Love of the Land: November 2016

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

What do the Palestinian Arabs not want? - by Arnold Roth

...The one positive thing to come from this mess? That true to their core values as an honor/shame society and in the words of last week's Aljazeera news report, "Fatah will give Abbas an honourable exit". And what, other than saving innocent lives on all sides, bringing an end to the weaponization of Palestinian Arab children and ending the reign of a massively corrupt, geriatric and manipulative regime, could be more important than that?

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
30 November '16..

If you saw our earlier post of the day ["30-Nov-16: Remind us again just how central the conflict with Israel is to the Arab world"], you will be aware that not only did the largest and controlling faction of the Palestinian Authority - Fatah - just re-elect Mahmoud Abbas to be its leader in its first general assembly in more than seven years. But its 1,400 delegates did so unanimously.

(A Guardian piece from 2015 on extremely one-sided election results makes for some good background reading, and suggests names of politicians who might be green with envy at Abbas' attainment.)

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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.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

Surprise? Another Temple Mount related story ignored by the BBC - by Hadar Sela

...While the BBC has frequently covered outbreaks of unrest on Temple Mount, it has serially ignored the very relevant issue of the organised harassment of non-Muslim visitors to the site by paid Islamist activists. It was hence unsurprising to see that this latest story received no coverage and audiences were once again deprived of information which would enhance their understanding of this particular “international issue“.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
30 November '16..

As readers may recall, a year ago the BBC refrained from reporting on its English language website the Israeli government’s decision to declare the Northern Islamic Movement an illegal organisation – but did cover that story on the BBC Arabic website.

English-speaking audiences were therefore deprived of information concerning the Northern Islamic Movement’s network of paid activists who disrupt visits by non-Muslims to Temple Mount. Those networks – known as the Murabitat and Murabitun – were banned by the Israeli authorities in September 2015.

Earlier this week the Israeli Security Agency announced the arrest and indictment of four members of the Northern Islamic Movement.

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Carter, an Obama Post-Presidency and Israel - by Jonathan Tobin

...Should Donald Trump keep his promises to stand by Israel, Jerusalem will not have to worry as much about its sole superpower ally as it has in the last eight years. But if Obama chooses to use the coming years of relative leisure to pursue his vendetta against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to push for pressure on Israel or even to isolate it in the same manner as Carter, he could be almost as much of a problem for the Jewish state out of office as he was in it.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
29 November '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/obama-post-presidency-israel-jimmy-carter/

In recent months, there’s been a lot of speculation about whether President Obama would use his last months in office to take a parting shot at Israel. In his final seven weeks, there is still a chance that he will allow a dangerously anti-Israel resolution to go up for a vote at the United Nations Security Council without a U.S. veto. But even if he is constrained by either common sense or a commendable desire not to tie the hands of his successor with an act that can’t be undone, supporters of the Jewish state should not assume that Obama’s attitude toward Israel will be something they can safely ignore once he leaves the White House.

A reminder of just how much damage an ex-president can do comes today in the form of an op-ed by Jimmy Carter published in the New York Times. In it, Carter urges Obama to do just what Israel’s friends fear: allow the Security Council to recognize Palestinian independence with the borders of the territories Israel seized in 1967 without first compelling them to make peace with Israel. That would be a reversal of decades of U.S. policy and do incalculable harm to Israel while not advancing the cause of peace.

Despite sharing an antipathy for Israel’s government, Carter and Obama are not close. If Obama does stab Israel in the back at the UN with a measure that will brand Israel as an outlaw state, it likely won’t be due to Carter’s influence. Yet the resurfacing of the 92-year-old Georgian at this crucial moment should alert the pro-Israel community to the possibility that Obama may use his post-presidency in a manner that will follow Carter’s pattern on the Middle East, but with the ability to create far more havoc than his predecessor.

Ever since he left the White House, Jimmy Carter has used the prestige of his former office to promote some anodyne causes like Habitat for Humanity. But he is almost as well known for his other post-presidential obsession: hammering Israel every chance he gets. Carter’s barely-concealed animus for Israel during his term in office was no secret, but it was overshadowed by Anwar Sadat’s courage in forging a peace with Israel for which the former president got more credit than he deserved.

Since then, Carter has stooped to false comparisons between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa and become a reliable apologist for anything the Palestinians do no matter how awful while never failing to attack Israel any chance he gets.

Carter left office as a defeated president and was labeled a failure. His presidency is chiefly remembered now, if it is remembered at all, as a prelude to the Ronald Reagan’s successful two terms, in which he presided over a robust recovery from Carter’s “malaise” and the defeat of the Soviet Union. Good works restored his reputation to some degree, but Carter’s standing at home and abroad has never been sufficient to lend the kind of weight to his attacks on the Jewish state that would have had an impact on American opinion or that of an international community already prejudiced against Israel.

Forty years ago this week, the UN perpetuated Palestinian suffering

...Arab leaders have always treated the Palestinian refugee situation as a political tool rather than as a humanitarian crisis, and have placed political attacks against Israel above the welfare of the Palestinian people. It is the Palestinians who are born today, in the same refugee camps where their parents were born, who are suffering from that choice.

Aron White..
JNS.org..
25 November '16..

During the past few years, the resettlement of refugees has been one of the key issues in international politics. The horrendous conflict in Syria has forced more than half the country from their homes, with 4.8 million refugees fleeing to neighboring countries and 1 million applying for asylum in Europe.

The United Nations has taken the issue very seriously, trying to persuade countries around the world to commit to take in and resettle refugees. At the end of an international conference on the refugee crisis, which took place in Geneva this past March, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grani said, “We have heard pledges that increase the number of resettlement and humanitarian places to 185,000…but this is only the start. We heard offers to significantly increase global resettlement programs in the coming few years. And we hope that there will be several opportunities to do so in the coming months.”

Similar sentiments about the importance of resettling refugees have been expressed by President Barack Obama, the European Commission, and others. With this in mind, the following fact may come as a surprise: 40 years ago this week, on Nov. 23, the U.N. actually condemned a country for resettling refugees. But this part may be less surprising: that country was Israel.

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Aron White is a Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) intern.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Already looking for the votes, on the basis of hatred towards Israel? - by Yves Mamou

...In just one year, 2016, France and its socialist president have made multiple hostile gestures towards Israel, which reveal more about raw anti-Semitism posing as anti-Israelism in France than about its unjustly solitary target.

Yves Mamou..
Gatestone Institute..
29 November '16..

In France, retail chains and importers now have the legal obligation to label products originating in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

On November 24, the Official Gazette of the French Republic (JORF) published Regulation No 1169/2011, ordering "economic operators" to inform consumers about "the origin of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967."

This French regulation is an application of the interpretive notice issued by the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ), on November 12, 2015. The notice states that the EU "does not recognise Israel's sovereignty over the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967, namely the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and does not consider them to be part of Israel's territory" and claims it is responding to "a demand for clarity from consumers, economic operators and national authorities".

The European Commission allowed member states to arrange their own national implementation of this European regulation, with financial penalties.

The French adoption of this EU policy insists on labeling Israeli products with the greatest precision possible.

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Yves Mamou is a journalist and author based in France. He worked for two decades for the daily, Le Monde, before his retirement.

Examining BBC reporting on human shields in Gaza vs. Iraq - by Hadar Sela

...So as we see, within less than a month since the launch of the military operation against ISIS in the Mosul region, BBC audiences were alerted to the terror group’s use of civilians as human shields on at least four occasions. The majority of those reports were based on information provided by outside sources and – in contrast to the 2014 reports from the Gaza Strip, where the corporation did have journalists on the ground in the relevant areas – the BBC apparently did not find it necessary in this case to find “evidence” of its own before reporting on the use of human shields by ISIS.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
29 November '16..

As readers no doubt recall, one of the many remarkable features of BBC coverage of the summer 2014 conflict between Israel and terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip was the corporation’s failure to report on Hamas’ use of the local civilian population as human shields.

Not only did BBC journalists refrain from reporting adequately on the issue of Hamas’ placement of military assets in populated areas (with the BBC later claiming that it was “very hard for journalists in Gaza to get to see rockets being fired out”) and the terror group’s instructions to civilians to stay put in such areas but some BBC correspondents even went out of their way to deny the phenomenon.

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Prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace? Considerably less than a snowball’s chance in hell.

...It’s going to take a long, long time, and probably a lot of pressure from the PA’s Western donors, to reverse these decades of hate education. But until that happens, the chances of Israeli-Palestinian peace are considerably less than a snowball’s chance in hell.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
29 November '16..
Link: http://evelyncgordon.com/where-talking-to-israelis-is-taboo/

If you want to know why the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace are currently zero, consider Avi Issacharoff’s report in the Times of Israel last week about Fatah’s Seventh General Congress, which is slated to take place in Ramallah on Tuesday. The Congress is supposed to elect Fatah’s two main leadership organs, the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council; one candidate for the latter is Nasser Abu Baker, a reporter for Radio Falastin. “Abu Baker, who used to maintain close ties with his Israeli colleagues, has boycotted Israeli journalists since he began nurturing his political career,” Issacharoff wrote matter-of-factly.

Fatah, of course, is Israel’s official peace partner, twice over. It is the main component of the PLO, the organization that signed the Oslo Accords with Israel, and also the party headed by the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and PLO chairman. Yet it turns out that the way to win votes among members of Israel’s “peace partner” is not by promoting peace, but by refusing even to talk to your Israeli colleagues–even if they are among the most pro-Palestinian Israelis you’re ever likely to find, as is true of most Israeli journalists.

Moreover, this practice of boycotting Israelis has actually gotten much worse under the “moderate” Abbas, as another Israeli journalist noted in an unrelated article last week. Interviewed by Haaretz about his new television series on the Arab world, Ohad Hamu, the Arab affairs reporter for Channel 2 television, recalled:

Not so long ago I could wander freely around Gaza and the West Bank and bring cultural and political stories, but today there are few places I can enter in the West Bank … The Israeli media doesn’t go into something like 70 percent of the West Bank, and even when I do go, it’ll be to film some 10-minute dialogue with someone and then we’re out of there right away, because it’s just become too dangerous. They don’t want to see us there … Israeli journalists used to serve as a bridge between Israeli and Palestinian society, but this bridge has been gradually cracking.

Nor is this problem exclusive to journalists. The “anti-normalization” campaign–a euphemism for refusing to talk to Israelis and intimidating others into doing the same–has also produced boycotts of Israeli cultural figures, businessmen, nongovernmental organizations and more.

Clearly, it’s difficult to imagine Israeli-Palestinian peace breaking out as long as even talking to Israelis is taboo, to the extent that even in the “moderate” Palestinian party, someone running for office feels obligated to start boycotting his Israeli colleagues. It’s hard to make peace with other people if you aren’t willing to talk to them.

Monday, November 28, 2016

A story without an anti-Israel angle is not a story, but... - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...The refugee problem will end on the day their leaders stop lying to them and confront them with the truth, basically that there will be no "right of return" and that the time has come for them to move on with their lives. If the lies do not end, the day will come when these countries will be forced to place all the refugees behind walls and fences -- a move not likely to enhance stability in these countries. Ain al-Hilweh should serve as a wake-up call to all those Arabs who continue to subject Palestinians to apartheid laws and practices.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
28 November '16..

It is no secret that Arab countries have long mistreated their Palestinian brothers and sisters, governing them with inhumane laws and imposing severe restrictions on their public freedoms and basic rights. Building a wall around a Palestinian community to prevent terrorists from entering or leaving, however, has raised the bar on such infringements.

This is precisely what is happening in Lebanon these days. The construction of a security wall around Ain al-Hilweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp (with a population of nearly 120,000), has drawn sharp criticism from Palestinians and revived memories of the abuse they regularly receive at the hands of their Arab brethren.

The Lebanese authorities say the Palestinians have left them no choice but to build the controversial concrete wall. The Palestinians, they say, refuse to cooperate against terrorists who have established bases within their camps. Yet that problem raises the question: "What has Lebanon done in the past half-century or so to help the Palestinians who fled to that country?" The answer: "Nothing."

In fact, among all Arab countries, Lebanon has been arguably the worst in its treatment of the Palestinians. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are denied access to adequate housing and certain categories of employment. According to Amnesty International: "Over half of Palestinian refugees live in decaying and chronically overcrowded camps and discriminatory practices are permitted under personal status laws and nationality laws."

These anti-Palestinian practices are regularly ignored by the international community, including the mainstream media and human rights organizations, whose obsession with Israel blinds them to Arab injustice. While, every now and then, an organization does publish a report on the misery endured by Palestinians in Arab countries, these bodies rarely follow up on their work, thus creating the impression that they are doing so only for the sake of protocol.

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The UN's Palestinian refugee industry - by Asaf Romirowsky/Alexander Joffe

...If the Canadian government is truly concerned about the vitality of Palestinian society and its future, it should seriously reconsider its contribution to UNRWA. It is past time to remove UNRWA from the scene and give the Palestinians the freedom — and the responsibility — to build their own society. Western tax dollars would be better spent promoting independent Palestinian organizations and private-sector growth.

Asaf Romirowsky/Alexander H. Joffe..
National Post/Pundicity
24 November '16..
Link: http://www.romirowsky.com/19405/palestinian-refugee-industry

Of all the problems that dominate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, only one ensures that the conflict will never end: the growth in the number of Arab-Palestinian refugees. Western governments have enabled this industry.

UNRWA is the UN's internationally funded welfare agency exclusively for Palestinians, and it has financial and political interest in maintaining a fiction: as long as the Palestinians are refugees, UNRWA is in business. Of the 30,000 people who UNRWA employs, the vast majority are Palestinian. Only a few hundred are not. UNRWA is also the largest single employer of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. By comparison, the UN High Commission for Refugees employs only 5,000 to 6,000 people globally. It focuses clearly on resettlement and rehabilitation of refugees and building new lives, not maintaining services that prop up a six-decade-long status quo.

Since its inception in 1950, UNRWA has worked against resettlement in Arab countries where Palestinians are located. It has done so by shifting its mission from refugee relief to education, devising its own expanded definitions of who is a refugee, and expanding its legal mandates to "protect" and represent refugees. As a result, the Palestinian clients of UNRWA have gradually taken over the organization and have undermined an international relief effort, created in naïve good faith, under the auspices of the UN General Assembly.

Politicizing Israel's Destructive Wildfires - by Simon Plosker

...Are The Guardian and AFP completely incapable of avoiding linking anything and everything to the settlement issue, even devastating wildfires?

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
27 November '16..

The AFP and The Guardian, which republished the wire service’s story on the Israeli wildfires, can barely contain their excitement.

AFP’s headline:

And The Guardian’s:

Yet while AFP’s headline emphasizes Jewish settlers and The Guardian’s focus is the “occupied West Bank,” a significant part of the AFP story also covers major blazes in Haifa and the village of Nataf, neither of which are located in the West Bank.

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Sunday, November 27, 2016

Netanyahu vs. Ben-Gurion: The Good, the Bad and the Remarkable - by Martin Sherman

...Netanyahu is a man of tremendous talent and serious shortcomings. He should be judged on a judicious assessment of the balance between the two – not on some distorted, demonized image created by his obsessive opponents. Until this can be factored into the equation, no really meaningful comparison can be drawn between these two towering figures, who dominated the politics of Israel for decades.

Martin Sherman..
Algemeiner.com..
25 November '16..

“When you compare his [Netanyahu’s] lack of actual achievements compared to Ben-Gurion, whose record he’s eclipsed, it’s embarrassing.”

— Jeff Barak, “Reality Check: An empty record,” The Jerusalem Post, November 20, 2016.

Small-minded and spiteful

Last Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu chalked up an unbroken stint of 2,793 days (seven years and 236 days) as prime minister of Israel, thereby surpassing David Ben-Gurion’s record for the longest consecutive term in office.

By any criterion, this would be a remarkable feat for anyone, under any circumstances. But for Netanyahu, it is even more remarkable, given the truly formidable obstacles and almost pathological animosity he had to overcome to achieve it.

This could, perhaps should, have been an auspicious occasion, in which his political rivals, his ideological adversaries and his detractors in the media might have — ever so briefly — put away their animosity and expressed some congratulatory sentiment, however reluctant and insincere, even if only as a formal appearance of feigned courtesy.

However, in the merciless and mean-spirited milieu of Israeli politics, any hint of such largesse was not forthcoming.

Quite the opposite.

Flummoxed and infuriated by their inability to dislodge him from power, his political opponents and their media cronies seized on any pretext, however flimsy and far-fetched, to besmirch and berate him.

A typical illustration of the mindless drivel and spiteful sniping that passes for journalism when it comes to excoriating Netanyahu was provided this week by former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, Jeff Barak, in his regular column, perversely dubbed “Reality Check.” Indeed, after only a few lines, it became apparent just how wildly inappropriate the column’s tagline is and just how tenuous the connection between the article and reality.

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Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategic-israel.org).

That which adds to our enemies' motivation to continue against us with greater force - Mordechai Kedar

...The Supreme Court may not understand this, or simply may not take it into account. But it is important for us to know that destroying Jewish homes helps motivate our neighbors to continue to fight us - and results in pushing any hopes for peace much farther away.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Israelnationalnews.com..
25 November '16..
Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/19814..
h/t Sally Zahav - Middle East and Terrorism

Israel is getting closer to the time when, if no solution is found, Amona is going to be destroyed - and possibly homes in Ofra and other places in Judea and Samaria demolished - in order to carry out the decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court. A vociferous public debate is in full swing in Israel, with those in favor of the demolition and those against it arguing about the Regulation Law, the standing of Supreme Court decisions and on the status of the court itself. No one cares about how the "other side" sees the destruction of the homes, what the "other side" takes it to mean and the conclusions the "other side" - our enemies, draw from that destruction.

The Islamo-Arab side observes what is happening in Israel, hears the public debate and is astounded by the court's independence and its ability to force its world view on the entire Israeli government. Some Arab columnists openly wish for that to be the situation in their own countries, with a court that defends the ordinary citizen, and even those who are not citizens, from the arbitrary decisions of rulers and politicians.

The Arab side, however, also has a totally different view and understanding of the home demolitions. This is a religious narrative, one that sees religion as the source of the underlying explanations for everything that happens in the world and Allah as the causal factor in everything that happens each day. Allah's words are in the Koran, a book that is relevant in every place at every time and in every situation. The destruction of the Israeli homes also has an explanation in the Koran, to be found in a paragraph at the start of Chapter 59, the Exile chapter.

"It is He Who got out the Unbelievers among the People of the Book from their homes at the first gathering (of the forces). Little did ye think that they would get out: And they thought that their fortresses would defend them from Allah. But the (Wrath of) Allah came to them from quarters from which they little expected (it), and cast terror into their hearts, so that they destroyed their dwellings by their own hands and the hands of the Believers, take warning, then, O ye with eyes (to see)!" (translation: Wright-house.com)

According to Islamic interpretations, this paragraph concerns a group of Jews known as "Bani Nadir" who lived near the city of Medina. They refused to convert to Islam and Mohammed expelled them from their homes allowing them to take with them only the goods that could be carried by one camel. Instead of complying, the Jews destroyed their own homes and took the beams away so the Muslims could not make use of them. What is significant here is an instance in which Jews prefer to destroy their own homes when Islam is stronger than they.

Since what is in the Koran is relevant in every period, including the present one in which Muslims see Jews destroying their own homes, the above-quoted Koranic verse immediately comes to mind: "They destroyed their homes with their own hands" to explain what is going on, but the rest of the verse is no less important "with the hands of the Believers," meaning that believers, referring to Muslims - Jews are not believers to Islam! - have acted so as to cause the Jews to destroy their own homes.

What lies behind the conflagration - by Arnold Roth

...It's now early Sunday morning, and those fires and the price paid by Israeli society are very much in the news here. Much less reported are the very widespread sounds of celebration from right across the Arab world, particularly via the social media.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 November '16..

The New York Times' assessment of the massive fires that had erupted all over Israel in the previous 48 hours was summed up in these striking opening sentences of Isabel Kershner' report this past Friday:

Parts of the port city of Haifa in northern Israel were ablaze on Thursday as wildfires raged through the country for a third day, devouring forests, damaging homes and prompting the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.

Asked how long Haifa was likely to be battling the blazes, Mayor Yona Yahav told reporters, “This is a question that has to be referred to God.” Israeli officials said the fires had been fanned by unusually strong winds and made worse by a dry atmosphere, but they also said they suspected that many of them had been caused by arson and negligence. Dozens of people have been slightly affected by smoke inhalation, but no serious injuries or fatalities have been reported.
["As Wildfires Rage, Israel Suggests Arson and Asks for Foreign Help", New York Times, November 24, 2016]

For us, the tone of that piece was set by "Israel Suggests Arson" in the headline and the words we have bolded above: "slightly affected by smoke inhalation, but no serious injuries..." Knowing the scale of the massive blazes and which places were - and which were not - affected makes the wording appear especially shabby. It goes on to make mention of Israeli concerns, articulated by the government minister in charge of public security, Gilad Erdan, that

"the professional assessment was that almost half the fires were the result of arson."

For many, the details of that professional assessment might have been something worth knowing.

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Saturday, November 26, 2016

They burn, we build - by Dror Eydar

...But we are not only well-versed in disasters; we know well how to rise from the ashes and from the dust. They burn and we build, that is, after all, the fixed historical contract. Haifa and the Carmel Forest will be rehabilitated; the same is true for Nataf in the Jerusalem Hills and for Talmon in the Judean Hills, as well as for other places. The good land will flourish once again, despite those who rise up against it.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
25 November '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=17741

I also want to put out the fire, but it burns within us. I am trying to extinguish it, but it insists on burning.

And then they preach to us that this is not the time for fanning the flames, that we should focus on putting them out and saving lives. Jews, do not anger your neighbors too much, they might get upset. Accept the ruling from above. On social media and in official places, they are speaking about the "muezzin bill" that caused the fire. Earlier, they said that the Temple Mount caused the stabbing attacks, and that the occupation and the oppression and a variety of other reasons left our neighbors with no choice but to set out on a campaign of killing and destruction. As early as 1963, writer A. B. Yehoshua drafted this rule in his story, ''Facing the Forests.'' The forest was burned to expose the "Zionist crimes." For a moment, I was reminded of the riots in Paris in 2006; there too, they crucified anyone who dared criticize the appetite for destruction of Muslim Parisians. They are the only downtrodden people in the world. Sure.

Our land is burning not just because of accidents (and some of the fires were indeed caused by negligence), but also because of the behavior of arsonists who have adopted the wrongful belief: "Let it be neither ours nor yours."

Friday, November 25, 2016

Last night...they tried to murder - by Paula R. Stern

Pyro-terrorism - a fancy word the doesn't really show the magnitude of almost 200 people injured, 75,000 people evacuated from their homes, more than 550 apartments and homes damaged or destroyed, old age homes evacuated, 90 year old people moved on stretchers, a 100 year old person hurried through the smoke.

Paula R. Stern..
A Soldier's Mother..
25 November '16..

Last night, Palestinians set four fires around the small mountain village of Beit Meir - including one to block the exit of this isolated place perched high on the mountains as you climb towards Jerusalem. It's a beautiful, stunning area, surrounded by forest and green. Or it was.

Last night, Palestinians set four fires...designed to trap and murder a small village.

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Best Thing for Israel? Level With Trump - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

...But we must never forget this simple truth: the moment that that sovereign independent Palestinian state is actually formed in our bedroom, its sovereignty and independence is essentially unconditional. They can rip the arrangements and guarantees they signed to shreds and they will still be a sovereign independent Palestinian state.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
25 November 2016..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=71776

Ever since the Israeli electorate rejected Oslo at the ballot box over 20 years ago Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's engaged in verbal and mental gymnastics to placate foreign leaders who adamantly insist that he pledge allegiance to the "two state solution".

Its been confusing. but we might not have had a choice.

With the election of Trump there is an opportunity to get out of the rut.

I recommend we level with Trump

#1. Fundamental problem with sovereign Palestinian state – not conditional

There are all sorts of ostensibly well intentioned people with various schemes of arrangements and guarantees that they claim would make it possible to create a sovereign independent Palestinian state in our bedroom.

But we must never forget this simple truth: the moment that that sovereign independent Palestinian state is actually formed in our bedroom, its sovereignty and independence is essentially unconditional.

They can rip the arrangements and guarantees they signed to shreds and they will still be a sovereign independent Palestinian state.

#2. Fundamental problem with almost sovereign Palestinian state - extraneous developments.

There's countless scenarios that may lead to a large hyper autonomous Palestinian state that shares a border with Jordan becoming a sovereign independent state.

#3. Where we CAN go

The Rabbi for Human Rights: Intolerant, Angry and Aggressive by David Collier

...The audience willingly laps up any decontextualised information or misrepresentation of Israel that can be used in the fight against the Jewish State. Some that listen to those like Idit, are pushed over the edge, and they join the mob outside the room at the UCL. Soon they will join those banging on the windows and threatening me. This isn’t Israel, this is 2016 Europe and anti-Israel rhetoric delivered to a crowd of people singing this hymn has consequences. Why would a Jewish Rabbi, why would any Jewish Rabbi, want to do that to me?

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
24 November '16..

Have you heard the one about the Jewish Rabbi ‘for Human Rights’ aggressively pushing another Jew in a church?

It may sound like the opening line from a stand-up routine, but this is what happened as a speaker from the organisation came to join the modern church choir singing the age-old hymn, ‘oh Lord, let us all demonise Israel’.

This was at St James Church in Piccadilly. The same Church that in late 2013 decided to erect an ‘Apartheid Wall’ to send a message about Bethlehem. The vicar of this church is Lucy Winkett. Someone who has obviously acquired the label ‘friend’, recognised by all those who don’t like the Jewish state of Israel.

I hadn’t expected to be there. Just up the road Daniel Schueftan was talking at Kings College and there had been trouble expected. With security worthy of El-Al I decided that Kings had indeed created a fortress for the Jews to safely hide behind. I left campus and headed off to the church.

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Thursday, November 24, 2016

Israel in a picture? One of our heroes saving a part of our heritage - by Paula R. Stern

...This is Israel. On the news, the firefighters look exhausted. More volunteers are pouring into the area. The fires are under control; security forces are on alert and have caught some of the terrorists. Israel in a picture? One of our heroes saving a part of our heritage.

Paula R. Stern..
A Soldier's Mother..
24 November '16..

Do you want to understand Israel at this moment? It's here in this picture. We are rushing to save all that is precious to us. We are under attack. Hundreds of fires have been started. More than 50%, over 200 fires, have already been confirmed as arson. They are calling it the Fire Intifada.

Fire fighters are going door to door in apartment buildings to make sure no one is inside. Someone runs up to them and tells them there is a woman in an apartment - and the camera shows them running to the apartment.

Now look at this picture. They are saving people, trying to save homes...and something more. The essence of what we are will not be burned in these fires of hate.

And so, in addition to saving what homes we can, what lives we must, here's a picture of firefighters who went into a synagogue and saved the Torah scrolls.

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Know that these are the firefighters of the State of Israel - by Maj. Dan Josephberg

...I left home to the sounds of my small children crying, saying that I had been on duty the day before instead of at home and that they had expected to spend time with me in the afternoon. I got up, left everything and went to the station. This is the essence of a firefighter's job.

Maj. Dan Josephberg..
Israel Hayom..
24 November '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=17731

On Wednesday morning, I finished a 24-hour shift as commander at the Netanya District Fire Department. We participated in 15 operational incidents, including a dispatch to the scene of a traffic accident to free trapped passengers, dealing with a gas leak and, of course, putting out fires. I came home for a short rest, and in the early afternoon, there were initial reports about a serious fire in the north. At around 1:00 p.m., the phone rang and the dispatcher said: "Danny, a major fire has broken out in Zikhron Yaakov, you're being called in to the station."

I left home to the sounds of my small children crying, saying that I had been on duty the day before instead of at home and that they had expected to spend time with me in the afternoon. I got up, left everything and went to the station.

This is the essence of a firefighter's job. It is no ordinary job -- it is a calling. Being a firefighter means knowing that at any given moment, whether you are on a shift or at home, you may be called up. Being a firefighter means working nights, weekends and holidays -- when the whole country is at home. Being a firefighter means running into places that other people are escaping from. Running into the unknown. Being a firefighter means seeing tough sights, hearing screams from people who are trapped, smelling the scent of death.

But being a firefighter, more than anything, is knowing that people's lives depend only on you, that there is no one else who will do the job.

My firefighter friends have spent the last three days at a wide range of fires and other incidents. We fought to save lives. We fought to save property, and we are still fighting to save the nature and beauty of the land of Israel. For three days in a row, with almost no rest, we have been going from fire to fire, answering every call, even when we are tired, even when we have already finished our shifts, even when it seems near impossible to stop the fire due to strong winds. We do not give up. And despite the force and the danger of the fire, we win battle after battle, because we know that our loss would mean lives cut short and property burned.

When a former darling of the Israeli left, admits Palestinians aren’t ‘occupied’ by Stephen Flatow

...The most painful part of Lapid's truth-telling—painful, that is, for those who prefer to hide from the truth—was his description of how the PA fosters hatred and terrorism instead of peace. "The Palestinian education system poisons the minds of 6- and 7-year-olds every single day with anti-Semitic propaganda of the worst kind," he said. "That's not freedom. When they tell their children that Jews are monkeys and pigs, they are not marching towards the liberation of Palestine, they are putting new chains on their own ankles."

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
23 November '16..

When Israeli media personality Yair Lapid established the Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party back in 2012, the U.S. State Department and Jewish peace activists were ecstatic, figuring Lapid would draw votes away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party. They were delighted with Lapid again earlier this year, when he refused to join Netanyahu's governing coalition, briefly giving the Israeli left hope of preventing a Likud-led government.

Let's see what they think of Lapid now that, as a leader of one of Israel’s opposition parties, he has publicly acknowledged that there is no "occupation" of the Palestinians and that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is the obstacle to peace.

Speaking at a diplomatic conference hosted this week by the Jerusalem Post newspaper, Lapid "pointed out that the PA has existed for over 20 years and Israelis do not have a presence in Palestinian cities except when there are security needs," according to the Jerusalem Post.

Lapid was referring to way back in 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin withdrew Israel's troops from the cities where 98 percent of the Palestinian Arabs reside. The only circumstances under which Israeli soldiers go into these cities is "when there are security needs," as Lapid put it—meaning, when they are chasing terrorists whom the PA refuses to arrest. The Israelis go in, catch the killers and then withdraw a few hours later.

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Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

One Goal. Iran, Hamas and the Dance of Death - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...But this warning is likely to fall on deaf ears in the waning Obama Administration, which obviously no longer shares the widespread concern among Arabs and Palestinians that Iran remains a major threat to stability and security in the region, including Israel. Perhaps the new US administration will see Iran and its machinations a bit more clearly. The alternative is allowing Iran and its proxy terror groups further to drench the region in blood.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
23 November '16..

The Iranians and Hamas are exploiting the final days of the Obama Administration to restore their relations and pave the way for Tehran to step up its meddling in the internal affairs of the Palestinians in particular and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general.

Emboldened by the nuclear deal framework with the world powers, Iran has already taken the liberty of interfering in the internal affairs of other Arabs, particularly the Iraqis, Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenites and some Gulf countries.

It now appears that the Obama Administration's failed policies in the Middle East have increased the Iranians' appetite, such that they are convinced that they can expand their influence to the Palestinians as well.

Thanks to the civil war in Syria, relations between Hamas and Iran have been strained over the past few years. Hamas's refusal to support the regime of Bashar Assad -- Iran's chief ally in the region -- has led the Iranians to suspend financial and military aid to the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip. However, recent signs indicate that Iran and Hamas are en route to a kind of Danse Macabre -- a move that will undoubtedly allow Tehran to become a major player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Walling off Palestinians in Lebanon. Human rights groups silent. - by Elder of Ziyon

...The lies are laughable, but they are enough to convince NGOs that there is nothing to see here - even as residents complain bitterly.

Elder of Ziyon..
23 November '16..

This article, from The New Arab, drips with irony:

The first blocks of an isolation wall were erected around the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon this week, as a plan to build 'security' cordons and watchtowers around Ain al-Hilweh came into effect.

The security wall forms part of an agreement between Palestinian factions and the authorities in Lebanon in attempt to contain recent confrontations between Palestinians inside the camp and the Lebanese army, Lebanese and Palestinian officials claim.

The isolation wall is set to be completed within the next 15 months, according to a report by Lebanon-based al-Modon news site.

"Four towers will be constructed," Ain al-Hilweh's Hamas official Abu Ahmad Faysal earlier this month told Lebanon's Daily Star.

Despite being approved by Palestinian leadership in Ain al-Hilweh, located southeast of the port city of Sidon, for thousands living in the overcrowded camp life will only worsen.

Angry Palestinians took to social media to voice their frustration, dubbing the watchtower "the wall of shame" and comparing it to similar Israeli measures.

Those residing in the southern edge of the camp voiced complaints as the wall expected to sit a mere 3 metres away from their homes, according to reports on the construction plans.

They are literally building an open-air prison. The residents will not be able to leave without specific permission. Already Lebanese Palestinians are suffering from state-sanctioned discrimination, and now things will get worse.

But no one can blame Israel, so this is simply not news.

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“Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus” - Film Review by Vic Rosenthal

...University administrators by and large seem to be pathologically afraid of confrontation and do their best to pretend that nothing is going on until forced to take action, and even then often support the “rights” of disruptive students to disrupt. Attacks on Jews and Israel, no matter how false or outrageous, are justified by appeals to free speech or academic freedom; but other forms of bigotry are punished harshly (faculty members may be dismissed and student organizations suspended).

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
22 November '16..

“Hate Spaces” is a documentary film (view the trailer here) produced by Ralph Avi Goldwasser and Americans for Peace and Tolerance, who also gave us “The J Street Challenge,” and as the full title suggests, it describes the recent surge of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel activity on American university campuses.

CAMERAorg

I’ve written about the phenomenon more than once, so I didn’t expect to be surprised by anything in the film. But despite knowing about the various incidents described, the sheer volume and intensity of them taken together left me shaken. Yes, shaken, and I’m not easy to shake.

I was an academic for a short time some decades ago, and the combination of ideological intensity and insulation from the real world that characterizes many students and faculty is not entirely unfamiliar to me, but I couldn’t have imagined that it would focus this way, on one group and one target – my people and my country.

Student activism has always centered around freedom, anti-authoritarianism, opposition to oppression of minorities and support for civil rights, especially free speech. What is happening on campuses is that these principles are being twisted so that the outcome, rather than a reduction in oppression and increased human rights, is the intimidation, marginalization, silencing and even persecution of Jewish and (especially) pro-Israel students.

Although only a few incidents of physical violence have been reported, psychological and academic pressure is widespread, and pro-Israel speech by students or invited speakers is disrupted – or restricted due to fear of disruption.

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Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Question. Did Obama’s “Daylight” with Israel Bring Peace? - by David Gerstman

...Abbas’s role as spoiler for the administration’s peace efforts gets too little attention. Getting the support of Obama, did not move Abbas to take any risks for peace. He simply took it as an excuse to do nothing an let the Americans pressure Israel. The daylight between the United States that Obama said was necessary to promote peace didn’t accomplish what he said it would.

David Gerstman..
Legal Insurrection..
21 November '16..

Early on in his first term, President Barack Obama suggested that in order to achieve peace between Israeli and the Palestinians, there needed to be more “daylight” between the United States and Israel.

Obama, according to a report on a meeting between the president and American Jewish leaders, said, referring to the Bush administration, “During those eight years, there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.”

During Obama’s two terms in office, he made efforts to put daylight between his administration and Israel, and not just in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: in 2010 the administration harangued Netanyahu over a plan to build apartments in Jerusalem, the administration pursued the nuclear deal with Iran over Israeli objections, senior administration officials, on and off the record, have disparaged Netanyahu, and Obama is said to be considering a move in the UN to support Palestinian statehood.

Despite all this a final peace agreement does not appear any closer than it did in 2009.

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