Anti-Israel gambit by the State Department - American taxpayers pay the freight

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
05 February '13..

For a long time, researchers and critics have provided ample documentation that textbooks of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas glorify suicide bombers, demonize Israelis and feature maps that erase the Jewish state altogether.

Now comes still another study, funded by the State Department, that this time purports to give equal critical weight to the contents of Israeli and Palestinian textbooks. The study has all the academic earmarks of expert, balanced authorship -- a joint effort by an Israeli professor, Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University, and a Palestinian professor, Sami Adwam of Bethlehem University.

Except that under all their professional veneer, the two professors have to stretch mightily to the point of ludicrousness to support their basic thesis that when it comes to inciteful propaganda, there is little, if any, difference between Israeli and Palestinian textbooks. To achieve this result, the study whitewashes the worst examples of hateful Palestinian incitement.

Here are the headlines and leading paragraphs of the New York Times and Washington Post coverage of this new study:

● "Academic Study Weakens Israeli Claim That Palestinian School Texts Teach Hate" by Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner of the New York Times. "An academic study of the contents of Israeli and Palestinian Authority text books finds that each side generally presents the other as the enemy, but it undermines recent assertions by the Israeli government that Palestinian children are educated 'to hate'".

● "Israelis unhappy with study of their textbooks and Palestinians'" by Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg of the Washington Post. "A State Department-funded study on the contentious issue of how Israelis and Palestinians depict each other in textbooks says both sides are locked into narratives that portray the other side as the enemy and erase it from maps, yet do not dehumanize each other."

So let's see what specific examples are cited by the two professors to reach such equivalence -- starting with teachings on martyrdom and self-sacrifice that are "treated with similar evenhandedness" in the study, as Kershner puts it in the Times.

Is There a Reason Not to Take Iran at Its Word?

Douglas Murray..
WSJ Europe..
04 February '13..

Anyone paying attention to the words and actions emanating from Tehran over the last few years should be easily convinced that anything and everything must be done to stop the Iranian regime from acquiring a nuclear bomb.

Yet even now, the international community appears unwilling to declare this rogue regime an enemy, nor to do anything—even by way of sanctions or embargoes—to stop them.

Last week the Henry Jackson Society and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies brought a range of experts together in London to address this issue. We discussed Iran's human-rights nightmare, the regional implications if the regime goes nuclear—and what might be needed to stop it. It was enlightening, of course, but also profoundly depressing. How can it be, at this time and at this stage, that governments and publics are still not dealing with this issue with anything approaching appropriate seriousness?

Our growing inability to focus on any epochal concern in a Twittering age is certainly one reason. But another, which is too little dwelt upon, is the extraordinary campaign of lies, obfuscation and casuistry that certain politicians, academics and commentators have over the course of a decade mounted so strenuously.

Those with ears to hear might hear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promise to "wipe Israel of the map" or "erase Israel from the page of time." But there remains a strange chorus who try to tell us otherwise.

Anytime this fact is even mentioned, some columnist, professor or radical politician can be heard saying that the Iranian president meant no such thing. Sometimes you can publicly walk them through the translation, and they will shift their argument. "Well," they say, "he doesn't mean it like that."

Echoing Interviews That Precipitated a Tragedy - The Gatekeepers

...an Oscar-worthy documentary would have been one showing this story: “Security hawks speak up, policymakers listen up, a heart-wrenching evacuation of 8,000 Jews ensues, terrorist rockets are launched from the evacuated areas, and a nation is left bewildered as to what to do next.” But no Oscar would likely be awarded for such a film.

Rick Richman..
New York Sun..
03 February '13..

“The Gatekeepers,” the leading candidate for this year’s Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, begins with ominous music. It informs viewers that Shin Bet is the secret Israeli agency dealing with terrorism. Then three sentences flash slowly across the screen, one by one:

For the last 30 years only six men have led the organization.

They have never been interviewed.

Until now.

The film is intended, according to its website, as “the ultimate cautionary tale of what happens to people and nations alike when they try to answer violence with violence,” told by six former heads of the Shin Bet, who “for the first time ever … share their insights” about what Israel needs to do: change course, talk to anyone, and reach an agreement with the Palestinians.

But this is not the first time ex-Shin Bet leaders have been publicly interviewed. Their first interview — in 2003 — resulted in a disastrous change of course, one that haunts the “peace process” to this day. And not a word about it is mentioned in “The Gatekeepers.”

On November 13, 2003, Israel's largest-circulation newspaper published a two-hour joint interview with all four ex-Shin Bet chiefs, with a front-page banner headline reading: “Four directors of [Shin Bet] warn: Israel in grave danger.” The New York Times reported the interview the next day; so did the Washington Post, on its own front page.

In Britain, the Guardian's story was headlined “Israel on road to ruin, warn Shin Bet chiefs.” CNN, ABC, Fox and almost all the important press in the world carried extensive coverage of the interview. The ex-Shin Bet chiefs urged Israel to start dismantling settlements even before reaching a peace agreement.

At the time of the 2003 interview, Israel was insisting that before negotiating a Palestinian state, the Palestinians had to stop their terror war against Israel. The war had commenced in September 2000, after Yasser Arafat was offered a state at Camp David – and walked away. In December 2000, the Clinton Parameters were presented to both sides: they were accepted by Israel and rejected by Arafat.

Turkey Joins the Middle East - Conspiracy Theories Triumphant

Daniel Pipes..
National Review Online..
05 February '13..

I wrote in The Hidden Hand, my 1996 book surveying conspiracy theories in the Middle East, that

Turkey and Israel stand out as the only two Middle Eastern countries where leaders are fully accountable to electorates, where the West is viewed more as an ally than as an enemy, and where conspiracy theories have a relatively minor role in public life. … Few mainstream politician, intellectual, or religious leaders [in Turkey] engage in conspiratorial thinking, which exists mostly at the fringes of polite society.

How sadly have things changed in the intervening years. Here’s one example of many, not more egregious but more spectacular than most:

The background: On Jan. 30, Israeli warplanes struck targets in Syria. A week later, the exact details remain murky, but it concerned the transfer of advanced armaments by the Syrian regime to the Hizbullah terrorist group in Lebanon. One might expect the Turkish authorities to applaud this step, both because it did damage to the regime Ankara wants to overthrow and because those advanced armaments could potentially be used against Turkish interests. But no, both the government and the communist opposition spun elaborate and unconvincing conspiracy theories about the Israel raid.

"All roads lead to Lebanon".

The Bulgarian government is set to announce that all roads regarding the Burgas bombing "lead to Lebanon", implicating Hezbollah in the atrocity

The Commentator..
04 February '13..

Nearly seven months after the bus bombing in Bulgaria that killed six Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian government is set to announce that "all roads lead to Lebanon" in the strongest sign yet that Hezbollah was the key perpetrator behind the attack.

The Commentator has exclusively learned that today, the Bulgarian government will implicate, though likely not name the terrorist group Hezbollah in its report on the 2012 bus bombing that has been the subject of much speculation over the past six months.

The Commentator has learned that both the German and French governments have both piled pressure on the Bulgarians to "use nuanced language" in the report, for fear that Bulgaria may be the focus of future attacks if Hezbollah is openly named. (emphasis added)

The Bulgarian government, it has been stated by leading sources, has been informed through ‘back channels’ that there will be serious repercussions from Hezbollah if it is to publically and overtly name the group. This information comes despite strong pressure from the US government to make clear that the bombing was indeed the work of the Lebanese terrorist outfit.

A report so far removed from reality as to render it useless

A Study in False Moral Equivalence

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
04 February '13..

The New York Times reports today that a new study is attempting to downplay the role that incitement to hatred in Palestinian schools is playing in fueling the conflict. The study is the product of the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land, a left-leaning ecumenical group that is partially financed by a grant from the U.S. State Department. The group claims as its goal to promote peace and understanding and their study’s conclusion purports to be as even-handed as their approach to peace.

But the report’s claim that there is a rough moral equivalence between the attitudes of the Israeli and Palestinian education systems toward the promotion of hate is so far removed from reality as to render it useless as a measure of the problem. That study, which was rejected by a number of the academics who were part of the group commissioned to analyze the issue, must therefore be considered a contribution to the propaganda war against Israel rather than an effort to pave the way for accord between the two peoples.

As the Times noted:

Arnon Groiss, another Israeli member of the advisory panel, an Arabist, and the researcher and author of many previous reports critical of the Palestinian Authority textbooks, also refused to endorse the report, saying last week that he had not seen a final version. But he insisted that the authority’s textbooks “prepare the pupils for a future armed struggle for the elimination of the state of Israel.”

To seize on two points brought up in the Times article highlights the dishonesty of such a conclusion. The report claims that both school systems publish textbooks with maps that do not always show the other side’s claims. In practice this means that some Israeli books have maps that do not show the “green line” that marks the border between the West Bank and pre-1967 Israel while all Palestinian books depict both Israel and the territories as the state of Palestine.

That sounds like the same thing but it really isn’t. Israeli books depict the reality that the Jewish state does have control over the entire area. Asking them to show maps that show a state of Palestine that doesn’t already exist is absurd. On the other hand, what the Palestinians are showing not only contradicts reality but also shows their dream of destroying Israel.

Water management as a weapon in Arab-Israeli conflict

The glass is arguably half empty, but also half full. 
Either way, there's no doubt someone was paid 
to fill it, and that money has gone somewhere. 
Where?

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
04 February '13..

Last summer, we wrote here about a campaign of allegations against Israel by, and in relation to, the terrorist regime in Gaza. The immediate trigger was a troubling essay published in Australia by the local correspondent here for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Ruth Pollard. We made efforts to engage her in discussion about it but got no response, and eventually resorted to publishing a rejoinder (entitled "Muddying troubled waters") to her claims in a different Australian paper. See "5-Jul-12: Needed: Bridge over troubled Gazan waters". Her own editors declined to consider publishing our op ed, but were kind enough to offer to pass it along to the letters editor down the hall.

Now there are some startling revelations about the exploitation of the water issue. They appear in a Jerusalem Post article by the well-connected freelance writer, Yochanan Visser. See "How water became a weapon in Arab-Israeli conflict" in yesterday's Jerusalem Post. The whole piece is worth reading if, like us, you believe that an understanding of who is and is not doing intelligent things with water is a key to understanding who does and does not want peace and a decent life for all the people living in this neighbourhood.

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Does Ha'aretz Provide the Full Picture? Distorting Eli's Lands Status

Chanan Amiur..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
03 February '13..

This past week, Ha'aretz reported that according to the Civil Administration, at least 166 homes in the settlement of Eli were built on private Palestinian land. Yet the Civil Administration has never made such a determination. Once again, Ha'aretz readers are treated to a distorted headline.

Chaim Levinson reported on Jan. 29 ("At least 166 homes in Israeli setttlement built on private Palestinian land"):

At least 166 houses in the West Bank settlement of Eli were constructed on private Palestinian land, a recent survey by the Civil Administration revealed.

A quick check reveals that Ha'aretz's error is two-fold. The land upon which the 166 homes are built is not defined as private Palestinian land -- not according to the state, which built the homes in the 1990s; not according to the army, whose then GOC Central Commander signed off on the demarcation boundaries of the new settlement which the state declared; and certainly not by the residents of Eli.

More importantly, Ha'aretz errs by wrongly stating that the Civil Administration defines the land as privately owned Palestinian land. According to Guy Inbar, the spokesman for the Civil Administration, the administration defines the land in question as "survey lands" or "land under clarification," meaning they are currently going through a procedure to resolve possible claims of private ownership and to complete the process of declaring them state lands.

Moreover, it is undisputed that no Palestinian claims ownership of these particular lands. At most, there are possible signs of earlier cultivation during an undetermined historical period. If they were cultivated at all in the past, it is not known by whom. Thus, to claim that these are private Palestinian lands is like declaring a murder based on a possible motive, but without a body or a weapon. What serious investigator would determine a murder took place under these circumstances? In any event, the Civil Administration has not determined that these are privately owned Palestinian lands. Then, how, and why, has Ha'aretz falsely attributed this claim to the administration?

Turkish FM Davutoglu Threatens to Attack Israel - Media Stays Mum

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary/Contentions..
04 February '13..

This weekend, a NATO member threatened to attack one of America’s major non-NATO allies–and nobody in Washington even appears to have noticed. According to the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu lambasted Israel’s reported airstrike on an arms convoy inside Syria and warned that “Turkey would not stay unresponsive to an Israeli attack against any Muslim country.” He also lambasted Syrian President Bashar Assad for failing to launch retaliatory strikes against Israel himself and charged that Assad must have “made a secret deal with Israel.”

Granted, Turkey isn’t really going to attack Israel, nor is Assad likely to do so in response to Davutoglu’s taunts–which is why most Western media outlets, even had they noticed the story, would have dismissed it as non-newsworthy. But they’d be wrong. The failure to report this constant drumbeat of anti-Israel incitement–not just in Turkey, but also in other countries–may be the biggest single reason why so many Americans, including senior policy-makers, consistently misread the Middle East.

Consider, for instance, what Davutoglu actually told his countrymen via the press briefing quoted in Hurriyet. First, he told them Israel is the kind of criminal state that attacks other Muslim countries for no good reason: He didn’t bother mentioning that the reported target was a convoy ferrying sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah, a terrorist organization openly dedicated to Israel’s eradication. Second, he told them Israel is the kind of criminal state that makes secret deals with Assad, a leader who has slaughtered over 60,000 of his own citizens. Nor is this unusual: Officials from the ruling AKP party produce a constant stream of anti-Israel (and anti-Jewish) incitement. Indeed, as we know from WikiLeaks, even former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey concluded that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “simply hates Israel.”

Exposing the NY Times’ double standards

Ricki Hollander..
Times of Israel..
04 February '13..

It is unfortunate that The New York Times, “the paper of record,” displays double standards when reporting about Israel. Israel is the only country whose leaders, policies, and society are routinely singled out for condemnation in the newspaper. Take, for example, last week’s report about racism among Israeli soccer fans. The article purported to cover recent protests by Beitar soccer fans against the recruitment of Muslim players for the team, but this was merely an opportunity to present a sweeping indictment of Israeli society.

Racism among soccer fans is not unique to Israel, nor does it reflect on society at large. In fact, The New York Times, only a few weeks earlier, published a story about racism among soccer fans and players in Europe, noting that it is “hardly a new phenomenon.” The article pointed out that it is an acute problem in Russia, Ukraine, and the Balkans, as well as in Britain and France. It also mentioned that 25 racist incidents occurred during the latest soccer season in Italy. But there was no suggestion that European soccer fans represent their nation’s values.

So how was a story about the deplorable message of some Israeli soccer fans, which provoked widespread condemnation within Israel, turned into an indictment of Israeli society?

The article relied partly on biased sources to convey this message. For example, it quoted Moshe Zimmerman, introduced as a historian who specializes in sports, to assert that the soccer fans represent an Israeli society that “on the whole is getting more racist.” But it did not inform readers that Zimmermann has a penchant for signing anti-Israel petitions, and making derogatory statements about Israelis, including comparisons to Nazis and Hitlerjugend.

Israel, My HOME!

Calev..
LOTL..
04 February '13..

The ability to write, to express oneself, is a very special gift. While not finding this within my tools or talents, still we have been blessed with friends who are more than capable to pick-up the pen, so to speak, and place before us word-pictures that resonate within.

From our special friend, Bat Zion Susskind-Sacks

I love to write. It was late last night and I was sitting in my study and suddenly felt an urge to thank G-d and Eretz Yisrael for all the good in my life....

Israel, My HOME!

You delivered me out of the ashes of Europe. You infused in me the Spirit of Love of Life, of Sharing, Educating and Enriching. Your last drop of blood which soaked our soil, runs through my veins sparkling the eternally renewed hope for Peace and a Brighter Future.

If ever I fail you, Eretz Yisrael, my Jewish Homeland, if ever I forget thee for one bitter moment, I will be lost forever, cast away from you and wander the earth to no end. My covenant with you, my Eretz Yisrael, is engraved on my heart. No more shall I see comfort elsewhere for there is none to be found but here in this Terra Santa, the Holy Land fulfilled with the promise of G-d.

Thank you Bat Zion.

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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Driving the world crazy - The relentless, obsessive focus on Israel

Douglas Davis..
The Commentator..
01 February '13..

Insomniacs lull themselves to sleep by counting sheep. Not me. I count Nobel Prizes being handed out in austere Scandinavian ceremonies. Modestly, I confess, I am the sole recipient. There is, however, a problem: the category for my Nobel Prize does not yet exist. But I am optimistic that the Nobel Prize for Inconvenient Truths will soon be created.

Kåre Kristiansen would have approved. He was a man of acute vision who recognised an inconvenient truth when he saw one. Kristiansen, for example, resigned from the Norwegian Nobel Committee after it decided to award the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat. When I spoke to him about the episode, he was in no doubt that his fellow judges were bonkers. How, he asked, could they award the peace prize to “the world’s most prominent terrorist”?

Staying in Scandinavia (but not, I promise, a moment longer than necessary), an academic researcher asked a senior Swedish human rights official why her country had supported a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council condemning Israel for perpetrating the massacre-that-never-was in Jenin. “You needn’t worry,” she replied. “We know that there was no massacre in Jenin.”

How, then, did she explain Sweden’s vote? Well, she declared, the Swedish government wanted to demonstrate its solidarity with the countries of the “South”.

Proliferation of strategic weapons will not be tolerated

Whatever happens next in the region, last Wednesday's air strikes mark a watershed in the gradual breakdown of the Syrian state, and send an unmistakable signal: That strategic weapons proliferation will not be tolerated, whatever the price.

Yaakov Lappin..
Gatestone Institute..
04 February '13..

If, as international media reports say, Israel was indeed behind last week's air strikes in Syria, it can be assumed that the attack was the opening move in a longer-term strategy to contain quickly-developing threats emerging from Syria, as well as the broader Iran-Hezbollah axis.

The ball is now in the court of Syrian president Bashar Assad and his allies in Beirut and Tehran. If they attempt further weapons transfers to Hezbollah, more air strikes can be expected - a development that will result in a wider conflict.

Iran is also releasing threats of serious retaliation against Israel, a threat which, if realized, could easily lead to a regional escalation. Days before the airstrikes, Iran warned that it would view any attack on Syria as an attack on itself.

For months, Israel has said that it would not allow strategic, advanced Syrian weapons - be they game-changing missiles or chemical weapons - to fall into the hands of Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda-affiliated elements.

As Gatestone Institute readers learned a week before the strike, Israel has no intention of relying on defense only to deal with a transfer of such weapons to the wrong hands.

Israel has remained mum over the strike, and little reliable information has surfaced over what targets were struck, but reports citing Western intelligence officials said a convoy carrying advanced SA-17 Syrian anti-aircraft missiles were the target.

Busted by alert Israeli security - Another hostage-seeking terror group

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
03 February '13..

We reported here earlier today ["3-Feb-13: Little noticed, unjustly-released terrorists are in charge of the ongoing jihad attacks against Israelis"] about the successful intercept and arrest of a Hamas gang based in Hebron whose members were taken out of the game before their plans for shootings and kidnappings of Israelis could be put into effect. We also noted the central role played by one of the 1,027 unjustly-released murderers who walked free as part of the ill-conceived Shalit Transaction.

Some hours ago today (Sunday), we learned of the arrest of a second gang with similar intentions. Like the Hebron arrestees, these terrorists were tracked down by a combination of security agencies, in this case the Shabak and the Border Police. The Hebron gang were controlled by Hamas. Today's losers owed allegiance to Islamic Jihad.

They are

Sayeed Manjhid Div Jasor and Tawfek Hadar Joufek Ajbonariyeh, residents of the Palestinian Arab town of Jenin, aged 19 and 18.

Two Israeli citizens: Yousef Hassin Youssef Warda, 34, from Qalansawe in central Israel; Anas Jabiran, 18, from the central Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm

The two Arab citizens of Israel were indicted today at the Lod Regional Court. Their indictment was the first public indication of the plot. Times of Israel's report quotes a press announcement from the Shabak saying

"The affair illustrates once again the terrorist organizations' intentions to abduct Israelis to use as a betting chip in prisoner release negotiations, with the active involvement of terrorists already in Israeli prisons... Terrorist organizations are continuing to try and use Arab-Israelis to further their cause, taking advantage of the freedom of movement the Israeli ID allows them as well as Arab-Israelis ability to smuggle Judea and Samaria residents in their car..."

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Saving a life - A kidney just like mom’s

Barbara Sofer..
The Human Spirit/JPost..
31 January '13..

You decide to give a kidney to a stranger – not the average person’s decision.

Donors have extra measures of goodness and guts. The process is challenging. You can’t be overweight. You have to undergo tedious tests. You have to convince a committee that you’re emotionally stable. And then there’s the surgery, and the fear of living with only one kidney. Still, for some of these extraordinary persons, the satisfaction of saving a life is so great that, having given up a kidney, they spend their time encouraging others to do the same. But what if your own son, a young father, decides to be one of your volunteers? Would you encourage him to endanger himself? Such was the recent dilemma of Jerusalemite Marci Rapp. At 57, she’d given away her own kidney.

Now her son Gershon, 24, wanted to give away his.

“Although I knew the risks were relatively small – after all, I’d gone through it myself – I was worried,” says Marci. “I wasn’t sure if he really knew what he was getting into. I’m not sure I did, either – only that I wanted to do it because I knew it was a mitzva.”

Gershon says he’d been considering a donation even before his mom. “I’d actually thought of it when I was 19 and a yeshiva student,” he says. “When I first thought of it, I was studying in Israel and heard about someone in America who needed a kidney. The logistics defeated me. But the idea stayed with me: thinking of people on dialysis whose lives would be saved with a kidney. There are more than 700 men and women waiting for a transplant in Israel. The alternative to transplant is dialysis, which doesn’t fulfill all the functions of the kidney, such as the production of hormones. Many patients – some estimates say 20 percent – die while waiting for a kidney.”

Bashing Israel is a Deliberate Campaign

Barry Rubin..
The Rubin Report..
03 February '13..

The first, most important thing to understand about the Western and especially American debate on Israel is this:

Never before in history has there been such a concerted, systematic, and vicious campaign to discredit and demonize Israel, especially seeking to undermine its support in the Jewish community.

Without comprehending this fact, the massive attacks from academia, mass media, groups, and even in mainstream political and intellectual debate cannot be understood. We aren’t dealing with lots of mistakes but with the mass production of hate speech.

Obviously, one should always judge based on the specific people and places involved. Yet a good point to keep in mind is this:

Don't believe that they may have gotten it right this particular time. Many of them aren't trying to get it right; most of them are incapable of getting it right.

These assaults cannot be taken in isolation and with naivete as if this time a wild accusation is accurate. Some are obviously outrageous—the British politician accusing Israel of genocide; a cartoon showing Ariel Sharon eating Palestinian children; Egypt’s president calling Jews sub-humans; the Swedish newspaper claiming Israel murders Palestinians to steal their organs—but even better-constructed items are equally fallacious.

The craziest stuff is just the most incautious end of far more apparently credible lies and distortions. And the key "mistake" made is to use the word "Jews," unacceptable, rather "Israel," "Israelis," or "Zionists."

In other words, "The Jews want to take over the world." No. "Israel wants to take over the Middle East." Okay. "The Jews use children's blood in Passover matzoh." No. "Israel deliberately murders Palestinian children." Okay.

Not all are aware, of course, of what they are doing, especially those originating or spreading the more "moderate" hate speech. There are dupes as well as demonizers, though dupes often seem all too credulous to be wholly innocent.

Here are two more aspects:

A body that privileges and grants immunity to the worst human rights violators on Earth.

It is appalling and hypocritical in the extreme that the unrepresentative, undemocratic UN Human Rights Council dares call for sanctions against Israel, even as it routinely and conveniently ignore the grossest human rights violations of many of its member states.

MK Dr. Nachman Shai..
Haaretz..
01 February '13..

As a re-elected Member of Knesset for the Labor Party, I was disturbed by two developments in the past couple of days: the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) call for sanctions against the State of Israel, and the decision of the New York Times to lambast Israel for boycotting the UNHRC’s four-yearly “review” of its human rights record.

I mention my party affiliation because I want it to be very clear that this ought not be, and for the most part is not, a partisan issue within Israel. While the Netanyahu government has made many foreign policy errors, and in my view helped weaken our position and deepen our international isolation, the UNHRC is quite another matter. The UN Human Rights Council represents the very depths to which an unrepresentative, undemocratic international body can sink.

Kofi Annan said in 2005 that the “credibility deficit” of the Council’s predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, was “cast[ing] a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole.” I wholeheartedly agree, and would characterize its latest incarnation in much the same way.

Although having been reconstituted and renamed only six years ago because of the total illegitimacy of its predecessor, the Council immediately relapsed into its old ways. Despite changes to the structure and governing rules of the Council, it is a body that privileges and grants immunity to the worst human rights violators on Earth. For example, only last week, it voted in Sudan - Sudan! - as its vice president. UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer called this “like naming Jack the Ripper to head a women’s shelter.”

Because of UNHRC processes, the “universal periodic review” essentially acts as a rubber stamp on the behavior of the very worst human rights violators. China, North Korea, and countless other nations whose human rights records make Colonel Gaddafi look like Mother Theresa, routinely get a pass from the Council. Syria, which is estimated to have murdered over 60,000 people over the past couple of years, rarely finds itself in the Council’s spotlight.

Little noticed, unjustly-released terrorists are keeping very busy these days

Our side knowingly put 1,027 of these people back out on the streets. And somehow the reports of them being re-arrested or stopped in the course of doing more of their terrorism are being soft-pedaled in the news media or go unreported. The result is that there are highly-motivated murderers and terrorists with years of experience and deep resources who are now in place, scheming and planning the unthinkable, far from the gaze and awareness of most of us.

The remnants of the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium,
eleven years after the June 2001 massacre [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
03 February '13..

We tried, and failed, in October 2011 to arouse public outrage here and abroad at the incomprehensible decision by the government of Israel to surrender to Hamas demands and to free 1,027 terrorists. More than 800 of them (by our calculations, some 79.3% of the total) were behind bars for shooting or hurling explosives at human beings, or injuring or murdering or attempting to murder them.

We said then, and before and after, that we ordinary Israelis will find ourselves eventually having to pay an unbearably heavy price for the foolishness of the decision to open the doors of Israel's prisons and to release a vast horde of unrepentant killers and would-be killers of Jewish children.

But, as we said, our words fell on far too many deaf ears, particularly in the circle of decision makers here in the nation's capital.

Now please think back to June 1, 2001. A warm Friday night in Tel Aviv. A disco on the premises of a beachfront structure known as the Dolphinarium. A young Palestinian Arab terrorist, carrying a bomb and on a mission inspired by a religious leadership, merges with the crowd of mainly Russian-speaking youngsters, most of them recent immigrants to Israel. On orders from his Hamas masters, he explodes: 21 of the young people are killed, 132 injured. Families and futures shattered. Lives irreparably demolished.

(Continue)

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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Palestinian Innocence - The Myth

Lyn Julius..
Times of Israel..
03 February '13..

My organisation, Harif, aims to tell the story of 2,500 years of Jewish history and culture in what is known as the Arab world. It’s a story with a dramatic ending : 99 percent of these Jews – numbering a million in 1948 – have fled, in the space of one generation.

When people learn about the Jewish expulsion – they usually respond with sympathy. Jews from Arab countries are entitled to recognition and redress, they acknowledge.

But that recognition and redress must come from Arab countries, they say.

Indeed, one of the most enduring myths is that Palestinians bear no responsibility for the exodus of the Jews from 10 Arab countries. The Palestinians are innocent of any wrongdoing.

Regrettably, that position is borne of ignorance and wishful thinking. From the outset, the Palestinian cause was a pan-Arab nationalist cause. It has also a powerful Islamist dimension: Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood do not aim to set up a Palestinian state, so much as reclaim Islamic wakf land from the Jews. From an early stage the campaign for Palestine took on an antisemitic hue. If the Fatah and Hamas unity deal lasts, there will be nothing to choose between nationalist and religious rejectionism of a sovereign Jewish state.

Yet the role of the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, in inciting anti-Jewish hatred and violence as early as the 1920s and 30s is incontrovertible. Not only did the Mufti instigate deadly disturbances in Palestine in 1920 and 1929,it is well known that the riots which led to the murders of 133 Jews in Hebron and Safed were sparked by the lie that the Al-Aqsa mosque was in danger.

(+Video) European Anti-Semitism - Trending

Calling to mind the darkest period of the history of Europe may seem pessimistic. And those who say that history does not repeat itself are probably right, but certain forms of malevolence seem particularly able to find new clothing to survive and thrive again.

Guy Millière..
Gatestone Institute..
31 January '13..

In 2012, the number of anti-Semitic crimes in France sharply increased. The six-month period that followed the March killings in a Jewish school in Toulouse were particularly harsh. The killer , Mohammed Merah, became a hero in many suburbs, his name on many graffiti. For some people, apparently, shooting children in the head just because they are Jewish is inspiring.

Although acts such as as the killing in Toulouse had no equivalent elsewhere, France is not an exception: statistics show that insults, assaults, and cries of hatred against Jews multiply throughout Europe. Jewish schools, synagogues and Jewish cultural centers are everywhere threatened and urgently require more stringent security measures.

Political leaders say they are aware of the problem and are determined to act. In November, French President François Hollande said that "the struggle against anti-Semitism is a top priority." Angela Merkel used the same words a few weeks later in Germany. In the beginning of December, after a spike in verbal and physical anti-Semitic incidents in Britain, David Cameron said that he wanted to "tackle Antisemitism head on."

Words such as that were uttered many times in recent decades, but clearly had no effect. They did not reverse the trend.

When European political leaders and commentators speak of anti-Semitism, they are vague and almost never give more detailed explanations. They never say why anti-Semitism is despicable and dangerous. They perform a sort of abstract ritual that seems more and more detached from reality.

On the other hand, when European political leaders and commentators are more precise, they generally refer only to a certain type of anti-Semitism: fascist anti-Semitism. Even if fascist anti-Semitism has not disappeared, it is not the most virulent anti-Semitism in Europe now, and no longer involved in much anti-Semitic crime. It is as if they are fighting a sickness by designating only one aspect of the sickness and sparing its most important dimensions.

The Problematic UN Human Rights Council Report - An Itemised Critique

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz..
Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council..
01 February '13..

Earlier today, this blog noted that Israel has been boycotting the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the Council's habitual singling-out of Israel for unfair, unwarranted, and utterly biased criticism.

A report on settlements in the West Bank, the commission of which spurred Israel's decision to cease cooperation with the Council, has just been released. Sadly, the Report entirely vindicates Israel's position on the matter. Its three authors began by determining Israel's guilt, then conducted an investigation into why it was, in fact, guilty. The research was lazy at best – with numerous unreferenced assertions and many very basic factual errors.

Most importantly, they made no effort whatsoever to provide any form of context or balance, or even to acknowledge that some of the allegations they were making were in any way controversial. They simply re-hashed a series of tired and repeatedly debunked accusations against Israel. Whatever legitimate criticisms were made in the report are buried so far down amid layers of unfounded invective as to make them near impossible to find, let-alone act on.

Below is an itemised critique of the Report, highlighting numerous examples of errors and misinformation.

Elections do have consequences and Israelis voted decisively

Evelyn Gordon..
JINSA Fellow ..
01 February '13..

It was an election whose results stunned pundits both in Israel and abroad, a "wide and deep repudiation" of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as some hastened to claim. And elections, as we know, have consequences. So are major changes expected in Israel's foreign and defense policy?

In a word, no.

First, though both his own party and the larger bloc he heads lost seats to parties on their left, Netanyahu will remain prime minister. And his views haven't changed.

Second, he didn't just win on a technicality. Though voters arguably did repudiate his domestic policies, they actually backed his foreign and defense policies overwhelmingly.

A striking pre-election poll commissioned by the anti-Netanyahu daily Haaretz asked voters which party leader they most trusted to handle various issues. On diplomatic negotiations, an area where many non-Israelis deem him an unmitigated failure, Netanyahu beat his rivals by a margin of more than 2 to 1. On security, his margin of preference was more than 4 to 1 - a tribute to the last four remarkably peaceful years despite the chaos engulfing Israel's northern and southern neighbors.

As a result, parties that directly opposed Netanyahu's foreign and defense policies actually fared miserably. Only three even tried to do so: Meretz and Tzipi Livni's new Hatnuah assailed him for the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian talks, while Kadima challenged him on Iran. Together, they won a mere 14 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.

But the United Nations was benign then, compared to what it has become today

Arlene Kushner..
02 February '13..





"Oom Shmoom"

I believe I've explained this term before: Oom refers to the UN, in Hebrew. "Oom Shmoom" was the contemptuous way that David Ben Gurion referred to the UN.

But the United Nations was benign then, compared to what it has become today. What would he call it now?

~~~~~~~~~~

In my last posting, I alluded to a ridiculous statement made by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and said I'd be dealing further with the UN next time I wrote.

Well, no sooner had that posting gone out, then I saw news about another Ban statement. This one was not simply ridiculous, it angered me.

Ban said that he was "greatly concerned" about the fact that Israel allegedly breached Syrian air space, He was referring to the sorties by Israel late Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, in which a convoy carrying weapons to Hezbollah and a Syrian chemical factory were apparently hit (I'll come back to this).

Please understand. Assad has murdered more than 60,000 of his own people. He has a huge cache of weapons of mass destruction that are a threat to the world and continues to manufacture them, and he supplies weapons to the terrorist Hezbollah. But what is Ban "concerned" about? An Israel action that was pre-emptive, and thus defensive. Because we violated Syrian air space.

Such is the insanity of the world today.

~~~~~~~~~~

And this is merely preface to what I wanted to write:

There is no agency of the UN more blatantly anti-Jewish/anti-Israel then the UN Human Right Council (UNHCR). Israel, in fact, is the only country out all the UN's member-states to be the target of a dedicated permanent item on the UNHRC agenda. One other item on the permanent agenda -- “Human rights situations that require the council’s attention” -- refers to all of the other 192 countries in the UN. There have been more special sessions devoted to Israel than any other country.

For some time now, Israel has refused to cooperate with this severely biased Council. For one important instance of Israel not going along, see this by Anne Bayefsky:

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=301408

And note, please, the pressure on Israel by the US to play the game.

A Rare Encounter - Breakfast With The Supreme Leader

Given all the official civil and religious bodies and positions and their various responsibilities, they asked him to describe what exactly is his job. ‘My job’, the Supreme Leader replied, ‘is to set Israel on fire.’

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
01 February '13..

This past week I participated in a conference on Iran convened by the Henry Jackson Society of London and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy of Washington, DC.

As the executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, Alan Mendoza, put it, “Having breakfast with the Supreme Leader of Iran is not something many people can boast of. But the account of just such an occasion by Rafael Bardaji – former national security advisor to the Spanish Prime Minister – stood out as a highlight of the HJS Iran conference in Westminster earlier this week. Bardaji relayed to a packed hall his story of the meeting.”

The story is this: The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, invited then-Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to breakfast while he was visiting Iran. The Spanish official party decided to begin by asking the ayatollah a friendly or neutral question rather than a hostile or critical one. The idea was to get the meeting off on a better footing, so they began with a question about the complex government and religious power structure in Iran. Given all the official civil and religious bodies and positions and their various responsibilities, they asked him to describe what exactly is his job. ‘My job’, the Supreme Leader replied, ‘is to set Israel on fire.’

Raising an entire generation on glorification of suicide bombers, jihad and terrorism.

More disturbing is that only a few of the dozens of Western-funded human rights organizations that operate in the Gaza Strip have raised their voices against Hamas's abuse of children. Even the United Nations Children's Fund [UNICEF], which was created to work for children's rights, their survival, development and protection, has yet to condemn Hamas for recruiting school children to its military apparatus.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
01 February '13..

Thousands of Palestinian schoolchildren have been receiving military training in the Gaza Strip to prepare them for jihad against Israel.

According to Mohamed Siam, a senior official with the Hamas-run ministry, some 9,000 high school children have already joined 36 camps throughout the Gaza Strip and are being taught how to use various types of weapons and handle explosives. Hamas says that the purpose of the camps is to prepare Palestinian children, both militarily and psychologically, for the "liberation of Palestine, from the Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea," in other words, all of Israel.

How can anyone talk about the two-state solution when thousands of Palestinian children are being trained to use weapons and explosives to replace Israel with an Islamic state? Does Mahmoud Abbas really believe that these schoolchildren will ever accept his strategy of peace with Israel? These are questions the West needs to ask itself before once again pressing for a two-state solution.

The training is being held under the supervision of the Hamas government's Ministry of Education, and the training camps have been named Al-Futuwwa [spiritual chivalry]. According to Wikipedia, Al-Futuwwa was the name of the Hitler-Jugend [Hitler Youth] style of pan-Arab fascistic and nationalistic youth movement that existed in Iraq in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1938, the Al-Futuwwa youth organization sent a delegate to the Nuremberg Nazi party rally, and in turn hosted the Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach. In 1941, the fascistic pan-Arab Al-Muthanna Club and its Al-Futuwwa movement participated in the Farhud attack on Baghdad's Jewish community.

Another report report just like the Goldstone Report

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
01 February '13..

Let's begin from the end of the recent U.N. Human Rights Council report, which provides a timeline of "Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory." Well, it all began in 1948, when we established our state on Palestinian land in violation of British policy, as outlined in the "White Paper" which only allowed 75,000 Jews to enter Palestine. Beyond that, entry was up to approval by the Arabs. Since then, we annexed land, settled, violated, etc. The White Paper as a starting point. Nice, isn't it?

Well, the international definition is "occupied territories" (not "occupied Palestinian territories"), meaning that the ownership of the land is under legal dispute. We argue that the land belongs to us as part of the historical Land of Israel, by virtue of never having belonged to any other state. As early as the 1970s, legal experts proved that we are not "occupiers" because we never conquered any land that belonged to another state. The last sovereign entity in this land was the British mandate. The Jordanian occupation was never officially recognized, and even Jordan renounced ownership of this territory toward the end of the 1980s.

In addition, the timeline should begin more than 3,000 years ago. But even if we go back 18 centuries, we find that the Roman rulers gave the Land of Israel, or Judea, the name "Palestina" in efforts to sever the link between the Jews and their homeland. In the seventh century, Muslim conquerors expelled a large part of the Jewish population from the area, and forcibly converted some to Islam. Since then, the land was largely desolate until the end of the 19th century — the return of the Jewish nation to Zion. The land had waited for its real sons and daughters, and would only flourish for them.

Dear Palestine – Jews Will Not Be Suckers Anymore

David Singer..
J-Wire..
01 February '13..

Amos Oz represents the perfect example of a writer of stories and tales who should stick to writing and not trade on his unrivaled excellence and international recognition in that field to try and influence the course of Israeli politics.

This becomes embarrassingly evident when considering his political opinions disclosed in an article written for the New York Times by Roger Cohen on 28 January.

His introductory remarks to Cohen are indeed promising:

“Most Israelis would wave goodbye to the West Bank but they don’t want to be suckers, they don’t want the Gaza scenario to repeat itself”

Israelis were really taken for suckers after unilaterally evacuating Gaza in 2005 – receiving in return the indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets into Israeli civilian population centres as thank you presents since then.

Israelis will not be suckered into suffering a repeat performance of such war crimes emanating from any areas of the West Bank ceded by them to the Arabs.

We're Talking About The Big “O” in Occupation

Mike Lumish..
Israel Thrives..
31 January '13.

It is one of my ongoing contentions that the extent to which progressive-left Jewry incorporates the “Palestinian narrative” of perpetual and perfect victim-hood into their understanding of the Arab-Israel conflict is the extent to which their views on the matter are counterproductive to the well-being of world Jewry.

This is not to say that there are no elements of truth in the “Palestinian narrative” but merely to suggest that when this narrative is held up to historical scrutiny it is found largely to be a lie. The essence of the lie is that the Jews of the Middle East are the oppressors of an innocent local Arab population with a distinct and separate ethnicity from other Arabs in the region. The “Palestinian narrative” holds that during the latter part of the nineteenth-century, and throughout the first half of the twentieth-century, imperialistic European Jewish colonists stole land from the indigenous Arab population, whom they ethnically-cleansed from the region, under the false belief that G-d is a sort-of cosmic real estate broker. These vicious Jews then went forward to oppress the innocent Palestinians who, to this day, live under a brutal apartheid system leaving them no choice but to resist the Jewish settler-state in any manner possible, including suicide bombings.

Painting with a rather broad brush, this represents the “Palestinian narrative” as it is presented today to gullible and well-meaning westerners, including of course gullible and well-meaning progressive-left western Jews. The degree to which we accept this narrative is the degree to which the Jews are guilty before the conversation even begins. The degree to which we accept this narrative is the degree to which the argument can never be won because the conclusion of Jewish guilt is embedded directly within the fundamental premises of the narrative itself.

(Continue)

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A diplomatic response, a more direct response, and both.

Calev..
LOTL..
01 February '13..




In yesterday's Times of Israel addressing the UN Human Rights Commission's latest report, a pretty sharp response from Israel's Foreign Ministry:

“The report is so utterly misguided that it steps widely out of line in recommending a boycott that would harm Palestinians and Israelis alike,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told The Times of Israel. “The authors seem so enraged that they forget they have no authority on such issues, and their hubris leads them to decree as states, rather than opine as individuals.”

The Times continues:

Last March, the United Nations Human Rights Council decided to dispatch an international fact-finding mission to “investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” Furious over the UNHRC’s apparent over-obsession with Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians, Jerusalem cut all ties with the Geneva-based body, ceasing all cooperation and barring its fact-finders from entering Israeli territory.

In the world of diplomacy one might say this is a bit feisty but there was to yet a bit more icing on the cake as reported in yesterday's Jerusalem Post:

Human Rights Watch - The immoral agenda continues

Gerald M. Steinberg..
Times of Israel..
31 January '13..

In London today (January 31), Kenneth Roth, the powerful head of Human Rights Watch (HRW), will be holding a press conference and giving interviews to promote his organization’s 2012 annual report. As in the past, Roth will paint a bleak picture of human rights around the world and castigate governments – particularly Western democracies – for not acting to prevent violations. But Roth is not likely to look inward, at himself and HRW, to consider their central contributions to turning human rights into a political farce.

The activities of HRW in 2012 epitomized the ongoing crisis and moral failure of the human rights network. Founded in 1978 by Robert Bernstein, with the goal of naming and shaming closed dictatorial regimes around the world, this organization lost its moral compass many years ago through biased ideological agendas and consistent lack of professionalism. Under the ongoing leadership of Kenneth Roth, these failings led Bernstein to condemn his own organization in the New York Times in 2009.

Roth has shown a consistent obsession regarding Israel and the right of the Jewish people to sovereign equality, including numerous articles and Twitter posts. In a recent piece ostensibly about eight countries other than Israel (“Barack Obama: Dump These 8 Unsavory Allies), Roth began with a lengthy attack against American support for Israel, including terms like “Jim Crow-like separate-and-unequal treatment of Palestinians.” In his Twitter account, Roth frequently invokes the Durban strategy of demonization, recalling the infamous antisemtic 2001 NGO Forum in which Roth and HRW played central roles.

In contrast, Roth cannot bring himself or his organization to condemn the torrent of genocidal threats emanating from the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reflecting HRW’s complete moral bankruptcy. In rebuke, HRW founder Robert Bernstein, Prof. Irwin Cotler, and Stuart Robinowitz published “Inciting Genocide Is a Crime,” in which they pointedly noted, “Silence is not a moral option when states threaten genocide—especially when they are on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and boast that they can bring about a holocaust in a matter of minutes.”

Israel is capable and does respond

Shoshana Bryen and Stephen Bryen..
Gatestone Institute..
31 January '13..

Israeli jets struck something Tuesday night; Wednesday's guessing game has been, "what was it?"

First reports from Western news services said the Israeli Air Force hit a convoy of weapons moving west from Syria toward, or even in Lebanon. A Lebanese army source said nothing was hit there and a sometimes-but-not-always-reliable source said it wasn't a convoy at all, but an arms depot near the Jamaraya institute, which some people think works on non-conventional weapons. A Syrian military statement said Israel had hit Jamaraya. U.S. officials said it was a convoy. At least one Western report said there was uranium involved.

In any event, Israel quickly dispatched high-level government and military officials to Russia and the United States to provide additional information and, perhaps, to alert those governments to additional threats.

The next questions should be, "who is pulling Israel into the quagmire that Syria and Lebanon have become, and why?"

It is unlikely that Bashar Assad is interested in acquiring another military adversary at the moment. The myriad rebel factions plus Turkey are making life hard enough for the regime. So the instigator might well have been Iran -- the only other party with the authority to undertake such a move. Why? One possibility is that Iran wants Hezbollah to tie down the Israelis and prevent a Western intervention to help the rebels. Another is that Iran really believes Assad won't survive and wants to move his assets to a "safer location," Lebanon.