wrong: Netanyahu’s the ‘Guy to Make Peace’

Clinton has said the current Israeli prime minister is “not the guy” to make a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority.
But Dershowitz disagrees. During an interview on The Steve Malzberg Show Tuesday on Newsmax TV, Dershowitz reminded the former American president that first of all, he doesn’t get to choose.
“President Clinton has to understand Israel is a democracy. He doesn’t get a vote. The people of Israel decide who their prime minister is going to be, and they have decided it’s going to be Netanyahu. He is the guy.
“He’s the guy who’s going to make peace or he’s not going to make peace. He’s going to make it without compromising Israel’s security,” Dershowitz added.
Noting that Netanyahu has a reputation for being tough and for keeping Israel’s security uppermost in his priorities, Dershowitz said, “I have to tell you what kind of peace he’s not going to make. He’s not going to do what [former prime minister Ariel] Sharon did in Gaza.

"I'm in love with an ISIS jihadist"

This is not a joke.

From Al Arabiya:

A tale of love and loss more suited to the pages of a novel is being bared on social media by the self-claimed Malaysian wife of an ISIS fighter in Syria.

The 26-year-old Malaysian doctor, who calls herself “Shams,” traveled to the war-torn country and entered into an arranged marriage with a fighter, according to her social media accounts and her blog “Diary of a Muhajirah.”

She said that she joined the organization, which has orchestrated beheadings and has overrun parts of Iraq and Syria in recent months, in February and adds that she was “excited” but also sad to leave her family behind.

Her social media posts indicate that she traveled to Syria via Turkey. She states that her parents were upset at first but then “supportive and happy.”

After two months in Syria, Shams was betrothed to an ISIS fighter, in a marriage arranged by her housemate, she said. According to her posts, she met and married her husband on the same day, declaring that she was “nervous [and] scared” before flipping her face covering to greet her spouse-to-be.

“He smiled. And he asked a question that I shall never forget for the rest of my life.

“Can we get married today? After Asr?

“Deep inside my heart shouted, noooo. But I have no idea why I answered ‘Yes,’” Shams reported on social media.

Shams then obtained permission from her father over the phone.

“I spoke about this issue to him and I can hear my mother was shouting in joy at the back,” she stated.

According to Shams, it is not uncommon that newly-introduced married couples in ISIS do not share the same language.

Shams later wrote that she and her husband downloaded dictionary apps to be able to communicate with each other in the initial stages of their marriage.

Overcome with emotion, Shams details the moment she realized her love for her new husband. After praying together the morning after their nuptials “he turned back and smiled at me. And I can feel something. Yes, I guess I just fell in love with someone — my husband!”

Four days after their wedding ceremony, Shams confronted the reality of being wed to an ISIS fighter upon visiting the home of a woman whose husband had been killed in battle.

“We entered the house, I saw there was almost 20 sisters. No body cried,” she said.

She carried on: “I went back home. My husband was quiet; perhaps he understood I need some time. I looked at his face, I’m married to him for 4 days and I felt so much pain.

“Abu al-Baraa,” she wrote, referring to her husband, “just don’t leave me too soon. Please.”

Eleven days after they got married, Shams says her husband went off for an operation.

“It was the most heart breaking thing I have ever heard since I came to Syria. I can’t deny that my heart bleeds and I can’t hold my tears,” she wrote.

“After our breakfast, I prepared his bag and handed his kalash to him. I couldn’t even look at his face, the pain was killing me. He noticed my gloomy face and said this to me: "Habibty, I’m married to Jihad before I’m married to you. Jihad is my first wife, and you’re my second. I hope you understand."

I went through a couple of months of her Tumblr. I don't think that this is a spoof.

It might be a legitimate diary of a mentally ill woman, or it might be a recruiting tool to attract young, idealistic Muslim women to the "Islamic State." We already know they have a sophisticated understanding of social media.

Either way, it is truly disturbing. ISIS has managed to use social media in ways that most corporations only dream of. Things like this blog, whether real or not, can easily influence naive young Muslim women to throw their lives away.

In Haaretz, Peter Beinart is upset over a proposed resolution by the CUNY Doctoral Students Council to boycott Israel.

Being a leftist Zionist critic of Israel, Beinart (who supports boycotting products made by Jews across the Green Line) sympathizes with their criticism but thinks that they went a bit too far. For example, here is his argument against boycotting Israeli universities:

Paragraph three declares that “Israeli institutions of higher learning are a party to Israeli state policies that violate human rights.” That’s true. They also incubate some of the most passionate opposition to those policies. “Israeli professors and students at Israeli universities who speak out against discriminatory or criminal policies against Palestinians are ostracized and ridiculed.” Yes, sometimes. Yet many Israeli professors and students do speak out against their government’s policies, because compared to most students and faculty in the world, they enjoy considerable freedom of speech. Does isolating them from their counterparts overseas really strengthen their efforts to defend liberal, cosmopolitan ideas against the hyper-nationalism of the Israeli right?

Beinart takes pains to distinguish the "good" Israeli Jews from the "bad" Israeli Jews who should be ostracized, sounding much like John Mearsheimer if not drawing the line in quite the same place.

But it is Beinart's attempt to draw another line that shows how absurd his position is:

I appreciate the fact that the BDS movement - unlike Hamas - practices nonviolence.

But I disagree with the movement’s goals. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the story of a powerful state oppressing a stateless people. But it’s also the story of rival, equally legitimate, nationalisms. In the BDS movement’s call to action, that second story is simply absent. The BDS call to action speaks of the “Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination” without any reference to a similar Jewish right. The proposed CUNY boycott resolution mentions the Palestinians killed in the recent Gaza War without acknowledging that Israeli Jews died too.

If Jewish nationalism is no more legitimate than Palestinian nationalism, then the converse is also true. The BDS movement, sadly, does not recognize that. I hope CUNY will.

If Beinart's main problem with BDS is their inability to accept the Jewish right to a homeland, then - if he wants to be consistent - he must be just as critical of the entire PLO, Palestinian Authority and Fatah.

The current "moderate" Palestinian leadership - the people that we are told over and over again from the likes of Beinart are the most moderate, peace-loving leaders that Palestinian Arabs will ever have - have the identical position as the BDS movement. If anything, they go beyond the BDS movement in that they have been explicit in their denial of Jewish nationalism.

As I reported here, the official position of the PLO is that they must not ever recognize that Jews have the right to a state, or even that the Jewish People exist! In the words of an official PLO Negotiations Unit position paper:

Recognizing the Jewish state implies recognition of a Jewish people and recognition of its right to self-determination. Those who assert this right also assert that the territory historically associated with this right of self-determination (i.e., the self-determination unit) is all of Historic Palestine. Therefore, recognition of the Jewish people and their right of self-determination may lend credence to the Jewish people’s claim to all of Historic Palestine.

The reason that they won't accept a Jewish state is because it implies that the Jewish people exist, not the other way around.

I don't think that the BDS movement ever said something that extreme.

And these are Beinart's "moderate," peace-loving pals. This is Mahmoud Abbas' official position. These people who are so hateful and deceitful that they cannot admit the existence of a Jewish people.

If the BDS movement is illegitimate because it refuses to recognize Jewish national rights, then so is virtually the entire Palestinian Arab nationalist movement.

But Beinart can't admit that, or else his entire career as a left-wing Zionist critic of Israel is in jeopardy.