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The Consequences of a “Chickensh*t” Policy

October 29, 2014

The Consequences of a “Chickensh*t” Policy, Commentary, , October 29, 2014

There is no doubt that Obama’s lame duck years will be stressful for Israel and its friends. As Seth noted earlier today, the administration’s full court press for détente with Iran is setting the table for a strategic blunder on their nuclear quest that will severely harm the balance of power in the Middle East as well as lay the groundwork for challenges to American national security for decades to come.

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No doubt the gang in the Obama administration have been congratulating themselves for planting some juicy insults aimed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest column in The Atlantic. But now that the wiseacres in the West Wing and/or the State Department have done their dirty work the question remains what will be the consequences of the decision to widen as well as to embitter the breach between the two countries. While most of those writing on this subject, including Goldberg, have emphasized the real possibility that the U.S. will sandbag Israel at the United Nations and otherwise undermine the Jewish state’s diplomatic position in the last years of Obama’s term in office, that won’t be the only blowback from the administration’s “chickenshit” diplomacy. Rather than harm Netanyahu, this ploy, like previous attacks on the prime minister, will strengthen him while making mischief for the president’s party in both this year’s midterms and in 2016.

There is no doubt that Obama’s lame duck years will be stressful for Israel and its friends. As Seth noted earlier today, the administration’s full court press for détente with Iran is setting the table for a strategic blunder on their nuclear quest that will severely harm the balance of power in the Middle East as well as lay the groundwork for challenges to American national security for decades to come.

Nor should anyone discount the potential for severe damage to Israel’s diplomatic standing in the world should Obama decide to collude with the Palestinian Authority and to allow them to get a United Nations Security Council resolution on Palestinian statehood, borders, and Jerusalem. The Palestinians’ drive to annul Jewish rights and to bypass the peace process could, with Obama’s support, further isolate Israel and strengthen the efforts of those forces working to promote BDS—boycott, divest, sanction—campaigns that amount to an economic war on the Jewish people.

This is a dire prospect for a small, besieged country that still relieves heavily on U.S. security cooperation and defense aid. But for all the huffing and puffing on the part of Obama’s minions, the administration’s real objectives in all this plotting are not likely to be achieved. That’s because nothing published in a Goldberg column or leaked anywhere else will weaken Netanyahu’s hold on office or prompt the Palestinians to make peace or Iran to be more reasonable in the nuclear talks. The only people who will be hurt by the attacks on Israel are Obama’s fellow Democrats.

As I pointed out yesterday, Obama’s barbs aimed at Israel haven’t enticed the Palestinians to negotiate seriously in the past and won’t do so in the future. If the Palestinian Authority really wanted a state they would have accepted the one offered them in 2000, 2001, or 2008 or actually negotiated with Netanyahu in the last year after he indicated readiness to sign off on a two-state solution.

The boasts about having maneuvered Netanyahu into a position where he may not have a viable military option against Iran (actually, Israel may never have had much of an option since it can be argued that only U.S. possesses the forces required to conclusively knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities) is also nothing for the U.S. to be happy about since it will only strengthen the Iranians’ conviction that they have nothing to fear from Israel or a U.S. president that they think is too weak to stand up to them.

But Obama should have also already learned that challenging Netanyahu and insulting the Jewish state in this manner has one definite side effect: strengthening the prime minister’s political position at home. The same thing happened after Obama’s attacks on the status of Jerusalem in his first term. The administration thought it could topple Netanyahu soon after his election in February 2009 and failed, but even after his election to another term in 2013 as well as the absence of any viable alternative to him, they are still clinging to the delusion that the Israeli people will reject his policies. But that isn’t likely to happen for one reason. The overwhelming majority of Israelis may not love the prime minister but they share his belief that there is no Palestinian peace partner and that turning the West Bank into a sovereign state that could be controlled by Hamas and other terrorists just like Gaza would be madness. They also oppose efforts to divide their capital or to prohibit Jews from the right to live in some parts of the city.

Netanyahu won’t back down. In the wake of the summer war with Hamas that further undermined an Israeli left that was already in ruins after 20 years of failed peace processing, Netanyahu was clearly heading to early elections that would further strengthen the Likud. Obama’s attacks will only make that strategy more attractive to the prime minister. But whether he is reelected in 2015, 2016, or 2017, few believe Netanyahu won’t be returned to office by the voters for his third consecutive and fourth overall term as Israel’s leader. Though a lot of damage can be done to Israel in the next two years, that means Netanyahu is almost certain to be able to outlast Obama in office and to enjoy what will almost certainly be better relations with his successor whether it is a Democrat or a Republican. Waiting out Obama isn’t a good strategy for Israel but it may be the only one it has available to it and will likely be rewarded with a honeymoon with the next president.

But Netanyahu isn’t the only person who will profit politically from this astonishingly crude assault on the Jewish state’s democratically elected leader.

Foreign policy is rarely a decisive factor in U.S. elections but at a time when Democrats are suffering the ill effects of Obama’s inept response to the threat from ISIS, it won’t do the president’s party any good for the administration to pick a fight with it’s sole democratic ally in the Middle East. Americans have a right to ask why an administration that was slow to react to ISIS and is intent on appeasing a murderous Islamist regime in Iran is so intent on fighting with Israel. That won’t help embattled Democrats seeking reelection in red states where evangelicals regard backing for Israel as a key issue.

Nor will it help Democrats as they head toward 2016. Though Hillary Clinton will likely run away from Obama on his attacks on Netanyahu as she has done on other foreign-policy issues, running for what will in effect be Obama’s third term will still burden her with the need to either actively oppose the president’s anti-Israel actions in the UN or détente with Iran or accept the negative political fallout of silence. Any Republican, with the exception of an isolationist like Rand Paul, will be able to exploit this issue to their advantage.

Those who worry about the damage to Israel from a lame-duck Obama administration that is seething with hatred for Netanyahu and thinks it has nothing to lose are not wrong. But Democrats will be hurt politically by a crisis that was created by Obama, not Netanyahu. They won’t be grateful to the president for having put them in this fix while Netanyahu will probably emerge from this trial strengthened at home and in a good position to repair relations with Obama’s successor.

Categories: Hamas, Iranian nukes, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Netanyahu, Obama
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The Islamization of Jerusalem

October 29, 2014

The Islamization of Jerusalem, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 29, 2014

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The murder of little girls like Chaya Zissel Braun does not take place in a vacuum. The Islamizers of Jerusalem gain confidence when they see that the international community stands behind their demands. In 1920, racist Muslim settler mobs in Jerusalem had chanted “Mohammed’s religion was born with the sword”, “Death to the Jews” and “the government is with us” as Muslim policemen under British colonial rule had joined with them in the rape and murder of the indigenous Jewish population.

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Chaya Zissel Braun was murdered on her first trip back from the Western Wall where the indigenous Jewish population of Israel continues to pray in the shadow of the shrine established there by the Muslim conquerors from which the racist Muslim settlers rain down rocks on the Jewish worshipers.

The three-month old baby girl died when a Muslim terrorist rammed a car into a crowd hurtling her into the air and headfirst onto the pavement. Her death did not take place in isolation. It was not caused by a tiny minority of extremists. Her blood was spilled on the street for the Islamization of Jerusalem.

The Islamization of Jerusalem is an international cause. It does not just come out of Gaza City or even Ramallah. Nor Doha or Istanbul. The politicians and diplomats of every major country demand the Islamization of Jerusalem. When they talk about a Palestinian State with its capital in Jerusalem what they are really demanding is the restoration of the Muslim ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem in 1948.

They demand it with words and boycotts, but the Muslim settlers on whose behalf they cry for the Apartheidization of Jerusalem are writing their murderous demands with the blood of little girls.

The baby girl was murdered to Islamize a city. She died as the Israeli soldiers had died reunifying Jerusalem after the Arab Legion had ethnically cleansed the Jewish population and as ordinary Jerusalemites had died at the hands of Jordanian snipers searching the city for Jewish and Christian targets. The victims of those years of Muslim occupation included Yaffa Binyamin, a 14-year-old girl sitting on the balcony of her own house, and a Christian carpenter working on the Notre Dame Convent.

Like Chaya, I was born in Jerusalem. Like Yaffa, I lived in a building targeted by Muslim snipers. But the Six Day War had ended the reign of Muslim snipers over the city. The building where my parents made their home had been cheap once because living there could mean instant death for anyone looking out of a window at the wrong time. The liberation and reunification of Jerusalem had made it a place where Jewish children could play on balconies and Christians could repair churches without being murdered.

Under Muslim occupation, while Jordanian snipers were cold-bloodedly murdering their children, the Jewish residents living under fire couldn’t so much as put up an outhouse without being reported to the UN for illegal construction. In one case a UN observer organization held four meetings to discuss an outhouse for local Jewish residents before condemning Israel for illegal construction.

It did not however condemn Jordan when one of its soldiers opened fire on a train wounding a Jewish teenage girl.

Muslim outrage over Jewish outhouses mattered more than the Muslim murder of Jewish children. It still does. Today the State Department calls the murder of that little girl a traffic incident while warning that Jews living in Jerusalem will end any possibility of peace.

Hillary Clinton spent 45 minutes shrieking at Netanyahu over the phone after a planning committee allowed new housing in Jerusalem to advance to the public comment stage, and told the media that the proposal that Jews live in a part of Jerusalem that she believes should belong to Muslims is “insulting” to the United States.

The latest firestorm exploded over seven Jewish families moving into homes that they had bought legally in an area from which Jews had been ethnically cleansed by racist Muslim violence in the twenties and thirties. Earlier the State Department and White House had warned that Israel was alienating “even its closest allies” by proposing to build houses on Airplane Hill, a place mainly known for having an Israeli plane crash there during the Six Day War that had formerly hosted temporary housing for Russian and Ethiopian immigrants.

Meanwhile when Chaya was murdered, the State Department urged “all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.” It wasn’t as if anything important had happened. Just an Israeli-American baby murdered in pursuit of their shared goal of Islamizing Jerusalem.

Secretary of State John Kerry did not call President Abbas, the unelected president of the PLO’s Palestinian Authority, to berate him when one of his advisers called the murderer of that child a “heroic martyr”. Hillary Clinton did not come out of retirement to shriek at him over the phone when his party suggested that the killer would be receiving his 72 virgins in paradise.

If only something more important had happened than a presidential advisor to an Obama-backed terror state calling the murderer of an American child a hero; like planning for new housing “advancing”.

No one objects when Muslim settlers build houses in Jerusalem or anywhere else. But the objections pour in when the indigenous Jewish population builds so much as a house or an outhouse.

What we are talking about here is not peace, but ethnic cleansing. In 1948, the Jews were ethnically cleansed from Jerusalem to Islamize the city. Their synagogues were blown up by the Muslim occupiers. Their tombstones were used to line the roads traveled by the racist Muslim settlers.

“For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter,” Abdullah el-Talal, a commander of the Muslim invaders, had boasted. “Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews’ return here impossible.”

In his memoirs he wrote, “I knew that the Jewish Quarter was densely populated with Jews who caused their fighters a good deal of interference and difficulty…. Only four days after our entry into Jerusalem the Jewish Quarter had become their graveyard. Death and destruction reigned over it.”

Life magazine published photos of the atrocity writing that, “Muslim censors, not only in Palestine but in   neighboring Arab countries which have major communication outlets, tried for a fortnight to keep the news from leaking out.”

The Life photographer who took the photos was sentenced to death by the Arab High Committee.

This ethnic cleansing is what Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have been defending. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the thrust of all the peace plans put forward.

The entire phony “Palestinian” narrative in which the regional Sunni Arab Muslim majority that is busy slaughtering Christians, Kurds, Shiites acts as if it’s the victim because its racist ethnic cleansing plans were frustrated when its Jewish victims fought back and won.

The Muslim occupiers have added insult to injury by pretending to be the indigenous population to aid in their attempts at displacing the indigenous Jewish population through terror and lies.

Abdullah el-Talal said, “I have seen in this defeat of the Jews the heaviest blow rendered upon them, especially in terms of morale, since they were evicted   from the Western Wall and from the Jewish Quarter, for the first time in fifteen generations.”

Every politician denouncing Jews for building houses in Jerusalem, but not Muslims doing the same thing is endorsing Abdullah’s genocidal vision and all the terrorism that goes with it.

The murder of little girls like Chaya Zissel Braun does not take place in a vacuum. The Islamizers of Jerusalem gain confidence when they see that the international community stands behind their demands. In 1920, racist Muslim settler mobs in Jerusalem had chanted “Mohammed’s religion was born with the sword”, “Death to the Jews” and “the government is with us” as Muslim policemen under British colonial rule had joined with them in the rape and murder of the indigenous Jewish population.

Too many governments still stand with those who wave the sword of Mohammed and cry death to the Jews. They encourage them, defend their agenda and issue weak rebukes when blood is spilled in the name of Islamizing Jerusalem.

Those politicians who endorse the Islamization of Jerusalem cannot escape responsibility for the crimes of the Islamizers.

Categories: Antisemitism, Apartments, Hamas, Islam, Islamic jihad, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Jews, juden ist verboten, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama, Palestinians, Two state solution
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Israel’s allies and enemies – which is which?

October 28, 2014

Israel’s allies and enemies – which is which? | Anne’s Opinions, 27th October 2014

The looking-glass world of international relations in the Middle East during the Obama Administration.– AP)

Lately I have been feeling that, like Alice in Wonderland, we have stepped through the looking glass and are living in an alternative universe. Our old allies have turned against us whilst our old enemies are now siding with us and even doing our dirty work for us.

Case in point: It has been documented several times recently how petty and thin skinned is the US Administration. Last week they demonstrated this nasty characteristic once again with their juvenile and petty behaviour against Israeli Defence Minister Moshe (Bogie) Yaalon.

One meeting which did take place: Moshe Yaalon meets US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel

 

The Administration refused to arrange a meeting between Yaalon and Vice President Biden and other US officials because of their annoyance at Yaalon’s criticism of John Kerry and the US appeasement of Iran:

The Obama administration this week refused Israel defense minister’s requests to meet several top national security aides, still miffed over negative comments he made about Secretary of State John Kerry’s Mideast peace efforts and nuclear negotiations with Iran, US officials said Friday.

While Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon did see Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, the officials said the White House and State Department rejected Israeli proposals for meetings with Vice President Joe Biden, national security adviser Susan Rice and Kerry on his five-day trip to the United States. The administration had sought to stop Ya’alon from seeing Power but the objections were made too late to cancel the meeting, according to the officials.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the snubs, which were first reported by several Israeli media outlets.

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Earlier this year, Ya’alon infuriated officials in Washington with comments accusing the administration of being weak on Iran and questioning the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security. That followed reports that Ya’alon had criticized Kerry for being unrealistic and naive in trying to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

The blogger Abu Yehuda has more on the pettiness of the US Administration and their stupidity in thinking that the Muslim terrorists are not out to get them too.

In another example of American duplicity, the Administration was rather upset at the killing of a Palestinian-American teenager who was shot by the IDF as he was throwing firebombs at Israeli cars. The US has demanded a full investigation. However I did not see them demand a full investigation of the Palestinian American who drove his car into a crowd of commuters, killing baby Chaya Zissel Braun.

The blogger Edgar Davidson chronicles the American hypocrisy:

Israeli security forces killed a Palestinian who was throwing Molotov cocktails at them. And the US Government really did issue the following statement:

The United States expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a US citizen minor (Orwah Hammad) who was killed by the Israeli Defence Forces during clashes in Silwad on October 24. We demand a speedy and transparent investigation into his killing.

