Continuing to haunt and endanger us. The Gilad Shalit transaction

Convicted, entirely unrepentant Palestinian Arab
terrorists unjustly freed as the ransom price for the freedom
of an Israeli hostage, October 2011 [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
10 December '12..

The following snippet from a longer Ynet analysis today of the worsening security situation in the Judea and Samaria districts underlines what we have been saying since the October 2011 deal between Israel and the terrorist Hamas regime was consummated in October 2011.

The IDF and Shin Bet's near-complete intelligence network in the area has enabled the arrest of five terror cells in the Ramallah sector in the past four months alone, all of which were planning to abduct soldiers. The defense establishment believes the timing was not coincidental, as all of the plots were set to be executed on or around the anniversary marking the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in the Shalit deal. The coming weeks will see dozens of former Palestinian prisoners return to the area, after the term of their imposed exile – stipulated in the deal – will end. [More]

Over at the excellent Elder of Ziyon blog, there's a fresh report that sharpens the point:

The father of the imprisoned terrorist Abdullah Barghouti says that that his son told him that Khaled Meshaal plans a "surprise" on the issue of prisoners in Israeli jails, without giving further details. The father said in an interview with Al-Quds TV morning this morning that his son told him the surprise will be revealed at the right time. According to him, Meshal told the mother of another prisoner, Hassan Salameh, during a meeting with families of prisoners on Sunday: "I swear to God, I swear to God, I swear to God, a plan to free all the prisoners in safety." [More]

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Justice Be Damned - Human Rights Activists vs. the International Court

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary/Contentions..
10 December '12..

Under other circumstances, I might enjoy watching “human rights” activists decry the very international justice system they lobbied so hard to establish. But not when reactions like this one, by David Harland of the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, show just how much resistance there will be to the important norms established last month by the appellate court of an international war crimes tribunal in the Hague. In a verdict ironically issued just as the world was obsessing over Palestinian civilians killed in the latest Hamas-Israel war, the court essentially upheld, in a Balkan context, all the arguments Israel routinely makes about the legitimacy of its own military operations. Consequently, the judges acquitted and freed two Croatian generals whom a trial court had convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 18 and 24 years, respectively.

The appellate court’s first important move was acknowledging the obvious fact that in wartime even the most careful army makes mistakes. The trial court had convicted the Croats of illegally shelling four towns they were trying to capture. The appeals court said the lower court’s criterion–“that any shell that landed more than 200 meters away from a military target must have been fired indiscriminately–was arbitrary and ‘devoid of any specific reasoning’,” to quote The Guardian’s apt summary. In short, it accepted the fact that soldiers are human beings who make mistakes, and errant shells don’t necessarily mean the soldiers fired indiscriminately.

Second, it acknowledged the obvious fact that even the most careful army can’t prevent civilian casualties. Some 150 civilians died in the generals’ four-day bombing campaign. But the appeals court said these deaths didn’t constitute war crimes, because the troops had aimed at legitimate military targets. In other words, it ruled that civilian casualties aren’t ipso facto illegal; they may be unavoidable consequences of legitimate military activity–especially when military targets are located in crowded urban areas.

Israel Has No Other Alternative ...

...But the Alternative it Has is a Good One

Barry Rubin..
Rubin Reports..
10 December '12..

The Palestinian leadership, abetted by many Western governments, has now torn up every agreement it made with Israel. Once the efforts of two decades of negotiations—including irrevocable Israeli compromises in giving the Palestinian Authority control over territory, its own armed forces, dismantling settlements, and permitting billions of dollars of foreign aid to the Palestinians—were destroyed, the world has decided to focus the blame on Israel approving the construction of 3000 apartments.

In 1993, Israel signed an agreement with the PLO to make peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The accord, known as the Oslo agreement, included the following passage in Article 31:

“Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”

By essentially unilaterally declaring the existence of an Arab Palestine, the world has abrogated that agreement.

What is shocking is not just that this has happened but there has been no discussion much less hesitation by dozens of countries to destroy an agreement that they hitherto supported. Indeed, a study of the history of this agreement shows clearly that the Palestinian side prevented the accord from succeeding, most obviously by permitting and carrying out continuing terrorism and rejecting Israeli offers for a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem both in the 2000 Camp David summit and in the ensuing offer conveyed by President Bill Clinton at the end of that year.

Now there are certain implications of this move. I am completely aware that virtually no one in a position of power in the Western world cares about these implications but it is necessary to remind them and others of just what they have done. And at least the Western public should know how this all looks from an Israeli perspective, information often denied it altogether or distorted by the mass media.

Chanukah - Greeks and Palestinians, then and now

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
10 December '12..

Make no mistake, both "extremist" Hamas and the "moderate" Palestinian Authority, the raving Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal and the simpleton Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, will never make do with sovereignty in this land or the banishment of the "Zionist entity." Similar to the way the Greeks behaved some 2,170 years ago during the struggle that is the basis for our Hanukkah celebration, they still struggle with the issue of a Jewish state and us Jews as a collective identity within that state.

The Greeks, as opposed to Roman Emperor Titus or Haman — the 5th century B.C.E. Persian vizier under King Ahasuerus — focused less on the physical destruction of the Jews than on the destruction of their identity and culture. Our sages accurately stated that the Greeks "contaminated all the oils, but did not spill them." They made sure that the oil would be available, but not kosher for Jewish ritual use. Similarly, they let the Jews live, if they agreed to be Hellenized.

