Many endings, but a chance to move on

...Until now, it was US pressure on Israel for concessions to the Palestinians that kept the Israeli Left going. Now, without any leadership, with its power base in the permanent bureaucracy weakened, and the US role as mediator wholly discredited not only among the Israeli public, but in the US media, the Left has nothing to latch on to. If the government uses the opportunity to abandon the two-state paradigm, it stands its best chance in 20 years of succeeding.

Caroline Glick..
carolineglick.com..
04 April '14..

On Monday, former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s career ended.

Earlier this month, former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Gabi Ashkenazi’s career ended.

And on Tuesday, the phony peace process ended.

In the lead-up to last year’s elections, the media and key political figures were yearning for Olmert’s return to politics.

In July 2008, Olmert was forced to cede leadership of the Kadima party, and so opt out of running for reelection, when then-attorney-general Menahem Mazuz announced he was indicting the premier on corruption charges. Olmert left office in March 2009 when his government was replaced by Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition government.

The public abandoned its support for Olmert in the summer of 2006 as a result of his incompetent leadership of the Second Lebanon War. By the end of the summer, Olmert’s approval rating stood at 3 percent. But with the able assistance of the media, and of Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman who saved Olmert’s government by joining it, Olmert was able to weather the storm and keep going despite the public’s lack of faith in his leadership and ardent desire to force him from office.

The media’s romance with Olmert began formally in late 2003, when he followed then-premier Ariel Sharon from the center-right to the far Left. Indeed, as Sharon abandoned his pledges to voters and adopted the platform of the defeated Labor Party of unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza, Olmert outflanked him from the Left.

Always a political pugilist, Olmert was eager to attack everyone who opposed Sharon’s withdrawal plan. He had no qualms about using rank demonization to attack his former political allies in the Likud.
It was Olmert’s newfound devotion to the platform of the far Left that won him the support of media heavies like Yediot Aharonot’s Nahum Barnea, Ma’ariv’s Ben Caspit and Channel 2’s Amnon Abramovich. They were more than happy to attack as delusional independent investigative reporter Yoav Yitzhak who broke nearly every corruption story regarding Olmert, beginning in 2005.

After four years of desultory, at best, probes between 2009 and 2012, Olmert was indicted in four separate cases on corruption charges. After he was acquitted of most of the charges in his first two trials, his media allies began a campaign to return him to politics. Only Olmert, they said, had a chance to defeat Netanyahu. None of the other leftist party heads had a shot.

But alas, Olmert was otherwise engaged, in his criminal defense. And now that he is a convicted felon, Olmert will never be able to return to politics.

Even his media friends have to cut their losses and find a new leader.

United Nations Bodies Can Also Be Double-Edged Sword for Palestinians

...a reminder that in the event that the Palestinians were ever to join these more significant bodies, we need not assume that attempts at prosecution would be all in one direction. And it is for that very reason that Abbas will no doubt be far more cautious about applying to join the international organizations that actually carry the most significant clout.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
04 April '14..

Speaking on Thursday night, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas declared that he would rather “become a martyr” than withdraw the applications that the Palestinians have submitted to 15 international treaties and conventions, as Israel has insisted he must do. Not one to pass up the opportunity for melodrama, Abbas’s pronouncement will hardly cause any shockwaves, but if he continues with this reckless policy of joining international bodies then Abbas may well find himself hung by his own petard. While legal experts are divided about the practical ramifications of these latest moves, there are certain international organizations that, were the PA to join them, would likely render Abbas open prosecution himself.

The events surrounding this latest Palestinian action–that likely symbolize the final blow to the latest round of talks–have already been pored over in detail, and no doubt will continue to be contested and fought over a great deal more. The simple chronology is that on Tuesday, shortly before Abbas was to meet with Secretary Kerry and while Israel was awaiting a response from Abbas to its ludicrously generous offer to release more than 400 Palestinian prisoners and partially freeze settlements in return for extending peace talks, Abbas had the PA submit requests to join 15 international conventions and treaties. This, it should be recalled, is despite the fact that the PA is obligated to refrain from such actions while talks continue through to the end of April, although strictly speaking the Oslo accords prohibit such actions in any event.

It is unclear whether the Palestinians ever directly responded to the initial Israeli offer, but instead they issued a counter-set of demands for agreeing to continue with negotiations. That list of demands essentially amounts to an itinerary of all the things that one would presume would be covered during the talks themselves. In other words, Abbas is demanding that Israel flatly agree to meet all his requirements on borders, Jerusalem, security, etc., prior to talks being resumed, at which point there would of course be nothing left to discuss. It hardly passes for what most would understand by the term “negotiation.” And if Israel doesn’t submit to all of this then apparently the Palestinians will plow ahead with their strategy of joining UN bodies.

There is, however, significant disagreement about just how damaging these moves could really be for Israel. So far it appears that in this latest round of applications the Palestinians have restricted their requests to joining treaties and conventions rather than actual UN organizations. Among the 15 they requested to join on Tuesday are the Fourth Geneva Conventions, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the Hague Convention respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. It has been suggested that the move toward joining the Hague Convention may be part of preparation to try and prosecute Israel over construction in Jewish communities over the 1949 armistice lines, which would include any building throughout most of Jerusalem. Other observers, such as professor Robbie Sabel of the Hebrew University, have claimed that since Israel is already bound by the Fourth Geneva Convention, it will not make any difference whether the Palestinian Authority were also to become a member.

(Video) Dr. Gabriel Barkay and the Battle to Stop the Destruction on the Temple Mount

Prof. Barkay, interviewed by R. Chaim Richman is also a member of the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities. He is one of Israel's foremost experts on the archaeology and history of the Temple Mount.

R. Chaim Richman..
The Temple Institue..
04 April '14..

Dr. Gabriel Barkay is one of Israel's archaeologists, and currently an external lecturer at Bar Ilan University. In 2005, together with archaeologist Zachi Zweig, Barkay established the Temple Mount Sifting Project, dedicated to recovering archaeological artifacts from 400 truckloads of earth illegally removed from the Temple Mount by the Waqf during 1996 - 2001. Prof. Barkay is also a member of the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities. He is one of Israel's foremost experts on the archaeology and history of the Temple Mount.



For more of the 5th Annual International Temple Mount Awareness Day - Zvia Savir: http://youtu.be/GCG-wl_TKRc

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWYENkjRwVc

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out! 
.

Regarding “Reality Check Time”, Kerry’s Is Long Overdue

...The secretary ignored the advice of wiser foreign-policy analysts who cautioned that there was no reason to believe there was a chance of forging a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. He then plunged head first into the process convinced that he could succeed where all others had failed, all the while warning the Israelis that they would face violence and boycotts if they didn’t do as he asked.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
04 April '4..

Secretary of State John Kerry’s reaction to the collapse of his Middle East peace initiative was entirely predictable. Eschewing any responsibility for having personally stage-managed this fiasco, he told the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority in a statement that they needed to understand that he had better things to do if they weren’t willing to play ball. As the New York Times reported:

“There are limits to the amount of time and effort that the United States can spend if the parties themselves are unwilling to take constructive steps in order to be able to move forward,” said Mr. Kerry, who added it was “reality check time.”

He’s right about that, but if there is anyone involved with this mess that needs a reality check, it’s Kerry.

The secretary ignored the advice of wiser foreign-policy analysts who cautioned that there was no reason to believe there was a chance of forging a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. He then plunged head first into the process convinced that he could succeed where all others had failed, all the while warning the Israelis that they would face violence and boycotts if they didn’t do as he asked. But while both Kerry and President Obama continued to praise PA leader Mahmoud Abbas as a peacemaker, it was he who always had his eye on the exit sign from the talks.

Abbas seized on the first pretext he could find to flee the negotiations and now Kerry is left looking foolish. But the problem here is not whether Kerry might be better employed dealing with more urgent U.S. foreign-policy issues like the Russian attack on the Ukraine, the Iran nuclear talks, or even the human-rights catastrophe in Syria than in wasting more time trying to coax the Palestinians back to the table. It’s whether Kerry’s grasp of reality is so tenuous that rather than backing away from a no-win situation, he decides to double down and try to shove a U.S. peace plan down Israel’s throat.

Kerry knows that throughout this process, it has been Israel who has been forced to pay for the talks with concessions. That was true before the talks began when it was pressured into promising to release more than 100 terrorist murderers to bribe Abbas to come back to the table. It was also true during the negotiations when Israel showed itself again to be willing to withdraw from almost all of the West Bank to create an independent Palestinian state while the Palestinians stonewalled.

It’s hard to believe Kerry is truly offended that the Israelis have been unwilling to release the last batch of murderers without some assurance from the Palestinians that they will keep talking after April or that he views this sensible decision as being somehow comparable to Abbas’s walkout and decision to go back to his quixotic effort to gain more recognition for his non-state from the United Nations. Abbas’s refusal to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state—a measure that indicates he is willing to end the conflict rather than merely pause it—as Kerry asked should have alerted the secretary to the fact that the Palestinians simply aren’t interested in an agreement.

Seriously, home-made rockets? What damage can they possibly do?

...So in the interests of fleshing out this rather superficial picture, allow us to introduce partisan observers and reporters to Aisha Atiya Mohammedin. She's a mostly-unknown Gazan Palestinian Arab woman, aged 52, who had the misfortune to be inside her own home in the rather miserable northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun (population: somewhere in the 30,000's), located close to the border fence with Israel on Friday March 14, 2014. Sometime that day, Mrs Mohammedin's living room was re-arranged permanently by an incoming home-made rocket, evidently despatched by one of her terror-loving neighbors.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
05 April '14..

When hostile-to-Israel news sources (like Ma'an) persist in characterizing the rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets as being based on something they call home-made projectiles, those of us who care about such matters need to pay a little attention to what they're not reporting. [There's some background here: "5-Apr-14: Saturday night rocket attack from Gaza; that's 5, mainly unreported, in the past two days"]

Let's recognize that calling them home-made is part of a strategy to dismiss exaggerated Israeli concerns about rockets falling out of the sky and landing - as any reader of the pro-terror news media knows - "harmlessly".

So in the interests of fleshing out this rather superficial picture, allow us to introduce partisan observers and reporters to Aisha Atiya Mohammedin. She's a mostly-unknown Gazan Palestinian Arab woman, aged 52, who had the misfortune to be inside her own home in the rather miserable northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun (population: somewhere in the 30,000's), located close to the border fence with Israel on Friday March 14, 2014.

Sometime that day, Mrs Mohammedin's living room was re-arranged permanently by an incoming home-made rocket, evidently despatched by one of her terror-loving neighbors.

Now, this was not a military rocket or a ballistic rocket. No. It was a home-made rocket like those referred to routinely in the Palestinian Arab media, as well as in certain ideologically-driven mainstream news sources. We're familiar with the term, from such gentle, etymologically-similar usages as home-made tomato sauce and home-made quilts.

But the home-made rocket in question, fired from within the Gaza Strip and with Israeli victims in mind, was not gentle. It caused shrapnel injuries to Mrs Mohammedin that included amputating the hand off her right arm. Her injuries were treated in Gaza City's Shifa Hospital but without success, and that is where she died that day. Five additional people, including three children, all of them hitherto living in the Beit Hanoun residence, suffered injuries. Etab Jamal Mohammedin, aged 24, sustained shrapnel injuries to the face and neck. Wesam Isma'il Mohammedin, just 3, sustained shrapnel injuries to the legs. Ranin Mohammedin, a little girl aged 4 suffered unspecified injuries. And Abdul Fattah, aged 5, the same. Isma'il Mohammedin, described as "the house's owner" and we guess the husband of Mrs Mohammedin, sustained bruises.

(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 which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out! 

Did you know that PLO negotiators have 7 conditions to renew talks?

The likelihood of Ma'an getting the particulars correct on this is reasonably high, as opposed to much of the Western press coverage which may bury or ignore that which doesn't fit their particular editorial stance. (LOTL)

Ma'an News Agency..
04 April '14..

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Palestinian negotiators have posed seven conditions that must be met by Israel to continue negotiations beyond April 29.

The conditions were announced during a 9-hour meeting Wednesday with Israeli negotiators in Jerusalem, a high-ranking source in the PLO told Ma’an.

The following are the conditions, according to the source.

1. To receive a written letter from Israel's premier recognizing the Palestinian borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.

2. The release of Palestinian prisoners who former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to free including Marwan Barghouthi, Ahmad Saadat, and Fuad Shweiki.

3. Implementing a border-crossing agreement and lifting the siege on Gaza.

4. The return of exiles deported in the 2002 Bethlehem siege.

5. Stopping settlement activity in Jerusalem, and opening closed institutions in Jerusalem.

6. Allowing the reunification of 15,000 Palestinians with their families.

7. Israel refraining from entering areas under Palestinian Authority control for arrests or killings, and granting the PA some control over Area C.

In a meeting with Fatah officials, chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat and central committee member Mahmoud al-Aloul said that submitting applications to join 15 international organizations was a small step taken by the Palestinians to regain their rights.

Nebi Musa Massacre - The Postulate of Illegitimacy, Then and Now

...Considering their penchant for distorting history, Israel’s detractors are doubtless tempted to describe 1920’s predators as oppressed Palestinian peasants protesting against usurper Jews. It must, therefore, be a whopping downer to discover that none of this homicidal fury was unleashed on behalf of Palestine. The Arabs loathed the very name introduced to this country by its new British overlords.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
04 April '14..

Something strikingly dramatic happened in this country exactly on this day 94 years ago. Cries of Itbach el-Yahud(slaughter the Jews) filled the air. It was the first coordinated mass-murder offensive launched by infamous Jerusalem Mufti Haj-Amin el-Husseini (who would in time become an avid Nazi collaborator, Hitler’s personal guest in Berlin during WWII and a wanted war-criminal).

Ever since, this land shook fitfully as rounds of massacres and wars followed each other in breathless succession. The past mustn’t be consigned to irrelevance. Unbroken historical continuities contextualize current events. Nothing springs forth from a vacuum. What now transpires began back then.

The pivotal murder-drive of 1920 and its aftermath are vital for understanding why John Kerry’s peace pageant is a flop and why Israel so profoundly displeases him, his boss Barack Obama and their pet-Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas. It established the prototype whereby Jews are punished for Arab crimes against Jews. It highlights the pattern of appeasing Arab wrath and of Jews paying – as if Jewish existence is in and of itself a casus belli.

The bias maddeningly came into play already in 1920. It’s the bias that has today burgeoned into the escalating extortion and shameless expectation that Israel release convicted murderers as a matter of course and injure its own interests to keep its enemies sweet. It’s as if Israel has no valid interests, no rights. This is the postulate of illegitimacy.

Western antipathy to Jewish self-preservation was already gallingly evident in 1920, as was indulgent acquiescence to Arab aggression. It’s scary to realize how little has actually changed.

Those deadly landmark rampages were kick started on April 4, 1920, exploiting Muslim celebrations to rally thousands of raiders at Nebi Musa in the Judean Desert. Serially inflamed by Husseini’s vitriolic harangues, they poured into Jerusalem, descended upon the Old City’s Jewish Quarter and began butchering, raping, pillaging and burning – all in the name of their God.

The premeditated atrocity lasted four days. Even passing reflections on its overlooked anniversary (it’s so uncool to recall crimes against Jews), can contribute considerably to our present-day perspectives.

This unprovoked killing-spree was launched before any of the excuses for Arab bloodlust – now so conveniently and commonly cited – had existed. There was no Jewish state to fulminate against and no Israeli occupation with which to justify any outrage against Jews in the Jewish homeland.

There was no hint of what the Palestinians market so effectively as their nakba – catastrophe. There wasn’t a single Arab refugee. There was no war, no displacement, no reason to rage.

The 1920 victims were largely members of the old-time, traditional, pre-Zionist Jewish community that had long before then constituted Jerusalem’s outright majority. Yet this ancient community was deemed fair game. The subtext was that Jews have no rights – not even indigenous non-Zionists.

Considering their penchant for distorting history, Israel’s detractors are doubtless tempted to describe 1920’s predators as oppressed Palestinian peasants protesting against usurper Jews. It must, therefore, be a whopping downer to discover that none of this homicidal fury was unleashed on behalf of Palestine. The Arabs loathed the very name introduced to this country by its new British overlords.

Ironically, it was the Jews who became known throughout the first half of the 20th century as Palestinians and it was the Arabs who scornfully rejected the moniker.

Israel, Continued Negotiations and Hollow Threats

...Would it be that terrible if the virtual “State of Palestine” were to become a member of additional UN agencies such as the World Meteorological Organization? Obviously, the PA’s threat is about obtaining membership at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and about pressing cases against Israel. That “threat,” however, is hollow, as well.

Dr. Emmanuel Navon..
i24 News..
02 April '14..

The 20-year-old circular “negotiations” between Israel and the PLO, and Israel’s acquiescence to release murderers for the mere sake of pursuing those negotiations, are perhaps best summarized by a famous scene from the 1964 James Bond movie “Goldfinger.” Tied to a table by Dr. Goldfinger, Bond helplessly watches the approaching laser beam about to cut him in half. “Do you expect me to talk?” asks Bond. “No Mister Bond,” answers Goldfinger. “I expect you to die. There is nothing you can talk to me about that I don’t already know.”

Admittedly, Israel does not wish to be blamed for the failure of the current negotiations. Recent history, however, provides ample evidence that Israel will be blamed, regardless of its concessions and that the Palestinians will be absolved, regardless of their intransigence.

We have already seen this movie. It had the same ending after the Camp David conference of July 2000, after the Clinton parameters of December 2000, and after the Olmert proposal of May 2008. In each case, Arafat and Abbas simply got away with saying “no” and could even rely on countless apologists in Israel and in the US to justify their obstructiveness. The hope for a different outcome of a fourth attempt defies logic. In fact, President Obama made sure to clarify in advance, via his recent interview with columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, which side the United States intends to blame for the present talks’ expected failure.

Another possible, and unconvincing, explanation for Israel’s insistence on maintaining the current negotiations is the Palestinian “threat” to initiate unilateral moves at the UN and to “ask membership in all UN agencies” as PA official Mustafa Barghouti recently warned and as Mahmoud Abbas actually did on Tuesday night when he announced that the Palestinians were applying immediately for acceptance to 15 UN agencies. This also is a movie that Israel has seen many times.

In December 1988, the UN General Assembly recognized the “State of Palestine” proclaimed by Yasser Arafat in Algiers a month earlier. Since the signature of the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the PLO has threatened many times to unilaterally declare statehood, even though it did just that in 1988 in Algiers. In November 2011, the virtual “State of Palestine” became a member of UNESCO. On November 29, 2012, the General Assembly granted non-member observer state status to the virtual “State of Palestine.” Full UN membership, however, requires the Security Council’s approval (Russia’s veto has been blocking Kosovo’s membership just as the US veto has been blocking Palestine’s).

Would it be that terrible if the virtual “State of Palestine” were to become a member of additional UN agencies such as the World Meteorological Organization? Obviously, the PA’s threat is about obtaining membership at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and about pressing cases against Israel. That “threat,” however, is hollow, as well.

Have we reached the point when we can stop pretending?

...Israel doesn’t need to be ashamed of its history and of its possession of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. It doesn’t need to apologize for its struggle to keep the Jewish homeland that has been reestablished after almost 2000 years. And it doesn’t need to pretend that its enemies — who themselves don’t pretend otherwise — are interested in coexistence.

Fresnozionism.org..
03 April '14..

Today everyone is concerned that the negotiations with the Palestinians will “fall apart.” If that happens, it is said, there will be severe consequences for Israel: boycotts and delegitimization (because no matter what, Israel will be blamed for the failure of the talks), possibly another violent intifada (because Palestinians will then be even more ‘frustrated’ than usual), there will be anti-Israel actions by the UN, the Americans will stop supporting Israel diplomatically, etc.

Therefore, it is said that Israel must do everything possible to ensure that the talks continue.

This is despite the fact that everyone must know by now that the Palestinians will not and cannot honestly agree to end the conflict. As I said the other day, even if we offer them a state in all of Judea and Samaria — leaving aside the security considerations that make this impossible — they will never agree that the part of the land of Israel that they don’t get also belongs to them, and will never stop trying to get it.

This is the essence of the Palestinian narrative, the Palestinian Cause, and what they have been assiduously teaching their youth. This is why Palestinian refugee status is hereditary, and why there are hundreds of thousands of refugees who are not permitted to assimilate in their countries of residence, and why they demand a “right of return.” This isn’t rocket science (pardon the expression). Just ask a Palestinian.

Only too pleased to welcome in Hamas’s disaffected supporters

...what kind of “peace” agreement sees one side pledge to pause its war on the other in return for the territory from which to ultimately continue that war more successfully? Nevertheless, the all-consuming task of holding onto power in Gaza has periodically distracted Hamas from its war on Israel. That has weakened the group’s standing in the eyes of many Gazans and Islamic Jihad, with its Iranian backers, has only been too pleased to welcome in Hamas’s disaffected supporters.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
03 April '14..

One of the more farcical claims popularized about the Palestinians and their war has been the notion of “moderate Hamas.” These claims have ranged from presenting Hamas as unpleasant but essentially pragmatic to Hamas as the good-willed would-be partners for peace. All of that, however, may soon become irrelevant. For as much as Hamas is very clearly anything but moderate, for many living in Gaza it appears that Hamas just isn’t extreme enough. From among a number of tiny Salafi and Islamist splinter groups that have engaged in periodic freelance rocket fire into Israeli civilian areas, Islamic Jihad is now emerging as a potential rival to Hamas’s authority in the Gaza strip. And with the backing of Iran, this small militant faction could begin to challenge Gaza’s current Islamist rulers and their hold on power.

In the past the alliance between Hamas and Iran appeared unbreakable, despite the fact that Hamas is a Sunni group and the Iranians are of course Shia. The uprisings in the Arab world destabilized this arrangement. Hamas had long had its headquarters in Damascus, but when Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite regime began butchering its mostly Sunni population, and with the backing of Shia Iran at that, suddenly this relationship was called into doubt. Yet, much to Hamas’s good fortune, these events coincided with the Muslim Brotherhood’s ascent to power in Egypt. With Hamas itself essentially existing as the Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, this must have come as welcome news for Ismail Haniyeh and his government in Gaza. However, with the subsequent removal of their Egyptian allies and benefactors from power in July of last year, Hamas in Gaza has been left underfunded and isolated.

While the prospect of Hamas’s decline might in itself be something to be welcomed, it is impossible to ignore that Hamas’s loss increasingly appears to be Islamic Jihad’s gain; which is after all a faction arguably even more potent that Hamas. With Iran stepping up its support for Islamic Jihad the group is now reported to have access to far more advanced weapons than was previously the case and in addition it is claimed that this faction can muster a militia some 5,000 men strong. An indication of the possible shift in the balance of power was evident in the recent barrage of rockets that struck communities in southern Israel last month. This attack was not launched by Hamas but rather by Islamic Jihad fighters, and whereas previously in such instances the Egyptian government mediated between Hamas and Israel, this time Egypt was mediating on behalf of Islamic jihad, with Hamas being consigned to the sidelines.

The New Yorker, Israel's Jerusalem and the Nazi Anschluss

...But the fact that Packer lumps together these distinctly different events, each with its own historical context, is of no importance to The New Yorker. All that matters is that it sounds clever and allows the smug writers at the magazine to take another swipe at Israel.

Steven Stolsky..
CAMERA Snapshots..
02 April '14..

The New Yorker likes to insert into its articles digs at Israel. Another one popped up in the introduction to a piece on the Russian annexation of Crimea. George Packer writes,

Annexation has an ugly sound, owing to an unhappy past. The term describes, among other tragedies, Saddam Hussein’s attempt, in 1990, to swallow Kuwait whole, as the nineteenth province of Iraq; Indonesia’s invasion, in 1975, of East Timor; Morocco’s absorption, the same year, of Western Sahara; and Israel’s declaration, after the 1967 war, of East Jerusalem as part of a united capital. The German word for it is Anschluss. Like most coerced unions, annexations come wreathed in clouds of lofty, dishonest language—key themes are popular will, historic grievance, divine providence—but they almost always happen at the end of a gun.

The magazine has a reputation for skillful writing, but not so much for accuracy or for making sound historical analogies, especially when it comes to Israel.

With the exception of Israel, the annexations Packer lists - by Iraq, Indonesia, Morocco and Germany - share common traits; they were unprovoked acts of aggression ordered by authoritarian rulers. Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem was the result of a defensive war fought by a democratic state responding to aggression committed by Jordan. That's a big difference.

When the U.S. State Dept. Sides with Hamas Funders

...A decision by the administration to side with the Arab Bank against terror victims would be an outrageous abuse of power as well as of hypocrisy. U.S. law demands that the government allow those who have been hurt by terrorists to pursue the funders of murder. For President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry to interfere with the course of justice would be yet another signal that their anti-terror principles don’t apply to the victims of Palestinian killers.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
02 April '14..

Though it is no longer called the “war on terror,” the Obama administration has been eager to be seen as a scourge of international terrorism. It has continued many of the Bush administration’s security policies with regard to seeking intelligence on terror groups and has been so aggressive about pursuing a policy of assassinating terrorists that liberals like Ron Wyden and libertarians like Rand Paul have attacked it. But when it comes to shutting down the financing of some terrorists, the administration is something of a house divided. As the New York Times reports today, the State Department is pressuring the Department of Justice to intervene on behalf of a Jordanian bank in a federal lawsuit in which it stands accused of funneling money to terrorists who killed Americans. Apparently, Foggy Bottom wants the administration to support the Arab Bank’s effort to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn sanctions imposed by a lower court because of the financial institution’s refusal to hand over customer records.

While this sounds like a complicated litigation, the issues at stake here are not difficult to comprehend. At issue is whether the United States will ignore the standards it has applied to other terror-related cases as well as its past stands on foreign bank secrecy rules in order to help get a bank owned by friendly Arabs off the hook for their role in funding the murder of American citizens. If President Obama’s solicitor general does what the State Department is asking him to do, it will mean the nation is not only turning its back on American victims of Hamas terrorism. It will also show that the administration’s much ballyhooed toughness on terror doesn’t apply to its efforts to bring supporters of Palestinian murderers to justice.

The case, Linde v. Arab Bank, revolves around the efforts of relatives of Americans killed by Hamas terrorists during the second intifada to use the federal Anti-Terrorism Act to bring those who funded the Islamist terror group to book for aiding and abetting these atrocities.

As the Israeli Law Center, the group that has pursued a relentless and courageous campaign to hold terror funders accountable, notes on its website:

The Arab Bank is a Jordanian financial institution that has funneled funds for organizations claiming they are legitimate charities. In fact, they were routing large sums of money to support the violent activities of Hamas and other terrorist organizations. These organizations served as agents of Hamas and used the Arab Bank to receive deposits and process wire transfers. The Bank was aware that these organizations are fronts that support terrorist activities, such that the Bank’s continued provision of services to these groups facilitated their illegal activities. One account number belongs to Hamas itself and was used to collect funds in support of its violent activities.

Further, the Saudi Committee In Support of the Intifada Al Quds (“Saudi Committee”) was established as a private charity in Saudi Arabia whose purpose was to support the intifada and the families of the terrorists who have died, as well as subsidize the Palestinian terror campaign. The Saudi Committee furnishes awards to terrorists’ families as a reward for suicide attacks. The Arab Bank is the exclusive financial administrator for the Saudi Committee. These payments create an incentive to engage in terrorist acts by rewarding all Palestinian terrorists, regardless of their affiliation with a particular group.

Despite the Arab Bank’s pleas of innocence, the facts of their funding of Hamas are not in dispute. But, as the Times notes, Secretary of State John Kerry doesn’t want to upset either Jordan or the Saudis any more than they have already been by Obama administration policies that have strengthened Iran at their expense. What he wants is for the U.S. government to plead diplomatic necessity to the courts and tie up the plaintiffs in circles.

The NY Times and Its Demonization of the Israeli People

...News reporters should not inject their own personal opinions into news articles. But Rudoren has done just that by maintaining that Israelis “demonize” Salah by regarding Tenenbaum’s murderer a terrorist. By implying that Israelis are somehow unreasonable or unjustified in viewing the self-confessed Palestinian murderer of a Holocaust survivor as a terrorist, Rudoren herself demonizes the Israeli people.

Tamar Sternthal..
The Algemeiner..
01 April '14..

If “demonize” means “to try to make someone or a group of people seem as if they are evil,” as the Cambridge Free Dictionary says, can a murderer be demonized?

To help readers understand the term, the dictionary provides the following as an example of its usage: “The Nazis used racist propaganda in an attempt to demonize the Jews.”

But can the Nazi killer himself be demonized? What about the cold-blooded murderer of an elderly Holocaust survivor?

More specifically, can Muqdad Salah, the Palestinian who murdered the sleeping 72-year-old Holocaust survivor Israel Tenenbaum, and other convicted Palestinian killers of innocent Israeli civilians, young and old, be “[d]emonized as terrorists by Israelis?”

This is the question that arises following a New York Times article this week about the trials and tribulations of released Palestinian murderers reentering life in the West Bank (“Remaking a Life, After Years in an Israeli Prison”). About Salah, Tenenbaum’s murderer Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren writes: “Demonized as terrorists by Israelis and lionized as freedom fighters by Palestinians, prisoners like Mr. Salah have become a flash point in the troubled peace talks . . .”

If “demonizing” means trying to make someone or a group seem as if they are evil, then, the implication is that person or group is not evil, and they are being represented in an unfair light.

Indeed, the fact that “demonizing” usually entails a false or unfair depiction is clear from another foreign news story earlier this year in The New York Times (“False Claims in Afghan Accusations on U.S. Raid Add to Doubts on Karzai“).

The Gray Lady reported three months ago:

It was the kind of dossier that the Taliban often publish, purporting to show the carnage inflicted during a raid by American forces: photographs of shattered houses and bloodied, broken bodies, and video images of anguish at a village funeral, all with gut-churning impact and no proof of authenticity.

But this time, it was the government of President Hamid Karzai that was handing out the inflammatory dossier, the product of a commission’s investigation into airstrikes on Jan. 15 on a remote village and the supposed American cover-up that followed.

In an apparent effort to demonize their American backers, a coterie of Afghan officials appears to have crossed a line that deeply troubles Western officials here: They falsely represented at least some of the evidence in the dossier, and distributed other material whose provenance, at best, could not be determined. (Emphases added)

Thus, according to the Times, Afghani officials used falsified and dubious material to “demonize” the Americans by unfairly charging them of killing villagers.

Twelve Questions That Can Be Asked About the “Peace Process”

...The history of the “peace process” is now several stages past tragedy and farce. The side that supposedly wants a state won’t discuss one without compensation to do so; won’t accept a state as an end-of-claims solution but only as a stage in a continuing attempt to “return” to the other one; won’t agree that “two states for two peoples” is the goal of the process, much less explicitly recognize a Jewish state; can’t even hold an election, much less manage a stable state; ignores obligations under its prior agreement with Israel while asking Israel to believe it would abide by a new one; has already demonstrated three times in less than a decade it will not accept the “Everyone [Supposedly] Knows” peace plan; and does not even have a “president” legally in office, able to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinian groups, much less enforce any agreement he might reach.

Rick Richman..
Commentary Magazine..
02 April '14..

In today’s New York Times, a letter from Dov Bruce Krulwich in Beit Shemesh, Israel, asks two questions about the possible release of Jonathan Pollard to encourage Israel to release Palestinian murderers to convince the Palestinians to discuss a Palestinian state, even though the Palestinians “refuse even to agree that the end game involves two states for two peoples”:

Shouldn’t a people who have never had a state be the ones making goodwill gestures to continue a process that will benefit them the most?

Why weren’t the previous good-will gestures, not to mention all the good-will gestures in the past 20 years, enough to expect the Palestinians to take a step themselves?

Those questions lead to some of my own:

- Why do people have to be paid–in the form of cash, prisoners, freezes, etc.–to convince them to show up to negotiate a state for themselves?

- Why do people who have signed a formal agreement, obligating themselves not to take “any step” outside bilateral negotiations to change the status of the disputed territories, have to be paid to convince them to adhere to their agreement?

- Why are people who have already been offered (and rejected) a state three times in the last decade–with each offer covering substantially all of the disputed territories and a capital in Jerusalem–entitled to a fourth offer?

- Why is a putative Palestinian state, ruled half by a terrorist group and half by a “president” currently in the 10th year of his four-year term, with the two groups unable to live side by side in peace with each other (much less Israel), ready to be a state–even assuming agreement could be reached on its borders or any other issue?

- Why is U.S. foreign policy–with the Arab world in a state of chaos ranging from Libya to Egypt to Syria to Lebanon–fixated on trying to establish another already-failed state right next to Israel?

Which brings one again to the two questions posed by Dennis Ross last month in the course of summarizing the Israeli position in the current impasse:

[I]f you [the Palestinians] believe in two states, why is it that Israel being the nation-state of the Jewish people is something that you can’t accept?

Why is it that self-determination for the Jewish people in a part of historic Palestine is something that you [the Palestinians] can’t embrace?

A Mother’s Plea: Injustice Anywhere Is a Threat to Justice Everywhere

...There is really only one constant, immutable, irrefutable flaw in these releases. They are unjust. Plain and simple: undeniably unjust. They isolate one category of murders from the rest and declare them less significant, less tragic, less criminal, less intolerable.

Frimet Roth..
Frontpagemag.com..
02 April '14..

One oppressively hot August morning, my daughter Malki set off with her best friend Michal to decorate with welcome signs the bedroom of another friend returning from vacation.

Afterward, Malki called me to say that she and Michal were heading to the city center. There she would catch a bus to a summer camp counselors’ meeting in another Jerusalem suburb. “I love you” we told each other – as we usually ended our conversations. It promised to be a day of giving and sharing like every day was for Malki.

Thirteen years later, I still love her and pine for her dreadfully. But now, the only way for me to express that is to seek justice for her murder.

Because that same hot August morning another young woman, Ahlam Tamimi, set off on a very different type of mission. A twenty year old self-described journalism student, she took two weapons – a 10 kg. bomb and an eager suicide bomber. They proceeded to the Sbarro pizza restaurant which Tamimi had scouted days earlier. Jewish women and children frequent it at lunchtime and Tamimi liked that. As this embodiment of evil would later brag, she hungered for child victims and the more the better.

Malki and Michal had detoured from their intended route to eat there too. They were among the fifteen men, women and children who perished in the explosion.

Today, Malki and Michal lie buried side by side, while their murderer, who smiled happily to learn her tally of dead children, is free and thriving in Jordan. She frequently travels in the Arab world to incite adoring crowds to follow in her footsteps.

In my country, my husband and I are not welcome to decry this. Parents of murdered children are hailed as heroes when they declare that they want the murderer to go unpunished. Whether for the sake of a prisoner “swap,” to prolong the negotiations with the PA or, as the cliche goes, “to promote peace.” Waiving our right to justice is considered the noble, patriotic thing to do.

Our quest for justice, for a life sentence for Tamimi – there is no capital punishment here – has invited accusations that we are merely vengeful.

Yet nothing will convince us that freeing murderers is an acceptable, integral part of any peace process.

Malki’s murderer was released in October 2011, the beneficiary of another terrorists-walk-free deal. Some would say we should have learned to live with that reality.

Yet, with each release of terrorist murderers – tried, convicted and unrepentant – my government thrusts a fresh dagger into my heart and conveys the message again and again: ”Your child was not really murdered. And your child’s killer does not really deserve to be punished.”

Murder as an Afterthought at the Christian Science Monitor

..Since when was cold-blooded murder the act of a convicted political prisoner? By downplaying and marginalizing Asakreh’s heinous crime and implying that he was imprisoned for his political beliefs, the Christian Science Monitor has succeeded in legitimizing Palestinian terrorism against innocent civilians as if it were acceptable.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
02 April '14..




UPDATE

Following the publication of this communique, the Christian Science Monitor removed the word “political” to describe Asakreh and added the following:

Editor’s note: This sentence has been revised to correctly reflect Asakreh’s status.

One HonestReporting reader also received a response from Christa Case Bryant, the journalist who wrote the piece. She admitted the error, which was due to a mistake in the first draft of the story and not fixed before it was filed. Credit to Christa Case Bryant for taking prompt action to correct the error.

With the topic of Palestinian prisoner releases making news, the Christian Science Monitor profiles Khaled Asakreh, released in the last prisoner release several months ago. We hear about his

gleaming new home, courtesy of the Palestinian Authority’s strong financial support for prisoners. He has two TVs and four rooms of brand-new furniture all to himself, accompanied only by half a dozen plaques commemorating the 22 years he spent in prison. Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian fighter turned peacemaker, gazes out from one in the dining room.

We learn that he is soon to be married. The puff piece continues to focus on Asakreh’s rebuilding of his life and some of the hardships he faced while in prison. What we don’t learn until the very end is that he is a convicted murderer.

Asakreh is described as:

the first political prisoner from the area to be released by Israel in the past year.

So what did this “political prisoner” do to deserve 22 years in an Israeli prison?

Palestinian Official Admits "Blackmailing" Israel for Release of Terrorists. Where's the Coverage?

...This has apparently always been the plan: pocket irreversible Israeli concessions such as the release of murdering terrorists, and then go to the United Nations and international organizations to pursue isolation, persecution and prosecution of Israel. These can hardly be seen as “good faith” negotiations. And yet, while the media lionize the released terrorists on page one, on Palestinian Authority double-dealing, they are silent. Where’s the coverage?

Sarit Catz..
CAMERA Snapshots..
01 April '14..






The Washington Post reported:

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry is canceling a planned trip to Ramallah on Wednesday to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas amid new threats from the Palestinian leader to circumvent U.S.-backed peace talks with Israel.

Kerry had planned to make an emergency trip to Abbas’s West Bank headquarters in hopes of announcing a breakthrough, according to a senior State Department official.

An official familiar with the talks had said earlier Tuesday that negotiators were discussing in broad outline a plan that would require Israel to slow settlement construction and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinians would in turn agree not to pursue recognition of a Palestinian state or other redress through the United Nations in order to keep alive the hope for a solution negotiated between the two sides.

But this is evidently not to be. As The Times of Israel wrote:

In an apparent breach of understandings with the US and Israel, and with a proposed agreement to extend peace talks awaiting a Palestinian response, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday evening signed an official appeal to join 15 UN bodies.

At a PLO meeting in Ramallah, Abbas president formally requested membership in the international organizations for the “State of Palestine.”

“The Palestinian leadership has unanimously approved a decision to seek membership of 15 UN agencies and international treaties, beginning with the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Abbas said on television after signing the demand.

This should come as no surprise to anyone observing – and especially conducting – the negotiations. Less than two weeks ago, the spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, Ahmad Assaf, stated on official Palestinian Authority television, as translated by Palestinian Media Watch:

Seriously, It's Time to Build a 'Young Israel of the Temple Mount'

...Simply put: erecting a synagogue on the Temple Mount will not heighten Arab-Jewish conflict, it will lessen it. The best way to reduce friction on the Mount between the two communities is to accommodate both sides, rather than just shortchanging the Jews. Failure to do so will only continue to exacerbate tensions. The Temple Mount is the holiest site for the Jewish people, the place toward which we directed our dreams and prayers of return over the past two millennia. And now, ironically, it is precisely there that Jews are treated as pariahs. This historical absurdity and moral obscenity must once and for all finally come to an end.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
01 April '14..

At first glance it would appear to be a recipe for disaster, a proposal so brash it could ignite a conflagration between Arab and Jew. But the idea to build a synagogue on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which was recently put forward by an impressive array of rabbis, professors and other public figures in a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, might just contain within it the seeds of co-existence and should not be dismissed out of hand.

In their missive, the signatories wrote, "The Temple Mount is a unique place for prayer. We ask you, as prime minister, to do what is necessary to establish a place of prayer for Jews on the Temple Mount in a respectable and peaceful manner that will honor the holy place we all long for."

Interestingly, the signatories include prominent rabbis from across the Religious Zionist spectrum, such as Efrat Chief Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba and former Haifa chief rabbi She'ar-Yashuv Cohen.

What prompted the letter is the ongoing situation on the Temple Mount, which is simply intolerable and cannot continue. Jews are denied the right to pray there and their visits are severely restricted. Jewish visitors are often shadowed by members of the Muslim Wakf, who despite claiming to venerate the site nonetheless hurl curses, insults and occasional stones at them.

And the Israel Police bar Jews from bringing Bibles or prayer books onto the Mount, and have been known to instruct them not to move their lips, because it could be construed as an act of silent prayer.

This ongoing violation of basic rights, such as freedom of worship and free speech, goes against the very core of Israel's ethos of tolerance. Indeed, the government's restrictions on Jews on the Temple Mount are un-Jewish, anti-democratic and blatantly discriminatory, and it is time to put an end to them. The current situation only inflames passions on both sides, fostering still more Arab anger and Jewish bitterness.

A simple way to defuse the tension and to prevent confrontations would be to build a synagogue, the equivalent of a "Young Israel of the Temple Mount," where Jews could pray freely and undisturbed.

Put aside for a moment all your preconceived notions about the subject and consider the following: for over four centuries after Caliph Omar conquered the land of Israel in 633-4 CE, a synagogue and Jewish house of study operated on the Temple Mount and Jews prayed there unmolested.

The administration’s use of Pollard is despicable

...This is one of those (frequent) times when I am glad that I am not the Prime Minister of Israel! I don’t know what he will decide, but it is absolutely despicable for the Obama Administration to use Pollard in this way, despicable to place the Prime Minister in this position, and — more than anything — despicable to support the PLO (because that is what this amounts to) in its project to eliminate the Jewish state.

Fresnozionism.org..
01 April '14..

The ransoming of captives [פדיון שבויים] takes precedence over the feeding and clothing of the poor. Indeed there is no religious duty more meritorious than the ransoming of captives, for not only is the captive included in the generality of the hungry, the thirsty, and the naked, but his very life is in jeopardy. — Rambam (Moses Maimonides)

CNN reports:

Jonathan Pollard, the former U.S. intelligence agent who was convicted of spying for Israel, could be released before the Jewish holiday of Passover as part of efforts to save Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, an Israeli official involved in the talks told CNN. …

Kerry stated Tuesday night that “no agreement has been reached with respect to any prisoner” — be it Pollard, whom he was asked about, or anyone else — though talks involving all parties are ongoing in hopes of reaching a broader agreement.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday that President Barack Obama hasn’t decided whether to release the convicted spy at Israel’s request. …

In exchange for the release, the sources have said that Israel would have to make significant concessions to the Palestinians, which could include a settlement freeze, the release of additional [Palestinian and/or Israeli Arab] prisoners beyond the current group in dispute and an agreement to continue peace negotiations beyond the end-of-April deadline.

The continued imprisonment (29 years) of Jonathan Pollard, the highly disproportionate sentence he received and the dishonest conduct of the government in his affair are a blot on the supposedly equal justice system of the United States.

Pollard should have been released long ago, but it seems that the government has been waiting for the moment at which it could exact the heaviest ransom. It’s true that nations act according to interests, and concepts like justice and mercy are not relevant to interests. On the other hand, nations have leaders who make decisions, and they are ultimately held to account by God, if not by history.

Last August, Israel agreed to release a total of 104 Arab prisoners, most of them convicted of murder (including multiple murderers) in order to persuade the PLO-ruled Palestinian Authority (PA) to engage in peace talks. Israel was aware that the talks would lead nowhere, but it was considered more important to remain in the good graces of the US. Three of four scheduled prisoner releases have been carried out; in each case, freed murderers were greeted as honored heroes on their return to the PA. There was a great public outcry in Israel — after all, these are murderers and Israel has received nothing in return from the PLO except more incitement to murder.

The fourth and last release has been held up by Israel, primarily because it includes Arab citizens of Israel, whose release calls Israel’s sovereignty over its own citizens into question, and because the PLO has hardened its positions rather than moving closer to an agreement.

Now the US is raising the possibility of freeing Pollard in return for going ahead with the last scheduled prisoner release, and acceding to even more PLO demands. This could be the last time it will be possible for the US to play this particular card, since Pollard is not well and could die in prison (and on the conscience of Barack Obama).

In other words, the US wants to use its Jewish captive — he is no more than that, because he has long since paid his debt to the US for his offenses — to extract concessions from Israel to benefit the PLO, one of the most vicious of terrorist organizations in recent history and one which has absolutely zero desire to end its conflict with Israel.

The fourth prisoner release will damage and humiliate Israel while strengthening the PLO. Other concessions as demanded will do the same. It goes without saying that continuing the negotiations with the PLO will only result in more opportunities for the US to pressure Israel to meet new Palestinian demands.

The First Chance He Got, Abbas Fled Talks

...But since abandoning the talks allows Abbas to avoid having to sell a deal that ends the conflict to a Palestinian people that has been taught to view their national identity as inseparable from the struggle against Zionism, he prefers it to negotiations.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
01 April '14..

Though nothing is permanent in the Middle East peace process, for the moment it appears that the Palestinians have finally found a way to scuttle the talks sponsored by Secretary of State John Kerry. Though Kerry had brokered an unlikely last-minute compromise that would have ensured the release of another batch of terrorist murderers that the Palestinian Authority had demanded, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas wasn’t buying it. Today, he signed papers indicating the PA’s request to join 15 international agencies, a clear violation of their Oslo obligations and commitments made to the United States. This was a signal that Abbas wouldn’t keep negotiating in spite of Kerry’s efforts to give them what they wanted. As a result, Kerry has canceled his planned trip back to the region, leaving, at least for the moment, the impression that the talks are at an end.

If the Palestinians continue to refuse to keep talking, it will mean that the deal Kerry had cooked up to free convicted spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s agreement to release one more batch of terrorists including Israeli citizens and then another larger group of prisoners not convicted of violent crimes, will have been for nothing. That deal would have been a poor bargain for Israel in that it would have meant making real concessions — releasing Israeli Arabs convicted of terrorist murders as well as a promise of a limited freeze on building in the West Bank — in exchange for a man who might well be free on parole in 2015 anyway. The irony of having someone like Pollard who, though his crime was grave and did real damage to the U.S.-Israel relationship, acted in what he thought was Israel’s interest, being traded for people with Jewish blood on their hands, was so great that reportedly even the spy opposed it.

But the main conclusion to draw from these events isn’t about the Israeli desire to see Pollard freed after 28 years in prison but about Abbas’ desire to evade the peace process. What has happened isn’t so much a negotiation that went wrong, as it is the PA leader seizing the first opportunity that came his way to flee peace negotiations that he never wanted to join in the first place.

The Iran-Israel struggle heats up - Border skirmishes and the messages sent in response

...If the weapons seizure was meant to drive home to Israelis that they’re on their own when it comes to Iran, then the raid on Syrian targets last week was intended to reassure them. Jerusalem showed that it will stop Iran’s allies on its borders, and also that it’s willing to go to the source—states that sponsor terrorist war, like Syria and, if the clerical regime continues to escalate, perhaps Iran, too.

Lee Smith..
The Weekly Standard..
31 March '14..

Last week the Israeli Air Force bombed Syrian military and security positions in retaliation for an operation on the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan Heights. Four Israeli soldiers were wounded when Hezbollah attacked their Jeep. Hezbollah it seems was looking to kidnap them. This time they failed, but, said Hezbollah sources, “We are sure we will succeed in the near future.”

Maybe. If so, it is sure to resonate throughout the Middle East. The last time Hezbollah kidnapped Israeli soldiers it touched off a month-long conflict in the summer of 2006. After the devastation Hezbollah suffered, hundreds of its elite troops dead and billions of dollars’ worth of damage done, the party’s general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, said that had he known how the Israelis would respond, he never would have taken their soldiers in the first place. So now that Nasrallah knows what Israeli countermeasures look like, what could he possibly be thinking?

The answer is that it’s not Nasrallah calling the shots. Hezbollah is Iran’s long arm in Lebanon. Accordingly, its activities on Israel’s northern border, taken together with the maneuvers of other Iranian allies on the southern frontier—weapons transfers to Gaza-based militants and their rocket fire on Israel—are evidence of a new Iranian boldness. Perhaps as a consequence of the interim nuclear agreement Iran struck last November with the P5+1 powers (the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany), Tehran imagines that the White House will rein in Jerusalem. But if that’s what Obama is advising, Israel isn’t paying attention. Israel’s aggressive defense suggests that if Iran keeps pushing, it may soon find itself in open warfare.

For the last year and a half, Israel has kept Iran’s allies on its borders almost totally quiet. The 2006 war that many, including Hezbollah, believed Jerusalem had lost served instead to reestablish the credibility of Israeli deterrence. To the south, Israel’s November 2012 Pillar of Defense campaign in Gaza left Hamas reeling, while the Syrian civil war and the sectarian furies it unleashed loosened the bonds that tied Iran to its chief Palestinian asset. Even as the conflict in Syria burned, Israel was careful to show that it had no stake in the outcome and would stand aside so long as neither Assad nor the rebels tried to involve it—or transfer weapons to Hezbollah.

Israel has repeatedly targeted weapons convoys moving strategic, or game-changing, arms from Syria to Lebanon, typically striking at their point of origin rather than their destination. The reasoning seems to be that with Assad under fire already and reluctant to open another front against Israel, it’s advisable to hit there rather than in Lebanon, where Hezbollah might be compelled to act to save face. Nonetheless, on February 24 the Israeli Air Force struck a Hezbollah position in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah’s retaliatory campaign has included at least four border incidents. In one of them, Hezbollah fighters crossed several hundred yards into Israeli territory and planted IEDs.

Until last week, Israeli responses had typically been measured—firing artillery rounds into Syrian territory, for instance. The decision to target Assad’s forces now—as Israel did not do during the 2006 war, when Damascus kept transferring supplies to Hezbollah—is something of a game-changer itself, and needs to be seen in the context of Israel’s southern front.

Suddenly, it’s 1947. Or 1920.

...Today, because of a combination of cowardice, avarice and Jew-hatred, the nations would like to take back any commitments they may have made to the Jews. But the Jewish state rests on its own accomplishments and struggles, not on their acquiescence. So let them try. Those who say that the Palestinians ought not to be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state are correct. Who are we to take away the Cause that is their reason for being? On the other hand, who are they to say that we ought to give away parts of our homeland to our enemies?

Fresnozionism.org..
31 March '14..





News item:

US Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to overcome the controversy surrounding the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by changing the definition to “the national homeland of the Jews”, the London-based Arabic Al-Hayat newspaper reported Saturday morning.

The report, that quoted western diplomatic sources, noted that in exchange for Kerry’s initiative, the Palestinians would have to agree that the Palestinian capital would be established only in parts of East Jerusalem; it was further reported that the Palestinians have rejected the proposal.

Suddenly, it’s 1947. Or 1920. The nations still can’t decide if the Jewish people deserve a state, or something less than one. I’m sure I don’t understand the difference between a “Jewish state” and a “national homeland of the Jews,” and I’m not going to speculate. Israel is a state, and a lot of Jewish blood was spilled to make it so.

This, actually, is what brought it into being, not the “international community,” the declaration of Lord Balfour or the decisions of various world powers, the League of Nations or the UN.

Today, because of a combination of cowardice, avarice and Jew-hatred, the nations would like to take back any commitments they may have made to the Jews. But the Jewish state rests on its own accomplishments and struggles, not on their acquiescence.

So let them try. Those who say that the Palestinians ought not to be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state are correct. Who are we to take away the Cause that is their reason for being? On the other hand, who are they to say that we ought to give away parts of our homeland to our enemies?

More, who are they to say that Israel should release murderers so that these same Palestinians will agree to continue talking, when so far all they have talked about is how we should give up everything we won with the aforesaid Jewish blood?

There is a Jewish state because the Jews rose up and threw out the British, who had even then gone back on their commitment to nurture a Jewish homeland, and who condemned thousands, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands, of European Jews to death at the hands of the Nazis by their policies. After that, the Jews had to fight wars and terrorism waged by the Arab nations, whose ethnic and religious prejudice made a Jewish state in the Middle East unacceptable to them.

As Secretary of State Kerry’s “Last Chance” Diplomacy Implodes

...What the secretary is learning is that as bad as a situation seems, it can only be made worse by hubris and naïveté, qualities Kerry possesses in abundance. Whether or not he manages to bribe either the Israelis or the Palestinians to keep talking in the coming days, the most important point to be gleaned from this chapter is that stoking fear in order to build support for peace isn’t merely counter-productive. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
31 March '14..

Secretary of State John Kerry is back in Israel today attempting to breath life into the peace talks that he initiated last year. With the Palestinians refusing to accept the framework for further talks the secretary tried to broker, and the Israelis seeing little purpose in releasing more Palestinian terrorist murderers to bribe Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas if the PA won’t keep negotiating, the whole scheme is on the brink of collapse. Thus, Kerry is working furiously to try and come up with a way to entice the Israelis to give Abbas what he wants in terms of either more prisoner releases or a settlement freeze.

The latest idea on the table, which has now been publicly confirmed by U.S. officials speaking off the record, is for the U.S. to hand convicted spy Jonathan Pollard to the Israelis in exchange for the last batch of terrorists already scheduled for release from Israeli jails as well as a further group to be let go after that. Presumably this latest batch of terrorist prisoners would be enough to bribe Abbas to keep talking even though he has already signaled that he isn’t that interested in the discussions, especially if they require him to agree to measures that herald an end to the conflict with Israel. As I wrote last week, the idea of trading Pollard for murderers is a bad deal for Israel. If Prime Minister Netanyahu is to keep making concessions to Abbas then he should expect something of substance in return from the Palestinians that would bring peace closer. Doing so for the sake of Pollard makes no sense for anyone.

But the real problem here isn’t the unbalanced nature of such a deal that is not likely to be carried out anyway. Rather, it is the sense of hysteria that has been invested in the latest iteration of the Middle East peace process. Having decided to try to succeed where all of his predecessors have failed, Kerry did so by claiming that it was the region’s last chance for peace even though there was no reason to believe the conflict was in danger of re-igniting or there were reasonable prospects for success. But now that he appears to be failing, his frequent predictions of doom have become self-fulfilling prophecies.

The secretary invested time, energy, and the prestige of the United States on a negotiation that few thought had a chance because he was convinced there was no alternative and that a failure to advance a peace process that has been stuck in neutral ever since the Palestinians rejected the third Israeli offer of independence and statehood would lead to disaster. But as Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl aptly noted today, prior to the start of Kerry’s talks, “Israel and the Palestinian territories” were “an island of tranquility in a blood-drenched Middle East.” If the Palestinians preferred meaningless symbolic victories at the United Nations to statehood, such folly was rooted in Abbas’s belief that his people were not ready to give up their century-long war to destroy Israel.