A siege on the truth at NYU - by MK Avi Dicther

...The truth is also an option. I urge NYU to choose the truth and remove the show from its calendar. Presenting the show is a present to terrorism! This is a show appropriate to the perverse policies of a university in Tehran or Beirut. Not in New York.

MK Avi Dicther..
Times of Israel..
11 October '17..
Link: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-siege-on-the-truth-at-nyu/

I was dismayed to learn that starting this Thursday, New York University is hosting The Siege, a performance describing events at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, as told from the perspective of Palestinian terrorists.

The backdrop for the story depicted in The Siege dates back to March 28, 2002, when Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield after a terror attack in which a Palestinian terrorist blew himself up in a dining room full of families sitting at a Passover seder in the Park Hotel in Netanya. The Second Intifada had been underway for a year and a half, and Yasser Arafat and his security chiefs had done nothing to prevent terrorists from coming from their territory. They chose, at best, to ignore reality, and at worst, to actually take part in terrorist attacks or helping the terrorists.

ֿThe show seeks to rewrite history. Instead of depicting Palestinian terrorists who took the Church of the Nativity hostage, it fabricates a tale of innocent civilians who sought sanctuary in the church. It is akin to presenting the September 11 attacks as a case of innocent civilians with mental problems who merely tried to force the pilots to land at the nearest airport, when instead the pilots smashed the planes into the World Trade Center.

I served as head of the Israel Security Agency when terrorists took over the Church of the Nativity, and here is the real story, exactly as it happened.

On April 2, 2002, at the height of the intifada, the very beginning of Operation Defensive Shield, IDF forces entered Bethlehem to rout out terrorists operating in Judea and Samaria. Hundreds of terrorists — snipers who shot into homes in the Gilo neighborhood, suicide bombers in Jerusalem and those who fired mortar shells at the Israeli capital — fled in all directions. Many were arrested, some were killed while attempting to resist our forces. But about 100 terrorists fled to the compound of the Church of the Nativity in downtown Bethlehem and barricaded themselves in, while taking dozens of church workers, priests and monks hostage.

Starting to quantify the outcomes of the Shalit Transaction

...Freeing convicted and unrepentant murderers has predictable and very negative outcomes. No politician should ever again dare to deny this. Nor may they ignore the moral, constitutional and legal consequences that flow from this truth.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
28 January '14

Of the more than 190 terror attacks on Israeli targets thwarted during the year just ended by the various Israeli security services, no fewer than 40 of them were co-ordinated by Gaza-based terrorists who walked free in the 2011 Shalit Transaction.

The Israel Security Agency's annual terror report was published today, Monday. It's accessible online here, so far in Hebrew only. Commonly known as the Shin Bet or the Shabak, its annual summaries provide an authoritative barometer reading of the terror threat facing ordinary Israelis. (Terror is almost always directed at ordinary people.)

Last year's 190+ thwarted attacks included 52 attempted kidnappings (perhaps inspired by the Shalit hostage taking that delivered such abundant results to Hamas); 52 shooting attacks, 67 bombings and 16 human-bomb assaults.

Any further discussion of future plans to release still more convicted terrorists must focus on today's data. It belongs at the center of the analysis.

(Continue)

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"The Gatekeepers" and the banality of Dror Moreh

...His predecessor, Avraham Shalom, gives away the film's implied position: "Because of terrorism, we forget the issue of the Palestinian state." Why did we forget? Maybe terrorism was the goal from the onset, and the Palestinians actually never wanted a state? But Moreh is not showing statements that could put cracks in his narrative.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
17 May '13..

1. I was invited to a discussion of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum recently. To prepare, I watched the two films that represented Israel in the American Academy Awards' documentary film category -- Dror Moreh's "The Gatekeepers" and "5 Broken Cameras" by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. Despite the harsh reviews they received, I recommend seeing them. They represent a perspective that needs to be dealt with.

I'll write about "The Gatekeepers" now and save "5 Broken Cameras" for another time. The sycophantic interviews of Dror Moreh in the American media did not bode well for his ability to decode the riddle of the heads of the Shin Bet. They do not say much that is deep in the film. Perhaps this is because Moreh could not deal with such minds or because he was interested not in psychological or intellectual depth, but rather in the political story in which the heads of the Shin Bet served as statistics to fill in the left wing's version of the failure of the Oslo Accords.

The theme of "shooting and weeping" has been well known since we came back to our country and had to defend it with our lives, together with the necessity of taking the lives of others. Now even the heads of the Shin Bet have doubts. This either-or quality is the bread and butter of drama: morality versus terrorism, combat versus conscience, control versus the desire for liberty. The film opens with former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin's motto: "There's something unnatural about taking the lives of people in a single second."

His predecessor, Avraham Shalom, gives away the film's implied position: "Because of terrorism, we forget the issue of the Palestinian state." Why did we forget? Maybe terrorism was the goal from the onset, and the Palestinians actually never wanted a state? But Moreh is not showing statements that could put cracks in his narrative.

While the film pretends to present complexity, it never fulfills its promise. It shows the world as black and white, and the historical excerpts have no profound context. The Six-Day War. A Palestinian population. Occupation. That's it. There's no discussion about our historical, religious and cultural context as a nation living in this region. Not a word about our principled claim to sovereignty over it.

What is the link between Boston and al-Aqsa?

The conceptual link between global terror and al-Aqsa, experts say, is a problem that mainly threatens Europe and the U.S., but the escalation of violence on the Temple Mount itself is a problem that is all ours -- and it must be addressed urgently.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
26 April '13..

What is the link between Chechen jihadists, with whom the Tsarnaev brothers -- the alleged terrorists who set off bombs at the Boston Marathon last week -- were thought to have been affiliated, and the inspiration for an east Jerusalem terror cell that reportedly planned to murder Jewish worshippers and police officers on the Temple Mount several weeks ago? How is the ideology that motivated the Boston bombing as well as the foiled Temple Mount terror attempt connected to the Islamic "party of liberation" Hizb ut-Tahrir, which operates within the Palestinian Authority, in east Jerusalem and in secret terror cells in Europe? And what is the relationship between some of the terror cells that have come out of the Israeli Arab population in recent years and these sources of inspiration?

The answer to these questions lies in religious publications, in sermons, in various websites and in Muslim books of religious law. Various surveillance and assessment bodies that deal with this type of material have held the following belief for quite some time: Islamic terror, in terms of its general worldview, boils down to the vision of establishing a global Islamic caliphate, in the spirit of the Prophet Muhammad, with Jerusalem as its capital.

* * *

A particularly vocal supporter of this vision is Sheikh Raad Salah, the head of the northern chapter of the Islamic Movement in Israel, who calls himself "Sheikh al-Aqsa." This vision is shared by at least some of the spiritual authorities that preside over international jihadist terror, which has many offshoots. Jerusalem and al-Aqsa, which have always been regarded as central symbols, have recently begun to play a more central role in the incitement and calls for battle: "Al-Aqsa is in danger." Today, the Muslim world openly blames Israel for planning and trying to destroy their holy mosque. The prevalent description of the al-Aqsa compound as being "held captive, under threat, desecrated and defiled" by Jews and Israelis, fans the flames and injects adrenaline directly into the arteries of jihadist terrorists around the globe.

This process -- interpreting the "al-Aqsa is in danger" call as a green light to perpetrate terror and as a rubber stamp that legitimizes jihadist terror -- has been ongoing for years. There are countless examples. Intelligence agencies in Israel and around the world have plenty of examples on record, but the general public is seldom exposed to them. They suggest a conceptual connection between global terror and al-Aqsa. They also suggest a similar conceptual connection between global jihad and the story in Chechnya, where the al-Aqsa mosque also serves as the connecting link.

A movie that could only have been made in Israel

The film uses allegedly “first time ever” interviews to push the same points that were pushed back in 2003 by the same people, which produced disastrous results. A better film would have explored why things failed then, and why they have failed since, rather than simply push the same points again as if they had not already been given a real-life test.

Rick Richman..
pjmedia.com..
25 January '13..





The Gatekeepers — currently Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary, opening February 1 in New York and Los Angeles — is a movie that could only have been made in Israel.

Six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli agency dealing with domestic terrorism, each spent 12-15 hours in filmed conversations with Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh, who spliced excerpts into a 97-minute film dramatized with archival footage and animated recreations. At the end, Moreh shows some of the “gatekeepers” saying Israel is winning battles but losing the war; that the use of force can never be wholly successful and eventually degrades those who use it; and that Israel is in danger of becoming “a Shin Bet state.”

It is a well-made, thought-provoking film, but the conclusions in the last two minutes are not entirely supported by the 95 minutes that precede them. In significant ways, they are in fact contradicted by at least one of the “gatekeepers” — Avi Dichter, who served under Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon from 2000 to 2005. Dichter summarizes Moreh’s apparent position: if we use force against the Palestinians, they will use force against us; and if we stop using force, they will stop using force. Dichter tells him the first part of the equation is true, but that the second is not.

In another exchange, recounted by Moreh at a recent screening, Dichter recalled receiving a 5 a.m. call with intelligence that a terrorist would bomb a bus later that morning, while Israelis were commuting; someone was found who fit the description of an alleged accomplice, but he was unwilling to talk; you have two hours, Dichter said, to find a person on his way to perpetrate a mass murder. So what do you do? At the screening, Moreh did not hazard an answer; and the non-response reflects the lack of easy answers to the issues in the film.

Haaretz exclusive: Hamas founder's son worked for Shin Bet for years

Avi Issacharoff
Haaretz
24 February '10

(What a story!)

The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership, Haaretz has learned.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures.

The exclusive story will appear in this Friday's Haaretz Magazine, and Yousef's memoir, "Son of Hamas" (written with Ron Brackin) will be released next week in the United States. Yousef, 32, became a devout Christian 10 years ago and now lives in California after fleeing the West Bank in 2007 and going public with his conversion.

Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "the Green Prince" - using the color of the Islamist group's flag, and "prince" because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement's founders.

During the second intifada, intelligence Yousef supplied led to the arrests of a number of high-ranking Palestinian figures responsible for planning deadly suicide bombings. These included Ibrahim Hamid (a Hamas military commander in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti (founder of the Fatah-linked Tanzim militia) and Abdullah Barghouti (a Hamas bomb-maker with no close relation to the Fatah figure). Yousef was also responsible for thwarting Israel's plan to assassinate his father.

"I wish I were in Gaza now," Yousef said by phone from California, "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."

(Read full story)
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Here's the difference:

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
1 November 09

(Excerpt)

Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Here's the difference:

Yaakov Teitel will have his day in Israeli court and, if convicted, spend a good part of the remainder of his life behind bars.

Prime Minister Netanyahu isn't asking for Jewish terrorist Yaakov Teitel to be freed.

There are no Israeli security forces planning to capture Palestinians to trade for Yaakov Teitel's release.

The Israeli school system isn't teaching that Yaakov Teitel is a hero.

No summer camp sponsored by a leading Israeli political party is going to be named after Yaakov Teitel.

Yaakov Teitel's family isn't going to get a monthly stipend from the Government of Israel as a sign of thanks for his actions.
(Full article)
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