RUTHFULLY YOURS

Surely Secretary of State John Kerry knows of the extensive labyrinth of tunnels in Gaza. Surely he knows that far beyond the rockets these pose a mortal threat to Israel that no country would accept. And surely he knows that the Israeli military is meticulously searching and destroying the tunnels and that this will take time, perhaps weeks and not days. Then why in the world would he publicly offer a truce proposal, especially one purportedly dressed up with some pro-Hamas goodies from Qatar?

One explanation is that he is foolish beyond our wildest imagination, entirely disconnected from reality. He maybe thinks Israel bluffs like his boss does, or maybe he does not understand that Israel’s “right to defend itself” must include destruction of the tunnels. Perhaps he is deluded to think Israel wouldn’t publicly spurn him.

Another possibility is that this is yet one more sign of President Obama’s antipathy toward Israel. He’d rather Israel not complete its task, not eradicate Iran’s agents and not demonstrate that hard power is not only available but also essential to defeat those who would destroy you. There might be some extended rationale for this, but it boils down to Obama’s determination to appease bad actors in the cause of a temporary cessation in violence.

In either case, Obama and Kerry have more egg on their faces, having just reinforced how irrelevant to the Middle East they have become. If anything, we’ve learned that the president is content to let events play out. His “policy,” whether with Iran or Russia, consists of wishful thinking and empty threats. And we’ve also learned that Israel will pay a great price in blood, treasure and diplomatic vilification to survive. No, the Jewish state is not going to commit national suicide. That is true when it comes to Hamas, and Iran is well. Israel is simply not going to allow itself to be bullied into surrender, which is what leaving deadly tunnels in place would amount to.

BRITAIN’S Jews are suffering an anti-semitic backlash against Israel’s military action in Gaza with attacks, bomb threats, bricks thrown at a synagogue and “Hitler was right” banners.

About 100 hate incidents have been recorded by police and community groups this month — more than double the number that monitors would usually expect.

Many are said to have been carried out by young Muslim men and, in some cases, the attackers have invoked the Holocaust.

The most serious incidents being investigated include:

•A rabbi who was attacked by four youths outside a Jewish school in Gateshead

•Bricks being thrown at a synagogue in Belfast, smashing windows on two consecutive nights

•A group of Asian men who drove through a Jewish area of Greater Manchester, shouting “Heil Hitler” and hurling missiles at pedestrians

•A man using Twitter to call for a Jewish neighbourhood in London to be bombed so “Jews feel the pain” of the Palestinians.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators, angered by the mounting death toll in Gaza — which yesterday passed 1,000 — have even taken to the streets with placards declaring: “Hitler you were right!”

In a separate incident, a BBC journalist has been reprimanded after appearing to suggest that western politicians had failed to intervene in the Middle East crisis because they had been “bought” by the Jews.

More than 1,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have died as a result of Israel’s military strikes against Hamas, Gaza’s Islamist rulers, since the start of the conflict.

Diners were tucking into their falafels in Pitzman, a celebrated kosher restaurant in the Jewish district of Paris when the owner got a call to say a mob of youths was heading his way. He just had time to pull down the metal shutters before 30 or so gathered outside, screaming “Hamas resistance”, “Israel assassin”, “Death to Jews” and “We’re going to slit your throats”. Inside, customers cowered in fear for 20 minutes before police intervened to break up the mob.

The incident, on Wednesday, came at the height of the most traumatic week for Europe’s Jews in recent times. In the past few days, at least eight synagogues were attacked in France; like Germany, the country is struggling to keep the Middle East conflict off its streets.

As France’s 500,000-strong Jewish community looked at the headlines in horror, the media grappled with the question of who is responsible for the upsurge of anti-Semitic violence in a country still scarred by the memory of the Nazi occupation.

Crucially, it is very different from the anti-Semitism of the past. Gone, mostly, is the threat of the old-fashioned, tattooed, neo-Nazi skinheads. They have been replaced by second or third-generation immigrants from France’s former colonies in north and west Africa.Among the 15,000 or so pro-Palestinian protesters who marched through Paris to denounce Israel’s raids on Gaza, most came from the impoverished, crime-ridden suburbs where their families have lived since their arrival in France, and where almost every balcony has a satellite dish to capture Arab television channels.

Some reports described them as Muslim radicals, but this is simplistic. Their influences are a patchwork consisting of Islamist propaganda, the French far right, the extreme left and a sense of social disgruntlement nourished by unemployment.

Take, for instance, Ahmed, a 29-year-old youth worker who is a member of a gang calling itself the Gaza Firm, which consists mainly of supporters of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), the capital’s football club.

He said 30 or so members of the firm, most wearing black T-shirts, had joined the march to protect anti-Israeli protesters from the Ligue de Défense Juive (Jewish Defence League), an extremist organisation of Jews involved in numerous violent incidents. Ahmed gave the impression that he would have been quite happy to meet the league for a punch-up in the same way that PSG fans regularly clash with supporters of Olympique de Marseille.

