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In today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required) Natan Sharansky applauds the Israeli decision to deny responsibility for the killing of Mohammed al-Dura seven years ago. The change was triggered by a lawsuit filed by Philippe Karsenty against French TV station France 2 and is reporter Charles Enderlin.

To its credit, Israel has come to recognize that it must play an active role in uncovering the truth. The IDF recently sent a letter to France 2 demanding the release of Talal Abu Rahmeh’s 27 minutes of raw footage, asserting the implausibility of IDF guilt for the death of Mohammad al-Dura, and raising the possibility that the entire affair may have been staged. Tragically, there is no way to repair the damage inflicted on Israel’s international image by the France 2 report, much less restore the Israeli and Jewish victims whose lives were exacted as vengeance. It is possible, however, to deter slanderous news reporting — and the violence that often accompanies it — by setting a precedent for media accountability via the handover of Talal Abu Rahmeh’s full 27 minutes of raw footage. Encouragingly, the judge presiding over Mr. Karsenty’s appeal has now requested the tapes. France 2 must make a full public disclosure. If there is nothing to hide, why should it refuse?

There’s a bigger problem with the Al-Dura case. There was available information to show that Israeli soldiers were not purposely firing on civilians. Israel almost immediately released a captioned photograph of Netzarim junction showing the positions of the participants in supposedly fatal the gun battle. There were Palestinian positions both in front of and behind the al-Duras. It would appear with that picture and the picture of the father and son hiding behind a barrier that the position that had the clearest shot at the al-Duras was the Palestinian position behind them. Because the Israeli soldiers were returning fire to positions both in front of and behind the al-Duras its impossible they could have realized that they were there.

Yet there was no journalistic investigation immediately to determine the accuracy of the imagery. The Israeli government surely failed by failing to act decisively, but the international media also failed miserably. Curiosity, which is supposed to be their hallmark, was totally absent.

It’s because the media has a tendency to rely on narrative. The narrative here was that Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount provoked a spontaneous, justified outbreak of violent riots by the Palestinians.

The first effort by the media to find a victim of Israel’s overreaction to the rioting failed. The Israeli policeman, it turned out, wasn’t beating the bloodied Palestinian. Rather he was rescuing the Yeshiva student who had been set upon by a mob not seen in the picture.

Chastened by the mistake, the media admitted error and actively sought a new symbol of Palestinian grievance and Israeli overreaction. They found one in the death of Mohammed al-Dura provided by France 2. The “Aqsa Intifada” was not spontaneous. It was weeks in coming having been planned by Arafat to bring diplomatic pressure on Israel as David Samuels reported:

The second intifada also began with the intention of provoking the Israelis and subjecting them to diplomatic pressure. Only this time Arafat went for broke. As a member of the High Security Council of Fatah, the key decision-making and organizational body that dealt with military questions at the beginning of the intifada, Nofal has firsthand knowledge of Arafat’s intentions and decisions during the months before and after Camp David. “He told us, ‘Now we are going to the fight, so we must be ready,'” Nofal remembers. Nofal says that when Barak did not prevent Ariel Sharon from making his controversial visit to the plaza in front of al-Aqsa, the mosque that was built on the site of the ancient Jewish temples, Arafat said, “Okay, it’s time to work.”

The start and consequences of the “Aqsa Intifada” have been protected by a false narrative for 7 years now. Philippe Karsenty’s lawsuit has a attacked a crucial element of that narrative. Will the unraveling of the al Dura myth lead to a fundamental re-telling of the early days of the violence? The media, though it puffs itself up as a “rough draft” of history is resistant to acknowledging and correcting its mistakes. It will be up to others to drive the quest for the truth.

Further background: James Fallows, Scott Shuger.

Related thoughts: Augean Stables, Smooth Stone, Mere Rhetoric, Yourish, A blog for all, Israel Matzav.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad
israel, media bias.

Jim Hoagland writes in A small outbreak of Mideast Hope

Hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that will isolate the Hamas radicals who control the Gaza Strip have brightened measurably in recent days, according to European officials visiting here. The real news is that the Europeans report this possible outcome without a frown.

So the point of “peace” then, is not peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but rather strengthening Fatah at the expense of Hamas. A deal between Israel and Fatah will “save Gaza.” There’s something rather cynical about this. There’s no word on how this will help Israel or the PA. But it will isolate Hamas. That’s a step but that should be a goal irrespective of peace. (Or part of a goal as the destruction of Hamas and Fatah should be preconditions for peace.)

Abbas is said by diplomatic sources to be resigned to such an accord being his swan song as leader. He will be ready to step aside in a generational change that would accelerate if Israel then releases the popular imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for murders committed under his command.

Yes, swapping a long term aider and abettor for an actual murderer will go a long way toward enhancing peace in the Middle East. Nothing Hoagland’s written suggests any obligation on the part of the Palestinians.

Olmert’s motivation for dealing is to stay, not to go. A peace accord is his best bet to reverse woefully low approval ratings sparked by the mishandled military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon last year. If he can get Abbas to acknowledge the inevitable — to grant formally that Israel will have a decisive say in the administering of a “right of return” by Palestinian refugees to Israel — Olmert could be the peace candidate in Israel’s next elections.

The first obligation or compromise asked of the Palestinians: Allow Israel to “administer” the right of return. And say that happens, and Abbas or Barghouti or whomever succeeds Abbas isn’t happy with Israel’s decisions, will he say, “sure whatever you say” or will he say “Israel is violating our agreements” and unleash a terror attack until the world prevails upon Israel to be more “reasonable.” (i.e. to accede to every Palestinian demand regardless of the risk to Israel.) We know that the unpopular Olmert continues to govern because there’s not enough members of his government are so dissatisfied with him to risk losing their positions by bringing the government down. But that last sentence reeks. I’m not going to say that Olmert thinks that way, but that Hoagland suggests it is disturbing. Olmert wants an agreement so that he can be the “peace candidate.” Not that any agreement will enhance Israel’s security or diplomatic standing, but so that he could win re-election. That’s what the peace process has been reduced to: a campaign jingle. (What would Olmert’s slogan be? “I know how to use the IDF effectively against our own citizens but not our enemies?”) Hoagland’s observations about Europe are also telling.

Arab officials are dismayed by the dramatic change that has occurred in France since Nicolas Sarkozy’s election as president in May. Sarkozy has openly expressed his intent to offer Israel greater support internationally. He has also indicated that he will move away from the pro-Arab policy established by Charles de Gaulle in 1967 and pursued with vigor by Sarkozy’s predecessor, Jacques Chirac. But it is not only France. When Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi visited Israel this summer, he made clear his coalition government’s backing of the Quartet’s initiative, which now features former British prime minister Tony Blair as a special envoy. “We see exactly what you are doing,” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told a European official recently in a dismissive manner, according to notes of the conversation taken by the official. “You will lose a lot in the Arab world.”

I haven’t been following Sarkozy enough, though he seems more reasonable than Chirac whom even Hoagland characterizes as pro-Arab. Prodi says that he support the Quartet, which could hardly qualify as being pro-Israel. And yet Hosni Mubarak, the leader of the largest Arab country to make peace with Israel, considers it an affront that European nations are no longer fully on the Arab side of diplomacy. The implication is that the “peace process” championed by the Arab world had nothing to do with “peace” and plenty to with pressure – on Israel. Hoagland concludes:

The Saudis at least seem to have a more activist approach. Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told reporters in New York on Wednesday that an Israeli “moratorium on the building of settlements” in the West Bank “will be a good signal to show a serious intent” to reach peace. He suggested it would enable Saudi Arabia to come to the conference. U.S. encouragement of a meaningful moratorium by Israel now is a key step in rescuing Gaza from Hamas this winter. So is full U.S. support for Blair’s ambitious effort to engage moderate forces in Gaza. Circumstances may be just desperate enough for reason and good will to break out suddenly.

Now a moratorium that would meet with Saudi Arabia’s approval would include Sanhedria, Ramot, French Hill and Gilo. (Somehow, withdrawing from Gaza didn’t show “serious intent.” Maybe the Saudis ought to show that they’re not funding anti-Israel terror before their commitment to peace is considered “serious.”) And what moderates are there to engage in Gaza? Hoagland’s column demonstrates what’s wrong with the peace process. It’s not about peace. It’s about bringing pressure to bear on Israel. It’s about re-labeling terrorists. It’s about diplomatically playing ball with the Arab world. It’s about “peace” that only a cynic could love.

Related thoughts: The Hashmonean, This Ongoing War, Solomonia, Mere Rhetoric, Daled Amos.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad
israel, peace process.

A couple of weeks ago the Jerusalem Post asked a number of experts if Israel had restored its deterrence. Danel Pipes, for one, answered, “no.”

Deterrence is not something established by a single raid but through a persistent, protracted effort over years and decades. Israeli leaders laboriously built up such a reputation during the era 1948-93, only then to throw it away by adopting a policy of appeasement. It will take years of hard work – not yet begun, I might add – to reestablish the old deterrence. For now, Israel’s many enemies are feeling emboldened and aggressive.

News stories like this one demonstrate that Pipes is correct.

In a surprise move, about 80 Palestinians, including Hamas members and militants from other factions wanted by Israel, crossed from Egypt into the Gaza Strip before dawn on Sunday, according to Hamas and Israeli officials. The entry, through the closed Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border, was a result of what Hamas said was an agreement it made with Egypt. The Rafah crossing was closed in June after Hamas, which many consider to be a terrorist organization, seized control of Gaza, routing forces of its rival, Fatah. The closing of the crossing was meant in part to prevent militants outside the territory at the time of the Hamas takeover from moving freely into Gaza. Since the closing, anyone who wanted to enter Gaza from Egypt had to pass through Israeli territory.

The news isn’t interesting (and disturbing) only because of what happened. The entry of more terrorists into Gaza suggests that Hamas is planning a new offensive against Israel. It’s interesting in the way this was reported. Of course we have the standard weaselly “which many consider to be a terrorist organization” instead of “which fits the legal definition of a terrorist organization.” But what’s missing here is any mentions of how Egypt’s complicity in aiding an enemy of Israel constitutes a violation of its peace treaty with Israel. Of course it will be hard for Israeli officials to complain too loudly as the government has once again freed prisoners.

A convoy with 57 Palestinian left Ketziot Prison late Monday morning and started on its journey to Beitunya checkpoint, between Givat Ze’ev and Ramallah. At about 1.30 p.m. the prisoners will be freed at the checkpoint and transferred to the Palestinian territories. In total, 87 security prisoners are due to be freed Monday. Their expected release was delayed until President Shimon Peres completed the signing of special presidential pardons for 26 of them.

The reason for the release, of course was “confidence building measure.”

Olmert expressed the hope on Sunday that the prisoner release would help achieve progress in the peace talks and lead to a further reduction in the number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. He was addressing senior police and Israel Prisons Service officers in his succa at the prime minister’s residence. “I hope and am making great efforts so that the number of your inmates will be reduced, particularly the number of security prisoners – and I am not just talking about the 90 Palestinian prisoners set to be released tomorrow,” he said. “I hope that these efforts will lead us to a path [of peace] with the Palestinians and to a situation where one day our prisons will be less crowded with security prisoners who have tried to harm Israelis.” The cabinet agreed last month to free more Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to Abbas ahead of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The detainees – 58 from the West Bank and 29 from Gaza – are mostly Fatah activists, and none of them are classified as “having blood on their hands.”

Of course these confidence building measures, do have their risks.

Each of the prisoners is required to sign a commitment not to engage in terrorism in the future. Two months ago, when some 250 terrorists were released in another good-will gesture, one terrorist refused to sign, and was returned to jail. The Almagor organization has documented dozens of cases in which terrorists freed by Israel have returned to active terrorism. Some of the prisoners had been sentenced to remain in jail until as late as 2012; one of them was arrested as early as 2002.

When are we going to see some sort of Palestinian “confidence building measure?” At least one that isn’t a hoax?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

israel.

h / t Elder of Ziyon

Lally Weymouth of the Washington Post – daughter of the late Katherine Graham – interviewed Mahmoud Abbas for the paper. The interview is here.

Elder of Ziyon is certainly correct that there’s nothing “moderate” in the positions he espouses.

A comment at the site cites IMRA catching Abbas in a lie. (Or if you prefer to be polite an embellishment.) Abbas boasted that his security forces had captured two rockets aimed at Israel. IMRA thought cited an e-mail from Khaled abu Toameh that those weren’t rockets but empty pipes.

So far the only other commenter on the article is Yaacov Lozowick who observes

So according to the Palestinian president, the 2nd Intifada was launched in response to an unprecedented offer by Israel’s prime minister. It would have been legitimate to continue negotiating so as to achieve more – but that was not what happened.

Reading the interview it is impossible to get the feeling that Abbas is capable of much independent thought. He comes across as spoiled. (The world must support our demands, Israel must agree to our terms, Hamas must make nice to us.) He also is living in unreality. These Q & A’s are precious:

Are there any concessions that you’re willing to make in order to reach a deal with the Israelis? Are there any concessions you demand?We will be flexible, but before 1947, we had 95 percent of Palestine. In 1937, the partition plan gave the Israelis only part of Palestine. And they were very happy at that time. [David] Ben-Gurion was very happy with it. It didn’t work. After that [came] the 1947 partition plan — we rejected this, so we lost.

You should have taken it?

Yes, at that time, of course. But it gave us 46 percent of Palestine. . . . Now, we accept [the pre-’67 borders].

So in other words, it is a concession that the PA is willing to forgo the 1947 partition plan. That ship sailed 60 years ago. There’s no sense of shame, that since the Arab world rejected compromise 60 years they missed their chance.

The other part of the problem is “we had 95 percent of Palestine.” Who is “we?” The areas now considered to be part of Palestine were sections of Jordan and Egypt at the time. Yes the untenable 1947 partition divided what was then Palestine into Jewish and Arab enclaves. But Gaza was part of Egypt and Judea and Samaria were parts of (Trans)Jordan – which itself was part of the British Mandate of Palestine. (And was Ben Gurion happy with the partition plan? Or was he willing to tolerate it in order to get a state?) “We” clearly does not refer to what Abbas (and the world) would now call “Palestinians.”

And then there is this:

The Israelis thought they were doing a good thing when they withdrew from Gaza [in July 2005], but now they have been forced to evacuate a town near Gaza [because it has been repeatedly shelled by rockets from Hamas].They did it unilaterally. They didn’t do it bilaterally with us. We asked them many times to make [the Gaza withdrawal] the result of an agreement between us. But [former Israeli prime minister Ariel] Sharon refused. He didn’t want to talk to us. . . .

OK, so what happened when Israel ceded territory under the terms of of a bilateral agreement? That happened in late 1995, when Israel ceded Tulkarem, Shechem (Nablus), Ramallah, Kalkilya, Bethlehem and Jenin to the Palestinian Authority. Starting in February 1996 Israel was struck with a series of suicide bombings that killed over 60 people and injured hundreds more. This violence didn’t occur because Israel killed Yihye Ayyash or because Hamas was trying to “kill the peace process.” It happened because Israel trusted its security to the PA. The PA, then under Arafat’s leadership, had no interest in preventing terror or Hamas from developing a terror infrastructure. So Hamas took advantage of the opportunity, built its infrastructure while being protected by Arafat and struck at Israel when it could. What happened in Gaza is a repeat of that and of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, which afforded Hezbollah a better platform from which to attack Israel.

The lesson isn’t that unilateral won’t work. The lesson is that giving territory to terrorists (or those committed to your destruction) strengthens them.

Finally there’s this:

Your popularity has increased since you declared yourself independent of Hamas and set up a government in the West Bank. Does this show that when you make a bold move, people like it?Yes, but if I make concessions which are unacceptable to the people, I think that I will not be popular anymore. But it is not a matter of popularity — it’s a matter of fairness.

“Bold?!” Read the whole interview. “Bold” doesn’t describe Abbas. He has chutzpah no doubt. But the best description of him is “passive aggressive.” This is not a man that any sane person would trust to ensure his interests.

And note, even here, he refuses to make “concessions which are unacceptable to the people.” Has he even thought of using his position as leader to persuade the people of the necessity of making concessions? Instead he just pretends that not demanding the 1947 partition plan is a concession.

Abbas is weak. And I’m not just talking about his political position.

Israel Matzav has more thoughts:

I want you to try to understand Abu Mazen’s basic argument, because it’s not something western minds are used to confronting. When we used to play football in the schoolyard and one team scored a touchdown, the ruled always was “suckers walk.” The team that gave up the touchdown had to retreat to the other end of the schoolyard to receive the ensuing kickoff. In Abu Mazen’s world, the winner has to give up all its gains in order to appease the loser.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

mahmoud abbas.