As Expected, Breaking the Silence’s Discredited Spokesman Slanders the IDF Again - by Simon Plosker

Ultimately, Dean Issacharoff’s opinion piece isn’t meant to improve the behavior of IDF soldiers or to help the IDF deal with abuses if and when they occur. The only reason for publishing an article in an Irish media outlet is to defame the IDF and drag Israel’s name through the mud. The Journal.ie has given a platform for a discredited spokesman from a discredited organization.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
20 February '19..

The Journal.ie, an Irish media outlet published an opinion piece by Dean Issacharoff, the spokesperson for Breaking the Silence, a highly politicized organization that collects anonymous testimonies of Israeli soldiers of alleged and most often unsubstantiated misdemeanors or “war crimes” that it presents to a mainly foreign audience as a means of fighting Israel’s “occupation.”

'At first, I hated shooting school children with rubber-coated bullets ... but after a few months in Hebron, we would high-five each other every time we hit one', writes Dean Issacharoff.https://t.co/QQlupZHt7g

— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) February 20, 2019

As journalist Jake Wallis Simons recounted back in 2013 when he conducted interviews with BtS staff:

It was only a hunch at first. But later, the bias of the organisation became clearer. During a break between interviews, I asked Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the organisation, how the group is funded. It was with some surprise that I learned that 45 per cent of it is donated by European countries, including Norway and Spain, and the European Union. Other donors include UNICEF, Christian Aid and Oxfam GB. To me this seemed potentially problematic.

As is the case in all democracies, the IDF is an organ of the state, not a political decision-maker. If the goal of Breaking the Silence was simply to clean up the Israeli military, it wouldn’t be such a problem. Instead, the aim is to “end the occupation”, and on this basis it secured its funding.

It appeared, therefore, that these former soldiers, some of whom draw salaries from Breaking the Silence, were motivated by financial and political concerns to further a pro-Palestinian agenda. They weren’t merely telling the truth about their experiences. They were under pressure to perform.

Indeed, I later discovered that there have been many allegations in the past that members of the organisation either fabricated or exaggerated their testimonies.

Issacharoff himself was found to have fabricated his own testimony in 2017 after an Israeli legal investigation concluded that his claims that he assaulted a Palestinian man during his military service were false.

Issacharoff’s fellow IDF soldiers and commanders also called out his claims.

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Taking a closer look at the Kushner compromise - by Stephen M. Flatow

...American Jewish and Zionist organizations should not be sitting quietly on their hands, “waiting to see” what exactly the Trump Mideast peace plan will say. All one needs is a little logic and common sense to understand that whatever the details, the essence of Trump’s plan will pose a great danger to Israel. We need to speak out now—to stop the plan from being put forward at all—because once it is unveiled, there will be a steamroller of pressure that could be impossible to stop.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
19 February '19..

The precise details of the forthcoming Trump administration Mideast peace plan are not yet known, but the basic principle was declared by senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner at last week’s Warsaw conference.

“Both sides will have to make compromises,” he said.

Kushner’s statement follows numerous similar statements by American officials, including the president himself. In his Feb. 9, 2017 interview with Israel Hayom, U.S. President Donald Trump said: “I think that both sides will have to make significant compromises in order for achieving a peace deal to be possible.”

That was followed by a report in The Jerusalem Post on Feb. 20, 2018, quoting Kushner and the administration’s other top Mideast envoy, Jason Greenblatt, saying that “both sides are going to love some of [the plan] and hate some of it.” And then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in a Feb. 22, 2017 speech in Chicago: “The plan won’t be loved by either side. And it won’t be hated by either side.”

Let’s take a closer look at what the both-sides-have-to-compromise approach means, both in principle and in practice.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook 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. 

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Proud Mother of Palestinian knife attacker on Hamas TV: “Muhammad was a butcher and knew how to slaughter” - by William A. Jacobson

Mother of Muhammad Said Ali: “He was a hell of a guy. A butcher. A lion.”

William A. Jacobson..
Legal Insurrection..
19 February '19..

We have covered this sick picture before. The mothers of Palestinian terrorists who praise their children’s killing of Jews, often wishing they had killed more:

Now there is another example.

October 2015 was start of what commonly was referred to as the Knife or Stabbing Intifada. While there were many other forms of attack, the knifings — often carried out by teenagers — resulted in many attackers being shot dead after killing or wounding Israelis:

According to the Israel Security Agency, October 2015 saw the beginning of a wave of terrorism that has led to 620 attacks (483 in the form of firebombs) in one month, compared to 223 in September. Eleven people (one foreign national and 10 Israelis) were killed in terrorist attacks in October, and 80 were injured, 37 of them moderately or more severely (one foreign national, 18 Israeli civilians, and 18 members of the security forces).

I wrote about the Knife Intifada: “spasms of bloody and murderous irrationality”. The knifings were glorified on Palestinian social media.

In that report, I also noted other attacks, including this one at the Damascus Gate to the Old City in which an attacker was shot and killed. I didn’t know or report his name:

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Why Tzipi, the ‘almost’ Israeli prime minister never made it - by Jonathan S. Tobin

...while some commentators focused on how disliked she was by the leaders of the centrist and left-wing parties that she tried in vain to unite this year, the verdict on Livni’s career is more of a commentary on the two-state solution than about her personality. Instead of carping about her particular qualities, those assessing her time on the stage need to see her as one more victim of a peace process that destroyed political careers in Israel and also led to greater violence.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
19 February '19..

This week former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni announced that she was dropping out of politics. Livni came as close to being prime minister as you can get without actually having the job more than once. But only a decade after leading her party to a first-place finish in the 2009 Knesset election, she is finally giving up.

Insiders put her down as a difficult political partner. That’s the generally accepted answer to the question of why, after being part of so many coalitions, she was left standing when the music stopped in the game of political musical chairs this year. Yet with a résumé that included a stint in the Mossad and service as a competent minister in charge of various departments, hers was an impressive career.

But the explanation for her rise and fall ought to be of particular interest to American observers. If Livni’s political career fizzled, it’s because those Israelis who stake their claim to leadership on the basis of support from liberal Americans and an ability to negotiate with Palestinians are always doomed to failure.

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Question. Which is the Apartheid State? - by Karen Harradine

...The Islamist war against Israel epitomises not only a physical battle but a spiritual one between good and evil. Christians should know better than to side with those who cheer when the blood of Jewish children, like that of Malki Roth, is spilt.

Malki Roth

Karen Harradine..
A Grain of Sand..
19 February '19..

In November 2017 Arnold Roth sat by his disabled daughter’s bedside in an Israeli hospital. His tweets from that time offer an informed repose to the Islamist slur that Israel is an apartheid state. Most of the medical staff who attended his daughter were Arab and so were a third of the patients.

The name Arnold Roth should be familiar. Hamas terrorists murdered his other daughter Malki while the 15 year old was eating pizza in a Jerusalem cafe almost 18 years ago.

One of the masterminds of this slaughter of innocents, Ahlam Tamimi, now lives in Jordan. She is a member of the notorious Tamimi clan who are lauded as ‘freedom fighters’ by the depraved mainstream media, which seemingly worship those who kill Jews.

But the media are not only the only culprits. Far too many clueless Westerners parrot the Islamist narrative that Israel is an ‘apartheid state’. However the evidence indicates otherwise. Israel is a place of safety not only Jews but for all religions.

Half the world’s Jewry – over 6.6 million – lives there. Muslim Arabs make up 18% of the population and Christians and Druze 2% each. The Baha’i, Circassians and Arameans also live within the sanctuary of Israel’s borders. The Baha’i are persecuted in Iran but are free to practice their faith in Israel and have their headquarters in Haifa. Equal rights for all religions and races are enshrined in Israeli law. Arabs serve in the Knesset.

Israel never features on Open Door’s worldwide watch list for the persecution of Christians. But the Palestinian Territories – Gaza and the West Bank – always do.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook 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. 

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Mahmoud Abbas to inflict humanitarian crisis on Palestinians, after Israel penalizes PA for its support of terrorists

...Instead of accepting that Israel refuses to transfer $11.6 million/month for terror rewards, Abbas prefers to punish the entire Palestinian population by refusing $174.5 million of tax money, which would benefit all Palestinians. Indeed, if Abbas maintains this decision, the entire Palestinian economic infrastructure could grind to a halt.

