A UN engineer, who had worked in the Gaza Strip and was indicted in August for abusing his post in order to aid Hamas, was sentenced to seven months in jail on Wednesday after reaching a plea deal with an Israeli court.
The man, Wahid Abdullah al-Bursh, is an employee of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which undertakes such projects as rehabilitating Gaza Strip homes damaged in warfare.
He has worked as a UNDP engineer since 2003 and was tasked with overseeing the demolition of homes and evacuating the waste.
According to a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) investigation, Bursh was approached shortly after the 2014 Gaza war by Husseini Suleiman, a messenger for senior Hamas commander Abu Anas al-Andor, who asked him to use his position to help the terrorist organization.
He was found guilty of providing “services to an illegal organization without intent to cause harm”, by helping build the naval commando port in the northern Gaza Strip in April and May 2015 and using his authority to transfer to the site 300 tons of construction materials to Hamas.
The U.S. should stop opposing Israeli settlements and start diminishing Iranian power and Arab terrorism.
President Obama’s decision to stab Israel in the back at the United Nations could prove to be a blessing in disguise. Obama’s instinct for radical overreach has achieved a reductio ad absurdum of the whole U.S. framework toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and made it far more difficult for President-elect Trump to embrace that framework without wholesale revision. And that could give us something we don’t have now: a realistic path to peace in Palestine.
Current U.S. policy toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict evolved in support of a goal — the two-state solution — set by President Bill Clinton and formally embraced by President George W. Bush. This goal has become completely disconnected from reality. That is not to say that a two-state solution is not the right ultimate goal; maybe it is. But given the circumstances of today’s Middle East, a negotiated settlement leading to a two-state solution is simply impossible. The combination of Israel’s international isolation, Palestinians’ steadfast commitment to incitement and terrorism, and Iranian ascendancy to regional hegemony and nuclear weapons means that Israel simply can’t risk the concessions that would be necessary for a final settlement of the conflict.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the territory immediately became a terrorist safe haven and a platform for missile-fired terrorism. If the same thing happens in the West Bank, which straddles Jerusalem on three sides and abuts most of Israel’s population, it will be the end of Israel. A two-state solution under current circumstances would be suicide. Peace in Palestine requires new circumstances. And the object of U.S. policy should be to create them. Hence, every element of U.S. policy, including the U.S. position on Israeli settlements, should be justifiable as part of a coherent and realistic strategy for getting from here to there.
It’s a vague childhood memory, but the French celebrity philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy still remembers the first time he was bullied for being Jewish.
“Three idiots in a Paris play yard tell me: ‘You don’t get to have Christmas presents because you’re a dirty Jew and Jews killed Jesus.’ Maybe I cry a bit on the street later, but first I start hitting,” the 68-year-old Levy, who was born in what is today is Algeria but grew up in France, recalled in an interview earlier this month with JTA.
More than half a century later, Levy — a slender man with wavy, gray hair who is one of France’s most recognizable individuals — is still embracing his Jewish identity and confronting anti-Semites.
But since that childhood incident, Muslim extremists have taken anti-Semitism in France from schoolyard taunts to terrorism, with multiple deadly attacks on Jewish targets.
This “return of anti-Semitism,” Levy said, “perhaps” prompted him to pen one of his most Jewish books ever, “The Genius of Judaism.” The English-language translation will be released next month in the United States, and Levy will do a Q&A (with Charlie Rose) at the 92nd Street Y in New York on January 11.
In the book Levy, a non-observant Jew, traces the Jews’ “misunderstanding with the nations” to their definition as a “chosen people.”
Popular conservative site Doug Ross named EoZ as one of the five winners in the "Best Middle East Blogger" category in its annual awards.
Thanks!
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At 10 AM on Wednesday, a military court handed down the verdict in the manslaughter trial of Sgt. Elor Azaria, called by the media “the soldier who shot in Hevron.”
10 months ago, Azaria shot and killed an Arab terrorist who was lying on the pavement, several minutes after the terrorist was shot and wounded while stabbing another soldier, who was lightly injured.
The IDFs rules of engagement stipulate that deadly force should not be used in such circumstances (considered “law enforcement” rather than war) unless there is an “immediate threat to life.” Azaria said that he thought there was such a threat, that the terrorist could have been wearing an explosive vest under his jacket.
He was initially charged with murder, but the prosecution decided that it would be difficult to prove premeditation. The manslaughter charge only requires a deliberate, wrongful killing. He could be sentenced to as much as 20 years in prison; but probably he will get much less than that.
In Israeli military court there are three judges, one of whom is the head judge, a professional who is appointed by the President of the state, on recommendation of the Judicial Selection Committee, like civilian judges. The other two can be officers who may not have a legal background. In this case there were two professionals and a field commander. Cases are decided by a majority vote. There are no juries.
The verdict and the penalty turn on whether the judges believe Azaria’s testimony. They could have decided that he lied, or that he was telling the truth but should have acted differently, based on the information available to him. Or they could decide that he told the truth and that his action was justified.
