Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 15, 2015

Egypt allows a trickle of people to cross Rafah

From AP:

Egypt opened its borders with the Gaza Strip for the first time in months Saturday, allowing Palestinians to enter and leave the isolated coastal strip.

The Rafah border crossing will operate for six hours a day for the coming three days and 15,000 people Palestinians have applied to exit to Egypt, said Maher Abu Sabha, head of the Gaza side of the crossing. He said those were humanitarian cases and included medical patients, students, and Arab residents whose residency permits were about to expire. However, he said only 1,500 of those were actually expected to pass through.

That was optimistic:

Passage through the Rafah border crossing on the southern Gaza border was interrupted Sunday morning after the crossing's computer systems malfunctioned, Egyptian security serves told Ma'an.

The computer glitch came as telecommunication and internet networks were disconnected due to ongoing military activity in the northern Sinai, where the Egyptian army is pitched against a militant insurgency.

Sources told Ma’an that only seven Palestinians had passed through the terminal as of noon Sunday.

They said that only 100 Palestinian travelers travelling from Egypt into Gaza were waiting at the passenger hall on the Egyptian side of the terminal.

Sources added that 15 cement trucks were readying to cross into Gaza.

They said that on Saturday 573 Palestinians had crossed from Gaza into Egypt, and 246 crossed from Egypt to Gaza.

In the end, on Sunday some 516 Gazans left and 309 arrived, after all the media coverage about how Egypt was magnanimously allowing Gazans to travel for Ramadan.

How does this compare to the umber of people Israel allows to cross the Erez crossing every day?

On Thursday, 892 people crossed into Israel and 902 crossed into Gaza.

In other words every day Israel allows twice as many people to cross into and from enemy territory than Egypt does a few times a year from land controlled by its supposed Arab brothers.

The truth behind the supposed IDF attack on Gaza's power plant

The New York Times wrote on Friday:

A born chatterbox, Mohammad gaily told of how he had started a fire in their home last winter by knocking over a candle, and of how his brother had come to his rescue. Many Palestinians rely on candles for light because of hourslong power cuts, made even worse by Israel’s bombing of the local power station last summer.

Did Israel bomb the power plant?

The Guardian said it was "destroyed" and "finished" before it miraculously went back online two months later.

At the time, the IDF denied targeting the plant, saying it might have been hit by accident.

Now, as Israel's report on the Gaza war is released, we can see what happened:

Even when munitions directed at military targets unintentionally hit civilian objects, the collateral damage caused does not by itself render the attack unlawful. Such was the case with the IDF tank shells that on July 29 unfortunately missed their intended target and hit fuel tanks serving Gaza’s power plant (but not the power plant itself). In this incident, IDF tank forces had legitimately directed an attack against several individuals who were believed to be carrying anti-tank rockets intended for immediate use.

Footnote:
As discussed infra at Section E.2, during the 2014 Gaza Conflict Israel provided electricity to the Gaza Strip via power lines running from Israel and made extensive efforts to facilitate the repair of any power lines that were damaged as a result of the fighting. Nevertheless the MAG referred the July 29, 2014 incident to the Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism for examination, the findings of which have been provided to the MAG. The MAG’s decision whether to order the opening of a criminal investigation into this incident is still pending.

So it was Israeli fire (but not an airstrike) that hit the fuel tanks (but not the power plant) while targeting terrorists (but not the power plant.)

(h/t David Groskind)

Sure abortions are easy in Israel, but they aren't liberal enough in NYT op-ed

+972 writer Mairav Zonszein scores an NYT op-ed by coming up with a brand new way to bash Israel:

I KNEW Israeli law required that all abortions be approved by a committee. I also knew that the procedure was widely accessible. I’d never heard of an Israeli woman being denied an abortion (as opposed to say, a divorce, which must be granted by the husband in a religious court).

So I never really gave it much thought, until I found myself sitting in front of such a committee, six weeks pregnant with a 5-month-old baby at home.

When I went to my gynecologist, all he could do was provide me with an ultrasound as proof of my pregnancy. “I don’t do abortions,” he told me. “The committees deal with them. You can call this number.”

Each committee includes a social worker and two doctors. The law stipulates four criteria, any of which is sufficient for approval: If the woman is below 18 or over 40; if the fetus is in danger; if the mother’s mental or physical health is at risk; or if the pregnancy occurs out of wedlock or is the result of rape or incest.

I am 33 and free of medical issues. But because my partner and I are not legally married, I felt some relief knowing that I had a clear ticket out. Still, I balked at the realization that I had to request permission.

The Pregnancy Termination Committee at the hospital near me operates for only a few hours twice a week. As I waited to register, it began to sink in: I had no control, no privacy and no anonymity over this intimate, difficult matter pertaining strictly to my own body. The idea that anyone but me had the power to decide my family’s fate and mine was harrowing. Israel’s abortion policy, it hit me, was the opposite of liberal.

Not that my request wasn’t granted. The doctors (one man, one woman, as per protocol) informed me as I walked through the door that I was “approved.”

There were no medical questions or examinations, no offers of information or assistance. It was cold, efficient bureaucracy. A nurse administered the abortion medically the next day.

I didn’t feel any stigma from the staff. But some committees might be more judgmental than others.

