David Singer: Trump Should Send Hamas, PLO and United Nations a Clear Message

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The barrage of more than 700 rockets fired into Israel from Gaza this past weekend and the “pay for slay” policy pursued by the PLO to reward those Palestinian Arabs who murder and maim Jews cannot continue to be met by only pious condemnations from the United Nations or even from President Trump himself.

The fact that such evil practices violate international law and constitute war crimes are of little consequence – as Hamas and the PLO continue merrily on their way to repeat these crimes with impunity over and over again.

The United Nations – ruled by a majority of 134 nations comprising the G77 – are impervious to ending the suffering being visited on Israeli civilians whilst condemning Israel’s  responses to end these inhumane practices.

President Trump can do a lot to halt these cycles of violence bymaking it clear that there are politicaland financial consequences that America will unilaterally implement – including:

1.Denying recognition of PLO and Hamas claims to represent the West Bank and Gazan Arab populations

2.Ending all overt and covert contact with the PLO and Hamas

3.Withholding all financial and other aidstill being made by Americato the Palestinian Arabs

4.Demanding free and fair elections are held in both Gaza and the West Bank under international supervision.

5.Supporting the right of Israel to close all entry and exit points to and fromGaza and Areas A and B in the West Bank.

6.Recognising that Israel has valid territorial claims to sovereignty in Gaza and the West Bank

7.Refusing to support the creation of a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory once comprised in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine

8.Backing Israel’s right to self-defence in taking whatever action it deems necessary to stop the flow of rockets and payment of blood money to the murderers or attempted murderers of  Israeli civilians

9.Withholding all American voluntary contributions presently being made to United Nations programs.

Gaza and West Bank Arabs have been denied the right to have any say in their own future since elections held in 2006.

They have been subjected to the will of Hamas and the PLO in their blind pursuit to eliminate the State of Israel.

They have paid a high pricefor the intransigence of both Hamas and the PLO.

They have been sandwiched between the bitter internecine struggle being waged between Hamas and the PLO to rule their lives.

The United Nations stands idly by and allows the Gazan and West Bank Arabs to remain so shackled and without any any expectation of a brighter future for themselves.

President Trump has the political strength to forge a peaceful path forward for the West Bank and Gazan Arabs that must see free elections held as soon as possible in Gaza and the West Bank.

Let Hamas and the PLO stand their candidates in those elections along with any other groups. At the very least those elections will show the level of support for the policies of Hamas or the PLO and the preparedness of those voting to continue to accept the consequences following from either’s agenda in relation to Israel.

The current situation cannot be allowed to continue.

700 rockets indiscriminately fired into Israeli population centres has presented Trump with an opportunity to at least end the suffering of both theIsraeli and Palestinian Arab civilian populations and give the Palestinian Arabs a say in their own future.

Trump should be seriously contemplating achievingthese twin milestones before releasing his long awaited deal of the century.

(Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschenaka “Dry Bones”-one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog)

"Mother of Martyrs ... A Model of ... Palestinian Women" (video)

In this video Hamas MP Khalil Al-Hayya, having praised his wife thus, hands his grandson Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin's "Sword of Liberation" in a ceremony marking Hamas's 29th anniversary, proclaiming it "the sword of da'wa, of liberation, and of victory".

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP4PwlTVeIU)

The ceremony was broadcast by Al-Aqsa TV on December 15.
Memri.org video.

The Colonel & The Council (video)

See http://rt.com/news/270541-israel-un-human-rights/

In the wake of the recently issued outrageous Israel-demonising UN Report on last year's Gaza conflict which has made Israel contemplate leaving the UN Human Rights Council  (for recent relevant short reports see here and here) here's a man who's a true hero in more senses than one.  In this footage by the intrepid Hillel Neuer's UN Watch, Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, tells the UN Human Rights Council a few home truths about Hamas.

Transcript here
More here

Bibi below:

"Hamas Is Isis, Isis Is Hamas"

 "They are branches of the same tree .... They are the enemies of the Palestinians themselves ...":

Bibi is right, of course.

Good article by Mark Steyn here
And another by Daniel Greenfield here

"Hamas Is Playing Double Jeopardy With My People" (video)

 Here's the estimable Mudar Zahran again:

Bibi On Fighting "The Rocketeers" & On "The Preeminent Terrorist Empire Of Our Time" (video)

On Fox News yesterday, Bibi Netanyahu talks about Operation Protective Edge with his customary eloquence:

On Hamas:

"[H]ere's the difference between us. We are using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles. That's basically the difference. They're embedding these rockets that they're firing wholesale into our cities, terrorist rocketing, trying to kill as many as they can. 

They're not succeeding because of two reasons. One is because we've developed this incredible missile defense system, which I think is a historic development in the history of defensive warfare ...

But the other reason we're succeeding, you have to understand some of the rockets do pierce through this shield. The reason we're succeeding is also because we're targeting the rocketeers. The rocketeers are firing from homes, these homes are actually command posts of the Hamas and Islamic jihad army. So, that's where they have their secure communications, weapon caches, rockets hidden, map rooms, so on. These are the command posts. 

Obviously, we're not going to give them immunity.... [W]e try to minimize ... civilian casualties. 

But with this kind of enemy, we'll take whatever necessary means that we need to take.... We're not indiscriminate. It's very tough. There will always going to be civilian casualties, which we regret, but we have to defend our people. And that's what we'll do." 

 On Iran:

"....Of course, they're developing nuclear weapons. They invested, not billions, you can start counting it in maybe in hundreds of billions of dollars for what, for creating medical isotopes for Iranian patients circling the Earth? What are they developing ICBMs for if not for nuclear warheads? What are they developing these -- building these enormous underground nuclear facilities if not for nuclear weapons? If they wanted to have just civilian nuclear energy, they could have it without centrifuges for enrichment, without plutonium and the heavy water. These are only use for nuclear weapons.