The trial has been thebiggest thing in the media for the past months, bigger than all the countless sexual harassment scandals put together. The country is strongly divided about the appropriate response to Azaria’s act, ranging from jail time to a medal. Before the verdict was announced, there were rowdy demonstrations in his favor outside the courtroom (which had been moved to a more secure location and closed to the public).
It’s important in this connection to note why the incident became a media circus. The shooting was videotaped by an activist for the left-wing NGO B’tselem and the tape shown over and over by the media. What would probably have been a simple matter – one way or the other – became a national affair.
I’m not going to discuss all the evidence that has been presented, such as whether he heard a paramedic at the scene call out “watch out, he has a suicide vest,” whether shooting might detonate the vest, whether the terrorist had already been checked, and more. The trial went on for 6 months, and a great deal of testimony was presented. The court’s opinion will cite the facts that the judges found important in reaching their decision.
My guess before the announcement was that he would be convicted – that the judges would decide that a reasonable soldier would not have fired, given the facts and the rules of engagement. I also thought that the sentence will be relatively light, in consideration of the pressures on the soldier.
***
At exactly 10 AM, I turned on the radio. Israel Radio’s reporters repeated the words of the head judge, Maya Heller, as she read the verdict (the court did not permit the proceedings to be broadcast, so a reporter inside transmitted her words by WhatsApp to the broadcasters outside). Because there is a requirement that an innocent defendant must be informed immediately, the fact that there was no such announcement at the beginning – the whole judgment took 2-1/2 hours to read – told the story.
Elor Azaria was found guilty of manslaughter and conduct unbecoming of an IDF soldier.
The judges did not believe him, and the judgment was unrelievedly harsh. They rejected every one of his points of defense. They did not accept his explanation that he was afraid the terrorist had an explosive vest or that he was reaching for a knife. They found contradictions between various versions of Azaria’s story, and said that he appeared to be changing his story as he went along in order to improve his case. They gave significant weight to testimony that Azaria said “he stabbed my friend, he deserves to die” to another soldier immediately before the shooting. They did not accept arguments from a psychiatric panel that he suffered from PTSD or that he was significantly impaired by lack of sleep or other factors. They accepted the autopsy data that it was Azaria’s bullet that caused the terrorist’s death (and rejected the opposing view of former chief pathologist Yehuda Hiss, who did not examine the body). They did not credit the statements of several reserve generals who testified on Azaria’s behalf. Finally, they decided that the shooting was not merely an error,but demonstrated “criminal intent.” Criminal intent!
I didn’t hear a word of excuse or understanding. The judges agreed with Chief of Staff Eisenkot and former Minister of Defense Ya’alon that the shooting was entirely unjustified. Had he been accused of murder, I believe that Azaria would have been convicted of that as well.
The punishment will be determined by the court and announced in about ten days. From what I heard from the judge, I suspect that I was mistaken in thinking that he will get a light sentence.
***
Something here is wrong.
Of course, the IDF’s judges had no alternative. An army has rules, and Azaria broke an important one. His explanation that he felt endangered didn’t hold water, no matter how much one wants to support him. He knew what he was doing: killing a terrorist. The court was right about that and the best explanation for his motive was provided by his comment that the terrorist deserved to die. But it didn’t have to come to this.
Explaining his tough stance last April, Moshe Ya’alon said “Part of the power [of the IDF], as many have described it — Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin and others — is our ethical strength. We aren’t Daesh.”
We aren’t. But we also aren’t a people who would send a soldier to prison for killing a terrorist. There is a feeling in Israel that has become sort of a slogan in this case, that our soldiers are everyone’s children. How can we abandon our children? Chief of Staff Eisenkot disagrees. Yesterday he said this:
An 18-year-old man serving in the army is not “everyone’s child.” He is a fighter, a soldier, who must dedicate his life to carry out the tasks we give him. We cannot be confused about this.
He’s both right and wrong. A young man who is a soldier does have to dedicate his life to – and sometimes lose it for – his country and his people, at least for the 32 months of his service. But he is still “everyone’s child.” Ya’alon said that part of our power comes from our “ethical strength,” but it also comes from the way we love our soldiers – and our army. There are many who would like Israel to have a professional army, but this hasn’t happened yet (and I think it would be a disaster).
Among the most troubling aspects of this case were the statements condemning Azaria’s act made by Eisenkot, Ya’alon, other officers, and even PM Netanyahu (who later changed his tune) immediately after the B’tselem video was made public. Eisenkot and Ya’alon later said that it wasn’t the video that convinced them, that they already had received evidence from the chain of command – but surely it had something to do with their making public statements of this sort (in the US, this would be grounds for appeal).
Indeed, this is where everything went off the rails. Elor Azaria should have had a hearing with his commanding officer, and maybe gotten a weekend of guard duty and an explanation of the rules. Instead, thanks to a video camera probably bought with European money, another kind of soldier, one fighting the cognitive war against Israel, threw the nation into chaos. As usual, we walked right into this.