I can certainly sympathize with the difficulty of deciding to abort a child, even for someone who passionately believes in a woman's right to do so. I can even feel for the desire not to have to face a committee, no matter how empathetic and professional they are.

But forgive me if I don't quite believe that Zonszein cares about her privacy or anonymity, when a process that she admits was quick, nonjudgmental and painless is fodder for her anti-Israel op-ed in a major international newspaper.

And she cannot complain that she has no control, either, for the same reason she cannot complain that there are back-alley abortions in Israel for married women who want to abort:

The most recent figures show that, in practice, 98 percent of abortion requests in Israel are approved. But of the approximately 40,000 abortions performed each year, only around half go through the committees.

The other estimated 20,000 are being conducted illegally, through doctors at private clinics, not at home or in alleyways. There are plenty of doctors you can find online at the click of a button. While they are theoretically subject to punitive legal measures, their patients are not — and the authorities simply look the other way.

Many illegal abortions are thought to involve married women. These women may fear rejection of their applications, or that the invasive committee process will take too long and they want to put the ordeal behind them as quickly as possible.

If she was so concerned over her privacy and anonymity, why did she do through this process to begin with? She could have found an alternative, as she admits, at the click of a button.

Likewise, Zonszein cannot complain that those wanting abortions outside the committee system have to pay for them:

A 2014 reform to the national health coverage law offers free abortions to all women between 20 and 33 regardless of circumstance.

They are free. Period.

But...but...

Although Israel is often seen as relatively progressive on abortion because a vast majority of women are able to terminate their pregnancies, the situation here is actually the inverse of most Western countries, where abortion is lawful and largely free of restrictions. Israel’s policy may be better than countries where abortions are strictly prohibited (like Brazil and Egypt), or where exceptions are made only to save a woman’s life (like Ireland), but it is far from being liberal.

OK. Let's compare the supposed restrictions on legal abortions in Israel with liberal European countries that she claims are "largely free of restrictions."

In the Netherlands, a five-day waiting period is required between the initial consultation and the abortion.

In Sweden, between 12 and 18 weeks of gestation, the women must discuss the procedure with a social worker.

In the UK, two registered medical practitioners must certify that the required medical grounds have been met.

In Italy, a "one-week reflection period" is imposed unless the situation is one of urgency. A certificate confirming the pregnancy and the request for termination must be issued by a doctor and signed by the woman and the doctor.

In Finland, an abortion must be authorized by one or two doctors up to 12 weeks, or by the State Medical Board up to 20 weeks. Abortion is free of charge under national health insurance but women must pay hospital fees.

In Germany, the woman must receive state-regulated counselling to inform the woman that the unborn have a right to life and to try to convince her to continue her pregnancy.

So when you compare Israel's abortion procedures with those of European nations, Israel is indeed more liberal than most. Zonszein is lying and the New York Times is not fact-checking her.

Women who do not want to go through the committees can easily get safe, professional and free abortions. But...the process isn't "liberal" enough for the New York Times. And that is a good enough reason to add to the list of terrible things that Israel is doing.

As long as your op-ed bashes Israel, it is fair game for the NYT to publish it, no matter how trivial or unfair it is. This op-ed is even more cynical than most, because it gratuitously uses what is supposedly a very personal experience for the writer as extra emotional ammunition to publicly hurt Israel.

06/14 Links: British Muslim campaigner ridiculed for claiming Zionists stole his shoe #Mossadstolemyshoe

From Ian:

Daily Mail: British Muslim campaigner ridiculed after claiming 'Zionists' stole his shoe

Within hours, the rant had prompted dozens of mocking tweets, with the hashtags #MossadStoleMyShoe and #ShoeishConspiracy trending on Twitter, with one user telling him to 'put a sock in it'.
In response, he issued a bizarre, 15-minute YouTube rant in which he said, 'they're stealing people's homes in Palestine. You think a shoe is a big deal for them?'
A number of readers also created memes mocking Mr Bukhari's assertions that a member of the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service, better known as Mossad, had rearranged his footwear.
The message, which was posted on Facebook alongside a black-and-white image of a boy wearing one shoe, is written under the head 'are zionists trying to intimidate me'.
It read: 'Someone came into my home yesterday, while I was asleep. I dont know how they got in, but they didn't break in - the only thing they took was one shoe.
'Now think about that, the only thing they took was a single shoe - they left one shoe behind to let me know someone had been there.

Asghar Bukhari responds to his critics

I held off on the whole #Mossadstolemyshoe story – a strong contender for the funniest Twitter meme ever – because I thought Asghar Bukhari must be ill.
But now he is spinning such responses – incredulity and speculation about his state of mind – in order to spread his deluded and conspiratorial narrative still further.
If you aren’t yet up to speed with his original claims – and the fun people had with them – I suggest you read the coverage here or here – and, for some further background on the man, John Sargeant’s account here.
(Briefly, he published a Facebook post in which he insisted that Zionists had somehow got into his house (though there were no signs of a break in) and stolen one of his shoes.)
Bukhari’s latest move has been to release a YouTube video in which he distorts the inevitably incredulous responses in order to whip up a paranoid mindset amongst young Muslims – he makes it very clear that it is this group which he is addressing.
One of his techniques is to imply that Zionists were troubled and angered by his Facebook post. This isn’t true – In fact everyone enjoyed the joke – the Zionist Federation’s response was particularly funny. (h/t Bob Knot)

Douglas Murray: If I was Asghar Bukhari, I’d hold onto both of my shoes very tightly

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) is a strange beast. Its membership largely consists of Asghar Bukhari and his brother. Occasionally another person appears on television claiming an affiliation to the group – an affiliation promptly proved by use of the organisation’s modus operandi, viz furious shouting backed up by ferocious stupidity.
I last encountered Asghar in January when we disagreed on Sky about the journalists and cartoonists who were massacred in the offices of Charlie Hebdo. Apart from smearing the dead cartoonists as ‘racists’ Asghar appeared most eager to claim that I refused to debate him. He claimed this as I was debating him. Live. On air. Anyhow, in the wake of that debate there were rumours that Asghar had been sending abusive tweets to me from a sock-puppet account.. He denied any involvement, although the rogue Twitter account closed down shortly thereafter.
Anyhow, it has long been plain that Asghar lives in the fever swamps. I suppose Sky just think he makes good noise. But today brings a particularly moving example of where this can lead. Thanks to the excellent Jamie Palmer (@jacobinism) who reads Asghar’s Facebook rants so the rest of us don’t have to, the world can now read a real gem. Here it is. But first a warning. This is not, it seems, a spoof. It is somebody writing under their own name.
I have indeed — as Asghar invites us to do — ‘thought about that’. And I have a nasty feeling that I have the answer. It seems likely to me that Asghar will at some point find his missing shoe. I usually find mine under the sofa. But if I were Asghar I would consider looking there and beneath the bed but behind the television. It is possible, is it not, that the dapper-dresser removed one of his shoes and hurled it at the box in a rage when someone not from his immediate family was on the television? It is easy to forget such moments of inarticulate rage. Asghar clearly does. If he remembered them then he would never again accept an invitation to appear on the television.

I was in an exchange recently with a left-leaning, pro-Israel, Jewish Obama supporter who postulated that Obama's vision for Israel is that of a "Jewish" state but... "It is just not the version of the State that you, or the Republican Party, or Conservative Americans, or the Israeli Right might support..."

Really?

This is the kind of vaguely unusual, semi-condescending sentiment that one often finds among pro-Israel Obama supporters but, for the life of me, I have no idea what it means.

What is at the heart of this Right-Wing, Conservative, Republican evil that wants some sort-of alternative version of Israel? Is it the desire among people such as Caroline Glick, or her colleague Martin Sherman, to annex Judea and Samaria? Is it, thus, the fear that the Jews of Israel will be demographically overrun by Arabs in the event of such an annexation?

Excuse me, aside from the fact that such demographic fears are rather questionable on the numbers, but is this not a fear of democracy, itself, and therefore a non-left-leaning view?

{Of course, this presumes that the western Left truly does embody democratic values; a proposition worthy of at least some skepticism.}

There is more going on here, though. When my interlocutor suggested that my vision for Israel - like that of conservatives or Republicans or Likudniks and other such bad people - is different from Obama's he meant more than just the question of One State versus Two States.

It goes to this "values" thing that Obama, that most Jewish of American presidents, likes to bring up vis-a-vis Israel. It actually postulates a deeply manichean view of western politics in which the Right is inhabited by loathsome and immoral cave-dwelling type creatures and the Left, while not perfect, nonetheless seeks the light of social justice and the succor of universal human rights.

We are to believe that the Right is comprised of heinous Sméagols, hunting prey in the night, while the Left is filled with well-meaning, but flawed, Galadriels (or, at least, Frodos) seeking to bring light and understanding into an otherwise ugly and greed-filled and war-like world.

Whatever the degree of hostility between the American Right or the American Left (or hostility between the Democratic Party versus the Republican Party), it is nothing in comparison to the hostility that seems to exist between the Jewish Left and the Jewish Right, both in Israel and in the diaspora.

Each largely regards the other with a strong measure of contempt and they do, at least in part, because the stakes are so high. We are speaking, ultimately, about nothing less weighty than the future survival of the Jewish people.

I am hoping, however, that there is one thing that the pro-Israel Right and the pro-Israel Left can agree upon: the demise of Oslo. The Oslo "peace process" is kaput and it is better that Israelis, and people who care about Israel, admit it. If we fail to do so then the EU and the Obama administration will drag Israel back into yet another counterproductive round of "peace processing" and it will likely have similar results from the last go-around.

I call it the Non-Peace Process and it looks something like this:

1) The US and the EU demand negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

2) The parties agree to talk and then the PA, the US, and the EU demand various concessions from Israel for the great privilege of sitting down with the PA's foremost undertaker.

3) Israel fails to meet all the concessions, thus causing the PA to flee negotiations, which they never had any intention of concluding to begin with.

4) The PA and the EU and the Obama administration place the blame for failure at Jewish feet.

5) The EU and various European countries announce additional sanctions, thereby essentially joining the anti-Semitic anti-Zionist BDS movement.

6) Jihadis seek to murder Jews.

Let us hope that I am wrong.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

Israel's tally of Gaza fatalities: 44% terrorist, 36% civilian, 20% unidentified men

The Government of Israel has released its latest report on the Gaza war last year. It includes an appendix that describes the results of its investigations on the number of civilians and terrorists killed in Gaza.

