You know those awful Israeli checkpoints that Israel-haters love to complain about?
It turns out that at the border between the West Bank and Jordan, the Palestinian Authority arrests hundreds of people every week - far more than Israel does!
Last week, some 34,000 people traveled to and from Jordan through the Allenby Bridge. 10 refused entry by Israel - and 184 wanted Palestinians were detained by the PA going in either direction.
The week before 252 were arrested out of 32,000 who crossed. all under the smiling visages of Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.
Hundreds arrested every week at Palestinian checkpoints. Are they legitimately criminals? Are they political dissidents? No one seems to care. Only Israeli arrests of Palestinians are worth reporting by the media.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began a campaign over the weekend to take seats away from the Likud’s satellite parties on the Right, in an effort to win more seats for Likud than Blue and White in Tuesday’s election, and ensure that President Reuven Rivlin will ask him to form the next government.
As part of that effort, in an interview with Channel 12 on Saturday night, Netanyahu vowed to annex territories in settlements and evacuate the illegal West Bank herding village of Khan Al-Ahmar, if he wins another term.
“We are dealing [with the Americans] on exercising Israeli sovereignty on Ma’aleh Adumim and other things,” Netanyahu said. “Everyone understands the next term will be fateful for guaranteeing our security and our control over key territory in Judea and Samaria.”
In weekend interviews with Channel 13 and the right-wing Makor Rishon and Israel Hayom newspapers, Netanyahu vowed to not permit a single settlement or a single resident of them to be evacuated.
“That [evacuation] will not be happening,” he told Channel 13. “If that’s the plan, there will be no plan.”
In the Makor Rishon interview, Netanyahu promised more clearly than ever that he would form a government with right-wing parties and not invite Blue and White to join his coalition.
“Anyone with a brain understands that a unity government cannot be formed,” he said.
In the same Times article, a “former member of the Obama White House” (sounding an awful lot like Rhodes) revealed that the Obama administration played a central role in that U.N. Security Council vote against Israel in the autumn of 2016.
You remember that one. It was a run-of-the-mill U.N. resolution declaring that the Jewish presence in the Old City of Jerusalem was “illegal.” The kind of resolution American presidents routinely vetoed many times in the past. But not President Obama. He had secretly decided to abstain, so that the resolution would pass.
The problem for Obama was the timing: The vote was scheduled to take place shortly before that year’s presidential election. So the Obama team manipulated the schedule. “There is a reason the U.N. vote did not come up before the election in November,” the anonymous “former official” told the Times. “It was because you were going to have skittish donors. That, and the fact that we didn’t want [Hillary] Clinton to face pressure to condemn the resolution or be damaged by having to defend it.”
At the time, of course, Team Obama loudly denied the Israeli government’s claim that the White House was secretly planning to let the U.N. resolution pass. Obama aides like Rhodes, on the record and off the record, vigorously attacked critics who raised such suspicions. But now we know that the suspicions were well-founded.
Why does any of this matter now, years after Obama left office?
First, it matters because Obama is still a major force in the Democratic Party. He will influence the outcome of the race for the Democratic nomination in 2020. His views on Israel will continue to shape the party’s position.
Second, it matters because it sheds some light on why Obama rushed to appoint Rhodes to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council in the waning hours before he left office—and why Rhodes wanted the appointment. Rhodes has harsh opinions about Israel. He seems proud that he helped trick the public into accepting the Iran deal. And he’s proud of his role in Obama’s policies towards Israel—in fact, he regrets that they weren’t harsher. Clearly, Rhodes wants a platform that will help keep him and his opinions in the public spotlight.
Serving on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council gives Rhodes cover as he plans his next move. You can almost hear him warming up the argument: “You can’t accuse me of being anti-Israel—I’m part of the leadership of the Holocaust Museum!” Sadly, Israel and American Jewry have not heard the last of him.
Raging Linda Sarsour recently tried to whitewash her buddy Omar's obvious anti-semitism in a recent speech:
But what has happened often from White Jews when they call you call an antisemite, is they look at Muslim women from an orientalist trope, that we are inherently antisemitic because we are Muslims, right?
"It's a stereotype that has been used often against the Muslim community. That we are antisemitic until proven otherwise. That we are guilty until proven innocent. It's not okay."
"She didn't know nothing in Somalia, about no antisemitism. This is something she is learning along the way now that she is a legislator
Where to begin? White Jews. Two of the most hated groups among leftists and Muslims like Sarsour and Omar evidently. The inclusion of the word white is an attempt I suppose to do the old good Jew Bad Jew thing; a common anti-semitic trope. This is also an attempt, like all the rants these bigots give, to mainstream antisemitic tropes.
