A Satire That Hits Home

Hats off to American Thinker for this delicious albeit dead accurate bit of satire. Read it and then share it please – email it to five people you know and ask them to do the same!

June 18, 2010

Israel breathes; world condemnation instantaneous

Andrew Pessin

-Satire-

Israel breathed this morning. There was a quick intake of air, and then a gentle exhalation.

World condemnation was instantaneous.

P.A. President Abbas decried the Israeli attempt to commandeer the Middle East air supply, and demanded a prompt return to the 1967 air distribution which Palestinian leaders had previously violently rejected.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad interrupted his weekly call for the destruction of Israel in order to blast the Zionist entity for its blatant oxygen grab and call for its immediate destruction.

Egyptian newspapers detailed the malicious Mossad plot to exhale germs into the air and then spread the poisoned air via high-tech windmills directly into the lungs of Muslim children.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshal announced that in response to the Israeli aggression, Hamas would not let the Red Cross visit captured soldier Gilad Schalit. When it was pointed out that they hadn’t allowed such visits in the four years prior to Israel’s action, he snorted, “And now you see why!”

Turkey announced it would be withdrawing its ambassador, only to retract that announcement in slight embarrassment when it realized it had already withdrawn him last week, in response to some other Israeli outrage it could no longer quite recall.

The United Nations General Assembly, after meeting for an all-night emergency session, called for another all-night emergency session. And the Security Council demanded an immediate impartial investigation, only to backtrack when it was informed that all its available staff were already tied up in ongoing impartial investigations of other Israeli actions.

Indeed, outrage at Israel’s action was heard around the globe. People everywhere exclaimed that Israel’s aggression was against international law, and then asked for a copy of the newspaper so they could see just what it was, in fact, that Israel had done this time.

Others, more intellectually-inclined, asked for some links on “international law,” curious to find out, at last, just what was this special code which apparently all non-Israelis had secretly agreed upon. And, of course, there were numerous calls for Israel’s leaders to be brought up on charges of ‘war crimes’.

Loudest of these were from regimes as diverse as China, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, which took time off from their busy schedules oppressing Tibetans, Darfur civilians, women and all religious minorities, and their own citizens respectively to make their pronouncements.

In fact, Israel’s action this time was so offensive that Muslim extremists actually paused from their work installing massive explosives in each others’ mosques in order to condemn Israel’s attacks on Muslim civilians.

The criticisms could even be heard within Israel itself. “How can Israel call itself a democracy,” Haaretz asked in an editorial, “while allowing its Jewish citizens to consume 75% of the air?”

Arab-Israeli MKs signed a petition demanding that the Israeli constitution, guaranteeing their right to sit in the Knesset despite their repeated calls for Israel’s destruction, should be dissolved, preferably in favor of something more totalitarian. “On this day I am ashamed to be a Jew,” proclaimed one prominent left-wing leader, a man who had repeatedly urged all peoples to be proud of their ethnic and religious identities, except for Jews.

Israel initially attempted to respond to these criticisms, but quickly realized that speaking would require it once again to inhale and thus draw upon itself further global ire.

And so, Israel stopped breathing altogether.

This action, clearly aimed to destroy the regional economy and destabilize the entire Middle East, triggered instantaneous worldwide condemnation.

Flotilla Farce Redux

As I write this,  the British media is falling over itself to condemn Israel anew. Yesterday a boat bearing terrorists attempted to reach Israeli shores; Israel managed to reach them first and opened fire. As would the defence forces of any sane, democratic nation on our planet.

Of course, the BBC and the Daily Mail, among others, are horrified at this event – what, Jews, defending themselves against terrorism? Whatever next?!

The Mail suggests that this latest terror threat doesn’t actually exist, while the BBC persists in referring to the Islamic militants on board the flotilla as ‘aid workers’.

The British media should be anti terrorism – and as a result should have the decency to at least put forward Israeli responses. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that Brits themselves were being slaughtered by the same terrorists who this week are so cheerfully running rings about both Israel and the court of world opinion.

Here is Melanie Phillips – do note the edits at the end of her article, both of which are significant.

Peace convoy’? This was an Islamist terror ambush

As the international community rushes to condemn Israel for the violence on board one of the ships in the Gaza flotilla, which left a reported 10 people dead and dozens injured, it is now obvious that the real purpose of this ‘armada of hate’ was not merely the further delegitimisation of Israel but something far worse.

Gaza’s markets are full of produce, thousands of tons of supplies are travelling into Gaza every week through the Israeli-controlled border crossings, and there is no starvation or humanitarian crisis.

It was always obvious that the flotilla was not the humanitarian exercise it was said to be. Here is footage of the IDF offering to dock the Marmara — the main flotilla ship — at Ashdod and transfer its supplies and being told ‘Negative, negative, our destination is Gaza’.

And now we can see that the real purpose of this invasion — backed by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a radical Islamic organization outlawed by Israel in 2008 for allegedly serving as a major component in Hamas’s global fund-raising machine — was to incite a violent uprising in the Middle East and across the Islamic world. As I write, reports are coming in of Arab rioting in Jerusalem.

The notion – uncritically swallowed by the lazy, ignorant and bigoted BBC and other western media – that the flotilla organisers are ‘peace activists’ is simply ludicrous. This research by the Danish Institute for International Studies details the part played by the IHH in Islamist terror in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

According to the French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere testifying at the Seattle trial of would-be al Qaeda Millenium bomber Ahmed Ressamin, the IHH had played ‘[a]n important role’ in the al Qaeda Millenium bomb plot targeting Los Angeles airport. It was also involved in weapons trafficking, and played in addition a key role in galvanizing anti-Western sentiment among Turkish Muslims in the lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq. ‘Peace activists’ these people most certainly are not.

And this flotilla was but the latest jihadi attack, deploying the Islamists’ signature strategy of violence and media manipulation.

Here from MEMRI (via Just Journalism) is a clip showing the hysteria against Israel being whipped up on board before the ships set sail, with the chanting of intifada songs about ‘Khaybar’ – the iconic slaughter of Jews by Muslims in the 7^th century which is used as a rallying cry to kill the Jews today — and threats of ‘martyrdom’. This was not merely a propaganda stunt, but a terrorist attack.

This is what the Jerusalem Post reported earlier today about what happened last night:

According to the IDF, the international activists ‘prepared a lynch’ for the soldiers who boarded the ships at about 2 a.m. Monday morning after calling on them to stop, or follow them to the Ashdod Port several hours earlier.

… Upon boarding the ships, the soldiers encountered fierce resistance from the passengers who were armed with knives, bats and metal pipes. The soldiers used non-lethal measures to disperse the crowd. The activists, according to an IDF report, succeeded in stealing two handguns from soldiers and opened fire, leading to an escalation in violence.

Also in the Jerusalem Post, David Horowitz wrote:

Benayahu said soldiers, who had been dispatched to block the flotilla because of fears that it was carrying weaponry and other highly dangerous cargo into the Hamas-controlled Strip, were attacked with knives and bars and sharpened metal implements.

Benayahu said two pistols that had been fired were subsequently found aboard the one ship, the Marmara, on which the violence erupted. And, most dramatically, he said that one IDF soldier had his weapon snatched away by one of the ‘peace activists’ on board, that this weapon was then turned against the IDF soldiers, who came under fire, and that they had no choice but to shoot back in self-defense.

… What seems urgent now is to make publicly available footage that shows exactly what did unfold. In early afternoon, video footage screened on Israel’s Channel 2 appeared to show one of those aboard the Marmara stabbing an IDF soldier. Any such footage should have been made available hours earlier. Critically, if footage showing a soldier’s weapon being snatched and turned on the IDF troops exists, it should be broadcast, and the sooner the better.

Some of this footage is now available on the web but much of it is hard to follow: as ever, the Israelis have been far too slow in making the most telling images and information available in comprehensible form (including in English rather than in Hebrew, for heaven’s sake!).

This clip appears to show masked and armed flotilla activists beating Israeli soldiers (although here is the BBC report accompanying that footage, in which the voiceover appears to be claiming, perversely, that the people in masks were Israeli soldiers. That said, the report on Radio Four’s World at One was fair and balanced).

This clip shows an Israeli soldier being stabbed. This IDF clip and this one show attacks on the commandoes including throwing one off the deck, attacking others with a metal pole and a firebomb and an attempted kidnap of another.

It is also becoming clearer as the day wears on that, far from storming the boats in order to attack those on board, the Israelis were hopelessly ill-prepared for the violence they encountered. Israel’s Channel 10 and IDF radio have reported that the Israeli naval commandos were equipped with paint ball rifles to ensure minimum casualties among the flotilla terrorists, with their hand guns to be used only as a last resort.

The terrorists tried connecting the steel cables from the overhead helicopters to the boat’s antenna, in order to cause the helicopters to crash. Only when the terrorists beat the soldiers with iron rods, stabbed them with knives and tried to lynch them did the soldiers respond. The Israeli commandoes were pushed down stairs, thrown overboard, and shot at.

Here is a report by an Israel army radio reporter on board:

‘The activists had many things ready for an attack on the soldiers,’ Lev-Rom said, ‘including, for instance, a box of 20-30 slingshots with metal balls; these can kill. There were also all sorts of knives and many similar things. These are what they call “cold” weapons, as opposed to live fire.  It was quite clear that a lynch had been prepared.’

Lev-Rom said, however, that it appears the army, ‘even though it prepared for many different scenarios, was not ready for this one. The army seems not to have known what type of people were there and what type of weapons they had. It was hard for Israel to conceive that the ship, sponsored by the country of Turkey, would have such weapons. Israel was prepared to deal with anarchists, and instead had to deal with terrorists – that’s the feeling here.’

Here** is an even more vivid account showing how unprepared the Israeli soldiers were:

Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.

However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.

One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other ‘don’t shoot, don’t shoot,’ even though they sustained numerous blows.

The Navy commandoes were prepared to mostly encounter political activists seeking to hold a protest, rather than trained street fighters. The soldiers were told they were to verbally convince activists who offer resistance to give up, and only then use paintballs. They were permitted to use their handguns only under extreme circumstances.

The planned rush towards the vessel’s bridge became impossible, even when a second chopper was brought in with another crew of soldiers. ‘Throw stun grenades,’ shouted Flotilla 13’s commander who monitored the operation. The Navy chief was not too far, on board a speedboat belonging to Flotilla 13, along with forces who attempted to climb into the back of the ship.

The forces hurled stun grenades, yet the rioters on the top deck, whose number swelled up to 30 by that time, kept on beating up about 30 commandoes who kept gliding their way one by one from the helicopter. At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness.

Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire. The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters’ legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandoes.

It is becoming ever more clear that Islamist terror attacks like this are fiendishly staged theatrical events in which the western media – and beyond them, western governments — play an absolutely essential role in the drama.

If those media and governments refused to swallow the lies and instead called operations like this and the players behind it for what they actually are, such terrorist operations would not happen. The Islamist strategy of war against Israel is carefully calibrated to deploy the most effective weapon in its armoury in the cause of jihadi violence – the western media.

Right on cue, western governments accordingly deliver their own script in condemning the victims of terror for defending themselves. And so, courtesy of the west’s fifth columnists, yet another nail is driven into the west’s own coffin.

Let’s see whether this time the western elites show any signs of waking from their lethal trance.

Update: I am told that the Jewish Chronicle website was taken down earlier (now restored) by a massive denial of service, apparently to shut down its balanced coverage of the Ashdod flotilla incident. The JC’s teccies, and the server hosts, say this hasn’t been caused by just one or tw908o people — it’s clearly now co-ordinated and growing.

**Update 2: The journalist who wrote this account, Ron Ben-Yishai, cannot be accused of being an Israel government stooge: it was Ben-Yishai who in 1982 was first into the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila in Beirut and blew the whistle on the massacre there that had been perpetrated by the Phalangists while Ariel Sharon looked the other way.

Facts The World Forgets

Many of us are currently yelling in frustration as the world media continues to ignore facts when discussing Israel.

Right now the level of sheer hatred against the Jewish nation is frightening. Yet the basic, objective truth remains: Israel has behaved no differently than any other country would in the same situation.

For those of you who are keen to remind people of the facts, and to redress the bias perpetrated in much of the media, here are some great bullet points and also media links courtesy of Neil Lazarus:

Please Upload the following videos and pictures to YouTube.com, Facebook.com
http://www.box.net/shared/ osmxla2tal/1/43740080

• British naval and counter-terrorism expert Peter Cook on the #flotilla: Israelis with paintball guns were lynched, take a look and. (Channel 4 – UK):
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0EfG8mnAo
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• Footage from the Gaza Flotilla – How Violence Breaks Out:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaiMjAULWn0
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• Flotilla Passengers Fire Live Ammunition at IDF Soldiers:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGuwUGaI9o
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• The Turkish boat activists meant violence – watch how they use hoses, stun grenades and metal rods against the Israelis – remember, 5 of the 6 boats docked peacefully – those on the 6th were aggressive:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6sAEYpHF24
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• “Daniel in the Lions Den”: Violence of Flotilla activist supporters in LA:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABjE_7uwA0I

And here are some vital  facts:
Reproduced from: Standwithus.com

• Israel transfers about 15,000 tons of supplies and humanitarian aid every week to the people of Gaza.

• Lawyers representing the family of Gilad Shalit, the kidnapped Israeli soldier held in isolation, had asked the protestors to take aid for him, they refused.

• Israel offered the ship to dock in Ashdod port and they would transfer the aid to Gaza. This offer was made again and again – they refused.

• Israel has said that it will deliver any humanitarian aid that was in the boats to Gaza, as it does daily.

• Israel left Gaza in hopes of peace in 2005 and in return received more than 10,000 rockets and terrorist attacks. Israel has sought peace and compromise with its neighbors for all of its 62 years and it will continue to do so.

• Israel maintains a maritime blockade to ensure that weapons are not brought in by Hamas to use in attacks against Israel.

• In the past, terrorist sympathizers have used aid deliveries to smuggle items like potassium nitrate in sugar sacks and used it to make bombs. Israel cannot afford to let goods get to Hamas unchecked.

