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Friday 14 August 2009
Israel Matzav: Obama misses Fatah's message
Obama misses Fatah's message
Caroline Glick argues that the Fatah Congress in Bethlehem this week sent a very clear message to the Obama administration. But President Obumbler and his gang of Kumbaya-singing Leftists don't want to hear it. Israel Matzav: Obama misses Fatah's messageFatah leader Mahmoud Abbas's decision to remove both his own mask and that of his organization should cause the Netanyahu government to reassess its current policies toward the group. For the past four months, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government have quietly barred all Jewish construction in eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem neighborhoods, as well as in Judea and Samaria. The government's unofficial policy has been implemented in the hopes of pleasing the Obama administration, which argues that by barring Jewish building, Israel will encourage the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority to moderate its policies and so engender an atmosphere conducive to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. The Fatah conference put paid to that fiction.
Fatah's message to the Netanyahu government is important. But even more important is the message it conveys to the Obama administration. For Netanyahu, the Fatah gathering bore out his prior assessment that the group is a wolf in sheep's clothing. For US President Barack Obama, the message of the Fatah conclave was that his administration's assumptions not only about Fatah, but about terrorists and terror-supporting regimes in general are completely wrong.
FOR THE Obama administration, Fatah was supposed to be the poster child for moderate terrorists. Fatah was supposed to be the prototype of the noble terrorist organization that really just wants respect. It was supposed to be the group that proved the central contention of the Obama White House's strategy for dealing with terror, namely, that all terrorists want is to be appeased.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Dutch government providing significant funding to more anti-Israel NGO's
Dutch government providing significant funding to more anti-Israel NGO's
NGO Monitor reports that the Dutch government is indirectly funding at least three anti-Israel NGO's: Human Rights Watch, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and Adalah.
Israel Matzav: Dutch government providing significant funding to more anti-Israel NGO'sOxfam Novib in the Netherlands receives nearly €130 million annually from the Dutch government – approximately 70% of this NGO’s budget – primarily via co-financing subsidies (2007, 2008). And from here, the funds are distributed to a number of highly politicized NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict. For example, Oxfam Novib partnered with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) on a “lawfare” project (funded by the EU), designed to “[c]ontribute to the abolition of the death penalty...via extrajudicial executions” by the Israeli military. PCHR has led the “prosecution of Israelis suspected of committing war crimes” such as the “universal jurisdiction case in Spain.” Oxfam Novib also lobbied “EU ministers of Foreign Affairs to shelve the plans for intensifying relations between Europe and Israel.”
In 2007-8, Oxfam Novib donated $987,818 to Human Rights Watch (HRW) – which makes the Dutch government one of HRW’s major donors, and is inconsistent with this NGO’s claim that it “accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly.”Read All at :
Israel Matzav: As Obama obsesses with 'settlements' the 'West Bank' is flourishing
As Obama obsesses with 'settlements' the 'West Bank' is flourishing
Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren has a column in Friday's Wall Street Journal that shows how the 'Palestinian' economy in Judea and Samaria is flourishing while the Obama administration obsesses with 'settlements' and misses the boat. Israel Matzav: As Obama obsesses with 'settlements' the 'West Bank' is flourishingImagine an annual economic growth rate of 7%, declining unemployment, a thriving tourism industry, and a 24% hike in the average daily wage. Where in today's gloomy global market could one find such gleaming forecasts? Singapore? Brazil? Guess again. The West Bank.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the West Bank economy is flourishing. Devastated by the violence and corruption fomented by its former leadership, the West Bank has rebounded and today represents a most promising success story. Among the improvements of the last year cited by the IMF and other financial observers are an 18% increase in the local stock exchange, a 94% growth of tourism to Bethlehem—generating 6,000 new jobs—and an 82% rise in trade with Israel.
Since 2008, more than 2,000 new companies have been registered with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Where heavy fighting once raged, there are now state-of-the-art shopping malls.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Netanyahu to Sarkozy: 'Non'
Netanyahu to Sarkozy: 'Non'
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has turned down a request from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to grant early release to a 'Palestinian' terrorist who attempted to assassinate former Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef (pictured). The terrorist, Salah Hassan Hamori, has French citizenship. Israel Matzav: Netanyahu to Sarkozy: 'Non'In a letter to the Sarkozy sent earlier this week, Netanyahu said that Hamori did not meet the criteria for early parole. The prime minister wrote that Hamori did not express any regrets for his deeds and that according to the opinion of the state's attorney-general he still represents a threat to the public.
