Hamas trying to scare Israelis, boosting morale among Palestinians

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8026

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

"Your army jeeps, your vehicles, your planes, your battle ships, are potential targets for our Qassam [rockets]."

As part of its psychological warfare and its efforts to scare Israelis, Hamas is using TV and other media to threaten Israelis with a number of different messages. On the website of its military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas posted several pictures with short texts designed to scare Israelis. Pictures showing armed Hamas fighters, scenes of combat and wounded Israeli soldiers warn Israelis that "your army jeeps, your vehicles, your planes, your battle ships, are potential targets for our Qassam [rockets]," and that "the Qassam rockets will chase you everywhere."

"Your leadership started this battle, but it won't be able to put an end to our rocket attacks."

What Agreements with PA are Really Worth?

by David Lev

Lieberman told the diplomats that throughout the four years that the current government has served, Israel has numerous times sought to restart talks with the PA - always to be put off, delayed, dodged, or outright rejected. And not only did the PA do everything it could to avoid talks - it arrogantly blamed the fact that no talks were taking place on Israel. "Their entire plan is to upset Israel's standing in the international community," Lieberman said.

Lieberman also discussed the renewed rocket terror attacks on southern Israel by Gaza Arab terrorists, and especially the fact that PA chief Mahmoud Abbas has not bothered to condemn the attacks, much less to take steps to end the rocket fire from territory of which he is supposed to be in charge. "This again poses the question who Abbas even represents among Palestinians, what his responsibility is for what has been happening, and what our agreements with him are worth altogether," Lieberman said. (The same game was played by Arafat, but the Israeli government is still unwilling to end the stupid game!)

Up Against a Faux-istinian Culture of Human Sacrifice

November 19, 2012 

Formerly colonized people of color, especially if they are Muslims, can Do No Wrong—and Jews and Israelis can Do Nothing Right. That’s the cognitive game, that’s how it’s rigged.

Prof. Phyllis Chesler

Prof. Phyllis Chesler is the author of fifteen books, including Women and Madness (Doubleday, 1972), The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and most recently, The New Anti-Semitism. She is the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women's Health Network.

I have been getting email and phone calls from dear friends in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Tel Avivians and Jerusalemites are sober but slightly shocked to have woken up to a lesser, but still a Sderot-like reality. Senior citizen friends cowered in stairways and hunkered down in “safe” rooms. Younger citizens rushed to shelters or hit the ground. Everyone supports what the IDF is doing. No one was injured or worse.

Day #6 of Israel’s decision to fight back, to stop the constant barrage of Hamas rockets, meant this: according to the IDF, in the first five days, over 500 rockets from Gaza rained down on Israeli civilians and the Iron Dome intercepted 287 such rockets. Additionally, they note that 45% of Israelis live within rocket range of Hamas’s missiles and rockets. That number is equivalent to 140 million Americans.

Would America or any other non-Muslim majority country live with such constant terror, such overwhelming vulnerability to genocidal forces?

An Arab View...

Khaled Abu Toameh

This hostility is the direct result of years of anti-Israel and anti-Western incitement in the Arab and Muslim world -- not only toward Israel but also toward the United States. In today's world of the Palestinians, anyone who talks about peace with Israel is a traitor and a collaborator; but anyone who calls for the destruction of Israel and fires rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is a hero.

There is nothing more nauseating than watching people celebrate as rockets are being fired toward Israel from the Gaza Strip.

This is what happened last week when Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
As soon as the sirens went off, many Palestinians took to the streets and rooftops, especially in Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods, to cheer Hamas. Sometimes they responded to the Hamas rockets by launching fireworks into the air as a sign of joy, and chanting, "We are all Hamas!" and, "O Jews, the army of Mohammed is coming after you!"
Scenes of jubilation over the rocket attacks on Israel were also reported in several Palestinian cities in the West Bank, including Ramallah, the center of Palestinian "pragmatism and moderation."

The Escalating Conflict Between Hamas and Israel

James Phillips

November 19, 2012

Over the last four days, militants in Gaza have fired more than 840 rockets at Israel. Hamas rockets have reached the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the first time, thanks to the smuggling of Iranian rockets into Gaza. The increasing range and sophistication of Palestinian rockets has expanded the reach of terrorists, who now can threaten up to half of Israel’s population.
Israel has intercepted 302 of those rockets with its Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Iron Dome, on which the U.S. has collaborated, has proven its worth and underscored the importance of missile defense in future U.S. military budgets.
Meanwhile, Iran is seeking—successfully—to keep the pot boiling at Israel’s expense to distract international attention from its nuclear program. A leaked International Atomic Energy Agency report indicates that Iran could soon double the number of centrifuges at its Fordo facility from 700 to 1,400.

Finally, the BBC's pro-Palestinian propaganda machine has swung into action

Peter Mullen
 World

The BBC has been slipping up recently. No – I don’t mean to refer to unpleasant recollections of Savilegate and McAlpinegate. Let us just leave them conveniently on the Corporation’s CV. Instead I am wondering why it took the BBC so long to get into its full propaganda mode in its reporting of the war between Israel and Hamas. I don’t say there was ever anything distantly approaching even-handedness. You never get that with an ideological pressure group as committed to its own unassailable self-righteousness as the BBC. But at least for the first few days of the war there was the pretence of objectivity.
But true colours will inevitably show themselves and, sure enough, over the weekend the Corporation began to screen its horrific and heart-breaking accounts (with pictures, of course) of the Gazan children slaughtered by the nasty Israelis. What is never explained – because propaganda aims not to explain but to seduce – is the fact that Hamas stores its rockets and high explosives in schools and hospitals, and those leaders who are not so far up the pay scale that they are allotted their personal bunkers are obliged to live in their own houses with their families. And even the most meticulously targeted airstrike cannot distinguish between a terrorist and his three-year-old son when they are sitting in the same front room.

