IDF Press Conference on Death of Abu Rahma

Jameel
The Muqata
03 January '11

10 PM - Exclusive Update:

Senior IDF military sources briefed an exclusive group of bloggers this evening on the events surrounding this past Friday's Bilin demonstration and the "alleged tear gassing to death" of a Palestinian woman, Jawaher Abu Rahma.

IDF: We have reason to believe that the death 2 days ago was because of another reason than what the Palestinians are claiming (tear gas inhalation).

Facts: Abu Rahma's documented lab work is dated on Friday at 2:45 PM.
Her admission time to the ER in the same Ramallah hospital was 3:20 PM.

Hospital Lab work is usually done after you arrive at the hospital, not before you arrive.

There is no hospital ER admission report, no ER summary report, and no hospital records of this woman.

The official PA Ramallah Hospital's death certificate for Abu Rahma states as the cause of death as follows (this is word for word):

Cause of death “Inhaling gas of an Israeli solider according to the family”

That is the entire medical basis for the family's allegations.

We know this woman visited the same hospital 10 days ago and many other times in the past month. When we looked at the medication she was taking – it was for cancer.

(Read full "IDF Press Conference on Death of Abu Rahma")

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Talking to Hamas? - Increasing Expressions of Genocidal Intent by Hamas Leaders Against the Jews

Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi
JCPA
Vol. 10, No. 19
03 January '11


- Over the last few years there has been a steady drumbeat of calls from leading figures in the international community for Israel to open a dialogue with Hamas.

- Unfortunately, there is no evidence of a new pragmatism among the Hamas leadership, but only greater indications of a much harder line, which is expressed by its adoption of expressions of genocidal intent in its war against Israel and the Jewish people.

- In a December 2010 booklet marking the 23rd anniversary of the establishment of Hamas, Mohammed Def, head of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, wrote: "We say to our enemies: you are going on the path to extinction, and Palestine will remain ours....You have no right to even an inch of it."

- Ahmed al-Jaabari, the acting supreme commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, wrote: "Our eyes will...not be confined to the borders of Gaza. Our plan of struggle shall extend as always, sooner or later, to our entire plundered country....As long as the Zionists occupy our lands, only death or exile await them."

- Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya told al-Hayat on November 11, 2010: "We retain our Islamic, Arab and Palestinian faith that Palestine will be returned to its inhabitants and Zionist existence will conclude....The Jews will have no right there, save for those who lived on Palestinian land prior to the First World War" (meaning that only Jews above the age of 96 will be permitted to live in Islamic Palestine).

Over the last few years there has been a steady drumbeat of calls from leading figures in the international community for Israel to open a dialogue with Hamas. Despite Hamas' call for Israel's elimination, Hamas representatives have obtained platforms in some of the most prestigious mainstream Western media. Thus, Ahmed Yousef, a senior political advisor to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, appeared on the op-ed pages of both the Washington Post and the New York Times in 2007, where he presented the most minimal goals of "the end of occupation" and "freedom to be a nation."1 In an article on PalestineChronicle.com on December 25, 2010, Yousef, who serves today as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, repeated the moderate message that: "Gaza will always extend a hand of friendship to the international community; and will always welcome any dialogue that will help achieve stability, security and growth in the region."2

(Read full "Talking to Hamas?")

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The challenge of public diplomacy vis-a-vis the delegitimisation of Israel

Address to Ariel Conference on Law and Mass Media, 30 December 2010

Melanie Phillips
melaniephillips.com
03 January '10

As we all know by now, Israel has lost the battle for public opinion in the west. Even the Israel government is now acknowledging this fact. Israel and its defenders have been outclassed and outmanoeuvred in a war of the mind being waged on a battleground it never even acknowledged it was on.

Calls for more and better hasbara, however, are meaningless if the message or narrative promoted by Israel and its defenders misses the point of the attack being waged upon it. And it does miss that point, by a mile.

You cannot resist or overcome a threat unless you first understand its nature.

The first thing to say is that this phenomenon is characteristic not just of the media animosity or economic or academic boycotts. It goes across the intelligentsia and political class, spreading well beyond the normal suspects on the left into the mainstream middle-classes.

In Britain, the universities, the established church, the theatrical and publishing worlds, the voluntary sector, significant elements within the Foreign Office, members of Parliament across the political spectrum, as well as the media have overwhelmingly signed up to the demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel.

