DoubleTapper: Not your Grandmothers UZI

Not your Grandmothers UZI

Take a standard configuration UZI


Add a Picatinny Rail,
Fore Grip, Flashlight, Scope, Drum Magazine, and what do you get?

How about an IDF Custom silencer?

What about full amphibian warfare capabilities?

Not your Grandmother's UZI!

IDF Women Cadet 1970's with IWI UZI SMG

IDF Women have been issued the UZI SMG since it's creation.

These IDF Women are about 69 years old now.
Some of them still like to shoot

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DoubleTapper: Not your Grandmothers UZI

The Torah Revolution: Like it or not

The Torah Revolution: Like it or not

Aharon Karov: Miracle, Patriot, Regular Guy

Aharon Karov: Miracle, Patriot, Regular Guy

I fist wrote here about Aharon Karov on February 3rd, ten months ago. During the first week of the Gaza operation, as most of the work was being done by the air force, his commanding officer let him out for a few days to get married. The morning after the wedding, however, he was called back to complete the preparations of his platoon for battle. A few days later, as he commanded them under fire, the media caught wind of the story and splashed it all over the papers: a young lieutenant called from his wedding into battle. A few days after that he was grievously wounded when Hamas fighters exploded a booby-trapped home on his troops. The assumption was that he would not survive.

In April I told that he was out of the hospital. A month or two later he re-joined his platoon for an imprtant ceremony, and was promoted to first lieutenant. Then he blessedly dropped off our communal screen for a while - though I must add that when I read the Goldstone Report and its silly descriptions of the sort of warfare it authors imagined must have been happening in Gaza, Karov's story did flit through my mind. There's not much in the Goldstone Report that would explain how he was wounded.

Now he's back again. Yediot had a long interview with him and his wife, Zvia, in their weekend section - but it doesn't seem to be online in any form so I can't link to it. Channel Two TV interviewed him.

Here's some of the story. He was called up at 8 am after the wedding. He and Zvia both cried, but never doubted he had to go do his duty. She sent her love via the newspaper story, but he was unable to send her any response.

When the building collpased on him, two other soldiers literally pulled him out from under the rubble, using the single visible limb. He had no face and hardly a head. A medic saved his life on the spot by inserting an air pipe through where the mouth had been to his lungs. Twenty minutes later a helicopter evacuated him, but during the flight the air pipe failed. A flight medic (these were 20-year-old medics, not doctors) opened his throat and inserted another pipe, thus averting his death for the third time in half an hour. After arriving at the hospital the doctors gave him no real chance for survival; one later told his wife that he thought it might be possible to avert his death but he'd never regain consciousness. His parent were rushed to the hospital to say goodby. His wife was told only that he was very seriously wounded.

The wife, Zvia, always assumed he'd be alright, she says, even during the long weeks in which he very much wasn't. A matter of religious belief, she says, but also the fact that one of her older brothers was mortally wounded in a previous war and recovered fully; he is now a lieutenant colonel.

Eleven months after his injury, he's still not fully back, but he's better than anyone in the know ever dared hope, and still improving. In a few weeks he and Zvia are to travel to Arizona, where there's a specialist who knows how to rebuild his face ("How often do you think someone's nose falls off, that a plastic surgeon would know how to deal with it?" Zvia asks).

Does he have regrets? "That I wasn't able to stay with my platoon until they completed their training." What gave him the strength to cope? "We don't give up. In our family, we never give up". Does he ever regret returning to his unit that morning? "No. Never. It was my duty. If I don't do my duty, who will?" How does he explain his recovery? "There were always three of us in this story. Zvia, me, and God. The three of us did it together".

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Love of the Land: For Hezbollah, Lebanon is an afterthought

For Hezbollah, Lebanon is an afterthought

Tony Badran
NowLebanon.com
08 December 09

Two things were unsurprising about Hezbollah’s political document,unveiled on November 30 by the party’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, namely its content and characterization in the media. The document reaffirmed the party’s determination to defend its parallel state while simultaneously forcing its priorities on Lebanon’s state and society, without abandoning its ideological principles or strategic objectives.

A closer look at the document shows that what has been hailed as a “new” platform is in fact a point-by-point expansion of the principles laid out in Hezbollah’s founding document, the so-called Open Letter, of 1985. And what is not explicitly laid out in the document, Nasrallah clarified in his press conference, as did other Hezbollah officials in media outlets.

First and foremost, the party remains as determined as ever to safeguard its autonomous armed status in an open-ended way, reaffirming the “duality” between itself on the one hand and the rest of Lebanon on the other. In fact, as Nasrallah himself remarked to the assembled journalists, the “Resistance” (by which he meant Hezbollah’s autonomous armed status), “still holds first place.” The document’s section on Lebanon outlines Hezbollah’s conception of the country as being directly intertwined, both thematically and structurally, with the Resistance. In other words, there is no Lebanon without the Resistance. As Nasrallah’s deputy, Naim Qassem, put it in 2007, Hezbollah’s objective is to integrate the rest of society into the Resistance, not vice versa, as some are claiming.

(Full article)

Love of the Land: For Hezbollah, Lebanon is an afterthought

Israel Matzav: 26% of Americans think Obama deserves Nobel Peace Prize

26% of Americans think Obama deserves Nobel Peace Prize

Only 26% of Americans believe that President Me Me Me deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

But only 26 percent think the president, who has been in office for less than a year, deserves to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Q: "The jump in public support for Obama’s war policy comes as voters say 66 – 26 percent he does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize he will be awarded this week, and 41 percent say the Nobel committee’s choice of Obama for the award causes them to think less of it, while 6 percent say it makes them think better of the prize and 49 percent say it makes no difference."