There is a well-known Talmudic discussion regarding which miracle Hanukkah is based on — our military victory of the few and weak over the many and powerful or the miracle of finding a single cruse of pure oil, which ultimately ensured the survival of Jewish identity and kept the menorah in the Temple lit for eight days, despite containing only enough oil to last one day. Our sages agreed that the cruse of oil was more miraculous than our military victory over the Greeks and Hanukkah forever became a holiday we celebrate in commemoration of the saving of our Torah and Jewish identity against which the Greeks fought their true battle.

There are those in this generation as well who continue to believe that our conflict with the Arabs is over territory or sovereignty. They tend to ignore that the conflict is based on religion, our Judaism and our identity as a people. Abbas has always meant what he says time and time again all over the world about Israel "contaminating Jerusalem's Muslim identity."

Europe and the West's pet conflict

Guy Bechor..
Israel Opinion/Ynet..
08 December '12..

For more than 70 years the Israeli-Arab (or Jewish-Arab) conflict has been viewed as the focal point of the Mideast crisis, so much so that the term "peace process" is mentioned only in relation to Israel. Western governments and states have invested a lot of attention in this conflict, out of the naïve assumption that when it ends and a Palestinian state is established, a cosmic calm will settle over the entire region.

Many believed in this concept, which placed Israel at the center. Pan-Arabist ideologists claimed this was the "problem" of the Arab world, and western scholars explained why resolving this conflict was so crucial. Countless authors have made a living from the conflict with Israel. Organizations were founded and funds were transferred from hand to hand – and all this out of the understanding that resolving the conflict would give the entire region a boost.

And now, finally, a Palestinian state has been established in the UN (if only on paper), but alas, nothing has changed in the turbulent Middle East, and the manner in which the Arab regimes and media reacted to the Palestinians' success in the UN is a testament to this.

The Eight Days of Chanukah and the One Light Above

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
First posted December 09..

For the eight days of Chanukah, it is common to see a candelabra with eight lights and one light above it, shining here and there, in the windows of stores and hallways, in people’s homes and even on intersections. Some are filled with oil, while others are topped with candles. Some tower high overhead and some are child sized. But all have eight lights and one above it, and all commemorate the same occasion.

Many nations have religious holidays and days of national liberation and independence, however rarely do the two come together quite in the way that Chanukah does. That is because Chanukah is both a commemoration of national liberation from the rule of the pagan Syrian-Greek empire ruled by Antiochus IV and a commemoration of the hand of divine influence in both inspiring and accomplishing that liberation.

The Jews throughout history have had a way of getting in the way of great empires. The Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians had all tried to enslave and destroy the Jewish people. A few thousand years ago after an Egyptian Pharaoh had first gotten the bright idea to clap chains on the Jewish refugees who had been serving as his faithful shepherds and send them off to build the pyramids, and some 2000 plus years before the present day, Antiochus IV, like so many kings before whose sense of power had overwhelmed both their sense of reason and morals, decided that ruling over his empire would be simpler and easier without the Jews in it.

Where Pharaoh had embarked on that process by throwing male Jewish babies into the Nile, to please one of his many gods while carrying out a genocide that was meant to destroy the Jewish people and integrate what was left into Egypt-- Antiochus IV focused not on physical extermination, but cultural annihilation. The fundamental books of Jewish life, the scriptures that gave the Jewish people meaning and identity were destroyed.and banned. Hellenic ways and mores became law. Jewish ones became an offense punishable by death.

Some accepted the decree out of fear or even with enthusiasm. Others however rose up and resisted. And war came between the handfuls of Jewish Maccabee partisans and the armies of Antiochus IV’s Selecuid empire. A war that had its echoes in the past and would have it again in the future as lightly armed and untrained armies of Jewish soldiers would go on to fight in that same land and those same hills and valleys against the Romans and eventually the armies of six Arab nations. The Syrian Greek armies were among the best of their day. The Maccabees were the sons of the priesthood living in the backwaters of Israel, members of a nation that had not been independently ruled since the Babylonian hordes had flooded across the land, destroying everything in their path. Since then a shifting mass of nations and rulers had sat on their thrones while the Jews had bowed their heads.

Yet in the wilderness of Judea a band of brothers vowed that they would bow to no man and let no foreigners rule over their land. That no alien ruler would hold sway over the earth and water of their homeland, and none would be permitted to take away the legacy of their fathers, the customs of their sages and the books of their God. And while empires may and do laugh at such oaths, that band of brothers went on to destroy and wreak havoc against the might of an entire empire.

The Lie That Broke Israel's Back (at the UN)

Steve Apfel..
American Thinker..
09 December '12..





Israel now has a quasi-state to contend with. "A victory for the values of truth," exclaimed Sudan's U.N. diplomat after the General Assembly voted to admit Palestine as a non-member observer.

It's a victory for the Palestinian camp, perhaps, but in truth it was a defeat -- of historic proportions. Recalling one thing and reaffirming another, the resolution the GA voted on was packed with lies. Most were blatant. One lie -- you could say the catchphrase of the Palestinian perpetual show -- enjoyed the sanctity of accepted wisdom.

"The Palestinian territory occupied since 1967" appeared, in one form or another, some dozen times in the U.N. resolution. This whopper of an old lie, told so often and for so long as to merge fantasy with reality, made Israel's defeat at the U.N. a long time coming. One might say that it made Israel's defeat historically inevitable.

"Occupied Palestinian Territory" (OPT) is a thing of smoke and mirrors.

Historically, it never happened; legally, there never was Palestinian territory for Israel to occupy. Israel took the territories from Egypt and Jordan in 1967, and there's no getting away from that. So today Israel has more right than Jordan to be occupying the West Bank, and more right than Egypt to be occupying Gaza (if Israel's blockade may be called occupation). "Palestine" never enters the equation. Turn Middle East wars and laws upside-down and any way you like, but if the territories belong to any U.N. member, or quasi-member, they belong to Israel.

The UK - A double-standard abstention

Melanie Phillips..
melaniephillips.com..
09 December '12..

The double standard was breathtaking. The UN vote to give the Palestinians the status of a non-member, observer state has smashed the Middle East peace process to bits.

In bringing this to the General Assembly, Mahmoud Abbas was in unilateral breach of his obligation under the Oslo Accords to proceed by way of bilateral negotiations with Israel.

In response, Israel made a very sharp point of its own by announcing it would now build 3,000 homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. It also said it would approve planning and zoning for a more sensitive area called E1 between Jerusalem and the settlement bloc of Ma’ale Adumim.

Israel was thus showing its fury not just with the Palestinians but also with the world. For the UN move not only legitimised an entity that has no legitimacy, thus substituting politics for law, but also punished the permanent victim of its murderous aggression.

The proper response to Palestinian aggression, racism and contempt for international agreements is to cut their funding.

Yet the UK, which merely abstained after Abbas refused to meet its conditions for supporting him, responded with outrage — not at the Palestinians but at Israel.

Donation time for a daily dose of hate

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
09 December '12..

The Electronic Intifada (EI) website is currently soliciting donations from its readers with the goal of raising $150 000 by the end of December.

Founded in 2001, EI describes itself as “an independent online news publication and educational resource focusing on Palestine, its people, politics, culture and place in the world.”

Judging from the contents offered by EI, Palestine’s “place in the world” is defined first and foremost by the relentless demonization of Israel – and inevitably, this goes along with efforts to discredit definitions of antisemitism that take account of the obsessive hatred directed against the world’s only Jewish state.

The current call for donations promises EI readers that supporting the site will make them “influential,” because supposedly, the EI-propagated “truth about Palestine” reaches an ever-expanding audience and “journalists from major and independent media all over the world [are] eager to get our perspectives.” However, when it better suits the purpose to claim that the media are terribly biased against the Palestinians, EI co-founder Ali Abunimah will happily put out the opposite message, complaining bitterly that “not one ‘mainstream’ US media org called me during #GazaUnderAttack.”

(+Video) The Fantasy of Hamas’s Moderation

Max Boot..
Commentary/Contentions..
09 December '12..

Hamas, at least according to one increasingly popular line of reasoning in both the U.S. and Europe, is supposed to be turning more moderate because of its governance responsibilities in the Gaza Strip. Indeed, many commentators claimed to see evidence of its growing maturity in its decision to agree with Israel on a relatively fast cease-fire deal after the most recent round of fighting. Many call for engaging in negotiations with Hamas on the assumption that it is tacitly accepting a two-state solution.

Such analysis has always appeared to be the triumph of hope over experience and never more so than following Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal’s triumphal homecoming to the Gaza Strip–a territory he had never previously visited in his life but where he exercises a large degree of influence. His speech, to mark the 25th anniversary of Hamas’s founding, was not exactly a model of moderation. Here is what he had to say:


telegraphtv

(Video) Against All Odds

Chanuka is a time for miracles, both in those days and ours.



To see more Torah Live Chanuka videos, 
visit http://www.youtube.com/user/TorahLive

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Hamas' "moderate" leader promises to violently destroy Israel. Media "Experts" silent.

 Elder of Ziyon..
08 December '12..







From Al Jazeera:

Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader in exile, has rejected any concessions over a future Palestine state at a rally marking the 25th anniversary of the armed Palestinian group.

More than 100,000 Palestinians gathered in the Gaza Strip on Saturday to hear him speak for the first time in the Palestinian enclave.

"Palestine is our land and nation from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, from north to south, and we cannot cede an inch or any part of it," he said.

"We fight Zionists, not Jews. We fight whoever occupied our land, regardless of religion ... Statehood will be the fruit of resistance, not negotiations," Meshaal said to cheering fans.

Just to remind you, this is the person that Karl Vick of Time has said supports negotiations.

The same person that went on PBS to claim that Hamas doesn't support violence against civilians, while today he was speaking in front of a replica of a "M75" rocket that was fired towards civilians in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

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(Video) The Hamas Theme Song (CSNY)

LOTL..
09 December '12..





At the special briefing on incitement in the Palestinian Authority (Sunday, 2 December 2012),Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon said,

"As long as the Palestinian Authority educates its people toward hatred, and non-recognition, of Israel, there will not be peace. They are sending deep messages and this education is being absorbed by all sections of the populace, especially the younger generation."

And the Hamas government of Gaza? What do they have to say? This video from firstonethrough gives a pretty clear picture.



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.
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About the facts on the ground - Some facts

Nadav Sharagai..
Israel Hayom..
07 December '12..

Soon, we will mark 20 years to the day. Twenty is a nice, round number. It is also a sad anniversary. The subject of this joyous day, which doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, even has a Hebrew name: Mevaseret Adumim. It is also known internationally by its non-Hebrew moniker, E1 (the “E” standing for “East”).

E1, the much-talked-about construction plan which is designed to create a territorial linkage between Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem, supposedly epitomizes an issue that enjoys wall-to-wall backing among the Israeli public. On the one hand, we have the capital, Jerusalem. On the other hand, we have the Jerusalem metropolitan area that encompasses Maaleh Adumim. The plan to connect the two, however, has touched off a “world war.”