This came just two days after the US government initially refused to condemn the Palestinian terror attack that killed 3-month old American-Israeli baby girl Chaya Zisel Baron, and injured many others – an attack that had not only been incited by the rhetoric of PA President Abbas but was wildly celebrated by both Hamas and the PA. The US government – which insists Israel must make concessions to Hamas and the PA – did eventually issue a half-hearted condemnation but in the same statement demanded that Israel “show restraint”. The US Government has also desperately tried to cover up the fact that Chaya (and several of the other injured victims) were US citizens. This is especially strange since we are now seeing a trend whereby the US Government is very keen to announce that Palestinian terrorists ‘victims’ are ‘US citizens’.

So now it seems that any Palestinian terrorist can not only be a hero martyr to Hamas and the PA, but can also be considered an American citizen, thereby gaining the protection of the US government in addition to the UN.

All this while Israeli Jewish Americans receive little to no support from the US Administration they so sensibly left behind.

Karen Yemima Muscara HY’D, murdered in the Palestinian terrorist attack by car

 

Tragically the death toll from that attack has gone up as another victim died yesterday. Karen Yemima Muscara, a new immigrant from Ecuador who had converted to Judaism, was buried last night in Jerusalem.

Outrageously, her funeral had to be delayed so as to avoid riots as her terrorist murderer was buried nearby. Isn’t it amazing that when Jews are murdered and buried, they don’t go on rampages and riots?

Hundreds attended the funeral early on Monday of a woman killed in last week’s terrorist attack on a Jerusalem light rail station, including Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and the Ecuadorian ambassador to Israel.

Karen Yemima Muscara was an Ecuadorian citizen in her 20s, had come to Israel to convert to Judaism after discovering she was descended from Conversos, Spanish Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism after 1492.

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The funeral was postponed so as not to coincide with that of Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi, the man who drove his car into the Ammunition Hill light rail station, killing Muscara and a three-month-old baby and injuring seven others. Police shot Shaludi as he attempted to flee the scene on foot and he later died; he was buried Sunday night in the Muslim cemetery outside Jerusalem’s Old City.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat eulogized Muscara saying that she was “a delicate soul and guardian of peace who fought to be a Jew,” the NRG news site quoted him saying.

“Like many before her, she also fell in love with Jerusalem. Seven months ago she joined us and tonight, with unbelievable pain, she is parted from us,” Barkat said. “As mayor of Jerusalem I say that the situation won’t continue. It’s unacceptable that those whose live their whole lives for peace fall victim to those who glorify death.” He vowed once again to restore calm to Jerusalem.

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Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday flew in Muscara’s parents after she suffered head wounds and was seriously injured in the attack. Her mother said Sunday that her daughter’s dream had been to come to Israel and build her life here, but her life was cut short.

May Karen Yemima’s memory be for a blessing and may her parents, family and friends be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi

Meanwhile our erstwhile enemy, and often very cold peace partner Egypt is acting more forcefully against Hamas than we could ever hope to do without world condemnation. After a deadly car bombing by Jihadi terrorists against Egyptian forces in the Sinai, killing 28 soldiers, Egypt has cancelled its attempts at reviving Israeli-Hamas peace talks, has closed down the Rafah crossing and is planning building a wall to close off Gaza:

After a terror attack on Friday killed at least 30 Egyptian soldiers in the northern Sinai, Cairo has declared a state of emergency in the area, closed down the Rafah crossing from Gaza, canceled indirect cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas, and now says it will build a wall to block smuggling with the coastal enclave, Israel’s NRG News reported.

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On Friday, militants mounted a complex, combined attack at an Egyptian base using what appeared to be a suicide car bomber, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside charges. Despite Hamas denying involvement, Egyptian security officials charged that attackers utilized smuggling tunnels from Gaza in perpetrating the attack, leading to the breakdown in relations.

Hamas is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, which, under the rule of Mohammed Morsi, was deposed last year.

Hamas leaders warned that the strip was on the verge of an “explosion” if the passage with Egypt remained closed. Israel, meanwhile, has continued allowing humanitarian aid and construction material to enter the enclave.

One would expect that Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas would be outraged at this move by the Egyptians. One would be wrong. In another topsy-turvy turn of events, Mahmoud Abbas is supporting the Egyptian move, as the Elder of Ziyon reports:

Now, this means that Egypt will once again be enforcing a blockade on Gaza. People will not be able to leave Gaza for medical, educational or professional reasons. This is what would be characterized as “collective punishment” if done by Israel..

Egypt, by any yardstick, is treating Palestinians in Gaza worse than Israel is. Israel has not closed the Erez crossings and hundred of truckloads of materials go to Gaza every weekday from Israel.

But how does Mahmoud Abbas respond to Egypt’s latest moves to enforce a crippling siege on Gaza?

He supports them!

After Sisi’s speech, Abbas said “We stand by Egypt’s leadership, government and people, and we support all measures to be taken by the Egyptian leadership in order to maintain security and stability in Egypt in the face of terrorism in the Sinai and all the Egyptian territories, because of the service of the Palestinian cause and the Arab national security.”

Abbas praised the Egyptian position as being “courageous in the face of terrorism,” saying he has great confidence that Egypt will overcome the enemy.

How’s that for hypocrisy?

He probably learned the hypocrisy from the Americans. Or taught it to them.

Flag of Azerbaijan

 

In another subject of interest regarding Israel’s changing alliances, the Algemeiner has a report from the Muslim world is that Azerbaijan is becoming one of Israel’s emerging Muslim-majority allies in place of Turkey which has become one of our fiercest opponents:

But now, along comes Azerbaijan—the world’s first Muslim-majority democracy, which is fast taking the place of Turkey in becoming a crucial ally of Israel in the Muslim world. It’s no surprise that of all Muslim-majority countries, Azerbaijan would fill the void. Like Turkey before Erdoğan, Azerbaijan has proudly and sometimes aggressively reinforced its secular society, banning the hijab (veil) in schools.

In a gathering with the Jewish community held in the Washington, D.C. area last month, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the United States, Elin Suleymanov, recoiled from the criticism his country received from the U.S. and others for its tough line on maintaining its secularism. “We are criticized because our girls are not forced to wear the hijab, and this is the worst problem in the Middle East?” he said.

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To date, Israel’s relationship with Azerbaijan has taken an almost identical trajectory as its early ties to Turkey. As it had with Ankara, Israel has steadily ratcheted up defense ties with Baku. Last month, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon visited Azerbaijan, one of a number of such recent defense-oriented visits.

As it had with Turkey, Israel has established a vital economic lifeline to Azerbaijan, which provides the Jewish state with 40 percent of its imported oil.

As with Israeli-Turkish relations, bilateral ties between the two countries signal Azerbaijan’s desire to strengthen its connections to the U.S. and the West. The country has become an invaluable NATO supply line to Afghanistan and has joined NATO war efforts.

When much of the rest of the world interrupted flights to Israel during the conflict with Hamas last summer, Azerbaijan continued flying.

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Undoubtedly, Israel sees the tremendous potential in its relationship with Azerbaijan, as does Azerbaijan with Israel. American supporters of Israel must do their part to reinforce that relationship in Washington. As was discovered with Turkey, Muslim-majority allies don’t grow on trees.

Indeed. And not only Muslim-majority allies. It seems that Western liberal democratic allies not only do not grow on trees, the ones that have grown seem to be dying and falling like shrivelled leaves.

Israel needs to focus on its own interests and if an ally turns against us, we must learn to stand on our own two feet, besides finding other allies.

A good example of coping with negative fallout: It turns out that during Operation Protective Edge the Americans really did block not only shipments of Hellfire missiles to Israel, but a lot more than that:

The Obama administration stopped shipping to Israel all defense items – and not just Hellfire missiles as previously reported – for a short time in the middle of the war against Hamas, reported Israel Defense’s Amir Rappaport, the well-informed and highly credibly editor of the website.

Makor Rishon added to that report that the US actually cut off all communications with Israel’s Ministry of Defense purchasing offices in the US for days.

In response, Israel is now looking to produce its own weapons so as not to be reliant on fair-weather friends in the future:

The Defense Ministry, now realizing it cannot always depend on the Obama administration in a time of crisis, already has decided under a “veil of secrecy,” according to Israel Defense, to manufacture a highly sensitive weapon in Israel instead of buying it from the United States.

The change in policy is a major step that would wean Israel away from dependence on the United States and which also would be a significant change in the policy of buying American-made weapons with most financial assistance from the United States.

American aid to countries, including Israel, usually is conditioned on a majority of the money being poured back into the American military-industrial complex.

“The Israeli defense establishment will reduce the production of weapon systems in the USA in the context of joint Israeli-American projects, and will rely more heavily on Israeli-made products” as a result of the punitive action taken by President Barack Obama, Rappaport wrote.

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The ministry also is examining the possibility of using Israel-made precision guided air-to-surface munition to replace Hellfire missiles, a project that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions.

The American decision is cutting off their nose to spite their face, since their military aid to Israel is spent mostly in the US itself, providing jobs and income. But if that’s how they want to play it, Israel too can play the game.

Except that for us it’s not a game. It’s an existential matter of life and death.

Categories: Israel, Palestinians, Kerry, Middle East, Obama, Terrorism
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Obama Admin: Palestinians Who Throw Molotov Cocktails at Israelis Are Not Terrorists

October 28, 2014

Obama Admin: Palestinians Who Throw Molotov Cocktails at Israelis Are Not Terrorists, Washington Free Beacon, October 27, 2014

(The dear lad was Islamic, so how could he possibly have been involved in terrorism? Islam is the “religion of peace.” Or something.– DM)

The Obama administration insisted Monday that a Palestinian who was killed by the IDF while attempting to throw a Molotov cocktail at Israeli civilians is not a terrorist.

The Palestinian, a teenager with U.S. citizenship, was shot on Friday and buried this weekend wearing a green Hamas headband. The Obama administration said in a statement on Friday that it “expresses its deepest condolences to the family.”

At a State Department briefing today, Associated Press reporter Matt Lee asked spokesman Jen Psaki whether it is appropriate to offer deepest condolences to the family of someone killed while attempting to carry out an attack on civilians.

“There are reports … that [the Palestinian teenager] was throwing Molotov cocktails at cars on a highway, and I’m wondering, if that is the case, would you still have been so speedy in putting out a statement and offering your condolences to the family?” asked Lee. “The argument that is being made by some in Israel is that this kid was essentially a terrorist, and you don’t agree with that, I assume,” Lee continued.

“Correct, we don’t,” replied Psaki. Lee then asked whether the fact that the teenager was buried wearing a Hamas headband was “of concern at all.” Psaki replied, “I just don’t have any more on this particular case.”

Categories: Heresy, Islamic jihad, Islamism, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Obama, Terrorism
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Israel and the West’s Submission to Islam

October 25, 2014

Israel and the West’s Submission to Islam, American Thinker, Mordechai Nisan, October 25, 2014

(The Islamic problem cannot easily be resolved and to disparage the “religion of peace” would be wickedly un-multicultural. Yet there is a need to attack someone and/or something. Israel and the demon “climate change” are the easiest available targets. — DM)

Are we not passing through a very momentous period of history: with signs of the political decline and social decadence of Europe and the West, the clash between Israel and Islam, between Islam and Christianity, and with attendant results that could change the political — and religious — map of the world? The cutting edge of history is the crossroads we now face.

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There is a striking contrast today in world politics between the West’s submission to Islam and its assault upon Israel; this, ironically enough, occurs while we witness an Islamic assault upon Europe.

Unable to contend with Islam’s massive penetration of the continent, or to deal effectively and morally with its barbaric warfare against peoples in the Middle East, Europe has chosen to stalk Israel, embattled and attacked on many fronts.

The abandonment of the Jews in 1939-1945 in Europe and the murder of six million of them by the Germans represent a historical theme and modern chapter of the old hatred. Europe is not cleansed of this madness and fury; and it is incapable of seeing the justice and reasonableness in Israel’s existence and policies, bashing her over Jerusalem, settlements, human rights, and military operations. Nietzsche said that Europe would be a boring place without the intellectual ferment and cultural contributions of the Jews, but it would apparently be a happy place for some Europeans.

Now, with the blatant eruption of a reinvigorated anti-Semitism in Europe, the political campaign against Israel acquires its explicit racial underpinnings. The more vitriolic the attacks on Israel, running the spectrum from censure, defamation, to delegitimization, the more transparent the European culprit aflame with concentrated racist hatred of the Jews and their Jewish state.

The political backlash against Israel from the summer war in Gaza testifies to the moral bankruptcy of Europe and the loss of any equitable sense of justice. Now the Palestinian aggressor, undefeated and unrepentant, is to be rewarded with Gaza’s reconstruction. Mahmoud Abbas, unwilling to recognize the Jewish state of Israel, is to be rewarded with his own Palestinian state, according to sentiments in Sweden, Britain, and no doubt elsewhere.

The discourse of peace surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum remains as divorced from morality and reality as could ever be imagined in this lopsided political universe. The laws of sociology and the lessons of history make the two-state solution a non-starter. After 47 years, the settlement map of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, their size and spread, preempt an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 armistice lines. The idea of a Palestinian state over all of the territory is not in the demographic and geographic cards. Moreover, the embedded friction between the Jews and the Arabs, after so much bloodshed, enmity, and mistrust, is a visible obstacle to a mutually satisfactory agreement between them on all outstanding issues – borders and refugees, water and security, and Jerusalem. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is intractable and unsolvable according to the current modalities of proposed peace-making.

A frenzied Muslim fanaticism has galvanized the dormant emotional energies of an Islam bedeviled by old memories (like the Caliphate) and sectarian (Sunni-Shiite) divisions, always with a profound disdain for non-Muslims unworthy of life and dignity. The swirl of Islamic warfare began in Afghanistan and Pakistan, passed through Khomeini’s Iranian Islamic theocracy, penetrated northern Iraq and threatens Baghdad, took hold in eastern Syria, already with appeal and a foothold in Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.

Meanwhile Europe lives in denial, paralyzed by multiculturalism and national self-immolation, hypnotized by the dogma of human rights, guilt-ridden by its colonial past, and hoping to mollify Muslims on their streets and neighborhoods by offering up the sacrifice of Christians and Jews in the Middle East to the Islamic god of wrath. But Islam seeks world conquest that includes the West as well.

What the Europeans ignore about the Arab-Israeli conflict and the long war is the precedent of 1948. When the Arabs attacked, and the West militarily embargoed Israel, the Zionists yet won a compelling victory in their ancient homeland; and a half a million Arabs became refugees, never to return. In 1967, the Arabs again declared their goal to be the annihilation of Israel; but Israel won, and another quarter of a million Arabs fled the country.

In 2014 the same scenario is unfolding. Pushed to the wall by Europeans who overlook and justify escalating domestic Arab violence and provocations, Israel will sooner or later need to unleash a severe response against the Muslims in the country who deny the right of Israel to exist, at all, and certainly as a Jewish and Zionist state. Newton’s political physics teach us that an action produces a reaction, and Hegel’s dialectics charted how a thesis leads to an antithesis, culminating in a new, rarely anticipated, synthesis. All this fondling of the Palestinians and coddling of Islam is putting in place a horrific threat to Israel, which may however evoke a welcome opportunity for deliverance and triumph.

Are we not passing through a very momentous period of history: with signs of the political decline and social decadence of Europe and the West, the clash between Israel and Islam, between Islam and Christianity, and with attendant results that could change the political — and religious — map of the world? The cutting edge of history is the crossroads we now face.

