Let us talk about peace…

Nurit Greenger | August 8, 2014

Today, two rockets were fired at Israel before the 72 hours ceasefire has officially ended. Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas was broken for the 9^th time.

Ceasefire is over-photo Lefteris Pitarakis-AP

Israeli cease-fires with terrorist organizations and withdrawals from terrorist-run territory is the cause of its endless need for military operations in these very same terror organizations’ land. Peace never ensues that way; only the promise of the next operation, the next war, and the fulfillment of that promise. A vicious cycle that will never end, never.

US deterrence and Islamic terrorism

Yoram Ettinger

According to the July 30, 2014 Rasmussen Reports, 59 percent of likely U.S. voters ‎believe that there is a global conflict between the Muslim world and ‎Western civilization, only 17 percent disagree and 24 percent are undecided. Likely ‎voters also believe that the Arab Spring does not bode well for the U.S.‎

The U.S. posture of deterrence played a key role in bolstering Western ‎civilization in face of intensifying threats, checking global violence and ‎instability, bolstering the confidence of U.S. allies, and constraining the ‎maneuverability of rogue regimes.‎

Making David Into Goliath

Daniel Greenfield On August 8, 2014

The David Horowitz Freedom Center will be hosting an evening reception with “Making David into Goliath” author Joshua Muravchik on August 13, 2014. For more information, click here. 
Empathizing with the underdog is a natural human instinct. When we see a little David facing off against a mighty Goliath, our hearts go out to the little guy. But what happens when Goliath pretends to be David and then accuses David of really being Goliath?
That is the situation that Israel finds itself in and it is also the topic of Joshua Muravchik’s new book, Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel.
Muravchik’s book looks at how the Arab Muslim countries swapped a hard military war for a soft political and cultural influence operation that combined murderous terrorism with economic boycotts and academic programming to convince the world that Israel was Goliath and they were little David.
It’s easy to spot the absurdity of the region’s intolerant and supremacist Sunni Muslim majority reinventing its identity as that of an oppressed people, but Muravchik also shows how this reinvention used the so-called “Palestinians” as a political vehicle for larger cultural goals. The current portrayal of Arab Muslims as an oppressed group stems in part from their association with the “Palestinian” cause.

Are All Dead Children Created Equal?

Sultan Knish

While furious mobs of leftists draped in Keffiyahs and corn syrup were shrieking about Gaza in the public squares of every major city, ISIS was continuing its genocidal advance on Baghdad. In the last 24 hours, the Yazidis, a non-Muslim minority, fled ISIS to a mountaintop where their children are dying of thirst. 

The stark reality of their plight, caught between thirst and a genocidal army, is in sharp contrast to the phony claims made about Gaza where truckloads of goods continue passing from Israel during wartime, where the malls have iPhones and the five star hotels offer cakes so tall they can only be cut from a crane.

The dead Yazidi children won’t inspire any protests or much in the way of outrage. The hysterical rallies for Gaza won’t suddenly turn into anti-ISIS rallies. If any of the angry white hipsters with dead baby posters are asked about it, they will offer some variation on, “It’s Bush’s fault” or “It’s Tony Blair’s fault.”

Female Israeli Soldiers and American Feminists

Jeannie DeAngelis

Almost daily, Americans are subjected to the rantings of the likes of Democrat darling Sandra Fluke, Democrat politician Wendy Davis, and crazier-than-a-hoot-owl Nancy Pelosi.  Shamelessly, Sandra Fluke insists that the government finance her $3,000-a-year birth control habit.  In Texas, Wendy Davis made a name for herself by standing for 11 hours on the crushed corpses of aborted babies filibustering Senate Bill 5’s abortion regulations.
And then there’s Mrs. Nancy "I’m Significant and You’re Not" Pelosi, who rationalizes promoting a crisis on the border with references to Baby Jesus and Moses, and who then, when challenged with the truth about her party’s culpability in that border crisis, manifests like Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, insulting colleagues by calling them “insignificant.”
Wait!  Didn’t Arizona Governor Jan Brewer justifiably scold Barack Obama on the tarmac of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport for undermining Arizona’s right to defend its own border?  And didn’t appalled liberals call Brewer’s finger-wagging disrespectful and demeaning?

Gaza Bishop: Hamas Used Church to Fire Rockets

"Islam is the rule of this place and whatever Hamas says we must obey or face consequences"

Israel Revolt

Jeff Dunetz

Gaza City's Greek Orthodox church which was sheltering 2,000 displaced Palestinians at the time, was used by members of Hamas as a launching pad for rockets fired at Israeli territory, according to Archbishop Alexios, Gaza's most prominent Christian leader.
Bishop Alexios told CBN News he opened the doors of the Saint Porphyrios church to the Palestinians because of his faith, "Christ tells us we must love each other, our neighbors, and our enemies."

Alexios and the estimated 1,500 Arab Christians who live in the Gaza Strip walk a fine line between trying to stay alive and the Bible's command to share God's love. Since Hamas' 2007 takeover of Gaza, residents say it's imposed strict Taliban-style Islamic laws on the people.
"Islam is the rule of this place and whatever Hamas says we must obey or face consequences," Alexios explained.
Now he's now concerned about what comes next after the guns fall silent and missiles and rockets stop flying.

Obama’s new plan for Hamas

      

By CAROLINE B. GLICK

President Barack Obama has a plan.

He wants to use the cease-fire talks in Cairo to strengthen Fatah.

In remarks Wednesday, Obama said, “I have no sympathy for Hamas. I have great sympathy for some of the work that has been done in cooperation with Israel and the international community by the Palestinian Authority. And they’ve shown themselves to be responsible. They have recognized Israel. They are prepared to move forward to arrive at a two-state solution. I think [PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a.] Abu Mazen is sincere in his desire for peace.”

Obama’s plans for the cease-fire were spelled out in detail the day before in a column by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. There Ignatius claimed that Secretary of State John Kerry has abandoned his previous position on the cease-fire. That position was harshly criticized by Israeli leaders and US media heavyweights, including Ignatius himself, for its clear bias in favor of Hamas.

Hamas' Phony Statistics on Civilian Deaths

Alan M. Dershowitz

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4585/hamas-phony-statistics-on-civilian-deaths
 
It's a mystery why so many in the media accept as gospel Hamas-supplied 
figures on the number of civilians killed in the recent war. Hamas claims 
that of the more than 1800 Palestinians killed close to 90% were civilians. 
Israel, on the other hand, says that close to half of them were combatants. 
The objective facts support a number much closer to Israel's than to Hamas'.
 
Even human rights group antagonistic to Israel acknowledge, according to a 
New York Times report, that Hamas probably counts among the "civilians 
killed by Israel" the following groups: Palestinians killed by Hamas as 
collaborators; Palestinians killed through domestic violence; Palestinians 
killed by errant Hamas rockets or mortars; and Palestinians who died 
naturally during the conflict. I wonder if Hamas also included the reported 
162 children who died while performing child slave labor in building their 
terror tunnels. Hamas also defines combatants to include only armed fighters 
who were killed while fighting Israelis. They exclude Hamas supporters who 
build tunnels, who allow their homes to be used to store and fire rockets, 
Hamas policemen, members of the Hamas political wing and others who work 
hand in hand with the armed terrorists.

Migrating Birds Know No Boundaries

Nurit Greenger 

Professor Yossi Leshem is a world-renown ornithologist, which means birdwatcher. He is known in Israel as the “Birdman”, working at the Department of Zoology of Tel Aviv University, Israel.

 

Professor Yossi Leshem

No matter how small is Israel, her location makes the country the center of birds’ migration from Europe to African and from Africa to Europe. During the migration seasons, in total, approximately one billion birds pass through Israel, half a billion twice a year.

Hamas, Gaza and body count ratios

Stephen Games 

Global outrage about the deaths of nearly 1,900 Palestinians now focuses on the alleged disproportionality of Israel’s attacks. For some, the word “disproportionality” simply means huge, for others excessive, but for an increasing number it is the code word that they hope will trigger a charge of war crimes against Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.

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Speaking two days ago at a commemoration of the start of the First World War, France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said that Israel’s “killing of children and slaughter of civilians” was unjustified and demanded that a political solution be imposed by the international community.”

In parallel with this, senior British lawyers have attempted to initiate an ICC investigation into Israel’s “crimes” in Gaza, including the shelling of homes, hospitals and schools.

The Twisted Path of Judeophobia

Ari Lieberman On August 7, 2014

Europe likes to think of itself as enlightened but Operation Protective Edge and Israel’s counter-offensive against Hamas terrorism has highlighted the extent to which Jew hatred is still ingrained on the continent. To be fair, much of the anti-Semitism we are witnessing there manifests itself among the Muslims who have made Europe their home. But in all honesty, European authorities have allowed the malignancy to fester and metastasize to the point where it is now uncontrollable and threatens other non-Muslim communities. Naturally, Jews, because of their small size are the focus for now but once the Muslim community reaches sufficient numbers, Sikhs, Hindus and yes, even Christians will be next. One need look no further than Gaza, Egypt, Iraq and Syria to witness first-hand the fate of Christians who live in majority Muslim states.

Amnesty can't find any evidence of Hamas using hospitals and ambulances???

Elder of Ziyon

Amnesty released a report claiming that Israel "deliberately" targeted ambulances and hospitals, based entirely on witness accounts.

As one might expect, they completely discount the possibility that "eyewitnesses" in Gaza often lie to push an anti-Israel narrative.

After all, Amnesty has admitted that Palestinian Arabs often lie about attacks they "witnessed." Their researcher even admitted that NGOs are sometimes swept up in events and cannot look at the situation objectively.

Too bad they do not follow their own advice, because this report is as biased as they come.

This is clear from this paragraph:

Amnesty International is aware of reports that Palestinian armed groups have fired indiscriminate rockets from near hospitals or health facilities, or otherwise used these facilities or areas for military purposes. Amnesty International has not been able to confirm any of these reports.

To anyone who thinks Amnesty is unbiased, this must come as an astonishing claim. While Amnesty believes, without question, the testimony of people who hate Israel, they cannot find a shred of evidence that terror organizations use hospital workers as human shields and use hospitals as bases of operation.

40,000 Yazidis stranded on mountain as Islamic State jihadists threaten death

Robert Spencer
“The Kurdish minority Yazidis have long been regarded as devil worshippers by Sunni jihadists who have targeted them since the US invasion. As the extremists’ latest and most potent incarnation, the Islamic State, has steadily conquered Iraq’s north, the small, self-contained community has been especially vulnerable.” But despite the UNICEF hand-wringing in this story, the international human rights community is unlikely to take any significant action. To take such action would require an all-out war against the Islamic State, and no one wants that or is in a position to undertake it.
An update on this story. “40,000 Iraqis stranded on mountain as Isis jihadists threaten death,” by Martin Chulov, the Guardian, August 6, 2014:

Tens of thousands of members of one of Iraq’s oldest minorities have been stranded on a mountain in the country’s north-west, facing slaughter at the hands of jihadists surrounding them below if they flee, or death by dehydration if they stay.
UN groups say at least 40,000 members of the Yazidi sect, many of them women and children, have taken refuge in nine locations on Mount Sinjar, a craggy mile-high ridge line identified in local legend as the final resting place of Noah’s ark.
At least 130,000 more people, many from the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, have fled to Dohuk, in the Kurdish north, or to Erbil, where regional authorities have been struggling since June to deal with one of the biggest and most rapid refugee movements in decades.
Sinjar itself has been all but emptied of its 300,000 residents since jihadists stormed the city late on Saturday – but an estimated 25,000 people remain. “We are being told to convert, or to lose our heads,” said Khuldoon Atyas, who has stayed behind to guard his family’s crops. “There is no one coming to help.”
Another man, who is hiding in the mountains and identified himself as Nafi’ee, said: “Food is low, ammunition is low and so is water. We have one piece of bread to share between 10 people. We have to walk 2km (1.2 miles) to get water. There were some air strikes yesterday (against the jihadists). But they have made no difference.”
At least 500 Yazidis, among them 40 children, have been killed in the past week, local officials say. Many more have received direct threats, either from the advancing militants, or members of nearby Sunni communities allied with them. “They were our neighbours and now they are our killers,” said Mr Atyas.

Caliph Ibrahim's Brutal Moment

Daniel Pipes
The Washington Times

http://www.meforum.org/4769/isis-caliph-ibrahim

After an absence of 90 years, the ancient institution of the caliphate roared back into existence on the first day of Ramadan in the year 1435 of the Hegira, equivalent to June 29, 2014. This astonishing revival symbolically culminates the Islamist surge that began forty years ago. A Western analogy might be declaring the restoration of the Hapsburg Empire, which traced its legitimacy to ancient Rome.
Whence comes this audacious move? Can the caliphate last? What will its impact be?
For starters, a quick review of the caliphate (from the Arabic khilafa, meaning "succession"): according to canonical Muslim history, it originated in 632 CE, on the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, then spontaneously developed, filling the nascent Muslim community's need for a temporal leader. The caliph became Muhammad's non-prophetic heir. After the first four caliphs, the office became dynastic.
From the start, followers disagreed whether the caliph should be the most able and pious Muslim or the closest relative of Muhammad; the resulting division came to define the Sunni and Shi'i branches of Islam, respectively, causing the profound schism that still endures.

“With Clear Eyes”

I will be posting less frequently now that the war is over – updating my readers often but not necessarily daily on the anticipated negotiations in Cairo and other matters of importance for Israel.

 

But for today, having stepped back for 24 hours plus now to assess the situation and gather information, I want to focus in this posting on how I see our current situation. And to make a couple of pertinent comments:

 

Wishful thinking is an indulgence we cannot permit ourselves now.  What is necessary is to look at the broader picture with eyes wide open.  And to recognize that there is no perfect solution to our very difficult and complex situation.

 

With all the above in mind, I do believe that stopping the war at this point – and heading towards negotiations in Cairo - is probably the best solution for Israel at present.  I write this fully aware of the fact that some strenuously disagree with me and believe Hamas must be taken out.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

Experts or Ideologues? Double Standards: War Crimes, Collective Punishment, Human Shields, Abducted Soldiers

The references for this article are available here. Double Standards: War Crimes, Collective Punishment, Human Shields, Abducted Soldiers War crimes Human rights and international law are based on universal norms. The application of those norms and the appropriation of this language to support narrow interests or ideological objectives, violate this universality. In this section, we provide evidence of HRW’s consistent double standards and disproportionate focus on allegations against Israel.

Hugh Hewitt and Edward Klein Vs the Clintons’ and the Obamas’

Nurit Greenger 
 

Hugh Hewitt is an American lawyer, academic, author and a conservative radio talk show, in Los Angeles on AM 870 and to whom I love listening whenever possible. Edward Klein is an American bestselling author who, recently has published the book Blood Feud about Clintons’ and the Obamas’.

Yesterday, at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, surrounded by beautiful the lush green garden, in Yorba Linda, California, in front of a large audience, Hugh Hewitt and Edward [Ed] Klein got together for a live radio program following by a Q and A session.

I was there and I report of a set of photos.

Don’t Rebuild Gaza

Want to solve a part of the Arab-Israel conflict? Then don't rebuild Gaza...

By: Shalom Bear

 

Published: August 6th, 2014

 

We’ve seen this movie before. Hamas attacks Israel, Israel fights back. Israel destroys Gaza. International community rebuilds Gaza. Hamas attacks Israel…
It’s always the same thing, and everyone chooses to ignore the lessons each time.
It’s time the international community stops rebuilding Gaza. You’re wasting your taxpayer’s money and donations.
President Obama did everything in his power to save the Hamas Jihadis, I don’t know why, except that he and the State Department want them as the legitimate representatives of the Gazan people.
But Hamas is evil. Hamas is Jihadi, like ISIS and Al Qaida.
And as long as evil like Hamas exists, an evil that vows to destroy Israel, this cycle will simply play out again.

World Ignores Christian Exodus from Islamic World

Raymond Ibrahim
August 6, 2014

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4572/christian-exodus-islamic-world

"They were trying to kill us... because we were Christians." — Teenage girl from Homs, Syria.
There have been house-to-house searches in Mali for Christians who might be in hiding, and people tortured into revealing Christian relatives. At least one pastor was beheaded.
It is to the media's shame that those who slaughter, behead, crucify and displace people for no other reason than that they are Christian rarely get media coverage, while Israel, which kills only in the context of trying to defend itself from rocket attacks and terrorism, and not out of religious bigotry, is constantly demonized.
Paying jizya [special poll tax for non-Muslims] is not only about money. It is about subjugation.

While the world fixates on the conflict between Israel and Hamas—and while most mainstream media demonize Israel for trying to survive amid a sea of Arab-Islamic hostility—similar or worse tragedies continue to go virtually ignored.

Understanding Gaza: The Knife and the Bomb

Michael Widlanski
 

Maps show Gaza is built like a dagger, but a closer look reveals a ticking bomb.
It is a patchwork of labyrinthine alleys lined with booby-trapped buildings and smugglers' tunnels built under the main streets laced with enough explosives to throw huge battle tanks several feet into the sky. 
Much of this is not completely new.
Since Biblical times Gaza has been a lethal weapon, the coastal attack route from Egypt into Asia. It was the base of sea-faring Philistines, non-Arab idol worshipers who died many centuries ago, after fighting Israelites like Samson, Saul, and David.
In modern times, Gaza was the favored invasion corridor of Egypt's corpulent and corrupt King Farouk (1948) and the svelte and deadly pan-Arab demagogue Gamal Abdul-Nasser who pushed Farouk from power but treated Gaza just like him -- as a springboard for personal and national ambitions, herding refugees into closed camps.
Farouk and Abdul-Nasser exploited refugees, pointing them at Israel like daggers.