An Intifada of Arab Disappointment - with Themselves

...The "Palestinians" are furious at their own inner reality, one that makes a viable state impossible.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
israelnationalnews.com..
13 November '14..

One of the most important characteristics of a nation is a strong feeling of unity that allows its people to achieve the goals that it deems important. A people with a strong and unified national identity is able to put aside personal, political, ideological and sectorial differences so that its citizens can work together to succeed in reaching a goal that is important and significant to all of them.

Real leaders sense the people's will to unite for the sake of a national cause and can overcome the differences between them; if they do not, they will be replaced by others who are better than they, who know what the priorities are when there is a crucial national objective at stake. A people with a strong feeling of unity can handle a democratic country that does not fear differences of opinion and changes in government, because these do not degenerate into violence and therefore do not endanger its existence.

In contrast, a nation with a weak and fragile identity has chronic disputes that spill over into rhetorical violence and violent acts between its different sectors, with very little cooperation occurring between them. Different sectors feel threatened by each other leading to serious distrust. The nation's symbols are not strong enough to unite its population groups, each of which has goals differing from the other. This kind of nation will invent an external enemy in the hope that the war against it will unify the people for the sake of a higher interest, a war. This kind of nation raises the question of whether its citizens have enough of a feeling of commonality to keep them together and allow them to form a nation-state.

The Palestinian street has been demanding unity between Hamas and Fatah for a long time now, because everyone realizes that the split between the two organizations lets Israel claim that there is "no partner for peace." This limits the ability of the Palestinians to be effective ih the PA, the Middle East and the international arena. That is the reason the two sign agreements every so often, and why the PA has developed a unity government of technocrats, not politicians, who are approved by both organizations – meaning,naturally, that no one is pleased. And despite the "unity" government, Hamas rules Gaza and comes down heavy on Fatah members in Gaza.

On Friday, November 7, bombs exploded in the doorways and vehicles of ten Fatah leaders in Gaza, and another explosion destroyed the stage that Fatah had prepared for the Arafat memorial ceremony that was planned for the tenth anniversary of his death on November 11. Fatah blames Hamas for the bombings, especially since they all took place at the same time and there is no other group in Gaza that can coordinate the timing of eleven bombings. As a result of the bombings and the bad blood between the two organizations, the memorial event was cancelled. The official reason given was that "Hamas refused to guarantee the safety of participants", in other words: Hamas threatened to harm the participants, just as they did the stage. And that means that even Arafat is not a national symbol that can hold the two groups under one roof in his memory

Hamas' real objective is the establishment of an Islamic state with the law of the land being Sharia law that favors Muslims, while Fatah wants something entirely different, a nation-state where Muslims and Christians have equal rights and status. There is no way to bridge these two diametrically opposed goals, it is the reason the battle between Fatah and Hamas, that began as soon as Hamas was formed in December 1987, is still going strong and with no end in sight.

Fatah's problem is that Hamas joined the political game and won most of the legislative seats in the January 2006 election. The PLO fears another election victory for Hamas and that is why there are no elections in sight. That is the real reason that since 2005, when Abbas was elected, about 10 years ago, there have been no elections for the legislature. When a nation lacks national cohesiion, it fears democratic processes and changes in government.

The Palestinian narrative talks about a Palestinian nation in Israel, Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Jordan and about refugees in Syria and Lebanon. If there were a Palestinian nation we would have seen evidence of solidarity between its parts. But did we see the Palestinians residing in Judea and Samaria go out to protest in a grass roots uprising when the IDF attacked Gaza in Operation Protective Edge a few months ago? No,we did not. Did the Israeli Arabs, who call themselves Palestinians, rebel against the state of Israel because of its treatment of the Gazans and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria? No, they did not. Did we see masses of Arabs in Judea and Samaria rushing to Syria to save their people from the Assad government's plans to destroy them? Maybe a few. Did the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria offer to absorb their "brothers" who fled or were expelled from Israel during the 1948 War of Independence? Not at a;;. They kept them in refugee camps, without running water, sewage systems, electricity, communications - for years. Is that how one treats one's brothers?

Actually, Wealthy Terrorists Don’t Need Foreign Aid

...The threat from ISIS as it seeks to overrun all of Iraq and Syria is one that the U.S. and its allies needed to address. But the danger of allowing terrorist groups to become rulers of populations is not limited to those places with oil. In the absence of a commitment to overthrow Hamas, money donated to Gaza is an investment in future war, not peace or humanitarian values. Its place on the list of wealthiest terror group mocks the West as much as it does the Palestinians who suffer under their rule.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
13 November '14..

Last month, a group of international donors including the United States gathered in Cairo to make pledges to give financial aid to help rebuild Gaza in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas this past summer. The amount pledged totaled $5.4 billion with the U.S. kicking in a few hundred million. The bulk of the money will go to aid organizations with the Palestinian Authority also getting a share. But while the world was told that all the money would be used for civilian purposes and to help those who lost their homes in the fighting, there was little doubt that the Hamas rulers of the strip would wind up getting their hands on a good deal of it. But the most curious thing about this exercise in international philanthropy was that no one thought to ask Hamas to pay for at least some of the damage they caused by igniting a bloody war. That’s the question that comes to mind today when you read that the Islamists have been named the world’s second-richest terrorist group.

According to Forbes Israel, Hamas is the runner-up to ISIS in the competition for the title of wealthiest terror organization. ISIS has $2 billion in assets while Hamas has only $1 billion. The former’s advantage is that it is now in control of some of Iraq’s oil flow and pulls in up to $3 million a day in revenue from that lucrative business. ISIS also was able to loot hundreds of millions from Mosul’s main bank when it seized that city. It also profits from the brisk trade in hostage ransoms with European nations anteing up large sums to save its citizens in ISIS’s hands. To its credit, the Obama administration has refused to play along, a principled policy that has led to the brutal murders of American captives.

Hamas has no oil fields or banks at its disposal. But it has something almost as good: An overpopulated strip of land where more than a million people live at their misery. Though Hamas long maintained an image as an efficient provider of social services to the people of Gaza, the reality is that it is—like its Fatah rivals in the West Bank—more akin to a mafia family than a government and rakes in money extorted or taxed from Gazans hand over fist. Hamas also profited handsomely from control of the smuggling tunnels that used to link Gaza to Egypt and also rakes in huge amounts of aid from its Gulf State patrons like Qatar.

Nothing springs forth from a vacuum

...The enlightened vanguard of the global good-guy brigade – where Sky snugly fits in – still seethes with bias against this land’s Jews. Self-appointed foreign adjudicators – like Sky news editors – don’t hold Abbas accountable for impeding peace, for glorifying the murderers of Jewish children and for inciting to jihad Husseini-style. All that transpires now was kick-started by Husseini, while Abbas convinces willingly gullible saps of what they’re anyway predisposed to imbibe. Contrary to postmodern predilections – like Sky’s – the past mustn’t be consigned to irrelevance. Unbroken historical continuities contextualize current events. Nothing springs forth from a vacuum.

