UNRWA to BBC: “Use the Words ‘Israeli Occupation’ in Coverage of Christmas in Bethlehem”

...Notably, Gunness did not ask BBC to use the words “murder, persecution and ethnic cleansing of Christians in Palestinian areas and throughout the Middle East,”

Hillel Neuer..
Times of Israel..
25 December '15..





I urge U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power to condemn the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) for breaching its neutrality promise under the 2015 UNRWA-U.S. Framework for Cooperation after spokesman Chris Gunness today urged the BBC to politicize its news coverage of Christmas by using the words “Israeli occupation.”

 

Chris Gunness‏@ChrisGunness

Demand @BBCNews use the words #IsraeliOccupation in its coverage of #Christmas in #Bethlehem. Amazing lack of context needs correction RT

• RETWEETS73
• LIKES38
• 

1:28 AM - 25 Dec 2015

Notably, Gunness did not ask BBC to use the words “murder, persecution and ethnic cleansing of Christians in Palestinian areas and throughout the Middle East,” as documented before the UN in compelling testimony by Father Gabriel Naddaf, who noted that “Israel is the only Mideast country not persecuting Christians.” Those words do not interest UNRWA or Gunness.

Ambassador Power should also condemn UNRWA for violating UN resolution 46/182 (1991), by which UNRWA is obliged to provide humanitarian services in accordance with the principles of “neutrality and impartiality.”

Israel's homegrown enemies by Caroline Glick

...In recent years, as the movement to delegitimize Israel from the Left has gained momentum, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has taken to referring to Israel as “the one and only Jewish state.” To Zionist ears, his constant refrain often sounds grating. Why bother mentioning the obvious? But today his characterization of Israel rings true. Indeed, it is a reminder of what we can lose, and what we must do everything we can to defend. We have but one Jewish state; we will never have another one. Warts and all, Israel must be defended from all of its enemies. Jewish terrorists, like Palestinian terrorists, are not victims. They are enemies of the state. Their apologists – like apologists of Palestinian terrorists – are also enemies of the state. We must fight and defeat them all with equal determination.

Caroline Glick..
Column One..
24 December '15..

ailants threw a firebomb into the home of the Dawabsha family in Duma. The mother, Reham, and the father, Saad, along with their 18-month-old baby Ali were killed. Four-year-old Ahmed was critically injured.

Authorities immediately alleged that the assailants were members of a Jewish terrorist organization.

The accusations were widely disregarded by members of the national-religious camp, and by the Right, more generally. But following news that Jewish suspects were arrested for the crime earlier this month, those early allegations ring truer than before.

The Right had good reason to raise an eyebrow at the allegations. The IDF, the Shin Bet and state prosecutors have a long history of open discrimination against the Right.

In 2001, 14 years before the Dawabshas were murdered, then-attorney-general Elyakim Rubinstein retracted five-year-old indictments against members of Eyal.

Eyal was a phony terrorist group put together in 1994 by a Shin Bet agent provocateur named Avishai Raviv. Its purpose was to demonize the national-religious community. As the most outspoken critics of the Oslo peace process with the PLO, the national-religious community was targeted for demonization.

Raviv and his colleagues had for years sought to entice members of the community to carry out acts of politically motivated violence. And when all else failed, he formed a fake terrorist group and invited reporters to film its fake swearing-in ceremony.

The Shin Bet’s history, along with IDF Central Command’s longstanding policy of portraying alleged Israeli vandalism of Palestinian property as the moral equivalent of Palestinian terrorism against Israelis, has led many law-abiding citizens on the Right to take allegations regarding Jewish terrorist cells with a grain of salt.

But this week we learned that this time the allegations may well be true. Just as bad, this week we discovered that not only do Jewish terrorists exist, they have supporters.

Wednesday night Channel 10 broadcast a video of young people dancing at a recent wedding in Jerusalem. The wedding was of friends of the men recently arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of the Dawabsha family. Rather than dance around the bride and the bridegroom, as is the custom at Jewish weddings, wedding guests held up rifles, guns, Molotov cocktails and knives and danced around a photo of baby Ali Dawabsha.

The message was clear. The guests at the wedding weren’t waiting for indictments or a court verdict.

They were sure their friends murdered the Dawabshas – including their baby – and they supported the murder.

Here is the place to note that the suspects are innocent until proven guilty. The film is not evidence of guilt.

But the video does show that Jewish terrorists have supporters and those supporters believe that child killers are heroes.

How are we to relate to this state of affairs? How are we to respond to the increasingly sure knowledge that there are Jewish terrorists and that those terrorists have supporters? Among those supporters are hundreds of people who have tried to shift the discussion from the act of terrorist murder the suspects are alleged to have committed to a discussion of allegations made by their attorneys, that since their arrest the alleged Jewish terrorists have been tortured by their investigators.

How are we supposed to react to those who rush to every open microphone and accuse the state of torturing the terrorist suspects, rather than consider, for a moment, what these men are suspected of having done? How are we to react to people who, even in the presence of evidence insist that the state is completely evil and the suspected terrorists are simply victims of discrimination? Those who blithely accuse counterterrorism investigators of torturing terrorist suspects while ignoring evidence and the nature of the crime itself, are terrorism apologists. In behaving as they do, they serve as the moral equivalent of anti-Zionist leftists from Breaking the Silence and its sister groups who libel Israel internationally.

Both groups of terrorism apologists use anti-Jewish rhetoric to harm the Jewish state. Both groups libel Israel with false allegations of torture that neither would dare to raise against any other country.

There are of course difference between the two groups.

Breaking the Silence and sister groups like B’Tselem are funded by foreign governments.

The Real Palestinian Christmas Show by Jonathan S. Tobin

...the key facts to remember when you see tomorrow (Thursday) night’s Christmas show from Bethlehem that will be repeated in an endless loop the following day on the news channels. The reality of Palestinian Christmas isn’t the prayers of victims for freedom. Rather it is of a continued determination to wage a terror war against the descendants of the real Jesus as opposed to the Palestinian myth.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
23 December '15..

As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas evening tomorrow (Thursday night), their television screens will be filled with the usual images from Bethlehem. We won’t hear much if anything about how that city’s once largely Christian population has been driven out by a rising tide of Islamist fervor and the Palestinian leadership’s desire for continued conflict rather than peace with Israel. Palestinians leaders will, as they do every year, speak of their suffering and recycle myths about Israeli persecution of Christians that are eagerly lapped up by credulous journalists. Then they will promote their own bizarre version of replacement theology in which the historical Jesus becomes, as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas likes to call a “Palestinian messenger.” The whole point of the show is to damage Israel’s reputation in the West and justify its isolation. But the real Palestinian Christmas show involves behavior that won’t be part of the Christmas Eve broadcasts.

