This Ongoing War: A Blog

27-Jan-12: Uncommonly plain talk about the nightmare being plotted in Iran

2012-01-27T15:27:00.000+02:00

Iran: Messianic, religious, military, commercial
and nuclear issues all rolled into one unholy complex dilemma.

Richard N. Haass is the former Director of Policy Planning in the U.S. State Department and now president of the Council on Foreign Relations. In a short essay entitled "Answering Iran", he makes some very straight-forward assertions about is being plotted from Teheran. Here's the main statement:

We know quite a bit about Iran's nuclear program, and what we know is not encouraging. Iran is reported to be enriching uranium at two sites - some of it to levels of 20%, far beyond what is required for civilian purposes. The International Atomic Energy Agency also reports that Iran is carrying out research to develop designs for nuclear warheads. In short, Iranian officials' claims that their nuclear program is aimed solely at power generation or medical research lacks all plausibility.

Unless one's head is firmly thrust into a hole in the ground, there are some other aspects of this evolving catastrophe that ought to interest - well, just about everyone, since just about everyone stands to lose if the crazies of Teheran win. Haass points out what we don't know:

We do not know whether Iran is conducting secret activities at undisclosed sites, or when Iran could develop a crude nuclear weapon, with estimates ranging from several months to several years. We also do not know whether Iran’s divided leadership has decided to develop nuclear weapons, or to stop just short, calculating that the country could derive many of the benefits of possessing nuclear weapons without running the risks or incurring the costs of actually doing so.

Whatever we - the free world - decide to do, Haass points out that all the choices are tough or free of risk. And those risks, along with the costs that go along with them, can be calculated with certainty.

What if we accept a nuclear-armed Iran?

Given its use of subversion and terrorism against its adversaries, a nuclear-armed Iran might be even more assertive. It might also transfer nuclear-related material, technology, or weapons to allies (Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, for example) or radical organizations such as Hizbullah and Hamas. Nor can it be assumed that Iran's radical leadership would always act rationally, or that proliferation would stop with the Islamic Republic. If Iran develops its nuclear weapons, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt would be tempted to purchase or develop nuclear weapons of their own.

Haass sums it up as cogently as anyone else has so far:

A Middle East with multiple fingers on multiple triggers is as good a definition of a nightmare as there is.

The whole article is worth a close read.

And if you're not sufficiently rattled by it, or if you feel those much publicized sanctions are going to turn the Iranians away from the headlong race into hell, go and read an outstanding piece of analysis, "Sanctions on Iran: Ushering in the post-American world" by J. E. Dyer on the Optimistic Conservative blog site. Commander Dyer applies her acuity to an eloquent description of the Chinese (and to an extent the Russian) business model of geopolitical pressure, maneuver, and intimidation. This is a very frightening scenario.

27-Jan-12: Rocks of reality? A postscript

2012-01-27T13:31:00.001+02:00

A blog we posted earlier today ["27-Jan-12: Reality bites and the Palestinian Arab future is not what it used to be"] ended with a comment based on someone's use of the expression "rocks of reality".

Four months ago, almost to the day, we wrote about another in the depressingly long list of Palestinian Arab acts of hatred-driven terror directed against Israeli Jews. It was headlined "25-Sep-11: "Only" rock throwers - but now a father and his infant son are dead".

Two days ago there was a postscript.

Terror victim's widow gives birth Puah Palmer, whose husband Asher and son Yonatan were killed in West Bank five months ago, gives birth to girl
Four months after her husband and infant son were killed in a terror attack in the West Bank, Puah Palmer gave birth Wednesday to a baby girl. Asher Palmer, 25, and his 1-year-old son, Yonatan, died in September when their car overturned after it was stoned as they were traveling on Highway 60.

The terrorists strike, there's a victim, maybe two, a paragraph appears somewhere on the inside pages (or not at all) or is linked via a small headline on a webpage, perhaps even a photo (a small one, never intended to be seen by people outside the family)... and life goes on.

But for those of us who have lived through the terror and the tragedy and the trauma, life is never the same. Oh certainly, it's the same and life goes on if you are not the victim or the victim's widow or the victim's parent.

But if it reaches into the most intimate parts of the life you were living before the barbarism and racism and hatred of those terrorists forced their way in, then life most assuredly is never the same again.

May the new life to which the young widow, Puah Palmer, gave birth this week become a source of pride and happiness to her, to her family circle and to the whole community and people of Israel. May the baby girl have the merit to do many positive and considerate deeds in her life, thus enlarging the stock of the world's good, and diminishing the evil for which the stone-age killers of her father and her older baby brother stand. Mazal tov!

27-Jan-12: Quote of the day: Are the Iranians bluffing?

2012-01-27T10:51:00.000+02:00

Ethan Bronner in yesterday's New York Times writes ["Israel Senses Bluffing in Iran’s Threats of Retaliation"] about the calculations of certain decision-makers in Israel:

“Take every scenario of confrontation and attack by Iran and its proxies and then ask yourself, ‘How would it look if they had a nuclear weapon?’ ” a senior official said. “In nearly every scenario, the situation looks worse...” No issue in Israel is more fraught than the debate over the wisdom and feasibility of a strike on Iran. Some argue that even a successful military strike would do no more than delay any Iranian nuclear weapons program, and perhaps increase Iran’s determination to acquire the capability... Speaking of the former leaders of Libya and Iraq, he [Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, chief of the IDF’s planning division] said, “Who would have dared deal with Qaddafi or Saddam Hussein if they had a nuclear capability? No way..." When a senior Indian officer was visiting recently, he was asked why the Indians had done so little in response to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. “When the other side has a nuclear capability and is prepared to use it, you think twice,” the officer replied, referring to Pakistan.

27-Jan-12: Reality bites and the Palestinian Arab future is not what it used to be

2012-01-27T09:03:00.000+02:00

The double-headed world of Palestinian Arab politics
has gotten one-head more complicated, and that's just the start
[Image source]

We wrote recently about the triumphant tour of Middle East capitals by the "prime minister" of the Hamas terrorist regime, Ismail Haniyeh. His speeches in Ankara and such Arab capitals as Tunis, Cairo and Khartoum were filled with threats of the destruction to shortly rain down on Israel's head and promised "difficult days" for Israel.

"We are saying to the Zionist enemies that times have changed and that the time of the Arab Spring, the time of the revolution, of dignity and of pride has arrived."

But what's actually happening to Hamas, though, is more interesting than their bombastic war talk. Because inside Hamas, and in its immediate surroundings, things have changed, are changing and are certain to lead to even larger changes. Gay Bechor, an Israeli political commentator, lays some of this out in a Ynet op ed article today entitled "Hamas in deep trouble: Op-ed: Despite pompous declarations, terror group faces problems on multiple fronts"

Bechor points out that Haniyeh has lately been rousing the crowds with pretentious calls for the establishment of a Palestinian jihadist army of liberation, but reality is imposing some real challenges on him and his organization.

For instance, the mutually-productive alliance of terrorists between Sunni Moslem Hamas and non-Arab, non-Sunni, Shi'ite Iran has come to an end, at least for now. In mid 2011, Iran ordered the Hamas leadership to throw its extremely-well-armed support behind the flailing, blood-drenched Syrian despot Bashar al Assad. But this was more than Hamas was willing or able to do. Consequently, Bechor says,

"the flow of money used by Hamas to pay some 50,000 officials and troops in Gaza has ended. So where will Hamas get money? This is why the organization is engaged in bitter disputes with the Palestinian Authority and Arab League over funds supposedly owed to the group. Hamas was also forced to leave the capital of its external leadership in Damascus. Where will it go now? There were hopes that Jordan will take in Hamas’ headquarters, until the group’s leadership was stunned last week to hear that Jordan is imposing limitations. Jordan’s prime minister made it clear that the country will host senior group figures and their families as “individuals,” banning them from any political activity. Hence, the Jordan option is no longer viable in furious Hamas’ view.

Bechor makes an interesting observation about the Egyptian option:

With the Muslim Brotherhood aiming to portray itself as pragmatic and realistic in the eyes of the world, moving the headquarters of a terror group to Cairo would be an embarrassment. Haniyeh himself visited Egypt and spoke at length about Israel’s demise, yet Brotherhood representatives kept silent, and this silence should worry him. The Muslim Brotherhood now needs to care not for 50,000 people, but rather, for 88 million.

Haniyeh's victory tour was said to be predicated on the changes wrought by the mis-named Arab Spring and the conviction that newly empowered Islamic political parties would embrace Hamas. Not so much, as it turns out. Says Bechor:

We certainly saw lip service, but establishing a Jihad army against Israel? Every Arab state is currently contending with deep domestic problems; this existential trouble dwarfs Hamas’ problems.