....I think we have to remember, this is the same Iran that is arming, financing, training Hamas and Islamic jihad. This is the preeminent terrorist empire of our time, not even a terrorist state. It's a terrorist empire...."

David Singer on Mahmoud Abbas's Culpability for War Crimes Committed in Gaza

Titled "Palestine – Abbas Facing Prosecution For Aiding And Abetting War Crimes", here is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

Mahmoud Abbas – Head of the Government of National Consensus in Gaza since 2 June – faces prosecution in the international criminal justice system for aiding and abetting war crimes involving the indiscriminate firing of 384 rockets and missiles from Gaza into Israeli population centres reaching as far away as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem over the past four days.

This latest barrage – which sees no signs of ending – comes after more than 10,000 similar rocket attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza – then governed by Hamas – following Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005.

Abbas and his Government now however bear primary responsibility for preventing war crimes emanating from Gazan soil.

In a pre-recorded message aired on Palestine TV, Abbas said the new government was transitional.

This lame excuse cannot enable Abbas to abdicate his responsibility to prevent war crimes being committed in Gaza.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch stated in December 2012:

“There is simply no legal justification for launching rockets at populated areas.”

Human Rights Watch makes it clear that under international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, civilians and civilian structures may not be subject to deliberate attacks or attacks that do not discriminate between civilians and military targets. Anyone who commits serious laws-of-war violations intentionally or recklessly is responsible for war crimes.

Locating rocket launchers within or near densely populated civilian areas is also a war crime.

There is abundant evidence that this is occurring in Gaza right now.

Belligerents are also prohibited from using civilians to shield military objectives or operations from attack. "Shielding" refers to purposefully using the presence of civilians to render military forces or areas immune from attack.

This too is occurring in Gaza under the watchful gaze of Abbas’s Government.

Abbas as head of the ruling Government in Gaza, is obligated  to uphold the laws of war and should appropriately punish those responsible for these serious violations.

Abbas is making no effort to restrain or end the commission of these war crimes.

There appears to have been no effort by Abbas or the security or police forces that he now controls in Gaza to take action to prevent the further commission of these war crimes.

Abbas has not attempted to travel to Gaza to take control of the rapidly deteriorating position Gaza finds itself in as rockets continue to be fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres with what appears to be ever increasing intensity – inviting retaliation by Israel to defend its civilian population under article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

Abbas was clearly aware of the danger of provoking such an Israeli response to rockets being launched into Israel – as this report on 6 July made clear:

“Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the chairman of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, on Sunday, and asked him to calm the situation in Gaza. Abbas asked Meshaal to avoid escalation of the situation, which would give Israel an excuse to launch an operation in Gaza.

Meshaal reportedly told Abbas that he would not act to stop the rocket fire unless the PA met its financial obligations to Hamas, including paying the overdue salaries of several Hamas officials.

The PA is currently embroiled in a conflict over wages with Hamas; some 40,000 Hamas employees are not being paid backlogged wages by the newly established unity government, even while the PA's 70,000 employees in Gaza continue to be paid.”

Abbas's plea was made after Hamas ignored Israel’s ultimatum – made on 3 July – which called for the rocket fire to stop within 48 hours or face war.

At least fifteen rockets were fired on Israel in a 12-hour period on 5 July including two at Be'er Sheva.

Abbas clearly exercises control over the public servants in Gaza. He must immediately assert control over those presently in Gaza committing these heinous war crimes.

Abbas’s inaction in using his security and police forces to forcibly intervene to

 1. Remove rocket launchers from populated civilian areas

 2. Destroy supplies of rockets

 3. Prevent the manufacture of rockets

 4.  Prevent the importation of rockets

 5.  Confront, arrest and try those found launching rockets into Israel

 6. End the use of “human shields”

could result in Abbas and his Government colleagues having to face charges before the International Criminal Courts including

  1. Committing war crimes by omission

  2. Aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes

  3. Substantial contribution to the commission of war crimes

   4. Tacit approval and encouragement of war crimes

   5.  Aiding and abetting war crimes by omission

   6.  Ending the use of "human shields"

Abbas could well follow in the footsteps of former Liberian President Charles Taylor who was found guilty on 26 April 2012 on 11 counts including aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Taylor’s appeal was dismissed by the Court of The Hague on 26 September 2013.

Taylor’s case was the first concluded by an international court against a head of state since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg in 1946 convicted Admiral Karl Doenitz – who became President of Germany briefly after Adolf Hitler's suicide.

Will the international community end its love affair with Abbas by calling for his prosecution for aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes being perpetrated in Gaza at this very moment?

The silence presently coming from the United Nations condemning Abbas is deafening.

 Justice will hopefully prevail.

Update: Surprisingly, the views expressed above by David Singer are not entirely at odds with the opinions of the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Ibrahim Khreisheh, as this interview (translations by Memri.org) on Palestinian Authority television on 9 July shows:

 

“The Dangerous Notion Is That There’s A Moral Equivalence Between The Actions Of Hamas, & Those Of The State of Israel" (includes videos)

"Kalb Yehud! [Jewish dog!] That, Allahu akbar, and "something about Gaza in Arabic" is what two young  men screamed as they jumped on and punched a former IDF soldier wearing an identifying T-shirt in a Jewish district of Melbourne last Thursday night, leaving him with cuts and a swollen face:

"I noticed them when it was too late.... One of them tried to pull me to the ground, I started fighting and punching back.  I grabbed one of them by the throat and screamed at them, cursing in Arabic as well. This shocked them, they ran off."