Hamas's War On Journalists‏

TIP Press: press@theisraelproject.org
Main Office Phone Number:  202-857-6644

Hamas's human rights violations against journalists have increasingly found the group at odds with civil liberty and human rights groups. Hamas notoriously beats journalists, including citizen journalists. The Iranian-backed group has policies forcing reporters to be accompanied by "sponsors." And of course, just this weekend, Hamas began trapping journalists in the Gaza Strip, raising fears that the Iran-backed terror group intends to use them as human shields during Israel's anti-terror Operation Pillar of Defense.

Hamas disinformation: Israel's international airport closed, planes redirected to secret base

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7998

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

On the fifth day of Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense that targets terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and which has successfully destroyed many Hamas rocket launching  points, Hamas issued false information about its own successes fighting Israel.

[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Nov. 18, 2012]

Today, a news ticker on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV incorrectly claimed: 

"Media of the enemy: International airport Ben Gurion closed, planes being redirected to a secret base in the north
[of Israel]."

Similarly, the Hamas website Al-Risala falsely claimed yesterday that Hamas had succeeded in shooting down an Israeli F-16 plane:

"Hamas' military wing Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed that an 'Israeli' F-16 fighter plane was shot down... A reconnaissance aircraft was shot down as well."

Israel's image war

Boaz Bismuth

The Israel Defense Forces are bombing the Gaza Strip and the world is, for the most part, silent. In fact, the IDF is bombing Gaza and the world is, for the most part, supporting Israel.

How is this happening? Wars today are fought not only with bullets, but also with images. During Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel has succeeded in appearing as the victim, even though it is acting with strength and determination. But don't get too excited. This could turn around in a moment.

Israel's advocates have so far had a much easier time than they did during Operation Cast Lead, in 2008-9. The IDF has focused on attacking specific terrorists and has been extremely careful to not harm innocent civilians, even if this has meant calling off planned strikes. The government's instructions on this have been clear.

The true path for Israel

Dr. Gabi Avital

It's early in the morning. Max Nordau invites his friend, Vladimir Jabotinsky, for a coffee before the War of Independence, lamenting a Jewish reality that Moses already knew well in his time: "The Jew learns not by way of reason, but from catastrophes. He won't open his umbrella under a cloudy sky; he waits until he is drenched and catches pneumonia."

Time has passed and the sovereign State of Israel has a large and impressive military force. Has the "Jewish" principle mentioned above remained the same? One cannot deny there have been situations in which the country's leaders recognized danger and fought it, such as the Six-Day War, the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Iraq and, most recently, the intensive debate over the Iranian nuclear issue. But when it comes to counter-terrorism, the track Israel has followed is reminiscent of a self-designed obstacle course.

In Gaza, Macabre Manipulations of a Child Victim

CAMERA

Not for the first time, the death of a Palestinian child killed in hotly disputed circumstances is being categorically blamed on Israel. Elder of Ziyon blogger was the first to catch the latest case, involving the death of 4-year-old Mahmoud Sadallah of Jabaliya, whose body was photographed with Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil as he visited the Gaza Strip Friday.

Photos of the boy's body on display were distributed by the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters, all of whose captions categorically stated that the boy was killed in an Israeli air strike, despite the fact that news articles by the New York Times and even AP itself made clear that the circumstances behind his death were "hotly disputed," (as AP put it), and that he may have been killed by an errant Palestinian rocket. CNN's Sara Sidner also reported as fact that Mahmoud Sadallah is "another victim of an [Israeli] air strike," ignoring evidence to the contrary.

Obama Stabbing Israel in the Back Behind the Scenes

 Daniel Greenfield
The trajectory of conflicts like these are fairly clear. Israel bombs some terrorist targets and then launches a ground incursion into Gaza to suppress terrorist activities. But the Obama Administration is already working against a ground offensive behind the scenes, as a New York Times report mentions.

Obama supposedly called Netanyahu to discuss options for “de-escalating” the situation, but all those options are going to involve signing on to another meaningless cease fire while Hamas continues carrying out attacks, on and off. Netanyahu has made calling off a ground operation contingent on an end to rocket attacks. Which Obama isn’t likely to be able to deliver. And worse still, Obama has proposed that Egypt broker a ceasefire.

Syria: Spillover into Iraq?

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
The Jerusalem Post

http://www.meforum.org/3381/syria-iraq-spillover

Writing on his blog "Syria Comment," Joshua Landis contends that "Iraq is seeing much more spillover from Syria than Lebanon." His premise is that "already in response to the growing civil war in Syria, Iraqi violence has spiked and al-Qaida is resurgent there."
However, I contend that Landis is wrong on several counts. Beginning with his premise, the notion that "Iraqi violence has spiked" is based on a short term overview of trends of violence in Iraq, without looking at the bigger picture. Indeed, this issue is a common fault when it comes to media reporting on statistics of violence and civilian casualties.

For example, at the end of September, outlets like Reuters reported that Iraq had seen its bloodiest month for more than two years, citing a figure of 365 killed, supposedly double the toll from the previous month.

Southern mayors oppose ceasefire

 Neri Brenner

Egypt's president said Saturday evening that there are indications for an imminent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, but heads of southern local authorities believe Israel must not agree to a truce before dealing Hamas a severe blow.

