Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The double standard

No honest observer can deny that Israel is held to a much higher moral standard than its neighbors by the rest of the world, both the West and even by Israel's enemies themselves.

The relevant question is, is this fair?

The people who criticize Israel justify this double standard on the basis of Israel's holding itself as a moral beacon for the world. As one commentator put it:

To start complaining that people actually hold you to the higher standards you claim for yourself would be hypocritical at best. It is frequently asserted that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East - a beacon of light in a region of darkness. Israel has a free press, and it claims to defend and uphold the rule of law. This should give Israel a moral edge over its enemies, including Hamas, and it does. But this coin has two sides: if you claim to respect higher standards than others, you should accept that others hold you to these higher standards. If the moral high ground is part and parcel of your reputation (some even say, your right to exist), then you should undertake every effort to safeguard it.

There is an interesting fallacy implicit in the part of the argument I bolded. Israel certainly claims to respect higher moral standards than her neighbors and enemies (others), but it is being judged by other Western nations (others.) The author conflates these "others" in making his (or her) argument, and once this is apparent the argument falls apart.

Even if all the accusations about Israel's behavior in Gaza are somehow true, it doesn't come close to putting Israel and Hamas on the same moral plane. Israel can still accurately claim to have the moral high ground compared to the Gazan terrorists.

Even without that fallacious use of the word "others," however, the more generalized argument in favor of double standards is that Israel, as a freedom-loving democracy, should be scrutinized against higher standards the same way that one would expect Mother Teresa to behave differently than Saddam Hussein.

There are three problems with this argument.

One is that when a person or a people set for themselves a higher standard, it is up to them to judge and enforce it, not third party observers. It is quite fair for objective third parties to judge Israel against the Geneva Conventions or any other standards that theoretically apply to everyone equally; it is quite unfair to hold Israel to any standards beyond that. One can observe that Israel falls short on occasion from its own self-imposed moral standards but it is quite hypocritical to judge Israel based on that. Only Israel has the right - and indeed the obligation - to judge its own people based on a higher moral code. When others do it, it is not based on morality; rather it is based on jealousy.

When one starts to judge Israel based on arbitrary "standards" beyond what is expected from others, it quickly devolves into an exercise of demonization - especially when these standards are set arbitrarily high, even beyond Israel's own self-imposed standards. Too often, Israel is judged against perfection, while others are merely judged against the status quo or their previous behaviors.

A second problem is that the people who judge Israel tend to base their definition of morality exclusively by how Israel treats the enemy. In the most simplistic terms, they argue that all death is bad and therefore war must minimize the deaths of the enemy. They tend to disregard the higher moral imperative of self-preservation. From their perspective, all human lives have equal value so therefore Israel has no right to value its own people's lives above those of her enemies. They apply this incredibly simplistic formula to Israel's actions and then conclude that Israel must be immoral by valuing her own lives higher. In other words, they impose their own warped sense of morality on others, and the others who have a different or more realistic moral code inevitably fall short.

This "moral" perspective then says "Israel has the right to defend her citizens" but cannot find a valid way, in its universe, for Israel to do just that. These people often do not believe in the validity of nation-states to begin with and they reject the idea that any war can be just. To them, a "moral" nation under siege must turn the other cheek and let its own citizens be terrorized because they find the alternative too distasteful. This is, ultimately, immorality being passed off as super-morality.

To these people, how terrorists act is irrelevant. Sure, they are immoral, but that doesn't give their victims an excuse to stoop to their level. You cannot ever go on the offensive against terror.

Which brings up the third issue - the idea of a "fair fight." According to Israel's critics, when a moral party is in a fight with an immoral party, the moral party must consciously give the immoral party the tactical advantage of not being bound by the accepted rules of war. While Israel's critics wil never hesitate to remind the world of Israel's huge military advantage, they will not look at how much of Israel's military budget is dedicated to expensive devices and methods meant purely to minimize deaths of both the enemy and Israel's citizens. A Qassam rocket is cheap, a fortified playground is expensive. A mortar meant to kill as many Jews as possible is much cheaper than a smart bomb that can be deflected at the last second if a civilian appears.

The problem is not only that Israel is being held to impossibly high standards, but that Israel's enemies are being held to no standards at all. A single civilian death on either side is a victory for Hamas and there is no outcry and little criticism about this self-evident fact.

Israel is not allowed to win, because a victory is considered immoral. Yet the artificial prolonging of the conflict, the coddling of the terrorists and the sympathy for those who want to see a literal genocide agains the Jews of the Middle East is what is, in fact, immoral. The problem is not simply a double standard; it is the application of a fundamentally immoral viewpoint as if it is truly an ideal.

Israel must constantly walk the fine line between the morality of protecting her citizens and the morality of minimizing damage to innocents on the other side. Her critics are not nearly as concerned about one side of that equation. And that is the problem in a nutshell.

Let's talk about morality

The best thing I've seen yet about IDF morality doesn't talk about it at all. From Ami Isseroff:

Palestinian public opinion was in an uproar following revelations of possible war crimes committed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martys Brigades and the Hamas.

At a spiritual debriefing retreat for operators of rocket launchers and planners of suicide attacks, ~~terrorists, Militants,~~ resistance fighters revealed that not all targets hit by rocket attacks and suicide bombings involve only death and injury to Israeli military personnel. Furthermore, it was revealed that leaflets distributed by the organizations to their members, and signed by the prominent Imam, Nasrab Dam al Yahoud, did not caution the resistance fighters to take proper Islamic precautions to ensure the safety of women, children and other booty, as is prescribed in the Quran.

One rocket launch operator testified, "I was shocked. I thought that Sderot were Zionist terrorists. Who would have suspected that this evil looking soldier was actually a Zionist civilian?"

"Who could have imagined," exclaimed activist Jihad abu Idbach al Yahoud, "that buildings like the ones below, destroyed by resistance rockets, were not military installations!? They are not marked as civilian homes on the maps of course."

Resistance soldiers also related that they heard rumors that suicide bombing targets such as the Sbarro Pizzeria, the Jerusalem Super Market, and the Dolphinarium Discotheque may not have been frequented only by Zionist soldiers.

The sensational revelations were brought to light by a report of the crusading Palestinian journalist, Amus Arafat, in the newspaper, "Al-Ard" ("the land"). They were leaked to him by Nasr al Zamir, who had previously met with denials and coverup attempts by the heads of resistance organizations.

Said Ahmed ibn Khaybar of the Popular Resistance Committees, "Of course, we are going to investigate these allegations. We had no idea that our boys could commit such atrocities. We are sure that these are only false rumors."

UN Special Raporteur Richard Falk declared, "It is certain that the war criminals of the Hamas and other organizations committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The war crimes of the Palestinian war criminals are precisely like those of the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I call for an immediate investigation by the UN, the ICC and the World Courts. The guilty must be punished."

A Belgian court issued an arrest warrant for Palestinian officials including Ismail Hanniyeh and Khaled Meshaal. In Teheran, angry members of the Muslims for Peace organization and the Not in My Name organizations demonstrated against government support for Hamas. "Hamas = Nazism" and "Free Gaza" were among the posters carried by demonstrators. Reform presidency candidate Moussavi noted, "It is outrageous that our government provides one-sided support for the Hamas. The rockets and suicide belts were paid for by the Iranian tax payer, and were meant only for defense of the Palestinians. My government will institute a policy of tough love for the Palestinians."

"It is possibly true," admitted moderate Palestinian leader of the moderate Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, "that there have been deviations from the impeccable moral code of the Palestine resistance. Harming of civilians is a violation of Muslim religious law and must be punished."

A spokesman for the European Union, which provides extensive financing for the Gaza government, refused to comment.

Arab News: "Make sure your wife is not your sister!"

A new problem in the Muslim world:

Islamic law prohibits marriage with one’s wet nurse (for men), her husband (for women), her biological children and any nonbiological children she breast-fed. All such individuals are described as the person’s “mahram.”
Since there is no official system of documenting the names and identities of children who have been breast-fed by a woman, some young men and women sometimes end up accidentally marrying someone suckled by their own wet nurse. This can cause difficulties when couples find out later in life. If they have children, then things can be an even bigger problem.
“We were married for seven years before we discovered we were brothers and sisters. My mother-in-law had breast-fed me,” said Hayat, a schoolteacher from Madinah. “We were lucky as we had no children,” she said, adding that she and her ex-husband only learned that she had been nursed by his mother when an old family friend visited her home.
“She was astonished to find we were married. She reminded my mother that when she had had puerperal fever after giving birth to me, my former mother-in-law breast-fed me and that my marriage to her son was thus forbidden,” she said.
Hayat and her husband divorced and remarried, subsequently becoming parents with their new spouses. Hayat said she does not regret separating, as she did not really love her ex-husband in the way one loves their spouse.
The story of Umm Abdul Aziz is more tragic. She was married for 30 years and mothered nine children before discovering her husband was her foster brother. “It happened out of the blue. An elderly man came to my husband one day and told him that we had been suckled by the same woman. He even knew people who knew of this and could testify as witnesses. We were greatly shocked and deeply saddened,” she said.
Umm Abdul Aziz said that since her children were old and some of them had traveled abroad to study, she and her husband felt it was needless to ruin their lives and decided to keep the matter a secret and continue living together as brother and sister and not as partners.

Well, it isn't a secret anymore!

Anti-semitism on leftist LA radio

From the Jewish Journal:

On a Los Angeles FM radio talk show, the following aired recently:
A caller identifying himself as Mohammed said, “I believe that so-called Israel should be annihilated totally, wiped off the map ... I hope that Iran has the gall to nuke and exterminate them so they go back to Europe.

“And as long as there is one Palestinian man, woman or child, there will be no peace in Palestine ... as far as I’m concerned, so-called Israel should be exterminated from the face of the earth. That’s my personal opinion. They have no right to exist….”

Augustin Cebada, the show’s host, did not interrupt or argue. He let Mohammed finish, then said, “OK, maybe those are your opinions, and there’s probably a lot of people out there who agree with you. We have free speech in this country….”

Cebada later took a call from Dan, who objected to what he’d just heard: “When a caller calls with that kind of hatred, that kind of Nazi rhetoric, that Israel should be wiped off the map, that’s what fuels the fire, and you people did not respond by saying, ‘This is the kind of hatred we don’t need.’ And that’s what’s fueling the hatred, isn’t it?”

This time, Cebada cut the caller off, saying: “There’s a lot of hatred in your voice, Dan, in your tone. This program offers a forum so people can express what they’re feeling….”

KPFK, Pacifica Foundation’s longtime, Progressive, listener-supported L.A. radio station, aired that exchange on Jan. 7, 2009, on a Wednesday night bilingual talk-show called, “La Causa” (“The Cause”), which has a mix of English and Spanish.
Though it presents itself as a program by and for Latinos, “La Causa” spends a lot of time on the subject of the Middle East, all of it fiercely critical of Israel. Referring to the recent military actions in Gaza, the show’s hosts characterize Israelis as perpetrators of “genocide,” “massacre,” “slaughter,” “war crimes,” “ethnic cleansing” and “atrocities.”

Cebada and Tlaloc have said Israelis are “acting like Nazis.”
When referring to Israel, Cebada usually calls it “that semitheocracy, so-called democracy.” He tells his listeners that Arab citizens of Israel can’t vote. (They can and do: More than 50 percent voted in the recent Israeli election.) He says that only Jews can enter the Israeli Defense Forces. (There are non-Jews in the IDF.)

The show’s hosts would likely argue, as many do these days, that being against Israel is not the same as being against Jews. Others would counter that anti-Zionism, in its current form, is a socially acceptable cover for anti-Semitism. Whatever one’s view, the hosts of “La Causa” blur this distinction.

They use Zionist, Jewish, Israeli and even Ashkenazi interchangeably, as when they say, “The Israeli people, the Jewish people” or mention the relationship between Villaraigosa and “the Zionists,” when the reference is clearly to Jews in Los Angeles.

At times, “La Causa’s” hosts talk about Jews in disparaging ways when discussing situations that have no connection to Israel.

On Feb. 4, Cebada said, “Well, supposedly Jewish interests control the media in this country, there’s even a book written by a Jew that says that Jews control Hollywood ... the media’s controlled by Jews, so we only get the news they want us to hear.”

The hosts regularly call Bernard Madoff “that Jewish scam artist.” Villaraigosa is constantly excoriated for supporting Israel and for “dancing around with a yarmulke on his head,” apparently referring to the September 2007 Chabad telethon, when L.A.’s mayor danced the hora while wearing a kippah.

On Feb. 4, a caller named Jeremy asked the hosts why they “keep repeating this line about Villaraigosa dancing around with a yarmulke on his head? Why is that a cause of consternation for you?”

Tlaloc answered that Villaraigosa was elected “on the backs of Mexicans and hasn’t done anything to help them. Instead, he’s gone to Israel and is complicit in the genocide that’s happening in Gaza.” Jeremy again asked why the yarmulke bothered them so much, and Cebada abruptly ended the phone conversation.
KPFK does not get money from advertising. It receives some funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is partially supported with government funds, and from its listeners, as well as foundations. It normally has three fund drives each year.

Not surprisingly, one of the other shows hosted on KPFK is "Democracy Now!"

Kuwaiti writer urges recognition of Israel

From Kuwait Times:

The controversial Kuwaiti writer Abdullah Saad Al-Hadlaq urged Kuwait to stop boycotting Israel and end the more than 50 year feud with the country which he described as 'nervous tension'. He also urged Kuwait and the GCC countries to stop signing accords with 'Persian Iran.' They urged them to get into an alliance with international powers to protect them from Iranian schemes, reported Al-Watan.

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq, who has been accused of being Zionist agent, told Al-Watan in a special interview that with all its advanced capabilities, Israel would not need the services of a 'poor man' like himself. He also denied that he was honored by the country. "Whoever has such a medal, please bring it to me," he quipped, accusing those who questioned his adherence to Islam of being hypocrites. He said that they "traded in Islam and used it as a disguise".

Al-Hadlaq said that he had once written an article in 2006 titled 'I wish I were an Israeli soldier.' It went unnoticed at the time until he wrote another article during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip and he wrote another one against Hamas leaders. "It was at the time when readers noticed that many of my articles were quoted by the Israeli FM's website.

Responding to a question about Jerusalem and whether he believed in Muslims right to rule it, Al-Hadlaq said that historically, the city was home to followers of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. It should be placed under international governance and opened freely for followers of the three religions. "On the contrary, verse number 21 of Surat Al-Maeda of the Holy Quran emphasizes the right of 'Bani Israel'".

Al-Hadlaq responded sarcastically to rumors about being described by the Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert as more Zionist than Herzl himself and being described as one of Israel's ambassadors by Israeli FM Tzipi Livni. "They are all fabricated, funny stories.

He added that Israel's democracy was a unique model that has surpassed many of what he described as the tyrannical, totalitarian Arab regimes. Further, Al-Hadlaq said that he hated the regimes that rule Syria and Iran and that he has been avoiding various activities held in both country's embassies to Kuwait, despite being invited.

It is not so surprising that there are intellectuals in Gulf countries who have such viewpoint. The surprising thing is that a few of them actually speak out about it.

Leftists blaming religious soldiers for misconduct

At the end of a lengthy Ha'aretz description of the "testimonies" of IDF soldiers who are alleged to have acted immorally in Gaza comes this elliptic statement from Danny Zamir, who heads the Oranim Academic College from where this controversy erupted:

"It is quite possible that Hamas and the Syrian army would behave differently from me. The point is that we aren't Hamas and we aren't the Syrian army or the Egyptian army, and if clerics are anointing us with oil and sticking holy books in our hands, and if the soldiers in these units aren't representative of the whole spectrum in the Jewish people, but rather of certain segments of the population - what are we expecting? To whom are we complaining? "

It sounds like he is saying that the soldiers who allegedly acted badly in Gaza were predominantly religious soldiers, an interesting statement because none of the testimonies mentioned anything about religious soldiers doing anything wrong and Zamir himself was not in Gaza. Not only that, he is saying that it is obvious that religious soldiers are less moral than their secular counterparts. (The only complaint about religion in the testimonies was that the IDF rabbinate gave them too many books of Psalms.)

This underlying hatred that leftists in the IDF have towards the religious soldiers is placed in a fairly twisted context by the New York Times' Ethan Bronner, who interviews a number of leftists and records their unsubstantiated claims without bothering to get even a token interview from the other side:

Immediately after Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 and then from several West Bank settlements, there was a call to disband certain religious programs in the army because some soldiers in them said they would refuse to obey future orders to disband settlements. After the rise of Hamas in Gaza and the increase in rocket attacks on Israel, that discussion died down.

But Yaron Ezrahi, a leftist political scientist at Hebrew University who has been lecturing to military commanders, said that the call to close those programs should now be revived because what was evident in Gaza was that the humanistic tradition from which a code of ethics is derived was not being sufficiently observed there.

And the religious military colleges directly compete with people like - Danny Zamir:

In many cases, the religious nationalists have ascended to command positions from precisely the kind of premilitary college course that Mr. Zamir runs — but theirs are run by the religious movements rather than his secular one, meaning that the competition between him and them is both ideological and careerist.

And, incidentally, the only officer who is known to have refused orders in the NYT story was not a religious soldier, but - Danny Zamir:

In 1990, Mr. Zamir, then a parachute company commander in the reserves, was sentenced to prison for refusing to guard a ceremony involving religious Jews visiting the West Bank city of Nablus.

Clearly, Zamir is someone who holds deep-seated antipathy for religious Jews. The Israeli Left is making accusations against religious soldiers, which have not yet been confirmed by any facts as far as I can tell. It sounds like these accusations might just be a springboard for starting an internal fight for the IDF's soul between the old-time kibbutzniks who were instrumental in building the state and the religious Zionists who are now in the vanguard of Israeli nationalism, a pursuit which seems to have become somewhat distasteful among the Left.

The accusations must be investigated thoroughly and, if proven, dealt with on all levels of the IDF. But it would be reprehensible if they are being exaggerated or made up as a way to demonize part of the Israeli population and divide the nation.

The NYT's Bronner has written his story from a viewpoint that is entirely sympathetic towards the leftists.

UPDATE: See this article by Yaacov Lozowick as well.

PalArab media roundup 3-20-09

For the third day in a row, Egypt opened the Rafah border - and Hamas kept it closed. Yet there have been no protests against Hamas' illegal siege of the Gazan people.

Egypt has found another cache of weapons in a warehouse near Rafah, including a half ton of explosives.

PCHR has released their list of fatalities in Gaza, in Arabic. Interestingly, they list 1417 people, not the 1434 they mentioned in last week's press release. When it comes out in English I will look more closely at how they categorize "civilians."

Shimon Peres sent New Year's greetings to the people of Iran.

Tunnels collapse!

Two more Palestinian Arabs were killed in separate tunnel accidents, bringing the self-death count to 58.

I cannot find it, but a couple of days ago I saw an article in a Palestinian Arab newspaper saying that the tunnel smugglers are using boys as young as 10 or 11 to shepherd smuggled goods through tunnels, and Egypt arrested a number of them. The story was spinning it by saying how desperate the boys families are to force them to work in the tunnels, and how they were ideal for the work because they are small and can make it through partially collapsed tunnels. There was nothing in the article about how the smugglers and the boys' families were concerned over endangering their lives.

Falk's Law: Israelis must be sitting ducks

Richard Falk, the serial liar who leaves no stone unturned in his relentless quest to demonize Israel, has a new report for the UN:

A United Nations human rights investigator said on Thursday that Israel's military assault on densely populated Gaza appeared to constitute a grave war crime.

Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the Geneva Conventions required warring forces to distinguish between military targets and surrounding civilians.

"If it is not possible to do so, then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law," Falk said.

Let's be clear. The IDF went above and beyond in its attempts to minimize hurting the civilians of Gaza - phone calls warning civilians [and terrorists] to leave, dropping leaflets, rerouting rockets in mid-air to avoid innocents, risking soldiers' lives to avoid civilian deaths, the use of drones to watch where civilians were. No army in history has worked harder to avoid civilian deaths. The death of Gazans served the purpose of only one party: Hamas, which worked hard to endanger the people that Israel worked to save.

For now, though, let us take Falk's statement at face value. He says that if it is impossible to distinguish between militants and civilians, then it is not only illegal to attack the terrorists to begin with - it is a "war crime of the greatest magnitude."

The Geneva Conventions, of course, say no such thing. They are clear that military targets within civilian areas are lawful to attack as long as the damage to civilians is minimized. It disallows:

an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Geneva allows for a nation to do what is necessary to defend itself as long as it minimizes civilian casualties. One can argue over the definition of "excessive" but the basic legality of attacking legitimate military targets, even in civilian areas, is unquestioned. Falk, however, the supposed expert in international law, has now declared illegal what Geneva explicitly allows. Not only that, but he has given Hamas and other terror groups a formula to be able to operate against civilians at will.

According to Falk, Hamas can fire rockets and send suicide bombers into Israel with impunity and Israel is legally barred from defending herself as long as Hamas hides among civilians. To be sure, he would consider terror activity to be illegal as well, but terrorists by definition don't sign nor care about international agreements, so there is no legal recourse against terrorists as there is against nations being attacked by terrorists.

Falk, in his insatiable hatred for Israel, twists the law that he pretends to uphold, to transform it into an ugly club that is meant to bash a single target.

IDF soldiers defend their actions

From YNet:

IDF soldiers who took part in January's offensive in Hamas-ruled Gaza refuted on Thursday claims of immoral conduct on the military's part.

"I don’t believe there were soldiers who were looking to kill (Palestinians) for no reason," said 21-year-old Givati Brigade soldier Assaf Danziger, who was lightly injured three days before the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead.

"What happened there was not enjoyable to anyone; we wanted it to end as soon as possible and tried to avoid contact with innocent civilians," he said.

According to Danziger, soldiers were given specific orders to open fire only at armed terrorists or people who posed a threat. "There were no incidents of vandalism at any of the buildings we occupied. We did only what was justified and acted out of necessity. No one shot at civilians. People walked by us freely," he recounted.

A Paratroopers Brigade soldier who also participated in the war called the claims "nonsense". Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said "It is true that in war morality can be interpreted in many different ways, and there are always a few idiots who act inappropriately, but most of the soldiers represented Israel honorably and with a high degree of morality.

"For instance, on three separate occasions my company commander checked soldiers' bags for stolen goods. Those who stole the smallest things, like candy, were severely punished," he said.

"We were forbidden from sleeping in Palestinians' beds even when we had no alternate accommodations, and we didn’t touch any of their food even after we hadn't had enough to eat for two days."

According to a reservist who spent a week in Gaza during the offensive, the claims of immoral behavior on the soldiers' part were "fictitious".

"Wherever we were we tried to cause minimum damage," said the paratrooper, who also asked to remain nameless. "We left some of the homes cleaner than they were before we occupied them. We even cleaned a refrigerator that really stunk.

"During one incident, we were informed that a female suicide bomber was heading in our direction, but even when women approached us and crossed a certain point we made do with firing in the air, or near the women," the soldier recalled. "Even when we came across deserted stores, we didn’t even think of taking anything. One soldier took a can of food, but he immediately returned it after everyone yelled at him."

Major (res.) Idan Zuaretz of Givati said "in every war there is a small percentage of problematic soldiers, but we must look at it from a broad perspective and not focus on isolated incidents."

Zuaretz, a company commander, also questioned the integrity of the soldiers who made the controversial claims, saying "if this was such a burning issue for them, why have they remained silent until now? On an ethical and moral level, they were obligated to stop what they claimed had occurred and not wait two months to be heard at some esoteric debate".

According to the officer, the IDF went to great lengths and employed the most advanced technology to avoid harming civilian population.

"I've seen a few things in my time, but even I was blown away by the level of professionalism displayed by the army," Zuaretz said. "I personally gave my soldiers an order on the day we withdrew from Gaza to leave all of our goodies in the last house we occupied. Some reservists even left an envelope full of money to one Palestinian family."

The next few days will be interesting, as we will see if any IDF soldiers step up to corroborate the stories told earlier. What is clear, however, is that if there were any lapses it was not because of IDF policy nor from the conduct of the vast majority of soldiers.

Equally clear is that the world will harshly judge an entire people based on the the slightest, out-of-context and possibly fictional claims. Certainly they should be investigated but not by a world that has already convicted Israel.

On Israeli accusations of IDF immorality

YNet reports:

The IDF did not behave morally during Operation Cast Lead, soldiers who had participated in the operation said during a post-op conference at the military academy at Oranim. The conference protocol was published Thursday.

One NCO told of the experiences that bothered him during the operation. "Prior to going into a crowded area… we had a meeting about the rules of engagement and opening fire within a city, because as you know we fired a lot of rounds and killed a lot of people in order for us not to be injured or shot at."

"When we entered a house, we were supposed to bust down the door and start shooting inside and just go up story by story… I call that murder. Each story, if we identify a person, we shoot them. I asked myself – how is this reasonable?"

The NCO also related a story about an old woman who was crossing a main route who was shot by the soldiers. "I don't know whether she was suspicious, not suspicious, I don't know her story… I do know that my officer sent people to the roof in order to take her out… It was cold-blooded murder."

Another NCO told of an incident in which a family was killed. "We had taken over the house… and the family was released and told to go right. A mother and two children got confused and went left… The sniper on the roof wasn't told that this was okay and that he shouldn't shoot… you can say he just did what he was told… he was told not to let anyone approach the left flank and he shot at them."

"I don't know whether he first shot at their feet or not (per IDF engagement instructions), but he killed them," the NCO said.

"We expected to hold a discussion about the war, in which we would hear about the personal experiences and lessons of the soldiers, but we did not expect the testimonies that we heard," Academy Head Danny Mazir told Ynet. "We were in total shock."

Mazor informed IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi of the experience. "It's definitely not easy for an institution like the IDF to hear things like this and the officers I spoke with were very surprised. Up until now, post-op investigations had not demonstrated such violations of ethics," he said.

The IDF Spokesman's Unit reported that, pursuant to Mazor's communication, "a meeting was immediately set up with Chief Education Officer Brig. General Eli Shirmeister."

"He explained that the IDF was currently in the middle of thorough investigations of these issues. The IDF has no previous information about these incidents and will investigate their accuracy. The head of the military academy was asked to transfer any additional information he receives to the IDF so that it could checked thoroughly," they said in a statement.

Later Thursday, Military Judge Advocate General Brigadier-General Avi announced he would launch a formal inquiry into the allegations. According to Mandelblit, the publications "paint a picture of unacceptable behavior, if true."

Ha'aretz plans to publish more testimonies from IDF officers in coming days.

These stories are troubling and should be taken seriously. Even though Israel's enemies will always say that Israel commits war crimes, Israel should not react to the slander but it should honestly look at her own actions and always strive to fix problems.

In the days of the first Intifada, the IDF was faced with an unprecedented situation of open revolt. Clearly, at the time, there were no standards on how to react to such a situation and some of the decisions made were (in retrospect) much more violent towards the Palestinian Arab fighter/protesters than they should have been. It is easy to criticize them now, but at the time no one knew how things would play out and it seemed to be just as valid a decision to crack down harder in the interests of cutting the revolt short rather than let it play out and possibly escalate.

The second intifada showed that Israel erred in the other direction, passively absorbing large numbers of terror attacks for two years before deciding to go on the offensive and pro-actively dismantling the terror infrastructure. Many Israeli lives were lost in those two years who might have been saved had Israel taken more decisive action earlier - and the world would have been much less forgiving.

Any war involves very tough decisions. One of the toughest, for a moral people, is to calculate the relative value of the lives of your own soldiers and your own civilians against the enemy soldiers(/fighters/terrorists) and the enemy civilians. It is just as immoral to place your own soldiers and citizens at risk to avoid hurting the enemy as it is to wantonly kill civilians in the interests of protecting your own. Jenin appears to have been a textbook case of the IDF being too worried about public opinion and not enough about the lives of its own soldiers.

Every new situation brings new challenges and issues that have not been dealt with before. The IDF was clearly prepared not to repeat mistakes made in Lebanon, but there were challenges in Gaza that they did not have against Hezbollah, most notably Hamas' decision to hide among civilians and avoid open fighting and the booby traps Hamas laid among the civilian neighborhoods, schools and houses. Hamas' strategy was to draw IDF soldiers into killing Gaza civilians as well as to kidnap more IDF soldiers. This was not, in any sense, a classic military confrontation.

The stories related above appear to have been situations that should have been foreseen and planned for, but we don't know for sure. Perhaps there was faulty intelligence that informed bad decisions, perhaps commanders ignored protocol, perhaps the IDF leaders consciously moved the moral dial more towards "save our lives and don't let yourself be kidnapped" and away from "avoid killing civilians at all costs" - a decision that might very well be justified in a world where every Gilad Shalit is worth some 500 terrorists.

The IDF has a history of learning from its mistakes, and the Palestinian Arab terrorists have a history of coming up with new creative ways to kill. Israel needs to honestly investigate every case of possible abuses and immoral behavior (including the unconscionable graffiti that some soldiers left in the houses of civilians.) There will always be new challenges, and there will always be mistakes and inconsistencies in how individual soldiers act, but an effective army needs discipline and as clear a set of rules as possible, rules that can be defended without apology.

And even though the IDF continues to behave more morally than any army in history, it should always be willing and eager to raise the bar.

UPDATE: Questions are being raised about the accusations to begin with. Jameel reports that "Channel 2 TV Army correspondent Roni Daniel stated at 6:30 PM this evening, that he personally tracked down one of the soldiers interviewed for the Haaretz article. Apparently the soldier's testimony to Haaretz wasn't based on anything he personally saw or witnessed, rather based on rumors and hearsay he heard (and the soldier wasn't even in Gaza!)" (h/t joem)

(h/t Isy - I wasn't going to blog this, and I have no time to blog, but my weakness is when people make requests...)

Links

As my work schedule gets more and more hectic, here are some things you can read.

Soccer Dad hits a trifecta with The Anti-Zionist Elephant, The Daily Kristof and an article in The American Thinker on the Chas Freeman controversy.

Speaking of, the Huffington Post talks about the virulent opposition to Freeman - from Chinese democracy advocates.

An interesting op-ed in The National Post about replacing the moribund "peace process with more realistic "conflict management."

PalArab media roundup 3-19-09

Two Fatah members were killed in Central Gaza in another apparent "work accident." Fatah said they were on a "special mission" and were killed by Israeli shells, but Israel denied any activity in the area.

Israel arrested ten Hamas leaders in the West Bank in an apparent attempt to use them as leverage for Gilad Shalit. Hamas responded that this endangers the life of Shalit, which effectively means that they are threatening to kill him. No comment yet from "human rights" organizations.

Have you noticed that none of the families of PalArab prisoners in Israeli prisons ever protest the Hamas government to release Shalit so their relatives could get released?

Members of the "World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace" have entered Gaza to distribute aid and try to teach Gazans about peace. I don't know much about them but they also visited Sderot and met with children there, so at least they have the appearance of being sincere.

Here is why autotranslation does not work well for sports stories:

a leading Jaisp - matches concluded yesterday, the fifth week in a deferred annexation of neighboring institution beer and Orthodox Ramallah in the Premier Basketball League, organized by the Union of the Palestinian basketball sponsored by a mobile terminal and the martyr Ibrahim Ahtdhantha Lion in Far'a In the meeting on the progress of the outcome of the Orthodox versus 66 49 of the beer was cool and the game was marked by tension and lack of excitement.

At least the beer was cool.

A an Arab baby was born in Hebron with some baby teeth; Palestine Today regards this as a miracle and says "praise God." Natal teeth occur in about 1 in every 2000 births and could indicate a problem.

The 2009 Palestinian Arab self-death count is now at 56.

Starbucks protest in Beirut

From the Lebanon Daily Star:

About 25 young activists belonging to the Union of Lebanese Democratic Youth (ULDY) demonstrated outside a Beirut Starbucks Monday evening to protest the Seattle-based coffee shop's ties to Israel. Members handed out leaflets and shouted slogans outside the store, catching the attention of passers-by and virtually ending all traffic heading in for a drink. A handful of police officers guarded the entrance of the store while two army trucks unloaded about a dozen soldiers across the street in anticipation of violence.

"It's not just Starbucks that we're demonstrating against," 25-year-old ULDY member Hassan Zeitouny said. "It's a demonstration against all that send aid to Israel, especially those that give money to Israelis to return back to Israel."

ULDY - a leftist organization with ties to the Lebanese Communist Party - organized a similar demonstration outside the Hamra Starbucks during Israel's devastating 22-day assault on Gaza in January. The group is also active in the larger campaign to boycott other American products and companies which it accuses of supporting Israel such as CocaCola and Phillip Morris.

The activists held signs up to the cafe's windows with one displaying a drawing of a Starbucks' cup overflowing with blood while another carried a mock-menu offering "coffee to kill my family," and "espresso to knock down my house."

Cheers were sung as each customer left the shop. After the last customers exited quietly, the cafe was left empty except for a few discouraged-looking employees sitting around a table drinking their own product.

The interesting part of this article isn't that there was yet another Starbucks protest. It isn't whether the protesters believe that the Starbucks mermaid is Queen Esther.

The interesting part is that the reporter from the major English-language newspaper in cosmopolitan, modern Lebanon completely believes all the lies about Starbucks giving its profits to the IDF and Israeli causes.

A quick fisking of Amy Goodman

Veet in the comments wanted me to fisk Amy Goodman, a popular left-wing host of "Democracy Now!" which runs on many radio stations across the country, including many college stations.

From what I could tell from a quick look, she is just another moonbat, without much original or interesting to say, pretty much sticking to the party line.

Yesterday, she had a special guest, the tiredly predictable Juan Cole.

Here are some of the lies I caught from the transcript:

AMY: In Israel and the Occupied Territories, the Obama administration has continued the US government’s unwavering support for Israel.

Well, except for trying to open dialogue with Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, telling Israel not to attack Iran, trying to appoint officials with anti-Israel views, and Obama saying that he is anti-Likud - sure, he is "unwavering."

The administration recently announced it will withdraw its entire $900 million aid pledge if the pending Palestinian unity government does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. No such conditions have been imposed on Israel.

Um, perhaps because Israel already has recognized the Palestinian Arabs' right to exist at Oslo, 16 years ago?

Notice also that she doesn't say a word about the other precondition - that Hamas renounce terror. Apparently, Goodman believes that this is also an unacceptable restriction on her heroes in Hamas.

She also doesn't seem to find it strange to force Israel to negotiate with people who wish it to disappear. Perhaps she is not familiar with what "negotiations" mean - one does not negotiate their own demise, as much as Goodman might desire that to happen.

This comes in the wake of Israel’s brutal three-week assault on Gaza that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead, more than 900 of them civilians.

Actually, even according to PCHR, the 900 were "noncombatants," which is a very different thing. Israel has determined that no more than one third of the dead were civilians. You might argue over which is correct, but you do not accept the words of one biased party as fact and reject the other based on nothing but your own biases.

COLE: You know, there is a ban on politicians in the United States being critical of Israeli policy. And if you have anything serious to do with the US Congress, in particular, it’s not allowed to be critical, and you’ll have a lot of enemies who will try to shoot you down, try to get you unelected if you’re elected, try to get you unappointed if you’re appointed. And it’s a concerted effort on the part of a whole range of people. They include evangelical Christians on the right. They include right-wing Zionists in the Jewish community. It’s a very odd set of alliances, but it’s very effective.

A ban? There is no question that the Israel lobby is effective in...lobbying, just as the NRA and AARP are at least as effective in their own efforts to influence Congress. Saudi Arabia has an effective lobby as well. And there are even politicians - a minority, to be sure - who built their careers on being anti-Israel.

AMY: In our headlines today, reading that Netanyahu has formed a pact with the far-right politician Avigdor Lieberman, an attempt to form a right-wing government in which Lieberman would become Israel’s foreign minister. He’s called for laws to require Palestinians living in Israel to swear loyalty to the Jewish state.
JUAN COLE: He’s called for laws for Israelis, Israeli citizens, to have a loyalty test. These are—
AMY GOODMAN: Not singling out Israeli Arabs?
JUAN COLE: They’re singling out Israeli Arabs.

This is simply a lie. The loyalty oath that makes everyone so upset is for all Israeli citizens.

Can't you feel the sanctity?

From Photo Polygon.

UPDATE: I don't know anything about the site, which is in Russian, so maybe this is a Photoshop. The other photos at the site seem legit, though.

Links from my mailbox

I really appreciate when you send me links to comment on. I don't always have time to write a full post, but here are some recent links sent to me that you should check out.

Tom Gross: (Former?) CNN reporter goes on anti-Israel tirade during a press conference. (Many more details here.) Plus, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness is a former BBC reporter and a pal of notoriously anti-Israel Jeremy Bowen. (h/t Brad Brzezinski)

An on-line anti-Hamas petition. I'm skeptical about the effectiveness of these things, but worth checking out. (h/t Renaud)

Seven Jewish Children: a modern passion play (h/t Ami Isseroff )

Jihadis question Al Qaeda links to Israel (h/t Bubbe)

Video: Vilified: Telling Lies about Israel (h/t sshender)

How terrorists define "torture"

From Ma'an:

Israel is torturing Ahmad Sa’dat, the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in prison, the group said on Wednesday.

Good heavens! What terrible torture is Israel doing? Waterboarding? Breaking his fingers? Pulling out his toenails?

In a statement the PFLP said the “Israeli prison service keeps transferring Sa’adat from one jail to another, under dire conditions in light of his bad health condition. He has been suffering pains in his back and stomach in Israel’s custody as a result of bad conditions in detention.”

Ah, it must all that packing and unpacking is pushing him to his physical and psychological limits.

These tough terrorists really turn into babies when they have the slightest inconvenience.

And what was he guilty of again?

Israel seized Sa’dat from a Palestinian Authority (PA) prison in Jericho in 2006. He was held in PA custody after he was accused by Israel of arranging the assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001. In 2008 he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Just murder.

Gaza man tortured to death. Yawn.

From PCHR:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 15:00pm on Monday, 16 March 2009, Zayed Jaradat was pronounced dead on arrival at Martyr Mohammed Yousif al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah city. The body was then transferred to the forensic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for further examination. Jaradat had been arrested by members of the police in the morning of Monday 15 March 2009. Police sources told PCHR that Jaradat had been detained in al-Quds Girls’ Secondary School, near al-‘Awda Square in the centre of Rafah. The police have been using the school as their headquarters since Israeli warplanes destroyed Rafah police station during their latest offensive on Gaza. According to the police sources, Jaradat was arrested on charges of drug possession.

A PCHR field worker, who visited the forensic department at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and took photographs of the body, witnessed traces of bruising throughout the body. The bruises were concentrated in the area around the neck and shoulders. The PCHR field worker also reported that Jaradat’s toenails had been removed. This indicates that Jaradat had been subject to torture during his detention.

Just another average day in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Perhaps George Galloway can add "toenail clipping"to his list of wonderful things Hamas does for Gazans.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 54.

How to boost traffic to your website

At the moment, I'm getting about 60 hits a day from a posting I wrote last week called "Tunisian sees wife in po-rn video", all of them from search engines looking for things like "wife po-rn" and "tunusian [sic] po-rn" and similar queries. Apparently I am now on the first page of Google searches for "wife po-rn."

Not quite my normal readership.

Indonesian cleric arrested for marrying 12-year old girl

From Monsters and Critics:

Police arrested a Muslim cleric in Indonesia's Central Java province for marrying a 12-year-old girl in violation of the country's child-protection law, an officer said Wednesday.
Pujiono Cahyo Widianto, 43, revealed in August that he had taken a 12-year-old girl as a second wife in a traditional Islamic wedding ceremony, sparking criticism from child-protection groups.
Police in Semarang, the capital of Central Java, said they had charged Pujiono with sexual exploitation of a child.
The country's child-protection law defines children as people under 18.
'The maximum jail term for such an offense is 15 years,' said Roy Hardi Siahaan, chief detective for the local police.
Pujiono has defended his action, saying he would not consummate the marriage until the girl reaches puberty.
Child rights activists have accused Pujiono of paedophilia and of depriving the girl of an education.
Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni also condemned the marriage and demanded it be cancelled.

While it is admirable that Indonesia has arrested the man, an AP report adds a relevant detail:

The cleric's wedding and proclamations that he intended also to marry two other girls, aged 7 and 9, angered many in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation with more than 210 million believers.

And finally another interesting point from Gulf News:

Pujiono Cahyo Widianto wed the girl before thousands of people in Central Java province last August.

Where was the outrage then? It looks like the real problem was his public intentions to marry the younger girls, not the marriage to the 12-year old.

(photo h/t Andre)

Hamas hates Gazans

In a region filled with ironies, one that flies under the radar of the Western world is the fact that Hamas treats the people of Gaza horribly, and often sacrifices their interests for its own political or military advantage.

From hiding among the people to draw Israeli fire, to diverting needed aid towards Hamas members away from the population, to its utter indifference towards building or maintaining basic infrastructure (most of which is done by PA members nowadays, not Hamas,) to its decision to turn abandoned Jewish communities into terror training camps instead of moving Gazans into real homes, it is clear that Hamas only makes decisions based on what is best for Hamas, not what is best for Gaza.

The latest in this long line of examples happened just in the past few hours.

Ma'an reports:

Egypt reportedly stopped two Hamas officials from returning to the Gaza Strip from Egypt on Tuesday with night-vision goggles and some $900,000 in cash, the Reuters news agency reported.

The report quotes anonymous security officials, and also does not name the Hamas officials involved. Customs agents reportedly [found] 500,000 euros and 250,000 US dollars while searching the officials bags.

The Hamas members were returning from the Egyptian-brokered Palestinian unity talks in Cairo.

As in the past, the items they were trying to smuggle were not meant for Palestinian Arabs but for Hamas itself. Hamas' reaction is even more blatantly anti-Gazan:

The de facto Palestinian government in Gaza refused to open the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Wednesday in protest of what it called “humiliating regulations” on Palestinian travelers.

The Interior Ministry in the Hamas-led government issued this decision as Egypt said it would open the Rafah border on Wednesday and Thursday. The de facto government however denied that it had received official notification of this.

Egypt planned to open Rafah today for Gazans to cross - and Hamas is stopping them, because of the "humiliation" it suffered by Egypt's seizure of banned items. Hamas has made yet another decision to make Gazans suffer for its own gain.

The irony continues with the hundreds of rallies for "Gaza" that are really demonstrations for Hamas rule - which is anti-Gaza! People who claim to be pro-Gaza must necessarily be anti-Hamas, but the reverse is true. The "Free Gaza" movement members and the George Galloways of the world happily shake hands with Gaza officials and take pictures with a group that is not only anti-Israel and anti-semitic, but anti Gazan.

How many protests have there been for Gazans themselves and against Hamas? What percentage of human rights workers are openly anti-Hamas? How many UN resolutions have been passed against Hamas' treatment of Gazans?

People who advocate boosting Hamas politically are, by definition, against the people of Gaza.

Jews with minds so open, their sense falls out

The Washington Post reports on the anti-semitic Caryl Churchill play, "Seven Jewish Children," being performed at...the Jewish Community Center of Washington:

As a work of art, "Seven Jewish Children" is "deftly constructed, evocative, elusive and provocative," says Ari Roth. He is the artistic director of the Jewish Community Center's Theater J in Northwest Washington, where staged readings of the play will be offered on March 26 and 28. (Collaborator Forum Theatre in Northeast Washington will house the play on March 27 and 29, as Theater J does not have Friday performances and Forum has put on Churchill's works before. )

Some have argued that the play is also something insidious. Consider these lines of dialogue: "Tell her they live in tents. Tell her this wasn't their home." And then, "Tell her they don't understand anything except violence." And then, "Tell her they're filth." And finally, the jarringly brutal, "Tell her I wouldn't care if we wiped them out."

When the play premiered in London this year, some theater critics called the work anti-Semitic. The Spectator labeled the play "an open incitement to hatred" and a "ten-minute blood-libel."

In British media, Churchill has denied charges of anti-Semitism; Roth wonders whether an American audience will have a reaction so vehemently negative. "The idea is to give the play a hearing, to approach it in the spirit of inquiry," Roth says. "We're not going to take a right-wing British journalist's word that it's blood-libel."

This statement is so stupid it stretches credulity. Does one have to watch a play to see what it states, or can one perhaps accomplish that by reading the script?

Instead, the two Washington theaters, both of which frequently hold issue-based discussion groups, will present the play as an opportunity for dialogue, holding forums after each performance. Theater J will also follow "Seven Jewish Children" by debuting a response play, "Seven Palestinian Children," which New Jersey playwright Deb Margolin wrote after reading Churchill's work.

I am insulted that the magnum opus I composed yesterday is not being considered as an appropriate response.

Although Margolin's play also features some controversial language -- "Tell him: When old men die, it is expected; when young men die, it is sacred" -- she argues that her play comes from a humanitarian perspective. "What I want to speak to is that moment when one human being is incapable of seeing the humanity in another," Margolin says. She is Jewish and says distress over some of Churchill's generalizations about the Jewish community caused Margolin to write her own play.

Unfortunately, this misses the point. The problem with "Seven Jewish Children" is a gentile, who is clearly antipathic towards Zionists/Jews, is lying about how Jews think and dramatizing those lies. A response play is not the proper way to put lies in context; lies have no context. They should be demolished or dismissed, but not taken, even for a moment, as fact.

"My druthers would be to critique this play dramaturgically, not politically," Roth says. But separating art from politics in a work as fraught as "Seven Jewish Children" might be a nearly impossible task, even for sophisticated theatergoers. The play brings up issues that prompt immediate emotional responses, however you perceive Churchill's intent.

The Washington Post understands the problem more than the Jewish art director of the JCC.

Roth believes that there are many rational ways to interpret "Seven Jewish Children." It's a quick play, he says, "that accomplishes an awful lot."

Oh, please. It isn't Shakespeare. There is only one rational way to interpret it, and it is to make Jews look like hypocritical, bloodthirsty usurpers of peaceful Arabs.
(h/t jh in the comments)

UPDATE: I wanted to point out another absurd part of this story:

"My druthers would be to critique this play dramaturgically, not politically," Roth says.

By Roth's logic, if someone would write a catchy pop song called "Kill the Jews," the proper response would be to write a competing song called "Please Don't Kill Us" and play both of them in the interests of "debate."

Simcha Open Thread

I guess that since I am at a wedding and can't blog, this is again a good time for an Open Thread.

Play nice, guys.

The majority of Palestinian Arabs are immoral

Buried in the results of the latest PSR poll of Palestinian Arabs and Israelis comes this tidbit:

54% of the Palestinians support and 42% oppose armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel.

Once again, a majority of Palestinian Arabs support terror attacks - not only against "settlers" but against ordinary Jews living in Israel. All of the people that keep telling us that Palestinian Arabs want peace are, simply, wrong. They want to see Jewish women and children killed.

This is nothing new. A similar percentage answered the same in June 2008 (before the Gaza op); last April a majority specifically supported suicide bombings against Israeli civilians; a different poll showed 68% of Palestinian Arabs supported terror attacks in Israel in April 2007, and in September 2006 the percentage was calculated to be 57%, with 63% supporting rocket attacks.

Can someone explain the wisdom of a "peace process" with people who desire the death of their "peace partners?"

This is not a poll of Hamas members. This is not a poll of only Gaza. This is the mainstream Palestinian Arab opinion, and it has been how they felt for years. Going back to 1995 - pre-Intifada, during the golden years of Oslo when Palestinian Arab employment was at record highs - the proportion that supported terror attacks well outnumbered those who opposed terror by 12 percentage points (although then was a pluraity, not a majority.)

At what point do we say that the real obstacles to peace are the people who openly and joyously support the murder of innocents? When will the world realize that we are pouring billions of dollars towards a people who are repeatedly and consistently pro-terror? How long do we have to wait before people realize that it is way past time for Palestinian Arabs themselves to take responsibility for their beliefs, their opinions and their actions?

It sounds harsh, but the polls have proven, time and time again, that a majority of Palestinian Arabs are immoral. They support terror. They support the wanton murder of innocents. Is there any other way to spin this?

And you cannot claim that Palestinian Arabs are only theoretically supportive of terror, and are aghast when it actually happens. Last year, an astonishing 84% of Palestinian Arabs supported the Mercaz Harav massacre of teenagers.

Why does the world still support a people who not only tolerate evil but celebrate it?

Protocols of the Drinkers of Coffee (Melanie Philips)

From Melanie Philips:

From Egypt, further evidence that the Islamist hatred of the Jews is not caused by Israel’s behaviour or even its existence. It’s caused by... hatred of the Jews. Here, Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub raves:

If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. The Jews are infidels – not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, but because Allah said: 'The Jews say that Uzair is the son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah. These are the words from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of the disbelievers before. May Allah fight them. How deluded they are.’ It is Allah who said that they are infidels.

Your belief regarding the Jews should be, first, that they are infidels, and second, that they are enemies. They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing. Allah said: 'You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the disbelievers [sic] to be the Jews and the polytheists.' Third, you must believe that the Jews will never stop fighting and killing us. They [fight] not for the sake of land and security, as they claim, but for the sake of their religion: 'And they will not cease fighting you until they turn you back you’re your religion, if they can.'

This is it. We must believe that our fighting with the Jews is eternal, and it will not end until the final battle – and this is the fourth point. You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth.

Egypt, let us not forget, is a ‘moderate’ Arab state that has a peace agreement with Israel. It is nevertheless a major source of barking-mad Jewish demonisation in the Arab world. Here is Egyptian Cleric Salama Abd Al-Qawi warning Muslims against the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – the notorious Czarist forged claim that the Jews covertly rule the world -- and many US companies :

They [the Jews]began conspiring to annihilate the Islamic and Arab nation, to plunder its resources, and to destroy its youth. Regretfully, the plots they hatched are being implemented today in detail. One of their conspiracies, which stemmed from their black hatred, was to gain control over the entire global economy, bringing the world under their thumb. So they founded huge companies, which, like spiders, send their webs all over the world. The main goal of these companies was to erase Islamic identity.

... Many basic products, which may be found in many Muslim households, like the Ariel, Tide, and Persil laundry detergents, are made by Zionist companies. The Coca Cola and Pepsi companies and all their products – Seven Up, Miranda, Fania, and all these products, all the carbonated beverages, with very few exceptions that don't bear mention... Almost all the carbonated beverages are Zionist-American products.

[...] Some restaurants, I'm sad to say, are teeming with Muslim youth, and their safes are full of the money of Muslims... McDonalds is Jewish-Zionist, Kentucky Fried Chicken is Jewish-Zionist, Little Caesar, Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza, Burger King... By the way, all these products, which I have mentioned... In addition, there is a new type of coffee these days... All these are pure Zionist products, especially what is known as Starbucks, the well-known coffee. It is Zionist.

Ah yes, Starbucks: home of the Zionist genocidal apartheid bean. In January, Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi brought viewers of al Nas TV urgent news about the Starbucks logo:

Has any of you ever wondered who this woman with a crown on her head is? Why do we boycott Starbucks? ... The girl on the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther. Do you know who Queen Esther was and what the crown on her head means? This is the crown of the Persian Kingdom. This queen is the queen of the Jews. She is mentioned in the Torah, in the Book of Esther. The girl you see is Esther, the queen of the Jews in Persia...

Can you believe that in Mecca, Al-Madina, Cairo, Damascus, Kuwait, and all over the Islamic world, hangs the picture of beautiful Queen Esther, with a crown on her head, and we buy her products.[...]We want Starbucks to be shut down throughout the Arab and Islamic world. We want it to be shut down in Mecca and in Al-Madina. I implore King Abdallah bin Abd Al-‘Aziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques: It is inconceivable that in Mecca and Al-Madina, there will be a picture of Queen Esther, the queen of the Jews.

As anyone can see, however, the female figure in the Starbucks logo (pictured above) has two fish tails. This is a clue that she is not Esther, queen of the Jews in Persia. She is instead a twin-tailed siren of Greek mythology. This is because the company is apparently named in part after Starbuck, Captain Ahab’s first mate in the book Moby Dick.
What we are up against within the Islamic world is quite simply a wholesale negation of reason; nothing less.

All I want to know is, how come KFC and Pizza Hut isn't kosher (outside of Israel)?
(h/t EBoZ)

Saudi/Gulf news roundup

A Saudi newspaper was shut down after publishing an article critical of the religious police.

Two "youths" - it is unclear if they are minors - were sentenced to 30 lashes each for pointing a laser pointer at security patrol. The sentence cannot be appealed.

A two-year old was taken to three doctors in Saudi Arabia over the course of a week before they realized he had a battery stuck in his nose. By that time, the battery acid was already burning a hole in his cartilage.

A Saudi minister has determined that the "ideal" price for oil is between $60 and $75 a barrel. Higher than that and Westerners will work harder for alternative fuels, lower and they don't make money. (My explanation, not his.)

Dubai - that model for Gulf modernity - gave a new set of rules of behavior in the emirate. According to a Saudi newspaper:

The Arabic-language daily Al-Emarat Al-Youm said the Dubai Executive Council has urged residents of Dubai, where foreigners make up more than 80 percent of the population, to respect the customs of the country and avoid inappropriate behavior.
The rules, which apply to all public places, include a ban on all forms of nudity, playing music loudly and dancing, exchange of kisses between men and women — and even on unmarried couples holding hands.
Any breach of the guidelines, by nationals or expatriates, carries a possible prison penalty, the paper said.
The guidelines also stipulate that anyone caught under the influence of alcohol — even small amounts — outside designated drinking areas is liable to being fined or imprisoned, the paper added.

Not much today, sorry

I really feel guilty when I have no time to blog, but ...I have no time to blog. A full work-day and a social event tonight. If I can carve out a little time I will. Sorry!

Dawah

Here are two recent examples of Islamic "outreach," known as dawah, where Muslims knowingly lie about the Quran in order to get Westerners more interested in Islam.

The first one is almost comical. A pamphlet written some thirty years ago by a French "scholar" and more recently updated purports to show that the Quran had a deep knowledge of modern science:

On the 9th of November, 1976, an unusual lecture was given at the French Academy of Medicine. Its title was "Physiological and Embryological data in the Qur'an". I presented the study based on the existence of certain statements concerning physiology and reproduction in the Qur'an. My reason for presenting this lecture was because it is impossible to explain how a text produced in the seventh century could have contained ideas that have only been discovered in modern times.

A number of examples are brought. For example:

The notion of a settled place for the sun is vividly described in chapter Yaa Seen of the Qur'an:

"The sun runs its coarse to a settled place That is the decree of the Almighty, the All Knowing." Qur'an, 36:38

"Settled place" is the translation of the word mustaqarr which indicates an exact appointed place and time. Modern astronomy confirms that the solar system is indeed moving in space at a rate of 12 miles per second towards a point situated in the constellation of Hercules ( alpha lyrae ) whose exact location has been precisely calculated. Astronomers have even give it a name, the solar apex.

Doesn't it sound more like the Quran is saying that the sun will keep traveling - and then stop?

His other examples are no more impressive:

Among the achievements of modern science is the "conquest" of space which has resulted in mans journey to the moon. The prediction of this event surely springs to mind when we read the chapter ar-Rahmaan in the Qur'an:

"O assembly of Jinns and men, if you can penetrate the regions of the heavens and the earth, then penetrate them! You will not penetrate them except with authority."

Qur'an,55:33

Authority to travel in space can only come from the Creator of the laws which govern movement and space. The whole of this Qur'anic chapter invites humankind to recognize God's beneficence.

The author doesn't seem to be bothered by the mention of "jinn", meaning, genies.

For some much more striking counterexamples of Quranic adherence to modern science, see here.

Another recent example of dakwah is a new film being produced that purports to show that the Quran is compatible with modern US values:

"The film talks about the major themes of the Quran, including the most controversial ones, like jihad, women, sex, polygamy, peace and violence," Masudi told AlArabiya.net.

Masudi explained that the documentary places Islam in a modern context and refutes the view that Islam is out-dated by linking the Quran to modern concepts like democracy, charity and diversity.

"There are so many similarities between Islam and the West because the Quran was meant to be for all of mankind, Muslims do not have a monopoly on Islam, on the book or on Allah," Masudi said.

The synopsis of the film on its website shows exactly how objective this film is:

A group of American professors is asked to probe deep into the minds of more than a billion Muslims. To find out what drives them to suicide bombings, multiple wives and religious fanaticism.

The team:

Mark Juergensmeyer: International expert on terrorism in religion and President, American Academy of Religion. Hossein Nasr, Harvard alumni, author of fifty books on Islam and science, and Professor at Washington University. Bruce Lawrence, Abrahamic Pluralist and bestselling author of From Hajj to Hip Hop. Maria Dakake, Editor Harper Collins Study Quran Encyclopedia and Professor, George Mason University. Jonathan A Brown, Omer Mozaffar, and Joseph Lumbard: all fine scholars of comparative religious traditions in prestigious universities of the United States.

The team is asked to find out if The Quran is out of step with modern times. It is directed to disregard traditional clergy, if need be.

Unaware of each others assignments, the panel delves deep into the fountainhead of this most enigmatic Faith: The Quran. It uncovers shocking facts, astonishing revelations and intriguing results about Islam. The findings raise as many questions as they answer.

The panel’s no- holds- barred, hard hitting findings include:

“In Islam, sex is a good thing. Allah is not a Muslim specific God; even Arabic speaking Jews and Christians use the word Allah in their liturgies. Polygamy is a blessing. We are not God and God is not us. It is mandatory for Muslims to revere all the Prophets of Judaism and Christianity. Muslims do not worship Muhammad. Everybody is a born Muslim!”

Congratulations, world. According to these prominent American professors, you have all just retroactively become Muslim.

How £100M Funds Terror

From the Daily Express:

MILLIONS of pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent promoting terrorism and encouraging young Palestinians to hate the West, it emerged yesterday.

Money donated as aid has been used to print textbooks which teach children that "death is not bitter in the mouth of the believers" and that the Iraqi insurgency is a "brave resistance" against Britain and the US, according to a report by the TaxPayers' Alliance.

Last year, Britain sent nearly £100million to the Palestinian territories - more than double what it sent the year before - despite the Government being warned that January that aid money was being spent on promoting terror.

The report, which will be published on Wednesday, found school textbooks encouraging Palestinian children to become suicide bombers were being used in classrooms.

In one book, published by the Palestinian Authority, pupils are taught: "Your enemies seek life while you seek death."
State-owned TV channels and newspapers have also glorified suicide bombers, called for terrorism and urged Palestinians to pick up weapons.

Speaking about Ayat al-Akhras, 18, the youngest Palestinian female suicide bomber, a TV presenter on the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation said: "You and your cause deserve the greatest respect. In our opinion, Ayat is a hero."

On the same network, history professor Adnan Ayash spoke of "the Jewish disease, the Zionist disease, which is a cancerous disease".

The disclosure that taxpayers' money is being used to fund terrorism drew a furious response from across the political and social spectrum yesterday.

Timothy Kirkhope, leader of the Conservative delegation in the European Parliament, who is hosting the launch of the report, said that no more aid money should be sent to the Palestinian territories unless donations were monitored to ensure they were not used to radicalise young people.

"Money has been misspent in the area before and used to buy weapons. This time they may not be using it on bullets and guns, but they are using it to turn the minds of young people towards militancy.

"The indoctrination and propaganda found by the report is extremely militant in its nature and is the opposite of what we should be trying to achieve in the area."

Liberal Democrat spokesman on international development Michael Moore said: "No British aid should fund people who seek to undermine the British, other allies, or the Israeli state."

The report is here. One excerpt from a textbook:

Translation:
“O heroes, Allah has promised you victory.... Do not talk
yourselves into flight… Your enemies seek life while you seek
death. They seek spoils to fill their empty stomachs while you
seek a Garden [Paradise] as wide as are the heavens and the
earth... death is not bitter in the mouth of the believers. These
drops of blood that gush from your bodies will be transformed
tomorrow into blazing red meteors that will fall down upon the
heads of your enemies." (page 16)

Licensing for "Seven Arab Children"

I suppose to be consistent I need to offer licensing terms for my spoof play as Churchill did. OK, here they are:

The play can be read or performed anywhere, by any number of people. Anyone who wishes to do it should contact Elder of Ziyon, who will license performances free of charge provided that no admission fee is charged and that a collection is taken at each performance for Hatzalah of Yehuda and Shomron.

If the idea that giving money to a medical organization that saves Jewish lives in the "territories" makes you squeamish, perhaps you need to examine your own liberal ideals.

Seven Arab Children

The BBC decided not to air Caryl Churchill's "Seven Jewish Children" play. Not because they disagreed with it, oh no...

But [Radio 4's drama commissioning editor Jeremy]Howe wrote: "It is a no, I am afraid. Both Mark [Damazer, Radio 4 controller] and I think it is a brilliant piece, but after discussing it with editorial policy we have decided we cannot run with it on the grounds of impartiality – I think it would be nearly impossible to run a drama that counters Caryl Churchill's view. Having debated long and hard we have decided we can't do Seven Jewish Children."

Well, I am here to help the BBC out. Since they don't have a poorly written drama available to show "both sides" of the story, I am going to write one right now. I estimate it will take ten minutes.

Seven Arab Children
A play about Palestine

1.
Tell him that we are one big Arab nation
Tell him that we invented algebra
Tell him that we always lived here
Tell him that others can only live here if they agree to be dhimmis
Don't tell him about the Jews who used to live here
Tell him that we live in southern Syria
and that we will never be divided from our brethren
Tell him that all Arabs look out for reach other

2.
Tell him we hate the Jews because they are weak
Tell him that they they started it first
Tell him that Jews shouldn't live in Hebron
Don't tell him that they were there for millennia
Tell him that they attacked Arabs at their Wall
Tell him they wanted to kill all the Arabs
Tell him that he will be rewarded for killing them.

3.
Tell him we are on strike
Don't tell him that Arabs are killing more Arabs than Jews or British
Tell him that the British are pro-Jewish
Don't tell him about the "collaborators"
Tell him that the Mufti will lead us to a state
Don't tell him about the feuds between the clans
Tell him that the hundreds of dead Arabs are the Jews' fault
Tell him that we will never accept compromise

4.
Don't tell him that we ran away
Don't tell him that some Arabs stayed and are not in camps
Tell him that we will still throw the Jews into the sea
Tell him not to forget that he is an Arab
Tell him that we were massacred
Tell him that over and over again
Tell him he must hate the Jews
Don't tell him that our Arab brethren keep us in camps
Don't tell him that they told us to flee
Don't blame them for our troubles
We need to live with them

5.
Tell him that we are "Palestinian"
Tell him not to say "Jews" in English, only "Zionists"
Tell him that the Arabs will help us push the Jews into the sea this time
Tell him we are united
Tell him that we still have a key to our home
Don't tell him to go to Kuwait to find a job
Tell him the UN will take care of us forever
Don't tell him to blame the Arabs for our being stateless for decades
Tell him it is needed for "unity"

6.
Tell him it is not terrorism
Tell him that the martyrs are heroes
Tell him we hate the Jews because they are strong
Don't tell him that we still cannot become citizens
of the Arab nations we were born in
Don't tell him that our brethren kicked us out of Jordan
Tell him Jews massacred us in Lebanon, not Arab Christians
Tell him about Paradise
Don't tell him about Arabs in Knesset

7.
Tell him to become a Shahid
Tell him that we will never compromise
Tell him that the "peace process" is just another means to conquer land
Tell him not to say that out loud
Tell him that a child-killer is a hero for all Arabs
Don't tell him that we killed hundreds of each other in Gaza
Don't tell him we used to have jobs and work together with the Jews
Don't tell him that the intifada was a failure
Tell him to cry on top of rubble if a reporter comes by
Tell him we won all our wars with the Jews
Don't tell him why we still live in camps in Gaza
Tell him we'll be proud of him when he becomes a shahid
Tell him that his family will be taken care of after he dies
Tell him to take as many Jews as he can
Tell him he will be a hero
and we are so proud of him

Israeli group vows to kill released terrorists

From YNet:

The relatives of some Israeli terror victims are preparing for the "day after" a possible Shalit prisoner swap, in an effort to locate and target terrorists freed as part of the deal, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.

The new organization has already started to raise funds and held several meetings in order to formulate its "eye for an eye" policy. The initiative is being led by Attorney Meir Schijveschuurder and his brother Shvuel, who lost their parents and three siblings in the suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizza parlor in Jerusalem in 2001.

The brothers recently started to bring together relatives of terror victims and initiated contacts with donors in Israel and abroad. The new organization aims to prepare an "intelligence dossier" on terrorists with blood on their hands to be released in future swaps and pursue them worldwide.

"We have a file about most of the murderers, including information about their families," Meir Schijveschuurder said "The parents of one of the terrorists involved in the Sbarro attack, for example, own a pizza parlor in Jenin. We have their residential address."

"In addition, there is the female terrorist who organized the terror attack, and she will be the first one for me," he said. "She kept on smiling during the trial, and we shall erase her smile. I am mentally and physically ready to send her to the next world. As to the ones who will remain in Palestinian Authority areas, we will implement against them the customary law there: Eye for an eye."

Schijveschuurder made it clear that he has no qualms with the Israeli government, but added that "the moment it decided to stop punishing them, we will do it as a last result. It would be very worthwhile for those killers to remain in Israeli prisons, with all the benefits and perks. Out of jail they won't be able to sleep well at night. We will pursue them and get to all of them."

Whatever the merits of vigilante justice in these cases, it is amusing to see that the Islamic Jihad newspaper Palestine Today called the group "a Jewish terrorist organization." Of course, they referred to the terror attacks that this group plans to avenge as being "martyrdom operations."