Itamar Marcus, Maurice Hirsch, and Nan Jacques Zilberdik..
Palestinian Media Watch..
18 February '19..

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has officially announced that the PA will refuse to accept all tax money Israel transfers to the PA if Israel deducts the amount the PA uses to reward terrorists. This PA policy will lead to a grave humanitarian crisis for Palestinians.

The Israeli Cabinet announced yesterday that Israel will be deducting 502,697,000 shekels/year - $139,638,000 - from taxes to be transferred to the PA. This is the amount reported exclusively by PMW that the PA paid in 2018 in salaries to imprisoned and released terrorists. This sum does not include the PA's financial rewards to families of dead terrorists, the so-called "Martyrs," or to wounded terrorists. The deduction will be made in 12 monthly portions of approx. $11,636,500 million/month - almost 42 million shekels/month.

Information obtained by PMW from Israel's Ministry of Finance in response to a request based on Israel's Freedom of Information Act, shows that the taxes Israel collected and transferred to the PA in 2018 amounted to $2.2 billion (8 billion shekels) - an average of $186,121,569/month (670,037,651 shekels) - while PA payments to terrorist prisoners, released prisoners, and families of dead terrorists in 2018 averaged at least $204 million/year (732 million shekels/year), or $17 million/month (61 million shekels) according to PMW calculations.

Earlier this month, Abbas declared that if Israel deducts a sum equal to what the PA spends on rewarding terrorists from next month's transfer - approx. $11.6 million according to the sum announced by the Israeli Cabinet - he will refuse to accept the entire remainder - approx. $174.5 million/month - that the Palestinian population needs to keep the economy functioning:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook 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. 

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Introducing Israeli elections 101: 7 lessons on marketing, slogans and the “not Bibi” candidate - by Forest Rain

Sometimes the public can be convinced that they need a change, that they should try something new. But in just a few short weeks, when Israelis stand alone at the ballot box, will trying "something new" seem as tempting as it does to many now, during the campaign? To me, as an Israeli and as a marketer, it seems like a hard sell, particularly when the only difference is that the new offering isn’t the original.

Forest Rain..
Inspiration from Zion/Elder of Ziyon..
18 February '19..

As a marketer advertising fascinates me. Political campaigns are no different, they are just advertisements on a larger scale, designed to drive life-changing decisions.

In tiny Israel politicians make decisions that swiftly impact our day to day lives. War and peace, life and death are literally in their hands – particularly those of the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. That gives voting for the right person / party critical significance.

Israeli elections are crucial to me as an Israeli, as a Jew, as a person who loves freedom. As a marketer, Israeli elections set my mind buzzing. This is an extraordinary opportunity to delve into advertisements, analyze their effectiveness, the psychology behind the campaigns and the gap between the marketing material and the “product” being marketed – the candidates, their ideas and the reality they promise to create.

So how does it work?


Israel’s Parliamentary system combined with the inherent Jewish trait of “one person, three opinions” means that we have a multitude of parties, representing every sector in society. The system seems like an insane mess but there is a method to the madness and it’s a fairly good reflection of Israeli society – complicated, varied, opinionated, frustrating to the point of making you want to scream – that somehow works out pretty well in the end.

The most important thing to understand is that a coalition needs to be formed in order to create a government and the number 1 in the party that won the most mandates in the election AND succeeded in forming a coalition becomes the Prime Minister.

And yes, it is possible to win more mandates and fail at creating a coalition. That’s what happened to Tzipi Livni in 2008 which led to Benjamin Netanyahu forming the government.

So, basically voting is a choice between two strategies:

Voting for one of the major parties headed by the leader you want to become Prime Minister.
Voting for a party that deals with societal issues that matter to you, hoping that by strengthening them, the party will have more clout within the coalition or opposition.

Lesson 1:

In Israel, it’s not enough to be strong. Candidates and parties have to know how to collaborate.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook 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. 

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Gantz’s dangerous ambiguity on unilateral disengagement and its consequences - by Gershon HaCohen

Surrender to a potentially hostile Palestinian state would make the defense of the Israeli hinterland virtually impossible.

Gershon HaCohen..
JNS.org..
18 February '19..

Unilateral disengagement from the West Bank, which Israeli prime-minister candidate Benny Gantz seems to support, would have far-reaching adverse implications for Israel in the security, economic, social, infrastructural and ecological spheres.

For all his efforts to keep his views on key national issues under wraps, so as to make his premiership bid appealing to the largest possible number of Israelis, former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces has indicated his readiness to apply the highly controversial unilateral disengagement formula that Sharon applied to Gaza in 2005 to the West Bank as well.

“We need to find a way in which we’re not controlling other people,” Gantz told the daily Yediot Ahronot in his first interview as a candidate. “[The unilateral disengagement] was a legal move, a decision made by the Israeli government and carried out by the IDF and the settlers in a painful, but good manner. We need to take the lessons learned and implement them elsewhere.”

Leaving aside the ambiguity of these well-worn terms (e.g., most of the world views Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem as “settlements,” while Israelis consider them an integral part of Israel) or the feasibility of evacuating some 140,000 Jewish residents from their homes with no Palestinian quid pro quo, Gantz’s thinking seems to be predicated on dated suppositions that have long been overtaken by events.

The political and strategic precepts underlying the Oslo “peace” process, which Gantz echoes, vanished long ago.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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Anti-occupation advocates never tire of telling us how deeply they care. - by Raymond M. Berger

...Their anti-occupation stance enhances their status among their reference groups. Those reference groups include liberals, liberal politicians and academics. In this way, anti-occupation Jews win the approval of their peers and thus, career advancement. This is especially true on today’s US college campuses. And, being an anti-occupation advocate hardly requires a life of poverty, especially for its leaders. For example, in 2016, Jeremy Ben-Ami, President of J Street, earned annual compensation of $259,203. That year, Stosh Cotler, CEO of Bend the Arc, earned $233,579. Not a bad gig if you can get it.

Raymond M. Berger..
TOI Blogs..
18 February '19..

Anti-occupation advocates never tire of telling us how deeply they care.

The on-line encyclopedia, Wikipedia, lists a startling number of “Jewish Anti-Occupation” groups—-22 in all. Most of these organizations are based outside Israel, many in the US. These groups reflect a significant segment of Jewish sentiment in North America and Europe.

A Complex Debate

The belief that Israel should withdraw from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) is based on a number of arguments: that Judea and Samaria rightfully belong to Arabs and not to Jews; Jewish settlement of these areas violates Arab rights; the existence of Israeli settlements violates international law; peace is not possible as long as Israel retains sovereignty in Judea and Samaria; no future state of Palestine would be politically or economically viable without all or most of Judea and Samaria; continued occupation erodes Israeli morality; occupation makes a democratic Israel impossible; and Arab population growth would overtake Jewish population growth, rendering a Jewish state totalitarian, as it sought to govern an Arab-majority population. These arguments have been hotly debated outside and inside Jewish communities.

In this post I want to address the questions: Should Israel withdraw from Judea and Samaria? And why do many Jews outside of Israel pressure Israel to do so?

In this post I cannot address the full range of complex issues that underlie these questions. As an observer and pro-Israel partisan, I have my own ideas.

I feel the way most Israelis do. I love the Land of Israel, land that encompasses territory on which Jews have lived for over 3,000 years. The historic Land of Israel lies precisely in the area that Palestinians want for a state of their own.

At the same time, I don’t savor the idea of Israel ruling over people who are hostile to Jews and resentful of Israel. It doesn’t help that Palestinians living in areas today controlled by Israel are among the world’s most anti-Semitic people.

But there is an inescapable conclusion: Without Israeli control of Judea and Samaria, Israel is vulnerable to attack by its enemies.

Enemies, Borders, Maps

Palestinians, as well as Arab leaders, have been engaged in a relentless war of expulsion and genocide against the Jews. The notion of Jewish sovereignty is deeply offensive to most Arab Muslims. They have an unshakeable belief that the Jews are an element that is both inferior to Muslims and alien to their “Muslim lands.” These beliefs are deeply rooted in religion and have been relentlessly inculcated into Arab children by means of every societal institution in the Palestinian world: mosques, schools, sports teams, civil society institutions, as well as traditional and social media. These beliefs will not change.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook 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. 

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Priorities: Palestinian leaders - and their "progressive" fans - support their paying terrorists above education, infrastructure, hospitals.... - by Elder of Ziyon

...Any people who prioritize terrorists over taking care of their own larger population does not deserve to be rewarded with statehood. It seems obvious - but the world still supports the people who will imperil their own in order to support their murderers.

Elder of Ziyon..
18 February '19..

From TOI:

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas denounced Israel’s decision to cut half a billion shekels in funds over its payments to security prisoners and their families Sunday.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh called the decision to implement the law “piracy of the Palestinian people’s money.”

Abu Rudeineh said the move would not keep the Palestinians from supporting “imprisoned heroes” or the families of those killed while carrying out attacks.

Acting PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said Israel’s cutting of PA funds is “a part of a plan to destroy the National Authority and deny it the ability to continue to provide services and fulfill its commitments to its citizens.”

“Cutting the maqasa funds puts the Palestinian economy in danger and threatens our ability to pay employees’ salaries on time,” he added, using the Arabic term that refers to the taxes that Israel collects on behalf of the PA and then transfers back to Ramallah.

The Palestine National Council also released a statement saying that "Palestinian prisoners are prisoners of war who fought for the salvation from the occupation and live in dignity in their homeland" and that Palestinian institutions will continue to provide full care for the prisoners and families of martyrs and wounded."

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah said "We will not be deterred from continuing to take care of the families of the prisoners and the martyrs, no matter what the cost, and that this measure will be met by a clear Palestinian position, official and public."

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook 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. 

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Surprise! NY Times Claims Osama Bin Laden Motivated by ‘News Coverage of Displaced Palestinians’ - by Ira Stoll

...Unless the Times itself has independent confirmation or reason to believe this tale about Bin Laden’s tears for the Palestinians, or is willing to fill Times readers in with more detail about the source, it is strange for the newspaper to shift its narrative so dramatically about the “animating cause” of the group behind the deadly attacks on America in 2001.

Ira Stoll..
Algeminer..
17 February '19..

The New York Times is suddenly and retroactively blaming Israel for motivating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, without much evidence to support the claim.

A recent Times news article about deadly attacks in Africa by affiliates of the terrorist group Al Qaeda blames them on President Trump’s decision to obey an American law that required him to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The Times reports, “The attacks came fully seven months after President Trump moved the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the disputed holy city, which Mr. Trump recognized as the country’s capital. Widely seen as inflaming tensions and as a demonstration of the administration’s favoritism toward Israel in its long conflict with the Palestinians, the move drew condemnation at the time from many corners, including Al Qaeda and other extremist militant organizations.”

The Times mentions that the Jerusalem embassy move “drew condemnation … from many corners” but fails to mention that it also drew praise from many corners, including from the elected government of Israel and many American Jews and Christian Zionists.

But that’s just a mild precursor compared to the Times September 11 revisionism, which comes in a paragraph of the article that immediately follows the description of Jerusalem. The Times reports, “The suffering of the Palestinians has long been an animating cause for Al Qaeda, a stand-in for the victimization of Muslims at the hands of Western powers. Biographies of Osama bin Laden say that as an adolescent, he cried watching news coverage of displaced Palestinians who had been forced off their land.”

These are new claims by the Times, which has previously had rejected them.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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About that “New Middle East” as Shimon Peres imagined it — maybe in 500 years? - by Victor Rosenthal

Will it someday become possible for real friendship between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, even a “New Middle East” as Shimon Peres imagined? That will depend on whether Islam can become more tolerant. Perhaps in another 500 years.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
17 February '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/02/a-new-middle-east-maybe-in-500-years/

News item:

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah [Al-Sisi] said last night at the Munich Security Conference that “the failure to achieve a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main source of instability in the Middle East,” according to a report published Sunday by the Hebrew paper Haaretz.

Al-Sisi said in his speech that his country supports international efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the two-state solution within the 1967 borders and a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

At least, this is an improvement over Nasser, who once said “We must fight our way to victory on a sea of blood and a horizon of fire.”

Does this mean that 71 years after the UN partition resolution, the Arabs are ready to accept the reality of a Jewish state? Not at all. More accurately, some Arab leaders, recognizing that Israel is less of a threat (read: zero) to them than Iran, have dialed back their rhetoric. A bit.

Al-Sisi’s words studiously do not call for “two states for two peoples” but just two states. As is well known, the Palestinian Authority’s position is that there will be one Palestinian Arab state in the east, and one “secular, democratic state” in the west, to which Arab “refugees” will have a right of “return.” If this “solution” permits the existence of a Jewish state, it would be for a very short time. The ambiguity in the phrase “two-state solution” – with one meaning including the existence of a Jewish state and the other not – is one of the reasons so many initiatives have failed.

The statement that the manufactured conflict – manufactured by the Arabs and their anti-Jewish European supporters – between Israel and the manufactured “Palestinian nation” (manufactured by the Soviet KGB), is the “main source of instability” in the region is also ludicrous. Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is an effect of a much broader struggle, not a cause.

Some of the greatest public squanderings of money, effort, and good will in the past 50 years or so have been the efforts – some honest and some cynical – by the West, particularly the USA, to “solve” this conflict, operating on the mistaken principle that it is an underlying cause of the wider troubles, and not an artificial charade created to provide an excuse and a means to try to destroy the Jewish state.

A Palestinian Terrorist Too Brutal for Fatah? No Go, Guys. You Own Arafat Irfaiya. - by Shoshana Bryen

Everyone is a soldier; every day is a battle. No exception for Arafat Ifaiya -- a product of his culture and his education and owned by the people who raised him.

Shoshana Bryen..
American Thinker..
17 February '19..
Link: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/a_palestinian_terrorist_too_brutal_for_fatah.html

The Palestinian Authority (PA) finally found a terrorist act committed by a Palestinian against an Israeli from which it wishes to disassociate. The horrific rape and knife murder of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher prompted Qadura Fares, head of the PA-affiliated Prisoner's Club to say, “From our perspective, this (rape) becomes a criminal case. We’re against the idea that anyone who commits a criminal act can then try to cloak themselves in the nationalist flag.”

A senior Fatah official said, “Even if there was no rape, a murder like this is unacceptable. The victim wasn’t a soldier, and this wasn’t wartime. If you want to be a hero, you don’t go and murder an innocent woman who went into the woods to read a book.”

No go, guys. In the world of the PA, everyone is a soldier and every day is wartime. You own this and you own Arafat Irfaiya.

Irfaiya is 27 years old, just about the same age as the Oslo Accords. In 2006, when Irfaiya was just a boy, the PA, aware that it could not field an army to go to war against Israel’s army, adopted a strategy of "popular resistance" (i.e., popular terrorism) at the 6th Fatah Conference. Seemingly unplanned low-tech attacks (car ramming or stabbing) against Israelis and Jews were described after the fact by Palestinian leadership as "heroic actions" and "the natural response to Israel's crimes."

In 2015, Mahmoud Abbas, PA strongman, instigated the “ramming and stabbing intifada” by calling on Palestinians to “defend” the al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

“Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. [Jews] have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem. Each drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood as long as it’s for the sake of Allah. Every shahid [martyr] will be in heaven and every wounded person will be rewarded, by Allah’s will.”

There are earthly rewards as well, codified in “Amended Palestinian Prisoners Law No. 19, which predates the 2015 violence. The law mandates free tuition, health insurance, and professional training for Palestinians released from Israeli jail. It talks about salaries “linked to a cost-of-living index.” In 2013, the law was amended to give released prisoners “priority in annual job placements in all State institutions.”

Although the Taylor Force Act cuts American money to the PA for such salaries, Hassan Abed Rabbo, PLO head of the Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs, disapproved, “It is the right of all of the prisoners and martyrs who have struggled and sacrificed for Palestine to receive their full salaries from the PA.” Palestinian prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, said inmates are “prisoners of war” and that “their cause is the cause of all of us.”

No exclusion for rape. No exclusion for Irfaiya.

Everyone is a soldier; every day is a battle.

Problematic? MESA Ignores the Terror Threats Incubating on Palestinian Campuses - by A.J. Caschetta

...Actions against Palestinian universities by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and Gaza are not arbitrary. Rather, they are necessary, measured responses to the terrorist takeover of Palestinian campuses, where indoctrination and recruitment have supplanted education. In its contrived ignorance of these facts, MESA mirrors the morally bankrupt academic field it represents. Until and unless far-ranging reforms are implemented, students, policymakers, and legislators should shun it.

A.J. Caschetta..
Algemeiner..
15 February '19..

Despite all the corrupt, tyrannical theocracies and dictatorships in the Middle East, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) — the academic umbrella organization for the field — aims its harshest criticism at the only democracy in the region: Israel.

MESA’s disdain is apparent in the dozens of “advocacy letters” it has directed at Israel since 2001. The latest open letter from its Committee on Academic Freedom to Israel’s government demands an end to the Jewish state’s alleged “arbitrary arrests at and incursions into Palestinian universities” and “the Israeli Army’s harm to students at all levels of education.”

Ignoring the long history of terrorist recruiting on Palestinian campuses and the terrorism committed by Palestinian students under the tutelage of their Hamas and Fatah advisors, MESA falsely portrays Palestinian academics and students as benign.

But MESA’s most disingenuous claim is that Israel harasses peaceful Palestinian students with “arbitrary arrests,” a phrase used three times in the short letter. The phrase also appears on Birzeit University’s Facebook page, where its “Right to Education Campaign condemns arbitrary arrest of Birzeit University’s Head of Student Council.”

So, who are the innocent students that MESA would have us believe were “arbitrarily” arrested, while working diligently toward their degrees?

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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Who is responsible for the strange death of Israel's Labor Zionism? - by Jonathan S. Tobin

To understand contemporary Israel, the Diaspora must ponder how the Palestinians reduced the once dominant party of government to a position of irrelevance.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
15 February '19..

Elections in Israel are less than two months away, and so far the campaign has been dominated by two main stories. One is speculation about whether Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit will indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prior to the voting. The other is the rise of former Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and his new centrist party. But there is another angle to the election that deserves some attention: the virtual collapse of the once dominant Labor Party and the marginalization of the parties of the left.

The slow-motion collapse of the movement that was primarily responsible for building the state began with its first electoral defeat in 1977, when Menachem Begin led the Likud to victory after 29 years of unbroken Labor-led coalition governments. Since then, Labor has had its ups and downs. Up until 2000, the parties of the left and those of the right were in a state of near equilibrium as Israel was seemingly split down the middle on the issues of peace with the Palestinians and West Bank settlements. Labor won clear victories in both 1992 and 1999 under Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak after Likud faltered in power. But since the outbreak of the Second Intifada, the war of terrorist attrition that destroyed faith in the Oslo process and its hopes of an end to the conflict with the Palestinians, Labor has become increasingly irrelevant.

That has never been more obvious than now as polls show that the contest is between Netanyahu’s Likud and the parties of the center, led by Gantz and Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid, with Labor no more than a marginalized afterthought.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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When the interests of the United States and regional stability call for letting some relationships remain under wraps - by Jonathan Tobin

By trying to force Arab nations to go public with pressure on the Palestinians, the United States could undermine the struggle against Iran for the sake of a hopeless cause.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
13 February '19..

This week’s Warsaw summit was supposed to be about rallying the world against the threat that Iran poses to international peace. But given the complete lack of interest on the part of either America’s Western European allies or the Russians in reconsidering the disastrous nuclear deal that empowered and enriched Tehran, that was never going to work.

But the United States is also reportedly hoping to use the gathering to help set the stage for a renewed effort to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians that the administration has been preparing for the last two years. The problem with that approach is that Trump or presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner have grasped one element of the region that eluded their predecessors, though they still don’t understand the intractable nature of the conflict.

The conceit of the still secret Kushner plan, which will reportedly be formally rolled out after Israel’s April elections, is the notion that Arab nations are far more interested in resisting Iran than in any further tension with Israel. That basic assumption is correct, as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and the rest of the Sunni world are sick to death of being dragged into a crisis by a Palestinian leadership that has no intention of ever making peace with Israel or accepting a two-state solution.

It is also true that, thanks to Iran, these same nations have found themselves in a far closer embrace with Israel than anyone would have expected a decade ago. The Obama administration’s policy of allowing Syria to descend into chaos, which was exploited by both Russia and Iran, threatened the security of the entire region. Even worse, Obama’s appeasement of Iran made the Arab states think that the United States was abandoning them.

At that point, under-the-table relations between most of the Arab world and Israel shifted to the point where most of these nations no longer even bothered to pretend that they were hostile to the Jewish state or cared much about the Palestinians.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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Setting Red Lines For "The Trump Deal" Now - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

A vague reply to the Trump deal when it is announced will make it considerably harder for us to hold by critical red lines in the future that were already violated by the deal that we declined to reject.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
14 February '19..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73457

Our ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, disappointed me tonight when he asserted on Israel Radio that it was good that the release of details of the Trump "deal" was postponed until after our elections.

He noted that if the details of the deal were made public today that this would be the focus of the elections.

Why would it be bad for there to be a public debate of the details of the deal?

Why can't I know before I cast my ballot what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the leaders of the other lists think about the offer?

These are the red lines I would like to cast my ballot in support for:

A prince, a princess, four Tamimis - and murderous violence - by Arnold Roth

...A great shame that all those 'activists' agitating for 'Free Palestine', for BDS and for "Palestinian rights" don't direct their energies, criticisms and fury at the two ham-fisted Palestinian Arab regimes that bear almost all the responsibility for what's wrong with the lives of the people living under their boots. And for the extreme violence that many people think about when the word "Palestinian" enters the discussion.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
14 February '19..

Ahed Tamimi, a young Palestinian Arab woman from Nabi Saleh, a hamlet a few kilometers from our Jerusalem home has been busy traveling and speaking to attentive crowds these past few months.

Just before she started an eight month sentence in an Israeli prison a year ago, the result of a plea bargain her handlers made with the authorities, we noted here that she is

the young woman many call Shirley Temper, a photogenic performer who for at least eight years now has been the central figure in a long-running propaganda performance orchestrated by her father Bassem Tamimi and his publicity business, Tamimi Press.

Bassem Tamimi, Ahed's manager/father and long-time producer/director, asserted some months back that Israel was standing in the way of the post-prison globetrotting/meet-and-greets he had in mind for her.

Somehow overcoming the Israeli opposition (if indeed it existed), the young woman, frequently referred to via overblown noms-de-guerre "Palestine's Joan of Arc",  managed to pull-off a run of well-publicized visits to Spain, France, Tunisia, Greece and Jordan in September and October 2018. She also became the subject of a photo spread in the October 2018 Arabic version of Vogue magazine along the way.

She's been busy. And the drum-beating and orchestrating have paid dividends.

(Continue to 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. 

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Gaza’s self-inflicted health crisis shows why peace remains a fantasy - by Evelyn Gordon

Not content with merely refusing to solve the crisis, Hamas is actively making it worse. A major factor in the crisis has been the overload of patients caused by Hamas’s insistence on holding violent mass protests near the Israeli border every week for almost a year now.

Evelyn Gordon..
JNS.org..
13 February '19..

Gaza’s health system is on the verge of collapse, Israeli defense officials warned last week. Their report echoed an international aid agency’s findings that Gaza hospitals are severely short of doctors, especially specialists, and lack 60 percent of necessary medications, including basics like painkillers and antibiotics. Entire hospital departments have closed due to the inability to offer treatment, and patients with cancer, diabetes or renal failure are simply being sent home.

You might think this situation would prompt at least one of the Palestinians’ two rival governments to take action. But you’d be wrong.

The Palestinian Authority, which repeatedly proclaims itself the sole legitimate government of both the West Bank and Gaza and is recognized as such internationally, receives billions in international aid to provide for humanitarian needs in both places. It ostensibly budgets 150 million shekels a year ($41.3 million) for medical supplies for Gaza. But it hasn’t paid this money in months.

Yet this same P.A. has no trouble finding $330 million a year to pay salaries to jailed terrorists. Evidently, paying terrorists is more important to it than its people’s health.

Nevertheless, the P.A.’s behavior pales beside that of Gaza’s real governing authority, Hamas. Two weeks ago, Hamas discussed the humanitarian problem with foreign officials, who then presented its ideas to Israeli officials. The organization proposed three possible scenarios, Haaretz reported. But none of them involved Hamas lifting a finger to help the people it governs.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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