I would say that this Nobel Peace Prize is likely to go down with Jimmy Carter's, Yasser Arafat's and Mohamed ElBaradei's as a political stunt that was a bad idea.

Heh.

Israel Matzav: 26% of Americans think Obama deserves Nobel Peace Prize

Israel Matzav: Behind the Swiss minaret vote: Fear

Behind the Swiss minaret vote: Fear

Writing in the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum appears to be onto something about last week's vote against minarets in Switzerland.

The vast majority of Switzerland's 400,000 Muslims are from Turkey and Kosovo, and women from these countries generally do not follow the conservative dress codes commonly seen in places such as Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia.

Nevertheless, people in places just like Nyon recently voted decisively -- 57.5 percent -- in favor of a referendum that will ban the construction of minarets on mosques throughout Switzerland. This decision has been interpreted across Europe, and particularly in the United States, as evidence of Swiss bigotry and rising religious intolerance. But it was not -- or at least not entirely. More important, it was evidence of fear, though not fear of "foreigners" or "outsiders" as such.

There is very little evidence that separatist, politically extreme Islam is growing rapidly in Switzerland. The Swiss, however, read newspapers and watch television. And in recent years separatist and politically extreme forms of Islam have emerged in every European country with a large Muslim population: Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Sweden. In all of these countries there have been court cases and scandals concerning forced marriage, female circumcision and honor killings. There have been terrorist incidents, too: Think of the London Tube bombings, the Spanish train bombs, the murder of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh. Remember that the Sept. 11 pilots came from Hamburg.

There are many explanations for this phenomenon (the best is found in Christopher Caldwell's recent book, "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe"), but, to put it very crudely, they boil down to one thing: Because of mistakes made by Europeans and by the Muslim immigrants who live beside them, the two groups have, over the past several decades, failed to integrate. Two or even three generations after their arrival, some European Muslims still live in separate communities. They often go to separate schools. And a small but vocal minority openly refuses to respect the laws and customs of their adopted countries.

No European government has found a way to deal with this phenomenon. Those that have tried often find themselves running up against their own civil rights and legal traditions. The Danes, determined to limit the number of foreign spouses entering Denmark through arranged marriages, decided that they had no choice but to make it more difficult for all Danes to marry foreigners. The French, realizing that the headscarf had become a symbol of political affiliation in some French schools, found themselves limiting the rights of all students to wear religious clothing, including yarmulkes, to school.

But here's the problem in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe: It's too late. They've already allowed in thousands of Muslim immigrants, while native European birth rates have sunk to levels that approach one child per couple. Europe will likely by Muslim by the middle of this century.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Behind the Swiss minaret vote: Fear

Israel Matzav: Russia tripling its Israeli-made drones

Israel Matzav: Russia tripling its Israeli-made drones

Israel Matzav: Egypt's official media attacks ElBaradei

Egypt's official media attacks ElBaradei

Now that he said over the weekend that he'd be willing to consider a run for Egypt's Presidency, departing IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is being attacked by Egypt's official media.

Osama Saraya, the editor in chief of al-Ahram, the main government newspaper, accused ElBaradei of "bearing a grudge towards his country" and said he represented foreign interests "opposed to the Egyptian reform experiment."

The editor of another government newspaper said ElBaradei had opposed Egyptian and Arab interests at the IAEA, and suggested that he had helped the United States invade Iraq in order to secure another term as head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Mofid Shehab, a government minister, was quoted as saying that ElBaradei would be "wrong" if he considered running for president because he had spent a long time abroad and lacked political and party experience.

...

The Egyptian constitution sets tough eligibility conditions for presidential candidates who are not affiliated with any of the parties in parliament. In particular, candidates need to secure 250 endorsements from members of elected councils.

This hurdle, widely considered to be almost insurmountable, is seen as being designed to limit the competition to leaders of weak legal political parties who could easily be defeated by the NDP candidate.

Give it up Mohamed. Go retire to the French Riviera. There are enough Muslims there that you won't feel alone.

Israel Matzav: Egypt's official media attacks ElBaradei

Israel Matzav: Iran simulates nuclear warhead detonation

Iran simulates nuclear warhead detonation

I guess now we know why IDF military intelligence chief Yossi Baidetz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that Iran can produce a nuclear weapon whenever it wants. They've done the final simulation (Hat Tip: Atlas Shrugs).

German intelligence reports that Iranian scientists have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead in laboratory conditions, in an effort to sidestep an underground nuclear test like the one that brought the world down on North Korea's head earlier this year. DEBKAfile's Iranian and intelligence sources report that this development is alarming because detonation is one of the most difficult technological challenges in the development of a nuclear weapon. Mastering it carries Iran past one of the last major obstacles confronting its program for the manufacture of a nuclear warhead.

After this breakthrough, the German BND intelligence believes it will take Tehran no more than a year to perfect its expertise and stock enough highly-enriched uranium to make the last leap toward building the first Iranian nuclear bomb or warhead. DEBKAfile's military sources confirm that simulated detonation of a warhead takes Iran to the highest level of weapons development.

Using the example of Israel and other nations, Western nuclear arms experts have claimed in recent years that since the emergence of simulated detonation technique, nuclear tests are no longer necessary.

How's that 'engagement' going? Any signs of the clenched fist opening?

Israel Matzav: Iran simulates nuclear warhead detonation

Israel Matzav: Hmmm....

Hmmm....

This is from a JPost article about an IDF request for proposals for the development of a stealthy unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that would be capable of flying undetected in combat zones.

In an effort to increase its intelligence-gathering capabilities, the IAF will in the coming months establish a new squadron of Heron TP Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), called the Eitan, manufactured by IAI.

The Heron TP is the largest Israeli UAV, with a 26-meter wingspan, the same as a Boeing 737. It weighs 4,650 kilograms and can fly at an altitude of up to 45,000 feet.

The Heron TP is capable of reaching Iran and, according to Defense News, is capable of carrying more than a ton of weapons as well as specialized sensors, electronic warfare and targeting gear in its forward section, its principal payload bay and on each tail of its twin boom.

Hmmm.

That's the Herron at the top of this post.

Israel Matzav: Hmmm....

Israel Matzav: Israel 'banning' foreign leaders from Gaza?

Israel 'banning' foreign leaders from Gaza?

JPost reports on Tuesday (as if it's big news) that Israel has a 'policy' of denying foreign officials entry into Gaza from Israel's crossing points.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's government has an undeclared, but de facto policy, of not letting senior political figures, such as foreign ministers, enter the Gaza Strip from Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

According to government officials, the reasoning is twofold: to deny Hamas legitimacy that would come of such visits, and as a way of trying to apply pressure over kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit.

The policy has come to light after Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin told a parliamentary committee last week that Israel had banned a visit he had hoped to make to Gaza.

Responding to criticism that Israel was trying to hide the situation in Gaza, Israeli government officials pointed out that statesmen can always enter Gaza through Egypt.

The Post goes on to list who has been allowed in and who has not.

Prior to Netanyahu's coming to power on March 31, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, EU Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, and US Sen. John Kerry were all allowed into the area.

Since then, such high-level visits have, for all intents and purposes, stopped.

Northern Irish Republican leader Gerry Adams went to Gaza in early April, but that was less than two weeks into the Netanyahu government.

Israel has since refused requests by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and now Martin, to visit Gaza.

According to Israel's envoy to Ireland, Zion Evrony, the Irish Embassy in Tel Aviv made initial inquiries regarding the Martin visit, and the proposed itinerary included a visit to Gaza and a meeting with UNRWA's director of operations there.

The Foreign Ministry, Evrony said, "replied that our general policy is not to have visits to Gaza included as part of official visits to Israel. This is out of concern for the safety of our guests visiting an area that is under the rule of a terrorist organization, as well as because of our overall policy of objecting to gestures which give the Hamas regime legitimacy. This legitimacy is created by visiting the area, even if no direct meeting with Hamas officials takes place."

Evrony said that several days ago the Foreign Ministry was informed by Dublin that Martin had decided to postpone his visit.

I'm not sure what the big deal is. Israel has had a policy for a long time that anyone who met with Hamas 'officials' would be denied access to the Israeli political echelon on the same trip. Heads of state and foreign ministers would presumably be meeting with Israeli government officials. Telling them to go to Gaza through Egypt if they insist on going ensures that no one double crosses us by meeting with Hamas.

Remember the Hamas letter to Kerry that was delivered by UNRWA? I suspect that was the impetus for this policy. And from where I sit, it's a policy that makes sense.

Israel Matzav: Israel 'banning' foreign leaders from Gaza?

Israel Matzav: Obama bows to Erdogan

Obama bows to Erdogan

If President Obama actually bowed to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in Washington on Monday, he at least managed to keep it out of the news media's site. But Obama's treatment of Erdogan was befitting of a fawning apprentice - the type of treatment that American allies never get from the Obama administration.

In a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Monday, US President Barack Obama called Turkey an "important player" in keeping Iran's nuclear energy program peaceful despite his recent criticism of the Western approach towards Teheran.

Speaking beside Obama at a White House press conference, Erdogan said that the two leaders discussed what could be done "jointly in the region with regard to nuclear programs."

He also stressed that "we stand ready as Turkey to do whatever we can do with respect to relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel and Syria."

...

US officials said they would like to see Turkey return to such a mediation role, though none is currently on the table, but indicated they understood Israeli discomfort with the idea given Turkey's rhetoric on Gaza.

Obama also praised Turkey for helping stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, and concluded his remarks, which followed a lengthy Oval Office meeting ahead of a working lunch, by calling Turkey "a great country" and Erdogan a personal friend.

It was the prime minister's first trip to the Obama White House, and the two leaders extended their tete-a-tete to review an "enormous agenda" of issues, as one US official put it.

The meeting came amid growing disagreements between Washington and Ankara over a slew of policies, notably Iran and Israel.

We could smell that rhetoric here in Israel. It's just plain false, and one cannot help but wonder what Obama hoped to accomplish by adopting it.

In the Los Angeles Times, Soner Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the author of "Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk?," argues that Turkey's anti-Western foreign policy, which Obama and Erdogan glossed over in Monday's meeting, actually hurts Muslims.

A comparison of the AKP's Israel and Sudan policies helps define Turkey's Islamist foreign policy. Since coming to power, the AKP has not only built a close political and economic relationship with Khartoum but also defended Sudanese leader Omar Hassan Bashir's atrocities in Darfur.

Last month, Erdogan said: "I know that Bashir is not committing genocide in Darfur, because Bashir is a Muslim and a Muslim can never commit genocide." What? The International Criminal Court indicted Bashir and has called for his arrest for war crimes in the Darfur conflict, in which 300,000 Sudanese -- mostly Muslims -- have died.

The AKP's Sudan policy stands in stark contrast to its Israel policy. At a World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Erdogan chided Israeli President Shimon Peres, Jews and Israelis about the Gaza war, for "knowing well how to kill people." Erdogan then walked off the panel. Days later, he hosted the Sudanese vice president in Ankara.

This is an ideological view of the world, guided not by religion but by a distorted premise that Islamist and anti-Western regimes are always right even when they are criminal, such as when they are killing Muslims. And in this view, Western states and non-Muslims are always wrong, even when they act in self-defense against Islamist regimes.

Cagaptay argues that Turkey's foreign policy hurts ordinary Muslims in Sudan and elsewhere. And indeed it does.

What can be said of Obama? Perhaps he too is indifferent to the suffering of ordinary Muslims and reflexively favors anti-Western regimes. That certainly would appear to be the case based on Obama's treatment of former allies like Israel, Honduras, Georgia, India, South Korea and other countries, as compared with his treatment of former enemies like Iran, Venezuela, Russia and North Korea. He has lashed out at countries that were squarely in America's court when he took office, while coddling dictatorships (under the rubric of 'engagement') with whom the United States has (or had) deep disagreements.

Obama and Erdogan are birds of a feather. No wonder they got on so well on Monday.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Obama bows to Erdogan

Israel Matzav: Good news: Venezuela acquires 'thousands' of missiles

Good news: Venezuela acquires 'thousands' of missiles

Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez announced on Monday that his country has acquired 'thousands' of missiles from Russia in preparation for possible armed conflict with Colombia and/or the United States.

"They are preparing a war against us," Chavez said during a televised address, repeating a charge he has been making for months. "Preparing is one of the best ways to neutralize it."

Both Colombia and Washington deny having any plans to attack Venezuela, but Chavez argues they are plotting together a military offensive against Venezuela. Chavez says his government is acquiring more weapons as a precaution.

"Thousands of missiles are arriving," Chavez said. The former paratrooper-turned-president did not specify what type of missiles, but said Venezuela's growing arsenal includes Russian-made Igla-1S surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

...

Chavez also said Monday that Russian tanks, including T-72s, will be arriving "to strengthen our armored divisions."

If Israel has to attack Iran, which is Chavez's ally, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, does anyone really expect Chavez to sit on the sidelines?

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Good news: Venezuela acquires 'thousands' of missiles

Israel Matzav: Netanyahu left hanging high and dry

Netanyahu left hanging high and dry

In an op-ed in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren reveals some of what's going on in Israel over the 'settlement freeze' and calls for the 'Palestinians' to issue a positive response to Netanyahu's politically damaging initiative. Along the way, Oren praises the Obama administration for its response to the freeze.

The Obama administration praised the decision and recognized its significance. Special Envoy George Mitchell hailed the decision as "substantial," and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it "unprecedented."

...

What Mr. Mitchell and Mrs. Clinton understand, but what the Palestinians miss, is that Mr. Netanyahu has shown more flexibility on this issue than any previous head of his Likud Party, which is staunchly pro-settlement. Indeed, he has gone further than any prime minister in limiting a right that many Israelis consider incontestable and a vital component of their national security.

Indeed, Prime Minister Netanyahu has gone further than any previous head of the Likud, and further than any previous Prime Minister as well (Olmert and Barak both tried to go further but failed). I would argue that Netanyahu was wrong to do so. But has the American response really been as supportive as Oren makes it out to be? In an editorial appropriately titled "All pain no gain," the JPost argued that the American response has been tepid at best.

Since the freeze was announced, US Special Envoy George Mitchell has managed to contain his enthusiasm. While acknowledging that Netanyahu has gone further than any previous Israeli leader, Mitchell could bring himself to say only that he wants to see permanent status negotiations resume "as soon as possible."

To which Mahmoud Abbas essentially responded: "I don't think so."

In an interview with a Washington-based think tank, Mitchell did at least reiterate Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent statement that negotiations should be "based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps."

...

Since the freeze was announced, US Special Envoy George Mitchell has managed to contain his enthusiasm. While acknowledging that Netanyahu has gone further than any previous Israeli leader, Mitchell could bring himself to say only that he wants to see permanent status negotiations resume "as soon as possible."

To which Mahmoud Abbas essentially responded: "I don't think so."

In an interview with a Washington-based think tank, Mitchell did at least reiterate Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent statement that negotiations should be "based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps."

...

So Netanyahu's US-pressed freeze has pitted settlers against soldiers. It hasn't swayed Abbas or the Arab League. Hamas is bemused. Europe is little impressed.

The Obama administration, which so far has merely offered parsimonious praise, needs to do better.

Could this be an American payback to the 'Palestinians' for leaving Abu Mazen hanging high and dry over the 'settlement freeze' that should never have even been proposed in Jerusalem? In return, now they're going to leave Netanyahu high and dry for having gone along with the 'freeze' everyplace else?

Our response ought to be that we are folding up shop until there's a new administration or a new attitude. Obama would likely do no less to us.

By the way, the Post points out correctly that Netanyahu made a huge tactical error by including the 'settlement blocs' in the freeze. From the standpoint of the revenants, that was a great move, because it united residents of Maaleh Adumim (which is just east of Jerusalem and within the 'security fence') with residents of Maaleh Levona (which is outside the 'security fence'). But from Netanyahu's perspective of wanting to show that he's not giving up everything, it's a horrible move. Did Obama insist on it?

The country's in good hands. What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Netanyahu left hanging high and dry

Israel Matzav: And I thought this sort of thing only went on in Israel

And I thought this sort of thing only went on in Israel

The United States has now reached the point where law students are denied jobs based on their conservative political leanings. And I thought that sort of thing only happened in Israel.

/Based upon personal experience that is not the subject matter of this blog.

UPDATE 2:20 PM

More on this story here.

My New York headhunter emails that unfortunately this sort of thing has become quite common in the US.

All under the reign of America's first 'post-partisan' President.

Israel Matzav: And I thought this sort of thing only went on in Israel

Israel Matzav: Good news: Iran can produce a nuclear weapon whenever they want

Good news: Iran can produce a nuclear weapon whenever they want

Israel's Chief of Military Intelligence Yossi Baidatz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that Iran now has the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon whenever they want.

Iran now has the technical capability to build a nuclear bomb and the only thing separating it from the bomb is the decision to go ahead and build one, said Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of Military Intelligence's research division on Monday.

Speaking at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Baidatz said Iran had successfully enriched 1,800 kilograms of uranium, enough to build over one bomb.

Baidatz also said that Iran had been upgrading its missile arsenal, and that it had developed missiles with the capability of carrying nuclear weapons that can reach Israel.

Oh well. We lost the fight to stop them. I guess now we will just have to 'contain' them.

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: Good news: Iran can produce a nuclear weapon whenever they want

Israel Matzav: A significant boost?

A significant boost?

The possibility of Israel surrendering the Golan Heights to Syria got a 'significant boost' on Monday when Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he has been told by French President Sarkozy that Netanyahu and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can talk to the same Islamist Turkish mediator (separately, of course) about Israel surrendering all of the Golan to Syria without Israel agreeing before the 'talks' that it will surrender all of the Golan to Syria.

Sounds real 'significant' doesn't it?

What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: A significant boost?

Israel Matzav: American jihadi charged in Mumbai attacks

American jihadi charged in Mumbai attacks

In November, I reported that a Chicagoan with Pakistani roots had been arrested and charged with plotting to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllens-Posten, which published the Mohamed cartoons. At the time, it was thought that he was also involved in planning the Mumbai terror attacks last year. On Monday, he was formally charged with involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks.

Court documents charge that David Coleman Headley, 49, an American citizen who is the son of a former Pakistani diplomat and a Philadelphia socialite, conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai, India, for more than two years prior to the attacks by the terrorist group called Lakshar-e-Taiba, which is based in Pakistan. Six Americans were among the dead in those attacks.

He has been charged with conspiracy to murder and maim in a foreign country, and material support of terrorism. Federal officials said the most serious charges, conspiring to carry out bombings that resulted in deaths, carry possible sentences of death or life in prison.

The Justice Department said that Mr. Headley, who is cooperating with the government’s investigation, spent several years and considerable effort on behalf of the plotters, attended training by the group in Pakistan, videotaped targets and briefed the other conspirators on how to carry out the attack on India’s largest city.

Mr. Headley took boat trips in and around Mumbai harbor in the spring of 2008, videotaping potential landing sites for the attackers, who would arrive by sea, the court documents charge. He also scouted out other potential targets in Mumbai and elsewhere in India that were not attacked, including the National Defense College in Delhi.

The warning signs were all there, but in the United States, which searches 80-year old women with hip replacements at its airports while allowing Muslims in their 20's to walk through unhindered, those warning signs were ignored.

Mr. Headley was born in Washington, where his Pakistani father and American mother worked at the Pakistani Embassy, he as a diplomat and she as a secretary. Mr. Headley’s mother, Serrill, grew up in a fashionable suburb of Philadelphia, and the cultural differences between her and her husband were too vast for the marriage to survive after the family went to Pakistan.

Serrill Headley left her husband and her children and moved back to Philadelphia sometime in the early 1970s. She worked at various office jobs and borrowed enough money from a suitor to buy an old bar, which she named the Khyber Pass.

In the late 1970s, she brought her adolescent son to Philadelphia to live with her. “Daood was not immune to the pleasures of American adolescence,” a former Khyber Pass employee once recalled.

Nor, to judge from his own words, was he immune to the lure of Islamic fundamentalism. “Courage is, by and large, exclusive to the Muslim nation,” he told high school classmates in an e-mail message last February.

More chilling was an e-mail message he wrote defending the beheading of a Polish engineer by the Taliban in Pakistan: “The best way for a man to die is with the sword.”

The picture was taken inside Chabad House in Mumbai after the terror attacks. Nor/Headley posed as a Jew and visited Chabad House to learn its layout as part of the attacks' planning.

Read the whole thing.

Dr. Rusty adds:

The importance of this being that radical Islamists are now using their American passports to bypass suspicion that would normally be put on them if traveling under, say, a Pakistani passport. They are using their American citizenship to plot and execute terrorist plots abroad.

And this is not too fine a point to make either for Headley was originally born Daood Gilani and only changed his name to make it sound less Muslim and more flyover country American. He also admits he did this to make international traveling easier.

Up until now we have only seen cases of individual Americans joining terror groups (eg, al Shabaab in Somalia, al Qaeda in Afghanistan) abroad. Americans have also been involved in planning failed terror plots at home. But Headley would be the first case of an American actually involved in the planning of a major terror attack abroad.

Think about that. An American involved in international terrorism abroad. That's a big deal and a far cry from our template of what the usual suspects would look like.

Also, lest our neighbors in the Great White North feel left out there's a Canada connection too. Headley's accomplice -- the man who's business Headley used as a front to conduct his terrorist surveillance activities abroad -- is named Tahawar Rana and is a Canadian citizen.

The business which was really a front for terrorism? An immigration service that helped foreigners get US work visas.

Think about the implications of that.

Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: American jihadi charged in Mumbai attacks

Israel Matzav: President Obama's 'new beginning'

President Obama's 'new beginning'

Writing in the New Republic in response to President Obama's speech at West Point last week, in which he announced that he is sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, Marty Peretz argues that President Obama cannot embark on a 'new beginning' with Islam (as Obama claimed he wanted to do in Cairo last June) until he faces up to reality.

I suspect that the assembled men and a few women thought that Obama's definition of the adversary--here, I myself trim; isn't it really "enemy?"--was rather thin. "A group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world's great religions, to justify the slaughter of innocents." If only the men of Al Qaeda were only a group of extremists. And the Taliban, the same.

In the last few days alone, these "extremists" have blown up a train (and maybe even a nightclub with over 100 dead) in Russia, massacred fifty-odd civilians in the Philippines, bombed a Somali medical school graduation and killed some 22 students with their instructors (this is the country's second medical school class in 20 years), executed a suicide attack on a mosque in Pakistan with at least 40 gone to the creator and, in the guise of a government, continued the persecution of democrats and moderate Muslims in Iran.

I believe that there is an epidemic of extremism in Islam. Not all extremists become jihadists, of course. But many do. And they do so quietly and surreptitiously. We already know that the security agencies simply ignored the terrorist education of Dr. Hasan. We know that a Palestinian agitator--a Jerusalemite, no less--infiltrated the Obamas' first White House state dinner. But we are also assured that he was a flake, with dozens of civil suits against him. OK, leave him off the list. But do remember that a resentful Palestinian nationalist, also a native Jerusalemite, assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in a kitchen of Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel. He, however, was a Christian. OK, leave him off the list, too. At your peril.

The fact is, as Barack Obama refuses to grasp, Islam needs to shoulder responsibility for what is done in its name. For what is not rejected--in most cases, not at all rejected--by the sages of present-day Islam. Since the president has taken to lecture Americans about "one of the world's great religions," which I believe it to be, he might also take to studying why so many of its elders in schools of theology and other authoritative men have embraced, publicly embraced, the gangsters in their midst.

The failure to hold Islam accountable for what is done in its name has been the problem all along, hasn't it?

Read the whole thing.

Israel Matzav: President Obama's 'new beginning'

Israel Matzav: The village idiots

The village idiots

Leftist David Forman has a very uncomplimentary comparison between Jimmy Carter and Richard Richard Goldstone.

However, despite Carter's and Goldstone's extensive backgrounds in problem-solving, when it comes to applying balanced standards to Middle East diplomacy, they are not just self-righteous moralists, but ineffectual politicians. Both men have proven to be naïve, ignorant or, in Carter's case, just plain mean-spirited.

GOLDSTONE SHOULD never have headed up the UN investigation of the Gaza war. It is not that his report is so inaccurate. There are aspects of the inquiry that rightfully take Israel to task - although its accusations that Israel committed war crimes and crimes against humanity are completely out of proportion to the new reality of a country defending itself against a bunch of terrorist thugs who subscribe to the rule of the jungle over the rule of law.

But Goldstone, a Jew, must have known that his Jewishness would be used against the Jewish people. Ironically, Goldstone found himself criticizing the one-sided UN resolution that condemned only Israel - in contradistinction to the findings of the inquiry - when it voted to accept the report and begin the process of sending it to the International Court at The Hague. Did Goldstone not realize that such a distortion of the report would be promulgated by the Arab nations, whose leaders would emphasize that Goldstone is a Jew - and would unabashedly say: "Look what Goldstone the Jew, who authored the report, says about Israel's actions"? His present US speaking tour only exacerbates the situation.

Not to be undone - and not unexpectedly - Jimmy Carter weighed in with his full support of the Goldstone report, especially its criticism of Israel. Carter tells us that Hamas has announced that it has initiated an independent investigation into its actions, just as Goldstone wanted. No one else has heard about Hamas examining itself, particularly since it completely rejects the Goldstone Report's criticism of its conduct during the war. However, Carter, as he wrote in an op-ed piece in the International Herald Tribune, takes Hamas at its word. Even if one were to assume the impossible - that Hamas would investigate itself - does any sane individual truly believe that an objective report would ever emanate from Hamas? This is not just foolhardy, it is pure idiocy.

Read it all.

Will Carter protege Barack Obama be next?

Israel Matzav: The village idiots

Love of the Land: Whither American Jewry and Berkeley’s Hillel?

Whither American Jewry and Berkeley’s Hillel?

The campus Jewish organization makes common cause with Israel's enemies while rejecting Jewish values.

Abraham H. Miller
PajamasMedia.com
07 December 09

When the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick engaged the topic of “divergence” — the parting of ways between Israelis and the American Jewish left — she culled appropriate examples from Berkeley’s Hillel, a liberal Jewish campus organization. Even in Berkeley, Hillel’s antics are more than a source of embarrassment to the activist, pro-Zionist component of the Jewish community.

However, Hillel’s repeated bad behaviors of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist activities are absent opposition from Jewish community leaders. Their tactic is to deny every episode that reaches the public agenda, while giving a wink and a nod to what happens on campus. Caroline Glick is sure to be bombarded with denials, either from here or from the national organization. She should be comforted as to the accuracy of her renditions in direct portion to the intensity of these denials.

The current mantra concerning Hillel from those doing damage control is that Hillel has now changed. But the reality is that Glick’s description of a Hillel that is both anti-Jewish and anti-Israel is as true today as it ever was.

Yes, Hillel did finally celebrate Passover, after two years absence. And much is made of this as a harbinger of change. We are showcasing to the world that an organization committed to the preservation of Jewish values is actually celebrating Passover.

But what we would prefer not to publicize is that Hillel’s students were involved in this years’ Zionist-bashing, Israel Apartheid Week, sponsored by the virulent, anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine. Hillel’s Valentine’s Day invitation took an insensitive and provocative swipe at orthodox Jews, calling them “scary,” perhaps suggesting that they were somehow the equivalent of Islamist suicide bombers.

All of this came in the absence of a learning curve from past bad behavior that included celebrating Cinco de Mayo with a barbeque party on Yom Hazikoron, the day of remembrance for fallen Israeli soldiers, and holding a dance party on Yom Hashoah, the solemn day of mourning for the Holocaust.

While Hillel students have been cautioned by Hillel leadership not to demonstrate on behalf of Israel and have been told that the Israeli flag is an offensive, militaristic symbol, there has been no such cautions when it comes to Hillel-sponsoredKesher Enoshi working with Students for Justice in Palestine and bringing in Israeli John Kerrys to discuss war crimes in Gaza in an event known as “Breaking the Silence.”

Even the name itself is a misnomer. Israeli soldiers are free to speak their minds and to put up what they want on the Internet. There is no silence to break. There is no incarceration that awaits them for taking their ideas to the public. And among all soldiers, there is always the fringe of the fringe, the John Kerrys of the world, whose ego can only be sated by turning the deviant to the commonplace.

What of programs that will extol the behavior of the Israeli military as a professional and moral army, as former British Army Colonel Richard Kemp described them? Such programs are as likely to be held at Hillel as a program on the value of covert operations is likely to be held on the Berkeley campus.

(Continue reading)

Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science and a former head of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association.

Love of the Land: Whither American Jewry and Berkeley’s Hillel?

Love of the Land: Freeze of Jewish Construction in Judea and Samaria: Peace or Appeasement Enhancer?

Freeze of Jewish Construction in Judea and Samaria: Peace or Appeasement Enhancer?

Yoram Ettinger
The Ettinger Report
December 09

Freeze of Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria is based on a series of erroneous assumptions:

1. A Freeze will not soften – but will intensify - President Obama's criticism of "settlements" in particular and Israeli policy in general. For instance, Prime Minister Netanyahu's June 14, 2009 Two-State-Solution-speech triggered exacerbated pressure by Obama. Moreover, Netanyahu's willingness to exchange hundreds of Palestinian terrorists for Gilad Shalit was followed by US pressure to release more terrorists.

2. A Freeze will not moderate – but will whet the appetite of - the PLO (Abu Mazen) or Hamas (Haniye'); it will radicalize their demands and fuel their terrorism. Former Prime Minister Barak's sweeping concessions, offered to Arafat and Abu Mazen in October 2000, were greeted by the PLO-engineered Second Intifada'. Furthermore, Prime Minister Olmert's unprecedented offer of concessions (including the return of some 1948 refugees) was rebuffed by Abu Mazen.

3. A Freeze re-entrenches the misperception of Jewish presence in Judea & Samaria as a/the obstacle to peace. It diverts attention and resources from the crucial threat to peace: Abu Mazen-engineered hate education - the manufacturing line of terrorists - and Arab rejection of the existence – and not just the size – of the Jewish State.

4. A Freeze and the adherence to Presidential dictate will not transform the White House position on Iran-related matters. Besides, a Freeze and the adherence to Presidential dictate do not constitute a prerequisite to maintaining constructive strategic relations with the USA (e.g. supply of critical military systems and crucial strategic cooperation). In fact, a Freeze and a serial submission to Presidential pressure – just like any other form of retreat - erode Israel's strategic posture in Washington and in the Middle East. Such an attitude ignores the role and power of Congress – especially when it comes to the Jewish State - at the dire expense of Israel's national security.

Is Jewish construction in Judea & Samaria an/the obstacle to peace?

1. In September 2005, Israel uprooted 25 Jewish communities from Gaza and Samaria. Gaza became Judenrein. It paved the road to the meteoric rise of Hamas, and induced more smuggling, manufacturing and launching of missiles at Jewish communities in Southern Israel.

2. President Obama defines Jewish presence in Judea & Samaria as a root cause of Arab hostility toward the Israel. However, Jewish communities were first established in Judea and Samaria after the Six Day War of 1967, long after the 1956 and 1948 wars, the 1949-1967 campaign of Arab terrorism, the 1964 establishment of the PLO, the 1929 slaughter of the Hebron Jewish community and the 1929 expulsion of the Gaza Jewish community, the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s slaughter of the Jewish community of Gush Etzion, etc.

(Continue reading...)

Love of the Land: Freeze of Jewish Construction in Judea and Samaria: Peace or Appeasement Enhancer?

Love of the Land: The Real Threat to Middle East Peace

The Real Threat to Middle East Peace

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
08 December 09

David Ignatius’s account of a war game involving the United States, Israel, the Europeans, and Iran (and Gary Sick’s addendum) is a good guide to how the struggle over the Iranian nuclear program might play out:

The U.S. team — unable to stop the Iranian nuclear program and unwilling to go to war — concluded the game by embracing a strategy of containment and deterrence. The Iranian team wound up with Russia and China as its diplomatic protectors. And the Israeli team ended in a sharp break with Washington.

Let me try to flesh out what the “sharp break with Washington” might consist of.

It’s clear at this point that the Obama administration has reconciled itself to a nuclear Iran and even, I think, convinced itself that this won’t be such a bad thing. After all, China opened up to the West after it went nuclear. We dealt with the Russians after they went nuclear. The Indians and Pakistanis haven’t nuked each other, despite Kashmir and all the terrorism. Neither has Israel used nukes, for that matter.

In fact, Iran going nuclear might help remove the chip on the shoulder of the Islamic Revolutionaries by making them feel as important as they hope to be — because as we all know from our Iran experts, there’s an important psychological dimension to all of this; one must understand the legacy of colonialism and imperialism. The nuclear program will really be a socialization program, in other words. It is how Iran will be broken to the saddle of the international system.

(Continue article)

Love of the Land: The Real Threat to Middle East Peace

Love of the Land: Wanted: Palestinian "Peace Now" Movement

Wanted: Palestinian "Peace Now" Movement

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
08 December 09

(There is a pretty simple reason why this has not taken place, and can be easily understood by all but the most obstinate. The endgame for the PA and Hamas, Hezbollah, as well as many others in the neighborhood, is the final and ultimate demise of Israel and those who live in it. This is not an issue that really is open to compromise, irrespective of the hopes and wishes of the West.)

Many Palestinians who work with international or Israeli organizations whose job is to promote peace and coexistence in the Middle East are often afraid or reluctant to discuss the nature of their work, even though it is much more important to teach Palestinian children about coexistence, peace and normalization with Israel than to pressure Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table.

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, any talk about these is still associated with treason and defeatism. The Palestinian leadership’s actions and words have sent the following message to its constituents: Any person who thinks about normalization or coexistence with the Jewish state will be severely punished.

By cracking down on the Palestinians who are working for normalization and coexistence with Israel, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have prevented the emergence of a real peace camp among Palestinians. Has anyone ever heard of an authentic and serious “Palestinian Peace Now” movement in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip?

Where are all the American, European and local non-governmental organizations that are supposed to use US and EU taxpayers’ money to promote peace, moderation and coexistence?

When the Strings of Freedom Orchestra returned home to the refugee camp of Jenin in the northern West Bank, the musical director, Wafa Yunis, was fired and her studio apartment in the camp was sealed. The Palestinian Authority, whose leaders have been talking to Israel for more than fifteen years, accused Yunis of “exploiting the children for the purpose of normalizing ties with Israel.”

While Israel has seen the creation of scores of organizations that work toward achieving peace with the country’s Arab neighbors over the past thirty years, it is still taboo in the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories to talk about normalization and coexistence between Palestinians and Jews.

(Continue article)

Love of the Land: Wanted: Palestinian "Peace Now" Movement

Love of the Land: Open letter to the NIF: False Claims in Attack on Knesset Conference

Open letter to the NIF: False Claims in Attack on Knesset Conference

Gerald M. Steinberg

December 07, 2009

We are disappointed to see that the New Israel Fund (NIF) has joined the unprofessional and non-substantive attacks on NGO Monitor over the December 1 Knesset conference that focused on “Foreign Government Funding for NGO Political Activity in Israel.” The homepage of NIF’s website now (December 7) features a crude blog and a tendentious Jerusalem Post oped which falsely accuse NGO Monitor and me of “suppressing free speech” by calling for transparency in foreign governmental funding for Israeli NGOs. By highlighting such one-sided and ad hominem polemics, NIF’s website suggests a return to the mud-slinging that characterized earlier periods in its history.

This presentation is also highly deceptive. Readers of the NIF website have no way of knowing that the Knesset discussion, to which NIF leaders were invited, was not concerned with NIF grants. The purpose of this event was to discuss a detailed research report on the problems inherent in foreign government funding for non-governmental organizations in Israel, and related legislation.

In order to promote a serious debate, the Knesset sponsors invited Rachel Liel (CEO of NIF-Israel), along with officials from B’Tselem, ACRI, Adalah, and others, to speak. NIF readers are not told that Rachel Liel refused to attend, and that the NGOs decided to boycott this important Knesset discussion, in the attempt to discredit it. NIF’s position paper, which was distributed at the conference, made the false charge that the “purpose [of the conference] is repression and silencing of voices.”

We urge the new leadership of NIF, both in the U.S. and Israel, to end their role in such counterproductive ideological attacks, and join with us in constructive debate on the role of political NGOs. We hope that you will agree that criticism should be accurate and substantive – not personal.

In the spirit of pluralism and constructive dialogue, we ask that you post this response on the NIF website.

Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg
President, NGO Monitor

Love of the Land: Open letter to the NIF: False Claims in Attack on Knesset Conference