Bechor's article also deals with the increasingly complex battle for control and influence within the world of the fractious Palestinian Arabs. The stop-start-stop-again "reconciliation" with Fatah (which Haniyeh opposes). The stop-start-stop-again road to Palestinian elections. And, most troublesome for them, the way in which

the double-headed Palestinian politics has now become tripled-headed: The domestic Hamas, external Hamas and Abbas. Each leadership has its own political agenda and its own senior figures.

And that's before we start to factor the newest edition of the Palestinian Arab national past-time - vicious infighting - into the equation. A well-documented Jonathan Schanzer article, "When Palestinian Politics Get Personal" in latest Weekly Standard lays out the contours of the Mahmoud Abbas witch-hunt to bring down Mohammad Dahlan:

It underscores the fact that Abbas has consolidated power, and that he will abide no challenges. Abbas’s whims bode poorly for the Palestinian Authority, which may now expend more energy settling scores than resolving the long-standing conflict with Israel.

Abbas and Dahlan: "The PA president last week requested
three different countries to freeze fixed and liquid assets belonging
to former Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan amid
ongoing corruption charges" [Source]. Dahlan meanwhile has been
making corruption charges of his own against Abbas and family.

The whole Weekly Standard article is worth reading for the sharp light it shines on the sea of money the Palestinian Arab leadership has looted from international aid agencies and from its own subjects over the past three decades.

Guy Bechor wraps up his analysis with a glance at the fleeting moment in the sun achieved by the Gazan Palestinian Arabs during the blockade-busting glory days of the last two years.

Now, when the siege is no longer in place [he notes] with the border crossing to Egypt open to people and goods, how will the organization survive on the public relations front? This may be the worst problem faced by a group that lives off anti-Israel slogans and now finds itself crashing against the rocks of reality.

Rocks of reality? Now there's an image to have in mind when the next choreographed, media-coordinated rock-throwing attack on Israelis appears in your newspaper or evening TV.

24-Jan-12: Thwarted a stabbing in the Tomb of the Patriarchs this morning

2012-01-24T13:36:00.000+02:00

Gustave Dore: The Burial of Sarah (completed 1866)

In the ancient and sacred (to Judaism and Islam) Tomb of the Patriarchs (in Hebrew: Me'arat Hamachpela), a Palestinian Arab man in his thirties made an attempt to stab the Israeli Border Guards securing the entrance this morning, according to a Ynet report. The attack was thwarted and the stabber is in custody. The Tomb, in Hebron, is the traditional burial place of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah, and according to the Biblical account, Genesis 23:1-20, was acquired by Abraham from Ephron at a price of four hundred shekels of silver. It is the world's most ancient Jewish site.

At the request of several Arab states, UNESCO resolved in 2010 to declare the Tomb a "Palestinian" heritage site. A Haaretz article at the time ("Israel slams 'absurd' UNESCO decision on Jerusalem, West Bank holy sites") said the UNESCO board voted 44 to one, with 12 abstentions, to declare the Tomb of the Patriarchs "an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories".

We're reminded of the statement made by a former foreign minister of Israel, the quotable and erudite Abba Eban, who had an uncommon ability to see and explain the absurd in public life. He knew what it meant to faced the tyranny of loaded and prejudiced international organizations, especially the organs of the Arab-dominated UN. "If Algeria introduced a resolution", he famously said, "declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions."

Eban was an optimist.

23-Jan-12: Caught some more terrorists

2012-01-23T17:30:00.001+02:00

In Jerusalem today, the police along with Shin Bet agents arrested two senior Hamas people: Muhammad Totah and Khaled Abu-Arfa. Ynet calls them "activists from east Jerusalem", while reports from Egypt describe them as "law-makers" without actually pointing out how out of date that affiliation is: the Palestinian parliament has held no sessions since 2007.

The interesting part is that Totah and Abu-Arfa have been taking refuge inside the International Committee of the Red Cross building at 8 Nabi Shu'eib Street in east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood for the past 18 months. (Those facts are confirmed by the ICRC, according to this report.) There had earlier been a third member in their little party, another Hamas man by the name of Ahmad Attoun. He was lured out and arrested several months ago.

This source reported back in March 2011 that the Hamas fugitives were themselves personally involved in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit in 2006. They were to be deported from Jerusalem in summer 2010, but fled instead to the Red Cross building in Jerusalem on 1st July 2010 where they

"held court on a daily basis with no protest from their hosts... During that time, they've held a number of press conferences and met with foreign dignitaries, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Every Friday, dozens of East Jerusalem residents gather at the Red Cross to hold prayers as a show of support."

The Jerusalem Post says today that the Hamas fugitives had been quite open about their goals with their Red Cross hosts. They notified ICRC officials from the first that they planned to hold protests on the Red Cross premises to draw attention to "their situation". Evidently no one inside the Red Cross objected. Instead:

"The Red Cross has provided the politicians with a room inside the building where they can sleep and keep their belongings, a bathroom, electricity for their large protest tent, and a water cooler, it is understood. Family members came daily to bring food and clothes." [JPost]

Ten months ago, when the CBN report was first published, a spokesperson for the Red Cross, Cecilia Goin, said "hosting" the Hamas fugitives was "in line with the organization's humanitarian mission". She made no reported comment on the terrorist nature of the Hamas mission, which to us seems a bizarre and disturbing omission for a humanitarian body's official representative.

The ICRC has a relatively proud history - with some question marks. Started in 1863 as "an independent and neutral organization" and based today in Geneva, its mandate stems from the Geneva Conventions of 1949. With 12,000 people in 80 countries, its work is funded by donations. The ICRC's sole objective is

"to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife. It does so through its direct action around the world, as well as by encouraging the development of international humanitarian law and promoting respect for it by governments and all weapon bearers."

Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) ambulance
destroyed by Arab marauders near Jerusalem's central post
office, February 1948 [source]

The ICRC's activities in our part of the world have not been without controversy. For decades, the ICRC refused admission to the Israeli Magen David Adom organization, Israel's national emergency service. The ostensible reason was that MDA uses a Jewish symbol, the star of David. The MDA request to join came in 1931, and was accepted only in 2006 - seventy-five years later. In 1929, the ICRC approved the use of the the Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun. The Jewish star was evidently a step too far. In a March 2000 letter to the International Herald Tribune, Dr. Bernadine Healy, then president of the American Red Cross, wrote: "The international committee's feared proliferation of symbols is a pitiful fig leaf, used for decades as the reason for excluding the Magen David Adom — the Shield (or Star) of David." In protest, and starting in 2000, the American Red Cross withheld millions in administrative funding to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Meanwhile elsewhere in the area: Ynet reports this afternoon that undercover agents arrested two Hamas terrorists near Jenin in the Fatah-controlled West Bank earlier today. The two were in possession of an improvised weapon which, according to the suspicion, they planned to use in a shooting attack on Israeli vehicles.

23-Jan-12: Scenes from the rising tide of Palestinian Arab violence. Is there something to learn here?

2012-01-23T13:31:00.000+02:00

North-east Jerusalem: The Shuafat neighborhood with
the Jerusalem city tram running along the main commercial strip.
Shuafat continues to be called "refugee camp" in news reports edited
by people who, in many cases, have never come close
to the place. [Source]

Three reports from the past 24 hours.

Saturday afternoon near Shufat (often described in the news as a "refugee camp" but in fact a relatively prosperous suburb) in north-east Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab man threw himself on an Israeli serviceman and stabbed him, probably using a screwdriver. The Israeli, a uniformed Border Guard officer, was lightly injured while the stabber escaped and was not captured yet.

Sunday morning (yesterday) at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem, a few minutes drive from our home, a Palestinian Arab attacked security personnel at the security crossing armed with an ax. Acting in accordance with the textbook, members of the Border Police and security personnel opened fire at the man - wounding him lightly in one leg. Israelis are frequently accused by the Israel-bashing political extremists of engaging in genocide. Several instances selected at random: the president of Venezuela; Prof. F. A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law; Norman G. Finkelstein, until recently of DePaul University; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an Iranian political figure.

Ambulances, one from the Israeli Magen David Adom, the other
from the Palestinian Arab Red Crescent Society, parked side by side
at the entrance to Hadassah University Hospital
Ein Kerem's emergency medicine center. Needless to say,
it serves Jews, Christians, Moslems and everyone else
without discrimination.

They will likely conclude that whoever did the shooting on the Israeli side missed.

But the truth is that missing is not what happened. Shooting at the legs is what the manual says, even when the terrorism-minded fanatics come at you with an ax. The injured Palestinian Arab ax-man was treated by a Border Police paramedic and then transported to the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem for further care. To minimize the chances that our readers missed the point, let's say that again: (a) treated by a Border Police paramedic on the spot, and (b) transported thereafter to the world-class Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem for (c) further care.

Incidentally, Border Police who arrived on the scene recovered a long commando knife in his bag, another matter that may come up when Ax Man is questioned after being released from hospital.

Later on Sunday (yesterday) an Israeli Border Guard serviceman stopped and arrested a Palestinian Arab man in possession of a 12 centimeter knife at Yitzhar junction. He is suspected of being on his way to carry out a stabbing attack against Israelis. Knifings of unsuspecting Israelis - hundreds of them in the past few years - are frighteningly easy to carry out. Despite the relative ease with which Palestinian Arabs can slip unhindered into mostly-Jewish population centers in Israel, a striking number of Palestinian Arabs carrying huge concealed knives have been stopped at security checkpoints (see for instance our recent blog entry: 9-Jan-12: Another day, another attempted murder-by-knifing).

It seems we are seeing a rise in the level of ordinary violence visited on us by the Palestinian Arabs living nearby and coming into our cities, hospitals and other institutions every day. This may be related to the same phenomena that has caused a spurt in the appearance of what Ma'an, a Palestinian news channel, calls "symbols of resistance". The symbols they describe are grafitti-sprayed signs, appearing at multiple locations in the center of Jerusalem, and calling for manly, self-respecting public actions by Arabs - like stabbings perhaps. Ma'an calls this "the start of a campaign which will target other locations in the city and may spread across Israel."

Stay tuned.

22-Jan-12: Islamism and the Palestinian Arab "Spring"

2012-01-22T20:50:00.000+02:00

Islamic Jihad: Their sense of what children are good far
makes them an excellent partner for Hamas

Hamas: Their sense of what children are good far
makes them an excellent partner for Islamic Jihad

If you have taken a look at our comment from a little earlier today about the emergence of radical Islamists in the new Egyptian political landscape, you will not need much persuading that Islamism is now riding a wave of unprecedented acceptance in the Arab world.

Hence, not so surprising to find that what binds Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is more important than what (hitherto) has divided them. The report is Iranian, and given the extreme closeness of the Iranian regime to the Islamicist groups across the Middle East, we're persuaded they ought to be believed. Besides, it's almost always a mistake to dismiss the seriousness of threats when they're made by terrorists.

Palestinian Leader Calls Merger of Hamas, Islamic Jihad "Necessity" Saturday, 21 January 2012 | A senior Hamas official stressed on Saturday that merging Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main Palestinian Islamic resistance movements, is a political and religious must. Mahmoud Al Zahar stated "Religion, politics and political developments in our surrounding necessitate closeness of Islamic movements". He said that integration of the two Palestinian movements in a single organizational structure can resolve many problems, including those related to elections since both groups can now take part in the elections in a single framework. In a recent a meeting with top officials from Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya called for rapid measures to merge the two movements. Islamic Jihad also confirmed that the merger talks were already underway. Spokesman Daud Shihab told AFP "An in-depth dialogue has actually begun, both internally and externally, with the aim of uniting".

Odd that among the "many problems" to be solved by the merger of two of the most active terrorist entities in the world, there's no mention here of their ongoing war against Israel, the Jews and the whole spectrum of non-Moslems. Clearly there has been no change of heart: when it comes to hatred of the adherents of other religions in general, and to Jews in particular, both of these entities are populated by the genuine article. They are violent, racist, mysogynist barbarians capable of the most cold-blooded acts of cruelty against their perceived enemies (us) no less than against their own brothers and sisters.

If already we're speaking of lethal Islamist threats against "the whole spectrum of non-Moslems", let's put actual words in actual people's actual mouths.

One of this week's most prominent news personalities, in view of the election results in Egypt, is Mohammad Badie - a name worth remembering. In September 2010, this Badie - a man who bears the exalted title General Guide (and in some sources Supreme Guide) of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood - delivered a how-to-do-it sermon under the title “How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny”. (It was posted the same month on his party's website.) He exhorted his audience to have faith in the Koran's promise that, even if they are temporarily weak, their god will deliver the infidels into their hands. Three highlights:

"Moslems desperately need a mentality of honor and means of power to confront global Zionism [which] knows nothing but the language of force. [Moslems] must meet iron with iron, and winds with storms."
"Resistance" is the only solution against the Zionist-American arrogance and tyranny. All we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it.
“The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end. It is heading towards its demise.”

Presumably intending to prove that last point, Madie is pictured below. The beaming woman next to him [source] is Anne W. Patterson, ambassador of the United States to Egypt.

While she gripped the hand of the Supreme Guide (to give Badie the title accorded to him in this Egyptian source), Ms Patterson, a career diplomat, was quoted saying that "US administrations have committed some mistakes" but "called for overcoming them and to learn from them to avoid their recurrence in the future. She pointed out that democracy always brings stable partners."

Words worthy of being engraved in stone.

22-Jan-12: Islamism in Egypt: That was then, this is now

2012-01-22T14:43:00.000+02:00

Moslem Brotherhood political activist hands out fliers for
an election candidate in northern Cairo
suburb of Shubra [Image source: David
Degner/IncendiaryImage.com]

Time to reflect on how badly those big-name experts misunderstand the role of radical Islamism in the Arab world - or perhaps even misrepresent it.

USA Today ran an analytical piece a year ago under the headline "Mubarak or Muslim Brotherhood not Egypt's only choice", evidently seeking to allay concerns that Egypt was going in the direction of radical Islamism:

"Will the next government that emerges from the tumult in Egypt be Islamic or Islamist? There's a critical difference, say experts, who caution against knee-jerk fears that Mubarak might be replaced by Islamists - Muslim political extremists."

In a February 5, 2011 blog article entitled "Should We Worry about Egypt Becoming Democratic?", prominent New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof starts this way: "My answer is: No." He goes on:

"I agree that the Muslim Brotherhood would not be a good ruler of Egypt, but that point of view also seems to be shared by most Egyptians."

How about the frequently-heard expert voice of Olivier Roy, described in a recent Bret Stephens Wall St Journal column as "arguably Europe's foremost authority on political Islam". He published an essay days after Hosni Mubarak was forced from power in February 2011, in which he wrote:

"This is not an Islamic Revolution... Look at those involved in the uprisings, and it is clear that we are dealing with a post-Islamist generation... This is not to say that the demonstrators are secular; but they are operating in a secular political space, and they do not see in Islam an ideology capable of creating a better world."

Also last February, Jimmy Carter, a one-time president of the United States, speaking at a University of Texas forum was asked how the United States should view the Muslim Brotherhood in view of its ties to Hezbollah (that's how the Austin American-Statesman framed it):

"I think the Muslim Brotherhood is not anything to be afraid of in the upcoming (Egyptian) political situation and the evolution I see as most likely... They will be subsumed in the overwhelming demonstration of desire for freedom and true democracy."

Turns out that reality mugged the experts, and the new Egypt is looking very Islamist indeed. "Subsumed in the overwhelming show of democracy"? Fears of Islamists gaining control are "knee-jerk"? The young and secular protestors of Tahrir Square are the face of the new direction?

Not so much. Today's new Egypt is described today by the Telegraph (UK):

The Muslim Brotherhood won by far the biggest share of seats allocated to party lists in Egypt's first freely-elected parliament in decades, final results confirmed, giving it a major role in drafting the country's new constitution. Banned under former leader Hosni Mubarak and his predecessors, the Brotherhood has emerged as the winner from his overthrow. Islamists of various stripes have taken about two thirds of seats in the assembly, broadly in line with their own forecasts... The Brotherhood's electoral alliance took a 38 percent share of the seats allocated to lists. The hardline Islamist Al-Nour Party won 29 percent of list seats. The liberal New Wafd and Egyptian Bloc coalition came third and fourth respectively. The Revolution Continues coalition, dominated by youth groups at the forefront of the protests that toppled Mubarak, attracted less than a million votes and took just seven of the 498 seats up for grabs in the lower house.

Quite some distance from the optimism of the mass demonstrations of a year ago in Tahrir Square. And from among the various images that were published today to depict the changes in the Egyptian political landscape, the one that we found most striking was this rather ordinary looking press photo of two like-minded leaders embracing.

The caption reads:

CAIRO, EGYPT - JANUARY 21: In this handout photo provided by Khaled Meshaal's Office of Media, the leader of Hamas Khaled Meshaal (L) meets with Supreme Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie (R) to congratulate him on their victory in the Egyptian Parliamentary elections on January 21, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt's Islamists the Muslim Brotherhood who were once banned, ran as the Freedom and Justice Party and claimed two thirds of the seats in Egypt's first free elections in decades and since the dimise, almost a year ago, of their president Hosni Mubarak.

Call us parochial, but for us it's the embrace above that, far more than the published comments and analysis of optimists and orientalists, betokens the dangerous new reality down south.

21-Jan-12: Far from the headlines, yet more rockets fired into Israel

2012-01-21T19:53:00.000+02:00

The terrorist rockets keep coming.

On Friday night, a great time to injure Israeli civilians in their homes, another Qassam rocket was fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into southern Israel. This one landed and exploded in an open area of the Negev Desert. There are no reports of human injury or property damage.

Early Saturday morning, three mortars were fired from Gaza in the general direction of the Eshkol region (also in the Negev). These fortunately did not injure people or damage property either. But that's four incoming lethal shots in a few hours, and terrifying for the innocent civilians living in the target area.

Later this morning (Saturday), the IDF is reported to have spotted a unit of terrorists in Gaza a matter of seconds after they directed their fire into Israel. An IAF helicopter shot at the terrorists, achieving a direct hit. (The Palestinian Ma'an newsagency says the Israeli fire missed.)

20-Jan-12: Entertaining perhaps to some, those Gazan Arab rockets keep on crashing into Israeli communities

2012-01-20T09:21:00.000+02:00

Not so entertaining: This file photo (a makeshift bomb shelter
in Sderot, Israel) capturesa moment when those Gazan rockets
are fired at Israelis - as they continue
to be, in numbers that the news media simply fail to report.

The terrorists will keep doing this until someone stops them.

Qassam rocket hits western Negev Published by Ynet a minute after midnight Friday morning: A Qassam rocket fired from northern Gaza exploded in an open area in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. The Color Red alert sounded in a nearby town. No injuries or damage were reported.

You won't read or hear or see anything about this in the news media, unless you consult Israeli sources and are ready to read the small-print stories.

That's not to say Gaza is not in the news today. It is. Associated Press is syndicating this report today from the Hamas-controlled city:

Organizers of the Palestinian version of "American Idol" said Thursday the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers have banned residents from participating in the popular reality show. The organizers said Hamas told them the program is "indecent," in what appears to be a new attempt by the fundamentalist militant Muslim group to crack down on behavior it sees as contrary to its conservative interpretation of Islam. In the past, Hamas has banned women from riding on the backs of motorbikes, women from smoking water pipes, and men from working in hair salons - saying such practices were immodest. Not all bans are imposed uniformly. The ban on competing in New Star came around the same time that Hamas police beat up members of Gaza's tiny Shiite minority while they tried to hold a religious ceremony.

This will be forgotten by tomorrow - certainly by Monday. It's what people know about Hamas and Gaza and the terrorism on our southern border - assuming they know anything: that we Israelis are confronted by people who have a mysogynistic view of popular culture and maybe some internal disputes with obscure branches of their religious community.

It's a shame. What we actually have down there is a rampant terrorist regime presiding over a robust and active terrorist culture, with the terrorist thugs being equipped with an unending supply of missiles, rockets, other explosives and a diet of hate-based religious/triumphalist dogma that continues to poison the minds of their children.

Don't wait for that to show up in the Miami Herald's Entertainment section.

17-Jan-12: Switzerland again: International parliamentary group says it erred in inviting Hamas

2012-01-17T21:29:00.000+02:00

Inter-Parliamentary Union Secretariat in Geneva

There's a follow-up to our report ["15-Jan-12: Hamas, intolerance and Switzerland"] that a Hamas delegation has spent the last few days in Switzerland on an official visit, and will be received at the University of Geneva tomorrow.

Anders Johnsson, the secretary-general of the Swiss-based Inter-Parliamentary Union, is quoted in the Jerusalem Post this evening telling the speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, that he plans to stand by a commitment he made to Rivlin to ban the terrorist organization:

He said he is sorry that the Palestinian delegation to the IPU took advantage of the [human rights] committee, but that the IPU itself had no contact with Hamas. In addition, Johnsson said that the committee rejected many of the Palestinians’ declarations in the meeting. The IPU secretary-general also said he would raise the issue with the Human Rights Committee’s management.

The JPost article is not the clearest of news reports, and there might still be misunderstandings here about what happened, and what's going to happen. We'll soon know.

Meanwhile the International Alliance Against Terrorism, a non-partisan group based in Paris that speaks in the name of terror victims from several countries (Algeria, Argentina, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Israel, Northern Ireland, the United States) issued a press release this evening that expresses dismay at the official Hamas visit to Switzerland. It focuses in particular on the University of Geneva's decision to allow the participation by Hamas spokesman Mushir Al Masri in a campus event due to take place tomorrow (Wednesday).

The IAAT statement says the Swiss readiness to receive Hamas

"...destroys the hope of a peaceful solution in the Middle East. We also fear it will only encourage the spreading of terrorism in a troubled world. Organizations so far fighting peacefully for their demands may well change their minds when they see that terror is rewarded and entitled to Swiss hospitality. Hoping all democratic organizations to join into this protest, we urge the Swiss Federal Government and Parliament to take into account the human rights of Hamas victims and their families who deserve justice and consideration, like all terror victims. We solemnly urge Geneva University to declare the representative of Hamas persona non grata at the meeting it is hosting."

For our part, we expressed our anger in a note to representatives of the Swiss Jewish community yesterday:

"When we permit the practitioners of terror to be received with respect as if the only differences between us are our political or religious or ideological opinions, then the terrorists have won. Terrorism - and Hamas is one of its purest practitioners - takes its exponents outside the framework of normal, civilized relations with the rest of the world. The terrorists knowingly and willfully place themselves outside. They have knowingly and willfully abandoned discussion and persuasion. Their tools are death and misery. We show respect for our democratic principles by shunning them, by totally rejecting what they wish for our societies.
I hope the authorities in your beautiful land will understand from your words how serious is the mistake they have made in allowing the official representatives of Hamas to walk on your nation's soil. The loss of innocent lives, like the life of my daughter Malki, is indeed a tragedy which deeply touched my family... In choosing to speak out against the terrorists in general, and against Hamas in particular, my wife and I made the decision that our loss must not be merely a private one but symbolic of something larger and less personal. The awful sight of men from Hamas walking freely and without interference in the center of democratic Europe, as if they were decent and civilized human beings, is a reminder that we have not yet succeeded in conveying this vitally important message."

As we have said on numerous occasions, so far the terrorists are winning.

16-Jan-12: The terrorists were taught by us that kidnappings not only pay – they’re the jackpot

2012-01-16T21:47:00.001+02:00

The following was published today as a contributed op ed article in the Jerusalem Post newspaper and online editions:

Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Netanyahu,
Sgt Gilad Shalit, his father Noam Shalit - October 18, 2011

Noam Schalit, politics and future kidnappings

By FRIMET ROTH
16th January 2012.

Gala reception in Gaza City welcoming hundreds
of freed murderers in the course of the
Shalit exchange, October 18, 2011

Busloads of freed murderers arrive in Gaza
on the day of the Shalit exchange,
October 18, 2011

Celebrations in Hamas-controlled Gaza, October 18, 2011

Even before his political debut last week, Noam Schalit had already begun pontificating. In an address to a Knesset conference in early January, Schalit offered some puzzling advice. The conference, organized by the National Union party, focused on a bill sponsored by MK Uri Ariel that would prohibit the release of more than one prisoner for any future Israeli captives.

Schalit declared that “the fight against kidnappings should be won by restoring our deterrence and not via legislation... The terrorist organizations need to know that kidnappings don’t pay off for them.”

Of course, the major lesson the terrorists learned from the deal to free Noam’s son, Gilad Schalit, is that kidnappings not only pay – they’re the jackpot. The deterrence of which Schalit spoke was virtually demolished by Israel’s release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in that exchange.

Perhaps consumed with his brewing political launch, Schalit was too busy to pay attention to Col. Tal Hermoni’s warning, uttered just a few days before the Knesset event. Apparently, the motivation to kidnap a soldier has increased since the Schalit swap and Hermoni, commander of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade, said Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip were working “on a daily basis” to abduct Israeli soldiers.

Hermoni added that terror groups have been hard at work digging tunnels for such an attack similar to the one that allowed Hamas to nab Gilad Schalit near the Kerem Shalom crossing in June, 2006. Israel is currently gathering intelligence to assist it in locating those tunnels.

SEVERAL OTHER speakers at the conference criticized the Schalit swap. MK Ariel, former defense minister Moshe Arens, Nobel Prize winner Prof. Robert Yisrael Aumann and terrorism expert Dr. Boaz Ganor all highlighted the failures that led to the swap and the huge blow it had dealt to Israel’s security.

They proposed alternatives for handling any future kidnappings, ranging from total refusal to negotiate (Arens) to offering to release only enemies captured in combat with the IDF and never terrorist murderers of civilians (Ganor).

Schalit opposed Ariel’s bill, saying, “We can’t tell our soldiers that they are worth only one Palestinian prisoner.”

But the real flaw in the proposed legislation is its impotence.

In hearings of eleventh-hour petitions to block the release of terrorists, the High Court has repeatedly determined that it lacks the standing to second- guess such political decisions. Several weeks ago, it gave that same ruling as Israel stood poised to release 550 Palestinian prisoners in the second stage of the Schalit swap.

Click to view this article
on theJPost.com website

Since no Israeli lives were endangered, the release of hundreds of would-be murderers could have been postponed to enable a thorough adjudication of the issues. Instead, within hours, and true to form, the judges ruled that the release was a political matter and could proceed.

The military courts have expressed clear viewpoints in at least some of the terrorism cases brought before them. But they have been ignored.

My daughter’s murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, was sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences for the deaths of 15 Israeli civilians in the Jerusalem Sbarro restaurant terror bombing. At her sentencing, the court recommended that she never be eligible for pardon or early parole. Nevertheless, she is a free woman today, living in her homeland, Jordan, with her family. She has already traveled to Lebanon and Algeria and frequently addresses her admirers at public rallies.

Our legislators are as ineffective as our judges. Thus the only way to prevent a repeat of the disastrous Schalit swap is via action by the Israeli public.

Noam Schalit is aware that this was his most effective weapon.

“You can’t replace the public,” he told the conference. “I say [the swap] was a victory of the spirit of Israel.”

And at last week’s press conference with Labor Party chair Shelly Yacimovich where he morphed from pained father to politico, he said: “Israeli society recruited itself for Gilad in our times of trouble and we managed to recruit Israeli society.”

Many of the 80 percent of Israelis whom the Schalits “recruited” knew Hamas would be strengthened by the swap and spurred to kidnap again, and that many of the freed prisoners would return to terrorism. Yet they threw logic and good sense to the winds.

Israel cannot afford another such “victory.” To prevent one, it is imperative that those 80% recover from the inexplicable mass hysteria that gripped them last year. Perhaps then, the warnings of the marginalized terror victims will be heeded.

The push for change received additional impetus when Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced last week that the recommendations of the Shamgar Committee, which he appointed in 2008, had been released. Led by a former Supreme Court justice, the committee was instructed to examine the issue of abductions but to deliver its findings only after the return of Gilad Schalit.

The 100-page report is classified, but Barak hinted that it urges an overhaul of government policy. He said that Israel would find it difficult to protect itself “unless we change the rules, the reality and the results of deals like those we have witnessed.”

But if the Israeli public embraces such change, it will first need to reject the politicians – both veteran and new – who oppose it.

The author is a freelance writer based in Jerusalem. Her daughter Malki was murdered at the age of 15 in the Sbarro restaurant bombing (2001). She and her husband founded the Malki Foundation (www.kerenmalki.org) to provide concrete support for Israeli families of all faiths who care at home for a special-needs child.

16-Jan-12: Smiling baby-slashers, men who hide bombs in their clothing and bags, and reporters confused between facts and their own prejudices

2012-01-16T16:42:00.000+02:00


This one's smiling too. The caption on this newsagency photo from March 2011 reads: "A Palestinian man distributes sweets in the streets of Rafah (Gaza Strip) on 12th March 2011 to celebrate an attack which killed five Israeli settlers..." referring to the massacre we later learned was carried out by the Awads

The final chapter in the short but barbaric career of two young Palestinian Arabs who executed a massacre in the Fogel family home in Itamar on a quiet Sabbath night last March (see "19-Apr-11: What happened that awful Sabbath night in Itamar?") was written in an Israeli military court today.

The Samaria Military Court on Monday sentenced Amjad Awad, who was convicted for the murder of five members of the Fogel family in Itamar, to five life sentences and seven additional years in prison. Awad and his cousin Hakim brutally murdered Udi and Ruth Fogel and three of their children: Yoav, 11, Elad, 4 and four-month-old baby Hadas, last March. Awad was convicted of murder last November. Awad's cousin, Hakim, was convicted of murder in August and sentenced in September to five consecutive life sentences for his part in the Itamar massacre dated March 2010. Amjad was convicted of all charges against him: five counts of murder, two weapons trafficking counts and conspiracy to commit murder. He entered the courtroom smiling. [Ynet]

For people with a conventional emotional make-up - that's most of us - this takes some getting used to: the idea that a man convicted of slashing to death five people of whom three were aged 11 years, 4 years and four months walks to his sentencing with a smile on his face. Some day, a psychiatrist or a post-graduate researcher of death cults is going to try to make sense of smiles like those about which we wondered some weeks ago ("22-Dec-11: Know them by their actions. Oh, and by their smiles.")

Some of today's anti-terror action took place outside the court building. As Ynet reports, two Palestinian Arabs were stopped by Israeli security personnel carrying 10 pipe bombs, a gun and bullets, and arrested. Mark this down as yet another quiet achievement by the vigilant soldiers and Border Police who serve there (may they remain strong, safe and in good health) and those reviled Israeli security barriers.

Today's intercept happened at the Salem crossing where just a week ago (see "8-Jan-12: Terrorist outrage is blocked by quick thinking today at a security checkpoint") essentially the same scenario played itself out. Last week's intercepted terrorist had 11 explosives on his body.

Just before we turn away from the horrifying Awads (and while praying that they live long lives inside their Israeli prison cells), a reminder that, after the heart-rending massacre at the Fogel home and before the perpetrators were arrested, certain dark corners of the news media industry were busily engaged in a kind of demonization that, quite literally, is sickening.

Worthy of particular mention (thanks to CIFWatch) is British journalist Harriet Sherwood who wrote two Itamar massacre articles for the Guardian (here and here) and one for the Observer by mid March 2011. It has been noted that she distinguished herself by highly-biased use of language that failed to characterize the assailants as “terrorists” while making use of the pejorative term “hard-line settlers” when describing the community and victims where the horrendous crime took place. Of the 2064 words she had posted by mid March, CIFWatch's analysis showed this:

Number of times Harriet Sherwood used the word “terrorism” or “terrorist”: 0 (In fact the word was used once, but only when directly quoting an Israeli official)
Number of times Harriet Sherwood used the word “settler(s)” or “settlements”: 29
Number of times Harriet Sherwood referred to “settlers” in the pejorative, or vilified them in some manner: 2
Number of references to widely reported scenes in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip where residents joyfully celebrated the murder of five Israelis, including three children by handing out candy (see photo at the top of this blog entry: 0

Ms Sherwood is not the worst or the most objectionable of her profession. Last March, there were numerous other outrageous journalistic distortions that succeeded in poisoning the air of a nation grieving for its losses. But this is not the best of days to recall them.

15-Jan-12: Hamas, intolerance and Switzerland

2012-01-15T13:25:00.000+02:00

Our friends, the neutral and courtly Swiss, are hosting a delegation of Hamas "parliamentarians" at this moment. The details are in this Iranian press report:

Palestinian parliamentary delegation arrives in Switzerland (Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - A Palestinian parliamentary delegation of the Hamas-affiliated change and reform bloc arrived in Geneva on Saturday on a few days visit at the invitation of the international parliamentary union (IPU). The three-member delegation headed by Mushir Al-Masri, who is the bloc’s spokesman, is to explain the issue of the Palestinian MPs detained in Israeli occupation jails and the deported Jerusalemite lawmakers. The delegates would attend the 36th session of the IPU human rights committee, which is held twice every year. The Palestinian MPs would have a number of official and public meetings and would attend a conference on the Israeli war on Gaza.

This Hamas excursion is filled with activity. On Wednesday, its head - unbelievably - is going to be an honoured guest at the University of Geneva [this Swiss newspaper report has the details].

If there's anyone out there with connections among the intelligentsia of Geneva, or knows where the Swiss keep their evidently-misplaced moral compasses (Zurich perhaps?), we have some suggested links to share with them so that all relevant parties can get a richer, fuller appreciation of what Hamas actual does and not merely what it says. We make this offer because, somehow, the real meaning of terrorism and the horrifying price it exacts from civil societies frequently gets lost when academicians and international-minded diplomats get involved, as appears to be happening in the Swiss Confederation today.

The first is this Hamas TV gem: "A call to genocide of all Christians and Jews". Click to view a clearly-expressed, unambiguous message from the people who sent the Hamas delegation to snowy, cheery Geneva. And note the key take-away lines, addressed to the god of Hamas:

"Vanquish your enemies, enemies of the religion [Islam] in all places. Strike the Jews and their sympathizers, the Christians and their supporters, the Communists and their adherents. Count them and kill them to the last one. Don't leave even one."

Clear enough?

Then consider this six-minute long video paen to Hamas children's education entitled: "Bombs are more precious than children". [That's not a typographical error.]

And then, so that everyone is fully up to date, there is this report posted on the Ynet website in the last couple of hours:

Hamas files on Gaza vicinity towns leaked online Terrorist movement collecting intelligence for next round of violence as shown in secret document listing communities within rocket range - Roni Shaked | 01.15.12, 11:24 / Israel News:- A Hamas document which has been leaked online shows that despite the relative calm in the south, the terrorist movement is constantly on the go for another round of violence, Yedioth Ahronoth reported. Last Wednesday, a document by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam's military intelligence department was uploaded online. Titled "List of surrounding kibbutzim," the document provides a detailed intelligence survey of kibbutzim and communities in the Gaza vicinity area... The document lists the communities situated up to 6 km from the Gaza Strip – a range within the capacity of the simplest Qassam missiles [including] aerial photos of the communities in which the locations of commercial centers, agricultural plots and even military facilities are marked. They even include telephone numbers and email addresses of the various position-holders in each community. It appears that the intelligence is mainly based on internet information.

Kibbutzim (collective farms) and villages and homes and cars and unprotected, clearly-marked school buses are all the chief targets of the hatred-driven jihadists of the Gaza Strip and their arsenal of thousands of rockets. Being terrorists, their goal is much less to strike at the well-equipped soldiers and military forces of the IDF. This would be secondary. Hamas principally seeks to hurt civilians because its doctrine is to demoralize and to undermine the society of its despised Jewish enemy i.e. families like ours.

Dear Swiss friends: please take a moment to think a little more carefully about the best ways to protect and cherish children - yours and ours and the children of the Gaza Strip. Nothing can be more important.

Then please think for just a few seconds about the life of our beautiful daughter Malki and its tragic end. After that, we believe it will be a simple matter for you to make a much better, smarter decision about how you should treat your Hamas visitors and their vile message of intolerance, fanaticism and death.

13-Jan-12: The unfolding nightmare in Iran

2012-01-13T16:36:00.001+02:00

"Students" form a human chain in Tehran's Azadi Square
to demonstrate their support for Iran's nuclear programme

Olli Heinonen, a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, where he headed its Department of Safeguards. He published a thoughtful article in the current Foreign Policy magazine. Some extracts:

On Monday, Jan. 9, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran had begun producing 20 percent enriched uranium at Fordow, a fuel enrichment plant buried deep underground near the holy city of Qom... What has raised the world's suspicions is that Iran continues to produce 20 percent enriched uranium despite the fact that this exceeds its civilian needs and, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged in September, does not make economic sense...
How can Iran convince the international community that its nuclear program will follow a peaceful track? There are a few ways to go about it.
One way would be to suspend the production of enriched uranium and convert the existing 3.5 percent and 20 percent enriched uranium stocks, with the assistance of the international community, to fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, as well as for another modern research reactor that could be provided to Iran. This approach would be good for Iran, as it would give the country a sustainable production of radioisotopes for industrial and medical uses in the shortest time.
Iran would also have to address the world's concerns about the military dimensions of its nuclear program, concerns laid out in the IAEA's most recent monitoring report. So far, Iran's leaders have failed to do so, despite being signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With sanctions beginning to bite, tensions growing in the Persian Gulf, and international patience running out, there's no time like the present.

The whole essay is here. Israelis are preoccupied with thoughts of Iranian extremism for numerous reasons, most of which are self-evident to people who read this blog.

Without endorsing or objecting to the thesis of their writers, we refer inquisitive blog-readers to two provocative and relevant articles that appeared in the past day. In "An informal addition to the laws of physics – don’t work for Iran" by Michael Burleigh in yesterday's Telegraph (UK), the writer points out to a mainly British readership:

"In 1943 and 1944 the RAF and USAF carried out repeated strikes on the German V-2 rocket launch site at Peenemunde. They were not unduly concerned whether scientists and engineers were killed too, provided the V-2s ceased raining down on London."

And Jonathan S. Tobin writing in Commentary Magazine ("Killing Iranian Scientists is Not Terrorism") argues that:

"you need a particular form of moral myopia not to see that heading off a potential second Holocaust in the form of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel or the nuclear blackmail of the rest of the Middle East is not a form of terrorism. Anyone who believes Iran should be allowed to proceed toward the building of a nuclear bomb has either lost their moral compass or is so steeped in the belief that American and Israeli interests are inherently unjustified they have reversed the moral equation in this case. Rather than the alleged U.S. and Israeli covert operators being called terrorists, it is the Iranian scientists who are the criminals. They must be stopped before they kill."

It';s essential that cooler and smarter heads prevail before that happens.

13-Jan-12: Rockets; southern Israel; Hamas; media ignoring etc etc etc

2012-01-13T10:04:00.000+02:00

Peter Nicholson/The Australian , 2009 [Source]

Same old same old. It's a rainy and cold January morning, with snow falling in the north - but conditions are never too bad for the ongoing, relentless thuggery of the Gazan jihadists.

They flung yet another rocket into southern Israel around day-break this morning (Friday). As often happens, this one hit open ground in the Eshkol region near Israel's border with the Hamas-infested Gaza Strip. This morning's terror attack (not directed at military, not fired by regular or uniformed forces, indiscriminate shooting in the general direction of Israeli farms, homes and roads) came a day after the rocket attack described in our blog entry yesterday.

If you consult Challah Hu Akbar's Rocket Attacks on Israel counter, which we update constantly on the right side of this and every other page of this blog, you see there were more than 40 rockets and mortar firings in the direction of Israel from Gaza during December 2011 alone. Very few are reported in the mainstream media, contributing to the (deliberately) misleading impression that things over here are quiet and peaceful. What's worse, those rockets that fall short and crash onto the Hamas-controlled side of the fence - as happened with another Gazan rocket around midnight last night - and hurt the lives and property of ordinary Gazans go entirely reported, except by Israeli news channels.

Since it's terrorists of which we speak, let's remember there will always be multiple reasons why their cowardly attacks continue to embitter the lives of their hated enemies (i.e. us). Not often do we hear this articulated by a Palestinian Arab voice. But that's the focus of an article carried yesterday by the website of the French 24x7 cable news channel FRANCE24. They quote a non-Hamas, Palestinian Arab, Amin Maqbul from the Fatah terror organization, asserting:

"We know that there are forces of Hamas in Gaza who want neither reconciliation nor to give up their empire, their money or their influence".

How sad that the dirty little truths that underlie terrorism in its various forms are so often ignored: empire, power, money, influence. Add that in their place, such terms as liberation, freedom, human rights and dignity are used when in reality those are the furthest things from the minds of the Meshaals, the Haniyehs, the Abbases and the other 'leaders' who stand behind the terror and ensure it goes on and on and on.

12-Jan-12: Their dignity, their pride: Yet another rocket crashes into southern Israel this morning

2012-01-12T09:09:00.000+02:00

Haniya speaks to a rapturous crowd of 5,000 plus in Tunisia. [Source]

From this morning's headlines, about as laconic a news report as you see in this part of the world.

Yet again, another dose of man-made indiscriminate death comes plunging down from the sky and into the lives of thousands of ordinary people going about their work or family matters during this morning's rush hour.

No one serious will seriously call the rulers of Gaza to account for this because - well, flinging explosive rockets over the fence in the general direction of the Israelis is what they do and have done for years. Where's the problem?

Qassam hits western Negev

Published: 01.12.12, 06:55 / Israel News
A rocket fired from northern Gaza exploded in an open area in Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. No injuries or damage were reported.

Like hundreds of previous such reports we have carried here, it goes up on the site and in a handful of other channels. A few readers take note and then get on with their lives. The vast majority of people look away or never hear about it.

Now if we're looking to know what's behind it, an AFP syndicated report from three days ago gives a clue:

Gaza leader promises 'difficult days' for Israel The prime minister in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Sunday promised "difficult days" for Israel, and at a rally in Tunis urged Arab Spring revolutionaries to fight for an independent Palestine. Ismail Haniya received an ovation from the crowd of some 5,000 men, women and children gathered in a stadium waving Palestinian, Tunisian and Hamas flags. "Israel no longer has allies in Egypt and in Tunisia, we are saying to the Zionist enemies that times have changed and that the time of the Arab Spring, the time of the revolution, of dignity and of pride has arrived," he said to loud cheers... Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by Western powers.

To the cheers of thousands, the man who presides over the Hamas-dominated vipers' nest in Gaza says this is about dignity and pride. The AFP report implies that people (and only such people) who can't see the dignity and pride in flinging rockets and other explosives at civilians for being Jews would call the perps a terrorist organization. So clearly, AFP seems to suggest, there's another way to look at them - meaning a way in which they're not terrorists.

And that, dear readers, is why the rockets keep crashing into our homes.

10-Jan-12: Has the Moslem Brotherhood and its local wing Hamas turned moderate? Depends whom you want to believe

2012-01-10T21:54:00.004+02:00

The editors of the Guardian chose this Nasser Shiyoukhi/AP photo
to illustrate their December article about 'moderate' Hamas
mentioned below. Interesting to note that it depicts a woman wearing
a Hamas headband and said to be waiting at the Beituniya checkpoint.
As it happens, we wrote about Beitunya and a woman
just yesterday.

The further away you sit from the confusing, messy reality of the Middle East - say in Western Europe or North America - the simpler, more understandable things sometimes seem to be. To us, this seems especially true about two aspects of Islamism in this area.

In April 2011, the BBC capped its close tracking of the "Arab Spring" analysis with a story of the gentle doctors and emergency room nurses of the Freedom and Justice Party under the now-famous headline "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood promotes moderate path". And a December 2011 Baltimore Sun editorial excoriating the Egyptian military wrote without evident irony about "the moderately Islamist Muslim Brotherhood". Somehow their writers chose to overlook the public views of MB's spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi who declares that "the civilizational-jihadist process... is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house... so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

To be sure you didn't miss that moderate tone, what the man said was destroy Western civilization from within.

Is this miscalculation important? Quite. On Wednesday (tomorrow), the Egyptians will have completed three rounds of post-Mubarak elections and guess who won?

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party won almost 40% of seats in the first two rounds of elections, which began Nov. 28. The Salafist Al-Noor Party, which supports full Islamic law, gained more than 20%. Final results are likely this week. According to preliminary results from the country's election agency, the voting was similar to previous rounds with the Brotherhood taking more than one third and Al-Noor coming in second. [Source: USA Today]

To clarify: the parliament of the new Egypt is going to be more than 60% Islamist.

Along depressingly similar lines, from its perch in the UK, the Guardian sought to persuade its liberal global readership in December of a decision by the arch-terrorists of Hamas to "move away from violence in deal with Palestinian Authority". [See the picture above, and please read the caption.] Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, is the local arm in our neighbourhood of the Moslem Brotherhood. And some people want to paint the Moslem Brotherhood as moderate and unthreatening, then it's not surprising that similar efforts are being made to depict a more mellow Hamas.

Evelyn Gordon, writing today in Commentary Magazine, sees through this and wants to help us do the same. She's aware of the recent pollyannish spate of "could it be that Hamas is turning moderate?" pieces like the one in Melbourne's The Age two days ago analysing Hamas leader "Meshaal's endorsement of non-violent popular protest over armed resistance". Pointing to the nakedness of the emperor, Ms Gordon reminds us that

"Hamas leaders have been lining up to tell their own people they will never abandon terror or their goal of eradicating Israel. Following are just a few examples from the past month:- Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told those at a ceremony marking the organization’s 24th anniversary that “armed struggle” is “the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river … The Hamas movement will lead intifada after intifada until we liberate Palestine – all of Palestine.”- Hamas “Foreign Minister” Osama Hamdan said Hamas’s recent agreement to join the PLO, Israel’s “partner” in the Oslo Accords, was aimed solely at getting the PLO to “reconsider its political program.” Hamas remains committed to “the liberation of our lands from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river,” Hamdan said, and “anyone who thinks Hamas has changed its positions and now accepts the PLO’s defeatist political program is living in an illusion.”- Hamas official Khalil Abu Leila similarly said the group was joining the PLO solely to “bring the PLO back to its correct path and the goal for which it was established, namely the liberation of Palestine,” and persuade it to scrap Oslo.- Senior Hamas official Sami Bardawil said that anyone who thinks Hamas will recognize Israel is “dreaming,” because “recognition of Israel is not only a red line but, from our standpoint, a religious-legal prohibition.”- Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum denied a Haaretz report that Khaled Meshal, head of the organization’s political wing, had ordered a halt to anti-Israel attacks, saying the report merely reflected the Israeli government’s “state of despair.”

The rest of Evelyn Gordon's essay is here. Those who want to find moderation and sweetness and light will go right on doing that, while the rest of us - particularly those of us living in the cross hairs of the jihadists - will be concerned to ensure the defensive security arrangements are in place and well maintained. The complexity of reality trumps the fantasies of wishful thinking every time.

9-Jan-12: Another day, another attempted murder-by-knifing

2012-01-09T14:49:00.000+02:00

This knife, smaller than the one seized today, was grabbed
from another Palestinian Arab at another security checkpoint
in a previous terror attack [Image Source]

A Palestinian Arab female arrived at the Bitunya security checkpoint south of Ramallah, near the edge of the city of Jerusalem, this morning. This Hebrew report says she came armed with a 30 cm knife that she pulled out of its concealed location and, blade unsheathed, threw herself at one of the Border Police.

One of the alert service personnel at the checkpoint then fired a warning shot into the air. Another leapt onto her, got her under his control and took her away for interrogation. No one was seriously injured, and the woman - evidently with murder on her mind - will be able to try this again in the future should the passion so move her. A Palestinian Arab news agency reports it briefly ("Israeli forces detain woman at Ramallah crossing") but it would be a mistake to think this is heading for the mainstream news because no one was killed.

The security checkpoint at Bitunya is routinely reported on by the silly ideological extremists of Machsom Watch, a naive and troublesome collective whose members believe something is wrong with Israel protecting its population from similar Palestinian Arabs with murder on their minds.

The IDF's Twitter report on today's near tragedy expresses the danger this way: "#Israel Boarder Police uncovered 30cm knife on #Palestinian #woman, capable of impaling a human body #terror". There's room to criticize the Twittering soldier's spelling skills, but what do you say to people who believe the decent, fair-minded thing to do with Palestinian Arab women and their 30cm knives is to stand back and let them come through?

Answer: it depends who you are. The EU [source] provided Machsom Watch with a €77,632 grant for 2010-11. Additional funding in the same period came from Diakonia (Sweden) and Norway and the UK including a £30,000 British grant for a project called “No Legal Frontiers”. In the interests of sanity, the Netherlands did not renew funding after 2009. The heavily ideological New Israel Fund provided $204,698 of grants to Machsom Watch between 2006 and 2009.

8-Jan-12: Terrorist outrage is blocked by quick thinking today at a security checkpoint

2012-01-08T15:32:00.000+02:00

Border Policeman [Image Source]

There's a report coming from Jenin in the past hour that illustrates one of two possible narratives depending on how flexible you are on the subject of terrorism.

Four Palestinian Arabs were required to stop and be checked by yet another of those hideous and humiliating IDF security barriers earlier today (Sunday) where they were told to remove some of their clothing. The insult to their autonomy and manhood must have been unbearable and will very likely turn them hostile and unco-operative in their future interactions with Israelis.

That's one version. Here's another.

Some hours ago, four Palestinian Arabs were stopped at the Salem Crossing near Jenin in the northern West Bank and required to undergo a security check. Here, according to Yaakov Katz from the Jerusalem Post is what happened next. The four were in line to walk into the Samaria Military Court. A member of the Israel Border Police (Mishmar Hagvul in Hebrew) watching them noticed there were wires protruding from under the jacket of one of the four. The soldiers promptly shut down the crossing, ordered the Palestinian to remove his clothing and found that he had three pipe bombs on his body. A further eight pipe bombs were found in his bag. So too was a pistol, several bullets and a commando knife. He and his three companions are now being interrogated. The suspicion is they were there to carry out an attack on the Samaria Military Court. Israel National News says the four are from Balata, a village near Shechem (Nablus) in central Samaria.

A week ago, the IDF captured a number of weapons including an M-16 and an Uzi submachine gun in a residence in Kfar Salem, near Nablus, not very far from Jenin. The Shin Bet reported a significant increase in the number of terrorist attacks in the West Bank during December (we reported on this last week: "1-Jan-12: Terror attack statistics climbed sharply in December").

Border Police doing what they do at a security checkpoint

For single-minded, religiously-impassioned individuals who are willing to die so long as they inflict pain on a despised enemy, there's an enormous amount of harm you can do to people's bodies with 11 pipe bombs, a pistol and a commando knife. This time, an alert serviceman was quick enough and - with his security crossing colleagues - determined enough to prevent it.

But the thing about terrorism is you don't ever eliminate it by watchfulness. Yes, you can do your best to ensure that this attack or that plan is thwarted - put up barriers, install cameras, be vigilant etc. But so long as the jihadist process that creates this kind of hatred continues, and so long as it infects more and more young people growing to adulthood in Palestinian Arab society, the danger is constant and ends only when the terrorists themselves are completely neutralized.

How well is this understood outside Israel? Here's one way to tell. Watch to see how much interest the news media outside Israel take in this story. As of 3:30 pm, Israel time, no one other than Israeli channels is reporting it.

5-Jan-12: What the blood-soaked career of an "adviser on local government matters" reveals about the 'moderate' PA leader's thinking

2012-01-05T19:30:00.005+02:00

Esh-Kodesh Gilmore, of blessed memory.

Esh-Kodesh Gilmore was 25, married for three years and the father of an angel-faced 18-month old daughter called Taliah (we have spent weekends together with the Gilmores).

Esh-Kodesh worked as a part-time guard at the Bituach Leumi (national insurance/social security) branch in East Jerusalem, an office that provides benefits to an almost entirely-Arab clientele. He was working there when a man walked up to him and shot right into his neck at point-blank range around noon on October 30, 2000.

The terrorist was operating under the name "Martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada". In fact, as a subsequent trial established, the planning and execution of the cold-blooded murder was done by men of Force 17. It's a so-called special operations unit under the command of Yasser Arafat and skilled in acts of terrorism, especially murder. At various times, it was been called the Palestinian Presidential Guard. The BBC reported at the time of Esh Kodesh's murder that Arafat "regards them as some of his most trusted security personnel."

So, evidently, does the man who stepped into Arafat's shoes. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas elevated a man called Mahmoud Awad Damra, known also by the nom-de-guerre Abu Awad, to become the head of Force 17 in May 2006. Not long afterwards, Damra was arrested by Israeli authorities. [We wrote about this at the time: "6-Sep-06: Reduction in Force 17".] He was tried and sentenced in 2006 to 15 years in prison for his role in terror attacks against Israelis including the murder of Esh-Kodesh Gilmore.

But this is the upside-down world of the Palestinian Arab clique and their perverted morality. While still behind bars, this Damra was promoted by the 'moderate' Abbas to the rank of major-general in 2009. On October 18, 2011, he walked out of his Israeli prison cell a free man, thanks to the infamous Gilad-Shalit-for-murderers deal. And this week, by presidential decree, Mahmoud Abbas appointed Mahmoud Awad Damra as his presidential adviser on local government.

If local government is where they deal with garbage and effluent, then Damra has been appointed to the right place. Still, in the name of justice, we're hoping the man will return to where he belongs, behind bars.

3-Jan-12: The life-and-death threat from our neighbors: the military has now put some numbers on it

2012-01-03T21:16:00.000+02:00

A May 2009 press photo of an Iranian Sejil-2 surface-to-surface
missile. That's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supervising
from the wall.

It's a feature of modern government that ordinary citizens - and not only here in Israel - get to see the confidential things that politicians and civil servants know when it's budget time. The behind-closed-doors financial arguments have a tendency to generate information leaks that appear to make the case for one side's arguments or demolish the other's.

Yaakov Katz writing today for the Jerusalem Post reveals some sensitive info about the IDF's assessments about the missile threat to the Israeli home-front. It happens that the government is battling with the IDF over defence budget reductions that were decided upon in the wake of the street protests in Israeli cities just a few months ago.

The key statement in his news report is that the military believes hundreds of Israelis are likely to die if war breaks out this year. The estimate is that the enemies on our borders will fire 8,000 rockets and other missiles.

Published yesterday, this photo published in a worried Arab News
purports to show Iranian navy officials celebrating after
the launch of a new Ghader missile
(AP Photo/Fars News Agency) [Image Source]

The estimate for five years out says that a war in 2017 - with Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and/or Iran or whichever similar enemy emerges (the list of candidates holds no surprises) - would likely include the firing of 15,000 rockets and missiles into Israel with commensurately greater devastation and casualties. And the forces on the other side will have missiles with far greater accuracy than anything in their overstocked arsenals today. Army officials are warning that the threatened budget cuts will hamper the IDF's ability to procure new missile defense systems, including such made-in-Israel breakthroughs as acclaimed Iron Dome anti-rocket system for intercepting short-range rockets (see "30-Dec-11: Life-saving invention of the year"); the David's Sling (against medium-range rockets), and the Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 (against long-range ballistic missiles). Israel's defence strategy strongly emphasizes anti-missile warfare, given the nature of the weapons already stocked by our enemies today. So those budgetary arguments actually resonate with ordinary citizens for solid, existential reasons.

To fortify the point about how real the dangers to Israelis are, the Iranians flexed their military muscle and made several announcements in the last few days about new, capacity-enlarging weapons systems now going into service. They say they successfully test-fired a long-range missile as well as a medium-range rocket that brought down an aerial target. These tests were part of massive naval exercises carried out by the Iranian navy in the Arabian Gulf (the Iranians don't call it that), near the Straits of Hormuz, "one of the world's most sensitive waterways". Iran, threatening to close the Straits by force if sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, already has missile systems capable of hitting Israel as well as US bases in other parts of the Middle East (see photo above).

Actually, the Iranians have additional threats up their sleeves. You can get a taste in a November 2010 article entitled "150,000 Iran missiles awaiting Israel"; it appears on PressTV, a global broadcasting empire owned by the Islamic Republic and monitored round-the-clock for compliance with Teheran's official Ayatollah-dictated line. So you know it's reliable.

2-Jan-12: 2:02 minutes of utter clarity on why Hamas is a terrorist group (and what this means about the people who persist in denying it)

2012-01-02T22:25:00.000+02:00

[Image Source]

The video clip below comes from Palestinian Media Watch which specializes in the translation and publicizing of Arabic language materials into English. The clip captures an important speech made by the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh (reported here) on 14th December 2011 in front of 100,000 supporters in Gaza City's al-Katiba park. This was a rally celebrating Hamas' 24th birthday and its proud claims to have killed 1,365 Israelis and to have fired 11,093 civilian-seeking rockets into Israel in that period.

We're replaying the speech here because Haniyeh says things that - for reasons you may understand better than we do - keep getting forgotten, denied, concealed or distorted.

Two days after the Gaza City speech, his fellow supreme Palestinian Arab leader, Mahmoud Abbas, head of Fatah and of the PA, said things that directly contradict Haniyeh. Nevertheless they received widespread media coverage. Abbas said Hamas has agreed that "there will be no military resistance" and "the permanent solution is on the '67 borders". But the speech by Haniyeh makes plain that this is not what Hamas says. Abbas surely knows this. So do the journalists and editors who publicized his words.

The key statement in the speech that follows is that the Hamas efforts to win back Gaza, the "West Bank" (as he terms it) and Jerusalem are an "interim objective". Nothing - certainly not the pending unification deal with Fatah - will change Hamas' real, actual, long-term "strategic" goal: eliminating all of Israel. He and his followers will not relinquish one inch of what he terms the land of Palestine. He says it about as clearly as a person can.

Here is the transcript of the speech by Ismail Haniyeh, Gazan leader of Hamas. And right after it, the video.

"We say today, explicitly, so it cannot be explained otherwise, that the armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel] from the blessed land of Palestine. The Hamas movement will lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine - all of Palestine, Allah willing. Allah Akbar and praise Allah. We say with transparency and in a clear manner, that Palestinian reconciliation - and all sides must know this - cannot come at the expense of [our] principles, at the expense of the resistance. These principles are absolute and cannot be disputed: Palestine - all of Palestine - is from the sea to the river. We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine. The involvement of Hamas at any stage with the interim objective of liberation of [only] Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem, does not replace its strategic view concerning Palestine and the land of Palestine."

[Al-Aqsa (Hamas), Dec. 14, 2011]

Give the man credit: he desperately wants to be believed. We owe him and hatred-driven terrorist racists like him that simple courtesy.

1-Jan-12: Terror attack statistics climbed sharply in December - no wonder this man is smiling so broadly

2012-01-01T22:34:00.004+02:00

Haniya on left, Erdogan on right. The Hamas man's Cheshire cat grin
is understandable given the sharp rise in terrorist attacks on
Israeli civilians living just the other side of his fence, and the warm
welcome he has gotten in Turkey and - earlier in the
trip - in Egypt, Sudan, Qatar, Bahrain and Tunisia. It's a new Middle
East, ladies and gentlemen.

Israel's internal security service, known as the Shin Bet outside Israel and Shabak within, says today the country experienced 81 security incidents during December, an increase of 84% over November's 44. Twenty-five of them were executed here in Jerusalem, more than a three-fold increase over the previous month. And 30 attacks emanated from the Gaza Strip (involving 30 rockets plus 11 mortar shells), compared with November's 11 (ten rockets, one mortar shell).

Meanwhile, the man who - perhaps more than anyone else - personifies the terrorist face of the regime that rules Gaza spent much of the day today (Sunday) in the residence of Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ismail Haniyeh, the Gazan head of Hamas (as distinct from Khaled Mashaal who runs the rest of Hamas from Damascus but may be moving himself from there to Amman this week in view of recent discomfiting events in Syria) was invited to a closed-doors meeting with Erdogan in Istanbul. Haniyeh is in the midst of a tour of the Muslim world, his first travels outside Gaza since Hamas thugs seized control there in a bloody struggle with the forces of the other major Palestinian Arab faction, Fatah, in 2007. The Turks are famously gracious hosts; the head of the other Palestinian Arab terror group Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas - who presides over the so-far-non-Hamas-controlled parts of the Palestinian Authority lands - was Erdogan's guest a few weeks ago.