Hebron 1929: exhorting the
mobs to save al-Aksa from the Jews

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
13 November '14..

For hours after last week’s vehicular terror in Jerusalem (capped by an attack on passersby with a metal rod), Sky News persisted in not telling it like it is.

Its running news ticker at the bottom of the screen single-mindedly informed viewers that “Israeli police say a driver has rammed his car into pedestrians in East Jerusalem in an ‘intentional’ attack causing several injuries.”

The very inclusion of the verb say sufficed to cast doubt on Israeli communiqués. Then, to chip further away at residual Israeli credibility the word intentionally was tendentiously placed in quotation marks. This surely was overkill, considering that the reliability of the Israeli report was already challenged by the caveat of the opening phrase.

If during the first few minutes of the incident Sky could somehow make excuses for what looked like thinly-veiled antagonism, it certainly couldn’t long after the event. Nevertheless, that hardly objective news bar was still featured when any duty editor of even grudging goodwill or nominal neutrality should have known better.

In contrast, another report was cited with unadulterated acceptance. Sky’s above mentioned “breaking news” flash was accompanied throughout – for as many hours – by a bulletin that stated matter-of-factly (without any caveats this time) that “Israeli police have clashed with Palestinians inside Jerusalem’s al-Aksa Mosque compound after Jewish nationalists announced plans to visit the site.”

The subliminal nuances were unmissable and there was no qualifying vocabulary. The al-Aksa Mosque compound designation suggested exclusive Muslim connections and no Jewish ones.

Then came the unequivocal attribution of causality. The clashes occurred “after Jewish nationalists announced plans to visit,” i.e. Jews instigated the clashes. Not a word appeared about rocks and Molotov cocktails stored in the sacred spot and tossed at Jews praying below in front of the Western Wall.

Such facts may interfere with Sky’s insinuation that Jews are interlopers, trespassing in what has only ever been a Muslim shrine. The implication is that it’s Jews who disturb the peace along with their police “inside” the compound.

The injection of the term nationalists sealed the negative connotation. Nationalists are villains in the lexicon of political correctness.

The sentinels on Sky’s moral high ground know whom to distrust a priori and whom to trust inherently. Uninitiated audiences perceive the world through the broadcasters’ distorting glass. Their opinions are thereby at least partly shaped and their preexisting prejudices are subtly reinforced.

To be sure, Sky isn’t the only overseas news outlet with an attitude. Almost all its purportedly pluralist and tolerant counterparts are equally disingenuous and almost all classify Temple Mount terminology as politically incorrect.

More often than not, anchors and reporters allude to Haram al-Sharif and lest the masses out there not be fully clued in, they add by way of elucidation that “the Haram” is where al-Aksa Mosque is located.

At most, Temple Mount comes in as an aside meant to clarify what the commotion is about. “This is also where Jews claim that their ancient temples once stood,” some correspondents throw in with a pinch of skepticism. Alternative edification is that “this is also what Jews refer to as Temple Mount.”

The undertones here are paramount. Jews invariably “claim.” Their version is hardly one that can be reasonably accorded credence. The Arab insistence that no Jewish temples or Jewish historical/religious ties to Jerusalem ever existed is thus amplified by media quibbling. Out of nowhere Jews seemingly invaded Jerusalem and out-of-the-blue they brazenly seek to overrun Muslim sanctuaries.

When and Why was the Myth of al-Aqsa Created? by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

...Should the world reshape the Middle East map just because Muslims decided to recycle the political problems of the Umayyads 1250 years after the curtain came down on their role in history?

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Israel National News..
10 November '14..

The importance of Jerusalem for Jews and Christians is beyond dispute, since the connection of this city to Judaism and Christianity is part of universal concepts about history and theology. However, when it comes to modern politics, we hear over and over that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims demand that Jerusalem become the capital of the future Palestinian state, owing to its holiness to Islam. The question is how and when this city became holy to Muslims.

When the Prophet Muhammad established Islam, he introduced a minimum of innovations. He employed the hallowed personages, historic legends and sacred sites of Judaism, Christianity, and even paganism, by Islamizing them. Thus, according to Islam, Abraham was the first Muslim and Jesus and St. John (the sons of Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron) were prophets and guardians of the second heaven. Many Biblical legends ("asatir al-awwalin"), which were familiar to the pagan Arabs before the dawn of Islam, underwent an Islamic conversion, and the Koran as well as the Hadith (the Islamic oral tradition), are replete with them.

Islamization was practiced on places as well as persons: Mecca and the holy stone - al-Ka'bah - were holy sites of the pre-Islamic pagan Arabs. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the Great Mosque of Istanbul were erected on the sites of Christian-Byzantine churches - two of the better known examples of how Islam treats sanctuaries of other faiths.

Jerusalem, too, underwent the process of Islamization: at first Muhammad attempted to convince the Jews near Medina to join his young community, and, by way of persuasion, established the direction of prayer (kiblah) to be to the north, towards Jerusalem, in keeping with Jewish practice; but after he failed in this attempt he turned against the Jews, killed many of them, and directed the kiblah southward, towards Mecca.

Muhammad's abandonment of Jerusalem explains the fact that this city is not mentioned even once in the Koran. After Palestine was occupied by the Muslims, its capital was Ramle, 30 miles to the west of Jerusalem, signifying that Jerusalem meant nothing to them.

Islam rediscovered Jerusalem 50 years after Muhammad's death. In 682 CE, 'Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr rebelled against the Islamic rulers in Damascus, conquered Mecca and prevented pilgrims from reaching Mecca for the Hajj. 'Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad Calif, needed an alternative site for the pilgrimage and settled on Jerusalem which was then under his control. In order to justify this choice, a verse from the Koran was chosen (17,1 = sura 17, verse 1) which states (trans. by Majid Fakhri):

"Glory to Him who caused His servant to travel by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose precincts We have blessed, in order to show him some of Our Signs, He is indeed the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing."

The meaning ascribed to this verse (see the commentary in al-Jallalayn) is that "the furthest mosque" (al-masgid al-aqsa) is in Jerusalem and that Muhammad was conveyed there one night (although at that time the journey took three days by camel), on the back of al-Buraq, a magical horse with the head of a woman, wings of an eagle, the tail of a peacock, and hoofs reaching to the horizon. He tethered the horse to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and from there ascended to the seventh heaven together with the angel Gabriel. On his way he met the prophets of other religions who are the guardians of the Seven Heavens: Adam, Jesus, St. John, Joseph, Idris (=Seth?), Aaron, Moses and Abraham who accompanied him on his way to Allah and who accepted him as their master.

Thus Islam tries to gain legitimacy over other, older religions, by creating a scene in which the former prophets agree to Muhammad's mastery, thus making him Khatam al-Anbiya' ("the Seal of the Prophets"). According to this legend, Islam came to the world in order to replace Judaism and Christianity rather than to live side by side with them.

A Turkish Pursuit to "Liberate" Jerusalem

...Since medieval historical facts cannot have changed over the past two years, the top Turkish ulama [religious scholar], referencing a most powerful Muslim caliph, is best witness that when the Muslims had first arrived in Jerusalem there was not a single mosque in the city. Why? Because Jerusalem was not a Muslim city. Why, then, do Turkish Islamists claim that it is Muslim? Because it once had been "conquered." Would the same Turks surrender Istanbul to the occupying forces that took the city after World War I because its capture in 1920 made it a non-Turkish city? No, that was not conquest, that was occupation!

Burak Bekdil..
Gatestone Institute..
13 November '14..

Turks have a different understanding of what constitutes an occupation and a conquest of a city. The Turkish rule is very simple: The capture of a foreign city by force is an occupation if that city is Turkish (or Muslim) and the capture of a city by force is conquest if the city belongs to a foreign nation (or non-Muslims).

For instance, Turks still think the capture of Istanbul in 1453 was not occupation; it was conquest.

In a 2012 speech, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (then Prime Minister) said: "Just like Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul are cities of the Qur'an." In truth, there is no mention of any city's name in the Qur'an. Never mind.

"Conquest," Turkey's top Muslim cleric, Professor Mehmet Gormez, declared in 2012, "is not to occupy lands or destroy cities and castles. Conquest is the conquest of hearts!" That is why, the top Turkish cleric said, "In our history there has never been occupation." Instead, Professor Gormez said, "in our history, there has always been conquest." He further explained that one pillar of conquest is to "open up minds to Islam, and hearts to the Qur'an."

It is in this religious justification that most Turkish Islamists think they have an Allah-given right to take infidel lands by the force of sword -- ironically, not much different from what the tougher Islamists have been doing in large parts of Syria and Iraq. Ask any commander in the Islamic State and he would tell you what the jihadists are doing there is "opening up minds to Islam, and hearts to the Qur'an."

Both President Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have declared countless times that Gaza and Jerusalem (in addition to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Somalia and the Maghreb) are Turkey's "domestic affairs."

More Than Appropriate to Ignore the UN Human Rights Farce

...Rather than questioning Israel’s refusal to play along with its enemies, a better topic of discussion would be why the United States continues to legitimize the UNHRC with its membership. Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s infatuation with the world body causes it to continue to treat the Human Rights Council as a legitimate institution. That should end. But even more important, the international press and decent people everywhere should refuse to treat the UNHRC or its probes as anything but a sick joke.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
12 November '14..

There will be those who will argue that Israel is once again shooting itself in the foot by announcing that it will not cooperate with the investigation being conducted into this past summer’s war with Hamas by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Critics of the decision by Prime Minister Netanyahu will say that by snubbing the inquiry, Israel is losing its chance to give input to the proceedings and ensuring that only its enemies will play a role in the final outcome. But the claim that Israel will have a fair chance to defend itself before the UNHRC is a joke. The UN agency has a long record of bias against Israel but by choosing a chairman of the panel that had already put himself down on record as a virulent opponent of Israel, it should have forfeited the respect of even those few who take the group seriously.

It should be remembered that the last time the UNHRC appointed a commission to investigate an Israeli campaign in Gaza, it produced the Goldstone Commission, a compendium of one-sided libels aimed at delegitimizing Israel’s right of self-defense so egregious that even its chairman, South African jurist Richard Goldstone (who was chosen largely out of a desire to put a Jewish label on an anti-Israel product) eventually repudiated it.

This time the UNHRC hasn’t even bothered to pretend that it wanted fairness as it did with the appointment of Goldstone, and chose instead a Canadian law professor who has made a name for himself as an enemy of Israel. William Schabas has already gone on record saying that Hamas was not a terrorist organization and that Netanyahu should be indicted for war crimes. Yet he claims that he could still be impartial. As the Times of Israel reported, even Schabas admitted that his record indicates his bias:

“I do not hate Israel and do not want to engage in a debate regarding my previous positions on Israel,” Schabas told Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat in an interview. “I have had positions in the past concerning Palestine and Israel and they have nothing to do with my mission now. I will put my opinions aside during the investigation and they will have no bearing on it.”

But whether or not Schabas conquers his prejudices during the course of his work probing Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, there is no reason for anyone, in Israel or anywhere else, to take anything the UNHRC says seriously. Its membership is composed of countries that are themselves some of the worst human-rights violators in the world. In appropriating the banner of human rights, these tyrannies have long made a mockery of the concept and instead seem to prove that anti-Semitism is alive and well in the halls of the UN. The vast majority of its work has always been concentrated on efforts to smear Israel or otherwise deny its rights while at the same time ignoring some of the most egregious human-rights catastrophes going on elsewhere.

A decade after Arafat, more Palestinian Arab rhetoric, hatred and terror

...Looking back, we can discern that those lofty Arafatian phrases so dazzled his audience and many who came after them that they simply could not consider the other interpretation: that the Palestinian Arab with a gun stuck into his pants, and those who did his satanic bidding in the years that followed, were engaged in hatred-driven acts of thuggery and a vile bloodlust bearing no resemblance at all to those noble struggles against tyranny referenced in his UN speech.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
13 November '14..

Ten years ago this week, an American television journalist offered up a solemn tribute to the death that day of the kleptocratic mass-murderer Yasser Arafat:

"There may not be any other man in history who better embodies the saying that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter... For most Israelis, many Jews, he was a bloody terrorist and nothing more. Yet elsewhere in the world, even among Arabs who questioned his leadership, he was treated as a hero, freedom fighter, revolutionary. A diminutive man who became a larger than life symbol of the Palestinian dream..." Diane Sawyer reporting Arafat's death on Good Morning America, November 11, 2004 [Source]

We wish Ms Sawyer understood - and hope the past decade has shown - that one does not have to be Israeli to see this as one of the most galling aphorisms of our time.

More than that: convincing other people that "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter" is an essential part of ensuring moral confusion will reign. A thoughtful friend of ours puts it this way: it makes people stupid.

The United Nations which does not have, perhaps never will have, an agreed definition of terrorism, is the world's most important shrine to the consequences of not grappling effectively with terrorism and terrorists. In 1999, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1269 (full-text version here). It's not a long document - the entire text could fit on a single sheet. Broadly what it does is:

(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!
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(Video) Who Exactly is Killing Israelis?

Yarden Frankl..
Honest Reporting Video..
Published on Nov 12, 2014..




CNN and other media don't report that Palestinian terrorists are killing Israelis. Only that Israelis are victims of "knife attacks" and "car attacks."



CNN Video: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/11/world/meast/mideast-violence/index.html?iref=allsearch

Join the fight against anti-Israel media bias: www.honestreporting.com

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6x4OyqyeD8

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!
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Not a Chance Abbas Will Condemn Terror Attacks and Why

...Abbas is hoping that the terror attacks will keep the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the top of the world's agenda at a time when all eyes are turned toward the threat of the Islamic State terror group in Syria and Iraq. He also knows very well that the people he has radicalized would turn against him if he dared to speak out against the killing of Jews.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
12 November '14..

The recent spate of terror attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank did not come as a surprise to those who have been following the ongoing incitement campaign waged by Palestinians against Israel.

This campaign escalated immediately after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's last failed "peace process" between Israel and the Palestinians. Kerry's "peace process" actually put Israelis and Palestinians on a new collision course, which reached its peak with the recent terror attacks on Israelis.

Kerry failed to acknowledge that Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas does not have a mandate from his people to negotiate, let alone sign, any agreement with Israel. Abbas is now in the tenth year of his four-year term in office.

Nor did Kerry listen to the advice of those who warned him and his aides that Abbas would not be able to implement any agreement with Israel on the ground. Abbas cannot even visit his private house in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and he controls less than 40% of the West Bank. Where exactly did Kerry expect Abbas to implement any agreement with Israel? In the city-center of Ramallah or Nablus?

What Kerry and other Western leaders do not want to understand is that Abbas is not authorized to make any concessions for peace with Israel, and has even repeatedly promised his people that he would not make any concessions for the sake of peace with Israel.

In a speech in Ramallah on November 11, marking the tenth anniversary of the death of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, Abbas declared: "He who surrenders one grain of the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem is not one of us."

This statement alone should be enough for Kerry and Western leaders to realize that it would be impossible to ask Abbas to make any concessions. Like Arafat, Abbas has become hostage to his own rhetoric. How can Abbas be expected to accept any deal that does not include 100% of his demands -- in this instance, all territory captured by Israel in 1967?

Abbas himself knows that if he comes back with 97% or 98% of his demands, his people will either spit in is face or kill him, after accusing him of being a "defeatist" and "relinquishing Palestinian rights."

This is precisely why Abbas chose to walk out of Kerry's nine-month "peace process." Realizing that Israel was not going to offer him 100% of his demands, Abbas preferred to abandon the peace talks last summer.

For Abbas, it is more convenient to be criticized by the U.S. and Israel than to be denounced by his own people for achieving a bad deal with Israel.

Sedition by parliamentarians – bankrolled by Israeli taxpayers

...Inflammatory harangues in these contentious contexts are akin to tossing a primed grenade into a powder keg. Not only does Tibi do so with undisguised relish but he and fellow Israeli-Arab politicians compete fiercely with each other for the title of most abusive and abrasive. That distinction is worth political gold in Israel’s ominously radicalized Arab sector where it becomes a prime vote-getting asset.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
11 November '14..

“I am not a contractor for calming operations,” proclaimed MK Ahmad Tibi (Ta’al) when asked in a host of interviews, following the Kafr Kana shooting and ensuing countrywide riots, what he might do to cool passions.

With in-your-face bluntness Tibi proceeded to do quite the opposite and to pour oil on the flames. In breathless succession he accused the officers who shot 22-year-old Khair-a-din Hamadan of pre-meditated homicide, deliberate execution mafia-style, committing racist murder and altogether being “bloodthirsty animals.”

Shouting down other speakers, Tibi railed and vituperated. He charged that the policemen were out to “intentionally terminate Hamadan” rather than neutralize him when he attacked them with a knife. Tibi belittled Hamadan’s actions as “an understandable expression of anger.”

He insisted on stiff punishment for the individual cops, their commanders and government ministers.

As a legislator, Tibi of course ought to be adequately familiar with the principle that punishment isn’t made-to-order or on-demand according to the moods and/or interests of any given sector in the population.

In a democracy sentences are only handed down after exhaustive legal due process, which includes investigation of forensic evidence, formal indictment and, if it comes to that, trial in open court.

By announcing his verdict a priori and hectoring for prohibitive penalties throughout all law-enforcement ranks as well as in the executive branch of government, Tibi knows he’s doing nothing but engaging in outright incitement.

By agitating for non-starters Tibi builds up impossible expectations, which inevitably breed frustration that’s then perceived as another searing grievance and as another casus belli.

Jewish Victims of Terror, Humanity Lost and the NY Times

...The Times is ostensibly the same institution now as it was in 1995. On this issue, however, it couldn’t be more different. Somewhere along the line over the last twenty years, Jewish victims of Palestinian terror stopped being quite fully human to the Times. No doubt those who carry out these attacks feel the same way.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
11 November '14..

Reading this New York Times dispatch on the victims of Palestinian terrorism back in 1995 is truly stepping into a time warp. The story is about the killing of New Jersey native Alisa Flatow, a case that became famous for the Flatow family’s lawsuit against the Iranian funders of Palestinian terror. In the story we read about Flatow, although the focus of this particular piece is on those like her: young American Jews whose pintele yid (Jewish spark/core) takes them to Israel to study. Headlined “Studying in Israel: Shaken Youths, Unshaken Resolve,” the story is inspiring–and meant to be:

“I have not gotten one phone call from a nervous parent, thank God,” said Robert Katz, director of academic affairs at Bar-Ilan University’s office in New York. “This isn’t complacency. They’re not calling because they’re committed and they’re not going anywhere. The prevailing attitude is this is the place where we are and this is where we’re going to be and we’re not budging.” …

“They’re shaken emotionally,” said Efrem Nulman, dean of students at Yeshiva. “But they’re not shaken in their commitment or their core beliefs. In a nutshell, our students have a deep and strong commitment to Israel in general and to studying in Israel in particular. These students have become accustomed to despicable acts of terrorism.”

The president of Brandeis, Jehuda Reinharz, attended Ms. Flatow’s funeral and said afterward that he had spoken with many of the 50 Brandeis students taking courses in Israel. Her death, he said, has shocked the students, but it hasn’t changed their minds.

These Jews would not be intimidated by acts of terror into abandoning their people and their dreams of Jewish life in the Holy Land. I was struck, however, not by what the Times was writing about these students but by what the Times was showing about itself. Namely, the Palestinian terror campaign had also not shaken the Times; the paper was still dedicated to humanizing the victims of terrorism and celebrating the religious passion that kept young Jews coming to Israel in defiance of their tormentors.

That was a different time, maybe. But it was also a different Times.

A friend in Israel passed along this beautiful remembrance of one of yesterday’s victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks, 26-year-old Dahlia Lemkus, written by Sherry Mandell. She writes that although the New York Times put in the effort to learn about Lemkus’s Palestinian murderer, “We learn nothing about 26 year old Dahlia, who was just getting started in life after finishing college, studying occupational therapy so that she could have a job where she could help people who were sick or infirm or disabled to live in a fuller way.” Mandell proceeds to tell the readers all about Lemkus.

The Dahlia they didn’t tell you about

...No, they don’t want you to know what a kind, giving, loving young woman she was on the cusp of her adult life, looking towards marriage and creating her own family. Instead the newspapers show a photo of the terrorist and tell us that the Palestinian leadership says that it is normal and natural to run over a young woman and then stab her to death so that her blood runs like a red cape into the street.

Sherri Mandell..
Times of Israel..
11 November '14..

Funny how none of the articles about the murder of Dahlia Lemkus who was stabbed near Alon Shvut last night speak about Dahlia or her family, how no reporter had the curiosity to find out about her. She was killed in the afternoon so the reporters had all evening to question their contacts in Tekoa.

Instead, they practice a kind of obscurantism, restricting our knowledge of the victim. (Curious that the word obscurantism is derived from a dispute between intellectuals and the German monks who wanted to burn Jewish books, like the Talmud, in the 16th century to obscure Jewish culture and learning.) In the New York Times, the reporter tells you about the terrorist who is from Hebron, how he was in an Israeli jail for five years for a firebombing. The reporter quotes his Facebook page: “I’ll be a thorn in the gullet of the Zionist project to Judaize Jerusalem.” We learn nothing about 26 year old Dahlia, who was just getting started in life after finishing college, studying occupational therapy so that she could have a job where she could help people who were sick or infirm or disabled to live in a fuller way.

They don’t tell you how she loved to bake with her mother, the two of them bringing rich, luscious cakes to parties and the way she spoke English with an accent — but not a Hebrew accent — a South African accent because her parents made aliyah from there thirty years ago. They don’t tell you how she went to synagogue every Sabbath and smiled at the people in her row before she prayed. And they don’t tell you how she had to hitchhike to get to her job working with children in Kiryat Gat or that she was the main volunteer at Yad Sarah in Tekoa which lends medical equipment like wheelchairs to those who are sick or injured. They don’t tell you how she liked to help brides look beautiful by doing their makeup for them before their weddings.

Another NY Times Headline Fail: Palestinians “Suspected” in Terror Attacks

...In addition, the statement that the Israelis “Die[d] in Knife Attacks” effectively reduces the impact of the incidents. The Israelis did not simply die. They were viciously murdered by Palestinian terrorists.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
11 November '14..

Two separate terror attacks took place in Israel on Monday. In the first, IDF soldier Almog Shiloni, 20, was fatally stabbed near a Tel Aviv train station by Nablus resident Nur al-Din Abu Hashiyeh. Later, 26-year-old Dalia Lemkus was stabbed to death outside of the Gush Etzion community of Alon Shvut by Islamic Jihad affiliated Maher Hamdi al-Hashalmoun from Hebron.

In both cases, the perpetrators were quickly apprehended and there is ample CCTV footage from both incidents to see exactly what occurred.

The New York Times posted the story of both attacks on its website with the following headline that referred to “Palestinian Attacks”:

Later, however, the New York Times updated its headline, presumably to reflect that Almog Shiloni had succumbed to his injuries. This is what now appears online and in the newspaper’s print edition:

Recent 'Atmosphere attacks' are not born out of thin air

...The common denominator for this blood libel is the fundamental Palestinian hatred for everything that is Jewish and Israeli, which has now taken the form of anti-Israel incitement and demonization, and the delegitimization of our very right to be here.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
11 November '14..

"Atmosphere attacks" are not created in a vacuum. The atmosphere that breeds such attacks, inspiring the so-called "lone wolf" terrorist to carry out shooting, stabbing and vehicular attacks, has been prevalent for years. Recently, however, it has been amplified via a cacophony extolling terrorism and jihad against Israelis and Jews, wherever they may be.

The differences between Fatah, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in this regard are semantic. There is no misinterpreting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' statement calling the terrorist who shot Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick a "shahid" (martyr); and there is no misunderstanding the posts on Fatah's Facebook page -- the same Fatah Abbas heads -- lauding terrorists who carry out vehicular attacks and blatantly inciting future, similar attacks.

This time, the incitement is promoted under the guise of the blood libel slogan "Al-Aqsa is in danger." Last time it was linked to the "occupation," and before that to the "oppression." It is best, however, not to have any illusions: The common denominator for this blood libel is the fundamental Palestinian hatred for everything that is Jewish and Israeli, which has now taken the form of anti-Israel incitement and demonization, and the delegitimization of our very right to be here.

Gaza, Catalonia and Europe's insufferable hypocrisy

...After all, for 2,000 years, Europeans told the Jews to leave and "go to Israel." Now that we are finally here they want us to abandon it and hand it over to our foes. And yet when it comes to a long-running dispute in the heart of Europe, they don't even think of suggesting a division of Barcelona or the creation of a Catalonian state living side-by-side with Spain in peace and security. So perhaps it is time for someone to pull Mogherini aside and politely whisper into her ear: before you start offering unsolicited advice to Israel, you might want to get your own hypocritical house in order.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
11 November '14..

This past Saturday, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini set a world record for diplomatic duplicity and haste. Barely seven days after assuming her new post, the former Italian foreign minister rushed to pay a visit to Gaza and Ramallah, where she managed to call for the division of Jerusalem, denounce housing construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria, and insist on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Mustering up all the moral bluster that European diplomats are so fond of, she did not hesitate to lecture Israel, as if she knew better than the Jewish state what its own national interests might be. Dead Syrians may be littering the streets of Aleppo while Islamic State is busy beheading Kurds and Christians in Iraq, and Saudi women might be struggling to be allowed to drive cars, but Mogherini appears to have a one-track mind when it comes to the Middle East. And it revolves only around Israel.

This is European hypocrisy of the highest order. It is sickening in its scope and magnitude. And it is time for it to stop.

As the continent where more Jewish blood was spilled over the past 2,000 years than any other, Europe has a special responsibility and a moral obligation to support Israel.

Yes, that's right. You read that correctly: Europe owes Israel.

They have an eternal debt to pay to the Jewish people for the slaughters, massacres, blood libels, anti-Semitism, forced conversions, expulsions, Crusades and Inquisitions which they inflicted upon our ancestors for two millennia.

All of this might sound like ancient history to Mogherini and her colleagues, who probably don't see what it has to do with compelling Israel to create a Palestinian state. So just in case, let's highlight a more recent example of European hypocrisy, one that is closer to home and can be found in Europe's own back yard: Catalonia.

U.S. State Department’s War on Israel Unrobed

...Though he has sought to flee from it, Obama is a wartime president. But, as this episode reveals, the war he prefers to fight is the political one against Israel, not the real one Islamists are waging against the United States and its allies.

Jonathan S.Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
10 November '14..

Last week, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, exposed the hypocrisy of Obama administration officials who criticized Israel for taking insufficient care to avoid harming civilians during the war in Gaza this past summer. But the State Department isn’t backing down. Despite Dempsey’s statement that Israel gone to “extraordinary lengths” and had done what they could to spare innocents, when asked about the issue on Friday at the daily State Department press briefing, spokesperson Jen Psaki simply dismissed Dempsey’s avowal as irrelevant to the administration’s agenda.

Here’s the full exchange with Matt Lee of the Associated Press:

MATT LEE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Yesterday, the ICC made its decision that there was no case to prosecute for war crimes in Gaza. But also yesterday – and you spoke about that very briefly here. But also yesterday, General Dempsey, who is no slouch when it comes to military things, told an audience in New York that the Israelis went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage during the Gaza war. And I’m puzzled, because I thought it was the position of the Administration – or maybe it was just the position of the State Department and the White House – that Israel was not doing enough to live up to its – what you called its own high standards. Back on August 3rd, there was the statement you put out after the UNRWA school incident, saying that the U.S. “is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling.” And that was some pretty fierce criticism. How do you reconcile these two apparent divergent points of view? When this statement came out, the United States was appalled? Did that just mean the State Department was appalled?

JEN PSAKI, STATE DEPARTMENT: No, that is the position of the Administration; it remains the position of the Administration. As we made clear throughout the summer’s conflict, we supported Israel’s right to self-defense and strongly condemned Hamas’s rocket attacks that deliberately targeted civilians, and the use of tunnels, of course, of attacks into Israel. However, we also expressed deep concern and heartbreak for the civilian death toll in Gaza and made clear, as you noted in the statement you pointed to, that we believed that Israel could have done more to prevent civilian casualties, and it was important that they held their selves to a high standard. So that remains our view and position about this summer’s events.

LEE: Okay. But I’m still confused as to how you can reconcile the fact that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – who knows a bit about how military operations work, I would venture to guess; I don’t know him, but I assume that he wouldn’t be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff if he was – if he didn’t –

MS. PSAKI: Correct.

LEE: — says that the Israelis essentially did the best that they could and lived up to – by extension lived up to their high standards by taking – by going to, quote, “extraordinary lengths” to limit the collateral damage.

MS. PSAKI: Well, I would point you to the chairman’s team for his – more specifics on his comments. But it remains the broad view of the entire Administration that they could have done more and they should have taken more – all feasible precautions to prevent civilian casualties.

This stand tells us two things about the Obama administration.

The first is that facts played no part in its attacks on Israel at a time when thousands of rockets were raining down on Israeli cities and terrorists were using tunnels to cross the border to attempt kidnappings and murders of Jews. Hamas did its best to hide behind civilians in Gaza, something that was aided and abetted by an international press corps that was either too intimidated by the Islamists to report on their activities or to shoot videos of photos of armed terrorists or missile launches. But, as Dempsey rightly concluded, the Israelis were cautious about firing at positions embedded among civilians and adopted various strategies to keep collateral damage to a minimum.

Yet the State Department and the White House both sought to hammer the Israelis for every incident in which civilians were killed. The fact that the Israelis were every bit if not more scrupulous about this concern than American forces operating in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, or Syria is not in dispute, certainly not by their U.S. commander.

Let's Meet the “Palestinian people”

All this happened today. So what’s the solution? Hint: it isn’t creating a Palestinian state.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
10 November '14..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2014/11/meet-the-palestinian-people/

A short photo essay about the folks we share our country with.

These are items created for an exhibition by Palestinian students at Al Quds University in Jerusalem. The president of the university is the well-known 'moderate', Sari Nusseibeh. Note the cutout of Yehuda Glick in the foreground.

Here is yet another image from Palestinian social media promoting the "Car Intifada"

The Tuvia Tenenbom Heresy

...Now “Abu Ali” misses the Israelis. He meets with Arik Ascherman from “Rabbis for Human Rights.” Israel is evil, and Arik can prove it. He organizes a tour of the West Bank for Tobi, thanks to European tax money, so that Tobi can see for himself how bad the settlers are. All day, Arik’s driver takes Tobi around the West Bank to catch settlers burning trees, destroying houses, and beating-up innocents. Alas, the settlers never show up.

Dr. Emmanuel Navon..
i24 News..
06 November '14..

Israel was recently hit by a literary bombshell. The title of the best-seller is Catch the Jew. Its author is Tuvia Tenenbom, the founder of New York’s Jewish theater.

Tenenbom is an eclectic character. He was born in Israel to a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) family, left the Haredi world to join the army, and then left Israel and Judaism altogether to become a playwright in New York. He is fluent in many languages (including Arabic and German), and writes columns for Die Zeit and Corriere della Sera. His 2011 book, "I Sleep in Hitler’s Room," was described as “tremendous” by the National Review. Once translated into German, it became a bestseller. Tenenbom spent a year among Germans, recording his encounters with caustic humor.

Now he has done it again, this time in Israel. He spent a year here, meeting both Israeli and Palestinian leaders and laymen, always introducing himself as “Tobi the German journalist.” The resulting book is altogether hilarious, tragic, and devastating.

Tobi begins his journey in Jerusalem. He meets with “Professor Assma” from Al-Quds University, who explains that “the Israelis crucified Jesus.” Then he goes to Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi, who claims that the Palestinians have been living here “for hundreds of thousands of years.” An agnostic Christian, Ashrawi admits that Christians, numerous in the past, are now rare in “our pluralistic Palestine”. But Muslims have nothing to do with this. It’s the Israelis.

Tobi walks around Ramallah and chats with Rim Talhami, a Christian Arab-Israeli singer who describes herself as “a Palestinian from the occupied lands of 1948.” Talhami explains to Tobi that “Palestine is 14,000 years old” (Hanan Ashrawi must have added a zero by mistake); that she strongly rejects the “two-state solution” because that would imply recognition of pre-1967 Israel; and that Israelis are worse than the Nazis. Back in Jerusalem, Tobi tells this story to his host, a liberal American Jew whose son works for Addalah, an NGO that receives funding from European governments to promote the Palestinian “right of return.” “That can’t be,” she protests. “People in Ramallah don’t talk like that.” When is the last time you were in Ramallah? Tobi asks her. She’s never been there.


Were Israelis like this when I was a child? Tobi wonders. There's no place like Tel Aviv to meet real Israelis, such as this university professor who describes herself as an expert in Judaism (“a pagan religion,” she insists, but one she studied for decades). “What can you tell me about Isaiah’s vision?” asks Tobi. The “expert in Judaism” never heard of it. Next is Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy, a self-proclaimed advocate of the “Palestinian cause” who admits that he doesn’t speak Arabic and that he doesn’t have a single Palestinian friend. As for Israeli filmmaker Udi Aloni, his “dream” is the end of Israel with an Arab majority, though he doesn’t speak a word of Arabic either.

Then there is Itamar Shapira, an Israeli tour guide who describes himself as “an ex-Jew.” He is paid by European NGOs that are funded by the European Union (EU) and by European governments to give tours of Israel to European students. Itamar takes them to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, to explain that what the Nazis did to the Jews, the Jews are now doing to the Palestinians. Europe pays an ex-Jew to explain to young Europeans that they shouldn’t be ashamed of their grandparents because the Jews are much worse.

Sickened by the Jews, and ex-Jews, Tobi goes back to the Palestinians. He meets with PA official Jibril Rajoub. They become friends, and Jibril invites Tobi to one of his famous nature walks. Rajoub gets so fond of “Tobi the German” that he decides to give him a new nickname: “Abu Ali.” What an honor, explains one of Rajoub’s aides: this is how we call our German hero Adolph Hitler. Ah, sighs the aide, what a shame that Rommel didn’t make it.

Now “Abu Ali” misses the Israelis. He meets with Arik Ascherman from “Rabbis for Human Rights.” Israel is evil, and Arik can prove it. He organizes a tour of the West Bank for Tobi, thanks to European tax money, so that Tobi can see for himself how bad the settlers are. All day, Arik’s driver takes Tobi around the West Bank to catch settlers burning trees, destroying houses, and beating-up innocents. Alas, the settlers never show up. Thankfully, there is the Negev desert. There, Tobi will see for himself how the Bedouins suffer from ethnic cleansing. “No, no, we shall not be moved!” sings a Bedouin, in English, to Tobi. “Who wrote this song?” Tobi asks. The Europeans.

What emerges from this book is that Europeans are making things worse in our region by using the Arab-Israeli conflict to absolve themselves of their past crimes, and by laundering their anti-Semitism into humanitarianism.

Link: http://www.i24news.tv/en/opinion/49984-141106-the-tennenbaum-heresy

Emmanuel Navon chairs the Political Science and Communication Department at the Jerusalem Orthodox College and teaches International Relations at Tel-Aviv University and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. He is a Senior Fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum.

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!
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Arafat's Contribution–Ten Years Later

...It’s impossible to prove that had Palestinians had a different leader–someone like Nelson Mandela or Sheik Zayed, who wanted to build states that would assure a decent life for their people–today there would be an independent and responsible Palestinian state. But it’s easy to see what Arafat wrought, and Palestinians sadly continue to suffer from his years in power. Ten years after Arafat’s death, his historic “contribution” seems even more awful than it did in 2004.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
07 November '14..

Yasser Arafat died ten years ago, on November 11, 2004.

I am posting this “appreciation” a bit early, and anticipating an outflow of mourning and praise for Arafat next week. In fact, he was a curse to Palestinians.

To measure the damage Arafat did as the Palestinian leader, let’s begin with a comparison. Just 9 days before Arafat’s death, on November 2, 2004, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan died. Sheik Zayed’s death was not greeted with the global mourning, nor with the ceremonies and speeches at the United Nations that Arafat got. This is grotesque, because he was the father of his country, the UAE, and a model of sober, responsible, constructive leadership. Born in 1918 in one of the Trucial States, he lived as a Bedouin for all his early years. Yet he was wise enough to understand the modern world that was growing up around him, and to see the need for the Trucial States to federate when the British left in 1971. So he negotiated and then led the federation. The enormous success of the UAE today, and its role as a key U.S. ally, owe an incalculable amount to this man.

That’s one kind of leadership. Arafat provides another model: charismatic to be sure, but also violent, corrupt, destructive leadership that created the political mess in which Palestinians live today. When he had a great chance for peace, a chance to create a Palestinian state at Camp David in 2000, he said no. He had a historic opportunity then–remember, the foreign “leader” with the greatest number of visits to Bill Clinton’s White House was Arafat–but he kicked it away rather than seizing it. The defense of Arafat is that Palestinians were not really prepared for him to say yes, and not prepared for the concessions peace would require. I agree–but whose fault was that? Arafat’s.

A luxury Israel cannot afford by Sarah Honig

...The bottom line is that while world opinion is mesmerized by the ghoulish hijinks of Islamic fanatics, it loses sight of Iran’s threat, which in every respect surpasses the IS potential for evil. The sporadic bombings in Syria and Iraq, as well as America’s capitulation to Iran at the negotiations table, all point to the fact that the international community – perhaps a bit too expediently – has allowed itself to carelessly overlook fundamental perspectives. This is a luxury Israel cannot afford.

An Israeli military outpost as seen
from South Lebanon, where a
Hezbollah flag flutters

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
09 November '14

Perceived dangers to our lives and ways of life can be a function of trends – just like everything else in our existence. The latest headline-grabbing focus of fear is Islamic State expansionism. This isn’t a bugbear of negligible proportions. IS bloodlust and fanatic belligerence are nothing to scoff at.

That said, however, IS isn’t the only threat to the world’s democracies – Israel among them. Neither is it the greatest threat – certainly not to Israel.

Regardless of the repugnance aroused by IS’s sensationalist and lurid beheadings, worse villains abound in our region. Iran with its nuclear ambitions is foremost one, even though the White House is poised to appease Tehran’s ayatollahs without disarming them.

Syria’s Assad regime, until recently the side the world most loved to hate in the internecine civil strife, hasn’t lost any of its inherent nastiness just because IS has emerged as uniquely barbaric. And propping up Assad is the Shiite Hezbollah of Lebanon, whose menace to Israel has only grown by leaps and bounds despite its absence from the front pages.

This, in a nutshell, was the recent message of a “senior IDF commander” in the North who stressed that “no anti-Israel action on the Golan has thus far been perpetrated by the rebel forces in Syria but only by the organizations that support the regime in Damascus.”

The subtext is quite clear. Transfixing as their macabre excesses may be, the jihadists have not to date attacked Israel. Here it needs be noted that the border area straddling the Golan’s Syrian side is mostly controlled by the Jabhat al-Nusra subsidiary of al-Qaida, as distinct from the indisputably more notorious IS.

Nevertheless, those volleys fired into Israel in past months – not all of them by any means stray shells – almost always came from pro-Assad encampments, i.e. from Hezbollah forces. These forces continue to mercilessly batter the Syrian population, which is concomitantly also pounded by the Jihadists.

Israel thanklessly sends humanitarian provisions to the refugees (including food, fuel and clothing) and offers medical aid to all Syrian casualties regardless of their affiliation.

Although, in the immediate offing there is little risk of a Hezbollah offensive against Israel – as it’s deeply embroiled in the Syrian conflict – Hezbollah remains a formidable foe as far as Israel is concerned. More than anything, Hezbollah operates as an Iranian proxy and its Lebanese and Syrian enclaves are for all intents and purposes Iranian outposts in Israel’s closest proximity.

Obama's Peace Process and the Palestinians' "Car Intifada"

...Moreover, it would also be a good idea for Obama and Kerry to go online and view the most recent Palestinian campaigns that encourage and applaud terror attacks on Israelis. Perhaps then they will understand that as long as the incitement continues, there is no chance — zero — for the success of any peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
07 November '14..

