Kushner - From Israel: How Long?

Arlene Kushner..
02 February '12..





How long do we play the role of sitting ducks, instead of taking the offensive against enemies?

Yes, this is a recurring theme of mine, and I've asked this question, in one form or another, several times before. Unfortunately, I'm likely be moved to ask it again in the future.

I ask it now because of the focus of the news, and the speeches delivered at the Herzliya Conference, which ends today.

There is, for example, Aviv Kochavi, head of IDF Intelligence, who spoke this morning. He reported that Israel's enemies have 200,000 rockets and missiles pointed at the country; thousands have a range of hundreds of kilometers, which means that every part of Israel is within target range now.

Is that so? And here we sit?

"The warheads on these missiles contain hundreds of kilograms of explosives, not dozens, as in the past. And their firing precision and ability to hit specific targets is also greater. The rockets are largely located in Lebanon and Syria, with a smaller amount in Gaza – and in Iran, as well, which has thousands of missiles that could reach Israel....Every tenth house in Lebanon is now a weapons depot."

I ask again: And here we sit?

I have never seen myself as having a propensity for violence. But confronted with information such as that above, I find that my desire to do very serious damage to these enemies waxes strong. This makes me a realist who takes "Never Again!" very seriously indeed. Concern about collateral damage is all very humane, and perhaps attention to world reaction is prudent to a point, but we simply cannot be inhibited from making the hits that will protect us. I want us to hit them -- the rocket storage areas and the terrorist headquarters, etc. etc. -- and hit them hard.

Spoken as a layperson...

(Video) So This Is Why That Rifle Doesn't Look Jewish!

Click here for fake photo 
update at Elder of Ziyon..

Daphne Anson..
02 February '12..











Remember this post of mine?

It seems we have the answer to the puzzle:



Link: http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2012/02/so-this-is-why-that-rifle-doesnt-look.html


Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
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Bryen - No More ‘Peace Talks,’ Please

The Arab-Israeli conflict has no clear parameters for resolution.

Shoshana Bryen..
pjmedia.com..
02 February '12..
H/T Ruthfully Yours

The current round of Israeli-Palestinian meetings in Jordan ended with a Palestinian decision to leave. “The Israelis brought nothing new in these meetings,” said one official, without bothering to note the obvious — neither did the Palestinians.

The talks were the result of a Quartet plan to have Israelis and Palestinians make proposals on territory and security in hopes of reaching a deal in 2012. Questions abound, but the most important is, “How many more times will this farce be played out without recognition of the real and incompatible bottom lines of the two parties?”

It is that fundamental incompatibility — not the lack of pressure or lack of bribes — that prevents the present creation of the mythical “two-state solution” embedded in the Oslo Accords, negotiated without U.S. participation, and signed in 1993.

From the Israeli side, Oslo had three underlying assumptions:

That Palestinian nationalism could be understood as the mirror image of Jewish nationalism (Zionism);

That Palestinian nationalism could find its full expression in a West Bank and Gaza Strip state; and

That there is a price Israel, the United States, and Europe could pay to the Palestinians that would overcome any remaining Palestinian objection to Jewish sovereignty in the region.

All three assumptions have been proven wrong.

Satloff - The Monitor, Merrimac, and Middle East

Robert Satloff..
The Washington Institute..
ForeignPolicy.com..
31 January '12..





American presidents love to describe the U.S. commitment to Israeli security as "ironclad." But is this what they mean?
----------------------------------------------
"Our ironclad commitment -- and I mean ironclad -- to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history."

President Barack Obama has a new favorite adjective to describe the U.S.-Israeli relationship. In an apparent effort to silence any doubters about his administration's commitment to Israel, he invoked the word "ironclad" not once, but twice, in a key passage of his State of the Union address in January. One can almost envision the ayatollahs in Tehran throwing their hands up in surrender when they heard the second "ironclad" -- something like: "Mahmoud, forget about building the A-bomb. Two 'ironclads' -- Obama must be really, really serious!"

But before the mullahs voluntarily mothball their enrichment plants they might want to ask a few basic questions: What does ironclad mean? How have presidents used the term in the past? And how strong, really, is an "ironclad commitment"?

Marquadt-Bigman - Quote of the day (PennBDS)

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
02 February '12..

And if PennBDS is particularly disturbed only by the oppression of Palestinian Arabs, then one wonders why they are not protesting the governments of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, or others in which the Palestinians have suffered extreme discrimination, violence, and forced expulsions.

In Gaza, under the authority of Hamas, political freedom, religious freedom, and freedom of association are severely curtailed, women’s rights are limited, human rights activists are targeted, and homosexuality is a criminal offense.

Upon any serious consideration, it becomes clear that BDS actually has no problem with oppression, no problem with oppression of Arabs, and no problem with the oppression of Palestinian Arabs. BDS actually has a problem only with Israel and it can only be deduced that their problem is truly with Jews.

Sarit Catz, Bigotry under the umbrella of a great university, commenting on the forthcoming 2012 National Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Conference at the University of Pennsylvania campus on Feb. 3-5, organized by a university-recognized group called PennBDS. Many excellent posts about the hollow BDS claims can be found at PennBDS-Oy.

Link: http://warped-mirror.com/2012/02/02/quote-of-the-day-14/


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Inbar - The Amman Talks: Another Exercise in Futile Diplomacy

Prof. Efraim Inbar..
BESA Center..
Perspectives Paper No. 162..
01 February '12..


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The recent Israeli-Palestinian "pre-negotiations" in Amman mark another ineffectual endeavor to bridge the wide gap between the two sides. The Palestinians were quick to accuse the Israelis of bad faith, while still refusing to accept Israel as a Jewish state. Furthermore, as Hamas becomes emboldened by the "Islamic Winter," Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation seems impossible.

Few should be surprised by the failure of the Amman talks, which constituted an additional attempt by the international Quartet to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. These meetings were intended to break the impasse in the peace process, after the Palestinians decided to relinquish the option of negotiations with Israel and to adopt instead a unilateral approach to attain their goals.

This unilateralism, reflected in the PLO's failed attempt to gain recognition as a state at the United Nations, was not well received in the United States and most of Europe. In order to overcome the international repercussions of such a move, the Palestinians heeded the advice of the Quartet and returned reluctantly to a "pre-negotiation" table in Amman, still committed to "go it alone" if their territorial expectations were not fulfilled by Israel.