"If we've come this far, we must continue," Eshkol Regional Council head Haim Yalin told Ynet on Saturday evening. "We must reach a situation in which we have won, in which terrorism is forced into a peace agreement."

Beware of 'Pallywood' Magic

IPT News

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3816/beware-of-pallywood-magic

Fighting between Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and Israeli troops all but guarantees civilian casualties. With the fighting comes heart-wrenching photos of the dead and wounded, along with their grieving loved ones.
Each death represents a human tragedy.
But sometimes, reality is not enough. Some Palestinians have been caught faking images or appropriating them from other conflicts. This form of propaganda has been dubbed "Pallywood," and the nascent conflict already has several examples.
Tablet Magazine's Adam Chandler exposed one, a terrible image of a grieving father holding his dead child as mournful doctors look on helplessly. Hamas's military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigade, sent the picture out on Twitter. It's a dead child all right, but it took place in Syria, not Gaza, and had nothing to do with this week's violence.
It's powerful to see the wounded being rushed into ambulances, and in the crucial battle for public sympathy, some Palestinians put on a show for international news cameras, as the web site Honest Reporting shows in this video.
The video shows a Palestinian in a beige jacket being hustled away due to an apparent injury following an Israeli airstrike. Moments later, it appears the same Palestinian has miraculously recovered.

Mainstream Media's Equivalenc​e Game

Leo Rennert

Here we go again. Four years ago, during and after Israel's antiterrorist counteroffensive in Gaza, mainstream media reported that more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed, while Israeli fatalities were only a miniscule fraction of that total. This left readers and viewers with a distinct impression that Israel had used excessive force. Israel, in effect, was depicted as the brutal Goliath against an outgunned David. 

The reality, however, was quite different. Israel was engaged in an asymmetrical conflict in which Palestinian terrorist groups deliberately targeted civilians, while Israel was bending over backwards to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties. As a result, most Palestinian fatalities were combatants, while most Israeli fatalities were civilians, or noncombatants. This distinction, however, was never made clear to readers and viewers because mainstream media simply lumped together combatants and noncombatant fatalities in a single total figure. 

Into The Fray: Aargh!!!

By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST
Despite the deadly display of hi-tech pyro-technics by the IDF, the depressing sense of déjà vu conveyed by the events unfolding in Gaza comprise a devastating indictment of Israel’s past and present political leadership.

Aargh: A word that proclaims sorrow, annoyance, anger, depression, hopelessness – The Urban Dictionary.

Watching the morning newscasts and the spectacle of Israelis scuttling to shelter from incoming projectiles, launched by implacable enemies, from areas voluntarily ceded them by a democratically elected government, which reneged on an election pledge not to do so, it was difficult not to succumb to the urge to yell: Aargh!!! For the sorrow, anger and hopelessness was almost overwhelming.

But worse – much worse – was to come.

CAIR Civil Rights Manager Endorses Hamas Terrorism Against Israel

Daniel Greenfield

Cyrus McGoldrick is CAIR’s Civil Rights Manager in New York and a product of Columbia’s notorious Middle Eastern Studies department.

CAIR already has extensive links to Hamas, so it’s no surprise that during the Hamas attacks on Israel, McGoldrick’s Twitter account began trending Hamas’ way.

Cyrus McGoldrick began describing the assassination of Hamas leaders as the death of “resistance leaders”

Cyrus McGoldrick @CyrusMcGoldrick

Israel is murdering civilians and resistance leaders alike. The colonial project of Israel was founded on violence & is fueled by it. #Gaza

14 Nov 12

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Then there were prayers for a Hamas victory.

Cyrus McGoldrick @CyrusMcGoldrick

#GazaUnderAttack for the last few days. May God protect them and grant them victory. #FreePalestine #Gaza

12 Nov 12

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Security is paramount for Israel

This week's escalation did not start with an attack on a Hamas military commander. It started with the use of Gaza as a launching pad for ideological war

John Howell MP

On Tuesday, I visited the Lebanese border and Golan Heights as part of a Conservative Friends of Israel delegation to the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
Earlier in the week, Israel was hit by errant fire from Syria – likely an act of incompetence by the Assad regime and an incident that was borne out of the continued civil war and increasingly desperate situation in the country. Amidst all this activity on the Golan Heights, little did we know that in the south of Israel, the activities of Hamas were coming to the fore, escalating to the point where Israel targeted a Hamas military leader on Wednesday.

Fake Palestinian 'victim' of Israel attack exposed

Rick Moran

They call it "Pallywood" - Palestinians staging fake scenes for western news cameras using men, women, and children as props.

This example is particilarly outrageous.

From the blog Honest Reporting:

What happens when the cameras turn up at the scene of an airstrike in Gaza and there simply aren't enough Palestinian dead and injured to produce dramatic footage that can be used against Israel in the international media? We've seen it before. Palestinians who appear to be injured or even dead for the benefit of the TV cameras turn out to be nothing of the sort once they are no longer the focus.

Islamists Target Arab Monarchies

Night Watch

11/16/2012

 

China: Update. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China concluded on 14 November after the Congress elected a new Central Committee and a new Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Comment: NightWatch will report at greater length as details warrant. The two most impressive themes that emerged from the early speeches were that corruption is a threat to the survival of the party and possibly the communist state itself and that the new leadership will have no latitude to compromise the communist political leadership.

Targeted Killings: Good for the U.S.; Good for Israel

Sarah N. Stern

On November 14th, Israeli President Shimon Peres visited a school the town of Sderot in southern Israel. Sderot is the closest border town to Hamas-controlled Gaza and has sustained over 120 rocket attacks in just the prior four days.

