Ted Belman
Ben Gurion U is inundated with leftist professors who actively work to harm Israel. The bad news is that one of the worst professors Neve Gordon, just published a letter in the LA Times calling on the world to boycott Israel because it was an apartheid state. The good news is that contributors and community leaders raised such a ruckus that the Presidnt of the University who appointed Gordon with her blessings, was extremelhy concerned for the financial well being of the university. T. Belman
Steven Plaut reports
Ben Gurion University President Rivka Carmi Complains that her university is under unprecedented attack thanks to the “treasonous article” published by Neve Gordon in the Los Angeles Times.
The letter was sent en masse to the entire faculty of BGU (august 23, 2009
Isracampus Translation of the Letter:
From: Rivka Carmi, President, Ben Gurion University, The President’s Office
To all faculty members of Ben Gurion University, Shalom!
It is my desire to share with you my thoughts about a very serious matter that has been developing in recent days, one carrying the most severe consequences for the University. This past Thursday I returned from a trip to the US. Following a year of dramatic decreases in the levels of contributions and donations to BGU because of the global financial crisis, this time I definitely sensed some optimistic glimmerings of signs of recovery, willingness to pursue cooperation, and to discuss the needs of the University and its plans. In all of my discussions, the academic and social (sic) reputation of the University, as well as its role in the development of the Negev and of all of Israel, was saluted and appreciated.
But less than an hour after my landing in Israel I received a panicky phone call from the US, in which I was informed that a faculty member at BGU, Dr. Neve Gordon (since promoted under Rivka’s guiding hand and with her blessings to Associate Professor — Isracampus) had just published an article in the Los Angeles Times. This article calls upon the entire world to boycott the state of Israel, which Gordon there terms an apartheid regime. From that point and onwards, I received and continue to receive an unprecedented storm of angry messages and outraged letters from donors and supporters of the University, as well as from others who merely heard about the article. I also was forced to take enraged phone calls from donors and Jewish public figures in Israel and abroad.
This was not the first time that I and other officials at BGU have been subjected to similar frontal assaults. I never shared information about these attacks with you, the faculty, because I believe that dealing with them is part of my job. Nevertheless, this time the attack is unprecedented in its severity and scope. This is due to the extremist message comprising the article in question, regarded by many readers as outright treason against the state of Israel, and also because it appeared in a newspaper of such wide circulation, especially among the Jewish community. I have real and concrete reasons to suspect that this article will produce massive destructive damages to the ability of the University to raise funds, and it will cause enormous harm to the fiscal condition of the University, facing its worst budgetary crisis in history.
I feel the necessity of sharing with you my fears of these enormous damages and their impact upon the economic condition of the University, on its academic and social (sic) reputation, on its professional levels, and on the loyalty of all of us.
The university officials and many of you members of the faculty work hard at raising funding for the University. Unfortunately, without these donations we simply do not have life (sic), and certainly not development and progress. This work is particularly difficult during a period of global financial strife and of intensified competition for funding from other public bodies, especially other universities. An article such as this brands our University as an institution undeserving of global Jewish support. Many of those contacting me stated that they would never again support any Israeli university employing people who harm Israel in this way, and indeed that they would encourage their friends and associates to likewise withhold donations. I am citing the bottom line from so many letters and messages that I am receiving these days.
Colleagues, I am not addressing here the actual contents of that article by Gordon, in spite of the fact that I personally find it deeply repulsive. All I wish to do is convey to you the hardship that the University now finds itself facing, to let you know what the cause of that hardship is, and – as I said – to convey to you my fears of what the future brings regarding the prospects of the University.
Cordially,
Prof. Rivka Carmi
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Florida circuit court judge allows case to proceed under Islamic law
Jihad Watch
What was that Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacist groups were saying about how it was utterly fanciful that Sharia would ever be used to judge cases in American courts?
Few of the comments regarding this action:
Author Profile Page Lou Bator | March 18, 2011 1:38 PM | Reply
Whoa! Is this legal?
Author Profile Page ala sux | March 18, 2011 1:43 PM | Reply
Canada came close to allowing CAIR-canada and Dr.Sheem Khan to enshrine Shariah Law on our soil.
Bu tthe victim of Shariah law that fled to canada for safety had come forward to denouce it. CAIR fought tooth and nail to demonize the females that came forward with great fear for their lives from the islamists allowed to set-up in canada.
CAIR still wants to label Honopur-Killings as Domestic-Violence to blame all males and all faiths. But Canada didn't have this issue in the Pre-CAIR/Shariah Law days and this means it is really rich for CAIR to push Shariah law and claim it doesn't enbale violence against females.
But tell that to Muhammad who was a misogynistic/pedophile
and mass murderer that inspires the islamists to become Suicide-bombers.
Author Profile Page BT | March 18, 2011 1:43 PM | Reply
Yea, So?
Civil mediation with agreement between parties as to who the mediator will be.
Sounds cool to me.
If it crosses over into how criminal cases are handled, another story.
Author Profile Page descendantofacrusader | March 18, 2011 1:47 PM | Reply
Nothing to see here,folks - let's move along now.
Author Profile Page Infidel Task Force replied to comment from BT | March 18, 2011 1:47 PM | Reply
don't say that BT....thats how they get a foothold. Thats how it gets started.
We have to stay focused and keep in mind that America has ONE law for ALL people of both genders.
We do not favor another race, creed or color. Nor do we favor another religion over the will of the majority.
One law...One people. ALL the time
Author Profile Page duh_swami replied to comment from BT | March 18, 2011 1:53 PM | Reply
If it crosses over into how criminal cases are handled, another story.
And what assurances do we have that it won't do that?
You let the camel stick his nose in the tent, and guess what...Sharia law has NO place in America, that's zero for those who don't know what NO means...NO sharia...This judge and Judge Vickie of Oklahoma should be relieved of their duties...
Author Profile Page TheSSBlock | March 18, 2011 1:56 PM | Reply
This isn't the imposition of Islamic Law per se. Arbitration agreements (contracts) between parties are regularly taken to Civil Courts for enforcement in cases of dispute. Parties who agree to arbitrate have willingly chosen a method of dispute resolution outside of the court system. Arbitrators do not have to follow state or federal laws in making their decisions - or any recognized law at all.
Although not truly unlimited, if two parties agree to arbitrate their disputes, for all intents and purposes, they can bind themselves to an outcome under almost any system of law, of any religion, or any procedure. Unless a party can show fraud, duress, or coercion, an arbitration agreement functions like any contract which a court must uphold so long as it is clear, unambiguous, and freely negotiated. Consequently, a party may also have a cause of action in questioning the neutrality of the arbitrator or if no meaningful procedure was followed to guarantee a just result.
Upholding Islamic law agreed upon through arbitration is not really a problem. A problem would arise however, if, absent any agreement, the court attempted to invoke Islamic law on its own initiative, which of course it is not permitted to do.
Author Profile Page Sheikh Hasan bin Sobah | March 18, 2011 1:56 PM | Reply
When the brothers are unable to do so, they can agree to present the dispute to the greater community of brothers within the mosque or the Muslim community for resolution. If that is not done or does not result in a resolution of the dispute, the dispute is to be presented to an Islamic judge ro determinate, and that is or can an A’lim.
----------
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that if the foregoing does not resolve the matter then the brothers are free to kill one another as is the wont of Muslims worldwide, according to tradition. They may do so as they see fit though preference is to be given THE “Prophet’s” favorite method of smiting at the neck.
Call the next case!
Author Profile Page Wri7913 replied to comment from BT | March 18, 2011 1:57 PM | Reply
If both parties wanted the case handled by Sharia Law, they could have chose to do so without knowledge of the US Courts. In such cases, we would have no say in the matter and as descendantofacrusader said "Nothing to see here,folks - let's move along now."
This is not what happened.
The current owners of the Mosque wanted the trial settled by Florida Secular Law. The former owners of the Mosque wanted the matter settled by Islamic Law. The Judge basically gave a big middle finger to the current owners and said the matter would have to be settled by Islamic Law.
This is putting the foot in the door to more Sharia law cases. I would be willing to bet money this case will be used as a precedent for future cases where one party wants to use Sharia Law for settling legal or possibly criminal matters.
I'm very upset this happening in my home area. This is also the same court where Sami Al Arian was tried and convicted for helping Palestinian Jihad group.
Author Profile Page Wellington | March 18, 2011 1:59 PM | Reply
Almost certainly legal. And certainly ominous because Sharia is not just another legal system just as Islam is not just another religion. What really ticks me off is that the Islamic world is so damn dysfunctional and wretched and now, due to the broad-based affluence, equality under the law, extraordinary mobility and real freedom that Western societies have created, something the Islamic world has never done and will never do because Islam is incompatible with liberty and other core Western values, Muslims in large numbers in the West are now parasitically taking advantage of achievements that their deeply backward world could never attain. Sickening. Islam is the ultimate parasite and ingrate.
Author Profile Page TheSSBlock replied to comment from Wri7913 | March 18, 2011 2:15 PM | Reply
I am going to hazard a guess that there is a contract involved here. If there was no contract, there would be no basis for arbitration. Moreover, according to the order, arbitration has already been concluded. The order is enforcing the award.
If the owners wanted to dispute settled by Florida Law:
1) They would not have signed a contract to arbitrate pursuant to Islamic law.
2) They would not have went through the process of arbitration.
In a strict sense, this dispute is settled by secular Florida law - the law which recognizes that freely negotiated contracts between parties must be enforced.
Do I think Sharia law is appropriate? No.
Would I enter into an arbitration agreement implicating Sharia law as the method of resolving disputes? No.
Nonetheless, if the parties did, it really only seems to be a case of a party that had a case resolved against their interests and then attempted to shirk on their contractual obligations.
Author Profile Page Medina | March 18, 2011 2:27 PM | Reply
Since when is it the duty of any U.S. Court to "proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic Law, pursuant to the Qur'an?"
How can a judge who swore an oath to the U.S. Constitution enforce the Qur'an in a circuit court?
Robert, can SOIA file an amicus brief on behalf of Americans?
Author Profile Page miriam rove replied to comment from Wri7913 | March 18, 2011 2:28 PM | Reply
agreed
Author Profile Page pdxnag | March 18, 2011 2:29 PM | Reply
I cannot seem to find any factual "findings" within this document nor can I find any reference to any specific statutory provision -- to which such facts would apply -- which grant the judge authority to enter the order. It appears as though the judge lacked authority to enter the order, or at a minimum failed to note from where the claim of judicial authority derived. Just wearing a robe is not sufficient.
It would be nice to see the companion documents, if any.
"Islamic brothers"
"greater community of brothers"
Oh Brother! Such nonsense has no business being uttered in a legal document. The parties prepare proposed orders for judicial signature. It is entirely possible that this judge never read it, nor even court staff. This would not be surprising.
I suppose that this could give James O'Keefe some ideas about how to punk the court system; no worse than it was purposely punked here in this case.
Is the any "Islamic judge" who, by reason of their Islamic training alone, are recognized and approved as an official arbitrator? I think not.
Author Profile Page The SSBlock replied to comment from Medina | March 18, 2011 2:32 PM | Reply
The Court is not proceeding under Islamic Law. The "case" - the dispute between the parties - is proceeding under Islamic Law because that is how the parties agreed to resolve their dispute.
The Court is merely following law which is nearly uniform in all States - that freely negotiated contracts are binding.
Comments: You do understand this is how the Islamists defeat us from within. Stop this now or the USA as we know it ceases to exist-wake up America!!
Friday, March 18, 2011
Murder Most Foul: Reaction Worse Edit
BrianofLondon
This article will explain why something happening in Israel is directly relevant to the EDL and why the EDL is a beacon of light in a world gone mad.
Last week, in a place called Itamar, which I and many others consider to be in the Land of Israel, something happened which has shocked me and Israel to the core. This description comes from another web site because it's well written and I can't bring myself to write these things:
Ruth Fogel was in the bathroom when the Palestinian terrorists pounced on her husband Udi and their three-month-old daughter Hadas, slitting their throats as they lay in bed on Friday night in their home in Itamar.
The terrorists stabbed Ruth to death as she came out of the bathroom. With both parents and the newborn dead, they moved on to the other children, going into a bedroom where Ruth and Udi’s sons Yoav (11) and Elad (four) were sleeping. They stabbed them through their hearts and slit their throats. The murderers apparently missed another bedroom where the Fogels’ other sons, eight-year-old Ro’i and two-year-old Yishai were asleep because they left them alive. The boys were found by their big sister, 12-year-old Tamar, when she returned home from a friend’s house two hours after her family was massacred.
Tamar found two-year-old Yishai standing over his parents’ bodies screaming for them to wake up.
There are some horrific pictures of the murder scene on the web. I won't link to them. I prefer this video from happier days.
I live in a northern part of Israel's largest city, Tel Aviv and Itamar is a 44 minute drive from my home. There is one security checkpoint on the highway between my home and Itamar. Now I'm going to switch subjects and ask you what is your primary source of information on the EDL? Is it the BBC News reports that say the EDL are racist football thugs? Is it the UAF website or Searchlight magazine who say the EDL are the new heirs of Hitler, just waiting to murder all Muslims and anyone else they don't like? Do you think these descriptions apply to you?
For years now, anyone who lives in parts of Israel that were occupied by Jordan or Egypt until 1967 is called a "Settler". This has come to be a term of abuse, it's a way of separating them from the rest of the, presumably, good Jews. These "ultra nationalist" or "far right" or "ultra orthodox Zionists" have been demonised and dehumanised. Interestingly Palestinian and other Arab news and TV doesn't make such a huge separation: all Jews in Israel, pre-1967 or not, are settlers and all of modern Israel is a settlement of Jews on Muslim lands.
The mis-categorisation and demonisation of these people is on a much larger world wide scale to what has happened to the EDL and other counter Jihad movements in Europe. But it really is related. When this demonisation is combined with the murderous roots of Islam you have a very big problem.
You are essentially telling people who believe they have a mandate for murder from their God and his prophet that certain people's existence is illegitimate and they must be murdered. This is how you make a sane person cut off the head of a baby.
I'm not saying EDL members and their children will be murdered in their beds in England any time soon because of what the BBC says. What I am saying is that before you judge, think about your own experiences with the media: have they always told you the truth? Do they have an agenda? If there is one thing the EDL is showing people in England it is that they need to think for themselves. Don't take my word for it that the BBC dominated media in the UK is tainted on the subject of Israel. Check for yourselves. You don't have to support or reject Israeli policy to understand that there is never a reason for stabbing a baby.
Oh and last night, unreported in the UK I'm sure, these dangerous 'Settlers' and the unspeakably cruel IDF saved the life of a Palestinian woman and delivered her baby when she was driven at speed toward one of the checkpoints near Itamar.
I'm closing with the final two paragraphs of Melanie Phillips blog posting about the slaughter in Itamar (not a piece in the Daily Mail, this is too hot a topic to get that kind of exposure). I encourage you to read it all but first read the last few lines and ask yourself if you're on the side of humanity or evil.
The question now has to be asked of every person in Britain and the west who promotes the boycott of Israel, or wears the keffiyeh in solidarity with the ‘Palestinians’, or so obsessively demonises the ‘settlers’ or ‘apartheid’ Israel, or makes vicious comments at the dinner tables of the elite about the bloody Jews and shitty Israel, why these ‘enlightened’ folk turn a blind eye to the slaughter of infants as they sleep, and assist Jew-hating fanatics in their racist aim of destroying Israel and denying to the Jews alone the right to live in their own historic country – and all because Israel is reluctant to reward these fanatics by giving them the territory from where they can finally achieve their murderous aims. These ‘progressives’ need to be outed for what they are – the fellow-travellers of psychotic religious fascism.
Israel is the signature moral issue of our time. Which side people choose to be on in the Arab and Muslim war against Israel tells us whether they are on the side of truth, justice and basic humanity – or the side of evil. The sickening response to the slaughter of the Fogel family shows us all too horrifyingly which side the west is on.
Exactly as happened to the Jews in their ancient home of Israel after massive colonisation by Islam, England can become a Muslim country and you will have to beg for the right to remain alive in it. If you don't stop it.
About the Author this piece:
I grew up in England and two years ago moved to Israel (for Jews it's called making Aliyah). I've supported the EDL for a while and helped out behind the scenes writing articles and speeches. I tend not to talk about Israel when I help out the EDL unless I'm asked specifically about it: in general there is far too much about Israel in the news in the UK.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Jewish-Muslim alliance?
Isi Leibler
March 17, 2011
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=2865
The proposed public hearings by House Homeland Security Committee chairman Peter King on the extent of radicalization in the American Muslim community and that community's response have created a heated media debate on the role of Muslims in Western countries.
Besides the fact that a society discriminating against minorities almost invariably turns against Jews, the persecution and discrimination we suffered throughout history instinctively compels us to oppose all manifestations of discrimination and persecution.
However, that surely does not require us to defend groups who harbor hostility against us or seek to undermine open society. This is very relevant in relation to the new global industry of Jewish alliances with Muslim groups purportedly opposing Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. It is exemplified by the highly publicized US launch of a joint Jewish Muslim campaign to combat Islamophobia and anti-Semitism initiated by Rabbi Marc Schneier, head of the New York-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
His principal ally and sponsor in this venture is Russell Simmons, the Afro-American hip-hop mogul, who publicly expresses adoration for Louis Farrakhan, the viciously racist anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader.
In Brussels last December, in combination with the World Jewish Congress and the World Council for Muslim Interfaith Relations, Schneier expanded this body to include European representatives forming a Global Coordinating Committee to combat "Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and racism."
This organization has already issued problematic statements, condemning as "totally unacceptable" the absorption of "extremist" right-wing political parties into the mainstream without defining explicitly whom it was targeting. It also made no reference to the greater threats to Jews emanating from far Left and radical Islamist groups.
It also expressed disquiet concerning recent pronouncements of major European leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, conceding that the policy of multiculturalism has proven to be disastrous and failed to integrate some major migrant groups into an open democratic society.
It is surely bizarre for a body including Jews to condemn a long overdue criticism of radical Islam's abuse of multiculturalism, especially since European Jews bore the brunt of the violence generated by the anti-Semitic hostility of these groups.
IT ALSO ill behooves Jews confronted with the current tsunami of violent anti-Semitism to indiscriminately endorse campaigns condemning frequently exaggerated allegations of Islamophobia without referring to the fact that radical Muslims represent the prime dissemination of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incitement and violence.
We should call a spade a spade. The majority of vocal Muslims in Europe and to a lesser extent the US, regrettably do not display goodwill toward Jews. Many, who ritually condemn anti-Semitism, simultaneously demonize Israel and distinguish between "Jews" and "Zionists."
And alas, few are inclined or sufficiently courageous to publicly condemn the brutal behavior of Islamic states toward other minorities.
A critical prerequisite of an alliance with a Muslim group is surely that the organization expresses a clear-cut repudiation of the global anti- Semitic filth which pours out of Islamic countries.
And decency also demands that those demanding equal rights for Muslims in Western countries also condemn the persecution, murder, religious cleansing and denial of human rights that non-Muslim minorities endure in Islamic states.
For the World Jewish Congress (which did dissociate itself from Schneier's attacks on King's inquiry into the radicalization of the American Muslim community) to be party to such initiatives without demanding such commitments from its Muslim partner is a lamentable example of Jews being more concerned about their political correctness than acting to protect Jewish interests.
The majority of Muslims in Western countries, especially in America, are law-abiding. But that does not invalidate the reality that cries of Allah akbar accompany most terrorist attacks, many of which are directed against Jews.
IT IS thus deplorable to see Jews engaged in campaigns seeking to deny profiling of people undergoing security checks. The reality is that while Muslims only represent 1 percent of the American population, 80% of all terrorist convictions since 9/11 were motivated by Islamic extremism, and homegrown Muslim terrorists are emerging in greater numbers. The facts demonstrate beyond doubt that there are certain profiles that are more inclined to be associated with terrorist attacks. Refusing to implement profiling thus not only represents an appalling form of political correctness, but endangers innocent life and lacks any moral justification.
If even a handful of rabbis had encouraged second-generation Jewish immigrants in Western countries to initiate bombings and suicide attacks against non-Jews, the most vociferous demands for action against such deviants would be emanating from the Jewish community itself.
Yet, the perception is that while most Muslims distance themselves from the radicals, they are often reluctant or fearful of exposing them. Some purportedly "respectable" American Muslim organizations have actually urged their members not to collaborate with the FBI.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is the largest US Islamic umbrella organization and has access to high-level government officials. Yet the FBI had cause to expose its founders for having ties to a Muslim Brotherhood created Hamas network.
Last year a Justice Department official reaffirmed that no new evidence had emerged "that exonerates CAIR from the allegations that it provides financial support to designated terrorist groups".
And when Schneier provocatively proclaims, "Today, I am a Muslim, too," he should ask himself whether he and Jews in general should really be expressing solidarity with all Muslims, including the majority who reside in states which deny freedom of worship and persecute and murder infidels.
We are obliged to fervently oppose discrimination or persecution of lawabiding Muslims and collaborate with genuinely moderate Muslim leaders. But there is no justification for us to champion the rights and display love to those who seek to harm us or are indifferent to our destruction or refuse to expose and condemn extremism within their ranks. Failure to insist that such groups take a stand on "sensitive" issues will not only alienate our genuine friends, it will also strengthen extremist Muslims who despise, but happily exploit, bleeding heart Jews to gain a cloak of respectability while they promote their evil objectives.
We should seek out and encourage alliances with courageous Muslim moderates who share our commitment to an open and democratic society and avoid patronizing or providing respectability to groups who either endorse or refuse to condemn the local and international excesses of Islamic extremism.
ileibler@netvision.net.il
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post
King at Conference: Bibi is Dividing Jerusalem
Hillel Fendel
A7 News
Long-time Jerusalem lands activist Aryeh King told the audience at the 8th Annual Jerusalem Conference on Tuesday that eight Jerusalem neighborhoods are actually off-limits to Jews. The news, backed up by video clips showing soldiers refusing to allow Jews to enter while Arab cars entered freely, caused a stir not only in the audience, but also among the panel of speakers.
The session dealt with Jerusalem, how to prevent its division, and how to strengthen its status as the capital of the Jewish People. Speakers included Education Minister Gideon Saar, who was praised for his initiative in which pupils throughout Israel visit Jerusalem at least three times during their school careers.
"Our common vision and dream, throughout the generations, to reach Jerusalem and Zion," Saar said, "is what enabled us to exist as 'one nation,' as Haman said in the Book of Esther that we shall soon read, even though we were also 'scattered and separate.' ... More than we succeeded in preserving Zion, Zion was able to watch over us." Saar said he believes it was his first decision upon becoming Education Minister two years ago "to ensure that pupils get to know Jerusalem. A survey beforehand had shown that a full 50 percent of those who graduated from our schools had never been to Jerusalem! ... So we instituted a program, fully funded and recognized, by which students in 5th, 7th and 10th grades take official school trips to Jerusalem, where they visit sites such as the Western Wall, the Western Wall Tunnels, the City of David, Ammunition Hill, and more. Sites that had been all but closed but were opened, with the cooperation of the police, as a result of this program, which brings over a half-million students to our capital every year."
King Attacks Netanyahu
In contrast to the positive picture painted by Saar and succeeding speakers, King, a familiar face on the Jerusalem activism scene and head of the Israel Land Fund, began his talk aggressively: "Bibi [Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] has already divided Jerusalem! Not with words, but with actions…. There are seven neighborhoods - and now another one has just been added, Isawiya, very close to here – where Jews are not permitted to enter! … In addition, 7% of Jerusalem area has been transferred to the control of the IDF, in violation of the Basic Law: Jerusalem.
"The Israel Police do not enter these neighborhoods, while the PA police direct traffic there! … Bibi also allows illegal Moslem burials outside the eastern wall of the Temple Mount – something that no prime minister before him allowed... The PA has also paved several kilometers of roads in Jerusalem… Bibi is doing terrible things, things that Barak in Camp David [in the late 90's, when he agreed to give 95-98% of Judea and Samaria to the PA] never dreamed of doing."
King screened three video clips, one that showed how soldiers did not allow a Jewish car to enter an Arab-populated neighborhood "just 250 meters from French Hill," while allowing Arabs to pass through unhindered.
Another member of the speakers' panel – Shlomo Attias of Shas, head of the Jewish Quarter Development Company – acknowledged that he did not know much of what King reported, and that it was shocking news.
Danon Agrees - Mostly
MK Danny Danon (Likud) told how he and King worked together to salvage Jewish-owned land in Jerusalem 13 years ago: "At one point, we went to a building in Maaleh Zeitim [Ras el-Amoud], but even though it was totally and legally ours, we had to go at night so as not to [arouse problems]… Arabs saw us and started attacking us with rocks. We called the police, located at the time just 300 meters away, and they made us wait for three hours before arriving! They did it purposely, so that we would get scared and leave altogether – but we didn't, and finally the police arrived and dispersed the attackers. Today, of course, dozens of Jewish families live there, with dozens more set to move in these very weeks…"
Danon also related that several years ago, the neighborhood of Har Homa – now populated by close to 30,000 Jews – was the main issue of contention: "Clinton and Albright ordered Netanyahu, who was Prime Minister at the time, not to sign the tenders for construction, because Arafat would never agree to have Bethlehem cut off from the Temple Mount. But we gathered some MKs and exerted pressure and made it clear that the government would fall on this issue – and Bibi signed the papers."
Danon agreed that "the situation in Jerusalem is a catastrophe… Just a few weeks ago, plans for developing some new neighborhoods were abruptly removed from the planning committee's agenda…"
Despite this, he did not agree with Aryeh King's implied call to replace Netanyahu, and said that it is best to be part of the government and to struggle for change from within.
What Happened With Atarot?
King said that the solution for Jerusalem is to build large housing projects in and around Jerusalem: "For instance, there was a plan to build 10,000 units for the hareidi-religious public in Atarot, in northern Jerusalem – but for some reason, Mayor Barkat shelved it. It is projects like these that will save Jerusalem!"
Barkat had been listed to speak at the session, but canceled his participation shortly beforehand. He recently said that he would like the government to help the city rezone Atarot, until recently the site of an airport, into a 200-acre industrial and hi-tech park.
A7 News
Long-time Jerusalem lands activist Aryeh King told the audience at the 8th Annual Jerusalem Conference on Tuesday that eight Jerusalem neighborhoods are actually off-limits to Jews. The news, backed up by video clips showing soldiers refusing to allow Jews to enter while Arab cars entered freely, caused a stir not only in the audience, but also among the panel of speakers.
The session dealt with Jerusalem, how to prevent its division, and how to strengthen its status as the capital of the Jewish People. Speakers included Education Minister Gideon Saar, who was praised for his initiative in which pupils throughout Israel visit Jerusalem at least three times during their school careers.
"Our common vision and dream, throughout the generations, to reach Jerusalem and Zion," Saar said, "is what enabled us to exist as 'one nation,' as Haman said in the Book of Esther that we shall soon read, even though we were also 'scattered and separate.' ... More than we succeeded in preserving Zion, Zion was able to watch over us." Saar said he believes it was his first decision upon becoming Education Minister two years ago "to ensure that pupils get to know Jerusalem. A survey beforehand had shown that a full 50 percent of those who graduated from our schools had never been to Jerusalem! ... So we instituted a program, fully funded and recognized, by which students in 5th, 7th and 10th grades take official school trips to Jerusalem, where they visit sites such as the Western Wall, the Western Wall Tunnels, the City of David, Ammunition Hill, and more. Sites that had been all but closed but were opened, with the cooperation of the police, as a result of this program, which brings over a half-million students to our capital every year."
King Attacks Netanyahu
In contrast to the positive picture painted by Saar and succeeding speakers, King, a familiar face on the Jerusalem activism scene and head of the Israel Land Fund, began his talk aggressively: "Bibi [Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] has already divided Jerusalem! Not with words, but with actions…. There are seven neighborhoods - and now another one has just been added, Isawiya, very close to here – where Jews are not permitted to enter! … In addition, 7% of Jerusalem area has been transferred to the control of the IDF, in violation of the Basic Law: Jerusalem.
"The Israel Police do not enter these neighborhoods, while the PA police direct traffic there! … Bibi also allows illegal Moslem burials outside the eastern wall of the Temple Mount – something that no prime minister before him allowed... The PA has also paved several kilometers of roads in Jerusalem… Bibi is doing terrible things, things that Barak in Camp David [in the late 90's, when he agreed to give 95-98% of Judea and Samaria to the PA] never dreamed of doing."
King screened three video clips, one that showed how soldiers did not allow a Jewish car to enter an Arab-populated neighborhood "just 250 meters from French Hill," while allowing Arabs to pass through unhindered.
Another member of the speakers' panel – Shlomo Attias of Shas, head of the Jewish Quarter Development Company – acknowledged that he did not know much of what King reported, and that it was shocking news.
Danon Agrees - Mostly
MK Danny Danon (Likud) told how he and King worked together to salvage Jewish-owned land in Jerusalem 13 years ago: "At one point, we went to a building in Maaleh Zeitim [Ras el-Amoud], but even though it was totally and legally ours, we had to go at night so as not to [arouse problems]… Arabs saw us and started attacking us with rocks. We called the police, located at the time just 300 meters away, and they made us wait for three hours before arriving! They did it purposely, so that we would get scared and leave altogether – but we didn't, and finally the police arrived and dispersed the attackers. Today, of course, dozens of Jewish families live there, with dozens more set to move in these very weeks…"
Danon also related that several years ago, the neighborhood of Har Homa – now populated by close to 30,000 Jews – was the main issue of contention: "Clinton and Albright ordered Netanyahu, who was Prime Minister at the time, not to sign the tenders for construction, because Arafat would never agree to have Bethlehem cut off from the Temple Mount. But we gathered some MKs and exerted pressure and made it clear that the government would fall on this issue – and Bibi signed the papers."
Danon agreed that "the situation in Jerusalem is a catastrophe… Just a few weeks ago, plans for developing some new neighborhoods were abruptly removed from the planning committee's agenda…"
Despite this, he did not agree with Aryeh King's implied call to replace Netanyahu, and said that it is best to be part of the government and to struggle for change from within.
What Happened With Atarot?
King said that the solution for Jerusalem is to build large housing projects in and around Jerusalem: "For instance, there was a plan to build 10,000 units for the hareidi-religious public in Atarot, in northern Jerusalem – but for some reason, Mayor Barkat shelved it. It is projects like these that will save Jerusalem!"
Barkat had been listed to speak at the session, but canceled his participation shortly beforehand. He recently said that he would like the government to help the city rezone Atarot, until recently the site of an airport, into a 200-acre industrial and hi-tech park.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Itamar Massacre Fails to Change Obama’s Anti-Settlement Policy
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Netanyahu government’s decision to build 500 new homes in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) as a response to Arab terror does not move the United States, which still insists that "settlements are illegitimate.”
The American criticism of Israel’s renewed Yesha building , restricted to major population centers, was true to form. That criticism caused National Union party chairman MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) to say that it would be aimed at Israel whether 5000, 500 or 50 houses were built. no matter where in Judea andSamaria they are built. He sharply criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's announcement of only 500 new homes, when the needs are much greater, as a sign of weakness and being “too little and too limited.” Knesset Member Katz explained, "The minuscule number of housing units announced by the government serves as a reward to the foul murderers of our people. The straight thinking public, those who love Israel and its nation, have had enough of this cowering, spineless behavior and will not forgive the Prime Minister's handing of the reins of building Judea and Samaria and United Jerusalem over to [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak."
“The government's weakness," said Katz, "will stimulate the inner, wholesome strength of the more than 600,000 residents of Judea and Samaria [including United Jerusalem] and those who support them, who will not rest until they replace the present jaded leaders with men of integrity, until we are led by humble and unassuming leaders who believe in the justice of their cause.”
The Obama administration’s criticism of Israel is based on its acceptance of the Palestinian Authority demand that Israel surrender all of the land restored to the Jewish state in the Six Day War in 1967. The political lines before the war were referred to as the “Auschwitz borders" by then-Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban.
The Israeli response of “they murder and we build” was tempered with a statement that “measured construction” will be limited to the major Jewish population centers of Maaleh Adumin, Ariel, Kiryat Sefer and Gush Etzion.
Nevertheless, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the Obama administration was “deeply concerned" over the new construction for Jews. He repeated U.S. President Barack Obama’s declaration that the Jewish communities in the area are “illegitimate” and added that the new building plans "run counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations'' between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.
The PA also denounced the new building plan.
Prime Minister Netanyahu imposed an unprecedented 10-month freeze on building new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria in September 2009 to satisfy PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s condition for resuming negotiations for the establishment of the PA as an independent country. However, Abbas then rejected the freeze as not being extensive enough. After the freeze ended, the government allowed the continuation of previously approved homes.
A de-facto freeze continues on new homes in most of Judea and Samaria that have not yet been approved, due to Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s refusal to sign necessary documents. He said he would agree to the 500 new units that a government ministerial committee approved Saturday night, 24 hours after the Itamar massacre.
The Netanyahu government’s decision to build 500 new homes in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) as a response to Arab terror does not move the United States, which still insists that "settlements are illegitimate.”
The American criticism of Israel’s renewed Yesha building , restricted to major population centers, was true to form. That criticism caused National Union party chairman MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) to say that it would be aimed at Israel whether 5000, 500 or 50 houses were built. no matter where in Judea andSamaria they are built. He sharply criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's announcement of only 500 new homes, when the needs are much greater, as a sign of weakness and being “too little and too limited.” Knesset Member Katz explained, "The minuscule number of housing units announced by the government serves as a reward to the foul murderers of our people. The straight thinking public, those who love Israel and its nation, have had enough of this cowering, spineless behavior and will not forgive the Prime Minister's handing of the reins of building Judea and Samaria and United Jerusalem over to [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak."
“The government's weakness," said Katz, "will stimulate the inner, wholesome strength of the more than 600,000 residents of Judea and Samaria [including United Jerusalem] and those who support them, who will not rest until they replace the present jaded leaders with men of integrity, until we are led by humble and unassuming leaders who believe in the justice of their cause.”
The Obama administration’s criticism of Israel is based on its acceptance of the Palestinian Authority demand that Israel surrender all of the land restored to the Jewish state in the Six Day War in 1967. The political lines before the war were referred to as the “Auschwitz borders" by then-Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban.
The Israeli response of “they murder and we build” was tempered with a statement that “measured construction” will be limited to the major Jewish population centers of Maaleh Adumin, Ariel, Kiryat Sefer and Gush Etzion.
Nevertheless, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the Obama administration was “deeply concerned" over the new construction for Jews. He repeated U.S. President Barack Obama’s declaration that the Jewish communities in the area are “illegitimate” and added that the new building plans "run counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations'' between Israelis and the Palestinian Authority.
The PA also denounced the new building plan.
Prime Minister Netanyahu imposed an unprecedented 10-month freeze on building new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria in September 2009 to satisfy PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s condition for resuming negotiations for the establishment of the PA as an independent country. However, Abbas then rejected the freeze as not being extensive enough. After the freeze ended, the government allowed the continuation of previously approved homes.
A de-facto freeze continues on new homes in most of Judea and Samaria that have not yet been approved, due to Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s refusal to sign necessary documents. He said he would agree to the 500 new units that a government ministerial committee approved Saturday night, 24 hours after the Itamar massacre.
"Vigilance"
Arlene Kushner
That is what is required of us, here in Israel. For our enemies are all about. I'm reminded a bit of the old saying, "There is no rest for the weary." But never mind, weary or not, we will prevail. The latest incident demonstrating our ability to prevail follows below.
But I first want to let my readers know that unless there is something of major significance that transpires, I will be off-line until next Tuesday at least.
~~~~~~~~~~
One reason is Purim. A story, incidentally, that tells of another instance in which our people -- threatened with extinction -- bested our enemy, aided by the hidden hand of the Almighty. Purim is a time when we are bidden to hear that story read, in the Megillat Ester, bring gifts of food to friends and charity to the poor. And celebrate.
The Fast of Ester (Tannit Ester) is tomorrow. Purim is Sunday, but is celebrated in Jerusalem, which was a walled city, on Sushan Purim, Monday.
To all those who will be observing Purim, I wish a Chag Purim Sameach! The other reason is simply a writing assignment I have assumed that will occupy my time at the computer. For that reason, friends, I ask please! that you curtail comments and sharing of information for the next several days.
~~~~~~~~~~
Now as to the latest incident we have confronted that required vigilance:
Yesterday, the Israeli navy intercepted the cargo ship Victoria some 320 km off of Israel's coast in the Mediterranean.
The captain of the ship -- which is German-owned but flies under a Liberian flag, and operates with a French crew -- granted permission for Israeli commandos from the elite Shayetet unit to board and offered no resistance when they did. What was discovered was a cache of sophisticated weaponry that had been loaded in the Syrian port of Latakia. The certificates regarding the containers indicated they were carrying cotton and lentils. But the commandos had to open only one container to discover weapons.
~~~~~~~~~~
As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago, two Iranian ships entered the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, docked in Syria for a while, and left. The port where they docked was Latakia, and it is strongly suspected that the weaponry had been unloaded from Iran at that point. That at least some of the weapons were of Iranian origin is certain: there were manuals in Farsi.
~~~~~~~~~~
When the Victoria left Latakia, it sailed to the port of Mersin in Turkey, where it sat for some days -- it is thought, to allay suspicions. When it was intercepted, it was on its way to Egypt. At least some of the containers, which were heavily locked, were bound for the port of Alexandria there.
The assumption of course, is that the weaponry would have moved via tunnels into Gaza. The cache of weapons was estimated to weigh about 50 tons and included two Chinese-made C-704 anti-ship missiles -- which the Iranians do possess. The missiles -- which had the Iranian word for them, Nasr, written on them -- would have seriously interfered with Israel's ability to navigate in the Mediterranean and would have threatened strategic installations near the coast. This missile uses advanced radar, has a range of 35 km., and can carry a warhead of 130 kg. of explosives.
~~~~~~~~~~
I shudder, and thank Heaven for the vigilance. There's a history of weapons ships intercepted by Israel, including the Karine-A, and two years ago the Francop.
~~~~~~~~~~
This entirely successful operation began several days ago with intelligence received. The Navy immediately began tracking the ship, and planning that operation.
It is being made clear that there is no suspicion that either the Turkish or the Egyptians were aware of the contents of the ship; and the crew was ignorant of what was in those containers.
The ship is being brought to the port in Ashdod. And later today, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon will be accompanying foreign diplomats to the port and showing them some of the weapons.
~~~~~~~~~~
You can see videos of the Israeli Navy boarding the ship here:
http://idfspokesperson.com/2011/03/15/videos-of-navys-request-and-subsequent-boarding-of-the-victoria/
~~~~~~~~~~
There is no question but that attempts by Iran to arm Hamas and Hezbollah will continue.
And it is worth noting that this operation attempting to bring the weapons via sea to Egypt is a deviation from the route that has been used more frequently until now: unloading by boats was often done in Sudan and then a convoy would make its way into Egypt on land. That way is apparently getting more difficult both because of Israeli and Egyptian efforts.
Israeli vigilance in this matter requires that many ships be boarded each year. And here is a fact that should be kept in mind: There was no way to know, with regard to the infamous flotilla incident, that there were no major weapons on board the Mavi Mamara.
This constant and on-going possibility, as Iran seeks to arm Hamas, is the reason for the naval blockade of the Gaza coast. For all the negative press leveled at us by enemies, there is solid security justification for our actions. Without that blockade, ships would unload weaponry directly into Gaza.
~~~~~~~~~~
I've had neither the time nor the space to devote to discussing J Street that I might have liked. But I want to recommend here an excellent article that solidly puts J Street into perspective, written by Lori Lowenthal Marcus, president of Z Street (www.zstreet.org).
"'Maybe, if this collective Jewish presence' -- that is, the Jewish State in the Middle East -- 'can only survive by the sword, then Israel really ain't a good idea.' So said Daniel Levy, one of J Street's founders, at the 2011 J Street Conference."
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/j_street_maybe_israel_really_a.html
~~~~~~~~~~
And finally, a return -- with several observations -- to the massacre at Itamar. (There is currently a gag order on the investigation.)
I wrote last about how the PA news services were reporting that a disgruntled Asian worker whom the Fogels had refused to pay had killed the family, and not a Palestinian Arab at all. We were, you see, making premature and unfair accusations.
Well, Israel National News decided to investigate, and discovered that Itamar has no foreign workers as a matter of principle -- all work is done by Jews.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142902
Sorry guys, you'll have to come up with a better one to deflect your shame.
In the interests of guarding truth, share this information wherever you may see promotion of the idea that it was an Asian worker.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then a very pertinent observation by columnist Jeff Jacoby -- an observation that applies more broadly than just to Itamar and substantially separates the liberal from the conservative mindset:
"There are those who believe passionately that all human beings are inherently good and rational creatures, essentially the same once you get beyond surface disagreements. Such people cannot accept the reality of a culture that extols death over life, that inculcates a vitriolic hatred of Jews, that induces children to idolize terrorists. Since they would never murder a family in its sleep without being driven to it by some overpowering horror, they imagine that nobody would. This is the mindset that sees a massacre of Jews and concludes that Jews must in some way have provoked it. It is the mindset behind the narrative that continually blames Israel for the enmity of its neighbors, and makes it Israel's responsibility to end their violence.
"But the truth is simpler, and bleaker. Human goodness is not hard-wired. It takes sustained effort and healthy values to produce good people; in the absence of those values, cruelty and intolerance are far more likely to flourish."
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/8933/massacre-of-the-innocents
~~~~~~~~~~
In closing, items that point with pride to exactly who we are as a people.
This is making the rounds broadly:
Every day of shiva (the first week of mourning), Rami Levi -- who owns one of the larger super market chains in Israel -- comes by the shiva house in Itamar and fills the cupboards and refrigerator himself with food for the family and guests.
When on of the relatives expressed appreciation to him. he said “You will get used to my face. I have committed myself that every week I will deliver food and stock your home until the youngest orphan turns 18 years old.”
~~~~~~~~~~
I have observed before, with a sort of awe, the incredible strength of the family members left behind after a terrorist attack -- a strength that permits no call for revenge and seeks only to move on a path of goodness.
These magnificent human beings, you must understand, are the very sort of people who are most frequently vilified by a liberal press as "religious settlers," by which is meant "radical crazies" who do not deserve respect and insist on living where they don't belong.
But I submit that these people are among the very finest of our nation.
~~~~~~~~~~
On Monday, Rabbi Yehuda Ben-Yishai, the mourning father of Ruth Fogel, gave an interview, and parts of it were carried by Israel National News.
He is seen in this photo by Flash 90 on the left, leaning again his son.
Mourning at funerals for Fogel family terror
"Asked by the interviewer, 'Where do you have the strength and restraint that you can talk now and strengthen us, without anger and without calling for vengeance – that is not in your voice? Where is the strength from?'
"Rabbi Ben-Yishai answered, 'I have worked in education many years, and as an educator, I try to strengthen and teach people faith. I understand that I cannot be satisfied with words and that I also must implement the same principles on which I have educated others. This is a test of my faith...'
~~~~~~~~~~
Then, in words that caused me to weep at my computer, Rabbi Ben-Yishai continued:
"He said, 'We [the grandparents] will take upon ourselves the difficult task and pave for them the path so that life will be victorious.'
"'Their mother and father will pray for them from the Heavens, their grandfathers and grandmothers will give them a lot of love, and the People of Israel will hug them and encourage them to grow and continue in the path of their parents.'
"Rabbi Ben-Yishai said that the only thing he regrets is that he did not tell his daughter Ruth and his grandchildren enough times, 'I love you. I love you.' He added, 'If I could go back in time, I would say so every five minutes, but that would not be enough.'"
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142902
~~~~~~~~~~
With people such as this in our nation, we will prevail, we will prevail.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
That is what is required of us, here in Israel. For our enemies are all about. I'm reminded a bit of the old saying, "There is no rest for the weary." But never mind, weary or not, we will prevail. The latest incident demonstrating our ability to prevail follows below.
But I first want to let my readers know that unless there is something of major significance that transpires, I will be off-line until next Tuesday at least.
~~~~~~~~~~
One reason is Purim. A story, incidentally, that tells of another instance in which our people -- threatened with extinction -- bested our enemy, aided by the hidden hand of the Almighty. Purim is a time when we are bidden to hear that story read, in the Megillat Ester, bring gifts of food to friends and charity to the poor. And celebrate.
The Fast of Ester (Tannit Ester) is tomorrow. Purim is Sunday, but is celebrated in Jerusalem, which was a walled city, on Sushan Purim, Monday.
To all those who will be observing Purim, I wish a Chag Purim Sameach! The other reason is simply a writing assignment I have assumed that will occupy my time at the computer. For that reason, friends, I ask please! that you curtail comments and sharing of information for the next several days.
~~~~~~~~~~
Now as to the latest incident we have confronted that required vigilance:
Yesterday, the Israeli navy intercepted the cargo ship Victoria some 320 km off of Israel's coast in the Mediterranean.
The captain of the ship -- which is German-owned but flies under a Liberian flag, and operates with a French crew -- granted permission for Israeli commandos from the elite Shayetet unit to board and offered no resistance when they did. What was discovered was a cache of sophisticated weaponry that had been loaded in the Syrian port of Latakia. The certificates regarding the containers indicated they were carrying cotton and lentils. But the commandos had to open only one container to discover weapons.
~~~~~~~~~~
As you may remember, a couple of weeks ago, two Iranian ships entered the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, docked in Syria for a while, and left. The port where they docked was Latakia, and it is strongly suspected that the weaponry had been unloaded from Iran at that point. That at least some of the weapons were of Iranian origin is certain: there were manuals in Farsi.
~~~~~~~~~~
When the Victoria left Latakia, it sailed to the port of Mersin in Turkey, where it sat for some days -- it is thought, to allay suspicions. When it was intercepted, it was on its way to Egypt. At least some of the containers, which were heavily locked, were bound for the port of Alexandria there.
The assumption of course, is that the weaponry would have moved via tunnels into Gaza. The cache of weapons was estimated to weigh about 50 tons and included two Chinese-made C-704 anti-ship missiles -- which the Iranians do possess. The missiles -- which had the Iranian word for them, Nasr, written on them -- would have seriously interfered with Israel's ability to navigate in the Mediterranean and would have threatened strategic installations near the coast. This missile uses advanced radar, has a range of 35 km., and can carry a warhead of 130 kg. of explosives.
~~~~~~~~~~
I shudder, and thank Heaven for the vigilance. There's a history of weapons ships intercepted by Israel, including the Karine-A, and two years ago the Francop.
~~~~~~~~~~
This entirely successful operation began several days ago with intelligence received. The Navy immediately began tracking the ship, and planning that operation.
It is being made clear that there is no suspicion that either the Turkish or the Egyptians were aware of the contents of the ship; and the crew was ignorant of what was in those containers.
The ship is being brought to the port in Ashdod. And later today, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon will be accompanying foreign diplomats to the port and showing them some of the weapons.
~~~~~~~~~~
You can see videos of the Israeli Navy boarding the ship here:
http://idfspokesperson.com/2011/03/15/videos-of-navys-request-and-subsequent-boarding-of-the-victoria/
~~~~~~~~~~
There is no question but that attempts by Iran to arm Hamas and Hezbollah will continue.
And it is worth noting that this operation attempting to bring the weapons via sea to Egypt is a deviation from the route that has been used more frequently until now: unloading by boats was often done in Sudan and then a convoy would make its way into Egypt on land. That way is apparently getting more difficult both because of Israeli and Egyptian efforts.
Israeli vigilance in this matter requires that many ships be boarded each year. And here is a fact that should be kept in mind: There was no way to know, with regard to the infamous flotilla incident, that there were no major weapons on board the Mavi Mamara.
This constant and on-going possibility, as Iran seeks to arm Hamas, is the reason for the naval blockade of the Gaza coast. For all the negative press leveled at us by enemies, there is solid security justification for our actions. Without that blockade, ships would unload weaponry directly into Gaza.
~~~~~~~~~~
I've had neither the time nor the space to devote to discussing J Street that I might have liked. But I want to recommend here an excellent article that solidly puts J Street into perspective, written by Lori Lowenthal Marcus, president of Z Street (www.zstreet.org).
"'Maybe, if this collective Jewish presence' -- that is, the Jewish State in the Middle East -- 'can only survive by the sword, then Israel really ain't a good idea.' So said Daniel Levy, one of J Street's founders, at the 2011 J Street Conference."
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/j_street_maybe_israel_really_a.html
~~~~~~~~~~
And finally, a return -- with several observations -- to the massacre at Itamar. (There is currently a gag order on the investigation.)
I wrote last about how the PA news services were reporting that a disgruntled Asian worker whom the Fogels had refused to pay had killed the family, and not a Palestinian Arab at all. We were, you see, making premature and unfair accusations.
Well, Israel National News decided to investigate, and discovered that Itamar has no foreign workers as a matter of principle -- all work is done by Jews.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142902
Sorry guys, you'll have to come up with a better one to deflect your shame.
In the interests of guarding truth, share this information wherever you may see promotion of the idea that it was an Asian worker.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then a very pertinent observation by columnist Jeff Jacoby -- an observation that applies more broadly than just to Itamar and substantially separates the liberal from the conservative mindset:
"There are those who believe passionately that all human beings are inherently good and rational creatures, essentially the same once you get beyond surface disagreements. Such people cannot accept the reality of a culture that extols death over life, that inculcates a vitriolic hatred of Jews, that induces children to idolize terrorists. Since they would never murder a family in its sleep without being driven to it by some overpowering horror, they imagine that nobody would. This is the mindset that sees a massacre of Jews and concludes that Jews must in some way have provoked it. It is the mindset behind the narrative that continually blames Israel for the enmity of its neighbors, and makes it Israel's responsibility to end their violence.
"But the truth is simpler, and bleaker. Human goodness is not hard-wired. It takes sustained effort and healthy values to produce good people; in the absence of those values, cruelty and intolerance are far more likely to flourish."
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/8933/massacre-of-the-innocents
~~~~~~~~~~
In closing, items that point with pride to exactly who we are as a people.
This is making the rounds broadly:
Every day of shiva (the first week of mourning), Rami Levi -- who owns one of the larger super market chains in Israel -- comes by the shiva house in Itamar and fills the cupboards and refrigerator himself with food for the family and guests.
When on of the relatives expressed appreciation to him. he said “You will get used to my face. I have committed myself that every week I will deliver food and stock your home until the youngest orphan turns 18 years old.”
~~~~~~~~~~
I have observed before, with a sort of awe, the incredible strength of the family members left behind after a terrorist attack -- a strength that permits no call for revenge and seeks only to move on a path of goodness.
These magnificent human beings, you must understand, are the very sort of people who are most frequently vilified by a liberal press as "religious settlers," by which is meant "radical crazies" who do not deserve respect and insist on living where they don't belong.
But I submit that these people are among the very finest of our nation.
~~~~~~~~~~
On Monday, Rabbi Yehuda Ben-Yishai, the mourning father of Ruth Fogel, gave an interview, and parts of it were carried by Israel National News.
He is seen in this photo by Flash 90 on the left, leaning again his son.
Mourning at funerals for Fogel family terror
"Asked by the interviewer, 'Where do you have the strength and restraint that you can talk now and strengthen us, without anger and without calling for vengeance – that is not in your voice? Where is the strength from?'
"Rabbi Ben-Yishai answered, 'I have worked in education many years, and as an educator, I try to strengthen and teach people faith. I understand that I cannot be satisfied with words and that I also must implement the same principles on which I have educated others. This is a test of my faith...'
~~~~~~~~~~
Then, in words that caused me to weep at my computer, Rabbi Ben-Yishai continued:
"He said, 'We [the grandparents] will take upon ourselves the difficult task and pave for them the path so that life will be victorious.'
"'Their mother and father will pray for them from the Heavens, their grandfathers and grandmothers will give them a lot of love, and the People of Israel will hug them and encourage them to grow and continue in the path of their parents.'
"Rabbi Ben-Yishai said that the only thing he regrets is that he did not tell his daughter Ruth and his grandchildren enough times, 'I love you. I love you.' He added, 'If I could go back in time, I would say so every five minutes, but that would not be enough.'"
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/142902
~~~~~~~~~~
With people such as this in our nation, we will prevail, we will prevail.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Why Palestinian Terror Attacks Ensure There Will Be No Peace
RubinReports
Barry Rubin
Events like the massacre of an Israeli family by terrorists aren't just tragedies or crimes, they are events of huge political and international importance. They reveal issues and stories that Western governments and media refuse to understand yet which foil their plans and contradict their assumptions.
While the Itamar massacre of the Fogel family--an Israeli couple and three of their young children--is only one in a long chain of such terrorist attacks and murders, it points to major issues that U.S. policy has never addressed and which poses as much--and arguably more--threat to the possibility of peace than do settlements. That issue is incitement. The main political impact of terrorist attacks is not on Israelis but rather on Palestinians. Inciting beforehand and justifying--even celebrating--afterward has far less effect on hardening Israeli attitudes than on ensuring that the Palestinian political atmosphere remains extremist and the Palestinian Authority's (PA) policies on any real chance for a peace agreement remain hard line.
To put it a different way, if the day after a horrendous terrorist attack the PA offered a real and credible comprehensive peace deal, Israel would still accept it. But the political culture of terrorism makes it certain that the PA will do no such thing and ensures that such a peace is--to put it in the most optimistic possible terms--at least a generation away.
During the 1990s' peace process, the PA sometimes acted to stop attacks and to punish the perpetrators afterward minimally, temporarily, and more for their inconvenient timing than for their crime. Yet it continued to promote the culture of martyrdom and blind hatred that promoted terrorism. Thus, the process of war by terrorism was easily restarted when Arafat wanted to do so in 2000.
Then and since then, day in and day out, the PA's official media--television, radio, and newspaper (al-Hayat al-Jadida)--and schools incite violence against Israel; glorify terrorists as heroes and role models who will also receive great heavenly rewards; portray Israelis as monsters; and teach Palestinians that Israel has no right to exist and should be wiped off the map.
The PA's summer camp is named after a terrorist. Just last week, a football tournament was announced named in honor of a suicide bomber. Last year a major square in Ramallah, the PA's capital, was renamed to honor another terrorist. Mahmoud Abbas extolled a band that called for war on Israelis. The PA's minister of religion states that Allah commands that Muslims rule the entire land and eliminate Israel. Is there some pattern here, perhaps a phenomenon worthy of a little international attention, a story meriting some reporting?
In this latest case, there was an especially pointed example: just three weeks before this latest attack Palestinian Authority television showed a program celebrating the terrorist who murdered three Israeli civilians in the same town nine years ago.
And as if all this were not enough, the day after--let me repeat that--the day after the killing of the Fogel family, the PA renamed a square in the town of el-Bireh after a terrorist who murdered Israeli civilians. It is conceivable--fully conceivable--that if one day the murderers of the Fogel family will be honored by the PA.
There is no such situation on the Israeli side save for extraordinarily marginal extremists who receive no social sanction and often face real punishment. Any attempt to portray the two sides as equivalent in this respect is a flat and conscious lie.
As for the PA leadership, what we see over and over again is a showy but routine denunciation of terrorism in English for the international audience coupled with encouragement to commit terrorism in Arabic to the Palestinian audience. It is easy to demonstrate that this is the actual situation. Yet the Western news media almost totally ignore this issue.
Thus, even the naming of squares, sporting events, and institutions by the Palestinian Authority after specific terrorists who murdered Israeli civilians draws no major U.S. government criticism (much less pressure or punishment) or media coverage.
The U.S. State Department has already issued a statement criticizing an Israeli government decision, in response to the massacre, to build a couple of hundred more apartments on the West Bank. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the plan "runs counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations.” Doesn't what the PA does every day sabotage negotiations and progress? And incidentally, the PA refuses to talk even when Israel does freeze construction. They aren't rejecting negotiations because of settlements; they are rejecting negotiations because they don't want to negotiate.
Yet there is no real criticism or pressure over incitement. If you want to understand why there is no peace now or hope for it in the foreseeable future, the U.S. government's failure to deal with this issue--or condition aid and support for the PA on some change-is a large part of the answer.
It is not only that the terrorist violence makes Israel and Israelis mistrustful of the Palestinian Authority and about making more concessions, when those in the past have cost so many lives of Israeli civilians. In addition, the incitement and even celebration of terrorist acts creates a Palestinian public opinion favoring endless conflict and demanding total victory; elevates the gunmen and their supporters to real power in Palestinian politics ("President" Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are largely front men kept there to keep foreign donors happy); and persuade Palestinians that compromise is equivalent to treason.
When Western governments denounce Palestinian terrorist acts in the same terms they decry an earthquake in Japan or a tsunami in Thailand they miss the point. These are not just regrettable events but arise from Palestinian--either Palestinian Authority or Hamas--decisions. The key question is not whether Israeli police can prove a case in court but the atmosphere that produces a Palestinian cult and strategy of terrorism that has lasted decades.
The real cycle of violence isn't that settlements create terrorism, or between Israeli violence and terrorism, but rather the relationship between Palestinian incitement and terrorism. Incitement itself is built on the idea that terrorism mobilizes public approval, demoralizes the enemy, and is justified morally.
This is not some sideshow or minor issue but is at the very core of the problem. Incidentally, the same basic points apply to revolutionary Islamism. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has not "renounced" violence. It glorifies, extols, and encourages violence, portraying its enemies as subhumans whom the deity wants killed. At a given moment--like the PA--it might not implement violence but the justifications have been made and its followers are ready to murder when the signal is given.
As for the Israel-Palestinian conflict, until this issue is addressed--and there is no current sign that it ever will be--there won't be any diplomatic progress. Regarding the wider regional battle for control of Arabic-speaking countries, the revolutionary Islamists believe they are just getting started.
PS: After publishing this article I found an index of incitement issued after the Itamar attack here.
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley). GLORIA Center site: http://www.gloria-center.org His blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.
Barry Rubin
Events like the massacre of an Israeli family by terrorists aren't just tragedies or crimes, they are events of huge political and international importance. They reveal issues and stories that Western governments and media refuse to understand yet which foil their plans and contradict their assumptions.
While the Itamar massacre of the Fogel family--an Israeli couple and three of their young children--is only one in a long chain of such terrorist attacks and murders, it points to major issues that U.S. policy has never addressed and which poses as much--and arguably more--threat to the possibility of peace than do settlements. That issue is incitement. The main political impact of terrorist attacks is not on Israelis but rather on Palestinians. Inciting beforehand and justifying--even celebrating--afterward has far less effect on hardening Israeli attitudes than on ensuring that the Palestinian political atmosphere remains extremist and the Palestinian Authority's (PA) policies on any real chance for a peace agreement remain hard line.
To put it a different way, if the day after a horrendous terrorist attack the PA offered a real and credible comprehensive peace deal, Israel would still accept it. But the political culture of terrorism makes it certain that the PA will do no such thing and ensures that such a peace is--to put it in the most optimistic possible terms--at least a generation away.
During the 1990s' peace process, the PA sometimes acted to stop attacks and to punish the perpetrators afterward minimally, temporarily, and more for their inconvenient timing than for their crime. Yet it continued to promote the culture of martyrdom and blind hatred that promoted terrorism. Thus, the process of war by terrorism was easily restarted when Arafat wanted to do so in 2000.
Then and since then, day in and day out, the PA's official media--television, radio, and newspaper (al-Hayat al-Jadida)--and schools incite violence against Israel; glorify terrorists as heroes and role models who will also receive great heavenly rewards; portray Israelis as monsters; and teach Palestinians that Israel has no right to exist and should be wiped off the map.
The PA's summer camp is named after a terrorist. Just last week, a football tournament was announced named in honor of a suicide bomber. Last year a major square in Ramallah, the PA's capital, was renamed to honor another terrorist. Mahmoud Abbas extolled a band that called for war on Israelis. The PA's minister of religion states that Allah commands that Muslims rule the entire land and eliminate Israel. Is there some pattern here, perhaps a phenomenon worthy of a little international attention, a story meriting some reporting?
In this latest case, there was an especially pointed example: just three weeks before this latest attack Palestinian Authority television showed a program celebrating the terrorist who murdered three Israeli civilians in the same town nine years ago.
And as if all this were not enough, the day after--let me repeat that--the day after the killing of the Fogel family, the PA renamed a square in the town of el-Bireh after a terrorist who murdered Israeli civilians. It is conceivable--fully conceivable--that if one day the murderers of the Fogel family will be honored by the PA.
There is no such situation on the Israeli side save for extraordinarily marginal extremists who receive no social sanction and often face real punishment. Any attempt to portray the two sides as equivalent in this respect is a flat and conscious lie.
As for the PA leadership, what we see over and over again is a showy but routine denunciation of terrorism in English for the international audience coupled with encouragement to commit terrorism in Arabic to the Palestinian audience. It is easy to demonstrate that this is the actual situation. Yet the Western news media almost totally ignore this issue.
Thus, even the naming of squares, sporting events, and institutions by the Palestinian Authority after specific terrorists who murdered Israeli civilians draws no major U.S. government criticism (much less pressure or punishment) or media coverage.
The U.S. State Department has already issued a statement criticizing an Israeli government decision, in response to the massacre, to build a couple of hundred more apartments on the West Bank. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the plan "runs counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations.” Doesn't what the PA does every day sabotage negotiations and progress? And incidentally, the PA refuses to talk even when Israel does freeze construction. They aren't rejecting negotiations because of settlements; they are rejecting negotiations because they don't want to negotiate.
Yet there is no real criticism or pressure over incitement. If you want to understand why there is no peace now or hope for it in the foreseeable future, the U.S. government's failure to deal with this issue--or condition aid and support for the PA on some change-is a large part of the answer.
It is not only that the terrorist violence makes Israel and Israelis mistrustful of the Palestinian Authority and about making more concessions, when those in the past have cost so many lives of Israeli civilians. In addition, the incitement and even celebration of terrorist acts creates a Palestinian public opinion favoring endless conflict and demanding total victory; elevates the gunmen and their supporters to real power in Palestinian politics ("President" Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are largely front men kept there to keep foreign donors happy); and persuade Palestinians that compromise is equivalent to treason.
When Western governments denounce Palestinian terrorist acts in the same terms they decry an earthquake in Japan or a tsunami in Thailand they miss the point. These are not just regrettable events but arise from Palestinian--either Palestinian Authority or Hamas--decisions. The key question is not whether Israeli police can prove a case in court but the atmosphere that produces a Palestinian cult and strategy of terrorism that has lasted decades.
The real cycle of violence isn't that settlements create terrorism, or between Israeli violence and terrorism, but rather the relationship between Palestinian incitement and terrorism. Incitement itself is built on the idea that terrorism mobilizes public approval, demoralizes the enemy, and is justified morally.
This is not some sideshow or minor issue but is at the very core of the problem. Incidentally, the same basic points apply to revolutionary Islamism. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has not "renounced" violence. It glorifies, extols, and encourages violence, portraying its enemies as subhumans whom the deity wants killed. At a given moment--like the PA--it might not implement violence but the justifications have been made and its followers are ready to murder when the signal is given.
As for the Israel-Palestinian conflict, until this issue is addressed--and there is no current sign that it ever will be--there won't be any diplomatic progress. Regarding the wider regional battle for control of Arabic-speaking countries, the revolutionary Islamists believe they are just getting started.
PS: After publishing this article I found an index of incitement issued after the Itamar attack here.
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley). GLORIA Center site: http://www.gloria-center.org His blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.
"I Will Be Their Mother" Says 12 Year Old Tamar Fogel
Uzi Baruch
A7 News
The eldest daughter of the Fogel family, 12 year old Tamar, promised her relatives: "I will be strong and succeed in overcoming this. I understand the task that stands before me, and I will be a mother to my siblings". The orphaned youngster's words were quoted in the Hebrew daily Yisrael Hayom.
In their home in the town of Neve Tsuf in Samaria, Tsila and Chaim Fogel, parents of Udi, are sitting on low benches for the traditional “shiva” week of mourning alongside his three brothers and sister. There is a constant stream of comforters going in and out of the house, VIP's and ordinary citizens from all over Israel, whose hearts go out to the bereft family that lost son, daughter-in-law, and three young grandchildren in a barbaric terrorist slaughter on Friday night. Chaim Fogel continues to retell the story of terrible hours from 3 a.m. on, when he received the horrific news, drove to Itamar, met his 12 year old granddaughter and then entered the family’s home. The authorities were forced to ask her to tell what she saw when she returned from her youth group activity to find her family’s bloodsoaked bodies at 12:30 a.m. Chaim himself had the heartbreaking task of identifying the bodies.
"We came to take the surviving grandchildren out of the Valley of Death, he said. I don’t wish on anyone in the world the sight I saw. It is horrendous, beyond description, beyond comprehension".
The grandparents recalled the last time they saw Udi, Ruti and the children, a week and a half ago on Saturday night. They celebrated the start of the month of Adar Bet in Itamar, danced, sang and laughed.
"At least they had a taste of Purim", said Udi’s mother Tzila. "I didn’t feel any premonitions. Why should I have thought that I will never see them again? I am not trying to remember if there was anything of that nature in my mind. We were happy together. We have photos of the children playing and happy".
The family is against any personal revenge or taking the law into civilian hands. Their slain children felt the same, they said, unequivocally.
The Ben Yishai home of Ruti’s parents in Jerusalem, where the surviving grandchildren are now, is also crowded with comforters. After the mourning week is over, the family will decide where the children will live. Meanwhile, they are having difficulty in explaining to the youngest child what happened to his parents. "What shall we tell them?" they said. "What does a two-year-old understand when he cries over the loss of his parents? They tell us that children heal quickly, mentally and physically. We hope so".
A7 News
The eldest daughter of the Fogel family, 12 year old Tamar, promised her relatives: "I will be strong and succeed in overcoming this. I understand the task that stands before me, and I will be a mother to my siblings". The orphaned youngster's words were quoted in the Hebrew daily Yisrael Hayom.
In their home in the town of Neve Tsuf in Samaria, Tsila and Chaim Fogel, parents of Udi, are sitting on low benches for the traditional “shiva” week of mourning alongside his three brothers and sister. There is a constant stream of comforters going in and out of the house, VIP's and ordinary citizens from all over Israel, whose hearts go out to the bereft family that lost son, daughter-in-law, and three young grandchildren in a barbaric terrorist slaughter on Friday night. Chaim Fogel continues to retell the story of terrible hours from 3 a.m. on, when he received the horrific news, drove to Itamar, met his 12 year old granddaughter and then entered the family’s home. The authorities were forced to ask her to tell what she saw when she returned from her youth group activity to find her family’s bloodsoaked bodies at 12:30 a.m. Chaim himself had the heartbreaking task of identifying the bodies.
"We came to take the surviving grandchildren out of the Valley of Death, he said. I don’t wish on anyone in the world the sight I saw. It is horrendous, beyond description, beyond comprehension".
The grandparents recalled the last time they saw Udi, Ruti and the children, a week and a half ago on Saturday night. They celebrated the start of the month of Adar Bet in Itamar, danced, sang and laughed.
"At least they had a taste of Purim", said Udi’s mother Tzila. "I didn’t feel any premonitions. Why should I have thought that I will never see them again? I am not trying to remember if there was anything of that nature in my mind. We were happy together. We have photos of the children playing and happy".
The family is against any personal revenge or taking the law into civilian hands. Their slain children felt the same, they said, unequivocally.
The Ben Yishai home of Ruti’s parents in Jerusalem, where the surviving grandchildren are now, is also crowded with comforters. After the mourning week is over, the family will decide where the children will live. Meanwhile, they are having difficulty in explaining to the youngest child what happened to his parents. "What shall we tell them?" they said. "What does a two-year-old understand when he cries over the loss of his parents? They tell us that children heal quickly, mentally and physically. We hope so".
Dear friends and family,
You probably would have never met Udi and Ruti Fogel, but let me introduce them to you.
They were simple people of the land, content in raising their 6 children in Itamar of the Shomron. Content with affecting small changes, reaching out to people whenever they could. And above all- constantly striving for harmony. Harmony in living life in accordance to our Torah, with our people, in our land.
But pure evil entered this holy house last Friday night. Amalek, evil searching out the most holy, the most high, the most pure. It was the spirit of Haman, not able to stand seeing beautiful Jewish souls standing in defiance. Not able to see simple pride, rooted, standing on our land. Standing home.
And so.. they sought to destroy.
5 souls. We lost Udi, Ruti, 11 year Yoav, 4 year old Elad and 3 month old Hadas .
My Husband and I stood with tens of thousands yesterday, stood in horror and unbelievable grief. Stood before their bodies. Saying farewell.
Just meters from us, coming off a bus with the remaining shards of her family, we saw Tamar Fogel... The eldest daughter, 12 years old, who was the one to find the bleeding ruins of her parents, her brothers and sister late Friday night. We saw her, this mere CHILD, keening.. keening.. not able to move from the foot of the vehicle, not able to go towards the 5 bodies.. of her Ema, Abba, Yoav, Elad and baby Hadas.
We saw.. And all who saw broke down.
How to bear the pain?! What do we DO? How do we help her, this little girl. This mere child.
But then.Then the answer came.
It came from Ruti's brother, in his eulogy over his sister's body.
He turned to us all.
And I implore you in his words.
Am Yisrael, my people
התנערי מעפר קומי
Stand up
Stand up my people
Stand up.
התנערי
Shake yourselves awake.
SHAKE
Shake off the ashes of Galut.
Shake off those lies that bind you to a foreign land.
לבשי בגדי תפרארתך עמי
Where are you, O People of Israel?
Have you forgotten?
We have but ONE, tiny land.
We have ONE HOME. THIS is our home.
This and no other
The blood of the Fogel family, butchered in their home for being proud Jews. THEIR BLOOD cries out from this land.
You are not safe, my brothers and sisters. They will find you there, they will find you anywhere.
But look at the faces of your children TODAY, and ask yourselves, is my life as I live it right now- is it worth fighting for, is it worth DYING for?
I looked around at ten thousand faces yesterday and I saw, amid the grief, I saw incredible beauty. I saw strength, I saw power..
For we KNOW. We KNOW what we are living for. And if we must, if we are called, we know what we die for.
We are going to build, to grow, to continue on with all that we have. With our tears and with our last breath.
We are going to LIVE. HERE.
To LIVE HERE.
EXACTLY WHERE WE BELONG. Because we KNOW.
Where are you?
DO YOU KNOW?
This is our history, being written- right HERE right NOW.
RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW.
you are MISSING it.
And why??
Enough!
התנערי !
Shake it off!
You have the freedom
You have the freedom
You have the freedom to say:
Enough!
we are leaving today
we are leaving today
Children, we are leaving today.
התנערי
Shake yourselves AWAKE.
My people.
Get out of Egypt- We our no longer slaves. Come home!
COME HOME.
OPEN YOUR EYES
Come home to us.
Come home, my people!
Come home.
Stand with us
Cry with us
Fight with us
LIVE with us.
Tell your children- it's time to go home.
Tell them!
Tell them- our hearts, our souls have been in a land far far away..
Tell them! Tell them how our Father Avraham left it all. He never looked back. He walked with Hashem onward- to a land he did not know.
Tell them- our story of Pesach.
OUR STORY
Our story- When we first became a PEOPLE. When we walked for 40 years through the desert- to come home.
Tell them-
We are leaving today.
Only a plane ride away.
We are leaving today,
Please, my people, don't throw the Fogel family's blood away.
Please. my brothers and sisters, come stand with Tamar. COME EMBRACE HER.
Come, show her - that she is not alone.
Come, show her- that her family did not die in vain!
Come, show her - that the eternal message of the Fogel home is heard.
Come home to us.
Answer this evil that took her family. Tell them -that they have NOT destroyed!!
Show them- fight them! Make your stand. Take your place with Mordechai. With Esther. With Bar-Kochva and Rabbi Akiva. With the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. With every boy and girl in this county standing in a glorious olive-green uniform.
We will NOT
DIE
We will NOT
be silent
COME SHOW THEM.
HEED THE CALL
For all that glitters in galut is not gold..
COME HOME
After 2000 years, it's finally time-
Where are you?
We are here waiting for you.
It will not be easy, but who knows-
אם לשם כך הגעת למלכות?
This is your time. The hour of truth.
They were simple people of the land, content in raising their 6 children in Itamar of the Shomron. Content with affecting small changes, reaching out to people whenever they could. And above all- constantly striving for harmony. Harmony in living life in accordance to our Torah, with our people, in our land.
But pure evil entered this holy house last Friday night. Amalek, evil searching out the most holy, the most high, the most pure. It was the spirit of Haman, not able to stand seeing beautiful Jewish souls standing in defiance. Not able to see simple pride, rooted, standing on our land. Standing home.
And so.. they sought to destroy.
5 souls. We lost Udi, Ruti, 11 year Yoav, 4 year old Elad and 3 month old Hadas .
My Husband and I stood with tens of thousands yesterday, stood in horror and unbelievable grief. Stood before their bodies. Saying farewell.
Just meters from us, coming off a bus with the remaining shards of her family, we saw Tamar Fogel... The eldest daughter, 12 years old, who was the one to find the bleeding ruins of her parents, her brothers and sister late Friday night. We saw her, this mere CHILD, keening.. keening.. not able to move from the foot of the vehicle, not able to go towards the 5 bodies.. of her Ema, Abba, Yoav, Elad and baby Hadas.
We saw.. And all who saw broke down.
How to bear the pain?! What do we DO? How do we help her, this little girl. This mere child.
But then.Then the answer came.
It came from Ruti's brother, in his eulogy over his sister's body.
He turned to us all.
And I implore you in his words.
Am Yisrael, my people
התנערי מעפר קומי
Stand up
Stand up my people
Stand up.
התנערי
Shake yourselves awake.
SHAKE
Shake off the ashes of Galut.
Shake off those lies that bind you to a foreign land.
לבשי בגדי תפרארתך עמי
Where are you, O People of Israel?
Have you forgotten?
We have but ONE, tiny land.
We have ONE HOME. THIS is our home.
This and no other
The blood of the Fogel family, butchered in their home for being proud Jews. THEIR BLOOD cries out from this land.
You are not safe, my brothers and sisters. They will find you there, they will find you anywhere.
But look at the faces of your children TODAY, and ask yourselves, is my life as I live it right now- is it worth fighting for, is it worth DYING for?
I looked around at ten thousand faces yesterday and I saw, amid the grief, I saw incredible beauty. I saw strength, I saw power..
For we KNOW. We KNOW what we are living for. And if we must, if we are called, we know what we die for.
We are going to build, to grow, to continue on with all that we have. With our tears and with our last breath.
We are going to LIVE. HERE.
To LIVE HERE.
EXACTLY WHERE WE BELONG. Because we KNOW.
Where are you?
DO YOU KNOW?
This is our history, being written- right HERE right NOW.
RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW.
you are MISSING it.
And why??
Enough!
התנערי !
Shake it off!
You have the freedom
You have the freedom
You have the freedom to say:
Enough!
we are leaving today
we are leaving today
Children, we are leaving today.
התנערי
Shake yourselves AWAKE.
My people.
Get out of Egypt- We our no longer slaves. Come home!
COME HOME.
OPEN YOUR EYES
Come home to us.
Come home, my people!
Come home.
Stand with us
Cry with us
Fight with us
LIVE with us.
Tell your children- it's time to go home.
Tell them!
Tell them- our hearts, our souls have been in a land far far away..
Tell them! Tell them how our Father Avraham left it all. He never looked back. He walked with Hashem onward- to a land he did not know.
Tell them- our story of Pesach.
OUR STORY
Our story- When we first became a PEOPLE. When we walked for 40 years through the desert- to come home.
Tell them-
We are leaving today.
Only a plane ride away.
We are leaving today,
Please, my people, don't throw the Fogel family's blood away.
Please. my brothers and sisters, come stand with Tamar. COME EMBRACE HER.
Come, show her - that she is not alone.
Come, show her- that her family did not die in vain!
Come, show her - that the eternal message of the Fogel home is heard.
Come home to us.
Answer this evil that took her family. Tell them -that they have NOT destroyed!!
Show them- fight them! Make your stand. Take your place with Mordechai. With Esther. With Bar-Kochva and Rabbi Akiva. With the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. With every boy and girl in this county standing in a glorious olive-green uniform.
We will NOT
DIE
We will NOT
be silent
COME SHOW THEM.
HEED THE CALL
For all that glitters in galut is not gold..
COME HOME
After 2000 years, it's finally time-
Where are you?
We are here waiting for you.
It will not be easy, but who knows-
אם לשם כך הגעת למלכות?
This is your time. The hour of truth.
"Day by Day"
There is no other way to cope with matters now, I think.
The Fogel funeral yesterday was attended by some twenty-thousand (according to the JPost count).
Former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the first to deliver a eulogy, spoke with an immeasurable sense of pain:
"There are situations, there are days there are hours where you are at loss for words. You feel and sense the pain, feel the anger and mostly, feel the powerlessness…
"When you imagined that this circle of terror closed maybe 66 years ago and when the blood of infants runs like water and 1.5 million children were trampled by human beasts… it has been 66 years, we've declared statehood, gained our independence, established the enviable IDF. And still, the circle of terror and the river of blood flow and we stand helpless. A"What can you say when you see a three month old baby stabbed to death? What do you say?"
~~~~~~~~~~
The rabbi is a Holocaust survivor and his tortured words are born of his experience. But I would suggest that we are not powerless today, and what calls out to us now is our obligation to assert our power, in order to protect our own, rather than deliberately shackling it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rabbi Lau then shifted themes, and his words here were echoed over and over by others:
"We will not bend, we will not give up, we returned to the land of our fathers and it is our home, and the children shall return within their borders and nothing will prevent our faith in the righteousness of our path."
To this I say amen v'amen!
~~~~~~~~~~
We Jews are a special people. And it is a source of immeasurable pride that we don't respond to diabolic hatred by returning hatred and invoking the need for violence. Instead we invoke the need to take steps that are positive and enhance our heritage. This was a major theme at the funeral.
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger declared that only G-d can avenge the blood of the murdered family: "We don't have the option of avenging their blood" Instead, "Itamar needs to become a major city in Israel as a response to this murder...Another neighborhood, that's the answer. More building, that's the answer."
And Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin declared: "We will live, we will continue to build and to plant, we will continue to grip onto the land of Israel: in Itamar, in Beit Hagai, in Hebron and in Jerusalem, everywhere and any time.
"More construction, more life, more hanging onto the land. This is our answer to the murderers, so that they know they haven't gotten the better of us.
"We will awaken our right to build anywhere and at anytime."
~~~~~~~~~~
It's the last sentence I cite from Rivlin, however, that generates unease. Why, I ask, should it take a terrorist massacre to "awaken our right to build"? Why don't we feel strong in this right all of the time?
And then the very unsettling corollary: When things return to normal, whatever that means here, does that mean that our sense of entitlement will once again become dormant?
~~~~~~~~~~
If there is any message to my posting today, this is it:
There is no turning back to what was. There is new-found recognition of the realities and new determination to hold fast to our land and to build on it. We must, at all cost, sustain this. For if we let go, it is at our own peril.
~~~~~~~~~~
During a shiva call to the bereaved family last night, Prime Minister Netanyahu sounded a similar theme;
The terrorists shoot, and we build, he told them. "They say Eretz Yisrael is acquired through pain and suffering, but we didn't think the pain and suffering would be this great. This heinous act has led all of us to say, 'Enough.'"
Yes, enough! if only he will remember for all his time as head of the government that it is enough. And if he will accept that if his government had been stronger from the start, with more of any eye to the security of the people, the pain and suffering might not have been so great.
~~~~~~~~~~
Netanyahu's statement followed a decision that was made just hours before by the Cabinet: to accept a Motzei Shabbat recommendation by the Ministerial Committee on Settlements -- which includes Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Home Front Minister Matan Vilnai, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon -- to approve the building of 500 housing units in Judea and Samaria -- in Gush Etzion, Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim, and elsewhere.
The announcement alluded to "measured building" and indeed that is what it is. What is more, these are all housing units that were in the planning stages but were halted as a gesture to get the Palestinian Arabs to the negotiating table.
So...good, but not sufficient, of course.
~~~~~~~~~~
The issue here, of course, remains one of concessions. Will our government truly take to heart the talk about an awakened "right to build anywhere at any time"? Or will there still be tip-toeing in deference to the demands of the international community and in some deluded expectation that slow building will help foster a "peace process."?
~~~~~~~~~~
Naturally, we're already being condemned for this small amount of building.
By the PA: Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said, "The climate that this decision creates only causes problems."
By the UN: Special envoy Robert Serry declared himself "concerned" about the report of renewed building, saying that it "is not conducive to efforts to renew negotiations and achieve a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace."
By the US: A statement by the US Embassy declared, "We're deeply concerned by continuing Israeli actions on settlements in the West Bank. As we said before, we view these settlements as illegitimate and as running counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations."
~~~~~~~~~~
Is there a diplomatic way to tell them, "Stuff it"?
~~~~~~~~~~
Maddeningly, incredibly, Defense Minister Barak, speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies yesterday, said that we are going to see a "political tsunami" following international recognition of a Palestinian state on 1967 borders. "Israel's de-legitimization is in sight and it would be wrong to ignore this tsunami. A political initiative [that is, an alternate 'peace plan'] will minimize the chances along the road."
To promote this on the very day the Fogels were buried, seemed to me the ultimate in obtuse statements, devoid of sensitivity to the mood of the nation.
Can we also tell Barak to "stuff it"?
~~~~~~~~~~
There is one other issue that I want to examine here in some depth: that of PA incitement.
Last spring, the Israeli government had announced establishment of an "incitement index" that would be based on a mechanism for monitoring and quantifying PA incitement on a quarterly basis. It was to be managed by Brig.-Gen. (res) Yossi Kuperwasser, director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry (which is headed by Moshe Ya'alon).
Until now, the index has been kept behind closed doors. The reason, most certainly, was because it was not "politically correct" to make much of it when we were supposed to be "pursuing peace" with the Palestinian Arabs.
But now, in response to the massacre, the government has gone public with it. Yesterday, the Prime Minister's Office released a paper documenting recent acts of incitement, and Kuperwasser said that Israel was going to ask Western nations to stop funding the Palestinian educational system and Palestinian TV until there was a significant supervisory body. A bit vague, in terms of what was expected, but the point, hopefully is being made.
~~~~~~~~~~
While many examples were provided by the Prime Minister's Office, I'll restrict myself here to one pertinent example of the sort of incitement that is being addressed:
Yesterday, Fatah, the primary faction of the PA, named a town square in El-Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah, after Dalal al-Mughrabi, who directed the Coastal Road Massacre -- one of the most heinous terrorist attacks in Israel's history: a bus hijacking in 1978 in which 37 Israelis, including 13 children, were killed and 71 wounded.
That this sort of action by the PA or its primary faction should be exposed to the world is all to the good, and it's heartening to see Israel going on the offensive.
~~~~~~~~~~
There is, however, one proviso here that must be taken seriously.
Because Abbas has just denied that there is incitement in the PA schools, and has invited a committee to investigate, I placed a call to Dr. Arnon Groiss, a scholar in ME studies with ten years of experience in studying and analyzing PA textbooks.
I sought an authoritative statement from Dr. Groiss; what I got from him was enlightening:
There is no direct incitement in PA texts, said Dr. Groiss. No statements abjuring people to "kill the Jews" or "liberate Jerusalem." They are clever and in this sense have deniability.
What we see in the PA texts, instead, is "a sophisticated hidden incitement." Thus they teach that jihad is praiseworthy and that martyrs are to be honored. The implications are obvious. They are setting up a mental set that leads to war -- educating for a delayed war with Israel, says Dr. Groiss.
There are three aspects to this education:
1) Non-recognition of Israel. Israel has no rights nor history in the region that is acknowledged in the texts. With a couple of recent and very specific exceptions, there are no maps with Israel on them and no cities are acknowledged to be Jewish cities.
2) Demonization. Israel (or Jews) as the source of all evil.
3) Non-advocacy of peace with Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~
If incitement is understood this way, the PA might indeed claim that the naming of a square after al-Mughrabi is not "incitement." No one has said that people today should go out and do what she did. This is merely the honoring of someone from Palestinian Arab history.
Technically, true. But most obviously, the message is that what she did was worthy of honor and something to be emulated.
It may be that a word other than "incitement" would serve better here and make our case even more effectively. Technical deniability is the last thing we want them to have.
~~~~~~~~~~
With regard to incitement, in the broader sense, please see, "Let's stop pretending," a piece by Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch:
"Everyone involved in the peace process is making a tragic mistake by assuming the incitement is just another issue that has to be dealt with, like the issues of water, borders, and refugees. All of those are issues that must be negotiated as part of a peace process. But as long as the Palestinian Authority continues to teach these messages [of hate], clearly there is no peace process.
"It is incumbent on the international community to inform the Palestinian Authority that a condition for “'working' with it...is that it erases the messages of hate and replaces them with peace promotion.
"And until that time the international community must ostracize and isolate the Palestinian Authority, just as they do Hamas, and stop pretending there is a peace process."
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=212000
~~~~~~~~~~
The nature of the terrorist attack at Itamar was so horrendous that there are PA officials working overtime to deny that their people were involved at all.
First we had PA Minister for the Settlements Wall Maher Ghanaim, who said Jews may have been behind the "incident" (incident?) because it would "justify [settler] crimes" and permit the establishment of more housing in the West Bank.
I found that to be a breathtakingly obscene libel.
Today we have something else. Khaled Abu Toameh reports that several Palestinian news outlets are saying that it was a foreign worker that committed the murders. According to one version, a family in the nearby village of Awarta said that an Asian worker did it because the Fogels refused to pay him his salary.
~~~~~~~~~~
Interesting that the Arab village of Awarta, close by Itamar, was mentioned. For the trail out of Itamar seems to have led to Awarta, which is where the IDF is focusing its search -- doing a house to house search, I believe.
Said Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, “We will not rest until we lay our hands on the murderers."
I have no doubt of this.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
The Fogel funeral yesterday was attended by some twenty-thousand (according to the JPost count).
Former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the first to deliver a eulogy, spoke with an immeasurable sense of pain:
"There are situations, there are days there are hours where you are at loss for words. You feel and sense the pain, feel the anger and mostly, feel the powerlessness…
"When you imagined that this circle of terror closed maybe 66 years ago and when the blood of infants runs like water and 1.5 million children were trampled by human beasts… it has been 66 years, we've declared statehood, gained our independence, established the enviable IDF. And still, the circle of terror and the river of blood flow and we stand helpless. A"What can you say when you see a three month old baby stabbed to death? What do you say?"
~~~~~~~~~~
The rabbi is a Holocaust survivor and his tortured words are born of his experience. But I would suggest that we are not powerless today, and what calls out to us now is our obligation to assert our power, in order to protect our own, rather than deliberately shackling it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rabbi Lau then shifted themes, and his words here were echoed over and over by others:
"We will not bend, we will not give up, we returned to the land of our fathers and it is our home, and the children shall return within their borders and nothing will prevent our faith in the righteousness of our path."
To this I say amen v'amen!
~~~~~~~~~~
We Jews are a special people. And it is a source of immeasurable pride that we don't respond to diabolic hatred by returning hatred and invoking the need for violence. Instead we invoke the need to take steps that are positive and enhance our heritage. This was a major theme at the funeral.
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger declared that only G-d can avenge the blood of the murdered family: "We don't have the option of avenging their blood" Instead, "Itamar needs to become a major city in Israel as a response to this murder...Another neighborhood, that's the answer. More building, that's the answer."
And Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin declared: "We will live, we will continue to build and to plant, we will continue to grip onto the land of Israel: in Itamar, in Beit Hagai, in Hebron and in Jerusalem, everywhere and any time.
"More construction, more life, more hanging onto the land. This is our answer to the murderers, so that they know they haven't gotten the better of us.
"We will awaken our right to build anywhere and at anytime."
~~~~~~~~~~
It's the last sentence I cite from Rivlin, however, that generates unease. Why, I ask, should it take a terrorist massacre to "awaken our right to build"? Why don't we feel strong in this right all of the time?
And then the very unsettling corollary: When things return to normal, whatever that means here, does that mean that our sense of entitlement will once again become dormant?
~~~~~~~~~~
If there is any message to my posting today, this is it:
There is no turning back to what was. There is new-found recognition of the realities and new determination to hold fast to our land and to build on it. We must, at all cost, sustain this. For if we let go, it is at our own peril.
~~~~~~~~~~
During a shiva call to the bereaved family last night, Prime Minister Netanyahu sounded a similar theme;
The terrorists shoot, and we build, he told them. "They say Eretz Yisrael is acquired through pain and suffering, but we didn't think the pain and suffering would be this great. This heinous act has led all of us to say, 'Enough.'"
Yes, enough! if only he will remember for all his time as head of the government that it is enough. And if he will accept that if his government had been stronger from the start, with more of any eye to the security of the people, the pain and suffering might not have been so great.
~~~~~~~~~~
Netanyahu's statement followed a decision that was made just hours before by the Cabinet: to accept a Motzei Shabbat recommendation by the Ministerial Committee on Settlements -- which includes Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Home Front Minister Matan Vilnai, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon -- to approve the building of 500 housing units in Judea and Samaria -- in Gush Etzion, Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim, and elsewhere.
The announcement alluded to "measured building" and indeed that is what it is. What is more, these are all housing units that were in the planning stages but were halted as a gesture to get the Palestinian Arabs to the negotiating table.
So...good, but not sufficient, of course.
~~~~~~~~~~
The issue here, of course, remains one of concessions. Will our government truly take to heart the talk about an awakened "right to build anywhere at any time"? Or will there still be tip-toeing in deference to the demands of the international community and in some deluded expectation that slow building will help foster a "peace process."?
~~~~~~~~~~
Naturally, we're already being condemned for this small amount of building.
By the PA: Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said, "The climate that this decision creates only causes problems."
By the UN: Special envoy Robert Serry declared himself "concerned" about the report of renewed building, saying that it "is not conducive to efforts to renew negotiations and achieve a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace."
By the US: A statement by the US Embassy declared, "We're deeply concerned by continuing Israeli actions on settlements in the West Bank. As we said before, we view these settlements as illegitimate and as running counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations."
~~~~~~~~~~
Is there a diplomatic way to tell them, "Stuff it"?
~~~~~~~~~~
Maddeningly, incredibly, Defense Minister Barak, speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies yesterday, said that we are going to see a "political tsunami" following international recognition of a Palestinian state on 1967 borders. "Israel's de-legitimization is in sight and it would be wrong to ignore this tsunami. A political initiative [that is, an alternate 'peace plan'] will minimize the chances along the road."
To promote this on the very day the Fogels were buried, seemed to me the ultimate in obtuse statements, devoid of sensitivity to the mood of the nation.
Can we also tell Barak to "stuff it"?
~~~~~~~~~~
There is one other issue that I want to examine here in some depth: that of PA incitement.
Last spring, the Israeli government had announced establishment of an "incitement index" that would be based on a mechanism for monitoring and quantifying PA incitement on a quarterly basis. It was to be managed by Brig.-Gen. (res) Yossi Kuperwasser, director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry (which is headed by Moshe Ya'alon).
Until now, the index has been kept behind closed doors. The reason, most certainly, was because it was not "politically correct" to make much of it when we were supposed to be "pursuing peace" with the Palestinian Arabs.
But now, in response to the massacre, the government has gone public with it. Yesterday, the Prime Minister's Office released a paper documenting recent acts of incitement, and Kuperwasser said that Israel was going to ask Western nations to stop funding the Palestinian educational system and Palestinian TV until there was a significant supervisory body. A bit vague, in terms of what was expected, but the point, hopefully is being made.
~~~~~~~~~~
While many examples were provided by the Prime Minister's Office, I'll restrict myself here to one pertinent example of the sort of incitement that is being addressed:
Yesterday, Fatah, the primary faction of the PA, named a town square in El-Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah, after Dalal al-Mughrabi, who directed the Coastal Road Massacre -- one of the most heinous terrorist attacks in Israel's history: a bus hijacking in 1978 in which 37 Israelis, including 13 children, were killed and 71 wounded.
That this sort of action by the PA or its primary faction should be exposed to the world is all to the good, and it's heartening to see Israel going on the offensive.
~~~~~~~~~~
There is, however, one proviso here that must be taken seriously.
Because Abbas has just denied that there is incitement in the PA schools, and has invited a committee to investigate, I placed a call to Dr. Arnon Groiss, a scholar in ME studies with ten years of experience in studying and analyzing PA textbooks.
I sought an authoritative statement from Dr. Groiss; what I got from him was enlightening:
There is no direct incitement in PA texts, said Dr. Groiss. No statements abjuring people to "kill the Jews" or "liberate Jerusalem." They are clever and in this sense have deniability.
What we see in the PA texts, instead, is "a sophisticated hidden incitement." Thus they teach that jihad is praiseworthy and that martyrs are to be honored. The implications are obvious. They are setting up a mental set that leads to war -- educating for a delayed war with Israel, says Dr. Groiss.
There are three aspects to this education:
1) Non-recognition of Israel. Israel has no rights nor history in the region that is acknowledged in the texts. With a couple of recent and very specific exceptions, there are no maps with Israel on them and no cities are acknowledged to be Jewish cities.
2) Demonization. Israel (or Jews) as the source of all evil.
3) Non-advocacy of peace with Israel.
~~~~~~~~~~
If incitement is understood this way, the PA might indeed claim that the naming of a square after al-Mughrabi is not "incitement." No one has said that people today should go out and do what she did. This is merely the honoring of someone from Palestinian Arab history.
Technically, true. But most obviously, the message is that what she did was worthy of honor and something to be emulated.
It may be that a word other than "incitement" would serve better here and make our case even more effectively. Technical deniability is the last thing we want them to have.
~~~~~~~~~~
With regard to incitement, in the broader sense, please see, "Let's stop pretending," a piece by Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch:
"Everyone involved in the peace process is making a tragic mistake by assuming the incitement is just another issue that has to be dealt with, like the issues of water, borders, and refugees. All of those are issues that must be negotiated as part of a peace process. But as long as the Palestinian Authority continues to teach these messages [of hate], clearly there is no peace process.
"It is incumbent on the international community to inform the Palestinian Authority that a condition for “'working' with it...is that it erases the messages of hate and replaces them with peace promotion.
"And until that time the international community must ostracize and isolate the Palestinian Authority, just as they do Hamas, and stop pretending there is a peace process."
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=212000
~~~~~~~~~~
The nature of the terrorist attack at Itamar was so horrendous that there are PA officials working overtime to deny that their people were involved at all.
First we had PA Minister for the Settlements Wall Maher Ghanaim, who said Jews may have been behind the "incident" (incident?) because it would "justify [settler] crimes" and permit the establishment of more housing in the West Bank.
I found that to be a breathtakingly obscene libel.
Today we have something else. Khaled Abu Toameh reports that several Palestinian news outlets are saying that it was a foreign worker that committed the murders. According to one version, a family in the nearby village of Awarta said that an Asian worker did it because the Fogels refused to pay him his salary.
~~~~~~~~~~
Interesting that the Arab village of Awarta, close by Itamar, was mentioned. For the trail out of Itamar seems to have led to Awarta, which is where the IDF is focusing its search -- doing a house to house search, I believe.
Said Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, “We will not rest until we lay our hands on the murderers."
I have no doubt of this.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
Monday, March 14, 2011
So Abbas wants a state?
Op-ed: How can world not see that Palestinians aren’t ready for political independence?
Moshe elad
Israel Opinion
In November 2002, a terrorist infiltrated Kibbutz Metzer late at night and murdered two young children in their sleep, as well as two women and a man. Back then, the killer belonged to the Fatah’s al-Aqsa Brigades. He was sent on his mission on behalf of Arafat’s people; at the time, the Palestinian leader was still considered a peace fan.
Nine years have passed, and the murder in Itamar followed a pattern that is almost identical to the 2002 attack. Regardless of the killer’s organizational affiliation, it proves that Mahmoud Abbas’ dozens of operational, military and intelligence agencies are still incapable of safeguarding the territory expected to become the “state of Palestine.” It is doubtful whether these agencies would be able to provide security for Palestinians in the West Bank. They certainly won’t be able to serve as a buffer against terror attacks and hostilities directed at the Israeli public, both in the West Bank and within sovereign Israeli territory. This would suffice for openly demanding that Abbas improve his capabilities before voicing a pretentious demand for political independence.
If the killer belongs to one of the many groups associated with Fatah, such terror attack by an inseparable part of Abbas’ organization requires Israel’s government to consider, time and again, whether the Palestinian Authority is indeed a political body seeking peace, or a terror group that is again dressed up as an innocent sheep.
Even before Abbas uttered his meaningless condemnation of the despicable murder in Itamar, he should have looked at his own administration and asked: “Wait a minute, am I ready to establish an independent state? Am I even leading an independent entity that is worthy of joining the family of nations? Do I and does the establishment I head want to and are capable of fighting terror? The answer is apparently negative. Abbas cannot and apparently does not want to change his ways.
European hypocrisy
The endorsement granted to Abbas by South American leaders and other heads of state to establish an independent Palestinian state confused him. These nations did not take into account the Palestinian administration’s actual capabilities. South American states, which include a significant Palestinian population, and Western European states wishing to curry favor with the Palestinians ignore one prominent fact – the Palestinian Authority is not yet ready to become an independent political entity. Rushing to declare its independence may prove to be a reckless act.
Again we see global hypocrisy reigning supreme. Denmark, for example, is struggling against the incitement of Palestinian bodies that represent some 300,000 Palestinians living in the country. This minority is unwilling to be a part of the “Danish tribe.” Denmark would never allow the establishment of a Palestinian state next to its border, but as far as Israel’s border is concerned, who cares?
Then there’s the European Union, which places a series of obstacles before allowing Turkey to join the EU, because it realizes that Ankara is still not ready to join it. Yet when it comes to the Palestinian entity, whose ripeness for political independence is far off the global standard, the Europeans are in favor of such upgrade.
It’s no secret that Mahmoud Abbas and his associates do not control the West Bank. He and his people would not dare enter quite a few areas as their lives would be threatened there. In some villages and towns, Hamas and opposition bodies exercise authority, without using arms and without forces trained by American generals. Had it not been for the IDF’s West Bank presence, Hamas would have carried out a coup a long time ago similar to the one in Gaza in 2007.
When Abbas screams at Israel to “get out of the West Bank and hand over more land to the Palestinian Authority,” he quietly adds, “but not now…because Hamas will eat us alive.” He knows the truth, as does General Dayton, his American advisor who trains his forces. The Palestinian security establishment cannot bear the burden of combating potential terror across the West Bank. So who exactly is rushing to gain independence?
Building new neighborhoods in Ramallah and upgrading the stock exchange in Nablus isn’t enough. You want independence? First put an end to incitement and eliminate terrorism.
Moshe Elad is a national security studies lecturer at the Western Galilee Academic College. In the past, he held several senior posts in the “territories”
Moshe elad
Israel Opinion
In November 2002, a terrorist infiltrated Kibbutz Metzer late at night and murdered two young children in their sleep, as well as two women and a man. Back then, the killer belonged to the Fatah’s al-Aqsa Brigades. He was sent on his mission on behalf of Arafat’s people; at the time, the Palestinian leader was still considered a peace fan.
Nine years have passed, and the murder in Itamar followed a pattern that is almost identical to the 2002 attack. Regardless of the killer’s organizational affiliation, it proves that Mahmoud Abbas’ dozens of operational, military and intelligence agencies are still incapable of safeguarding the territory expected to become the “state of Palestine.” It is doubtful whether these agencies would be able to provide security for Palestinians in the West Bank. They certainly won’t be able to serve as a buffer against terror attacks and hostilities directed at the Israeli public, both in the West Bank and within sovereign Israeli territory. This would suffice for openly demanding that Abbas improve his capabilities before voicing a pretentious demand for political independence.
If the killer belongs to one of the many groups associated with Fatah, such terror attack by an inseparable part of Abbas’ organization requires Israel’s government to consider, time and again, whether the Palestinian Authority is indeed a political body seeking peace, or a terror group that is again dressed up as an innocent sheep.
Even before Abbas uttered his meaningless condemnation of the despicable murder in Itamar, he should have looked at his own administration and asked: “Wait a minute, am I ready to establish an independent state? Am I even leading an independent entity that is worthy of joining the family of nations? Do I and does the establishment I head want to and are capable of fighting terror? The answer is apparently negative. Abbas cannot and apparently does not want to change his ways.
European hypocrisy
The endorsement granted to Abbas by South American leaders and other heads of state to establish an independent Palestinian state confused him. These nations did not take into account the Palestinian administration’s actual capabilities. South American states, which include a significant Palestinian population, and Western European states wishing to curry favor with the Palestinians ignore one prominent fact – the Palestinian Authority is not yet ready to become an independent political entity. Rushing to declare its independence may prove to be a reckless act.
Again we see global hypocrisy reigning supreme. Denmark, for example, is struggling against the incitement of Palestinian bodies that represent some 300,000 Palestinians living in the country. This minority is unwilling to be a part of the “Danish tribe.” Denmark would never allow the establishment of a Palestinian state next to its border, but as far as Israel’s border is concerned, who cares?
Then there’s the European Union, which places a series of obstacles before allowing Turkey to join the EU, because it realizes that Ankara is still not ready to join it. Yet when it comes to the Palestinian entity, whose ripeness for political independence is far off the global standard, the Europeans are in favor of such upgrade.
It’s no secret that Mahmoud Abbas and his associates do not control the West Bank. He and his people would not dare enter quite a few areas as their lives would be threatened there. In some villages and towns, Hamas and opposition bodies exercise authority, without using arms and without forces trained by American generals. Had it not been for the IDF’s West Bank presence, Hamas would have carried out a coup a long time ago similar to the one in Gaza in 2007.
When Abbas screams at Israel to “get out of the West Bank and hand over more land to the Palestinian Authority,” he quietly adds, “but not now…because Hamas will eat us alive.” He knows the truth, as does General Dayton, his American advisor who trains his forces. The Palestinian security establishment cannot bear the burden of combating potential terror across the West Bank. So who exactly is rushing to gain independence?
Building new neighborhoods in Ramallah and upgrading the stock exchange in Nablus isn’t enough. You want independence? First put an end to incitement and eliminate terrorism.
Moshe Elad is a national security studies lecturer at the Western Galilee Academic College. In the past, he held several senior posts in the “territories”
Sunday, March 13, 2011
U.S. Middle East Policy and Those Little Ideas That Get Millions of People Killed
RubinReports
Barry Rubin
I listened again to President Barack Obama’s main speech on Egypt back during the revolution and two phrases caught my ear. They were both intended, perhaps, as bland rhetoric yet they carry an awesome amount of meaning.
The first was this: “Suppressing ideas never make them go away.”
At first glance, who could object to that? But a little thought gives us another way of viewing that concept. In a thoroughgoing, stable democratic state good ideas are believed to defeat bad ones. Yet in other political systems—even in democratic ones (see Weimar Republic, Germany, 1932)—bad ideas can seize state power if not suppressed.
Arguably, this fits the phrase since the ideas are not suppressed as ideas. Instead, they take power, fail, and then go away. What’s the difference? Millions of people are dead over decades of time. So it is better to suppress a bad political ideology—to keep it from getting control of a state—than to believe that one must compromise or yield to it. Suppose, for example, the shah had suppressed the idea of Islamism in the Iran of 1978. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would never have taken power.
In that situation, what would we be saying today? Islamism would still exist underground, Iranian students abroad would be protesting against the shah’s son who would be on the throne. The monarchy would be using repression. And we could--wrongly--say,
“Suppressing ideas never make them go away.”
The question isn't whether ideas exist, the important issue is whether they seize state power, govern millions of people, and wage war on their neighbors.
We have another historic example of this problem in the Middle East: Pan-Arab nationalism. From the time it seized control of Egypt to the time it fell from power, Arab nationalism (as we usually call it) was in power in Cairo for 60 years. It ruled Iraq for 45 years. It is still in power in Syria. Many wars and much suffering resulted. Suppressing that idea--if it had been possible, though it probably wasn't--would have been better than trying it out.
For a college professor to say that suppressing ideas doesn't make them disappear--somewhat equivalent to saying that cheaters never prosper--is harmless. For a president to say that kind of thing is dangerous. After all, the bottom line is that you cannot defeat bad ideas (or movements based on them) by the use of power but only by what? Appeasing it by letting it do whatever it wants? Letting it participate in elections and losing? Letting it take power and inevitably becoming more moderate? Letting it take power and failing? Proving through argument that it is wrong?
And remember: precisely what Obama has failed to do is to argue against revolutionary Islamism, which merely leaves the other options, doesn't it?
The other statement was:
“The future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people.”
This is also a nice phrase but it makes for bad assessment. One might almost think that the president of the United States had absolutely no experience in international affairs! The idea expressed here is that the people are going to decide (presumably through free elections) and get what they want. There is an underlying assumption that they will choose something moderate. Muhammad, the founder of Islam, himself said that his Islamic community would not agree on error, while in the Western tradition philosophers spoke of the “voice of the people” as sacred.
But what if “the people,” that is most of the 85 percent or so who are Muslim, determine that they want to persecute the Christians, or go to war with Israel, or chase Western interests out of the Middle East, or impose Sharia law? One can say that this is their “right” but at least the idea of popular sovereignty being some cure-all does disappear.
The old phrase so often used beneficially to benefit a free society--I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it--becomes something rather different: I may disagree with what you say but I will defend your right to use it to put me to death.
I’m reminded of Senator Stephen Douglas’s idea of “popular sovereignty” as a way out of the deadlock on slavery before the Civil War. In 1854 Congress passed a law that the people of Kansas would decide on whether that would be a free or slave state. The result was a bloody civil war between the two factions.
And, of course, if the "people" had determined that Kansas should be a slave state--and eventually the slavery forces had enough support in Congress to block abolition and maintain slavery for a long time--that would not seem to be a great result in retrospect.
We now know that in the late 1940s, U.S. policy covertly worked hard to make sure that the Communists did not win elections in France and Italy during the early Cold War. Should America apologize for that unfair intervention in the democratic processes of other countries? Absolutely not.
How about if, at the time, President Harry Truman, a Democrat, had said instead: We have no objection to the Communists participating in government as long as they didn't use violence. Where would that have led?
That doesn't mean by any means that democracy or elections is a bad thing. But it does mean that we should be rather skeptical about situations where there are large, well-organized, and popular totalitarian forces seeking to take advantage of the situation.
There is another way to approach that statement about “The future of Egypt” being “determined by the Egyptian people.” Revolutionary movements are not usually based on the sovereignty of the masses but on the actions of organized, determined groups. We know that the Bolshevik Revolution was made by a minority and arguably so was the American Revolution.
These statements from Obama emerge from a wonderful American tradition of democratic affirmation, most truly captured in the poetry of Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg. In, “The People Yes” Sandburg wrote:
“The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,”
In the end, they will emerge triumphant. This kind of thinking has made America great. But it is not a good guide for setting Middle East policy.
This does not mean that the United States controls everything--it doesn't. But one doesn't have to think very hard to recall that U.S. policy under the previous president supported the participation of Hamas in Palestinian elections despite the fact that it didn't accept the Oslo agreement on which the election was based. Once in power, Hamas than tore up the Israel-Palestinian agreement of 1993 which was the basis of the Palestinians running the Gaza Strip in the first place.
Incidentally, that's an example of an Israel-Arab agreement in which Israel yielded territory and then was abrogated after an election. Make a note of that regarding the future of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, something we keep being told could never happen.
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley). GLORIA Center site: http://www.gloria-center.org His blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Barry Rubin
I listened again to President Barack Obama’s main speech on Egypt back during the revolution and two phrases caught my ear. They were both intended, perhaps, as bland rhetoric yet they carry an awesome amount of meaning.
The first was this: “Suppressing ideas never make them go away.”
At first glance, who could object to that? But a little thought gives us another way of viewing that concept. In a thoroughgoing, stable democratic state good ideas are believed to defeat bad ones. Yet in other political systems—even in democratic ones (see Weimar Republic, Germany, 1932)—bad ideas can seize state power if not suppressed.
Arguably, this fits the phrase since the ideas are not suppressed as ideas. Instead, they take power, fail, and then go away. What’s the difference? Millions of people are dead over decades of time. So it is better to suppress a bad political ideology—to keep it from getting control of a state—than to believe that one must compromise or yield to it. Suppose, for example, the shah had suppressed the idea of Islamism in the Iran of 1978. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would never have taken power.
In that situation, what would we be saying today? Islamism would still exist underground, Iranian students abroad would be protesting against the shah’s son who would be on the throne. The monarchy would be using repression. And we could--wrongly--say,
“Suppressing ideas never make them go away.”
The question isn't whether ideas exist, the important issue is whether they seize state power, govern millions of people, and wage war on their neighbors.
We have another historic example of this problem in the Middle East: Pan-Arab nationalism. From the time it seized control of Egypt to the time it fell from power, Arab nationalism (as we usually call it) was in power in Cairo for 60 years. It ruled Iraq for 45 years. It is still in power in Syria. Many wars and much suffering resulted. Suppressing that idea--if it had been possible, though it probably wasn't--would have been better than trying it out.
For a college professor to say that suppressing ideas doesn't make them disappear--somewhat equivalent to saying that cheaters never prosper--is harmless. For a president to say that kind of thing is dangerous. After all, the bottom line is that you cannot defeat bad ideas (or movements based on them) by the use of power but only by what? Appeasing it by letting it do whatever it wants? Letting it participate in elections and losing? Letting it take power and inevitably becoming more moderate? Letting it take power and failing? Proving through argument that it is wrong?
And remember: precisely what Obama has failed to do is to argue against revolutionary Islamism, which merely leaves the other options, doesn't it?
The other statement was:
“The future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people.”
This is also a nice phrase but it makes for bad assessment. One might almost think that the president of the United States had absolutely no experience in international affairs! The idea expressed here is that the people are going to decide (presumably through free elections) and get what they want. There is an underlying assumption that they will choose something moderate. Muhammad, the founder of Islam, himself said that his Islamic community would not agree on error, while in the Western tradition philosophers spoke of the “voice of the people” as sacred.
But what if “the people,” that is most of the 85 percent or so who are Muslim, determine that they want to persecute the Christians, or go to war with Israel, or chase Western interests out of the Middle East, or impose Sharia law? One can say that this is their “right” but at least the idea of popular sovereignty being some cure-all does disappear.
The old phrase so often used beneficially to benefit a free society--I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it--becomes something rather different: I may disagree with what you say but I will defend your right to use it to put me to death.
I’m reminded of Senator Stephen Douglas’s idea of “popular sovereignty” as a way out of the deadlock on slavery before the Civil War. In 1854 Congress passed a law that the people of Kansas would decide on whether that would be a free or slave state. The result was a bloody civil war between the two factions.
And, of course, if the "people" had determined that Kansas should be a slave state--and eventually the slavery forces had enough support in Congress to block abolition and maintain slavery for a long time--that would not seem to be a great result in retrospect.
We now know that in the late 1940s, U.S. policy covertly worked hard to make sure that the Communists did not win elections in France and Italy during the early Cold War. Should America apologize for that unfair intervention in the democratic processes of other countries? Absolutely not.
How about if, at the time, President Harry Truman, a Democrat, had said instead: We have no objection to the Communists participating in government as long as they didn't use violence. Where would that have led?
That doesn't mean by any means that democracy or elections is a bad thing. But it does mean that we should be rather skeptical about situations where there are large, well-organized, and popular totalitarian forces seeking to take advantage of the situation.
There is another way to approach that statement about “The future of Egypt” being “determined by the Egyptian people.” Revolutionary movements are not usually based on the sovereignty of the masses but on the actions of organized, determined groups. We know that the Bolshevik Revolution was made by a minority and arguably so was the American Revolution.
These statements from Obama emerge from a wonderful American tradition of democratic affirmation, most truly captured in the poetry of Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg. In, “The People Yes” Sandburg wrote:
“The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,”
In the end, they will emerge triumphant. This kind of thinking has made America great. But it is not a good guide for setting Middle East policy.
This does not mean that the United States controls everything--it doesn't. But one doesn't have to think very hard to recall that U.S. policy under the previous president supported the participation of Hamas in Palestinian elections despite the fact that it didn't accept the Oslo agreement on which the election was based. Once in power, Hamas than tore up the Israel-Palestinian agreement of 1993 which was the basis of the Palestinians running the Gaza Strip in the first place.
Incidentally, that's an example of an Israel-Arab agreement in which Israel yielded territory and then was abrogated after an election. Make a note of that regarding the future of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, something we keep being told could never happen.
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley). GLORIA Center site: http://www.gloria-center.org His blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
"Truth Be Told"
Arlene Kushner
There is no shying away from this ugly truth, just because it's unbearably painful to contemplate. It's time to face it square on.
I began my report on the family slaughtered in Itamar late last night. Here I continue:
It was members of the Fogel family who were slain in their home on Shabbat. Rabbi Udi Fogel, 36, who taught at the Itamar yeshiva. Ruth Fogel, 34. Yoav, age 11. Eldad, four. Tiny baby Hadas.
Here you have a picture of Eldad, with the beautiful (unabashedly I say, kissable) face of a happy child. Look well, and then understand that he was stabbed in the heart. His baby sister had her throat cut.There is a fence around Itamar, and I'm receiving conflicting stories about how the terrorists got in. What seems to have happened is that some alarm was set off by the fact that the fence was touched, but as the Itamar security guards did not find a break in the fence -- it apparently had been jumped --they assumed it was an animal and pursued it no further.
~~~~~~~~~~
Inside the Fogel home, the parents fought their attackers; there is evidence of this. The murderers missed two of the children sleeping in another room: Ro'i, eight, and two-year-old Shai.
The Fogel's twelve-year-old daughter, Tamar, was out at a Shabbat youth group gathering. When she returned, she found her slaughtered family.
Can you imagine?
~~~~~~~~~~
Brace yourselves, but don't spare yourselves. See here photos of what Tamar found when she entered her home:
https://picasaweb.google.com/picsyesha/Itamar
When there have been terrorist attacks here in Israel it has not been the norm to put out photos like this because of a sensitive desire to protect mourners. But these pictures were released by the Yesha Council with the permission of the family, because it's time to take off our gloves. It's time for the world to "get it" with regard to what Jews here endure.
~~~~~~~~~~
With the help of neighbors who came running at her piercing screams, Tamar brought out her two live siblings.
They are all being cared for by their grandparents, Chaim Fogel and his wife (whose name I do not have) of Nevei Tzuf, in Samaria. The senior Fogels were given the terrible news in the middle of the night by Nevei Tzuf emergency service workers, who then brought them to Itamar. There, they saw the scene of horror for themselves and brought the living grandchildren back with them.
The funerals are taking place now -- at 1:30 PM -- as I write, at Har Hamenuchot Cemetery in Jerusalem.
~~~~~~~~~~
May the Almighty embrace the souls of those who were murdered in a flood of light and total peace, while avenging their deaths. May He be ever with the surviving children.
May there be strength for the senior Fogels and other friends and family who will care for the surviving children. And may the love of the caretakers who will tend to them bring succor to the Fogel children, so that in time they may re-build their lives for good.
And, finally, may our people Israel know this sort of tragedy no more.
~~~~~~~~~~
More words, in a televised statement last night, from Prime Minister Netanyahu:
"I noticed that several states which rushed to condemn Israel for building a house in some place are taking their time in condemning the murder of children.”
Netanyahu said he was shocked by the ambiguous condemnation of the attack by PA leaders -- which I shared last night which I will repeat below for your use, along with some new information on incitement). He further stated:
"I am disappointed by the weak and mumbled statements. This is not how one condemns terrorism. This is not how one fights terrorism...there has never been anything like this, in which terrorists entered a home and cut children's throats.
"This requires sharp and unequivocal condemnation. This requires something else. This requires a halt to the incitement.... The time has come to stop this double-talk in which the Palestinian Authority outwardly talks peace, and allows – and sometimes leads – incitement at home. The time has come to stop the incitement and begin educating their people for peace."
~~~~~~~~~~
Well OK. Netanyahu has finally said it. It's been time for him to say this for a long while. The fact that he says this now means he knew all along, of course. Knew of the PA duplicity and continuing incitement.
Now we must hold him to what he has said, demanding that he mean it:
Not a single concession. Not for Obama. Not for the EU. Not out of fear of being isolated internationally. For nothing.
Those concessions bring no peace. They simply make us weaker and more vulnerable.
~~~~~~~~~~
Netanyahu must know and fully internalize this fact: His responsibility is to the safety of the people of Israel, not to the larger world.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has particular culpability with regard to this situation, because he has always been so eager to make concessions to show the world how prepared we were to "make peace." In the area around Itamar, there have been checkpoints taken down, and security checks relaxed.
And so not only should there be no more concessions, there should be a reinstatement of security measures, in line with the government's responsibility to protect the people. Since 1984, when Itamar was founded, 20 of its members have been killed by terrorists. No more!
Netanyahu should fire Barak now, and replace him with Moshe Ya'alon. And if he refuses to do so, at the very least, he must take the helm of his government and himself make the necessary tough decisions to protect the Israeli people.
~~~~~~~~~~
And there is yet one action that should be taken by the government of Israel now: Civil law should be applied to all of the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria. It's time to stop the charade of proceeding for peace, and to assert our rights.
~~~~~~~~~~
And so, my friends, there are some actions I now request of you:
Share this posting very broadly. Put it out everywhere. With the news focus on the tragedy in Japan, most people will not know of this. And people must know, in order to understand.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then, please, contact Prime Minister Netanyahu. As always, I ask that you be respectful, brief and to the point.
* Tell him that he must be strong. Now that he has publicly faced the truth of the duplicity of the PA, he must not fall back into a pattern of making concessions. Not for any reason. Concessions bring death to Israeli innocents and make Israel weak.
* Implore him to act on behalf of the security of the people of Israel, as this is his overriding responsibility as head of the Israeli government. This means, among other things, reinstating security checks where they have been removed.
* Ask him to stand with strength at the helm of the government, dismissing Defense Minister Barak, who has pushed so often for dangerous concessions, and replacing him with Moshe Ya'alon.
* Implore him to extend civil law to all of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The charade is over: there is no partner for peace.
Fax: 02-670-5369 (From the US: 011-972-2-670-5369)
E-mail: Memshala@pmo.gov.il and also pm_eng2@it.pmo.gov.il (underscore after pm) use both addresses
Remember that numbers count.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then, please, I ask US citizens to contact your representatives in Congress. Tell them you are informing them about the situation in Israel, as full information may not have come to them. Without that information, they would not be able to make proper decisions. Then describe the attack, briefly. Don't be afraid to include the link to the pictures of the slaughtered children. Say that a four-year-old was knifed in the heart and an infant had her throat slit.
Explain that it is crystal clear that the PA is not a partner for peace and that it only weakens Israel to make further concessions. Use the material I've provided in this posting to bolster your position, especially with regard to what PA leaders said and how PM Netanyahu responded.
Tell them that it would be wrong to demand more concessions of any sort from Israel, and that Israel has an obligation first to protect her civilian population.
Provide them with this link from Palestinian Media Watch, which exposes PA incitement: http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=4793
~~~~~~~~~~
For your Congresspersons:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml
For your Senators:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
~~~~~~~~~~
One day before the terror attack, Sabri Saidam, who is an advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas and under-secretary of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, delivered a speech. In that speech, according to the newspaper Al Ayam, "He emphasized that the weapons must be turned towards the main enemy [Israel] and that internal differences of opinion must be set aside."
This was picked up by Palestinian Media Watch http://www.palwatch.org .
~~~~~~~~~~
Comments on the attack by PA officials:
After an initial silence, PA president Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that he rejects "all violence against civilians."
But look at all of the qualifying:
Abbas, in his statement, said, "violence produces violence and what is needed is to speed a just and comprehensive solution to the conflict.”
What violence produces violence? There is nothing, but nothing, even remotely that Israeli Jews have done that is "violent" in the sense that this attack is violent. So Abbas is drawing a false and obscene moral equivalency.
And then this becomes a sort of justification. If only we will stop our "occupation" and give them their state, then the violence would stop. Of course, that is not so either, twice over. Not so that we are "occupiers." And not so that our pulling back would stop the hatred and the terror.
To further obfuscate the issue, PA foreign minister Riad al-Malki said that his ministry condemns the killing of Israelis by “people whose identity remains unknown.”
“The killing of an infant and the slaughtering of people in this way was never carried out by any Palestinians for national motives or revenge. This puts a question mark over the swift accusation made by the Israeli side – to the effect that Palestinians had carried out the attack.”
Al-Malki, ever concerned about how his people look to the outside world, attempted to deny the patently obvious.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
There is no shying away from this ugly truth, just because it's unbearably painful to contemplate. It's time to face it square on.
I began my report on the family slaughtered in Itamar late last night. Here I continue:
It was members of the Fogel family who were slain in their home on Shabbat. Rabbi Udi Fogel, 36, who taught at the Itamar yeshiva. Ruth Fogel, 34. Yoav, age 11. Eldad, four. Tiny baby Hadas.
Here you have a picture of Eldad, with the beautiful (unabashedly I say, kissable) face of a happy child. Look well, and then understand that he was stabbed in the heart. His baby sister had her throat cut.There is a fence around Itamar, and I'm receiving conflicting stories about how the terrorists got in. What seems to have happened is that some alarm was set off by the fact that the fence was touched, but as the Itamar security guards did not find a break in the fence -- it apparently had been jumped --they assumed it was an animal and pursued it no further.
~~~~~~~~~~
Inside the Fogel home, the parents fought their attackers; there is evidence of this. The murderers missed two of the children sleeping in another room: Ro'i, eight, and two-year-old Shai.
The Fogel's twelve-year-old daughter, Tamar, was out at a Shabbat youth group gathering. When she returned, she found her slaughtered family.
Can you imagine?
~~~~~~~~~~
Brace yourselves, but don't spare yourselves. See here photos of what Tamar found when she entered her home:
https://picasaweb.google.com/picsyesha/Itamar
When there have been terrorist attacks here in Israel it has not been the norm to put out photos like this because of a sensitive desire to protect mourners. But these pictures were released by the Yesha Council with the permission of the family, because it's time to take off our gloves. It's time for the world to "get it" with regard to what Jews here endure.
~~~~~~~~~~
With the help of neighbors who came running at her piercing screams, Tamar brought out her two live siblings.
They are all being cared for by their grandparents, Chaim Fogel and his wife (whose name I do not have) of Nevei Tzuf, in Samaria. The senior Fogels were given the terrible news in the middle of the night by Nevei Tzuf emergency service workers, who then brought them to Itamar. There, they saw the scene of horror for themselves and brought the living grandchildren back with them.
The funerals are taking place now -- at 1:30 PM -- as I write, at Har Hamenuchot Cemetery in Jerusalem.
~~~~~~~~~~
May the Almighty embrace the souls of those who were murdered in a flood of light and total peace, while avenging their deaths. May He be ever with the surviving children.
May there be strength for the senior Fogels and other friends and family who will care for the surviving children. And may the love of the caretakers who will tend to them bring succor to the Fogel children, so that in time they may re-build their lives for good.
And, finally, may our people Israel know this sort of tragedy no more.
~~~~~~~~~~
More words, in a televised statement last night, from Prime Minister Netanyahu:
"I noticed that several states which rushed to condemn Israel for building a house in some place are taking their time in condemning the murder of children.”
Netanyahu said he was shocked by the ambiguous condemnation of the attack by PA leaders -- which I shared last night which I will repeat below for your use, along with some new information on incitement). He further stated:
"I am disappointed by the weak and mumbled statements. This is not how one condemns terrorism. This is not how one fights terrorism...there has never been anything like this, in which terrorists entered a home and cut children's throats.
"This requires sharp and unequivocal condemnation. This requires something else. This requires a halt to the incitement.... The time has come to stop this double-talk in which the Palestinian Authority outwardly talks peace, and allows – and sometimes leads – incitement at home. The time has come to stop the incitement and begin educating their people for peace."
~~~~~~~~~~
Well OK. Netanyahu has finally said it. It's been time for him to say this for a long while. The fact that he says this now means he knew all along, of course. Knew of the PA duplicity and continuing incitement.
Now we must hold him to what he has said, demanding that he mean it:
Not a single concession. Not for Obama. Not for the EU. Not out of fear of being isolated internationally. For nothing.
Those concessions bring no peace. They simply make us weaker and more vulnerable.
~~~~~~~~~~
Netanyahu must know and fully internalize this fact: His responsibility is to the safety of the people of Israel, not to the larger world.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has particular culpability with regard to this situation, because he has always been so eager to make concessions to show the world how prepared we were to "make peace." In the area around Itamar, there have been checkpoints taken down, and security checks relaxed.
And so not only should there be no more concessions, there should be a reinstatement of security measures, in line with the government's responsibility to protect the people. Since 1984, when Itamar was founded, 20 of its members have been killed by terrorists. No more!
Netanyahu should fire Barak now, and replace him with Moshe Ya'alon. And if he refuses to do so, at the very least, he must take the helm of his government and himself make the necessary tough decisions to protect the Israeli people.
~~~~~~~~~~
And there is yet one action that should be taken by the government of Israel now: Civil law should be applied to all of the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria. It's time to stop the charade of proceeding for peace, and to assert our rights.
~~~~~~~~~~
And so, my friends, there are some actions I now request of you:
Share this posting very broadly. Put it out everywhere. With the news focus on the tragedy in Japan, most people will not know of this. And people must know, in order to understand.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then, please, contact Prime Minister Netanyahu. As always, I ask that you be respectful, brief and to the point.
* Tell him that he must be strong. Now that he has publicly faced the truth of the duplicity of the PA, he must not fall back into a pattern of making concessions. Not for any reason. Concessions bring death to Israeli innocents and make Israel weak.
* Implore him to act on behalf of the security of the people of Israel, as this is his overriding responsibility as head of the Israeli government. This means, among other things, reinstating security checks where they have been removed.
* Ask him to stand with strength at the helm of the government, dismissing Defense Minister Barak, who has pushed so often for dangerous concessions, and replacing him with Moshe Ya'alon.
* Implore him to extend civil law to all of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The charade is over: there is no partner for peace.
Fax: 02-670-5369 (From the US: 011-972-2-670-5369)
E-mail: Memshala@pmo.gov.il and also pm_eng2@it.pmo.gov.il (underscore after pm) use both addresses
Remember that numbers count.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then, please, I ask US citizens to contact your representatives in Congress. Tell them you are informing them about the situation in Israel, as full information may not have come to them. Without that information, they would not be able to make proper decisions. Then describe the attack, briefly. Don't be afraid to include the link to the pictures of the slaughtered children. Say that a four-year-old was knifed in the heart and an infant had her throat slit.
Explain that it is crystal clear that the PA is not a partner for peace and that it only weakens Israel to make further concessions. Use the material I've provided in this posting to bolster your position, especially with regard to what PA leaders said and how PM Netanyahu responded.
Tell them that it would be wrong to demand more concessions of any sort from Israel, and that Israel has an obligation first to protect her civilian population.
Provide them with this link from Palestinian Media Watch, which exposes PA incitement: http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=4793
~~~~~~~~~~
For your Congresspersons:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml
For your Senators:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
~~~~~~~~~~
One day before the terror attack, Sabri Saidam, who is an advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas and under-secretary of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, delivered a speech. In that speech, according to the newspaper Al Ayam, "He emphasized that the weapons must be turned towards the main enemy [Israel] and that internal differences of opinion must be set aside."
This was picked up by Palestinian Media Watch http://www.palwatch.org .
~~~~~~~~~~
Comments on the attack by PA officials:
After an initial silence, PA president Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that he rejects "all violence against civilians."
But look at all of the qualifying:
Abbas, in his statement, said, "violence produces violence and what is needed is to speed a just and comprehensive solution to the conflict.”
What violence produces violence? There is nothing, but nothing, even remotely that Israeli Jews have done that is "violent" in the sense that this attack is violent. So Abbas is drawing a false and obscene moral equivalency.
And then this becomes a sort of justification. If only we will stop our "occupation" and give them their state, then the violence would stop. Of course, that is not so either, twice over. Not so that we are "occupiers." And not so that our pulling back would stop the hatred and the terror.
To further obfuscate the issue, PA foreign minister Riad al-Malki said that his ministry condemns the killing of Israelis by “people whose identity remains unknown.”
“The killing of an infant and the slaughtering of people in this way was never carried out by any Palestinians for national motives or revenge. This puts a question mark over the swift accusation made by the Israeli side – to the effect that Palestinians had carried out the attack.”
Al-Malki, ever concerned about how his people look to the outside world, attempted to deny the patently obvious.
~~~~~~~~~~
© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info