Dec 31, 2008

Arab media blames Hamas, not Israel

Dec. 31, 2008

Or shall I say, some Arab media and leaders, such as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, blame Hamas rather than Israel for the violence. Hat Tip to The Israel Project for the research.
Abbas and Mubarak, among others, said maintaining the truce could have helped the Palestinians avoid the Israeli raids and that Hamas is fully responsible for the situation.

A Palestinian girl in Gaza whose family members died in Gaza Dec. 28 in an Israeli air attack held Hamas responsible. "I say Hamas is the cause, in the first place, of all wars,” the girl told Palestinian TV. [4]

A Palestinian journalist in Gaza said members of the Palestinian media are ‘directing’ civilians to cry and telling them what to say in interviews: "A mother of one of the martyrs stood by the door of the intensive care unit while crying... relatives and those around her were telling her what she should say to the television cameras: 'Say your son [before he died] prayed and went out.' Another tells her: 'Curse the Arab leaders'... The journalists [in the hospitals] are going overboard in their insensitivity and taking advantage of the [difficult] moments, with the explanation that they are showing this to the world. One cameraman told a mourning mother: 'Hit your face, cry, do some action.'" [5]

Abbas also blamed Hamas for disrupting national unity talks that could have paved the way for general and presidential elections. While visiting Cairo to discuss Egyptian and Arab League efforts to put an end to the violence in Gaza, Abbas said: “We have warned of this grave danger.” [6]

Nimr Hammad, an advisor to Abbas, said: “The one responsible for the massacre is Hamas […].” He called upon Hamas's leaders to stop carrying out “operations, which reflect recklessness, such as the firing of missiles.” [7]

Hafez Al-Barghouthi, editor of the PLO daily al-Hayat al-Jadida criticized Hamas for not prolonging the 'tahdiah' - Arabic for 'calm': “Prolonging the tahdiah was a supreme national interest. Why hasn’t [Hamas] prevented the aggression and the massacre? How many times have we written and Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) has declared that these missiles [that Hamas is firing at Israel] as ineffective and contrary to the supreme national interest […].” [8]
Of course, these Palestinian leaders criticizing Hamas are political rivals and destroying Hamas is in their best interests. We might not expect the same response in future conflicts. Its okay for Fatah terrorists to launch rockets and suicide attacks but the double standard applies when a Hamas terrorist does so.

War on YouTube

Dec. 31, 2008

For anyone who would like to see video footage, the Israel defense Forces International Press Branch has opened a YouTube Channel. We will be uploading IDF footage as it comes out.

http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk

Rockets reach farthest point yet

Dec. 31, 2008

Congratulations to Hamas for a new record: A missile on Tuesday landed farther into Israel than any previous launch. It hit a school where, miraculously, students had gotten out for the day already. School are now closed in the region. The army confirms:
On Tuesday, 30 December, the longer-range Grad rockets now being deployed from Gaza reached as far as Beersheba, the capital of the Negev with a population of 185,000, almost 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the Gaza Strip. Other Israeli cities and communities over 30 kilometers from Gaza have joined the long list of Hamas targets: Ashdod, Yavne, Kiryat Malakhi, Omer, and the Beduin town of Rahat. One of the first rockets to hit Beersheba struck a kindergarten that would have been filled with children had it hit earlier in the day. Another struck a Beersheba school on Wednesday morning.
Israel gets castigated because her aim is better, but Hamas gets away with targeting civilian sites since they don't actually kill anyone most of the time. From Israel's Foreign Ministry:
Israel agreed to the calm last June, which was immediately violated by Hamas when it refused to advance the release of Gilad Shalit, continued to arm itself, and continued firing. Hamas used the six months of calm to build up its strength, develop and produce weapons, and train terrorist operatives, preparing for the period after the calm.

The targets struck by the IAF show just how prepared the Hamas terror apparatus was and how deeply entrenched, using its civilian population as human shields. Its military headquarters and terrorist facilities are placed in civilian structures such as private homes, basements of houses inhabited by families with children, schools, colleges and universities, mosques and other public buildings.

Israel and Hamas cannot be placed in the same moral equation. Israel is operating against Hamas, a terror organization which uses civilians as human shields and deliberately targets civilians. Hamas does not care what happens to the residents of Gaza. Israel warned the Gaza residents that every site of terrorist activity is a target. The sole responsibility for the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian population lies with Hamas.

Israel's fight is against Hamas, a terror organization, not against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Despite the ongoing rocket fire from Gaza, Israel is allowing the transfer of humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip.


Hamas used mosque for weapons storage

Dec. 31, 2008

The U.S. Army does not target mosques or places of worship in Iraq, according to military policy and political correctness Perhaps they should. Hamas used a mosque as a storage site for Grad missiles and Kassam rockets, as well as a staging ground for rocket and missile launches, the most recent being this morning, according to the Israeli army.

The Israeli Air Force bombed the mosque in Gaza City on Wednesday setting off secondary explosions from the munitions stockpiled in the building. The army said:
The IDF will continue to attack any target used for terrorist activity, and will not hesitate to strike those involved in terrorism against the citizens of the State of Israel even, if they cynically choose to operate from locations of religious or cultural significance.

Medical and humanitarian aid to Gaza

Dec. 31, 2008

Despite relentless bombing of Hamas targets in Gaza, Israel is taking in the wounded and allowing humanitarian aid across the border. According to Israel's government press office:
Today 12 Palestinians accessed Israel for medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. Two of those evacuated were children injured during the military activates, the remaining are chronically sick people, and their escorts, that accessed Israel for treatment that is not available within the Gaza Strip.

Further more, despite ongoing rocket fire, Israel continues with the extensive humanitarian effort in coordination with the international organizations, Palestinian Authority and various donors. Ninety three trucks, with approximately 2500 tons of humanitarian aid, medical supplies and medication were conveyed through "Kerem Shalom" cargo terminal. The World Food Program has informed Israel that they will not be resuming shipment of food commodities in to Gaza due to the fact that their warehouses are at full capacity and will last for approximately two weeks.

Since the beginning of operation "cast lead" some 6500 tons of aid have been transferred at the request of the international organizations, the Palestinian Authority and various governments. Preparations are underway to facilitate further shipments expected to arrive in the coming days.

Dec 30, 2008

Crucifixion revised

Dec. 30, 2008

Hamas, the Islamic terrorist organization running the Gaza Strip, and Iran have revived crucifixions as a means of punishment for non-Muslims. Its pretty sick and twisted especially during the height of Christian holidays, but it's not getting much press. The big story is simply the rockets and the Israeli counter attacks.

However, the implications are stunning and Christians must hear this. Islam hates Israel and the Jews. That much is clear. But the world's largest religion better sit up and take notice.
On Tuesday Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Sharia criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, the code legalizes crucifixion.

Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time as it renewed its jihad. Here too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday Hamas lobbed a mortar at Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.


