A Game Changer in Gaza

by Daniel Greenfield



 

Terrorism is a game. The rules are simple. You have three choices. 1. Destroy the terrorists. 2. Live with terrorism. 3. Give in to the terrorists.

There are no other choices.

The first choice comes from the right. The third choice comes from the left. The second choice is what politicians choose when they don’t want to make a decision that will change the status quo.

Despite all the explosions in Gaza, Israel is still stuck on the second choice. The air strikes aren’t meant to destroy Hamas. They are being carried out to degrade its military capabilities which will buy a year or two of relative peace. And that will be followed by more of the same in the summer of 2016 when Hamas will have deadlier Iranian and Syrian weapons that will terrorize more of the country.

That doesn’t sound like much of a deal, but these kinds of wars have bought more peace than the peace process ever did. The peace process led to wars. The wars lead to a temporary peace.

This status quo became the mainstream choice ever since Israelis figured out that the peace process wasn’t going to work and that their leaders weren’t about to defy the UN, the US, the UK and all the other U’s by actually destroying the terrorists.

When Netanyahu first ran against Peres, the difference between the center-right and the center-left was that he campaigned on security first and appeasement second, while Peres campaigned on appeasement first and security second. The center-right has dominated Israeli politics because most Israelis accepted Likud’s security first as a more reasonable position than Labor’s appeasement first.

Living with terrorism was a viable choice in the 80s. It stopped being a viable choice after Israel allowed terrorist states to be set up under the peace process. It’s one thing to manage terrorism in territories that you control. It’s another thing to deal with entire terrorist states inside your borders. Even physical separation isn’t enough. Not when terrorist groups can shell all your major cities.

Israel responds to that threat with light air strikes which damage Hamas’ military capabilities. Hamas loses a few commanders, fighters and rockets, but scores a PR victory. Israel buys two years of peace while encouraging its enemies to attack it as a bunch of racist baby killers. Then Hamas replaces the rockets and fighters and launches a new operation and the whole thing begins again.

The left’s argument, framed by Washington Post pundits, Israeli leftists, Obama, assorted diplomats, retired security chiefs, activist busybodies funded by radical billionaires and the entire gang of foreign and domestic enemies, is that Israel has no choice except to default back to choice three; appeasement.

Israel has to gamble on appeasement because its situation is constantly worsening, they argue. What they neglect to mention is that the situation is worsening as part of their pressure on Israel to appease terrorists even though the current problems exist because of earlier appeasement.

“Drink this poison,” the doctors of diplomacy say. “It’ll cure you of all the aches and pains you’re suffering from the last time we told you to drink poison.”

“If you don’t drink more poison, you’ll get sicker and die,” they say. And if you do get sicker after drinking more poison, they’ll say it’s your own fault for not drinking enough poison. If only you had given away all of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the terrorists wouldn’t be attacking you again.

Israel has been caught between choices two and three, either live with terrorism or make concessions to terrorists, and it has been bouncing between these choices.

People and politicians choose the option that causes the least pain at any given time. Israel chooses appeasement in response to international pressure. And when appeasement leads to terrorism, it does enough damage to Hamas to serve as a temporary deterrent, without leading to too much international outrage, again choosing the least painful option.

This is the true cycle that Israel is caught in. It’s not a cycle of violence. It’s a cycle of expediency.

The first choice, destroying the terrorists, is the most painful option in the short term, but the least painful option in the long term. The third choice, appeasing the terrorists, causes the least pain in the short term, but the most pain in the long term and the medium term. The second choice, living with terrorism, is slightly more painful in the short term, less painful in the medium term, but still quite painful in the long term.

Israelis have accepted short term and long term pain in exchange for a certain amount of relief in the immediate future. The occasional terrorist attack and the more ominous escalating conflict, an example of which we are seeing now, is accepted in exchange for a year or two of relative quiet.

It’s easy to criticize Israel for not finishing off Hamas, but let’s look at what is really standing in its way.

Israeli Prime Minister Rabin deported 400 Hamas terrorists, including many Hamas leaders. In a Knesset speech he warned that, “We call on all nations and all people to devote their attention to the great danger inherent in Islamic fundamentalism. That is the real and serious danger which threatens the peace of the world in the forthcoming years.”

Instead the international community decided that the peace of the world was threatened by deporting Hamas terrorists. The media spent months covering the “suffering” of the deported Hamas terrorists.  The United States voted for a UN resolution condemning Israel and ordering it to “insure the safe and immediate return of all those deported.”

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations said that deporting Hamas terrorists does “not contribute to current efforts for peace.”

In 1988, Israel had deported a handful of Hamas and PLO terrorists.

One of them, Jibril Mahmoud Rajub, vowed that if Israel didn’t let them back in that they would “infiltrate in as human bombs with explosives belted around our waists.”

Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead warned Israel that if it didn’t reconsider the deportations “damage to our bilateral relations will occur.”

If that was the reaction by the Reagan and Bush administrations to deporting a few terrorists, imagine the reaction by Obama and the EU to a comprehensive effort to force Hamas and the PLO out of Israel.

And yet the inevitable can’t be postponed forever.

If Israel had not folded in the peace process, it might have been able to maintain the status quo of the intifada. But the second choice is no longer a viable long term option. The attacks have long since passed the point of mere terrorism and are taking place on a military scale.

Tolerating terrorism has ceased to be a long term strategy. That is something that both the left and the right agree on. The attacks are pushing Israel into choosing either large scale conflict or large scale appeasement. Appeasing terrorists has failed every time. Only destroying them can work.

Israel has a left that is eager to embrace the destructive policies of appeasement without regard to the consequences. It needs a right that is equally heedless of consequences when it comes to war to overcome that pain threshold which prevents it from doing the right thing and reclaiming the future.


Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/a-game-changer-in-gaza/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Naming and Fighting Terror

by Michael Widlanski

Westerners often flail away at dangerous enemies or situations because they cannot describe or name them accurately, especially Arab-Islamic terror groups.

Here are some words to remove from usage or to save for very special occasions.

Militants: This is a term frequently used by CNN, Reuters, the Associated Press, The New York Times, and other media, even Fox News. It is a nice way to avoid using "terrorist" for someone who has just blown himself up in a shopping mall or bus or whose organization has unleashed indiscriminate rocket attacks against cities. Reuters, for example, has a policy against using the word "terrorist" because it believes it is opinionated or judgmental. Soon, Reuters will replace "bank robbery" with "large withdrawal." CNN often uses the term "militants," as in: "Israel launched an offensive against militants in Gaza, killing scores of militants who responded by shooting primitive rockets at Israel." This is also a classic example of getting who, what, when, where, why, and how all wrong in one sentence.

Militants, like "gunmen" or "fighters," is a term used to avoid calling murderers and terrorists by their rightful name. "Militants" should be saved for college students who sit-in at the dean's office, whining about not having the Pass-Fail option, or for Detroit labor unions demanding their full pension plans and golf courses as part of a bankruptcy plan. "Gunmen" should be saved for movies, and "fighters" for boxers.

Arab Spring: This is a euphemism coined by superficial journalists and Western leaders to cover up for wishful thinking masquerading as cold analysis. From Fareed Zakaria of CNN and Time to Barack Obama of the White House, prominent pundits/politicians claim to see a huge democracy movement in a region drowning in autocracy. In fact, they are witnessing struggles between rival ideologies, religious sects and tribes in the Arab-Islamic sphere, from Tunisia to the Gulf. The heart of democracy is regular elections and possible change, along with minority rights.

Man-made disasters, workplace violence, lone gunmen: These are politically correct and factually inaccurate metaphors used by the Obama Administration to describe the Fort Hood terror attack, the abortive mid-plane bombing attempt over Detroit, and the abortive Times Square bombing, among others.

Political Protest: This is what President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice call the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, the taking of the U.S. Consulate in Libya and the murder-sodomy rape of a U.S. ambassador. It is too bad for President Jimmy Carter that he could not get CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite to describe the Iranian takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran as "political  protest."

Abu-Mazen: This is the kunya  or nickname of  PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas, frequently used by Israeli reporters and Western diplomats who should know better. The term "Abu-Mazen" means "father of Mazen," and is an endearing name or honorific used by Arabs to honor the father after the birth of the first son. It is somewhat similar to the Russian patronymic name as when late Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev was called Nikita Sergeivich: Nikita the son of Sergei. 

Arab women also are often known by a kunya, as the famous Egyptian singer Um-Kulthum: mother of Kulthum. Sometimes an Arabic nickname describes the quality of a person or his or her prowess or an organizational nickname or nomme de guerre. The PLO military commander, Khalil al-Wazir was known as "Abu-Jihad" -- "father of holy war" because of his job and also because his son's name was Jihad. His wife, Intissar al-Wazir was known as Um-Jihad: Mother of Holy War. Israeli commandos liquidated Abu-Jihad but did not touch the mother or anyone else in the family.

In the case of Mahmoud Abbas, his son Mazen died a long time ago, and his term as leader of the Palestinian National Authority also expired a long time ago. So saying "Palestinian leader Abu-Mazen" is bad for many reasons. It is also like calling Joseph Stalin "Uncle Joe." Israeli reporters and politicians, as well as their Western counterparts, should send the term to the Never-to-be-Recycled bin.

Islam, Religion of Peace: There is much linguistic and theological distortion here. It is true that the word Islam in Arabic is related to the word Salaam, both words from the root S-L-M, like the Hebrew word Shalom, which comes from the root SH-L-M. However, in Arabic grammar, Islam is actually the fourth verbal form that means to "give oneself" or "to submit" to God's will.  So much for the linguistics.

As for the theology, Islam is a religion that has gone through several phases, but Islam's formative phase was led by Muhammad, Islam's prophet and general, who forced non-Muslims to convert or die. Yes, Jews often did better under Islam than under medieval Christendom, but not always. Muhammad changed his conduct towards Jews during his life. At first he courted them, but later, Muhammad slaughtered three Jewish tribes in Arabia. True, Islam officially regards Jews and Christians as ahl al-kitab "people of the book," but many Islamic leaders have forcibly converted Jews and Christians over the centuries. Anyone who looks at Islamic groups in Sudan, Iran, Nigeria, and even Egypt, sees the harsh face of Islam to non-Muslims. Even when Islamic regimes tolerate Jews and Christians, they also give them a clear second-class status as dhimmi (subject peoples) who often pay a special tax in an Islamic state. Most of the Islamic terrorist groups today use the formative stage of Islam as the inspiration for their movements. They recall Muhammad's phrase: sabil allah fi-al-seyf -- the path of Allah is by the sword.

Intifada: This is a word used by Arabs to describe violent and often terroristic battles with Israel. In Arabic, Intifada means "shaking off," like the shaking off of dust or water by an animal. Some Western reporters and PLO chief Yasser Arafat wanted to call any violence against Israel "Intifada" so as to give it a certain cachet and not call it violence or terror. Western media types often said Intifada meant "uprising," but they were wrong. Many Arab commentators and left-wing Israeli pundits tried to suggest that Intifada meant strong spontaneous protest with some rock-throwing but something less than full-scale violence (compare this view to Obama-Clinton use of "political protest").Thousands of Arabs died in the 1987-89 Intifada, more killed by other Arabs, with guns and knives, than by Israelis.

Yasser Arafat tried to attach the name Intifadat al-Aqsa (The Al-Aqsa Intifada) to his planned war against Israel, launched after Ariel Sharon putatively "defiled" the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Of course, Sharon never went anywhere near the mosque, and if he had, he would have taken off his shoes, out of respect for the Muslim tradition. Today, Arabs talk of a "third Intifada" or "an electronic intifada," but they are all really expressing a hope for a violent war of attrition or terror campaign against Jews.


Dr. Michael Widlanski is the author of Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat, published by Threshold/ Simon and Schuster.  He teaches at Bar-Ilan University , was strategic affairs advisor in Israel ’s Ministry of Public Security, and was the Schusterman visiting professor at University of California, Irvine for 2013-14.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/07/naming_and_fighting_terror_.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Obama’s ongoing Shameful Behavior against Israel

by Isi Leibler

We are now reconciled to the fact that in any conflict -- even when we are exercising our right of self-defense -- we will either be condemned or, at best, accused of acting disproportionately.

However, the latest round of hypocrisy by Western leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, beats all records.

Despite anger and condemnation from many of his constituents, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, until last week, effectively been acting as a supplicant by virtually pleading for a cease-fire, assuring Hamas that Israel would abide by a new truce. Responding to their missiles with “restraint” and reacting on a tit-for-tat basis, bombing empty sites, Israel dispensed with any pretense of implementing genuine deterrence.

As critics predicted, Hamas interpreted this as a signal of Israeli weakness, which emboldened the organization to intensify and extend missile attacks to all major cities, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, sending the majority of the population to the shelters. Hundreds of missiles rained down throughout the country, but Iron Dome has successfully intercepted rockets, avoiding massive civilian casualties and major dislocation on the home front. Iron Dome has proven to be another example of Israeli ingenuity in the face of crisis, but no system is foolproof, and we must gird ourselves for possible casualties in the future.

The efforts undertaken by the Israel Defense Forces to minimize civilian casualties are unparalleled in the annals of warfare.

Telephone calls are made in advance of targeting buildings to minimize civilian casualties, despite the fact that this allows Hamas to also vacate the premises. It should be noted that the U.S. has never felt obliged to provide advance notice to the families of terrorists to vacate buildings when its drones were employed to carry out targeted assassinations.

Nevertheless, in a conflict of this nature, irrespective of all precautions, loss of innocent civilian lives is inevitable -- especially in a terrain in which rocket launchers and command centers are deliberately located in heavily populated civilian enclaves, including hospitals and kindergartens. Furthermore, Hamas cynically employs civilians, including women and children, as human shields and it is Hamas who must be held accountable for the inevitably increasing number of civilian casualties.

We are grateful to the American people and the successive administrations, including the current administration, for the generous aid toward our defense requirements.

Although we appreciate that the U.S. administration expressed support for our right to exercise self-defense, we consider it intolerable and hypocritical for Obama and his spokesmen to blur the distinction between the terrorist aggressors and us, their purported allies who are acting in self-defense.

Obama patronizingly urged both sides to display “restraint” and not be motivated by “revenge.” His special assistant and White House coordinator for Middle East affairs, Philip Gordon, was the keynote speaker at a “Peace Conference” in Tel Aviv under the auspices of the newspaper Haaretz (see accompanying photo). With rockets disrupting the conference, Gordon slammed Israel for failing to come to terms with the Palestinian Authority and dismissed Netanyahu’s security concerns -- pointedly ignoring that PA President Mahmoud Abbas had just consummated a merger with Hamas, which his government had effectively sanctioned.

This demonstrates that despite Netanyahu’s extraordinary, even painful efforts to appease Hamas and avoid war, we are still being bracketed together with the terrorists in a distasteful conundrum of moral equivalence and condemnation for ultimately fulfilling a government’s principal obligation -- to provide security and protection for its citizens. This is reflected in the statement issued on Saturday by the UN Security Council and approved by all its members, calling for a cease fire without any reference to the cause of the crisis.

If I were the prime minister of Israel, I would write a letter to Obama and other Western leaders along the following lines:

Your equivocal response to our legitimate obligation to protect our citizens has profoundly disappointed the vast majority of Israelis. I therefore dispense with conventional diplomatic formalities and frankly convey our frustrations.

Israel is the only democracy in which the rule of law applies in this turbulent region. We have avoided the carnage and mass murder that has enveloped millions of people in this region, which has been overwhelmed by the barbaric forces of Islamic fundamentalism.

We have no desire to rule others and have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to make sacrifices to achieve peace with security. We failed because our purported Palestinian peace partner is unable, and many believe unwilling, to make the reciprocal compromises required. We were even unable to conduct negotiations with him without releasing mass murderers whom he subsequently feted as national heroes.

The PA then united with Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization whose charter explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel and enjoins its followers to seek to kill Jews wherever they may be.

It is Hamas controlling Gaza that launched missile attacks against us, obliging us to respond forcefully only after having provided them ample warnings to cease their barbaric onslaught on our civilian population.

I ask you, President Obama, how would you respond if a region adjacent to the United States controlled by terrorists bombarded American civilians with hundreds of rockets daily?

What would you consider to be a proportionate U.S. response to such an attack?

Could you visualize instructing American military forces to make telephone calls in order to warn civilians to evacuate areas that were going to be targeted because they served as missile launching areas or terrorist command posts?

Would you consider it appropriate to conduct targeted assassinations -- as you have done in Afghanistan and elsewhere -- against leaders directing missiles on American civilians and calling for the destruction of the United States?

Finally, how would American civilians react if the U.S. government were to continue providing goods and services, including electricity, fuel and water to a neighboring regime that was simultaneously targeting its civilian population with missiles?

We know that your honest answer to such questions would be that you would take whatever steps were necessary to defend your citizens and bring an end to the terrorist threat on your border -- even if it were to result in major collateral damage to civilians.

How would you respond to your allies if they urged restraint, calling you not to respond disproportionately and avoid being motivated by “vengeance”? I have no doubt that you and the vast majority of American citizens would be outraged and tell them where to go.

I pose the same questions to European leaders and seek to ascertain how they would respond if terrorists on their borders were launching missiles into London, Paris, Berlin, or Brussels.

By any ethical standard, Hamas represents the epitome of an evil jihadist Islamic fundamentalist regime. Its charter calling for the murder of Jews is backed up by a consistent record of deliberately targeting innocent civilians, whether by blowing up buses, cafés or shopping malls; abducting and murdering children; or firing missiles indiscriminately at civilian centers.

Surely under the present circumstances and taking into account the terrible carnage as hundreds of thousands of innocent people are massacred in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the region by the jihadist counterparts of Hamas, we are entitled to expect that our allies would unequivocally distinguish between the aggressors and those defending themselves.

There is no moral equivalency and to even imply that Israel bears some responsibility for the escalation of the current crisis by calling on both sides to exercise “restraint” is not just disappointing but a breach of trust between allies. It is surely now time for the United States and the EU to unequivocally support the forces of democracy against the forces of evil.

This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom


Isi Leibler may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com. His website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com.

Source: http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5159

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Anti-Israel Protesters 'Assault' Pro-Israel Activists in Boston

by Ari Soffer

Radical anti-Zionist demonstration outside Israeli consulate in Boston turns ugly; pro-Israel activist files assault charges.

