Christian and Canadian Support for Israel Defies Propaganda

Christine Williams

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4398/christian-canadian-support-israel

Israel's targets have been militants, military facilities, rocket launchers, tunnels and command centers. Israel has taken extraordinary measures to protect Palestinian civilian life.
Meanwhile, Hamas violates international law both by targeting Israel's civilians and by using its own people as human shields -- and then blaming Israel for the casualties.
The BDS movement covers up its ties with the terrorist group Hamas.

On the heels of the murder of three innocent Israeli teens, Hamas began pounding Israel with rocket fire, while Israel retaliated with defensive airstrikes on Gaza. As expected, however, Hamas and other Gaza officials -- including the head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, Raji Sourani -- have accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, while the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC] announced plans for an "extraordinary ministerial meeting" to discuss "the intensifying and fierce Israeli campaign against Palestine."

Middle East falls further into chaos, endangering Israel and US influence

Fox News

President Obama's call back in 2009 for a "new beginning" between America and the Muslim world -- a relationship defined over the prior decade by 9/11 and the Iraq war -- has descended into a foreign policy sandstorm that has left Washington dizzied by ever-changing powerbrokers, and its closest ally in the region more isolated and threatened.
The deadly conflict between Hamas and Israel, which is intensifying and widening by the day, is just the latest symptom of the Middle East mess.

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The "Arab Spring," which the Obama administration roundly cheered, has resulted in only one full-fledged and stable democracy taking hold, in Tunisia. Syria remains gripped by bloody civil war, Egypt and Libya have struggled to establish stable governments, and Islamic extremists wreaking havoc in Iraq have declared their own "caliphate" in territory across a wide swath of land across both Syria and northern Iraq.
And now reported rocket strikes out of Lebanon into Israel are raising concerns of a renewed conflict with Hezbollah.
Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said the environment now is "much worse" than it was during Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006, noting Syria is in chaos and nearby Jordan -- a U.S. ally -- is feeling the strain.
"You can really see why what's happening now has the potential for much wider conflict," Bolton said.
He added: "And another significant fact, the United States is almost absent here."

Gaza density

Stephen Pollard

Whatever one thinks of the extension of Cast Lead - and I have my worries - there are many 'big lies' which seem to have taken root as fact.
One of the most widespread is the idea that Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. It is nothing of the sort.
Earlier this year, I pointed out on my old Spectator blog some of the facts:

The UK politician George Galloway wrote in The Glasgow Record last month that the Gaza Strip is "the most densely populated piece of earth on the planet." Galloway wrote that 1.5 million Palestinians live there.
Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist currently teaching at Princeton, wrote March 26 that Gaza is "one of the most densely populated places on earth, with 3,823 people per square kilometre." Kuttab's figure is in line with recent Gaza population estimates of 1.4 million.
If Galloway's estimate of 1.5 million Gaza population is correct, this is almost 4,200 people per square kilometer. The Central Intelligence Agency projects that the Gaza population will reach 1,537,269 in July. This would bring the density to 4,270 people per square kilometer.

But this isn't even as crowded as Tel Aviv. Gaza has plenty of problems. But they are nothing - nothing - to do with population density:

“Slowly, Thoughtfully, Agonizingly”

By now I had thought our ground forces would have entered Gaza, but the operation remains on the edge of happening.

 

As I approach Shabbat and find I still have many preparations to attend to, I want to share only a very brief overview of what is transpiring with regard to the pros and cons of going in and what we do once we start the ground war.  We’re Jews. So we have as many opinions on the subject as we have commentators and analysts.

 

In the end, it seems to me we must go in on the ground because Hamas is stepping up the rocket launchings, and while – thank Goodness – no one one our side has been killed, there have been injuries at this point, at least a couple of which are serious.

 

Mordechai Yemin, an IDF soldier from Itamar, was seriously wounded by mortar shells yesterday while he was in the Eshkol Regional Council, near Kerem Shalom.  We are being asked to pray for his full recovery:  Mordechi Chai Ben Bracha Yehudit.

 

And...rockets are aimed now at the airport.  Not something we can tolerate.

 

Hamas is being defiant.  We must act decisively.

We Have Been Here Before

 Daniel Gordis

We've been here before. That's the whole point of the Jewish calendar. None of this is new.

We've been before. That's what Shiva Asar Be-Tammuz, the 17th day of Tammuz, which we will commemorate on Tuesday, seeks to remind us. The Mishnah (Ta'anit 4:6) lists five calamities that are said to have befallen us on this date. Among them, the Mishnah says, the walls of the city were breached and an idol was placed in the Temple.

Can anyone doubt that we've been here before?

Thanks to extraordinary Israeli ingenuity, we've built a wall in the sky. Missiles come streaking towards us, and usually, the "wall" stops them; the remnants of what had been a deathly threat seem to float slowly, harmlessly, down towards the earth. But not all the time, as we saw first in Ashdod. Our "wall" can be breached, and one can only assume that the breaches to follow will be much worse than what's come thus far. The Babylonians breached the walls. So, too, did the Romans. So did the Syrians and the Egyptians in October 1973. So did Hezbollah in the Lebanon wars. So, too, can Hamas.

We've been here before.

The hand that rocks the street

Nadav Shragai

The spontaneous Arab riots, organized on social networking websites, raise the question: Is there a hidden hand providing direction?

Nadav Shragai

A youth holds a Palestinian flag and a sling during clashes with Israeli police after prayers last Friday in Shuafat | Photo credit: Reuters

Abdel Baset Salameh, mayor of the Israeli Arab town Qalansawe, called the recent riots and unrest in Wadi Ara and the Triangle region a "small tsunami." Salameh said it looked bad and added that was no guarantee it would stay small.

The tsunami was quite reminiscent of the not-too-distant days of October 2000. That was when unrest on the Temple Mount spiraled out into the Second Intifada. Initially, Israeli Arabs joined the uprising. Thirteen of them were killed in clashes with police. The Or Commission, the state-appointed panel investigating the events, placed the blame squarely on Israeli-Arab shoulders, though it also cited the government's mishandling of flashpoint areas.

This time, the excuse -- real or imagined -- is the murder of the Arab teenage boy from Shuafat, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, and Israel's operations against Hamas in the wake of the abduction and murder of three Jewish teens. Thousands of Israeli Arabs from Tayibe, Tira, Qalansawa, Sakhnin, Kafr Qara, Tamra, Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm have taken to the streets and road junctions, ripping out road signs, hurling bricks, setting tires alight, blocking major traffic arteries and trying -- with some degree of success -- to harm Jews wherever they may be.

Apologies overdue and overdone

David M. Weinberg

There has been a lot of apologizing going on this week, some of it justified and necessary, some not. Unfortunately, the most important, justified apologies have not been forthcoming at all: from the Palestinians, the misguided Israeli Left, and the international community.

Here is my tally of overdue and overdone apologies:

• Mahmoud Abbas: He owes Israel and his own people colossal contrition for his never-ending string of errors and calumnies that have encouraged terrorism against Israel, blown all chances for peace, and left Palestinians floundering in hate and victimhood.

Abbas' decision to craft a unity government with Hamas is the ultimate blow to the Oslo peace process, and makes him culpable for the war crimes of the Hamas terrorists now raining rockets down on Israel.

The man who once denied the Holocaust had the temerity this week to invoke "Auschwitz" when talking about the murder of Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir, and then to accuse Israel of "genocide" in Gaza. Ugh. Now Abbas is going to The Hague to criminalize and isolate Israel.

Since apologies from this man are not forthcoming, and peace with him is unrealistic, Israel must be careful about investing too many more hopes in the Palestinian Authority.

A Game Changer in Gaza

Daniel Greenfield On July 11, 2014 

Terrorism is a game. The rules are simple. You have three choices. 1. Destroy the terrorists. 2. Live with terrorism. 3. Give in to the terrorists.
There are no other choices.
The first choice comes from the right. The third choice comes from the left. The second choice is what politicians choose when they don’t want to make a decision that will change the status quo.
Despite all the explosions in Gaza, Israel is still stuck on the second choice. The air strikes aren’t meant to destroy Hamas. They are being carried out to degrade its military capabilities which will buy a year or two of relative peace. And that will be followed by more of the same in the summer of 2016 when Hamas will have deadlier Iranian and Syrian weapons that will terrorize more of the country.
That doesn’t sound like much of a deal, but these kinds of wars have bought more peace than the peace process ever did. The peace process led to wars. The wars lead to a temporary peace.
This status quo became the mainstream choice ever since Israelis figured out that the peace process wasn’t going to work and that their leaders weren’t about to defy the UN, the US, the UK and all the other U’s by actually destroying the terrorists.

Hamas Bombing Civilians, Using Gazans as Human Shields

Hamas is in violation of international law both in targeting civilians and in using its own population as human shields.

BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND    http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/hamas-deliberately-endangering-gaza-residents-for-propaganda

Wed, July 9, 2014 

Hamas terrorists in Gaza. (Photo: © Reuters)

The Islamist terrorist group Hamas has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel over the last few days from the Gaza strip, which it controls. In response, the Israeli army has announced the launch of "Operation Protective Edge," a new campaign to end attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza and is preparing for a possible ground invasion.

Jewish-Arab tensions have been soaring since the abduction and murder by Hamas of three Israeli teenagers: Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel by terrorists. The situation was further exacerbated when 17-year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, an Israeli-Arab, was abducted and burned alive in a suspected revenge killing by seven Israeli extremists. The spate of murders was strongly condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas

MEMRI

In view of the recent victory of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Palestinian Authority Legislative Council elections, it is important to make the Hamas covenant [1] available in English for English speaking readers. The English version which is currently posted in a number of websites is not satisfactory, and therefore MEMRI is providing here a closer, more accurate translation.

In the name of Allah the Merciful and the Compassionate

Palestine, Muharram 1, 1409 A.H./August 18, 1988

In the name of Allah the Merciful and the Compassionate
"You are the best nation that has been brought out for mankind. You command good and forbid evil and believe in Allah. If only the people of the Book [i.e., Jews and Christians] had believed, it would have been well for them. Some of them believe, but most of them are iniquitous. They will never be able to do you serious harm, they will only be an annoyance. If they fight you, they will turn their backs and flee, and will not be succored. Humiliation is their lot wherever they may be, except where they are saved from it by a bond with Allah or by a bond with men. They incurred upon themselves Allah's wrath, and wretchedness is their lot, because they denied Allah's signs and wrongfully killed the prophets, and because they disobeyed and transgressed." (Koran, 3:110-112).
"Israel will exist, and will continue to exist, until Islam abolishes it, as it abolished that which was before it." [From the words of] The martyr, Imam Hasan al-Banna', Allah's mercy be upon him. [2]
"The Islamic world is burning, and each and every one of us must pour water, even if it be a little, to extinguish whatever he can extinguish, without waiting for others." [From the words of] Sheikh Amjad Al-Zahawi, Allah's mercy be upon him. [3]
In the name of Allah the Merciful and the Compassionate

Operation Protective Edge: The Real Peace Process

P. David Hornik

It was slightly under a year ago that the not-real peace process, the one driven by the U.S. administration and especially Secretary of State John Kerry, got under way. In that “process,” Israel and the ostensibly moderate Fatah wing of the Palestinians, led by Mahmoud Abbas, were supposed to negotiate for nine months and reach a conflict-ending two-state solution.

There was a hitch: to reach that pot of gold, Israel would have to release 104 Palestinian prisoners in phased batches. They could not be car thieves and the like; they had to be terrorist murderers. Sometimes the road to peace has strange bumps in it.

That peace process ended with something less than a bang in April. Even though Kerry’s envoy Martin Indyk admitted that Abbas—insufficiently appeased by the prisoner releases—had “shut down” and stopped talking with Israel by December, both Kerry and Indyk managed to blame Israeli building in “settlements,” primarily Jerusalem, for the talks’ failure.
Now, three months since those talks wound down, Israel is at war. It’s been a fierce war, but it offers more hope of peace than Kerry and Indyk’s “process” ever did.
It offers such hope because, after two days, Israel in Operation Protective Edge is displaying even more stunning capabilities than in its previous war against Gaza-based, mainly Hamas terror, the eight-day-long Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012.

“Proportionality and Other Matters”

There is a widespread – but very erroneous – impression that if an enemy attacks, a proportional response means a nation can only return what was received and no more. That is, the mistaken impression is that if Hamas shot one rocket, we could only shoot one rocket back.

 

International law, however, defines proportionality very differently: it is a question of legitimate military goals and intentionality.  Put very simply, we would not be restricted to only shooting one rocket back at Hamas, but rather doing what is necessary (within certain defined limits) to ensure that Hamas does not shoot any more rockets.  That is a legitimate military goal.

 

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who was the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in 2003, wrote this about proportionality:

 

“Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable, does not in itself constitute a war crime. International humanitarian law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur. A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians...or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality).”

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionality_(law)#International_humanitarian_law

Strategy, not politics

Zvika Fogel

Not long ago, Israel celebrated its 66th birthday. This is a young country from the point of view of history, tradition, culture and legacy. Sixty-six years have passed and we are still surrounded by enemies who refuse to recognize our right to exist. We have developed, built and established a democracy, which with all of its flaws is a source of strength and pride. We have looked toward the future and have known what needed to be done to provide for the next generations.

Our enemies have morphed and changed shape, but have not changed their objective, their way of thinking and approach. They have been stuck with leadership that cannot see beyond its own nose, and which is not willing to pay the price needed to build a future for its people.

But something bad has happened to us in recent years as well. We have lost the feeling of sharing a mutual fate, our sense of responsibility, our spirit of initiative and determination, everything that brought us to realizing that war is the last option -- but that when it is forced on us we have no choice but to win it. The only thing remaining from the spirit that defined us on the eve of the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War is our ability to be pained by loss and embrace the bereaved.

There is no moral equivalence but Netanyahu must act now

Isi Leibler
July 9, 2014
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5152

The words of last week’s Torah portion resonate loudly, as we read of the non-Jewish prophet Balaam’s description of “the people that dwells alone and is not counted among the nations.”

We have all been traumatized by the events of the past month. No sooner had we absorbed the shocking tragedy of the brutal abduction and murder of the three teenagers and humbled by the exceptional dignity of their anguished parents, we were stunned to learn of the barbaric murder of an Arab youngster by Jews.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the act immediately, even prior to being aware of the motive or the killers.

U.S. President Barack Obama however related to the abduction and murder of the three Israelis in a somewhat muted manner, and only 18 days later, upon the discovery of their bodies. Yet within moments of hearing of Muhammad Abu Khdeir’s murder, he denounced the act in a highly provocative manner, insinuating that it was yet another act in a cycle of violence.

Iron Dome is proving its worth

Aharon Lapidot

Much as in Operation Pillar of Defense and in the almost two years since, Iron Dome saved the day. Over 100 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel on Tuesday, with 40 of them raining down in the span of just one hour on Tuesday night, from Ashdod to Ramat Hasharon, from Beersheba to Beit Shemesh, and even farther.

Only one rocket achieved its goal, hitting and damaging a building in Ashdod. A handful of rockets landed in open areas, including in the greater Jerusalem area. The rest were successfully intercepted by Iron Dome, and no injuries were reported.

In the wake of Operation Pillar of Defense, many commentators attempted to question Iron Dome's success rate, which the IDF Spokesperson's Unit pegged at 85 percent, and criticized its performance. Thankfully, the military dismissed them and the Defense Ministry continued funding the program, which has proved itself once more.

Despite the grouped rocket fire, the system intercepted every rocket believed to threaten lives or property. Truth be told, there is no need for learned commentary -- the public sees the results with its own eyes.

The Myth of Ethnic Inequality in Israel

Ethnicity in Israel is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Both Jews and Arabs are subdivided into ethnic sub-groups, and there are important differences in socioeconomic status among Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, and Arab Druze.

  Steven Plaut
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3839/israel-inequality

It is commonplace to attribute much of Israel's domestic tensions to supposed Jewish discrimination against the country's Arab citizens.[1] Nearly every Israeli Arab nongovernmental organization insists that such discrimination characterizes the Jewish state in general and its labor markets in particular.[2] The Israeli media routinely interview Israeli Arabs (and non-Ashkenazi Jews) who claim to have been victims of discrimination. These allegeations are echoed by Jewish Israeli academics, think tanks, and journalists, especially on the political Left, not to mention the international anti-Israel movement and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign. Indeed, the U.S. Department of State has even joined the growing outcry concerning Israel's alleged racist discrimination against its Arab citizens.[3]
Of course, in reality, Israel is the only Middle Eastern entity that is not an apartheid regime, and the apartheid slander holds no water whatsoever save in the minds of the Jewish state's enemies and defamers. Yet discrimination is a scientifically empirical question subject to testing and not a matter of subjective personal opinion. Stripping away the venomous anti-Israel rhetoric, the legitimate question remains whether and how much discrimination really exists in Israel.

Inequality Myths

Ethnicity in Israel is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Both Jews and Arabs are subdivided into ethnic sub-groups, making exploration and analysis of ethnic disparities a complex challenge. In official statistical data on income, Israeli Arabs are treated as a single population group, but this is somewhat misleading. There are important differences in socio-economic status and performance among Arab Christians, Arab Muslims, and Druse. Those sub-categories are in fact amalgams of even smaller divisions. For example, there are interesting differences between "ordinary" Arab Muslims and Bedouins. The Israeli Income Survey sample does not include the Arab population of the "occupied territories," except for East Jerusalem and the small population of the Golan Heights, both of which are formally annexed to Israel.

Op-Ed: When They Ask for a Ceasefire - Not so Fast

Israel's passive policies of measured responses, supplemented by empty threats concerning the endgame, provide a strong incentive for another round whenever the blood-thirsty terrorists feel dehydrated.

Published: Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Dr. Avi Perry

It is a vicious cycle.

Hamas or one of its sister-terrorist organizations initiates a terror attack, launches barrages of rockets. Israel retaliates, most often by bombing empty structures; the terrorists respond with rockets aimed at the Israeli civilian population; Israel retaliates, then threatens critical punishment.

Hamas declares a ceasefire and Israel concurs. And then, following a brief pause—a replay of the same episode.

Something is awfully wrong with this picture. Hamas is the one calling the shots. They initiate, then terminate cycles of violence when the heat rises in their kitchen, making them sweat. And the Israeli government’s policies of retaliations constituting measured responses appear impotently reactive in the face of the Gaza terror machine.

In fact, Israeli passive policies of measured responses, supplemented by empty threats concerning the endgame, provide a strong incentive for another round whenever these blood-thirsty terrorists feel dehydrated.

What an Islamic Caliphate Would Mean for the West

Frontpagemag.com On July 8, 2014

Shillman Fellow Raymond Ibrahim was recently interviewed by CBN News’ George Thomas on the rise of the Islamic State, its aspirations for caliphate, and what all that means for free peoples around the world:

To view video clip, click here

Prime Minister Netanyahu: The gloves need to come off when dealing with Hamas; ground incursion is on the table • IDF launches Operation Protective Edge in efforts to curtail escalating rocket fire from Gaza • Defense minister: We'll exact a heavy price.

Israel Hayom Staff

An Israeli tank stationed near the Gaza border on Tuesday | Photo credit: AFP

"The gloves need to come off when dealing with Hamas," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, as Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in efforts to curb escalating rocket fire.

Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit

Speaking at an emergency meeting of the top defense echelon in the Kirya IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said that "Hamas chose to escalate and they will pay dearly for it."

At the meeting, the prime minister urged the defense establishment to "engage in an unremitting, long and powerful strike in Gaza."

"We must be prepared to go all the way, and a ground offensive is also on the table," Netanyahu said.

One senior defense official indicated Tuesday that Israel was headed toward a large-scale operation in Gaza. He indicated that the IDF was preparing to mobilize additional reserves units and amass forces in the area.

The IDF opted not to make any declarations or define the operation, but officials hinted that the current effort could include a ground incursion in the future.

BBC Warns – Gaza Photos Aren't Really from Gaza

Gil Ronen

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) published a short report Tuesday in which it warned that many of the graphic images that are being shared on social media, purporting to show destruction that the IDF is wreaking in Gaza, are not in fact photos from Operation Protective Edge.

“Over the past week the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack has been used hundreds of thousands of times, often to distribute pictures claiming to show the effects of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza,” the BBC wrote. “A #BBCtrending investigation has found that many of these images are not from the latest conflict and not even from Gaza. Some date as far back as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq.”