5,000 attend banned demonstration Place de la République (see my earlier post here with photos.)

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve set forth, in a solemn address to the nation, a severe warning to organizers and potential demonstrators. The right to demonstrate is indeed respected in France. Over 60 demonstrations of support for the Palestinians have been held in France, only 5 have been banned. The ban is based on a thorough examination of all available evidence from social media and other sources. The risk of disturbing the peace is too great. The organizers have not given convincing proof of their ability to control the crowd. The ban was upheld by the court. It is the law of the land. We cannot tolerate expressions of anti-Semitism masked in support for Palestinians. Synagogues were attacked, Jewish property was destroyed, public property was smashed and riot police were attacked.

Approximately one half hour later the crowd started to gather at Place de la République. By 3 PM it was estimated at 3,000 and at the height of the demonstration, at 5,000. Journalists tweeted, cameramen filmed, riot police stood firm, and nobody rounded up the lawbreakers and carted them away. As the story always goes, it started out as a good-natured gathering, lots of women and children, nothing objectionable, well almost nothing. A jihad flag is clearly visible at the foot of the monument to the République alongside the “moderate” Palestinian flag. Israel was called dirty names. The media were accused of pro-Israel bias. You have to understand jihad to know that these guys are dead serious.

Unless you present their Islamically pure version, unless you display the same slogans, repeat the same war cries, show the same hatred as they demonstrate, you are a pro-Zionist puppet. Prime Minister Valls is capped with a kippa, President Hollande waves an Israeli flag. As the afternoon wore on journalists were kicked, threatened, pushed around. Mike and camera were grabbed away from an I-Télé crew.

That was the good-natured part of the demonstration. It went on for about two hours and, surprise, as it was dispersing, some 500 (maybe it was more like a thousand?) tough guys started to attack the police. A rumor reportedly triggered the change in temper—the Jewish Defense League was on its way. Or already there. In which case it would be logical to attack the police, don’t you see?

The battle went on for two hours. The security detachment provided by the organizers was a pushover. The usual smashing was enjoyed by all. Teargas filled the square. It is reported that 50 people were pulled aside and about 30 of them actually detained.

The police surrounded the mob, pushing them gradually…to the metro station. Yes, that is how it was described. They evacuated the smashers by sending them into the metro station. And on their merry way.

HB MOUNTAINMAN

First of all as an ecumenical gesture, I would suggest to the Presbyterian leaders who have voted to divest from any company dealing with Israel, to use this freed up and untaxed income to invest in cement factories which deal with Hamas. This cement-millions of cubic feet of it- that Hamas has purchased using donations to Gaza has not been used to build schools, hospitals, recreational facilities or factories. Instead, it has been used to construct dozens of tunnels through which Hamas terrorists-some of them dressed as Israeli soldiers- go through into Israel in order to kill civilians.

While they are at it, the Presbyterians and many others who are sympathetic to Hamas might either invest in or make a direct group purchase of Kalshnikovs, rockets and other ammunition that Hamas regularly stores in schools, hospitals and private homes. When you are getting sympathy and money as victims, perhaps you might want to invest that in things that will actually help your people. Since that won’t happen, perhaps Hamas sympathizers could convince some enterprising munitions factory to make grenades in the form of small textbooks and rocket launchers in the form of hospital beds.

The Palestinians are indeed a poor people. First they had a leader like Arafat who had the opportunity to create a state when, in Oslo, Israel agreed to withdraw from a large swath of the West Bank and from East Jerusalem and recognize an independent Palestine. Instead, Arafat incited the intifada, embarked on an unprecedented spree of terror and carnage throughout Israel and promised his people that they would get all of Israel. In retrospect his reasoning was logical. A stateless people would continue to get donations, from which Arafat could and did take hundreds of millions of dollars .

He wisely salted it away in European banks. His photogenic widow now sits on almost a billion dollars which had been intended to help the Palestinians but now helps her live a nice life in Europe.

Hamas uses its money to make perpetual war but then complains about living conditions in Gaza. Fortunately for Hamas, it has rags like The Guardian in England and many publications in the US calling it a “militant” group instead of savage terrorists. At a certain point, “victims” whose only purpose is to victimize others and , in the process, victimize their own people should have lost the confidence and support of their people.

In Gaza, however, hatred trumps self preservation. Instead of being self imposed victims, the people of Gaza would do well to have the leaders of Hamas permanently embedded into their precious cement. Is that a concrete enough proposal?

http://www.israelemb.org/washington/AboutTheEmbassy/Pages/Contact_Us.aspx

27 July 2014

Embassy of Israel

Washington, DC 20008

Dear Ambassador and People of Israel:

I am writing to apologize for the utterly irrational behavior of our Secretary of State, John Kerry, and President Barack Obama, for their intransigent hostility to Israel. Their actions and words are beyond contempt. Their actions are such that one can only conclude that they wish Israel to perish by the hands of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and every other nihilist Islamic terrorist group in existence. I want to assure you that I did not vote for Obama, and in fact severed ties with long-term friends because they, knowing his hostility to his own country, a hostility demonstrated by his wanting to swamp this country with Third World savages and criminals from Mexico and Central America, should have been able to judge him by the disasters of his first term of office.