Today, as they have virtually ever day for the past three months, individual Palestinian terrorists struck in attempts to kill random Jews they encounter on the streets. In this instance, it took place at the Jaffa Gates to the Old City of Jerusalem, a site familiar to tourists. Two Jews were killed after being set upon by two Palestinians who were killed by police that tried, in vain, to save the victims. That raised the toll to 24 Jews slain in this so-called “stabbing intifada.” More than 100 Palestinians, the vast majority of them terrorists cut down during the course of their attacks have also died.

Yet the same Palestinian leaders like Abbas who will speak tomorrow of Jesus’s message and of a desire for “peace on earth” and “justice” have also played a principle role in inciting these bloody attacks. It is the same Abbas who spoke just a few months ago about the need for Palestinians to prevent “stinking Jewish feet” from polluting holy places sacred to all three monotheistic faiths and who praises those who try to butcher Jews as “martyrs” that will be allowed to grandstand on international television tomorrow. And it is also the same Abbas that refused multiple Israeli offers of peace and statehood, in spite of his claims that this is what he wants.

But, of course, Abbas isn’t the only source of Palestinian leadership. Though they will not put on a Christmas show for the world, Hamas is also making its presence felt. Unlike Abbas’s Fatah Party, those Islamists make no pretense of respecting Christianity. But it is fear of competition from the rulers of Gaza that impels Abbas to continue to stoke the fires of conflict when not preening for the foreign press.

The Shalit Deal releases and another terror outrage narrowly averted by Arnold Roth

...The price paid by Israeli society - and in a meaningful sense also by the Palestinian Arabs - for this catastrophic transaction keeps growing. Yet there remains, it has to be said and with some pain, a striking unwillingness among the insiders of our government to properly analyze what was done, reach operative conclusions and express sincere regret. It's surely called for.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
24 December '15..

This could have turned out very, very badly - and might still.

Right here in Jerusalem, side by side with ordinary, constructive lives being lived by most of the people who call this special city home, a cluster of death-cultists - yet another in a lengthening string of them, working in dark places and preparing unspeakably dark plans involving injuries, mayhem and deaths - has been stopped.

No one imagines they are the only such cluster of plotters or that there will not be others on the way. But these, at least, have been stopped for now.

No innocent civilians were hurt - at least, not for now. So news coverage of this important development has been sparse outside our beleaguered country, particularly as seasonal celebrations have the attention of most of Europe, Australia and the Americas.

(Read Full Post. Please Share)

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. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

.

Wow! Even Amira Hass Is too ‘Zionist’

...Judging by her column, Hass learned nothing from the fact that even she was ostracized as too “Zionist” by these activists. But other well-meaning liberals ought to do so. “Pro-Palestinian activists” who have no place even for Amira Hass in their world have no place for anyone who seeks anything other than Israel’s violent demise. Thus by cooperating with such activists, liberals are not promoting a peaceful two-state solution; they’re promoting the activists’ goal of a world without Israel.

Image by © Wissam Nassar/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
23 December '15..

Many well-meaning people still believe that “pro-Palestinian activists” are exactly what the term sounds like – people anxious to better the Palestinians’ lot by ending “the occupation” and creating a Palestinian state. But Haaretz journalist Amira Hass provided a window onto these activists’ true nature in a column this week: They are people for whom even Hass – a self-described non-Zionist who deems Jewish immigration to Israel a “crime” and Palestinian violence against Israel a “right” – is a “Zionist,” and therefore beyond the pale. In short, they are people whose world has no place for any Israeli Jew of any political persuasion, and for whom the only “pro-Palestinian” future worth contemplating is one where Israel ceases to exist.

To understand just how extreme a worldview is required to label Hass too “pro-Israel,” some background is in order. Hass is Haaretz’s longtime Palestinian affairs analyst, but she’s unique among the Israeli journalists covering this beat in that she doesn’t live in Israel; she has lived for over two decades among the Palestinians, first in Gaza and then in Ramallah. This isn’t merely out of journalistic dedication; it’s where her avowed sympathies lie.

She states explicitly that she isn’t a Zionist. As she put it in the above mentioned column, during a panel she moderated at last week’s Haaretz conference in New York, “The newspaper’s representatives made it clear that Haaretz is a Zionist publication, that its opposition to the occupation stems from Zionist principles. I found it appropriate to distinguish myself from this stance.”

In this same column, she wrote that overseas Jews who move to Israel “would be choosing to participate in another crime,” a message she said she has delivered at forums ranging from the Haaretz conference to meetings with South African Jews. As she correctly noted, this is the antithesis of Zionism, which “preaches in favor of the immigration of Diaspora Jews to Israel.” In contrast, she appears to favor letting Palestinians immigrate to Israel; at any rate, she devoted several paragraphs to decrying Israel’s refusal to let them to do so.

Moreover, she believes Palestinians have a “right” to kill Israelis; in a now-infamous column in 2013, she wrote, “Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule.” That those stones are lethal weapons whose victims are primarily innocent civilians – the list of Israelis killed by Palestinian stone-throwers ranges from infants through toddlers to senior citizens – evidently doesn’t cause her any moral qualms.

So what could Hass possibly have done to enrage those “pro-Palestinian activists” to the point of accusing her of the worst crime in their book – Zionism? In her own words, “The thing that apparently angered them most was that I dared claim that the use of weapons does not advance the Palestinians’ cause today.”

The immorality of treating terrorists first by Michael Freund

...Those hurt by the terrorist did not choose to have a sharp instrument plunged into their bodies. The pain inflicted upon them was against their will, whereas the terrorist intentionally chose to cause injury, knowing full well that he too might end up wounded or dead. To overlook this fundamental difference, and to declare the terrorist worthy of being treated first, is to place his agony and suffering on par with that of his targets, which is not only offensive but inherently unjust.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
23 December '15..

This past week, the Israel Medical Association (IMA) unambiguously demonstrated that the possession of a degree in medicine does not necessarily imply sagacity or even common sense.

In a decision so profoundly disturbing that it beggars belief, the group reversed a policy in place since 2008, and declared that medical personnel must now provide care to victims based solely on the severity of their wounds, even if that means treating a terrorist before his victims.

This determination, as well as its timing, which comes at the height of a Palestinian wave of terrorism, marks a low point for what passes for medical ethics and public morality, and pressure should immediately be brought to bear on the IMA to reverse its scandalous ruling.

