Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, January 06, 2017

2017 Hasby Award nominations (continuously updated)

It is that time of year again where I ask you for nominations for the annual Hasby Awards, the best examples of pro-Israel advocacy for the year.

Below you will find the categories of awards for this year. You can add your own nominees or you can second the ones that are listed in the comments. This is not the vote! I have pre-populated nominees from those who had been seconded last year and some others, but you are encouraged to nominate additional ones. There is no need to second nominees that have already been seconded.

No nominations or seconds from Twitter or email, they must be placed in the comments. Please include links!

Please don't second more than one in one category.

Self-nominations are allowed.

Additional category suggestions are welcome, but unlikely. It is already a crowded field.

As in previous years, no one gets awarded twice for the same category so I list the previous winners.

Some winners are decided by me and others will be based on surveys.. The awards will be given out sometime in 2017, maybe even in a real-life ceremony like last year's. (But it might have to be in the New York area this time. If you have a good venue and want to host, please let me know!)

BEST PRO-ISRAEL TWEETER (Previous winners: Avi Mayer, No Camels, Margie in Tel Aviv, Arsen Ostrovsky)

UK Media Watch

William Daroff

Hen Mazzig (seconded)

Anarcho-Zionist

Brian of London

NotAntiSemitic

Tal Ofer

Israellycool (seconded)

Omri Ceren

Eugene Kontorovich (seconded)

Judean People's Front

Andreas Fagerbakke (seconded)

Gidon Shaviv

Dumisani Washington
Yishai Fleisher
Israel Shield
Shim Rational
Petra Marquardt-B
Hillel Fuld
Father Gabriel Naddaf
Jonathan Greenberg
Frackingzionist
YMikarov
Michael Dickson

BEST YOUNG DEFENDER OF ISRAEL (under 25) (Previous winners: Muhammad Zoabi, Leora Noor Eisenberg, Alexandra Markus (Lex))

Chloe Valdary (seconded)
Hananya Naftali (seconded)
Elliott Hamilton
Rudy Rochman
Aedan O'Connor (seconded)

BEST PRO-ISRAEL COMMENTATOR EXCLUSIVE TO MIDDLE EAST/ISRAEL (Previous winners: Barry Rubin, Sarah Honig, Caroline Glick, Evelyn Gordon)

Martin Kramer (seconded)

Daniel Gordis

Khaled Abu Toameh (seconded)

Mudar Zahran

Yishai Fleisher

Fred Maroun
Noor Dahri (seconded)

Varda Meyers-Epstein (seconded)

BEST SATIRE/HUMOR (Previous winners: PreOccupied Territory, This Is Palestine)
Mideast Beast (seconded)
Daily Freier (seconded)
Dry Bones Blog (seconded)

BEST ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PRO-ISRAEL ONLINE MEDIA OUTLET (Previous winners: Times of Israel, The Tower, Mosaic)

Algemeiner (seconded)

Tablet (seconded)

JPost

Arutz7

i24News
Israel Rising (seconded)
Breitbart News (seconded)
Jerusalem Post
Israel Inside app

BEST WATCHDOG: MEDIA AND NGOs (Previous winners: Honest Reporting, CAMERA, BBC Watch, Palestinian Media Watch, MEMRI)

UK Media Watch (seconded)
Honest Reporting Canada
NGO Monitor (seconded)

UN Watch (seconded)
Center for Analyzing Media Coverage of Israel

BEST PRO-ISRAEL BLOG (PRESENT COMPANY EXCLUDED) (Previous winners: Daphne Anson, Missing Peace, Israellycool, This Ongoing War, Abu Yehuda)

Israel Matzav

Jews Down Under (seconded)

Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers

5 Minutes for Israel

IsraelSeen (seconded)

IsraelStreet

The Mike Report

Israel Thrives (seconded)

ZionTruth

Edgar Davidson

Beyond the Great Divide

Judean People's Front

Israel Shield
Judean Rose (seconded)

BEST SOCIAL MEDIA ADVOCATE FOR ISRAEL (NON-BLOG) (previous winner: Varda Meyers Epstein)

The Muqata (seconded)

Miriam Goodman
Mottle Wolfe
Ben Shapiro (seconded)

Muslims of Israel (seconded)
Alexandra Markus

BEST ARTICLE

"Instead of Apologizing” (Mosaic translation of 1911 Jabotinsky article) (seconded)
Israel Conducted No Ethnic Cleansing in 1948 (Benny Morris) (seconded)
Palestinians: Western Media's Ignorance and Bias (Khaled Abu Toameh)
Yes, Many Journalists Choose Sides in a Conflict—and Often for the Worst Reasons (Zenobia Ravji)

Where Does All That Aid for Palestinians Go? (Tzipi Hotovely) (seconded)

"Prophecy in Israel: Expression of the Collective Hebrew Soul and Unity of Creation" by: Yehuda HaKohen (seconded)

300 attackers are not 'lone'

Andrew Pessin: A new way to respond to BDS, without resorting to Bullying, Deceiving, and Smearing: Part I

Steven Horowitz: Is Jordan Legal?
Israellycool: Know your History (series)

Major Alaa Waheeb: There’s only one country in the Middle East that could produce a soldier like me (seconded)

Jonathan Sacks: ANTI-ZIONISM IS THE NEW ANTI-SEMITISM, SAYS BRITAIN'S EX-CHIEF RABBI
Strategic self-respect (Vic Rosenthal)

Ryan Bellerose, Hearts And Minds

Yoram Ettinger: U.S. Investment in - not Foreign Aid to - Israel

Ryan Bellerose, Justice

Fred Maroun, The macabre commemoration of the Nakba
Alan Sdersjowiyz: Visit to the Old and New Hells of Europe Provides a Reminder of Israel's Importance

Ryan Bellerose, The Pendulum

Ari Soffer, To defeat BDS, stop 'fighting BDS'

CHLOE VALDARY: 21st Century Zionism: The Importance of Place & Homeland i n Popular Culture
Evelyn Gordon: The Truth About Settlement Growth

Why do I love Israel? (Forest Rain)

My grandmother, the Palestinian (Forest Rain)
Dear Anti-Israel Activist (Nevet Basker) (seconded)

At the U.N., Only Israel Is an ‘Occupying Power’(EUGENE KONTOROVICH and PENNY GRUNSEID) (seconded)

BEST VIDEO

Zionism: an Indigenous Movement (Einat Wilf) (seconded)
Why Are There Still Palestinian Refugees? by Dumisani Washington (seconded)
Born to Hate Jews by Kasim Hafeez

Terror is terror is terror

Alan Dershowitz Brilliantly Strikes down Anti-Israel Question at Conference
120 Days of Terror

Why the Jews Are Indigenous to Israel Ryan Bellerose (seconded)

Where Has All The Money Gone? (seconded)
Egyptian-German Scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad: Our Hatred of Jews Has Poisoned Us

68 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Israel
NO2BDS: Almost a million people lost everything when Israel declared independence

IDF Blog: This Is Why We Defend Israel
Six Days of Miracles

“Forever” – An ode to the people of Israël

UNRWA: A Palestinian "Refugee" Speaks out
Israeli Druze diplomat answer to the Syrian representative in the UN (seconded)

BEST BOOK

150 Palestinian Tales (seconded)

BEST PRO-ISRAEL ACTIVIST ORGANIZATION (Previous winner: My Truth)

Regavim (seconded)

Northwest Friends of Israel (seconded)fshapi

Sussex Friends of Israel (seconded)

StandWithUs (seconded)

Students Supporting Israel (seconded)

Canary Mission (seconded)

Im Tirtzu (seconded)

Irish4Israel

Calgary United For Israel (seconded)
Israel's Voice

BEST SPEECH
Jeremy Gimpel, Yom Haatzmaut, Canada (seconded)
International Law Issues in the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict, Eugene Kontorovich (seconded)

BEST PRO-ISRAEL CELEBRITY (The David Draiman Award) (Previous winner: Mayim Bialik)

Roseanne Barr (seconded)
Ashton Kutcher
Jon Voight (seconded)
Jenna Jameson

BEST "OWN GOAL" (Anti-Zionists acting so stupid they disgust even disinterested parties or backfire spectacularly) (Previous winners: Max Blumenthal/David Sheen, Rototom Sunsplash Music Festival)

Israeli flag burned outside DNC
Senator Dianne Feinstein supporting abstention of UNSCR 2334 (seconded)
Barack Obama crafting UNSCR 2334 (seconded)
US collusion with PA revealed by Egypt
Bernie Sanders (seconded)

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01/06 Links Pt1: UNSC 2334: A Victory of Jihadism; Why Israel’s Critics Are Losing Ground

From Ian:

Bat Ye'or: UN Security Council Res. 2334: A Victory of Jihadism

No European nation protested against the Islamic colonization of Jewish-Palestinian areas, the expulsion of their Jewish inhabitants and the seizure of their belongings, or against the persecution of Jews in Arab countries.
An artificial Palestinian Arab "people" was created in order to replace the people of Israel. A European army of forger-historians and Arab Christian dhimmis transferred the historic characteristics of the Jews onto them. Names of towns and regions were Islamized: Jerusalem was called Al-Quds and "the West Bank" replaced Judea and Samaria.
Israelis, guilty of existing, were expected to apologize for that, humbly to maintain their enemies and suffer their terrorism without protesting or defending themselves. Their crime? They refused to mingle with and disappear into dhimmitude by giving up their rights and their history to the people created by the Euro-Arab alliance to replace them.
It is the turn of Europeans to see a replacement population be created in their countries, with all the rights that are being taken away from them. It is their turn to be forced to renounce their national, historic, cultural and religious identity, to apologize and take the blame for existing. It is their turn to be forced to monitor their borders and guard their airports, their schools, their trains, their streets and their cities with soldiers. European governments that contemplated the destruction of Israel worked together with the enemies of Israel to destroy their own people, their sovereignty, their security and their freedoms.
The recognition of the legitimacy of Israel's return to its homeland is the essential condition of Islamic peace with the world, because it will abolish the jihadist ideology.

Caroline Glick: The IDF’s new social contract

Ya’alon and Eisenkot and his generals have repeatedly offended the public with comparisons of “IDF values” with alleged processes of barbarization, Nazification and ISIS-ization of the public by the likes of Azaria and his supporters.
If there was a specific moment where the military brass abandoned its compact with society once and for all, it came on Tuesday, the day before the military court convicted Azaria of manslaughter. In a speech that day, Eisenkot insisted that IDF soldiers are not “our children.” They are grownups and they are required to obey the orders they receive.
By making this statement the day before the verdict in a case that pitted society against the General Staff, which sided with B’Tselem, Eisenkot told us that the General Staff no longer feels itself obligated by a sacred compact with the people of Israel.
Azaria is the first victim of a General Staff that has decided to cease serving as the people’s army and serve instead as B’Tselem’s army. The call now spreading through the Knesset for Azaria to receive a presidential pardon, while certainly reasonable and desirable, will likely fail to bring about his freedom. For a pardon request to reach President Reuven Rivlin’s desk, it first needs to be stamped by Eisenkot.
A pardon for Azaria would go some way toward repairing the damage the General Staff has done to its relationship with the public. But from Eisenkot’s behavior this week, it is apparent that he feels no need and has no interest in repairing that damage.
As a result, it is likely that Azaria will spend years behind bars for killing the enemy.
Moreover, if nothing forces Eisenkot and his generals to their senses, Azaria will neither be the last nor the greatest victim of their betrayal of the public’s trust. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Evelyn Gordon: The IDF’s Self-Inflicted Wound

This impression was reinforced over the ensuing months by the fact that Eisenkot, in particular, refused to stop talking about the case, while demonstrating shocking insensitivity to the way his comments would sound to most Israelis. The very day before the verdict was issued, for instance, he said, “An 18-year-old man serving in the army is not ‘everyone’s child’ … He is a fighter, a soldier, who must dedicate his life to carry out the tasks we give him.”
Obviously, the second part of that statement is true; the army can’t function if its 18-year-old draftees aren’t treated as soldiers and fighters. But to parents, their child is always “their child,” even after he turns 18 and dons a uniform. And because in Israel, most young men do army service, most parents can imagine their own son in any other soldier’s place. In that sense, Azaria is “everyone’s child,” just as kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit was “everyone’s child.” Israelis therefore overwhelmingly supported freeing 1,027 terrorists to secure his freedom. Israeli parents entrust the army with their most precious possession–their children–and in return, they expect the army to take the best possible care of them that’s consistent with carrying out its military functions.
Thus, when Eisenkot dismissively declared that a soldier isn’t “everyone’s child,” what Israeli parents heard was a refusal to acknowledge that his soldiers are indeed also their children, whose protection must be high on his priority list. And that merely reinforced the impression left by his initial hasty condemnations: In responding to the case, he had given insufficient weight to his responsibility toward his soldiers.
Based on the evidence, I see no reason to think Azaria was in fact convicted unjustly. But from the start, Eisenkot and Ya’alon created the appearance of injustice by routinely speaking out against Azaria when they should simply have kept silent and let the military justice system do its work. The result is that now, many Israelis still aren’t certain Azaria was convicted fairly, and that has translated into overwhelming support for an early pardon.
This case has sowed devastating distrust of both the army’s leadership and its justice system among a large section of the Israeli public. Yet much of that distrust could have been avoided had Ya’alon and Eisenkot simply kept their mouths shut. That neither man proved capable of doing so is a damning indictment of them, and a tragedy for Israel.

Eugene Kontorovich on The John Batchelor Show (starts about 10:30)
Risks to Israel in UNSC Resolution 2334 & What is to be done? @jschanzer, @followfdd.

Two 2017 sightings of "Rabbi Fischmann, Zionist expansionist"

The New Zealand Herald has an op-ed by someone named Malcolm Eves where he recycles anti-Israel and antisemitic tropes:

The Christians are never going to be persuaded that Israel, as I believe, behaves as a rogue state responsible for the merciless slaughter of thousands of Palestinians under the leadership of Netanyahu and the other Israeli Prime Ministers before him because they believe that the Jews are God's chosen people (meaning they can do what they like and it must be God's will), so whatever the crime, they look to excuse the appalling behaviour.
It's impossible for Palestinians to negotiate, no one "negotiates" with Netanyahu, in a normal give and take manner, it's only his way and he cares not one bit for global condemnation of his assault on Palestinians as he has the American neocon Zionist Jews politically behind him and the hoodwinked US taxpayer haplessly funding him to the tune of billions of dollars each year calculated at about $US11 million each day.

He invokes The Map That Lies and he claims that Palestinians are starving:

Anyone wanting to see the truth of the just how much Palestinian land has been stolen by the Israelis since 1946 should simply use their home PC and google "Palestine map-loss of land" to see that Palestine has virtually been wiped from the face of the earth already, land confiscated, buildings bulldozed and any Palestinian commercial activity on a daily basis continually frustrated by the Israeli military such that Palestinians starve in what was once their homeland.

And he talks about the famous Rabbi Fischmann. At least, he's famous to antisemites:

According to Rabbi Fischmann, "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon". This is being played out now with the destruction of Iraq and now Syria by the US backing the al-Qaeda rebels as they have now openly admitted.

It just so happens that another "news" outlet this week mentions this mysterious Rabbi Fischmann who never has a first name - in Pravda:

According to the founding father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, circa 1897, the area of the Jewish State should stretch: "From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates." And according to Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, in his 1947 testimony before a UN special committee, "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon."

I once looked up Rabbi Fischmann, who was a real person:

It turns out that he was Rabbi Yehuda Leib Fishman, later known as Yehuda Leib Maimon, a founder of the Mizrachi religious Zionist movement in America. He gave testimony to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and he was answering a question from an Indian representative:

Sir ABDUR RAHMAN (India) : Rabbi Fishman, I do not know the Bible, I do not pretend to know it, but I should like to get information from you, your point of view, and I hope you will enlighten me as to what you have to say in regard to a few matters which I will put to you.

Rabbi Fishman, what was "the Promised Land"?

RABBI FISHMAN: The Promised Land was quite a large one, from the river of Egypt, up to the Euphrates.

The rabbi was answering a history question, not saying what he wanted the borders of Israel to be.

In fact, Rabbi Fishman did not even think it was realistic to have a Jewish state in all of British Mandate Palestine!

Not exactly a proponent of "Greater Israel!"

If you Google "Rabbi Fischmann Euphrates" you can find some 13,000 webpages that mention this obscure episode as proof of Israel's goal to take over the Middle East.

Honest Reporting also noticed the New Zealand op-ed, and does what it normally does to idiots like Eves.

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From The College Fix:

The Modern Language Association may soon follow in the footsteps of the American Studies Association, National Women’s Studies Association and other academic groups in boycotting Israeli academic institutions.It has been flirting with an anti-Israel agenda for the past three years, and this Saturday the MLA’s Delegate Assembly could make it official by approving a formal boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) resolution, Inside Higher Ed reports.It’s not the only Israel-related resolution under consideration: There’s another opposing a boycott and a third asking the MLA to “condemn attacks on academic freedom in Palestinian universities, whether they are perpetrated by the Palestinian Authority or by Hamas.”University of Toronto Prof. Rebecca Comay calls it “a matter of urgency” for the MLA to approve the BDS resolution she has proposed:

How can we turn a deaf ear to the appeal of our Palestinian colleagues whose academic rights are being so flagrantly and systematically violated (along with so many other fundamental human rights that are being trampled on a daily basis)? This is a moment where our actions might actually make a difference.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Prof. Rachel Harris, who is circulating the opposing resolution, says the BDS resolution would actually hurt the Arabs who are educated at Israeli institutions.It’s also a huge distraction from more pressing issues for MLA members, such as “adjunctification” and attacks on tenure in Wisconsin, she told Inside Higher Ed:

[T]hese topics are not being addressed because all of the oxygen in the room is being sucked out to engage in this one topic, which does not directly affect the teaching and instruction of languages and literatures and cultures.
Her UIUC colleague Cary Nelson agrees that it’s ludicrous for the MLA to create its own “foreign policy” and thus “divide the membership,” while former MLA President Russell Berman – an anti-boycott cosponsor at Stanford – said the group would be in “breach of contract” if it approved BDS:

I believe that if we were to endorse a boycott, we would be acting specifically against the constitution of the MLA, because the universities we would be boycotting are themselves pursuing the goals of the MLA — that is, the study and teaching and research of modern languages.
Even an approved BDS resolution can be shot down by the MLA executive council if it concludes the resolution violates the “constitutional, legal and fiduciary” obligations of the group. If it sails through the council, the full MLA membership would vote on it.

I am very interested in seeing the results of the second and especially third resolutions. If the MLA cares so much about academic freedom, yet they condemn Israel and not Hamas and the PA for restricting it, that tells you something very basic about the intellectual honesty of the members.

Here's a lengthy report about how the PA and Hamas restrict academic freedom.

More details on this weekend's votes here.

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In the US House of Representatives vote yesterday against the US allowing the one-sided anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass, here is the breakdown of Republican versus Democrat votes:

Party	Yea	Nay	Percent For
Republican	233	4	98%
Democrat	109	76	59%

Considering that the Democratic President supported the UN resolution, that is a healthy majority of even Democratic members of Congress to vote for Israel.

How about J-Street supported candidates?

	Yea	Nay	Percent for
J-Street Endorsed Candidates 2016	26	59	31%

Once again, J-Street shows that it supports the extreme anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party.

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01/05 Links Pt2: For Peace in Palestine, Start from Scratch; Phillips: Narrative is where you find fiction

From Ian:

UN worker sentenced to 7 months in jail for aiding Hamas

A UN engineer, who had worked in the Gaza Strip and was indicted in August for abusing his post in order to aid Hamas, was sentenced to seven months in jail on Wednesday after reaching a plea deal with an Israeli court.
The man, Wahid Abdullah al-Bursh, is an employee of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which undertakes such projects as rehabilitating Gaza Strip homes damaged in warfare.
He has worked as a UNDP engineer since 2003 and was tasked with overseeing the demolition of homes and evacuating the waste.
According to a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) investigation, Bursh was approached shortly after the 2014 Gaza war by Husseini Suleiman, a messenger for senior Hamas commander Abu Anas al-Andor, who asked him to use his position to help the terrorist organization.
He was found guilty of providing “services to an illegal organization without intent to cause harm”, by helping build the naval commando port in the northern Gaza Strip in April and May 2015 and using his authority to transfer to the site 300 tons of construction materials to Hamas.

For Peace in Palestine, Start from Scratch

The U.S. should stop opposing Israeli settlements and start diminishing Iranian power and Arab terrorism.
President Obama’s decision to stab Israel in the back at the United Nations could prove to be a blessing in disguise. Obama’s instinct for radical overreach has achieved a reductio ad absurdum of the whole U.S. framework toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and made it far more difficult for President-elect Trump to embrace that framework without wholesale revision. And that could give us something we don’t have now: a realistic path to peace in Palestine.
Current U.S. policy toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict evolved in support of a goal — the two-state solution — set by President Bill Clinton and formally embraced by President George W. Bush. This goal has become completely disconnected from reality. That is not to say that a two-state solution is not the right ultimate goal; maybe it is. But given the circumstances of today’s Middle East, a negotiated settlement leading to a two-state solution is simply impossible. The combination of Israel’s international isolation, Palestinians’ steadfast commitment to incitement and terrorism, and Iranian ascendancy to regional hegemony and nuclear weapons means that Israel simply can’t risk the concessions that would be necessary for a final settlement of the conflict.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the territory immediately became a terrorist safe haven and a platform for missile-fired terrorism. If the same thing happens in the West Bank, which straddles Jerusalem on three sides and abuts most of Israel’s population, it will be the end of Israel. A two-state solution under current circumstances would be suicide. Peace in Palestine requires new circumstances. And the object of U.S. policy should be to create them. Hence, every element of U.S. policy, including the U.S. position on Israeli settlements, should be justifiable as part of a coherent and realistic strategy for getting from here to there.

Philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy revisits Jewish roots in new book

It’s a vague childhood memory, but the French celebrity philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy still remembers the first time he was bullied for being Jewish.
“Three idiots in a Paris play yard tell me: ‘You don’t get to have Christmas presents because you’re a dirty Jew and Jews killed Jesus.’ Maybe I cry a bit on the street later, but first I start hitting,” the 68-year-old Levy, who was born in what is today is Algeria but grew up in France, recalled in an interview earlier this month with JTA.
More than half a century later, Levy — a slender man with wavy, gray hair who is one of France’s most recognizable individuals — is still embracing his Jewish identity and confronting anti-Semites.
But since that childhood incident, Muslim extremists have taken anti-Semitism in France from schoolyard taunts to terrorism, with multiple deadly attacks on Jewish targets.
This “return of anti-Semitism,” Levy said, “perhaps” prompted him to pen one of his most Jewish books ever, “The Genius of Judaism.” The English-language translation will be released next month in the United States, and Levy will do a Q&A (with Charlie Rose) at the 92nd Street Y in New York on January 11.
In the book Levy, a non-observant Jew, traces the Jews’ “misunderstanding with the nations” to their definition as a “chosen people.”

EoZ named "2016 Fabulous 50 Blog Award Winner"

Popular conservative site Doug Ross named EoZ as one of the five winners in the "Best Middle East Blogger" category in its annual awards.

Thanks!

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

At 10 AM on Wednesday, a military court handed down the verdict in the manslaughter trial of Sgt. Elor Azaria, called by the media “the soldier who shot in Hevron.”

10 months ago, Azaria shot and killed an Arab terrorist who was lying on the pavement, several minutes after the terrorist was shot and wounded while stabbing another soldier, who was lightly injured.

The IDFs rules of engagement stipulate that deadly force should not be used in such circumstances (considered “law enforcement” rather than war) unless there is an “immediate threat to life.” Azaria said that he thought there was such a threat, that the terrorist could have been wearing an explosive vest under his jacket.

He was initially charged with murder, but the prosecution decided that it would be difficult to prove premeditation. The manslaughter charge only requires a deliberate, wrongful killing. He could be sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison; but probably he will get much less than that.

In Israeli military court there are three judges, one of whom is the head judge, a professional who is appointed by the President of the state, on recommendation of the Judicial Selection Committee, like civilian judges. The other two can be officers who may not have a legal background. In this case there were two professionals and a field commander. Cases are decided by a majority vote. There are no juries.

The verdict and the penalty turn on whether the judges believe Azaria’s testimony. They could have decided that he lied, or that he was telling the truth but should have acted differently, based on the information available to him. Or they could decide that he told the truth and that his action was justified.

The trial has been the biggest thing in the media for the past months, bigger than all the countless sexual harassment scandals put together. The country is strongly divided about the appropriate response to Azaria’s act, ranging from jail time to a medal. Before the verdict was announced, there were rowdy demonstrations in his favor outside the courtroom (which had been moved to a more secure location and closed to the public).

It’s important in this connection to note why the incident became a media circus. The shooting was videotaped by an activist for the left-wing NGO B’tselem and the tape shown over and over by the media. What would probably have been a simple matter – one way or the other – became a national affair.

I’m not going to discuss all the evidence that has been presented, such as whether he heard a paramedic at the scene call out “watch out, he has a suicide vest,” whether shooting might detonate the vest, whether the terrorist had already been checked, and more. The trial went on for 6 months, and a great deal of testimony was presented. The court’s opinion will cite the facts that the judges found important in reaching their decision.

My guess before the announcement was that he would be convicted – that the judges would decide that a reasonable soldier would not have fired, given the facts and the rules of engagement. I also thought that the sentence will be relatively light, in consideration of the pressures on the soldier.

***

At exactly 10 AM, I turned on the radio. Israel Radio’s reporters repeated the words of the head judge, Maya Heller, as she read the verdict (the court did not permit the proceedings to be broadcast, so a reporter inside transmitted her words by WhatsApp to the broadcasters outside). Because there is a requirement that an innocent defendant must be informed immediately, the fact that there was no such announcement at the beginning – the whole judgment took 2-1/2 hours to read – told the story.

Elor Azaria was found guilty of manslaughter and conduct unbecoming of an IDF soldier.

The judges did not believe him, and the judgment was unrelievedly harsh. They rejected every one of his points of defense. They did not accept his explanation that he was afraid the terrorist had an explosive vest or that he was reaching for a knife. They found contradictions between various versions of Azaria’s story, and said that he appeared to be changing his story as he went along in order to improve his case. They gave significant weight to testimony that Azaria said “he stabbed my friend, he deserves to die” to another soldier immediately before the shooting. They did not accept arguments from a psychiatric panel that he suffered from PTSD or that he was significantly impaired by lack of sleep or other factors. They accepted the autopsy data that it was Azaria’s bullet that caused the terrorist’s death (and rejected the opposing view of former chief pathologist Yehuda Hiss, who did not examine the body). They did not credit the statements of several reserve generals who testified on Azaria’s behalf. Finally, they decided that the shooting was not merely an error, but demonstrated “criminal intent.” Criminal intent!

I didn’t hear a word of excuse or understanding. The judges agreed with Chief of Staff Eisenkot and former Minister of Defense Ya’alon that the shooting was entirely unjustified. Had he been accused of murder, I believe that Azaria would have been convicted of that as well.

The punishment will be determined by the court and announced in about ten days. From what I heard from the judge, I suspect that I was mistaken in thinking that he will get a light sentence.

***

Something here is wrong.

Of course, the IDF’s judges had no alternative. An army has rules, and Azaria broke an important one. His explanation that he felt endangered didn’t hold water, no matter how much one wants to support him. He knew what he was doing: killing a terrorist. The court was right about that and the best explanation for his motive was provided by his comment that the terrorist deserved to die. But it didn’t have to come to this.

Explaining his tough stance last April, Moshe Ya’alon said “Part of the power [of the IDF], as many have described it — Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin and others — is our ethical strength. We aren’t Daesh.”

We aren’t. But we also aren’t a people who would send a soldier to prison for killing a terrorist. There is a feeling in Israel that has become sort of a slogan in this case, that our soldiers are everyone’s children. How can we abandon our children? Chief of Staff Eisenkot disagrees. Yesterday he said this:

An 18-year-old man serving in the army is not “everyone’s child.” He is a fighter, a soldier, who must dedicate his life to carry out the tasks we give him. We cannot be confused about this.

He’s both right and wrong. A young man who is a soldier does have to dedicate his life to – and sometimes lose it for – his country and his people, at least for the 32 months of his service. But he is still “everyone’s child.” Ya’alon said that part of our power comes from our “ethical strength,” but it also comes from the way we love our soldiers – and our army. There are many who would like Israel to have a professional army, but this hasn’t happened yet (and I think it would be a disaster).

Among the most troubling aspects of this case were the statements condemning Azaria’s act made by Eisenkot, Ya’alon, other officers, and even PM Netanyahu (who later changed his tune) immediately after the B’tselem video was made public. Eisenkot and Ya’alon later said that it wasn’t the video that convinced them, that they already had received evidence from the chain of command – but surely it had something to do with their making public statements of this sort (in the US, this would be grounds for appeal).

Indeed, this is where everything went off the rails. Elor Azaria should have had a hearing with his commanding officer, and maybe gotten a weekend of guard duty and an explanation of the rules. Instead, thanks to a video camera probably bought with European money, another kind of soldier, one fighting the cognitive war against Israel, threw the nation into chaos. As usual, we walked right into this.

The distinction between law enforcement and war becomes blurred when terrorists are stalking us – and especially our soldiers and police – in the streets, with every day bringing reports of stabbings and vehicular attacks, as was the case when Azaria killed his terrorist. No, Azaria’s wasn’t a split-second decision where hesitation could be fatal, as the court noted, but our soldiers and police do face such decisions on a daily basis. Could not this verdict deter them from taking action in a situation that isn’t so clear-cut?

Soldiers don’t make good policemen anyway. They are trained to kill the enemy, not to detain suspects who have rights. Enemy soldiers in a firefight don’t have rights.

And we mustn't forget that in the eyes of our enemies in today's asymmetric war, no Jew in the Land of Israel, from a baby to an 80-year old grandmother, has a right to live. Possibly if the nation had an official death penalty for terrorism, soldiers wouldn't feel the need to take the law into their own hands.

In this kind of war, is the principle that a terrorist deserves to die a bad one?

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01/05 Links Pt1: Obama’s last-minute own-goals; Ashrawi rejects Kerry's speech because he didn't give PA rights in Israel

From Ian:

Obama’s last-minute own-goals

A similar dynamic is at play with Obama’s execrable maneuver at the U.N. Security Council. The decision to clear the path for a resolution holding that the Western Wall is actually a Palestinian possession is a serious blow to our ally (and our honor) and proof that Obama’s rhetorical support of Israel was always more about political necessity than personal conviction. Even as the move will please some — though by no means all — leftists on the party circuit, it is nevertheless a political gift to the two politicians Obama (probably) detests most: Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump.
For almost eight years, Netanyahu has argued domestically that the deteriorating relationship with the United States isn’t his fault, but Obama’s. The president just settled that argument for him.
Meanwhile, the resolution helps Trump enormously. Simply by taking office while holding what once were conventionally pro-Israel positions, Trump can play the role of Israel’s defender, both domestically and abroad. It is lamentable that Israel is now a partisan issue in America, but Obama ceded the winning side of the issue to his Republican successor.
Much has been written about how Obama has left the Democratic Party and ideological allies in shambles by putting his perceived interests and ego ahead of everything else. As he leaves office, he has turned that domestic story into an international one too.

PMW: Hanan Ashrawi rejects Kerry's speech because he didn't give PA rights in Israel

Ashrawi stated that Kerry gave Israel "a great prize" because he referred to "a Jewish state" - something the Palestinians "have refused and still refuse" to accept. In addition, Ashrawi interpreted Kerry's speech as denying the Palestinian "refugees" the "right of return." The two things are interconnected. The PA knows that were significant numbers of refugees to enter Israel they would turn it into a binational state, which is why the PA refuses to accept Israel as a Jewish state.
PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi: "The six principles that [US Secretary of State John] Kerry presented are undeniable Zionist principles that serve Israeli interests. For example, he spoke about Jerusalem - a capital of two states. He didn't say that East Jerusalem is occupied, but rather that Jerusalem is a capital of two states... Secondly, he said 'a Jewish state,' giving them [Israel] a great prize. We have refused and still refuse to say that Israel is a Jewish state... Even on the issue of the refugees, he [Kerry] automatically denied them the right of return, and said that it is necessary to reach a just solution of compensation and resettling and the like. In other words, there is no right of return." [Official PA TV, State of Politics, Jan. 3, 2017]

PLO's Hanan Ashrawi rejects Israel as a Jewish state, rejects Jerusalem as Israel's capital

MEMRI: Fatah Official Sultan: Transfer of U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem Will Lead to Renewed Bloodshed

BESA: Kerry’s Attack on Israel: A Failed Attempt to Divert Attention from Obama’s Disastrous Foreign Policy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Secretary of State John Kerry’s attack on Israel last week represents a vain attempt to deflect attention from the Obama administration’s failed foreign policy. Kerry’s fixation on the Palestinian issue explains why Russia, with one-tenth the GDP of the US, has emerged as the winner in Syria against both US and Israeli interests and why Iran, its ally, has come to control two more Arab capitals by proxy. Instead of promoting core US interests, Kerry has squandered efforts on promoting a two-state solution that has failed to materialize since it was first proposed by the Peel Commission eighty years ago. Hopefully, the next administration will give core US interests their due and find creative ways to deal with the fallout of a Palestinian national movement that has failed for 100 years.
In US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent speech, in which he attempted to defend Washington’s abstention on the UNSCR resolution against Israeli settlements, he sounded more similar than ever before to the European leaders who reflexively condemn Israel. The similarity is rooted in a predicament shared by both the US under Obama and the EU – a weak and ineffectual foreign policy. Obama’s and Kerry’s “European” orientation has reduced American influence in world affairs to its lowest point since WWII and most certainly since the Vietnam War.
Just as the Europeans cover up their geostrategic weakness by ganging up on Israel, so too have Obama and Kerry zeroed in on Israel and the Palestinian issue as a means of covering up the abysmal failures of their foreign policy. Unfortunately, Israel is saddled with the costs of those foreign policy failures.

Fatah and Hamas agree: We love Yahya Ayyash, the man behind many suicide bombs

Who says Fatah and Hamas are always fighting each other?

Sometimes they find common ground. And that common ground is in supporting terror against Israel.

Hamas' website today honors the anniversary of the death of its chief bombmaker Yahya Ayyash, "The Engineer," who innovated the creation of bomb belts that were responsible for murdering hundreds. It describes lovingly how suicide bombs caused Israelis to live in fear in the years of the second intifada.

Hamas' Al Qassam website has a photo essay on Ayyash, including photos of Israelis blown up by his bombs.

Even though Ayyash was part of Hamas (he also provided the explosives for Islamic Jihad), Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group is honoring him today as well, and linking him with Yasir Arafat, saying, "Today is the anniversary of (the death of) the martyr engineer Yahya Ayyash. Revolutionaries never die. The pact of Fatah will remain the pact of the martyrs. We are marching on the path of Yasser Arafat on the way to national unity." It also shows these newspapers that visually link Ayyash with Arafat.

This is the "culture of peace" that John Kerry claims Mahmoud Abbas has created.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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The Royce-Engel resolution against UNSC Resolution 2334 is picking up steam in Congress. Here's what it says:

- Expresses grave objection to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016);
- Calls for United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to be repealed or fundamentally altered so that it is no longer one-sided and allows all final status issues toward a two-state solution to be resolved through direct bilateral negotiations between the parties;
- Rejects efforts by outside bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, to impose solutions from the outside that set back the cause of peace;
- Demands that the United States ensure that no action is taken at the Paris Conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict scheduled for January 15, 2017, that imposes an agreement or parameters on the parties;
- Notes that granting membership and statehood standing to the Palestinians at the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and other international institutions outside of the context of a bilateral peace agreement with Israel would cause severe harm to the peace process, and would likely trigger the implementation of penalties under sections 7036 and 7041(j) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016 (division K of Public Law 114–113);
- Rejects any efforts by the United Nations, United Nations agencies, United Nations member states, and other international organizations to use United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to further isolate Israel through economic or other boycotts or any other measures, and urges the United States Government to take action where needed to counter any attempts to use United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to further isolate Israel;
- Urges the current presidential administration and all future presidential administrations to uphold the practice of vetoing all United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to insert the Council into the peace process, recognize unilateral Palestinian actions including declaration of a Palestinian state, or dictate terms and a timeline for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
- Reaffirms that it is the policy of the United States to continue to seek a sustainable, just, and secure two-state solution to resolve the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians; and
- Urges the incoming Administration to work with Congress to create conditions that facilitate the resumption of direct, bilateral negotiations without preconditions between Israelis and Palestinians with the goal of achieving a sustainable agreement that is acceptable to both sides

This is not a pro-Israel resolution. It supports a two-state solution and insists that the way to achieve that is with bilateral negotiations. It is entirely consistent with longstanding US policy.

J-Street characterizes itself in the media as being strongly for a two state solution. Yet they are against Royce-Engel and they were for UNSC 2334 passing.

I received a "talking points" memo from J-Street instructing its people to fight Royce Engel. It includes this howler:

* The resolution's assertions that the UNSCR is "one-sided" and "anti-Israel" - and therefore violated relevant provisions of H.Con.Res165 - are also not supported by the fact that the UNSCR expressly condemned "all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction" and called "upon both parties to act on the basis of international law, including international humanitarian law, and their previous agreements and obligations, to observe calm and restraint, and to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric."

Even the section that they quoted that was supposedly proving that 2334 was not one-sided did not name Palestinians as the actors who are behind terrorism and incitement, while the 80% of the resolution that did attack a specific party attacked Israel. (The UN has never defined terrorism specifically because so many member states consider Palestinian attacks on civilians not to be terrorism, therefore this paragraph is meaningless in context of the UN.)

The proposed Congressional resolution supports a two state solution - and J-Street is against it.

J-Street supports UNSC 2334 - along with Hamas and the PLO - while the entire Israeli political spectrum outside the Arab parties and Meretz opposed it.

J-Street is not pro-peace and not pro-Israel. Anyone who claims that J-Street represents the mainstream of liberal Jewish thinking is knowingly lying.

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Hezbollah loves Human Rights Watch - and the feelings seem mutual

Hezbollah's Al Manar newspaper has an article on the latest anti-Israel HRW report.

Zionist soldiers and police have been incited by some of the country’s top politicians to ignore protocols when engaging with Palestinians who initiate attacks, Sari Bashi, Human Rights Watch’s ‘Israel/Palestine’ Advocacy Director, said.

In a special report of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, HRW said that “some senior Israeli officials have been encouraging Israeli soldiers and police to kill Palestinians they suspect of attacking Israelis even when they are no longer a threat.”

Hezbollah and Human Rights Watch fit perfectly together. Not only can the Lebanese terror group pretend to care about human rights by quoting HRW, but they are secure in knowing that HRW will never hold Hezbollah to the standards that they hold Israel to - or to any standards whatsoever.

While HRW writes reports on Israeli politicians' statements meant to dissuade terror, it has not once written about direct threats to Israeli lives given, explicitly, by Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Like this one last year:

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah organisation, has threatened to attack Israeli gas facilities which could result in the deaths of up to 800,000 people. The Shia militant leader said the group has the capability to strike the ammonia gas storage tanks in Haifa if the confrontation with Israel escalates.
"Israel knows Hezbollah has missiles and rockets that can strike anywhere in its territory," he said during a televised address in Beirut to mark the deaths of past leaders. "The inhabitants of Haifa are afraid of an attack... that will lead to the death of tens of thousands of inhabitants out of a population of some 800,000. What does this mean? It means that a few missiles on this ammonia site could have the result of a nuclear bomb."

Calling on police to kill terrorists in the seconds after they attack is a heinous crime according to HRW.

But calling to annihilate hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians with an attack that Hezbollah itself likens to a nuclear explosion? Not worth mentioning by the moral arbiters at Human Rights Watch.

This isn't all that HRW ignores from Hezbollah.

Hezbollah and Syrian army troops have reportedly killed civilians attempting to flee a Sunni-populated town near the Lebanese border that has been besieged by pro-regime forces since the summer.

“Three civilians, including a pregnant woman and her daughter, were martyred and four other female citizens were injured when regime forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah opened fire on them in the outskirts of Madaya,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Monday morning.

The monitoring NGO said that a total of five people have died in Madaya the past 24 hours.

“This brought the number of martyrs [killed] in the town since it was surrounded by regime forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to at least 23 as a result of IED explosions, sniper fire or poor health [coupled with] lacking sustenance and necessary medical treatment,” the SOHR added.

HRW never reported on the murder of the civilians in Madaya by Hezbollah. Nor did it mention Hezbollah killing Sunnis in Lebanon itself in 2008.

After all, Hezbollah shares Human Rights Watch's most important priority.

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01/04 Links Pt2: Why is there no State of Palestine?; Why the World's Worst Regimes Join the U.N. Human Rights Council

From Ian:

David Collier: Why is there no State of Palestine?

There is no State of Palestine because the Arabs walked away from the negotiating table in 2000. Choosing instead to start the second intifada. Over 1000 Israelis were murdered
There is no State of Palestine because when Israel withdrew from Gaza and dismantled settlements, Hamas took control and launched rocket attacks. 1000’s of rockets have been fired at Israel.
There is no State of Palestine because in 2008, when Olmert, the Israeli PM, offered one to the Palestinian President, the Palestinians rejected it.
There is no State of Palestine because the Arabs are currently split into warring factions. The same type of divisions as we see exploding elsewhere in the Middle East.
There is no State of Palestine because too many Arabs (not all) simply do not accept, still will not accept, peaceful existence with Israel.
There is no State of Palestine because too many people, are invested in the conflict. This is especially true of the thousands of NGO’s who in a perverse symbiosis report on a conflict that would probably not exist without them.
100 years after Balfour, the UN are still kicking Israel as if somehow the Jewish State holds the key to the end of the conflict. You will not solve this conflict until you are honest about the cause.

The Truth About Palestinians

We often hear claims that Palestinians are "native" or indigenous to the land of Israel, but does history back this up? It's worth taking a look:

UN Watch: Why the World's Worst Regimes Join the U.N. Human Rights Council

On Montreal's CJAD Radio, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer was asked if dictatorships should be welcomed to the U.N. Human Rights Council to engage them in dialogue in the hope of reform. Interviewed by Dan Delmar.