The information gathered since the end of the 2014 Gaza Conflict reveals that the percentage of militants among the deceased is actually much higher than stated by Palestinian sources. The IDF has found significant disparities between highly credible sources and official Palestinian lists. These disparities reflect attempts to conceal the identity of militants as well as falsify ages and circumstances of death.

According to the data gathered by the IDF (as of April 30, 2015), 2,125 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were killed in the course of the 2014 Gaza Conflict. Out of this number: 936 (44% of total fatalities) have been identified as militants. Out of the number of militants, 631 (67% of the militants killed) were affiliated with Hamas, 201 (22% of the militants killed) were affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and 104 (11% of the militants killed) were affiliated with other terror organisations.

The IDF has classified 761 (36% of the total) fatalities from the 2014 Gaza Conflict as uninvolved civilians, either because there was no indication that they were involved in the hostilities or because they were assumed to be uninvolved based upon their age and gender.This number regrettably includes 369 children under the age of 15 (16% of total fatalities), 284 women (13% of total fatalities), and 108 men (5% of total fatalities).

The IDF’s identification process is ongoing. In particular, the IDF is still trying to make an accurate determination as to whether an additional 428 males between the ages of 16-50 (20% of total fatalities and almost all of the unclassified fatalities) were involved or uninvolved in the hostilities. Based on the IDF’s past experience, it is highly probable that in the upcoming months, new information will surface demonstrating that some of these individuals were involved in combat against Israel in the 2014 Gaza Conflict.

Conclusion:

The number of fatalities in the course of the 2014 Gaza Conflict — though unfortunate — does not imply that IDF actions violated the principle of proportionality. Moreover, any estimation of the breakdown of civilian versus militant fatalities must be undertaken carefully, on the basis of reliable information and a rigorous methodology. The need for a careful examination of such statistics is especially important given Hamas’s efforts to manipulate the number of civilian fatalities from hostilities with Israel.

Out of the identified dead, 55% are terrorist.

It is unclear from the report whether Gazans killed by terrorist fire are included in these numbers, it seems the report is only counting deaths from IDF fire. The UN claimed 2,220 fatalities, which, if accurate, would indicate that some 95 Gazans may have been killed by terror fire, probably not including the executions of "collaborators."

(correction from Yenta Press on author of report)

Palestinians proud that thugs disrupted grassroots women's peace event in Jerusalem (video)

From the homepage of Creativity for Peace:

Creativity for Peace is the leader in preparing young Israeli and Palestinian women to pave the way for peace in their communities and across borders with compassion, courage, and an understanding of the story of the other.

Creativity for Peace trains young Palestinian and Israeli women to partner as leaders by breaking down barriers of anger and prejudice, facilitating friendships, and inspiring action to promote peace.

Young women begin by attending a three-week summer program in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At camp they learn to speak authentically and listen compassionately, share their personal stories – often of the violent deaths of loved ones – and transform anger and prejudice into real friendships. After summer the program continues in Israel and Palestine with year-round training and mentoring.

Campers are 15-17 years old. Our most senior participants are in their late 20s. They are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Druze, and other religions and ethnicities and include Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel as well as Jewish Israelis.

We have held 16 summer programs with a total of 223 teens. Each camp consists of 14-20 participants, half of whom are Jewish and half Arab.

Ma'an reports:

A group of activists on Friday stopped a conference in occupied East Jerusalem from going ahead that they accused of contributing to the "normalization" of the Israeli occupation.

The conference had been organized by the "Creativity for Peace" group and was set to take place in the Legacy Hotel.

However, the hotel reportedly cancelled the event after they were contacted by the activists.

The hotel management had apparently been unaware of the conference, believing instead that a tourism company had booked the hall.

Some activists allege that organizations aiming to facilitate dialogue and understanding between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians without addressing political realities "normalize" the Israeli occupation.

Did the hotel really cancel the event? It is not so clear. The intimidation worked this way:

The young men explained that they were able to go inside the conference room where there Israelis and Palestinians from Jerusalem, the West Bank and the 1948 lands. The young men talked to the Palestinians who refused to listen to them and said that “dialogue is the solution after the long years of Intifada which they participated in”. They also accused the locals of Jerusalem of selling their lands and property to Jews.

The young men added that the participants in the normalization conference withdrew from the room and covered their faces fearing to be photographed.

The young men were also able to obtain a copy of the conference’s agenda which included the names of the participants and their contact information in addition to the work schedule for next month which includes a trip to Jordan for Palestinians and Israeli for three days.

Here is one flyer that the "activists" took:

Here is video of the "activists" before they ran into the conference room and frightened the women there to flee. One brave Arab woman argued with them, but saw the camera too late to cover her face..

I cannot find a single article in Arab media that is the least bit ashamed that Arabs deliberately intimidated a conference of young women who have no political agenda and who only want peace.

I cannot find a single statement from Creativity for Peace or any other peace or human rights group that condemns - or even mentions - these actions by "activists."

Because it is not nice to mention that most Arabs are against real peace.

Pallywood star "Shirley Temper" is Amnesty's poster child - literally

On Friday I wrote a popular post about how Amnesty-USA started an anti-Israel petition based on their statistic that 7,000 Palestinian Arab minors were arrested or detained since 2003 - but they are silent about the fact that far more minors were arrested in every single US state in the same timeframe, and that the US arrest rate of minors per capita is at least 30 times the number of arrests by Israel of minor Palestinians.

What I didn't realize at the time was how Amnesty was illustrating their story:

The blonde girl on the right with the "Love" shirt is Ahed Tamimi, otherwise known as Shirley Temper, immortalized in a video I made with Aussie Dave of Israellycool:

This photo shows the girls being restrained by the IDF as her mother is being arrested during a protest in 2012. As the video shows, the girls were never arrested.

Amnesty chose the photo not for its truthfulness but for its propaganda value of showing blonde girls, who Americans can identify with, as poster children for Israeli arrests.

Because why should Amnesty be trusted to do something as basic as telling the truth, when their purpose is anti-Israel propaganda?

(h/t/ Bob K, WarpedMirrorPMB)

06/13 Links: Israel ‘exceeded legal standards’ in Gaza conflict, military group tells UN

From Ian:

Key Preliminary Findings of the High Level International Military Group on the Gaza Conflict

From 18th – 22nd May 2015, the High Level International Military Group, made up of 11 former chiefs of staff, generals, senior officers, political leaders and officials from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Holland, Spain, Italy, Australia and Colombia visited Israel for a fact-finding mission on the 2014 Gaza conflict. We were led by General Klaus Naumann, former Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, the most senior officer in the Alliance, and Giulio Terzi, former Foreign Minister of Italy. Also in the group were Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper, formerly US State Department Ambassador at Large for war crimes issues; and Mr Rafael Bardaji, former National Security Adviser to the Government of Spain.
This was part of a longer term project by our group, whose principal concern is how civilian lives can be protected and military forces can fight effectively when operations must be conducted in a densely packed civilian area. We will be producing a full report this autumn.
Our mission to Israel was unprecedented. We were the first such multi-national group of senior officers to visit the country. We were granted a level of access to the Israeli government and Defence Force that has not been afforded to any other group, from the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Minister of Defence, Moshe Ya’alon, right down to the field commanders responsible for fighting the battle on the ground.
We were well aware of the allegations made by some governments, the United Nations, human rights groups and the media, that Israel acted outside the laws of armed conflict in Gaza. Some have suggested that the IDF lacked restraint or even deliberately targeted innocent civilians.
Our findings lead us to the opposite conclusion. We examined the circumstances that led to the tragic conflict last summer and are in no doubt that this was not a war that Israel wanted. In reality Israel sought to avoid the conflict and exercised great restraint over a period of months before the war when its citizens were targeted by sporadic rocket attacks from Gaza. Once the war had begun, Israel made repeated efforts to terminate the fighting. The war that Israel was eventually compelled to fight against Hamas and other Gaza extremists was a legitimate war, necessary to defend its citizens and its territory against sustained attack from beyond its borders

Major-General Jim Molan (Ret.): “Israel’s war was just,” reports Australian general after mission on Gaza conflict

Given our examination of the cause of Operation Protective Edge, it would be indefensible to argue that Israel wanted it, initiated it or sustained it, or that Israel acted in anything other than defence of its citizens. On this basis alone, Israel’s war was just. It will be interesting to see if the imminent UNHRC report and the ICC inquiry can deliver fairness. Many do not understand it is not illegal to kill civilians in war as long as that is not the purpose of your actions, hence the appalling term “collateral damage”. Unlike our fight in Iraq or Afghanistan, Israel fights repeatedly in the same neighbourhood, and so its understanding and its intelligence is far superior to anything that I have enjoyed in similar targeting decisions that I have made.
While acknowledging the tragedy of death in war and given the immense capability of the IDF, it stands to Israel’s everlasting credit that far more did not die. But from the very top of the command chain down to the infantry and pilots, the personal moral position that individuals took was mirrored in the targeting processes, decisions on the ground and in the real care taken.
War can brutalise, but the Israelis scrupulously “cared” for the Palestinians. By contrast, Hamas was an enemy whose central strategy was to directly target the Israeli population and who repeatedly used their own population as human shields, both of which in any fair system would constitute major war crimes.
The women of the kibbutz were proud of their sons, but they would also be proud of what one senior Israeli commander whose soldier son was about to deploy to Gaza, recounted.
“Come back alive,” he said in farewell, “but come back human.” I wonder what the Hamas version of this farewell would be.
Jim Molan is a retired major-general in the Australian Army.

Who is Guilty of War Crimes in the Gaza War?

Israel is accused of a disproportionate response to Hamas rocket attacks. Is this accusation true? How does Israel compare to other military forces fighting asymmetrical wars?

Amnesty does it again - context free Israel bashing (update)

Amnesty USA put out a petition, tweeted by Amnesty International, demanding that the US punish Israel for arresting Palestinian minors:

7,000 kids arrested over twelve years! Sounds terrible!

I wondered how the US stacks up against Israel in arresting minors. After all, if Amnesty USA is telling Congress to protect Palestinian children from arrests, then certainly Israel must have a much worse record than the US in arresting juveniles.

Now, the West Bank has about 4.5 million people*, so to be fair I only looked at states that have a similar population to see how many kids are arrested over the same 12 year period.

We have the statistics for most of the analysis..

Kentucky, Oregon and Oklahoma have roughly the same or fewer people than the West Bank.

In Kentucky, between 2010 and 2012 there were over 7000 kids arrested every year.

In Oklahoma, 200,000 were arrested since 2003..

In Oregon, some 270,000 were arrested since 2003.

Even Wyoming, with less than 600,000 people, arrests more kids in a single year than Israel does in twelve.

Why doesn't Amnesty-USA make any online petitions against the nation it resides in - a nation that arrests minors at 30 times the rate that Israel arrests Arab kids!

This is beyond a double standard. It shows no standards at all.

UPDATE: I was very wrong in the population of the West Bank - it is somewhere between 1.7 million and 2.7 million. So I should compare it with West Virginia - about 2,500 arrests a year, compared to less than 700.

Nebraska, also around the lower number, arrests between 12,000 and 15,000 a year.

06/12 Links Pt2: Jewish Voice for Peace? Not really; A new low in fake "moral equivalence"

From Ian:

Jewish Voice for Peace? Not really

In the saturated market of pro-Palestinian activism, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has emerged as a major player.
On its website, JVP now boasts over 60 member-led chapters across the country and more than 200,000 online Facebook and Twitter supporters.
These days it’s also flush with new funding sources.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which describes JVP as the “largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States”, until very recently the organization reported an approximate average of $300,000 in annual contributions.
By 2013 that figure had jumped to over $1 million.
It’s been a pretty busy couple of years for an organization that’s operated in relative obscurity for much of the last twenty.
You’ve got to hand it to JVP’s new leadership team and their savvy marketing skills.
They’ve managed to carefully craft and disseminate a brand that draws on the appealing language of rights along with Jewish culture and values to justify vilifying the planet’s only Jewish state, expressing an utter hostility to the notion of Jewish peoplehood and self-determination, and lending support to Israel’s enemies.
But now that JVP has a real shot at playing in the big leagues of American organizational life, it also has a strong incentive to clean up its act.
Cavorting with obvious Jew-haters and being attacked for whitewashing anti-Semitism is counterproductive.
All it does is tarnish the brand.
So now JVP is quietly trying to scrub its online presence of past partnerships with sketchy anti-Semites.

A new low in fake "moral equivalence"

Australia's distinction as a major source of recruits joining "Islamic State" has been used as a pretext for a variety of commentators to defame Israel, through the morally vacuous argument that the phenomenon is no different to that of Jewish Australians who serve in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).
A typical example was Phillip Adams writing in his Weekend Australian column that "the government is understandably concerned by the indoctrination of local youth who head off to Iraq or Syria, though we've not expressed concern about the generations of young Australian Jews who've headed for Israel to join the army."
In the Canberra Times, ANU Professor Amin Saikal wrote, "some Western countries, including Australia, have had no qualms over some of their Jewish citizens either joining or fighting for the Israeli security forces, and have not viewed their return with trepidation. It is not surprising to hear Muslim voices raised about double standard."
And in the Courier Mail columnist Paul Syvret wrote that "all religions and societies tend to breed their own brands of extremist ratbaggery", and then inveigled against "young Jewish Australians who ‘make Aliyah' with a return to Israel and service in that (foreign) country's military - an armed force well schooled in bloody regional and religious conflict".
There are many other examples I could provide.
This tendency to react to any mention of the problem of Australians going to join ISIS by immediately responding "What about Israel?" is now so common that one could be forgiven for thinking that Jewish Australians are enjoying some unique dispensation to serve in a foreign power's armed forces.

Denis MacEoin replies to Guardian letter calling for a boycott of Israeli Film & TV Festival

The signatories to the letter about the Israeli film festival have never, to my knowledge, called for the banning of any Iranian film, based, not on individual merit, but on the human rights abuses of the country in which they were made or the nationality of their directors, producers, and actors.
The Guardian has published, before this, praise for several North Korean films, including A Flower Girl. But North Korea is one of the world’s most repressive and dangerous states, governed by a regime that might even make the Ayatollahs of Iran hesitate. So why no letters in the Guardian boycotting their films? Oh, I forgot, nobody ever calls for a boycott of North Korea or any really repressive state.
The activists never march against Saudi Arabia, which has just confirmed the sentence of a blogger, Raif Badawi, to a flogging of 1000 lashes, “very harshly” as the flogging order read, as a punishment for writing thoughts such as, “My commitment is… to reject any oppression in the name of religion… a goal we will reach in a peaceful and law-abiding way.” They never march against Qatar, Iran, North Korea, Russia, China or Sudan. They only protest about the actions of one of the freest liberal democracies in the world, and the only country in the Middle East that gives human rights to all its citizens.
Each of those forty signatories should feel ashamed. To uphold human rights by supporting a murderous terrorist state, while condemning a democracy forced to defend itself against outside forces bent on its destruction — do any of these writers know what free speech and human rights are about, what democracy means, or what international law consists of? One suspects not.
Meanwhile, Seret will go on. Genuine lovers of cinema and television will watch the films and go away satisfied, hoping to see more like them.

From the NY Times:

A 2,500-year-old Islamic cultural heritage site in Yemen’s capital was obliterated in an explosion early Friday, and witnesses and news reports said the cause was a missile or bomb from Saudi Arabia-led warplanes. The Saudi military denied responsibility.

The top antiquities protection official at the United Nations angrily condemned the destruction of ancient multistory homes, towers and gardens, which also killed an unspecified number of residents in Al Qasimi, a neighborhood in Sana’s Old City area.

“I am profoundly distressed by the loss of human lives as well as the damage inflicted on one of the world’s oldest jewels of Islamic urban landscape,” said the official, Irina Bokova, the director general of Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Given that Islam is less than 1400 years old, how can there be a 2,500 year old Islamic cultural heritage site?

UNESCO's website gives background:

Inhabited for more than 2,500 years, the city was given official status in the second century BC when it was an outpost of the Yemenite kingdoms. By the first century AD it emerged as a centre of the inland trade route. The site of the cathedral and the martyrium constructed during the period of Abyssinian domination (525-75) bear witness to Christian influence whose apogee coincided with the reign of Justinian. The remains of the pre-Islamic period were largely destroyed as a result of profound changes in the city from the 7th century onwards when Sana'a became a major centre for the spread of the Islamic faith as demonstrated by the archaeological remains within the Great Mosque, said to have been constructed while the Prophet was still living.

...The houses in the old city are of relatively recent construction and have a traditional structure.

Ah, so the city is 2500 years old but the Muslims destroyed the original buildings. The layout is Islamic and the more modern structures respected the style of the older ones.

It is not clear that the buildings destroyed were ancient at all.

Sanaa is indeed a very nice example of Islamic architecture, but it sure isn't a 2,500 year old example of that.

(h/t abeleehane)

UPDATE: It was corrected. The original tweet is still online.

Holocaust survivors understand how important Israel is

I recently saw a video, produced for a synagogue dinner, asking Holocaust survivors what their message was to future generations.

It is an open ended question. Some spoke about the importance of maintaining Jewish culture and faith, others about being happy with what you have and to be kind to others.

A surprising number, unprompted, spoke about the importance of Israel.

One said that Israel must be strong to ensure that there would never be another Holocaust. He mused what would have happened if an Israeli air force existed during the Holocaust.

Another said for Jews to go to Israel and volunteer to help because Israel is there to help all Jews, wherever they are.

One women survivor said "The Jewish people should have a Jewish state and we should be proud of it."

The people who saw the face of absolute evil viscerally understand how important it is to have a Jewish state. To them, Israel is not only a refuge but also an actor that would go anywhere in the world to help Jews. This idea is very powerful for those who lost so much..

It is a moral argument in a world that has forgotten what morality is.

06/12 Links Pt1: BDS and Hamas: The New Partnership; EU Funds Illegal Construction in Area C

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: BDS and Hamas: The New Partnership

Hamas is pinning high hopes on BDS to pave the way for the destruction of Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions. Hamas believes that such tools are no less important than rockets and suicide bombings, which have thus far failed to achieve the goal of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.
U.S. universities that allow the BDS activists to disseminate their hate against Israel are unaware that these people are serving as Hamas ambassadors. Moreover, Western governments, above all the U.S., are unaware that Hamas and BDS allies also consider them enemies of the Palestinians.
What Bahr is actually saying is that the BDS campaign should be intensified until Israel is forced to surrender and accept all the demands of Hamas, which include, of course, ending the existence of Israel.
While the anti-Israel activities of the BDS movement have emboldened Hamas, they have also undermined those Palestinians who believe in peace and coexistence with Israel. If BDS supporters really care about Palestinians, why don't they go to the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian territories to promote reforms, democracy, freedom of speech and the rights of women under the rule of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority? BDS seems to be more about promoting Hamas's agenda than advancing the cause of peace.

How the EU Funds Illegal Construction in Area C

Chaos continues to reign: months have passed since Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered the destruction of all illegal buildings built by the EU in the E1 area · Mida checked and found that no actual change has happened on the ground · The State authorities are paralyzed, and Zionists NGOs are left alone in the struggle to cut of the EU pipeline

It is a story of unending frustration: the Palestinian illegal takeover of Area C is in full swing and no-one's trying to stop it. It didn't start yesterday. The originator of the idea, former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, described already in 2009 his plan for a "creeping annexation," by creating corridors and territorial contiguity, which will serve as the starting point for any future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. By all accounts, he seems to have succeeded.
This impression is strengthened by the fact that one of the reasons for the Palestinian success in this land grab is the massive intervention of a foreign power. In recent years, the EU has acted to implement a "humanitarian plan for the occupied Palestinian territories." These innocent-sounding terms are a cover for active support and funding for the Palestinian illegal takeover of the plane of Mishor Edumim (E1), to the tune of hundreds of millions of Euros.

Important update from @LTCPeterLerner on Military Advocate General report on #Gaza beach incident

One of the most sensational Guardian reports during the summer war involved a July 16th IDF attack on a Gaza beach which killed four Palestinian children. Yesterday, Israel’s military advocate general’s office issued its report on the tragedy. Here’s the Facebook update from Lt. Peter Lerner, IDF military spokesman, on the report.
Today the Military Advocate General announced his decision on one of the most tragic cases of last year’s conflict with Gaza. I believe it is one of the most covered incidents that was reported on by the media, it was the incident of an air force strike on Gaza beach that resulted in the tragic death of four boys, Ahed Atef Bakr, Zakariya Ahed Bakr, Mohammad Ramiz Bakr, and Ismail Mahmoud Bakr.
The military police carried out an extensive criminal investigation. During the investigation testimonies were collected from a large number of IDF soldiers and officers who were involved in the planning and execution of the attack. Additionally, an extensive number of documents relating to the attack were reviewed, along with video footage documenting the attack in real time, as well as media images and video footage which documented parts of the incident. Efforts were made to collect the testimonies of Gaza Strip residents who were, allegedly, witnesses to the incident. In this context, the collection of testimony from three witnesses was coordinated. Regretfully, despite the prior coordination, the witnesses eventually declined to meet the investigators, and instead provided affidavits in regard to the incident.
From the factual findings collected by the investigators, it revealed that the incident took place in an area that had long been known as a compound belonging to Hamas’s Naval Police and Naval Force (including naval commandos), and which was utilized exclusively by militants. The compound in question spans the length of the breakwater of the Gaza City seashore, closed off by a fence and clearly separated from the beach serving the civilian population. It further found in the course of the investigation (including from the affidavits provided by Palestinian witnesses), that the compound was known to the residents of the Gaza Strip as a compound which was used exclusively by Hamas’s Naval Police.

From AP:

Spain's lower house of parliament gave final approval Thursday to a law setting a citizenship path for descendants of Jews forced to flee the country after all Jews were told in 1492 to convert, go into exile or risk being burned at the stake.

The law allows Sephardic Jews to start applying for Spanish citizenship in October, granting them a three-year window to seek a Spanish passport complete with the right to work and live anywhere in the 28-nation European Union.

"Today begins a new stage in the history of relations between Spain and the Jewish world," the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities said in a statement. "A new period of reunion, dialogue and harmony re-integrating a branch of the nation that was unjustly torn off in its day."

Many would-be applicants thought the Spanish law in the works since 2013 would carry few requirements beyond thorough vetting of applicant ancestry by Jewish organizations. That's the case with the Portuguese law, which was proposed after Spain's but went into effect in March 1.

But Spanish lawmakers ended up drafting a citizenship process for Sephardic Jews similar to that faced by permanent residents seeking Spanish citizenship.

The hurdles are significant: Sephardic applicants must learn and be tested in basic Spanish and must also pass a current events and culture test about Spain.

And they must establish a modern-day link to Spain, which can be as simple as donating to a Spanish charity or as expensive as buying Spanish property.

Muslims are upset, saying that they too should have the same rights after their expulsion from Spain.

Moroccan media calls this rule hypocritical. A group of activists in Morocco and Spain criticized the decision, describing it as a policy of double standards. One analyst said that the Muslims who were expelled from Spain after hundreds of years of ruling Andalusia are more important than the minority of Jews who lived there. He said, "Moroccans and the world strongly condemns this distinction that does not make sense, and we demand equality in the granting of citizenship for each of his Andalusian origin. "

There is one significant difference, though. Many Muslims claim that Andalusia is still Muslim land and they want it back. As Yoram Ettinger wrote in 2012:

The collapse of Israeli-Palestinian agreements from the 1993 Oslo Accords until today stems from the fact that both Israeli and US leaders ignore the real root of the conflict. The heart of the conflict is the denial of the existence – and not the size - of any non-Muslim entity on land that, in the eyes of Muslims, is Waqf – an inalienable religious land endowment.

On Jan. 9, 2012, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, a close associate of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, stated that all of Israel has been Waqf since 637 C.E. and will be forever. The statement was made at the annual rally of Fatah, which Abbas heads. It was broadcast on the official Mahmoud Abbas television station, and called for the killing of Jews to hasten the Islamic Resurrection.

The principle of the Waqf land is permanent, and transcends leaders and policies which are provisional. It applies to any land that was ever under Islamic control. It is an inseparable part of the legacy of Muhammad and Islamic law, especially at this time of the surge by the trans-national Muslim Brotherhood, which views Allah, the Koran, the Prophet Muhammad, jihad and martyrdom as the goal, the law, the leader, the way and the exalted aspiration respectively. Their loyalty to the Waqf land obligates Muslims to "holy wars" and the restoration of sovereignty in the Philippines, Thailand, parts of China, Kashmir, Chechnya, Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.

The centrality of the Waqf land in the Muslim experience can be understood from the precedent of Andalusia, the Arabic name for most of the Iberian Peninsula, which was under Islamic rule from 711-1492 C.E. The Muslim Golden Age did not take place between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, but rather in Andalusia, especially in the Alhambra palace/fortress in Granada. At the beginning of the 8th century, the Muslims conquered the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, Sicily and the Italian coastline and declared it "the Abode of Islam." In 1492, Spain was liberated from the occupation by Muslims, who today still view "Al-Andalus" as Waqf. The March 2004 Muslim terrorist plots in Madrid, which murdered 191 people and wounded around 1,800, intended to rectify the "Injustice of Andalusia."

Sephardic jews are not planning to take over parts of Spain. But many Muslims want to do exactly that.

This may explain why Spain is in no rush to provide "equal rights' between those those whom it expelled capriciously and those who were expelled in the course of reconquering their land.