Read the full and frightening column here.

Vindication for Pres. Bush

Dec. 30, 2008

Some very important news got "lost" in the elections, probably because it vindicates Pres. George W. Bush who has been accused of instigating a wrongful war. On July 5, 2008, The Associated Press released a story titled: Secret US. Mission hauls uranium from Iraq.
The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program, a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. Operation that included a two week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

Dec 18, 2008

Christmas in Bethlehem

Dec. 26, 2008

Check out Charisma's December issue. I wrote a story for this issue about the plight of Palestinian Christians.

The full article can be found at the above link or you can read it here:

Rami Ayyad was closing up at the Bible Society in Gaza where he worked when armed men whisked him into a car and sped away. For hours, Ayyad's whereabouts were unknown. Pauline, his wife and the mother of their three children-the last still in utero-finally got through to him on his cell phone.

He wasn't able to say much, and she could tell something was wrong. It turned out to be the couple's last conversation.

The next day, October 7, 2007, Ayyad's body was found marred by signs of torture and riddled with the gunshot wounds that killed him.

Hanna Massad, pastor of the Gaza Baptist Church-the only evangelical church in the Gaza Strip-said Ayyad was the first known martyr in Gaza and most likely was killed for refusing to convert to Islam.

Massad shepherded a small flock of 200 or fewer believers amid a sea of some 1.6 million Muslims on the narrow coastal strip bordering Israel and Egypt. Since the militant group Hamas took control of the Strip in June 2007, it has been dangerous to adhere to anything but Hamas' brand of Islam and politics.

"When you say in Gaza, 'The Lord is my shelter, the Lord is my refuge,' you mean it literally," Massad says. "As a Christian you live between the fires: the fire of the militants and the fire of the Israelis and the siege [the closure of Gaza's borders], and also the fire of the nominal Christians who blame us."

Massad says that after Ayyad's murder, evangelical Christians were under surveillance, and many stayed home for fear of being followed. The Israeli army secured exit visas for about a dozen families in Gaza, including the Massads and Ayyad's wife, children, mother and siblings. But it took two harrowing weeks to receive permission and get the families out of the simmering Strip.

In Bethlehem, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, this small band of Gazans joined another shrinking minority of Christians, both traditional-including Greek and Armenian Orthodox, Catholic and others-and evangelical. Christians made up more than 80 percent of the population in 1948, but have since fled the area en masse and immigrated to Western nations. Now less than 20 percent of the population of Bethlehem and its suburbs, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, are Christian, according to most estimates. Only 2 percent of all Palestinian residents are Christian.

Though the media broadcast the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on a regular basis, they seldom report that Christian Palestinians are caught in the crossfire. Many are leaving the region due to a combination of economic and religious reasons.

"Currently the Christians are a shrinking and imperiled minority," says Justus Reid Weiner, a human rights attorney who has championed the Christian Palestinian cause. "Their percentage as well as their absolute numbers are falling year by year. Their neighborhoods, schools, universities are, by any measurement, no longer Christian.

"If there isn't some sort of dramatic change in the next 10 to 15 years, I would predict there would no longer be a functioning Christian community in the Palestinian territories," Weiner says.

No Law and Order

Interviews with several Palestinian Christians and statistics from the Israel-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center show that the number of attacks on Christian and Western institutions by radical Muslims has escalated in the last decade. Hamas set a menacing tone when it took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Militants attacked and vandalized a monastery and church as one of their first acts. Since then, Christian and Western schools in Gaza have been broken into and vandalized, and both the Bible Society where Ayyad worked and the YMCA were firebombed.

"There is not really much law for believers-Christians-in Gaza," Massad says. "People say maybe there's more security, but for us as Christians we don't feel it is safe for us. Two years after the uprising, in September 2000, things became more difficult, more militant, more religious, more fanatic. Even at that time we didn't feel it was safe. But it became more dangerous after Hamas came to power."

An investigation into Ayyad's death has produced no arrests, and the killers remain at large.

After the Hamas takeover, many Christian men in Gaza began to grow beards, and many women donned head scarves so as not to draw unwanted attention. The Gaza Baptist Church was broken into and thousands of dollars' worth of equipment was stolen or destroyed. Warring factions also used the church as a hideout from which to shoot at their rivals.

Christians in the West Bank have more freedom but are still vastly outnumbered and face persecution. Isa Bajalia, an evangelical pastor in Ramallah, fled to Jerusalem this year after being threatened with the same fate as Ayyad if he did not give away his land. Palestinian authorities refused to help him.

Christians say that Muslim gunmen used their homes in the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Jala to shoot at an Israeli neighborhood across the border. Doing so caused the return fire from Israeli soldiers to batter Christian rather than Muslim homes. In February 2002 a Muslim mob, including Palestinian Authority Special Forces, burned Christian businesses and attempted to destroy the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in Ramallah.

Also in 2002, dozens of terrorists commandeered Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity-Jesus' historical birthplace-for 39 days during fighting with Israel. Israeli troops refused to storm the church, which was rigged with explosives, as more than 200 nuns and priests were trapped in the building. The Muslim gunmen desecrated the church and stole religious items on their way out.

Rapes and forced conversions of Christian women have been reported from all the territories. But because the Palestinian government usually favors Muslims, many victims don't bother filing complaints.

"Basically Christians are without recourse," Weiner says. "Nobody sticks up for them or protects their interests."

The story is worse for Muslims who convert to Christianity-an act punishable by death according to Islamic law. Few believers will speak of Muslim converts or publicly associate with them to avoid endangering their and the converts' lives.

But one convert in particular has no qualms about discussing his own past. Tass Abu Saada-once a Muslim who made hajj, or "pilgrimage," to Mecca many times; who supported the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat; and who shot at Israelis during one of the Palestinian uprisings-was discovered by Hamas to be a Christian. He was labeled a "Zionist traitor." On its Web site, Hamas threatened to "shred" his body.

Abu Saada says many Muslims have come to the Lord but that he currently has no contact with them. "They are in deep, deep hiding, but I know in the midst of that darkness in the Gaza Strip God was moving. Jesus was appearing in dreams.

"When I was there, there was a revival going on. People were having visions and dreams of Jesus, and they didn't even know why or didn't even know who Jesus was," he says. "They came and asked questions. When we are asked, we respond."

Despite the threats, Hamas did not realize that Abu Saada and his wife, Karen, were living in Gaza for more than a year, and had built a kindergarten and taught English. More than 3,200 youngsters graduated from their school of "democracy."

Abu Saada, who describes his testimony in his autobiography, Once an Arafat Man, was born in Gaza but lived in Saudi Arabia and the United States, where he became a believer. After Ayyad's murder in October 2007, Abu Saada was advised to leave the Strip along with other Gaza Christians.