Categories: Antisemitism, Gaza, Hamas, Islam, Islamic jihad, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Jews, juden ist verboten, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Terrorism
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The Poison Tree

October 24, 2014

The Poison Tree, Washington Free Beacon, , October 24, 2014

(Rather than chopping the tree down, we are watering and fertilizing it. — DM)

APTOPIX Mideast Israel USArab protesters wave Islamic flags in front of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel / AP

Six years into the Obama presidency, not only has the vocabulary of jihad been removed from official rhetoric and counterterrorism policy, but troops have been removed from Iraq, troops are withdrawing from Afghanistan, the administration has condemned Israeli settlement activity while coddling Hamas’ backers in Ankara and Doha, “torture” has been banned, the White House intends to close Guantanamo unilaterally, Hosni Mubarak was abandoned in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the president is desperate for a partnership with the Islamic theocracy of Iran.

We must recognize the global and unitary nature of the threat. We must recognize that there is only one way to deal with a poison tree: You chop it down.

***************

Last month, addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu made a connection between the Islamic State and Hamas. These terrorist entities, Netanyahu said, have a lot in common. Separated by geography, they nonetheless share ideology and tactics and goals: Islamism, terrorism, the destruction of Israel, and the establishment of a global caliphate.

And yet, Netanyahu observed, the very nations now campaigning against the Islamic State treated Hamas like a legitimate combatant during last summer’s Israel-Gaza war. “They evidently don’t understand,” he said, “that ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree.”

The State Department dismissed Netanyahu’s metaphor. “Obviously, we’ve designated both as terrorist organizations,” said spokesman Jen Psaki. “But ISIL poses a different threat to Western interests and to the United States.”

Psaki was wrong, of course. She’s always wrong. And, after the events of the last 48 hours, there ought not to be any doubt as to just how wrong she was. As news broke that a convert to Islam had murdered a soldier and stormed the Canadian parliament, one read of another attack in Jerusalem, where a Palestinian terrorist ran his car over passengers disembarking from light rail, injuring seven, and killing 3-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun, who held a U.S. passport.

Islamic State, al Qaeda, Hamas—these awful people are literally baby killers. And yet they produce a remarkable amount of dissension, confusion, willful ignorance, and moral equivalence on the part of the men and women who conduct U.S. foreign policy. “ISIL is not ‘Islamic,’” President Obama said of the terrorist army imposing sharia law across Syria and Iraq. “Obviously, we’re shaken by it,” President Obama said of the attack in Canada. “We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident,” the State Department said of the murder of a Jewish child.

“Not Islamic,” despite the fact that the Caliphate grounds its barbarous activities in Islamic law. “Shaken,” not stirred to action. “All sides,” not the side that targets civilians again and again and again. The evasions continue. They create space for the poison tree to grow.

The persistent denial of the ideological unity of Islamic terrorism—the studied avoidance of politically incorrect facts that has characterized our response to the Ft. Hood shooting, the Benghazi attack, the Boston Marathon bombing, the march of the caliphate across Syria and Iraq, and the crimes of Hamas—is not random. Behind it is a set of ideas with a long history, and with great purchase among the holders of graduate degrees who staff the Department of Justice, the National Security Council, Foggy Bottom, and the diplomatic corps. These ideas are why, in the words of John McCain, the terrorists “are winning, and we’re not.”

A report by Katherine Gorka of the Council on Global Security, “The Bad Science Behind America’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy,” analyzes the soil from which the poison tree draws strength. Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, Gorka writes, U.S. policymakers have faced a dilemma: “how to talk about Islam in a way that is instructive in dealing with Muslims who are enemies but not destructive to those who are friends.” For decades, the preferred solution has been to declare America’s friendship with Islam, and to distinguish between jihadists and everyday Muslims.

One of Gorka’s earliest examples of this policy comes from former Assistant Secretary of State Edward Djerejian, who said in 1992, “The U.S. government does not view Islam as the next ‘ism’ confronting the West or threatening world peace.” Similar assurances were uttered by officials in the Clinton administration, by Clinton himself, and by President George W. Bush. The policy was meant to delegitimize terrorism by denying the terrorists’ claim that they are acting according to religious precepts. “Policymakers believed that by tempering their language with regard to Islam, they might forestall further radicalization of moderate Muslims and indeed even potentially win moderates into the American circle of friendship.”

George W. Bush, Gorka notes, combined his rhetorical appeals to moderate Muslims with denunciations of the immorality of terrorism and illiberalism. And yet, for the government at large, downplaying the religious and ideological component to terrorist activities became an end in itself.

The Global War on Terror was renamed the “global struggle against violent extremism.” In 2008 the Department of Homeland Security published a lexicon of terrorism that said, “Our terminology must be properly calibrated to diminish the recruitment efforts of extremists who argue that the West is at war with Islam.” State Department guidelines issued in 2008 said, “Never use the terms jihadist or mujahedeen to describe a terrorist.”

Then came Obama. As a candidate, he stressed his experiences in Indonesia and Pakistan. He told Nick Kristof of the New York Times that the call of the muezzin is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.” In one of his first major addresses as president, he traveled to Cairo to inaugurate a new beginning with the Muslim world. His counterterrorism adviser, now director of the CIA, called jihad a “legitimate tenet of Islam,” and referred to Jerusalem as “Al Quds.”

The change in the manner in which the government treated Islamism was profound. “Whereas the 9/11 Commission report, published under the presidency of George W. Bush in July 2004 as a bipartisan product, had used the word Islam 322 times, Muslim 145 times, jihad 126 times, and jihadist 32 times,” Gorka writes, “the National Intelligence Strategy of the United States, issued by the Obama administration in August 2009, used the term Islam 0 times, Muslim 0 times, jihad 0 times.” The omission is stunning.

For Bush, terrorism consisted of immoral deeds committed by evil men animated by anti-Western ideology. Obama downplayed such judgmental language. He preferred an interpretation of terrorism as discrete acts of wrongdoing by extremists, driven by resentments and grievances such as the American failure to establish a Palestinian state, American support for secular Arab dictatorships, American forces in the Middle East, U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, and, infamously, an anti-Islamic YouTube video. “The logic that follows,” Gorka writes, “is that once those grievances are addressed, the extremism will subside.”

Some logic. Six years into the Obama presidency, not only has the vocabulary of jihad been removed from official rhetoric and counterterrorism policy, but troops have been removed from Iraq, troops are withdrawing from Afghanistan, the administration has condemned Israeli settlement activity while coddling Hamas’ backers in Ankara and Doha, “torture” has been banned, the White House intends to close Guantanamo unilaterally, Hosni Mubarak was abandoned in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the president is desperate for a partnership with the Islamic theocracy of Iran.

The result? The Islamic State rules Mosul, threatens Baghdad, and has conquered half of Syria as Bashar Assad gasses the other half. Libya has collapsed into tribal warfare. Egypt has gone from military dictatorship to Islamic authoritarianism and back again. An Islamic strongman rules Turkey, Hamas murders with impunity, Al Jazeera broadcasts anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda around the world, and the Taliban are biding time in Afghanistan. Not only is al Qaeda not on the run, it governs more territory than at any point since 2001. It is once again the “strong horse,” attracting jihadists to its crusade who inevitably turn their attention to the West.

“Without an ideological catalyst,” Gorka writes, “grievances remain merely grievances. They are dull and banal. They only transform into acts of transcendental violence when ignited by Sayyid Qutb or Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. It is the narrative of Holy War that gives value to local grievances, not the other way around.” Before we can hope to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State or the al Qaeda movement, we must recognize the poison tree of jihad for what it is. We must recognize the global and unitary nature of the threat. We must recognize that there is only one way to deal with a poison tree: You chop it down.

Categories: Caliphate, Hamas, Iraq, Islamic jihad, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Palestinians, Netanyahu, Obama, Syria, Terrorism, Two state solution
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Israel’s Security and Unintended Consequences

October 23, 2014

Israel’s Security and Unintended Consequences, Gatestone Institute, Richard Kemp, October 26, 2014

(Please see also Terror attack by vehicle in Jerusalem – 3-month old baby killed — DM)

Would General Allen — or any other general today — recommend contracting out his country’s defenses if it were his country at stake? Of course not.

The Iranian regime remains dedicated to undermining and ultimately destroying the State of Israel. The Islamic State also has Israel in its sights and would certainly use the West Bank as a point from which to attack, if it were open to them.

There can be no two-state solution and no sovereign Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan, however desirable those things might be. The stark military reality is that Israel cannot withdraw its forces from the West Bank.

Fatah leaders ally themselves with the terrorists of Hamas, and, like Hamas, they continue to reject the every existence of the State of Israel.

If Western leaders actually want to help, they should use all diplomatic and economic means to make it clear to the Palestinians that they will never achieve an independent and sovereign state while they remain set on the destruction of the State of Israel.

When in 1942 American General Douglas MacArthur took command of the defense of Australia against imminent Japanese invasion, one of the plans he rejected was to withdraw and fight behind the Brisbane line, a move that would have given large swathes of territory to the Japanese.

Instead, he adopted a policy of forward defense: advancing northwards out of Australia to attack the Japanese on the island of New Guinea. MacArthur then went on to play a pivotal role in the defeat of the Japanese empire.

At the end of last year, during the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations involving U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, another extremely able and widely respected American General, John Allen, drew up a plan progressively to withdraw Israeli forces from the West Bank and hand over Israel’s forward defense to a combination of Palestinian Arab forces, international monitors and technology.

Given the range of existential threats emanating from, or through, the West Bank today, known and unknown threats that will develop tomorrow, and the exceptional geographical vulnerability of the State of Israel, such a proposal is blatantly untenable. No other country would take risks with the lives of its people and the integrity of its territory by contracting out their defenses in this way — nor should it.

753General Douglas MacArthur (left) strongly believed in forward defense. General John Allen (right) also believes in forward defense — but for U.S. forces only, not for the Israel’s military defending its borders.

Britain, for example, where no such existential threats exist, even refuses to adopt the EU’s Schengen arrangements, which would hand over the security of UK borders to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Spain, Italy and its other European neighbors. It is a long-standing opt-out that looks wiser by the day as international jihadist aggression against the West increases.

General MacArthur would never have recommended the “Allen Plan.” MacArthur, however, was not then under the same political pressure as General Allen. If he had been, he would have repulsed it. In 1934, as Army Chief of Staff, he argued against President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s intention to cut drastically the Army’s budget with such vehemence that he vomited on the steps of the White House as he was leaving.

Would General Allen – or any other general today – recommend a similar plan to his own president, if it were not Israel’s security, but the security of the United States, that was at stake? Of course he would not.

Indeed, U.S. generals unsuccessfully argued the opposite course of action when U.S. President Barack Obama decided on a total withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in 2011, a move that made inevitable the resurgence of large-scale violent jihad.

General Allen is now leading the American and allied forward defensive operations against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq [ISIS]. In the face of what he has defined as a “clear and present danger to the US,” he is not recommending withdrawal of American forces back into the continental United States and reliance on Arab forces, peacekeepers and technology to protect U.S. interests. The reverse, in fact, is true.

The reverse is also true for the forward defensive operations of the U.S. and its Western allies against violent jihad in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia and elsewhere. All are significant threats to the West, yet none is as immediate and dangerous as the threat to Israel from an undefended West Bank.

Despite the determination of so many in the West erroneously to view the Israel-Palestine conflict as a mere territorial dispute that could be settled if only the so-called “occupation” ended, the forward defensive measures necessary for other Western nations are necessary for Israel as well. The stark military reality is that Israel cannot withdraw its forces from the West Bank — either now or at any point in the foreseeable future.

For those willing to see with clarity and speak with honesty, that conclusion has been obvious for many years. It is even more obvious, perhaps, for leaders with direct responsibility — such as General MacArthur had in Australia in 1942 — than for those who do not have to live with the consequences of their actions — such as General Allen in Israel in 2013.

Recent events have made this reality even more certain. Through incessant rocket fire and the construction of a sophisticated tunnel system to abduct and massacre Israeli civilians on a large scale, Hamas has just delivered another powerful object lesson in the consequences of IDF withdrawal.

Fatah leaders may take a somewhat different stance for international consumption, but they ally themselves with the proscribed terrorists of Hamas. And, like Hamas, in reality they continue to reject the very existence of the State of Israel. They apparently continue to want only a one-state solution: Arab rule from the river to the sea, with the ethnic cleansing of the Jews that would follow.

They are consistently encouraged in this intent, both wittingly and unwittingly, by Western nations, particularly in Europe. Not least by Sweden’s commitment in September to support a unilateral Palestinian state, the UK Parliament’s recent vote for the same thing, and similar moves across Europe that are likely in the coming weeks and months.

Especially with such encouragement, there is no possibility that Palestinian Arab political leaders’ rejection of the Jewish State will modify in the foreseeable future. The launch pad that an IDF-free West Bank would provide for attacks against Israel is so dangerous it makes even Gaza look about as threatening as Switzerland.

The external threats are at least as serious as those from within the West Bank. Despite the wishful thinking of many Western leaders and the alluring grins from Tehran, the Iranian regime remains dedicated to undermining and ultimately destroying the State of Israel. By funding and fomenting violence, Iran’s leadership will continue to exploit the Palestinian Arab populations in both Gaza and the West Bank to these ends.

Those who are currently arguing for Israeli military withdrawal from the West Bank and the establishment of a sovereign state must have missed the war General Allen is fighting against the Islamic State [IS] and their jihadist bedfellows across the border in Syria. The Islamic State also has Israel in its sights and would certainly use the West Bank as a point from which to attack, if it were open to them. In the hands of international monitors and Palestinian Arab forces, the West Bank would be wide open to them.

We have only to look at the reaction to aggression of almost all international peacekeepers over the decades to know they would not last five minutes. And we have only to look at the performance of the battle-hardened Syrian and Iraqi armies when confronted by Islamic State fighters to know how long Palestinian Arab forces would withstand such aggression, whether by infiltration or frontal assault.

Whatever happens to the Islamic State in the future, this resurgent Islamist belligerence is not a flash in the pan. On the contrary, it has been building for decades, and President Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and other world leaders acknowledge it as a generational struggle.

This means that for Israel, as far as the West Bank is concerned, both the enemy within and the enemy without are here to stay. And if the IDF has no choice but to remain in the West Bank to defend Israel, there can be no two state solution and no sovereign Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan, however desirable those things might be.

Nor can there be a one-state solution with democratic rights for all because that would spell the end of the one and only democratic and Jewish state and the beginning of a new autocracy and the next exodus of the Jews.

For those who do not want that to happen, the harsh reality is continuation of the status quo. But the status quo can be significantly improved, by gradual and progressive increases to PA autonomy in the West Bank, to the point where a state exists in virtually all aspects other than military security. That progress can only be achieved through low-key bilateral negotiations with concessions from both sides. It cannot be achieved by Kerry-like peace processes that demand big sweeping strokes to deliver groundbreaking, legacy-delivering announcements.

Nor can such progress be achieved in the face of a Western world that reflexively condemns every move Israel makes and encourages the Palestinian Arabs to believe that the fantasy of a two-state solution or a one-state solution on their terms can become a reality in the foreseeable future.

As so often in the paradoxical world of geopolitics, the well-meaning actions and words of national leaders and international organizations have unintended consequences. For the Israel-Palestine situation, the unintended consequences of Western actions are to deprive Palestinian Arabs of increased freedom and prosperity and to undermine the security of the only stable, liberal democratic state in the Middle East. If the West actually wants to help, its leaders need to face up to this unpalatable truth rather than continue to delude the Palestinian people as well as themselves.

Instead, Western leaders should use all available diplomatic and economic means to make it clear to the Palestinians that they will never achieve an independent and sovereign state while they remain set on the destruction of the State of Israel and while they continue to brainwash future generations to believe in that goal.

Categories: Fatah, Hamas, IDF, Islamic jihad, Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Jihad, juden ist verboten, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama, Two state solution
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Terror attack by vehicle in Jerusalem – 3-month old baby killed

October 23, 2014

Terror attack by vehicle in Jerusalem – 3-month old baby killed | Anne’s Opinions, 23rd October 2014

 

3-month old Chaya Zissel Braun HY’D, murdered in a terrorist car attack in Jerusalem

 

As if predicted by my previous post, a Palestinian terrorist with previous form drove his car directly into a group of people waiting at the Ammunition Hill light rail stop, killing a 3-month old baby and injuring several others.

A three-month-old girl was killed Wednesday afternoon and eight others were injured when a car crashed into a crowd at a light rail station in Jerusalem in what officials said was a terrorist attack.

The suspect, identified by an Israeli official as a member of terror group Hamas, attempted to flee the scene on foot and was shot and badly hurt by police, a police spokesperson said.

“A private car which arrived from the direction of the French Hill junction hit a number of pedestrians who were on the pavement and injured nine of them,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.

“Initial indications suggest this is a hit-and-run terror attack,” Samri said.

The baby, Chaya Zissel Braun, died at the nearby Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus a few hours after the incident. A spokesperson for Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said a 60-year-old woman and seven other people, including the baby’s parents, were also lightly and moderately wounded in the attack.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said that both Chaya Zissel Braun and her parents were American citizens. US State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf couldn’t immediately confirm whether the family was American, but condemned the attack.

The alleged attacker is Abdelrahman al-Shaludi, a former Palestinian prisoner from the flashpoint neighborhood of Silwan.

a baby stroller at the scene of a terror attack at a Jerusalem light rail station, by Ammunition Hill (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

 

After the incident, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino and Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen to receive a briefing about what happened. Netanyahu ordered increased security in the capital.

“This is how [PA President Abbas’s] partners in government act, the same Abbas who just a few days ago incited attacks on Jews in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

As if this terrible news were not bad enough, it takes an even more tragic turn, as Arutz Sheva reports:

The grandfather of the three-month-old girl murdered in this evening’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem has issued a heartbreaking statement in response.

The baby girl, named Chaya Ziso was among nine people wounded when an Arab terrorist mowed down pedestrians with his car at a light rail station in Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill. She succumbed to her wounds shortly afterwards; another victim suffered serious wounds while the remainder were moderately or lightly injured.

“Her parents waited for a child for many years during which they did not merit to have children,” said grandfather Shimon Halperin. “Today they were coming back from praying at the Kotel (Western Wall) and a terrorist came and ran over their baby.”

He told of her parents’ joy after she was born, and described how he enjoyed playing with his granddaughter during her tragically short life. He and his wife had just arrived in Israel from the US to meet his grandchild, but only had a few short hours with her.

May Hashem avenge the blood of little Chaya Zissel Braun, and may He bring comfort to her grieving parents and family amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. May all those wounded have a speedy and full recovery.

But while we Jews await Hashem’s vengeance, the Palestinians have no such compunction. Instead of keeping a low profile, and maybe even apologizing for such a dastardly attack, what do our “peace partners” do? Why, they riot and throw firebombs of course!

A few hours after the suspected attack, dozens of masked Palestinian youths blocked roads in Silwan, set tires alight and fired off firecrackers. Clashes were reported with police forces in Silwan and Issawiya. One police officer was reported injured by a firebomb in Silwan.

A Hamas spokesperson said in response to the reports that if indeed it was a terrorist attack, then it was a natural response to Israel’s actions in Jerusalem, particularly Jewish incursions into the al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel Radio reported.

Just imagine if we Jews were to avenge ourselves on the Arabs for their desecration of our holiest site in a similar manner. There would be no Palestinians left! Trying to justify a terrorist attack against civilians is simply beyond the pale. Except for the Palestinians of course.

As for the Americans – since the baby and her parents are American citizens – what was their reaction? You can guess it I’m sure (from the previous link):

US State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf couldn’t immediately confirm whether the family was American, but condemned the attack.

“The Israelis are currently looking into the incident. We are in touch with them and we’ll see what more information we can get, also urge all sides to exercise restraint and maintain calm,” Harf said.

They should have addressed that demand to the rioting Palestinians, not to the Israelis who show nothing BUT restraint.

In truth we must stop restraining ourselves. It has only brought more terror and devastation upon ourselves. It’s about time we stood up for ourselves and fought back with our full strength. It’s time Israel and our leaders stopped fearing the nations and took responsibility for our own safety.

In a particularly nasty piece of reporting which has now gone viral round the internet, AP reported the incident thus (via Israellycool):

How AP reported the terror attack in Jerusalem

 

Words fail me – and everyone else. As Brian of London remarks:

It’s hard to describe how evil this is. It immediately (and automatically) was pushed out by Yahoo! and hundreds of other sites that just run any AP story without modification.

It’s all over Google News and the Middle Eastern sites are loving it.

Many people are blaming Yahoo! That’s not entirely fair, the real evil was done by the headline writers at AP. It matters not that they’ve changed the headline now (many times). The damage is done.

The AP need to be kicked out of Israel. I’m too angry to even link to all the pieces I should.

A twitter response has been gaining steam with the ironic use of the hashtag #HowAPWouldReport:

Thus we have the following examples intended to embarrass AP:

https://twitter.com/TheRealBeadle/status/525051937189031936

https://twitter.com/JudgeDan48/status/525039543943049216

All fun and snarkiness aside, this is no laughing matter. Seth Mandell at Commentary Magazine call this a case study in media bias:

If you want to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict, those two stories are a good introduction. The Israeli government built rail access to Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem to better integrate them into Israeli society. Arab Jerusalemites have made the very instruments of Israeli outreach and integration into targets of sporadic violence.

…

The Associated Press got plenty of attention for its initial headline of the story: “Israeli police shoot man in east Jerusalem.”

…

But the AP wasn’t alone. Scanning the BBC, I had noticed their initial headline (since changed as well): “Nine hurt as car hits pedestrians at Jerusalem station.” As the Jerusalem Post’s Seth Frantzman pointed out, the headline on the version he saw, and took a screenshot of, was “Car hits people at Jerusalem station.” Either the BBC was deliberately downplaying the story, or the editor in charge thought he was posting a story about an evil car magically becoming sentient only to lash out, like Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, at the humans around him.

Later in the day, after executives at the BBC located a shred of integrity hidden somewhere in the sofa cushions, that was changed as well. It now reads: “Jerusalem car ‘attack’ kills baby at rail station.” I say “a shred of integrity” because the BBC still saw fit to wrap “attack” in scare quotes. What are the options, here? Was it a car “love tap”? It was a terrorist attack, perpetrated by a member of a terrorist organization.

Addressing the Americans’ call for restraint, Mandell says:

I suppose if the driver of the car had said something mean about John Kerry, she’d really let him have it.

In any event, all sides are not exercising restraint and maintaining calm. Only the Israeli side is. The Palestinians are agitating for more, relying on an international press to obfuscate and deploy scare quotes as needed.

And that encapsulates the dangers of anti-Israel media bias. The Palestinians are always excused, the Israelis are always accused – and are demanded to show restraint. This what encourages the Palestinians in their maximalist demands and their rejection of anything resembling peace and normalization. And they are never required to pay the price for their rejectionism.

If ever there is a reason for the “cycle of violence” between Israel and the Middle East, Western encouragement is one of the major ones.

Categories: Hamas, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Terrorism
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The battle for Jerusalem

October 21, 2014

The battle for Jerusalem | Anne’s Opinions, 21st October 2014

Arab anti-Jewish violence in Jerusalem is predicated on the theory that the Jews are trying to “Judaize” Jerusalem – as if it could be anything else! And also on the widely spread myth that the Jews are out to destroy Al Aqsa and replace it with the Third Temple. “If only” is what I say. –AP)

Jerusalem has been under fire, both literally and diplomatically, for a long while now, but in recent weeks the situation has deteriorated sharply. If the authorities, i.e Binyamin Netanyahu and his Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharanovitch don’t get matters in hand very soon I dread to think what might happen next.

Starting with the Silwan neighbourhood: contrary to the received wisdom, this is no “Arab East Jerusalem” neighbourhood. This was once a Jewish or mixed area, settled (oops, there goes that word again) by Yemenite Jews at the end of the 19th century.

Yemenite Jew in Shiloah (Silwan) c. 1882

The Jews were driven out in the Arab riots of 1929 and were finally ethnically cleansed in 1948 by the marauding Arabs. The area remained Judenrein until Jerusalem was liberated in 1948. Somehow, since those 19 years of Arab occupation, the “Arab identity” of the area stuck and it is considered unacceptable for Jews to live there.

However over the last few years, Jewish individuals and organizations have started buying property in Silwan, which in any other area literally anywhere in the civilized world (I do not consider most Arab countries civilized) would not even raise an eyebrow. In the last few weeks two properties were purchased by Jews and the purchasers moved in, thereby doubling the Jewish presence in Silwan.

The Arabs have been seething ever since. Because Silwan is designated nowadays as an “Arab neighbourhood”, these purchases have been called provocation, theft and generally outrageous and inflammatory. The condemnations have come in swift and sharp from the likes of the PLO and various foreign ministries.

The fact is that it is an outrage that these people consider it an outrage for a Jew to buy a house, and – gasp! – move into it, in his own capital city, or any other city anywhere in Israel. The outrage, faux or real, only encourages the Palestinian irredentists to entrench themselves in their rejectionist positions. If the world is so concerned about peace in the region, they ought to internalise for themselves, and then teach the Palestinians that Jews are allowed to buy property and live in it wherever they so wish, just as the Israelis are pushed to allow the Palestinians to live where they wish.

“Deebo” at Israellycool has an excellent take-down of the Palestinian point of view as reported by the Palestinian newspaper Ma’an, which illustrates so clearly how slanted is the view about Israel, Jews and Jerusalem. One small example – with Deebo’s remarks in brackets:

The (previous) owners of the buildings, Salah al-Rajabi and Imran al-Qawasmi, sold the properties to a Palestinian man identified as Shams al-Din al-Qawasmi, who in turn sold the buildings to Jewish settler groups, the center said. (Oh that guy is dead meat now)

The previous Palestinian tenants left the buildings over four months ago. (so they “raided” and “occupied” an empty home, that was legally purchased, but some will still claim the previous inhabitants were forced into homelessness)

For more background and history of Silwan, and Jerusalem in general, read this scholarly article by Shaul Bartal in Middle East Quarterly. One very important point that he makes is this:

The ultimate goal of the Palestinians and their allies is to advance the idea that Jerusalem in general, and neighborhoods like Silwan in particular, have no Jewish ties. Archeological remnants found in Jerusalem are thus presented as either Canaanite or Muslim.

On the Temple Mount, Arab riots and Muslim provocations continue against Jewish visitors. I use the word “visitors” advisedly because Heaven forfend that they should be worshippers for that is forbidden by the Waqf and the Israeli police.

In the latest incidents Mahmoud Abbas has called Jewish visitors to their holiest site “herds of cattle”, and has now called for Jews to be banned completely from the Temple Mount, using “all means”. If that is not a call to violence I don’t know what is.

This follows the shocking daubing of swastikas on the Temple Mount, discovered this week:

Swastikas daubed on the Temple Mount

Avigdor Liberman got it right when he said that Abbas is an anti-semite trying to ignite a holy war in Jerusalem. The terrifying thing is that Abbas might well get what he wants. But he will be the loser – yet it will be blamed on Israel as usual.

The American blogger Meryl Yourish (so glad she has resumed writing) takes AP to task for calling Abbas’s inflammatory words “a suggestion” and concurs with Liberman’s accusations against Abbas:

In a speech quoted by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, Abbas said Jewish “settlers” should be prevented from entering the site “by any means.”

“This is our Noble Sanctuary … they have no right to enter and desecrate it,” Abbas added.

That is outright religious hatred. He’s not talking about the mosque. He’s talking about the entire Temple Mount. You know, the holiest site in Judiasm. And “suggested”? really? You know what a suggestion is? “Hey, I think you should try putting a purple streak in your hair and see how it looks.” That’s a suggestion.

This? This is outright saying Jews have no right to their own holy place. No right to the site where both Temples stood, where the Ark of the Covenant resided, where Jewish priests blew the shofar on Rosh Hashanah–the site, in fact, where Judaism was practiced for centuries before Islam existed. This is part of the Palestinian strategy to pretend that the area was wholly Muslim and Jews have nothing to do with it. It is, straight out, a lie. And the AP calls it a suggestion.

The Muslim desecration of Jewish holy places extends even to the dead, as Arabs vandalised over 40 graves at the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

Jewish graves vandalised on the Mt. of Olives cemetery

Meanwhile, Arab anti-Jewish violence in Jerusalem continues, with lynching attempts, stonings, firebombings, not to mention the severe damage caused to the Jerusalem light rail, putting almost 40% of the line out of action.

Damage to Jerusalem light rail station

 

Jerusalem light rail train carriage windows smashed by Arab rioters

 

It has taken until now, but PM Binyamin Netanyahu has finally lost patience with the incompetence of the police and their lack of response to the Arab violence in Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday demanded Israeli police and security agencies take a harsher stand against escalating firebombing, stoning, and vandalism attacks against Jewish residents by pro-Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem in recent months.

Calling to bolster police presence in the streets of the capital as a show of deterrence, Netanyahu “instructed that forces be increased in the confrontation areas and that vigorous action be taken against those who disturb the peace.”

…

However, despite the staunch calls for a crackdown on crime, a government official told the 0404 news site that Netanyahu is “furious” at Aharonovitch over his inability to quell the burgeoning violence.

According to the source, Netanyahu has expected that Aharonovitch know what steps to take in order to get the streets under some semblance of control.

“Netanyahu is furious with Aharonovitch’s lack of treatment on the terrorist attacks in Jerusalem,” the official said. “The situation is catastrophic. Aharonovitch ‘fell asleep on his watch,’ and now everyone’s getting hit by the ricochets.

“This verges on scandalous,” the official said.

Eyewitnesses at the meeting earlier in the day between Netanyahu, Aharonovitch, Barkat, police officials, and others who deal with the attacks in Jerusalem, said Netanyahu slammed his fist on the table as he turned to speak with Aharonovitch.

Netanyahu, according to those present, gave Aharonovitch five days to boost forces and stop the violence.

But since Netanyahu was the one who appointed Aharonovitch in the first place, why does he not fire him and find a more competent replacement?

This is not a matter of mere politics any more.

Unfortunately, the battle for Jerusalem is not only in our own hands. As Shaul Bartal in the above-mentioned Middle East Quarterly article sums up with these sad words:

Sadly, the battle over Silwan (and for that matter the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict) is likely to continue as long as Palestinian Arabs and their brethren refuse to recognize that another people, the Jews, have a claim to the Land of Israel.

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Boo Hoo Palestine

October 21, 2014

Boo Hoo Palestine, You Tube, Pat Condell, October 20, 2014

 

Categories: Israel, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Jewish occupation of Israel, Two state solution
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