It began as a "children's intifada" in Jerusalem, where Palestinians aged eight to 18 were encouraged to take to the streets and throw stones and shoot fireworks at vehicles driven by Israelis and policemen.

Now, however, Palestinians are referring to it as a "car intifada" after two Palestinian drivers deliberately ran over Israelis in Jerusalem over the past two weeks.

The "car intifada," which has claimed the lives of four Israelis, including a three-month-old infant, is being hailed by many Palestinians as a "natural response to Israeli crimes."

The "crimes" they are referring to are visits by Jewish groups and individuals to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority [PA], Hamas and Islamic Jihad are using these visits to stir up Palestinians against Israel. The recent terror attacks in Jerusalem are the direct result of this campaign of incitement.

The widow of Ibrahim Akkari, the 48-year-old Palestinian who drove his car into a group of Israelis in Jerusalem on November 5, said that her husband was influenced by TV scenes of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli policemen at the Temple Mount.

The widow, Amira, said that her husband carried out the attack in retaliation against Israeli "assaults" on the Aqsa Mosque. "He was martyred for the sake of the Aqsa Mosque," she said.

Recent statements by PA President Mahmoud Abbas may also have convinced Akkari to go out and run over Israelis. Two weeks before the attack, Abbas called on Palestinians to "use all means" to protect the Aqsa Mosque.

"It is not enough to say the settlers came (to the Temple Mount), but they must be barred from entering the compound by any means. This is our Aqsa, and they have no right to enter it and desecrate it," Abbas told Fatah activists during a meeting in his Ramallah office.

As if not enough, Abbas indirectly encouraged Palestinians to resort to violence against Israel by praising the Palestinian who shot and severely wounded activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick in Jerusalem on October 29.

A special Israeli police unit caught up with the shooter a few hours later and killed him in a gunfight.

In a letter to the family of the would-be assassin, Mu'taz Hijazi, Abbas wrote: "With anger, we have received the news of the vicious assassination crime committed by the terrorists of the Israeli occupation army against your son, who will go to heaven as a martyr defending the rights of our people and its holy sites."

The letter of condolences contradicts Abbas's promise to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to work toward calming the situation and refrain from fiery rhetoric that leads to more violence and bloodshed.

What is more disturbing is the widespread support among Palestinians for the recent terror attacks in Jerusalem.

This support is being expressed mostly on social media, where Palestinian activists have launched campaigns that praise the perpetrators and encourage others to follow suit.

State and White House Versus Gen. Dempsey on Gaza

...QUESTION: Okay. But I’m still confused as to how you can reconcile the fact that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – who knows a bit about how military operations work, I would venture to guess; I don’t know him, but I assume that he wouldn’t be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff if he was – if he didn’t —

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
08 November '14..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2014/11/state-and-white-house-contradict-gen-dempsey-on-gaza/

When Israel launched Operation Protective Edge to stop the flood of rockets being launched at its cities, and particularly when it mounted a short ground operation to locate and destroy infiltration tunnels under the border, there was the predictable response from the UN, the NGOs and Israel’s usual critics that it was causing ‘disproportionate’ civilian casualties in Gaza. Surprisingly (or not), the Obama Administration and State Department joined the chorus.

You probably recall John Kerry’s sarcastic remark that Israel had carried out a “hell of a pinpoint operation.” And you may remember that back in July, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that “there’s more that could be done [by Israel]” to reduce civilian casualties. There are also reports of a particularly ‘combative’ phone call from President Obama to PM Netanyahu during the war.

All along, Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, was saying that as a matter of fact, the IDF was doing an unprecedentedly good job in protecting Gaza civilians, even to the point of limiting its effectiveness against Hamas fighters:

Israel’s ratio of civilian to military casualties in Operation Protective Edge was only one-fourth of the average in warfare around the world, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan Col. (res.) Richard Kemp told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee [on Sept. 3, 2014].

Kemp pointed out that, during the operation, there was approximately one civilian casualty for ever terrorist killed by the IDF, whereas the average in the world is four civilians for every combatant, and that, when taking into consideration Hamas’s use of human shields, this shows how careful the IDF is.

“No army in the world acts with as much discretion and great care as the IDF in order to minimize damage. The US and the UK are careful, but not as much as Israel,” he told the committee.

On Thursday, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, added his endorsement of the IDF’s attempt to limit civilian casualties in Gaza:

Before the Chickens**t Hit the Fan by Sarah Honig

...Diplomacy isn’t about sensibilities but about interests and it’s the distinct duty of Israeli leaders to safeguard the most vital existential interests of this country, the chickenshit notwithstanding.

Obama and Sarkozy in Cannes:
No hint of an apology ever came
from either Washington or Paris

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
06 November '14..

Gosh darn! Smack dab on the eve of a midterm election, US Secretary of State John Kerry phoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to almost sort-of say sorry for reported name-calling in high Administration places – ‘chickenshit’ comes to mind.

A morsel of humble pie, after all, is prescribed when one’s party suspects its headliners may have offended voters at the close of a crucial campaign.

So, is everything now peachy keen in our world all over again?

Maybe, if this were the only memorable outburst and if Obama’s administration were as forgiving as it imperiously decrees Israel must be. Trouble is, though, that there was loads of loathing even before the chickenshit hit the fan.

For example, because of Obama’s and Kerry’s incessant choleric grudge, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon couldn’t get any Administration higher-up to hobnob with him in Washington, except obviously for his Pentagon counterpart Chuck Hagel – but that couldn’t altogether be helped.

Ya’alon became quasi-persona non grata precisely because Obama and Kerry weren’t in the least receptive to Israeli expressions of regret over substantially lesser transgressions. The unkind welcome was accorded Ya’alon despite repeated apologies on his part for the impertinence of calling it like it is.

Not unintentionally so, the Obama/Kerry vindictiveness was wind in the sails of our very own persistent political backbiters who vehemently, and not unexpectedly, voiced full agreement with the current White House and the State Department. Their inference was that Israelis (of the ilk that Israel’s misnamed Center and diminishing Left doggedly dislike) have no right to speak their minds freely, much less to talk back to their presumed American masters.

Anything remotely perceived as defiance or giving lip is not only to be frowned upon but also to be unequivocally punished. Hence, contrary to Washington’s sudden spirit of let-bygones-be-bygones, Ya’alon was snubbed and this was shrilly pounced upon by his and Netanyahu’s homegrown political foes as duly earned comeuppance.

“We told you so,” was the jolly mantra at the wholesale hullabaloo to which every line-toeing know-it-all contributed his/her two-cent’s worth.

Never the last to recite a de rigueur refrain, Finance Minister Ya’ir Lapid of Yesh Atid rebuked those Israelis who have so far failed to suitably panic: “There is a crisis with the US and we should treat it as a crisis.” His insightful recommendation is that “we must do everything in the world to get out of the crisis.”

This was indisputably music to Obama’s and Kerry’s ears. The duo must be delighted on two pivotal counts: