Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Islamic Jihad says it is too moral to use chemical weapons

Palestine Today writes that Said Abu Ahmed, spokesman of Al-Quds Brigades, military wing of Islamic Jihad, said that the Palestinian "resistance" groups would never use chemical weapons because of the ethics of the "resistance" and their Islamic religion which would prohibit their use.

In other ethical news, the same Islamic Jihad praised the murderers of Ben Yosef Livnat, returning from prayers at Joseph's Tomb, this morning, saying it was a natural response to the provocation that Jews do. By praying, I guess.

Study: "10,000 international forces cannot stop PalArab terror" (UPDATED)

One of the assumptions of a final peace agreement that is bandied about is the idea that an international force would be deployed within the PA-controlled areas in order to protect both sides from aggression by the other.

A new study determines that such an approach would fail to stop Palestinian Arab terrorists from their activities.

From IMRA:

Maariv correspondent Eli Brandstein reported in the 21 April 2011 edition that a war simulation organized by the Saban Center with the participation of former senior American officials found that a large international force of 10,000 deployed in a sovereign Palestinian state could not prevent Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli targets despite receiving advance warning from Israel.

The simulation also found that official Palestinian security forces would not act themselves to prevent the attacks, relying instead on the ineffective international forces.

To make matters worse, the simulation found that the presence of the international force in the Palestinian state served to increase friction and tension between Israel and the United States in a way that impaired security cooperation between Israel and the United States.

Under the simulation, a sovereign Palestinian state would be created after a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank with major settlement blocs annexed by Israel and over 82 settlements evacuated.

The 10,000 man international security force that failed in the simulation was composed of European soldiers along with some soldiers from Morocco and Palestinians under American command.

In the simulation the international force enjoyed complete security authority via a UN mandate with its principle mission being to prevent terror attacks against Israel.

Maariv did not indicate if any Palestinian state promoters have revised their position given the results of the simulation given that these result serve to undermine a key working assumption of those who claim that there are viable durable workable security arrangements that could be implemented in the event of the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

So much for what "everyone knows."

Yet, as with all other fatal assumptions that have no proof, real evidence will not sway those who are wedded to the idea of the "peace process."

(h/t Zach N)

UPDATE:

In response to a inquiry by IMRA regarding the simulation reported in
Maariv(see below) , Kenneth M. Pollack, Director of the Saban Center for
Middle East Policy responded late Saturday night as follows:

"The Maariv report is entirely INACCURATE. It is factually incorrect. The
simulation demonstrated nothing of the sort. We tried to explain this to the
reporter, but apparently he was not interested.

We will be putting out an accurate account of the simulation and its
findings in the days ahead. You will find it on the Brookings website when
it is out. "

Nice to know. We'll see. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar)

Anti-Israel activists at Ahava UK convicted

From TheJC:

Four activists who chained themselves to concrete block inside the London branch of Israel cosmetics shop Ahava were illegally trespassing, a judge has ruled.

All four defendants, who have been conditionally discharged, argued the store was committing "war crimes" by selling products from an Israeli settlement, Mitzpe Shalem, in the West Bank. They plan to appeal the verdict.

But District Judge Ian Baker said at Highbury Magistrates' Court that although he had "considerable hesitancy" in calling Ahava's business legal, it had never been proved to be illegal in the UK.

He said: "Until such time as Ahava UK Ltd is prosecuted and defence arguments herein properly tested, I can do no more that accept it is trading lawfully."

The four, who arrived in court dressed in casual T-shirts and supported by many pro-Palestinian activists, occupied Ahava in Covent Garden on two separate occasions last year. The protests by Matthew Richardson, 24, and Gwendolen Wilkinson, 20, were on October 2 2010 and by Christopher Osmond, 30, and Jessica Nero, 33, on November 22. All were convicted of aggravated trespass after a three day trial at Stratford Magistrates' Court last month.

The protesters lay on the floor and chained themselves to each other and a concrete bollard, until they were cut free by police, and the store was forced to close.

All four were ordered to pay £250 in costs. Both Mr Richardson and Ms Wilkinson argued they had no income, and Ms Wilkinson said she has no bank account in her name. After Judge Baker asked "how they keep body and soul together", Mr Richardson claimed he ate leftover food from supermarkets.

Judge Baker acknowledged the activists had trodden carefully in order to try to act legally but added: "Unfortunately, I don't agree with your analysis of the law."

He added: "The defendants cite financial reasons why they were unable to pursue judicial reviews or private prosecution that does not justify an unlawful course of trespass and disruption instead. The defendants are free to hold protests outside the shop. They are not free to act in the way they did on this occasion."

The four released a statement saying: "Today's judgement illustrates the complicity of the authorities in allowing companies to profit from the occupation. Throughout the trial neither the Judge nor the prosecution challenged the assertion that the settlements are illegal in international law."

Lawyers for the four were instructed by the law firm Irvine Thanvi Natas, whose partner Simon Natas is involved with Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights. Mr Natas said all four would appeal the verdict.

Richard Millett's blog has much more, including this priceless piece after the defendants claimed to have no money:

The judge did say that the defendants seemed to have found plenty of money to travel to “Palestine” on quite a few occasions though. One of the unemployed people answered that he cycled to get there!!!

This verdict is in marked contrast to the absurd, unprofessional verdict by Judge Bathurst-Norman last year, which I posted about a few times.

(h/t Samson)

Disgusting, intimidating behavior against a Jew at a Scotland university

From The Courier (UK):

Two St Andrews University students have appeared in court following allegations they indulged in anti-semitic behaviour.

Samuel Colchester and Paul Donnachie are charged with fondling their genitals before rubbing their hands on a flag of Israel. It is claimed they were intending to cause "alarm or distress" to Jewish man Chanan Roziel Reitblat.

Colchester (20), of Andrew Melville Hall, and 18-year-old Donnachie, of McIntosh Hall, both deny the allegations.

Colchester and Donnachie face a charge alleging that, on March 12 at a building owned by the university in Links Crescent, they acted in a racially aggravated manner intended to cause alarm or distress to Mr Reitblat.

The charge states they placed their hands inside their trousers and on to their genitals before rubbing them on to a flag of Israel. It is also alleged they made comments of an offensive nature within Mr Reitblat's presence, contrary to the Criminal Law Act.

An alternative charge states the pair behaved in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm by acting in the manner described, contrary to the Criminal Justice Act.

Donnachie's reactions on his Facebook page:

Chanan Reitblat, the victim, tells me that this did not happen in a public area, like at a campus Zionist organization. The events happened in Reitblat's dorm room where he had put up an Israeli flag on his own personal bulletin board!

Reitblat emailed me that they told him...

...that I support terrorists and should be held liable for putting up a "terrorist symbol" in my room- pretty much that I deserve what's coming to me.

After they left my room, they went on an hour long rant throughout the hall about how Jews have no claim to Israel and that Israel is a terrorist, Nazi state.

Reitblat is traumatized by what happened in his own room, as one can imagine, telling me that this was an "awful month" for him.

This is what happens when anti-Israel hate is allowed to fester - it emboldens the haters to take things further and further.

And things are pretty bad in universities in Scotland nowadays.

UPDATE: Commenter Elise notes that this is the school that the new royal couple attended. Wonderful.

PA policemen shoot Jewish civilian worshipers, killing one.

From JPost:

One Israeli worshiper was killed and four were wounded in Nablus early Sunday morning after their vehicle was shot at by a Palestinian Authority policeman as the group was exiting the city from prayer services held at Joseph's Tomb. Magen David Adom said one person was in serious condition, one in moderate condition and two others in light condition.

The Palestinian police officer who opened fire told investigators in the Palestinian security forces that he identified "suspicious" individuals and fired at them, the IDF said. The shooting took place in an area of Palestinian Authority security jurisdiction. The PA policeman was being interrogated by Palestinian security officers. Several hours after the incident, dozens of Palestinians rioted near Joseph's Tomb and set tires on fire, Israel Radio reported. Settlers claimed that Palestinians vandalized the holy site in the wake of the attack.

...The death of a 25-year-old male was pronounced at the scene. The victim was identified as Ben Yosef Livnat, the nephew of Minister of Culture and Sports Limor Livnat (Likud). Livnat was married, a father of four and was a resident of Jerusalem.

JoeSettler at The Muqata fills in details:

Ever since Israel foolishly gave away Joseph's tomb to the Palestinians (which led to the abandonment of an Israeli soldier (Madhat Yusef) at the site who bled to death, and the destruction of this Holy site by the Palestinians), Breslev Hassidim and others have a made a point of regularly returning to the Jewish holy site to ensure that the Kever isn't abandoned completely.

Sometimes the IDF coordinates visits in the middle of the night and brings in busloads of people (unless they think it is too dangerous), but more often Breslev Hassidim sneak in and out in the middle of the night.

Early this morning (5:40AM), after finishing their prayers a carload of Breslev Hassidim were attacked by Palestinian policemen.

Originally 3 carloads of Jews arrived at the tomb to pray, but PA policemen waiting there shot in the air and 2 of the cars immediately left. The third carload of Breslevers stayed to pray.

After the prayers, when the Hassidim were driving out, the Palestinian policemen (trained and funded by the US) drove their PA police jeep up to the car with the Hassidim in it and opened fire.

One Israeli, Ben-Yosef Livnat (age 30) was killed and 3 more injured. Livnat is the nephew of Minister Limor Livnat.

Nablus/Shechem Governor Jibril al-Bakri admits his policemen did the attack, calling it a "security incident" not a "terrorist attack". He also confirms the witness report that they first shot in the air when they saw the Breslev Hassidim who arrive there every week.

9:42 AM Arabs are trying to burn down Kever Yosef right now. (5 Molotov cocktails thrown at Beit Yonatan in Jerusalem Old City this morning).

Ma'an throws in a baldfaced lie, with no qualification whatsoever:

Palestinian security officials told Ma’an that dozens of armed ultra-Orthodox settlers entered the Joseph’s Tomb site without coordinating with the Palestinian side and thus they were not escorted by Israeli forces.

The Palestinian officers told them they were not allowed to be there without coordination, but they did not obey the orders. Instead, they pulled out their own guns and pointed them toward Palestinian officers.

Breslov chassidim with guns? Oh, please.

YNet adds:

One of the Breslovers who was in the second car in the convoy and was lightly wounded told Ynet: "We arrived at the tomb like on many occasions in the past. Near the tomb we saw a spikes chain. One of the guys jumped out of the car and moved it aside.

"At this point a uniformed Palestinian police officer with a Kalashnikov in a jeep woke his colleagues up and they started firing into the air…I was in the front seat. We started driving fast in the direction of the tomb; we got out of the vehicles and kissed the tomb.

"When we got back to the vehicles the police shot at the vehicles, they were screaming 'Allahu Akbar'. It was crazy, they were shooting to kill. I screamed at the driver to drive out of there quickly. When we got to Har Bracha we attended to the wounded."

From the Oslo Accords 1995 Interim Agreement, Appendix III, Annex 1, Article 32:

2. Both sides shall respect and protect the listed below religious rights of Jews, Christians, Moslems and Samaritans:

a. protection of the Holy Sites;

b. free access to the Holy Sites; and

c. freedom of worship and practice.

If Israel withdraws from Hebron and Bethlehem, then Jews wishing to visit their holiest places would be placing their lives into their own hands every single time. And in order to soothe the sensibilities of Muslims who of course would be incensed at the idea of Jews in their midst, those visits would also have to take place in the middle of the night in armored buses - a far cry from "free access."

For some reason, the rights of Jews to worship at their holy places is not worth much to the world. Neither is Palestinian violations of signed agreements.

German MP blames Israel for Mer-Khamis, Arrigoni murders

From Germany's Rote-Fahne News (translated):

Inge Hoeger from the Left Party, who is an expert on the situation in Gaza, writes:

"The fact that in only two weeks Juliano Mer Khamis, one of the best-known activists in the West Bank, and now Vittorio, the most well-known activist in Gaza, were killed, while nothing like that before ever happened, is at least questionable. The question that we are have is: Who benefits from these terrible crimes?

On the one hand, two of Israel's most 'dangerous' -- most committed, most famous and prestigious activists - are no longer here. The murders of Vittorio and Juliano could also be a means to enable the International Solidarity Movement a serious blow - particularly in view of the forthcoming second flotilla, and the fact that international activists still can not dissuade them from going to Palestine. "

The JPost writes:

“Inge Höger’s wild conspiracy theory is pure speculation, without any concrete factual basis,” Volker Beck, a leading German Green Party MP and spokesman for the party on human rights, said last week.

“She employs the centuries-old image of the perfidiously murderous Jews. After the terrible murder of Vittorio Arrigoni in the Gaza Strip, only one thing is apparently clear to the Left Party: Israel is guilty. And should the opposite be proven, a lingering doubt will remain,” he said.

The German daily Die Welt on Friday called Höger a “flawless anti-Semite” because of her anti-Israel and anti-Jewish comments.

While the Hamas authorities arrested radical Salafists for the murder of Arrigoni in the Gaza Strip on April 15, the killers of Mer-Khamis, who was murdered in Jenin on April 4, have not been apprehended.

Höger reportedly used German taxpayer funds to travel on the Mavi Marmara last year and agreed to be lodged in the segregated women’s deck aboard the vessel. Critics have longed charged her with spending the bulk of her time as a member of parliament bashing Israel and stoking anti- Jewish state sentiments in the Federal Republic.

The term "flawless anti-semite" seems a bit wrong; probably "pure anti-semite" was what was meant. Otherwise it is an oxymoron.

Gabriel Latner/UNWatch takes down the UNHRC

Remember Gabriel Latner, the Cambridge student who stunned the world with his defense of Israel at a debate? My transcript of the speech went viral with over 9000 hits.

He is now working at UN Watch, and here you can see him take on the UN Human Rights Council's hypocrisy.

The topic is a debate on racism and discrimination. When Latner mentions human rights abuses in Cuba and China, he is interrupted by those countries' representatives and the Council president warns him not to continue to bring up cases of council members!

IHH says...

From Turkey's IHH:

As has been reflected in the media, it has been decided that the Israeli security forces and intelligence agencies are to begin a new wave of assassinations. The resolution was made under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and taken in the meeting in which leaders of security forces participated. This is not surprising to anyone as one of the infringements of human rights by Israel is the assassination of others.

Vittorio Arrigoni was murdered in Gaza merely because he remained in Gaza with the slogan “Remain Human”.... It was announced by video that he had been kidnapped by a group called Sahabi ibn Salama on 14 April. A few hours after the broadcast of the video he was found strangled to death in an abandoned house. Vittorio Arrigoni’s mother, the mayor of a region near Milan, refused to have his body sent through Israel, demanding that it to be sent through Egypt. The name of Vittorio Arrigoni was included on the Israeli death list and was identified as a target for the Israeli Air and Defense Forces.

Juliano Mer-Khamis was the child of a Palestinian father and a Jewish mother; he was an actor and a peace activist. He lost his life as the victim of a murder in the entrance of the Freedom Theater, which he managed, in the Janin Camp. Mer-Khamis’ name is known as an opponent of the Israeli policies in Palestine.

It is another sad fact that there a great number of threats are being sent by a large number of people, said to be Jews in Israel and Turkey, via Facebook, other social network websites and e-mail. They are attempting to prevent the Freedom Flotilla from setting out with a number of different scenarios, asking constant questions about the Flotilla, many times stating that “punishment is down to us”, “you will pay”, “this is not just a matter of convoys and flotillas, you will pay the price for messing with Israel”, “there will be more deaths” and other similar threats.

Doesn't that last part sound like the IHH is trying to incite anti-semitism in Turkey? The Turkish version is a bit clearer: "Israel and especially Turkish Jews are sending threatening messages..."

But there is good news. The IHH didn't refer to the IDF as the "Israeli Occupation Forces." Which proves, of course, that they are moderate.

(h/t Kramerica)

Sidney Lumet's legacy in Zionism, civil rights - and hasbara

Here is a chapter of American Jewish history I was not aware of:

Academy Award winning film director Sidney Lumet, who passed away on April 9 at age 86, is remembered for classics such as “Twelve Angry Men,” the courtroom drama that challenged racial prejudice and which Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has cited as a major influence on her career.

What is not widely known is that before he became a director, Lumet, as a young actor, was at the center of a 1940s controversy in Baltimore involving Zionist activists and the fight over racial segregation.

In the summer of 1946, hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors languished in Displaced Persons camps in postwar Europe. The British refused to let them enter Mandatory Palestine, for fear of alienating the Arabs. In New York City, the Jewish activists known as the Bergson Group came up with a new way to publicize the survivors’ plight: a Broadway play. They called it “A Flag is Born.”

Ben Hecht, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter, was active in the Bergson Group. So were the Adlers, the “first family” of the Yiddish theater. Hecht wrote the script for “A Flag is Born.” Luther Adler directed it. Adler’s half-sister Celia and another ex-Yiddish theater star,Paul Muni, costarred as elderly Holocaust survivors straggling through postwar Europe. Their sister Stella, the statuesque actress and acting coach, cast her most promising student, 22 year-old Marlon Brando, in the role of David, a passionate young Zionist who encounters the elderly couple in a cemetery. Celia Adler’s son, Prof. Selwyn Freed, told me: “When my mother came home from the first rehearsal, she said of Brando, ‘I can’t remember his name, but boy, is he talented’.The actors all performed for the Screen Actors Guild minimum wage, as a gesture of solidarity with the Zionist cause.

“Flag” played for ten sold-out weeks at Manhattan’s Alvin Theater (today known as the Neil Simon Theater). British critics hated it. The London Evening Standard called it “the most virulent anti-British play ever staged in the United States.” American reviewers were kinder. Walter Winchell said “Flag” was “worth seeing, worth hearing, and worth remembering…it will wring your heart and eyes dry…bring at least eleven handkerchiefs.”

Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of the political weekly The Nation, was a teenage usher who collected contributions for the Bergson Group after each performance. “The buckets were always full,” he told me. “The audiences were extremely enthusiastic about the play’s message. For me, too, it was a political awakening about the right of the Jews to have their own state.”

After New York City, “Flag” was performed in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore (and, reportedly, in a DP camp in Europe). Brando’s contractual obligations prevented him from taking part in the out of town shows. He was replaced by Sidney Lumet.

Lumet was just 22 at the time, but as the son of Yiddish actors Baruch Lumet and Eugenia Wermus, he had been on stage since childhood and made his Broadway debut at age 11. Lumet told me that having grown up in the world of the Yiddish theater, it was “a special thrill” to perform alongside Paul Muni in “Flag.” (He did not know Brando well at that point, but Lumet would later direct him in the 1960 film “The Fugitive Kind.”)

When Lumet and the other cast members of the Broadway hit arrived in Baltimore, local reporters were clamoring for interviews. Lumet spoke to the Baltimore Sun about the inspiring struggle to rebuild the Jewish homeland. “This is the only romantic thing left in the world,” he said. “The homecoming to Palestine, the conquest of a new frontier, against all obstacles.”

On the eve of their performance at Baltimore’s Maryland Theater, controversy erupted when it turned out that the theater restricted African-Americans to the balcony. Neither Hecht nor the cast would tolerate such discrimination. The Bergson Group and the NAACP teamed up to protest: the NAACP threatened to picket, and a Bergson official announced he would bring two black friends to sit with him at the play. The management gave in, allowing African-American patrons to sit wherever they chose. NAACP leaders hailed the “tradition-shattering victory” and used it to facilitate the desegregation of other Baltimore theaters. Lumet, reflecting on the episode six decades later, told me was “very proud” of his part in the protest and “pleasantly surprised that it was so successful.”

For the Bergson Group and its supporters, the fight for civil rights in Baltimore was just as important as their fight for Jewish rights in Palestine. As Ben Hecht put it: “To fight injustice to one group of human beings affords protection to every other group.”

Sidney Lumet’s admirers will remember his extraordinary talents as a filmmaker when they enjoy watching “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” or “Twelve Angry Men.” But it’s also worth remembering the role he played in the real-life fight for justice six decades ago.

Now all the plays being written for political purposes are anti-Israel.

We can learn a lot from the Bergson Group in the 1940s.

The "Merchants of Peace" racket (Toameh) (UPDATED x2)

From Khaled Abu Toameh in Hudson-NY:

A "peace activist" based in Jerusalem this week sent out the following email to friends: "For my birthday on May 2, I'm asking my friends and family for a special gift: help me raise $5,000... It's a great cause that advances peace –two states for two peoples – Israel and Palestine. Please consider giving to my Birthday Wish, and together we can help to make peace."

The Palestinians call such people who go out asking for money in the name of coexistence and a two-state solution "Merchants of Peace." And there is no shortage of such "peace activists" in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

There are, in fact, dozens of non-governmental organizations that raise millions of dollars every year under the pretext that they want to help the cause of peace in the Middle East.

Most of the money goes to paying high salaries to the directors and employees of these organizations.

Some of these organizations also invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in "seminars" and joint Israeli-Palestinian meetings in five-star hotels in Europe in the name of peace.

Those who are invited to these gatherings are usually people with close ties to the heads of the organizations and government officials on both sides. Only a few represent the grassroots in both societies.

Many Palestinians and Israelis who attend these meetings say that they rarely contribute to the cause of peace.

In many instances, Palestinians and Israelis who go to these meetings as friends return home as enemies after being forced to confront each other in front of foreign audiences.

It is time that the donors who fund such organizations start revising their policies and think of better ways to invest their money.

They should, for example, consider supporting Palestinian university students who come from poor families. The money could also go to build sports facilities and create job opportunities for Palestinian youths. In short, there are one million projects that the donors, some of whom appear to be extremely gullible, could make use of their money to help the cause of peace.

Giving a US-born "peace activist" a $5,000 gift on his birthday is certainly not one of the ways to help advance the cause of peace. It is also hard to understand how such a gift would help bring about a two-state solution.

There are, however, so many deprived Palestinian families who, with $5,000, could feed their children for weeks and months.

Indeed, as we have seen, the average West Bank worker earns $22 a day. $5000 would feed his family for over seven months.

I confess I am not so familiar with the many dozens of groups that say they foster peace. Some do seem to be doing important things, others seem more like what Toameh is talking about.

But it does bring up the question: who funded Vittorio Arrigoni's life in Gaza for the past couple of years? The ISM? The ISM says that donations are

...used to cover operational expenses in Palestine such as communications, transportation, legal expenses, apartment maintenance expenses and small stipends for key coordination positions.

Sounds like a scam right there - probably the bulk of ISM's contributions (many of them laundered through the A. J. Muste Institute in order to be tax deductible) go to maintaining the lifestyle of Greta Berlin, Adam Shapiro and other rabid Israel-haters.

I wish Toameh would have named names. It would be fun to track back the money trails of useless "peace" organizations.

UPDATE: Stan says he got the same email: from IPCRI's Gershon Baskin.

Sure enough, a quick look at its website shows that ICPRI does essentially nothing. It styles itself as a "think tank" and holds lots of meetings and conferences that accomplish little. (I only found one exception: helping sewage treatment in an Arab community. Even that project's link doesn't work to find out more information.)

Even more outrageous, many of their "policy papers" are not available at their website (they claim that many of them are "classified!") The only articles I could find are the ones that Baskin writes for the Jerusalem Post and elsewhere, with very few exceptions. Their downloadable e-books are all over ten years old.

If the only output that IPCRI generates is stuff that Baskin writes, then maybe I should turn this blog into a think-tank! I probably generate more content than he does.

Hey, donate some money to EoZ! I need to work on my begging techniques!

UPDATE 2: Here is the email (h/t Stan):

Here you can see his progress towards the $5000.

38 reported killed in Syria protests today (UPDATE: 68)

Ha'aretz writes:

Security forces shot dead at least 25 pro-democracy protesters in Syria on Friday, human rights campaigners said, as protesters flooded into the streets after prayers in at least five major areas across the country.

The protesters were killed in suburbs and towns surrounding Damascus, in the central city of Homs and in the southern town of Izra'a, two established Syrian human rights organisations keeping a tally of civilian deaths told Reuters.

Syrian security forces fired live bullets and tear gas at the tens of thousands of people shouting for freedom and democracy.

"The people want the downfall of the regime!" shouted protesters in Douma, a Damascus suburb where some 40,000 people took to the streets, witnesses said.

It is the same rallying cry that was heard during the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.

Al-Arabiya in Arabic says that the number of deaths is at 38. AFP echoes that number.

Before today, some 228 people had been killed in the anti-regime protests in Syria.

UPDATE: Al Arabiya says 68.

Egypt closes Rafah. No one cares.

This week, Israel severely restricted Palestinian Arabs from crossing the Green Line for Passover, as it does every year. The chance for terror attacks increases greatly during Jewish holidays, as we had seen in the Park Hotel Passover massacre of 2002 that killed 30, 21 of whom were over 70 years old.

Anti-Israel sites are keen on pointing out how horrible Israel is for doing this, and how especially delicious the irony that Israel seems to celebrate its holiday celebrating freedom by restricting the freedom of Palestinian Arabs.

It just so happens that the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza has been closed since last night and will continue to be closed from now through Tuesday. It is also closing it for a national holiday.

Not one English-language news source is mentioning this story.

And what holiday is Egypt celebrating?

"Sinai Liberation Day", April 25th, is the anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from Sinai in 1982.

I guess that irony that Gazans are imprisoned during Sinai Liberation Day (and the days before and afterwards) is not the right kind of irony.

Don't forget - send a message to Gilad!

I am trying to get 250 of my readers to write a message to Gilad Shalit, and then you can also write to various leaders and NGOs demanding that our messages get delivered.

Do it now!

Finally, an Israeli official responds to unilateralism

From JPost:

Dr. Uzi Landau, Israel's Minister of National Infrastructure, warns that in the event of a unilateral United Nations declaration of a Palestinian state, he will call upon Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and large, Jewish populated blocs in the West Bank:

“We'll have to take care of our interests,” Landau told Inside Israel's Mordechai I. Twersky in a wide-ranging interview April 21. “We'll have to take protect ourselves. If such a thing happens, I'm going to suggest to my government to extend out sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and over the highly-populated blocs we have in Judea and Samaria, just to start with.”

The former chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee invoked the Bush Road Map and a letter of commitment issued by the former president committing to Israel's retention of major Jewish population centers in the West Bank in any negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. If that signed agreement can't be honored, he said, all bets are off.

“If we don't see negotiations, and if we do a policy which basically makes the entire Road Map agreement a hoax, Israel should take care of its own interests,” said Minister Landau.

This is exactly what Netanyahu should be saying. If the PA wants to act unilaterally and abrogate Oslo and the Road Map, they need to understand that Israel is under no obligation to adhere to the same agreements either. And the result will be far, far worse for Palestinian Arabs than if they would have stayed with negotiations.

The world needs to understand this as well. Nations are sympathetic to the idea of a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state but they are basing it on the assumption that Israel will continue to adhere to its commitments that the PA is ignoring. If they know that Israel will not play a game where it is the only one that has to follow the rules, they would be much less likely to support something that will inevitably destabilize the region and make things worse for everybody.

Right now, under so-called "occupation," there is peace. It is not ideal for anyone but it is stable and getting better every year. If the PA abrogates the peace treaty, that peace will end and the Palestinian Arabs who are supposedly going to be helped by living in "Palestine" will be the real losers. This fact is self-evident but Western nations do not seem to have grasped it.

Landau's other observations are worth reading as well:

Landau said the Arab Spring has brought chaos to the Middle east, and could well spread to the important western allies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He questioned the logic of Israel signing a peace deal with a Palestinian leader, whose own future and that of his government, remains tenuous at best.

“Who knows what's going to happen in the future to any agreement we sign with, let's say, another chief of tribe in Judea and Samaria?” asked Minister Landau. “Today it's Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas). Who is it going to be in the future?”

Landau said the US Administration's continued insistence that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is key to wider stability in the region – even in the face of spreading Arab unrest – is incomprehensible.

“This is clearly, totally detached from the present reality of the Middle East,” said Landau. “Anyone who lives here clearly understands that this is totally detached from the Middle East reality.”

(h/t Yerushalimey)

Ira Chernus' agenda

In Salon and the Huffington Post, Ira Chernus pooh-poohs Israel's security concerns.

Chernus lists three "myths" about Israel's security. I will only discuss the first one. It should be enough to show that Chernus is not being intellectually honest, to say the least.

Myth Number 1: Israel’s existence is threatened by the ever-present possibility of military attack.

This is a straw man argument. I'm not aware of anyone who says that Israel's existence is threatened by any conventional military attack.

Israel's security posture is not aimed primarily at defending the existence of Israel. Rather, Israel's army is an almost unique position where it must defend its citizens from the threat of being wantonly attacked.

The US Army has no such worries. NATO members have no such worries. For them, all wars are far away and only soldiers are at risk. Israel is perhaps the only Western country in the world where every single citizen is under the credible threat of an attack in any given week.

This simple fact, which Chernus ignores altogether, is the security issue that Israel faces. Chernus, for all his supposed analytical ability, does not even mention Hezbollah once in his article. It is as if the 2006 Lebanon war - where the hundreds of thousands of citizens in the northern part of the country were forced to become temporary refugees - never happened. Chernus downplays Hamas rockets and ignores the 40,000 more deadly and accurate rockets that are aimed, today, at Israel's population centers. And, as in 2006, it takes only one border incident to escalate into a full scale war.

Would such a war threaten Israel's existence? No. But such a war is still not acceptable. Concern about such a war is still a primary security issue. And those who cannot even acknowledge that this type of war is a possibility less than five years after the last one is either willfully blind or adhering to an agenda.

Chernus also downplays the possibility of a nuclear threat against Israel, with this almost unbelievable sentence:

While the Israeli government constantly sounds alarms about imagined Iranian nuclear weapons -- though its intelligence services now suggest Iran won’t have even one before 2015 at the earliest -- Israel remains the region’s only nuclear power for the foreseeable future.

Is Chernus really suggesting that a nuclear threat that is perhaps four years away is not a significant security concern? How can one take anyone who writes such a sentence seriously?

Moreover, only in 2007 did the world discover that Syria has a secret nuclear weapons program as well. Is Chernus so naive as to think that this is not a threat to Israel either? (Or does he believe that Syria just gave up, and is now a peaceful neighbor that can be trusted?)

In short, Chernus uses multiple false arguments to imply that Israel has no real security concerns.

So why is he purposefully mis-characterizing Israel's security posture?

The answer can be seen in how he sums up his article:

But what if the American public knew the facts...? What if every solemn reference to Israel’s “security needs” were greeted not with nodding heads, but with the eye-rolling skepticism it deserves? What if Israel’s endless excesses and excuses -- its claims that the occupation of the West Bank and the economic strangulation of Gaza are necessary “for the sake of security” -- were regularly scoffed at by most Americans?

It’s hard to imagine the Obama administration, or any American administration, keeping up a pro-Israel tilt in the face of such public scorn.

Chernus has an agenda - to turn the US against Israel.

That agenda is what drives his knowingly deceptive analysis. That agenda is what makes him downplay Iran's nuclear program and political program to surround Israel with Iranian satellites. That agenda is what makes him ignore Hezbollah's rockets and Syria's nuclear ambitions altogether.

And any analysis of Israel's security needs that is based on such an agenda is not worth the disk space it takes up.

Israel Matzav and Yisrael Medad have also written some criticisms of the piece, as did HuffPoMonitor in three parts:
http://hpmonitor.blogspot.com/2011/04/ira-chernus-and-more-myths-part-3.html
http://hpmonitor.blogspot.com/2011/04/ira-chernus-and-more-myths-part-2.html
http://hpmonitor.blogspot.com/2011/04/ira-chernus-and-more-myths-part-1.html