Anti-Israel protest outside Boston's Israeli consulate

Elan Kawesch

A group of pro-Israel demonstrators were attacked and verbally and physically assaulted by anti-Israel extremists outside the Israeli consulate in Boston on Friday.

Anti-Israel groups, led by the radical Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), organized a demonstration outside the consulate against Operation Protective Edge - Israel's military operation to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza. In 2013 the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) anti-hate watchdog listed JVP as one of the top ten most active and influential anti-Israel groups in the US.

Upon hearing about the demo, a small group of about a dozen pro-Israel activists quickly mobilized for a counter-demonstration. But upon being spotted by the anti-Israel group things soon turned ugly.
In a video taken by staff inside the consulate, a roughly 100-strong crowd of anti-Zionists can be see swarming around the pro-Israel group.



Pro-Israel activists said demonstrators' chants included calls for Israel's destruction and the establishment of an Arab state in its stead ("From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"), and that some hurled anti-Semitic insults like "Jesus-killers" at them.

But the abuse also turned physical.

Chloe Valdary, a senior at the University of New Orleans and founder of the Declare Your Freedom Initiative, is pressing charges after an attack by a female protester who told her that "Jews will go to hell Inshallah [G-d-willing in Arabic - ed.]" and then proceeded to physically assault her. (See video below)

Valdary, who is not Jewish, said she heard other demonstrators call for Jews to "burn in hell" and to "go back to the Dead Sea (sic)".

Watch: Pro-Israel demonstrator assaulted:


"It's the first time I've ever experienced it," she said of the sheer level of aggression at the rally. "We usually get the hate but not the assault associated with it."

She has filed charges with the Boston police department's Brighton precinct against the woman.

Anti-Israel demonstrators

Pro-Israel counter-demonstrators wave Israeli, American flags

Calling for Israel's destruction

Chloe Valdary (center) was assaulted as the sides met

Valdary (L) with other pro-Israel activists

All photos by Elan Kawesch.


Ari Soffer

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182833#.U8La1LFyYTx

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Even if it is no Larger than the Smallest Postage Stamp

by Edward Bernard Glick

The current confrontation between Hamas and Israel reminds me of an event that occurred in 1978 at England’s Oxford University where I delivered a paper on the role of terror and retaliation in the Palestine-Israel conflict. 

My paper had nothing to do with the history of Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, the first two comments during the Q and A session dealt with the city, now under rocket attack, that eventually became Israel's commercial and cultural capital.

I told the first questioner, an Englishman, that the city, unlike nearby Yaffo, is not mentioned in the Bible because it is relatively new. It dates back only to 1909. 

I also told him that the Jews of Yaffo, tired of Arab anti-Semitism and needing more land for their growing families, petitioned the governor of Palestine, then ruled by Ottoman Turkey, for permission to build a Jewish suburb in the neighboring sand. The governor considered the request such a hot potato that he sent it to Constantinople for the Sultan to decide. The Sultan said yes.

The second questioner, a Palestinian teaching at a British university, complimented me for the accuracy of my brief answer to an unexpected question. "But," he said, “you committed a sin of omission. You failed to tell our British and European colleagues that the Jews built Tel Aviv on my sand. I know the area. I was born there. I speak Hebrew. I and most other Palestinians want our sand, and everything that the Jews put on it, back. And we shall continue to fight until we get our sand back.”

“I do not know why you Westerners cannot comprehend that the basic issue is not the size of Israel. It is not the boundaries of Israel. It is not the policies of Israel. It is not about the status of Jerusalem. It is not about the Palestinian Right of Return. It is not about a one- or a two-state solution. And it is certainly not about how the Israelis treat or mistreat their Arab minority. 

“The basic issue is the existence, the location, and the sovereignty of Israel. I and most Palestinians will never accept the permanence of this infidel state in the Muslim Middle East, even if it is no larger than the smallest postage stamp. "

This exchange took place 36 years ago. Yet, except for the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, which cost President Anwar Sadat his life, and the Jordan-Israel peace treaty, which daily endangers the life of Jordan’s monarch King Abdullah II, nothing has changed.

One therefore wonders when the world's non-Muslims will grasp the significance of the postage-stamp metaphor and draw the proper conclusions.


Edward Bernard Glick is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Temple University

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/07/even_if_it_is_no_larger_than_the_smallest_postage_stamp.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Netanyahu Dramatically alters the Objective of the Operation

by Dr. Aaron Lerner


Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: "goal of the operation – the restoration of quiet for a long period while inflicting a significant blow on Hama and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip."

This represents a dramatic change in the goal of the operation from "the restoration of quiet for a long period."]

PM Netanyahu's Remarks at the Start of the Weekly Cabinet Meeting (Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Sunday, 13 July 2014), made the following remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting:

"Israel is conducting a vigorous military campaign against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has chosen to attack our cities with massive and indiscriminate rocket fire. I said from the outset that we would respond in strength against this criminal firing at our citizens and this is what we are doing.

We are striking Hamas with increasing strength. We are hitting commanders, militants, arsenals and command centers. The IDF, ISA, security services, firefighters, the Israel Police – everyone is doing their part and doing s in the best way possible. But one must understand how our enemy operates. Who hides in mosques? Hamas. Who puts arsenals under hospitals? Hamas. Who puts command centers in residences or near kindergartens? Hamas. Hamas is using the residents of Gaza as human shields and it is bringing disaster to the civilians of Gaza; therefore, for any attack on Gaza civilians, which we regret, Hamas and its partners bear sole responsibility.

The leadership of Hamas and the other organizations has chosen – at a time when they are using the population of Gaza as human shields – to hide under ground, to flee abroad and to deliberately put civilians in the line of fire. This is the entire difference between us and Hamas – we are using defensive systems against missiles to protect the residents of Israel and they are using the residents of Gaza to protect arsenals of missiles. Nothing better underscores the difference in this campaign. Israel is a democracy that is fighting – in a legitimate and focused manner – against unbridles terrorists and no country in the world would do any less than we are doing to protect our citizens.

We will continue to act in a patient and level-headed manner, with responsibility, and vigorously in order to achieve the goal of the operation – the restoration of quiet for a long period while inflicting a significant blow on Hama and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. The IDF is prepared for all possibilities.

Now, two other points. First, to the citizens of Israel: You are showing maturity and responsibility and I think that you are impressing the entire world. But I have one request: Do not be complacent. I know that there are people who are going out and who want to see the missiles. I ask you: Do not do this. I ask that you enter protected spaces. We are speaking here from a protected space. We ask you to be in protected spaces and to listen to instructions from IDF Home Front Command. Someone rightly said that that regarding civil defense, one needs not only an Iron Dome but iron discipline as well. You have shown this up until now. This could yet take a long time and we need both your support and your discipline.

The last point: Today in Vienna, the foreign ministers of the major powers are discussing the question of dealing with Iran's nuclear program. I would like to remind them Hamas and Islamic Jihad are being financed, armed and trained by Iran. Iran is a major power of terrorism that finances, arms and trains the terrorist organizations that we are fighting against. This Iran cannot be allowed the ability to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. If this happens, the things that we are seeing around us and the things that are happening in the Middle East will be far worse. In recent years we have made various forecasts for the Middle East – me and my colleagues here around the table – and these forecasts have, to my regret, come true one by one. The prediction of Iran as a nuclear threshold state cannot be allowed to come true, it cannot. This cannot be and it will not be.


Dr. Aaron Lerner

Source: http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=64313

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

PA Official Admits: Israel Follows International Law, They Don't

by Ari Soffer

Palestinian envoy to UN Human Rights Council says Hamas rockets are 'crimes against humanity', while Israeli strikes are legal.

Car damaged by Gaza rocket

Flash 90

The Palestinian Authority's envoy to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has said the PA has no hope of pressing charges against Israel in international courts - because Palestinian terrorist groups are far worse violators of international law themselves.

Since peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority fell apart after the PA applied for membership in international agencies, many Palestinian factions and advocates have pushed for the PA to sign the Rome Statute and press charges against Israel in the International Criminal Court at the Hague (ICC).

But contrasting Israel's conduct during Operation Protective Edge to stop rocket fire from Gaza - in which Israeli forces always warn civilians before launching airstrikes - to the actions of Hamas and other armed groups, Ibrahim Khreisheh said any such move would surely backfire.

Noting concerns that Israel could launch legal offensives of its own against the PA should it sign up to the ICC, the presenter asked whether such a move would be realistic. The response was unequivocal.

"The missiles that are now being launched against Israel - each and every missile constitutes a crime against humanity, whether it hits or misses, because it is directed at civilian targets," said Khreisheh.

He went on to claim that Israel, too, was guilty of such crimes during the conflict, and also mentioned contested claims about the legality of Israeli building in Judea and Samaria.

But he maintained that human rights abuses by Palestinian terrorist groups were far worse - particularly when it came to harming civilians.

In order to launch an appeal to the ICC, Khreisheh said, all "Palestinian factions" would need to commit, in writing, to refrain from targeting Israeli civilians - something which none of them are likely to do.

In stark contrast, he noted how "many of our people in Gaza appeared on TV and said that the Israeli army warned them to evacuate their homes before the bombardment."

"In such a case, if someone is killed, the (international) law considers it a mistake rather than an intentional killing, because (the Israelis) followed the legal procedures," he explained.

"As for the missiles launched from our side - we never warn anyone about where these missiles are about to fall or about operations we carry out."

Watch - PA envoy to UNHRC: Israel warns civilians before attacks, we don't:


The interview was translated by MEMRI - the Middle East Media Research Institute.



Khreisheh did not mention other serious breaches of international human rights law by Hamas and other terrorist groups, including the widespread use of human shields.


Ari Soffer

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182837#.U8LgJbFyYTx

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The sick math of the Gaza war

by Elliott Abrams

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is clearly reluctant to order a ground ‎incursion into Gaza. This has disappointed some of his critics, who think it's a sign of ‎lack of courage, or of excessive wavering and hedging, or of thinking about domestic ‎politics.‎

It is not; instead, it's prudence. For one thing, Netanyahu knows he would be ‎sending some Israeli soldiers to their deaths. But he also knows that in the sick ‎math of the Gaza war, Israel would be blamed for "disproportionate" killing.‎

What that means is simple: Too many Palestinians would die, and "not enough" ‎Israelis -- in the view of much of "world opinion." You would read that calculation in The New York Times and see it on the BBC. In Operation Cast Lead in 2008, about ‎‎1000-1400 Palestinians died, and 13 Israelis. In Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 ‎it was something like 150 to 6. As of now, in the current conflict there are no Israeli ‎deaths and about 100 Palestinian deaths. Here's how Time Magazine started its ‎story:‎

"The death toll among Palestinians scrambling under a relentless Israeli air assault in ‎the Gaza Strip passed 80 Thursday and edged close to 100 Friday, including at least ‎‎14 children. … Meanwhile, the barrage of rockets Gaza militants launched toward ‎Israeli cities failed to produce a significant casualty on the third day of Israel's ‎offensive Thursday. … The Israeli military said it destroyed more buildings in the first ‎‎36 hours of the current campaign than in all of Pillar of Defense. More people are ‎dying too: The 80 fatalities reported so far is, once again, more than half the reported ‎death toll from the longer bombing two years earlier.‎"

Time then discussed exactly this phenomenon: When what "world opinion" sees as ‎‎"too many" Palestinians dying and the balance is "too great" in Israel's favor -- that is, ‎too many Palestinians and not enough Israelis being killed -- the calls for a cease-fire ‎will escalate. Moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas will be the order of the ‎day -- except for those who elevate Hamas, since after all it is killing fewer people!‎

Netanyahu knows this, because Israel has lived through it in all its past wars with ‎the Palestinians. So does Hamas know it, and Hamas is brutal and vicious enough to ‎hide behind civilians and seek civilian deaths. After all, this was the central theory of ‎the Goldstone report: that Israel was killing civilians and was morally culpable -- guilty ‎of war crimes. No doubt we'll see the same arguments made this time, especially if ‎Israel goes in on the ground.‎

As I write, the Hamas rockets are still flying -- unguided missiles aimed toward ‎populated areas in the hope of killing civilians. How long Israel can put off a ground ‎incursion is anyone's guess. But if that happens, here's something you can count on: The twisted moralists will be back, comparing the numbers of casualties on both ‎sides and accusing Israel of war crimes for the "disproportionate" use of force.‎

Remember this: In World War II, the United States suffered 416,000 ‎combat deaths, or about 0.32 percent of the population. Germany suffered 4-5 ‎million combat deaths, or about 5 percent of the population. The death ratio was 10 ‎to 1. Did that make the war unjust? Does that mean the United States inflicted ‎‎"disproportionate" numbers of casualties? Unfortunately the Israelis know "world ‎opinion" will never be on their side in these arguments. Let's just hope the United ‎States is.‎

Elliot Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This piece can be found on Abrams' blog "Pressure Points."

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9099

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The Violence of Peace Activists

by Sagi Melamed

More than the rocket attacks on Israel. More than the tragic murder of the three Jewish teenagers by Arabs. More than the hideous murder of the Arab teen by Jews. More than roads made dangerous and impassable by Israeli Arabs rioting. What horrified me more than all these latest traumatic events was the violent attack on Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett by participants at a peace conference held this week.

Almost 20 years ago, I attended an economic peace conference in Jerusalem, which followed on the tail of the Oslo Accords and the signing of the peace agreement with Jordan. During the speech given by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, I was horrified when some opponents of the Rabin-led peace process interrupted him with insults and jeers, curses and threats. I was also surprised how easily they managed to come into physical contact with the prime minister. Exactly one week after this conference, Rabin was murdered by a Jewish assassin.

This week's peace conference, organized by the newspaper Haaretz, under the auspices of Israeli and international peace groups, was held on July 8. Given the current events in Gaza and the upheavals in the wider Middle East, one can argue whether the timing was courageous and visionary or delusional and presumptuous. But it is difficult to argue about the hate, resentment and intensity of negative emotions that assailed Bennett at an event that supposedly represented peace and tolerance. It was as if all the frustration and disappointment at receding hopes for peace and the deterioration of Israel's security and political situation were focused on Bennett and spewed out over him like lava bursting from a volcano. "Inciter!" "Murderer!" Those were just some of the epithets hurled at him. As I watched Bennett's security guards bundle him out of the conference room at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv, pursued by some who continued to curse him, my mind returned to Rabin in 1995.

At an event with, I estimate, over 1,000 participants, there were very few Arabs and only a handful kippah-wearers. An Arab expression says, "One hand cannot clap by itself." It was not at all clear who was supposed to make peace and with whom. Shortly after Bennett came MK Ahmad Tibi, who spoke harshly and unambiguously. That is his prerogative. But when the audience at a peace conference enthusiastically applauded Tibi as he accused the prime minister of Israel of responsibility for the murder and burning of the Arab teen from Shuafat, I had to remind myself that I was sitting in Tel Aviv and not in Ramallah.

Later, I approached the young man who led the chorus of shouting and curses at Bennett. He was about 30, taller than me by a head. A Jew, of course. An Arab would not have dared. Served in the Israel Defense Forces but not in a combat unit. Single. I told him about the days leading up to the murder of Rabin and the frightening similarities between then and now. He had difficulty grasping what I was saying, and presented his world view to me: "Bennett is a danger to Israel. We must stop him." I was even more horrified. The exact same rhetoric as two decades ago.

Throughout the last 20 years, I have participated in more than a few peace conferences and left most of them feeling encouraged and empowered. This last one was utterly dispiriting. When the singer David Broza took to the stage with a children's choir from the Jerusalem YMCA, I wondered whether he too thinks longingly of his timeless song "Yihiyeh Tov" ("It Will be Good"), which became the unofficial anthem of my generation on the brink of our military service:

"People live under pressure

Seeking a reason to breath

And in between hate and murder

They talk of peace."

"Those who ravaged and ruined you shall come from you," said the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 49:17). The violence of those who define themselves as peace activists terrified me. If peace activists can behave with such messianic bullying, then what are we liable to see from war activists?

Sagi Melamed is vice president of external affairs at Max Stern Yezreel Valley College and chief instructor of the Hoshaya Karate Club. He received a master's degree from Harvard University in Middle Eastern Studies, with a specialty in conflict resolution. His book "Son of My Land" was published in 2013.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9103

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Palestinians in Hebron cheer as Hamas rockets launched against civilians

by Rick Moran

There was a festive atmosphere in Hebron as Palestinians gathered on hillsides to watch Hamas rockets launched at civilian targets in Israel.

It's almost as if they're watching a fireworks display rather than attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. Watch here.

Jerusalem Post:

West Bank Palestinians cheered on Saturday as Hamas militants fired the largest salvo of rockets yet on the Tel Aviv area since the start of the recent escalations.
Hamas claimed responsibility for 10 rockets that were launched at Tel Aviv on Saturday but which caused no casualties or damage.
Sirens sounded across central Israel as people rushed for cover from the rockets. One group of youths sitting at the beach cheered as they saw a rocket intercepted in the night sky. In Gaza, Palestinians stood at rooftops chanting Allah Akbar (God is great), cries that also echoed over mosque loudspeakers.
The Iron Dome defense system intercepted three of the rockets over greater Tel Aviv and another struck an open area.
Hamas had broadcast a televised statement an hour before the salvo to say it was preparing a major attack on Tel Aviv. The Israeli military said it bombed the rocket launcher used for the salvo.
Minutes before the salvo launched, Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron gathered at a lookout point. When what appeared to be rockets streaked across the night sky, they chanted and cheered.
"Today we have come to see the rockets hitting our cities occupied since 1948 and to see these moments of dignity and pride carried out by the resistance in Gaza," said one resident. "I invite everyone to come and watch the rockets, in order to confirm that the Palestinians are not weak, the Palestinians are strong. But because of the betrayals, and all that has happened in the past, now we are opening a new page for the resistance and Hebron will be the spark," said another.
Later on Saturday night, the IAF struck the home in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza which contained a launcher used in the attack on the metropolitan Tel Aviv area.

Iron Dome, the Israeli designed and built missile defense systrem, has been performing well above expectations during Operation Protective Edge. The IDF claims a 90% success rate. The system does not target all rockets - only those that pose a threat to population centers. 

It appears that the army has now initiated some kind of ground assault, the size and scope of which is unknown at this point. The campaign has entered a new phase with the Israeli government not giving any indication that they wish to halt hostilities any time soon.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/07/palestinians_in_hebron_cheer_as_hamas_rockets_launched_against_civilians.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.