Correct Answer? Israel (video)

"The sad truth is that antisemites are willfully ignorant and do not let the truth get in the way of their demonization of Jews and Israel" rightly declares American foreign policy analyst Mitchell Bard in his latest post here

Meanwhile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k1cSsT_1uM

And:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DND-WnwRZ0

David Singer: Israel jettisons PLO as Negotiating Partner on Trump Peace Plan

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

He writes:

Israel’s decision to withhold US$138 million dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – equalling the estimated annual payments made to Palestinian Arabs (or their families) carrying out random and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians – marks a watershed in Israel-PLO relations.

Israel’s action will see the PLO being finally jettisoned as a possible negotiating partner on President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan – deferred yet again until after the Israeli elections in April.

The release of the Trump plan could now be further postponed as the president continues his so far unsuccessful search to find other Arab negotiators willing to replace the PLO – which had already rejected having anything to do with Trump’s plan well before Israel’s latest decision.

The law authorising the freezing of these PLO funds was passed by the Israeli parliament in July 2018 – three months after similar legislation – the Taylor Force Act – passed by the US Congress – was signed into law by President Trump.

Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked stressed the funds withheld would be used to pay “fat salaries to murderers who are in prison”.

They would also be used to pay Palestinian Arabs imprisoned in Israeli jails for lesser crimes.
Israel’s action follows the discovery of the body of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in the Jerusalem Forest on 7 February.

Channel 12 news reported that investigators from the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police hoped to indict Arafat Irfaiya, a 29-year-old Hebron resident, for murder in the context of a terrorist act in addition to a charge of rape.

Israel is clearly not prepared to allow this continuing wave of terror to be condoned and rewarded financially by the PLO.

Al Jazeera reported that the PLO took a very different view of Israel’s freeze:

"The Palestinians have accused the Israeli government of piracy, of coordinating this with the United States to add pressure ahead of the publication of the Trump peace plan"

The PLO had,however, been unceremoniously consigned to the diplomatic scrap heap by Trump well before Israel’s tax-revenue freeze. Trump had been given the thumbs down by the PLO after Trump had:

• Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

 • Stopped America’s annual payment of US$350 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency

• Shut down the PLO offices in Washington

 • Cancelled more than $200m in aid for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank

Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had already dismissed any further involvement with Trump on 5 January 2019:

“We are dealing with three issues that we can not accept: the situation with the US, the situation with Israel and the situation with Hamas. The doors are closed to the US. As long as it does not retract its decisions against the Palestinian people, no Palestinian should meet with the American leadership, no matter what their role is.”

 Paying murderers and felons who kill and maim Jews has finally become the PLO’s political downfall.

Ori Ansbacher’s murder was the final tipping point for Israel to dump the PLO as a future negotiating partner after thousands of well documented random terror attacks on Israel’s civilian population over the last four years – perpetrated by individuals, many very young, inspired by vicious incitement in Palestinian social and traditional media and rewarded financially by the Palestinian leadership.

The days of “pay for slay”and fruitless negotiations with the PLO that have gone nowhere over the last 25 years are over.

Israel has well and truly closed the door on the PLO and it should remain locked and bolted.

Guest Post: "Where Are the Samson and David of our Government?"

"Where are the Samson and David of our government?" asks Israeli Jean Vercors, who's no stranger to regular readers of this blog. 

He writes:

When I was a little child, I was fascinated by kites.  Seeing the kites dancing with the wind with colorful structures in the blue sky was magical. I remember running in all directions on the sand trying to fly my kite like a butterfly, a bird, a happy heart. Like all the children of the world I played with kites on beaches.

 Kites are normally children's toys. Except in Gaza, where the population uses the kite as a weapon of terror against the Israeli civilian population.

 For more than three months, hundreds of terror kites and incendiary balloons have been launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel, causing considerable fires and threatening the civilian population in southern Israel (where I live).

 Reports indicate that thousands of dunams of crops and plants have been destroyed because of this form of terrorism: agricultural terror.
 
Since the beginning of Palestinian violence and attempts of incursions into Israeli territory, the damage to flora, crops and wildlife has been considerable, with estimates that losses amount to several millions dollars.

 According to a JNS report, "officials of the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority have estimated that at least a third of the Carmia Nature Reserve has been destroyed, with significant damage to local plants and wildlife".

Because Israel has the advanced technologies needed to fight terror kites and incendiary balloons.

It would only take a few hours for the IDF to completely raze Gaza and put an end to this problem.

Except that this problem is not technological, but purely political.

Indeed, to combat these terrorist incursions into Israeli territory, the IDF uses barely 1% of its military power.

The IDF is very successful in preventing all terrorist incursions on its territory. So, no human loss on the Israeli side is deplored.

Politically speaking, the Israeli Government and the Israel Defense Forces believe that these terror kites attacks are secondary.
 
Without downplaying it, the Israeli government has decided not to use force. No wonder why it will take longer to finish the job.

As long as human lives are not in danger, Israel has chosen restraint and patience and prefers to listen to other nations who condemn us even for "stealing clouds in Iran".

 With these terror kites, the Palestinians try to play the David against Goliath and have managed to ridicule the IDF for at least 3 months.

Israel needs spiritual determination not restraint to overcome them. Restraint only shows our weakness that empowers the terrorists to harm us more.

 We give them food they send us terror kites.

Every week thousands of tons of goods enter Gaza from Israel.

We give them food, water, gas, electricity and even medical care.

Which country in the world would do this to his enemies?
Terrorists try to deceive the whole world into believing that they are the real owners of this land they prefer to burn.

 Where are the Samson and David of our government?

 It’s time to show no restraint to those who only wish to destroy Israel.

Adds Daphne: 

Meanwhile, is it any wonder that many Israelis regard this Israeli general part of the problem, not of the solution?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21EFsxRMP6U

Bibi: "Why do the Palestinians Consistently Choose to Honour Mass Murderers?"

You don't have to know a word of Hebrew to appreciate how charismatic and spellbinding a communicator Bibi Netanyahu is, here opening the Israeli school year (with Education Minister Naftali Bennett in tow):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=V5GDpcU6QIU

Bibi in characteristic fine form:

"Children should be taught to love and respect, not to hate and kill ...  Why do the Palestinians consistently choose to honour mass murderers?"

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MycZvBawgGc

"Ridiculous", Rant the Routed

Amid wailing and whimpering and gnashing of teeth and tugging of hair in the wake of Bibi Netanyahu's spectacularly successful visit Down Under, the routed forces of Bishop Browning's APAN (which sought to keep him out) limply regroup and rally, in response to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Dr Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel Public Affairs Council (AIJAC) and Jamie Hyams, a senior policy analyst at AIJAC. 

It will indeed be difficult to represent as "ridiculous" the eminently justified and sensible points made in the article.  Inter alia:

 'Israel captured the West Bank in a defensive war in 1967 and, when its offer to exchange land for peace was unequivocally rebuffed by the Arab League, began establishing settlements in the area.

This was partly for the need for security, given the hostile intentions and actions of its neighbours, and partly to allow some Jews to live in places that had Jewish communities going back hundreds if not thousands of years, until the Jordanians ethnically cleansed them in 1948.

Jordanian troops expelling Jews from their Jerusalem homes

 Jerusalem, which has always had a substantial Jewish population and been the centre of the Jewish world, was annexed.

 The United Nations passed the pivotal Security Council resolution 242, requiring Israel to withdraw from territory in return for peace, with the borders to be negotiated.

 Under the 1993 Oslo accords, the Palestinians finally accepted Israel's existence, and the Palestinian Authority was formed. Ninety-five per cent of West Bank Palestinians now live under the authority's rule. Travel between Israel and the West Bank was relatively unfettered, and many Palestinians worked in Israel, travelling home to the West Bank each night. In 2000, then authority president Yasser Arafat infamously refused the Camp David offer of a Palestinian state and launched the second intifada, characterised by widespread terrorism inside pre-1967 Israel, most notably suicide bombings. The terrorism killed more than 1000 Israelis and maimed thousands more.

Some Israeli child victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism

 It was in those circumstances that Israel set up the checkpoints to monitor the movement of terrorists, and the security barrier, which for most of its length is a fence, and is only a wall where Palestinian terrorists were in the habit of taking pot shots at Israeli civilians.... The barrier was erected to save lives by keeping terrorists out, and has been markedly successful. The Berlin Wall was to keep a captive population in. The checkpoints between Palestinian towns are now largely non-existent – they are just at the entries to Israel.

Despite the rebuff at Camp David, and the terrorism, Israel again offered the Palestinian Authority a state on increasingly generous terms in 2001 and 2008, only for the authority to again walk away. A unilateral total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, intended to allow the Palestinians there to rule themselves as a peaceful entity alongside Israel, instead resulted in a Hamas takeover, more than 10,000 rockets and mortars, terror tunnels and three wars.

 Since Benjamin Netanyahu resumed power in 2009, he has repeatedly offered to negotiate without preconditions, repeatedly confirmed his support for a two-state peace, and instituted goodwill measures including an unprecedented 10-month freeze on building in settlements and releasing Palestinian prisoners who have killed Israelis. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, however, has refused to negotiate in good faith. US Middle East envoy Martin Indyk has said that, in 2014, Netanyahu was sweating bullets to make peace, but Abbas just walked away.

The settlements, as even Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat has admitted, occupy less than 2 per cent of the West Bank. Furthermore, the vast majority of settlers live in blocs that it is generally accepted Israel will retain as part of land swaps in any peace deal. Israel has not established a new settlement since 1999, and the settlements have hardly expanded beyond their geographic boundaries since 2003, while population growth has not even kept pace with natural growth. Settlements did not prevent the previous Israeli offers of statehood, and they would not prevent a two-state outcome if the Israelis had a genuine peace partner....

 The Netanyahu government still supports a two-state peace, but its concerns about the present circumstances are understandable. If Hamas was to take over the West Bank as it did Gaza, the rockets would hit Israel's population and economic heartland, and its airport, and the country, would be shut down.

 Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority, Israel's supposed peace partner, demonises Israel internationally, incites its people against Israel with false claims of Israeli intentions to take over the Temple Mount, and rewards terrorists by lionising them and giving them and their families generous lifetime pensions.

[P]ressure must be brought to bear on the Palestinians to cease their destructive behaviour, to genuinely accept Israel's right to exist in peace and to negotiate in good faith, if they are genuine about wanting a two-state outcome.'

"The World Has Stood On The Sidelines, Allowed The Palestinians To Glorify Terrorists & Murderers" (videos)

Wise words from the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer:

The USA's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, on the current violence:

Screeching, shrieking anti-Israel hatred in Sydney this past weekend (they seem shy of sharing their video, so go here).

Another video (by Alex Seymour) of the hysterical London demo (in which, inter alia, Galloway approvingly compares the Palestinian Arab terrorists to the French Resistance and makes it crystal clear that he wants Israel abolished "From the river to the sea"):

I wonder what they think of this kid:

Absolutely fabulous! (Hat tip: Ian)

Meanwhile, from the ghastly Ms Guerin:

 

I don't think the enquirer will get an answer, do you?

"The Most Beautiful Thing About BDS" (video)

BDSers in Adelaide, with variations on their usual theme:

By the way, my previous post, on the contrasting attitude between most Israelis and Palestinians in response to the slaughter of innocents, by a French oleh, is garnering a lot of attention. 

In similar vein is an article by Palestinian scholar Bassam Tawil, which is summarised thus:

 'We Palestinians have failed to educate our people on the principles of tolerance and peace. Instead, we condone and applaud terrorism, especially when it is directed against Jews. We want the world to condemn terrorism only when it claims the lives of Palestinians.

Abbas's ambiguous, half-hearted condemnations of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis are only intended for public consumption and are primarily aimed at appeasing Western donors so that they will continue channeling funds to the Palestinian Authority. In addition, his condemnations seek to blame Israel for Palestinian terror attacks.

Netanyahu's strong and clear condemnation left me and other Palestinians wondering when was the last time we heard similar statements from our leaders. I cannot remember Abbas or any other Palestinian leader ever expressing shock and outrage over the killing of a Jew in a Palestinian terror attack, nor the last time a Palestinian official visited the Israeli victims of a Palestinian terror attack.

Each time Abbas reluctantly condemns a Palestinian terror attack, he faces a wave of criticism from many Palestinians. Unlike the Israeli public, many Palestinians often rush to justify, and even welcome, terror attacks against Jews. Has there ever been a Palestinian activist who dared to hold a rally in a Palestinian city to condemn suicide bombings or the murder of an entire Jewish family? The Israeli president has good reason to feel ashamed for the murder of the baby. But when will we Palestinians ever have a sense of shame over the way we react to the murder of Jews?' 

 Read all of Bassam Tawil's article here 

More Wise Words From David Singer: "Palestine – Kerry Cannot Succeed Whilst Jew-hatred Abounds"

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

He writes:

'American Secretary of State John Kerry returned to Israel on 2 January for his tenth visit since March 2013 – reportedly bringing with him his own framework for peace designed to end the Arab-Jewish conflict that has eluded many attempts by others during the last 93 years – including the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Kerry’s visit was immediately preceded by Israel releasing 26 long term Palestinian Arab prisoners convicted of murder and other serious criminal offences – the third in a projected release of 104 such similar prisoners.

Israel had agreed to their release following pressure by Kerry on Israel to induce PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations with Israel four years after they had been abruptly terminated by Abbas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled no punches in telling Kerry:

“A few days ago in Ramallah, President Abbas embraced terrorists as heroes. To glorify the murders of innocent women and men as heroes is an outrage. How can President Abbas says – how can he say that he stands against terrorism when he embraces the perpetrators of terrorism and glorifies them as heroes? He can’t stand against terrorists and stand with the terrorists. And I’m wondering what a young Palestinian would think when he sees the leader of the Palestinian people embrace people who axed innocent men and women – axed their heads or blew them up or riddled them with bullets – what’s a young Palestinian supposed to think about the future? What’s he supposed to think about what he should do vis-à-vis Israelis and vis-à-vis the state of Israel? So it’s not surprising that in recent weeks Israel has been subjected to a growing wave of terrorist attacks. President Abbas didn’t see fit to condemn these attacks, even after we learned that at least in one case – I stress, at least in one case – those who served and are serving in the Palestinian security forces took part in them.”

Among the 26 released were:
1.    Yakoub Muhammad Ouda Ramadan, Afana Mustafa Ahmad Muhammad, and Da’agna Nufal Mahmad Mahmoud – convicted of stabbing Sara Sharon, 37, to death in Holon on January 20, 1993.
2.    Abu Mohsin Khaled Ibrahim Jamal  convicted of the ambush and murder of Shlomo Yahya, a 76-year-old gardener, in a public park in Moshav Kadima and stabbing him to death.
3.    Barham Fawzi Mustafa Nasser – convicted for the murder of Morris (Moshe) Edri 65 – a former employer of Nasserwho Nasser ambushed and stabbed in the back. After his apprehension, Nasser said he had carried out the murder to prove he was worthy of joining Hamas.
4.    Yusuf Ahmed Nu’aman Al-Shalvi, Mahmad Anis Aiman Jaradat, and Ahmad Yusuf Bilal Abu-Hassin – convicted of murdering multiple Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.
5.    Muammar Ata Mahmoud Mahmoud and Salah Khalil Ahmad Ibrahim – convicted of murdering Menahem Stern, a history professor at Hebrew University. Stern, 64, a winner of the prestigious Israel Prize, was stabbed to death while walking to work at the university’s Givat Ram campus on June 22, 1989.
6.    Abu Hadir Muhammad Yassin Yassin – convicted for the murder of Yigal Shahaf – shooting him in the head as he and his wife were walking through Jerusalem’s old city toward the Western Wall.

Netanyahu also told Kerry to his face:

“In the six months since the start of peace negotiations, the Palestinian Authority continues its unabated incitement against the state of Israel. This Palestinian Government incitement is rampant. You see it in the state-controlled media – the government-controlled media – in the schools, in textbooks, in kindergartens. You see it at every part of Palestinian society. So instead of preparing Palestinians for peace, Palestinian leaders are teaching them to hate Israel. This is not the way to achieve peace. President Abbas must lead his people away from terror and incitement, towards reconciliation and peace.”

Kerry failed to address the virulent Jew hatred motivating Palestinian Arabs to murder Jews and Palestinian Arabs suspected of collaborating with Jews, ignored the adulation afforded these convicted murderers by Abbas and remained silent on the rampant incitement conducted on a daily basis against Israel.

Instead, Kerry – apparently languishing in a time warp – sought to provide some comforting reassurance for Netanyahu with his following remarks:

“On a personal level, last month I travelled to Vietnam on my first visit there as Secretary of State. And the transformation in our relationship – I was a young soldier who fought there – the transformation in our relationship is proof that as painful as the past can be, through hard work of diplomacy history’s adversaries can actually become partners for a new day and history’s challenges can become opportunities for a new age.”

How can there possibly be any transformation in the relationship between Jews and Arabs when
 
1.    the PLO refuses to recognize Israel as the Jewish National Home,
2.    Abbas has made it abundantly clear that no Jews will ever be accepted as citizens in a Palestinian State,
3.    Arab murderers of Jewish civilians are received as heroes in Ramallah and given blood money to reward their heinous acts and
4.    Convicted murderers are once again free to plan and even participate in future terrorist acts against Jews

Kerry’s framework for peace is destined to go nowhere until this long running Arab enmity of Jews is completely eradicated.

One wonders how long Kerry will take to understand this simple message.'

Getting Their Rocks Off: The Truth Laid Bare

There's an important new website that's dedicated to exposing the truth about Palestinian rock-throwing. On Legal Insurrection, Professor William A. Jacobson, Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, draws attention in detail to the new website.  He writes:

'We have featured Pallywood here many times, the Palestinian industry producing everything from outright video hoaxes to mere gross exaggerations all in the name of demonizing Israel.

But there is an even more pernicious western media version of Pallywood, the outright bias and misleading characterization of acts of terror against Israel.

These actions often are deliberate provocations set up by media and activists who side with the Palestinians, in which a phalanx of photographers and videographers waits to catch an Israeli soldier responding to a provocation.  The use of children as provocateurs is a common tactic — nothing plays better in the media than the image of an Israeli soldier confronting a child.

But those children often are engaged in violent behavior, particularly rock throwing.  A “rock” can shatter a skull, or in where thrown at a moving vehicle, can cause a serious accident.

To the media, rock throwing is no big deal.  Because the media has not been on the receiving end.'

Read and see more on Legal Insurrection here

More Moral Relativism & The T Word

Some Israeli victims of terrorism

"Some of the prisoners have carried out militant attacks that claimed Israeli lives and were jailed for up to 30 years."  Thus reports the BBC in relation to Israel's current commitment to release 104 Palestinians in its gaols to facilitate the resumption of "peace" talks.

The BBC is evidently not alone in using the euphemism "militant" for depraved killers (killers of Israelis, that is) who merit the description "terrorists".

For example, in The American Thinker, Leon Rennert, a former White House correspondent, notes: "Israel and Israel alone it seems is immune from terrorism in the pages of the Washington Post."

That newspaper, he writes, "stoutly refuses to describe blood-soaked Palestinian murderers of Israeli children as terrorists. Instead, it substitutes a totally inaccurate euphemism, calling such depraved killers "militants."'

It's an inaccurate term, he continues, since

'"militant" is a non-judgmental, neutral noun. It carries no pejorative connotations. Whereas use of "terrorist" makes it crystal-clear that the writer and/or publication deems such depraved acts as beyond the pale. Which of course they are if they involve deliberate murders of innocent civilians in pursuit of a political agenda -- the basic definition of terrorism....

Never mind that children were firebombed on a bus or that Palestinian killers singled out women and the elderly as targets, these killers [the paper's Jerusalem correspondent William] Booth insists, are NOT "terrorists"; they are instead "militants." In so writing, Booth washes his hands of any trace of moral turpitude attached to such acts.

As he makes clear in the next paragraph: "The Israeli public views these prisoners as terrorists who have blood on their hands. Palestinians see them as freedom fighters struggling to reclaim their homeland and oust the occupiers."

So there you have it: Moral relativism carries the day at the Washington Post. Israel may call them terrorists -- but not Booth or the Washington Post. Message to readers who retain a modicum of absolute morality: Be grateful that we don't extol them as freedom fighters. Just take your pick. Call them freedom fighters or terrorists. But we won't. The Post sees nothing repulsive, nothing subhuman, nothing immoral in Palestinians murdering Israeli kids."

... and some more

Yet, again like the BBC, the Washington Post does not resile from employing the description "terrorist" in certain situations:

'Compounding this deliberate rejection of the T-for-terrorism word is the fact that the Post does not hesitate to use it in reporting on terrorist attacks elsewhere, including when such attacks occur in Europe or the United States....'

Read more here
Hat tip: Love of the Land blog

"You Promised An Olive Branch, A Dove": The Ballad of Oslo's Children

No, it's not more antisemitism in Norse Code.  It's the talented Noam Jacobson and other performers from Latma, taking time out from their usual satirical frolics to sing a haunting ballad about the shattered dream of the Oslo Accords of 1993.

In order really to appreciate the ballad, click here for background

"It Is A Beautiful Thing, To Realize A Person's Dream": The freed terrorist sentenced to 16 life terms (video)

Here's the unrepentant Ahlam Tamimi, responsible for the massacre at a Jerusalem pizza restaurant ten years ago in which 15 people died (when informed that 8 victims, who included a two-year-old, were children, she smiled) and 130 were injured.

For a lengthier interview, in which she makes the boast in my header, click here
Hat tip: Shirl in Oz

A trailer for a harrowing interview with a family which lost several members in the Sbarro restaurant atrocity, including a two-year-old girl, appears here (it's in Hebrew)

"You Won't Hear This On ... CNN Or BBC..." (video)

Here's Michael Coren again, describing the barbaric death of a small Israeli child at the hands of an Arab terrorist who made the boy's father watch before he too was murdered in cold blood.  The assailant in question, and other monsters like him, is among those prisoners freed to secure Gilad Shalit's release.  Coren observes that heinous acts against Israelis aren't much in evidence in reportage on those news channels which insist on talking about "Palestinian militants." He's convinced, though, that despite current high levels of Jew-hatred and although "the fashion now is to hate Israel and support Palestine," truth and right will prevail in the end.