"We were born as 'the code red children'", said Chen Malkiel. "Code Red "is the name of the siren that blasts giving residents no longer than 15 seconds to run to shelter."We are children who live in fear and anxiety that at any moment we will hear the code red siren, have to leave our games, our friends and enter the safe rooms", continued Malkiel.

There have been one million people, extending from Ashdod to Sderot who have been receiving a steady barrage of rocket attacks and have fifteen seconds to run for their very lives. Israel has endured over 800 of these attacks from Gaza in the last year.

Why is Israel not allowed to defeat her enemies?

Ted Belman
Many countries condemn Israel’s attacks on Gaza. A few countries including Canada, Britain, Germany and the US support Israel’s right of self defense. With the exception of Canada, the latter go on to recommend restrain with a variety of words.

But no country encourages Israel to devastate Hamas and its rocket arsenal. When they support our right of self defense they imply that should the rockets stop, Israel should stop.

Why is Israel not allowed to defeat her enemies? Especially here where our enemy Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization. Does anyone demand that the US stop killing al Qaeda terrorists. On what basis does the US have the right to kill terrorist who aren’t targeting the US.

"Enraged"

It is noon on Friday and I have scant time to post, and yet I must -- because I am enraged.  Enraged because the world does not want the Jewish State to defend herself, all the saccharine declarations to the contrary.  The world doesn't like Palestinian Arab dead and doesn't like strong moves by the IDF.

 

The issue must be clear:  It is not just a question of Hamas and Islamic Jihad temporarily stopping rocket launchings because that's in their best interest at the moment. It's a question of weakening or destroying their capacity to hit us again when the mood strikes them.  

 

Taking out their weapons -- pre-emption -- is defense.

 

Defense Minister Barak made that clear in his declaration of the goals of Operation Pillar of Defense. 

 

I have sat here for years at my computer, detailing what is being brought into Gaza -- the weapons of growing sophistication.  And all the time, horrified.  Now with Ghaddafi's weapons available to terrorists, it's even worse -- and make no mistake about it, those weapons are being smuggled into Gaza.

 

Gaza and International Law

Eli E. Hertz

What unites Palestinian Arabs is their opposition to Jewish nationalism and a desire to stamp it out - not aspirations for their own state. Murdering Jews is a collective Palestinian Arab effort that requires a collectively sensible response.

Israel's reaction to nearly ten years of shelling Israeli civilian population centers from the Gaza Strip is nothing more than a measured, fair response, designed to effectively terminate armed attacks and more importantly - to prevent its recurrence. All of Israel’s actions in this regard are supported by international law.

Hamas - a United States designated foreign terrorist organization, by their aggression and initial use of armed force against Israeli civilians and non-combatant Jews in breach of the United Nations Charter, constituted prima facie [Latin: on its face] evidence of an act of aggression - aggression being defined by international law as "the most serious and dangerous form of illegal use of force."[1]

Therefore, the rule of proportionality in this case of continuous aggression, needs to be met by Israeli acts that will induce the aggressor to comply with international obligations. A countermeasure need not be the exact equivalent of the breaching act.[2]

United Nations Resolutions demand of states to combat terrorism and reaffirm their:

"Necessary Battle"

Yesterday, on its FaceBook page, the IDF put up the following message:

 

“We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead."

 

A great message.  I am reading that Hamas and assorted other terrorist leaders are not to be seen. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

So we are waging the battle that is understood in all reasonable quarters to be necessary. 

 

IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said last night:

 

"We are in the midst of an attack that will continue and grow. There is no hourglass. We received the green light from the Prime Minister and the Minster of Defense.  If I were a senior Hamas activist--I would look for a place to hide.

"...All options that allow us to cause serious damage to Hamas and the other terrorist organizations are on the table."