The scale of this phenomenon is nothing short of a multi-layered civilisational crisis.

The west is experiencing a total inversion of truth evidence and reason. A society’s thinking class has overwhelmingly subscribed to an immoral, patently false and in many cases demonstrably absurd account of the Middle East, past and present, which it has uncritically absorbed and assumes to be true.

In routine, everyday discourse history is turned on its head; logic is suspended; and an entirely false narrative of the conflict is now widely accepted as unchallengeable fact, from which fundamental error has been spun a global web of potentially catastrophic false conclusions.

(Read full "The challenge of public diplomacy vis-a-vis the delegitimisation of Israel")

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Iran using Palestinian "resistance" to further its vision for a new world order

IsraeliGirl
03 January '11

Over the past week, Iranian media have made repeated reference to the second anniversary of Israel's Operation Cast Lead, citing Palestinian "resistance" (terror) as the only option for resolving the conflict.

As peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are stalled, Iran fills the vacuum by encouraging Hamas to continue the armed struggle against Israel and by trying to convince arabs from moderate states to support Iran's militant course of action against Israel.

Tehran views the "22-Day War" (Israel's Operation Cast Lead) as a direct continuation of the "33-day War" (second Lebanon War in 2006). Iran believes fierce combat “resistance” is an effective and viable way of defeating Israel, or at least of forcing it to pay a heavy price.

Iran is using Hezbollah, it's proxy in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza to attack Israel from 2 fronts. While Shiite Hezbollah was founded by Iran and is used to spread the Iranian revolution into Lebanon, Hamas is a Sunni organization. By supporting Hamas' terror against Israel, Iran puts aside its Shiite Islamic aspiration for advancing the fight against the Jewish state.

During an official visit in Syria, Iranian security official Ali Baqeri emphasized that plans aimed at brokering a compromise between Palestinians and the Zionist regime are doomed to failure. He went on to say that the “popularity of the discourse of resistance among the regional governments is growing, and resistance has become a dominant political approach in the region.”

While meeting with Palestinians leaders, the Iranian top security official underlined the key role of resistance in determining the future of the region.

This is part of Tehran's long-term strategy to turn the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, into a common denominator in its attempt to persuade the Arab and Muslim world to adopt its leadership and ideology. The Iranian stamp below shows Iran's agenda with regard to the armed struggle against Israel.

Iran is trying to create a new world order. In recent addresses, President Ahmadinejad has been reiterating his belief that Iran represents a viable alternative to the existing world order, and that Iran is, at the very least, an equal player in terms of determining what he refers to as the "regional equations." Ahmadinejad has repeatedly emphasized the fall of communism and the “severe difficulties faced by capitalism”, claiming that Iran and its ideological teachings are emerging as the next major alternative to these ideologies. Ahmadinejad also claimed that the old world order centered around the US and the West is no longer valid, and neither are the attempts to solve the region's problems, especially the Palestinian question, by forging an agreement with Israel.

Iran's ideology which goes against the western agenda needs to keep the Palestinian-Israel conflict alive. To do that Iran will continue to support radical Islamic terror against Israel and western interests in the region. Israel is all for peace - we in Giyus.org hope the moderate Arab world will find the strength to over come the radical elements fighting against peace.


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British-Israeli Relations Increasingly Fragile

Nicholas Saidel and Alexander Joffe
Hudson New York
03 January '11

Although Britain has managed to maintain useful relations with Israel even as it has expanded strong partnerships with most Arab states -- a policy of hedging that enabled Britain to have at least some influence with parties on all sides -- demographic changes in Britain, assisted by other developments, suggest that the "hedging" strategy is reaching its limits.

Some within the British government suggest that altering the perception among British Muslims that England subscribes to an "arrogant," "interventionist" and "pro-Zionist" foreign policy will diminish the incidence of domestic Muslim terrorism, and placate Muslim constituents. This obsequious strategy neglects the basic premise of Islamism: that even benevolent infidel regimes are enemies unguided by Allah's divine will and must be fought through jihad. British policy that sees the Arab-Israeli conflict as a prime mover of terrorism also ignores the stated goals of Muslim extremists regarding global Islamic domination.