Orientalist? Well, this is a reference to failed Jew hater and PLO member Edward Said's definition of "a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous" Exotic? Eye of the beholder. Backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous? Well, look at what they do and say. Geeze, a whole Arab nation, Brunei has progressed so much it is now stoning gays in 2019. If that ain't backward, uncivilized and dangerous, I don;t know what is.
Stereotype? Well, if it walks like duck....show me a Muslim that isn't Pro-BDS or or anti-Israel and I'll show you a Muslim that isn't antisemitic. Until then, the shoe fits Linda.
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw defeated Democrat Todd Litton in Texas’ 2nd Congressional District in the 2018 midterm elections to replace retiring Republican Rep. Ted Poe.
He was catapulted into the spotlight by “Saturday Night Live” actor Pete Davidson, who made fun of the patch that Crenshaw wears over his right eye, which was lost after the Navy SEAL was injured by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2012 during his third of five tours overseas (Davidson offered an apology to Crenshaw, who accepted it and even took some zingers at him, along with conveying a unifying message for the audience).
Along with five then-incoming freshmen members of Congress, Crenshaw participated on a trip to Israel in December organized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s American Israel Education Fund to learn about the U.S.-Israel relationship.
JNS talked with Crenshaw in person. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: What’s your overall stance on the U.S.-Israel relationship since being there in December?
A: I’m supportive. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. We need to support the U.S.-Israel relationship. It’s important for Israel, our allies, but also for the U.S. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.
Q: How’s it mutually beneficial?
A: Conflict in the Middle East never stays contained in the Middle East. The world is a small place, and so U.S. leadership abroad has always been an important part of maintaining the liberal global order that has been underwritten by the United States since World War II. With that in mind, we should always be looking for strong allies that share our values. The Jewish state clearly shares our values, so we should support it for moral reasons, and we should support it for strategic reasons.
Q: Having served abroad, were you able to see Israel’s threats firsthand?
A: My deployments in the Middle East gave me an insight into the human element there, gave me a more realistic understanding of what Israelis are dealing within the context of Middle Eastern politics and how different that is from Western civilization. A lot of people who are skeptical of Israel and the United States, who are forming a BDS movement, are operating in a fantasy world where they actually don’t understand what the Middle East is all about.
Being in Israel, you get a much more direct look at what they’re dealing with. You’re in a country whose population is close to that in my county. That’s pretty significant especially when you’re surrounded by your enemies. It’s hard for many Americans to imagine what that might be like; you really have to go there to understand that. You have Hamas fully in control of the Gaza Strip—well-armed, raining down rockets on Israeli civilians indiscriminately. You have Hezbollah to the north—digging tunnels to the Lebanese border, trying to infiltrate Israel for no other purpose than to kill Israelis. You have ISIS in Syria. There’s a long history of Israel’s Arab neighbors attempting to invade and end the Jewish state, so, for good reason, we should be worried about Israel’s security. And Iran, a powerful country that seeks to destroy Israel—and says as much and funds proxies both with Hamas and Hezbollah in order to meet those ends.
A prominent anti-Israel barrister has been jailed for six months after she was videoed ranting drunkenly on an Air India flight about how she was “an international criminal lawyer for the f***ing Palestinian people”, and spat in the face of a member of the cabin crew.
Simone Burns from Hove, also known as Simone O’Broin, was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on Thursday, having pleaded guilty to both assault and being drunk on an aircraft at her trial last month at Uxbridge Magistrates Court.
In footage of the incident filmed by a fellow passenger, Burns can be seen remonstrating with a member of the flight crew after being refused a fourth bottle of wine on a flight from Mumbai to London last November.
“I’m a leader of the f***ing boycott movement", she shouted at a member of the cabin crew.
“If I say "boycott" - f***ing Air India, done… I'm a f****** barrister. A human rights lawyer, and an international criminal lawyer.”
She also called airline staff “Indian, money grabbing c****," smoked a cigarette in the toilets and spat in the face of a female member of staff who refused to serve her more alcohol.
She was arrested by the police when the flight landed at Heathrow.
Burns has previously written a paper accusing Israel of genocide over its treatment of the Palestinians, whom she described as "a group struggling for self-determination against a colonial, racist regime”.
CAMERA has hung a giant, 35-foot billboard directly outside the New York Times building that spotlights the paper’s biased coverage against Israel.
CAMERA’s billboard looks into the New York Times newsroom in Manhattan.
At the center of the billboard is an image of a Molotov cocktail whose wick is lit by a flaming New York Times article with the headline: “Israel Bulldozes Democracy.”
Around the incendiary device, which is a favorite weapon of Hamas rioters, it says: “While Hamas firebombs Israel… The New York Times inflames with biased coverage.”
Andrea Levin, executive director of CAMERA, says that the Molotov cocktail in the ad is a symbol with a double meaning.
“One meaning is, obviously, to remind Times’ staff that Hamas is violent—violent against both Israel and its own people,” Levin says. “The Times absolutely needs this reminder because far too often their reporters ignore Hamas’s violent theocracy in the Gaza Strip.”
Levin points to a New York Times headline, published during the Palestinian riots on the border between Gaza and Israel, which said: “Battle Weary, Hamas Gives Peaceful Protests a Chance.”
“The headline is ludicrous,” Levin says. “Has Hamas traded in its rockets for John Lennon’s anti-war music? Those so-called peaceful Hamas protests include rocks, firebombs and explosives hurled at Israelis. Not to mention recent rocket fire into the Tel Aviv area.”
4500 new settlements? Wow, with say 10,000 people per settlement, that's 45 million Jews immimently ready to move to the West Bank! https://t.co/2QhQ0g3vjd
You are ignorant and hateful and don't give a damn about most of your fellow Jews. You coddle people who want to exterminate the Jews. You know nothing of your heritage or history and have no pride in Judaism.
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It is particularly stomach-churning for the British to lecture Israel with false allegations about breaking international law given Britain’s appalling history of doing precisely that in pre-Israel Palestine. Moreover, the parallels between what it did then and what’s happening in Britain now are striking.
In both cases, British politicians betrayed their most solemn promises. In Palestine, the British broke their promise to facilitate Jewish immigration; over Brexit, MPs are intent on breaking their election promises to honor the referendum result.
In Palestine, the British tore up international law by rewriting the Mandate to carve out from the homeland promised to the Jews territory they then offered to the Arabs bent on blocking that Jewish homeland. And currently, MPs are trying to block Brexit by tearing up parliamentary rules and the constitutional balance between government and back-benchers.
Both these British betrayals have entailed pernicious consequences. Rewarding the Arab aggressors incentivized the war against the Jewish homeland, which continues against Israel to this day.
And if Brexit is stopped, the political cataclysm that will probably ensue makes it more likely that a Corbyn-led government will come to power.
The prospect of the Marxist, terrorist-supporting, antisemitism-facilitating Corbyn becoming prime minister should terrify anyone who cares about Western security, freedom and the rule of law.
Which leads to a further reflection. Many have pointed out that, throughout history, all who have tried to destroy the Jewish people have not only failed but ended up being destroyed themselves.
Perfidious Albion betrayed the Jewish people when it closed the doors of Palestine to European Jews attempting to flee Nazi Europe. It thus connived at the slaughter of the Holocaust.
The Jewish people not only survived, but out of the ashes of that catastrophe have created a vigorous, flourishing and optimistic country. Now Britain may be in the process of destroying itself. Go figure.
Ever since the inconclusive end to the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, analysts have predicted another round was bound to happen sooner than later. Iran is now able to extend the Lebanese front against Israel to Syria. For Iranian leaders—pledged to eventually wiping Israel off the map—their expanded ring around northern Israel and the Golan provides an expanded opportunity to strike at Israel should the Jewish state act against their nuclear program. Had Israel given up the Golan Heights in previous negotiations, Iran would also be poised on the strategic high ground, putting Israel at an even greater disadvantage.
Russia sees value in the Golan Heights for quite a different reason from Iran. They are anxious to cash in on international reconstruction funds meant to rebuild Syria. The problem is that the United States won't allow funding to flow through Assad. Putin is also interested in increasing his Middle East portfolio and standing. He likely sees the possibility of hosting a peace conference with Israel and Syria as a panacea. The process itself would legitimize Assad's rule in the eyes of the international community, open up the spigots for international funding, and increase Russia's regional role. More recently, Putin indicated he would like to play host to Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.
Israel, however, already reached several agreements regarding how far Russia would keep Iranian or Iran-backed forces from Israel but has proven incapable of enforcing them. Until Iran is removed from Syria, or until a prohibitive cost is imposed on Israel, Jerusalem is likely to keep treating Syria as an extension of Iranian territory, which means one can expect Israel to continue to strike at Iranian logistical lines, weapons transfers, and at any high-ranking member of the IRGC, Quds Force, or Hezbollah who feels lucky enough to poke his head up.
Leading Republican senators will try to pass a resolution in support of the Trump administration's recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. This effort is currently being led by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.). The president, however, has the right to proclaim the territory as Israeli on behalf of America. But as seen with President Trump's decision to undo the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran, what is given by one American president can be taken away by another.
We are used to calling the Palestinian Arabs' Western supporters “useful idiots”, those voluntarily embarked in the sea of pro-Palestinian propaganda. We might do well to rethink the roles. It may be possible that the Palestinian Arabs are the West's useful idiots in its war against Israel.
The Palestinian Arabs are used only when Israel can fit the role of the “oppressor” and the “occupier”. The same screaming headlines didn't appear when in Gaza, for a couple of weeks, the population protested against Hamas in the biggest demonstrations in its twelve years of Islamic dictatorship, with thousands of Palestinian Arabs taking to the streets to protest against living conditions.
Hamas arrested dozens of protesters, beat activists and violently repressed local media covering the riots. The marches on the border with Israel were so “spontaneous”", as the media around the world have defined them, that during the rallies inside Gaza the border was deserted.
Hamas was busy repressing its own population. A symbol of protest was a woman, shot in a video that has become viral: “The children of Hamas' leaders have houses and jeeps and cars, they can get married, while ordinary people have nothing, not even a piece of bread," she said, with a fearlessness born of desperation.
Here is an interesting result from a poll done by New Wave Research for Local Call and 972:
This means that a vast majority of Israeli Arabs 65% - identify with the term "Israeli" and the number who identify as Palestinian only has been cut by nearly half in five years, from 26% to 14%.
Also, more identify as only Arab than as Palestinian.
This is not what one would expect given the worldwide push by Israel haters to separate Israeli Arabs from Israeli Jews and to tell the world that they are treated as second class citizens. Despite the "most right-wing government in Israel's history" that supposedly has enshrined racism as its core philosophy, Israeli Arabs are now more likely to consider themselves Israeli than five years ago.
Don't expect Israel haters to celebrate this indication of Israeli Arabs integrating into Israeli society.
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On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that his country’s military, with Syrian assistance, had retrieved Baumel’s remains.
“Russian Army soldiers found the body in coordination with the Syrian military,” Putin said during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow.
The Russian defense ministry presented Israel with Sgt. First-Class Baumel’s jumpsuit and military boots in an Israeli flag-covered coffin in a ceremony later in the day.
Syrian Information Minister Emad Sarah said that everyone should know that Syria is not aware of the issue of the remains of the Israeli soldier at all, nor the details of finding them or even handing them over.
"The Syrian state is basically not aware of the remains of any Israeli soldier anywhere in Syria, otherwise it would have behaved according to its national interests," Minister Sara said in a telephone interview with Syrian television.
Minister Sarah expressed his belief that the whole process was taking place between Israel and armed terrorist groups in Syria. The remaining details are part of practical arrangements for this issue, which the Syrian state is not aware of.
Another source announced earlier Thursday that he was not aware of the subject of Syrian remains of the Israeli soldier and that what happened is new evidence that confirms the cooperation of terrorist groups with the Mossad.
Presumably, "behaving according to its national interests" means that Syria would have held the body hostage for some concession from Israel.
It seems possible that Russia simply didn't tell the Syrian military that the body they were interested in was Israeli.
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Moshe Feiglin's Zehut party, when it is mentioned in the media at all, is usually described as a quirky "ultranationalist" party that supports annexing the West Bank although it also supports legalization of marijuana.
However, polls show that it may get as many as 5-8 Knesset seats. (8 is the highest I've seen and that poll was released yesterday.) People are realizing that Feiglin very well may emerge as the kingmaker as long as the top two parties remain close in the polls.
As is often the case, the Israeli electorate is looking beyond the newspaper sound bites about Zehut and finding a very interesting libertarian platform, written by a combination of religious and secular Israelis, that includes concepts that some far-Left voters would find appealing compared to the mainstream parties.
Here are some of the parts of the Zehut platform that, agree with them or not, are much more liberal than the Israeli mainstream has been for years and which Meretz voters would be happy with:
Ending the rabbinic monopoly on marriages and allowing same sex marriages:
Zehut believes that the state should not determine what marriage is, who is married and who is not. These decisions belong to the society and community to which the person belongs. Zehut will cancel the marriage registration presently employed. Each couple will be able to marry as they wish, in the type of ceremony they choose and in a manner that suits them.
Termination of administrative detentions for Arabs:
Zehut opposes police use of administrative detention, which is a corrupting force that enables the state to circumvent legal mechanisms and deny the citizen’s freedom, and to hold him in prison for long periods of time without evidence or trial. This is a serious violation of the detainees’ rights.
Allowing non-violent Arab demonstrations:
In the rest of the world’s democratic states, nonviolent civil disobedience is seen as a legitimate and important tool for preserving democracy. Israel, however, has developed a policy of aggressive resistance by the regime to any form of protest, without distinguishing between violent protest and nonviolent protest. Zehut demands a policy that distinguishes between the two kinds of protests and instructs the police not to resort to violence when it comes to nonviolent resistance.
Ending American aid to Israel:
Zehut does not see American aid to the State of Israel as a cardinal guarantee of its security, never to be relinquished. The price of this “gift” is too high. In terms of security, receiving aid creates Israeli dependence on America, which then receives legitimacy to intervene in Israeli security matters. A foreign element that regularly interferes in Israel’s decisions and prevents the freedom of military action is a serious blow to Israel’s security.
Offering all Arabs in the territories a choice of whether they want to become citizens or permanent residents, ending "apartheid" as bizarrely defined by the Israel haters:
Non-Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria will be offered three options: 1. Assistance in immigration: The state will enable interested residents to sell their property, and will help them emigrate to the destination of their choice. 2. Residency: Those who wish to remain and declare their allegiance openly will receive the status of permanent residents in the Jewish state. All their human and property rights shall be preserved in the same manner as permanent residents of other Western countries (as the United States does with the inhabitants of Samoa, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and Britain with the Cypriots remaining under its control). 3. Citizenship: Those who wish to be loyal citizens and serve in the army (such as the Druze, for example) will be able to receive full citizenship after a long and thorough examination track.
No selling arms to regimes that violate human rights:
The State of Israel must be a moral role model for the rest of the nations. According
to this view, Israel will continue to develop many ties with foreign countries but will
not compromise on moral principles. For example, the State of Israel will stop selling
arms and military knowledge to regimes that commit crimes against humanity and
violate human rights.
I don't want to leave you with the impression that Zehut is only liberal. It is very nationalist, very libertarian and very interested in improving the Jewish character of the state. But many Israelis are sick and tired of the status quo and Zehut offers a fairly consistent vision that can allow Israelis to feel pride in their state and in their heritage without compromising on security or morality.
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One of the biggest lies currently being sold to populations in the west is that anti-Israel activity is related to a movement of peace or justice. Relying on a strategy of intersectionality, this deception has permitted violent, racist ideologies to take a firm foothold within other well-known ’causes’. Infecting them and leading them astray. These people may call themselves members of ‘solidarity movements’ or ‘pro-Palestinian’ but they are nothing to do with ‘peace-makers’ in the traditional sense. I’ve been inside these movements, pretending to be an activist, infiltrating their social media groups and I’ve been researching them for years. Anti-Israel activity is full of little but fake news, hate and demonisation. In their twisted world, Palestinians are sacrificial, and these movements act as a bloodsucker, leeching onto the conflict, yearning for blood and only satiated when it flows.
Gaza
The situation between Israel and Gaza is a complex one. Anyone who thinks this is about ‘strong’ Israel battering weak ‘Palestinians’, has no understanding of the conflict at all. Many of the shortages in Gaza are the result of Fatah-Hamas power-struggles. Egypt’s own issues with the Muslim Brotherhood play a major role. In addition, Hamas rule is brutal and Gazans face a violent crackdown when they protest.
An interesting note can be made here. I recently wrote about ‘independent reporters’ operating from Gaza. I suggested they were not independent at all and that their massive online social media accounts allowed for Hamas propaganda to be delivered directly into the veins of anti-Israel activism. It raises a question – how many of those accounts I monitor, which spill out ‘news’ 24-7, even mentioned the public protest and Hamas crackdown? The answer is – just one. All the other ‘independent reporters’ – telling ‘the truth’ from Gaza – didn’t see anything at all. As Gazans were arrested, beaten and tortured, all those people ‘reporting’ on life in Gaza, like Muhammad Smiry and Walid Mahmoud, didn’t see a thing.
Anti-Israel activists swallow *anything* whole and without question. Look at this post. Walid Mahmoud, (who did not see Hamas thugs beating up and torturing Gazan demonstrators) blames a broken lens cap on the Israelis, turning it into a ‘near-death’ incident. The post received 787 likes and 680 shares. I’ve no idea how this happened but I do know he is a propaganda agent. Every trip, every broken I-phone screen, every accident, is used to turn Israelis into blood-thirsty monsters – and it is all devoured ravenously by a truly insane crowd.
Numerous Jewish students at Emory University in Atlanta Georgia woke up yesterday to find fictitious “eviction notices” produced by pro-Palestinian activists posted on the doors or their dorm rooms or private apartments.
The notices were produced and distributed by the Emory chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine organization and Emory University’s Office of Residence and Housing Approval gave permission for the notices to be distributed.
Sophia Weinstein, the manager of the Emory-Israel Public Affairs Committee (EIPAC) organization, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday that at least 30 students had informed her about the stunt, and that Jewish students with mezuzahs on their doors had noticed that the “eviction notices” had been posted on their doors, but not those of neighbors without mezuzahs.
The notices declared that the student’s residence was scheduled for demolition in three days, and that all the contents of their apartment could be destroyed if it was not vacated on time.
It went on to make various allegations about the use of eviction notices against Palestinians by Israeli authorities, saying the practice was part of “the state of Israel’s ongoing attempts to ethnically cleanse the region of its Arab inhabitants and maintain an exclusively ‘Jewish’ character of the state.”
It noted at the bottom that it was not a real eviction notice and designed to draw attention to “the reality that Palestinians confront on a regular basis.”
Weinstein said that the notices had made her feel that the secure environment of university was being stripped away.
“It is one thing to criticize Israel. Dialogue is encouraged. It is another to target students and mislead with false information,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Jewish students with Mezuzahs on their doors @EmoryUniversity woke up this morning to these “eviction notices”.
Continuing my series of re-captioning other cartoons to be more relevant to EoZ readers....
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Often I read “pro-Israel” articles, usually by American Jews, which include a statement like this: “Of course I disagree with many of Israel’s policies, but…” Or, “Of course, Israel treats the Palestinians badly, but…” Or, “Of course the occupation is immoral, but…”
I appreciate the “but,” and usually the article goes on to explain that the state really does have a right to exist, that Israel really isn’t guilty of genocide, or that people should be nicer to Jewish college students, who aren’t responsible for Israel’s policies.
But the apologetic prelude, an attempt to establish bona fides among an audience already marinated in anti-Israel propaganda, is cowardly and wrong.
Israel is doing the best she can, and much better than most Western democracies in the moral behavior department (I won’t even dream of comparing her to the various murderous dictatorships in the region).
Yes, a few Arabs have gotten shot to death while trying to do a World War Z number (video, 4:27) on our southern border fence. We should have invited them into our homes? If someone were climbing your back fence with a knife in his teeth, what would you do?
We tried, over and over, to give them a state. It was stupid, and we’re lucky they wouldn’t take it. Now they are refusing to talk. Good. They’ve demonstrated, in Gaza what happens when we give up control of territory. So, what, exactly, are we doing wrong when we don’t unilaterally leave the high ground near our center of population?
Yes, there are checkpoints that Arabs from the territories have to pass through to get into Israel. Several times a week, someone is stopped with a knife or worse. Often, terrorists sneak into Israel around the unfinished (why is that?) security barrier, and murder people. The checkpoints are a real pain in the ass for Arabs that work in Israel. How racist we must be to have them!
Yes, we arrest “children” (some as old as 17) for throwing rocks and firebombs at cars containing Jews. Sometimes the Jews in the cars are killed or maimed. How cruel we are, to children! And before you say it, it’s true that sometimes (much more rarely) Jewish kids throw rocks at Arabs. We arrest them too.
The Gazans are setting fire to the southern part of our country with their balloons and kites, like last year, as soon as the weather has started to dry out. They threaten to tear down the border and “rip out the hearts” (video, 0:51) of the Jews who live nearby. A rocket from the Gaza Strip destroyed a house in central Israel the other day, and injured several people – only the fact that we require a reinforced concrete “safe room” in all new construction prevented a worse tragedy. We shoot down their rockets in the area around Gaza with the Iron Dome system, whose every launch costs us tens of thousands of dollars. Sometimes we don’t succeed, and the residents have 15 seconds or less to scramble into their safe rooms.
But there is so much to criticize in our “treatment of the Palestinians!” For example, we block the import of metal pipes (used to make rockets) and cement (to line tunnels under the border) to Gaza. After the most recent outbreak of rockets, incendiary devices, riots next to the border fence, and explosives thrown at our soldiers, we have promised to make life easier for Gazans by increasing the number of trucks carrying food, medicines and other goods into the Strip, increasing the amount of electricity we give it (what other country supplies her enemies?), and more. In return, they just have to stop trying to kill us.
This is apparently not good enough for our critics, who think there should be no blockade at all. Let the Gazans have all the pipes and cement they want. The critics should try living in Sderot or one of the smaller communities near Gaza.
Even historically, Israel looks pretty good. Yes, there was the nakba, in which between 500-700 thousand Arabs fled the 1948 War of Independence. A small number, particularly in villages that were hostile and fought alongside the troops from the Arab countries that had invaded our country, were actually kicked out. And after the war, we didn’t let them come back (had we done so, we would not have had a state). We still ended up with some 150,000 Arabs in our country, who ultimately got the right to vote. The Arabs who left for whatever reason were kept in camps by the Arab states, and they and their descendants made into perpetual refugees living under conditions of apartheid, by the Arab states and the cowardly UN. But as expiation for our guilt, we are expected – by the Palestinians and BDS supporters worldwide – to invite all 5 million of them to live in our country, thus ending it.
Should I mention that the Jordanians kicked out or killed every single Jew in the area that they conquered in 1948? That they broke the cease-fire agreement that called for all religious groups to be allowed to visit their holy sites? That some 800,000 Jews were forced to leave Arab countries, and most were absorbed by Israel? Now that’s ethnic cleansing. Let’s also not forget the genocidal threats made by Arab leaders in 1967.
I could go on, and on, and on. Israel has never committed genocide like the US or Germany, or mass murder like Russia. It has never nuked anyone, like the US. The number of Arabs living between the river and the sea has tripled since 1970. We have never had slavery. Our ratio of civilian to military deaths in urban warfare is the lowest in recent history. We use the “knock on the roof” technique and cellphone calls to warn civilians that a building will be bombed. We send soldiers in when artillery or air strikes would be safer for us. We do not engage in wars of conquest; indeed, we tend to (stupidly) give territory back to our defeated enemies.
Israel is a democracy, it is increasingly tolerant of alternative lifestyles, and increasingly intolerant of mistreatment of women. It does not persecute religious minorities. It has a relatively free press and permits free speech.
And yet, even our defenders find it necessary to insert a disclaimer.
Why? The Jewish people should be proud of its homeland, which has survived – and is surviving – repeated assaults from her neighbors, as well as viciously bigoted treatment from many other nations and institutions – while still doing a good job of maintaining freedom and protecting her citizens.
No, she isn’t perfect. No nation is. But don’t apologize; it’s not necessary, and anyway nothing short of national suicide will satisfy her critics.
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Yesterday, the news broke that the remains of the IDF soldier Zachary Baumel—declared missing-in-action in 1982 during the First Lebanon War—have been returned to Israel. While Baumel has long been presumed dead, his name is well known to Israelis, who do not easily forget those who have been captured or gone missing while defending their country. The IDF even employs a special unit, known as EITAN, to find them, and it investigates cases going all the way back to the Jewish state’s first war. Matti Friedman, writing before the return of Baumel’s corpse, describes the unit’s operations:
In the offices [of] EITAN, there are 95 files still open from the 1948 war. A team of about 50 active researchers is tasked with closing them—a hybrid outfit of detective-historians, not regular soldiers but rather reservists called up for a few weeks a year. In their real lives, some of the researchers are academic historians. Others are policemen or computer programmers. The necessary personality type ranges from patient to pedantic. They might spend years on one case. The rule is that they can never give up. . . .
In the Jewish tradition, families must have a grave where they can mourn, explained [Nir Israeli, the unit’s commander]. And they need closure. “This is a commitment we make to our soldiers: we sent this person, and we have to bring him home.” Sometimes [Israeli] tries to demonstrate this value by bringing young soldiers along in his search parties. In a recent sweep to find the remains of four Givati Brigade soldiers who went missing in a skirmish with the Egyptians in 1948, for example, he used soldiers from the modern-day incarnation of the same military unit. (They found traces of the battle, such as old bullets, but no bodies.) . . .
Each file is periodically opened and reviewed for clues—something that might be apparent to a fresh pair of eyes, a hint that that might have evaded researchers in the past. . . . EITAN researchers manage to close a few files a year. In May, for example, after years of searching, they found the body of a thirty-four-year-old fighter, Libka Shefer, who was killed in an Egyptian assault against a kibbutz in southern Israel in 1948. Seventy years after her death, she was finally buried under her own name.
Sergeant 1st Class Zachary Baumel’s last words to his parents were “Don’t worry, everything is okay, but it looks like I won’t be home for a while.” After 37 years, Sergeant 1st Class Zachary Baumel has finally returned home.
In 1982, during the First Lebanon War, Sergeant First Class Zachary Baumel, an IDF tank commander, went missing in action (MIA). Today, we finally brought this fallen soldier home to Israel for a proper burial.
For decades the Israeli intelligence community and the MIA Allocation Team have undertaken various intelligence, research, and operational efforts in order to locate and recover the remains of those who are MIA.
The IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate initiated Operation Bittersweet Song, and following a month’s long process which was just completed in the past few days, the body of Sergeant First Class Zachary Baumel was located, identified, and recovered.
Battle of Sultan Yacoub
On the night of June 10, 1982, the IDF’s 362nd Armored Battalion entered the Beqaa Valley in the eastern region of the Sultan Yaaqoub sector in Lebanon. The Israeli battalion found itself facing the Syrian 1st Armored Division alongside forces from Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Over the course of nearly 37 years, Israeli intelligence officers searched for the remains of fallen tank commander Zachary Baumel, who went missing in the 1982 Battle of Sultan Yacoub against the Syrian army in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
This week, nearly four decades later, Sgt. First-Class Baumel’s body was returned to Israel and will be brought to a Jewish burial at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery on Thursday evening.
In Israel, the bittersweet news was greeted with a sense of awe and pride at the lengths the military was prepared to go for its fallen soldiers. Baumel’s father, Yona, died in 2009 without learning of Zachary’s fate, but the rest of his family, including his 90-year-old mother Miriam, now have some form of closure.
“We want all IDF soldiers to know that when they enlist, the State of Israel will do everything it takes, if they — heaven forbid — fall captive or go missing, in order to bring them home,” Lt. Col. Nir Israeli, the head of the Israel Defense Forces’ missing soldiers unit, told The Times of Israel Wednesday.
In total, there are 176 IDF soldiers who are designated as killed-in-action but whose exact burial places are not known, the majority of them — 95 — from the 1948 War of Independence, Israeli said.
In the world of intelligence, the saying goes, reality often exceeds the imagination, and yet – the operation to return Zachary Baumel’s remains to Israel, in a mission that spanned the globe, can easily be considered one of the most impressive in the country’s history.
Israeli officials have long known where Baumel was buried. The matter of our missing soldiers was also raised on many occasions with foreign governments, primarily in the midst of peace talks with Syria and the Palestinians. After the Oslo Accords were signed, Yasser Arafat even transferred one of Baumel’s dog tags to Israel, but nothing more ever materialized. Syria has always said it would agree to resolve the mystery, but only parallel to receiving the Golan Heights in return, as part of a peace agreement between the countries.
A little over a year ago, the issue was again raised by then-Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. If the reports are true that Russia was involved in the operation, we can assume that Lieberman spoke with his counterpart in the Russian defense ministry, Sergei Shoigu. It appears that this time the response was different, and the Russians agreed to lend a hand. Either way, Israeli officials began working vigorously. In a series of intelligence operations, the Military Intelligence Directorate and Mossad pinpointed Baumel’s exact resting place. All the information was gathered into a classified file under the codename “Bittersweet Song.”
Russia, Syria and the Return of a Fallen IDF Soldier
37 years after Israel's first war with Lebanon in 1982, the Israeli Defense Forces said on Wednesday that the body of fallen soldier Zachary Baumel had been transferred to Israel. Baumel's funeral will be held at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl military cemetery on Thursday night at 7:00pm local time. The IDF spokesperson said Baumel's body was returned aboard an El Al flight through an anonymous third country intermediary in operation undertaken by Israel's intelligence agencies. Five more Israeli soldiers went missing in Lebanon on June 11, 1982 during the Sultan Yaaqub battle including Zvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz, whose whereabouts remain unknown. 20 Israeli soldiers were killed during the exchange of attacks with Syrian forces at the start of the First Lebanon War. Baumel's burial is set to take place this week.
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Sunday, April 07, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
