Law vs. Lives

Posted on 08/28/2008 by Soccerdad

In a recent article, Isabel Kershner of the New York Times wrote the following about Israel’s security fence:

Israel started building the barrier in 2002 with the intent of preventing Palestinian suicide bombers from reaching Israeli cities. Consisting mostly of wire fence but also, in parts, of high concrete walls, much of the barrier, which is about 57 percent complete, has been constructed on land east of the 1967 boundary, inside the West Bank, leading Palestinians to characterize it as a land grab.

In July 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion describing the routing of the barrier inside the West Bank as a violation of Israeli obligations under international law.

Israel’s Supreme Court, in response to petitions, has ordered several sections of the barrier route to be moved closer to the 1967 line, but most of the alterations have not yet been carried out.

There are several important things to note about these paragraphs.

Nowhere does Kershner write that since the fence has been built terror against Israel has decreased.
She mentions the ICJ’s ruling but doesn’t explain that the ruling is political not legal.
Even the Supreme Court’s ruling didn’t ignore the security issues involved.

When the Israeli High Court of Justice (or Supreme Court) ruled on the route of the fence in 2004, it wrote:

56. From a military standpoint, there is a dispute between experts regarding the route that will realize the security objective. As we have noted, this places a heavy burden on petitioners who ask that we prefer the opinion of the experts of the Council for Peace and Security over the approach of the military commander. The petitioners have not carried this burden. We cannot – as those who are not experts in military affairs – determine whether military considerations justify laying the Separation Fence north of Jebel Mukatam (as per the stance of the military commander) or whether there is no need for the Separation Fence to include it (as per the stance of petitioners’ and the Council for Peace and Security).

Still it concluded:

60. Our answer is that there relationship between the injury to the local inhabitants and the security benefit from the construction of the Separation Fence along the route, as determined by the military commander, is not proportionate. The route disrupts the delicate balance between the obligation of the military commander to preserve security and his obligation to provide for the needs of the local inhabitants.

Understand what’s going on here. The court admitted that it could not determine whose security credentials to trust: Whether to trust those then currently in the military or the partisan ex-officers. In the end, it ruled that the security question was moot, but determined that the damage caused by the fence was too great to justify any lessening security that might result from rerouting the fence.

Israel’s high court didn’t ignore the security issues it just ruled that they were irrelevant.

Now contrast that report with that about another recent court ruling.

On Sunday night, the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition from an organization of terror victims, Almagor, against the release.

Among those freed Monday were two men whom Israel says have “blood on their hands,” meaning they had been convicted in attacks that harmed Israelis. Said al-Atabeh, 57, who had been in custody since 1977, was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner.

Now Almagor had empirical evidence that prisoner releases were dangerous. Nadav Shragai recently provided the details of how released prisoners end up committing more terror.

I have no idea about the nature of Almagor’s petition. But if they provided proof that many of the terrorists freed in previous releases had indeed returned to terror and the court rejected that petition, then it showed once again that it deems the security of Israel’s citizens unimportant. It has demonstrated that inconveniencing Palestinians is worse than risking Israeli lives.

The media as demonstrated by the NY Times’s reporting also shows that their concern for the very real risks taken and negative rewards reaped by Israel is less important than that a process not leading to peace takes place. And, of course, Israel’s judicial system’s concern for Palestinian inconveniences at the expense of Israeli lives is met with Durban II.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Boycott Israel, and let people suffer for it

Posted on 08/27/2008 by Meryl Yourish

An Israeli drug companing has developed a drug that not only alleviates symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, but it slows the progression of the disease. But by all means, boycott Israeli academics, and don’t let Israeli scientists come to international conferences. Because why would you want to encourage Israeli to develop things like this?

[…] In its clinical trial, named “Adagio”, patients who took a tablet of Azilect once a day experienced slower disease progression in the early part of the trial and a steadying of symptoms in the last part of the trial, Teva said yesterday. They also experienced a smaller decrease in baseline function.

Parkinson’s disease patients who took Azilect tablets once a day from the time when they joined the trial demonstrated significant improvement compared to those who started the drug only nine months later.

Yes, go ahead, Britain. Keep working on that academic boycott of Israelis. Prevent Israelis from getting all the knowledge they need to forge ahead with improving the lives of non-Israelis. It’s not like the world needs alternative energy sources being developed by Israelis.