Credit: IDF

~~~~~~~~~~

PMW Special report on Operation Pillar of Defense #1

From the PMW archives:

Al-Ja'abari: "The Jew who comes to the soil of Palestine... is fighting us, and we will fight him
and kill him"

"Sacrifice your souls for the sake of Allah,

until the rats (i.e., Israelis) return to their holes"

"Haifa, Jaffa, and Tel Aviv... all of Palestine"

will be liberated

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7990

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Launching what has been named "Operation Pillar of Defense," Israel killed the head of Hamas' military wing Ahmed Al-Ja'abari yesterday. The operation comes as a response to Hamas' and other terrorist organizations' continuous rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

Al-Ja'abari was a member of Hamas' political bureau and the leader of Hamas' military wing since 2002. He actively encouraged suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks against Israel.

Al-Ja'abari was Hamas' chief negotiator during the negotiations to release Hamas-captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Netanyahu talks to Obama, Ashton on Gaza operation

TOVAH LAZAROFF

LAST UPDATED: 11/15/2012 06:30

UN Security Council fails to agree on course of action.

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday night thanked US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for supporting Israel’s right to defend itself after a targeted IDF assassination of Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari in Gaza.
Obama expressed support for "Israel’s right to self-defense in light of the barrage of rocket attacks being launched from Gaza against Israeli civilians," according to a White House press release.

In his conversation with Morsi, Obama reiterated Israel's right to self-defense and expressed hope that Egypt would play a stabilizing role in the region.

Related:

Israel Bombarded by Rockets, Human Rights Watch Nowhere in Sight

Arsen Ostrovsky

While Israel is being bombarded by rockets from Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, placing more than one million civilians in danger, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is nowhere in sight. Apparently the human rights of Israelis are just not a concern to them. This is just another example of how HRW has not just lost its moral compass, but how the anchor has been thrown overboard as well.

In 2012 alone, Palestinian terrorists in Hamas-controlled Gaza have fired at least 850 rockets and mortars on southern Israel, however you would be hard pressed to find even a syllable of condemnation of the attacks from HRW.

Although the mission statement of HRW might begin with their pledge to be "... protecting the human rights of people around the world," when it comes to the human rights of Israelis, HRW is nowhere in sight.

Freedom House Still Doggedly Libelling Israel

Lee Kaplan

Using at best no research, and at worst venomous research, Freedom House chooses to honor the libel which emerges against Israel primarily from the same totalitarian countries Freedom House would have it believe it scrutinizes.

Freedom House, once a reliable guardian of protecting freedom and human rights, continues to slander Israel based on false Palestinian propaganda, which it presents as facts in order to declare Israel "less free" and a violator of human rights.
Freedom House's current research director on Israel, Arch Puddington, was, it seems, less than pleased with a recent Gatestone Institute article slamming the substandard, reckless, and apparently malicious methods to which Freedom House resorts to suppress "inconvenient" information, for example, reports that a member of its Board of Trustees might regard as "politically incorrect".

GNORING THE WARNING LIGHTS ON HEZBOLLAH: THE CASE FOR A EUROPEAN BAN

Matthew Levitt

Henry Jackson Society

To read the full version of the following excerpt, go to:
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/ignoring-the-warning-lights-on-hezbollah-the-case-for-a-european-ban

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

Twenty-nine years ago, Hezbollah blew up the U.S. Marines and French army barracks in Beirut, both compounds under the aegis of the Multinational Force sent to Lebanon as peacekeepers to oversee the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organization from Beirut. The barracks bombings left 241 Americans and 58 French dead, and came just six months after Hezbollah bombed the U.S. embassy, killing 63, including 17 Americans. Less than a year later, Hezbollah bombed the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut, killing 24.

The red flags in Obama’s foreign policy

Jackson Diehl

Barack Obama spent his first term undoing what he saw as the excesses of U.S. post-Cold War foreign policy, from land wars in the Middle East to insufficient attention to Asia. By his own account, he largely succeeded. But chances are he will spend his second term grappling with the flaws in his cure.

Contrary to the usual Republican narrative, Obama did not lead a U.S. retreat from the world. Instead he sought to pursue the same interests without the same means. He has tried to preserve America’s place as the “indispensable nation” while withdrawing ground troops from war zones, cutting the defense budget, scaling back “nation-building” projects and forswearing U.S.-led interventions.

Friedman vs. Israel

David Gerstman

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

Thomas Friedman used the occasion of President Obama's re-election to return to his favorite topic: bashing Israel, in his Sunday column My President is busy. Aside from demonstrating his ignorance about suing Google, Friedman makes a couple of mistakes. 

You should be so lucky that the president feels he has the time, energy and political capital to spend wrestling with Bibi to forge a peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I don’t see it anytime soon. Obama has his marching orders from the American people: Focus on Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, not on Bethlehem, Palestine, and focus on getting us out of quagmires (Afghanistan) not into them (Syria). No, my Israeli friends, it’s much worse than you think: You’re home alone.

1,200 tunnels operating between Egypt and the Gaza Strip- Sinai tribal leader

By Mohammed Mohsin
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=31784
 
Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat - The leader of the Al-Akur Tribe in Sinai, Arif
Abu-Akr, has revealed that the 1,200 tunnels between the borders of Egypt and Gaza Strip are working at full capacity. Abu-Akr told Asharq Al-Awsat that these tunnels were being used to carry out terrorist attacks, “but we cannot arrest them or present them to justice.”
 
During the transitional period, which was administered by the military, the Egyptian authorities had announced the closure of the tunnels to the Gaza Strip; however, security sources in Sinai have said that many of the tunnels are now fully operational since President Muhammad Mursi’s accession to power at the beginning of July 2012. Security sources also revealed that the governor of North Sinai had lodged a complaint with senior officials in Cairo, but was told: “The tunnels do not represent a problem.”

PA TV News: No trace of Jewish history in "our land" "Temple exists only in the minds of radical organizations"

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7905

