Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 04, 2015

Soldier describes how immoral Hamas is

Looking at more of the "Breaking the Silence" testimonies, here's an example where the leftist group is trying hard to pretend that the IDF is doing something immoral - but in fact it is Hamas that is trying to get the IDF to kill civilians.

There was this mentally handicapped girl in the neighborhood, apparently, and the fact that shots were fired near her feet only made her laugh (earlier in his testimony the soldier described a practice of shooting near people’s feet in order to get them to distance themselves from the forces). She would keep getting closer and it was clear to everyone that she was mentally handicapped, so no one shot at her. No one knew how to deal with this situation. She wandered around the areas of the advance guard company and some other company – I assume she just wanted to return home, I assume she ran away from her parents, I don’t think they would have sent her there. It is possible that she was being taken advantage of – perhaps it was a show, I don’t know. I thought to myself that it was a show, and I admit that I really, really wanted to shoot her in the knees because I was convinced it was one. I was sure she was being sent by Hamas to test our alertness, to test our limits, to figure out how we respond to civilians.

Later they also let loose a flock of sheep on us, seven or ten of whom had bombs tied to their bellies from below.

I don’t know if I was right or wrong, but I was convinced that this girl was a test. Eventually, enough people fired shots near her feet for her to apparently get the message that ‘OK, maybe I shouldn’t be here,’ and she turned and walked away.

The reason this happened is that earlier that day we heard about an old man who went in the direction of a house held by a different force; [the soldiers] didn’t really know what to do so they went up to him. This guy, 70 or 80 years old, turned out to be booby-trapped from head to toe. From that moment on the protocol was very, very clear: shoot toward the feet. And if they don’t go away, shoot to kill.

Here we see that the IDF soldiers held their fire even though there was a very real chance that the girl was booby-trapped, that Hamas had booby trapped sheep, and that Hamas had booby-trapped an old man.

But what is the headline that Breaking the Silence uses for this story?

“I really, really wanted to shoot her in the knees”

This shows quite clearly that BTS is not interested in showing the truth about the IDF, but that they are fishing for dirt to make it look bad.

In other cases the BTS interviewer tried very hard to get the soldier to denounce IDF's rules of engagement:

There were cases in which families were apparently killed by fighter jet strikes. How do you explain that?
A lot of houses were hit, and some of those houses were also shared by occupants aside from [Hamas] militants. I think most of the families that were hurt were in cases like Shuja’iyya, (the testifier is referring to the artillery shot in the aftermath of the event in which seven IDF soldiers were killed when their APC was hit by a rocket) where the threshold for opening fire was more lax because forces were in immediate danger.

But the forces were operating in neighborhoods that were supposed to be uninhabited.
‘Supposed to be’ is one thing, but in reality there were people in there sometimes. In the urban areas of Rafah and Khuza’a, every other house was marked as ‘active’ (being used by militants). It was a real hornet’s nest in there, and they took down those houses systematically. ‘Roof knocking’ (a method by which a small missile is fired on the roof of a building as a warning shot to its residents that it is about to be struck) followed by a boom, ‘roof knocking,’ a boom. Despite the fact that no one was ‘supposed to be’ in there.

Showing that the IDF still tried to warn residents even in areas thatthey shouldn't have been and that they were under active fire from Hamas!

But there are means of confirming that there aren’t any people [in the houses], so how did it happen that they got killed anyway?
We can’t know everything. We did everything we could in order to know. If the family had no phone and a ‘roof knocking’ was conducted, and after a few minutes no one came out, then the assumption was that there was no one there.

You were working under the assumption that once a ‘roof knocking’ was conducted everyone leaves the building immediately, and if nobody leaves it means there was no one inside?
People who are willing to sacrifice themselves, there’s nothing you can do. We have no way of knowing if there were people in there who decided not to get out.

But the bomb was dropped on the house?
Yes.

And say after a ‘roof knocking’ 10 people go up on the roof of the house?
Then you don’t strike the house.

And what if after a ‘roof knocking’ 10 people stay inside the living room?
If people were inside the house I didn’t know about it. But I don’t think that was taken into consideration [over whether or not to bomb the house].

Is it a requirement to make sure no civilians are in a structure before it’s attacked by a fighter jet?
It’s not obligatory. Say the target was [Hamas’] deputy battalion commander in Shuja’iyya, an attack would be launched if the number of civilians wasn’t too high. By too high, I mean a two-digit number.

Everything this soldier says isperfectly legal in the laws of armed conflict. What else could soldiers do to determine if civilians are in the house after leaflets, phone calls and roof-knocking? Should they ring the doorbell and ask politely to speak to the head of the household?

These examples show that Breaking the Silence is not a human rights organization. Its entire purpose is to demonize the IDF, to make it look bad even when it does nothing remotely wrong.

If only real reporters who know something about real wars would read these and write about it.

Here's an example of a "Breaking the Silence" testimony

Today, the leftist group Breaking the Silence released a report on how awful the IDF was during the Gaza war.

As usual, the stories have no context and no details, so it is difficult to know what exactly happened.

But I went to the BTS site to see testimonies from Gaza last year. Here was the first one I saw:

There were a few times where it was just too much and I had to say something. Because in two months of fighting, people make mistakes, mistakes happen. It’s our good fortune, and I mean both as a nation and as the IDF, that there are some people who know how to stand up and say, “Hang on, something bad is happening here.” I remember one incident in which there was permissiveness of sort on the part of the upper levels with regard to wanting to open fire, and it was fortunate that somebody stepped up and said something.

What was the story?
Some militant was being monitored, he had been incriminated, and he was on his way to a meeting with other militants, and on his way there he was joined by another person who started walked alongside him, and the moment their paths linked up – despite the fact that it was totally against regulations – the second guy got incriminated too, and nobody knew from where he had popped up. So you couldn’t incriminate him ‘dry.’ And in that case, there were people there who said, “Hang on, this is no good.” And in the end the strike wasn’t carried out, it wasn’t executed. What I’m trying to say is, that sometimes even the commanders up top make mistakes, and I was present during an incident where it was stopped. I can’t know if there were incidents in which it wasn’t stopped, but in my estimation there were cases in which incriminations were made against the regulations.

So someone walking next to a militant was almost accidentally killed and in the end he wasn't because someone spoke up.

Doesn't this show how horrible the IDF is?

Arguably, this shows that the IDF's rules of engagement are too permissive. Depending on the value of the target, according to the laws of armed conflict, the IDF could have killed both of them without the slightest worry about it being a war crime or even immoral.

Akiva Bigman at Mida last year looked at many more testimonies and was equally underwhelmed. Every story he read either didn't show anything very wrong, minor problems or issues that would happen any time you deal with human beings, or at worst, some problematic episodes that don't describe the context of the danger that the soldiers were in at the moment of decision.

I'm seeing other stories that are just as unimportant. But BTS and its sponsors know that most people wouldn't bother reading the stories themselves that often show the morality of the IDF, and will only read the most lurid ones that are cherry-picked for Haaretz.

If any other Western army had a similar initiative to BTS, chances are they would come out much worse.

Yet "Breaking the Silence," as with so many other NGOs, is funded by the EU with the intent to bash Israel and only Israel.

Because you've gotta start somewhere. And, apparently, when Israel is your target, you've gotta end at the same place you start.

(See also NGO-Monitor)

Another BTS post coming up next.

05/04 Links Pt1: Israel's Hamas-Abbas dilemma; How to Stop Iran? Start Talking About North Korea

From Ian:

Israel's surprising Hamas-Abbas dilemma

A correct reading of the political map indicates that the only option for ending the Hamas reign in Gaza is to let it collapse. Politically, Hamas is besieged and isolated. Egypt considers it a terrorist organization and has been blocking the Rafah crossing between the Strip and the Sinai, which is a vital lifeline for Gaza and its impoverished residents. Hamas is attempting to forge ties and obtain aid from other Arab countries, but the only country willing to do so is Qatar, and it is unclear how much longer that support will last. Turkey helps out a bit, but Hamas attempts to get assistance from Saudi Arabia and Iran have not been very successful. Ideologically, Hamas, as a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, is considered an enemy of both Tehran and Riyadh.
Hamas does not have the money to pay its 40,000 employees. This month, between 50 and 65 percent of their salaries were cut, with the minimum set at NIS1,000 (about $250). Hamas chiefs are accusing Ramallah of preventing the payment of salaries, and UN envoy Mladenov is continuing his efforts to guarantee payment for the civilian government clerks in Gaza, most of them employees of the education and health systems hired by Hamas in recent years. How long can Hamas hold on? Hard to say. What is clear for the time being is that Hamas is not angling for another war, not yet. Given the region’s instability, that, too, is a lot.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians Need Reforms, Not Elections

In an interview with Israel's Channel 2 TV station, Carter, possibly wishing to believe anything he was told, declared that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was a strong proponent of the peace process. Carter went on to claim that Mashaal has accepted the two-state solution and was in favor of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which recognizes Israel's right to exist in return for a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.
Carter's defense of Hamas comes even as Hamas and its leaders continue to talk about their plans and wishes to destroy Israel. It also coincides with Hamas's ongoing and intensive preparations for another war with Israel as they dig new tunnels and rebuild others that were destroyed in the Gaza Strip by Israel in the war less than a year ago .
Free and democratic elections are the last thing the Palestinians need now. Such elections would only pave the way for a Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority and plunge the region into chaos and violence. As long as Abbas's Fatah faction is not seen as a better alternative to Hamas, it would be too risky to ask Palestinians to head to the ballot boxes. Instead of pressuring the Palestinians to hold new elections, world leaders should be demanding accountability and transparency from the PA.
They should also be urging the Palestinian Authority to pave the way for the emergence of new leaders and get rid of all the corrupt old-guard representatives who have been in power for decades. Finally, the international community should be urging the PA to stop its campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel, which drives more Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas and other radical groups, who assume that if the Israelis are as terrible as they are told, they might as well join the group dedicated to killing them rather than to discussing peace.

John Bolton: How to Stop Iran? Start Talking About North Korea

Besides being one of the planet’s poorest, most isolated, most repressed countries, the North has been under comprehensive American sanctions since the Korean War and extensive UN sanctions since 2006, when it resumed ballistic-missile launches and first tested a nuclear device.
None of this prevented Pyongyang from progressing to the threatening levels China now assesses.
This alone should warn us that the less-comprehensive, less well-enforced sanctions against Iran could never compel it to renounce its 30-year quest for deliverable nuclear weapons. If North Korea, perennially on the brink of starvation, can become a nuclear power, Iran can easily match its fellow rogue state.
China’s new estimates should thereby compel a critical re-evaluation of the talks among Iran and the Security Council’s permanent members (and Germany).
A deal blocking Iran from proceeding quickly to nuclear weapons, whatever its specific terms, rests on two critical assumptions:
First, the United States and others must have essentially full knowledge about the current status of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.
Without such a “baseline” assessment, we cannot possibly judge the likely efficacy of a counter-proliferation agreement. If you don’t know where you start, you can hardly judge the sufficiency of the measures agreed to.
Second, following the baseline assessment, Iran must either be fully transparent about its nuclear and missile programs, or a combination of international inspectors and our intelligence agencies must be able to provide the facts necessary to detect and respond to Iranian violations.
Neither of these fundamental preconditions exists in the April 2 “framework.” This defect alone should be central to the debate if a “final” deal is ever reached.

Tel Aviv protests are a win-win for Israel haters

PreOccupied Territory has been making a series of flowcharts showing how anything Israel does can be spun against it.

The recent demonstrations in Tel Aviv seem to be a similar situation:

The Arab media has been enthusiastically reporting on the protests, happily using them s evidence that Israel is racist. (Al Jazeera, ironically, refers to the Ethiopians by the derogatory name "Falashas" while self-righteously reporting on Israeli racism.)

Funny, the only African people in Gulf countries seem to be servants.

The Jewish Press reports that the violence seems to have been instigated from outsiders who want to paint Israel as racist, and want to help it along when the police don't cooperate.

Police said Monday morning that anarchists incited protesters to violence in last night’s march in Tel Aviv against police brutality and racism undermined demonstrators’ objectives.

Protesters were armed with rocks and metal objects that they hurled at police officers, 56 of whom were injured lightly. Police arrested 43 demonstrators and hurled stunned grenades in the middle of a crowd blocking a major artery at rush-hour in Tel Aviv.

Both a senior police official and “Elazar,” who made Aliyah to Ethiopia years before the massive airlift in Operation Shlomo, told Voice of Israel radio (Reshet Bet) that the protest turned violent partly because of anarchists.

So do Israeli police only use tear gas and stun grenades against blacks and Arabs?

Of course not. Police have used water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas against haredi Jewish protesters in Israel.

So surely Israeli police are just violent in general, using tear gas at the drop of a hat?

Tell the British, who used tear gas only last week at a protest against gentrification of neighborhoods.

Tell it to Canadians, whose police recently used tear gas and rubber bullets against a student protest.

For some reason those didn't make world headlines. In fact, they didn't even make major headlines in their own countries.

But the desire to paint Israel as a racist society is irresistible to a large number of reporters.

From AFP:

Tunisia said Sunday security measures have already been taken to protect Jewish pilgrims at a religious festival next week on the island of Djerba, after Israel warned of "concrete threats".

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that Israel had learned of "concrete threats" of terror attacks against Jewish or Israeli targets in the North African country, prompting a quick denial from Tunis.

Interior Minister Najem Gharsalli told journalists in the holiday resort of Djerba, which hosts an annual pilgrimage to the Ghriba, Africa's oldest synagogue, that security forces and the army were ready.

"They are here and the security plan is in place" for the May 6-7 pilgrimage, he said.

"Tunisia is a safe country and Djerba too is a safe city. Visitors from the world over are welcome," Gharsalli said.

"What I am saying now is a response to many who cast doubt over Tunisia's security and its capacity to secure celebrations," he added.

A statement from Netanyahu's office late on Saturday said: "Information indicates that there are plans for terrorist attacks against Israelis or Jews in Tunisia" connected to the pilgrimage.

Thousands of pilgrims visit the tombs of famous rabbis for the Lag BaOmer Jewish Festival, including on Djerba island, where one of the last Jewish communities in the Arab world still lives.

Beginning 33 days after the start of the Jewish Passover festival, the Ghriba pilgrimage used to attract thousands of pilgrims from France and Israel and other tourists.

But their number fell dramatically after an April 2002 bombing blamed on Al-Qaeda that killed 21 people.

According to legend, the Ghriba synagogue was founded in 586 BC by Jews fleeing the destruction of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

Tunisian Jews now number around 1,500, compared with an estimated 100,000 when Tunisia gained independence in 1956.