The distinction between law enforcement and war becomes blurred when terrorists are stalking us – and especially our soldiers and police – in the streets, with every day bringing reports of stabbings and vehicular attacks, as was the case when Azaria killed his terrorist. No, Azaria’s wasn’t a split-second decision where hesitation could be fatal, as the court noted, but our soldiers and police do face such decisions on a daily basis. Could not this verdict deter them from taking action in a situation that isn’t so clear-cut?
Soldiers don’t make good policemen anyway. They are trained to kill the enemy, not to detainsuspects who have rights. Enemy soldiers in a firefight don’t have rights.
And we mustn't forget that in the eyes of our enemies in today's asymmetric war, no Jew in the Land of Israel, from a baby to an 80-year old grandmother, has a right to live. Possibly if the nation had an official death penalty for terrorism, soldiers wouldn't feel the need to take the law into their own hands.
In this kind of war, is the principle that a terrorist deserves to die a bad one?
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A similar dynamic is at play with Obama’s execrable maneuver at the U.N. Security Council. The decision to clear the path for a resolution holding that the Western Wall is actually a Palestinian possession is a serious blow to our ally (and our honor) and proof that Obama’s rhetorical support of Israel was always more about political necessity than personal conviction. Even as the move will please some — though by no means all — leftists on the party circuit, it is nevertheless a political gift to the two politicians Obama (probably) detests most: Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump.
For almost eight years, Netanyahu has argued domestically that the deteriorating relationship with the United States isn’t his fault, but Obama’s. The president just settled that argument for him.
Meanwhile, the resolution helps Trump enormously. Simply by taking office while holding what once were conventionally pro-Israel positions, Trump can play the role of Israel’s defender, both domestically and abroad. It is lamentable that Israel is now a partisan issue in America, but Obama ceded the winning side of the issue to his Republican successor.
Much has been written about how Obama has left the Democratic Party and ideological allies in shambles by putting his perceived interests and ego ahead of everything else. As he leaves office, he has turned that domestic story into an international one too.
Ashrawi stated that Kerry gave Israel "a great prize" because he referred to "a Jewish state" - something the Palestinians "have refused and still refuse" to accept. In addition, Ashrawi interpreted Kerry's speech as denying the Palestinian "refugees" the "right of return." The two things are interconnected. The PA knows that were significant numbers of refugees to enter Israel they would turn it into a binational state, which is why the PA refuses to accept Israel as a Jewish state. PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi: "The six principles that [US Secretary of State John] Kerry presented are undeniable Zionist principles that serve Israeli interests. For example, he spoke about Jerusalem - a capital of two states. He didn't say that East Jerusalem is occupied, but rather that Jerusalem is a capital of two states... Secondly, he said 'a Jewish state,' giving them [Israel] a great prize. We have refused and still refuse to say that Israel is a Jewish state... Even on the issue of the refugees, he [Kerry] automatically denied them the right of return, and said that it is necessary to reach a just solution of compensation and resettling and the like. In other words, there is no right of return." [Official PA TV, State of Politics, Jan. 3, 2017]
PLO's Hanan Ashrawi rejects Israel as a Jewish state, rejects Jerusalem as Israel's capital
MEMRI: Fatah Official Sultan: Transfer of U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem Will Lead to Renewed Bloodshed
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Secretary of State John Kerry’s attack on Israel last week represents a vain attempt to deflect attention from the Obama administration’s failed foreign policy. Kerry’s fixation on the Palestinian issue explains why Russia, with one-tenth the GDP of the US, has emerged as the winner in Syria against both US and Israeli interests and why Iran, its ally, has come to control two more Arab capitals by proxy. Instead of promoting core US interests, Kerry has squandered efforts on promoting a two-state solution that has failed to materialize since it was first proposed by the Peel Commission eighty years ago. Hopefully, the next administration will give core US interests their due and find creative ways to deal with the fallout of a Palestinian national movement that has failed for 100 years.
In US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent speech, in which he attempted to defend Washington’s abstention on the UNSCR resolution against Israeli settlements, he sounded more similar than ever before to the European leaders who reflexively condemn Israel. The similarity is rooted in a predicament shared by both the US under Obama and the EU – a weak and ineffectual foreign policy. Obama’s and Kerry’s “European” orientation has reduced American influence in world affairs to its lowest point since WWII and most certainly since the Vietnam War.
Just as the Europeans cover up their geostrategic weakness by ganging up on Israel, so too have Obama and Kerry zeroed in on Israel and the Palestinian issue as a means of covering up the abysmal failures of their foreign policy. Unfortunately, Israel is saddled with the costs of those foreign policy failures.
Who says Fatah and Hamas are always fighting each other?
Sometimes they find common ground. And that common ground is in supporting terror against Israel.
Hamas' website today honors the anniversary of the death of its chief bombmaker Yahya Ayyash, "The Engineer," who innovated the creation of bomb belts that were responsible for murdering hundreds. It describes lovingly how suicide bombs caused Israelis to live in fear in the years of the second intifada.
Hamas' Al Qassam website has a photo essay on Ayyash, including photos of Israelis blown up by his bombs.
Even though Ayyash was part of Hamas (he also provided the explosives for Islamic Jihad), Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group is honoring him today as well, and linking him with Yasir Arafat, saying, "Today is the anniversary of (the death of) the martyr engineer Yahya Ayyash. Revolutionaries never die. The pact of Fatah will remain the pact of the martyrs. We are marching on the path of Yasser Arafat on the way to national unity." It also shows these newspapers that visually link Ayyash with Arafat.
This is the "culture of peace" that John Kerry claims Mahmoud Abbas has created.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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The Royce-Engel resolution against UNSC Resolution 2334 is picking up steam in Congress. Here's what it says:
- Expresses grave objection to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016);
- Calls for United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to be repealed or fundamentally altered so that it is no longer one-sided and allows all final status issues toward a two-state solution to be resolved through direct bilateral negotiations between the parties;
- Rejects efforts by outside bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, to impose solutions from the outside that set back the cause of peace;
- Demands that the United States ensure that no action is taken at the Paris Conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict scheduled for January 15, 2017, that imposes an agreement or parameters on the parties;
- Notes that granting membership and statehood standing to the Palestinians at the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and other international institutions outside of the context of a bilateral peace agreement with Israel would cause severe harm to the peace process, and would likely trigger the implementation of penalties under sections 7036 and 7041(j) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016 (division K of Public Law 114–113);
- Rejects any efforts by the United Nations, United Nations agencies, United Nations member states, and other international organizations to use United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to further isolate Israel through economic or other boycotts or any other measures, and urges the United States Government to take action where needed to counter any attempts to use United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to further isolate Israel;
- Urges the current presidential administration and all future presidential administrations to uphold the practice of vetoing all United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to insert the Council into the peace process, recognize unilateral Palestinian actions including declaration of a Palestinian state, or dictate terms and a timeline for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
- Reaffirms that it is the policy of the United States to continue to seek a sustainable, just, and secure two-state solution to resolve the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians; and
- Urges the incoming Administration to work with Congress to create conditions that facilitate the resumption of direct, bilateral negotiations without preconditions between Israelis and Palestinians with the goal of achieving a sustainable agreement that is acceptable to both sides
This is not a pro-Israel resolution. It supports a two-state solution and insists that the way to achieve that is with bilateral negotiations. It is entirely consistent with longstanding US policy.
J-Street characterizes itself in the media as being strongly for a two state solution. Yet they are against Royce-Engel and they were for UNSC 2334 passing.
I received a "talking points" memo from J-Street instructing its people to fight Royce Engel. It includes this howler:
* The resolution's assertions that the UNSCR is "one-sided" and "anti-Israel" - and therefore violated relevant provisions of H.Con.Res165 - are also not supported by the fact that the UNSCR expressly condemned "all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction" and called "upon both parties to act on the basis of international law, including international humanitarian law, and their previous agreements and obligations, to observe calm and restraint, and to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric."
Even the section that they quoted that was supposedly proving that 2334 was not one-sided did not name Palestinians as the actors who are behind terrorism and incitement, while the 80% of the resolution that did attack a specific party attacked Israel. (The UN has never defined terrorism specifically because so many member states consider Palestinian attacks on civilians not to be terrorism, therefore this paragraph is meaningless in context of the UN.)
The proposed Congressional resolution supports a two state solution - and J-Street is against it.
J-Street supports UNSC 2334 - along with Hamas and the PLO - while the entire Israeli political spectrum outside the Arab parties and Meretz opposed it.
J-Street is not pro-peace and not pro-Israel. Anyone who claims that J-Street represents the mainstream of liberal Jewish thinking is knowingly lying.
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Zionist soldiers and police have been incited by some of the country’s top politicians to ignore protocols when engaging with Palestinians who initiate attacks, Sari Bashi, Human Rights Watch’s ‘Israel/Palestine’ Advocacy Director, said.
In a special report of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, HRW said that “some senior Israeli officials have been encouraging Israeli soldiers and police to kill Palestinians they suspect of attacking Israelis even when they are no longer a threat.”
Hezbollah and Human Rights Watch fit perfectly together. Not only can the Lebanese terror group pretend to care about human rights by quoting HRW, but they are secure in knowing that HRW will never hold Hezbollah to the standards that they hold Israel to - or to any standards whatsoever.
While HRW writes reports on Israeli politicians' statements meant to dissuade terror, it has not once written about direct threats to Israeli lives given, explicitly, by Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah organisation, has threatened to attack Israeli gas facilities which could result in the deaths of up to 800,000 people. The Shia militant leader said the group has the capability to strike the ammonia gas storage tanks in Haifa if the confrontation with Israel escalates.
"Israel knows Hezbollah has missiles and rockets that can strike anywhere in its territory," he said during a televised address in Beirut to mark the deaths of past leaders. "The inhabitants of Haifa are afraid of an attack... that will lead to the death of tens of thousands of inhabitants out of a population of some 800,000. What does this mean? It means that a few missiles on this ammonia site could have the result of a nuclear bomb."
Calling on police to kill terrorists in the seconds after they attack is a heinous crime according to HRW.
But calling to annihilate hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians with an attack that Hezbollah itself likens to a nuclear explosion? Not worth mentioning by the moral arbiters at Human Rights Watch.