However, according to one Palestinian Christian minister, there is no reason to leave. "Actually we have full freedom to minister in our churches; we have no persecution whatsoever from the Palestinian authorities," claims the Rev. Munir Salim Kakish, president of the Council of Local Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land. "I put articles in Al-Quds newspaper advertising my church, and ... it is evangelistic. If anyone tries to attack us, the Palestinian Authority helps us."

Kakish runs a home for needy children in Ramallah, West Bank. It is supported by the Palestinian Authority, which sends children to him, even Muslims. He also pastors a church there and in the Israeli town of Ramle. Kakish says that the problems the Palestinian Christians face are political, economic and cultural, not religious.

"There are ways some of them are [evangelizing] that I don't agree with," he says. "Sometimes they ask for it. They do things unwisely. The Bible says to be wise.

"Gaza is boiling-you don't need to add to the fire more wood," he continues. "When the government says, 'Don't spread the gospel openly,' you must be wise.

"When you want to work with Muslims, you have to realize you might pay with your life. If someone gets saved, someone is going to come after you."

Kakish also places more blame on Israeli persecution than Muslim persecution for the flight of Christians from the Holy Land. And he isn't alone.

Many traditional and some evangelical Christians consider being Palestinian a unifying force for Christians and Muslims in the territories, with their common enemy being the "occupier," Israel.

Revival Despite Persecution

Politics and persecution aside, the power of the gospel is still evident. For example, the news of the salvation of a prominent Hamas leader's son, as reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has rocked the Palestinian territories. Ministers in the West Bank say that tensions have soared since it was reported last summer. The young man, Joseph, is in hiding in California.

Sheikh Hassan Yousef's son gave his life to Jesus after a yearlong spiritual search that began when he was invited to a meeting. He went out of curiosity but then started to read the Bible in secret to learn more.

"A verse like 'love thine enemy' had a great influence on me," he says. "At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one."

Eventually Joseph gave his life to Jesus, though he didn't immediately tell his family. When this story was published in the local media it rocked the West Bank-a result he predicted.

"You'll see, this interview will open many people's eyes, it will shake Islam from the roots, and I'm not exaggerating," he said at the time. "What other case do you know where a son of a Hamas leader, who was raised on the tenets of extremist Islam, comes out against it?"

Indeed, Arab ministers who travel to the West Bank report that since the interview tensions have soared-but so have curiosity and hope.

"One of the biggest things is that Muslims used to say that Muslims will never become Christians, and now they realize they can," says one man who asked that his name not be used. "A barrier is broken-that is a very big breakthrough."

Though believers are guarded in nearly all Palestinian towns, the gospel has been openly shared in Jericho without much opposition. Isaac Nusseibeh, from a prominent Muslim family in Jerusalem, describes his salvation in the ancient biblical city. He met some American tourists who asked if they could pray for him.

"I started shaking. Someone came to me in a vision and said, 'Isaac, you must come to Jesus,'" he relates. "Jesus was dressed in white, and He shook me."

Unlike converts in other cities, Nusseibeh is openly Christian now and works with an organization in Jericho handing out Bibles and translating into Arabic. In the offbeat Jericho outpouring, women still wear their Muslim head scarves but worship Jesus in Christian gatherings, more openly than in many other places.

Another new development is Spirit-filled Arab believers. Most traditional Christian Arabs are not Charismatic, and even evangelicals tend to be more conservative than Western Christians. But in the last two years, a Spirit-filled Arab ministry named Upper Room was established. Andre Mubarak points out that this makes them a minority of a minority.

"Always, minorities make the most change in history," he smiles. "All Christians leave the country, but for me, as a believer Spirit-filled, I want to be a light. Imagine Jerusalem with no Christians."

Perhaps one of the greatest ironies, Massad says, is that Pauline Ayyad, wife of martyred Rami Ayyad, has returned to Gaza and is now leading Bible studies and women's meetings in her home.

The Church's Response

Christian Palestinians, almost without exception, say they are neglected by the church at large, especially by Christian Zionists who come to Israel to support the Jewish state. Weiner explains his shock at the lack of worldwide Christian interest in the Palestinian plight when he took up the cause more than a decade ago.

"With Christianity being the largest religion in the world, especially dominant in wealthy countries, what interest could the Palestinian Authority have in making the lives of these people difficult?" he asked himself at the time. "So often I felt like I was speaking to the deaf. So often I felt it was essentially hopeless, that these people would just suffer."

The subject of Israel is a sore point for many Christian Palestinians who must endure checkpoints, border closures, stringent security checks and sometimes outright harassment. Many carry generational bitterness toward Israel for their loss of ancestral homes and land.

A few Palestinians have taken a stand on Israel's right to exist and to own the land-a conviction that has drawn death threats and bullets in some cases. But all still empathize with the plight of the Palestinians in the current, desperate situation.

"Yes, we have to stand for the right of Israel to exist, but that is not on the expense of the Palestinian people," Abu Saada says.

Abu Saada encourages Christians to "make sure that they bless the Palestinian Christians as well" when they visit Israel.

"Seek them out, bless them, pray with them, eat at their restaurants, stay at their hotels," he says.

He explains the struggle he had, and that most Arab Christians have, to read the Old Testament. "They want to believe church replaced Israel," he says. "'Replacement theology' is from the devil himself."

Massad says it wasn't easy for him to love the Jewish people after they caused his mother to suffer. A refugee from Jaffa, his mother moved to Gaza during Israel's 1948 War of Independence and fully expected to return to her home someday.

"But because I experienced the love of God, we're able to forgive and to live," he says. "I once heard Messianic Jews praying, 'God, give me enough love to be willing to die for my Palestinian brothers.' We are honored to be part of this body and are honored to hear they stand by us."


Nicole Schiavi is a journalist based in Jerusalem.


ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Read more about Christians in Bethlehem here.

This article is from the December 2008 issue of Charisma

Dec 17, 2008

Sderot like US's Iraq, Afghanistan

Dec. 17, 2008

It is a sobering policy change: The United States has implemented a new regulation that any American official in southern Israel, where rockets land by the dozens courtesy of Hamas in Gaza, must travel in an armored vehicle to protect them from Kassam attacks.

While that may be a good idea for anyone traveling in the area, including the residents, this new rule shows that the US considers the situation about as dire as Iraq and Afghanistan. An Israel Defense Forces official told Army Radio that according to U.S. regulations, Sderot "is like Iraq and Afghanistan" for the Americans.

On Wednesday 14 more rockets hit open areas in the western Negev, preceded by 10 on Tuesday. No casualties or damage were reported in the attacks.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak called for an extension of a cease-fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

"We are not deterred from an operation in Gaza but we are also not rushing into one," Barak said. "Calm will be met by calm but if there is no choice we will act when and where we see fit."

'Cease-fire' could fail. Wait, was that another rocket I just heard?