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Recently, Palestinian Authority TV News exemplified the PA policy of denying the existence of any Jewish history in Jerusalem. In a report about Israel's excavations on the Temple Mount exposing part of the Western Wall, the government-controlled PA TV stated:

"There's [an Israeli] race against the clock to complete the excavations in search of [Jerusalem's] Temple that exists only in the minds of radical organizations."

The Post Targets Israel

Leo Rennert

On Nov. 10, an antitank missile fired by Palestinian terrorists from Gaza at an Israeli army vehicle wounded four IDF soldiers. Retaliatory fire by Israel killed four Gazans, while dozens of rockets and mortar shells rained on civilian targets in southern Israel.
This was but the latest incident in a recent escalation of rocket attacks from Hamas-ruled Gaza against towns, cities, and kibbutzim in southern Israel. Israel's human toll and pain has been considerable. One million Israelis are having to dart toward bomb shelters at a moment's notice when red alert sirens sound. Israeli children succumb to post-traumatic stress. Authorities order schools to close as a precaution against a massive catastrophe if a school were hit with hundreds of kids inside. 

PA President Mahmoud Abbas Presents His Views on the Right of Return

http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/3634.htm
For video
http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3634.htm
 
Following are excerpts from an interview given by PA President Mahmoud Abbas to Israeli Channel 2 on November 2, 2012, and an interview with Al-Hayat TV
a day later.
 
Channel 2 (Israel), November 2, 2012:
 
Mahmoud Abbas: As long as I am here, in this office, there will be no third, armed, Intifada. Never. We don't want to use terror. We don't want to use force. We don't want to use weapons.
[...]
 
Interviewer: You are originally from Safed.
 
Mahmoud Abbas: From Safed, yes.
 
Interviewer: Do you wish to go there?
 
Mahmoud Abbas: Of course. I want to see Safed.
 
Interviewer: To visit or to live?
 
Mahmoud Abbas: No, no. I want to visit with somebody else who is sitting with us now. I visited Safed before once. But I want to see Safed. It's myright to see it. But not to live there.

"Christians in the Middle East"

I want to begin by switching gears today, to consider an important, and much neglected issue.  Last Thursday night, a symposium -- co-sponsored by B'nai Brith World Center, the Menachem Begin Center and the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Jerusalem -- was held on "The Present and Future of Christians in the Middle East."

 

That Christians in Muslim and Arab countries in this region have it very difficult was hardly news to me.  But this symposium provided a broader context and some significant information.

The Broader Implications of the Petraeus Resignation: Personal Behavior and Public Office

Barry Rubin On November 11

Genral Petraeus was the hero of the winning surge in Iraq. But he also has the distinction of becoming America’s first Politically Correct field commander. His strategy in Afghanistan was in line with that of the Obama Administration by putting the emphasis on winning Muslim hearts and minds as a higher priority than military victories or even at times the safety of American soldiers. There’s a reason why President Barack Obama made him CIA director.

Leaving aside the question of the resignation’s relationship to the Benghazi debacle, in some ways, his fall is more discouraging than the election results. Don’t these powerful people feel that their duty is more important than their personal self-aggrandizement or pleasure? We should remember, too, that Petraeus’s predecessor in Afghanistan was brought down because of some incautious things said in a magazine interview.

FBI Source: Petraeus Case Held Until After Election to Not Hurt Obama Politically

• Mdeleine Morgenstern

Outgoing CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus’ resignation over an extramarital affair was reportedly held until after Tuesday’s election to avoid “potential embarrassment” for President Barack Obama, according to Newsmax.
FBI agents learned of the affair while monitoring Petraeus’ emails out of concern that the woman, Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell, may have had access to his personal account, the Associated Press reported.
But an FBI source told Ronald Kessler, the author and journalist who broke the Secret Service prostitution scandal, that rather than having Petraeus resign immediately, the decision was made to hold it until after the election for political purposes:

The Party of Victory

Caroline Glick

 

Next to the American people themselves, Israel is no doubt the biggest immediate loser in the U.S. presidential election. President Obama's foreign policy is predicated on the false notion that the U.S. and Israel themselves are the principal causes of the Islamic world's antipathy toward them. Consequently, Obama has cultivated the anti-American, genocidally anti-Jewish Muslim Brotherhood and facilitated the Brotherhood's takeover of Egypt and Tunisia and its gains in strength throughout the Middle East. In addition, Obama has appeased Iran's Islamist regime and has enabled it to reach the cusp of nuclear capability.

Obama's policy of relying on the United Nations has placed Israel's diplomatic viability at risk as the Palestinians and the international Left that supports and feeds on their cause use the U.N. to delegitimize Israel's right to exist. Finally, Obama's animosity toward Israel has strengthened the hand of anti-Israel forces within the Democratic party. In the coming years, Israel will become an increasingly partisan issue in American politics.

Election over, Obama and UK to fully back Islamic terrorists in Syria

November 9, 2012 by creeping 

via Obama re-election signals new phase in Syria war – Yahoo! News.

ZAATARI, Jordan (AP) — Western efforts to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad shifted dramatically Wednesday, with Britain announcing it will deal directly with rebel military leaders and Turkey saying NATO members have discussed using Patriot missiles to protect a safe zone inside Syria.

The developments came within hours of Barack Obama’s re-election, with U.S. allies anticipating a new, bolder approach from the American president to end the deadlocked civil war that has killed more than 36,000 people since an uprising against Assad began in March 2011.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, visiting a camp Wednesday for Syrian refugees in Jordan, said the U.S., Britain and other allies should do more to “shape the opposition” into a coherent force and open channels of communication directly with rebel military commanders.

Obama and Netanyahu: Round two

President Barack Obama is starting a second term in which he will be free from re-election concerns and the restricting pressure of lobbies, but he really wants to leave his mark, namely in the Middle East. But at what cost to Israel? The next prime minister of Israel will be up against a strong American president determined to spearhead a new world order and achieve stability in the region.

Shlomo Cesana

A reset? President Barack Obama escorting Prime Minister Netanyahu to his car after their 2010 meeting at the White House. [Archive] | Photo credit: AP