Hezbollah and Syrian army troops have reportedly killed civilians attempting to flee a Sunni-populated town near the Lebanese border that has been besieged by pro-regime forces since the summer.
“Three civilians, including a pregnant woman and her daughter, were martyred and four other female citizens were injured when regime forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah opened fire on them in the outskirts of Madaya,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Monday morning.
The monitoring NGO said that a total of five people have died in Madaya the past 24 hours.
“This brought the number of martyrs [killed] in the town since it was surrounded by regime forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to at least 23 as a result of IED explosions, sniper fire or poor health [coupled with] lacking sustenance and necessary medical treatment,” the SOHR added.
After all, Hezbollah shares Human Rights Watch's most important priority.
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There is no State of Palestine because the Arabs walked away from the negotiating table in 2000. Choosing instead to start the second intifada. Over 1000 Israelis were murdered
There is no State of Palestine because when Israel withdrew from Gaza and dismantled settlements, Hamas took control and launched rocket attacks. 1000’s of rockets have been fired at Israel.
There is no State of Palestine because in 2008, when Olmert, the Israeli PM, offered one to the Palestinian President, the Palestinians rejected it.
There is no State of Palestine because the Arabs are currently split into warring factions. The same type of divisions as we see exploding elsewhere in the Middle East.
There is no State of Palestine because too many Arabs (not all) simply do not accept, still will not accept, peaceful existence with Israel.
There is no State of Palestine because too many people, are invested in the conflict. This is especially true of the thousands of NGO’s who in a perverse symbiosis report on a conflict that would probably not exist without them.
100 years after Balfour, the UN are still kicking Israel as if somehow the Jewish State holds the key to the end of the conflict. You will not solve this conflict until you are honest about the cause.
The Truth About Palestinians
We often hear claims that Palestinians are "native" or indigenous to the land of Israel, but does history back this up? It's worth taking a look:
UN Watch: Why the World's Worst Regimes Join the U.N. Human Rights Council
On Montreal's CJAD Radio, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer was asked if dictatorships should be welcomed to the U.N. Human Rights Council to engage them in dialogue in the hope of reform. Interviewed by Dan Delmar.
John Kerry's post-abstention speech of one week ago has been the subject of derisive analysis from many quarters. Like James Taylor singing You've Got a Friend in France, it just didn't sit right. It was like audibly breaking wind at dinner with the Queen. Or your phone going off at a funeral when your ring tone is I've Got Friends in Low Places.
It was a racist speech pretending to be noble. It was a speech about booting the Jews from Jerusalem again as if it were inevitable and right. In short, there was much in that speech to denigrate, but a girl only has so much time. With no further ado then, here are ten quotes chosen at random for their über-high annoyance level:
1) "We have consistently supported Israel’s right to defend itself, by itself, including during actions in Gaza that sparked great controversy."
Oh? Is that why you blocked that missile shipment during Operation Protective Edge? At a time Israel was fighting for its life against terrorist tunnel infiltrations and constant rocket attacks? So you're saying you blocked that missile shipment because you wanted us to defend ourselvesby ourselves, meaning without your/Obama's help? You were just fostering our independence "during actions that sparked great controversy," such as Israeli Jews trying to stay alive?
It's true. Some people (Obama *cough cough*) really don't like that.
2) "No American Administration has done more for Israel’s security than Barack Obama’s."
Is that why you, John Kerry, in all your adorable shuttle-diplomacy ways never held substantive talks with the other side? From an article in Haaretz: "There were no intensive discussions with the Palestinians of the sort that were held with the Israelis. One reason for this was technical: the difficulty of holding secure video talks with the Muqata – the Ramallah-based headquarters of the Palestinian Authority."
Really? Go and Google "secure videochat" and see how many results come up. How hard could it be to set things up in this technologically savvy world? It has to be easier than hiding Hillary's emails.
But it wasn't about security. It was about the one-sided antisemitic approach of the Obama administration. It was about pressing only one side, the Jews, to make concessions, while giving the Arabs and their terrorism a pass. “At one point we discovered that throughout the entire period, the Americans didn’t actually talk to the Palestinians, only to us,” a senior Israeli official said to Haaretz.
3) "Our assistance for Iron Dome has saved countless Israeli lives."
You know what Iron Dome is? It's an umbrella you use when it's raining. When it's not raining, you don't need an umbrella. Missiles are the rain. Stop the rain? No need for the umbrella.
You know how to stop the rockets from raining on Israel? You stop the flow of funds to the terrorists. Far more effective than Iron Dome, and saves a whole lot of moolah, too.
(By the way, little known factoid here: people get hurt from Iron Dome fallout. A friend's son was badly injured by Iron Dome and spent several days in the hospital. He was driving home when the sirens went off. He stopped the car, got out on the highway and crouched, shielding his head with his hands, when Iron Dome took the rocket out right over his head. Imagine getting hit by numerous pieces of jagged, broken, molten rocket.)
4) "In fact, just recently the government approved a significant new settlement well east of the barrier – closer to Jordan than Israel. What does that say to Palestinians in particular – but also to the U.S and the world –about Israel’s intentions?"
It says that Israel has a severe housing shortage. It says that Jews need to have homes to live in. It says Jews have a right to build homes in their indigenous territory in the small speck of land that is Israel in a Middle East comprised of 22 humongous Arab Muslim states.
More properly, John—you don't mind if I call you, John, do you—it says something about you, about Arabs in particular, about the U.S. and the world, that all of you would deny Jews the right to build homes in Israel.
It says y'all are RACIST.
See, we don't see any problem with Jews building homes in Israel. We don't see why we should pander to your exclusionary, RACIST, and divisive vision of a Judenrein Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. So that is why we will build as many homes as we possibly can in the shortest time frame possible.
5) "But if more and more settlers are moving into the middle of the Palestinian areas, it’s going to be that much harder to separate, that much harder to imagine transferring sovereignty – and that is exactly the outcome that some are accelerating."
What is a "Palestinian area?" Who decided MY land is "Palestinian?" And whatever happened to negotiating without preconditions?
I don't think, John, that God will be very happy that you usurped his gift to the Jews and gave it to a fantasy people who are really just generally Arabs from ARABIA who were riding what they hoped would be the coattails of the Jews' prosperity when the Jews started coming back to their native land (after being occupied and exiled by 12 or so different entities).
By the way, if Israel had no problem expelling 11,000 of its own people from Samaria and Gaza in order to cede Gaza as a unilateral gesture of peace, it would also have no problem expelling Jews from Judea and Samaria to create yet another failed Arab terror state, God forbid.
It is important to note here that settlements are built on land Arabs reject. Arabs like the valleys. Easier to farm or graze animals there. They like arable land.
Jews, on the other hand, build their homes on rocky barren hilltops (that Arabs reject) so no one can call us thieves. And still. They call us thieves. Which is a huge chutzpa.
6) "Among the most troubling illustrations of this point has been the proliferation of settler outposts that are illegal under Israel’s own laws. They are often located on private Palestinian land and strategically placed to make two states impossible."
Not often, John. Your nose just grew about ten feet. In fact, Jews build on private land rarely, if at all, by accident. (That's what might have happened with Amona. Except the deeds are sealed and the public can't view them so no one actually knows if there is or ever was a living owner. Or whether that owner wasn't some Turk who died before the Ottomans left and made way for the Brits.)
"As a matter of policy, moreover, Israel does not requisition private land for the establishment of settlements. Housing construction is allowed on private land only after determining that no private rights will be violated. The settlements also do not displace Arabs living in the territories. The media sometimes gives the impression that for every Jew who moves to the West Bank, several hundred Palestinians are forced to leave. The truth is that the vast majority of settlements have been built in uninhabited areas and even the handful established in or near Arab towns did not force any Palestinians to leave."
"The provisions of the Geneva Convention regarding forced population transfer to occupied sovereign territory cannot be viewed as prohibiting the voluntary return of individuals to the towns and villages from which they, or their ancestors, had been ousted. Nor does it prohibit the movement of individuals to land which was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state and which is not subject to private ownership. In this regard, Israeli settlements have been established only after an exhaustive investigation process, under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Israel, designed to ensure that no communities are established on private Arab land."
We don't build on private land. Not often. Not ever. Not illegal.
7) "But that misses a critical point: the Arab Israelis are citizens of Israel, subject to Israel’s laws. Does anyone really believe the settlers will agree to submit to Palestinian law in Palestine?"
Why? Because Israeli Arabs are so utterly trustworthy, loyal, and obedient, whereas Jews are sneaky and can't be trusted?? Or do you say that we won't submit because you think Jews won't like going back to living as dhimmis under Muslim rule who must pay the jizya tax until the day it is decided the Muslims prefer us dead to stealing our money and treating us as inferior people who must wear two different shoes, walk in the gutter, and wear bells to mark us for discrimination and worse?
As for those oh-so-trustworthy/loyal/obedient Israeli Arabs? According to the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), from 2001-2004, 104 terror attacks responsible for the murder of 136 Israelis were carried out by Israeli Arabs. From 2005-2006, another 38 terror attacks were carried out by 46 Israeli Arabs. The ISA states that 40% of Arab terrorists were once "Palestinians" (hate that made-up term, a total fiction) who applied for and received Israeli citizenship. Almost half, John. Almost half.
8) "The reason building there or anywhere else in the West Bank now results in such pushback is that the decision of what constitutes a bloc is being made unilaterally by the Israeli government, without consultation, without the consent of the Palestinians – and without granting the Palestinians a reciprocal right to build in what will by most accounts be part of Palestine."
Wait. So by "most accounts" the Jews will at some point concede the Western Wall to the Arabs? Can you prove that, John? Because I really do not think so. And your nose just grew fifty feet. (Which begs the question—can a nose grow feet?)
9) "We also strongly reject the notion that somehow the United States was the driving force behind this resolution."
Um. Hate to break it to you, John, but the transcript? It got leaked. Yes. That transcript. From MEMRI:
U.S. Representative To The Security Council Coordinated With Palestinian UN Representative On The Issue Of The Resolution Condemning The Settlements
According to the Al-Youm Al-Sabi' report, "the minutes of the meeting – which was attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and on the Palestinian side by PLO Executive Committee Secretary and negotiations team leader Saeb Erekat, and head of Palestinian general intelligence Maj,-Gen. Majid Faraj – reveals that the sides agreed to collaborate regarding a resolution on the settlements." According to the report, "during the meeting, the American side focused on coordination of positions between Washington and Ramallah regarding the resolution on the settlements, which was brought to a vote in the Security Council and adopted several days ago..."
The report stated that "the minutes of the meeting reveal American-Palestinian coordination regarding the resolution on the settlements" and that Kerry and Rice stressed that "they were willing to cooperate with a balanced resolution, and that Washington's UN mission was authorized to discuss this matter with the Palestinian representative to the UN, Ambassador Riyad Mansour." It continued: "The U.S.'s representative to the Security Council coordinated with the Palestinian ambassador on the issue of the resolution condemning the settlements."
Oopsie!
10) "Nearly seventy years ago, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 finally paved the way to making the State of Israel a reality. The concept was simple: create two states for two peoples, one Jewish and one Arab, to realize the national aspirations of both Jews and Palestinians."
Yup. Simple concept. The Jewish state was Israel. The "Palestinian" state was JORDAN, created on 77% of the British Mandate for Palestine that had originally been promised to the Jews, in toto, by the League of Nations. The United Nations Charter, by the way, obligates the UN to uphold the commitments of the League of Nations, its predecessor.
But all that is ancient history. The modern history is, they already had Jordan but the Arabs cried some more so Israel gave them autonomy in parts of Judea and Samaria. Then the Arabs cried some more and the Jews gave them Gaza.
It's called "salami tactics," John. And the thing is, this salami is getting awful small, your boss' days are numbered, and when he's out, you're out.
At that point? No one will want you back again. But you knew that.
They didn't want you for president back then and now no one will
want you for anything much at all except as fodder for Lurch jokes and maybe ketchup—something we can anyway get from your wife's people if we wanted it, which we don't.
Because we've finally figured it out: the more you douse that salami with ketchup, the worse it tastes.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Jerusalem, January 4 - A new mark has been set for Israel's political system now that it has gone a full four days into 2017 without word of a new sex scandal involving parliamentarians, ministers, senior officials in government agencies or offices, or other high-ranking public figures.
By going ninety-six hours into the new year without reportage of sexual harassment, illicit liaisons, or various forms of non-consensual sex involving one or more such public officials, Israeli politics broke the previous record of eighty-nine hours, set in 1991 and again in 2000. Typically, a new sex scandal emerges in Israeli politics every seventeen minutes, according to data from the Central bureau of Statistics.
Experts caution that the record applies only to sex scandals, whereas other forms of alleged misconduct occur daily. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu himself underwent three hours of police questioning as part of an investigation into possible corruption on his part.
"The new record actually outperforms most OECD countries, but it holds only in reference to sex scandals per se," observed Kol Israel Radio political analyst Hanan Krystal. "In terms of overall political shenanigans, we're pretty bad. But we can feel good about this achievement, even if it only means politicians have been getting better at covering up or destroying evidence of their illicit sexual exploits." He also stressed that a lack of reporting of a sex scandal does not necessarily indicate no knowledge among the media of such phenomena - editors and journalists might have decided to delay or suppress the story for political or other considerations.
Bureau records indicate that the longest consecutive period in Israeli history for which data are available with a complete lack of sexual scandals reported occurred during the First Gulf War in 1991. At the time, the country went eleven days with not a single sexual accusation against a prominent public official published in the media. Such records have been kept since 1966.
Technically, Krystal pointed out, the sex-scandal-story-free period began last Friday, meaning the full length of the record-breaking period is six days. "The first day of the year was Sunday, but Israeli politics was already without reports of a sex scandal for two days already by that point," he explained. "The last time that happened was the first couple of times corruption allegations against Netanyahu were bandied about, back in 2009. Editors realized that the officials being accused of rape and harassment weren't from Bibi's end of the political spectrum, so publishing those stories would distract from, rather than amplify, the overarching need to bring the man down. I'd consider this one a fluke until it gets into double digits."
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Their goal is to weaken us bit by bit, to obtain concessions in territory and our responses to terrorism, to weaken our society and our army, to undermine trust in our leadership, to prevent us from preempting military buildups on our borders or the acquisition of game-changing weapons by our enemies, and to paralyze us and ultimately prevent the full deployment of our military capability when it is necessary to defend the country against attack. Ultimately, when the time is ripe, traditional military force will be used to finally achieve their long-term goal of eliminating the Jewish state.
Here are some of the examples of our enemies’ accomplishments:
The Oslo Accords, which reintroduced the murderous PLO into our country and as a diplomatic factor, which allowed Arafat to implement his “education for murder” system to turn the population of the territories into a hostile force.
The retreat from South Lebanon, which allowed Hezbollah to gain influence and set the stage for the Second Lebanon War.
The withdrawal from Gaza, which created a new permanent front for war against Israel, and at the same time gave rise to a multiplicity of diplomatic, legal and propaganda opportunities for our enemies.
The diplomatic failure after the Second Lebanon War that allowed Hezbollah to build the infrastructure for the next war with little interference, and Israel’s failure to preempt the threat.
Israel’s allowing the rise of the subversive European-funded NGO system, which has acted and is acting in countless ways to delegitimize the IDF and the state; which has turned our own legal system into a tool to weaken the nation; and which is so well-entrenched now as to have blunted efforts in the Knesset to rein it in.
The successes of the anti-Israel movement in almost totally taking over the discourse in the academic world in the West – including Israel – both among students and faculty.
The empowerment of the suicidal Israeli Left in media and the arts.
Most of these are examples of cognitive pressure causing Israel to act against its own interests.
In some areas there is little to be done. We can repudiate the Oslo Accords, but we can’t easily undo the damage done in the PA areas by Arafat’s educational system. On the other hand, we can push back against the pernicious memes that our enemies have introduced into our own culture.
This is a Jewish state, the state of the Jewish people. It isn’t “undemocratic” to believe this. We don’t need to feel guilty about it. The Arabs tried to kill us and prevent the establishment of our state. They failed. This was their nakba. They did it to themselves. The Arab nations screwed them, and are still screwing them. Why do we blame ourselves?
For the mainstream media, explaining Israeli politics is difficult work. A country where the poor and disenfranchised immigrants from the Middle East have traditionally supported the party of the right (Likud) while the wealthy and the upper middle-class of largely European origin are the last strongholds of the political left does not translate easily into American political context. In the United States, political culture is rooted in very different concerns than those of the average Israeli, where security issues and attitudes toward the Arab world still dominate. The temptation to make flawed analogies, it seems, is still irresistible. That led to the New York Times’s attempt to ascribe reactions in Israel to Secretary of State John Kerry’s astonishing attack on the Jewish state last week to a divide between “red state” and “blue state” Israeli voters. The piece not only failed to effectively analyze the Israeli response to the Obama administration but also the reason why the Middle East conflict hasn’t been solved.
New Times Jerusalem bureau chief Peter Baker isn’t entirely wrong when he says that there is a stark divide between left and right in Israel. For some who live in secular and liberal Tel Aviv, what goes in Jerusalem and even along the border with Gaza–let alone West Bank settlements–has sometimes been of little interest. I can recall conversing with Tel Aviv residents about a visit to Sderot in the south eight years ago, which at the time was besieged by Palestinian missile fire, in which they reacted as if I was speaking of what was happening in Afghanistan. The disconnect between the minority who blame their own country for the lack of peace and the majority who correctly see the problem as the function of Palestinian intransigence is great, even if Hamas’s 2014 missile attacks on the secular metropolis erased some of the left’s complacency.
Yet the left-wing establishment that once dominated Israeli politics and society was effectively marginalized by the collapse of the peace process in the carnage of the second intifada. In the wake of the Palestinians’ refusal of an offer of statehood from the last Labor-led government in 2000, the even split between left and right that had characterized Israeli politics since the 1970s was transformed into a new reality in which power rested with a dominant right and an ever-changing roster of centrist parties. The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now serving his third consecutive term in power and that the only viable alternative comes from Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid Party speaks volumes about how little influence leftist organs like Haaretz have, even as it continues to support attacks on the Jewish state from foreign critics like Kerry.
Even Baker had to acknowledge his red state/blue state analogy falls short because of the decline of the left. Many liberal Israelis took umbrage at Kerry’s speech just as they were appalled by Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009. The one-sided, anti-Israel bias of both speeches, as well as the way Kerry and Obama have worked hard to treat Jewish Jerusalem as being as much of an illegal settlement as the most remote West Bank hilltop settlement, discredited the administration in the eyes of many Israelis. That, and Obama’s appeasement of Iran, only strengthened Netanyahu’s continued hold on power.
Henry Jackson Society: Alan Mendoza Discussing UN Resolution on Israeli Settlement Building with Breitbart
The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation televised a backgrounder after the Istanbul nightclub terror attack, mentioning other terror attacks around the world that targeted dance clubs.
It mentioned incidents like the Pulse attack in Orlando, and the Bataclan attack in Paris.
It also listed the Dolphinarium massacre in Tel Aviv in 2001 that killed 21. And the suicide bombing attack against a gaming club in Rishon LeTzion in May 2002 that killed 16.
Hamas immediately complained against LBC, saying that it is immoral to compare the coldblooded massacre of teenagers in a club by Islamic extremists with the coldblooded massacre of teenagers in a club by Islamic extremists in Israel.
One is terror, the other is "legitimate resistance."
LBC wasted little time to cave and apologize to the terror group, saying that Hamas actions are legitimate under the Hague Conventions and that everything Hamas does is to fight the "occupying state." (Needless to say, they aren't.)
LBC added that "Israel was and will remain an enemy state."
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Jerusalem, January 4 - A new mark has been set for Israel's political system now that it has gone a full four days into 2017 without word of a new sex scandal involving parliamentarians, ministers, senior officials in government agencies or offices, or other high-ranking public figures.