Yeah, go ahead. Boycott Israel. Because it’s not like Israeli scientists and entrepreneurs are doing anything special.

Oh. Wait.

Posted in Israel | 8 Comments

Durban II: Heading right down the same anti-Semitic path

Posted on 08/27/2008 by Meryl Yourish

UN Watch has another report on the upcoming UN anti-Israel and Democracy Conference The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. It seems that not only is Durban II going after Israel, but it’s really going to try to codify anti-Islamic blasphemy.

UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer, a modern-day Don Quixote who bangs his head against the windmill called United Nations, spoke against the declaration.

The declaration makes only one reference to a country situation, “reiterat[ing] its concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupations.” Neuer asked, “Why is a non-African situation mentioned in a declaration about Africa, one that references neither Sudan’s racist killings, nor any other country in Africa?”

“The special reference to the Palestinian issue implies that Israel is practicing racism. This reverts to the discredited rhetoric of the UN’s 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution, sponsored by the Soviet and Arab blocs, which was repealed by the United Nations in 1991, and which has since been repudiated by its highest officials,” said Neuer.

But the UN representatives were unimpressed.

“It is only one paragraph that mentions the Palestinians, so the interest of Israel was never badly damaged,” Ibrahim Wani, from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Reuters, after the 3-day talks in Abuja.

Durban II is part of a strategy developed long ago by Israel’s enemies to dehumanize her in every forum available.

[…] the “Durban strategy” — a two-pronged tactic launched at the ‘01 conference to paint Israel as a “racist, apartheid” state and isolate the Jewish nation through boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

The Ford Foundation is still funding the Jew-haters. Henry Ford would be proud.

The Ford slice of funds to anti-Israel nongovernmental organizations may pale compared to that provided by Europe and its myriad governmental agencies. But the Ford funding enables the groups to wage low-key, diplomatic and economic warfare against Israel, dragging the Palestinian conflict from the battlefield into international forums, media, the Internet and college campuses.

[…] Despite the revised guidelines, Ford appears unable — or unwilling — to prevent some of its grantees from lending support to the movement that was launched in Durban.

The new JTA investigation, which examined a large cross-section of Ford grantees that speak out on the Middle East conflict, finds that several signed a major 2005 boycott and divestment petition against “Apartheid Israel.”

Signatories agreed they were “inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid, and in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression.”

There is an organized, well-funded movement to discredit and dehumanize Israel in every aspect. The world media ignore the daily attacks on Israel by the terrorists on her borders and within, while holding up every injured Palestinian as an example of Israeli cruelty or negligence—unless those Palestinians are harmed by their fellow Palestinians or Arabs. Egypt is murdering Sudanese refugees for the crime of trying to enter Israel, and the world media barely touches upon it—or on the cruelty and lack of compassion by Egypt for the refugees within its borders that forces these people to risk their lives to enter Israel.

The only true democracy in the Middle East is demonized and hated. Europeans use the Palestinians as an excuse to rid themselves of the guilt of nearly destroying European Jewry—as poll after poll shows how much Jews are still hated in the countries that the pro-Palestinian left say that Israelis should “go back to” (utterly ignoring the 50% of all Israelis who are descended from the Jews of Arab countries who were forced out after 1948).

As always, Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Because the second great aim of Durban is to strangle democracy’s most precious posession: Free speech.

The new text calls upon states to avoid “inflexibly clinging to free speech in defiance of the sensitivities existing in a society and with absolute disregard for religious feelings.” Other provisions in the text on “incitement to religious hatred,” said Neuer, “mirror efforts by Islamic states at the UN Human Rights Council to insinuate Islamic anti-blasphemy prohibitions into international law. Yet UN expert on religious freedom Asma Jahangir and other international human rights experts have expressly opposed ‘defamation of religion’ resolutions, which seek to alter international human rights law by defining religions — instead of individuals — as the bearers of rights.”

The declaration’s attack on free speech contravenes the Article 19 guarantee of freedom of expression of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Durban II: Bigger. Badder. Bolder. And full of bull.

Posted in Anti-Semitism, Israel Derangement Syndrome, World | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Jenna Delich took Harry’s Place down or coalition of the muzzled burns their strawman

Posted on 08/27/2008 by SnoopyTheGoon

“The law is an ass”, they say, and there is a good measure of truth in it. The (temporary, I hope) demise of Harry’s Place (HP) blog has shown again how easy it is in Britain to suppress any kind of writings anyone deems offensive (libelous will be the term used) to him/her. Even when the contents of that writings happen to be perfectly true.

The story starts with an “anti-Zionist” lady, one Jenna Delich, warmly recommending an article published on David Duke’s (the famous Jew-hater who will not be linked from this place) site to her buddy. When Harry’s Place made the story public, another “anti-Zionist” (and AssaJew to boot), Mike Cushman, advised Ms Delich to complain to the HP’s ISP, which she has promptly done.

As a result, the blog that simply told the truth is shut down.

Aside of the current UK law on libel being ridiculous, there is a supreme irony in the way the two lowlifes mentioned above behaved. These two belong to a small but vociferous crowd of “anti-Zionists” that chronically complain about being muzzled by everyone – from the Zionist lobby to the British Royal Post. And look what have they perpetrated. It will be quite difficult for them to revive their favorite strawman now, I am afraid.

To make the rest easier for myself, I shall quote the beginning and the end of an excellent post by Ami Isseroff:

Next time you read that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, and next time you hear that the Zionist conspiracy is “muzzling” criticism of Israel” remember this one.

And:

Remember Jenna Delich next time you read that “anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.” Remember Mike Cushman when someone tells you, “he can’t be an anti-Semite, he is a Jew.” Remember Harry’s Place when someone tells you about the “Zionists” muzzling criticism.

Indeed. Now read the rest of that post.

And a few technicalities:

  • You can follow the new developments on a mirror blog The Jenna Delich Archives
  • You can express yourself by e-mailing these two characters:

Good luck.

Update: HP is back on-line.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Posted in Israel | 3 Comments

Another quick lesson in modern Russian

Posted on 08/27/2008 by SnoopyTheGoon

Since the name of “peacekeeping” Russian operation against Georgia – “Принуждение к миру” – was first published, I had one heck of a trouble translating it into two other languages I claim to be more or less familiar with. The literal translations – “Coercion to peace” or “האלצות לשלום” sound so outlandish that people whose (respective) mother languages are English and Hebrew just goggle stupidly, and no explanation penetrates.

Thankfully, the Russian authorities haven’t been deaf and/or blind to the issue of translation. To help out the curious foreigners, they have decided to offer several examples that will definitely make you grok the above:

  • Coercion to generosity = robbery
  • Coercion to a vacation = firing (sorry, it’s “downsizing” these days)
  • Coercion to better health = beating
  • Coercion to change of scenery = arrest
  • Coercion to a wedding = rape
  • Coercion to friendship = raising natural gas price to $500

Capisce?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Posted in Politics, World | Comments Off on Another quick lesson in modern Russian

Day by Day: Fundraising time

Posted on 08/26/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Chris Muir tells me that every time I link to him, you folks click in large numbers. I may not be Instapundit, but dammit, I have a great crowd here.

And it’s fundraiser time again. Chris supports himself by these donations, and keeps Day by Day coming. It’s a worthy cause. Toss a few bucks his way. He definitely deserves it.

Day By Day

And oh yeah, Chris? Some of us want Zed hotness. I mean, what use is Sam hotness to straight women?

Posted in Bloggers | 5 Comments

Charm city charm offensive

Posted on 08/26/2008 by Soccerdad

The Obama campaign has long taken a tack suggesting that those who don’t support the senator may well be racist. I’ve noted how this has manifested itself in the Jewish community. Sometimes it’s the campaign’s media surrogates who take this tack, sometimes it’s just the usual political organizations.

A week and a half ago the Baltimore Jewish Times looked at the views of Baltimore’s Orthodox community towards Senator Obama and there were two names missing from the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Sen. Joseph Lieberman. What wasn’t missing was the typical “only the ignorant or racist wouldn’t support Sen. Obama comment, delivered by my “representative” State Delegate Sandy Rosenberg.

Mr. Rosenberg stirs his lemonade and chooses his words. He’s heard the bad buzz, too. It sounds like a “typical Republican smear campaign,” he says, carefully crafted to pick up on Jewish fears.