• Five boats were boarded, the protestors complied and they were safely let to shore.

• One boat – the Mavi Marmara – did not comply. That is the boat where the violence took place.

• This was meant to provoke – it was funded and organized by a Turkish Islamist organization (IHH) that has links to fundamentalist jihadi groups. The ship was flying under the Turkish flag.

• Those on board carried out pre-planned violence, armed with knives and metal bars, each soldier being attacked by a mob of a dozen extremists. They threw one soldier off the top deck of the ship.

• The Israeli government maintains that allowing the illegal flotilla to reach Hamas would have opened a corridor of smuggling of weapons to Gaza and resulting in civilian deaths.

• Using the Arabic term ‘intifada,’ Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said “We call on all Arabs and Muslims to rise up in front of Zionist embassies across the whole world.

• As the flotilla made its way to meet him in Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said this week: “If the ships reach Gaza it is a victory; if they are intercepted, it will be a victory too”.

• Turkey permitted the Marmara to fly under its flag. Turkey knew that the IHH (Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation) had organized the Flotilla, and supports the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas, several Jihadist organizations in Bosina, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere, and has ties with Al Qaeda.

• But Turkey did not prevent the Flotilla from disembarking and attacking Israel’s sovereign right to protect itself from terrorists attempting to enter Gaza.

• Now Turkey is condemning Israel for the unfortunate casualties, and is leading the charge to condemn Israel at the U.N. It is Turkey that should be condemned by the United Nations for its role in this brutal trap set for Israelis.
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• Hamas is responsible for the suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis. Their racist charter calls for Islamic domination; their stance is unchanged and they repress any Palestinians that try and counter their regime.

• Any police force in the world would respond to aggression; the provocation is the reason for this regrettable outcome. No country would allow illegal entry of any vessel into their waters without a security check.

Please, help to get these FACTS out there!

In Defence Of Israel’s Right To Self Defence!

And so the lunacy continues. As I write this, Israel is now being accused of – wait for it – piracy!

Wouldn’t you love to see what Egypt would have done if faced with a ship full of rabid enemies determined to ram her shores…?  But of course, these ‘innocent aid workers’ wouldn’t dream of trying a stunt like this with the Egyptians. And we all know it.

If you only read one article on the latest events, then make it this one by Daniel Greenfield, over at the superb Sultan Knish blog.

All photos courtesy of Sultan Knish.

The Non-Violent Murder of Jews

“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

Al Bukhari, quoted in the Hamas Charter

Let there be no mistake about it. This is about genocide. This is what it has always been about generations back, when Hamas forefather, Hassan al Banna was writing fan letters to Hitler.

A Non-violent Gaza Flotilla Activist

This in a single paragraph is Hamas. This is what it stands for. And this is what anyone who talks about “the People of Gaza” really supports.

The “People of Gaza” is a euphemism for Hamas which won the last PA election and rules with popular support in Gaza. Israel responded to this takeover by a genocidal terrorist group by closing its border with Gaza. Hamas cynically responded by lying and claiming to be out of power and starving. That allowed their supporters to try and pass off their pro-Hamas agenda as a humanitarian agenda.

But real humanitarians don’t sympathize with only one side in a conflict where civilians on both sides are dying. Real humanitarians don’t bring guns and knives on a humanitarian mission. And real humanitarians don’t chant calls for the murder of Jews calling themselves “The Army of Mohammed”.

That’s what the pack of racist Islamist killers hiding behind their Western useful idiots did. And the Western useful idiots conducting a propaganda mission on behalf of a terrorist organization are no better than the murderers who exploited them.

The Hamas charter begins with a quote from Hassan al Banna calling for the destruction of Israel. Hassan al Banna was an ally of Hitler whose movement distributed Arabic translations of Mein KampfGaza Flotilla was as cynical an expedition as if a bunch of Nazi supporters had gotten in a boat to bring supplies to Berlin in 1944.

The Hamas supporters on board the Gaza flotilla called themselves the Freedom Flotilla. A brilliantly Orwellian name, considering that they were headed to support an organization that had eliminated what little freedom there had been in Gaza. Hamas had banned music, outlawing the piano, the flute and the violin because they weren’t in the Koran.

It banned mixed sex music festivals and jeans. It imposed a curfew on public gatherings It banned male hairdressers and women riding on motorcycles. Its morality police have carried out brutal murders of women they decided were immoral. The lack of freedom in Gaza had one common denominator. Hamas. And the Anti-Freedom Flotilla were there to give Hamas a propaganda victory.

Israel sent aboard soldiers armed with paintball guns and stun grenades expecting token resistance from entitled Western left wing protesters. Instead the Westerners were serving as beards for Turkish Islamic radicals.

The IDF force functioned under strict rules of engagement that prevented them from defending themselves until the situation escalated so badly that soldiers were suffering serious injuries including gunshot wounds. Only then did the Israeli soldiers return fire with live ammunition. Long after any military or police force would have done so.

Hamas leader Haniyeh speaks under Turkish flag

Turkey’s Islamist regime of Erdogan which recently vowed to repeat the Armenian Genocide, if the Armenians continued to protest about it, lost no time in staging protest rallies and delivering self-righteous condemnations.

Over a violent encounter that their own people deliberately staged with exactly this intended outcome. And the hypocritical double standard of a world community that gave Erdogan a pass for openly threatening ethnic cleansing, even as he seeks to join the EU, will now begin their usual howls of hypocritical outrage. “Massacre”. “Genocide.” “Human Rights.”

The truth is that there is hardly a regime in the Muslim world that could spell “Human Rights” if those magic words weren’t a useful weapon against those damned infidels.

Turkey’s Erdogan in addition to his genocidal threats is busy jailing opposition politicians, raiding synagogues and imposing religiouswhich jailed Western backpackers for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, have done to a ship filled with radicals trying to kill its soldiers?

What would Saudi Arabia do, which doesn’t even allow Westerners into Mecca unless they’re there to suppress a domestic uprising? Both countries are Hamas backers. And this is how Hamas treats resistance. By throwing them off roofs.

But genocide and massacres don’t even merit a sigh when carried out by Muslim regimes. But when those countries arm and fund a genocidal Islamist group inspired by the Nazis, the liars and phonies demand that Israel open up its borders to its terrorists.

And when Israel intercepts a ship carrying out a mission of propaganda for Hamas, those same liars and phonies start shrieking, “Massacre,” “Genocide” and “Human Rights”.

You want to see massacres, genocide and human rights– take a weekend trip to Tehran, try to buy a bus ticket to Mecca, run for office in Ankara or try to be a Christian in Karachi.

Turkish group on Flotilla burns US flag

This is about genocide. The Muslim massacre and ethnic cleansing of Jews. A history that goes back to Mohammed, who ethnically cleansed Jews from the Arabian Peninsula.

When the “non-violent killers” on board the flotilla chanted, “Remember Khaibar, Khaibar, Oh Jews. The Army of Mohammed will Return!“, they were invoking an ugly history of over a thousand years of Muslim oppression and butchery of the region’s Jews. Those non-Muslims on board were collaborators in the latest phase of that genocide.

There is no such thing as the non-violent murder of Jews. Supporting the murder of Jews is not a “humanitarian mission“, unless your ideas of humanitarian mission match those of Hitler, Hassan al Banna and Hamas.

This is indeed about our freedom and genocide. Our right to be free of those who carry out their fanatical dreams of mass murder, whether they happen to be Austrian painters, Hamas politicians or Irish Nobel Prize winners.

The State of Israel will not serve the same purpose that Jews have always served for 2000 years, to be the whipping boy of hypocritical moralists. Nor will we apologize for refusing to be murdered. And if you want to kill us, expect us to fight back. Fight us with words, and we will fight back with words. Fight us with knives and guns, and we will do the same. We will not be murdered. We will not be driven into the sea. We will not die. Get used to it.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him
’Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac

Neighborhood Bully, Bob Dylan

Since When Do ‘innocent aid workers’ STAB people?

Let’s be crystal clear on this: what happened was not a conflict between ‘innocent aid workers’ and Israeli soldiers. It was between armed, violent, gagging-to-fight Hamas supporters and the Israeli army.

Here, posted by the always vigilant Elder Of Ziyon, is footage of one of these ‘aid workers’ STABBING an Israeli:

Israeli Civilians Are Targets Yet Again

Once again, we have Palestinian Arabs openly aiming to kill Israeli civilians.

Via the Toronto Sun:

Palestinians said Tuesday they had launched a large number of floating explosives into the Mediterranean Sea to avenge the death of a top Hamas commander, a day after two bomb-laden barrels washed up on Israel’s coastline.

Israeli authorities launched an intensive search for new bombs, closing miles of beaches, deploying robotic bomb squads and ordering surfers out of the wintry waters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas and hinted at retaliation.

Abu Saed, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, a Gaza faction with close ties to Hamas, said the attack was meant to avenge the killing last month of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a veteran Hamas operative who Israeli defence officials say was involved in smuggling rockets into Gaza.

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“We confirm that there are still many of these charges in the ocean, and they haven’t exploded yet,” Abu Saed said, standing alongside five other gunmen in military fatigues.

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu accused Hamas, which rules Gaza, of being behind the operation, with support from Iran and Syria.

“We view with great severity the Hamas operation near the Gaza beach, and we will respond accordingly,” he said.

On Monday afternoon, a barrel bomb washed up on the beach of Ashkelon, about nine miles (15 kilometres) north of Gaza. A few hours later, another one was found at Ashdod, six miles (10 kilometres) farther north.

Each had about 22 pounds (10 kilograms ) of explosives, police said. They said bombs of that size could cripple small civilian vessels but not Israeli warships.

The second barrel blew up as a police robot was examining it, sending the tractor-like device tumbling through the air, according to witnesses. A police bomb squad defused the other one.

Maritime authorities warned sailors and fishermen to be alert to possible dangers in the waters. In Ashdod, a crane-like robot crawled along the beach, prodding suspicious objects.

The military linked the barrels to two explosions at sea on Friday, aimed at Israeli ships. Israeli analysts speculated that the beach barrels might have been meant for ships but floated ashore instead.

“The attack was an intended terrorist attack that failed,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Let’s note again, that when Israel finally responded to Hamas terrorism, by striking terrorist enclaves in Gaza, the Israeli military risked its own soldiers’ lives by actually alerting the Palestinians as to where they were about to strike. Israel phoned every single home in Gaza and asked civilians to stay away from any Hamas compounds that were about to be hit.

Palestinian Arab terrorists have no such conscience.  They have always been more than happy to go after innocent Israeli civilians.

Would Birmingham Uni Also Invite Neo Nazis?

Ask yourselves: would the University of Birmingham ever allow – let alone invite – an anti Muslim speaker to address students…?

What about if this same anti Muslim bigot openly advocated the murder of Muslims and supported an organisation that did precisely that…?

The answer to both is, of course, a resounding ‘NO!’.

Yet this same University has recently invited Hamas supporter and known anti semite, Azzam Tamimi, to address its students.

MP Denis MacShane has written to the university’s Vice Chancellor urging him to cancel  Tamimi’s talk, but the university has refused to intervene, saying the talk should go ahead in the name of ‘freedom of speech’.

Here is what Hamas openly states about Jews. And let’s remember that Hamas was spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood – the very same group which also founded Al Queda.

Hamas:

Operation Cast Lead – One Year On

One year on from Israel’s response to years of Hamas terrorism, and here are some vital statistics you’re not going to find in, say, the Guardian. Or on the BBC website. Or anywhere in the Western media, in fact.

 

Courtesy of The Israel Project:

 

Key Statistics

• 1 million:

– Israeli civilians under threat from Hamas rocket fire.

• 15 Seconds:

– Israelis have to get to a bomb shelter once a warning siren has sounded

• 2 million:

– Leaflets the Israel Air Force dropped on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, warning civilians to stay clear of Hamas fighters.

• 200,000:

-Phone calls made by the Israeli army to civilians in Gaza warning of an impending strike near their residences.

• 8: Years:

– Israel has endured rocket, missile and mortar fire from Gaza.

• 1:

– Israeli left in Gaza – Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas from Israel on June 25, 2006.

• 3,200+:

-Rockets and mortar fired from Gaza in 2008.

• 6,500+:

– Rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

• 10,389:

– Rockets and mortars fired from Gaza 2001-2008.

• 1,000+:

– People in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001.

• 270:

– Rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since the end of Operation Cast Lead, Jan. 18 – Nov. 31, 2009.

Iran-Backed Hamas Terrorism

• 17:

– Attacks on Gaza goods crossings by Palestinian terrorist groups in 2008.

• 80%

– of mosques in Gaza which Hamas reportedly controls, some of which are used for weapons storage, command and communications headquarters.

• 37 mi (60km):

– Range of Hamas rockets in Gaza acquired after Operation Cast Lead.

• 2.5 mi (4 km):

– Range of Hamas’s anti-tank missiles, smuggled into Gaza since the end of Operation Cast Lead.

• 1,500:

– Number of smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt (estimate)

• 59 ft (18 m)/6.8 mi (11 km):

– Length and depth of metal fence Egypt is building on Sinai-Gaza border to prevent tunnel smuggling operations.

• 22 mi (35 km):

– Distance between Gaza and Yavneh – the northernmost Israeli city hit by Gaza rockets on Dec. 28, 2008.

• 900:

– Hamas operatives trained by Iran.

• $20 million – $30 million:

– Funding Iran provides annually to Hamas. Iran gave Hamas another $50 million following Hamas’s victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections.

Israel’s Humanitarian Aid to Gaza

Yes – even as Gazans were sending suicide bombers and missiles into Israeli civilian areas, Israel continued sending aid into Gaza!

• 900%

– increase in humanitarian aid delivered to Gaza in 2009, compared to 2008.

• 630,253:

– Tons of humanitarian aid delivered to the Gaza Strip, Jan. 19 – Dec. 13, 2009.

• 24.5 million gallons (92.7 million liters):

– Heavy-duty diesel fuel delivered to the Gaza Strip, Jan. 19 – Oct. 31, 2009.

• 10,346:

– Gaza residents who entered Israel for medical and humanitarian reasons, Jan.19 – Nov. 7, 2009.

• 57,295 tons:

– Monthly average of humanitarian aid entering Gaza since Operation Cast Lead, Jan. 19 – Dec. 5, 2009.

• 11,508:

Monthly average (in tons) of humanitarian aid entering Gaza from February – June 2008, a period of intense rocket fire.

• 34,253 tons:

– Monthly average of humanitarian aid entering Gaza during period of calm, July – December 2008.

• 18,500:

– Permits Israel issued to Gaza residents to enter Israel or travel overseas in 2009.

• 28,400:

– Flowers from Gaza scheduled for export to Europe on Dec. 10, 2009.

• 250,000:

– Flowers from Gaza scheduled for export beginning Dec. 13, 2009.

Fatah: We Will Never Recognise Israel

Fatah leaders have declared that the group will never agree to recognise Israel’s right to exist – and that it will continue to wage war against the Jewish homeland.

 “Fatah does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, nor have we ever asked others to do so,” said senior Fatah member Rafik Natsheh, a close associate of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

In an interview with the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Natsheh scorned reports that Fatah had called on Hamas to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist:  “It’s all media nonsense. We don’t ask other factions to recognize Israel; we ourselves do not recognize Israel.”

Fatah runs the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian Authority does recognise Israel; if it didn’t it would be ‘unable to serve the Palestinian people,” Natsheh explained. However, Fatah does not have such constraints.

Fatah will never stop attacking Israel. Natsheh stated:  “Let those who are deluding themselves hear: this will never happen.”

A second senior Fatah member, Azzam el-Ahmed, agreed that Fatah would not drop its call to wage war on Israel.

Natsheh and Ahmed gave interviews in advance of the Fatah general assembly in early August, in which the organization will meet to discuss its goals and to hold elections. The meeting will be the first in approximately 20 years.

A Message For ‘Reader X’ aka It’s My Blog And I’ll Ban Who I Want To!

.

 

Is freedom of speech absolute?

Here’s a candid answer: not for readers of my blog.

I make no apologies for this stance. Only one person has total free speech in this particular arena – and that’s me!

 

I’ve been pondering  ‘freedom of speech’ because I stand accused of ‘blocking opinions differing from your own’. My accuser? A regular poster on Jew With A View that I’ve now had to, reluctantly, bar from posting full stop.

 

Of course, most bloggers ban those who submit abusive or racist comments. 

 

 

It’s just common sense. But what about banning someone who is usually polite..?

  

 

Is it ‘wrong’?  Does it ‘prove’ that I ban dissent, especially when it comes to the topic of Israel…?   I can’t respond privately to this person, hence this post.

 

  

Truth is, I welcome dissenting opinions. Genuinely. Blogging would be mighty dull if everyone who posted here was just echoing my views!

Nor do I claim to be ‘right’ in all I say. Indeed, if I make factual errors, I hope someone will correct me and I am most grateful when they do! Hell, I’m appreciative when anyone takes the time to post a comment, and I hope regulars especially, know this

Let’s call the person I’ve banned Reader X. He knows who he is. He’s posted many long comments on this blog and that was fine, though I passionately disagree with him. But as he seems a reasonably decent soul, and as he’s taken the trouble to express his views, I’ve welcomed his thoughts.

 

But here’s the thing. Everyone has the right to their own opinions.  But nobody has the right to their own facts. That’s where a line exists, and it can’t be crossed if one still wants any form of rational discourse.

The discrepancy between these two was illustrated vividly back in 2007 when Oxford University decided to allow known Holocaust Denier David Irving, and his fellow weasel BNP head Nick Griffin, to speak at the Union debate.

 

The move was publicly condemned by Jewish and Muslim students alike, along with anti facism activists and numerous politicians – several of whom cancelled membership of the Oxford Union as a result.

 

But Oxford Union was unrepentant. These two racist twits had, it declared, the right to ‘freedom of speech’.

 

Wrong.

 

  

What they had was  freedom of opinion. But that doesn’t mean any institution, let alone Oxford, should offer them a platform to spread their malice.

 

If Irving and Griffin wish to go around peddling their mad and subjective belief that six million Jews did not perish, that is their right to do so – within the confines of their homes and in hushed conversations with their fellow neo Nazis.

 

But once they start publicly twisting and misrepresenting objective facts in their bid to deny history, then no. A thousand times, no.  They don’t have any unconditional, inalienable ‘right’ to do that.  Nor did Oxford Union have any ‘duty’ to help them.

 

I have the right to declare a disbelief in gravity. Does Oxford Union have any obligation to provide a platform for me to unveil my copious notes and ideas in ‘support’ of this idea…?

 

No, of course not – and nor would  Oxford dream of doing so!  Yet when it suits, countless individuals and institutions play the ‘freedom of speech’ card in order to promote all manner of absurd, irrational and sometimes dangerous beliefs.

Which brings us to Reader X. He has repeatedly stated: ‘I insist that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation’.

 

Well, dear Reader X, you may continue to insist this, and deny reality, as much as you like. Go on – knock yourself out!

  

But not on my blog.

  

 

Any group which attacks and kills unarmed, innocent civilians, is a terrorist group. Yep – it’s as black and white as that. Thus when Hamas sent suicide bombers onto two Israeli buses, killing sixteen people, including a 3 year old child,  that was terrorism. End of.

 

I’m not remotely interested in Reader X’s apologetics for Hamas. Nor will I feel bad for denying his ‘right’ to publicly condone them. He can seek to justify and rationalise and apologise for Hamas terrorism all he likes.

  

But not on my blog.

 

Nor do I accept that Reader X has any ‘right’ to use my blog to condone bigotry.

Last week I posted a story about how a top Obama aide cheerfully shared a platform with a man who then claimed that Hurricane Katrina was G-d’s ‘punishment’ towards Gay people, and that Jews are seeking to ‘control the world’.

 

Most sane people recognise this bigotry towards Gays and Jews for what it is: appalling. Likewise, they understand that it is not OK for a top Obama aide to share a platform with and thus legitimise someone expressing such spite.

But what did Reader X think? ‘It’s good that Obama is prepared to talk to lots of people.’

Er, right…

 Again, if Reader X wants to support anti Gay and Anti Jewish bigotry, he’s free to do so.

  

 But not on my blog.

 

In particular, Reader X has condemned my apparent unwillingness to allow dissenting opinions on Israel. So let’s clarify.

 

If someone wants to criticise Israeli policies, they are free to do so. If someone wants to post condemnation of specific decisions made by Israel or particular Israeli politicians, they are free to do this too.  If their posts are based on facts and – this is key – an accurate understanding of the situation.

 

But when someone makes it clear that they don’t even know the term ‘palestinian’ always referred to Palestinian Jews, and when they then try and ‘prove’ their case by anecdotal evidence, and when all they do is regurgitate weary old Arab propaganda that has been disproven time and again – then no, I don’t have any obligation to publish this person’s misconceptions.

  

There are countless sites out there where Reader X can share his inaccurate ideas on Israel.

My blog is not one of them.

 

And finally, Reader X,  I reserve the right to reject your blatant hypocrisy. For example, you have often stated that you trust the UN. Thus if the UN condemns Israel for something, it is  ‘good enough‘ for you – note, I’m using your own words here.

Yet at the same time, you ignore that the UN also stated in a resolution that Hezbollah should have disarmed.   But you don’t care what the UN says about this. Indeed,  only recently you tried to submit a post claiming that Hezbollah has nothing to do with terrorism!

This is rank  hypocrisy. When the UN condemns Israel, it’s acceptable. But when the UN condemns Palestinian and Islamic terrorism, it gets ignored. Again Reader X, you’re free to practise this hypocrisy.

  

But not on my blog.

 

Finally, and most egregiously, Reader X, you showed how little value you attache to Jewish life, any Jewish life, by your response to the recent update on murdered and tortured French Jew Ilan Halimi.

Responding to this post, what did you say?  You spoke of Palestinians in prison in Israel – and did not say a single word about the way that this young French man was abducted, tortured, set alight and killed by French Muslims. Muslims who admitted to being obsessed with killing Jews and who actually phoned the victim’s parents and quoted to them from the Quran.

Now of course, you’re not obliged to respond to the Ilan Halimi post at all. But to submit a response to it  that totally ignores his death? That is in poor taste and again, just reveals your hypocrisy. You care so much for Palestinian Arabs – yet don’t give a damn when Jewish blood is spilled.

 

And so, Reader X, if you are indeed looking at this post: don’t tell me that you’re ‘objective‘ and ‘fair‘ when it comes to any topic connected to either Israel or anti Jewish sentiment. You’re not. At least have the integrity to acknowledge your own bias and blatant double standards.

 

And if at any time you decide to adopt a fairer approach, then you are most welcome to post here again.

But, until and unless that time arrives, you’ll have to take your right to condone terrorism and bigotry and exercise it on other blogs –  ’cause you ‘aint doing it on this one!

Britain, Israel, And A Case Of Rank Hypocrisy

 

 

David Miliband must have enjoyed himself today. For finally, Britain’s Foreign Secretary got to announce an arms embargo on Israel.  Never mind that Britain itself sent soldiers thundering into two foreign countries.  The embargo might only have been declared today, but ever since Israel retaliated against Hamas at the end of last year, Britain has been waiting eagerly for this day to arrive.

 

Indeed, during Operation Cast Lead, nowhere was condemnation of Israel louder than in Britain. It’s a matter of public record that Muslims across the country bombarded their MPs with demands for Britain to sever all ties with the Jewish nation. Three British politicians, including Louise Ellman, received death threats purely because they had the guts to remind both parliament and the media that Israel had endured eight years of terrorism before finally responding.

 

The British media, led by the Guardian, threw out journalistic ethics entirely, dispensed with context, and swapped fact for fiction as they repeatedly ignored Hamas terrorism against Israeli civilians.

 

Forget the obscene suicide bombings that Hamas had routinely unleashed on Israel. Forget the roll call of women, children and babies who had died at the hands of Hamas operatives.  Forget the fact that when Israel left Gaza, it did so because this departure was deemed – by the international community – to be a necessary condition for DEcreased terrorism.

 

Forget all that. Nobody gave a damn. Israel had gone into Gaza to get rid of Hamas terrorists and that was all the media and the government cared about. What – Jews, defending themselves? How dare they. 

 

During this period I attended a meeting at the House of Commons, organised in fact by a Christian group whose members were distraught at the way Israel was being demonised. There, we were told by a small number of politicians, that the atmosphere in parliament was ‘poisonous’.  An out and out hate-fest was going on, and the few souls who spoke up for Israel were being shouted down and ‘bullied’ on a daily basis.

 

And so, here we are some months later, and finally the British government has done what it was longing to. In other words, punished Israel, publicly, for fighting its own War On Terror. Britain has revoked five export licenses, in what it calls in Brit-speak, a ‘gesture’.

 

I’m making a gesture right now, as it happens. It involves the middle finger of my right hand and I’m sure you can imagine to whom I’m directing it.

 

Because let’s face it, Britain’s hypocrisy here is staggering. How many civilians have died because of British troops, in Afghanistan and Iraq? Only yesterday, reports surfaced of British soldiers’ sadism in these countries. And yet here sits the holier-than-thou British government, judging Israel for trying to protect her own citizens?

 

Writing about the British government’s arms embargo against Israel, because of Gaza, Melanie Phillips  notes:

It says Israel’s actions were “disproportionate.” What is it talking about? The actual evidence showed that the proportion of civilians killed in Gaza was very small – far smaller than might have been expected given the tactics Hamas was using of embedding itself within the population.

 

The claims of large numbers of civilians and children killed were fabricated by Hamas and recycled by the Israel-bashers of the UN and media. Far from being “disproportionate,” Cast Lead was a carefully targeted operation which, given the circumstances, was astonishingly successful in its aim of confining its attack to terrorist operatives.

 

  The false flag of “disproportionality” is hoisted only by those who find it “disproportionate” that Israel should ever defend itself against the Palestinians by military means at all. Israelis are expected instead passively to die under rocket and bomb attack – or perhaps live in shelters for ever. That’s proportionate.

 

 

 

 

Britain showed its true colours today.  Several months back, David Miliband called for new coalition of consent’ between the West and the Islamic world. And if he has to hand Israel over on a platter to achieve this, then that’s just what he and the rest of the dhimmi Labour government will do.

 

Has Dershowitz Lost The Plot?

 

Alan Dershowitz is apparently either unable, or unwilling, to talk straight when it comes to Obama‘s hypocrisy re Israel.  And it is truly a terrible thing to read Dershowitz’s pathetic rationalisations of the suicidal ‘compromises’ Israel is being pressured to make at the behest of the Obama administration.

 

Melanie Phillips says it best:

 

The American lawyer Alan Dershowitz is one of the most prolific, high-profile and indefatiguable defenders of Israel and the Jewish people against the tidal wave of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feeling currently coursing through the west. So a piece by him in the Wall Street Journal giving expression to the rising anxiety being felt about Obama by American Jews naturally arouses great interest.

 

But just like the majority of American Jews, getting on for 80 per cent of whom voted for Obama, he is a Democrat supporter who is incapable of acknowledging the truth about this President. For most American Jews, the horror of even entertaining the hypothetical possibility that they might ever in a million years have to vote for a Republican is so great they simply cannot see what is staring them in the face — that this Democratic President is lethal for both Israel and the free world.

 

And in this article Dershowitz shows that he too is just as blind. Acknowledging the anxiety among some American Jews about Obama’s attitude to Israel, Dershowitz concludes uneasily that there isn’t really a problem here because all Obama is doing is putting pressure on Israel over the settlements, which most American Jews don’t support anyway.

 

But this is totally to miss the point. The pressure over the settlements per se is not the reason for the intense concern. It is instead, first and foremost, the fact that Obama is treating Israel as if it is the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Obama thus inverts aggressor and victim, denying Israel’s six-decade long victimisation and airbrushing out Arab aggression.

 

The question remains: why has Obama chosen to pick a fight with Israel while soft-soaping Iran which is threatening it with genocide? The answer is obvious: Israel is to be used to buy off Iran just as Czechoslovakia was used at Munich.

 

Indeed, I would say this is worse even than that, since I suspect that Obama – coming as he does from a radical leftist milieu, with vicious Israel-haters amongst his closest friends — would be doing this to Israel even if Iran was not the problem that it is.

 

In any event, the double standard is egregious. Obama has torn up his previous understandings with Israel over the settlements while putting no pressure at all on the Palestinians, even though since they are the regional aggressor there can be no peace unless they end their aggression and certainly not until they accept Israel as a Jewish state, which they have said explicitly they will never do.

 

On this, Obama is totally silent. So too is Dershowitz. That’s some omission.

 

Next, Obama is pressuring Israel to set up a Palestine state – within two years this will exist, swaggers Rahm Emanuel. But everyone knows that as soon as Israel leaves the West Bank, Hamas – or even worse – will take over. The only reason the (also appalling) Abbas is still in Ramallah, enabling Obama to pretend there is a Palestinian interlocutor for peace, is because the Israelis are keeping Hamas at bay.

 

Yet Dershowitz writes: “There is no evidence of any weakening of American support for Israel`s right to defend its children from the kind of rocket attacks candidate Obama commented on during his visit to Sderot.”

 

 So what exactly does he think would happen if Israel came out of the West Bank and the Hamas rockets were down the road from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (literally: many in the west have absolutely no idea how tiny Israel is). It’s not a question of Israel’s ‘right to defend its children’.

 

If Obama has his way, Israel would not be able to defend its children or anyone else, because Obama would have removed its defences by putting its enemies in charge of them.

 

It is astounding that Dershowitz can’t see this. Then there was Obama’s appalling Cairo speech — which I wrote about here – in which he conspicuously refrained from committing himself to defending Zionism and the Jewish people from the attacks and incitement to genocide against them, but committed himself instead to defending their attackers against ‘negative stereotyping’.

 

On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Worse still, by falsely asserting that the Jewish aspiration for Israel derived from the Holocaust, Obama effectively denied that the Jewish people were in Israel as of right and thus endorsed the core element of the Arab and Muslim propaganda of war and extermination.

 

On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Obama drew a vile – and telling – equivalence between the Nazi extermination camps and the Palestinian ‘refugee’ camps. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Obama`s statement that the Palestinians ‘have suffered in pursuit of a homeland’ was grossly and historically untrue, and again denied Arab aggression. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say.

 

Equally vilely, Obama equated genocidal terrorism by the Palestinians with the civil rights movement in America and the resistance against apartheid in South Africa. On all of this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Dershowitz also grossly underplays the terrible harm Obama is doing to the security not just of Israel but the world through his reckless appeasement of Iran.

 

In the last few weeks, this has actively undercut the Iranian democrats trying to oust their tyrannical regime, and has actually strengthened that regime. All the evidence suggests ever more strongly that Obama has decided America will ‘live with’ a nuclear Iran, whatever it does to its own people. Which leaves Israel hung out to dry.

 

 But even here, where he is clearly most concerned, Dershowitz scuttles under his comfort blanket – Dennis Ross, who was originally supposed to have been the US special envoy to Iran but was recently announced senior director of the National Security Council and special assistant to the President for the region. It is not at all clear whether this ambiguous development represents a promotion or demotion for Ross.

 

Either way, for Dershowitz to rest his optimism that Obama’s Iran policy will be all right on the night entirely upon the figure of Dennis Ross is pathetic. Ross, a Jew who played Mr. Nice to Robert Malley’s Mr. Nasty towards Israel in the Camp David debacle under President Clinton, is clearly being used by Obama as a human shield behind which he can bully Israel with impunity.

 

American Jews assume that his proximity to Obama means the President’s intentions towards Israel are benign. Dazzled by this vision of Ross as the guarantor of Obama’s good faith, they thus ignore altogether the terrible import of the actual words coming out of the President’s mouth.

 

The fact is that many American Jews are so ignorant of the history of the Jewish people, the centrality of Israel in its history and the legality and justice of its position that they probably saw nothing wrong in Obama saying that the Jewish aspiration for Israel came out of the Holocaust because they think this too.

 

Nor do they see the appalling double standard in the bullying of Israel over the settlements and what that tells us about Obama’s attitude towards Israel, because – as Dershowitz himself makes all too plain — they too think in much the same way, that the settlements are the principal obstacle to peace. Many if not most American Jews have a highly sentimentalised view of Israel. They never go there, are deeply ignorant of its history and current realities, and are infinitely more concerned with their own view of themselves as social liberals, a view reflected back at themselves through voting for a Democrat President.

 

 Whatever else he is, however, Dershowitz is certainly not ignorant. Which makes this lamentable article all the more revealing, and depressing.

The Truth About The ‘free gaza’ Mob

Here’s an interesting piece from Arutz Sheva:

 

 

Israel: Don’t Blow It Again

 

by Lee Kaplan

 

The recent news reports that the IDF Navy boarded the latest ISM boats sailing from Cyprus to Gaza show that the new Netanyahu administration is at least displaying some common sense regarding the International Solidarity Movement.

 

However, even the Israeli media plays the fool in describing these people on board as “peace activists”.

 

The most amusing thing about this group, on their seventh voyage to Gaza, is how they claimed in their email communiques that the IDF Navy jammed all their phones, communications and navigation equipment –  and then in the next sentence went on to explain their exact position moment to moment at sea and the latest news from their leaders on the boat.

 

But, then again, lying for activists in the ISM is old hat. Even more amusing are the ranting of “US Presidential candidate” Cynthia McKinney. Israel National News readers should watch this video where McKinney claims 5,000 US citizens were executed with bullets to the head by the Bush administration during the Katrina storm. Yeah, sure, Israel should listen to this world famous politician.

 

The ISM “peace activists” on board then revealed more lies; they were carrying tons of cement for Gaza, but when captured only had one “symbolic” bag of cement. They also claimed to be carrying tons of medical supplies that just weren’t there. Between screams of “violations of international law” these clowns were busy working again to aid Hamas.

 

They called on the Red Cross to help them. Funny how they don’t cite international law, nor ask the Red Cross to help get Gilad Shalit released from the Free Gaza group’s Hamas buddies.

 

But the biggest clown of all on these boat trips is Huwaida Arraf. Ms. Arraf, for some unknown reason, is untouchable by the Israeli justice system even though she is an Israeli-US dual citizen through her father, a former Israeli Arab.

 

To date – despite admitting at ISM conferences at Duke University and Georgetown over the last few years, and even in a letter to the Washington Post, that she and the ISM work closely with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PFLP, and despite her rushing into the Church of the Nativity to aid terrorists held up inside, and despite her training international anarchists to come to Israel and assist terrorist groups in fomenting riots and assaults on Israeli soldiers and Border Guards, and despite her interfering with an Israeli soldier in a closed military zone, and now, despite her sailing seven trips illegally to Gaza to bring supplies to Hamas, for which she was given a medal by Ismail Haniyah – the Israeli foreign ministry and justice department still hasn’t made up their minds to prosecute this woman under Israeli law, as an Israeli national, and make her serve jail time.

 

The ISM is run by the Palestinian Arabs with Saudi money and Iranian help. Its purpose is to roil the war with the Jews until Israel is gone. Everything the ISM does has been with the okay of the Palestinian Fatah leadership. That is, until Fatah began cooperating a little with the Israelis and the ISM leadership felt its fortune should now lie with Hamas.

 

In America, constant repeat offenders eventually are prosecuted and punished by the law. By what stretch of logic should the foreign ministry in Israel consider not prosecuting and imprisoning Huwaida Arraf?

 

At the same time, one has to wonder what Ms. Arraf’s relations are with the US State Department. She was an employee of State working in Jerusalem when her husband, Adam Shapiro, another US State Department employee at the time, and Yasser Arafat founded the ISM during the standoff at the Mukata.

 

The Israeli justice ministry and security services have a slam-dunk case against this woman, and removing her from the international media circus will only serve to hasten an end to the conflict that is supposed to lead to two states (Arraf and company want one state, with Israel destroyed). Arraf already has a battery of Communist lawyers in Israel rushing to her defense. But let’s face it, her rap sheet is so long she can’t possibly beat it this time if any competent prosecutor takes her case; and she does belong in an Israeli jail.

 

To all this I say: Hear O Israel! Don’t blow it again with the ISM and the Gaza flotilla. Prosecute and punish Huwaida Arraf and send a message that on the next voyage there will be more people on board prosecuted.

 

Oh, yes, and take their boats and sell them to recover the costs of the IDF Navy having to go out so many times and stop them. The Israeli taxpayers deserve a break for that one also.

 

Next stop should be to outlaw the ISM altogether as a terrorist support group, which it is.

 

If Israel can take out the terrorist leadership with Apache helicopters, she should be able to take out Huwaida Arraf simply by enforcing the laws on the books against an Israeli citizen who is violating them.

Joseph Farah On Obama’s ‘Auschwitz Borders’

 

American Arab journalist Joseph Farah is one of the few commentators who talks straight about what Obama is trying to do to Israel.  Here he makes it clear what Obama is really doing:

 

Barack Obama is taking what he and his administration refer to as “a more balanced approach to Middle East policy.”

Let me explain what that literally means in real terms.

It means the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank.

 

 I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of Israel – let alone their own country.

 

Of course, that would never happen with “a more balanced approach to the Middle East.”

 

It’s the 1930s all over again. This time, it’s the enlightened liberal voices of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who are telling Jews where they can live, how they can live and how far they must bend if they want to live at all. I know you haven’t heard it put like this before. I don’t really understand why.

 

There is simply no other accurate way to explain the machinations behind the latest demands on Israel from the West and the rest of the world. Israel is being reduced to “Auschwitz borders.” Jews have already been told they can no longer live in the Gaza Strip.

 

Now they are being told they can no longer choose to live in any of the areas being set aside by international elites for a future Palestinian state.

 

Again, I ask: Why would internationalists seek to create, by definition, a racist, anti-Jewish state that doesn’t even tolerate the mere presence of Jews? Can anyone answer that question for me?

 

Obama and Clinton – and, thus, by definition, you and me, the taxpayers of the United States – have determined they will yield to the racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic demands of the Palestinian Authority that no Jews be allowed to live in their new state.

 

I like to think that in any other part of the world, this kind of effort at ethnically cleansing a region would be roundly condemned by all civilized people. Yet, because most people simply don’t understand the clear, official plan by the Arab leaders to force out all Jews from the new Palestinian state, the policies of capitulation retain a degree of sympathy, even political support, from much of the world.

 

Think about what I am saying: It is the official policy of the Palestinian Authority that all Jews must get off the land! Why is the United States supporting the creation of a new, racist, anti-Semitic hate state? Why is the civilized world viewing this as a prescription for peace in the region? Why is this considered an acceptable idea? Is there any other place in the world where that kind of official policy of racism and ethnic cleansing is tolerated – even condoned?

 

Why are the rules different in the Middle East? Why are the rules different for Arabs? Why are the rules different for Muslims? Why are U.S. tax dollars supporting the racist, anti-Semitic entity known as the Palestinian Authority?

 

That’s what we do when we forbid “settlement construction,” repairs, natural growth, additions to existing communities.  This is “balance”?

 

Are there any impositions upon the Arabs and Muslims suggesting they can no longer move to Israel? No.

 Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslims suggesting they cannot buy homes in Israel? No.

Are there any impositions on Arabs and Muslim suggesting they cannot repair their existing homes in Israel? No.

Are there any impositions on Arabs or Muslims suggesting the cannot build settlements anywhere they like? No.

 

 Now, keep in mind, there are already quite a few Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East. Many of them already forbid Jews to live in them. Some prohibit Christians as well.

 

But now, the only Jewish state in the world, and one that has a claim on the land dating back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is being told Jews must keep off land currently under their own control, but destined for transfer to people who hate them, despise them, want to see them dead and will not even accept living peacefully with them as neighbors.

 

 All the while, Israel continues to hold out its naïve hand of friendship to the Arabs and the Muslims – welcoming them in their own tiny nation surrounded by hateful neighbors.

 

Arabs and Muslims are offered full citizenship rights – and even serve in elected office. They publish newspapers and broadcast on radio and television freely. But, conversely, Jews are one step away from eviction from homes they have sometimes occupied for generations. Gaza is about to happen all over again.

 

I hope my Jewish friends remember this well. Many of them voted for Barack Obama. Many of them voted for Hillary Clinton. These are not your friends.

 

These are the same kinds of people who turned away ships of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1940s. These are the same kinds of people who appeased Adolf Hitler at Munich. These are the same kinds of people who made the reformation of the modern state of Israel so difficult.

 

I say: “No more ethnic cleansing. No more official anti-Semitism accepted. No more Jew-bashing. No more telling Jews where they can live, how they can – and if they can live.”

 

 

 

Original article at    

Palestinians Becoming Disillusioned With Hamas…?

(hat tip ‘Infidels Are Cool’)

Check out this story from the Jerusalem Post – do I spy a tiny, tiny glimmer of  hope on the horizon…? Er, no. Because of course, rival group Fatah also deny Israel’s right to exist. And the good old Palestinian Authority is no better. It seems to spend most of its time teaching four year old kids that ‘killing jews is a religious duty’. Niiiice…

Jerusalem Post:

Hamas support among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is waning, according to a survey conducted by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC).

According to the results of the poll published Monday, 18.8 percent of the Palestinian population backs the Islamist group, compared to 27% when the last JMCC survey was conducted in January.

The survey of 1,199 people also showed that 35% of Palestinians support Fatah, a nine percent rise compared with the previous survey.

23% said Hamas was responsible for the breakdown in Hamas/Fatah talks,  and 15% blamed Fatah.

Khader Khader, head of the JMCC media unit, said Hamas’s popularity was hit by disgruntlement among Gaza residents over a lack of a deal in Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks and the continued blockade of the territory.

“It’s a sort of protest by the people (of Gaza) because there is no progress on these two major issues,” Khader was quoted by Reuters as saying.