Back in 2005, the mother of all solutions to the the problem of Gaza was Israel's Disengagement from Gaza.
The favorable opinions at the time illustrated, in hindsight, how poorly the Disengagement and Gaza were understood, especially by even the most respected pundits.
Map of Gaza. Credit: CIA World Factbook. Source: Wikipedia
But if events continue without a major snafu, the ball will soon enough be in Mohammed Abbas' court. Gaza will be his playground and he will have Hamas and Islamic Jihad to deal with. I don't envy him.... As we used to say on our own playground, "No backsies!"
Of course, Israel lives right next door to this Gazan "playground" and they are the ones suffering from the fact that there are "No backsies". It is the Disengagement that has made the city of Sderot so famous. And synonymous with Hamas missile attacks.
Israel should announce that henceforth any rocket launched from Palestinian territory will immediately trigger a mechanically automatic response in which five Israeli rockets will be fired back. There will be no human intervention in the loop. Every Palestinian rocket landing in Israel will instantly trigger sensors and preset counter-launchers. Any Palestinian terrorist firing up a rocket will know that he is triggering six: one Palestinian and five Israeli.
Israel would decide how these five would be programmed to respond. Perhaps three aimed at the launch site and vicinity and two at a list of predetermined military and strategic assets of the Palestinian militias.
...Once Israel leaves, there is no way to dismantle the rockets. Deterrence is all there is. After but a few Israeli demonstrations of "non-massive retaliation," the Palestinians themselves will shut down their terrorist rocketeers. [emphasis added]
Aside from the fact that such a solution is untenable, in the early years of the Palestinian "democracy" many overestimated how far free elections can take a country that freely chooses to elect terrorists to lead them.
The Arabs should be very worried about this. If I am just a state, and you are just a state, then we might go to war, as states do, given any of the traditional definitions of casus belli.
Israel has fought wars against Jordan, Egypt, and Syria; but she has never fought a war against Palestine. What would an Israeli-Palestine war look like? If I were a Palestinian Arab, I think I'd hope never to find out.
With Western influence and pressure available to keep Israel perpetually in check, it is debatable just how afraid Palestinian Arab leaders actually are.
MEQ: Is your opposition to the Gaza disengagement plan a matter of principle, or are you concerned over its practical implementation?
Sharansky: Questions of principle and practical matters are always connected for me. I was against the disengagement plan not because I believed we should stay in Gaza but because one-sided concessions could transform Gaza into a beachhead for a terrorist state. If a Palestinian democracy developed, then a Palestinian state would not be dangerous. As I said many years ago, it is very important that the depth of our concessions match the depth of democracy on the other side. If disengagement were linked to democratic reforms, I would be all for this plan. But I object to any plan that leaves territory for terror. [emphasis added]
Natan Sharansky. Credit: Nathan Roi - The Jewish Agency for Israel, Source: Wikipedia
...the Gaza withdrawal was a success. On the Israeli side, it was accomplished with remarkable speed and without any of the great social upheaval and civil strife that had been predicted. As for the Palestinians, without any fanfare whatsoever, their first-ever state has just been born. They have political independence for 1.3 million of their people, sovereignty over all of Gaza and, for the first time, a border to the outside world (the Rafah crossing to Egypt) that they control.
...As a result, Israel's regional isolation is easing, as Islamic countries from Pakistan to Qatar to Morocco openly extend or intensify relations, while anti-Israel rejectionists such as Syria and Hezbollah are isolated and even condemned by name in the U.N. Security Council.
How did this come about? Israeli unilateralism and Palestinian maturation.
Then Krauthammer himself punctures the balloon and admits it's all about Israel's military prowess, and not about Israeli concessions nor Palestinian maturity:
It's not that many Gazans would not like to continue the romance of revolutionary terrorism and jihad. But they no longer have the means. The separation fence makes it almost impossible to launch attacks into Israel. And rockets launched into Israeli towns are met by retaliatory Israeli artillery barrages that make the rocketeers rather unpopular at home. A similar equilibrium will be achieved on the West Bank when the fence is completed next year.
All this goes to show that hindsight really is 20-20. And that's a good thing -- considering that the accuracy of pundit predictions is not even close to 50-50.
For example, even now the people who are supposed to have a grasp of the situation are still coming up empty.
Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, said on Wednesday that the Palestinian Authority needs "to resume its role in the administration of Gaza," in light of the damage that Hamas has caused to the Gaza Strip. Greenblatt made this statement during a tour of the Israel-Gaza border area together with IDF Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
Odd that there is no mention of Abbas by Greenblatt in that article.
Also, the article notes that Obama tried the same thing, pushing for a UN Security Council resolution to reinstate the PA in Gaza following the 2014 Gaza war. But nothing came of it -- because both the Israelis and the Palestinian Arabs objected.
Is it any wonder the mainstream media in the West ignored this story.
Abbas even said that the Qassam rockets being fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel are "Israel's problem" and that he does not intend to interfere. "Let the Israelis deal with it," he said.
And Trump's envoy advocates a return to PA control of Gaza?
The best analysis I ever heard of the situation in the Middle East was the one given by George Will. Years ago, in addressing the problem of the Arab-Israeli conflict he said it was not a problem, it was a mess. The difference between a problem and a mess, he said, is that a problem has a solution.
When Trump suggested that he was willing to let the two sides work things out and he would support it, regardless if it was a two-state solution or something else -- that was a different, and necessary, approach.
Trump's about-face is not good for either the parties involved nor for the US.
During the heady days of the Disengagement in 2005, one could understand the idyllic optimism that had politicians as well as the pundits seeing peace over the horizon.
Today, the Trump administration has no excuse.
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Old habits die hard, and the Arab penchant to call anyone you oppose a "Zionist" is one that will be around for a while.
A writer named Dr. Adel Al-Shuja, who seems relatively prominent, wrote an essay, picked up by several Arabic news sites, where he claims that Houthis in Yemen are actually Zionists, following the orders of their Iranian Zionist masters.
"The leaders who lead the Houthi group are aware that they are working for Zionism while the vast majority of this group does not realize this," Al-Shuja says. That's how the Houthi logo can say "Death to Israel, Damn the Jews" while it is really Zionist.
Yousee, Israel's ties with Iran remained strong even after the Shah was toppled. The Ayatollah Khomeini may have hated everything about the Shah but apparently he shared his love for Israel. But he kept that part of his philosophy quiet.
But what does Israel want to take over Yemen for?