“If they could make John Kerry look like a draft dodger instead of the war hero he was,” Mr. Rosenberg says of the 2004 “Swift Boat” campaign, “imagine what they can do to Obama,” the first black presidential candidate whose middle name is Hussein, to boot.

Well no, the criticisms of Sen. Kerry did not make him look like a draft dodger. They asked whether he betrayed his comrades in arms after he returned stateside. But that’s perhaps too subtle a point.

And what about substantive criticism of Sen. Obama, here’s how the article deals with two:

A woman calls the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES to report that a local radio talk show host said there is a mention on Mr. Obama’s official Web site of “Jews and oven,” an obvious allusion to the Holocaust. [We didn’t find any.]

A member of the Orthodox community assures this reporter that one of Mr. Obama’s closest advisers publicly said the hindrance to peace in the Mideast lies in New York and Miami, both cities with large Jewish populations.

As far as the first incident, this did indeed happen. Bill Levinson of Israpundit recorded a screenshot of the offending blog. The reason the reporter couldn’t find it is because the Barack Obama website took it down, but it was up.

Sen. Obama’s website allowed users to set up their own blogs on the campaign’s website. And in quite a few instances, those setting up blogs expressed vile antisemitic sentiments.When it became of these blogs, the campaign correctly deleted them quickly. But it still raises the question of why so many people who feel this way, feel that Sen. Obama is the preferred choice for president.

And the adviser who blamed the lack of peace in the Middle East on Jewish voters has a name.

Gen. Merrill “Tony” McPeak, seemed to identify Jewish voters when asked to name the biggest obstacles to Middle East peace. “New York City. Miami. We have a large vote…here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it,” McPeak said.

But it’s not just McPeak who was problematic among Sen. Obama’s advisers. He was advised by Robert Malley the only member of the American team at Camp David in 2000 who didn’t blame the failure of the talks on Yasser Arafat. And Zbigniew Brzezinski endorsed the opinion of Walt and Mearsheimer.

And let’s not forget that Sen. Obama said himself that he opposed the Likud. If elections are held in Israel, it might very well be that a President Obama will have to deal with PM Binyamin Netanyahu of the Likud. And we know that Obama will go into such a relationship with a negative perception.

(I’d also point out that J-Street, a supposedly “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group is funded by one Alan Solomont, who is also one of Sen. Obama’s financial supporters. J-Street believes that peace will only come when America pressures Israel to make concessions. I’d have to think that Mr. Solomont sees Sen. Obama as the candidate most likely to support this agenda.)

So instead of answering these concerns, those supporting Obama cite the “Barack is a Muslim” e-mails. (These most likely came from his opponents at the time: other Democrats.) I am informed. And my information tells me that Sen. Obama will not be as supportive of Israel as I would like. Israel is an important issue for me, though it isn’t the only one. I can’t think of any major issue where I prefer Sen. Obama’s approach to Sen McCain.

And let’s get to those two glaring omissions. Rev. Wright, who preached anti-White bigotry and antisemitism from the pulpit is an issue that ought not to go away. Rev. Wright didn’t take over a church that Sen. Obama attended. Sen. Obama sought out Rev. Wright as a way of bolstering his radical credentials. That’s not a smear. It’s a praise, written in a glowing profile of the senator appearing last year in Rolling Stone magazine.

And why is Sen. Lieberman’s ties to Sen. McCain not mentioned in the article. I don’t agree with Sen. Lieberman on domestic issues, but in foreign policy I mostly agree with him. Furthermore in a campaign supposedly about the new politics, Sen. Lieberman is Exhibit A of Sen. McCain’s cross-aisle appeal. It stands in stark contrast the partisanship displayed by Sen. Obama during his short senate tenure.

The most honest assessment from a Democratic official in the article came from former State Senator Paula Hollinger:

To Paula Hollinger, the current rhetoric in the Jewish community has a familiar ring. Mrs. Hollinger, the former veteran state senator from the 11th District, says the Orthodox register Democrat in order to vote in the primary elections. “But 99 percent of the time they vote Republican for president,” she says.

In the 11th District, for example, which includes heavily Jewish precincts in Pikesville and Owings Mills, the vote in presidential elections generally splits 50/50 Republicans to Democrats.

If Obama’s supporters want to convince more politically conservative Jews that he’s the right man, they need to explain and not just vilify.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Jews, Politics | Tagged | 2 Comments

Oh so casual

Posted on 08/26/2008 by Soccerdad

The approach to threats against Israel is one of those things that is taken casually. Here’s Secretary Rice on the regular but (relatively) infrequent Qassams that still get fired into Israel despite the ceasefire with Hamas:

QUESTION: How does the ceasefire in Gaza help matters? Has it endured better than you imagined?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it has its ups and downs, obviously. But look, I – we said early on that if there – that calm in Gaza would be a useful thing because it – the Egyptians, who – with whom we worked, have managed to keep what is a very fragile situation at least stable, and that’s certainly a help to any process of trying to move forward on the peace process.

Ultimately, though, Gaza has to be resolved and it has to be resolved on the basis of the – Abu Mazen’s program for it, which is that legitimate Palestinian Authority institutions have to be reinstated. I think we want to continue to look at what can be done at the crossings for regularization of those ultimately along the lines of the November 2005 agreement. So this is not, I think, a metastable situation, but it’s a situation that for now has seemed to allow at least people to – you know, the levels of violence to stay low, and that’s welcome.

(h/t My Right Word)

Nothing about the threat from Hamas’s building of fortifications and re-arming. Somehow Abu Mazen (she’s using his nom de guerre, how reassuring) is going to impose his authority on Gaza.

And how’s that Abu Mazen thing going? Didn’t Israel just build his confidence? Why yes they did. The New York Times reports:

Israel released almost 200 Palestinian prisoners Monday in a good-will gesture aimed at reinvigorating the faltering peace process. Hours later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the country to make her own push for a deal between the two sides.

And what does this “good will gesture” entail?

Among those freed Monday were two men whom Israel says have “blood on their hands,” meaning they had been convicted in attacks that harmed Israelis. Said al-Atabeh, 57, who had been in custody since 1977, was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner.

“This is a great joy for our mothers and our people, but it remains a small step because we left behind us thousands of prisoners,” Mr. Atabeh said after his release, according to Reuters.

Mr. Atabeh had been convicted in bombings that killed one Israeli woman and wounded dozens of people.

A second long-serving prisoner was Mohammed Abu Ali, who had been jailed since 1980 for the murder of an Israeli settler in the West Bank.

However, most of those set free had been arrested for lesser crimes within the past two years.

“It’s not easy for Israel to release prisoners,” said a government spokesman, Mark Regev, according to The Associated Press. “But we understand the importance of the prisoner issue for Palestinian society.”

(h/t Boker Tov Boulder)

Note that “blood on their hands” is in quotes. Why not just write “who were convicted of murder in the commission of acts of terror?” (without the quotes, of course) Why is almost as much time spent describing the prisoners by the length of time served as by the crimes they committed?

By emphasizing the time served changes their status from terrorists to prisoners. Put another way Snapped Shot asks and answers a question about the coverage of the prisoner release:

How does our “impartial” press choose to represent them?

You guessed it: As heroes.

And as far as the release of prisoners being important for Palestinian society, Israelly Cool explains why it’s important.

These murderers are but two of the “prisoners” we freed today, as a “goodwill” gesture to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. And he reciprocated with a goodwill gesture of his own – a threat that unless all the “prisoners” are freed, there will be no peace.

Speaking of gestures, this one made by the released prisoners does not mean “peace.” It means “V for victory”, and is basically a promise that the terrorism will continue.

JoshuaPundit writes (regarding Condoleeza Rice but the general point holds) about what’s not important:

No mention of course on whether it might matter a lot to the Israelis to keep these killers behind bars.I doubt that matter penetrates her consciousness.

Nor does it matter to Mahmoud Abbas, who referred to the released terrorists as ‘heroes’ and made a point of saying that no peace agreement with Israel was possible until all of the terrorists are released.Nor did eithr he or Condaleeza Rice have the common decency to mention a single word about Gilad Shalit, who’s still being held incommunicado in the Gaza Strip.

And as noted before past experience shows that these prisoner releases will lead to more terror, not peace.

Israel freed 400 Palestinian prisoners and five other prisoners in return for Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was held captive by Hizbullah, and for the bodies of three soldiers kidnapped on Mount Dov. According to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi, from the date of the deal on January 29, 2004, until April 17, 2007, those freed in the deal had murdered 35 Israelis.

The Washington Post describes the issue of prisoner releases like this:

Israel has periodically released Palestinian prisoners, whose fate is among the most politically and emotionally compelling issues for the Palestinian public, to shore up Abbas’s government. Abbas favors negotiations with Israel to create an independent Palestinian state, while the rival Hamas movement has advocated destruction of the Jewish state. The releases, although modest, are designed to show that Abbas’s approach yields rewards.

“Modest?” “yields rewards?” No mention that there’s a very good chance that a portion of the terrorist released will likely return to terrorism. So who receives the “rewards” other than terrorists who have seen their terms reduced, is not clear. No mention that the fellow who “favors negotiations” considers resistance (i.e. terrorism) to be peace. There’s something really Orwellian here.

And as a Blog for All writes:

It’s supposed to help bolster Fatah in their internecine struggle with Hamas, but all it does is provide more fodder for the terrorists to hold out hope that they can beat Israel for control over all territory West of the Jordan River.

Despite the romantic terms used to describe the prisoner release, they present a real risk to Israel. When will the world demand that the Palestinians take similar risks for peace?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Posted in Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Media Bias, palestinian politics | Tagged | 2 Comments

Oh people! Enough!

Posted on 08/25/2008 by Soccerdad

The Spine links to a plea from a liberal Kuwaiti writer translated by MEMRI:

“I would like to shout to the Arabs and the Muslims: Oh, people! Enough! Oh, [champions] of war, struggle, jihad, and honor! Enough! Life in our homeland has been destroyed. By the doors of the embassies of the French and British, against whose colonialism we fought, stand crowds of young people belonging to the new generation, who are applying for entry visas. The U.S., whose flag we burn at every demonstration, is the one safeguarding peace in the countries of the Arab and Muslim world, as well as in many Third World countries…”

Still the parts excerpted don’t mention Israel or even the Zionist entity. So is it the hatred of the West and Israel that he’s decrying or just Arab on Arab and Muslim on Muslim violence?

Compare with this:

” Obviously not all Muslims are terrorists but, regrettably, the majority of the terrorists in the world are Muslims. The kidnappers of the students in Ossetia are Muslims. The kidnappers and killers of the Nepalese workers and cooks are also Muslims. Those who rape and murder in Darfour are Muslims, and their victims are Muslims as well. Those who blew up the residential complexes in Riyadh and Al-Khobar are Muslims. Those who kidnapped the two French journalists are Muslims. The two [women] who blew up the two planes [over Russia] a week ago are Muslims. Bin Laden is a Muslim and Al-Houthi [the head of a terrorist group in Yemen] is a Muslim. The majority of those who carried out suicide operations against buses, schools, houses, and buildings around the world in the last ten years are also Muslims.”

Crossposted on Yourish.

Posted in Terrorism | Tagged | 1 Comment

Blockheads vs. the blockade

Posted on 08/25/2008 by Soccerdad

Never mind that Israel allows large quantities of goods into Gaza and the Palestinians themselves smuggle even more in via tunnels from Egypt. But a bunch of anti-Israel activists decided to make some PR and “run” Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.

Two wooden boats carrying dozens of human rights activists reached the Gaza Strip on Saturday afternoon after the Israeli navy decided not to hinder the challenge to Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian enclave. Thousands of Palestinians turned out to welcome the group, which brought token humanitarian aid, including hearing aids and balloons.

The Post’s headline proclaims that the boats “broke” the blockade, but Israel let them pass unhindered.

(In some of the early publicity – it wasn’t news, it was unvarnished PR – it was noted that a Holocaust survivor was going to be on the boat. The Post’s PR release doesn’t mention her among the celebrities on the boat. Did she change her mind or was the Post just unaware of her presence.)

Meryl points out that since the ship of fools didn’t meet any resistance they charged that Israel jammed their instruments to prevent them from reaching Gaza.

However Backspin points out that the activists may not have such an easy time leaving Gaza as they did arriving.

And despite the crowds cheering their arrival, left unreported by many organizations was

once it turned out these boats contain too little food and mostly activists…some people left the beach disappointed.

(h/t Judeopundit – read the whole thing! )

Funny but there was a whole lot else going on in Gaza this weekend that somehow the Post’s Linda Gradstein failed to report:

Hamas stormed Al Azhar University in Gaza and the ensuing riots saw many injuries, including professors and a vice president of the university.

A teachers’ union in Gaza decided to go on strike to protest these sorts of attacks against teachers by Hamas. Hamas responded by abducting a Rafah school principal, one of the leaders of the union.

So a bunch of self promoting dweebs shilling for the Hamas government go sailing and that’s news. But when the government they’re supporting suppresses academic freedom that’s not news.

If the sailors wanted to do good, why couldn’t they go to the Sinai find some smuggling tunnels, stand in front of them and demand that the Palestinians not smuggle weapons into Gaza? Or at least insist that the Palestinians build tunnels that meet OSHA standards?

Crossposted on Yourish.

Posted in Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Media Bias | Tagged | 1 Comment

The confidence for more terror

Posted on 08/25/2008 by Soccerdad

Daled Amos notes that the Israeli government apparently views the release of terrorists as a good thing. He sums up a news article like this:

In other words, Israel is hoping to force Hamas to the negotiating table with the same or increased demands for the release of terrorists with blood on their hands so that Israel can release them and gain Shalit’s release.

However Nadav Shragai notes that releasing terrorists doesn’t always build confidence the way Israel would like.

According to an informal estimate by Israeli security bodies, about 50 percent of the terrorists freed for any reason whatsoever returned to the path of terror, either as perpetrator, planner, or accomplice. In the terror acts committed by these freed terrorists, hundreds of Israelis were murdered, and thousands were wounded.

Israel freed 400 Palestinian prisoners and five other prisoners in return for Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was held captive by Hizbullah, and for the bodies of three soldiers kidnapped on Mount Dov. According to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi, from the date of the deal on January 29, 2004, until April 17, 2007, those freed in the deal had murdered 35 Israelis.

Something to keep in mind when recalling that Jordan last week released terrorists who had been transferred from Israel last year. The reason: Israel’s deal with Hezbollah to free Samir Kuntar put pressure on the Jordanian government to release the terrorists early.

In reaction to the early Jordanian release of the terrorists, Daled Amos asks:

I guess it would be too much to ask that in the interests of goodwill the Jordanians don’t celebrate and honor murderers of Israelis?

Except the record shows that releasing terrorists strengthens the extremists. So yes, it is asking too much.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel, Terrorism | Tagged | Comments Off on The confidence for more terror

Palestinian [in]gratitude

Posted on 08/24/2008 by Meryl Yourish

The Palestinian welfare culture is so incredibly ingrained, that no good deed goes uncriticized.

The big lefty boat extravaganza—the ones that Israel allowed to land in Gaza after all, rather than cause front page pictures of the Israeli navy forcing the “peace protesters” away from Gaza’s shores—landed in Gaza to, well, not cheers. Jeers.

A Gaza activist told Ynet Saturday that local residents were disappointed by the small quantities of food brought in by two boats carrying international leftist activists.

“Many people thought these boats will make a significant contribution to break the siege, not only politically but also in terms of brining in goods, equipment, food, and medicine,” he said. “However, once it turned out these boats contain too little food and mostly activists…some people left the beach disappointed.”

So, basically, the activists didn’t coordinate their activities with the Palestinians—not surprising, as Hamas isn’t Fatah, and Gaza isn’t Ramallah. But the ingratitude of the Palestinians is a wonder to behold. Not as good as the Israeli foreign ministry, however.

The Foreign Ministry slammed the leftists and said that they did not deserve to be referred to as “peace activists,” branding them as a “handful of provocateurs seeking a public relations stunt who initiated a political protest aimed at boosting Hamas’ regime of horrors in Gaza.”

“How does such delusional journey promote peace?” the Foreign Ministry added. “What kind of contribution does this journey make to the promotion of ideas of reconciliation and compromise? None.”

Israeli officials noted that genuine humanitarian groups can provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population through existing land crossings, branding the leftist activists as “propagandists.”

Funny, though, how the L.A. Times has a different spin.

Arriving to a boisterous reception, the international activists aboard the boats said they hoped their symbolic breaking of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip was just the beginning.

“We will surely try to bring the boats back again,” said Huwaida Arraf, one of 44 passengers who overcame rough seas and communications problems after setting out Friday from Cyprus. “The goal is to open a route between Cyprus and Gaza.

Really?

But Mekel warned that future attempts might get a different reception.

“I don’t know if others will want to do this,” he said, “but this is not a precedent for future.”

There’s something else that happened to the boats on leaving Cyprus. Now remember that previously, this mission was stopped by storms. Twice.

The two boats ran into trouble almost as soon as they left Cyprus. The navigation and communications systems on both failed, and some activists accused Israel of jamming them. Israel denied the allegation.

Paranoid much? But it wasn’t Israel that did it. I think it was a force far more powerful than the nation of Israel. Like, the power behind the nation.

Those “activists” better watch their asses if they put out to sea again, I think.

Posted in Gaza, Israel | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Detours were us

Posted on 08/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Two trucks got into the way of my travel plans, but in both instances, I found out about them long before I could get stuck in the traffic they caused.

First, a pickup truck being towed off the Nice Bridge changed my driving plans from “back way” to “Damn! I have to drive the Beltway.” No real traffic on the Beltway, though, or anywhere, until I got to effing Delaware. I hate Delaware. Don’t even get me started on how much. Ten minutes to get across, and they make you pay through the nose to do it. Plus they steal the rest of the country’s business by their sweet incorporation deals.

Told you not to get me started.

Then, once in NJ, a truck accident shut down 295 at precisely the exit I needed to get off. Some frantic phone calls to Bob and Kim, and I took an alternate route, only to miss 206 and wind up on the scenic route through Trenton. It seems to have picked up some in the years since I was last there.

We’re heading off to the pool for the rest of the day. Posting will be light. No, nonexistent.

Posted in Life | Tagged | 4 Comments

Jordanian hypocrisy on the Temple Mount

Posted on 08/22/2008 by Meryl Yourish

The kingdom of Jordan, which was the guardian of Jewish holy sites from 1948 to 1967, is lecturing Israel on digging near the Temple Mount.

Jordan said on Thursday it summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest against plans for excavation and construction work near the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Jerusalem’s most volatile holy site.

“Foreign Minister Salah Bashir summoned the Israeli ambassador this week to officially inform him that Jordan rejects such illegal measures,” said MP Mohammed Abu Hdeib, head of the lower house of parliament’s committee on international affairs, after meeting Bashir on Thursday.

Really? Jordan objects to such “illegal measures”? And yet, Jordan had no such objections when it was using Jewish cemetery headstones to pave roads, knocking down synagogues that had stood for centuries, and letting the al-Aqsa Mosque fall into disrepair.

Funny how the Jordanians only find their voices about this when they’re not the ones doing the digging. And Israel has never deliberately destroyed Muslim holy sites. So we really have no comparison to speak of.

You know, I really want to tell Jordan to do something extremely disgusting, but I think I’ll just leave this post with a G rating. (“Eat [censored] and die” was what I was thinking, actually.)

Posted in Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Juvenile Scorn | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Wooing the Jews

Posted on 08/22/2008 by Soccerdad

A few weeks ago the Washington Post reported that Obama working to ensure the Jewish vote:

Obama’s position on Israel has been fairly mainstream. He has declared himself an undying ally of the Jewish state and has indicated that he would like the United States to return to a position of honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But his connection to his former pastor Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose anti-Israel sermons were widely reported this past spring, caused concern among some Jewish groups.

“I think he does still have issues with the Jewish community,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a prominent Jewish member of Congress. “In the end, I think he’s going to do as well as any Democratic nominee with the Jewish community, but people still have to feel more comfortable with him.”

How’s that effort been working out lately?

Well let’s see, the National Jewish Democratic Council is working to fight the smears at its blog:

Earlier this month JTA reported that, “Natan Sharansky said an Obama presidency would be a ‘risk’ to Israel.” This is a continuation of the fear and smear campaign against Senator Barack Obama being perpetrated by many of Senator John McCain’s supporters.

Trashing the most famous prisoner of conscience. Good thinking.

The DNC points out that both possible Republican VP choice Eric Cantor and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff are – Jewish.

And Obama’s foreign policy adviser Daniel Kurtzer has gone to Syria to offer advice to the Syrians.

Oh and Jimmy Carter will be speaking at the Democratic convention.

Yes, this is a very comforting pattern. However, I have little doubt that Henry Waxman will be proven right in the end.

Pity.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Israel | 3 Comments