If relations between Israel and the UK have always been characterized by ups and downs, what are we to make of the current rift? Has England's attitude towards Israel has changed permanently, or is this is just another period of temporarily strained relations that will self-correct? Evidence suggests the British domestic situation has changed in important ways that are spilling over into foreign affairs.

For one thing, the cultural climate is poisoned against Israel by British media and intellectual culture. Britain is at the very center of the "boycott, divestment and sanctions" movement. Not only have teachers and labor unions repeatedly taken up proposals to isolate and punish Israel, but Jewish, Israeli, and pro-Israel speakers have been shouted down or disinvited from various forums such as universities, while pro-Hamas speakers have been welcomed by members of Parliament.

(Read full "British-Israeli Relations Increasingly Fragile")

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Week's worth of stories censored by NY Times, Wash. Post

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
03 January '11


The following stories -- in the span of a week -- were widely disseminated. But none made it into the news pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. It's all too familiar pattern that points to a biased pro-Paletinian, anti-Israel agenda in their news coverage.

Let's take a look at what these two major newspapers did not seem fit to print:

Dec. 24--Palestinian Authority TV Claims Jesus was a Palestinian, Denies his Jewish Ancestry

Dec. 25--Abbas aims for "Judenrein" Palestinian state -- No room for a single Israeli.

Dec. 25--Hamas Ultimatum: Israel has Two Options -- Death or Leaving Palestinian Lands.

Dec. 28--Abbas Cracks Down on Main Political Rival, Mohammed Dahlan

Dec. 28--Hamas Reported Torturing, Killing Israel-bound Africans in Sinai

Dec. 29--Fatah Bans Abbas Rival from Party Meetings

Dec. 30--Journalist Who Aired Dissension in Abbas' Party Gets Five-Day Detention

Dec. 30--Poll: Solid Majorities of Palestinians Oppose Two-State Solution Along Clinton Parameters

So why did the Times and the Post engage in such conspicuous self-censorship? Because their editors and reporters are determined to paint Israel as the main obstacle to the peace process, while hiding the darker, anti-peace aspects of the Palestinian side -- both Hamas in Gaza and Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party in the West Bank.

(Read full "Week's worth of stories censored by NY Times, Wash. Post")

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America's only on-campus ISM Chapter

Carl
Israel Matzav
02 January '11

(Extracurricular activities? Y.)

New York State's Bard College has a campus chapter of the terrorist-supporting International Solidarity Movement with the support and approval of the college President, Leon Botstein.

Botstein has decided to allow the International Solidarity Movement(ISM), a group that openly admits it works with State Department designated terrorist groups such as Hamas, the PFLP, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to set up shop on his campus using campus facilities and student activity money to train ISM activists to go to the West Bank and interfere with anti-terror operations of the Israeli army, as well as to act as human shields for Palestinian terror groups.

The ISM at Bard has actually invited Huwaida Arraf, a co-founder of the ISM and one of the main organizers of the Gaza Flotilla boats that continually try to run the Israeli navy's control of the sea lanes to Gaza to import weapons for Hamas. Arraf was invited to campus to do recruiting for ISM terrorism enablers once before and I alerted Botstein then, too, who did nothing about it. The Bard ISM campus group even recently raised money for the Gaza flotillas that included IHH, an al Qaeda-affiliated "charity" that was involved in the millennium bomb plot to blow up the LA airport in 2000. It is common knowledge the ISM organizes these flotillas in order to try to enable the Iranians to run weapons to the Hamas to attack Israeli civilians on Israel's southern border with rockets and mortars.

(Read full "America's only on-campus ISM Chapter")

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2 years after Gaza op, fear remains

Shmulik Hadad
Sderot Media Center
02 January '11

Residents of Ashkelon, Sderot say nothing has changed since Operation Cast Lead: Qassams, mortars continue to explode in area; kindergartens and schools still unfortified. Hamas could have been crushed; unfortunately, this wasn't done,' says Ashkelon Mayor

On a clear day, Reuven Mahluf can see the Gaza Strip from his home in Ashkelon. During Operation Cast Lead he followed the activity from his balcony, hoping that the missiles hitting the southern city would turn into a distant memory at the end of the operation.

"I saw it all before my eyes, the Qassams they fired here. At the time we thought it was worth suffering all this fire in order to put an end to it," he says, disappointed. "Who would have thought that two years later a Qassam missile would explode next to a kindergarten? It's a shame, they could have ended it."



Two years after the Israeli operation in Gaza, most kindergartens and educational institutions in Ashkelon remain unfortified, while residents of the rocket-battered city feel that the military move missed its target.

"I know that he's in an unfortified kindergarten and has to cling to the wall of an old building constructed in the 1950s," says Orly Shmaltz of her three-year-old son.

Occasionally, she hears a rocket alert from the city's southern industrial zone or from nearby communities, and doesn't know what to do as her house isn't fortified either.

(Read full "2 years after Gaza op, fear remains")

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Two Years Later, Ha'aretz Too Distorted on Cast Lead

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
02 January '10

Two years after Israel's launch of Operation Cast Lead, Ha'aretz Magazine purports to take a fresh and comprehensive look at what it describes as the "opening act" of the operation, Israel's Dec. 27, 2008 attack on a Gaza City police station ("Shock and Awe," by Shay Fogelman). Yet, the article brings little in the way of new information, and instead rehashes misinformation seen earlier in media outlets like CNN.

Namely, under the heading "Who broke the tahadiyeh?" the article states:

To understand the escalation that led Israel to launch its attack on the Gaza Strip and indirectly, the character of its opening strikes, we must go back to November 4, 2008, a month and a half before the start of Cast Lead. That day, IDF troops entered Gaza to destroy a tunnel in the central district; they were acting on seemingly solid intelligence about plans to kidnap an IDF soldier. The destruction of the tunnel left one Hamas man dead and several others wounded. This was the first violation of the tahadiyeh (a temporary lull ) after four and a half months of relative quiet in the south. (Emphasis added.)

In the period of "relative quiet," from the time the ceasefire was declared on June 19 until the Nov. 4 tunnel incident:

(Read full "Two Years Later, Ha'aretz Too Distorted on Cast Lead")

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Flash Dance

Jon Haber
Divest This!
02 January '10


One upside of being stuck in a hotel in South Carolina while the airlines sorted themselves out last week was some unexpected family time, part of which included joining together in a king-size bed to watch Sound of Music.

The pleasure of seeing that film for the umpteenth time reminded me of this video (originally introduced to me by my oldest boy) of a “flash mob” breaking into a choreographed performance of “Do a Deer” at the main train station in Antwerp. Apparently, the Flash Mob phenomenon is worldwide with dancing and singing (not to mention statue performances and pillow fights) breaking out from New York to San Francisco to Jerusalem.

As much as I enjoy the performances themselves, the thing that really moved me about these flash-mob “attacks” is the look of bewilderment turning to joy that appears on the faces of passers-by who happen upon these activities. To a certain extent, this is just the natural response anyone would have when confronted with a world that suddenly turns into a Broadway musical. But I suspect there is more to this reaction than simple surprise.

After all, we are now nearly a decade into the post 9-11 era, and while we may have convinced ourselves that those attacks are now part of history, anyone old enough to have remembered that experience must in some way be sublimating a notion that unspeakable horror can break out at any moment, arbitrarily killing, maiming or destroying without mercy. Yet the flash mob (even if often commercial) tells us that joy can magically break out without warning just as arbitrarily as violence.

But what would happen to this tool of unexpected magic if the BDSers got their feces-encrusted oven mitts on the concept? Well then you might have something like this.

(Read full "Flash Dance")

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Jerusalem Marathon route changed

Carl
Israel Matzav
02 January '10

Adidas has caved in to the threat of an international boycott, the Jerusalem City Council has caved in to Adidas, and the Jerusalem Marathon will be rerouted not to take in any areas of Jerusalem that were liberated in 1967, including the Jewish neighborhoods in those parts of the city.

The Jerusalem Municipality had decided to change the course of the Jerusalem Marathon. The new route will not include running paths in areas of Jerusalem that were added to the city after 1967. Last month, two Meretz members of the Jerusalem City Council asked Adidas, which I sponsoring the marathon, to pull out of its sponsorship, threatening to start an international campaign accusing the company of supporting “occupation.”

(Read full "Jerusalem Marathon route changed")

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The Guardian’s Israel obsession in one image

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
02 January '10

We just came across this little nugget of information from a site called Views of the World.

To understand how British people perceive the events on the globe, one can look at how frequently a country has been mentioned in major news stories. The following maps do exactly this by visualising the number of news items on the website of the British Newspaper The Guardian (data derived from their Data store).

(Read full "The Guardian’s Israel obsession in one image")

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And The Land of Israel Will Be Given

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
02 January '10



Mossad Chief Meir Dagan retired today and said, among others words, these remarks at the Cabinet meeting:

Mr. Prime Minister,


Ministers,


I hereby finish over 43 years of service to the state. I have had the honor and the privilege of leading the Mossad for the past eight years...


...I was appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. I worked under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and I received from them, me and my people, their encouragement, support and backing. I would like, Mr. Prime Minister, to thank you for your support and backing, and I would like to wish you and to the Government of the State of Israel the wisdom to guide the country through stormy seas, and that you will bring Israel to the safe harbors of peace and security, and will see to the needs of its citizens. Work to strengthen the ties between the Jewish Diaspora and the State of Israel so that we may uphold the verse in Ezekiel (11:17) 'I will even gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the Land of Israel.' I did the best I could. Thank you very much."

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Should Jonathan Pollard be released?

IMRA

Justice4JPnews
02 January '11

Urgent! Please help us to get this short video to go viral on the internet!

How? Here are the steps:

1) Please watch the short video: "Should Jonathan Pollard be released?"



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX8KY4VxoXk

2) Please send it to at least 10 people (or more) with a request that each person who receives it from you, should please send it to 10 more people, who should in turn send it to 10 more people who should in turn send it to 10 more people and so on.

3) Please send the video and link to anyone who has a large email distribution list and ask them to distribute it to their mailing list as a matter of "Pikuach Nefesh" (literally to save a Jewish life -- Jonathan's!)

4) Please send the video and link to Jewish organizations and groups, and ask them to share the video with their mailing lists, as a matter of Pikuach Nefesh (literally to save a Jewish life -- Jonathan's!)

5) Anyone who can post the link to their website or blog is encouraged to do so.

6) Please take a few moments of your time to do your part in the mitzvah of pidyan shvuyim by ensuring that all of your friends and family receive the video link and that they watch it!

May all who participate in the mitzvah of pidyan shvuyim by disseminating this video and by calling the White House at 202-456-1414 to tell President Barack Obama to Free Jonathan Pollard Now! Be abundantly blessed!

Thank you for your help.

JUSTICE FOR JONATHAN POLLARD
Website: http://www.JonathanPollard.org

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ACRI is Impervious to Rational Discussion

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
02 January '10

Here's a typical story about the mindset of Israel's radical Left these days.

Last week a court in Ramleh sentenced Nuri el-Aukbi to seven months in jail for operating a business in Lod without legal permits. So far as I can see from the conviction, this is at least the third time since 2003 that el-Aukbi has been convicted for the same thing; each time the court orders him to shut down his business he not only refuses to comply, he builds additional structures onto the ones he's been ordered to shut down. A fine and upstanding citizen.

Ah, but there's a snag. In addition to being a serial offender against zoning and business-license laws, el-Aukbi is an activist in support of Bedouin rights in the Negev, some of which touch upon... laws of zoning and licenses. At his most recent trial, el-Aukbi or his lawyers seemed to think this should be a mitigating condition, and suggested the court be lenient since in other, unrelated matters, he's engaged in important things.

The court didn't oblige. On the contrary, when handing down his sentence, Judge Yemini noted that a social activist who speaks in the name of human rights and rule of law, ought to be careful he himself is above reproach in these matters. El-Aukbi, sadly, isn't. Rather the opposite. And note that the court was responding to a line of argumentation that had been presented to him, not initiating the discussion.

(Read full "ACRI is Impervious to Rational Discussion")

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The Occupied Territories Revisited: the Doctrine of Defensible Borders

Harry Kanigel
American Thinker
02 January '11

(While not my preference,the author's choice of title. Y.)

It's a puzzle - isn't it? A a tiny state of a few million industrious souls is viewed as a truculent, sneering imperialist bully. Surely there's a story behind such a cognitive burr. Why would we dispute the morality of a nation that retains territory of high military value gained in a defensive war?

At bottom, Israel is seen by its enemies as a blemish on the regional caliphate and a rent in the fabric of pan-Arabism. This viewpoint was stated with spareness and clarity during the run-up to the 1967 Six-Day War by then Iraqi President Abdel-Rahman Aref who said in a radio interview "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified." With refreshing directness, for a head of state, he added "This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map."