As expected, Israel's offers did not satisfy Palestinian desires. Over the years, the Palestinians have rejected generous offers by then-prime ministers Ehud Barak (2000) and Ehud Olmert (2008). Obviously, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu could not do better. Not many details emerged from the Amman talks, but it seems that the Palestinian demand for Jerusalem was a serious obstacle for progress in the peace talks. Similarly, Israel's insistence on a defensible border along the Jordan River did not sit well with Palestinian visions.

The Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as a Jewish state--a core issue in the history of the Arab-Israel conflict. While Israel, under the leadership of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, recognized the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" in 1978, the Palestinians still have not reciprocated. Denying the legitimate right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel only reinforces the majority Israeli consensus that the Palestinians are not a serious partner for peacemaking.

Indeed, the gap in positions between Israelis and Palestinians is extremely large and cannot be bridged overnight. It is totally unrealistic to expect an agreement on final status issues in the near future. The best that can be achieved is interim agreements, tacit or formal, that do not entail grave security risks for Israel. Even the Obama administration learned the hard way that conflict resolution should be replaced with conflict management. That is the only strategy that has a chance to minimize suffering on both sides and achieve a modicum of stability in a stormy Middle East.

To a great extent, the Amman talks can be seen as an international effort to maintain a facade of negotiations within the framework of a conflict management strategy. Their failure will inevitably bring about another bout of diplomatic activism in pursuit of another forum for an Israeli-Palestinian exchange of views that will similarly fail. Such failures hardly discourage professional diplomats who make an honorable living by trying to bring peace.

Roth - Raining and rocketing

Getty Images picture from Gaza's Shati
district today. The men who run the place
could focus on making their streets and
lives work a little better; they get
more foreign aid by far than any
other aid beneficiaries on earth.
But tonight's newsreminds us that
when faced with the choice of making a
 better life for their children or firing
rockets at us - well, no need to labor
the point.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
01 February '12..

It's cold and wet tonight. Israelis who don't need to be out of doors are inside. Ideal weather, in other words, for the thugs of Gaza and their rockets. Ynet reported about an hour ago that a Gazan Qassam rocket was fired into southern Israel around 6:30 this evening, and exploded in an open space within one of the communities in the Shaar Hanegev region. For reasons of security (why give the terrorists any free and easy information?), the town is unidentified. Fortunately the report suggests no one was injured, and no property damage is reported.

The secretary-general of the United Nations, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, is due to visit the beleaguered city of Sderot tomorrow. It has the misfortune of being the closest Israeli city to our fence with Gaza, and as a result has absorbed a torrent of inbound rockets and grenades since Israel walked away from the Gaza Strip and handed control to the Palestinian Arabs in 2005. It would be good to think that visiting there will sensitize him to what it means to live next to thugs with an arsenal of rockets that numbers in the tens of thousands.

It's reported that Mr Ban will be visiting Gaza tomorrow as well. Today he spent time with the Palestinian Arab president Abbas (picture here) and with Shimon Peres, Israel's president, in Jerusalem where he opened with the right greeting: "Shalom". It seems likely - though it's not announced - that in Gaza he will meet with the leaders of the "other" Palestinian Arabs, the Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Medad/Pollak - Why not Ynet?

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Matters..
JPost..
01 February 12..



The future will tell whether the public will tolerate the lack of accountability of Ynet.

One observer of media ethics, Stephen J.A. Ward, writing in the Winter 2012 issue of MEDIA, the journal of the Canadian Association of Journalists, provides us with a concise definition of the ethical journalist. According to Ward, journalists should seek to serve the public but not be activists; journalists must strive to be fully impartial as well as objective; they should maintain professional and personal independence and be truly transparent in their work, even welcoming review. These rules-of-thumb should apply to mainstream media outlets as well as internet sites and the social media phenomenon.

Good journalism in the sense of news-gathering and news-reporting isn’t that difficult to produce. The basics are quite obvious: fairness, accuracy, truthfulness, confirmation of sources, prompt correction or clarification of (and, if neccessary apology for) errors, whether they are factual mistakes or mistakes of omission.

In Israel the broadcast media has a clear code of ethics. Although compliance with it could improve, the very existence of a code guides the media and prevents egregious failures. Or at least leads at times to apologies and corrections.

Israel’s newspapers, on the other hand, are in a different league. Only Ma’ariv has a complaints commissioner. The others at best are willing sometimes to relate to public outrage or complaints, after all they do want to sell and an outraged public will not buy.

Feiglin - The answer is in our hands

Moshe Feiglin..
Israel Opinion/Ynet..
31 January '12..

Recent polls again showed that the vast majority of Israeli society is traditional, holds religious faith and shies away from coercion. Hasn't the time come for our national leadership to express the desires of the large Jewish majority?

Hasn't the time come to again emphasize Jewish education and family? To make sure that every child in Israel is familiar with his or her heritage? Hasn't the time come to restore the value of loyalty?

Is it appropriate to draw the justification for our national existence in the Land of Israel from the Holocaust alone? Isn't there a positive reason for the existence of a Jewish State on the globe?

The great danger that threatens us, and is even graver than the Iranian nuclear menace, is the loss of legitimacy. We "rightfully acquired" the question mark over our right to exist as a Jewish State after long years of evading the need to cope with the challenge of a Jewish State.

We thought that if we hand over the very heart of our holy land, they shall let us be and we would be able to leave our identity behind and just be a "normal" nation watching reality TV at home.

Roth - One down, 1026 to go

Click to enlarge this celebratory 2011
 snapshot of convicted (but freed)
Palestinian Arab terrorists in
Gaza returning to action

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
01 February '12..


Yesterday, the IDF announced it had taken into custody one of the 1,027 terrorists released in the October 2011 deal with Hamas for the freedom of the Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit. The Israeli news sources that originally reported this on Tuesday seem to have published (in more than one case) the wrong name. Challah Hu Akbar published this about yesterday's confusion.

What we know about the man arrested yesterday is that his name is Mahmud Abdallah Abd al-Rahman Abu Sariya. He appears at position number 189 in the official terrorists-going-free list published by the Israel Prison Service. In May 2002 when he was 32, he and a colleague walked up to the Beer-Sheva Old City branch of an Israeli bank and placed a package on the group before fleeing for their lives. (Hebrew report here.) The package contained a bomb that thankfully failed to explode completely. As a result, "only" ten people were injured. The terrorists intended to execute a massacre (16 Israelis were killed a few days earlier in a Hamas bombing attack on a club in Rishon Leziyon), and would probably have succeeded but for the incompetence or bad luck of the bomb-maker. Abu Sariya was sentenced to 38 years in prison, and was unjustly released after serving less than nine.

Free and at liberty to do whatever constructive thing came into his head, he re-established himself in terrorism and, fortunately, will be out of action again for some time to come. He will surely be the very last of the unjustly-freed Shalit deal convicts to return to terrorism. Surely the very last.

Link: http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com/2012/02/1-feb-12-one-down-1026-to-go.html


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Medoff - A Palestinian mufti and the U.S. election, then and now

Rafael Medoff..
jidaily.com/JTA..
26 January '12..





WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A Palestinian mufti has called for violence against Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding Palestinian leaders disavow him and America's presidential race could be affected.

That could be the lead sentence of a news report from last week.

Or from 1946.

Sixty-five years ago, another Palestinian mufti, another Netanyahu and another American presidential race likewise intersected in an unexpected round of high-stakes Middle East politics and diplomacy.

At the center of the current controversy is Sheik Muhammad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem, who is the Palestinian Authority's senior religious official. In a recent speech Hussein, citing a traditional Islamic text, urged Arabs to "fight and kill the Jews." Later he explained he was "only quoting the words of the Prophet Muhammad."

In an American presidential election season, words like those can be explosive. The candidates for the Republican nomination have strongly condemned Palestinian incitement against Israel and criticized the Obama administration for not being more outspoken on the issue. The votes of Jews and pro-Israel evangelical Christians could be decisive in some battleground states in November.

"Whoever wants peace should not permit such incitement and should not allow calls to murder Jews," Prime Minister Netanyahu said, urging the Palestinian Authority to disavow the mufti's remarks.

He said that Hussein's "morally heinous" statements were reminiscent of one of his predecessors, the mufti Amin el-Husseini, who fled to Germany in 1941 and collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. Husseini's pro-Nazi radio broadcasts were beamed from Berlin to the Arab world -- including a March 1, 1944 tirade in which he exhorted his listeners, in language similar to that of last week's controversy, to "Kill the Jews wherever you find them."

What is not well known is the impact of the mufti on the 1948 U.S. presidential race.

Sultan Knish - Muslim Firsters and Israel Firsters

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
31 January '12..



If you were to suggest in a public forum that just possibly Israel's failure to reach a peace agreement with a terrorist organization, run by kleptomaniacs and homicidal maniacs, which still continues to applaud the murder of Israeli children, might possibly be due to the terrorists and not because of Israel, then according to the consensus of the left, you are an Israel Firster.

The paradigm of the Israel Firster only works if you assume that the America First position is to support Islamic terrorists. Even if we were to dismiss the threat of Islamic terrorism to the United States then a position sympathetic to the territorial claims of Islamic terrorists in Israel would still not be the America First position, it would be the Muslims First position.

The left which deploys names like Israel Firsters is certainly not calling for neutrality in the conflict, rather it would like us to side with the Muslim Brotherhood and the assorted Islamic terrorists scattered throughout the region. Arguably the United States has been doing this for some time already.

Obama stuck his finger in Prime Minister Netanyahu's chest, but bowed to the Saudi King. When he visited Turkey, he made no mention of the Turkish settlements in occupied Cyprus, but when Biden visited Israel, he threw a fit over a partial approval for a few houses in Jerusalem. The United States doesn't fund many terrorist groups, but the bulk of the funding that it allots to terrorists goes to terrorists operating in Israel and killing Israelis.

Roth - A video that reveals more about how the war against the terrorists is going than a shelf-full of analyses

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
01 February '12..

The things done for and with their own children by Palestinian Arab society have long been the subject of extremely critical comment, and with justification. It's almost impossible to imagine a peace between two peoples based (as inevitably it would have to be) on some degree of painful compromise, when the Arab side consistently and continually educates its children for hatred, demonization and death. Here's a tiny example.

The things done for and with their own children by Palestinian Arab society have long been the subject of extremely critical comment, and with justification. It's almost impossible to imagine a peace between two peoples based (as inevitably it would have to be) on some degree of painful compromise, when the Arab side consistently and continually educates its children for hatred, demonization and death. Here's a tiny example.

Palestinian Authority TV's programs are beamed into most of the homes in the territories controlled by Fatah, the terrorism-friendly political party headed in the past by Arafat and today by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. A week ago, on 24th January, it covered a Fatah celebration in Lebanon: the glorious 47th anniversary of Fatah's founding. (Reminder: 47 years ago, when Fatah began its chapter of the war of terrorism against us, the total number of square miles "occupied" by the hated Zionist entity was precisely zero.) If, like us, you are unable to tune in or to comprehend the Arabic commentary, Palestinian Media Watch has just published a report - with transcript, video and pictures.



The text reads:

"Our children are our honor and glory. They were created to be fertilizer for the land of Palestine, and for our pure land to be saturated with their blood."

What kind of future do youngsters raised to see themselves as fertilizer build for themselves? And who is at fault - because someone surely is.

Fresnozionism - The AP’s Gonzo Journalism

Fresnozionism.org..
31 January '12..





The decay of the traditional Western media into irrelevance continues, as it sinks to the level of the old Soviet Pravda.

News item (the numbering of the paragraphs is mine):

1. (AP) JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has made two overtures to West Bank settlers in the run-up to his party’s leadership race on Tuesday: It’s offering financial incentives to encourage people to move to settlements and opening the door to legalizing rogue settler outposts.

2. The gestures appear to be aimed at appeasing hardline elements in the ruling Likud Party who are sympathetic to settlers. While Netanyahu is expected to win the leadership race, a relatively strong showing by his ultranationalist rival would suggest many Likud voters consider the prime minister too soft on peacemaking with the Palestinians.

3. The moves threatened to derail tentative new peace efforts with the Palestinians. A round of low-level peace negotiations ground to a halt last week, in large part because of Palestinian objections to Israeli settlement construction. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is expected in the region Wednesday in an effort to restart the talks…

4. Years ago, the Israeli government halted generous financial enticements designed to encourage Israelis to settle in the West Bank, the occupied territory the Palestinians see as the core of their future state.

5. But in this week’s government decision, 70 settlements appeared on a new list of 557 communities inside Israel and the West Bank that qualify for housing subsidies. The incentives, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office, are “meant to encourage positive migration to these communities.” …

6. In a separate move, the government on Monday appointed a committee to examine land ownership issues in the West Bank. The panel will review a 2005 government report that found several dozen outposts were built not only without state approval, but on privately held Palestinian land. Officials said the report needs to be reviewed because its author, state prosecutor Talia Sasson, later entered politics with a dovish political party, raising questions about her objectivity…

7. …the panel’s makeup aroused suspicions it would legalize at least some of the more than 100 outposts built without government authorization, including dozens Sasson says were erected on privately held Palestinian land.

This is presented as a news story, not an editorial. Let’s look at how its constructed.

In the very first sentence, the idea is introduced that these actions were taken in order to improve PM Netanyahu’s chances in the Likud primary. This may be true to some extent — although his opponent, Moshe Feiglin, is in no way a real threat (initial results show Netanyahu with 63% of the vote vs. Feiglin’s 36) — but surely, unsourced speculation about Netanyahu’s motives does not belong in the lead sentence of a news story.

Kushner - From Israel: Fear and Rumor

Arlene Kushner..
01 February '12..

I am always reluctant to repeat here speculative, unconfirmed reports that pass as "news." For once I repeat them, I am reinforcing the impression that what I am saying is solid news.

Here, then, I will just allude in the most general terms to unsubstantiated talk about the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu might be willing to offer the Arabs a good deal of territory in Judea and Samaria.

One must begin by asking why in hell he should be ready to offer anything (if indeed that is the case). Why should there even be such speculation now? Why isn't he standing up on two feet and speaking for Israel's rights -- now especially when the Palestinian Arabs have been so obstructionist and so unwilling to seriously negotiate, so willing to abrogate the Oslo Accords via various unilateral gambits at the UN, and so quick to praise as martyrs obscene child-murders.

The answer is fairly obvious: International pressure that he may not be capable of resisting. Resisting, actually, is not his style: he prefers to play the game and look like the good guy (whatever that means in this context). We've seen it over and over -- the way he walks a very fine line, slipping evermore down that slippery slope.

~~~~~~~~~~

How far down that slope he may be prepared to go now is something we don't know. But the question I ask is whether he is truly prepared to give away the store.

Netanyahu has been taking positions of late that are most definitely not reassuring. His move to block the legislation that would save Migron is just one example.

Another is his statement with regard to an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley. He said he would not forge an agreement that did not permit such an Israeli presence, and this was supposed to show how strong he was with regard to Israeli security and to provide reassurance. But I was not reassured. Because he didn't talk about retaining land in the valley, which is what is necessary. And he didn't allude at all to the necessity for Israel to retain high places in Samaria, also for security.

~~~~~~~~~~

But, the flip side is that there are reports about other things that he insists he will not cave on -- a united Jerusalem, no accepting "refugees," the demand that the PA recognize Israel as the Jewish state, the requirement that the PA sign off on the agreement as end of conflict, etc. And he knows with absolute certainty that if he doesn't cave on these things there will be no deal because the other side will never, ever buy it.

So the question: Is he thinking that if the Palestinian Arabs would let us keep Jerusalem, and would settle their "refugees" elsewhere, etc. etc., then he would truly be happy to give them most of Judea and Samaria? Or is he thinking that it's safe to go down that slope in order to make the international community happy, because our enemies, who can be counted on to reject what he offers, will ensure that in the end nothing happens anyway?

I cannot see into his heart, but my betting, even now, is that the answer is the latter. As nervous as Netanyahu has been making me, I persist in my belief that he is not an Ehud Olmert, who truly couldn't wait to give almost everything past the Green Line, including half of Jerusalem, to the Arabs.

And yet, when Netanyahu exclaims with great passion, as he just did, "I'm willing to travel to Ramallah to meet with Abbas," I cringe -- drama meant for the international community though I recognize it to be.

Wilder - Where Were $3.4 Billion of American Tax Dollars Spent?

David Wilder..
hebron.com..
31 January '12..




According to Foreign Policy magazine, in an article titled Hard times in Hebron, the United States has spent $3.4 billion in development funds in the Palestinian territories of West Bank and Gaza

So, it appears that this poor, oppressed, underdeveloped Arab city has doubled the number of building permits issued since 2006, and is preparing to solicit bids for a road to a new $13 million water treatment facility — financed, of course, by USAID.

Not everyone is happy about spending so much money in the PA.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: “By providing the Palestinians with $2.5 billion over the last five years, the U.S. has only rewarded and reinforced their bad behavior.”

The US State Department disagrees: “We think it is money that is not only in the interest of the Palestinians; it’s in U.S. interest and it’s also in Israeli interest.”

What is this money used for?

Leibler - Documenting Palestinian criminality

Candidly Speaking: PA texts glorifying terror beg question of whether genuine peace process was ever intended?

Isi Leibler..
Candidly Speaking/JPost..
31 January '12..

We are told, day after day, that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a genuine moderate committed to achieving a peace settlement with Israel. In addition to the international community, even some Israelis – admittedly a dwindling minority – also chant this mantra.

Abbas and his chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, bolster this theme by uttering soothing statements in English, endorsing peace to the gullible international community. Yet they speak with forked tongues because in Arabic, to their own people, they deny Israel’s right to exist and promote vicious hatred against Jews.

They also claim to have reneged violence. But the PA never conceded that terrorism was immoral. They simply concluded that having failed to achieve their objectives by violence, their goals could best be promoted by temporarily suspending terrorism in order to gain Western support.

Abbas made it clear that he “had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965” and was only opposed to terrorist attacks “at this time” for tactical reasons and that “in the future things may change.”

Yet, even within this framework, Fatah has still succeeded in killing more Israelis than Hamas.

The true objectives of the PA are reflected in the poisonous hatred against Jews and Israel inculcated into their people through the broad range of institutions they control, permeating every level of society– from kindergarten upwards.

This can be traced to the very inception of the Oslo Accords. Before that, the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis, while far from ideal, was certainly better than it is now; current polls indicate that 84 percent of Palestinians endorse the murder of Israelis.

Gordon - How “Evil Israeli Soldiers” Saved an Anti-Israel Filmmaker’s Life

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary/Contentions..
31 January '12..

“Five Broken Cameras” didn’t win the World Documentary competition at last week’s Sundance Film Festival, losing out to another anti-Israel film. But it has garnered plenty of international attention, including two awards at Amsterdam’s International Documentary Film Festival and a glowing write-up in the New York Times. The film, according to the Sundance synopsis, documents what happened after the West Bank village of Bil’in “famously chose nonviolent resistance” against Israel’s security fence: “an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements,” in which a child’s “loss of innocence and the destruction of each camera are potent metaphors.” In short, another tale of good Palestinians versus evil Israelis.

You have to persevere to the end of the Times piece to find another angle to Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat’s story:

In late 2008, he accidently drove a truck into the separation barrier and was badly injured. A Palestinian ambulance arrived at the same time as Israeli soldiers, who saw what bad shape he was in and took him to an Israeli hospital.

“If I had been taken to a Palestinian hospital,” Mr. Burnat said, “I probably wouldn’t have survived.” He was unconscious for 20 days. Three months later he was back filming.

In short, Burnat is alive today to win prizes for a film about evil Israeli soldiers suppressing “nonviolent resistance” in Bil’in because those same evil Israeli soldiers saved his life four years earlier. And this is not an irrelevancy; it epitomizes the flaw in the “good Palestinians versus evil Israelis” trope: As anyone who makes any effort to discover the facts quickly learns, Israelis all too often refuse to play the part assigned to them.

Ettinger - Attack Iran – at all costs

Yoram Ettinger..
Israel Hayom..
30 January '12..

The discussion about the cost of a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities has added value only if it is intended to advance the attack and neutralize the potential response from Iran and its allies. The discussion becomes harmful, plays into Iran's hands and threatens Israel's existence if it appears hesitant and doubtful, if it denies the possibility of a pre-emptive attack and assumes that Israel can accept a nuclear-armed Iran.

On May 12, 1948, the People's Administration in pre-state Israel decided by a vote of six to four to announce the establishment of a state that would include Jerusalem, despite internal resistance and opposition from the U.S. and despite a terrible price: The U.S. withheld military aid, threatened economic punishment and surmised that the declaration would result in a second Holocaust, this time at the hands of the Arabs. Then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion refused to abide by the American request to postpone the announcement by a few years, knowing that such a delay would bring tragedy upon future generations and that independence exacts a painful price.

(Video) Israel & Nuclear Iran - Douglas Murray at his best

Uploaded by lector0003
26 January '12
H/T Elder of Ziyon




Probably Douglas Murray's finest speech delineating the inane moral fetor emanating from Western academicians on the Iranian nuclear crisis (and the Jewish state Europe hates).




Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3dBzslDdQ_g


Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
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Daphne Anson - Melbourne Zionist Uproots Sherwood's Forest Of Stones

The Age once carried this cartoon ...

Daphne Anson..
30 January '12..

Harriet Sherwood, Jerusalem correspondent of the notoriously anti-Israel Guardian, frequently features on the Guardian-monitoring website CiF Watch, and with good reason. The Melbourne Age, one of the worst offenders in Australia as far as bias against Israel is concerned, recently published an article of hers entitled "No Stone Left Unpunished".

Emily Gian, Israel Advocacy Analyst at the Zionist Council of Victoria and a doctoral candidate in Israeli literature at the University of Melbourne, has issued a riposte, carried in the latest J-Wire:

Writes Emily Gian:

'An article appeared in last Thursday’s Melbourne Age entitled "No stone left unpunished". Penned by Harriet Sherwood of The Guardian, it told the story of Palestinian children detained by Israeli authorities for committing crimes such as "throwing stones at soldiers or settlers… flinging petrol bombs… [or] more serious offenses such as links to militant organisations or using weapons".

I couldn’t help but sense from the way Sherwood dismissed such activities as stone throwing and flinging petrol bombs as not being serious, that the writer was preparing to unleash what is now becoming stock standard fare from this publication on matters relating to Israel. Plenty of one-sided accusations without context and a token response from the Israeli side usually derided or sneered at by the author in the next paragraph or somewhere further down the line.

In its original incarnation in the Guardian, it was a termed a “special report” but, to its credit, the Age avoided the embarrassment and described it more correctly as an “opinion piece”. Perhaps “propaganda” might have even been more apt.

Lerner - A Post Palestinian State Simulation

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
inFocus Quarterly..
Fall 2011..
H/T Chetz18

Simulations are important tools for policymakers. And there certainly have been numerous simulations of what may happen after the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state. The problem with simulations, however, is that they are, by their nature, driven by the assumptions made regarding the goals and interests of the various players. Of course, assumptions have to be made, but there is the danger that the outcome of the simulation may then take on a life of its own without the caveat that it is dependent on those assumed goals.

Take for example a simulation organized last May 16 by the Lauder School of Government to consider, among other things, how a nuclear Iran would act. Former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate Maj. Gen (res.) Zeevi Farkash participated in that simulation playing the role of Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei is a "Twelver Shiite"—as is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and as such believes that incinerating Israel with nuclear weapons—even if followed by the incineration of Iran—would be a positive thing because the apocalyptic result would bring the return of the Hidden Imam.

But Farkash apparently maintains that deep down inside Ayatollah Khamenei actually subscribes to some sort of universal value system that considers the incineration of Iran an unacceptable outcome rather than a reasonable price to pay for the return of the Mahdi. As a result, the simulation found that Iran would only brandish its nukes for deterrence and never actually use them. As Farkash put it, "Iran would regard its bomb as a means of self-defense and strategic balance."

Was Farkash's critical assumption correct? Perhaps a more responsible approach would have been to run the simulation both ways to see how things play out in a world where the leaders of Iran genuinely believe what they claim to believe. It might have turned out that the results were so catastrophic that even if there were only a 10 percent chance that these Twelvers are true believers, policymakers would have to adjust their recommendations to account for it.

A Palestinian Simulation

What is a reasonable assumption regarding the goals of the Palestinians? Is it indeed the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel, or is such a state no more than a step towards reaching the ultimate goal of replacing Israel with a Palestinian state spanning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River? The evidence weighs heavily in favor of the latter.

Gordon - So, You Think the Palestinians Are Actually Interested in Negotiating?

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary/Contentions..
30 January '12..



As I noted earlier, one area in which Palestinians need no help from anyone is finding excuses to shun negotiations. Currently, of course, they are claiming Israel’s position on borders leaves no room for progress. But if you want to see the real reason talks are stalemated, take a look at what happened last week, when Israel tried to present its position on security arrangements at a negotiating session in Amman: Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat refused to even let the Israeli official speak, saying he had no “mandate to negotiate security arrangements” until Israel presented “detailed documents” with its position on borders.

Everyone involved in the peace process has always understood that borders and security are intimately connected, because how much territory Israel is willing to cede will depend on the robustness of the compensatory security arrangements. That’s why even President Barack Obama, in his May 2011 speech calling for a “borders first” approach that would defer issues like Jerusalem and the refugees until later, didn’t propose deferring security; he suggested that talks focus first on “territory and security.” Thus, if the Palestinians aren’t even willing to listen to Israel’s positions on security arrangements, they clearly aren’t interested in conducting serious negotiations at all. As Israel’s chief negotiator aptly told Erekat, “If you do not have the mandate to discuss this, maybe you should leave and bring someone in your place who does have the mandate.”

Glick - Hamas and the Washington establishment

Caroline Glick..
Our World/JPost..
30 January '12..

To date, the Republican presidential primary race has been the only place to have generated any useful contributions to America’s collective understanding of current events in the Middle East. Last month, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich became the first major political figure in more than a generation to pour cold water over the Palestinian myth of indigenous peoplehood by stating the truth, that the Palestinians are an “invented people.”

As Gingrich explained, their invention came in response to Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement. Since they were created somewhere around 1920, the Palestinians’ main purpose has not been the establishment of a Palestinian state but the obliteration of the Jewish state.

For his truth telling, Gingrich was attacked by fellow politicians and policy hands on both sides of the ideological divide. To his credit, Gingrich has not backed away from the truth he spoke. Rather he has repeated it in two subsequent Republican candidates’ debates.

The second important contribution that Republican presidential candidates have made to the discourse on the Middle East was undertaken by Texas Gov. Rick Perry during a candidates’ debate in South Carolina on January 17, shortly before he pulled out of the race. When asked about Turkey, Perry said that country “is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists.” He went on to say that the US ought to be having a debate about whether Turkey should continue to serve as a member of NATO.

Like Gingrich, Perry was pilloried by all right thinking people in the US foreign policy elite. And like Gingrich, Perry was right. The hoopla his statement generated showed just how destructive so much of America’s received wisdom about the Middle East has become. Moreover, it demonstrated the extent to which the US has adopted Middle East policies that are inimical to its national interests.

Tobin - Echoes of 1967 in Israel’s Iran Dilemma

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
30 January '12..



One of the interesting aspects of yesterday’s New York Times Magazine cover story about Israel’s decision whether or not to strike at Iran’s nuclear program came from a passage in which author Ronen Bergman describes his meeting with former Mossad chief Meir Amit. Amit, who headed Israel’s intelligence agency at the time of the 1967 Six-Day War, described a meeting with the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv during the lead up to that conflict. According to the transcript of the meeting, which was given to Bergman, the American spy threatened Israel and did all in his power to prevent the Jewish state from acting to forestall the threat to its existence from Egypt and other Arab states that were poised to strike.

The lessons of this confrontation certainly put Israel’s current dilemma about attempting to pre-empt Iran’s ability to threaten the Jewish state with extinction via a nuclear weapon in perspective. Bergman provides no firm answer to the question of whether or not Israel will go ahead and strike Iran even if, as was initially the case in 1967, it must happen over the objections of the United States. But he does attempt to give a coherent framework for how the decision can be made as well as providing a bit more background on the chief Israeli critic of a strike on Iran.

According to Bergman, Israel has three criteria for deciding to act on their own on Iran:

Dr. Shmuel Bar - Western Hopes And Dreams, And Iranian Reality

A Nuclear Iran and the Ramifications of a
Poly-Nuclear Middle East

Dr. Shmuel Bar..
Working Paper..
The 12th Herzliya Conference..
January 2012..



The failure of the international efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a military nuclear capability has raised debate in the academic and strategic communities regarding the possibility that such a development may still be averted and regarding the ramifications of a nuclear Iran.

The classic European thesis which has now been adopted in Washington is that there is some – yet undiscovered - enticement that can be offered to Iran which would hold greater value than becoming a nuclear power. A cursory examination of what Iran believes it can achieve with even the image of being a threshold state will show that nothing the West can offer Iran (short of total hegemony over the Gulf and parts of Central Asia) can give Iran more. Furthermore, the basic Iranian perception of the conspiratorial West – including perfidious Albion – is that such offers are no more than a ruse to disarm Iran of the only capability that can protect it from western subterfuge.

Another popular hypothesis draws an analogy between Iran today and the Soviet Union in the mid 1980’s. It focuses on Iran’s economic situation, the behavior of the younger generation who are attracted to Western culture, and what appears to be the decline of the clerical authority in Qom, comparable to the disintegration of the Communist party’s authority. Those who believe that it was the detante and the American engagement opposition in the former USSR that encouraged the internal opposition to the regime and ultimately contributed to the fall of the Soviet Empire now advocate Western “engagement” with civil society in Iran, which will, they believe, ultimately produce a similar Iranian “counterrevolution”. Unfortunately, this “deus ex machina” will not appear. The disparity between the Soviet Union before its collapse and Iran today is vast. The Communist ideology that went bankrupt in the Soviet Union was a secular ideology superimposed on the nation’s root religion. Its abandonment did not entail giving up basic cultural beliefs. In contrast, while the Islamic regime in Iran may not be liked by the populace, it does represent a strong tradition in Iran that existed before the revolution and retains the devotion even of those who oppose the regime. Furthermore, the Soviet Union did not fall overnight: its collapse can be traced to first stages of détente in the 1970’s when it became clear to the Kremlin that it had to reach a strategic accommodation with the US. The Soviet Union also went through a series of destabilizing leadership changes with one octogenarian coming fast on the heels of another. Other forces that had no little effect on the fall of the Soviet Union were the SDI and the defeat in Afghanistan. There is no analogy in Iran for any of these forces.

Gordon - Encouraging Aggression by Making it Cost-Free

How Egypt's economic turmoil and Western positions on the peace process combine to increase the risk of another Arab-Israeli war

Evelyn Gordon..

JINSA Visiting Fellow..
30 January '12..

Last month, Victor Davis Hanson published a fascinating article on why Iran might nevertheless decide to start a war it can't win. In it, he analyzed several cases in which countries did exactly that, including the Korean War in 1950, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Falklands War and the 1991 Gulf War, and found three common factors: pressing domestic crises, belief that the West might acquiesce in their aggression, and conviction that even if it didn't, the Western response would stop well short of regime change. In short, their leaders had something to gain (domestic distraction) and nothing irreversible to lose.

While surely relevant to Iran, Hanson's analysis is equally relevant to another Mideast powder keg - one created by the combination of Egypt's revolution and a troubling change in Western attitudes toward the Israeli-Arab peace process. The former left Egypt with a major economic crisis. And the latter has assured Arab states that attacking Israel carries no risk of irreversible losses: Even if a war results in Israel capturing Arab territory, the West will demand that it return every last inch.

Kushner - From Israel: Frenetic Times

Arlene Kushner..
30 January '12..

Afraid it's "that time" again: Time for a review of what's going on with our "partners for peace" and their brothers in Hamas. Hate doing this. But every so many days...

As was totally predictable, the "talks" supervised by Jordan have gone nowhere and are likely finished. (Although, as I write there is an unconfirmed report that the low level talks may continue for another month. We'll see.)

You realize, of course, that the lack of progress in the talks is all Israel's fault. Must be, because that's what PA leaders are saying. We failed to submit a detailed plan of our demands for security and borders (to which I say, Baruch Hashem!); we merely submitted principles of what we think must be dealt with. The PA says the deadline for us to do so was January 26. Israel says the PA is counting wrong. The Quartet had said both side were to submit plans within three months. The PA calculates that three months as having ended now. Israel says it ends three months after the Jordanian talks began.

~~~~~~~~~~

For background information: It is Israel's policy generally (not always adhered to as perfectly as might be desired) not to reveal specifics of what might be conceded until everything is on the table and dealt with -- "nothing is decided until everything is decided."

~~~~~~~~~~

At the Cabinet meeting yesterday, Netanyahu reported, "As things stand now, according to what happened over the past few days - when the Palestinians refused even to discuss Israel's security needs with us - the signs are not particularly good."

Naturally, we will continue to see pressure brought to bear, to bring the parties back to the table. Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, was in the region last week, meeting with Israeli and PA officials.

~~~~~~~~~~

What particularly enrages -- although this is hardly new -- is that the Western world knows full well that Israel has no "partner for peace." It's simply that leaders are mindful of their relationship with Arab nations, and pander to the growing number of Muslims within their own nations, as well as to the left wing pro-Palestinian segment of their electorates. And so, they have an agenda that has nothing to do with facts or justice.

Please see this Palestinian Media Watch bulletin revealing the fact -- complete with video clip -- that Palestinian Authority TV twice last week broadcast greetings to Hakim Awad, convicted of murdering five members of the Fogel family last year, from members of his family and from the TV host. From his mother, who calls him the "apple of my eye," and his aunt, who refers to him as "the hero, the legend."

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=6245

Weinberg - Throwing good euros after bad

David M. Weinberg..
Israel Hayom..
30 January '12..

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein unearthed the nefarious dealings behind Watergate by following the advice of their mysterious source, nicknamed Deep Throat. “Follow the money,” counseled Deep Throat. And so they did – all the way up to President Richard Nixon in the White House.

So, too, with the Palestinian Authority. The money trail – which pays for stalemates, rejectionism, and diplomatic assault on Israel – leads directly from PA President Mahmoud Abbas to his central banker: the European Union.

Last week, the EU announced that it would to transfer another $70 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) – the largest single donation ever to UNRWA. EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton said that the donation “represents our ongoing commitment to the Palestine refugees.”

It is an old story. Ask yourself: Who has been the primary financier of the PA and all its so-called refugees?

Mostly, it has not been Israel – although in the days of Rabin and Peres, Israel sinned by propping up the PA with direct payments into a secret Tel Aviv bank account held by Yasser Arafat himself.

The Sharon government held back on some $1.5 billion in various taxes and customs duties collected by the Israel Finance Ministry on behalf of the PA. Then Finance Minister Silvan Shalom used the embargoed funds to cover PA debts owed to Israeli firms and organizations like the Israel Electric Company. Current Finance Minister Dr. Yuval Steinitz tried to do the same last year after the PA angled for unilateral recognition at the U.N., but the Cabinet released the funds under international pressure.

Who, then, has bankrolled the PA and UNRWA? The U.S. and Canada cut most of their funding to UNRWA years ago, when its ubiquitous corruption and unhelpful perpetuation of Palestinian victimhood became clear. They have restricted their funding of development programs in the PA to Western-administered projects that advance governmental and security-sector reform.

Kuntzel - The Wannsee Legacy: Lessons for Genocide Prevention

By Matthias Küntzel







Henry Jackson Society Event in the House of Commons, London, January 19, 2012

Let me please start with Fanny Englard, an active survivor of the Holocaust and a friend of mine. She grew up in Germany/Cologne and lives now south of Tel Aviv. Fanny wrote in a letter:

“As a twenty-year-old, on 8 May 1945 I was liberated from hell and tried to find my family, but without success. Eventually I had to accept that my father had lost his life in the Warsaw Ghetto, while my mother and ten-year-old brother had been poisoned in the gas chambers at Belzec along with my grandmother, aunts and cousins. Two brothers, aged 15 and 13, had been shot in Belarussia not far from Minsk and buried in shallow graves in 1942, but in 1943 the corpses had been dug up and burned – their ashes scattered to the four winds. In May 1947 I came to Israel and married in order to create a new family as a replacement for the murdered one that had fallen victim to Jew-hatred.”

I know the photos and the faces of Fanny’s murdered siblings and parents and I want to contrast her personal letter with the bare numbers and the monstrous language of the Wannsee-protocol which talks about “the complete clearing up of the problem” and continues: “this final solution of the European Jewish question concerns about 11 million Jews, distributed among the various countries.”[1]

However, the Final Solution was not limited to Europe.

In 1941, the 700.000 Jews of the Middle East attracted Hitler’s attention as well.[2] As Hitler envisaged it, after the assault on the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht would also occupy the Caucasus and so open the way to the Middle East. Then Iran, Iraq and Egypt would be conquered and the British Empire destroyed from the south. Pro-German movements would prepare for the German invasions of that countries. Part of this scenario was the killing of the Jews.

At the end of November 1941 – in the run-up to the Wannsee-Conference – Hitler received Hajj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti and leader of the Palestinians. On this occasion Hitler stated that, after the defeat of the Soviet Union, “the hour of liberation” would arrive for the Arab world. “The German goal would then be the annihilation of the Jews … living in the Arab region.”[3] These were’t mere words.

By summer 1942 the Nazis had drawn up concrete plans to murder the Jews of the Yishuv. They expected their genocidal endeavor to be substantially assisted by Arab collaborators.

Roth - Reality bites and the Palestinian Arab future is not what it used to be

The double-headed world of Palestinian
Arab politics has gotten one-head
more complicated, and that's just
the start [Image source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 January '12..

We wrote recently about the triumphant tour of Middle East capitals by the "prime minister" of the Hamas terrorist regime, Ismail Haniyeh. His speeches in Ankara and such Arab capitals as Tunis, Cairo and Khartoum were filled with threats of the destruction to shortly rain down on Israel's head and promised "difficult days" for Israel.

"We are saying to the Zionist enemies that times have changed and that the time of the Arab Spring, the time of the revolution, of dignity and of pride has arrived."

But what's actually happening to Hamas, though, is more interesting than their bombastic war talk. Because inside Hamas, and in its immediate surroundings, things have changed, are changing and are certain to lead to even larger changes. Gay Bechor, an Israeli political commentator, lays some of this out in a Ynet op ed article today entitled "Hamas in deep trouble: Op-ed: Despite pompous declarations, terror group faces problems on multiple fronts"

Bechor points out that Haniyeh has lately been rousing the crowds with pretentious calls for the establishment of a Palestinian jihadist army of liberation, but reality is imposing some real challenges on him and his organization.

Marquadt-Bigman - The progressive quest for comparative consolations

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
30 January '12..



The folks who expected that the “Arab Spring” would lead to a Tweeples-government in Egypt are understandably disappointed by the landslide victory of the Muslim Brothers and the Salafists.

But progressives were quick to find a formula that offers comparative consolation: the basic recipe is to simply claim that Egypt’s Islamists are really no worse – and maybe even better!!! – than disagreeable political figures or forces in your own country.

Following this recipe, Lisa Goldman, writing for the Israeli left-wing blog +972, claims:

citizens of the democratic state of Israel […] freely elected, as the largest faction in its governing coalition after the Likud, the quasi-fascist Yisrael Beitenu party. […] In our Knesset, we also have Kahanists and a large contingent from Shas, which is quite similar to the [Salafist] Nour party.

Unsurprisingly, Goldman’s comment was promptly quoted by The Arabist, where Issandr El Amrani added that “Israelis might mind their own business about Egypt and other post-uprising countries” because “they won’t be doing much business with them at all for some time to come.” Since the post was entitled “Israel and the new Egypt”, I can’t resist the temptation to take Amrani’s comment as a validation of the point I made when I wrote some two months ago that it would be the “Same old story in the new Middle East” because “when it comes to anti-Western and ‘anti-Zionist’ sentiments, the new rulers of the Middle East will be at least as eager as their predecessors to put them to demagogic use.” And as Amrani’s comment illustrates, even supposed Arab liberals seem happy to hold on to the “anti-Zionism” that provided Arab dictators for decades with a useful tool to distract the masses.

But naturally, Goldman was very pleased to be quoted by The Arabist, and tweeted:

.arabist linked to my +972 piece, ‘Egypt’s election results are none of Israel’s business.’ I can die happy now. http://tinyurl.com/6u58lzs

Tobin - Obama’s ’67 Borders Mistake Haunts Talks

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
29 January '12..



The Palestinian reaction to Israel’s position about West Bank settlement blocs once again demonstrates that rather seeking an agreement that will lead to a Palestinian state, what they are doing is looking for an excuse to avoid ever having to sign a peace deal. Even worse, it is evidence that President Obama’s misguided intervention into the question of future borders last May is still having a harmful effect on the effort to revive negotiations.

The Israeli position in the discussions taking place in Jordan is they want the major settlement blocs (which comprise a tiny portion of the West Bank’s territory but also the vast majority of the more than 250,000 Jews who live there) to be incorporated into Israel as part of a deal. But rather than negotiate this point, the Palestinians have rejected it out of hand and said they won’t talk if the Israelis stick to their position. Israel’s position is compatible even with President Obama’s stand on the issue which allows for territorial swaps that would enable Israel to retain these blocs. But even though the president’s Jewish defenders claim his May 2011 speech merely restated existing policies, the Palestinian interpretation seems to illustrate how damaging his mention of the 1967 lines has been.

Meet Oren Almog: Blind Terror Victim Volunteers to the IDF

idfblog.com..
29 January '12..





Every soldier of the IDF has a unique background and story, yet some soldiers have a truly astonishing tale to tell. Meet Oren Almog:

“[It is] true that I suffer from blindness and have scars, but I decided that I’m still 

like everyone and so I enlisted.”

                                                                                Credit: Yediot Ahronot

Oren lost five members of his family as well his eyesight in the 2003 Maxim Restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa, where 21 people were killed and 51 were wounded. Oren quickly became the face of the second intifada, and despite losing his eyesight at a very young age, he insisted over the years on being treated just like his friends.

Three days ago, nine years after the atrocity, Oren walked up to the ceremonial stage unassisted by either a walking cane or a seeing-eye dog, and swore an oath to the IDF to the applause and the tears of everyone in attendance.

Fresnozionism - ‘Palestine’ adores vicious murderers

The murdered Fogel family:
Ruth, Udi, Yoav (11), Elad (4),
Hadas (4 mo.).

Fresnozionism.org..
29 January '12..

The absolute vileness of the “Palestinian movement” is hard for those of us who grew up in civilized societies like the US and Israel to comprehend. As a result, many of us may be prepared to listen when they say that it is about human rights or justice.

But every once in awhile we get a window into what’s really behind it.

Even Israeli police and security personnel, who have seen some terrible things, were shocked last year by the sadistic murder of five members of the Fogel family including a 4-month-old baby whose throat was cut, committed by two Palestinian Arab teenagers, Amjad and Hakim Awad, cousins from the village of Awarta.

Captured after an intensive manhunt, the Awads were both convicted and given multiple life sentences. There was even consideration of applying the death penalty, something not done in Israel since Eichmann was hanged in 1962. Unfortunately, the court decided against it.

One might expect that the official Palestinian reaction — after all, they are preparing to petition the UN for statehood again — would have been something like “we condemn violent extremism, although we understand their frustration, etc.”

But they are past pretending even that much.The official reaction is that the butchers are heroes!

Watch the following video, from official Palestinian TV, courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch: