Surprise? The Washington Post’s Opinion Page Slanders Israel, Again - by Sean Durns

The Washington Post is not living up to its own guidelines and standards. Its opinion pages—meant to be a place for honest debate—are increasingly a forum for falsehoods—and worse.

Sean Durns..
TOI Blog..
06 August '20..

“Facts,” Mark Twain once observed, “are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.” When it comes to the Israel-Islamist conflict, the Washington Post’s global opinion page ignores the facts. And the newspaper consistently treats its own standards and ethics as pliable.

A July 31, 2020 op-ed entitled “The 2020 Democratic platform betrays Palestinians and again gives Israel a pass” offers a case in point. Writers Huwaida Arraf, Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison, and Sam Hindi, all delegates for the Democratic National Convention (DNC), use the Post to slander the Jewish state. They write that “as Palestinian-Americans and delegates to the Democratic National Convention, we are deeply dismayed that the language on Israel-Palestine once again ignores reality and basic Palestinian rights.” Yet, their argument rests on lies and omissions, all of which the Post could have—and should have—fact checked.

The delegates claim that “Israeli settlements are Jewish-only colonies built on stolen Palestinian land” in the “West Bank.” This is false. In fact, no sovereign Palestinian Arab state has ever existed. Indeed, as The Wall Street Journal noted in a May 16, 2020 correction that was prompted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA): “Under the Oslo accords, sovereignty over the West Bank is disputed, pending a final peace settlement.”

And the Jewish claim to the land is based on both history and international law.

Arabs are from Arabia and Jews are from their “historic homeland,” Judea and Samaria — or, as it has sometimes been called for the last half century, the “West Bank.” The term “Palestine” comes from the word “Palaestina” which the Roman conquerors coined after expelling many, but not all, Jews from Judea in the second century AD. Arabs, including the forebears of today’s Palestinians, didn’t arrive in the land until the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. By contrast, Jews are indigenous to the land and have maintained a continual presence that goes back thousands of years.

Contrary to what the writers claim, Jewish communities in the West Bank do not “violate international law.” In fact, the opposite is true.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

Question - Does sovereignty matter? by Jerold S. Auerbach

Israel’s unyielding attachment to its ancient Jewish homeland is the affirmation, not the negation, of Zionism.

Jerold S. Auerbach..
JNS.org..
05 August '20..

At the moment, the inflammatory issue of the extension of Israeli sovereignty over settlements in biblical Judea and Samaria is on hold. With both U.S. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu engaged in struggles over their political futures, they have little time for distractions. But this may be a good time to assess the widely touted importance of sovereignty.

The underlying issue is the right of Jews to inhabit their biblical homeland. Undeniably, it is for the government of Israel, not settlers, to determine the boundaries of the Jewish state. But there is a competing claim: Jews cannot be considered “occupiers” of their own homeland. Their historical and religious claims are underscored by international agreements stretching back to the Balfour Declaration (1917), calling for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

The boundaries of “Palestine” were defined following World War I. The League of Nations Mandate granted Jews the right of “close settlement” throughout “Palestine,” geographically defined as the land east and west of the Jordan River. But Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill gifted the land east of the river to Hashemite Sheik Abdullah, who established the Kingdom of Jordan.

After the Six-Day War in 1967, U.N. Resolution 242 provided that following “a just and lasting peace” between Israel and its Arab neighbors Israel would be required to withdraw its military forces from “territories”—not from “the territories” or “all the territories” west of the Jordan River. The right of the Jewish people to “close settlement” west of the River (including biblical Judea and Samaria) has never been rescinded. But the core question—how much of their biblical homeland will be theirs—remains unanswered.

(Continue to Full Column)

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of “Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel 1896-2016,” which was recently selected for Mosaic by Ruth Wisse and Martin Kramer as a “Best Book” for 2019.

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.

Harming Israeli democracy? Look who’s calling whom ‘unXeptable’!

...If, on the other hand, the protests are about the tragedy of small businesses, then why are Palestinian and anarchist black flags flying overhead? And how is it connected to the proposed “annexation” of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria? In any case, all such issues are repeatedly on the proverbial and literal ballot. Indeed, each person at these weekly riots near Netanyahu’s residence has the right to vote—a right that was exercised, much to everyone’s dismay, three times in the course of the past year. Nor is there any guarantee that the outcome of a fourth-round would be different.

Ruthie Blum..
JNS.org..
04 August '20..

Israeli expatriates living in California gathered on Friday near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to protest Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu.

Singing the Hebrew song “Kol Haolam Kulo Gesher Tzar Me’od” (“The world is a very narrow bridge”)—the lyrics of which are from Likutei Moharan, a collection of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s teachings—the dozens of expats accused Netanyahu of destroying Israeli democracy.

The organizers of this and similar rallies—held in solidarity with the mass protests that have become part of the weekend scenery in the country of their birth—are former Israelis who call their movement “UnXeptable.”

This otherwise scattered crew from different locations in the United States and Europe has in common the type of attachment to the land they love and left as to cause them to pine for activism in their mother tongue. And it’s no wonder, considering the errors in English on their Facebook page, starting with the second half of their title: “Saving the Israeli democracy.”

Given the seriousness of their quest, they might have asked a native to proofread their copy before posting it on social media. Apparently, they were in too much of a hurry to bother, however, what with the urgency of the task at hand.

(Continue to Full Column)

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.   

Question: Is Saeb Erekat the Palestinians' Chief Negotiator or Chief Liar? - by Bassam Tawil

With negotiators like Erekat, one can understand why the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been stalled for so many years.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
03 August '20..

Ahmed Erekat, a 26-year-old Palestinian from the village of Abu Dis, south of Jerusalem, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers on June 23 after ramming his car into an Israeli military checkpoint. One soldier was lightly wounded in the attack.

Footage released by the Israeli authorities leaves no room for doubt that Erekat was on a mission to kill soldiers. The footage shows Erekat deliberately turning his car as he waited in line, driving directly at the soldiers, hitting one female soldier and then crashing into a guard booth. Erekat then got out of the vehicle and started walking towards the soldiers, who fired a number of bullets at him, killing him instantly.

Such terrorist attacks are not uncommon in the West Bank, where Palestinian terrorists have carried out dozens of car-rammings against Israeli soldiers and civilians in the past few years.



This attack, however, caught the attention of the international media because the terrorist happens to be a relative of Saeb Erekat, the former Palestinian chief negotiator with Israel who currently serves as secretary general of the PLO.

Since the car-ramming, Saeb Erekat has been waging a campaign of incitement and lies against Israel. He has accused it of "cold-blooded murder" and now of the "extrajudicial execution" of his cousin.

The senior PLO official is deliberately ignoring the video that clearly shows his cousin using his car in an attempt to kill Israeli soldiers. He is also, perhaps not surprisingly, ignoring the testimonies of the soldiers his cousin tried to kill.

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

(Please Share) Sharon, Olmert and Israel's Non-Disengagement II - by Nadav Shragai

The late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon denied that Israel was planning a second disengagement from Judea and Samaria, but it turns out that he and former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni appointed a secret team that was charged to look into the feasibility of the idea.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
31 July '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/07/31/israels-non-disengagement/

Fifteen years ago today, the day after Tisha B'Av of that year, 1,751 families (about 9,000 people) were evicted from their homes in Gush Katif and northern Samaria, along with thousands of supporters who had come to help them. A total of 26 communities in Gush Katif, the northern part of the Gaza Strip, and northern Samaria were turned into ruins in what was defined as either "disengagement" or an "expulsion." The unprecedented event, which then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon initiated as part of the peace process, is still etched on the hearts of many on the Right and the Left as a serious trauma and a major mistake in terms of defense and security.

As the years passed, a few reports were published about the second stage of the disengagement that Sharon had planned or considered for Judea and Samaria. In his final months as prime minister, prior to suffering a stroke that left him comatose, Sharon denied these reports.

Now new details are emerging that put these denials in a different light, especially when it comes to tactics. "Disengagement II," the "Realignment Plan" that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attempted to implement during his time in office, was cooked up under Sharon. Sometimes, things were done with his explicit approval, and sometimes without any response, but Sharon knew everything. He certainly didn't forbid work on the matter.

In December 2005, three months after the disengagement plan was complete, Sharon and then-Justice Minister Tzipi Livni appointed a committee under the leadership of the director general of the Justice Ministry, Aharon Abramovich. It was a sort of continuation: Abramovich and his people had previously led the work of the teams that put together the legal and financial framework for the disengagement.

At that time, the team was asked to present the security and defense, economic, legal, and diplomatic framework for another withdrawal, this one from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), to be based on the lessons of the disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria. The committee was not given a mandate to lay down the borders of the retreat or decide which settlements would be evacuated, but was asked to map out the Israeli interests of another unilateral move for the area of the West Bank, if it turned out that there was no Palestinian partner for peace negotiations.

Thus, for example, Abramovich and his friends looked as the financial costs of evacuating 15,000 settler families (about 100,000 people) from far-flung communities. This would have been 10 times as many setters as the number evicted from Gush Katif.

Attorney Dov Weissglas, who at the time served as Sharon's chief of staff, tells Israel Hayom that these were "initial thoughts."

He clarifies: "We thought we needed to reorganize the Israeli presence in Jude and Samaria. No doubt, if Sharon hadn't been taken ill, the reality there would be completely different. It was a film that was cut off because of a power outage."

Weissglas confirms a report by the late journalist David Landau after the disengagement. In his book Arik: The Life of Ariel Sharon, Landau wrote: "In October 2005, we all – [Weissglas], Sharon, his sons, Reuven Adler, my wife and I, went to the Galilee for a weekend. We talked for hours about the future … The disengagement from the Gaza area was a move in and of itself, but it was intended to be combined with an additional move that would come later that was based both on the Road Map [a plan devised by the Middle East Quartet and adopted by the administration of George W. Bush] and the desire to avoid an impasse. The thinking was to continue on to a similar action in the West Bank. We hoped that the security barrier would help create that reality, that the Jews living on the other side of the fence would start coming back to Israeli territory … that we would gradually withdraw our forces from more and more cities, more and more areas – without the whistles and bells of negotiations about a permanent peace deal, which would certainly get stuck on the issue of Jerusalem. That was exactly Sharon's thinking … that was where the decision to set up the team under Abramovich was made."

The committee's concern

Abramovich's team included Director General of the Finance Ministery Yossi Bachar, the Deputy Attorney General for International Law Shavit Matias, Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, and attorney Daniel Reisner. Abramovich worked in secret, far from the spotlight, while Sharon was flatly denying remarks by Olmert, who was acting prime minister, and his close associate Eyal Arad that a second disengagement was expected or being considered.

The committee's existence came to light only after Sharon fell into a coma and Olmert took his place. Olmert made the Realignment Plan one of his main issues and talked about it openly. Unlike Sharon, he didn't try to hide it at all. Abramovich, who moved from director general of the Justice Ministry to director general of the Foreign Ministry – along with Livni, who also switched ministries – continued his work.

In August 2006, after Sharon had been comatose for eight months, the committee submitted Olmert and Livni with a thick report that contained hundreds of pages and revealed a number of problems entailed in executing the move. The committee members started out by listing major difference between Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

According to the committee, the West Bank is "tactical terrain," whereas the Gaza Strip is topographically lower than Israel. The West Bank also has a number of water sources that are important to residents of Israel, which Gaza does not. The Gaza Strip is entirely closed off and easier to control from outside in terms of security. In contrast, the committee said, Israel would have difficulty finding a solution to the threat of rocket fire from hilly areas in Judea and Samaria, and there was also concern that Hamas would gain control of the large population centers there, making continued IDF presence in key parts of Judea and Samaria the most reasonable way of preventing rocket attacks and a Hamas takeover.

The committee members also assessed that in the case of a necessary military presence of that kind, Israel would not be able to receive international recognition of an "end to the occupation." They also expressed concern that a unilateral withdrawal would endanger the stability of Jordan, and observed that unlike Gaza, from whence Israel retreated to the Green Line, it wanted to hold onto the West Bank settlement blocs, part of the Jordan Valley, and east Jerusalem until a permanent peace agreement was signed.

'Arik asked, what will Condoleezza Rice say?'

Destruction of Gush Katif: Lessons of the Gaza withdrawal 15 years on - by Michael Freund

Leaving Gaza was a human, strategic and political disaster, one for which Israel continues to pay a heavy price

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
30 July '20..
Link: http://www.michaelfreund.org/24427/gaza-withdrawal-lessons

Fifteen years ago today on the Hebrew calendar, on the 10th day of Av, Israel committed one of the gravest self-inflicted catastrophes since the founding of the state in 1948.

Hiding behind the harmless-sounding euphemism of "disengagement," the government of prime minister Ariel Sharon revved up the bulldozers and utterly destroyed 21 thriving Jewish communities in Gaza while forcibly expelling over 8,000 Jews from their homes, their livelihoods and their land.

In addition, four Jewish communities in northern Samaria were also demolished.

Synagogues and yeshivot were left behind, only to be desecrated and set aflame by Palestinian rioters celebrating Israel's retreat. And decades of pioneering and devotion to rebuilding Jewish life in Gaza were brought to a sudden and screeching halt.

The events of those painful and traumatic days may seem like a distant memory, with little relevance to our current lives. But nothing could be further from the truth. We owe it to ourselves and to the thousands of Jews who were banished to distill the lessons of that disaster and ensure that it never again recurs.

There are many such lessons, but I would like to highlight just three which I believe are especially pertinent.

The first has to do so with the need to promote greater historical memory. Prior to the expulsion in 2005 as well as in the years since, I have had countless debates with people about Gaza's rich Jewish past, with many confidently albeit ignorantly asserting that our nation has no time-honored connection to that particular strip of land.

So let's set the record straight.

Independent national security policy, the Ben-Gurion legacy - by Yoram Ettinger

While David Ben-Gurion’s defiance caused occasional short-term tension, which undermined Israel’s popularity, he earned long-term respect for himself and for his country.

Yoram Ettinger..
JNS.org..
30 July '20..

The legacy of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, contradicts conventional wisdom. It rejects the assumption that a White House “green light” is a prerequisite for the application of Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria.

Ben-Gurion’s May 14, 1948, Declaration of Independence was not preconditioned upon a “green light” from President Truman. Ben-Gurion demonstrated independence of national security action in defiance of the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Furthermore, President Truman was irresolute until the day of the declaration, while the U.S. Mission to the United Nations was preoccupied with rounding up votes for a U.N. Trusteeship in Palestine (instead of an independent Jewish state).

Moreover, Ben-Gurion applied Israeli law to areas in the Galilee, coastal plain, the Negev and Jerusalem—which were acquired during Israel’s War of Independence, expanding Israel’s land by 30 percent—in defiance of a glaring “red light” from the White House and the entire foreign policy and national security establishment in Washington, D.C.

According to James McDonald, the first U.S. Ambassador to Israel: “[Ben-Gurion] warned President Truman and the US Department of State that they would be gravely mistaken if they assumed that the threat, or even the use of sanctions, would force Israel to yield on issues considered vital to its independence and security…. Much as Israel desired friendship with the US, there were limits beyond which it could not go. Israel could not yield at any point which, in its judgement, would threaten its independence or its security. The very fact that Israel was a small state made more necessary the scrupulous defense of its own interests; otherwise, it would be lost”

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

Beinart’s further step in the international demonization of the Jewish State - by Karen Bekker

To put it another way, either you think that Jews can live safely and peacefully as a minority in a Palestinian-majority state, or you think they can’t. If they can, then settlements have not precluded a two-state solution with a contiguous Palestinian state in most of the West Bank. If they can’t, then creating a Palestinian-majority state in all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea won’t fix that.

Karen Bekker..
JNS.org..
28 July '20..

Last December, in an article on CAMERA’s website, I asked whether Peter Beinart was advocating for a one-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. If so, I argued, he should state this clearly, rather than obfuscating, and he should also be honest about what such a state has the potential to look like.

Earlier this month, he did one of those two things; that is, he came out against the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state in widely discussed essays in The New York Times and in the recently relaunched Jewish Currents, as well as in a segment on CNN. Instead, he argued, Israel should become a bi-national state, “Israel-Palestine.”

Despite an extremely negative response from the Jewish community, The New York Times again gave him its considerable platform to allow him to continue to promote his plan for dissolution of the Jewish State in a podcast last Thursday.

As my CAMERA colleague, Gilead Ini, has explained at length, Beinart’s long essay fails spectacularly in the honesty department, and treats Arab violence against Jews–not just since the State of Israel was reborn in 1948, but beforehand, as well–with extreme callousness. Shalem College Fellow Daniel Gordis, too, writes that Beinart is “so manipulative of his own readership.”

Beyond those points and others made in the many commentaries on Beinart’s proposal, however, is an overlooked yet massive logical flaw in his argument: Beinart’s underlying premise negates his own conclusion.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

Anyone surprised that J Street is attempting to desecrate Tisha B’Av? by Stephen M. Flatow

It may be hard to believe that any self-described Jewish organization could so viciously distort the meaning of a sacred Jewish day. But J Street has never met a Jewish religious commemoration that it hasn’t turned into a propaganda weapon for slamming Israel.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
Tisha B'Av '20..

If you thought Tisha B’Av was about the destruction of the holy temples and two Jewish states in ancient times, think again. According to J Street, the real meaning of the day is that the Israeli government is oppressing the Palestinian Arabs and will thereby cause the destruction of the Jewish state in our own times.

It may be hard to believe that any self-described Jewish organization could so viciously distort the meaning of a sacred Jewish day. But J Street has never met a Jewish religious commemoration that it hasn’t turned into a propaganda weapon for slamming Israel.

On Passover, J Street complained about the “plagues” for which it blames Israel, such as “the plague of home destruction.” According to J Street’s “Haggadah,” if the Israeli army undertakes a court-sanctioned dismantling of a home used by terrorists, then it is to blame for “encouraging retaliatory terrorist attacks.”

On Rosh Hashanah, when Jews engage in cheshbon hanefesh—the “accounting of the soul,” meaning spiritual introspection and self-assessment—J Street announced that everyone should “engage in cheshbon hanefesh” over Israel’s “demolition of Palestinian villages.”

Israel, of course, does not demolish Palestinian villages. J Street was referring to instances in which handfuls of illegal Arab settlers squat on Israeli land, call themselves a “village” and then accuse Israel of “demolishing” them when the police dare to enforce the law. But as far as J Street is concerned, if facts get in the way of the narrative, well, just push them aside.

Considering the way J Street has mangled the meaning of other sacred days on the Jewish calendar, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at J Street’s crude exploitation of Tisha B’Av. But that doesn’t make it any more acceptable.

(Continue to Full Column)

Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. His book, “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror,” is now available on Kindle.

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. 

FP's Faux Pas on Boycotts, Israel, and 'Annexation' - by Sean Durns

Foreign Policy claims to “draw on the world’s leading journalists, thinkers, and professionals” in order to “analyze the most significant international trends and events of our times, without regard to ideology or political bias.” That, however, is up for debate.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA..
24 July '20..

Foreign Policy claims that its mission is “to explain how the world works.” But when it comes to Israel, the magazine frequently allows misleading commentary. Take, for example, several recent op-eds on “annexation.”

For several weeks it seemed that—in keeping with the parameters of a peace plan that Israelis accepted and Palestinians rejected—Israel would apply legal sovereignty to parts of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank, and the Jordan Valley. Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that such a move would occur by July 1, 2020. It never did. But this hasn’t stopped numerous media outlets from inaccurately reporting on the possibility.

Indeed, publications like Foreign Policy have repeatedly referred to the application of sovereignty as “annexation.” But this is inaccurate.

As the international law scholar Eugene Kontorovich has noted: “Annexation in international law specifically means taking the territory of a foreign sovereign country.” And neither the Jordan Valley nor the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) belongs to a “foreign sovereign country.” Further, as Dore Gold, Israel’s former Ambassador to the U.N., has highlighted: one can’t “annex territory that has already been designated as yours.” The League of Nations Palestine Mandate, adopted later by the United Nations, calls for “close Jewish settlement on the land” west of the Jordan River in Article 6. The UN Charter, Chapter XII, Article 80, upholds the Mandate’s provisions. The 1920 San Remo Resolution and the 1924 Anglo-American Convention also enshrined Jewish territorial claims into international law.

Unsurprisingly, this historical and legal context has been omitted in numerous media reports, including those by Foreign Policy. Instead the magazine has run several op-eds that misinform as much as they omit.

(Continue to Full Post)

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.  

Our enemies are either collapsing on the brink of collapse. No Israeli interest is served by saving them. - by Caroline Glick

Israel's security community isn't alone in its preference for stability – even at the cost of strengthening enemies.

Caroline Glick..
Israel Hayom.
24 July '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/07/24/stability-for-our-enemies/

Since the 1990s, the dominant view in Israel's national security community has been that Israel's top priority in relation to the Palestinians is to maintain the stability of their leadership. This is the case in relation to both the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria and the Hamas regime in Gaza.

The rationale behind this view is that despite their hostility, if the regimes lose control, things will be worse, not better for Israel. Israel will have to take over, at great cost in lives and international stature. In other words, it's either Fatah and Hamas or the Israel Defense Forces. And Israel's security establishment prefers the former.

To achieve the goal of preserving the Fatah regime, Israel's generals and their think tank colleagues have long insisted the government ensure its financial viability. In practice, this has required Israel to collect customs and other indirect taxes for the PA and transfer the funds, with no strings attached to the PA every month. The fact that the PA has always used large portions of its budget to finance terrorism was of little consequence to the generals and their colleagues.

In the case of Hamas-controlled Gaza, preserving the terrorist regime has required Israel to permit the PA to transfer funds to its employees in Gaza, even though by paying their salaries the PA effectively enabled Hamas to devote its resources solely to waging its war against Israel. Preserving Hamas has also involved Israel allowing Qatar to send truckloads of cash to Gaza to keep Hamas's terror state afloat.

Safe in power – thanks to Israel – Fatah has been free to devote its energies waging its multidimensional war against Israel. It funds terrorists – with the tax arrears Israel collects for it. It incites terror on its media organs – again paid for by the taxes Israel transfers. It pays its security forces and indoctrinates its members to seek Israel's destruction. It engages in large-scale theft of government lands and illegal construction in Judea and Samaria to choke off Jewish communities. And the Fatah-PA wages diplomatic war against Israel at the UN, in the world capitals, and increasingly at the International Criminal Court.

Safe in power in Gaza, Hamas builds up its forces. It develops collaborative ties with Hezbollah and the Houthis and strengthens its client relationship with both Iran and Turkey. And every so often, it opens another missile offensive against aimed at killing and terrorizing Israeli civilians.

Whether they like it or not, the denizens of Hamastan and Fatahland alike have no choice other than to live under the jackboot of their regimes. Thanks to Israel – and its stability minded security experts – they have no chance of competing for power or rebelling.

Israel's security community isn't alone in its preference for stability – even at the cost of strengthening enemies. Their American colleagues are in the same cognitive boat. The place where the Americans have been pushing this position most strongly in recent years is in Lebanon. Following the Second Lebanon War in 2006, despite the direct assistance both the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces provided Hezbollah in its war against Israel, the Bush administration massively expanded US civilian and military assistance to the Lebanese government and the Lebanese Armed Forces. Obama expanded the aid packages still further. And despite opposition from some quarters of the Trump administration, the Pentagon insists on maintaining the assistance.

Much like their Israeli counterparts, the US security brass insists that despite the fact that Hezbollah is a more powerful military force than the LAF, and indeed dominates it, and despite the fact that Hezbollah controls the Lebanese government, both the government and the LAF should be treated as independent organizations. Their stability and ties to US aid may in time, enable them to assert national authority over their country.

There are several problems with this view. The main problem is that under the current system, Hezbollah rules the roost and so long as the system remains unchanged, Hezbollah will continue to control the government and the LAF; no matter how many aircraft, night vision devices, mortars, and artillery pieces US taxpayers buy the LAF and no matter how much civilian assistance they buy the Lebanese government. The only way to change the situation is to change the system. And the US military and civilian assistance to the Lebanese government and LAF preserves the system.

The Camp David debacle 20 years later: Still holding onto the Oslo delusion

The disastrous peace summit that led to a Palestinian terror war remains an object lesson in hubris and an unwillingness to accept the truth about an insoluble conflict.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
23 July '20..

It’s one anniversary that no one is celebrating. Twenty years ago this month, President Bill Clinton welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to a peace summit at Camp David. Looking back on it now, even Clinton administration veterans understand that it was an act of monumental folly. As former State Department Middle East peace processor Aaron David Miller wrote, the effort was doomed even before it began.

The problem is that even those who have, in retrospect, acknowledged that they were mistaken still cling to the delusion that smarter diplomacy and different American, Israeli and Palestinian leaders might still produce a different outcome. Even those who are striving to be self-critical about being, as Miller noted, “lost in the woods” at Camp David in July 2000, are only gradually coming to grips with the fact that some problems have no solution. Even worse, some of those who followed them, like White House senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was in charge of President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace efforts, seem to have failed to learn all of the appropriate lessons from the Camp David fiasco, even as he strove to do better than his predecessors.

Unlike the backdrop to the signing of the Oslo Accords seven years earlier, the circumstances that led the events of July 2000 are no longer much discussed. The famous photo op on the White House Lawn in September 1993 is still celebrated by some as a historic triumph, despite the catastrophic consequences of that agreement. But the ignominious conclusion to the 2000 summit has largely been thrown down the Orwellian memory hold by the foreign-policy establishment and the mainstream media.

They don’t want to draw appropriate conclusions from these events because the conclave exploded the entire concept behind the Oslo process from which it sprang as based on a myth.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

Showcasing Artists Who Erase Israel Off the Map - by CAMERA Arabic

“Batur,”opined Vogue Arabia, “created this graphic with one thought in mind: Hope.” Indeed, it seems to be an honest expression of Batur’s hope that all Israeli Jews simply empty out of Israel.

CAMERA Arabic..
22 July '20..

A common trait of contemporary Palestinian and Arab nationalist propaganda is the attempt to conceal its intrinsic contempt for millions of Israelis, Zionists and Jews under relatable labels such as “artistic expression,” “grassroots activity,” “personal initiative” or even “educational endeavor.” The flimsy veneer repackages the same old hateful content, making it seem just harmless enough for “respectable” media outlets to mindlessly amplify.

Vogue Arabia is the latest Western media outlet to fall for this stunt. In an article entitled “Arab Stars Criticize Absence of Palestine on Google Maps,” the fashion magazine featured a series of Israel-free maps under the pretense of “artistic protest” objecting to the absence of “Palestine” from Google and Apple maps. For example, Turkish artist Adige Batur’s take was a map of Israel and the Palestinian territories (pictured below), labelled only “Palestine,” with flowers covering almost everything with the notable exception of the Dome of the Rock.

“Batur,”opined Vogue Arabia, “created this graphic with one thought in mind: Hope.” Indeed, it seems to be an honest expression of Batur’s hope that all Israeli Jews simply empty out of Israel. While Vogue Arabia’s article conceded that “critical voices highlight” that Israel’s noticeable absence from the image fails to “offer a balanced understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” its Instagram entry could not be bothered to include that minimal qualification; instead, it referred to the image as Batur’s “creative rendering of Palestine” and included an even more extensive quote from the illustrator.

A map labelled “Palestine,” covering Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, is hateful and incites violence, no matter how many flowers bloom upon it.

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

The Wisdom of Peter Beinart’s Grandmother - by Lyn Julius

The long history of oppression of Mizrahi Jews in the Arab Middle East is the key to understanding the main drivers of the conflict with Israel – an Arab and Muslim inability to tolerate difference, to co-exist with minorities, and an abhorrence for any exercise of Jewish power. Yet in the Western progressive mind, bound tight as it is by the postmodern conceptual straitjacket, only Palestinians can be victims. The Mizrahi Jews are airbrushed out of public discourse. In the current jargon, they are ‘cancelled’.

Lyn Julius..
Fathom Journal..
July '20..

At the beginning of July, Peter Beinart, bellwether of US Jewish liberalism, sent shockwaves rippling through the Jewish world when he penned a long essay disavowing Zionism and advocating, in place of Israel, a bi-national state where Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy ‘equal’ rights.

Many critics have pointed out that ‘Beinartistan’, as one described it, would soon become yet another Muslim Arab state with a vanishing Jewish minority. And if Islamic fundamentalists have their way, its Jews would swiftly find themselves reverting to the status of ‘dhimmis’, with few rights under Muslim religious law.

How come a liberal like Beinart has bought into such a ‘dangerous delusion? Because he has never needed Zionism and because he appears to have internalised today’s ‘woke’ categories, which see Jews as benefiting from ‘white privilege’. He seems to want to promote, in the words of Einat Wilf, ‘Jewish powerlessness in an effort to restore [Jewish] moral purity.’

In progressive Western circles, Zionism has become decidedly un-cool. Self-declared Zionists, like the writer Bari Weiss, complain of bullying at the New York Times. In the vogue for identity politics, Jews are framed as white oppressors.

This postmodern conceptual straightjacket perverts historical truths. It dictates that only ‘people of colour’ can be victims, while the oppression of one million Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, resulting in the ethnic cleansing of pre-Islamic Jewish communities, among other minorities, from the Arab Muslim world from the 1940s, the subject of my book Uprooted!, must be passed over in silence.

The long history of oppression of Mizrahi Jews in the Arab Middle East is the key to understanding the main drivers of the conflict with Israel – an Arab and Muslim inability to tolerate difference, to co-exist with minorities, and an abhorrence for any exercise of Jewish power.

Yet in the Western progressive mind, bound tight as it is by the postmodern conceptual straitjacket, only Palestinians can be victims. The Mizrahi Jews are airbrushed out of public discourse. In the current jargon, they are ‘cancelled’. In this topsy-turvy world, merely to draw attention to Arab and Muslim antisemitism invites accusations of racism or ‘Islamophobia’.

(Continue to Full Article)

Lyn Julius is the author of Uprooted: How 3000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight.

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. 

The misconception that is the 1967 line that divided Israel and the West Bank - by Shlomo Slonim

In short, the June lines were killed by Nasser and buried by the adoption of 242. The effort to resuscitate the June 5 lines must be acknowledged to have been aborted. Israel is acting in accordance with international and UN law in rejecting any such abortive effort.

Shlomo Slonim..
JPost/Opinion..
17 July '20..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-fallacy-that-are-the-1967-lines-that-divided-israel-and-the-west-bank-635359

In their inveterate drive to confer self-determination upon the Palestinians, European governmental officials invariably cite the line of June 5, 1967, as the dividing line between Israel and the proposed Palestinian entity. It is as if this line was sanctified in Holy Writ and is binding upon all concerned as the starting point for any negotiations between the parties.

However, the lines that separated Israel from the Arabs in June 1967 were shattered by one man several weeks before that date. On May 20, 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran and proclaimed, contrary to the UN agreement, “These waters are ours... the Israeli flag shall not go through the Gulf of Aqaba ... we are ready for war.”

With that proclamation Nasser nullified the June 5 lines. The finishing touch was delivered when Jordan opened fire on Israel in Jerusalem on June 5. Earlier that day, Israel had offered to preserve matters intact between the two countries if Jordan refrained from hostility, but Jordan replied with a barrage, destroying the last vestige of the June lines.

This is not theoretical analysis; it is confirmed fully by the subsequent negotiations that ensued between the powers, and at the United Nations.

In the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War, the same Nasser demanded that Israel immediately withdraw from all territories it had occupied. Notwithstanding his belligerency, he charged Israel with aggression, something that would stamp Israel’s presence in the territories as a violation of international law.

The Soviet Union, smarting from the defeat of its weaponry, took up this refrain before the UN, but failed to secure the required majority in both the Security Council and the General Assembly that would charge Israel with aggression. Thereupon, Moscow dispatched its president, Alexei Kosygin, to the United States, in an effort to convince president Lyndon Johnson to join in pushing Israel back to the former lines. Johnson categorically rejected the Soviet proposal.

The president had earlier declared, “The nations of the region have had only fragile and violated truce lines for 20 years. What they now need are recognized boundaries and other arrangements that will give them security against terror, destruction, and war.”

IN REJECTING Kosygin’s suggestion, Johnson said, “This is not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities.” Moreover, “the parties to the conflict must be the parties to the peace.”

A dishonest attempt to end Israel. And then write the book - by Liat Collins

Beinart’s idea of Judaism is based on a cult-like belief in “Tikkun Olam,” mending the world. But breaking Israel won’t mend anything. Beinart is not making an honest attempt to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but a dishonest attempt to end Israel. And then write the book.

Liat Collins..
My Word/JPost..
16 July '20..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/my-word-beyond-beinarts-states-of-the-mind-635344

Peter Beinart is back with a vengeance – and an idea. Beinart, who periodically provokes a publicity storm, must be pleased with the response to his latest articles. People are talking about him again. In an opinion piece last week with the headline “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State,” published in The New York Times (of course), Beinart wrote: “Now liberal Zionists must make our decision... It’s time to abandon the traditional two-state solution and embrace the goal of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians. It’s time to imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state.” The op-ed was a shorter version of an essay for Jewish Currents.

Beinart is the sort of progressive who hopes to be ahead of his time – changing the discourse and applying pressure in the age of bullying political correctness to try to change facts on the ground.

The articles and subsequent interviews show that Beinart looks to the South African model for inspiration. This has the double effect of falsely equating Israel with the apartheid regime, always satisfying for anti-Zionist liberals, and making the point that with enough pressure through the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement, Israel will agree to give up and disappear.

The essay in Jewish Currents had the title: “Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine.” From this, we’re meant to believe that Beinart not only knows modern Israeli history to a fault, but is also an expert on its ancient past.

“When Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai asked the Roman Emperor to give him Yavne, he was acknowledging that a phase of Jewish history had run its course,” writes Beinart. “It was time for Jews to imagine a different path. That time has come again. Imagine a country in which, at sundown on the 27th of Nissan, the beginning of Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day – Jewish and Palestinian co-presidents lower a flag in Warsaw Ghetto Square at Yad Vashem as an imam delivers the Islamic du‘a’ for the dead. Imagine those same leaders, on the 15th of May, gathering at a restored cemetery in the village of Deir Yassin, the site of a future Museum of the Nakba, which commemorates the roughly 750,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled during Israel’s founding, as a rabbi recites El Malei Rachamim, our prayer for the dead.

“That’s what Yavne can mean in our time. It’s time to build it.”

You can almost hear John Lennon’s “Imagine” playing in the background.

It’s easier to deconstruct Beinart’s thinking than build his Utopia – at least, it is for those of us who live here, in the Jewish state he wants to erase.

Stubborn Facts: The US State Department's clumsy calculus of Palestinian Arab terror - by Michael Freund

It was Mark Twain who once said, "Facts are stubborn but statistics are more pliable." For far too long, that has proven to be the case in how the State Department documents Palestinian terror. It is time for the whitewashing to end.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
17 July '20..
Link: http://www.michaelfreund.org/24396/state-dept-palestinian-terrorism

A number of years ago, on a visit to Manhattan, I entered one of the countless souvenir stores that dot the area in Times Square which are affectionately known as "tourist traps."

Amid the refrigerator magnets declaring one's love for New York, the fake subway signs and plastic snow globes enveloping the Statue of Liberty, I came across a hidden treasure that I continue to adore until this very day. It is a small purple pin which declares simply and with unvarnished irony: "Forty percent of all statistics are false."

If you have even a sliver of cynicism somewhere in your body and you take a moment and think about that sentence, it should bring a smile to your face because it sums up quite nicely what most of us already know to be true. In our data-drenched world, statistics are just about as reliable as pre-election promises made by politicians.

My thoughts turned to that pin the other day when I read through the US State Department's "2019 Country Report on Human Rights Practices: Israel," which was released on March 2 of this year. It contains what can most charitably be described as nothing less than an obscene distortion of reality.

On page 100 of the tome, under the rather oddly worded heading, "Other Societal Violence or Discrimination," the people at Foggy Bottom made the spurious claim that there were a grand total of just 101 Palestinian "violent acts" against Israelis in Judea and Samaria in 2019, "primarily stone-throwing," and asserted that this "represented a 49% decrease from 2018."

The only problem with this bit of data, if one can call it that, is that it is in fact a complete and utter falsehood.

Question. Should the Jewish community provide a ‘safe space’ for anti-Zionists? Jonathan S. Tobin

A community that wishes to have a future must understand that Israel provides the bedrock upon which Jewish civilization will rest. Those who wish to destroy that foundation deserve no “safe space.”

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
15 July '20..

A prominent Jewish writer used the bully pulpit of The New York Times op-ed section last week to call for the elimination of the Jewish state. At the same time, an assistant rabbi at one of the nation’s largest and most prestigious synagogues took to Twitter to vent his anger at those who say the Jews are “indigenous” to the land of Israel.

Both Peter Beinart and Rabbi Andrue Kahn received some furious feedback. The debates about Beinart’s conversion to anti-Zionism and Kahn’s absurd doctrinaire woke linguistics was not without value, as it brought out into the open just how prevalent the dangerous ideas they are promoting. It also shone a light on the way such radicalism is not only undermining traditional liberal Jewish support for Israel, but also working its way into the mainstream.

Beinart and those who rallied behind Rabbi Andy’s dubious cause believe that anyone who stands up for Zionism and Israel isn’t only wrong, but represents the past, while the anti-Zionists are the Jewish future. As a result, they believe that it is incumbent on the Jewish community not only to listen to the kids who they think are cheering Beinart and Kahn, but to provide them with a “safe space” where they can be protected from the scorn being meted out to anti-Zionists from those who write in defense of Israel, Zionism and Jewish rights.

Kahn’s belief that Jews couldn’t be called “indigenous” was so outrageous that his boss, Temple Emanu-El Senior Rabbi Bruce Davidson, felt constrained to write a letter to the Forward newspaper disassociating the synagogue from his position. Davidson rightly noted that such a stance lends weight to those who wish to deny Jewish rights and history. That, in turn, provoked a response from hundreds of prominent liberal Jews who signed a letter of support of Kahn.

The question is: Are they right to assert that the woke left is the future of American Jewry?

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

Surprise? Israel’s Critics Want to Destroy It — Not Improve It - by Adam Levick

Whereas Israeli leaders must reject annexation and continually work to keep the two-state solution alive, less they forfeit their very right to exist, nothing whatsoever is asked of Palestinian leaders. They aren’t asked to create, as Zionists leaders did in the decades before 1948, the apparatuses of statehood — healthy proto-state political and civil institutions that would inspire faith that Palestine won’t become a failed state.

Adam Levick..
Algemeiner..
15 July '20..

Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland begins his recent Jewish Chronicle op-ed, “What next, if the two state dream is dead?” thusly:

Though annexation itself seems to be up in the air, one of annexation’s expected consequences is already materializing: a crisis of faith among those whose Zionist belief in the legitimacy of a Jewish state depended on there being at least the possibility of an eventual two-state solution, but who now see that prospect vanish before their eyes.

Freedland’s op-ed was addressing a recent 7,000 word piece by Peter Beinart calling for Jews to embrace a one-state, non-Zionist future, published at Jewish Currents — a shorter version of which was published by The New York Times.

You can read CAMERA’s response to Beinart’s call for the end of a Jewish state here, but Freedland’s framing of the crisis is interesting, as it — correctly — casts the (former) Zionism of Beinart and his allies as contingent upon a particular political outcome with the Palestinians. This contingent Zionism suggests that the very legitimacy of Israel is not, as with all other countries, to quote Abba Eban, “axiomatic and unreserved” — but is permanently “suspended in mid-air” awaiting others’ moral approval.

Contingent Zionism negates and erases the fact that Israel is, by any objective measure, a dynamic, successful, and democratic state; and demands, as the condition for political and moral international legitimacy, that it facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state. Conversely, this political calculus appears to conclude that no moral demands should be made of Palestinians for them to be granted the right to statehood and legitimacy.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

The Abbas-Hamas Courtship? Abbas Signs His Own Death Warrant - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...Abbas has chosen to sever all ties with Israel, including the security coordination that keeps him safe and guarantees his continued control over the PA.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
14 July '20..

After renouncing all agreements and understandings with Israel and the United States, including security cooperation, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his ruling Fatah faction are now cozying up to their rivals in Hamas -- a move that may prove to be counterproductive and pave the way for the resumption of massive anti-Israel violence.

By courting Hamas, Abbas and Fatah are emboldening an Islamist movement that seeks to extend its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. Hamas's declared goal is to replace Israel with an Iranian-style Islamist state.

Abbas may also be using his renewed ties with Hamas as a way of pressuring the international community into providing him with more financial aid. The message he is sending to Western donors is: "If you don't fully support us and exert pressure on Israel, I will throw myself into the arms of Hamas."

The apparent rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas began earlier this month when the two parties held a joint press interview by video-conference, during which they announced their intention to work together to "topple" both Israel's plan to apply its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank and US President Donald Trump's Peace to Prosperity vision for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The appearance of Jibril Rajoub, Secretary-General of the Fatah Central Committee, alongside senior Hamas official Saleh Arouri, a founding commander of Hamas's military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was aimed at sending a message to the Palestinians and the rest of the world that when it comes to Israel and the US, the Palestinians are prepared to lay aside their differences and stand united against "conspiracies aiming to liquidate the Palestinian cause and national rights."

Although he holds the title of "Deputy Chairman of Hamas's Political Bureau," Arouri, who is currently based in Lebanon, is anything but a politician.

(Continue to Full Post)

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.