The probability of a negotiated peace is vanishingly small given the philosophical moorings of Israel's neighbors; they will only temporize as they maneuver to eliminate the stain, the "error which must be rectified." Illustrative is the Islamic principle hudna, for cease-fire, understood to mean a truce that is maintained until the balance of power changes. A related concept is taqiyya, which is the practice of deception, legitimated by the Koran, to advance Islam geopolitically.

(Read full "The Occupied Territories Revisited: the Doctrine of Defensible Borders")

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Israel's Critical Security Needs - Conference Video

Hadar Israel
Israel Council for Civic Action
29 December '10

(And a thank you to Hadar Israel for making this presentation avaiable to the wider public. Y.)


Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace Seminar from Hadar Israel on Vimeo.

On Dec. 26, 2010, Hadar held conference at the Begin Center in Jerusalem featuring former Israeli UN Ambassador Dore Gold, Major General (retired) Uzi Dayan, Major General (retired) Yaakov Amidror, and the World Jewish Congress Secretary General (designate) Dan Diker on the topic of Israel's Critical Security Needs for Peace.

Hadar is pleased to share a full length video of the conference.

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The ordinariness of day-in, day-out terror

Arnold/Frimet Roth
This Ongoing War
02 January 11

The Israel Security Agency published figures Thursday reporting on terror attacks against Israel during 2010. 798 attacks defined as acts of terror were reported in the year just ended. This amounts to more than two acts of terror every day of the year. The report counts 9 people, unarmed and innocent victims, murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Reminding us that terror happens not in a vacuum but because there are terrorists, the Hamas regime in Gaza issued its own press release yesterday boldly, courageously claiming credit for seven of those Israeli deaths (see this Palestinian news agency report). Their self-congratulation, as far as we can see, has gone entirely unreported.

No unusually dramatic acts of terror happened this week - just more of the ongoing too-familiar toll of bombings, shootings and the calculated sowing of fear. These events did not rate highly enough on the scale of significance or newsworthiness to be reported where you live or even where we do. But for the victims directly impacted by them, this week's acts of terror were a private nightmare. Week after week, year after year, for as long as the astonishing revival of the Jewish homeland in the last decades of the nineteenth century has been underway, the steady drumbeat of terror has been the background to the attempts by people of goodwill to achieve co-existence and peaceful relations.

Among this past week's attacks:

(Read full "The ordinariness of day-in, day-out terror")

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Israel IQ at UCLA

standwithus
28 December '10


What do UCLA Students Know about Israel and the Middle-East? Find out more at www.Standwithus.com



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Hizbullah and the information war

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
31 December '10

On January 15 the UN's Special Tribunal for Lebanon is scheduled to issue indictments against a number of Hizbullah operatives for the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. All of Lebanon and much of the region is waiting in suspense that grows with each passing day.

The news that Hizbullah would be fingered by the prosecutors was first made public in July. Since then, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has threatened repeatedly to set fire to Lebanon and perhaps Israel if Daniel Bellemare, the chief prosecutor dares to go forward. Given Hizbullah's track record of war, murder and intimidation, no one doubts that the Iranian-proxy force will keep its promise if it comes to that.

Almost immediately after Hizbullah was named as the central suspect in Hariri's assassination, Hizbullah's ally Syria began negotiating a deal with Saudi Arabia, which serves as the patron of Lebanon's Sunni community. The goal of these talks is to get Hizbullah off the hook, "in order to preserve stability."

Bellemare made clear this week that he will not be influenced by politics in dispatching his duties to the law. If he is true to his word, then Hizbullah members will certainly be indicted for assassinating Hariri next month.

What this means is that the most attractive option for Hizbullah and its allies right now is to discredit the tribunal. To this end, Hizbullah has repeatedly characterized the UN tribunal as an Israeli and American plot. Syria has insisted that the Lebanese who testified before the tribunal gave false testimony.

(Read full 'Hizbullah and the information war")

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Tzipi Livni refuses to let reality interfere in JP interview

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
01 January '11




Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Hats off to David Horovitz for this tremendous interview.

It is hard to know if Ms. Livni realizes what she said here.

But here it is:

#1. She says she was responsible for the talks with the Palestinians and that they never reached the point that Jerusalem was discussed.

#2. On the other hand, she recognizes that while she was talking with the Palestinians as FM, that PM Olmert not only discussed Jerusalem - he made a tremendously generous offer to Mahmoud Abbas.

#3. She recognizes that Mahmoud Abbas rejected Olmert's very generous offer.

But Kadima head Livni refuses to do the math.

#4. Livni adamantly insists that it doesn't matter that Abbas rejected Olmert's very generous offer.

Why? Because Livni was in charge of the official negotiations and she didn't make the offer. The prime minister of Israel made the offer.

Question: Does Ms. Livni think we are idiots? Or is her ego so huge that she genuinely thinks that the only thing that matters is what took place between her and the Palestinians in the formal window dressing talks?

(Go to full interview)

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Is settlement growth booming?

The question sounds simple. And building has certainly resumed since the 10-month moratorium ended in September. But the true picture is far more complex.

Tova Lazaroff
Frontlines/JPost
30 December '10

Palestinian moves to censure Israel in the United Nations Security Council over settlement construction are the latest in a series of steps they have taken to place West Bank Jewish communities at the heart of the conflict. Now that the US has failed to sway Israel to continue forcibly curbing such activity, the Palestinian Authority has held fast to its stance that no talks can be held while West Bank Jewish building continues. The intensified focus on settlement construction has generated confusion and misunderstanding over what is actually happening in the settlements, particularly when it comes to growth. The following is a guide which answers some of the fundamental questions.

What exactly constitutes a settlement?

Settlements are communities located in any area over the Green Line – other than in east Jerusalem – that were given legal status by the government, in most cases through a cabinet decision. They were created between 1967 and 1999. Unlike other communities, settlements fall under the jurisdiction of the Defense Ministry, and all construction in them must be approved both by that ministry and by the Prime Minister’s Office.

(Read full "Is settlement growth booming?")

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More Ethics Troubles for J Street President

Alana Goodman
Commentary/Contentions
31 December '10

It looks like the left-wing “pro-Israel” group J Street can now add “self-dealing” to its growing list of scandals. Documents obtained by the Washington Times reveal that the group paid at least $56,000 to Ben-Or Consulting, an Israeli firm co-owned by J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami. This discovery isn’t as juicy as some of the previous ones — it’s hard to top lying about taking money from George Soros and aiding congressional visits for Judge Richard Goldstone. But it certainly confirms the group’s aversion to ethics and truth-telling:

“Even if it’s technically legal, it gets very messy when you have these sorts of deals going on because, if you’re going to benefit on the other end of it, be it 100 percent or 5 percent, it raises questions about objectivity and the arms’ length in the transaction,” said Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator.

“If you want your organization to use a particular company, ideally there would be a clean break one way or the other. So you would either sell off your interest in that company or step down from the board during the period of time when this is going so that there would be no question as to what’s going on in the boardroom.”

(Read full "More Ethics Troubles for J Street President")

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Budgeting West Bank Settlements

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
01 January '11

(What I disagree with in this piece is known and should not require any further explanation, however his main point certainly requires our attention. Y.)

One of the meta-narratives of Israel's political Left these past three or four decades has been that the settlement project costs billions, and if it didn't exist there would be lots and lots of money for worthier things. Haaretz handed the job of presenting the case this year to Akiva Eldar, a veteran reporter with great command of his material. Of course, he's also first and foremost an ideological journalist, which means that while he'll never lie, he'll routinely cast his data in the mode he thinks will best serve his agenda. This also means that if a reader has his own command of the data, Eldar's articles can sometimes lead to surprising and unintended insights.

Here's his presentation, claiming the national budget which just passed allocates more than 2 billion NIS to the settlements. Feel free to read it in its entirety before continuing with my comments.

Eldar's first omission is the overall size of the budget. It's about 350 billion NIS (the $ is currently about 3.5 NIS). Which means less than 1% of the budget goes to West Bank settlements.

How many Israelis live on the WB? That depends how you count them. If you mean all Israelis who live beyond the Green Line including in Jerusalem, it may be about 500,000, though to them you'd need to add the 270,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem who also benefit from the budget. Say, 800,000 people from a population of 7.7 million. And they're allocated less than 1% of the budget? Is this possible?

(Read full "Budgeting West Bank Settlements")


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2010 Saw Lowest Number Of Terror Attacks In Israel In A Decade--Care To Guess How Many?

Daled Amos
31 December '10


Let's see how close you were.

There were only 798 terrorist attacks on Israel this year:

The Shin Bet revealed Thursday that 2010 saw the lowest number of terror attacks and terror victims in a decade.

Since January, nine civilians and soldiers have been killed in 798 terror-related incidents in Israel and the territories, compared with 15 deaths in 1,354 incidents in 2009.

The security agency said the highest number of terror-related deaths was recorded in 2002, when 452 Israelis were killed. Since 2005 the number of terror-related deaths gradually declined.

(Read full "2010 Lowest Number Of Terror Attacks In Israel In A Decade...")

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The luckiest Jews in the World

Caroline Glick
24 April 08
h/t Yisrael Medad

(Following a link from Yisrael Medad brought up this wonderful piece. Y.)

I just published a collection of my essays in English. Each time I am asked if I am also releasing the volume in Hebrew I feel a pain deep inside me when I answer that no, right now, my publisher is only interested in an English edition. Indeed it is a shame because I wrote most of the essays in Hebrew as well.

Writing in Hebrew is a qualitatively different experience than writing in English. Hebrew is a more compact language than English. It has fewer words and the words it has are denser and more flexible than English words. A 1,200-word essay in Hebrew will be 1,800 words in English.

This is a mechanical difference. But there are deeper distinctions as well. One level beyond the mechanics is the multiple meanings of Hebrew words. The density of meaning in Hebrew is a writer’s dream. Nearly anyone can imbue a seemingly simple sentence with multiple, generally complementary meanings simply by choosing a specific verb, verb form, noun or adjective. These double, triple and even quadruple meanings of one word are a source of unbounded joy for a writer. To take just one example, the Hebrew word “shevet” means returning and it also means sitting. And it is also a homonym for club – as in billy club – and for tribe.

In 2005, the IDF named the operation expelling the Israeli residents of Gaza and Northern Samaria “Shevet achim,” or returning or sitting with brothers. But it also sounded like it was making a distinction between tribesmen and brothers. And it also sounded like “clubbing brothers.”

As this one example demonstrates, one joyful consequence of the unique density of the Hebrew language is that satirical irony comes easily to even the most dour and unpoetic writers.

For a Jew, knowing, speaking and writing Hebrew is an intimate experience. This is particularly so for those of us whose mother tongue is not Hebrew – because as the secrets of the language slowly reveal themselves to us we feel we are discovering ourselves.

Hebrew encapsulates the entirety of the Jewish story. Modern Hebrew in particular is an eclectic amalgamation of classical Hebrew, Yiddishisms, and expressions from the Sephardic Diaspora experience. Greek, Roman, Aramaic, Turkish, Arabic and English expressions meld seamlessly into the stream of words. It is not simply that it is the language of the Bible. Hebrew is also an expression of the unique culture of a small, proud, often besieged, often conquered and permeable people.

Middle East, 2011: Not a Very Happy New Year

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
31 December '10

For many Arab and Islamic countries and the Palestinians, it does not look as if it is going to be a Happy New Year. Instead, 2011 looks as if it is going to bring instability and uncertainty to some of these countries and the Palestinians.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iran and Sudan will undoubtedly witness dramatic developments in the coming weeks and months. For the Palestinians, the future does not seem to be too promising in light of the continued power struggle between Hamas and Fatah.

In Iran, the situation remains as dangerous as ever as Tehran continues to pursue its plan to develop nuclear capabilities. Iran also appears to be more determined than ever to continue meddling in the internal affairs of others, especially the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

Together with the Syrians, Hamas and Hizbullah, Iran appears set to step up its efforts to export its radical ideology to as many Middle Eastern countries as it can, and undermine moderate Arabs and Muslims.

In Saudi Arabia, the 86-year-old monarch, King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz, has just undergone back surgery in New York, and his condition does not seem to be good. His brother, the crown-prince, is also sick and no one knows if he will ever become king.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, 82, is also reported to be in bad health. His refusal to name a successor has already created tensions in Egypt. Opposition groups in Egypt are now warning that the uncertainty could lead to chaos and plunge the country into anarchy and lawlessness. Worse, the talk about the president's son, Gamal, as a possible successor, has enraged many Egyptians.

(Read full "Middle East, 2011: Not a Very Happy New Year")

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