Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 24, 2016

04/24 Links: PA TV: Prayer for genocide of “enemies” of Allah; Sanders Jewish outreach activist protests Passover

From Ian:

IsraellyCool: An Open Letter To Harvard Law School (HLS) About Husam El-Qoulaq And Tzipi Livni

Dean Minow-
Greetings and Salutations from the Daily Freier, reporting in concert with Brian of London, live from the Zionist Entity Known as Israel!
Dean Minow, our greatest fear is that Husam El-Qoulaq’s name somehow becomes attached to the antisemitic incident in question, where he told Israeli politician Tzipi Livni that she smelled bad in a public event. I mean, if his (Husam El-Qoulaq, Harvard Law. Sometimes spelled ‘Coolaq’) name was to be associated with this incident (antisemitic!), it may impact his Constitutional Right to make obscene amounts of money post-graduation in Corporate America. More importantly, associating Husam El-Qoulaq’s (Harvard Law) name with an Antisemitic (against Tzipi Livni) incident would send the dangerous message to your students that actions have consequences, and that words have meaning. And none of us want that.
In addition, we fear that Harvard Law may be unfairly tarred for hiding the name of the offending party (Husam El-Qoulaq, Harvard Law. Sometimes spelled Coolaq). Therefore, we implore you to continue to not release Husam El-Qoulaq’s name in association with the incident at Harvard Law on 14 April 2016 in which he used an antisemitic slur against Tzipi Livni. We applaud the fact that your organization has removed Mr. Husam El-Qoulaq’s anti-Jewish remarks from YouTube. Additionally, we applaud that you did not release the name of the offending party, you know, Husam El-Qoulaq…. Of Harvard Law. The one who publicly disrespected a visitor (Tzipi Livni!) in an Academic Setting.
We also want to provide honorable mention to Mr. Husam El-Qoulaq himself, who appears busy as a beaver (can we say that? Is that cultural appropriation against beavers?) scrubbing his online profiles of anything that could connect him (Husam El-Qoulaq, also spelled “Coolaq”) to an Antisemitic incident. Which is why we commend him for currently hiding online evidence of his (Husam El-Qoulaq!) BDS work when he was an undergrad at UC Berkeley. We also commend Mr. Husam El-Qoulaq for scrubbing the Internets and the Googles of any evidence of his Leadership position in Harvard’s BDS Movement…BTW, color us shocked (Shocked!) that Mr. El-Qoulaq was also a leader in Harvard’s BDS Movement. I mean, it’s just counter-intuitive that there would be, like, ANY overlap between the BDS Movement and Antisemitic speech! Who Knew????

PMW: Prayer for genocide of “enemies” of Allah, by PA TV preacher

Allah should "count" His enemies, the enemies of Islam, and "kill them to the last one," prayed the preacher on official PA TV on Friday. The PA TV preacher then singled out for punishment "the wicked Jews" and "the atheists who help them":
PA TV Preacher: "Allah, punish Your enemies, the enemies of religion, count their numbers and kill them to the last one, and bring them a black day. Allah, punish the wicked Jews, and those among the atheists who help them. Allah, we ask that You bestow upon us respect and honor by enabling us to repel them, and we ask You to save us from their evil." [Official PA TV, April 22, 2016]

Official PA TV preacher: “Allah… kill them to the last one... punish the wicked Jews"

When Amira Hass told the Palestinians not to make peace'

Radical leftist journalist Amira Hass of Haaretz in the past actively encouraged the Palestinians to reject peace treaties and not to agree to the 1994 Oslo Accords, according to a Palestinian journalist.
The journalist, Dr. Fayez Abu Shamala, revealed to the Hamas paper Palestine on Sunday the contents of a speech Hass gave during a visit to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) during the period of the Oslo Accords.
Hass, who lives in Ramallah, has openly legitimized and supported Arab terror against Israeli Jews and recently cited the anti-Semitic forgery "Elders of Zion" in a UK university speech.
In her speech at the PLC during the days of Oslo, Abu Shamala reveals that Hass said, "I see it as an obligation to bring before you some of the facts supported in documents, which will help you make a decision."
"Look at this map. Look, where will your Palestinian state be established?," she said, indicating a map of Israel including Judea and Samaria.
"Do you not notice that these settlements can amputate the connection between cities of the West Bank at any given moment? Do you not notice that the Palestinians live in separation (from each other) in their cities?"
The Israeli journalist continued, saying, "I emphasize before you today that there won't be a possibility to establish a Palestinian state as long as the settlements remain in place."

04/22 Links Pt2: The Peace Process Is an Obstacle to Peace; U.S. Investment in - not Foreign Aid to - Israel

From Ian:

The Peace Process Is an Obstacle to Peace

And it always has been, because its premises are false
This Palestinian demand is in fact an assault on the sovereignty of the Jewish state and thus part of the century-old campaign against Zionism. It asserts that Israel should not be allowed to exercise the fundamental, indeed defining, prerogative of sovereignty—the control of its own borders. It would also deny to Israel another sovereign prerogative, deciding who has the right to citizenship. By flooding the country with people hostile to it, finally, the result of implementing the Palestinian “right of return” would be the destruction of Israel, which is surely the reason that the Palestinians insist on it.
In peace-process orthodoxy, the “refugee problem” is classified as one of the “final status” issues—problems so difficult that they can be addressed only after all the easier ones have been resolved. In fact, the insistence on a “right of return” assures that negotiations will fail, and thus should not be started in the first place, because they amount to the Palestinian insistence on achieving what is not negotiable: Israel’s disappearance.
If and when the Palestinians do signal their acceptance of Israel by abandoning this claim, it will become possible to address the issues that do require negotiation: the border between Israel and a Palestinian state, which may well require uprooting some Jewish settlements to the east of Israel’s eastern border of 1967, and the disposition of military forces between the new border and the Jordan River. As long, however, as the Palestinians make clear, by asserting their “right of return,” that they refuse to live peacefully side by side with a Jewish state, negotiations are at best a waste of time and at worst a way of perpetuating the conflict by encouraging the Palestinians to persist in their goal of eliminating Israel.
To be sure, the two necessary changes to the American approach to the peace process will not, in and of themselves, bring peace. Only the abandonment of the fundamental Palestinian attitude to Israel can do that; and the United States does not have the power to transform that attitude. The changes would, however, have desirable consequences. They would discourage the strategy of delegitimation by making it clear that the United States rejects the strategy’s premises, which would in turn reduce, although not eliminate, the constituency for that strategy in the United States and in the place where it is most popular, Europe. Reducing support for it would send to the Palestinians the message that, like a frontal military assault and terrorism, delegitimation will not succeed in destroying Israel. The two changes would also improve the moral tone of American foreign policy. Telling the truth about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict would affirm American support for international law, democracy, the peaceful resolution of international disputes, and the principle of equal rights for all peoples. It would also affirm American opposition to aggression and terrorism. It would, that is, put the United States—to use a term favored by recent administrations—on the right side of history.

U.S. Investment in - not Foreign Aid to - Israel

Israel is no longer a supplicant – as it was in its early years of independence – transformed from a net-national security and economic consumer to a net-national security and economic producer, generating substantial military and commercial dividends to the U.S., which exceed the highly appreciated $3.1 billion annual investment in Israel by the U.S.
The annual U.S. investment in Israel – erroneously defined as "foreign aid" (Foreign Military Financing) – has yielded one of the highest rates of return on U.S. investments overseas. But, Israel is neither "foreign" nor does it receive "aid."
A Partnership
From a one-way street relationship, the U.S.-Israel connection has evolved into an exceptionally productive two- way mutually beneficial alliance. The U.S. is the senior partner, and Israel the junior partner, in a win-win, geo-strategic partnership, which transcends the 68-year-old tension between all American presidents (from Truman through Obama) and Israeli prime ministers (from Ben Gurion through Netanyahu) over the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue.
According to the former Supreme Commander of NATO forces and Secretary of State, the late General Alexander Haig: "Israel constitutes the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, which does not require a single U.S. boot on board, cannot be sunk, deployed in a most critical region to the U.S. economy and national security. And, if there were no Israel in the eastern flank of the Mediterranean, the U.S. would have to deploy to the region a few more real aircraft carriers and tens of thousands of troops, which would have cost the U.S. taxpayer some $15 billion annually. All of which is spared by the existence of Israel."
Israel has been the most cost-effective, battle-tested laboratory of U.S. defense industries; the most reliable and practical beachhead/outpost of the U.S. defense forces; sharing with the U.S. unique intelligence, battle experience, and battle tactics. Thus, Israel extends the U.S. strategic hand at a time when the Pentagon is experiencing draconian cuts in its defense budget, curtailing the size of its military force and the global deployment of troops, while facing tough international industrial-defense competition and dramatically intensified threats of Islamic terrorism overseas and on the U.S. mainland.

Ben-Dror Yemini: An Israeli initiative is needed now

Fighting BDS is a right and good thing to do, but we can’t do it by merely reacting: Israel needs to be proactive in offering solutions.
The Washington lawyer and the IDF officer are both correct. The struggle against the anti-Israeli campaign on US campuses isn’t simple. The claims against Israel sound reasonable because there’s a perception that Israel isn’t doing anything. I’ve spoken in campuses in recent weeks, as well as in synagogues and community centers. I’ve listened to the various voices, including the worried ones. It’s not enough to say that the Palestinians have rejected every peace proposal so far and that and Israeli withdrawal could make things worse.
That’s all true, but it doesn’t counteract the tough queries. It wouldn’t be a mistake to say that 90 percent of US Jews have a hard time understanding the logic in the continued settlement project. And I’m talking about pro-Israel activists here.
The government’s determination in dealing with the anti-Israel campaign is a step in the right direction but PR alone, with all due respect, has a limited scope of influence. We need policy too. We need a show of good will.
The government has allocated NIS 100 million to combating the anti-Israel campaign, but that’s not very much at all. An Israeli initiative would cost $10 billion at least. Why the heck does the Prime Minister of Israel not understand what Israel’s supporters around the world understand very well? Why does he insist one doing nothing?
Why does he insist on helping the BDS movement?

Chag sameach!

I wish all of my readers a wonderful Pesach. May we all experience true freedom.

I will not be posting anything until Sunday night or Monday morning.

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Analysts have been more and more alarmed by the US' increasingly untenable position with the Iran deal-that-is-not-a-deal.

Another major blow to the so-called agreement is happening this week.. The media has tired o fthis story but the worst predictions about the deal are all coming true.

From an email distributed to journalists by Omri Ceren from The Israel Project, an organization that works with journalists on Middle East issues:

Earlier this week Secretary Kerry held a private meeting with Iranian FM Zarif and announced afterward that on Friday - so tomorrow - he and Zarif will "sort of solidify" new sanctions relief for Iran [a]. The meeting came a few weeks after the Iranians began demanding access to the U.S. dollar and threatening to abandon the nuclear deal if they didn't get it. Kerry suggested that the concession will be sold publicly as something the Iranians were entitled to all along under the nuclear deal: "making sure that the JCPOA... is implemented in exactly the way that it was meant to be and that all the parties... get the benefits that they are supposed to get."

Kerry's spin makes good political sense. There are two explanations for giving Iran dollar access: either the nuclear deal is still open for negotiation or the dollar concession was there all along. For the last few weeks many people assumed the administration would claim the deal is still open, and the administration got absolutely hammered in that context [b][c][d][e]. So now it looks like Kerry will claim that actually the nuclear deal entitled the Iranians to dollars the whole the time.

This new pretext - that the nuclear deal entitled Iran to dollar access all along - may be more politically expedient than acknowledging that Iran is continuously coercing more concessions from the administration. But it still suffers from a number of flaws.

1st, as a matter of substance, it's false. Iran was cut off from the U.S. financial full range of its illicit activities, not just nuclear: money laundering, terrorism, ballistic missile development, nuclear work, etc. The official entry in the Federal Register from Treasury in 2008, explaining the cut off, was explicit: "The reasons OFAC is revoking this authorization include the need to further protect the U.S. financial system from the threat of illicit finance posed by Iran and its banks.... the Financial Action Task Force... in particular emphasized Iran’s lack of effort in addressing the risk of terrorist financing" [f].

2nd, as a matter of politics, it implies the administration deliberately hid the ball from Congress on concessions made to Iran under the deal. Administration officials assured Congress throughout the fall that the dollar prohibition would remain would remain in place after the deal, partly because it's critical to U.S. leverage over Iran and partly because those sanctions were a response to non-nuclear aggression, and so Iran wasn’t entitled to relief from them anyway [g][h].

3rd, as a matter of policy, it kneecaps any possibility of reimpoising financial pressure on Iran for at least the next decade. Giving Iran access to the dollar for any reason neuters financial pressure for as long as that access remains in place. Under normal circumstances the U.S. can respond to Iranian non-nuclear aggression directly, by restricting dollar access and therefore Iran's financing options, and indirectly, by using dollar restrictions to impose consequences on Iran's economy more broadly. Those options go away as long as Iran has access to the dollar for any reason.

But Kerry’s politically expedient pretext - that Iran was always entitled to dollar access as part of the deal - locks in that access for the whole deal, because it makes it part of the deal. Eric Lorber - a senior associate at the Financial Integrity Network and an advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies - unpacked all this weeks ago [i].

Let’s say that we give Iran access to U.S. dollars... and six months down the road Iran engages in a wide range of missile tests. And so we want to pull their access to U.S. dollars as a way to punish them for these activities and change their behavior. If we do that, Iran is going to say that the dollar access was granted as part of the nuclear agreement, as evidenced by the fact that the U.S., when it was saying that it needed to fulfill its obligations under the JCPOA, provided this general license. So Iran will basically say that if the United States tries to cut this dollarized access off, that’s a violation of the JCPOA, and they will walk away, or they’ll take countermeasures, et cetera.

The Iranians will leverage Kerry's claim that the deal provides dollar access to prohibit any future prohibitions on dollars, even and especially when U.S. policymakers would need those tools. Kerry's politically expedient spin for the concession - above and beyond the concession itself - will potentially disable U.S. financial pressure on Iran for at least a decade.

[a] http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/04/255977.htm[b] http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-01/the-iran-nuclear-deal-keeps-changing[c] http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/articles/2016-04-12/the-obama-administration-is-letting-iran-rewrite-the-nuclear-deal[d] http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/iranian-nuclear-deal-keeps-getting-worse[e] https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/18/the-imprecise-language-of-the-iran-deal/[f] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/fr73_66541.pdf[g] http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/other/SzubinTranscript20150916-v2.pdf[h] https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0129.aspx[i] http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/content/transcript-fpi-conference-call-implications-granting-iran-access-us-financial-market#sthash.G03Bi5N4.dpuf

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04/22 Links Pt1: France to Convene Mideast Peace Meeting Without Israel or PA; Fatah post how-to Stab video

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: When in Doubt, Try Intimidation

The Palestinians argue that security cameras on the Temple Mount would be used by Israel to identify and arrest Muslim worshippers who protest against visits by Jews. What they seem to have forgotten is that these "protesters" regularly harass Jewish groups and individuals touring the Temple Mount.
While Mahmoud Abbas claimed he was in favor of the plan to install the security cameras, his Islamic clerics and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials continued to incite against the plan
The straw that broke the Jordanian back was a leaflet that was distributed at the Temple Mount during Friday prayers two weeks ago. The leaflet urged Muslims to smash any cameras installed at the holy site.
In one blow, Palestinians have managed to undermine Jordan's historic role as "custodian" of the holy sites in Jerusalem and humiliate King Abdullah, who was the mastermind of the camera plan.

Mordechai Kedar: Sorry to tell you, but…

My dear friends, Jews in Israel and the Diaspora.
I am sorry to tell you that the terror attacks we from which we suffer today and yesterday, a week ago, a month, a year and a decade and century ago, are all part of the same war, the same struggle, the same Jihad waged against us by our neighbors for over a century. Sometimes it is a full scale war with tanks, noise, flames, planes and ships and sometimes it is a war on a slow burner known as "terror" with explosions, stabbings and shots. Each of these is Jihad in Arabic, each is aimed at Jews just for being Jewish.
I regret to remind you of the fact that this war began way before the establishment of the Jewish state declared in 1948. The riots and massacres of 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39 et al, were not due to a Jewish state or what our enemies call the "occupation" of 1948, and certainly not because of the 1967 "occupation". The bloody and cruel massacre of the Jews of Hevron in 1929 was carried out against Jews who were not part of the Zionist movement, quite the contrary. The Palestine Liberation Movement (Fatah) was founded, may I remind you, in 1959 and The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, years before the 1967 "occupation" that was a result of Israel winning the Six Day War.
I hate to point out to you that the shouts we heard, mainly in the 1948 War of Independence, were "Itbach al Yahud" – "Butcher the Jews" – and not the "Israelis" or the "Zionists," because their problem is with the Jews who refuse to be dependent on the mercy of Islam, refuse to live as dhimmi, protected ones, the way Islam mandates for Jews and Christians. In the Arab world, children still sing (in Arabic): "Palestine is our country and the Jews are our dogs." The dog, in Islamic tradition, is an unclean animal. Sharia law stipulates that if a Muslim is praying and a dog, pig, woman, Jew or Christian walks in front of him, his prayers are worthless and he must begin the entire ritual once again.

Caroline Glick: Our estranged generals

It’s been a long time in coming, but it finally happened.
The IDF General Staff has lost the public trust.
This is terrible for the General Staff. But it is more terrible for the country, because the public is right not to trust our military leaders. They have earned our distrust fair and square.
The final straw came in less than optimal circumstances.
But such is life. Things are never cut and dry. On Purim, Sgt. Elor Azaria killed a terrorist in Hebron as he lay on the ground, shot, following his attempted murder of one of Azaria’s comrades.
Still today, we don’t know whether Azaria acted properly or improperly. He claims that he believed the terrorist had a bomb beneath the heavy jacket he was wearing in the middle of a heat wave.
Azaria claims that he shot him because he feared that the terrorist – who was moving – was trying to detonate the bomb. This view was shared by emergency personnel at the scene caring for the wounded soldier.

PEN America, a group dedicated to free speech, is holding a World Voices Festival next week in New York City.

The haters and bigots have come out in force against the group because the Consulate General of Israel in New York is one of their many sponsors, as some authors are Israeli.

Yes, this is what is bothering them.

So there are hysterical articles and petitions trying to threaten and pressure the group to drop their accepting dirty Zionist money (in the name of human rights, of course.) They are insulting the leaders at PENAmerica. The usual crowd of anti-Israel writers are boycotting the festival.

A group even met with PEN America's director where she reportedly gave them credit for having "legitimate concerns" while politely turning down their demands.

The haters are playing a long game. This has gone on for a few years and PEN America has not caved. But by meeting with the hate groups and pretending that their position of boycotting anyone who has anything to do with the Jewish state has legitimacy is a worrying development.

The PEN America members are feeling the pressure. But it would take only a few letters and tweets of support to strengthen them against this ocean of hate.

So tweet to PenAmerica and post on their Facebook page (festival page)that you are proud that they have not given in to the hate and bigotry of those who froth at the mouth at the very mention of the word Israel.

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A new textbook study from the Germany-based Mideast Freedom Forum shows yet again that the Palestinian Authority textbooks - which are used by UNRWA - are teaching children that "resistance" is their highest aspiration, not peace.

From the preface by Michael Leutert, Member of the German Parliament:

When years ago for the first time as a Member of the German Parliament I had the opportunity to get a picture on the spot, the following scene happened in the Gaza Strip: Our delegation crossed a market place on our way to the next appointment. We MPs talked with the merchants and passers-by. A merchant posed the following question as a farewell: „Why did you not finish your job to the end?“ he said, obviously meaning the annihilation of the Jews.

The example illustrates how important it is for a mutual understanding between Jews and Arabs, to clarify how the state of Israel was created and why various conflicts subsist. It is for this reason that the content of teaching conveyed in the subjects of history and geography at Palestinian schools has great relevancy. There the crucial fundamentals are taught, that are passed on to the next generations who bear responsibility in the near future.

And it is because of our (co-) funding for UNRWA and for many other projects in the Palestinian territories, that we bear responsibility for the content of teaching.

And from the findings themselves:

• The surveyed textbooks consistently portray Jews in a strongly negative manner, and often demonize them. Jews are rarely individuated, but instead are subsumed into a stereotype or the concept of Zionism.
• The textbooks reveal serious omissions regarding Jews within the historical context of Palestine. They first appear as Zionist colonizers and settlers at the end of the nineteenth century.
• The effect of this is that the Jewish presence in modern Israel is delegitimized.
• Jewish and Israeli places, as well as the State of Israel as a whole, are not found on maps included in the textbooks. The existence of Israel is denied.
• Instead, the maps label the area inside the modern borders of Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza, as ‚Palestine‘.
• The terminology with which the books refer to Jews and Israelis is not neutral, but often pejorative. The contrast between them and Palestinians akin to that is between evil and good. The Palestinian resistance against Jews is glorified.

...Both the negative portrayal of Jews and of the Palestinian actions which are applauded are problematic. None of the surveyed textbooks feature an appeal for mutual understanding, but descriptions of armed resistance are numerous, and implicitly praise conflict.26 For instance, Israel is depicted as an occupying regime (sultatu l-ih‘tilal)27 or as a Zionist terror organization (al-munathama al-irhabiya as-sah‘yuniya). 28 Jewish settlements are described with explicitly negative terms as Mus‘tautana and Musta‘amar.29 Palestinians are cast as the native people (as-sukan al-asliyun) of the area who resist (qawama) the aggressor.30 This resistance is glorified with terms as sacrifice (tad‘hiya) and martyrdom (istish‘had). Palestinians killed in conflict figure as martyrs (shuhada). 31

The textbooks use the term Jihad only in its limited sense of a struggle against an adversary. Its broader reference to an inner struggle for faith is not present. This language extends throughout the curriculum: a textbook intended for children in Grade 2 already stresses the significance of martyrs and prisoners, and encourages pupils to visit the families of martyrs on Independence Day.32 Members of Palestinian resistance organizations are referred to as Fida‘i (self-sacrificing warriors)33 or Thuw‘war (revolutionaries).34 The idea of Fida‘i is celebrated in the Palestinian anthem, which is printed in a textbook for the first grade.35

...In fact, in various sections of the textbooks, even Israel‘s territory within the ‚Green Line‘ of the 1949 Armistice borders is not recognized, and as a general rule they refrain from using the term ‚Israel‘, preferring „the Lands of 1948“.39 In lower grades, images replace words to illustrate the Palestinian claim to these territories (see figure 10).

The study found a few instances of antisemitism in textbooks as well, although it was not pervasive:

The representation of Israelis and Jews cannot be evaluated as balanced. From an historical perspective, the Jewish „other“ appears as an antagonist; adversaries to Mohammed. The next time they appear in history is as ‚occupiers‘ in the context of the Jewish national movement, Zionism, at the end of the nineteenth century. In most cases, Jews figure as aggressive, violent colonialists, who were able to occupy Palestine with the aid of Great Britain, and who occupy it still. The separation of Palestine following the UN resolution of 1947 is pictured as „occupation“ (ih‘tilal) and as illegal, violent, land seizure (igh‘tisab). 11 The Jewish immigration to Palestine is described as „colonising greed“ (alat‘ma‘a al-istitaniya) which aims to take the place of the native population (as-sukan al-asliyun) after their eviction (tard) and extermination (iba‘da). 12

Anti-Semitic stereotypes such as ‚greed‘ or ‚financial temptations‘ exist, but are quite rare. For instance, the textbooks suggest that Zionists should have tried to convince the Ottoman Sultan Abdelhamid II to allow Jews to migrate to Palestine by offering material incentives (al-igh‘ra‘at al-madiya). 14 It is also claimed that ‚Zionism‘ relocated its ‚headquarters‘ from London to New York since it controls (fi aydi l-harakat as-sahyunia) many of media outlets and important parts of the US economy.15 In this way, the textbooks perpetuate elements of popular anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

The Palestinian Authority and UNRWA are responsible for teaching generations of Palestinians to hate Israel and Jews.

And they should be held responsible.

(h/t Yenta)

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Last year the Washington Free Beacon reported:

U.S. military pilots who have returned from the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq are confirming that they were blocked from dropping 75 percent of their ordnance on terror targets because they could not get clearance to launch a strike, according to a leading member of Congress.

Strikes against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) targets are often blocked due to an Obama administration policy to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage, according to Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The policy is being blamed for allowing Islamic State militants to gain strength across Iraq and continue waging terrorist strikes throughout the region and beyond, according to Royce and former military leaders who spoke Wednesday about flaws in the U.S. campaign to combat the Islamic State.

“When we agreed we were going to do airpower and the military said, this is how it would work, he [Obama] said, ‘No, I do not want any civilian casualties,’” [former general Jack] Keane explained. “And the response was, ‘But there’s always some civilian casualties. We have the best capability in the world to protect from civilians casualties.’”

However, Obama’s response was, “No, you don’t understand. I want no civilian casualties. Zero,’” Keane continued. “So that has driven our so-called rules of engagement to a degree we have never had in any previous air campaign from Desert Storm to the present.”

I noted then:

Obama is the first head of state in history to engage in a war where the rules of war have been created not by generals but by so-called "human rights groups."

We've looked at international law as it is actually written, not as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty choose to interpret it. The laws of armed conflict allow a nation at war to minimize civilians casualties but many military targets are valuable enough that unwanted civilian casualties become a necessary evil.

To mandate that a war must be waged where there are zero civilian casualties is to surrender that war.

Now, it appears that the administration, on some level, has woken up and admitted that killing civilians is sometimes necessary in order to get high-value targets - which is what international law allows.

From USA Today:

The Pentagon has approved airstrikes that risk more civilian casualties in order to destroy Islamic State targets as part of its increasingly aggressive fight against the militant group in Iraq and Syria, according to interviews with military officials and data.

Six Defense Department officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe how Islamic State targets are selected and attacked, described a sliding scale of probable civilian casualties based on the value of the target and the location. For example, a strike with the potential to wound or kill several civilians would be permitted if it prevented ISIL fighters from causing greater harm.

Before the change, there were some limited cases in which civilian casualties were allowed, the officials said. Now, however, there are several targeting areas in which the probability of 10 civilian casualties are permitted. Those areas shift depending on the time, location of the targets and the value of destroying them, the officials said.

David Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who led its intelligence and surveillance efforts, said easing the restrictions was a necessary but insufficient step toward defeating the Islamic State, or ISIL.

"The gradualistic, painfully slow, incremental efforts of the current administration undercut the principals of modern warfare, and harken back to the approach followed by the Johnson administration," said Deptula, who now leads the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Among the issues commanders consider before attacking is the target’s “non-combatant value.” A value of zero means it can be hit with no chance of civilians being killed — think of an ISIL machine gun emplacement in the desert.

The value rises in urban areas such as Ramadi, which Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led airpower, seized from ISIL in late December. Pockets of Ramadi and other areas of intense fighting have had non-combatant values of 10 or more, meaning that attacking them carries the probability of 10 civilian deaths, said the most senior of the six Defense officials. The area could be as small as a city block and permission to hit it could last for a matter of hours.

Israel had been the country with the best record in minimizing the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in urban warfare in history by far up until recently. But the US bombing campaigns in Iraq have resulted in a seemingly much smaller civilian to combatant ratio still. Some of this is because the US was simply covering up many civilian deaths. However, part of the reason was no doubt because the White House has internalized the anti-war messages from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International - directed almost exclusively at Israel - where international law is twisted and perverted to prevent Western nations from defeating jihadists and terrorists who simply hide among civilians. Obama's directive of "I want zero civilian casualties" has cost countless lives at the expense of a perverted sense of morality.

Now the US military is vindicating what the IDF has always done. Because every military expert knows that Obama's' "no civilian death" policy is a recipe for defeat.

(h/t EBoZ)

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Download the EoZ Haggadah!

It has now been seven years since I put together a bunch of rabbinic commentaries about Zionism and redemption with the text of the Haggadah.

I am still pretty happy with it. I have printed it and use it at least one seder every year, and I still enjoy the insights.

Since the commentaries and translation are copied and pasted from various sources, I cannot sell a bound edition of this because of copyright issues. One of the projects I always wanted to find the time for was to paraphrase and expand the commentaries and market it for real, since there are very few Haggadahs with Zionist themes.

In fact, there are more Haggadot with anti-Zionist themes!

But you are free to download the EoZ Haggadah and print it for your own sedarim.

Chag kosher v'sameach!

Elder of Ziyon Haggadah 5769

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04/21 Links Pt2: No, Peter Beinart: Anti-Zionism Is Indeed a Form of anti-Semitism; Pollard claptrap

From Ian:

No, Peter Beinart: Anti-Zionism Is Indeed a Form of anti-Semitism

Every time an article by Peter Beinart appears in Haaretz, I read it avidly. I don’t always agree with him, but I find his analyses deep and mordant and his prose elegant and eloquent. Often his predictions turn out to be right, and I believe that even his sharpest criticisms are motivated by a deep love for Israel and the Jewish people. Despite the opposition of many, I was honored to have him speak at the 2013 Jewish Funders Network annual conference.
However, I feel I need to raise to my voice against a few of Peter’s recent articles in which he argues that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. It holds that Jews, like any other people, have the right to national self-determination. Denying that right to Jews, and only to Jews, can’t be called anything other than anti-Semitism. It may be different for the tiny minority of utopians out there who argue consistently against nationalism in any form and in any country, seeking to bring about a world without nation states. But that’s not what anti-Zionism seeks. Anti-Zionism isn’t directed at any other national movement but that of the Jews. (Otherwise they’d have to call it something else.) Most anti-Zionists wholeheartedly embrace other national movements, or at least fail to condemn the existence of any nation state other than Israel. Most notably, anti-Zionists often champion Palestinian national aspirations, but the stark double standard seems to escape them.
The anti-Zionist mutation of anti-Semitism is particularly pernicious, because it denies not only the right of the Jews to a state, but their very identity as a people. Very few anti-Zionists hold that Judaism as a religion should be eradicated. That distinction is, at the same time, their fig leaf and their weapon. By “tolerating” Judaism as a religion, they can try to shake off the designation of anti-Semitism, a curious attempt since they are trying to lecture the Jewish people about the nature (the negation, actually) of our own identity. The claim is that Judaism is a legitimate religion, but that the Jews are not a legitimate nation—just a collection of people of other nationalities who practice the religion of Judaism, who, therefore, are not entitled to a nation-state. This desire to dictate the parameters of Jewish identity to the Jewish people may be worse than traditional Christian anti-Semitism, or even than some forms of racial anti-Semitism, neither of which deny the Jews our place among the nations, hate us though they may.

Ryan Bellerose: Hearts And Minds

Why are you losing the Jewish millennials?
Judea and Samaria, Hebron, The Temple Mount, Joseph’s Tomb, Rachel’s Tomb – this is why you are losing them. Not because, as most mainstream Jewish “advocacy” groups suggest, these are “controversial and divisive” subjects, but because the other side has a very clear and concise position on these things, while the pro-Israel side has people teaching to avoid even talking about them. But if you avoid talking about the very places that you should be venerating, if you don’t act as if they are important on a visceral level, then you not only risk losing them but you risk losing everything. You erode your own morally superior position by not manifesting it. Basically if you act guilty, how do you expect young people to react?
Think about it, you have a group of young people who are taught their history, who are taught that Israel is perfect and that it’s the ideal for everything. They are taught the Torah, they are taught the importance of all the things I just mentioned but only in a religious context, a flawed religious context because it doesn’t concentrate on the importance of that “religion” in the context of their identity. Jewish identity is so much more than just Judaism. I liken all indigenous identities to a hand, with each finger being something that makes up that identity: Culture, language, traditions, core beliefs, and spirituality is the Thumb – if you cut off a finger, the hand is still functional. If you cut off the thumb it’s much less so. However, the more fingers you cut off, the less functional the hand becomes until it’s just a useless stump. THAT’S HOW IDENTITY WORKS. So back to the issue at hand so to speak – these kids, most of whom don’t speak their own language, who don’t follow the traditions, some of whom don’t have any spirituality at all, these same kids are taught that they shouldn’t support the “settlements,” that Judeans are Jews who are causing all the problems. That if they were not there, there might be peace. THEY HAVE NO REASON TO SUPPORT THEIR OWN PEOPLE ANY LONGER. It’s a simple solution based on the” logic” they see from so-called “pro-Israel” people.

JPost Editorial: Pollard claptrap

US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s recent letter to the US Parole Commission hyping the enormous threat to America’s national security which he claims Jonathan Pollard still poses is so much claptrap.
So is Clapper’s contrived contention that Pollard spied “against the US.” Pollard was indicted for spying for “the benefit of an ally” – Israel – not against the US.
Clapper’s lame attempt to inflame public sentiment against an aging and very ill Pollard who spent 30 years in prison paying for an offense whose median sentence is two to four years, is at best laughable.
Like his predecessors, Clapper hides behind a veil of secrecy and relies upon hyperbole and ad hominem to obscure the absence of evidence against Pollard. This, despite the now-public knowledge that former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger (the man who drove Pollard’s life sentence) admitted before he died that the Pollard case was “a minor mater” which had been exaggerated to serve another agenda. Clapper continues the hyperbolic spin, regardless.
Here is the real scoop.
Jonathan Pollard, who spent an unprecedented 30 years of a 45-year life sentence in prison for the one count of spying for an ally, Israel, with which he was charged, while working as a civilian intelligence analyst for US Navy, was released from prison last November.

Students in Tunisia who were on the island of Djerba raised a Nazi flag during a celebration.

From Tunisia-Live:

Students at the Houmt Essouk high school on Djerba have been pictured waving a swastika flag during the annual festivities that greet each year’s baccalaureate sports exam. The Dakhla, the celebration that precedes each year’s exam, has grown in importance since the revolution, as students use the festivities to compete for prominence amongst other schools in both the scale and imagination of their celebrations.

However, distinguishing themselves from their peer group has led to controversy, with students at Kairouan last year drawing a large mural of an Islamic State, (Daesh) fighter and the group’s victims, prompting the decision earlier this year to have the Ministry of Education assume responsibility for supervising this year’s event. Yamina Thabet, president of the Tunisian Association for the Support of Minorities, firmly condemned the use of Nazi symbolism on Djerba. “This is not the first time something like this has happened,” she told Tunisia Live. “I’m ashamed of this.” Thabet attributed this latest incident to a lack of supervision by the Ministry of Education. “Each year there are incidents due to a lack of supervision. If they’re unable to do it, we’re happy to provide proposals.”

“Last year they also waved a flag with Hitler’s image on it in Jendouba,” Thabet said. She added that displays such as this should be treated with the utmost seriousness. “These images travel around the world very fast, and people don’t seem to understand that it’s a serious matter. Who knows, such kids might vote for a Nazi in the future,” she said.

Thabet welcomed the Ministry of Education’s decision to contact her organization and collaborate with them on preventing reoccurrences of the incident in Houmt Essouk, as well as their opening of an investigation into the case. Following yesterday’s display in Houmt Essouk, security forces took three baccalaureate students and the High School’s Director in for questioning. All were released after several hours.

The island of Djerba is home to the largest settlement of Tunisia’s Jewish population. The annual pilgrimage at its El Ghriba synagogue, the oldest in Africa, attracts thousands of Jews from different countries to come for their holy rites. This year it will take place between the 25 and 26 of May.

The Ministry of Education, who previously confirmed that they would assume responsibility for this year’s event, have yet to respond to Tunisia Live’s requests for comment.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I read in today’s [Wednesday] newspaper that Israel will be building a sophisticated barrier along the border with Gaza. Sensors, underground walls and who knows what secret systems to detect tunneling and infiltration. The cost is estimated in billions of shekels (a shekel today is about US$ 0.26). We are continuing to develop and deploy a multi-tiered antimissile defense that also will cost billions.

Meanwhile, the US State Department, Germany, the EU and the Arab League all insist that the Golan heights belong to the non-country of Syria. "No state can claim the right to annex another state's territory just like that," say the Germans, while they advocate ‘Palestine’ doing exactly that.

In the US, Joe Biden spoke to the anti-Zionist J Street organization and expressed his “overwhelming frustration” with Israel’s government, and called for the Left to return to power in Israel. Such respect for democracy he has.

And of course the inimitable Bernie Sanders continues to call Israel’s responses to attacks from Gaza “disproportionate.”

In the opinion of the West, Israel can defend itself as long as its defensive measures aren’t too effective, like the security barrier in Judea and Samaria, and as long as they are completely passive, like Iron Dome. It is not permissible for Israel to kill any Arabs in the process; even wounded terrorists must be protected and given medical treatment. It doesn’t matter if no other country has a better record of reducing collateral damage in any recent conflict – any civilian casualties are grounds for condemnation.

The West believes that no strategic considerations such as the fact that the Golan, the Jordan Valley and the high ground of Judea and Samaria are essential for Israel’s defense can override the desires of the ‘Palestinians’ for a state, or the ‘rights’ of the Butcher of Damascus, Hezbollah, IS or whoever will rule the remnants of Syria. On the other hand, it does not accept Israel’s rights under international law.

The West agrees that exploding buses are bad. But it blames them on Israel controlling territory that she shouldn’t, security measures inconvenient for the Arabs and disproportionate responses. If we stop doing these things, it suggests that there will be no more terrorism.

This position is either extremely stupid or hypocritical. In the case of Bernie Sanders, I vote for stupid; but the State Department, Germany and the EU (and others that I haven’t mentioned) are hypocrites: they say they believe we have a right to self-defense, while aware that what they want is for Israel to be unable to defend herself.

Are the Arabs our worst enemies? Possibly not. Arguably, the West has done more damage to Israel’s chances for survival by diplomatic pressure for concessions and by financing the PA, Hamas (via UNWRA) and countless anti-Zionist NGOs and UN agencies, than Palestinian terrorists with their suicide belts. Think about that.

Israel’s response has been to play along.

We agree to ‘negotiate’ with the PLO – the terrorist organization that has killed more Israeli Jews since its inception than any other – over serious proposals to give them control over vital strategic locations, our holiest places and half our capital. Luckily for us, they have always demanded too much.

We say that we want a ‘two-state solution’ and hint that we will expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in return for a paper promise from ‘leaders’ who may not be in power next week, and don’t insist on our rights under international law.

We commit to massive expenditures in passive defense, Iron Domes above and below ground, in order to avoid carrying out the simplest and most effective procedure for self-defense: crushing our enemies.

We fight limited wars – that is, wars that are limited to pushing our enemies back but never destroying them – and then we give them time and, in the case of Hamas, even supply them so they can rebuild their offensive capabilities for the next round.

We punish our young soldiers severely for killing the enemy in time of war, and then expect them to keep coming back for more victory-limited wars.

We do all these things because we want to be a member of the Western ‘enlightened’ club, the same one that is presently being eaten alive by Islam in Europe and threatened by political insanity in North America, instead of the Middle Eastern nation that we are.

Israel’s Jewish population comes from Africa and Asia, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and many other places. A bit fewer than half of us are descended from people who lived in Muslim countries until relatively recently. Why should we expect to be like Norway, Belgium or the US? Israel must define herself as a sovereign, independent Jewish and democratic nation, and explicate those terms in the light of the history and future of the Jewish people, not as dictated by Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders.

And we don’t need to imitate the US – or, God forbid, Europe.

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