Hamas says the cease-fire could officially end on Friday. Never mind the 11 rockets yesterday.
Dec. 17, 2008

Hamas is maintaining that the cease-fire with Israel hasn’t really ended. Mahmoud al-Zahar, leader of the militant Islamic group, said Israel must let more food, fuel and other goods into the Gaza Strip, otherwise the cease-fire will officially crumble.

“Until Friday, we’re still committed, but after that, no one can tell,” he told Bloomberg news. “The general mood of all the Palestinian factions is negative.”

Hundreds of rockets a month have been tallied since the cease-fire, but somehow Hamas considers it intact.

Zahar also lauded the Iraqi journalist throw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a Baghdad press conference on Dec. 14. Zahar said he isn’t expecting U.S. policy to change under President-elect Barack Obama.

“He is 100 percent pro-Israeli and his positions are unacceptable,” Zahar said.

Zahar conducted the interview near two sport-utility vehicles parked inside his Gaza home’s study to quickly escape an Israeli strike.

In a rally with 300,000 in Gaza City, Hamas taunted Israel with an actor portraying captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as begging for his life. Photographs of the actor graced the covers of Israel’s top-selling newspapers.

Dec 12, 2008

Report: Iran to be nuclear-ready soon

An inauguration present perhaps?
Dec. 12, 2008

Israeli newspaper Maariv reported yesterday that Iran will have enough uranium for a bomb within a few months. A source from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the paper that the "Natanz reactor is double-edged sword. It could be changed from civilian to military use in a short time."

On the hajj: Destruction of Israel should be global cause'

Another dispatch from a religion of peace
Dec. 12, 2008


More intercession on the hajj. Iranian Vice President Rahim Mashaie was quoted as saying that Zionism's annihilation should turn into a global cause. From the Islamic republic news agency Fars:
Mashaie, in Mecca to perform annual Hajj pilgrimage, told Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir that "corrupt and criminal" Zionist regime is not only harmful and a threat for the Arab and Muslim world but also for whole the world mankind. "So, its removal should turn into a global cause and demand."

Sderot girl appeals to prime minister: 'Help us!'

Dec. 12, 2008

When Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited the rocket-battered city of Sderot this week, he didn't just get an earful from city officials. Olmert visited a school where a fourth-grade girl presented an emotional plea for help.

Orel Levi read aloud a letter she had written to Olmert:
To the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert,

Hello Prime Minister, I wanted to tell you about the security situation. I suffer a lot because of the Kassams [the type of rocket] and it's hard to live like this. What helps us a lot and strengthens us is prayer and faith in God, when we pray God makes miracles, and the Kassams fall in open areas.

When I walk to school in the morning I'm afraid that “Color Red” [the rocket warning system] will catch me on the way. When I learn I hear “Color Red” and I think, “Where did it fall?” Where are my father and mother, what's happening to my siblings? Then I say “Shir HaMaalot” [The Songs or Psalms of Ascent] and feel much safer.

I love to learn in school, my school is fortified against attacks and whoever needs help and support knows he has someone to go to.

I want to tell you Prime Minister that the Kassams make a scary noise, my legs tremble a lot and my heart beats hard. After each Kassam we go back to learning and keep on going like nothing happened, because that's our reality.

That's how we live, we'll continue to pray and God will help us with our lives. This is our routine and with God's help we will deal with our fears with help from the teachers and our families and everyone who loves us.

Prime Minister help us, it's hard for us, please help us live like every other child in the country.

Palestinians in Gaza have stepped up attacks against Israeli civilians in recent days - eight rockets here, a few mortars there each day while terrorists continue to smuggle weapons into Gaza. According to The Israel Project, terrorists fired more than 210 rockets and mortars in November alone.

Palestinian terrorists have fired nearly 3,000 rockets and mortars at Israel in this year alone, killing four people and wounding about 300. Since Israel withdrew all of its Jewish residents from Gaza in August 2005 Palestinian terrorist groups have fired more than 6,300 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians, killing 10 and wounding more than 780.

Mayor David Buskila made a political plea to Olmert. “The government must not accept a situation in which children live in fear for eight years. This is unbearable,” he said. “Over the long years of Kassam attacks, many infrastructures have been hit — sidewalks, roads, public parks — with no compensation from the government."

The government is weighing whether it will initiate a military offensive against Hamas rocket launchers in Gaza. So far, the agreed-upon calm is officially ended; economic sanctions have proven futile; and the army has warned that Hamas now has longer-range missiles, thus putting half a million Israelis now in harm's way.

The government has been discussing options for years though with no conclusive solution. Thus Orel's appeal and the "routine" that has developed since rocket fire began in 2001. However, short of completely mowing down Gaza, and thousands of innocent civilians there, no solid solution actually exists.

Orel willl have to keep praying a little longer. Lord, bless her.



French president angers Iran

Dec. 12, 2008

You know something is wrong when the French look tougher than the Americans. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is standing up to the Iranians, while left-wing pansies from the U.S. want to "talk" to Iran and terrorist groups like Hizballah.
"How is it that a people such as the Iranian people - one of the world's greatest peoples, one of the world's oldest civilisations, sophisticated, cultured, open - have the misfortune of being represented as they are today by some of their leaders?"

"...I find it impossible to shake hands with somebody who has dared to say that Israel must be wiped off the map."

"I know perfectly well that we must resolve what is perhaps the most serious international crisis we are having to resolve: that of Iran moving towards a nuclear bomb."

"We cannot resolve it without talking to Iranian leaders, but, after what was the Holocaust, after what was the 20th century, I cannot sit at the same table as a man who dares to say: Israel must be wiped off the map."
Merci beau coup, President. Maybe Obama should actually take a foriegn policy lesson from the French. Go figure.

Sarkozy's statements were enough to cause French Ambassador to Iran, Bernard Poletti, to be summoned for a sit-down to discuss Sarkozy's remarks.

Dec 11, 2008

More 'wisdom' from Livni

New philosophy - Don't befriend Israeli-Arabs, kick them out?
Dec. 11, 2008

This one boggles the mind. When right-wing (borderline racist) Avigdor Lieberman said that all Arabs in Israel should be shipped out of Israel, the left wing went nuts. But enter Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni with the same idea, albeit different tones and a tad more tact, and no one is upset?

But I digress. What exactly did she say?
"My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel is to have two nation-states with certain concessions and with clear red lines," Livni said. "And among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Israeli and tell them, 'your national solution lies elsewhere.'"
Oh really? Not all of those Arabs want to live in a Palestinian state.

Livni got blasted very quickly, particularly by an Israeli-Arab Knesset member, Ahmed Tibi, not exactly Israel's biggest fan, was incesnsed. blasted Livni's remarks and called upon the foreign minister to clarify her position vis-a-vis the Arab residents of Israel.

"She must decide whether she means to leave a million Arabs without political rights or a national identity, or whether she really intends to transfer a million Arab citizens to the Palestinian state that will be established. [And if this is this case] then she must honestly say so," he said. "Livni must be straightforward and open as is appropriate for someone running for prime minister."

900 days in captivity and counting

No hope and change for Shalit on this 900th day of his kidnapping
Dec, 11, 2008

Gilad Shalit has now spent 900 days in captivity after being abducted by Hamas terrorists from Gaza three years ago. Today was not a good day for Shalit or the nation's morale. Speaking today to high school students who will graduate soon and then be drafted for three years of mandatory service, Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni had these chilling words:

"We cannot always bring all of them (soldiers) home," she said. "The thought that I can free Gilad and am not doing it is a horrible thought."

Uh, it might be a tad more horrible thought for all the future soldiers to whom she just admitted that. Livni should consider firing her campaign managers as she seeks the prime minister's position.

But some people came to his rescue today. Maariv is reporting that Israeli protesters are blocking one of the Gaza crossings to prevent the transfer of money from West Bank banks to Gaza.

"It can't be that we transfer millions of shekels and we don't get a shred of information about Shalit," one of the protesters told the newspaper.

REJECTED: Carter snubbed by terrorist group

Dec. 11, 2008

Former US president Jimmy Carter wanted to meet with the Lebanon-based Shiite terrorist group Hizballah. But they didn’t want to meet with him.

“Hizballah does not meet with anyone from a U.S. administration which supports Zionist terrorism,” said Mohamed Raad, head of Hizballah’s parliamentary bloc, referring to Israel.

What some pacifists don’t realize is that reaching out to them doesn’t change their perception of you, simply because you are a Westerner, as an Israel-supporting infidel.

Hizballah is one of the parliamentary blocs and parties Carter wanted to meet with. Rick Jasculca, a spokesman for the Carter Center, said Hizballah declined the request.

Dec 10, 2008

Carter wants to chat with Hizballah

Ever the friend of terrorists, Carter says he is ready to meet with Hizballah
Dec. 10, 2008

Taking a page from the dominating Democratic playbook of concilitory talk rather than taking a stand, former United States President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday he'd meet with terrorist group Hizballah if they would deign to meet with him.

In yet another let's-meet-with-terrorists spasm, or 'conciliatory diplomacy,' emantating from the Dems these days, Carter made this announcement while in Lebanon, where he will consider whether his organization will take part in monitoring the fractious country's elections next year.

The U.S. considers Hizballah, which means Party of Allah in Arabic, a terrorist organization.

"I am going to meet with all of the political parties as possible," Carter said. "I understand that several leaders of Hizballah said they were not going to meet with any president or former president of the United States, so I don't know yet."

Hizballah has not decided whether it wil meet with Carter though. Prez-elect Obama has displayed the same desire to meet with those who consider the U.S. the Great Satan. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, already turned down Obama, basically responding: "who says we want to meet with you?"

Since Hizballah gets its marching orders/money/weapons from Iran, its likely it will have the same response.

Hizballah has killed more Americans than any other terrorist groups except for Al Qaeda including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut that killed 241; two attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the 1985 TWA hijacking that killed an American serviceman on board.

This is the same group antagonizing Israel's northern border. Hizballah picked a war with Israel in 2006, abducting two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid and launching more than 3,000 rockets at Israel in just one month.

Carter was criticized in April for meeting with exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal. The U.S. also labels Hamas a terrorist organization. The meeting with Meshal, however, led to the delivery of a handwritten letter from Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas-linked militants near the Gaza border in 2006, to his parents. Shalit remains in captivity.

Abbas demands release of all 11,000 Palestinian prisoners

Dec. 10, 2008

When Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was in Israel, he praised the Jewish state for its freedom of religion in allowing Palestinians to make hajj to Mecca, while fellow Muslims - Hamas in Gaza - prevented Palestinians from passing through the border.

But when he got to Mecca, the PA president said a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be reached until every single one of the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners are released by Israel.
"We ask Allah that they all be released. When we negotiate with Israel we speak of core issues such as Jerusalem, the refugees, the borders, the settlements, and more,” Abbas said in Mecca on Tuesday. “There is also the issue of the prisoners so there will not be a solution without their release."
Lots of intercession going on down there in Saudi Arabia, I see.

Israel has already released a slew of prisoners and has another 230 signing out right now, but as Abbas intoned: “As we all know, over 11,000 prisoners are currently suffering behind bars in Israeli prisons.”

Abbas also took the auspicious moment to condemn "the ongoing crimes of the settlers in the West Bank" and called on the world to join him.

Many of the prisoners released already in “goodwill gestures” by Israel to Abbas’ government do not have blood on their hands, the term used to describe perps directly involved with terror attacks. But surely the entire lot of 11,000 would include several terrorists.

Israel helps muslims participate in Mecca pilgrimage

The irony is almost comical: Despite ongoing attacks, Israel helps Muslims make hajj while Hamas bars them
Dec. 10, 2008

Freedom of religion is stronger in Israel than in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Hamas is spending more of its time trying to aim rockets at Israel rather than allow its fellow Gazans head to Mecca for the Muslim hajj.

Muslims and Druze in Israel and around the world are celebrating the Festival of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha), which began Dec. 8 and commemorates the end of the religious pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. More than 11,000 Israeli-Arabs and Palestinian pilgrims - including 6,000 Palestinians from the West Bank - passed through the Israeli-Jordanian Allenby border crossing to participate in the hajj this year.

Throwing a wet blanket on the Mecca parade however is Hamas in Gaza. The fundamentalist terror organization has prevented its residents from participating in the hajj for the first time in 35 years, denying thousands of pilgrims the right to religious freedom.

“Unfortunately, this is the first time in the history of the Palestinian people that pilgrims were prevented. Israel never once prevented pilgrims,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters in Mecca,.

Worshipers seeking to cross the border into Egypt for the hajj were beaten back by Hamas’ police. Gaza tour company owners who tried to gain permits to travel from West Bank companies were arrested.

“Even the Israelis never dared prevent the pilgrimage this way,” said Maher Amin, owner of a Gaza tour company.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in a bloody coup in the summer of 2007 creating a civil war between two Palestinian parties: Hamas and Fatah, Abbas' party ruling in the West Bank. During the Hamas coup, many Fatah loyalists were rounded up and assassinated while others fled for the Israeli border. Israel evacuated many to the West Bank.

Anger in Egypt: Sheikh dared to shake Peres’ hand

From the religion of peace and tolerance...
Dec. 10, 2008

Despite official relations with the Jewish state, Egyptian politicians and newspapers are clamoring for the country’s top Muslim cleric to resign for shaking Israeli President Shimon Peres’s hand.

Egyptian newspapers created a national uproar when they ran a photo of Sheikh Mohammad Sayyid Tantawi greeting Peres at the United Nations at an interfaith conference in November.