Again, my deepest and sincere apologies for these two harpies.

Best regards, and keep wiping out Hamas. Never mind world opinion. It isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. And never mind the Gazan “casualties.” Those manqués cheered on 9/11/2001, and on 7/7, and on the bombings in Madrid, and Bali, and Moscow. Extinguish Hamas permanently. No retreat, no surrender! That ought to be your battle cry.

Edward Cline

We are witnessing Arab and Muslim war crimes in a never ending spiral of horror inflicted upon Israel’s civilian population as endless salvos of missiles fired by the Hamas occupiers of Gaza rein down upon Israeli villages, towns and cities – and the world yawns.
But then, remarkably, it awakens when the Jews have the unmitigated gall, temerity and chutzpah to defend themselves.

It is then that an outpouring of brutish and irrational hatred towards the Jewish state explodes in much of the morally bankrupt mainstream media, and among the thousands of hate filled Muslims who take to the streets of European capitals in violent displays of terminal intolerance.

Tragically, too many duped non-Muslim dhimmis join with them in the anti-Jewish hate fest. For them, just as among the mainstream media mavens of NPR, CNN, the BBC and other media outlets, ignorance is not bliss.

The world also yawned before and during the dark years of World War 2 when Jews were disappearing all over Europe. It was a time of towering intolerance and we have now retreated to those terrible years yet again.

It was then that Nazism targeted the Jews, always the victim of ancient religious calumnies. Far too many of the peoples of Europe aided and abetted the German Nazis’ systematic slaughter of the stateless and hapless Jewish communities. Indeed if you need to know the name of the largest Jewish cemetery in the world; it is Europe.

But once the Nazi hordes were driven back and defeated the cry came: “Never Again.” But it is happening again and the same world, albeit now with the children and grandchildren of that mostly compliant generation that allowed the Nazi horror to grow and metastasize, are again turning against the Jews and against their reconstituted biblical and ancestral Jewish homeland: Israel.

But this time the intolerance that is leading them into a new dark age is that of the 7th century ideology wrapped in a religion: Islam.

In the words of one of the world’s greatest patriots who helped save the world from the Nazi juggernaut of death:

Although an unobservant Jew who considered his religion “an accident
of birth,” Greenberg said at the end of his life (he died in 1986)
that he was startled to find himself “wanting to be remembered not
only as a great ballplayer, but even more as a great Jewish
ballplayer.”

On a central Illinois baseball field in 1931, a 20-year-old minor
leaguer named Hank Greenberg was heckled by the opposing team’s third
baseman with anti-Semitic insults — language that we in 2014 would
call hate speech. When Greenberg could no longer stand the
provocations, which were echoed by an angry, roaring crowd, he
confronted the third baseman and was rushed out of the park by local
police for protection. Greenberg later said the fracas was “scary.”

Born in New York’s Greenwich Village, Greenberg, standing a little
under 6 feet 4 inches, spent most of his major league career as a
first baseman playing for the Detroit Tigers. He hit 58 home runs in
1938, only two short of Babe Ruth’s 1927 record, and he was twice
chosen as the American League’s most valuable player. He achieved this
against a recurrent aural backdrop of “Christ killer!” and other
anti-Jewish taunts.

Inez Weissman, friend, a stalwart member of Americans for a Safe Israel and a warrior for Jewish causes died on July 19, 2014 in Portland,Oregon. Her memory is a blessing, and John and Beth Newman of Portland who carry on her work are a blessing to her memory.

With condolence and regret….rsk

HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher left no doubt on his show Friday about who he thinks is responsible for the violence in Gaza.

“I feel terrible for a Palestinian child who dies,” Mr. Maher said. “But if it’s your father, your brother, your uncle who’s firing those rockets into Israel, whose fault is it really? Do you really expect the Israelis not to retaliate?”

The comment drew applause from his audience and, surprisingly, gave Mr. Maher something he rarely has on his show: agreement with one of his conservative guests.

Jamie Weinstein, an editor of The Daily Caller, said that extremists will always be trying to harm Israel regardless of the country’s actions.

“I don’t think you can understand the conflict without reading Hamas’ charter, upon which they were founded, which clearly calls — and it’s chilling — calls for not only the destruction of Israel but the murder of Jews generally,” Mr. Weinsten said.

“They say the day will come when the trees will call out and say ‘here’s a Jew come kill him.’ This is the mentality of the people that Israel is fighting,” he continued.

Mr. Maher said he believes that Israel has been effective at defending itself in part because of its scientific expertise.

“Jews have, I think, 155 Nobel Prizes. Muslims have two,” he said. “That seems like kind of a big advantage for team Hebrew.”

The host found himself in hot water earlier this week for a tweet he sent out about the conflict.

“Dealing w/ Hamas is like dealing w/ a crazy woman who’s trying to kill u – u can only hold her wrists so long before you have to slap her,” his message wrote.