(Hat tip: reader Ian) 

"Jewish scumbag hail hitler let's finish what hitler left for us"

"Isreal[sic] the Jewish Terrorist State of the zionist bankers. It keeps forcefully evicting people from their homes and lands and expects there to be no retaliation? Then they accuse the aggressors to be the palestinian people? wake up up humans! This dirty jew rat bastard in new york is feeding you propeganda [sic] that he gets paid huge money to talk about. This is war crimes being excused because they are dirty JEWS. I will meet you in hell jew cocksucker"

Those are two intemperate comments left by obvious antisemites beneath the following video on YouTube in which Senator Charles (Chuck) Schumer (Democrat, New York), in an able and fair speech, talks of 

“The dangerous notion is that there’s a moral equivalence between the actions of Hamas, and those of the State of Israel.  It must be said, there’s no moral equivalence between the actions, and reactions, of Israel, and Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to the violence that has occurred there.”

The current "Operation Protective Edge" waged by Israel against Hamas in Gaza has of course garnered a predictable outbreak of outrage against the Jewish State, forcefully expressed, though of course not invariably in nakedly antisemitic terms, by the usual suspects.

Biased and/or inept reportage, which harps on the "asymmetrical" nature of the conflict and presents it as a "tit-for-tat" exercise, helps, unwittingly or not, to stir prejudice against Israel among the general public (the BBC, to its utter shame, has excelled at this; see here and here): after all, who can remain unmoved by the spectacle of suffering civilians and dead and injured children?

In the shrewd words of one pro-Israel commenter responding to criticism of Israel's current response to Hamas terror:

'Imagine this ...: A group of your neighbors have repeatedly and consistently declared their intent to murder you and your entire family (See the Hamas Charter, especially Article 7, for a sample of what they say).

 They regularly fire home-made rockets at your house. You build a shelter. The continue firing, threatening all the while to drink your blood  and elevating their hatred of you to a religious principle. They teach their kids that killing you is a sacred duty. They build luxury hotels for their leadership but no shelters for their children. Instead, turn their places of worship and schools and hospitals into arms depots and launch rockets from them. When you retreat they use the place you left as another launching pad.

 They encourage their women, elderly and children to be human shields for anyone trying to murder you and boast that they love death more than you love life.  Then they import much more sophisticated rockets from other people who regulalrly boast that they want you murdered and launch hundreds of those rockets at you and your family from within civilian areas (and accuse you of committing "aggression " and "war crimes" when you start to defend yourself) A disproportionate casualty count is completely misleading in a situation when one side wants only death for you - is willing to commit suicide to see you dead - and consistently encourages their children to be killed in the attempt to murder you.

 Now do you see the situation more clearly? ... The Israelis are not bombing indiscriminately. Unlike any other army in this region - and indeed the world - they call the people living in houses where arms tunnel entrances are located to warn them of an impending strike. The IDF also sends SMS's and drops leaflets and fires warning shots - Hamas tells people to ignore these warnings and encourages them to expose themselves to danger.

 If you had neighbors so determined to murder you and your family - exploiting pictures of those killed in the process in order to get others to hate you, too. Now, for the hard question: How do you respond to this scenario? Think carefully, knowing that the the your life and the lives of all you hold dear are at stake. See the problem?'

 The perceptive Daniel Pipes writes:

 'Why ... did Hamas just provoke a war with Israel? Out of nowhere, on June 11 it began launching rockets, shattering a calm in place since November 2012....  The battlefield outcome of Arab-Israeli wars in last 40 years have been predictable; everyone knows Israeli forces will prevail. It's more like cops and robbers than warfare. Ironically, this lopsidedness turns attention from winning and losing to morality and politics. Israel's enemies provoke it to kill civilians, whose deaths bring them multiple benefits.

The four conflicts since 2006 have restored Hamas' tarnished reputation for "resistance," built solidarity on the home front, stirred dissent among both Arabs and Jews in Israel, galvanized Palestinians and other Muslims to become suicide bombers, embarrassed non-Islamist Arab leaders, secured new United Nations resolutions bashing Israel, inspired Europeans to impose harsher sanctions on Israel, opened the international Left's spigot of vitriol against the Jewish state, and won additional aid from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The holy grail of political warfare is to win the sympathy of the global Left by presenting oneself as underdog and victim....

The tactics of this new warfare include presenting a convincingly emotional narrative, citing endorsements of famous personalities, appealing to the conscience, and drawing simple but powerful political cartoons (Israeli supporters tend to excel at this, both in the past and now). Palestinians get even more creative, developing the twin fraudulent techniques of "fauxtography" for still pictures and "Pallywood" for videos. Israelis used to be complacent about the need for what they call hasbara, or getting the message out, but recent years find them more focused on this.'

And those in the media and elsewhere who present Hamas's rocketry as of the homemade, pipsqueak kind are economical with the truth. The Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, pointed out last Wednesday that about three-quarters of the Israeli population are now within striking range of Hamas's rockets, thanks largely to shipments, since 2012, of long-range rockets from Iran.

"You remember that ship that we interdicted a few months ago in the Red Sea was carrying 40 long range rockets. Well, one of those types of rockets was actually fired yesterday into Israel. But in addition to the rockets being smuggled in—and the smuggling route went from Iran to Sudan and up through the Sinai into Gaza—in addition to that, Hamas has developed a domestic manufacturing capability for these long range rockets and part of Israel’s military operation is to not only go after the missile batteries but to go after these factories that are essentially making these weapons."

Moreover, it's reported:

"In addition to Hamas, the Iranian-funded Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has been firing many rockets into Tel Aviv and southern cities such as Be’er Sheva.

PIJ, which acts at Iran’s behest, is in possession of multiple Iranian-made rockets, including the Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 missiles...."

 and that 

"If the fighting with Israel escalates, the organizations are likely to launch more of these missiles toward the Greater Tel Aviv area and northern cities (Hadera, Haifa), believing that to put an end to Israeli attacks, they will need to ramp up the pressure on Israel with strikes on major cities to create a balance of terror that will force Israel to end its operation."

To quote analyst Jonathan Spyer, author of The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict:

"....There is a tendency to see the Israeli-Palestinian arena as somehow set apart from the rest of the Mid-East neighborhood. But this is an illusion.

Firstly, in the most tangible way, the most potent elements of the Hamas assault on Israeli cities of recent days is made possible only by the movement's link with Iran....

Similarly, the Islamic Jihad movement, which has been rapidly gaining strength at Hamas's expense in Gaza in recent months, is a full proxy of Iran.

But in a deeper sense, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are local manifestations of the particular, pathological Islamist political-religious-paramilitary style and ideology which has challenged order and made life a misery all across the region in recent decades, and with added strength in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring of 2011.

Take a look around the neighborhood. In Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, rival, equally implacable versions of political Islam are at each others' throats. In Syria, upwards of 160,000 people have died over the course of the last four years. In Lebanon, a Shia Islamist terror group, Hizballah, enjoys unrivalled dominance. In Iraq, a Sunni Islamist killing machine has conquered the west of the country and is poised to assault Baghdad.

So why then have Israel and its environs nevertheless managed to avoid the general collapse of these other countries? The reason is deterrence.

 There is a single, dominant military element west of the Jordan River. This element is the Israel Defense Forces.

But deterrence, alas, is a perishable substance, which must be periodically replenished. Hamas, facing difficult economic straits, with its tunnels sealed by Sisi's armed forces, with newer and yet more radical Islamist elements inspired by ISIS emerging from within, evidently decided that it was time for another round.

As of now, Israel is engaging in a far reaching operation designed to hit at Hamas' capabilities. But more profoundly, in the simple and brutal logic of the neighborhood, Israel is trying to remind Hamas of the cost of tangling with the Jewish state.

The objective of this is not to re-conquer Gaza, nor to impact on local politics, still less to impose suffering on the Palestinians for its own sake.

When one's neighbors are Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the modest objective of quiet can only be bought at the cost of periodic military actions intended to remind the enemy of the cost of aggression and thus reinforce deterrence.

Because of the strength of Israeli arms, the conflict between Israel and the PA territories don't resemble those roiling Iraq or Syria. The relative balance of forces, however, is a lesson which those who wish to turn the country into something resembling those hell-holes must periodically re-learn - through bitter experience."

Reminders Of The Death Culture (includes videos)

Israeli columnist Dror Eytan was obviously seeking no kudos from the Ha'aretz set or the Obama administration when he wrote inter alia  last week:

 'What has the death culture that surrounds us sought to sell in the past hundred years? Look around: there are no Jews in Iraq and no “territories” in Syria, and nevertheless the angels of death gleefully slaughter each other. No science and no industry and no inventions that will benefit humanity. Just death, and it’s wrapped in a thick layer of damned political correctness that has distorted our thought process....

If we don’t realize that the executioners who pack the condemned into cattle trucks and lay them by the dozens or hundreds in ditches and put them to death amid devilish ululations, and if we don’t get that this bunch is operating on our borders, and that its successes encourage our own local death culture, we will have to pay heavier prices in the future.

We must employ full force against the emissaries of the death culture, those who aid them, their military and civilian infrastructure, their sources of funding, their families, their clans, and anyone who knows something but just nods his head and keeps quiet. We know the argument that keeps us emasculated: “It will only increase tension and give an incentive to terror and strengthen the cycle of bloodshed.” Not at all. The culture of death doesn’t need incentives—it kills and murders and kidnaps, because that's what it is....

.... In the eyes of our neighbors and some parts of the world we are all people who stole a land that wasn’t theirs. This blood libel is spread every day by anti-Semites and haters of Israel, as well as by useful idiots among us....

Various conquerors and nomads from the four ends of the earth have arrived in this country. But since we Jews were exiled, no other sovereign entity has sprung up in this land. What would this country be if it weren't for the Jews? What would Jerusalem be without the Jews? The groups of strangers never wanted to compromise with the Jews who survived extermination and came home after a long exile. Even today they refuse to compromise and seek to oust us from the entire country. From Tel Aviv, too.... The fight for Israel is our fight for life....'

American Jewish leaders have expressed firm support for Operation Protective Edge, Israel's current initiative against that antisemitic genocidal Hamas.  As they observe:

'....Millions of Israelis are spending a sleepless night as sirens go off across the country in response to the constant barrage of missiles fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza, targeting the civilian population. No country would or should tolerate such a horrific onslaught as the one emanating from Gaza, which is controlled by the terrorist Hamas organization. The government of Prime Minister Netanyahu has shown great restraint seeking to avoid an all-out war and the civilian casualties that would entail. They have engaged in limited strikes against missile-launchers, storage facilities and manufacturing locations. Hamas has exploited this to expand the scope and range of its rocket attacks.  This puts the lie to the assertion that Hamas has changed and it remains a bloodthirsty terrorist entity. If there is to be any hope of a peaceful resolution of the conflict, it is imperative that President Abbas end the so-called unity government and disassociate in every respect from Hamas....'

The evil that characterises Hamas is seen in the following Palestine Media Watch video, which appeared on Al-Aqsa TV yesterday (9 July, and begins

'Zionists, wait and see stabbing attacks everywhere.
Wait for suicide attacks on every bus, café and street':

And then there is this footage showing how Hamas rockets are fired from civilian areas in Gaza, deliberately putting Gazan civilians in danger from Israeli fire:

And here's how Hamas targets its own people by encouraging Gazans to make themselves into human shields, knowing that despite the IDF's best intentions some will inevitably become casualties, and that much of the international community will condemn Israel for a "disproportionate response":

But even as the conflict between Israel and Hamas rages, another threat continues to loom.

Analysts Ali Alfoneh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, at the end of a  most useful pen portrait of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, have this to say:

'Those who argue that Rouhani has abandoned the nuclear ambitions that he has so proudly defended and advanced would be well advised to consider more closely the cleric’s words, deeds, associations, and pride. Most probably Rouhani wants the nuke as much as any officer in the Revolutionary Guard or Saeed Jalili, the one-legged, shrine-loving war veteran who so enjoyed ignoring and belittling European and American diplomats as Ahmadinejad’s nuclear negotiator. Rouhani just wants to be cleverer about how the regime becomes a nuclear state. The deal that he has likely cut with the supreme leader is a variation on what Rouhani believes he tried with the West after the clandestine nuclear program was revealed by an opposition group in 2002: temporary concessions on those things that no longer need further research, no concessions at all in areas requiring further work. To get the sanctions lifted—and Rouhani is convinced that once they start coming down, they are unlikely to go back up—the Islamic Republic should slow its nuclear program without diminishing its capacity to produce a bomb and the ballistic missiles to deliver it. 

This time round, this approach may work with the West. It may not work at home. Although Khamenei has solidly backed Rouhani’s diplomatic offensive, referring to the need for “heroic flexibility” when confronting the enemy, his support is undoubtedly conditional. The supreme leader is surely aware that Rouhani’s nuclear memoir is, among other things, a criticism of his preferred confrontational approach during Ahmadinejad’s presidency. And Khamenei today doesn’t give the impression that he considers 2005-2013 wasted time. For cause: The nuclear program’s greatest technical and industrial advances have been made in the last eight years. True, sanctions have mounted; the supreme leader may believe they were unavoidable. And Rouhani has to worry that the Guard Corps’s longstanding distaste for him and small appetite for concessions may derail his diplomatic efforts to test Western resolve and unity. In addition, the Corps has grown enormously powerful under the sanctions regime because its resources are vast and privileged: As private Iranian businesses have withered and foreign firms have fled, the Guard Corps has moved in. Khamenei has approved or acquiesced to the Guard’s economic expansionism because it is, as it proved in smashing the massive pro-democracy Green Movement in 2009, indispensable to his rule. 

Western observers of Iran often see the antagonism between Rouhani and the Revolutionary Guard Corps primarily as a test of wills over the nuclear program; it isn’t. It’s a struggle about the nature of the regime and the revolution. Rouhani’s politics aren’t reformist; they are revanchist. He wants his class—the first-generation, upper-tier revolutionary managers who made the republic under Rafsanjani—to again have the high ground. He wants educated civilians—primarily clerics—to determine the destiny of the Islamic Revolution, not coarse militiamen who, in his eyes, lost the great war against Saddam Hussein. Rouhani has conspicuously dumped guardsmen from his cabinet and provincial governments. He and his men have publicly attacked the Corps for trying to destroy private enterprise and exposed “private” firms that are really Revolutionary Guard front companies feeding on public finances. It’s unclear, however, whether Rouhani will have any better luck this time confronting the Guard than he did earlier. He may if the supreme leader believes that his praetorians have gone too far. But the odds aren’t in Rouhani’s favor. Khamenei knows—because his praetorians keep publicly reminding him—that the Corps is the guarantor of his rule and the revolution. 

President Obama is in a peculiar situation: He has hooked his diplomacy onto a cleric who can claim to have been a founding father of Iran’s theocracy and its nuclear-weapons program. Rouhani has arduously and vengefully worked to see the revolution succeed. He treated with the devil (the Reagan administration) to get what the republic desperately needed during the Iran-Iraq war. He appears willing to do so again to ensure the regime’s continuing dominion. Whether or not Rouhani has any intention of trading away his nuclear legacy for a better economy, he’s clearly shown that he was an attentive student to his mentors. President Obama may not appreciate the fact that his Iranian “moderate” is the same “moderate” Oliver North dealt with. Rouhani surely does. Persian humor is built on irony and a mordant appreciation for an unpleasant Middle Eastern truth: Nice guys finish last—if they even finish at all.'

AIPAC has not forgotten what's at stake, issuing this stark warning:

"This Evening We Buried Our Boys .... Hamas is responsible. Hamas will pay and Hamas will continue to pay"

Declared Binyamin Netanyahu a few hours ago, before the start of a Security Cabinet meeting at the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv, following the funeral for the three murdered teens:

"This evening we buried our boys – Naftali, Gilad and Eyal, may God avenge their blood.

The entire nation supports the families and the entire nation is united in our struggle against murderous terrorism. We are fighting it decisively and with determination.

We have three tasks:

First, to reach the murderers and all those who participated in the kidnapping. Whoever was involved in the kidnapping and the murder will bear the consequences. We will neither rest nor slacken until we reach the last of them and it does not matter where they will try to hide. We will reach them all even if it takes time. This is our first goal and it will be carried out.

Second, we must vigorously strike at Hamas members and infrastructures in Judea and Samaria. We have already arrested hundreds of Hamas activists. We have closed dozens of institutions. We have demolished homes. We are still active.

Third, is that we must act against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is continuing to encourage the abduction of our citizens and it is directly responsible for firing rockets and mortars at our territory, including in the past few hours. The IDF has been active in recent days against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip and here as well we are still active. If need be, we will expand the campaign.

Anyone who thinks that they can achieve anything by using terrorism against us will continue to be mistaken and will achieve the opposite results.

Hamas is responsible. Hamas will pay and Hamas will continue to pay. We are acting with determination, sagacity and responsibility with the top consideration – of myself, the Defense Minister and the Chief-of-Staff – being to ensure the security of Israel's citizens."

By Jonathan S. Tobin in Commentary magazine (read his entire article here):

'Now that the bodies of the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers have been found, we can expect the usual chorus of pro forma condemnations of terrorism and sympathy for the victims to be voiced by many world leaders. But the willingness of so many of the same people to treat deliberate attempts to target civilians by the Palestinians as morally equivalent to the fate of those Arabs killed while conducting violence against Israelis gives the lie to their pose of objectivity.

.... The Hamas terror group that is believed to be behind the crime will feel the consequences of what appears to be the cold-blooded murders of these three boys shortly after their abduction. Hamas’s partners in the Palestinian Authority will also be put to the test as the Israelis will now see whether PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’s helpful rhetoric condemning the kidnapping will be matched by actions that disassociate his government from terrorists.

But once condolences have been given and the boys buried, the atrocity will probably be shoved down the global memory hole as Palestinians and their cheerleaders contend that the terror attack on the teens must be seen as either an understandable reaction to the “occupation” or morally equivalent to the fate of those Palestinians who die while attacking Israeli forces. The New York Times provided a prime example of such thinking this morning in an article published only hours before the bodies were found.....

.... Israel will be justified in taking drastic actions against Hamas in the coming days, especially in light of the news that, for the first time in years, the Islamist group is firing missiles into southern Israel from Gaza rather than farming out that duty to other Palestinian groups. But the point here isn’t so much the necessity to mete out retaliation for the kidnapping/murders as it is the necessity of the Palestinians to reassess their actions and belief system that set this chain of events in motion.

The tragic ending to the search should also cause those—like the New York Times—who routinely treat the victims of terror as somehow morally equivalent to those who aid and support terror to think again about what it truly means to be evenhanded in one’s thinking about the conflict. By treating these events as an excuse for superficial moralizing rather than an honest evaluation of a toxic Palestinian political culture that glorifies terror, the Western media plays a not insignificant role in perpetuating a conflict that they deplore.'

"We Will Eradicate Hamas" (includes videos)

In the immediate aftermath of the finding of the bodies of the three Israeli teenagers who went missing on 12 June, Israel's deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon has stated:

“I was filled with deep sadness upon hearing of the murders of Naftali Frankel, Gil-Ad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrach by Hamas terrorists.  All of Israel mourns with these brave families who will forever hold a special place in the collective hearts of our nation.

In their memories, we must ensure that this tragic end be turned into an opportunity to create a better and safer Israel.  Israelis have the willingness and the fortitude necessary to endure the hardships of a long-lasting operation aimed at eradicating Hamas.

We will not stop until Hamas is completely defeated.  The homes of the terrorists must be demolished and their arms caches destroyed.  Our mission will not be complete until all the terror organizations are deterred from attacking Israelis and understand once and for all that the people of Israel will not be threatened

I call on the international community to end all aid to the Palestinian Authority and its Hamas-backed government.  President Abbas cannot continue to claim to want peace with Israel, while at the same time partnering with Hamas as they kidnap and brutally murder teenagers.”

 Below are two CNN reports ensuing on the finding of the bodies:

Mark Regev on Bringing Back The Boys (video)

In this exclusive interview a few days ago, Bibi Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev talks of the Israeli government's certainty that Hamas is behind the kidnapping of the three missing Israeli teenagers, what needs to be done to bring the boys home, why Mahmoud Abbas's unity deal with Hamas is unconscionable, and what Israel expects from the international community.

Meanwhile, the British-based Islam Channel's Current Affairs show has presented a trio of talking heads to bash Israel's response to the current kidnapping crisis: three hardened anti-Israel warriors, namely freelance writer Ben White (his latest kick at the UK "Israel lobby" and Christian Zionists has just been posted, here), lawyer Toby Carman, and ex-MP Martin Linton (remember that "tentacles of Israel" speech of his a few years ago?).

The discussion, in the unlikely event that you should you care to watch it, follows some ten minutes of background footage.

 The studio anchor, John Rees, is described thus in his Wikipedia entry:

'Elected a member of the National Executive of the National Union of Students in the early 1980s, Rees is a former leading member of the Socialist Workers Party, and was for many years on its Central Committee. He was editor of the quarterly journal International Socialism for ten years and the organiser of the SWP's annual Marxism festival in 1982 and 1983 and again between 1992 and 2002.

A co-founder and a current national officer for the Stop the War Coalition, he has been a central organiser of all its marches including that of 15 February 2003. According to Rees: "Socialists should unconditionally stand with the oppressed against the oppressor, even if the people who run the oppressed country are undemocratic and persecute minorities, like Saddam Hussein." Rees is also vice president (Europe) of the Cairo Conference.

He was top of Respect – The Unity Coalition list in the West Midlands region for the 2004 European Election, and the Respect candidate for the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election. He also stood for Respect in the 2006 local elections in the Bethnal Green South ward of Tower Hamlets, East London where he came second to Labour. Rees was controversially not selected by the SWP Central Committee to be on the slate for re-election and did not stand independently at the January 2009 conference. Shortly after his partner Lindsey German [convenor of Stop The War Coalition] resigned from the SWP in 2010, Rees and 41 other members followed disenchanted with the party's direction, internal regime and approach to united fronts (18 others who had resigned in weeks prior also supported the resignations)....'

Yet another reminder of the distinctly curious alliance that exists these days between Islam and the hard Left.

Bibi On The Abduction Of The Three Teenage Seminarians (video) plus a Sizer post

Is that the gospel truth, vicar?

As the invaluable BBC Watch notes, after initially ignoring it,  the noisome Al Beeb got around, tardily, to reporting this monstrous abduction (see how Hamas supporters celebrate it) here.

"Palestine Belongs To Us ... Jihad & Resistance Are The Path" (video)

As BBCWatch details here, Britain's despicable "national broadcaster" has been

 "all agog at the visit of Khaled Masha’al to the Gaza Strip for the occasion of events marking the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the terror organization Hamas – brought forward from the actual date of its establishment in order to coincide with the anniversary of the beginning of the first Intifada on December 9th.

So, whilst Syria slaughters and Egypt writhes, the BBC News website’s home page has for two consecutive days been running the Khaled Masha’al/Hamas rally story as its lead item, with a level of enthusiasm nearing that usually reserved for a Royal visit."

As one commenter aptly observed:

"From the tone adopted by the bbc newsreader [make that successive newsreaders on successive bulletins - D.A.] covering this story on News At Ten on Friday you would have thought the story was about the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet, The tender, affectionate style would equally have suited a piece about a child reunited with distraught parents after going missing in, say, an earthquake."

And, as demonstrated here, the BBC's enthusiasm for Hamas's birthday celebrations shows no sign of abating.

Here, from Memri.org, is the blood-curdling pro-Jihad speech that the antisemitic Islamofascist object of the BBC's reverential tones and grotesquely misplaced affections delivered to his followers in Gaza on 7th December, declaring that all the land from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea "belongs to us and to nobody else ... Palestine ... is the land of Arabism and of Islam" and consequently there will be no recognition by Hamas of Israel.

"We Are David Up Against Islamic Fundamentalist Terror": Leonie's Letter From Israel

"We are not the Goliath in this story, we are David up against Islamic fundamentalist terror supported by Iran."

Yes, indeed.

As reader Jean Vercors remarked to me yesterday, of the Hamas missile which hit his home town of Ashdod at the weekend: 

"Qassams are typically homemade—70 pounds of steel inserted with nails & bolts, as in the bombs used in suicide attacks.

 This rocket weighs 88-110 pounds, has a diameter of 4.5 inches, a length over 8.5 feet, a maximum range of 9 miles or more, and its warhead weighs 22 pounds. The Qassam IV has hit Ashkelon and may travel even farther as technology develops.

Hamas is believed to have stockpiled several hundred Qassam rockets with an average range of 6 miles. The group also possesses Grad rockets, which they imported to the Gaza Strip. These are rockets of Russian design, similar to the Katyusha. The Grad has a range of 12.75 miles, making it the rocket with the longest range currently available to the Palestinians."

I'm both proud and humble to be able present the following moving and insightful glimpse of life for Israelis in range of the threat of Hamas missiles.

I'm grateful to its author, Leonie Lachmish, of Mercaz Shapira, for giving me permission, via reader Shirlee, to post it.  (And, needless to add,  hat tip to Shirlee for bringing it to my attention!)

Leonie, incidentally. is the mother of Shani Lachmish, who's not unfamiliar to many Americans and others through the Ein Prat Fountainheads clips on YouTube.  Shani is at present in New York volunteering in a Jewish community hard hit by hurricane Sandy, as part of the delegation of the Ein Prat Leadership Academy Alumni.

Like Leonie, I hope the following reaches a wide audience.  (Other bloggers, please link to this.)

Writes Leonie Lachmish:

'We live between Ashkelon and Kiryat Malachi in a small kind of "village" for want of a better word ("yishuv" in Hebrew). This means that we get the sirens when rockets are sent in the direction of Kiryat Malachi and also hear Ashkelon and Ashdod sirens and booms from a distance. Over the past few days, there have been between two and seven sirens per day (and night). In the cities, there are tens of sirens (and attacks or successful interceptions) per day and through the night. Families without fortified rooms have to run to a safe area. In Sderot, they have 15 seconds to do that, here we have 40 seconds.

Try and imagine: How are elderly or infirm, handicapped or bedbound people meant to make it to a safe place? Fast? Maybe 20 times a day?

Or: 2am – waking up, grabbing your children and running out of your front door down a few flights of stairs...
Or: stopping your car and trying to release all the children's safety belts (same children may be hysterical from the siren because they know to expect the explosion any second) and run to shelter. In 15 seconds. Or 40 seconds.
How long should a country ask its civilians to put up with that? How long would you put up with that for?

Living under the threat of rocket fire is not a bowl of cherries by any means, it certainly runs havoc with any kind of routine or normal lifestyle.

Like, can I dare go into the shower? Where are our children at any given moment (especially people with young children)? Dare I venture going in to my doctor's appointment in Ashkelon or Ashdod? If there's a siren on my way to the supermarket, will I stop the car and lie on the ground with my hands over my head – these are the instructions if you are nowhere near a building to take refuge in.

These are times of stress, tension and confusion.  Many homes have taken direct hits, the families in them saved only because they ran out in time or had a fortified, safe room and made sure they reached it on time.

Our situation is nowhere near as traumatic as that of our friends in kibbutzim on the border with Gaza or the cities Sderot, Netivot (where my husband, Haim, works), Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beer Sheva, Kiryat Malachi (where three people were killed by a direct hit on their way to a safe area on Thursday: Aharon Smajda, 49, who was helping his neighbours down the stairs with their young children, Itzik Amsalem, 24, and Mirah Sharf, 27, who had returned to Israel from New Delhi where she and her husband were Chabad (Lubavitch) emissaries, in order to give birth in Israel. Her husband and other children are wounded). This news is heartbreaking for Israelis and a reason for celebration for our enemies. They rejoice in death and violence, we rejoice in life and saving life.

Who needs Jews as best friends? We're the best enemy you could hope for! A new line they can use instead of "Some of my best friends are Jews, how about "Some of my best enemies are Jews" or "With enemies like Jews, who needs friends?" The terrorists can go to mosque and funerals of terrorist chiefs knowing they won't be harmed even though we know exactly who they are and where they are.

Did you know that the IDF made thousands of phone calls to Gaza households and dispatched thousands of fliers in Gaza warning people to stay away from where the terrorists are because we are targeting them?

Do people in the west realize that the Jewish enemy cares more about the welfare of the population of Gaza than the cynical, cruel terrorist entity who is supposedly meant to be taking care of them?

Do people understand that if and when civilians are hurt in Gaza it is because all our attempts to protect them have been thwarted mainly by the insistence of their 'protectors' to act from densely populated areas and specifically mosques, kindergartens, schools, you get the picture?

Do they understand that misrepresenting Israel in the world means strengthening the oppression of women in Gazan society and the abuse of children, being brought up with hatred 24/7 on TV, in schools, trained to be shahidim (martyrs - i.e, mass murderers of the Israeli or western enemy) as an ideal

I see a demonstration of "Jewish Homosexuals and Lesbians for Gaza" and rub my eyes. Where is the only place in the Middle East where Jews / homosexuals / lesbians can live freely or live at all (let alone if you're both!) ? Gaza perhaps?

Even after 12 years of living under fire, my friend, Esther, in Kibbutz Alumim on the border, says "Can't we brainwash them with 'All we are saying is give peace a chance'?" But the problem is that their aim is not for peace and quiet and a good education and future for their population but to keep their population ignorant , needy and resolute to anihilate us and cause us pain. havoc and despair. We are not talking about neighbours like Canada here, or New Zealand. We are talking about a fundamentalist Muslim terrorist entity.

Our aim is to stop the attacks on our civilians. In the west, people seem to preoccupy themselves with the numbers killed on each side. So I am stating the obvious, and please do the same, state the obvious, when speaking with people who don't understand: Israel is a sovereign state under attack by terrorists.

The enlightened western world should be unshiftingly on Israel's side and in awe at the wondrous brilliant way Israel is surgically attacking the root of evil there. Please make it clear to people that if not for the amazing Iron Dome missile interceptor and the safe rooms and safety zones, there would be hundreds of Israelis killed and thousands maimed from the hundreds of rockets over the past few days. That Hamas is committing crimes against humanity and war crimes. Israel's retaliation is surgical, brilliantly avoiding civilian injuries, taking out the terrorist chief of staff and sending him to his 72 virgins.

Anyone who thinks the IDF is trying to kill civilians needs to wake up and smell the humus. The IDF must be an incredibly shabby army if in 6 days of air attacks, it only manages to kill under one hundred people, at least half of them terrorists! If our aim were to kill Palestinians, surely it would be more likely for there to be under 100 left, rather than 100 killed!  Israel's only 'crime against humanity' if any was the restraint she has shown time and time again so as not to 'escalate violence in the region', her only "crime" was against her own civilians. Which country in the world would (or should) tolerate 12000 rockets on their civilians and 12 years of trauma and fear for children in Sderot, in the kibbutzim and moshavim in the south and more recently, over a million Israelis hostages to the whims of the terrorist entity controlling Gaza? 13% of Israel's population - that would be the equivalent of London being bombed for 12 years.

As of Thursday, the rockets are reaching Tel Aviv and if not for the wonderful Iron Dome, this would mean hundreds of people killed and wounded and tens of homes destroyed.

As I write, 2.30 pm Tuesday 20th November, Jerusalem is again under attack. The mind boggles as to why they would be trying to blow up the city they claim is their holy capital. Perhaps they just don't like built-up areas. That would also explain storing explosives and shooting from densely-populated areas so even our pin-pointed surgical operations can't help but harm civilians no matter how hard we try not to

Please pray for Israel, support Israel and stand up for Israel. Hamas commits war crimes daily. Attacking a neighbouring country, aiming to kill men, women and children, is a crime against humanity.

We are not the Goliath in this story, we are David up against Islamic fundamentalist terror supported by Iran. Support Israel and you support the democratic and humanist values of the free world.

Support our enemies and you undermine those very values and play into the hands of those who despise freedom and love.'

Stop The Hamas Rockets: Australian Jews rally for Israel (videos)

Here's Australian Jewish News footage of a characteristically robust pro-Israel rally that took place in the heart of "the shtetl on the Yarra" yesterday.  Am Israel Chai!!!

As well as in Melbourne, pro-Israel rallies occurred in other Australian cities, and non-Jews were among those attending.

Here's the view from Sydney (uploaded by RickShaff1979):

These graphics should make Israel's predicament clear to everyone:

Hat tip for the Aussie maps: reader Shirlee

Hamas: The Terror Elite (video)

A great new video from the David Horowitz Freedom Center (hat tip: reader Shirlee)

And how about this for double standards on Facebook? (Hat tip: yes, that girl again!)

Hamas's War On Israel & The Mufti's War On The Palestinian Jews (videos)

Here's an action-packed video that conveys in brisk fashion something of Hamas's aggression against Israel, aggression that is not always as well-reported as it should be, certainly by the left-liberal MSM.  Among the snippets featured are the views of that steady friend of Israel, Jon Voigt:

And here, thanks to the same uploader, is a look at the Mufti of Jerusalem's links with National Socialism.  Such celebrated historians as Robert Wistrich and Sir Martin Gilbert are among the experts who appear in this video between the segments of historical footage:

Hat tip for both videos: islamatoon