"[Peres] was in a place, and I was in the same place... and he met me, stretched out his hand, so I greeted him,” said Tantawi, who heads Cairo's al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's leading religious authority. “And suppose I knew him? So what... Isn't he from a country that we recognize?"

He insists that he didn't recognize Peres. But nevertheless, Al-Dustour, a daily newspaper, is calling for his dismissal saying Peres is tainted with the blood of thousands of Palestinians.

Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states to have made peace with Israel, still harbor deep resentment and hatred towards their Jewish neighbor.

Peres hasn’t commented, but his office said at the time the encounter was pleasant and that the two men had a serious conversation. Senior Egyptian politicians regularly meet with Peres and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hosted the Israeli president just two months ago.

And this is from a peaceful nation. Imagine the ones who openly call for Israel’s destruction?

New sanctions on Iran? Lower price of oil

Dec. 10, 2008

Israel's President Shimon Peres told an Israeli-Arab audience that military action is not needed in Iran as long as the price of oil keeps dropping.

In a clever twist on sanction, Peres suggested that Israel work with the United States, Europe and China to reduce the price of oil, which would deplete Iran's economy and strip it of resources to make nuclear weapons.
“Iran's leaders must ask themselves what the children will eat tomorrow morning. What will they give them, uranium?” he said.
Somehow I think the regime is less concerned with human rights than it is with wiping other nations off the planet as previously stated by Iran's president.

Dec 8, 2008

Army warns more residents to prepare for rocket fire

Dec. 8, 2008

The Israeli army widened the range of rocket fire threats all the way to Ashdod - a 15-mile distance from northern Gaza. The new threat zone encompasses 500,000 Israelis.

The warning on Monday advised Ashdod residents to begin preparing themselves for the possibility of rockets. Defense officials have estimated that Hamas has acquired rockets with a 15-mile range.

The improved weaponry is attributed to more effective weapons smuggling through the Egyptian border. Writing in Ynet, Alex Fishman draws some sobering conclusions:
In the past week, Hamas fired about 100 rockets. A month ago, when the IDF operated against a Gaza Strip tunnel, Hamas fired 30 industrial Grad rockets in order to signal to Israel that it intends to dictate a different kind of lull. If Hamas can afford to fire 30 Grads just to signal, it means its weapons warehouses must be full.

According to Israeli estimates, Hamas has an emergency supply of fuels and food that would enable it to withstand a month-long Israeli assault. Instead of preparing for war, perhaps it would be better if the group handed out all those goods in the warehouses to hungry Gaza residents.
Frightening.

Radio host asks resident: Is it irresponsible to live near Gaza?

Dec. 8, 2008

Israelis are known to be left wing and to support appeasement. As a matter of fact, a majority of Israelis support the creation of a Palestinian state, but simultaneously recognize that it will seek to destroy the Jewish state.

But a reporter on Voice of Israel government radio crossed the line when she insinuated that living in legal and undisputed Israeli neighborhoods near Gaza is irresponsible. Host Anat Dolev interviewed Batya Holin who lives in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, located less than a mile from the Gaza separation barrier where rockets rain down even during "cease-fires."

Holin said it is the government of Israel that is irresponsible for allowing its citizens to live under these threats for years. She also warned that the government's plans to surrender Judea and Samaria will only serve to bring Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in rocket range.

"All of the people of Israel understand what we are doing here, but the leaders do not care. Is that responsible?" she asked. "Tel Aviv is next."

US still enemy of the Palestinians, ambassador says

Dec. 8, 2008

Well, the rise of the oceans may be slowing and perhaps our planet is beginning to heal, but the image of the US hasn't improved yet in our enemies' eyes.

Despite having elected Barack Obama as president, which was supposed to resolve issues with all hostile nations, the US remains an enemy of the Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon.

Abbas Zaki told Lebanon's OTV that the Palestinian Authority will view the United States as an enemy as long as the US has a strategic alliance with Israel.

Zaki was asked how Israel or the US could be considered enemies by the Palestinians if they are currently in peace negotiation and providing aid to Palestinians. He replied that the PA is just putting on a show in order to negotiate with Israel and US because it has no other choice at this time.

This is the ambassador speaking. Diplomatic, hey? Zaki insists that even though Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas regularly refers to the US as a friend of the Palestinians in public addresses, he doesn't really mean it.

Dec 4, 2008

Pardoned terrorist plans another attack

Dec. 4, 2008

While I was in Jenin facing not a hint of terrorism, Tel Aviv was under a terrorist threat that shut down the city on Tuesday. The threat went largely unreported because it was just that, a threat. Had it been more, we would've heard more. Police arrested three Palestinians at the scene.

So imagine my surprise when I found out today that two Palestinian masterminds behind the attack were previously pardoned by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Also, WorldNetDaily reporter Aaron Klein quoted a senior member in the Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades who said that Hizballah helped pay for the planned attack. The Islamic Jihad terrorist group in Jenin coordinated the planned attack with Al Aksa, but did not take the usual credit because of the prime minister's plan to free another 250 terrorists as a "goodwill" gesture to the Palestinians, Klein explained.

Another terrorists involved in planning the attack was Mohammed Abu Drei, who was killed by the Israeli army in a counterterrorist operation in Nablus earlier this week.

According to Israel National News:
The PA ostensibly has taken responsibility for maintaining law and order in Nablus and Jenin, but the deployment of armed special forces has mostly acted as a showcase for the United States and the PA to convince Israel that terror is under control. However, while the special forces fight crime, they do [not deal with counterterrorism (my words)].

The planned Tel Aviv bombing was to be carried out with explosives that police discovered in a bag after the initial arrest of a Jenin resident in a house near Tel Aviv.

Government spokesmen announced that Islamic Jihad was behind the foiled operation and did not make any mention of Fatah, which the Olmert administration is trying to prop up through concessions and counterterrorist operations aimed mostly at rival terrorist gangs.

The pardoned terrorist who was arrested is Ahmed Amire, a member of Al Aqsa from Jenin and who may have provided Israeli intelligence with more information about the imminent attack. Prime Minister Olmert granted amnesty to him, and to Drei as well as more than 100 comrades from Al Aqsa in return for a promise to turn in their weapons, remain in the custody of the PA for three months and not return to terrorism.

Report: Israel preparing Iran attack options

Dec. 4, 2008

Israel isn't leaving anything to chance. The Jerusalem Post reported this week that the Israeli army is drawing up plans for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities on its own. Just in case.
"It is always better to coordinate," one top Defense Ministry official explained last week. "But we are also preparing options that do not include coordination."

Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.

In September, a Defense News article on an early warning radar system the US recently sent to Israel quoted a US government source who said the X-band deployment and other bilateral alliance-bolstering activities send parallel messages: "First, we want to put Iran on notice that we're bolstering our capabilities throughout the region, and especially in Israel. But just as important, we're telling the Israelis, 'Calm down, behave. We're doing all we can to stand by your side and strengthen defenses, because at this time, we don't want you rushing into the military option.'"

The "US European Command (EUCOM) has deployed to Israel a high-powered X-band radar and the supporting people and equipment needed for coordinated defense against Iranian missile attack, marking the first permanent US military presence on Israeli soil," Defense News wrote. The radar will shave several precious minutes off Israel's reaction time to an Iranian missile launch.
Iran's nuclear chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said last week that the country has more than 5,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant. Israeli intelligence estimates predict Iran will have a nuclear bomb by late next year.

Air Force Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan said in an interview with Der Spiegel the air force would be ready if asked to attack.

Teheran said it didn't take Israel seriously.

Jenin in pictures

Dec. 4, 2008

There's lots going on today. Hebron is about to boil over into civil war (Jewish settlers vs. Israeli army); Israel will go ahead and attack Iran without US permission if they want; and assurances are coming out of DC and Jerusalem that Obama and Netanyahu would work great together, contrary to suspicions that they'd butt heads over policy and final status negotiations.

But first, here's some photos and facts from my trip to Jenin:

The city has been synonymous through the intifada as a hotbed of terrorism. Indeed, Gov. Qadoura Mousa spent 12 years in Israeli prisons presumably for terrorist activities and was the head of Fatah's armed wing under Yasser Arafat. He is an appointee to the position.
The refugee camp is right in the middle of the city, in the valley, surrounded by the entire town. About 40,000 people live in the city with more than 200,000 including suburbs. Part of the camp has so far been rebuilt with money from the Emirates, while the other part still languishes with decrepit housing, posters of martyrs and litter-strewn streets. You can see it from this hilltop.

Israel invaded the Jenin refugee camp in 2002 because it was believed to be one the primary places where bombs were being manufactured for use in terror attacks against Israelis. When Israel went in, reports began to circulate and got widespread coverage of a massacre by Israel of the Palestinians. Thousands dead. In the end, the final death toll was confirmed at 52 to 56 Palestinians – anywhere between 5 and 26 of whom were estimated to have been civilians – while 23 IDF soldiers were killed as well. Israel met with severe opposition by armed gunmen. The bomb from a 2002 suicide bombing in which 17 people were killed and 42 wounded, came from an explosives laboratory in this very camp.In 2002, the army also found a number of mortar shells, homemade grenades, and bullets in a building, and another explosives factory in a cave there along with Israeli army uniforms, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the middle of the camp is a symbol of the long and painful memories: a metal horse made from parts of cars and ambulances destroyed during the Israel invasion in 2002.

Dec 2, 2008

Traveling today

Dec. 2, 2008

I will be going to Jenin today, a Palestinian town in the territories. More on that when I get back.

Here's a link with some info, or the Wikipedia entry.

Have a nice day!

Hamas bars Muslim pilgrims

Imagine if anyone else tried this: Hamas barred Muslim Palestinians in Gaza from traveling to Mecca
Dec. 2, 2008

Can you imagine the public outcry had Israel barred the Palestinians from the Muslim hajj? Not much coverage though when Hamas police in Gaza prevented the pilgrims from crossing into Egypt to travel to Mecca. Hamas police reportedly set up 16 checkpoints on roads leading to the passage.

"They called us traitor pilgrims," a man who identified himself as a pilgrim told a Gaza television station.

Some pilgrims managed to dodge checkpoints by taking back roads to the Rafah crossing with Egypt. There, Hamas police beat up those who refused to leave, according to pilgrims speaking on a call-in show on the pro-Fatah Palestine Television.

"They were beating us with sticks and their rifle butts," said one man who identified himself as a pilgrim. "There was tear gas. It looked like an action movie."

Of course, witnesses would not give their names, for fear of retribution by Hamas police.

In another example of the human rights and civil liberties enjoyed in Gaza, Hamas expelled Israeli-Arab reporter Amira Hass from Gaza "for security reasons." Hass, of Ha'aretz, is known for sympathetic coverage of the Palestinians. She arrived in Gaza on Nov. 8 on a boat of pro-Palestinian activists and had hoped to stay in Gaza until January.

A Hamas spokesman was unavailable for comment.

Dec 1, 2008

Obama's security cabinet: anti-Semitic, anti-Israel

Clinton looks like a pro-Israel conservative when stacked up next to her team
Dec. 1, 2008

Prez-elect Obama just announced his cabinet picks a few hours ago - a slightly unnerving selection of candidates who make Hillary suddenly look like the darling of the right wing.

Approaches to the Middle East and the war on terror are broadly divided into two camps: Those who believe the Palestinian-Israeli issue is at the heart of all problems Middle Eastern vs. those who say militant Islam is the root of terrorism and causing uprisings, including the Palestinian intifadas.

Not only has Obama stacked the foreign affairs team with the former, most of them have confessed opposition to Israel and shown disdain to Jews and Christians who support Israel. I subscribe to the latter. Look at Mumbai: Terror with no connection to Palestine, albeit with the typical hatred of Jews, Israelis, and Westerners laced into it.

Sen. Hillary Clinton will be well received by Israelis as secretary of state. Israel had a swooning love affair with the Clinton administration and most Israelis wanted Hillary to win the elections this year.

“Sen. Clinton is a friend of the State of Israel and the Jewish People and I am sure that – in her new position – she will; continue to advance the special Israel-US relationship," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.

But that's where the niceties end. Samantha Power, who called Clinton “a monster,” then resigned from the Obama campaign earlier this year is back, as a senior foreign policy advisor who will have to work with Clinton.

Let's deal with Samantha Powers first:
From the American Thinker: The problem for those who favor a strong US-Israel relationship is that Power seems obsessed with Israel, and in a negative way. Much like the authors of the Baker-Hamilton report, she believes resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to solving other problems in the Middle East. And it is clear that her approach to addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be for the US to behave in a more "even handed" fashion, which of course means withdrawing US support for Israel, and instead applying more pressure on Israel for concessions.

...Power also advocates that America send armed military forces, "a mammoth protection force" and an "external intervention", to impose a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. This directly contradicts her criticism of the invasion and "occupation" of Iraq and her call for the removal of American forces from that nation. On the one hand, Power abhors American efforts to remake an Arab nation, but takes the contrary view when it comes to inserting American forces in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to impose a settlement. These troops, if sent, would be seen as occupiers and be sitting targets for Arab extremists. The colonial image of America and charges of imperial overstretch would echo throughout the Arab world.

If America sought to avoid being so tarnished -- which is presumably what Samantha Power would desire -- then the alternative would be for the United States to take a confrontational attitude toward Israel, so as to be seen as standing up for the Palestinians. Given her inclination to view Israel as guilty of war crimes she would probably look favorably on such an approach towards the Israelis and Palestinians.

Power's views on the problems caused by the US-Israel relationship also place her in the same camp as Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Soros (an influential supporter of Barack Obama's), who also oppose the so-called "Israel lobby" and reject the participation of American supporters of Israel, including Christians, in the foreign policy discussion. Power writes of her willingness to: "alienat[e] a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import; it may more crucially mean sacrificing...billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel's military, but actually investing in the state of Palestine."

She says more regardin Lebanon: "Israeli forces refused to comply with the spirit of international demands to withdraw and the major powers on the Security Council were not prepared to deal with the gnarly issues that had sparked the Israelis invasion in the first place: dispossessed Palestinians and Israeli insecurity".

The "spirit of international demands" to withdraw? Aside from wondering what that means and the enforceability of such a spirit, how about that phrase "dispossessed Palestinians and Israeli insecurity"? The dispossessed Palestinians had left Palestine mostly at the behest of calls by their Arab brethren to step out of the way as armed forces invaded Israel upon its founding. They and their descendants were denied rights by Lebanon and were unable to assimilate -- unlike the 600,000 Jews who were stripped of their possessions in Arab lands and whom Israel welcomed. The term "Israeli insecurity" makes it seem as if the Israelis were suffering from an emotional or psychological condition. In fact, it was not insecurity, per se, that the Israelis suffered from. It was Palestinian terrorism that the Lebanese government refused to prevent.

She quotes the subject of her book, about Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian diplomat with the United Nations who spent years tackling various humanitarian crises, until he was killed in Iraq in 2003, calling the Israelis "bastards."
Retired Marine Gen. James Jones as White House national security adviser
From The New Republic by Eli Lake: Jones, the retired commandant of the Marine Corps, has significant experience in the Middle East. Last November, Condoleezza Rice appointed him as her special envoy for Middle East security, with a particular emphasis on working with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian security services. Last August, he drafted a report on security in the Palestinian territories that is said to have been highly critical of Israel's policies in the territories and its attitude toward the Palestinian Authority's security services. The White House and State Department opted not to publish the report.

In August, Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, reported that the draft report challenged Israel's conception of its security interests in the West Bank as being overly broad, and that the IDF in particular was too dismissive of the Palestinian security services. The newspaper quoted one IDF officer as saying he expected the report would be "very harsh, and make Israel look very bad." Steve Rosen, the former director of foreign policy for AIPAC who was dismissed from his post after the federal government charged him and a colleague with leaking classified information to the press and a foreign official, told me, "In my experience, when you take a 'deep dive' into security issues in the territories, you very quickly come to tradeoffs between Israeli security and Palestinian rights. Successful counter-terror preventive and pre-emptive measures require highly intrusive intelligence collection that is onerous for the population of the area under surveillance. ... A third party tries to balance Israeli security and Palestinian rights with a different valence than an Israeli security agency."

In his interview with Inside the Pentagon, Jones said that the Palestinians should be granted increasing degrees of local sovereignty over the West Bank until an independent state is born--with an emphasis on giving the Palestinians experience with governance. On Sunday, Ha'aretz reported that Jones favors dispatching a NATO force to keep the peace in the interim. That's a plan that the Israeli government would likely fiercely resist on the grounds that the Jewish state's defense doctrine has always spurned the presence of foreign troops on its territory and that it could be a reprise of the disasters of the U.N. mission to Lebanon.









EU wants Israel to reopen Arafat's Orient House

Building was synonymous with Palestinian rule in E. Jerusalem
Dec. 1, 2008

Ha'aretz reports that Israeli officials are concerned over European Union plans for an Israeli-Palestinian deal in 2009, which includes reopening Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, including Orient House, which formerly served as the Palestinian Authority's headquarters in the city.

The Israeli newspaper obtained a copy of the document calling on the international community to closely monitor implementation of the first stage of the road map peace plan, which requires the usual: Israel must freeze settlement construction and remove West Bank roadblocks, and the PA must fight terror. But here's where it goes a step further:
"A key part of building the Palestinian state involves resolving the status of Jerusalem, as the future capital of two states," it declares. Therefore, "the EU will work actively towards the re-opening of the Palestinian institutions, including the Orient House."
The Orient House is symbolic of Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem. It was closed in August 2001 following a deadly terror attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria.

US equipping Lebanese army

Dec. 1. 2008

But why? The United States is supplying military equipment to the Lebanese army despite its largely Shiite make up and sympathy to terrorist group Hizballah, also Shiite. (HT to Israel Matzav for noting this issue).

Several months ago, I spoke with Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliyah, and expert on Lebanon. He said, as it stands, Lebanon is effectively a Hizballah state. Ergo, arms in the hands of the Lebanese army stand a good chance of making their way to Hizballah.

Since the Second Lebanon War, the terrorist group has been rebuilding its military forces plus shoring up its political positioning in Beirut. On July 11, Lebanon’s new government was formalized with Hizballah and its allies gaining effective veto power and 11 seats. Hizballah is now the main opposition force.
“This achievement represents success for Hizbollah's campaign of civil disobedience over the last 18 months,” Spyer wrote in an editorial. “Veto power will enable Hizbollah to protect the independent military infrastructure that it has developed with Iranian and Syrian help—for use against Israel at some future date.”
Now Israel is no longer dealing with merely a rogue terrorist organization planted in a country, but an official wing of the government. Even the Lebanese Armed Forces, the official army, has little hope of standing up to Hizballah, Spyer said.

Lebanon is also asking Iran to sell it midsized weapons. Now that alliance makes more sense. But as the International Herald Tribune noted on Oct. 26: “Some officials within the Pentagon and State Department have expressed concern about extensive military aid to a country so recently free of Syrian control and in which Hizballah, which has close ties to Syria and Iran ties, has continued to gain political power. And that has been a main concern for Israel, which has been lobbying for a lower level of support to remove the possibility that American tanks and helicopters might one day be used against it.”

Israeli, Jewish victims in Mumbai 'tortured beyond words'

Dec. 1, 2008

One can no longer deny the fact that Jews tend to draw more hatred overall than any other people/religious group. While many media outlets downplay the religion of the attackers (Muslim), the proof is in the torture:

From an Indian news site (redriff.com), Mumbai doctors who examined the bodies of the victims of the massacre said the victims were tortured before being executed:

"Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks," a doctor who performed a post-mortem told the Indian news website Rediff.com. "Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks.”

"It was clear that they were killed on Wednesday. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again," he said.

Another doctor commented, "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatized. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.

Intelligence officials confirmed the doctors' observations. Ajmal Kamal, the only terrorist who was not killed after he and his gang had managed to murder nearly 200 people and wound hundreds others, told officials that the terrorists "were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis."

“It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood," one doctor said.

The director of the Jewish community center, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, and his wife, Rivkah, were among the murdered. Their 2-year-old son Moshe was saved in a heroic rescue by his nanny who fled the building with the boy