U.S. President Barack Obama's victory will be sealed when he is sworn in as president for a second time on Jan. 21 next year. This will be one day before the general elections in Israel, in which, according to all the forecasts, Benjamin Netanyahu will also win another term, his third as prime minister. A second round, and both parties are coming back with a fresh mandate. The American president's second term is seemingly one without too much obligation. The president no longer needs to ingratiate himself with the voters to ensure another term. The various lobbies will have far less impact and the president is free to prove that, through hard work, he can go down in the annals of his country's history as a leader of the free world, with a meaningful foreign policy.

J Street's hour has arrived

From PJM's Tatler:

Today, J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami sent an email to supporters with the subject line "ASTOUNDING."

All 49 House incumbents endorsed by the PAC were re-elected. All seven of the J Street Senate candidates were elected, including Democrats Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Martin Heinrich in New Mexico, and Tim Kaine in Virginia.

J Street's challengers and candidates for open seats were elected in 13 out of 15 races. Ben-Ami noted that the PAC adds one more and gets to its touted victory total if Ami Bera holds on to his razor-thin lead over Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.).

What do we do now?

http://israel-commentary.org/?

Dear Reader,

Watching last night’s returns, conservative commentators talked mournfully about how America is a changed country—demographically, culturally, and most of all morally. Because of these changes, we are no longer the country we have always been.
We don’t buy it. Yes, America is a divided country. But half of the people are holding fast to traditional values and voting no to policies that are leading to bankruptcy at home and defeat abroad. To believe, moreover, that the other half has turned its back forever on our national ideals and national greatness would be to sell them and America short.
It would also be selling short those of us who are willing to take the fight to the left to defend this country; it would be to give up on our ability to change minds with the power of our ideas.

What lies ahead is not only an opportunity to change the course on which we are headed but a solemn obligation to our children and to ourselves. We must educate more Americans about the threats to our liberty at home and abroad. That is what the Freedom Center has always done; it is not only our mission but our reason for being. It is what we intend to do—now more than ever.

Post-Election Musings in the wake of Obama’s Victory

Isi Leibler
November 8, 2012http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=4338

Being in the US this week during the elections has truly been a remarkable experience and roller coaster. The outcome is that, for better or for worse, the American people have determined that President Barack Obama will serve a second four year term as leader of the Western world.

 

Aside from Americans, this will probably impact more on us in Israel than any other nation because of our heavy reliance on US political and military support. But the die has been cast and everyone, including those of us who were deeply apprehensive about how a second term Obama would relate to us, must accept the verdict of the American people.

What Obama Should Have Done in the Last Four Years and Won't Do in the Next Four Years

Barry Rubin

Over and over again I’ve written about what President Barack Obama should do. Now the voters have given him a whole new chance. He could take it and change his policy. I don't believe he will do that but let me lay out both what he's been wrong and what he should do, just in case Obama is seeking a different approach.

What he did in the first and will do in the second term: Foster revolutionary Islamism in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey.

What he should have done and should do now: Do what Franklin Rooosevelt did in 1941 and Harry Truman in 1947 and George Bush in 1990. Lead an international coalition that will systematically fight against a totalitarian enemy. Today, that means revolutionary Islamism. The loose coalition should include Europe, anti-Islamist Arab regimes (Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf Arab states) and pro-democratic opposition movements (Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, and Syria).

The Enemy of my Enemy in Damascus

Shoshana Bryen 

A reminder to the administration, no matter who is running it: the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.  The friend of my friend is not necessarily my friend.  And the friend of my enemy is not necessarily my enemy, but he may be not by my friend, either.
Bashar Assad, for example, is Iran's puppet, Hezb'allah's patron, Israel's nemesis, Hamas's erstwhile landlord, and his people's tyrant.  He is the enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood -- our (former?) enemy.  And he has a mixed relationship with al-Qaeda, permitting it to infiltrate Iraq to kill Americans, Shiites, and non-compliant Sunnis, but now finding it joining the jihadis against him.

Pray for America Then Fasten Your Seat Belts The Next Four Years Are Going to Be a Bumpy Flight

Yid With Lid

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
-The Gods of the Copybook Headings-Rudyard Kipling

During the 2008 campaign, I explained to my friend and teacher Professor Barry Rubin, that people will not realize what Barack Obama was all about until he is elected but by then it will be too late. By the end of 2009 Rubin (a traditional liberal) was agreeing with me that the presidency of Barack Obama was turning into a disaster.

Today America chose to reelect Barack Obama for another term as President and just as I said four years ago, I believe that America will now learn about the real Barack Obama, the one who never has to worry about getting voter approval, satisfying campaign donors.  This Obama will be more radical then he has ever been before.

One Thousand and One Articles Later: Why Obama Should be Voted Out of Office Today‏

Barry Rubin

For four years now--yes, I started before he was actually inaugurated--I have been chronicling the disastrous policies of President Barack Obama on the Middle East. I may have written as many as 1000 articles that deal with aspects of this issue. In the tradition of Scheherazade, perhaps the greatest of Middle Eastern story-tellers, that makes this my 1001th story.

And now the day has come when it will be decided if he will have the same period of time once again to do more damage, to help destroy more lives, create tens of thousands of refugees, and lay the basis for new wars.

I have written about how this administration has supported the bad guys--with guns and diplomatic help--in Syria, those who want to turn the country into an anti-American Islamic republic. Of how the nation's leaders believe that helping just about every Islamist group except al-Qaida is a great idea because they will be moderate and good friends of America.

The choice

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

Government grows in size and power as the individual shrinks into dependency. Until the tipping point where dependency becomes the new norm – as it is in Europe.

Photo: REUTERS

WASHINGTON – “Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.” That was Barack Obama in 2008. And he was right. Reagan was an ideological inflection point, ending a 50-year liberal ascendancy and beginning a 30-year conservative ascendancy.

It is common for one party to take control and enact its ideological agenda. Ascendancy, however, occurs only when the opposition inevitably regains power and then proceeds to accept the basic premises of the preceding revolution.

Thus, Republicans railed for 20 years against the New Deal. Yet when they regained the White House in 1953, they kept the New Deal intact.

And when Nixon followed LBJ’s Great Society – liberalism’s second wave – he didn’t repeal it. He actually expanded it. Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, gave teeth to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and institutionalized affirmative action – major adornments of contemporary liberalism.

Obama’s Iran Nuke Deal Sells Out Israel

Daniel Greenfield

In October there were some early reports that the Obama Administration had reached a nuclear deal with Iran. It was a given that such a deal would involve Iran buying time to leverage its nuclear capabilities while making a show of backing away from its weapons program under an easily falsifiable inspection regime.

But it now looks as if Reza Kahlili’s original report was correct. A top Iranian official claims that the Islamic regime is suspending Uranium enrichment as a “goodwill gesture”.

 

Obviously Iran doesn’t do freebies. A goodwill gesture means that an agreement has been reached, officially or unofficially, and the home of international Shiite terror, is giving Obama the treat at the time when he needs it most, before we find out what the real bill is. And the real bill is the US recognition of Iran’s “nuclear rights”, an end to all sanctions and foreign aid.

Politicians Promise to Help Israel: Will It Be Too Little, Too Late?

Steve Feldman

"If Israel is attacked" is a phrase heard often by mostly well-meaning politicians from both American parties when they are out on the campaign trail, or even while holding office, to express their intent to come to the aid of the Jewish state. 

But as anyone who both follows current events and has any semblance of logic knows, not only is the phrase trite, but it reveals a certain unfamiliarity with the Middle East today and is even dangerous as pertains to Iran.

First: "If Israel is attacked" implies a future scenario.  But those who keep abreast of the goings-on in Israel know that Israel is and has been under attack all year (and earlier) by Palestinian-Arabs residing in the Gaza Strip.  Thus far this year, the Palestinian-Arabs have fired more than 800 rockets and mortar rounds at Israeli civilian areas.

Pakistan: Historic Church Burned Down by Muslims

Saman Ataurehman  •  November 5, 2012

The attackers brought kerosine oil and guns. The security provided was not enough to stop the armed men.

On September 21, 2012 a mob of several hundred Muslim men attacked a church compound in the city of Mardan, near Khyber Paktunkhwa.

The church, built in the 1900s, was burned while Muslims were protesting a film that carried material reportedly objectionable to Islam.

Peres phones Abbas, as PM urges him to hold talks

TOVAH LAZAROFF

11/05/2012

Netanyahu says he is ready to return to negotiations with PA "today"; Olmert says Gov’t has bolstered Hamas and weakened PA.

Photo: Wikicommons
 

President Shimon Peres called his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, on Sunday, as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and right-wing politicians continued to criticize Abbas’s plea for renewed negotiations based on the pre-1967 lines.
Both former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who each negotiated with Abbas, confirmed that his comments to Channel 2 on Friday night, were consistent with what he had told them during their talks.

The truth about “the occupation” and “the settlements”

Ted Belman (originally posted in 2010)

The pro-Palestinian propaganda machine has succeeded in stigmatizing the Israeli occupation and the settlements. Time and again we hear about the “brutal occupation” and the “illegal settlements”. We rarely hear the truth in opposition to these lies.

Occupation
Israel is accused of occupying the West Bank and Gaza. In fact these territories are described as “The occupied Palestinian territories.” Not only are they not occupied in a legal sense, but also they are not “Palestinian” lands in a sovereign sense..
The Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) is a treaty between signatory states that are called High Contracting Parties (HCP). It regulates the obligations of one HCP who occupies the land of another HCP. It defines the terms “Occupying Power” and “Occupied State”. Thus this convention does not apply to the territories because they were not the land of any HCP. They have never been the land of an HCP. Prior to 1967, Jordon was in occupation of these territories, just as Israel is currently in occupation. Jordanian sovereignty over these lands was never recognized and ultimately Jordan relinquished any claims she claimed to have over these lands. The FGC was never applied when Jordan occupied the land and it shouldn’t be applied now that Israel does.

Into The Fray: If you are Jewish...

By MARTIN SHERMAN

 

Israel aside, the unquestioning, almost Pavlovian, support US Jews give Obama is inconsistent with their values and incompatible with their welfare.

 

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters 

 

 

What liberals believe needs to be changed or discarded — and apologized for to other nations — is precisely what conservatives are dedicated to preserving, reinvigorating and proudly defending against attack. American Jewry surely belongs with the conservatives rather than the liberals. For the social, political and moral system that liberals wish to transform is the very system in and through which Jews found a home such as they had never discovered in all their forced wanderings throughout the centuries over the face of the earth. – Norman Podhoretz, Why Are Jews Liberals? September 10, 2009

READINESS FOR THE JOB

C. Givon - Nov. 3,2012

As every professional knows, academics studies having been passed, there is a required period of practical experience before one is permitted to enter the real world.

Graduates in the field of education, law, medicine, and other professions must then continue their training in rigorous internships to qualify for the responsibilities of public service. This is a feature of a society that constantly aspires to improve – for the benefit of humanity.

"The Last Effort"

Likely my last major communication on the issue of the US election.  And this one with a very specific focus.

 

On Friday, in the Jerusalem Post, Alan Dershowitz had a major piece called, "The case for Obama's reelection."  It was so rife with distortions, I could not let it pass.  It read to me like a campaign document, not a serious analysis of how the president has conducted himself.

 

Alan Dershowitz is a big name and highly respected in many quarters -- thus likely to be believed in what he writes.  And so, I offer this as a counter to anyone who may have seen Dershowitz's piece -- either in the JPost or in other venues where it may have appeared -- and feels inclined to accept his word on the issues.  I will do this briefly, touching on main points he attempted to make: