Question: Who’s responsible for denying Hadar Goldin a ‘decent burial?’ - by Jonathan S.Tobin

The family of a slain Israeli soldier is outraged that Hamas continues to hold their son’s body hostage. But whose fault is it that the terror group has gotten away with this crime?

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
02 August '19..

Five years ago, Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old Israeli soldier, was killed during “Operation Protective Edge.” The purpose of that campaign was to silence the barrage of Hamas rockets and missiles from Gaza into Israel, as well as to prevent the terrorist group from using tunnels for kidnapping and murder raids. At the cost of more than 2,000 Palestinians killed, the vast majority of whom were terrorists, and 73 Israelis (67 Israel Defense Force soldiers and six civilians) slain, as well as many thousands of wounded on both sides and devastating damage inside the Gaza Strip, a temporary halt to Hamas’s atrocities was achieved.

But for Goldin’s family, the nightmare continues. The question is whose fault is it that their boy’s body continues to be held hostage by Hamas? The answer to that question speaks volumes about the international hypocrisy concerning Palestinian terrorism and intransigence. It also speaks to the terrible dilemma that Israel faces as it attempts to quarantine the Hamas terrorist state in Gaza without unduly harming civilians or launching another war that may not achieve more than what happened in 2014.

After U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced a ceasefire, Hamas gunmen ignored the call for a cessation of hostilities and attacked an Israeli patrol led by Lt. Hadar Goldin on Aug 1, 2014. He was killed and his body was spirited away by the terrorists.

Along with the body of Shaul Oron, another Israeli soldier killed a few days earlier, and two living Israeli citizens (one an Ethiopian immigrant and the other a Bedouin), Hamas continues to hold Goldin’s corpse hostage.

That this is a gross violation of international law, as well as of common decency, is of little concern to a group like Hamas, which uses civilians as human shields, and schools and hospitals as places to hide their fighters and munitions.

But the dilemma facing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is what can or should he do to gain their release.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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Doing the exact opposite of what was needed in Gaza in its meeting with Hamas - by Elder of Ziyon

...The fundamental issue that Hamas has managed to obfuscate is that these "prisoners" are not prisoners - but hostages. The reason Hamas didn't allow Maurer to speak with the Israelis who for whatever reason ended up in Gaza is because it wants to use them as bargaining chips to get Israel to release terrorists and achieve other goals, and even the promise of showing proof of life is something that Hamas sees as something to be bartered..

Elder of Ziyon..
06 September '17..

The New York Times eagerly reported in 2015:

GAZA CITY — A new training regimen for fighters in Hamas’s armed wing employs slide presentations and a whiteboard rather than Kalashnikov rifles and grenades. The young men wear polo shirts instead of fatigues and black masks. They do not chant anti-Israel slogans, but discuss how the Geneva Conventions governing armed conflict dovetail with Islamic principles.

The three-day workshop, conducted last month by the International Committee of the Red Cross, followed numerous human-rights reports accusing both Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, of war crimes in their devastating battle last summer, and came as the International Criminal Court prosecutor conducts a preliminary inquiry into that conflict.

The Red Cross developed its program in conjunction with Islamic scholars several years ago, but ramped it up after last summer’s deadly battle. So far this year, it has conducted six sessions for a total of 210 fighters from Hamas’s Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades and two other Gaza armed groups. Another workshop is scheduled for this week.

...Red Cross leaders say they have seen an increasing commitment from Hamas leaders and linemen alike, if only because they now consider their international image a critical component of their struggle.

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

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IMRA - Dealing with the reality of Shalit deal and Hannibal Protocol

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
19 October '11


I received a lot of angry mail when I wrote earlier in the week that thanks to the very lopsided prisoner swaps, the IDF policy today is to do everything possible to kill IDF soldiers who appear to be in the process of being captured by terrorists.

Many couldn’t believe that this was indeed the policy of the IDF.

So I put up a video on YouTube of a Battalion 51 commander briefing his Golani troops on the eve of their entry into Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvlP6yM15ws



"The strategic weapon, the 'Judgment Day Weapon' that Hamas wants to acquire, is to capture a soldier. But no soldier in Battalion 51 will be kidnapped at any price. At any price. Under any condition. Even if it means that he blows himself with his own grenade together with those trying to capture him. Also even if it means that now his unit has to fire a barrage at the car that they are trying to take him away in. There is no situation. No situation that they will have this weapon.”

This was not some faked video. I copied from a video report broadcast on Israel Television Channel 2 News 16 October 2011

You can see the full report for yourself:
http://www.mako.co.il/news-military/security/Article-778ae8d014e0331017.htm



Now what does this all mean?

Honig - A sacrifice in vain?

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
21 October '11

http://sarahhonig.com/2011/10/21/another-tack-a-sacrifice-in-vain/


The electoral race I covered in 1981 was the most contentious I remember. It followed the 1977 upheaval in which a non-Labor government for the first time became a plausible option. Behaving as if it were robbed of its rightful legacy, Labor aimed to correct the voters’ “error.” The end justified any and all means.

And so one evening, Yossi Sarid, who was Labor’s campaign spokesman, charged that the Likud had planted a suitcase packed with explosives outside Labor’s campaign headquarters at Tel Aviv’s Deborah Hotel. Automatically I phoned the police to inquire and was informed in no uncertain terms that an innocent tourist had inadvertently forgotten his bag at the entrance to a travel agency next door to the Deborah.

What did this have to do with a bomb? Nothing. What did this have to do with Labor? Nothing. What did this have to do with the Likud? Nothing.

Nevertheless, instead of praise for journalistic due diligence, I was subjected to the most vituperative chewing-out of my career. My bosses severely rebuked me for not trusting Sarid, for checking up and, most of all, for including the police version in my story. I was accused of no less than deliberate sabotage and asked in exasperation why I just won’t write what I’m told. In other words, I was taken to task for not toeing the party line.

This 30-year-old reminiscence remains pertinent.

News continues to be disingenuously distilled, public opinion keeps being manipulated, reality is still relentlessly downplayed in our environment of chronic intellectual indolence, and truth is ever-disdained as a moral virtue. Now as then, we voluntarily submit to Through the Looking Glass reflections, where everything is guaranteed to be nothing like the ostensibly clear and recognizable images before our eyes.

The Deal for Gilad Shalit

Jacob Shrybman
FrontPagemag.com
1 December 09

As an oleh chadash (new immigrant) that came to land of the Jewish people not due to persecution or suffering but because of deep-rooted beliefs in Zionism, like many I have a big problem with all the latest discussions over Gilad Shalit.

As an oleh chadash that has recently received a profile score of 97 to serve my mandatory army service in a combat unit, and as an oleh chadash that for the past year has lived in the Gaza border city of Sderot I have an enormous problem with the latest discussions over Gilad Shalit.

I do not hold some seat in the government with some fancy title but I know what is going on now is wrong and it pains me to watch it happen.
Why is the discussion during the past week about how many terrorists we are going to give Hamas, Fatah, and the PA as a whole for Gilad’s return? Why isn’t the discussion about how we are going to make Hamas pay a huge price for the kidnapping of Gilad or about a plan to retrieve him?

Because we simply have entered into the Arabs’ shuk of hostage negotiating they have already declared a victory that will only empower them to kidnap more soldiers. It is laughable if one believes that they care if they get back 400, 1000, 980 or even 5 of their terrorists because they are in no way lacking numbers, and moreover as they use their own sons and daughters as human shields they clearly don’t value the lives of those they are receiving.

After a 21 day operation inside the Gaza Strip and we didn’t see Gilad back home, and now with our government, providing our enemies with the future opportunities to kidnap more of our sons and brothers- what am I supposed to think as someone soon entering the Israeli Defense Forces for ideological reasons when I know that my homeland won’t rescue me and will minimally take over 3 years to trade me only at the cost of future capture of others like me?

As someone living in Sderot since Operation Cast Lead it is hard to believe that this cowardly surrender to our enemies will bring anything but more missiles to more cities in Israel. It is awing to me when even the Defense Minister Ehud Barak has accepted the reality of rockets in our lives when last week in Sderot he described the situation as quiet. Friday before Shabbat we surpassed a count of 280 qassams, mortars and grads fired since Operation Cast Lead- apparently an acceptable amount to our elected leaders.

So what am I supposed to think as someone who lives in Sderot for the same ideological reasons that I have come to my homeland and will serve in our army, when I know our government is giving our enemies the opportunity to fire more missiles at me and others like me?

(Continue reading)

Jacob Shrybman is a writer for the Sderot Media Center.
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Open Letter to Defense Minister Barak: Do Not Negotiate My Release

This week, I wrote an open letter to Defense Minister Barak, instructing him not to negotiate my release if I am G-d forbid abducted by terrorists. The letter has been making waves in Israel, and was quoted in Israel's major media outlets:

An open letter to Defense Minister Barak: Do not negotiate my release

To the Defense Minister of the State of Israel
Mr. Ehud Barak

Re: Instructions not to conduct negotiations for my release if I am taken captive

As an Israeli citizen, as a soldier and a reserve officer, I hereby instruct you that if, God forbid, I am ever kidnapped or taken captive by Arab terror organizations, no negotiations should be conducted to secure my release. This order is the product of a sound mind. The reasons for this instruction are as follows:

A. Twenty-five years ago, Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard took shelter from his pursuers inside the Israeli Embassy in Washington. In accordance with an order issued by the Shamir government, then-Israeli Ambassador Elyakim Rubinstein handed him directly over to US federal authorities. Since then and to this day, Jonathan has been imprisoned under disgraceful conditions. He has never had even a short vacation outside the prison walls. His health is dangerously deteriorating. Israel - for whom and in whose name Jonathan sacrificed his life, did and continues to do everything possible to ensure that Jonathan will remain in prison and die there. Despite the biting betrayal that he experienced, every time that the media raises the possibility that Jonathan will be exchanged for one arch-murderer or another, Pollard hurriedly announces his opposition to this type of swap. It is incumbent on every Israeli citizen to understand - as a free person -what our betrayed hero understands from his jail cell. We must not buy liberty for an individual in exchange for endangering the lives of the public and encouraging additional abductions.

B. After a number of visits to his prison cell I understood that in the 25 years of continued betrayal of Jonathan, Israel's government has lost the moral foundation in the name of which it sends its sons to endanger themselves and in the power of which it can also bring them home. In fact, since the betrayal of Jonathan and until this very day, Israel has not brought one captive soldier home alive.

C. The Israeli government has refrained from carrying out the simple and most obvious actions for Gilad Shalit's release. Hamas, which at first avoided admitting that it was the kidnapper, quickly understood that Israel's leaders would not endanger themselves with international arrest warrants and is no longer afraid to claim full responsibility for this act. Its thousands of detainees in Israel are getting the royal treatment and enjoy conditions no Israeli detainee can even dream of.

As a first step, Israel should have compared the arrest conditions of Hamas prisoners to those of Shalit. No visits, no information, no sunlight. All Hamas leaders should have become the targets of kidnappings and assassinations. The entire supply of money, weapons, cement, fuel and electricity from Israel to Gaza should have stopped. These basic actions, and many others which could have led to Shalit's swift release, are not being carried out because the Israeli leadership fears its own fate. The only way that Israel's leaders can please both Israeli mothers and the world is to surrender and dispatch thousands of murderers to our doorsteps.

D. Clearly, the loss of vision and leadership that engenders these wholesale releases greatly encourages our enemies. The wave of terror and kidnappings that broke out following the release of thousands of terrorists does not fit what we had known in the past by any standard. "I couldn't look the mothers in the eye," said Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin and signed the prisoner swap with the Jibril terror organization. This exchange led directly to the first intifada. This led to a mass release of terrorists in the Oslo Accord and to the suicide bomber rage that followed on its heels. The State of Israel has sunk itself inside fences and guards, but this is nothing more than a pain killer for spreading cancer.

No fence can stop rockets. The weakness of the Israeli leadership in the face of terror organizations has been well internalized by a distant and much more dangerous circle of enemy states. Why should Iran's leader be afraid if the Hamas leaders feel safe?

E. "I see Israel as a state of all its citizens," explained the most influential Israeli of this generation, former Chief Justice Aharon Barak. Israel, fleeing from its Jewish identity, has pulled the carpet out from under the moral foundation of its very existence and right to send soldiers into battle. If not for a Jewish state, then what are we doing here? Why should we send our sons to the army and not to Australia?

The inevitable result of loss of Jewish vision is loss of our ability to conduct any sort of political program. When there is no strategic goal, there cannot be tactical policies. As a result, Israel will continue to conduct itself according to the caprices of constantly-surfacing international and local pressure and media campaigns.

F. In this situation, the responsible Israeli citizen is faced with one of two choices: One - to come to terms with the process briefly described here and to wait for the coup de grace that will terminate the historic episode called 'The State of Israel'. The other option is that, like in past wars, the simple soldiers will know how to save the state from the failures of its leaders. As such, we, the civilians and the simple soldiers order that no negotiations be held for us.

G. I am pleased to report that both combat officers and soldiers have announced that they will unhesitatingly add their names to this petition. I plan to continue to send you letters from soldiers in the same spirit.

Respectfully,

Moshe Feiglin

Since I announced this initiative, I have received quite a few letters from soldiers and citizens who penned their own versions to Barak. The most touching was a letter from Yitzchak, a soldier who served with Gilad Shalit. Yitzchak wrote as follows:

"Since Gilad was abducted, I feel torn and I do not know what to do to help him. Like every Jew on earth, I pray for him and hope that he will be released soon - safe and sound.
Yet, I am dismayed at how our entire country kneels before the terror organizations every time that they succeed in capturing one of our fighters in their clutches. This situation is intolerable and we fall into this trap time and again. I am frequently forced to refuse the requests of my fellow soldiers from our company and brigade to participate in demonstrations for Gilad. I have reached the conclusion that our intellect must take precedence over our emotions, as painful as this is for me."
My letter to the Defense Minister seems to have touched a raw nerve. Many people are disgusted with Israel's defeatism and are anxious to join in this initiative. It is important to remember that since the wholesale release of terrorists in the Jibril swap 25 years ago, not one Israeli soldier has returned home alive from terrorist captivity. The terrorist release approach is not only wrong from a moral and security point of view; it also fails to produce positive results.

Statistically, 80% of Hamas terrorists return to terror and murder after their release. In other words, 16 of the 20 terrorists released by Israel in exchange for the Gilad Shalit video will once again attempt to murder Israelis. It is reasonable to assume that one of them may possibly succeed, G-d forbid. This will be just part of the true price of the video. It is merely the promo for the pictures of long lines of buses filled with gleeful murderers that we will be treated to if the entire exchange takes place, G-d forbid.

The more soldiers and citizens who write letters to the Defense Minister, the greater the chances that Israel will regain its moral balance and return to war against terror instead of surrender to its dictates.

Please fill in your name and information on the letter below, copy, paste and email it to moshe@mflikud.co.il . We will send the letters in bulk to Minister Barak.

Or print the letter out here, fill in your information and fax it to our office: 09 792 0570

or mail it to:
Manhigut Yehudit
POB 21
Ginot Shomron
44853

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Great Moments In Appeasement: Arms For Hostages

FresnoZionism.org

08 September 09

A few weeks ago I watched the Israeli film Beaufort, which portrayed the experiences of a handful of Israeli soldiers occupying Beaufort Castle during the last days of the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon. I found it quite interesting, because my son served in the IDF in Lebanon at the same time, and later described to me his feeling — shared by many of his comrades — that abandoning the ground to Hezbollah was a mistake.

Which it turned out to be.

Anyway, a horrific moment in the film was when a missile — an American-made TOW missile [Tube launched, Optically tracked, Wire guided] — struck an observation post at Beaufort, killing its occupant.

The missile slammed into the outpost at about 620 mph, instantly turning it into an inferno. I wondered: where did Hezbollah get US-made weapons? I asked my son.

“Don’t you remember,” he asked? “You gave them to Iran during the ’80’s.”

Actually yes, I do: the so-called ‘Iran-contra affair’, in which the US transferred weapons to Iran by way of Israel in return for the freedom of various hostages that Iranian-controlled Hezbollah terrorists had taken in Lebanon during the decade. Iran also paid in money, which was used to fund anti-Sandinista guerrillas (”contras”) in Nicaragua.

About 2000 TOW missiles were sent to Iran (among other items) as part of the deal.

Basically, what happened was this:

• Hezbollah killed hundreds of Americans (241 in the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing) and took numerous hostages, many of whom were Americans.
• The US sold a large quantity of weapons to Iran in violation of an arms embargo — the Iran-Iraq war was in progress — so that Iran would use its influence with Hezbollah to get hostages returned. Israel cooperated.
• Iran transferred the weapons to Hezbollah, which used them to kill Israelis.
• Hezbollah continued killing Americans (as well as Argentine Jews, Israelis, etc.) and taking hostages.
• 
  

A few hostages were released, others died in captivity, some by torture (also here). It’s not clear if the arms transfer materially aided the release of hostages (indeed, it can be argued that hostages taken after the program was under way were kidnapped in order to keep it going).

In 1985 a group associated with Hezbollah claimed credit for the crash of a plane carrying about 250 US service personnel in Gander, Newfoundland. Although five members of a nine-member commission of the Canadian Aviation Safety Board ruled the crash an accident, the minority report persuasively argued that the cause was a detonation in the cargo area.

Appeasement: when will we learn?
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Weekly Commentary: Not too late ...

.... to make the handling of the Shalit case the rule instead of just another in a series of exceptions

Dr. Aaron Lerner
Date: 13 August 2009

Today we got a reminder that there's no guaranty that Gilad Shalit will be the last kidnapped Israeli that the Jewish State is going to have to cope with.

Thankfully it appears that the roadblocks today were unnecessary as the IDF reports this evening that they have accounted for all the soldiers in transit.

But the point remains.

There are many in Israel arguing that "next time" we will apply different standards and handle the situation more intelligently but this time we should take a pass on rational thinking and let emotions get the best of us.

But the same logic - or lack thereof - that applies to Shalit because he has a name, a face and a family, will apply the next time as well. We are now in the incredibly reckless situation that we have apparently accepted being clueless if Shalit is alive and are prepared to cut a deal that won't be contingent on his being alive.

Which means that terrorists don't have to make keeping hostages alive a top priority.

You may want to argue that there will always be hostage taking regardless of how tough Israel is in its negotiations with Hamas. But how future terrorists treat or don't treat the hostages they take will most certainly be influenced by how this plays out.

Granted, there is a fall back position that says that if Hamas delivers Shalit in a casket to the Egyptians that we will promptly dispatch the leadership of Hamas to Paradise - regardless of who is in the building with them when the news comes in. And while such a response might secretly be welcomed by Fatah it's quite a stretch to think that President Obama will go for it. And if a phone call came from the White House urging restraint, one wonders just how far Netanyahu and Barak would go on what our critics would term "senseless bloodletting that only contributes to the cycle of
violence."

The next hostage taking situation for setting policy isn't the kidnapping that has yet to take place.

It's the one going on now.

Prime Minister Netanyahu enjoys the tremendous advantage of having a six man inner cabinet that meets regularly to discuss policy in great depth.

It's still not too late for the sextet to make the handling of the Shalit case the rule instead of just another in a series of exceptions.

Related: Why Isn't Gilad Shalit Home Yet?
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Observation: Is Israel being sucked into repeat of the "dead soldiers for terrorists" swap?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
28 June 2009 [Resent 1 August]

"The crazy war on the Gaza Strip wiped out everything so we don't know if Shalit is still alive or if he has died," Osama al-Muzini, a Hamas official authorized to speak on this issue, told Xinhua, referring to a 22-day Israeli offensive against the Hamas-controlled territory in January. Al-Muzini, however, said Israel has to go ahead with talks to exchange Shalit for a number of Arab prisoners "whether the soldier was dead or alive."
Xinhau News Agency 25 June 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/25/content_11600605.htm

Is Israel being sucked into a repeat of the dead Israeli soldiers for live terrorist swap the Olmert administration made with Hezbollah?

One troubling common thread?: Until the moment that the caskets were broadcast live, the Israeli media related to the IDF soldier being held by Hezbollah as alive despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary - in large part in order to maintain pressure on the Olmert administration to go through with a trade. When last week Hamas officials warned that Shalit may be dead, the Israeli media buried the story - with essentially all coverage taking on faith that Shalit is still alive.

Is it somehow immoral to take the words of Hamas officials seriously when they say Shalit may be dead?

Or is the opposite the case?

Is it immoral to press for the release of very much alive and dangerous Palestinian terrorists in a trade without requiring that such a release be only in return for a live Israeli?
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