Friday, November 07, 2014

Rabbi Sacks' speech to the House of Lords

Last week, during a debate in the House of Lords, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks laid out his analysis of modern antisemitism and secularism and why Islamism is hijacking Islam. I'm not thrilled with his conflating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but for the audience he has, this is pretty good.

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for initiating this important debate. And at the outset I declare an interest. I am a Jew. Israel is therefore for me the place where my people were born almost four thousand years ago, the place to which Abraham and Sarah travelled, where Amos voiced his vision of social justice and Isaiah dreamed of a world at peace, where David composed the Psalms and Solomon built the Temple – and this had consequences not only for Jews but also for Christians and Muslims, who claim Abraham as their ancestor in faith, and whose God they take as their own.

This had tragic repercussions throughout the Middle Ages, because Christians and Muslims claimed, each in their own way, to have replaced Jews as the people of God and thus as heirs to the Holy Land. The otherwise saintly Augustine declared that Jews were cursed with the fate of Cain, destined to be restless wanderers on earth without a home. Islam held that any land that ever came under Muslim rule was henceforth and forever Dar Al Islam, that is, land that rightly belongs to the Umma, the Muslim people, any other rule being illegitimate. On both of these theologies, Jews had no right to their ancestral home.

A half-century ago, these theologies would have been considered irrelevant. The West had moved on. After a century of religious wars following the Reformation, it recognised the need for the secularisation of power. This allowed the United Nations, in the Partition vote of 1947, to grant Jews the right to a nation state of the own after two thousand years of exile and persecution. Eventually there were peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan and an intensive process with the Palestinians. When power is secularised, peace is possible.

Today, though, the Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa are undergoing a seismic shift in precisely the opposite direction. People are de-secularising. They feel betrayed by secular nationalist governments that failed to deliver prosperity and national pride. They consider the national boundaries imposed by colonial powers to be artificial and obsolete. They are uninspired by the secular culture of the West with its maximum of choice and minimum of meaning. And they have come to believe that salvation lies in a return to the Islam that that bestrode the narrow world like a colossus for the better part of a thousand years.

And though their faith is hostile to modernity, they sometimes understand modernity better than its own creators in the West. They know that because of the Internet, YouTube and the social media, communication, indeed politics itself, has gone global, and they also know that the great monotheisms are the most powerful global communities in the world, far broader and deeper in their reach than any nation state. And the religious radicals are offering young people the chance to fight and die for their faith, winning glory on earth and immortality in heaven. They have started recruiting in the West and they have only just begun.

But when ancient theologies are used for modern political ends, they speak a very dangerous language indeed. So for example, Hamas and Hizbollah, both self-defined as religious movements, refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the state of Israel within any boundaries whatsoever and seek only its complete destruction.

The Islamists also know that the only way they can win the sympathy of the West is by demonising Israel. They know you can’t win support for Isis, Boko Haram or Islamic Jihad, but if you can blame Israel you will gain the support of academics, unions and the media and you will distract attention from the massacres in Syria and Iraq, the slow descent of other countries into chaos, and the ethnic cleansing of Christians throughout the region.

They are thus repeating the very failure of the regimes they have risen against, who for fifty years suppressed dissent by demonising Israel as the cause of everything wrong in the Arab or Islamic world. When you blame others for your failures you not only harm them, you harm yourself and your people. To be free, you have to let go of hate. And if you let hate speech infect the West, as has already happened in some of our campuses, prisons and even schools, then our freedom too will be at risk.

My Lords, I and the vast majority of the Jewish community, care deeply about the future of the Palestinians. We want Palestinian children, no less than Israeli children, to have a future of peace, prosperity, freedom and hope. Which is why we oppose those who teach Palestinian children to hate those with whom they will one day have to live; who take money given for humanitarian aid and use it to buy weapons and dig tunnels to take the region back to a dark age of barbarism.

More generally we say in the name of the God of Abraham, the Almighty, merciful and compassionate God, that the religion in whose name atrocities are being carried out, innocent people butchered and beheaded, children treated as slaves, civilians turned into human shields, and young people into weapons of self-destruction, is not the Islam that once earned the admiration of the world, nor is its God the God of Abraham. It was Nietzsche not the prophets who worshipped the will to power. It was Machiavelli not sacred scripture who taught that it is better to be feared than to be loved.

Every religion must wrestle with its dark angels, and so today must we: Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. For we are all children of Abraham and it will only be when we make space for one another as brothers and sisters that we will redeem the world from darkness and walk together in the light of God.

I only noticed this speech because the Israel-haters are frothing at the mouth about it.

AFP captioned this as "Jewish extremists"

I just did a Google News search on the terms "Jewish extremists" and "Muslim extremists," looking for actual actions that reports say these two groups are doing (as opposed to just saying that there is a growing danger of Muslim extremism, for example.)

The only story in the past month that highlighted an action by "Muslim extremists" was from two Christian news outlets, saying that they killed 31 people in Nigeria. I did not see any stories about ISIS atrocities being ascribed to "Muslim extremists."

But the term "Jewish extremists" is all over the place. What horrendous crimes are they doing? Well, they are protesting - not burning a single tire or throwing a single rock.

They are visiting Judaism's holiest place - without raising their voices or going near any Muslim worshipers.

(Reuters' Noah Browning claims that "Jewish extremists" killed an Arab teenager in July. The murderers were not religious at all. So that's just libel.)

That's it.

Jewish extremists walk around. Muslim extremists almost don't do anything, although they are a concern, perhaps because people know that they behead people and rape women - but those specific acts are ascribed to named groups, almost never to "Muslim extremists."

The only reason that Jewish "extremists: are called that are because Muslims are so extreme as to not want to allow Jews to have any civil or political rights. Because Muslims are so angry at Jewish people asserting their own human rights, they call those Jews "extremists" and the epithet spreads to the mainstream.

Language matters, and the media bias against Jews - not just Israel, but Jews - is the reason why Jews are so easily called extreme while Muslims or Christians or Hindus rarely are, even when they do the most heinous crimes.

US Joint Chiefs chairman schools Amnesty and HRW in international law

Yesterday, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a lecture at the Carnegie Council for Ethics. He was asked by an audience member to comment on IDF's ethics during Operation protective Edge, and here was his answer:

I actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties. In fact, about 3 months ago we sent, we asked [IDF Chief of Staff] Benny [Gantz] if we could send a lessons learned team – one of the things we do better than anybody I think is learn – and we sent a team of senior officers and non-commissioned officers over to work with the IDF to get the lessons from that particular operation in Gaza. To include the measures they took to prevent civilian casualties and what they did with tunneling, because Hamas had become very nearly a subterranean society. And so, that caused the IDF some significant challenges. But they did some extraordinary things to try to limit civilian casualties to include calling out, making it known that they were going to destroy a particular structure. Even developed some techniques, they call it roof knocking, to have something knock on the roof, they would display leaflets to warn citizens and population to move away from where these tunnels. But look in this kind of conflict, where you are held to a standard that your enemy is not held to, you’re going to be criticized for civilian casualties. So I think if Benny were sitting here right now he would say to you we did everything we could and now we’ve learned from that mission and we think there are some other things we could do in the future and we will do those. The IDF is not interested in creating civilian casualties they’re interested in stopping the shooting of rockets and missiles, out of the Gaza Strip and in to Israel, and its an incredibly difficult environment, and I can say to you with confidence that I think that … they acted responsible.

This came right after Amnesty released an incredibly biased report charging Israel with war crimes, claiming that Israel violated the principles of distinction and proportionality when fighting in Gaza, because, they say, the military targets Israel was aiming at - if there were any - were not valuable enough targets given the number of people who were killed and injured. But Amnesty made that determination without any military expertise and without even knowing what the military targets were - nothing in their 50 page report mentioned anything about tunnels, weapons bunkers or rocket launchers, which would clearly be military targets.

Under international law, who decides whether a military object can be targeted when it is being hidden among civilians?

The answer is: not Amnesty or HRW.

As my links above show, under international law as noted by the ICRC, the decision as to whether something is a valid military target, as well as the decision as to whether the expected collateral damage is justified by the value of the target, is based on what a reasonable military commander would do with the information he has at the moment of the attack.

In order to find that the commander has committed a war crime, the bar is set quite high. ICRC commentary on art 85 of the Additional Protocol states:

The accused must have acted consciously and with intent, i.e., with his mind on the act and its consequences, and willing the ("criminal intent" or "malice aforethought"); this encompasses the concepts of "wrongful intent" or "recklessness"....

It is also the military commander who can decide proportionality. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia determined who can make that decision:

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

General Dempsey is a reasonable military commander. Unlike Amnesty and HRW, he knows what international law requires. He feels not only that Israel acted in an exemplary manner, but that US forces could learn from Israel how to deal with these new kinds of terrorist tactics that so cynically use the civilian population for their purposes. He sent people to Israel to talk to their soldiers and understand the issues.

If the US military had even the slightest indication that Israel was violating international law, they would not be sending their own experts to learn from Israel's experiences.

Real-life international law, as ICRC documentation shows, comes very often from the military manuals of nations. Those manuals are written so that military commanders know what they may or may not do under the laws of armed conflict. They are written for the real world, not for the make believe world of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch where all military activity is considered evil by default.

General Dempsey knows more international law than the entire staffs of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch combined. So do IDF commanders. They know that decisions need to be made in the field, sometimes with limited information, to protect not only civilians on the enemy side but also one's own soldiers and one's own civilians - two factors that do not come into play in the deeply flawed reports that HRW and Amnesty release.

The more one researches what real human rights law is, the more one sees how utterly ignorant and indeed malicious the "human rights" organizations are.

The PLO says "Jump!," CNN asks "how high?"

I mentioned earlier today that the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department demanded that journalists stop referring to the Temple Mount with that name, using some bizarre logic that comes down to "it is our territory so we get to name it what we wish." (Much of my post was satirical, but that part is real.)

The PLO document is laughable. It not only erases all of Jewish history, but it erases Christian history and changes Muslim history as well:

[T]he Mosque has been under exclusive Muslim sovereignty and control since the construction of the Dome of the Rock in 692 CE.

Which pre-dates...the Al Aqsa Mosque first built in 705 CE. But they don't want to call it "The Mount" because, well, that's what Jews and Christians call it.

And for about 100 years, the Temple Mount was controlled by the Crusaders.

But no matter how much the PLO lies, important people listen to them - like the people at CNN.

Check out CNN's headlines over the past few days:

October 31:

Israel partially reopens access to Temple Mount

November 1:

Temple Mount: Holy site for Jews, Muslims

November 3:

Temple Mount crisis fuels unrest in volatile Jerusalem

The PLO's letter was written November 5.

November 5:

Israeli police, Palestinian protesters clash at Jerusalem holy site

The URL says "Temple-Mount-Clashes," indicating that the headline may have been changed from its original wording.

November 6:

Clashes at Jerusalem holy site; van slams into pedestrians

The articles themselves still say variants of "the compound called the Temple Mount by Jews and Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, by Muslims."

Are the headline changes coincidental - or is CNN caving to demands by a group that wants to erase Jewish and Christian history?

At the very least, CNN should be transparent about the reason for the sudden change in how they refer to the Temple Mount in headlines.

11/06 Links Pt2: Benjamin Netanyahu: ‘They try to rewrite history'; Massacre on J Street

From Ian:

Benjamin Netanyahu: ‘They try to rewrite history': Full text of Netanyahu’s speech on 19th Rabin anniversary

Yitzhak Rabin said it shortly before his murder, the prime minister tells the Knesset: ‘Jerusalem was ours, it is ours and it will remain so forever’
Distinguished guests, over the past several months, and especially over the past several days, we have witnessed a campaign of wild incitement against the State of Israel led by Abu Mazen and his Hamas partners. Hamas terrorists carry out terror attacks and Abu Mazen sends them condolence letters. Well, I wish to convey my condolences from here to the family of Officer Jedan Assad of the Border Police, and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured.
This front of hatred is directed at all of us. It seeks to run over all of us. When faced with this front, there are some people who try to find the guilty among us. Instead we must stand together and say clearly and without apology: Unified Jerusalem is our capital and it will remain so. We are in a battle for Jerusalem. It may be a prolonged battle. I am certain we will be victorious. For some people, the issue of Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem is an instrument of political struggle. Our presence in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years, is called a provocation. They simply want to uproot us from here. They try to rewrite history, deny our brave affinity for Jerusalem and claim that we are trying to change the status quo on the Temple Mount, spread lies that we want to harm or destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque or change the prayer arrangements for Muslims on the Mount.
There is no greater falsehood than this. This is slander from extremists and it must be viewed against the backdrop of what is happening today in the Middle East. Various parties in the region that are contaminated by terror or who aspire to establish an Islamic caliphate in some version or another, they are the first to fan the flames of incitement. And the most absurd thing is that they complain about Israel? The only country that, out of principle, methodically protects the ritual sites of all the religions – they complain about us? I mean, who is protecting and who is destroying? We saw this in the past in Afghanistan when the Taliban destroyed holy sites and we see it today in Syria and Iraq when ISIS fanatics destroy mosques wholesale. In these countries, any place holy to other religions or even to different sects faces the same fate – destruction.

Massacre on J Street

Political candidates backed by the controversial Middle East advocacy group J Street were trounced at the polls on Tuesday, with J Street’s endorsees losing in almost every competitive race.
J Street scrambled to save face on Wednesday after two candidates that the group described as must-wins were defeated by their Republican opponents.
While J Street spread its money across 92 races around the country—the majority of them uncompetitive contests—J Street candidates locked in tight races were repudiated by voters.
Analysts say this is further proof that voters are increasingly likely to embrace more hawkish pro-Israel candidates over the dovish views characteristic of J Street and its allies in the Obama administration.
Democrats Mark Udall (Colo.) and Bruce Braley (Iowa), both of whom lost yesterday, received repeated endorsements and cash from J Street, which claimed that both candidates would counter “dangerous, neoconservative ideas” in the Senate. (h/t MtTB)

West has succumbed to madness over Israel, Phillips says

The West has succumbed to madness when it comes to Israel, declared British journalist, author and commentator Melanie Phillips at a recent lecture at Adath Israel Congregation co-sponsored by StandWithUs. This madness takes the form of demonizing Israel despite the fact that the country occupies the moral high ground in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
Phillips opened her remarks with a joke.
“I feel at home here,” she said. “The weather, the objective media, the acts of terrorism.”
However, the global situation is no laughing matter.
“Israel and the Jewish people are under an attack of delegitimization,” Phillips said. “The rest of the world is falling for Muslim rhetoric. The puzzle is that people are falling for this.”
During this summer’s Operation Protective Edge, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rallies took place across the globe. “People in Canada and Britain bought into Hamas falsehoods,” Phillips asserted. “They accepted the claims pumped out by the media as unchallenged fact. It wasn’t surprising that there were demonstrations against Israel after seeing pictures of dead Palestinian babies.
“You would think that political leaders would have the decency to stop this,” Phillips remarked. “On the contrary, virtually nothing was said.”

Ha'aretz' anti-religious math

Antisemites like to pretend that kosher certification is a "kosher tax" that hard-working gentiles have to pay against their will for their food to fund nefarious Jewish and Zionist causes.

Ha'aretz apparently does, too.

Israeli hotel rooms are among the more expensive in the world, according to various economic indexes. The first reason is that the cost of living in Israel is sky-high, and the hotels pay about the same for cottage cheese and electricity as everyone else. The second reason is that unlike hotels anywhere else, hotels have to be kosher. And being certified kosher is expensive.

The writer then goes through many of the time consuming kashrut issues, like checking for bugs in leafy vegetables. But these are done by the kosher inspectors, who are paid to be there anyway.

Here are all the costs mentioned in the article:

Aside from the inspector, hotels pay an annual fee for their kashrut stamp of approval. This costs 7,250 shekels (just under $2,000) a year for hotels with more than 250 rooms. Lior Avi, CEO of the Isrotel chain, says the company spends around $3 million shekels a year (some $800,000) on inspectors alone for their 17 hotels, not including the fee.

OK, let's do the math.

17 hotels paying $800,000 annually comes out to $47,000 per hotel; add the certification fee and we are at about $50,000. If each hotel has 250 rooms, that comes out to $200 per room per year, or, at a low 55% occupancy rate, about a dollar per room per night.

The only other expense mentioned is that the kosher supervisor brings his family on Shabbat and holidays and they get a free room. At most, this adds about another 50 cents per night per room to the hotels expenses.

The additional sets of dishes and cutlery for dairy and meat are not annual expenses, but there is no way they add more than 20 cents more per room per night if they are replaced every five years. The cost of Passover dishes are certainly paid for by the exorbitant increase in hotel fees during that holiday.

So Ha'aretz is blaming Jewish dietary laws for what would account, at the very most, $2 extra per room per night in hotel expenses.

Now, how much would Israeli hotels lose in business if they decide not to be kosher? A lot more than that.

How is this Ha'aretz article any different from the antisemitic canard of kosher taxes?

UNRWA's union officially denies the Holocaust

In 2010, UNRWA announced that it would take top students to the USA where they would visit the site of the 9/11 WTC attacks as well as the US Holocaust Museum.

At the time, Hamas reacted strongly against the idea,

What wasn't reported was that UNRWA employees also denounced the plan - and engaged in Holocaust denial.

Here is the statement from the Gaza UNRWA union from February 2011:

Peace, mercy and blessings of God

From the premise that everyone has responsibilities, and so as not to repeat the tragedies and mistakes made, we tried through continuous communication with UNRWA management to demonstrate the enormity of what they are doing with the latest travel delegation of our excelling students to go on a trip to America and visit the Holocaust Museum in New York [sic] for the so-called "Holocaust" and try to feed students concepts and ideas about the fake injustices suffered by the Jews. But it seems that the Agency's management did not understand the message well and insisted on the repetition of such trips. They are today preparing for the new journey with the same goals and they have been promised large sums of money in addition to the upcoming initiative to build a curriculum on so-called human rights, which will include passages about the alleged Holocaust.

Based on the above we emphasize the following:

First: the rejection of such trips and this alleged curriculum. We will work with all to raise our voices to stop this unacceptable behavior, which is contrary to our religion and patriotism and humanity.

Secondly, we appeal to parents to take caution and vigilance and not to send their children to dive in the mud and to deal with such fake trips which will certainly affect the ideas of these outstanding students.

Third: We appeal to our fellow teachers not to deal with these trips.

Fourth: We demand the management of the agency [UNRWA] to reconsider its accounts in advance and take advantage of this exorbitant money to build schools and improve the classrooms that cannot accommodate our students and the provision of basic needs for the success of the educational process.

Our colleagues are our colleagues, God willing, we will remain watchful and defend our rights.

Deputy Chief of Staff Union

Essam Da'las

By the way, Essam Da'las was in the news more recently. He is now a senior Hamas official who has been accused of diverting cash away from Gazans and to Hamas and al Qassam leaders. His house was targeted by Israel over the summer.

Here he is with Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh:

As we've mentioned, Hamas controls UNRWA's union, which means that many UNRWA teachers aren't teaching UN ideas on human rights and coexistence - but Hamas'.

And if the union leaders explicitly say Holocaust is a plot devised by the Jews - what do you think the students are learning about Jews? Not only are they Holocaust deniers, but they are saying that to even learn about it is against their religion and humanity itself!

I've been going through UNRWA teachers' Facebook pages. Many of them are certainly dedicated teachers. But it seems that there is no effort by UNRWA to root out the explicit hate and denial of history that is poisoning the classrooms through teachers for whom basic values like truth and peace simply do not exist.

Today's UNRWA teachers are themselves the products of UNRWA schools. There is no way to get out of this cycle without a major restructuring of the educational part of the agency itself. And this cannot happen as long as the teachers themselves are trained to reward ignorance and hate.

UNRWA ended up caving and didn't teach about the Holocaust to kids in their schools, and chances are that it wasn't because of Hamas threats, but from threats of their own teachers.

All UNRWA posts here.

11/06 Links Pt1: Thousands attend funeral of Border Police officer; Liberman: PA a 'Terrorocracy'

From Ian:

Thousands attend funeral of slain Border Police officer

Thousands attended the funeral Thursday for slain Israeli Border Police officer Jedan Assad, in the northern Druze village of Beit Jann.
“An entire life was cut short because of terror and its cruelty,” Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said at the ceremony. “This murderous terror, that originated with the Palestinian Authority and the leaders of Hamas and of the Islamic Movement, succeeded in reaching Beit Jann.”
“It is with pride and honor that officers like Jedan serve in the Israeli police,” police chief Yohanan Danino added. “It’s a credit to the state and a credit to society that these are their police officers.”
Assad, 38, was a father to a three-year-old son, and his wife is five months pregnant.

Yehuda Glick Begins to Communicate with Family Members

Yehuda Glick's medical condition continues to improve Thursday.
The activist for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount has been hospitalized at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem for a week, since an Arab terrorist tried to assassinate him last Wednesday.
Army Radio reported, and Glick's son Haggai told Walla! News that Glick had begun to communicate with relatives. "My father replied with nods of 'Yes and No' to questions last night and this morning," he said.
However, the activist is still on a respirator and his condition continues to be defined as serious. Additionally, because of the intense pain he is in when awake, doctors have increased dosages of anesthetic.

Terror Victims Medical Updates

Following yesterday’s multiple terror attacks, here is an update on some of the wounded who are still in the hospital.
Shimon HaTzadik platform attack: Five wounded are still in the hospital.
Three wounded still hospitalized at Shaarei Tzedek hospital. One is in serious condition, two are in moderate condition.
Two wounded are still hospitalized at Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital. One is in moderate condition. He underwent surgery yesterday, and is now conscious and his health has significantly improved. The second is in critical condition.
Gush Etzion Attack: Three wounded are still in the hospital.
Three wounded are being treated at Hadassah Ein Karem. One is in light condition. The second is in moderate to serious condition. The third is in serious condition.
Refuah Shleimah to all our injured.

PLO to sue ancient Christian and Muslim scholars for using term "Temple Mount"

From the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department:

Concern over the use of the inaccurate term “Temple Mount” to refer to Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound in Jerusalem

Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, sometimes referred to as the Noble Sanctuary (“Haram al-Sharif ” in Arabic), is the compound that contains Al Aqsa building itself, ablution fountains, open spaces for prayer, monuments and the Dome of the Rock building. This entire area enclosed by the walls which spans 144 dunums (almost 36 acres), forms the Mosque.

...Today, many settler leaders, with the support of the Israeli government, continue to incite against this sacred site, and consequently provoke Palestinian fears and anger. Israel, the occupying power, has failed at stopping settler extremists from entering the Mosque and this constitutes a violation of the Waqf ’s custodianship and its obligation as an occupying power to maintain public order and civil life in the occupied territory.

All international media representatives are advised to adhere to international law and correct any other existing terminology used. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is not a disputed territory and all other terms, therefore, are null and void.

Subsequent to this demand that no one use any term for the place that the alleged Jewish Temples stood other than the official PLO nomenclature, the organization has decided to take legal action against anyone using the offensive term "Temple Mount" that is clearly associated only with storming settler extremist zealots.

First up is Dr. Leonhart who visited the Levant in the 17th century and visited what he scandalously called the"Temple Mount. " Clearly, even though he was a Christian, he was also a Zionist settler supporter and his use of the term is disturbing to all Mohametans worldwide.

A cease and desist order is being prepared right now.

Next on the hit list is Briani Waltoni, who published the Latin work "Biblicus Apparatus" in 1673. He also prints the offensive phrase, apparently quoting that renowned Muslim scholar Maimonides:

Finally, the PLO will be going after 15th century Islamic scholar Shams al-Dîn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Suyûṭî, who wrote a huge tome about the alleged Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Suyuti wrote these thoroughly despicable and offensive words:

Al Makatil observes, In the land of the Baitu- l-Mukaddas did God call David and Solomon (peace be with both !) unto repentance. In the Baitu-l-Mukaddas God sent his angel to Solomon ; in the Baitu-l-Mukaddas God announced joyful tidings to Zacharias and to John ; in the Baitu-l- Mukaddas the angels showed a descriptive paint ing of the Tower to David ; in the Baitu-l-Mukad das God put all that walked the earth, or flew in the air, under subjection to David ; in the Baitu-l- Mukaddas, the prophets (God's peace and blessing be with them !) offered sacrifice ; upon the Baitu- l-Mukaddas the angels (peace be with them!) descend every night ...

Now we are told by Ibn Almubarak, from Othman, When God commanded David (with whom be peace !) to build this Temple, he said, O Lord, where shall I build it ? Who said, Where thou shalt see the angel with a drawn sword. David then did see the angel in that place. David there fore fixed the corner-stones of its foundation, and raised the walls ; but when the walls were raised, they were pulled down again. David then said, O Lord, thou didst command me to build a house for thee ; and now that I have raised the walls, thou dost pull them down. Then he said, O David, it is because I have not appointed thee my vicegerent among created beings; nor must thou alienate the place from its possessor without a price. As to that building, a man of thy sons shall construct it. Again, it has been said that the meaning of the building being pulled down after it had been raised, was, that the place belonged to the whole community of the children of Israel, every one of whom had a right in it.

It's a wonder that Siyuti wasn't stoned by his fellow Muslims on the spot back then.

But the PLO will try to rectify that.

The first paragraph of the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC report about the Mavi Marmara incident released today describes the purpose of the report:

The Office of the Prosecutor (“Office” or “OTP”) of the International Criminal Court (“Court” or “ICC”) is responsible for determining whether a situation meets the legal criteria established by the Rome Statute (“Statute”) to warrant investigation by the Court. For this purpose, the Office conducts a preliminary examination of all situations that come to its attention based on statutory criteria and the information available. Once a situation is thus identified, article 53(1)(a)-(c) of the Statute establishes the legal frameworkfor a preliminary examination. It provides that, in order to determine whether there is a reasonable basis to proced with an investigation into the situation, the Prosecutor shal consider: jurisdiction (temporal, territorial or personal, and material); admissibility (complementarity and gravity); and the interests of justice.

This is not an investigation, it is not a determination of legal culpability. It is a preliminary analysis to see if there are reasons not to bring the case before the ICC.

One of the questions that the OTP needed to answer is whether the ICC has jurisdiction over the matter to begin with, meaning whether the incident was considered part of an international conflict. Here, the OTP shows its reasoning about whether Israel occupies Gaza for the purposes of this determination:

16.Jurisdiction ratione materiae: The hostilities between Israel and Hamas at the relevant time do not meet the basic definition of an international armed conflict as a conflict between two or more states. However, as acknowledged by the case law of the Court, the ICC Elements of Crimes clarifies that the applicability of the law of international armed conflict also extends to situations of military occupation. While Israel maintains that it is no longer occupying Gaza, the prevalent view within the international community is that Israel remains an occupying power under international law, based on the scope and degree of control that it has retained over the territory of Gaza following the 2005 disengagement. In accordance with the reasoning underlying this perspective, the Office has proceeded on the basis that the situation in Gaza can be considered within the framework of an international armed conflict in view of the continuing military occupation by Israel.

17. The analysis conducted and the conclusions reached would generally not be affected and still be applicable, if the Office was of the view, alternatively, that the law applicable in the present context and in light of the Israel-Hamas conflict is the law of non-international armed conflict. Given the crimes of possible relevance to the present situation, which are substantially similar in the context of both international and non-international armed conflicts, it is not necessary at this stage to reach a conclusive view on the classification of the conflict. Additionally, as the protection accorded by the rules on international armed conflicts is broader than those relating to internal conflicts, it seems appropriate, for the limited purpose of a preliminary examination, in cases of doubt, to apply those governing international armed conflicts.

No determination is made. It even allows that there is a doubt about the matter. (Its legal reasonings towards believing Israel occupies Gaza are flawed as well, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of whether there is doubt on the issue.)

Inevitably, Israel haters will cherry pick portions of this report to pretend that the prosecutor determined that Israel is guilty of war crimes. But the OTP says explicitly what the parameters of this report are:

It should be recalled that the Office does not enjoy investigative powers at the preliminary examination stage. Its findings are therefore preliminary in nature and may be reconsidered in the light of new facts or evidence. The preliminary examination process is conducted on the basis of the facts and information available. The goal of this process is to reach a fully informed determination of whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation. The ‘reasonable basis’ standard has been interpreted by Pre-Trial Chamber I (“PTC I”) to require that “there exists a sensible or reasonable justification for a belief that a crime falling within the jurisdiction of the Court ‘has been or is being committed’”. In this context, PTC I has indicated that all of the information need not necessarily “point towards only one conclusion”. This reflects the fact that the reasonable basis standard under article 53(1)(a) “has a different object, a more limited scope, and serves a different purpose” than other, higher evidentiary standards provided for in the Statute." In particular, at the preliminary examination stage, “the Prosecutor has limited powers which are not comparable to those provided for in article 54 of the Statute at the investigative stage” and the information available at such an early stage is “neither expected to be ‘comprehensive’ nor ‘conclusive’”.

The OTP did not receive any evidence from Israel (nor from Turkey,) so it made its determinations based on incomplete and public information. On that limited basis it found reason to move forward on three specific charges, one more if the blockade is not considered legal, and it also found no reason to go forward on four additional charges.

In the end, the OTP decided not to move forward with the case:

The information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes under the Court’s jurisdiction have been committed ...The Office emphasises that these conclusions are solely based on the assessment of the information available at this stage and in accordance with the ‘reasonable basis’ standard. Not having collected evidence itself, the Office’s analysis in this report must therefore not be considered to be the result of an investigation.

However, on the basis of information available, the Office considers that the potential case(s) that would likely arise from an investigation into the situation would not be of sufficient gravity to justify further action by the Court and would therefore be inadmissible pursuant to articles 17(1)(d) and 53(1)(b) of the Statute.

Official PA newspaper calls all recent terrorists "martyrs" as more car murderers are recruited

An op-ed in Al Hayat Al Jadida today by Hassan Kashef praises as "martyrs" the murderer of Chaya Zissel Braun, the shooter of Rabbi Yehuda Glick and yesterday's murderer of Jidaan Asad.

He doesn't describe exactly what they did, only saying that every Wednesday the praiseworthy Jerusalem Arabs are erupting in anger over Israeli crimes.

Needless to say, there is no condemnation of the series of terror attacks.

Elsewhere, Jew-haters are actively recruiting more terrorists, as in this poster:

The text says "The Heroes of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque" with a Quranic verse 33:23 praising those who go out for jihad, some of whom were "martyred," who have remained faithful to Allah.

Another recruitment method is through Twitter, with the hashtag "#Drive4AlAqsa" encouraging more people to drive their cars into crowds of Jews.

Posters encouraging more targeting Jews by automobile are popping up all over:

There have been no condemnation of this string of attacks from any "moderate" Palestinian as far as I can tell.

(h/t Bob Knot, Ibn Botrous, Malka)

ICC drops "Mavi Marmara" case; IHH lies about it

Peace activists preparing to greet their guests

First came the lies:

Turkey's Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH) issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) finished its investigation into the Mavi Marmara case and concluded that Israel is guilty of "war crimes" for attacking a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza in May 2010.

Um, no. The prosecutor did not mount an investigation and did not conclude that Israel is guilty of anything, as we will see.

Now that we have that out of the way, Reuters reports the story this way:

International prosecutors believe Israeli soldiers may have committed war crimes during a raid that killed nine Turkish activists in 2010, but have decided the case is beyond their remit, according to court papers seen by Reuters.

The move by lawyers at the International Criminal Court is likely to enrage Ankara which accused its erstwhile ally Israel of mass murder after the commandos abseiled onto a flotilla challenging an Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"The information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes under the Court's jurisdiction have been committed in the context of interception and takeover of the Mavi Marmara by IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) soldiers on 31 May 2010," read the paper seen on Wednesday.

But the lawyers decided the crimes in question were not of sufficient gravity to fall under the court's jurisdiction, the papers added.

Prosecutors added they had reached these conclusions on the basis of publicly available information.

"Not having collected evidence itself, the Office’s analysis in this report must therefore not be considered to be the result of an investigation," the paper read.

Without seeing the actual paper, it appears that the prosecutors read some newspaper accounts of the incident, decided that in theory there is enough evidence based on biased and third-hand sources to go ahead to a trial, but did not do any kind of investigation. Their only decision was that the case is not appropriate for the ICC.

In other words, the IHH lost, big time, and they did what Islamists often do when they lose: they claimed victory.

(h/t Bob K)

11/05 Links Pt2: Israel slams Amnesty report; Friedman: ‘No Idea’ if Palestinians Are Peace Partners

From Ian:

Tom Friedman Admits: ‘No Idea’ if Palestinians Are Peace Partners

Noted New York Times columnist and author, Thomas Friedman, in an interview with Israel Army radio aired Tuesday, admitted that he has “…no idea whether Israel has a Palestinian partner for a secure peace.”
He added, however, that, despite the uncertainty, and, “given Israel’s predicament, it should be doing everything it can to test, test, test, and test again, whether it has such a Palestinian partner…”
Friedman did not mention any of Israel’s recent confidence-building gestures towards the Palestinians, including a nine-month settlement freeze, and a host of other civil and political offers to ease daily life and restart talks.
Nor did he mention ongoing Palestinian Authority (PA) – backed terrorism, and rejectionism of efforts to restart talks, vitriolic incitement in official Palestinian media against Israelis and Jews, and simply sidestepping direct negotiations in order to exploit the United Nations as a bludgeon against the Jewish state.