Sarkozy sent the letter to Netanyahu last week, following massive Palestinian pressure on to work toward Hamori's release from jail.
Israel Matzav: 'It's the 'Palestinians' fault there are no negotiations' says.... Steny Hoyer
'It's the 'Palestinians' fault there are no negotiations' says.... Steny Hoyer
Earlier this week, I blogged an article that argued that Congress is in the process of reining in what it sees as President Obama's excess pressure on Israel. The arguments in favor of Congress reining Obama in were 71 Senators signing on to the Bayh-Resch letter urging President Obama to pressure Arab countries to make confidence building gestures to Israel and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) (pictured with Shimon Peres) telling the Jerusalem Post that 'east' Jerusalem is different from the 'West Bank.'Now, there is another data point and it comes from Hoyer again. Hoyer told reporters in Jerusalem on Thursday that it's the 'Palestinians' fault that there are no negotiations between the 'Palestinians' and Israel.
Israel Matzav: 'It's the 'Palestinians' fault there are no negotiations' says.... Steny Hoyer"I think the largest thing impeding the negotiations at this point is simply the unwillingness of (Palestinian president Mahmud) Abbas to sit down (with the Israelis)," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters in Jerusalem.
Abbas has refused to meet with Israel's new right-leaning government until the Jewish state ceases all settlement construction in the occupied West Bank in line with repeated demands from the White House.
Hoyer however said the issue of settlements should be addressed through direct negotiations and said if he had met Abbas during his delegation's week-long visit to the region, he would have asked him to drop "preconditions."Read All at :
Israel Matzav: The newest terror sponsor: Venezuela
The newest terror sponsor: Venezuela
The United States has maintained a terror sponsors list since the mid-1990's. Terror sponsors lost their sovereign immunity from lawsuits in US courts and suffer from various other sanctions. Over the years, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea all appeared on the list. Iraq was removed after the US accomplished 'regime change' there. Libya was removed after Khadaffi cut a deal to give up his nuclear weapons. North Korea was removed for no apparent reason.No country has been added to the terror sponsor list in years, but David Hazony says there's one country that may well need to be added: Venezuela.
Israel Matzav: The newest terror sponsor: VenezuelaFor many years, its neighbor and close American ally, Colombia, has suspected Venezuela of actively supporting the FARC rebels, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. But according to at least one high-ranking Israeli military official, FARC is not the only such group enjoying the Venezuelan regime’s support: Hezbollah, it turns out, has established a major presence there as well, supported by the regime in “investing significant efforts to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli targets and Jewish institutions in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru,” according to today’s YNet.
Obviously, the State Department should not take the Israelis’ or the Colombians’ word for it and must conduct a thorough inquiry before making any moves. Yet the failure to dig deeper suggests a dramatic shift in U.S. policy on international terror when compared with not only the Bush administration but the will of Congress as well. Since 9/11, U.S. policy and law have aimed at showing zero tolerance for terrorism, the centerpiece of which strategy has been to make sovereign states accountable for the terrorism they support—not just through the occasional military replacement of their regimes, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also through a wide range of legal and diplomatic sanctions.
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Israel Matzav: Anatomy of a blood libel
Anatomy of a blood libel
On Thursday, I discussed a Human Rights Watch report that accuses Israel of killing eleven 'Palestinians' who were holding white flags in seven different incidents over the course of Operation Cast Lead. For good measure, most of those killed were allegedly children. Later in the day, I posted a video released by the IDF, which shows a Hamas terrorist hiding among white-flag-wielding 'Palestinians.' With aerial surveillance, Israel was able to identify and arrest this particular terrorist.
Some of you may be wondering how Human Rights Watch is able to consistently produce such one-sided reports while maintaining an air of impartiality. Noah Pollak explains.
Some of you may be wondering how Human Rights Watch is able to consistently produce such one-sided reports while maintaining an air of impartiality. Noah Pollak explains.
And who wrote the report? A charming fellow named Joe Stork, who is HRW’s deputy director for its Middle East programs, which in practice means the deputy director of HRW’s campaign to criminalize the Jewish state. HRW would like to create the impression that Stork is part forensic specialist, part human-rights expert. But he is neither. He is among the harshest of anti-Israel partisans. Here is some information on Stork’s pre-HRW activities from a JCPA report:
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Israel Matzav: Anatomy of a blood libel
Israel Matzav: The Standard Left Explanatory System
The Standard Left Explanatory System
Carlo Strenger, an extreme Israeli Leftist (anyone who approvingly cites Yeshayahu "Judeonazis" Leibovitz is an extreme Israeli Leftist in my book, but look at this), explains why Israel's Left has been wiped off the political map. Israel Matzav: The Standard Left Explanatory SystemThe Israeli left's thinking is governed by what I call SLES (Standard Left Explanatory System). This intellectual construct gained popularity in Europe and the United States in the 1960s after the demise of European colonialism. The basic principle of SLES is simple: Always support the underdog, particularly when non-Western, and always accuse Western powers, preferably the United States and its allies, for what the underdog does. Anything aggressive or destructive a non-Western group says or does must be explained by Western dominance or oppression. This ranges from the emergence of Al-Qaida, which is blamed on the United States' dropping of its support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan after the Soviets were expelled, to corruption and violence in Africa, which is blamed on the aftereffects of European colonialism.
Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Obama's apartheid plans in Jerusalem
Obama's apartheid plans in Jerusalem
Steven Plaut has an idea of where President Obama is heading: Israel Matzav: Obama's apartheid plans in JerusalemThe Mufti had owned some property in what is now the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. That property was legally purchased by American businessman Irving Moskowitz, who has owned the property for 20 years now and has a permit to construct an apartment building there in place of the current structure on the site, the Shepherd's Hotel.
The Obama administration is claiming that since the property once belonged to the Grand Mufti and is now in a predominantly Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem, Israel should freeze and halt all Jewish building there. Evidently, under Obama's new affirmative apartheid policy for Jerusalem, only Arabs should be permitted to build in East Jerusalem.
Now, Obama happens to lives not far from Arlington Cemetery, which sits on land confiscated from Confederate General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War. Israel has at least as much right to use the property taken from the Grand Mufti as the U.S. has to fill up Gen. Lee's plantation with graves.
The idea that Israel should prevent Jews from building in East Jerusalem because Palestinians claim some sort of right to it is as absurd as suggesting that all construction in the District of Columbia be frozen because the British once claimed rights over it.~Read All at :
Israel Matzav: Bibi birther?
Bibi birther?
This has to be one of the most ridiculous stories I have heard in a LONG time. But consider the source. Israel Matzav: Bibi birther?The Israeli government has allegedly used its influence in American politics to strengthen the rumors about US President Barack Obama's birthplace.
On Monday, well-known investigative journalist Wayne Madsen said Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's entrenched alliance with the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), various neoconservative groups and fundamentalist Christian organizations had made it "very easy for him to bring this whole canard back" about allegations that Obama has been born in Kenya rather than the United States.Read All at :
Israel Matzav: What J Street has in common with pigs
What J Street has in common with pigs
J Street, which describes itself as being 'pro-Israel, pro-peace,' but advocates Israel's confinement in a best case scenario to what diplomat par excellence Abba Eban referred to as the 'Auschwitz borders,' enjoys key financial support from several Arabs and State Department personnel who have served in Arab countries. If they were really so pro-Israel, would these people be supporting them? Israel Matzav: What J Street has in common with pigs"It raises questions as to their banner that they're a pro-Israel organization. Why would people who are not known to be pro-Israel give money to this organization?" asked Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli diplomat and staffer for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major Washington lobby but not a PAC that makes contributions to candidates. "Once you introduce a large group and large amount of money from people who are suspect in their pro-Israel credentials, J Street loses some of its credibility in claiming it is pro-Israel and representing the Jewish community."
Ben-Ami described the organization as one that is "primarily but not exclusively Jewish" and said that as the numbers of Arabs and Muslims participating in J Street are low, he would like to welcome more non-Jews into the fold.
The funds that come from these sources indeed constitute a small fraction of the year-and-a-half-old organization's political fundraising, which totaled around $844,000 in 2008 - a key election year - and $111,000 so far in 2009. They comprise several dozen of the PAC's 4,000-5,000 donors.Read All at :
Law and Occupation
Law and Occupation
Someone with the tag "Kung Fu Jew" left this comment on a previous post
I think we need to acknowledge that warfare is indeed changing since Israel's inception. But all I'm sensing here is disgruntled complaints about how it's not fair that Israel can't play by the older, more barbaric set of rules. Or how other countries can get away with it, but Israel can't. Suggesting that we lower the bar for Israel, not raise it for other countries, strikes me as wrong.There is a necessary adaptation to a new contemporary understanding of war that the world must make. Changing our international laws of war to account for guerrilla terrorism is part of that. But at least America's public voted down Bush's version of the answer. (And largely Israel's answer, by similarity.) I also think it's fair to say that Israel can't be sympathized with for trying to fight an unjust war justly. Having done work in the territories, I can say that I don't need the majority voices to tell me that what goes on there is unacceptable. I have eyes, it's pretty plain to me that settlement expansion and a majority of the security barrier are not for security at all. There is no just war Israel can fight until the occupation is over. And I feel comfortable with that.
Short and pungent.
Kung Fu blogs at Judaism Without Borders. So here's my response.
Israel plays according to the laws of war. It is more scrupulous about it than any other country, as I document on this blog with regularity.
The problem with the criticism of Israel which pretends to be based on international law is that it isn't. It's based upon an imaginary version of international law – and yes, this imaginary version is not used for any other country. This is hypocrisy and antisemitism, both.
America's public is just fine with the fact that its own way of waging war is far less scrupulous about the laws of war than that of Israel, again a point I make regularly on this blog. Moving from the Bush to the Obama administration has not changed this. Collateral damage is acceptable to Americans to a degree Israel would never dream of; Obama has no intention of changing this because it's the American way of war, though in Afghanistan at the moment the Americans are beginning to be more careful: for tactical reasons, not moral or legal ones.
Settlement expansion in the West Bank is far more limited than you think. The security barrier incorporates less than 5% of the West Bank. Moreover, it has proved to be wildly successful in saving lives.
The war isn't about the occupation. Israel offered to disband most settlements and end the occupation in July 2000 and the Palestinians answered with a wave of suicide murders. Israel unilaterally ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005, and the Palestinians answered with thousands of rockets at civilians. In both cases the Palestinian violence eventually ended when Israel responded with effective violence, thereby proving that its reaction had been proportional to the threat – which takes us back to international law.
The war is about Israel's right to exist. Even prominent Palestinian apologists such as Agha and Malley now admit this. The Palestinians, to give them credit, never said otherwise. Never. Our problem was that we weren't listening to what they were saying quite openly.
I think we need to acknowledge that warfare is indeed changing since Israel's inception. But all I'm sensing here is disgruntled complaints about how it's not fair that Israel can't play by the older, more barbaric set of rules. Or how other countries can get away with it, but Israel can't. Suggesting that we lower the bar for Israel, not raise it for other countries, strikes me as wrong.There is a necessary adaptation to a new contemporary understanding of war that the world must make. Changing our international laws of war to account for guerrilla terrorism is part of that. But at least America's public voted down Bush's version of the answer. (And largely Israel's answer, by similarity.) I also think it's fair to say that Israel can't be sympathized with for trying to fight an unjust war justly. Having done work in the territories, I can say that I don't need the majority voices to tell me that what goes on there is unacceptable. I have eyes, it's pretty plain to me that settlement expansion and a majority of the security barrier are not for security at all. There is no just war Israel can fight until the occupation is over. And I feel comfortable with that.
Short and pungent.
Kung Fu blogs at Judaism Without Borders. So here's my response.
Israel plays according to the laws of war. It is more scrupulous about it than any other country, as I document on this blog with regularity.
The problem with the criticism of Israel which pretends to be based on international law is that it isn't. It's based upon an imaginary version of international law – and yes, this imaginary version is not used for any other country. This is hypocrisy and antisemitism, both.
America's public is just fine with the fact that its own way of waging war is far less scrupulous about the laws of war than that of Israel, again a point I make regularly on this blog. Moving from the Bush to the Obama administration has not changed this. Collateral damage is acceptable to Americans to a degree Israel would never dream of; Obama has no intention of changing this because it's the American way of war, though in Afghanistan at the moment the Americans are beginning to be more careful: for tactical reasons, not moral or legal ones.
Settlement expansion in the West Bank is far more limited than you think. The security barrier incorporates less than 5% of the West Bank. Moreover, it has proved to be wildly successful in saving lives.
The war isn't about the occupation. Israel offered to disband most settlements and end the occupation in July 2000 and the Palestinians answered with a wave of suicide murders. Israel unilaterally ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005, and the Palestinians answered with thousands of rockets at civilians. In both cases the Palestinian violence eventually ended when Israel responded with effective violence, thereby proving that its reaction had been proportional to the threat – which takes us back to international law.
The war is about Israel's right to exist. Even prominent Palestinian apologists such as Agha and Malley now admit this. The Palestinians, to give them credit, never said otherwise. Never. Our problem was that we weren't listening to what they were saying quite openly.
taken fromYaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
Parshat Re’eh: Between Man and God and Man
Parshat Re’eh: Between Man and God and Man
This week’s parshah basically consists of an array of commandments. The parshah starts off with negative commandments; divine commands concerning actions we must stay away from. The bulk of these commandments relate primarily to idolatry, and to staying away from forbidden foods. The next half of the parshah then deals with positive commandments; divine commands concerning actions we must cling to in order to serve God. These include tithes, the sabbatical year etc.
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Parshat Re’eh: Between Man and God and Man
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Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah: RE'EI: LIKE WATER FOR BLOOD
by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman
Native Americans honor the spirit of the hunted animal by drinking its blood. They recognize the spiritual nature intrinsic to the blood, and seek thereby to identify with its spiritual essence. The Torah, on the other hand, also recognizes the spiritual essence of life being in the blood, but at the same time forbids us from drinking it.
In parshat Re'ei we are explicitly enjoined to not "eat" the blood of the sacrificial offering. Also in this week's Torah portion we learn that we do not eat the blood because the blood is the soul of the animal:
"ki haDam hu haNefesh (Deut 12:23)."
"for the blood is the soul/life."
Native Americans understood this but in its opposite application. They drank the blood of their prey so as to honor its spirit.But we may rightly ask, in this post sacrificial age, what possible moral lessons can we derive from this teaching? Aside from the practicalities associated with the ritual slaughter that is performed for food, even in this day and age, what can we learn from the following verses?
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Native Americans honor the spirit of the hunted animal by drinking its blood. They recognize the spiritual nature intrinsic to the blood, and seek thereby to identify with its spiritual essence. The Torah, on the other hand, also recognizes the spiritual essence of life being in the blood, but at the same time forbids us from drinking it.
In parshat Re'ei we are explicitly enjoined to not "eat" the blood of the sacrificial offering. Also in this week's Torah portion we learn that we do not eat the blood because the blood is the soul of the animal:
"ki haDam hu haNefesh (Deut 12:23)."
"for the blood is the soul/life."
Native Americans understood this but in its opposite application. They drank the blood of their prey so as to honor its spirit.But we may rightly ask, in this post sacrificial age, what possible moral lessons can we derive from this teaching? Aside from the practicalities associated with the ritual slaughter that is performed for food, even in this day and age, what can we learn from the following verses?
Read All at :
Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah: RE'EI: LIKE WATER FOR BLOOD
Israel Matzav: All present and accounted for, sir
All present and accounted for, sir
The IDF announced on Thursday evening that it has accounted for all soldiers and that no soldier has been kidnapped. Israel Matzav: All present and accounted for, sirThe IDF on Thursday night allayed suspicions that a soldier was kidnapped after all soldiers were said to be accounted for at the end of a protracted roll call.
...
The army immediately initiated an emergency procedure roll call throughout all active units, including reservists, after a female soldier who was getting off a bus near an air force base outside the airport told her commanders that she had seen two civilians forcefully pushing a soldier into a car and then fleeing the scene. She was some distance from the scene she had witnessed, officials said, noting that she had passed a lie-detector test.
The IDF reviewed the reliability of the soldier's testimony - the only eyewitness account - while police scrambled helicopters to join ground units trying to prevent the alleged kidnappers from fleeing the region. By the evening, almost all soldiers had been accounted for.Read All at :