The Importance of Samir Kuntar by Jonathan S. Tobin

...Israel has repeatedly tried to trade land for peace with the Palestinians and gotten only more terror in return for their efforts. But one needn’t rehearse the history of Israeli offers of statehood and far-reaching territorial withdrawals to understand why they all failed. All you have to do is to ponder why Samir Kuntar could have been treated like a hero while alive or acclaimed as a martyr after his richly-deserved punishment was finally meted out.

Image by © Wael Hamzeh/epa/Corbis

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentay Magazine..
21 December '15..

In a world where there is precious little justice to be found, some was done this past weekend in the form of a missile strike on a building in Damascus on Saturday, Samir Kuntar was killed. Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze, had spent 30 years in prison for leading a terror attack on northern Israel that resulted in the deaths of four people, including two children. Released in 2008 in an exchange with Hezbollah, Kuntar returned to Lebanon and was acclaimed a hero by both the Lebanese and Palestinians. Since then, he’s been a leading Hezbollah operative credited with helping to build a terror network in the Golan Heights as well as playing a role in the defense of the murderous Assad regime in Syria. It was in Syria, where he had reportedly been operating under the instructions of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, that what was almost certainly an Israeli mission brought his bloody career to a close. Reportedly, the motivation for the strike was not so much a belated reckoning for Kuntar’s crimes as the fact that he was believed to be part of new terror plots against Israel.

But while this action will generate the usual hypocritical broadsides about Israel’s anti-terror operations, it’s important to place Kuntar’s life in perspective. His record and popularity speaks volumes about what is wrong with the culture of the world that venerated him as a hero.

Hezbollah has threatened to retaliate for his death and has already fired some missiles at northern Israel. But while Israel’s critics will condemn the attack and blame it for doing something that might escalate tensions in the region, the chances of a new war with Hezbollah over Kuntar are not considered great. Hezbollah is in no position to try and replay its 2006 conflict that devastated much of Lebanon. With the terror group having reportedly lost up to one-third of its armed strength fighting as Iranian mercenaries on behalf of Bashar Assad, they can’t afford to pick a fight with the Israelis. Nor is Iran likely to want its Lebanese auxiliaries to waste their carefully hoarded arsenal of rockets on futile attacks on Israeli targets that will be defended by Iron Dome batteries that will likely shoot most of them down. Tehran also isn’t going to want to let Hezbollah do anything that might conceivably undermine efforts to keep Assad in power with the acquiescence of the Obama administration.

Instead, as it has done with various Revolutionary Guard figures that have been slain, Iran will write off Kuntar’s death as part of the price of funding terror and now treat him as a “martyr” to the anti-Zionist cause. His fate will be used to whip up more anti-Israel sentiment. And it is that fact that ought to be of greater interest to foreign observers than Hezbollah’s vows of revenge.

That Kuntar is a hero to Hezbollah’s legions of supporters as well as to Palestinians can’t be denied. He was released in exchange for the dead bodies of two Israeli soldiers who were killed in a cross-border raid carried out by Hezbollah in 2006 that helped set off what was called the second Lebanon War. Like the more than 1,000 Palestinians who were released in an Israeli deal with Hamas that ransomed captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Kuntar emerged from prison to acclaim throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. His seniority as the captured terrorist that had spent the most time in an Israeli jail seemed to confer on him a status that put him above most other prisoners. Though he was not considered the most effective Iranian/Hezbollah operative, he remained popular.

But it’s useful at this point to revisit, at least for a moment, what were the actions that made him a legend. As the Times of Israel writes:

(Video) Misleading Headlines - The Motorcycle Terrorist

Yarden Frankl..
Honest Reporting..
05 May '13..



When the Israel Defense Forces killed a wanted terrorist, a number of major media focused on the fact that he was riding a motorcycle when he was killed.

Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal was connected to recent rocket fire on Eilat. The rockets were fired from the Egyptian Sinai, so Masshal certainly internationalizes the conflict.

Masshal was affiliated with Hamas, but left the group because they were too moderate for him. He joined the Shura Council of the Mujahaideen in Jerusalem and was responsible for extensive terror activity against Israelis.


HonestReportingVideo

So how was this reported in the news? Sky News ran the following headline:

Israel: Airstrike On Gaza Kills Motorcyclist

The Guardian had a similar headline:

Israeli air strike kills Gaza motorcyclist

And the Independent went with:

Motorcyclist killed in first Israeli air strike on Gaza since November truce

Motorcyclist?

Was he wearing a helmet?

Reminds us of the classic film "Easy Rider"

Fire all of your guns at once and explode into space.....

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI6HVyeMdrg

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Who Are the Only Ones Referred to as Terrorists in the Media?

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
10 April '13..

HonestReporting has long campaigned for the international media to call terrorism exactly what it is instead of using judgment-neutral terminology, such as “militants”,”extremists”, “fighters” or “gunmen.”

Yaakov “Jack” Teitel, a US-born Israeli resident of the West Bank was sentenced on Tuesday to two consecutive life terms in prison for murdering a Palestinian taxi driver in Jerusalem and a Palestinian shepherd near Hebron. He was also sentenced for other attacks including against a left-wing Israeli professor and messianic Jews. He also attacked a police station during a gay pride parade. These are only a few of Teitel’s terrorist and criminal activities.

The Israeli media, including the JPost, YNet, and Times of Israel had no problem referring to him as a “Jewish terrorist” showing an impressive consistency in the use of language. They recognized that Teitel’s hate-filled ideologically and politically motivated ideology fits the definition of terrorism. This demonstrates that the use of the word “terrorism” or “terrorist” or “terror” does not have to be a loaded term applied only to Palestinians murdering Jews for religious or political motivations.

It’s just that the example of Teitel is, thankfully, extremely rare and certainly in contrast to the Palestinian side.

So having avoided referring to Palestinian terrorists as just that, how did the international media cover the story?

Patterns of Dictatorship

Michael J. Totten
16 October 09

I am amazed all over again every time I meet a Westerner in Lebanon who admires Hezbollah or gets defensive on its behalf. Last time I visited Beirut I ran into an American journalist who said Hezbollah "is trying to raise awareness of Global Warming. Don't you think that's interesting?"

No, I don't think it's "interesting," and my Lebanese friends found that journalist's question contemptible.

My first reaction when I meet people like this is that, as Westerners, they ought to know better. Then I read articles like Patterns of Dictatorship by Ana Maria Luca in NOW Lebanon, and I reconsider my initial reaction to thick Westerners. Luca lives in Beirut, and she grew up in Nicolae Ceauşescu's Romania. As far as she is concerned, the differences between Hezbollah and the dictatorship of her youth are just details.

Eastern Europeans, rather than Americans and Western Europeans, are really the ones who ought to know better. And they generally do. They have real world experience with totalitarian politics, and they seem a lot less likely, as a result, to think a terrorist like Hassan Nasrallah is some kind of misguided liberal.
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Weighing Truths for Gilad

Paula R. Stern

A Soldiers Mother

04 October 09

When you are young, there is often one great truth to all things. It doesn't matter what the situation is, it's just a way you have of looking at something and deciding what is right or wrong in that simple moment. It is a singular truth that seems obvious and clear. As you get older and your life gets more complicated, shades of other truths blur the picture. There is no longer one side, one truth. Every action has a reaction; every cause not just one result but often many.

There's a scene in Fiddler on the Roof where someone says something to the main character, Tevye. Tevye confirms that the man is correct. Another man comes forward and voices an opposing position. "You are right," Tevye tells him.

Another steps forward and says, "but they can't both be right."

To which, Tevye responds, "and you are right too."

I felt that way in the last few days listening to the debate about the release of 20 security prisoners in exchange for a two minute video of Gilad Shalit this past Friday. There are so many sides, so many truths that perhaps the greatest relief comes from not being in a position to have to choose that path.

His mother has suffered so long, his father traveled so many miles begging people to listen and help free their son. Don't they deserve, don't they need this reassurance that their son is alive. This is truth.

Although 14 of these security prisoners were wanted for attempted murder, all would have been released in the coming months...certainly within the next year or so. Israel is a land that follows the rule of law. Unlike Hamas, we do not hold prisoners without trial and with trial comes a just sentence. The sentence is served and remorseful or not, the prisoner is released, often to return. This is the strength and the weakness of a democracy and so these prisoners, once freed, may well choose to attempt to murder another Israeli. This is truth as well.

The cost of this exchange boggles the mind. The value, as set by Hamas is staggering. A video of an Israeli is equal to 20 prisoners; the value of his life set at a minimum of 450 Palestinian prisoners - murderers, terrorists, killers. Twenty prisoners for one video. As one blogger wrote, "guppies cost more." This too is truth.

After so many months of silence, Israel needed a sign that we were negotiating for a live human being. We've given hundreds of prisoners for coffins; this time, it was right to get proof before any agreement and dealing with Hamas is not the same as dealing with human beings who respect life. This organization and the people who belong to it feel nothing about endangering their own people. They fight from within their own schools, mosques and hospitals.

How could we expect them to do what is legal, what is just, what is moral, what is human? They relish the suffering of others; they crave it. This is a culture that worships death and cares nothing for the suffering of an Israeli mother or her family. If this is what holds Gilad and we want proof that he is alive, this is the cost. And here too, there is truth.

"We aren't like them," said a friend. "We couldn't stand by and not do something to alleviate the terrible pain of the family." More truth.

Trade for Gilad? Accept a video in exchange for 20 prisoners - 14 wannabe killers? "What do you think of this?" I asked Elie.

"They've endangered us all," he said without hesitation. What joy I felt at hearing that we'd received the videotape and it showed a healthy, if thin, Gilad, evaporated with those words. This is a truth every Israeli mother knows and doesn't want to hear. Yes, when you reward terrorism, you get more terrorism. It is, perhaps, the greatest of all truths.

"Already Hamas has said they are going to try to kidnap more soldiers," Elie continued. More truth, more shades to consider.

He's right on so many levels and wrong on others. Or, perhaps wrong is not correct. He has yet to marry and have a child, yet to understand the awe, the love, the responsibility that comes with that.

Gilad Shalit is alive. This Hamas has proven. This young man has spent the last three years of his life a prisoner of our enemies, separated from his family, denied all contact. Night after night his mother goes to sleep not knowing where he is, if she will ever see him again. It is enough to weaken any mother's heart.

But Elie doesn't have a mother's heart. He has a soldier's heart. He loves his country, he loves his family. He's right - this endangers them all. In Elie's world, right is right; weakness damages our position. He has rules that he lives by, just and legal. There is a sense of morality, but more, there are rules of engagement. Hamas continues to violate international law, refuses to even allow Gilad to be seen by international representatives.

If he were my son...but I can't begin that thought because the pain is too great, the fear, the worry. Is there anything I wouldn't give for my children? Anything I wouldn't do? This is why it isn't correct for Gilad's parents to determine policy in this case, why mothers shouldn't be asked. We love our sons, desperately want Gilad home. This is their truth, our truth, a mother's truth.

But there is a greater truth that Hamas lives by and that truth is cheering now because they know that for a video we will release 20 prisoners, for Gilad we will release killers...who will kill again.

How many people have been murdered by the same terrorists we released in exchange for past captives? Did their families love them any less than Gilad's family loves him? This is the dilemma. Gilad on one side, a healthy, prisoner, begging us to do what we can to finally bring him home...and untold numbers of others on the other side, including Elie, telling us that what deal we make, if the price is high, will only encourage them to try to kidnap more soldiers. This is truth.

What the government has done endangers them all, while what we don't do, endangers Gilad. Sometimes, everyone is right and no one wins. The weight of that truth keeps me awake at night as I watch the video of Gilad over and over again and pray that in this bargain we made with the devil, at least his mother will find some comfort.

HRW Report on Civilian Targeting Based on Unreliable Witnesses

13 August 09

The Human Rights Watch report which claims that IDF soldiers killed eleven Palestinian civilians holding “white flags” is based on unreliable witness reports.

The report in question is based upon the testimony of a number of Palestinians whose credibility has not been substantiated.

The soldiers and officers of the Israel Defense Forces are obliged to respect any individual presenting a white flag as a symbol of surrender or of non-combatant status and to avoid causing him or her harm. The wartime reality in the Gaza Strip was made especially complex due to the intensive nature of combat and Hamas' cynical exploitation of civilians as human shields. Furthermore, Hamas took advantage of Israel's obligation to avoid harming civilians to the greatest extent possible and deliberately chose to locate the battlefield in the middle of a populated civilian area.

Sadly, Hamas terror operatives ruthlessly pervert the intent of the IDF's obligations to prevent harm to civilians by exploiting those with white flags as cover for belligerent action and to protect themselves from return fire. Any person who displays a white flag in this way acts illegally, does not enjoy protection from retaliatory action, and endangers nearby civilian populations. As a clear example of this practice, the video below (click here) shows a Hamas terrorist planting an explosive device and hiding amongst civilians who are waving white flags.
(Continue)
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Hamas Terrorist Hides Behind White Flag

idfnadesk
August 13, 2009

Captured in this aerial footage, a Hamas terrorist plants an IED and then climbs into a house containing uninvolved civilians. Later the civilians and the Hamas terrorist exit the house waiving a white flag, at which point IDF troops approach and arrest the terrorist.

This is just one of many examples of how Hamas uses uninvolved civilians as human shields. This example is particularly egregious since the terrorist used civilians waving a white flag to try to evade IDF soldiers.


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