Glad you asked. You see, "Yemen is the light of civilization that sheds light on human civilizations." This "disturbs neighboring countries that have no civilization or history. " Those Jews, jealous of the rich emeni culture, want to steal it.
The second reason is because Mount Dod in Saada is really the "Mountain of David" supposedly mentioned in the Torah. So it is very important to Jews.
The Jews who used to live in Yemen before 1948 lived in the Beit Baws section of Sana'a, and now that section of town (after 69 years of being a slum) has become a hot real estate market. Those Jews again.
Of course, the fact that the Houthis are destroying beautiful Yemeni cities like Sana'a is really all the proof you need to know that they are "Zionist."
Finally, we have this proof:
I will show you, for example, the similarity between Zionism in Palestine and Houthi Zionism in Yemen. Zionism in Palestine bought Palestinian lands and properties to expel them from their land. This is just like the Houthi Zionists, who buy houses and land in Sa'ada, Amran, Sana'a, Hajjah and Hodeidah in preparation for the expulsion of the Yemenis.
Al-Shuja warns his readers: "We are in a critical stage. Either we eliminate this Zionist seed, while it is still in its infancy, or we become what the Palestinians have become."
At least Dr. Al Shuja admits that the Jews bought the land!
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From Steven Salaita, the professor who keeps losing his teaching positions, at The New Arab, referring to a NYT column by Bari Weiss where she says that cultural appropriation is a good thing:
Weiss knows, or should know, that the controversy about Israel's appropriation of Palestinian food - most infamously its claim to hummus, a lucrative product in Europe and North America - has nothing to do with Jews eating Arabic food. In fact, it has nothing to do with Jews at all. That ludicrous idea is possible only because Zionists aggressively conflate Jewishness with Israel.
Instead, it has everything to do with a deliberate, decades-old programme to disappear Palestinians. Referencing Arab defensiveness about traditional dishes without mentioning colonisation or ethnic cleansing is a whitewash.
Weiss provides a textbook example of liberal Zionist disdain presenting as multicultural devotion. Palestinians are well familiar with that hustle.
When Zionists (or their oblivious collaborators) claim Arabic food as Israeli, it's not a paragon of intercultural harmony but the studious destruction of Palestinian culture. We can mitigate ambiguity by avoiding the word "appropriation," which doesn't adequately capture the dynamics of Israel's voracious appetite for anything that can be marked "Indigenous," which it needs to shore up an ever-tenuous sense of legitimacy.
"Theft" is more accurate. It is also rhetorically superior. Discourses of modernity exalt cultural interchange, but no good liberal supports piracy.
We should remember that while chefs, shopkeepers, and propagandists validate the theft, the main culprit is the Israeli government, which brands falafel the "national snack" and advertises a plethora of Levantine dishes as authentically Israeli in tacky Brand Israel campaigns.
State involvement in the pilfer of Palestinian food illustrates that we shouldn't reduce the issue to individual consumption. It's a systematic effort to validate settler colonisation.
It's no shock, then, that Palestinians and their neighbours get salty whenever hearing the phrase "Israeli hummus." Using Arabic food as a symbol of Zionist identity hands over the day-to-day victuals of the native to the coloniser. It's a project of erasure, a portent of nonexistence, a promise of genocide.
...
Such is to be expected of an ideology defined by a rapacious appetite for other people's possessions. "Israeli" couscous, hummus, falafel, shawarma, fattoush, mjuddera, and knafeh, like the state forever aggregating glory from deception, is merely a rawboned fantasy nourished by a gluttonous diet of empty calories.
Calm down, Steven. Count to ten and breathe.
You are an idiot.
Israelis aren't trying to erase Palestinian history - because there is no history to erase. Hummus and falafel are no more "Palestinian" than they are Israeli.
And, yes, no Israeli who matters claims that these are originally Israeli foods! Salaita builds his entire bizarre rant on the idea that Israelis are claiming that these Levantine foods are less than 70 years old, and no one says that.
Saying that falafel is Israel's national dish does not imply that Israelis claim to have invented it (although the falafel sandwich in pita with salad actually was invented in Israel by Yemenite immigrants.) It doesn't mean that Israelis want to steal Arab cuisine. It only means that Israelis like falafel a great deal. It really isn't that difficult to understand.
In this essay, Salaita shows how poor an academic he is. Salaita thinks of Israelis as thieves first, as his last paragraph shows, and then he writes this entire crazed article so he can twist the facts into that slander.
Moreover, saying that the phrase "Israeli hummus" is a "promise to genocide" should be, in a sane world, a guarantee that no university will ever hire Salaita - on the grounds of sheer stupidity.
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So who’s more dangerous for the Jews right now, the far-left or the far-right?
After the violence at Charlottesville over the neo-Nazi rally, widespread fury was directed at President Donald Trump who was thought to have said the two were equivalent (which in fact he didn’t do).
I certainly don’t believe they are equivalent. The left is currently much more dangerous, not only to Jews but to the west in general.
You may need to lie down after reading that. For the prevalent Jewish view is that only far-right whites pose a serious danger.
Since all neo-Nazis and white supremacists are potentially lethal Jew-haters, many Jews think that all potentially lethal Jew-haters are neo-Nazis or white supremacists.
This is ludicrous, just as it is equally absurd to think Nazi slogans or symbols are only deployed by far-right whites. Last weekend, a man who threw a glass bottle at Jewish girls in Stamford Hill while shouting “Hitler is a good man; good he killed the Jews” was described by the police as a “light-skinned black male”.
More to the point, left-wing antisemitism is running at epidemic level. The Labour Party is convulsed by it.
Demonisation of Israel based on serial lies, double standards and a near-supernatural attribution of cosmic malevolence is the default position on the left. For David Duke has heaped praise on Jeremy Corbyn for battling the “Zionists”. According to the Elder of Zyon [Ziyon] blog, the neo-Nazi Stormfront website has quoted the obsessively Israel-hating Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada sites more than 100 times each; it has quoted Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada more than 35 times, and Mondoweiss writer Max Blumenthal more than 80 times.
Both Blumenthal and Abunimah have written for the Guardian. Both demonise Israel in language almost indistinguishable from the rantings against Israel by David Duke.
By the left’s own lights, that makes Corbyn and the Guardian complicit with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Unlike the left’s tactic of character assassination, however, this is not a wildly unfair smear by association. (h/t dabney)
A London Orthodox synagogue hosted an “extremist” Muslim cleric who has previously called for jihad against Jews in Palestine.
Concern was raised after news that Catford and Bromley United Synagogue – an affiliate member of the United Synagogue – hosted influential imam Shakeel Begg, together with Christian religious leaders, at an event in mid-July.
Begg is head of Lewisham Islamic Centre and regularly preaches to thousands of members, but in 2013 he sought to sue the BBC for defamation, in a High Court case concluding in October last year, after ‘Sunday Politics’ presenter Andrew Neill labelled him “an extremist preacher… with extremist positions”.
Begg denied this but was unsuccessful at trial, the judge instead finding that he “promoted and encouraged religious violence,” after considering a selection of Begg’s speeches from 2006-11.
The court noted Begg’s fondness for quoting Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1993 until his death in 1999, who was a primary driver of the fundamentalist Salafi-Wahabi Islam.
The judge said Begg quoted bin Baz “without equivocation” in saying that “solidarity amongst Muslims means making jihad against the Jews and fighting the Jews in an Islamic Jihad until the Territory [Palestine] goes back to its proper people”.
As each page of the Thomas Suarez book, State of Terror, is turned, another horrific statement against Zionists appears. The book was called a ‘tour de force‘ by Ilan Pappé. Jenny Tonge referred to its central ‘truth‘. Publishers Weekly suggested it is ‘an impressive display of historical excavation’.
So we (David Collier and Jonathan Hoffman), went digging to see if the Thomas Suarez story ‘held up’ – to see if he had used his sources properly when he wrote his book. This meant dozens of visits to the National Archives at Kew, and other days spent diligently reading books by anti-Zionists such as Ilan Pappé, Hanna Braun and Yosef Grodzinsky. There is no getting away from it. ‘State of Terror‘ isn’t just a vile book, it isn’t just antisemitic, it is a pyramid of errors. Far too many for this to ever have been accidental.
As Thomas Suarez opens his introduction he uses a quote from 1946. He forgets to tell his readers that he cannot confirm it was ever said. This is the way the book begins. The first archive file he lists says something very different to the way he describes events in 1938. This is the way the book ends. Between these two are a couple of hundred pages full of unsupportable libels. We know they are unsupportable because we checked some of the source material behind the claims. Today we publish our report.
Most of the errors inside the book stem from sloppy research. The result of a rabid little man, motivated by hatred, grabbing at archive files in a desperate attempt to find something, anything, that sounds like it is attacking Zionists. Suarez is no historian and does not possess the frame of mind to provide context to anything he writes. For a wannabee historian, this is a fatal weakness.
On Friday I noted that Linda Sarsour claimed to be a "woman of color" in this tweet where she tried to deflect criticism about her attempts to divert Hurricane Harvey aid funds for her pet political projects:
I made fun of her at the time, asking her if her wishing that she wanted to remove Ayyan Hirsi Ali's vagina if she was "smearing a woman of color."
Just curious, @lsarsour - when you said you wanted to remove @Ayaan Hirsi Ali's vagina, were you smearing a woman of color?
Today I made a poster making fun of Sarsour's pretending to be a "person of color" while Jews of any color are always considered "white."
What I didn't realize is that the photo I used in this poster came from a video about hijab published by Vox earlier this year, where Sarsour was featured. And in this video she says, explicitly, that before she put on her hijab she was just "some ordinary white girl from New York City."
Before putting on her hijab, Linda Sarsour admits she was white. Now she claims to be a "person of color." Neat trick! @lsarsourpic.twitter.com/4km7rs0sjj
By the way, you are not allowed to criticize my blog anymore. I wear a yarmulka, which make me a "Jew of color" and therefore immune to criticism. At least by the logic of some people.
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The temple my family belongs to has a number of kid-friendly events, many of which involve musical celebrations featuring young singers. And one song that frequently rings out is called “Not by Might and Not by Power,” which the late Debbie Friedman (who helped transform the music of the Reform and Progressive Jewish movements) composed based on words from the Book of Zechariah.
The number brings back positive memories of when my own kids were younger and joining in the chorus, which goes “Not by might and not by power, But by spirit alone shall we all live in peace.” But every time that song was sung, it also reminded me of what an unfair fight we face when battling against those at war with the Jewish state.
Some friends and allies would likely dismiss the sentiments of “Not by Might” as one more example of “kumbaya thinking,” the tendency of many Jews to try to find common ground and avoid conflict at all costs, even when faced with situations when conflict is unavoidable or a foe is teaching their children to fight until victory over those hoping to prevail by spirit, rather than might.
Like so many situations in the real world, the duality of compromisers vs. militants misses some critical points, starting with the experience of Jewish history. Once again, I am in the debt of Professor Ruth Wisse who summarizes and reflects on the challenging relationship between Jews and Power in her masterful short book of the same name.
Jews, after all, were once citizens and rulers of a political entity, the original Jewish state, and (like all small powers in antiquity) had to contend with the continual encroachment of numerous imperial neighbors such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans. The lessons of most of these conflicts were mixed, with the fall of the first Hebrew kingdoms to Babylon by a failure of Jewish arms, followed by a restoration of that nation due to the act of generosity by a Persian king (who many thought acted as an agent of God).
The Greek conquerors both captured the land and tried to force Hellenized culture onto the monotheistic Jews, only to repelled (again, by arms) by the Brothers Maccabee. But it was the experience with Rome which provided a unique historical lesson to the Jews, setting up a struggle between compromise and force that informs us millennia later.
For in various revolts against Rome in the First and Second centuries AD, the Jews faced off against the superpower of the day, a foe whose legions had made Rome the undisputed ruler of the Western world. And despite the hopelessness of their cause, the Jews fought on and rekindled their revolt again and again, each time deciding that the imbalance of power would be rectified by having on their side the one true God.
The failure of this quasi-religious, but ultimately political conflict was total, with the Jews first defeated, then defeated again and disbursed throughout the empire, their political homeland erased from the map (until the last century).
Now some Jews still take heart in the courage and steadfastness of their ancestors in the face of odds that should have informed them that defeat was certain. But many more internalized another more significant lesson that might (in the form of armed Jewish revolt) led to near destruction, while spirit (in the form of Judaism recast in the new Diaspora in religious rather than political terms) kept the Jewish nation alive for centuries after Rome was just a memory.
Given this background, who can blame Jews for their peculiar relationship with any sort of power (political, military or especially state)? If recent history demonstrates that spirit alone will not save Jews from the ovens or give birth to a state, older history shows that might and power do not provide all of the answers and, indeed, might create the very problems (such as lack of Jewish independence) they tried to solve.
This debate between might and spirit has been going on so long with sides so hardened that little light is shed when proponents of each side argue their positions, which today use the terms (or, more often, accusatory labels) of “Left” and “Right” as the foundation for sterile debate.
Lost in all of this history, however, is an example worth thinking about: that of Rome.
While it might seem odd to look at our historic enemy and destroyer for lessons, keep in mind that Rome was not an empire like the Mongols who simply pillaged and enslaved, enjoying war for its own sake and caring little for anything but spoils. Rather, Rome’s success (especially its military successes during the Republican era) came from the careful deliberation it took before entering a conflict (bordering on hesitancy) coupled with a resolution to never back down once conflict began.
Today, Jewish might - while nowhere near as huge as in our enemy’s imaginations - is not inconsiderable. Yet part of that might derives from the hesitancy with which it is applied.
As needs to be pointed out again and again, the people who sing “Not by Might and Not by Power” have created for themselves a wondrous homeland - precarious certainly, but a state with which those who built it (and those of us who look on from the sidelines) can be justly proud.
In contrast, those teaching their children and grandchildren the virtue of fighting to the end live in societies where totalitarians compete with religious fanatics, each promising triumph but delivering only sterility and death.
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At the core of the leftist onslaught against Israel lies the belief that it is a “settler”, colonialist enterprise through which the Jews, with no historical claim to the land, turfed out the indigenous Palestinians whose home it had been since antiquity. In fact, the precise opposite is true: the “Palestinians” are the true settlers and colonialists while the Jews are the only extant indigenous people and the only people for whom the land of Israel was ever their national kingdom.
I wrote here recently about a JCPA paper, Who Are the Palestinians, in which Pinchas Inbari ridiculed the absurd claim made by some of them that they are the descendants of the Canaanites, whom Joshua conquered in the Bible when the Jews entered the land that became Israel.
Now a paper by Alex Joffe for the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies expands upon Inbari’s review to provide a magisterial demolition of this ludicrous attempt to write the Jews out of their own history. “The idea of Jews as “settler-colonialists” , Joffe writes, “is easily disproved. “A wealth of evidence demonstrates that Jews are the indigenous population of the Southern Levant; historical and now genetic documentation places Jews there over 2,000 years ago, and there is indisputable evidence of continual residence of Jews in the region. Data showing the cultural and genetic continuity of local and global Jewish communities is equally ample. The evidence was so copious and so incontrovertible, even to historians of antiquity and writers of religious texts, some of whom were Judeophobes, that disconnecting Jews from the Southern Levant was simply not conceived of. Jews are the indigenous population.
“… Inbari’s review, along with many additional sources of information he did not address, demonstrates that modern Palestinians are, in fact, derived from two primary streams: converts from indigenous pre-modern Jews and Christians who submitted to Islam, and Arab tribes originating across the Middle East who migrated to the Southern Levant between late antiquity and the 1940s. The best documented episodes were the Islamic conquests of the 7th century and its aftermath, and the periods of the late Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Monday called on the body's Security Council to impose the strongest possible sanctions against North Korea, in response to the rogue nation’s most recent nuclear test, saying “the time for half measures … is over.”
Haley spoke at U.N. headquarters in New York, after North Korea claimed to have conducted an underground test overnight Saturday on a hydrogen bomb.
It was the country’s sixth such test, following five previous ones on a nuclear weapon and recent launches of inter-continental missiles to land such warheads on foreign soil. “We cannot kick this can down the road any longer,” Haley said at the special U.N. meeting convened on the matter. "The time for half measures by the Security Council is over.”
Her statements follow President Trump on Sunday condemning the test in the strongest terms.
Unless something changes, Israel is sprinting headlong into another violent confrontation along its northern border, this time against either Iranian troops or Iranian backed fighters with missiles made to order from Tehran.
The disappearance of the Islamic State from wide swaths of Syria, together with the superpowers’ lack of interest (or desire) in removing Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, are paving the way for an Iranian takeover of the territories until recently held by the jihadist group.
At the same time, massive numbers of Hezbollah troops loyal to Iran have entrenched themselves in southern Lebanon, whether in visible lookout points or “environmental protection” posts, according to Israeli military officials. Israel won’t abide by this. The presence of Shi’ite forces on the border, be they Hezbollah or other Iran-backed militias, together with Iran’s efforts to bring in game-changing weapons, signal that the era of calm that Israel has enjoyed since the summer of 2006 is coming to an end.
On Saturday, Iran’s new defense minister said the country was prioritizing boosting the country’s missile program and export weapons to shore up neighboring allies.
There is nothing new under the sun. I kept trying to pare it down but practically every paragraph has relevance today. The roots of today's leftist antisemitism clearly come from the late 1960s, although they follow earlier leftist antisemitism from Marx himself.
TWENTY‐FIVE years after the end of World War II and the collapse of the most anti Semitic regime in history, anti‐Semitism appears to be on the rise around the world. But unlike the situation before 1945, when anti‐Jewish politics was largely identified with rightist elements, the current wave is linked to governments, parties, and groups which are conventionally described as leftist. Various New Left activists in different countries, American black militant groups, Arab “socialist” spokesmen, and East European Communist governments have moved on from anti‐Zionist to anti‐Jewish and fully anti‐Semitic statements and acts. And though the extreme right remains relatively weak in Western countries, its news‐ papers have become much more open about referring to “Jewish conspiracies.”
...
THE most important expression of anti‐Jewish sentiments in the West takes the form of attacks on “Zionists” and the state of Israel by every section of the left, except the Democratic Socialists. As the war in Vietnarn peters out, the various in carnations of the extreme left new and old, anarchists, Maoists, Trotskyists, Black Panthers and Communists — have reoriented their international emotional priorities to identify the heroes as the Arab terrorists and freedom fighters, and the villains as Israel and its American ally. In Germany, New Left students, in a sickening replay of the behavior of their Nazi predecessors of 1928‐33 (university students were the first stratum in Germany to back the Nazis, giving them majorities in student council elections as early as 1931), chant as they parade: “Mach die Nahe Osten rot; schlag die Zionis ten tot” (“Make the Near East Red; smash the Zionists dead”). Dieter Kunzelmann, who played a major role in the demonstrations at the Free University of Berlin during the late nineteen‐sixties, and who is now in the Middle East with the fedayeen, being instructed, according to his published letters, “in the use of explosives ... [and] the manufacture of time bombs,”; has written from Amman that the German left must break down the pro‐Semitism that emerged out of German guilt at the Holocaust, that Germany must get over “der Judenknax” (the “thing” about the Jews) (Encounter, Nov., 1970).
French New Left spokesmen have openly defended the need to speak in anti‐Semitie terms when supporting the Arab cause. Jean Bauberot, former leader of the French Student Christian Association and currently editor of Herytem, a New Left journal, wrote in the May‐July, 1969, issue that to “demonstrate the intricacies of the Palestine problem” leftists must “use expressions which, taken by themselves, appear to resemble certain lines from ‘Mein Kampf.'” The French New Left also has expressed its pro‐Arab feeling by violent action. Members of the Mouvement Contre le Racisme Anti Arabe, formed by people active in the revolutionary movement of May, 1968, were responsible for attacks in October, 1968, on the Rothschild Bank in Paris.
The open expression of anti Zionist and anti‐Jewish feelings by important segments of the French left has resulted in the revival in some quarters of a traditional Catholic religious‐based anti‐Judaism. An article last fall in L'Arche, the monthly Journal of the French Jewish community, reports on the attacks on Judaism and Israel which have diffused from the student New Left to various Catholic groups. They deny the historic claims of the Jews to Israel on the theological grounds that the church, rather than contemporary Jewry, is the true heir of ancient Israel. They claim that, for a Christian, the only solution of the Jewish problem is “the final conversion of this people to Christ resurrected,” It is striking that these ancient concepts have reappeared not among conservative Catholics, but among the progressives who cooperate closely with the New Left, while the French bishops have criticized these beliefs as counter to Catholic doctrine as defined by Vatican II.
THE American New Left largely shares the pro‐Arab terrorist views expressed by the movement in Europe. In general, however, the white American left has been more inhibited than the European in expressing anti ‐ Semitic statements, probably because so much of its audience and mass base is Jewish. Nevertheless, some of its spokesmen have called for terrorism against American supporters of Israel. Eric Mann, a leader of the Weathermen, writing in The Guardian of Oct. 17, 1970, stated: “Israeli embassies, tourist offices, airlines and Zionist fund‐raising and social affairs are important targets for whatever action is decided to be appropriate.” A student of Weathermen activities, Ross Baker, professor of political science at Rutgers, has seriously raised the question as to whether the recent series of bombings in Rochester, N. Y., of assorted governmental and Establishment targets—which include two synagogues — “might be the assertion that Weathermen's embrace of the Palestinian Liberation Movement has been translated into depredations against Jewish religious institutions in America.” There is, of course, no evidence as to which group was responsible for the bombing in Rochester, but the pattern followed does strongly suggest that it was a leftist or black militant one.
Overt expressions of anti Semitism have occasionally appeared in American New Left organs. Thus, in an article, “Jews Riot in the Ghetto,” in The East Village Other of Oct. 18, 1968, Philip Anthony fantasized in a crudely anti Semitic fashion concerning the consequences of the possible assassination of Albert Shanker, president of the New York teachers’ union. The article included crude parodies of Yiddish expressions and accents. ...
The same objective has been pursued by linking Zion ism and Israelis to complicity with the Nazis in the murder of European Jews. An article by Tabitha Petran in the Nov. 21, 1969, issue of Fire (the publication of the Revolutionary Youth Movement faction of S.D.S.) claimed that after Hitler came to power “Zionist leaders offered the Nazi Government their cooperation in finding a solution to the Jewish question.” She went on to argue that collaboration with “organized Jewry ... remained ‘the very cornerstone’ of [the Nazis’] Jewish policy.” Supposedly, “hundreds of Zionist leaders were permitted to escape to Palestine” during World War II because they collaborated with the Nazis by withholding “from the masses in Eastern Europe the fact that they were marked for shipment to death camps.”
STUDENT and intellectual radicals, whether Jews or not, have historically had a penchant for self‐hatred in the form of approval for anti intellectual populism, and have defined wisdom as coming from the instincts of the masses, of the uneducated, of the poor. Currently, such masochistic populism in the United States takes the form of identifying with the values, statements and tactics of black militant groups. Many of these have increasingly engaged in anti‐Semitic propaganda, often only partially disguised as anti‐Zionism.
The most overt expressions of anti‐Semitism have come generally from the most militant of the black organizations, the one with closest ties to sections of the white New and Old Lefts, the self‐described Marxist‐Leninist Black Panther party. The party goes out of its way to Identify as Jews those in the Establishment who oppose it and who happen to be Jews. Thus, in the Dec. 21, 1968, issue of The Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver attacked Judge Monroe Friedman, who presided over the Oakland, Calif., trial of Huey Newton in the following terms: “If the Jews like Judge Friedman are going to be allowed to function, and come to their synagogues to pray on Saturdays, or do whatever they do down there, then we'll make a coalition with the Arabs, against the Jews....”
The Panthers nave even argued that Judge Julius J. Hoffman gave the Jewish defendants in the Chicago conspiracy trial better treatment than he gave Bobby Seale. Connie Matthews, international coordinator of the party, wrote in The Black Panther of April 25, 1970, that there was an alliance between the Jewish judge and the Jewish defendants:
“It was a Zionist judge, Judge Hoffman, who allowed the other Zionists to go free but has kept Bobby Seale in jail and sentenced him to four years for contempt charges. Bobby Seale alone stands trial again in April on conspiracy charges. With whom did he conspire? The Zionists?
“The other Zionists in the ... trial [i.e., Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin] were willing and did sacrifice Bobby Seale and his role in the conspiracy trial to gain publicity.”
Now clearly Rubin and Hoffman are in no way “Zionists.” This is simply a code word for Jew, just as it has become in Eastern Europe.
Though opposed to all capitalists, the Panthers single out Jewish businessmen for attack. Thus, a statement in the May 19, 1970, issue of the party newspaper declares that they are against “Zionist exploitation here In Babylon, manifested in the robber barons that exploit in the garment industry and the bandit merchants and greedy slum lords that operate in our communities.” In describing a tenants’ action in Atlantic City against a landlord, an article in the June 13, 1970, Black Panther praises the ten ants for “gathering together to form a United Front against Zionist Pig Sobel. . . .” The article concludes with the exhortation: “ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE — DEATH TO THE ZIONIST PIGS.” And as if to prove that the reference to Sobel was not fortuitous, the paper a week later carried a story on “Substandard Housing in America” which referred to buildings “owned by a Zionist by the name of Rosenbaum."
To make Jews (or “Zionists”) as a group responsible for the actions of single individuals is anti‐Semitism in its purest form. Ironically, it would appear that the very fact of disproportionate participation of Jews in leftist causes is a major cause of subsequent anti‐Semitism. In the United States, the integrationist movement was largely an alliance between Negroes and Jews (who, to a considerable extent, actually dominated it). Many of the interracial civil rights organizations have been led and financed by whites, and the majority of their white members and big financial contributors have been Jews. Insofar as a black effort emerged to break loose from involvement with whites, from domination of the civil rights struggle by white liberals and radicals, this meant concretely a break with Jews.
THE white left, both new and old, while increasingly anti‐Israeli, and occasionally anti‐Semitic, does not engage in the kind of virulent anti Semitism which may be found among the black militant left and the white extreme right. But it is important to reiterate that the white left does not challenge black anti‐Semitism. This is not because it fears to criticize the black militants. ....Yet in all of this criticism, anti‐Semitism is never mentioned. The white left acts as if it were of no consequence, or as if no one on the left were capable of it.
The same double standard with respect to anti‐Semitism is seen in the response of much of the American leftist press to the propaganda themes of the Arabs. On one hand, it accepts the self description of a number of Arab states and movements as socialist, though little is nationalized or socialized in these countries, and though the inequality of income and land ownership is greater in all the Arab nations than in Israel. More significant, however, is the fact that the American left‐wing press also ignores the fact that the Arab militants, as well as a number of Arab governments, have been ready to use whatever sources of anti‐Semitic, anti American, anti‐capitalist or anti‐Israeli feelings exist to foster their cause.
The Arabs, of course, like other critics of the Jews on the far left and right, insist that they are only anti‐Zionist. Yet there is clear evidence that anti‐Semitism — not simply anti‐Zionism — has deeply penetrated Arab groups and governments. Many official Egyptian books and pamphlets dealing with the Palestine problem, for example, have reprinted or cited as factual the hoary mythological “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” a document put out in the late 19th century by the Czarist police, which purports to contain the details of an inter national Jewish conspiracy to control the world.
...
At least one prominent French New Left spokesman, Jean Bauberot, has acknowl edged and sought to justify the repeated anti‐Semitic state ments in Arab propaganda, “To be against all forms of racism is as stupid as being against all forms of violence,” he wrote. “We must begin by saying that the Palestinians have the right at present to appear anti‐Semitic to us. . . . The [Middle East] situation is a racist one, and if we refuse the Palestinians the right to name their oppressors, this amounts to a right to disband them culturally” (Harytem, May‐July, 1969).
Not surprisingly, Arab spokesmen have been willing to work with extremist groups on the right as well as the left. And the far right has reciprocated in many countries. When the Belgian Jean Robert Debbaudt, a veteran of the German SS Walloon Legion, announced the re‐formation of the fascist Rexist movement founded by the Belgian Quisling, Leon Degrelle, he concluded his announcement with the words: “Vive Leon Degrelle! Vive Al Fatah! Rex vaincra!” The West European neo‐Fascist magazine, La Nation Europeenne, which stands for a unified anti‐Communist Fascist Europe, has only two foreign representatives, one in Algiers, and the other in Cairo. It has carried many advertisements from Arab sources, e.g., publicizing fairs in Algiers and Iraq, or French language anti‐Zionist books?
The ultrarightist, racist American National States Rights party, for example, has repeatedly expressed pro Arab, pro‐guerrilla sentiments in its newspaper, such as: “The time has come for us White Christian Americans to come to the aid of our good anti‐Communist Arab friends and demand that the Government stop aiding the Jews” (The Thunderbolt, Dec., 1969). ... Arab materials increasingly appear in left‐wing, right‐wing and black‐nationalist papers which share an antipathy to Israel and Jewry.
...
THE fact that this time the predominant weight of the anti‐Semitic thrust is on the left rather than the right will surprise only those who are unaware of the considerable literature on anti‐Semitism it the socialist and other leftist movements. The identification of the Jews with international finance, with capitalism, with the status of businessman, with Shylock has long replaced the image of the Jew as Antichrist for many on the left and right. Karl Marx himself accepted the stereotype which linked Jews with capitalism. Thus, in his essay on “The Jewish Question,” he wrote: “What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Bargaining. What is his worldly God? Money. . . .”
Some leftists have been willing to accept or tolerate anti‐Semitism since the mid 19th century as some sort of groping toward a progressive anticapitalist position by masses in contact with Jewish businessmen. ...[F]avorable reactions to popular anti Semitism among German and Austrian Socialists led August Bebel, the famous German Socialist leader, to describe anti Semitism as “the socialism of fools.”
The task of analyzing the sources of these sentiments among the left is further complicated by the fact that, as we have seen, Jews play a very great role in various radical groups, both new and old, both student and adult. Some who have tried to analyze the special appeal of leftist universalistic ideologies to Jews have argued that identifying with a universalistic movement, one which rejects all forms of religious or ethnic particularism and all group loyalties, as the extreme leftist movements do, appeals to members of minority groups who seek to escape the stigma of belonging to an unpopular minority. To some degree the literature on “Jewish self hatred” and on “Jewish anti Semitism” suggests that adherence to radical causes has been a way of escaping one's Jewishness. Hence, one finds youths of Jewish origin who react with fervor to every nationalist cause but that of the Jews, who are sensitive to every slight against every other minority, but not to overt attacks against Jews, not even when directed against Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.
In expressing directly or in directly a disdain for Jewishness, the young New Leftists are following in a classic tradition set by a number of prominent Marxists of Jewish origins, who could find it in their hearts to be concerned about many national groups, but not the Jews. The famous Polish Jewish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg specifically repudiated any concern with the plight of the Jews in a letter written in 1917, in which she indicated that the exploited of Asia and Africa were “so much closer” to her than the Jews that “I cannot find a special corner in my heart for the ghetto; I feel at home in the whole world.” In “Are the Jews a Race?,” the only book on the Jewish question written by a major Marxist theoretician, Karl. Kautsky, who was also of Jewish origins, criticized Judaism as the major source of medieval thinking left in the modern world, one which must “dissolve . . . and disappear.” And like Marx, Kautsky wrote about Judaism: “The sooner it disappears, the better it will be, not only for society, but also for the Jews themselves.”
The Jews have suffered severely in the past from the insensitivity to the consequences of anti‐Semitism exhibited by many “internationalist” leftists, both Jewish and non‐Jewish. The late Isaac Deutscher, a leading Marxist analyst, and himself of Polish Jewish background, wrote in his book “The Non‐Jewish Jew”: “If, instead of arguing against Zionism in the nineteen‐twenties and nineteen thirties I had urged European Jews to go to Palestine, I might have helped to save some of the lives that were later extinguished in Hitler's gas chambers.” Today, the revival of anti‐Semitism, or of a tolerance for it when expressed by “progressive,” proletarian, Third World or racially oppressed people, not only increases the insecurity of Israel, but severely endangers Soviet Jewry. ...
The author goes on to say that not all Leftist thinkers are antisemitic, but the trend is troubling.
It goes even more so today. The explicit Jew-hatred is toned down but the roots of today's "anti-Zionism" is clearly yesterday's explicit antisemitism. That is, after all, the only logical reason for the obsession with Israel's crimes, real or mostly) imagined.
No criticism of explicit Leftist antisemitism? Check.
No criticism of Arab antisemitism? Check.
Embracing antisemitic motifs under the guise of "anti-Zionism"? Check.
The main difference is while the 1970s-era Jewish leftists joined to run away from Judaism, now they happily pretend to embrace their Jewishness - to shield their fellow Leftists from the charge of antisemtism. Even though most of them know nothing about Judaism and they want to know less.
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It describes this to its Arabic-speaking audience:
Photo: "77 year old Historical document "
Entry Visa from the British Consulate on 28/8/1940. The text of the document: I want you to know that I am authorized to give you a visa to enter the land of Palestine. Valid until October 5, 1940
This document is a demonstration of the recognition by the British colonial office at the time of historic Palestine and there was no such thing as Israel.
I love how Arabs and other Israel haters feel vindicated when they find out that British documents said "Palestine" for the area of British Mandate Palestine before the founding of the modern state of Israel. They somehow think that Zionists don't admit that there was a mandate for Palestine. Indeed, what they don't want to remember is that the Palestine of the British Mandate was the precursor to Israel, and has nothing in common with today's Palestinian Arab nationalism. The Arabs of Palestine were against the Mandate and its institutions - currency, postage stamps, offices, sports teams, culture. All of that was Jewish.
Although this document was fairly exceptional, it does prove something that Fatah would rather you not notice: At least one British official understood that a Jewish refugee in Lithuania belongs in the Land of Israel.
It is a tragedy that there weren't more such officials.
During this year, several diplomats who were stationed in the city did the unthinkable and went even against the orders of their superiors: they issued life saving visas to hundreds and several thousand Jews and other refugees. Such actions even put their own life at risk, yet, they did so without thinking twice: Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara and Dutch representative Jan Zwartendijk.
Some though managed to obtain other means to flee occupied Lithuania as the holder of this set of documents here did: JOEL BLUMENCWAJG, a young man, obtained the rare “War Refugee Certificate” from the Lithuanian Ministry of Interior, the” Commissioner for War refugees”. The document was translated into French by the well-known Lithuanian dignitary Vladas Daumantas, then acting Kaunas County Court jury translator, who had a rich contribution to the founding of the country after World War One. The certificate was obtained prior to the occupation but put into use afterwards. Young Joel, who found refuge in the small town of Tauragė, transited through Moscow, Turkey & Syria to arrive safely into British Palestine on March 15th, 1941, after crossing the border checkpoint at Nakoura.
Not many where as lucky as he was. Following operation Barbarossa on June 1941, thousands upon thousands were shot in make shift ditches and graves throughout the Baltic States, what would later be the beginning of the end for European Jews: the mass execution of complete communities began following the invasion of the Soviet Union and would not stop until 1945.
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I often see Arabs claim in Arabic media that there is no evidence of Jewish history in Jerusalem.
The charge is absurd because there have been hundreds of archaeological finds that prove otherwise, but mere facts aren't important to these people.
Here are the latest stunning finds from excavations at the City of David. (This is a press release from the City of David and Israel Antiquities Authority.)
BUREAUCRACY AND CLERKS FROM THE PAST:
A collection of seals (bullae) from the late First Temple period, discovered in the City of David excavations, shed light on the bureaucracy and officials of ancient Jerusalem
A collection of seals, some of which bear ancient Hebrew inscriptions, as well as additional new findings, will be displayed to the public at the annual City of David archaeology conference taking place this week.
Who was Achiav ben Menachem? A collection of dozens of sealings, mentioning the names of officials dated to the days of the Judean kingdom prior to the Babylonian destruction, was unearthed during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the City of David National Park in the area of the walls of Jerusalem, funded by the ELAD (El Ir David) organization.
The sealings (bullae- from which the Hebrew word for stamp, “bul”, is derived) are small pieces of clay which in ancient times served as seals for letters. A letter which arrived with its seal broken was a sign that the letter had been opened before reaching its destination. Although letters did not survive the horrible fire which consumed Jerusalem at its destruction, the seals, which were made of the abovementioned material that is similar to pottery, were actually well preserved thanks to the fire, and attest to the existence of the letters and their senders.
According to Ortal Chalaf and Dr. Joe Uziel, directors of the excavation for the Israel Antiquities Authority, “In the numerous excavations at the City of David, dozens of seals were unearthed, bearing witness to the developed administration of the city in the First Temple period. The earliest seals bear mostly a series of pictures; it appears that instead of writing the names of the clerks, symbols were used to show who the signatory was, or what he was sealing. In later stages of the period – from the time of King Hezekiah (around 700 BCE) and up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE - the seals bear the names of clerks in early Hebrew script. Through these findings, we learn not only about the developed administrative systems in the city, but also about the residents and those who served in the civil service.”
Some of the seals bear biblical names, several of which are still used today, such as Pinchas. One particularly interesting seal mentions a man by the name of “Achiav ben Menachem.” These two names are known in the context of the Kingdom of Israel; Menachem was a king of Israel, while Achiav does not appear in the Bible, but his name resembles that of Achav (Ahab) the infamous king of Israel from the tales of the prophet Elijah. Though the spelling of the name differs somewhat, it appears to be the same name. The version of the name which appears on the seal discovered – Achav [sic, should be "Achiav" - Yoel] – appears as well in the Book of Jeremiah in the Septuagint, as well as in Flavius Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 15: 7-8).
Chalaf and Uziel add that the appearance of the name Achiav is interesting for two main reasons. First - because it serves as further testimony to the names which are familiar to us from the kingdom of Israel in the Bible, and which appear in Judah during the period following the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. “These names are part of the evidence that after the exile of the Tribes of Israel, refugees arrived in Jerusalem from the northern kingdom, and found their way into senior positions in Jerusalem’s administration
The name Menachem isn't just typical of the kingdom of Israel - it also appears on two ostraca from Horvat Uza in Judea and also on an ostracon from the south-west part of the Judean mountains.
So I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that Achiav ben Menachem is necessarily an Israelite and not a Judean.)
Furthermore, the sealings is the fact that the two names which appear on the seal- Achiav and Menachem- were names of kings of Israel. Though Achav (Ahab) is portrayed as a negative figure in the Bible, the name continues to be in use- though in a differently spelled version- both in Judea in the latter days of the First Temple, as reflected in Jeremiah and on the seal, and also after the destruction- in the Babylonian exile and up until the Second Temple period, as seen in the writings of Flavius Josephus.
The various stamps, along with other archaeological findings discovered in the recent excavations, will be exhibited to the public for the first time at the 18th City of David research conference, the annual archaeological conference held by the Megalim Institute, on September 7th at the City of David National Park.
(h/t Ze'ev Orenstein, who gave me a tour of Ir David and I feel bad for never editing and posting the video.)
UPDATE:
(h/t Yoel)
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The Fatah Facebook page showed a Jordanian (/Palestinian) who dedicated his Eid "sacrifice," a camel, to the elevation of the soul of Saddam Hussein.
Almost all of the comments are positive, including from a former UNRWA teacher.
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The controversial pro-Palestinian advocacy group Jewish Voice For Peace has launched a campaign to convince young Jews not to participate in Birthright Israel trips, just as college students are returning to campus and registration for the winter visits gets underway. Under the slogan #ReturnTheBirthright, JVP is working to convince 18-26 year-old Jews eligible for the all-expenses paid 10-day tours to reject the tempting offer. A “pledge” on its website takes the form of an online petition in which young Jews declare: “We will not go on a Birthright trip because it is fundamentally unjust that we are given a free trip to Israel, while Palestinian refugees are barred from returning to their homes. We refuse to be complicit in a propaganda trip that whitewashes the systemic racism, and the daily violence faced by Palestinians living under endless occupation. Our Judaism is grounded in values of solidarity and liberation, not occupation and apartheid. On these grounds we return the Birthright, and call on other young Jews to do the same.”
This being Haaretz, they don't bother to interview anyone who actually fully supports Birthright for the other side of the story. Instead, they interview someone from JStreetU, who pretty much admits that Birthright is awful, too, but he's not sure it is awful enough to boycott:
Ben Elkind, J Street U director, said that for him, taking a Birthright trip was “an important piece of my engaging around Israel and the broader Israeli Palestinian conflict” and that he believes “it is important to encourage students to engage rather than not engage” with the issue. “I empathize deeply with the questions and concerns” expressed in the JVP campaign, he said. “I think (people like) Adelson have not been a productive force in the politics of this issue, and I think there are reasons to have real concern about the lack of freedom of movement of Palestinians. But I am not sure the response needs to be to boycott Birthright. I think there are potentially more meaningful courses of actions.”
So I made a cartoon about JVP's real position towards Birthright any indeed any dialogue with any Zionist.
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There are 40 or more ongoing conflict and occupation situations throughout the world, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Western Sahara, East Timor, East Congo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, and the Crimea.
Curiously, these situations, which involve extensive transfer of people in order to settle in the occupied territory, are rarely seen by the international community as “occupations.” Nor are the respective parties involved described as “belligerent occupants,” “occupying powers,” or “settlers.”
From the extent and volume of international attention directed toward Israel and the excessive number of UN resolutions, one might be led to assume that Israel is considered within the international community to be the only “occupying power.”
The accepted rules of occupation are overly general and do not take into consideration the often unique political, legal, and historical status of the territory in dispute, as is the case regarding Israel.
The language of occupation law has been politicized, and partisan political expressions such as “Occupied Palestinian Territories” have become common language by the UN and by such humanitarian organizations as the International Red Cross.
This terminology has no legal basis and prejudges ongoing, agreed-upon, and internationally-endorsed negotiation issues between Israel and the Palestinians. Their use by humanitarian organizations such as the International Red Cross is incompatible with its own constitutional principles of neutrality and impartiality.
This week will mark 10 years since the destruction of the nuclear reactor Syrian President Bashar Assad wanted to build in northern Syria, with help from North Korea. Although Israel refrained from claiming responsibility for the reactor strike, it was the Syrians who were quick to blame it on Jerusalem. Later, official American sources, notably then-President George. W. Bush, confirmed that Israel had been behind the strike on the Syrian reactor.
Although there was concern about a Syrian reprisal, Assad avoided the risk of confronting Israel militarily and preferred to ignore the destruction of his reactor, which marked an end to his nuclear aspirations, which he had hoped would make his regime bulletproof against any domestic or foreign threat, and might even have hoped would give him full, absolute strategic balance with Israel's power.
The fact that the Syrians attributed the 2007 strike to Israel helped rebuild Israeli deterrence, which had sustained a severe blow in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. That war ended with the other side feeling that Israel had taken a bad hit and had no effective response to Hezbollah missiles. Damascus had the same kind.
After the 2006 war, Assad even toyed with the idea of following in the footsteps of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and green light terrorist attacks on the Golan Heights and the threat of missile volleys if Israel were to strike Syria in response. Taking out the Syrian nuclear reactor completely changed the direction in which things were headed.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released a new video Sunday, slamming the Palestinian Authority propensity for naming streets and schools after terrorists who murdered Jews.
"I want you to close your eyes and imagine," Netanyahu began. "I want you to imagine a seven-year old girl named Fatima. She is walking to school with her mother, and sees a statue, and asks 'who is that?' Her mother answers-that is Khaled Nazzal. He planned the murder of 22 Israeli school children and four grown ups."
Netanyahu continues on a similar vein, pointing out the various monuments the Palestinian Authority has erected to terrorists Dalal Maghrabi, who murdered 38 Israelis in 1978's Coastal Road Massacre, and Abu Sakkar, responsible for the death of 15 Israelis.
"Children should be taught to love and respect, not hate and kill," Netanyahu concluded. "There are so many champions of peace to dedicate statues to. Why do the Palestinians consistently choose to honor mass murderers?"
The carefully-crafted video style has become one of Netanyahu's trademarks. The Prime Minister started releasing short video clips of himself speaking out on a certain issue back in 2016, with the videos often going viral, racking up hundreds of thousands of views within a few hours.
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Elder of Ziyon