Israel slams Amnesty ‘war crimes’ report

Israel has rejected claims by Amnesty International that its army committed war crimes in the latest Gaza conflict, alleging that Amnesty “serves as a propaganda tool for Hamas and other terror groups”.
The Israeli Embassy in London condemned Amnesty for its “extreme bias” and for “producing no evidence” to back up allegations in a new report, entitled ‘Families under the Rubble: Israeli attacks on inhabited homes’.
The 47-page dossier focuses on eight attacks by the IDF which Amnesty said caused the deaths of “at least 104 civilians, including 62 children”. The NGO said that “several of the attacks directly and deliberately targeted civilians or civilian objects, which would constitute war crimes.”
Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East director, said: “Israeli forces have brazenly flouted the laws of war by carrying out a series of attacks on civilian homes [and] displaying callous indifference to the carnage caused.”
An Israeli spokesman called the report “a narrow, decontextualised report [which] restricts its capability to advance positive change”.
As well as questioning Amnesty’s evidence, the embassy also pointed out that the report “does not mention the word ‘terror’ in relation to Hamas or other armed Palestinian groups, nor does it mention tunnels built by Hamas to infiltrate Israel and perpetrate terror attacks.” (h/t Bob Knot)

Senior Amnesty International official compares Israel to Islamic State on Twitter

Campaigns Manager Kristyan Benedict uses hashtag '#JSIL' in Tweet; Israeli embassy in London slams use of 'ugly, hateful term with anti-Jewish connotations.'
The campaigns manager for Amnesty International UK, Kristyan Benedict, published a Tweet on Wednesday comparing Israel to the Islamic State, using the contentious hashtag #JSIL.
The hashtag has been used by extreme anti-Israel groups to draw a parallel between Israel and the Islamist organization infamous for beheading its captives, including several Western hostages.

UNRWA teachers really love terrorists

This is a photo that is on the Facebook page of the group "UNRWA Teachers."

Someone holding a disintegrating Israeli flag is sinking into a sewer, with the text "Gaza won."

What do you think that these UNRWA teachers are telling their students? Are they preparing them for a future where they would live side by side with Israel? Or are they just teaching hate?

UNRWA is not supposed to be a political organization, and it claims to teach tolerance and coexistence. As we have seen repeatedly, the exact opposite is the case.

The Facebook page of the UNRWA teacher I mentioned who had lots of pro-terrorist posters was taken down. But he is hardly the only such teacher. Another teacher has pro-Hamas images like these:

And this UNRWA teacher in Lebanon celebrated today's terror attack, calling the terrorist a hero:

He once took an educational trip to the Hezbollah Museum:

See how pedagogic he is?

Israeli Left, Avatars Of Democracy, Reconsidering Democracy (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, November 5 - Leading proponents of Israeli democracy are beginning to have second thoughts about the inclusion of democracy in their matrix of core ideological values, a new paper from a left-wing think-tank argued this week.

In an analysis published in its quarterly journal, the organization Social Theorists And Leaders In Navelgazing (STALIN) observes that an increasing number of otherwise committed Liberals are finding it difficult to square their love for democracy with their absolute knowledge that they know better than hoi polloi what is good for the country and the world. As a consequence, many of those who have hitherto supported a robust democracy in Israel no longer find it as appealing as they once did. STALIN claims to represent 99% of Israeli leftists.

The development, says the STALIN article, has long been an undercurrent in leftist circles, but only in recent years have the political implications become so fraught, and the consequences for Israeli democracy so stark. With the political Right more or less in control of the government since the early years of last decade, STALIN's target audience finds itself more and more on the sidelines of legislation and policymaking, a consequence of processes with their roots in democratic principles. The People, whose rights STALIN claims to represent, have consistently and democratically rejected the policies advocated by the Left, a phenomenon that now raises doubts among STALIN adherents as to the value of democracy if it does not dovetail with what might be more important values such as erasing any notion of national identity, or providing the country's sworn enemies with rhetorical or political ammunition. As in one prominent case from the 1990's, the ammunition has sometimes been literal.

The arenas in which leftist ambitions have been thwarted by erstwhile leftist values are not restricted to defense or national security. "Our constituency expresses no reservations when politicking, horse-trading, and backroom deals take place in the context of legislation or policy development," notes the article, "but when the identical activities are conducted by political opponents, the phenomenon suddenly becomes dangerous." It cited myriad examples of religious parties such as Shas promoting the interests of its voters through thoroughly democratic means, thus sparking the ire of STALIN members over religious coercion. Foisting the ideological preferences of the Left on Israeli society, however, can only be seen as beneficial - but the majority of voters have repeatedly thwarted those noble attempts by choosing representatives from the Right.

The cumulative disillusionment has many STALINists arguing in favor of jettisoning democracy unless and until it better serves their purposes, which appears unlikely in the short or medium term, a utilitarian approach with precedent in 1933 Germany.