Seven years ago, the organization's Ethics Board published guidelines based on the principle that "charity begins at home," namely that the Israeli victims of a terrorist attack should receive medical attention prior to the Palestinian who perpetrated the assault against them.

This, after all, is a reasonable and logical standard, one that takes into account the moral context in which people are being treated, where there is a clear and unambiguous distinction to be drawn between those who harm the innocent and the innocent who have been harmed.

But recently, after a left-wing outfit which calls itself Physicians for Human Rights complained, the IMA retreated from its position, preferring instead to rely solely on the gravity of a person's wounds as the determining factor in who should be treated first.

If this is what passes for scruples among Israel's medical establishment, then something has gone terribly wrong with the system.

What the esteemed ethicists at the IMA fail to understand is that to equate the attacker with his victim, and to thereby strip the scene of its moral context, is itself an immoral act.

Terrorists may be human beings, but that isn't their only defining characteristic. When someone picks up a knife or weapon or straps an explosive belt to his body and uses them to harm the innocent, the moral thing to do is to give preference to the victims, not the villain.

Those hurt by the terrorist did not choose to have a sharp instrument plunged into their bodies. The pain inflicted upon them was against their will, whereas the terrorist intentionally chose to cause injury, knowing full well that he too might end up wounded or dead.

To overlook this fundamental difference, and to declare the terrorist worthy of being treated first, is to place his agony and suffering on par with that of his targets, which is not only offensive but inherently unjust.

An open letter to Breaking the Silence by Yitz Lauterbach

...I can respect those who disagree with me, but not those who undermine democracy by running to other countries and telling exaggerated stories about us in order to salve their conscience for something they may have done or witnessed when they were young and had no moral backbone. I too have broken my silence.

Yitz Lauterbach..
JPost/Opinion..
21 December '15..

Dear Breaking the Silence,

I too served as an infantryman in the West Bank, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip during the disengagement. I too served in Nahal, in what was probably the most left-leaning company in the army at the time, until I finished my operational training.

I have continued to serve Israel in various capacities, abroad and here in Israel, since my discharge in 2007.

I have read your various posts and “testimonies.”

If you saw someone get hit for “no reason,” why did you not speak out then? If you thought that your actions were immoral why did you not have the intestinal fortitude to report them to your commanders and officers? Why did you wait years to tell stories to audiences abroad? Stories that include a lot of hearsay, jumping to conclusions, lack of knowledge regarding the incidents in question... I could go on, but you get my point. The stories you tell seem to have little basis in the reality that I remember.

I remember being told in every briefing that all civilians were to be treated with respect, that in case of a firefight we were to avoid returning fire if there were civvies in the area. I remember going into Lebanon and running out of food and being told that we were not allowed to touch the food stores in the houses we were in, that rule only being broken after realizing that we wouldn’t make it back to Israel on foot on a starvation diet (I lost between 4-8 kg. that week).

I remember officers telling soldiers not to sleep on the beds and mattresses or damage anything unnecessarily – this in houses with tank-shell holes in them. I remember the civilians that we would give food to in Hebron – until we realized that they were carrying out recon on us and that their brothers would throw rocks at us after they left.

Why do you rail against soldiers (your own brothers- in-arms) who carry out missions in extremely complex areas of operation which are 100 percent legal according to international law? There is nothing “Nazi-like” about conducting routine checks at checkpoints for explosives and/or weapons, nor is there anything wrong about setting up mobile checkposts in known “hot areas.” There is certainly nothing wrong about arresting members of terrorist cells in the middle of the night. These are all things done by any sensible military force finding itself in the same situation.

Unfortunately, Reuters Doesn’t Meet “Mandatory Minimum” of Accountability Unlike The Atlantic

...Atlantic editors were responsive to public concerns and looked into the matter, showing their commitment to the journalistic guideline calling for accountability. And after their investigation, they promptly amended the erroneous language, per ethical guidelines requiring accuracy....Reuters, unfortunately, did not show such a commitment to accountability and accuracy.

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
22 December '15..

After Israel enacted harsher penalties for those convicted of stone-throwing and similar nationalistic attacks last September, an article in The Atlantic described the new measures as imposing "a minimum four-year prison term for Palestinians who throw rocks and Molotov cocktails."

As an Israeli law, though, it applies to all Israeli citizens and residents, whether Jewish or Arab, while Palestinians rock throwers in the West Bank are more likely to be prosecuted under military regulations.

The Atlantic's inaccurate statement may have been the influence of a Reuters piece cited in that same story. Reuters, too, described the penalty as being imposed "on Palestinian" attackers:

Israel will impose a minimum four-year jail term on Palestinian petrol bombers and rock throwers and will ease open-fire regulations and impose harsher fines, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

But in his remarks that Thursday, Netanyahu was very specific: The law, he explained, would apply to "all citizens and residents of Israel." Reuters was flatly wrong about what "Netanyahu said." And it was wrong in its headline, "Israel tightens crackdown on Palestinian petrol bomb, stone-throwers."

The errors by The Atlantic and Reuters were virtually the same. But the way the two media outlets responded to calls for corrections this week couldn't be more different.

Anyone Surprised? Iran Boosts Its Military Aggression

...One of the main impetuses for the deal was the West’s fear that, if Iran’s nuclear program wasn’t curbed by agreement, Israel would end up bombing it. And given how blatantly Iran is already violating the deal, that could still happen. Yet with Iran now emboldened to operate directly against Israel from Syria instead of via local proxies, an additional risk has been added

Image by © Morteza Nikoubazl/ZUMA Press/Corbis

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
22 December '15..

After Samir Kuntar was killed in Syria this weekend, allegedly by an Israeli airstrike, the Israeli media reported something surprising: The Lebanese terrorist, who had been sentenced to four life terms in Israel for particularly vicious murders but was released in 2008 to ransom the bodies of two soldiers from Hezbollah, was no longer working for the group that secured his freedom. Instead, he was working directly for Iran, setting up anti-Israel terrorist cells in southern Syria. In other words, Iran is no longer outsourcing anti-Israel operations to local terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas; it’s now running them directly, thereby increasing the risk of direct Israeli-Iranian clashes.

This isn’t the only way Iran’s behavior has changed for the worse since it began receiving Western sanctions relief in exchange for negotiating on the nuclear deal concluded this summer. It has also started recruiting child soldiers to fight in Syria. According to a horrific report published last week by an Iranian exile, who has spent the last two years working with refugees arriving in Greece, Tehran is exploiting Afghan teens who fled their own country’s war to provide cannon fodder for the civil war in Syria. They are bribed into fighting on the Assad regime’s behalf with the promise of a monthly salary plus a long-term Iranian residence permit after completing three tours of duty in Syria. Iran’s budget for this project also includes the cost of the drugs it gives the child soldiers before every battle; if they weren’t drugged, it fears they wouldn’t fight.

Altogether, Haaretz reported earlier this month, Iran has about 5,000 of its own soldiers in Syria plus another 25,000 under its command, including Hezbollah, Iraqi Shi’ite militias, and the Afghani and Pakistani refugees it exploits as mercenaries. But that hasn’t stopped it from also funding numerous terrorist groups outside the Levant. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist who works at Harvard and Columbia, told Al Arabiya this weekend that, of the more than 200 terrorist groups worldwide, fully a quarter “are funded, trained, or directly recruited by the Iranian government.”

All this costs money and, indeed, IHS Jane’s reported last week that Iran’s “defense” budget ballooned by 29 percent in 2015, the largest increase in the Middle East and the second largest in the world. Percentage-wise, the Iranian surge was three times the Mideast’s second largest increase (Israel, up 10 percent), while military spending actually fell in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, the Sunni Gulf States that are Iran’s main Arab rivals. Nor is Iran stopping there: In July, it approved a five-year plan that will ultimately boost its military budget by more than 50 percent, to be funded by the additional sanctions relief it will obtain once the nuclear deal takes effect next year.

In short, just as opponents of the nuclear deal predicted, Iran is primarily using its sanctions relief windfall not to invest in its own people, but to promote additional terror and strife throughout the Middle East.

Everything possible should be done to reverse this ‎shameful decision

...ZAKA emergency response service Director Yehuda Meshi Zahav was outraged by the decision: ‎‎"We will instruct our volunteers to first treat injured Jewish victim, without thinking twice," he said. ‎‎"And only after [will they treat] the terrorist murderer who carried out the attack. Despite the ethical ‎code which mandates the most injured victim be treated first, you must know morality has a limit. If we ‎will not keep our distinction, we will lose our direction. Even in Halachah, it is written: All who are merciful to ‎the cruel will end up being cruel to the merciful."‎ Not being merciful to the cruel is what our tradition teaches. Foreign-funded, hostile NGOs such as ‎Physicians for Human Rights must not be allowed to dictate life-and-death issues for Israeli citizens ‎through an unelected body such as the IMA.

Judith Bergman..
Israel Hayom..
22 December '15..

The Israeli Medical Association has reversed a 2008 decision mandating that doctors at the scene of a ‎terrorist attack treat victims before the terrorist, regardless of the severity of the attacker's wounds. ‎

Only a week ago -- in the midst of an unprecedented terror wave of stabbings and car rammings -- a ‎change was suddenly made to the medical ethics regulations, literally out of the blue. The IMA Ethics Board's guideline stipulated that "charity begins at home" -- that is, in a case ‎where personnel or equipment are in short supply in a multi-casualty terrorist attack, the victims should ‎be treated before the terrorists. It was decided to eliminate that instruction and the only rule that ‎remains in place is the one that decrees that the wounded must be treated according to the severity of ‎their condition and ability to survive, and no other criteria. In practice, this means that the terrorist would ‎have to be treated before his victims, if it turns out that his wounds were more severe than theirs, which ‎is entirely feasible, if he has been shot by the IDF or an armed citizen.‎

The IMA not only made its decision without any prior public debate, but it clearly ‎sought to hide it from the public, which is even more troubling and sinister. ‎

Israel Hayom reported that the announcement about the revocation of the previous rule simply ‎appeared on the IMA's website and that "the IMA was apparently concerned about ‎widespread political and ethical criticism of its decision." ‎

The IMA has every reason to be concerned. Such a decision of life and death, taken behind the back of ‎the Israeli public and sneaked into policy by a mere announcement on a website is odious in itself. But it ‎gets worse. ‎

One has to ask oneself why the IMA decided to reverse this crucial guideline? Here is the reason in all its ‎tragic simplicity: In October, members of Physicians for Human Rights contacted IMA Chairman Dr. Leonid ‎Edelman and IMA Ethics Board Chairwoman Dr. Tami Karni. Their demand: Cancel the "charity begins at ‎home" clause in the regulations on treating terrorism victims. Physicians for Human Rights argued in a ‎letter that the organization was convinced that the principle went against the ethical principles that have guided the ‎medical community until now. Following the appeal by members of Physicians for Human Rights, the ‎Ethics Board held a discussion on Dec. 1. At its conclusion, a decision was taken to accede to the ‎organization's request and cancel the "care for your own" clause entirely. According to Ethics Board ‎members, most members agreed with the decision. ‎

It is interesting that one appeal from a nongovernmental organization can reverse the policy on such a crucial question for an ‎entire nation just like that, isn't it? Since Physicians for Human Rights wield such tremendous influence, ‎being able to sway the entire IMA Ethics Board, it is relevant to look in depth at who they are.‎

(Video) Dr. Keidar Speaks About Killing of Samir Kuntar, Hezbollah and More

ILTV ISRAEL DAILY..
21 December '15..







Dr. Mordechai Kedar in a short but all encompassing interview with Israel Daily TV. As always, he touches on a number of topics in his own interesting and unique way.



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

Mordechai Kedar is an Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. He holds a Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University. Kedar is an academic on the Israeli Arab population. He served for twenty-five years in IDF Military Intelligence, where he specialized in Islamic groups, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic press and mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.The Los Angeles Times' Edmund Sanders described him as "one of the few Arabic-speaking Israeli pundits seen on Arabic satellite channels defending Israel" (Wikipedia)

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. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

.

The Importance of Samir Kuntar by Jonathan S. Tobin

...Israel has repeatedly tried to trade land for peace with the Palestinians and gotten only more terror in return for their efforts. But one needn’t rehearse the history of Israeli offers of statehood and far-reaching territorial withdrawals to understand why they all failed. All you have to do is to ponder why Samir Kuntar could have been treated like a hero while alive or acclaimed as a martyr after his richly-deserved punishment was finally meted out.

Image by © Wael Hamzeh/epa/Corbis

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentay Magazine..
21 December '15..

In a world where there is precious little justice to be found, some was done this past weekend in the form of a missile strike on a building in Damascus on Saturday, Samir Kuntar was killed. Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze, had spent 30 years in prison for leading a terror attack on northern Israel that resulted in the deaths of four people, including two children. Released in 2008 in an exchange with Hezbollah, Kuntar returned to Lebanon and was acclaimed a hero by both the Lebanese and Palestinians. Since then, he’s been a leading Hezbollah operative credited with helping to build a terror network in the Golan Heights as well as playing a role in the defense of the murderous Assad regime in Syria. It was in Syria, where he had reportedly been operating under the instructions of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, that what was almost certainly an Israeli mission brought his bloody career to a close. Reportedly, the motivation for the strike was not so much a belated reckoning for Kuntar’s crimes as the fact that he was believed to be part of new terror plots against Israel.

But while this action will generate the usual hypocritical broadsides about Israel’s anti-terror operations, it’s important to place Kuntar’s life in perspective. His record and popularity speaks volumes about what is wrong with the culture of the world that venerated him as a hero.

Hezbollah has threatened to retaliate for his death and has already fired some missiles at northern Israel. But while Israel’s critics will condemn the attack and blame it for doing something that might escalate tensions in the region, the chances of a new war with Hezbollah over Kuntar are not considered great. Hezbollah is in no position to try and replay its 2006 conflict that devastated much of Lebanon. With the terror group having reportedly lost up to one-third of its armed strength fighting as Iranian mercenaries on behalf of Bashar Assad, they can’t afford to pick a fight with the Israelis. Nor is Iran likely to want its Lebanese auxiliaries to waste their carefully hoarded arsenal of rockets on futile attacks on Israeli targets that will be defended by Iron Dome batteries that will likely shoot most of them down. Tehran also isn’t going to want to let Hezbollah do anything that might conceivably undermine efforts to keep Assad in power with the acquiescence of the Obama administration.

Instead, as it has done with various Revolutionary Guard figures that have been slain, Iran will write off Kuntar’s death as part of the price of funding terror and now treat him as a “martyr” to the anti-Zionist cause. His fate will be used to whip up more anti-Israel sentiment. And it is that fact that ought to be of greater interest to foreign observers than Hezbollah’s vows of revenge.

That Kuntar is a hero to Hezbollah’s legions of supporters as well as to Palestinians can’t be denied. He was released in exchange for the dead bodies of two Israeli soldiers who were killed in a cross-border raid carried out by Hezbollah in 2006 that helped set off what was called the second Lebanon War. Like the more than 1,000 Palestinians who were released in an Israeli deal with Hamas that ransomed captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Kuntar emerged from prison to acclaim throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds. His seniority as the captured terrorist that had spent the most time in an Israeli jail seemed to confer on him a status that put him above most other prisoners. Though he was not considered the most effective Iranian/Hezbollah operative, he remained popular.

But it’s useful at this point to revisit, at least for a moment, what were the actions that made him a legend. As the Times of Israel writes:

Can you imagine? Palestinian "Expert" claims 10,000 year old bread that never existed

...of course, most Palestinian Arabs are not descended from Natufians or Canaanites or Jebusites or any of the other nations they claim. They are, after all, Arabs - from Arabia (and many from elsewhere.) Their eating this bread shows how they are trying to take over a culture, not how they celebrate their own.

Elder of Ziyon..
21 December '15..







Al Monitor has an article about how Gazans are embracing supposedly ancient "Palestinian" breads:

A number of passersby stopped outside Skafi Bakery in central Gaza City, where Mohsen Skafi, 19, was creating large, thin circular shapes by quickly tossing and flipping dough before baking them on a saj oven. "Saj" bread, cooked on a convex metal plate heated over a fire, is part of Palestinian heritage. This type of bread is also known as "markouk" or "shrak" in the Gaza Strip.

Skafi's customer Abu Ahmed Rashid told Al-Monitor, “The good thing about saj bread is that it is not made in the bakeries’ corridors and rooms in the back, as the other types of bread. Rather it is made in special areas at the entrance of a bakery or on the sidewalk. The baker’s skills of rapidly flipping the dough between his hands without ruining it encourages people to buy it.”

Rashid said that his family eats saj bread instead of regular bread with all of their meals as a way to celebrate their Palestinian heritage.

...Housewife Samah Amoudi was among the customers waiting to buy taboon bread from Qayed. She told Al-Monitor, “What makes me buy the bread is the unforgettable taste. This is why I buy it every day.”

She said, “Taboon bread is part of the few heritage items that we are still fighting to preserve in Gaza. It tells us that ancient life in Gaza used to be beautiful.”

Then we hear from the "expert:"

(Read Full Post)

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. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

.

The True Legacy of Holocaust Denial and the Mullahs

...Perhaps he truly believed that the Iranian leadership was moderate. Obama — and later Secretary of State John Kerry — have long been guilty of projection when confronting adversaries. But after so much subsequent time and interaction, neither naïveté nor ignorance can be excused. Obama, Kerry, and their close-knit circle of advisors certainly understand the radicalism, racism, and anti-Semitism at the heart of the Islamic Republic but chose to engage, trust, and enrich the regime anyway. That decision reflects not only on the judgment of Kerry and his team, but also their character. Kerry may seek a Nobel Prize and his aides might seek promotion, but their true legacy will be the empowerment of what after North Korea remains one of the world’s most unrepentant and odious regimes.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
20 December '15..

So much for the moderation that $100 billion in sanctions relief and new investment was supposed to usher in inside Iran. The Islamic Republic News Agency has announced a new Holocaust cartoon contest theoretically meant to practice free speech but, in reality, meant to belittle and ridicule the murder of Jews. After all, if the Islamic Republic truly cared about free speech, it would not invest millions of dollars to hunt down and imprison those who traded jokes about the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on social media.

The only surprise is that anyone would be surprised by the latest Iranian antics. To be surprised is to be ignorant of the true character of the Islamic Republic and the leaders who serve and defend it. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is no moderate. He has always been the regime’s “Mr. Fix-It” and is a true believer in Khomeini’s ideology. He may have reduced the numbers of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps veterans serving in his cabinet, but he replaced them with Ministry of Intelligence veterans, in effect, selecting a KGB cabinet.

The reality is that while politicians noticed Iranian Holocaust denial under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, such animosity toward Jews — whose population in Iran has declined by 80 percent since the Islamic Revolution — and the lionization of the Holocaust predates Ahmadinejad. While Ahmadinejad proudly questioned the Holocaust, his predecessor Mohammad Khatami spoke to diplomats about dialogue while simultaneously inviting to Tehran Holocaust revisionists such as Gerald Fredrick Töben, a German expatriate in Australia, to lecture about how the Auschwitz death camp was too small to orchestrate the mass killing of Jews.

Surprise? Terrorist murderer of four Samir Kuntar downgraded to ‘militant’ by BBC News

...At least one Hizballah-linked figure has already threatened Israel following Kuntar’s death. If – or more likely when – such an attack comes, BBC audiences will of course be too under-informed to understand its context.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
20 December '15..

A terrorist convicted by a court of law for the murders of four people was downgraded by the BBC to the status of “militant” on December 20th.

Such terminology is also seen in the body of the article titled “Lebanese militant Samir Qantar killed in rocket strike in Syria” and the international terror organization with which Kuntar was most recently associated is described in similarly euphemistic language.

“Key Lebanese militant Samir Qantar has been killed in a rocket strike near the Syrian capital, Damascus, Hezbollah has said.

The Lebanese Shia militant group blamed Israel for the air strike.” [emphasis added]

The BBC also found it appropriate to amplify a denial by Kuntar – despite the existence of forensic evidence to the contrary.

(Read Full Post)

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. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

.

Nowhere Else to Go? When All Else Fails, Erdogan Calls Israel

...Turkey's was always a double game. The restoration of relations with Israel is less a political reconciliation than an admission of the utter bankruptcy of Turkey's last five years of diplomatic endeavor.

Shoshana Bryen..
JPC/ Gatestone Institute..
18 December '15..

The announcement of the restoration of Israel-Turkish relations should be seen in the context of Turkey having nowhere else to go.

Turkey's relations with Israel have been strained, to put it mildly, since 2010 when, through a non-profit organization, Turkey funded the 2010 Gaza Flotilla aimed at breaking the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

After a bloody confrontation, which ended in the deaths of nine Turks, Turkey demanded that Israel be tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and subjected to UN sanction. The ICC ruled that Israel's actions did not constitute war crimes. In addition, the UN's Palmer Commission concluded that the blockade of Gaza was legal, and that the IDF commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara ship had faced "organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers," and were therefore required to use force for their own protection. The commission, however, did label the commandos' force "excessive and unreasonable."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had already shown hostility towards Israel. Already in 2009, then-Prime Minister Erdogan denounced Israel's President Shimon Peres publicly at the Davos World Economic Forum. "When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. You know very well how to kill." When Hamas was thrown out of Damascus, Erdogan invited Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh to put the terrorist organization's "West Bank and Jerusalem Headquarters" in Istanbul.

Speaking at the Paris rally in January 2015, after the murderous attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices and the terrorist murder of four Jews in a kosher supermarket, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, "Just as the massacre in Paris committed by terrorists is a crime against humanity, Netanyahu... has committed crimes against humanity." Erdogan, speaking in Ankara, said he could "hardly understand how he (Netanyahu) dared to go" to the march in the French capital. Just last month, Davutoglu told an audience, "Israel kneels down to us."

Not exactly.

Turkey's foreign policy choices and current crises have combined to make Erdogan reach out to Israel for help. Erdogan came to office as Prime Minister in 2003 with a policy of "zero problems with neighbors," but has since led Turkey to problems with most, if not all, of them. Alon Liel, former Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, "Turkey didn't do very well in the last five years in the region. Turkey needs friends."

That is an understatement.

Showing that true Fatah Christmas spirit

"The way to freedom is a bullet and a Martyr, a pen and a prisoner, an olive tree and a wounded,a crescent and a cross
Merry Christmas
[Fatah] Shabiba student movement
Birzeit University"

Posted text: "Birzeit Shabiba hung pictures
of Martyrs (Shahids) and faction symbols
on Christmas tree" [Official Facebook
page of the Fatah movement, Dec. 17, 2015] 

Nan Jacques Zilberdik..
Palestinian Media Watch..
17 December '15..

As its contribution to the Christmas spirit at Birzeit University near Ramallah, Fatah’s student movement Shabiba decorated a Christmas tree with pictures of “Martyrs” - among them terrorist murderer Muhannad Halabi who recently stabbed and killed two Israeli civilians in Jerusalem.

Additional “Martyrs” who the Fatah students apparently think express the message of love, benevolence and goodwill generally associated with Christmas and Christianity, were founder of the terror organization Hamas Ahmed Yassin, founder of the terror organization Islamic Jihad Fathi Shaqaqi, and Secretary-General of the terror organization PFLP Abu Ali Mustafa - all responsible for numerous terror attacks and the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Crowning the top of the tree was a picture of former PA and Fatah Chairman Yasser Arafat, who throughout his rule endorsed and encouraged terror attacks against Israelis.

(See Full Post)

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. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

.

Thank you, anti-Semites, for spurring Israel to become a pretty amazing place to live

...In short, without the constant hostility, Israel probably wouldn’t have come as far and as fast as it has since 1948. So thank you, anti-Semites, for spurring Israel to become a pretty amazing place to live. We couldn’t have done it without your help.

Image by © ABIR SULTAN/epa/Corbis

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
20 December '15..

I admit to getting a kick out of seeing anti-Semites inadvertently help the very Jewish state they dream of destroying. And it happens more often than you might think, as was driven home by three very different news reports this week.

The first is that some 8,000 French Jews moved to Israel this year, topping last year’s all-time high of 7,000. Immigration is always good for Israel. Not only does each group of immigrants bring its own ideas and strengths that contribute to making Israel a better place, but the country simply needs a critical mass of people to survive as a Jewish state in an Arab region. Indeed, had it not been for the millions of Jews who immigrated since 1948, Israel might not have survived.

Most immigrants to Israel are Zionists; they genuinely care about the Jewish state. But even so, most of them wouldn’t have left comfortable lives elsewhere had there not been a push factor as well as a pull factor; that’s why most American Zionists still don’t come. And usually, anti-Semitism has been part of that push factor, just as it is for French Jews today.

So thank you, anti-Semites, for turning a country of 800,000 people into one eight million strong. It would never have happened without your help.

The second news item was the announcement of a planned trilateral summit between the leaders of Israel, Greece, and Cyprus. For most of its history, Israel’s relationships with Greece and Cyprus were chilly; in contrast, it had close ties with their longtime enemy, Turkey. It was only when Turkey, under the leadership of the virulently anti-Semitic Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, turned against Israel that a rapprochement with Greece and Cyprus began, since all three countries now had a common enemy.

In other times, this might have seemed a poor strategic bargain. Greece and Cyprus have weaker militaries than Turkey, offer smaller economic markets, and don’t provide diplomatic entrée to the Muslim world. But in a month where the West has just given Iran a pass on two major violations of its shiny new nuclear deal – failing to come clean on its past nuclear work and conducting a banned missile test – it’s a godsend.

Why? Because Iran now knows for certain that it can cheat its way to nuclear weapons with impunity, which means Israel will someday face a choice between bombing Iran or letting Iran get the bomb. But bombing will be harder than it would have been before the nuclear deal because the deal gave Russia a green light to finally supply Iran with its advanced S-300 aerial defense system. And Israel lacks experience with the S-300; the allies its air force traditionally trained with, including Turkey, mainly use American weapons platforms.

But Cyprus, which has long had close ties with Russia, bought an S-300 back in 1997, which it later transferred to Greece. And since Israel, Greece, and Cyprus are now friends that conduct joint military exercises, Greece reportedly let the Israel Air Force practice against its S-300 this spring to devise ways of defeating it.

So thank you, Erdogan, for enabling the IAF to get the training it will need if it ever has to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. It wouldn’t have happened without your help.

Surprise? Haaretz: Incitement to Kidnap Soldiers is "Political Activism"

...The question that remains unanswered is who to believe? The Palestinians and Haaretz editorialists, which claim Jarrar did not incite, or Jarrar and the Israeli military court which found Jarrar guilty based on her confession? The dilemma might be solved by asking Jarrar herself to weigh in on the matter – is she a dangerous terrorist or a feminist political activist? However that is impossible – Jarrar refuses to speak to Zionists.

Hanan Amiur..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
15 December '15..

Translated from the original Hebrew, which can be read on Presspectiva, website of CAMERA's Hebrew language division.

Who is Khalida Jarrar? And what were her crimes, if any? That depends on whom you ask.

If you ask the editorialists at Haaretz, Khalida Jarrar is a "political prisoner" who was punished for her political activism and that alone. (Previously, following her indictment, Ha'aretz characterized her as a "feminist activist in a left-wing Palestinian party.")

According to a Haaretz editorial, her indictment is "based at least in part on dubious evidence, including vague hearsay, evidence and testimony obtained under pressure."

Haaretz's conclusion regarding the verdict, therefore, comes as no surprise:

Jarrar's trial once again proved the intolerable contradiction between the rule of law and the principles of justice, on one hand, and the military justice system on the other. The latter has no relationship to the former.

If, on the other hand, you ask the Israeli military justice system (as Haaretz articles had previously done), it turns out that Jarrar was initially brought to trial on 12 counts of security offenses, of which she was ultimately convicted in the framework of a plea bargain where she admitted to two of the counts: a) belonging to the illegal Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and b) having incited Palestinians to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

It is noteworthy that the PFLP is an active, murderous terrorist organization whose members were responsible for hijackings, a massacre at the Lod airport (22 dead), the murder of an Israeli cabinet minister, and many other terrorist attacks that have been carried out from its inception in the 1960's until now. Last summer, the organization fired hundreds of rockets into Israeli population centers (here is an example). About a year ago, the organization officially and clearly proclaimed its objectives and plan of action — "The resistance will continue so long as a Zionist soldier remains on Palestinian land" — and a few months ago, it provided a demonstration of this when it claimed responsibility for a shooting attack in which four Israelis were wounded.

NY Times Correspondent: Israel Oppresses Palestinians With Parking Tickets

...Parking tickets on illegally parked cars! What will those dastardly Israeli oppressors come up with next?

Stephen M. Flatow..
The Algemeiner..
18 December '15..

JNS.org – The Arab journalist whom The New York Times has hired to report on Israel has come up with the most “terrifying” example yet of Israeli oppression: the issuing of parking tickets to Palestinians.

The reporter, Diaa Hadid, who describes herself as “an Australian of Lebanese & Egyptian descent,” previously served as public relations officer for the pro-Palestinian group “Ittijah.” Its director, Amir Makhloul, is in an Israeli prison for espionage on behalf of Hezbollah terrorists.

Hadid’s resume also includes a stint as a columnist for the anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada. With that kind of track record, you almost expect her articles for the Times to exhibit a pro-Palestinian bias. And she has indeed lived up to those expectations.

But one would hope that her editors back in New York would exercise a little more discretion before rushing her dispatches into print. This week’s blast from Hadid is a good example of what I mean.

In her Dec. 17 report, Hadid played the usual moral-equivalence game with the casualty statistics: “Since the uprising began in October, Palestinians have killed 18 Israelis and an American citizen. More than 115 Palestinians have been killed in the same period.”

Get it? Six times as many Palestinians “have been killed” as Israelis. This, of course, makes the Israelis the bad guys and the Palestinians the innocent victims. Anybody who knows the casualty figures for Americans and Germans in World War Two will instantly understand that body counts tell you nothing about right and wrong.

Hadid later mentions that of those 115 dead Palestinians, “60 have been shot dead while attacking Israelis.” What about the other 55? Her implication is that 55 innocent, defenseless Palestinian civilians were murdered by Israelis.

Was there some horrendous Israeli massacre of 55 Palestinians that the rest of us never heard about? Not quite. Those 55 were shot dead while hurling deadly firebombs and rocks at Israeli soldiers, who fired back in self-defense. But mobs of Palestinians throwing Molotov cocktails don’t count as “attackers” in Diaa Hadid’s book. They’re “protesters.” So they were killed while “protesting.”

But the most inventive aspect of Hadid’s Dec. 17 article was the ghastly new example of Israeli persecution that she has uncovered:

Holding Israel to an Impossible Standard

...perhaps of even more concern should be the fact that we appear to be moving toward a scenario in which every western war against terrorists will inevitably be held up as illegitimate. This report should begin by prompting world leaders to reconsider how they view Israel’s military activities. But then it should prompt some much deeper thinking about how they intend to fight and win their own wars while also holding Israel to the impossible standard that they currently do.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
15 December '15..

The debate about where the moral culpability lies for the casualties that resulted from the recent conflicts in Gaza is one that has been engaged in repeatedly, and is no doubt one that will be repeated the next time that Israel is compelled to undertake military operations in the Gaza Strip. In the case of the 2014 summer war in Gaza, both the U.N. and Amnesty International released reports slamming Israel for its role in that war. These purportedly impartial reports invoked the authority of human rights experts and international law in an effort to demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt the criminality of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Now, however, an 80-page report has been released by the international High Level Military Group that sets out a robust and evidenced case for why these other Gaza reports can be in large part discounted. As has been pointed out by Colonel Richard Kemp — one of the report’s authors — an assessment of Israel’s conduct during the Gaza operation ought to be undertaken with reference to the Laws of Armed Conflict, and yet most of the investigations into the Gaza conflict appear to have been conducted by those with woefully little military understanding.

The group, which includes senior military figures from the United States, Britain, France, India, Spain, Germany, Italy, Australia, and Colombia, concluded that Israel’s defense forces had gone far beyond the required level of care that a military is obliged to show when balancing the welfare of civilians against questions of military necessity. But crucially, this is by no means a finding that the Generals are entirely welcoming of. Rather, they point out that if this new rigorous level of humanitarian concern adopted by Israel comes to be accepted as the norm in the international community, then it will become impossible for other militaries to effectively fight future wars.

This is perhaps the most interesting matter raised by the report. Clearly Israel’s experience in Gaza has very profound implications for other democracies seeking to wage war against terrorist non-state actors. Terror groups who not only have no regard for international human rights law but that also have no fear of their international standing being tarnished equally do not need to worry about condemnation at the U.N. having repercussions such as the imposition of sanctions. In fact, these groups are clearly learning from Hamas tactics and seeing that it is possible to gain an advantage over western armies that restrain themselves in accordance with the stipulations of international law.

The "Intifada", Abbas and more lies

...This latest wave of terrorism is not about "despair." It is not about unemployment, poor living conditions or freedom of movement. Instead, it is another attempt by Palestinian "youths" to eliminate Israel, by again using the false excuse that Jew are "desecrating" and "destroying" Islamic holy sites. This is something that President Abbas knows very well, but does not have the courage to admit. He prefers to continue lying not only to the international community, but even to his own public.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
17 December '15..

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now wants us to believe that the Palestinian "youths," who are sent out to murder Jewish soldiers and civilians, are acting out of "despair." He wants us to believe that these "youths" decided to murder Jews because their dream of a two-state solution has not been realized. Abbas is also trying to convince us that these "youths" are upset about Israeli checkpoints, construction in settlements, and visits by Jews to the Noble Sanctuary (Temple Mount).

These latest statements by President Abbas show that he is either completely disconnected from reality, or else thinks that everyone will believe whatever he tells them. His claim -- that the Palestinian assailants who carry out stabbing and car ramming attacks against Israelis, are frustrated because the two-state solution has not yet been realized -- is, frankly, an insult. We still have never encountered one case -- ever -- where a terrorist complained about the absence of a two-state solution. Also, contrary to Abbas's claim, none of the terrorists has ever complained about settlements or checkpoints. In fact, these "youths" that Abbas is talking about are mostly affiliated with Hamas, and do not believe in any two-state solution. Like Hamas, these terrorists want to see Israel wiped off the map.

Abbas's "youths," who, since the beginning of October, have murdered 22 Israelis and wounded dozens of others, set out on their missions because their leaders have been telling them that the Jews are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. These "youths" are driven by hatred, not by 'despair," as Abbas has been claiming. His allegation that the "youths" are "lone wolves" acting on their own initiative is also not true. What is true is that both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have publicly admitted that some of the terrorists were members of these two Islamist groups.

Take, for example, the most recent case, of 21-year-old Abdel Muhsen Hassouneh, the east Jerusalem terrorist who rammed his car into a group of Israelis at a bus stop earlier this week. He wounded 14 people, including an 18-month-old infant who remains in hospital in critical condition. Shortly after the attack, Hamas announced that this terrorist was one of its group.

Similarly, Islamic Jihad also endorsed some of the terrorists who carried out the recent attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank -- again exploding the claim that the "youths" were acting on their own. On October 3, Islamic Jihad took credit for a stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City, in which two Israeli men were killed. The group announced that the terrorist, Muhannad al-Halabi, was an active member of Islamic Jihad.

A review of the Facebook accounts of most of the terrorists shows that their main intent was to murder as many Jews as possible in order to become "martyrs." Their goal was to impose a reign of terror and intimidation on Jews to force them to leave Israel.

Abbas is well aware that the "youths" are not complaining about the "occupation" of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The "occupation" these " youths" have a problem with is the one that began with the creation of Israel in 1948. As recently as last month, official Palestinian Authority TV was stating this, adding that Israel would cease to exist: "The occupation must know... [Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Nazareth] - all of this land belongs to us... and will return to us."

A Palestinian culture that won’t allow its people to end the conflict

...In the end, the choice remains with the Palestinians. If they don’t like the price of war as they suffer the ill effects of measures intended to prevent more terrorist attacks, they can stop killing Jews and condemn rather than honor — as Abbas and the PA does — those who engage in such wanton slaughter. If they don’t like being governed by Abbas and Hamas (and they shouldn’t), they can try their own Arab spring and try new leaders that might work to better their existence and seek peace rather than wasting their time in futile if atrocious attacks on Israelis.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
17 December '15..

More than two months into the so-called “stabbing intifada,” Palestinian violence against Israelis continues. But as the toll of casualties mounts, two things are becoming clear. One is that the decision of so many Palestinians to risk their lives in order to inflict violence on any Jew may be rooted in the failures of their own society and leadership that has little or nothing to do with Israeli policies. The other is that Palestinians are going to have to make a choice about whether they really want to pay the price for launching a new war which will hurt them more than Israel.

As Ben Caspit noted in Al Monitor, the questions of figuring who the individual terrorists are in this wave of violence and why they are doing it is puzzling Israeli authorities:

According to Israeli security experts, Israel is now “paying” for things that it is not even guilty of, such as Arab society restricting women and depriving them of equal rights. Also, the economies of the Arab states in general have long been weak, and the Palestinian economy in particular cannot give its youths any real hope of improvement to their standard of living, economic security and employment.

The new Palestinian is unaware that compared to the other Arabs in the Middle East today, his situation is relatively better than theirs. The only Arab region in which electricity is available 24/7 is in Judea and Samaria. The same is true regarding infant mortality, the standard of medical care and many other statistical facts.

The fault for the Palestinians’ woes is widely attributed to Israel but complaints about the “occupation” only go so far. It’s true the Palestinians won’t to be free of Israeli rule. But as Daniel Polisar wrote last month in Mosaic magazine in his study of Palestinian public opinion, their goal isn’t so much a two-state solution as it is the elimination of the Jewish state. Their dissatisfaction is wrongly attributed to the failure of the peace process. Their real problem is not so much with negotiations that always end with Palestinian refusals of Israeli statehood offers (as Arafat did in 2000 and 2001 and Mahmoud Abbas did in 2008) or an unwillingness to negotiate seriously (as Abbas has done for the last seven years despite U.S. support for his demands) but rather with the failure of the Palestinian Authority to wage an effective war against the Jews.

That’s why Abbas resorted to inciting violence over mythical Israeli plots to harm the Temple Mount mosques. Starting what amounts to a religious holy war wouldn’t seem to be in his interests but since he needs to compete with his Hamas rivals, it was the best tactic he could come up with.

Of course, in the absence of a satisfying conflict, Abbas and the PA could have spent the last decade trying to improve the lives of Palestinians but that was never their priority. While we’ve been hearing predictions of the PA’s collapse for years, it remains to be seen how long a bankrupt kleptocracy that survives on a vast patronage scheme that runs on foreign cash will last.