The Israeli Counter-Terrorism Bureau said it was advising people against visiting Tunisia in view of the "threats".

But Gharsalli insisted that Tunisia can protect visitors "better than any other country".

The authorities have been trying to reassure foreign visitors they will be safe since 21 tourists were killed in a jihadist attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis in March.

Last year, after a major tourism campaign, Tunisia welcomed some 2500 Jews for the pilgrimage - up from only 350 the year before. Tunisia even allowed Israelis to enter the country directly, using their own passports, an unprecedented move.

The tourism industry is a major source of income for the country.

In 2013, Jewish jewelers in Djerba went on strike after a series of antisemitic attacks.

On Friday, Tunisian authorities announced that they had arrested "large numbers" of people in the southwest of the country, but denied that they were terror suspects.

ISIS jihadists tweeted about the Texas attack beforehand

Breaking news from Fox:

A pair of social media accounts possibly linked to the Islamic State terror group posted messages referencing Sunday evening's attack on a Texas free speech event moments before it happened.

The Los Angeles Times reported that a Twitter account bearing the name "Shariah is Light" posted a message with the hashtag "texasattack" at 6:35 p.m. Central Time. The account featured an image of Anwar Awlaki, an American-born cleric killed in 2011 by a drone strike in Yemen.

Moments later, authorities say two men pulled up in a car to the Curtis Culwell Center in the Dallas suburb of Garland, Texas and opened fire. A school security guard was injured in the ankle before police officers shot and killed both suspects. The gunmen had not been identified as of Monday morning and their bodies lay next to their car while police searched for a possible incendiary device.

Authorities have not officially determined whether the shooting was linked to an event, a contest hosted by the New York-based American Freedom Defense Initiative that would award $10,000 for the best cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

"Shariah is Light" also tweeted a command to follow a second account, titled "AbuHussainAlBritani". That second account posted several messages referencing the shooting in Texas and appearing to link it to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

"The knives have been sharpened, soon we will come to your streets with death and slaughter!" the first message from the account read.

A second message said "Allahu Akbar!!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire at the Prophet Muhammad art exhibition in texas!"

“Kill Those That Insult The Prophet,” a third message said.

A final message from the account read, "They Thought They Was Safe In Texas From The Soldiers of The Islamic State."

Both accounts have been suspended by Twitter.

Breitbart adds:

Approximately twenty minutes before a shooting at an event to promote free speech in Garland, Texas, which resulted in an injured officer and two dead suspects, a radical jihadist account on Twitter posted that a person was with another individual and insinuated that he was planning to sacrifice his life to Islam’s “Allah,” using the hashtag #texasattack.

The bro with me and myself have given bay’ah to Amirul Mu’mineen. May Allah accept us as mujahideen. Make dua #texasattack

— Shariah is Light (@atawaakul) May 3, 2015
The Twitter account of the individual in question, @atawaakul, sports the username, “Shariah Is Life,” and has expressed many pro-Islamic State sentiments on its timeline. A photo of Anwar Al Awlaki, the deceased Al Qaeda master recruiter, is displayed as the Twitter user’s profile picture. On April 23, the Twitter user linked to a Breitbart News article written by Pamela Geller, who organized the “Draw Muhammad Contest” in Garland. Texas.

Newest intrafada watch: Salafists vs. Hamas

From Ma'an:

A Salafist group based in the Gaza Strip has accused Hamas of torturing its supporters in prison and closely watching other supporters in cities and refugee camps across the coastal enclave.

A statement issued on Saturday by the group, which identified itself as the Salafist Trend, warned Hamas of consequences if the group's supporters were not set free.

"Once again we ask the wise people of Gaza to stop the ongoing Hamas criminality and abusive detention of our brothers before it's too late," the statement said.

It added that the Salafist Trend "has details about what is going on inside the detention cells of the interior security service, including names of the criminal interrogators who torture and insult our people."

The statement went on to allege that security officers and undercover agents tasked with watching supporters and ransacking their homes are also known to the group by name.

"Those also won't escape punishment, sooner or later."

Firas Press reports that the reason that Jimmy Carter decided not to go to Gaza was because of threats on his life from extremist Salafist groups.

Last week, for the umpteenth time, Palestinian Arabs repeated the ludicrous claim that Jewish settlers are releasing wild pigs - from trucks - in order to destroy Arab crops.

It is difficult to raise wild boars, but all those hard years of effort are worth it when you release them that one time, hoping that they'll eat some Arab grain and terrorize some Arab kids!

In addition, Algerian newspaper Akhbar El Youm says that rabbis in Israel issued a ruling that Jews are allowed to raise wild pigs in order to be able to deliberately release them to damage Palestinian Arab crops.

They quote self-styled expert on Jewish affairs Dr. Saleh Naamy, who tweeted this "fact" without mentioning the name of the rabbis who supposedly made this ruling.

Naamy is a lecturer at the Islamic University of Gaza.

It turns out that Naamy made the same charge in an article published in Al Jazeera in 2009 - with an equal lack of sources.

Again showing how much that esteemed newspaper cares about facts.

I tweeted Dr. Naamy to ask who gave these rulings. His answer was
Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, "Yitzchok Levanon" as well as "others."

I asked him for links to these "fatwas" but he didn't respond.

If any rabbis would have ever said anything close to this, of course, Haaretz and +972 would be mentioning it every day. Their standards are slightly better than Al Jazeera.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

05/03 Links: Body of missing Israeli found in Nepal; Netanyahu: ‘Not too late’ to thwart bad nuclear deal

From Ian:

Rescue team: Body of missing Israeli found in Nepal

The body of missing Israeli trekker Or Asraf was located in Nepal early Sunday morning, an Israeli relief team announced, over a week after he disappeared following a devastating earthquake.
Relatives, friends and rescuers had held out hope of finding Asraf alive — he was the last unaccounted-for Israeli in the country — but a statement from the ZAKA emergency organization said his body had been located on the Langtang ridge.
“We regret to report that during the morning hours the team located a body identified as Or Asraf’s. The complex rescue operation will likely take place tomorrow morning,” the group stated on its Twitter account.
The Foreign Ministry did not offer official confirmation that Asraf’s body had been found, but did not deny the report.

JPost Editorial: Iran’s chutzpah

Whenever we assume that Iran’s chutzpah can get no more egregious, Tehran’s powers-thatbe spare no effort to prove us wrong.
On the face of it, Iran can claim moral equivalence. But this is a counterfeit claim. Iran and like-minded allies – to say nothing of the powers now negotiating a deal with the ayatollah regime – all know that Israel is as prudent a democracy as exists anywhere. If Israel actually has the bomb, then it has had it for more than 50 years – almost as long as the original “Atomic Club” members. In all that time no wrongful use was made.
Iran is the diametrical opposite to Israel – a regime professing extreme Islamist doomsday theology whose bywords are volatility and unpredictability. There’s no evenhandedness between a self-defending democracy and an expansionist, apocalyptic tyranny.
Moreover, it is outrageous to ignore the variety of WMD deployed in the internecine Arab massacres but speciously concentrate on the Middle East’s one beleaguered democracy. The implication is that democratic Israel can be pressured while autocratic Iran will get away with flagrant obstructionism. The good-guy will be disarmed while fanatic aggressors are armed to the teeth.
The danger is that bona fide democracies seem willing to play along with Iran and misdirect the frustration it foments by spotlighting Israel.

Rowan Dean: Don't worry Israel our MPs are mates with Palestine too

Dear Mr Fooley (or may I call you Luke?)
Just got back from my Labor parliamentary excursion, dividing my time equally between Israel and the Palestinian territories, as you requested. What a trip! My feet hardly touched the ground!
Monday: Arrived at Lod Airport, after circling around to avoid being blasted out of the sky by IS, Hamas, Hezbollah, and a bunch of other peace-loving friends of the Palestinian People's Struggle to Wipe The Perfidious Jew Off The Face Off The Earth Praise Be To Allah. Grabbed some duty-frees and headed into downtown Tel Aviv. Looks just like Surfers Paradise meets Surry Hills. Cool hipsters and hot chicks everywhere. Grabbed a quick beer and a burger, bought some fab new apps and software and …
Oops! Time to go to Palestine. Drove into downtown Ramallah. Looks like Mogadishu meets the Mudgee tip. Litter everywhere. Armed guards and machine gun-wielding Mafiosi types wandering around everywhere, too. Try to grab a quick beer, but, er …
Oops! Gotta get back to Israel. Meet some scientists who invented the smartphone industry, or all the cool stuff like Viber and Waze. Plus they invented all this bionic stuff that helps paraplegics and things that stop crib deaths and things that cure …
Yikes! Gotta get back to Palestine. Meet a bunch of dudes who invented the grievance industry. They explain how Israel has been oppressing them for decades. I ask them in what way exactly and they explain, "by existing".Cripes! Back to Jerusalem. Beautiful old city. Visit the Wailing Wall, which is all that's left of the original 3000-year-old Jewish temple where the dudes in black hats go and nod. Anyone can go but you gotta be careful coz Arab kids like to chuck rocks at you when you're praying.

American political thought is narrow, like a thin blue line.

On one side of that line is the Right and on the other the Left. On one side of that line are Republicans and on the other Democrats.

The Right and the Left in the United States each like to think that they are morally superior to the other.

Republicans and the Right tend to think of Democrats and the Left as weak and stupid and immoral.

Democrats and the Left tend to think of Republicans and the Right as brutish and stupid and immoral.

But both consider the other to be as a dumb as a bag of hammers.

The truth of the matter is that American political thought is largely defined by the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, which reads as follows:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It is the greater good versus individual liberty.

This is what outlines American political conflict.

I would argue that the ongoing slog of American political history is wrapped around this notion of promoting the "general welfare" in tension with the effort to secure the "blessings of liberty."

The inclination on the Left is toward the general welfare or social good. The American Left wants to see those who are held down, lifted up. In the tradition that goes from nineteenth-century abolitionism and progressivism to the New Deal and the Civil Rights Movement to the New Left, what drives the American Left is standing for the underdog and they thereby see themselves as standing within a noble political tradition ongoing into the future, the very political tradition that freed the slaves.

The inclination on the Right is toward individual liberty. The American Right wants to see those who are held down, lifted up. In the tradition that goes from Edmund Burke and European Enlightenment notions of democracy to the anti-slavery movement and the rise of regulatory capitalism and, thus, the American middle class, what drives the American Right is standing for the individual, and her family, and they thereby see themselves as standing within a noble political tradition ongoing into the future, the very political tradition that freed the slaves.

Democrats and the Left tend to be more about the general welfare, while Republicans and the Right tend to be more about the blessings of liberty, but it is not quite so simple due to the fact that libertarians are the joker in the deck.

Democrats and Leftists tend to be social libertarians. That is, they believe that the government should stay the hell out of their bedroom... and that goes double for Gay people.

Republicans and Rightists tend to be economic libertarians. That is, they believe that the government should stay the hell out of their bank statements... and that goes double for the IRS.

But, in a nutshell, that is basically it. The United States has a very narrow political outlook and both sides of that outlook are liberal. American conservatives and American Republicans and American leftists and American Democrats are all liberal. Henry Kissinger famously said, and I paraphrase, that university-academic politics are so nasty because the stakes are so small. What I would suggest is that American politics, in general, are so nasty because the ideological differences between us are so small.

The United States is not Europe and it sure as hell is not the Middle East.

In Europe they have significant political differences. There is communism on the Left and fascism on the Right. There is hard-line left-wing socialism and there is hard-line right-wing conservatism, although most people are somewhere in-between. In the United States almost everyone is in-between.

We are all liberals. From Ronald Reagan to Eleanor Roosevelt, we are all liberals.

Black-White, Left-Right, This-That, we are all liberals.

The word "free" is popular on both sides of the aisle. We believe in a free press and freedom of speech. We believe in freedom of religion. We believe in the free exchange of goods and ideas.

Left-Right, This-That, we believe in the freedom of the individual to pursue his or her individual life, liberty, and happiness so long as the individual remains within the law.

And this leads me to Baltimore.

Any political party or political movement or political individual that sides with rioters against the cops is making a very big mistake because there is nothing the least little bit liberal about Molotov cocktails and violence in the streets.

Those kids from Baltimore and the local neighborhoods may have had a pretty fun time for a couple of nights, but the adults need to take charge because Lord of the Flies does not for a democracy make.

From an electoral perspective most Americans are going to stand with the cops.

Standing up for the violent children in Baltimore is like standing up for the Occupy Whatever Movement from 2011 or promoting Cindy Sheehan for Vice President or paying San Francisco State University instructors to promote terrorism.

It is pure stupidity.

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

Swedish police criticized for including Palestinian flag on list of terrorist symbols

In light of several Swedish teenagers becoming radicalized and traveling to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS, Swedish police recently distributed a list of terrorist logos to high school principals so they could be on the lookout for early signs of potential trouble among their student populations.

A controversy has erupted because one of the terror logos listed, that of the Abu Nidal Organization, uses the PLO flag as its logo.

Jonas Hysing, director of the National Tactical Council that shared the list with the schools, noted that it was not uncommon for terror organizations to use symbols that have been used in other ways, for example ISIS using Mohammed's creed.

Green Party member Niclas Persson is the mayor of Orebro, one of the towns that distributed the list to school principals. He said "It is important that this is accurate. The material is of course designed to warn us if an organization's symbol is being used. The biggest problem is linking the Palestinian freedom struggle with terrorism. It's very unfortunate."

Jonas Hysing said "It is possible that we add some text that the symbols are often used in multiple ways. But the symbol is used by a designated terrorist organization, and it is up to the Swedish police to inform their employees about it."

The list of logos came from the US National Counterterrorism Center. However, their list of logos are not comprehensive - they list 52 terror groups and only 40 logos.

Among all the hand-wringing over how unfortunate it is that the PLO flag is listed under Abu Nidal Organization, no one in Sweden seems to upset that two flags over is the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which Mahmoud Abbas apparently has no problem with even though they are part of the Fatah party that he heads. He claimed that it was dismantled years ago, but they are still alive and kicking and publicly walking around the West Bank with masks and weapons.

And the PLO flag, as well.

Palestinian Arabs don't blink when their flag is associated with terror groups. Which means that the inclusion of the Palestinian flag in a list of symbols for teachers and law enforcement to look out for as an indication of potential terror activity is quite appropriate, despite the politically correct crowd.

After all, when you see a PLO flag in Europe, 90% of the time it is meant to call for the destruction of Israel, not for any "pro-Palestinian" reason.

Jimmy Carter praises Hamas leader as peacemaker [poster]

From Times of Israel:

Former US president Jimmy Carter called Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal a strong proponent of the peace process Saturday, and said he wasn’t meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because it would be “a waste of time.”

Ah, Jimmy. Is there any Israel-hating terrorist you don't love?

Meshal quote from MEMRI.

Work accidents! Candy time!

From Ma'an:

Hamas' military wing Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades said that one of their fighters died in a tunnel collapse on Saturday in the northern Gaza Strip.

In a statement the Brigades identified the fighter as Nihad Awad Khleif, 30, from Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.

And:

The Islamic Jihad on Saturday announced the death of a gunman from the group's military wing in the northern Gaza Strip.

The group said in a statement that Nasim Khalil Naim was killed during a "Jihadist mission," without giving further details.

Hand out the candy!

05/02 Links: Family of missing Israeli: ‘Don’t give up on Or’; Dershowitz wants Israeli citizenship

From Ian:

‘Don’t give up on Or,’ pleads family of Israeli missing in Nepal

Family and friends of the last Israeli missing in Nepal insisted they still hoped to find him alive Saturday, a week after a deadly quake hit the Himalayas, and they urged the public not to give up on him either.
“Rescue teams told us about instances in which they rescued people healthy and whole, even after a month,” Or Asraf’s friends told the Walla news site, as hopes of rescuing more survivors from last week’s earthquake dwindled.
“We’re not giving up and we’re asking everyone — from the teams on the ground to the people at home — not to lose hope and not give up on Asraf.”
Nepal’s government on Saturday ruled out the possibility of finding more survivors buried in the rubble from last weekend’s massive earthquake as it announced the death toll had risen to 6,841. Over 14,000 were injured.

IDF Rescue Dog Searches for Victims in Kathmandu Rubble

A GoPro camera strapped onto an Israeli Army dog revealed first hand the search for survivors of Saturday’s deadly earthquake in Nepal.
In a 30-second clip, posted by the IDF on Facebook, the canine is shown walking across rubble in Kathmandu and through evacuated buildings looking for survivors. The dog sprints past demolished homes and still standing structures where walls are torn apart and personal belongings are scattered across the floor.
The short video provides a glimpse into the extent of the damage wrought by the natural disaster that killed more than 6,000 people, while thousands of others are still unaccounted for.
Aside from searching for survivors, the Israeli Army is also helping to treat wounded Nepalis. Three days after the earthquake, a 260-member IDF delegation, including 127 medical personnel, arrived in Nepal and set up a field hospital to help the injured. The hospital has provided medical care to 246 people since opening on Wednesday morning and doctors have already performed some 15 life-saving surgeries, The Times of Israel reported.

Israel Army Rescue Dog searches for Nepal earthquake survivors

Slain Jerusalemite’s Father: Israel is at War, But We’re in Denial About it

Rabbi Uri Sharki, whose son was run over and killed in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem last month, said “Because we are in the midst of a struggle, we should assume that the [incident] was a terrorist attack until proven otherwise.”
It took five days for the attack that killed Shalom Yochai Sharki to be recognized as a terrorist attack because police had to prove it was not simply a traffic accident.
Sharki sees this hesitation as part of a larger issue that has overtaken Israeli society. He said that he understands that from the perspective of “professional ethnics,” the police have to remain cautious about giving definite answers, “and I also do not want to condemn an innocent man. But the question is, what is the underlying assumption?”
Sharki explained that, for police, an incident is not a terrorist attack unless it is proven to be so afterwards.
“But, it is also possible to operate in the opposite manner: for the starting point to be that this is a terrorist attack, until it is proven otherwise,” said Sharki.

05/01 Links Pt2: Lumish: Progressive-Left Jews and the European Union; Defeating European hypocrisy

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Britain’s nightmare post-election scenario

It never occurs to them that the tsunami of anti-Israel bigotry which has swamped Britain these past 15 years and more has legitimized ever-more brazen expressions of Jew-hatred. On the contrary, people in Britain tend to think that anti-Jew stuff has nothing to do with anti-Israel stuff. Since so many Jews are hostile to Israel or Zionism, they chorus, this can’t possibly be anti-Jew, can it? I suspect that Ed Miliband himself makes precisely this distinction. For the Labor leader, who is himself a Jew, is in effect deeply anti-Israel.
Not that he would characterize his position in this way. Indeed, in this week’s Jewish Chronicle he claims once again to be “a strong friend of Israel.”
This even though he damned Israel’s Gaza war last summer as “wrong and unjustifiable.” Since that war was driven entirely by the need to halt the thousands of attacks intended to murder as many Israelis as possible, Miliband was effectively damning Israel for defending itself.
If this is a “strong friend,” you can’t help wonder what an enemy would do. Miliband says he is committed to providing security for Israel. But how can this possibly square with vilifying it for defending itself? Miliband’s position draws upon the systematic lies and distortions deployed in the campaign of delegitimization intended to bring about the end of Israel. In the Gaza war, for example, Israel’s military strikes achieved a far lower ratio of civilian casualties than any other armed force has ever achieved. Yet in the demonology of the Left, Israelis have been vilified as willful child-killers. It is this monstrous libel to which Miliband effectively subscribes.

Michael Lumish: Progressive-Left Jews and the European Union

The universities throughout Europe and the United States have clearly turned against the Jewish State of Israel as they host their annual “Israel Apartheid Week” celebratory hate-fests. Yale University, in fact, recently cancelled the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA) under exceedingly suspicious circumstances. The University of Pennsylvania hosted a BDS conference last year.
But for whatever reason – reasons which I assume have as much to do with my exceedingly limited powers of persuasion, as much as anything else – I rarely can convince my left-leaning, pro-Israel Jewish friends that it is the left, itself, which has emerged as the greatest threat to the Jewish people in the west today, despite the fact that I, myself, come out of the progressive-left.
The prominent, if not hegemonic, conception of Israel within western-left organizations and venues is the notion that Israel is a racist, imperialist, colonialist, militaristic, apartheid, racist regime. That highly negative and toxic broad-brush represents the (often unspoken) ideological background against which Israel is viewed. The automatic assumption of Jewish guilt and wrong-doing is almost always brought to the conversation as a matter of course.

Andrew Goldman: A civil-rights veteran slams the anti-Israel ‘Jim Crow’ smear

As I know firsthand, all these outrages were committed by white Americans against black Americans in the old South.
As a lawyer for the Council of Federated Organizations, an umbrella group that brought a wide array of civil-rights groups together, I was in there on the ground during the famous “Freedom Summer” of 1964.
We civil-rights workers triumphed when the landmark Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. As we strove to achieve that goal, we never questioned the right of whites to live in the area, unlike the Palestinian leaders who assert that Jews are an alien presence.
We never threatened to drive the whites of the South into the Mississippi Delta, in marked contrast to the bloodthirsty Arab war cry of “driving the Jews” into the Mediterranean Sea.
We didn’t have the support of entire nations who send money and arms to Palestinians and back terrorist attacks, as Arabs in the territories do today.
For that reason, I can no longer be a bystander as the noble legacy of the civil-rights movement is hijacked by a campaign whose goal is the destruction of Israel.
Whatever Israel’s faults, it offers full equality before the law. A visitor will see Arabs and Jews sitting in the same cafes, studying at the same universities and voting in the same elections. That isn’t the Jim Crow South I remember.

From Golden Gate Express:

Kasim Hafeez, a self-proclaimed Muslim Zionist, spoke at the Rosa Park conference center April 16, after being asked to tell his story of transformation by an Israeli awareness group on campus.

Hafeez has spent the last two years speaking as an advocate for Israel. Born and raised in Nottingham, U.K., Hafeez said he was exposed to graphic images that were used to manipulate his community to hate Israel and remembers hearing his father speak of Hitler as a hero.

As a college student, Hafeez said he became more radical and passed out anti-Semitic pamphlets. He said growing up he used to hate Jewish people but now wants to stop hatred altogether.

His transition began after reading a book, “The Case for Israel” by Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard law professor. At first, Hafeez said he thought the book was full of lies.

“I believed that my beliefs were 100 percent correct,” Hafeez said. “So I thought, ‘If I buy this book I can just show that what they’re putting out is propaganda, so false and weak and that just reaffirms my own commitment to my own beliefs.”

Kasim Hafeez was invited to speak on campus by SF State Senior Kailee Jordan on behalf of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America and I-Team, a student group who promotes other students to learn more about Israeli culture and history. I-Team is a coalition with SF Hillel, a Jewish student organization who reserved the conference room for Hafeez to speak, according to Jordan.

“I can’t disagree or agree with what (Hafeez) said,” Jordan said. “But I can take it and use it to make my own perspective.”

Kasim said in trying to disprove what he read, he challenged his own beliefs and shifted his views on Zionism. He said he retells his story to inspire others to challenge themselves to research and find their own truth.

After reading various authors, researching for two years and visiting Israel for himself, Hafeez said he concluded that the hatred he felt for the Israeli people was wrong. Meeting people from Israel, experiencing the culture and talking to the people firsthand helped shift his view, he said.

Hafeez said after his trip, he felt a moral obligation to stand up for Israel and share his story.

“For me as a Muslim, I just want to show that what you see in the media isn’t what Islam is,” Hafeez said. “I’m not saying I’m representative of 1.2 billion Muslims, but there are faces within Islam. We need to fight hatred across the board, hatred is poisonous.”

Hafeez said he is still a practicing Muslim and that challenging his beliefs brought him closer to Islam. He said there is some backlash from him retelling his story; his family has disowned him and he has received death threats. Hafeez said the threats do not mean much to him now, although at first he was frightened, he said

.This part is interesting:

Hafeez said there is no official definition of Zionism, but to him a Zionist is somebody that believes in the Jewish people’s right to a homeland.

SF State senior Khidr Subhani, president of the Muslim Student Association, was not in attendance to hear Hafeez speak but said he had a different understanding of the term Zionist. Subhani said he considers a Zionist to be someone who supports the oppression and the subjection of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government.

“I feel like that terminology comes from a personal definition of what those words mean,” Subhani said, “And that includes what Muslim means, and that includes what Zionism means. My understanding of Zionism may be much different than someone else’s, so it’s important to define these terms.”

So if someone says that Islam means the intent to subjugate of the entire world under a death cult, is that definition as valid as Subhani's?

Latest people to "storm al Aqsa" - secular university students!

QPress has another shocking video of secular Jewish university students "storming the al-Aqsa mosque":

A group of Jewish university students and dozens of settlers on Wednesday morning (29/4) stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Mughrabi Gate under heavy guard of occupation and units of a rapid intervention police force. They toured the mosque, during which they listened to the explanations about the history and features of the alleged Temple and its future site according to their claim.

They aren't thrilled with the thousands of non-Jewish tourists who visit, but they have a special hate for Jews.

05/01 Links Pt1: Glick: The Marshall Islands’ cautionary tale; The Appalling Mr. Zarif

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Marshall Islands’ cautionary tale

Obama claims that he wishes to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But as we see from his willingness to allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold state while running wild in the Straits of Hormuz, committing mass slaughter in Syria, building an empire that includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and threatening its Arab neighbors and Israel, the purpose of the administration’s negotiations with Iran is not to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
The purpose of the negotiations is to build an American-Iranian alliance on Iran’s terms.
So, too, Obama says his goal is to advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
But his pressure and hostility toward Israel does nothing to achieve this goal. The goal of a policy of acting with hostility toward Israel is not to promote peace. It is to distance the US from Israel and align America’s Israel policy with Europe’s preternaturally hostile treatment of the Jewish state.
Three days after a ship sailing under their flag was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, citizens of the Marshall Islands discovered that their decision to place their security in America’s hands is no longer the safe bet they thought it was 29 years ago.
Anyone who entertains the belief that Israel will gain diplomatic acceptance or even a respite from American pressure if it makes concessions to the Palestinians is similarly making a high risk gamble.

Sarah Honig: Thanks, but ‘no,’ Joe!

So it’s thanks but ‘no,’ Joe.
We Israelis are capable as no other to take care of ourselves. However, we’re often wary of using the force at our disposal. We’re deterred by our role as the universal killjoy who provokes international displeasure. When the world courted Saddam, we destroyed his nuclear reactor and were roundly condemned for our good deed. Invariably the world seeks to restrain us and rescue the villains – like Tehran’s ayatollahs at the present time.
Superpowers who want to preempt a nuclear Iran or to resolve the Palestinian conflict, need only abstain from appeasing genocidal enemies who bay for our blood – not send troops.
Biden himself could benefit from recalling Begin’s unfazed response to his senatorial temper tantrum of 33 years ago:
“Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”

IDF hospital in Nepal treats over 200, search resumes for Or Asraf

The Israeli field hospital in Nepal has treated over 200 patients since opening its doors Wednesday morning, with medical staff performing several complicated surgeries on wounded victims of Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake and doctors delivering three babies so far.
According to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry, 246 people were received at the IDF field hospital where doctors performed some 15 life-saving surgeries. Israeli medical staff were also assisting in local Nepalese hospitals, primarily in surgical departments, the ministry said.
Over 250 doctors and rescue personnel were part of an IDF delegation that arrived Tuesday in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, in the wake of Saturday’s earthquake that devastated large swaths of the mountainous country.
The Israeli group — the second largest in manpower of any international aid team after India — set up the field hospital with 60 beds, including an obstetrics department, and was operating in coordination with the local army hospital.
In Israel on Friday, 150 Nepalese agriculture students at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee held a ceremony to commemorate their countrymen and women who died in the earthquake, Israel Radio reported. The ceremony was attended by the Nepalese ambassador to Israel and college staff. Several of the students have not yet been able to make contact with their families in Nepal since the natural disaster hit, according to the report.

Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the Washington Institute last night, where he strongly defended the White House's negotiating posture with Iran.

The tone of the speech was markedly different from previous communications from the administration. In the past, even when signing the Iran Sanctions Act, the White House has said things like "Iran can prove that its intentions are peaceful."

In this speech, Biden sais about as explicitly as can be that Iran's intentions are to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran, Biden argued, “has already paved its path” to a bomb and could build up to eight nuclear warheads in two to three months.

There is a big difference between the Cold War-style "trust but verify" model of negotiations and one where one side assumes, ab initio, that the other side is deceptive and is actively seeking to do the opposite of what the agreement is meant to accomplish.

If we are saying that we don't trust Iran at all, then any agreement that doesn't include comprehensive inspections anywhere in Iran that a secret facility may be built is useless. And Iran has a track record of building secret nuclear facilities.

Iran's president has bragged that he broke previous nuclear agreements. Yet the current framework agreement still has gigantic loopholes on weaponization and verification.

Worse, the White House knew that Iran was that close to a nuclear weapon for a long time, but insisted publicly that it was over a year away. That piece of information changes everything as to how negotiations should be conducted.

But from what we can see, the US kept the "trust but verify" mentality when negotiating with a party that is known to lie and hide its nuclear weapons program.

Biden may have made a good speech, but he showed that we have been deceived by Washington as much as Washington has been deceived by Iran.

Egyptian cleric: Jews are a "malignant tumor" with a "dark history" who "must be eradicated"

More love from the religion of peace, from Egyptian cleric Saad Yusuf Abu Aziz in Al-Zawiya Al-Gharbiya Mosque in Ghamrin.

If past history is any guide, the visceral disgust and outraged reactions from peaceful Muslims in reaction to this naked hate and antisemitism should come, just about....never.

Gaza getting solar energy? Plus more Gaza news you won't read anywhere else

The Palestinian Authority Energy and Natural Resources Authority (PENRA) announced recently that it has gotten approval for a project to provide Gaza with 30 MW of power from solar energy.

The equipment is supposed to be in Gaza in the next three months, with 6 months to implement the project.

This would be a significant boost to Gaza's energy. The Gaza Power Plant has been providing about 60 megawatts and the israeli power lines another 120 MW and Egypt about 22 MW. Given that Gaza is not really the most crowded place on Earth, and in fact has lots of empty spaces not suitable for farming, this seems like a no-brainer.

In other Gaza news:

The number of trucks going through Kerem Shalom every day continues to increase. They have now been averaging 700-750 trucks approved (usually, about 100 or more don't show up after approval, because the Gaza buyers changed their minds.) (The linked Maan article implies that Israel closed the crossing during all of Passover, which isn't true - I believe it was only closed a single day from the holiday.)

Today, Israel is opening up the Kerem Shalom crossing - normally closed on Fridays - to pump more fuel into Gaza. There was a problem with the pipelines in Gaza that limited fuel to the power plant, causing blackouts, and that has now been fixed so this is meant to bring reserves back up.

According to Hamas' rival Fatah, Hamas started to impose a 5 shekel tax on every Gaza fisherman Thursday- and as a result no one went fishing.

(h/t Irene)

04/30 Links Pt2: Israel Does Not Owe Its Existence to the United Nations; Roger Waters, Bully

From Ian:

Israel Does Not Owe Its Existence to the United Nations

Contrary to what many believe, the UN 1947 partition plan did not set the legal groundwork for the creation of the state of Israel. Rather, Eugene Kontorovich explains, Israel was created “despite the UN.” Kontorovich also discusses the potential impact of future UN resolutions. (Interview by Yishai Fleisher; audio, 25 minutes).

UN announces “review” of bookstore after protest over books targeting Jews and Israel

The head of the United Nations European Headquarters in Geneva has initiated a review of its concession arrangement with the bookstore operating next to the Human Rights Council in response to allegations over book displays that deliberately target Jews and Israel.
The world body announced the action in response to a March 26th protest by UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights monitoring group in Geneva, over the bookstore’s display of a series of books such as “How I Stopped Being a Jew,” which accuses the Jewish religion of being “genocidal.” The controversy was reported in a major Israeli newspaper article.
“We welcome this prompt action by the United Nations, which is founded on the principles of equality and tolerance,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.
“At a time when Jews across Europe are being targeted by violent attacks and incitement, it is deeply distressing that the UN Headquarters in Europe would promote books on ‘how to stop being a Jew.’ It’s impossible to miss that no other books in the shop target or even criticize any other religious or ethnic group,” he added.

The Hallelu Foundation (with Hebrew subs)

Arabs suspicious that soccer star giving new son a "Jewish name"

What happens when you mix a culture that is crazy about soccer with one that is certifiably insane about Jews?

From Metro-UK:

It’s official: there will be another Messi arriving on the planet very soon.

Lionel Messi confirmed he will become a father for the second time after the Barcelona star uploaded a picture of his pregnant girlfriend, Antonella Roccuzzo, onto Instagram on Thursday to confirm the news.

In the photo, the 27-year-old’s son young Thiago was seen kissing Roccuzzo’s stomach alongside the words ‘Waiting for you baby! We love you’.

The news comes after rumours began spreading that Messi was expecting another child and, in particular, a second son following a report in Argentine outlet Clarin.

The publication claimed the boy will be called Benjamin and could be born at the end of the year.

Algeria's Echorouk sports site noticed immediately that Benjamin is also the name of the prime minister of Israel!

Its headline is "Messi chose a Jewish name for his new son."

In case you don't get the point, the story is illustrated with this photo of Messi visiting the Kotel a couple of years ago, right next to rabbi who looks particularly Jewy.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Alex, the son of anti-Zionist billionaire George Soros, is starting a Jewish political action committee:

Bend the Arc PAC will back progressive candidates by making direct contributions to their campaign committees. It will focus on issues such as income inequality, marriage equality, social justice and immigration reform.

Alex Soros explained that

There’s an opportunity to launch something that actually speaks to what the American Jewish community cares the most about and to show the narrative of what the real American Jewish experience is.

But what’s the point of creating yet another ‘progressive’ PAC? Why specifically target Jews when there is no specifically Jewish issue that it is concerned with? The answer lies in what it is not concerned with:

Hadar Susskind, who has previously worked for other Jewish organizations including J Street, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, will serve as director of Bend the Arc PAC…

“We don’t touch any foreign policy stuff,” he said. “One of the reasons behind doing this is that [the other Jewish groups] aren’t really representing the views of the American Jewish community…” [my emphasis]

Does that sound familiar? It’s J Street without Israel! This PAC will undoubtedly fund the very same candidates that the J Street PAC does. But J Street has been losing its appeal, as the Obama Administration’s anti-Israel policies have begun to make even some ‘progressive’ Jews uncomfortable.

Since Roosevelt’s presidency, American Jews have leaned left because of their concern about social issues, as exemplified by the civil rights movement. Reform Jews have even been criticized for acting as though Judaism was synonymous with liberal politics. Most, however, strongly supported Israel — and so did most Democratic politicians. With the advent of Obama, that is no longer the case, and liberal Jews are caught in the middle.

Soros has come along with a brilliant solution to their dilemma: be progressive, but don’t think about Israel.

Bend the Arc will be able to funnel Jewish contributions to the left-wing politicians that support and will continue the administration’s policies, including its anti-Israel ones. But because it won’t “touch any foreign policy stuff” none of those hard questions about Hamas and Iran need come up. Jewish progressives will be able to donate to it with the clearest of consciences, with warm and fuzzy feelings about gay marriage and immigrant rights, without any nagging doubts that perhaps they are betraying their people.

The traditionally liberal Jews who have been forced to choose between their progressive domestic agenda and their love for Israel will now have a home.

And it won’t be a lightning rod for criticism by Zionist Jews the way J Street was. Anyone who opposes Bend the Arc can be dismissed as a right-wing ideologue, or even a Republican.

Finally, it is a diversionary tactic. It will work to focus the Jewish community on domestic issues. The less any American, Jewish or otherwise, thinks about the radically anti-Israel and anti-American policies of the Obama wing of the Democratic Party, the better it will be for them.

I doubt that any of the Democratic presidential candidates — yes, I expect challenges to Hillary — will explicitly campaign on the foreign policy record of the Obama Administration (it’s too gruesome), but I do expect that at least one will embody the same philosophy of helping America’s enemies and hurting its friends.

And you can bet that that candidate will be the favorite of Bend the Arc.

04/30 Links Pt1: IDF field hospital in Nepal treats nearly 100, delivers baby, Treats 'Miracle' Survivor

From Ian:

On first day, IDF field hospital in Nepal treats nearly 100, delivers baby

Israel’s field hospital in earthquake-hit Nepal began operating Wednesday morning, with staff treating nearly 100 patients and delivering their first baby — a boy — on the first day, according to an IDF spokesperson
Among the patients were some 30 Israeli nationals. Most were suffering from dehydration and were soon released to their hotels.
Over 250 doctors and rescue personnel were part of an IDF delegation that landed Tuesday in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, in the wake of Saturday’s magnitude-7.8 earthquake that devastated large swaths of the mountainous country, killing at least 5,000 and leaving some 8,000 wounded and tens of thousands seeking shelter and food.
The Israeli group set up the field hospital with 60 beds, including an obstetrics department, and was operating in coordination with the local army hospital.

Ethiopian Doctor Who Lit Yom Ha’Atzmaut Torch Heads IDF Team in Nepal

Israel’s first Ethiopian doctor, who lit one of the traditional torches on Yom Ha’Atzmaut give years ago, is leading the IDF medical team in Nepal.
Dr. Avi Yitzchak made Aliyah in the early 1990s in the Operation Shlomo airlift and has become a symbol of success for the Ethiopian community.
He arrived in Nepal five days ago, when he said there was absolutely nothing in the realm of first aid, and decided where to set up a field hospital, which went into operation immediately.
“We began accepting patients from the Nepalese army hospital that was not able to function well, especially in the field of surgery,” said Yitzchak, who specialized in surgery when he studied medicine at Soroka Hospital at Ben Gurion University.
“We are receiving citizens of Nepal with medical problems that the Nepalese army hospital cannot treat beaus they accept only soldiers and their families,” Dr. Yitzchak said from Katmandu.
When not in the army, Dr. Yitzhak works as a surgeon at Soroka.

Israel doesn’t care what you think

To Whom It May Concern,
If I hear one more time on Facebook, Twitter, et al that Israel’s field hospital in Nepal is somehow connected to the conflict with the Palestinians, I’m going to permanently block the person saying so on the grounds that they’re stupid.
Here’s the thing: Israel is an entire country, with all the complicated impulses and competing agendas of any human society. It is perfectly capable of being involved in two completely different things at once, of being angelic in one arena and terrible in another, just like every other country. The IDF doesn’t go to Nepal to avoid the Palestinian issue. It goes because Israelis have honed emergency medicine into an art form, and because the IDF has never quite shed its founding culture of adventurousness, and, above all, because there are people out there who desperately need help.
Those who see in every good news from Israel “hasbara” (propaganda) are missing the single most important fact you can know about Israel — that it isn’t a political campaign begging for your vote. It is a nation. With two million schoolchildren, dozens of cities, its own cinema scene and a language spoken nowhere else in the world. It doesn’t go away if it loses some imaginary popularity contest. And as with any human society, it offers an endless stream of failures and successes that will let you “prove” any narrative you want. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Mahmoud Abbas is responsible for thousands of Syrian Palestinian deaths

The Action Group for Palestinians in Syria now count 2,771 Palestinians killed since the start of the Syrian civil war. 100 were killed in March alone.

Many of them could have been saved if it wasn't for the deep desire by Arabs to destroy Israel - and a conscious decision by "leader" Mahmoud Abbas.

In January 2013, Mahmoud Abbas bragged that he chose to let the Palestinians die rather than enter his territories.

Abbas told a group of Egyptian journalists in Cairo late Wednesday that Ban contacted Israel on his behalf.

Abbas said Ban was told Israel "agreed to the return of those refugees to Gaza and the West Bank, but on condition that each refugee ... sign a statement that he doesn't have the right of return (to Israel)."

"So we rejected that and said it's better they die in Syria than give up their right of return," Abbas told the group.

Abbas said this in Arabic, without any shame. Because his audience knows that the real purpose of the "right to return" is to destroy the Jewish state, and has nothing to do with "Palestinian rights."

Since the Yarmouk crisis escalated in recent weeks with ISIS taking over part of the camp, the Arab world and the media have shone a small spotlight on the area where so many Palestinian Arabs have been living. But they won't say anything about how Abbas had the chance to save them, and probably still can.

The Action Group for Palestinians in Syria is an offshoot of the Palestinian Return Centre. The major NGO dedicated to helping Palestinians subscrines to the same twisted, sickening philosophy that Mahmoud Abbas does - they only want to save them if they remain useful pawns to destroy Israel.

We have heard nothing negative about this outrageous statement by Mahmoud Abbas from Amnesty International, Oxfam or Human Rights Watch. In fact, those groups purposefully misinterpret international law to justify Abbas' contention that there is a legal "right to return" for Palestinians - and their own antipathy towards Israel ensure that they will not disagree with Abbas' perverted morality that it is better for Palestinians to die than to give up a "right" that is literally nonexistent and that was created for the sole purpose of destroying Israel. (UN resolution 194 deliberately does not call it a "right" and the UN itself interpreted the resolution far more narrowly than Israel haters do today.)

It is scandalous that Mahmoud Abbas has not been called out for his despicable words that sealed the death sentence for thousands. And the silence from "human rights" organizations speaks volumes about their real desire to save lives when their pet Palestinians literally and explicitly prefer to see their people die.

In December 2013, the European Court of Auditors released a report on their direct financial support to the Palestinian Authority.

Among the findings of the audit (which found billions of euros of support missing) was that thousands of PA workers were being paid to do nothing.

[T]he audit found indications that in Gaza a considerable number of civil servants were receiving salaries, partly funded by Pegase DFS, because they were eligible for support by virtue of being on the PA payroll but who were not going to work due to the political situation in Gaza (see paragraph 6). Out of 10 Gaza beneficiaries selected by the audit for interviews, three stated that they were not working, while one was absent. The audit also found that the State Audit and Administra-tive Control Bureau was obliged, in accordance with PA regulations, to pay salaries for its 90 staff members in Gaza, all of whom are unable to work. These findings are consistent with estimates based on data from interviews provided in a 2010 evaluation of Pegase contracted by the Commission which indicated that 22% and 24 % respectively of the staff employed by the PA Ministries of Health and Education in Gaza were not working at the time.

The EU is now making noises that the gravy train is over.

A European diplomat said the European Union informed the Palestinian Authority in a recent communication that Europe would not be able to continue financial support for the salaries of staff in the Gaza Strip while they aren't actually working. The diplomat, who preferred not to be named, told a local Arab newspaper that "it has become extremely difficult for the EU to continue to justify contributing to the payment of staff salaries in the Gaza Strip in the absence of a solution to this issue as these employees did not attend to their work since 2007".

The diplomat said, "The objective of direct financial assistance provided by the European Union to the Palestinian Authority is to enable them to provide basic services to citizens and enable them to continue their performance...In the absence of the ability to achieve this we have said to the Palestinian Authority that the European Union will not be able to provide open support to pay Palestinian Authority salaries to those who are not enrolled in their jobs."

"We can not defend to our parliaments the payment of salaries to employees who are not working."

The diplomat said that the return of thousands of employees in Gaza to their jobs in the education and health sectors could be done very quickly, especially in light of the urgent need in Gaza for employees in these fields. The solution to this issue must come quickly, he said.

Why did it take 16 months for the EU to even have this conversation with the PA?

It is interesting that even after the latest pretense of unity between Hamas and Fatah, the Fatah workers in Gaza are still not doing their jobs even in health and education. This shows yet again that Hamas cares far less about Gazans than it does about its own political desires.