The latest round of diplomatic skirmishes began at the United Nations, which recently granted the Palestinian Authority the status of nonmember observer state. In response, the Israeli government announced that it would proceed with the planning phase of its E1 construction initiative. In response to the crime, there’s punishment. Now the Americans are angry — again. Britain and France are threatening to recall their ambassadors for consultations. It seems that E1 will have to wait a few more years. It has long become accustomed to waiting.

“Promises, promises,” sighed long-time Maaleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel, who for years has endured unfulfilled pledges from politicians. He wants to believe that this time will be different, but he has a long memory. In fact, we all do. We flipped through the history books, all the way back to 20 years ago in an effort to understand exactly what it is about E1 that riles up the international community? Why has a building proposal that has won the backing of nearly the entire Israeli political community remained on paper? It seems that everyone championed it. Everyone hailed it. Everyone supported it. But nobody built it.

In the early 1990s, then-prime minister Yitzhak Shamir and his defense minister, Moshe Arens, laid the foundations for the plan when they signed off on a 12,000-dunam north-westward expansion of the Maaleh Adumim municipal boundaries. That was a different era. Washington was less fussy in their dealings with us.

In 1994, then-premier Yitzhak Rabin ordered his housing minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, to produce a plan for a neighborhood that was slated to be built in the area. Rabin, however, did not have the opportunity to see the plan through. He was assassinated. The first Netanyahu government which succeeded Rabin’s administration did complete the initial drawings and the overall master plan for E1. When Ehud Barak replaced Netanyahu as prime minister, the Housing Ministry began to draw up detailed plans which filled in the blanks of the overall master plan. In 2004, these preparations were finally completed. Since then, the plans have grounded to a halt.

Cheerleading for Terror? Washington Post does

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
08 December '2..

Khaled Meshaal, supreme leader of the terrorist group Hamas that has claimed the lives of hundreds of Israelis, paid his first visit to Gaza on Dec. 7 amid joyous pomp and circumstance arranged by his followers who rule the coastal Palestinian territory.

The Washington Post, in its Dec. 8 issue, not only reports this event, but sanitizes Meshaal with a sympathetic biography that ignores the blood on his hands from Hamas during the second intifada, and more recently during escalating rocket attacks against civilian populations in southern Israel. The Post article also is silent about Meshaal's genocidal Hamas agenda for elimination of Israel and the murder of Jews. ("Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal visits Gaza for first time" by Joel Greenberg).

With more than a touch of Stockholm syndrome, Greenberg, a Post Jerusalem correspondent, calls Meshaal's visit a "triumphant" coup that "gave an aura of legitimacy" to Hamas. With undisguised empathy for Meshaal, Greenberg depicts his visit as carrying "a strong symbolic meaning after a life spent moving from one Arab state to another."

He also tells Post readers that Meshaal's visit managed "to amplify Hamas' message of armed resistance" against Israel. ("Armed resistance" is Greenberg's and Meshaal's way of using a neutral euphemism for terror attacks against civilians.}

The theatrical aspect of Palestinian statehood – all paraphernalia, no state.

Emanuele Ottolenghi..
The Commentator..
08 December '12..

The UN vote upgrading the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to a non-member state with observer status has done nothing to move the cause of Palestinian statehood forward. Instead, it repeats the old adage of Palestinian history: rather than seeking compromise with Israel, Palestinian leaders have again put the fate of their cause into the hands of others, foolishly believing that others will deliver what they themselves are not capable of obtaining.

When nations gathered at the United Nations in 1947 to vote on the UN plan to establish two states – one Jewish, one Arab – in Mandatory Palestine, Palestinian leaders trusted the Arab League. They opposed compromise, since they hoped Arab armies would win the entire country by force. They did not.

Once Palestine was lost, for nearly two decades Palestinian leaders trusted the standard bearers of Arab nationalism to restore them to power and destroy Israel. Instead of asking Jordan – who occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – and Egypt – who conquered Gaza – to turn those areas into a Palestinian state, Palestinian leaders trusted their Arab patrons to arm for a second victorious round.

Irredentism produced the opposite though: in 1967, Israel repelled the combined onslaught of the Arab world and took over what remained of the Old Mandate.

Half a century of lost battles taught mightier powers to change their mindset – think of Germany after two world wars!

Not so with Palestinian leaders – they embraced the Arab League’s decision, in the summer of 1967, to reject any opening to Israel and continued to wage war. Terrorism was a natural consequence of such an attitude – beneath the murderous acts that followed for nearly two decades rested the foolish belief that Israel could be done with by killing innocents abroad – thereby swaying public opinion in favour of Palestinian grievances.

(Video clips) Hamas 25th Anniversary. What is It Celebrating?

idfblog.com..
08 December '12..

Hamas is celebrating its 25th anniversary today in the Gaza Strip — 25 years of suicide bombings, rocket attacks, incitement to genocide, repression and endless war against Israel.

Throughout the day, the official IDF twitter account, @idfspokesperson, is tweeting examples of the kinds of events that Hamas is celebrating. The IDF is using the hashtag #HamasCelebrates and is encouraging others to use the hashtag and tweet examples of Hamas praising attacks on Israeli civilians.

Watch a few video examples in the infographic below:



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Dear Europeans - An open letter to European countries

Dror Eydar..
Times of Israel..
07 December '12..

You summoned our ambassadors to be reprimanded over the most natural thing on earth: settling our own country. You've got it wrong. We never settled on "occupied Palestinian territory." This is our country, the Jewish people's only homeland. We didn't come to Israel because of the pogroms or the Holocaust. We didn't ask you to do us any favors "at the Palestinians' expense" because other countries had a centuries-long hobby of destroying, killing and wiping out Jews.

We came home because it was what we wanted, with all our souls, for generations. We never gave up the dream of returning to Zion. No matter where on earth they were, Jews prayed facing toward Zion. Three times a day they asked to be allowed to behold the return to Zion with their own eyes. Even as they thanked God every time they ate bread, they always prayed in grace after meals: "Have mercy on Zion" and "Build Jerusalem speedily, in our own time." At the happiest moment of their lives, groom and bride swore the oath of Zion’s exiles, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget itself." Even during the exile, the cycle of the Jewish year was set according to the agricultural seasons in the land of Israel. Our people started returning to our land in steadily-growing groups over a hundred years before the Zionist movement was established.

And the land kept faith with its own. It never accepted another nation. After we were exiled, no state ever existed here. Most of the land remained desolate for centuries. Nomads passed through it. After the Second Temple was destroyed in the first century C.E., many Jews remained there. They survived the Christian occupation until the seventh century, when the Muslims occupied the land and gave the Jews there two choices: conversion to Islam or exile. Those who cleaved to the God of Israel went into exile. Those who cleaved to the land of Israel converted to Islam. They lived like the anousim — forced converts — of Spain for a generation or two and then were assimilated. What a historical irony — the real old-timers among the Arabs in Israel have Jewish roots. Most of the rest arrived after we started coming back home. Like the Muslim immigrants in your countries, Muslims from the region came to the land of Israel seeking work. Many of them arrived here when the British conquered the country.

Welcome to 21st century Britain - Jewish students running gauntlet of hate

Melanie Phillips..
melaniephillips.com..
06 December '12..

The delegitimisation campaign against Israel, comprising the obsessional lies and blood libels promulgated by the media and intelligentsia week in, week out, has produced this result: Jewish students in Britain are being forced to abandon their university courses out of fear. On the Jewish Chronicle blog, Marcus Dysch reports:

‘Attacks have created a “toxic atmosphere” in which Jewish students no longer feel comfortable, a delegation of community representatives told senior Edinburgh University officials.

‘Among those who felt the need to leave was a former Edinburgh Jewish Society chair who dropped out of his course to study abroad, partly because of the fall-out from an incident in which Ishmael Khaldi, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s most senior Muslim diplomat, was mobbed as he spoke at the university in February last year.

‘That incident also allegedly affected a Jewish postgraduate student so severely that she was forced to seek an extension for her dissertation before cancelling an option to continue studying in Scotland. She also left for a different course elsewhere in Europe.

‘In the most recent incident at Edinburgh, in October, an address by Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub was disrupted by chanting students waving Palestinian flags.

‘... Members of Scottish Jewish Student Chaplaincy and the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities told the university bosses that Jewish students had felt it necessary to “hide their Jewish identity due to the hostile atmosphere at Edinburgh” and were now seeking “secure and safe” space on campus’ [my emphasis].

So this is what it has come to. In the 21st century, British Jews are being forced to hide their Jewish identity out of fear for their personal safety -- because they support the state of Israel in its struggle to defend itself against genocidal attack.

This disgusting and surreal state of affairs has arisen from what can only be described as the madness that has all but consumed the British intelligentsia and media, which portray Israel – the target and victim of Jew-hating extermination – in the deranged propaganda terms set out by its Arab and Muslim attackers. The result is rampant Israel-hatred, Judeophobia and Jew-baiting which is either tolerated or actively promulgated by a so-called educated class – including broadcasters and many mainstream politicians -- which on this issue is in fact totally impervious to evidence or reason.

Arlene Kushner From Israel - "... in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance"

Arlene Kushner..
06 December'12..





As promised, a different sort of posting here: legal and historical background that is essential to understanding Jewish rights in the land.

This review will be succinct, with links to informational sites for those who wish to know more.

It is important to save and share this material, as it provides data critical for properly defending Israel. Emphasis has been added to certain key phrases.

As always, I welcome serious questions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Second Jewish Commonwealth came to an end. From then until modern times, what had been Judah, and was renamed Palestina by the Romans, was only an appendage to one empire or another, never an independent country.

~~~~~~~~~~
San Remo

Jewish legal rights in the land in modern times began with the San Remo Conference and resultant San Remo resolution, which has been called the Jewish Magna Carta.

For centuries, Palestine had been part of the (Turkish, Muslim) Ottoman Empire. With the end of WWI, the land of that Empire was taken by the Allies. Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, with the US as observer, met in San Remo, Italy, to decide how it would be divided: Palestine was put under British Mandatory rule.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/san_remo.html

~~~~~~~~~~
Balfour Declaration

At San Remo it was decided to incorporate the Balfour Declaration into Britain's mandate. The Declaration, in the form of a letter, was an endorsement by the British government of the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine. Written in 1917 by the British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, and sent to Lord Rothschild, it stated:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, , and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object."

Full text of letter: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/balfour.html

~~~~~~~~~~
By "Right"

In June 1922, Winston Churchill, who was then British Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote in a policy paper that:

"...in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance."

http://www.mideastweb.org/1922wpcor.htm

The E1 controversy and US media

Fresnozionism.org..
06 December '12..





On Monday, the NY Times published an editorial which included this:

[Netanyahu's actions] could doom the chances for a two-state solution because building in the E1 area would split the northern and southern parts of the West Bank.

Yesterday, NPR’s Philip Reeves, probably the single journalist most responsible for promulgating the 2002 “Jenin Massacre” blood libel against Israel, announced in a “news” broadcast that

There’s particular concern over plans, still at a preliminary stage, for an area called E1. If built, this would cut the West Bank in two. Diplomats say this would make a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict almost impossible.

And today, I was greeted by the following in an editorial in the McClatchy-owned Fresno Bee newspaper:

Yet Israel has decided to … prepare construction of a 4.6 square-mile project near Jerusalem known as E-1. That would effectively cut the occupied West Bank in two and make establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state alongside Israel with Jerusalem as a shared capital, impossible.

Folks, look at a map. If you didn’t see it in yesterday’s post, here it is again:

A day in the life of Israel

Cairo today [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
06 December '12..

Israel is so small it could fit into the state of Florida eight times. France is 25 times larger; Portugal is four times as big; Iran is 76 times larger; and Israel's total area could fit into Saudi Arabia 90 times. Tasmania, Australia's smallest state is three times the size of Israel.

Israel has borders with territory governed by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip and the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority. All are hostile; all are seriously troubled.

It's become fashionable to heap scorn on the way Israelis, ranging from the government at its highest levels through to the most ordinary and powerless of citizens, relate the political and military decisions of our tiny country to this thing called the 'security situation' - in Hebrew, the matzav.

Today, Thursday, we thought it might be illuminating to a certain degree if we published here the briefest of snapshots of the matzav: in simple terms, what news is emanating today, Thursday, from each of the political entities on the far side of Israel's borders.

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Israel Excluded Again from Counterterror Summit?

Rick Richman..
Commentary/Contentions..
06 December '12..

Michael Rubin’s incisive post on the apparent exclusion of Israel from another meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) identifies a significant effect of U.S. acquiescence in the exclusion: an implicit U.S. endorsement of the drive to delegitimize Israel, by signaling that even on the issue of counterterrorism (on which Israel has obvious knowledge and expertise); even in the case of a prominent international forum on that subject (co-founded and co-chaired by the United States); and even though the U.S. has repeatedly announced its “commitment” to the inclusion of Israel, the U.S. will continue to permit Israel’s exclusion.

There is another unfortunate effect, highlighted by the way the issue was treated at yesterday’s State Department press conference, where the deputy spokesman announced that Secretary Clinton would participate in the December 14 ministerial meeting of the GCTF. The following colloquy occurred:

Europe - Worshiping paper gods that demand blood sacrifices

Dr. Michael Widlanski..
American Thinker..
06 December '12..







Cavemen prayed to stones and talismans, but Europeans worship paper gods.

Europeans have a bad habit of holding up paper agreements as if they guarantee peace, progress, prosperity.

It used to be the price agreement on farm products-from butter to chocolate. Now it is UN declarations that the warring "Palestinian" tribes-the PLO Hatfields and the Hamas McCoys-now constitute a real, living, breathing national state.

Most European leaders would resent it if someone said they were irrational, superstitious or even religious, but yet they cling devoutly to a cult that bows to Arab bloc leaders holding aloft pieces of paper promising peace.

Superstitious Folly!

How else can one look at European countries voting in favor of Palestinian statehood only days after a war sparked by Hamas terrorists who comprise much of the national group collectively called "Palestinians?"

How else can one look at a UN vote which is itself a violation of Israel-PLO agreements to which the European Union is a signed witness? [Yes, the EU is a witness to the pacts that the UN vote violates.]

How else can one see supporting PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas whose Palestinian Authority (PA) constantly breaks its treaties with Israel by honoring terrorists, and by inciting violence via the PA broadcasting media and schools.

Europe's worship of Arab paper gods is made worse when European countries then chastise Israel for reacting against the PLO-PA-UN violation of treaties to which Europe is a witness. In other words, European leaders are threatening Israel for defending itself and for defending signed agreements to which Europe itself is bound.

Renewing the Vows - If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
06 December '12..

It's a shame. A shame that building up Jerusalem — the city that has protected Jews throughout the generations more than we have protected it — has become a form of punishment. A stick with which to hit others over the head.

After all, building in Jerusalem is a privilege and a duty, and also a true necessity. If there is a demand for homes in Jerusalem, they should be built. All year round. But not as a punishment. If there is no need for housing, then there should be no construction. Not yesterday, not today and not tomorrow.

Despite all that, the government should be commended. The current dispute with the U.S. and Europe is a good one, even if it has erupted too late. If the U.S. had not attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy on Jerusalem, then there would be room for concern.

After years in which the Israeli leadership kept raising Palestinian hopes over our capital city, it is about time that Netanyahu and his ministers begin lowering these hopes back down and repairing the serious damage. Netanyahu's government has been going about this slowly and hesitantly, but better late than never.

Israel's previous governments have left scorched earth behind. The administrations of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were willing to divide the city, betraying all their vows not to do so.

Netanyahu took his time in rectifying their mistakes. It was not easy to extricate the lamb from the wolf's jaw. Still, his government built in the city, even if it was too little and too slow, renewing the vows to Jerusalem.

Netanyahu faced many obstacles: Green activists blocked construction in western Jerusalem, while the U.S. blocked construction in the east. The result has been catastrophic: Only 1,700 housing units are being built annually in Jerusalem, while the demand for housing is at 4,500 per year. The city's Jewish residents have been voting with their feet. They had no place to live, so they left.

Meanwhile, the construction of the separation fence in northern Jerusalem prompted an influx of tens of thousands of Palestinians into Jerusalem. Contrary to European propaganda, Jerusalem's Arabs want to continue living under Israeli rule. Anyone who talks to them directly, and not to their leaders, will hear them say as much. Add the high birthrate among the city's Arabs, and you get a grave demographic crisis for the city's Jewish population.

The benchmarks, in any case, have remained skewed. But it is not too late to remedy this, even if it means a confrontation with Europe and the U.S. If this government still has any red lines, Jerusalem is one.

Anti-Israel Soccer Petition Dupes CNN

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
05 December '12..



20:46 Update: Frédéric Kanouté's anti-Israel soccer petition is shrinking.

Maybe that shouldn't be a surprise — if the text of the petition is inaccurate, why wouldn't many of the signatures be, too?

Initial news stories claimed 62 players signed the petition. But then Didier Drogba and Yohan Cabaye, whose names appeared on the petition, announced that they didn't actually sign it.

Yesterday, we counted 59 names Kanouté's petition page — we didn't get a screen shot — suggesting that a third player's name was added without permission.

As of this writing, there are 52 names.

The following ten "signatories" apparently never signed, and perhaps never even saw, the petition, as their names have been removed:

André Ayew, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Jordan Ayew, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Yohan Cabaye, Newcastle United (UK)
Soulaymane Diawara, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Didier Drogba, Shanghaï Shenhua (China)
Rod Fanni, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Charles Kaboré, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Anthony Le Tallec, AJ Auxerre (France)
Steve Mandanda, Olympique de Marseille (France)
Arnold Mvuemba, Olympique Lyonnais (France)


CNN reported on Dec. 3 that more than 60 soccer players signed a petition calling on a European soccer federation to move the Under-21 European Championship from Israel, that soccer star Didier Drogba was one of those players, and that Israel's bombing of a stadium in Gaza resulted in the deaths of four young people playing soccer.

All three claims are false.

As the Associated Press reported yesterday, "Didier Drogba says he wasn’t among the soccer players to sign a petition protesting the decision to hold next year’s European under-21 championship in Israel." (See more at CiF Watch.)

And because at least one other player listed among the purported 62 signatories, Yohan Cabaye, also denied signing it, CNN's claim that "More than 60 players" signed the petition is likewise false.

Perhaps most importantly, the CNN story restatement of the petition's claim that "a bomb attack by Israeli forces on a football stadium in Gaza on November 10 ... killed four teenage players" is also false, according to a Palestinian witness to the fatal attack quoted in the New York Times, who is also a relative of one of the teenage boys.

(Video) Not only qualified to be a state, but can sing too

LOTL..
06 December '12..





Palestinian Media Watch once again on top of the latest in Palestinian broadcasting brings us the following:

Voice of Palestine radio has broadcast a song glorifying suicide bombings targeting Israelis. The song on the official Palestinian Authority radio station was played two days after the PA was granted observer status at the UN,...:

In spite of what I'm sure was the fervent hope of a number of nations, that voting an upgraded status would in turn be matched with upgraded behavior, old habits die hard. Of course, so do fantasies.

Hamas is happy because the war gave Hamas what it says it loves

Burak Bekdil..
Hurriyet Daily News..
05 December '12..

I am not sure if Hamas is unhappy or happy with Israel’s use of “disproportional force” each time the jihadists escalate indiscriminate rocket attacks against Jewish targets. I am not sure if we poor souls can ever understand the jihadists when they say “they love death more than we love life.”

Hamas’ rhetoric stinks of death, nothing but death – indiscriminate death. Be it “our” death or “the enemy’s.” And it never metamorphoses into something more humane, something less nihilist. Most recently, in an interview with Today’s Zaman, Gaza’s Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, confidently spoke of “defending and liberating Jerusalem,” and “fighting the enemy forever.” According to Mr. Haniyeh, the nearly 200 dead Palestinians – including Palestinian children killed by errand Hamas rockets – proved Hamas’ “prowess.” He called the eight-day fighting a “victory.”

In the same interview, the prime minister pledged to prepare “bodies and army” for the next attack on Israel and to keep their strategy “always based on armed struggle.” Mr. Haniyeh defines the Palestinian borders as “from Palestine as we know it [Gaza, West bank and Jerusalem] to Rafah and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.”

Mr. Haniyeh claims that “with every [Israeli] attack we grow stronger.” Since “Muslims don’t cheat or lie,” one cannot help but wonder if the Israeli Defense Forces are secretly conspiring for Hamas’ jihad. If what Mr. Haniyeh says is true, why do the willing subscribers of the Palestinian cause across the world, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, complain of Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Hamas targets? They should instead welcome every attack, thinking every attack will strengthen Hamas. Is that too cruel to say?

Ask Mr. Haniyeh.

Israel's culture of post-political responsibility

This culture of post-political criticism and irresponsibility has bred a sanctimonious crescendo of righteous indignation, mainly voiced abroad, the actual purpose of which is simply to coddle the egos of the former political elite.

Alon Liel

Seth J. Frantzman..
Terra Incognita/JPost..
05 December '12..







In a new film about the directors of Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, called The Gatekeepers, Ya’akov Peri claims the actions he ordered his agency to carry out can make one become left-wing.

“You knock on doors in the middle of the night, these moments end up etched deep inside you. When you retire, you become a bit of a leftist,” he says.

Isn't it convenient how one can wait until retirement to develop a moral compass? Of course, Peri’s moral quibbles apparently don’t apply to the period when he was actually in charge. No, Peri’s “insight” is reserved for the benefit of those who came after, for the actions of Israel today.

A fully mature adult takes responsibility for his actions. Not only that, but he learns from the results of his actions. When he makes mistakes, he attempts not to repeat them. One of the truly remarkable things about Israel is the degree to which the country was, for many years, run by a political elite who not only took no responsibility for their actions, but refused to learn from, or even admit, for that matter, their mistakes The defining characteristic of this group is its capacity for blaming others for all the country’s troubles, never mind that they themselves once held the wheel and are, to a very large extent, responsible for the very problems they now critique.

In July 2011, for example, Shlomo Gazit wrote that “if we don’t separate from the Palestinian population on the ground, Jewish and democratic Israel will be unable to survive.” He bemoaned the Palestinians in the West Bank having to navigate a “legal system that enforces the law in a discriminatory way on the basis of national identity, [which] is actually maintaining an apartheid regime.”

This would all be easier to take seriously were it not for the fact that Gazit himself played a central role in establishing the Israeli regime that now governs the West Bank. Foreign Affairs has noted that Gazit was “the coordinator of Israeli government operations in the Occupied Territories from 1967 to 1974, was on the ground in the early years of the occupation and has closely followed developments since.” Gazit prefers that the media focus on how, as a young boy, he joined the Hagana in 1942 and then went on to serve for 32 years in the IDF. Although he authored the book Trapped Fools: Thirty years of Israeli policy in the territories in 2003, in his op-eds on the subject he rarely brings up his own role in being present at the creation of the very system he denounces.

The Imaginary Abbas of the Washington Post

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
05 December '12..

In a Dec. 4 dispatch, Washington Post Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg reports, among other Israel developments, that Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet devoted part of its weekly meeting "to what was termed incitement against Israel by the Palestinian Authority, including a U.N. speech delivered last week by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas."

Readers who might be interested to find out what kind of incitement Abbas delivers against Israel would have been disappointed. Greenberg simply doesn't report any examples or details of anti-Israel incitement by the Abbas-ruled PA. And he's not the only journalist in the West guilty of such omissions.

Had Greenberg delved even a little bit into this topic, Post readers would have been informed about the kinds of anti-Israel incitement stoked by Abbas and organs under his control, including curricula in PA schools, on the official PA website, and in PA media. Such as:

Snapshots from a country at war with a terrorist regime:

it's not so terribly well understood by most

Happy in Gaza [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
05 December '12..

Barely two weeks after our country and the terrorist regime in Gaza reached an understanding to bring the round-the-clock rocket firings at Israel's civilian communities to a temporary halt, there are some things we have learned that we want to share.

First, the Hamas clique that dominates Gaza is today welcoming back into its bosom several more convicted murderers.

Former prisoners deported to Qatar in Gaza for Hamas celebrations

Ma'an [Palestinian news agency based in Bethlehem] Published 05/12/2012
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) – A number of former Palestinian prisoners who were deported to Qatar as part of the prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israel have arrived in Gaza City to mark Hamas’ 25th anniversary. Sabir Abu Karsh, chief of the Waed prisoners association, told reporters that six former prisoners arrived in Gaza to join celebrations of Hamas' anniversary “and the triumph the Gaza Strip achieved against Israel in the last military offensive Israel launched against the coastal enclave.” Gaza-based former prisoner and senior Hamas’ leader Tawfiq Abu Naim greeted the returning former prisoners in a news conference held by Waed prisoners’ association... Abdul-Hakim Hanani, a former prisoner who arrived from Qatar, said the “future stage will be based on the principle hit for hit, and blood for blood.”

From our records, this Hanani (a native of Nablus, whose name appears as Abd al-Hakim Abd al-Aziz abd Hanaini in the walk-free list) is identified as prisoner number 273 in the long and ugly database of 1,027 murderers and assorted terrorists released in October 2011 as Israel's price for the return of the young hostage, Gilad Shalit. Hanani/Hanaini was serving a life sentence for (of course) homicide. Life in Qatar can't be too difficult for people like him, but Gaza is where he really fits right in. And having an abundance of convicted murderers present for their silver anniversary will help the Hamas overlords set just the right celebratory tone.

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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.
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At Human Rights Watch - Dancing Around Genocide

David Feith..
Wall Street Journal..
04 December '12..

Is promoting genocide a human-rights violation? You might think that's an easy question. But it isn't at Human Rights Watch, where a bitter debate is raging over how to describe Iran's calls for the destruction of Israel. The infighting reveals a peculiar standard regarding dictatorships and human rights and especially the Jewish state.

Human Rights Watch is the George Soros-funded operation that has outsize influence in governments, newsrooms and classrooms world-wide. Some at the nonprofit want to denounce Iran's regime for inciting genocide. "Sitting still while Iran claims a 'justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel' . . . is a position unworthy of our great organization," Sid Sheinberg, the group's vice chairman, wrote to colleagues in a recent email.

But Executive Director Kenneth Roth, who runs the nonprofit, strenuously disagrees.

Asked in 2010 about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel "must be wiped off the map," Mr. Roth suggested that the Iranian president has been misunderstood. "There was a real question as to whether he actually said that," Mr. Roth told The New Republic, because the Persian language lacks an idiom for wiping off the map. Then again, Mr. Ahmadinejad's own English-language website translated his words that way, and the main alternative translation—"eliminated from the pages of history"—is no more benign. Nor is Mr. Ahmadinejad an outlier in the regime. Iran's top military officer declared earlier this year that "the Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel."