Hillary's Disproportionate Response

Jack Schwartzwald
American Thinker
08 April '10
Posted before Shabbat

When Israel imposed a ten-month ban on West Bank settlement construction last November, Hillary Clinton knew full well that the ban did not apply to Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern half of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, she described the step as a helpful "move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Now, despite the fact that Israel has apologized for its putative misstep in announcing new housing construction in these neighborhoods during Joe Biden's recent visit, Hillary has demanded total cessation of such activity, saying in an address to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that, "New construction in East Jerusalem or the West Bank...exposes daylight between Israel and the United States."

On March 11th, the very day of Mr. Biden's departure from Israel, Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah organization proceeded (albeit "unofficially") with the dedication of a public square in el Bireh to Dalal Mughrabi, the female leader of the deadliest-ever terrorist attack against Israel. This was followed by a four-day seminar, under Palestinian Authority auspices, entitled, "Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Camp."

Ironically, these actions do not seem to have exposed much daylight between the Palestinian Authority and the United States. The explanation for the incongruity may be found in the fact that, during her AIPAC address, Hillary misattributed the Mughrabi celebrations to Hamas, thereby granting undeserved absolution to Israel's theoretical peace partners, Abbas and the PA. (Pity America's ally, Israel, wasn't the beneficiary of such largesse.)

Hillary then went on to explain that the dedication of the square "insults the families on both sides who have lost loved ones...in this conflict."

(Read full article)
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More News the HP Doesn't Cover

Zach
The Brothers of Judea
08 April '10

Remember when the Palestinian Authority was going to name a square after a terrorist, and Hillary condemned it? No? Well maybe it's because you're a Huffington Post reader, and they couldn't be bothered to cover either of those stories.

So in that case it seems pretty unlikely that they'll cover this, a report that the PA is now going to name the Palestinian presidential offices after arch-terrorist Yahya Ayyash, aka "The Engineer." Ayyash was directly responsible for the deaths of literally hundreds of innocent Israelis, though Israel caught up to him with a booby-trapped cell phone in 1995.

Remember, the United States considers Palestinian incitement to be equally detrimental to the peace process as Israeli settlements. Yet only one activity gets the lions share of the Huffington Post coverage. I can't help but wonder why.

For more posts from The Brothers of Judea click here
Standing Up Against Hate on the Huffington Post
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Why Does the Palestinian Authority Celebrate Those Who Turned Christianity's Holiest Shrine into a Military Bunker?

Shahid Dawud funeral

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
08 April '10

The Obama Administration doesn't understand this but it is signaling the Palestinian Authority (PA) that it can get away with anything, thus further dooming any hope for serious negotiations and perhaps leading to a restart of large-scale violence.

Decades ago, when Middle East experts held views closer to the region's realities rather than to its propaganda, it was well-known that one of the best ways to mobilize a big demonstration or riot in Arabic-speaking countries was to tell people: The government is with you.

Say, for example, you wanted to smash up of the British embassy in Damascus or Cairo. The trick would be to persuade the masses that their rulers wanted them to do it and thus they would be rewarded, not punished. In effect, this is the consequence of what the Obama Administration is doing inadvertently.

The PA has concluded that the U.S. government will never criticize or punish it. Indeed, Palestinian leaders know that the more intransigent they are, the more conflict they can provoke in U.S.-Israel relations.

Here's the chain of reasoning:

(Read full post)
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Moral Equivalence Run Amok

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
2 November 09

Following the Israeli police’s announcement on Sunday of the arrest of a Jewish terrorist, Yaakov (Jack) Teitel, the daily Haaretz published an editorial today that termed him “the Jewish counterpart of ‘The Engineer,’ Yahya Ayyash — Hamas’ expert bomb maker.” That analogy is as false as it is damaging. The two men may have shared an identical passion for killing, but there is a world of difference in their respective societies’ responses.

According to both the police and the Shin Bet security service, Teitel was a lone wolf, perpetrating his terrorist acts with no help from anyone. Moreover, when his deeds became known, he was unequivocally repudiated by his own society. Both the Yesha Council of settlements and the settlement where he lived issued condemnations. So did every settler-on-the-street that Haaretz reporters interviewed. Even on far-Right websites, the paper found very few statements of support for Teitel’s acts (and probably not for lack of trying; Haaretz usually likes nothing better than vilifying settlers). And of course, Israel arrested him itself.

Ayyash, in contrast, belonged to a large, well-funded group whose terrorist acts, far from being denounced, have consistently been lauded by Palestinian society. As leading Palestinian psychiatrist Eyad Sarraj told the Los Angeles Times in 2002, suicide bombers have “unparalleled” status among Palestinians. “Their pictures are plastered on public walls, their funerals are emotional celebrations, their families often receive visits from state officials. They become almost holy,” the LA Times report continued, “praised by imams at mosques or over loudspeakers at rallies, where children are often dressed as shrouded dead or as pint-sized suicide bombers.” Indeed, Palestinians value terror so highly that in 2006, they elected Hamas — a terrorist organization that not only holds the record for most Israelis killed in suicide bombings but flaunts its prowess in anti-Israel terror as its calling card — to run their government. Palestinians don’t arrest their terrorists; they make them cabinet ministers.

This different societal responses also explains the difference in the amount of mayhem the two men succeeded in perpetrating. In a terrorist career spanning a dozen years and about a dozen attacks, Teitel managed to kill two people. In contrast, Hamas suicide bombers killed 57 people in the two years before Ayyash met his death (at Israel’s hands) in December 1995; as the organization’s chief bomb maker, Ayyash presumably shares credit for most of these deaths. It’s not that Teitel was any less enamored of bombs; it’s just that it’s easier to perpetrate mass murder when you are backed by a large organization and a supportive society.

Haaretz’s false moral equivalence is unlikely to confuse Israelis, who have a clear grasp of the importance of this societal distinction. But it will undoubtedly be seized on by Israel’s enemies to support the canard that settlers are the Israeli equivalent of Hamas and that Israel is thus indistinguishable from the Palestinians when it comes to terror. And it will thereby deal another blow to Israel’s already battered good name.

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