For a decade, Israel's decisions on crucial issues has been influenced by the specter of The Hague - by Ariel Kahana

Despite the echoing failure, at meetings of an inter-ministerial staff this week one could still hear naïve, propitiatory voices. Some suggested waiting to see whether or not the judges at The Hague would agree with the prosecutor, as if any other outcome were possible. Others argued that the US policy of punishing the court – President Donald Trump revoked US visas from its representatives – still hasn't proven effective. Israel has only one option left when it comes to the ICC, which is threatening its most vital self-defense interests. It must move from the language of law to the language of power.

Ariel Kahana..
Israel Hayom..
27 December '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/12/27/tiptoeing-around-the-icc/

Dr. Alan Baker, who used to serve as legal counsel to the Foreign Ministry, remembers Benjamin Netanyahu's enthusiasm. The year was 2002 – the Second Intifada was wreaking havoc in the streets and the IDF was operating in Arab enclaves in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu was at the time foreign minister in Ariel Sharon's government, and Baker was one of a group of Israeli and Jewish legal scholars who were pushing to establish the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

It's no coincidence that Jews were at the forefront of the move to found the ICC. As far back as the 1950s, the idea had been ratting around as a lesson learned from the Holocaust, with the goal being that genocidal murderers would know that they would be held to account. So Israel had already agreed in principle to join the ICC, and all that was necessary was for Netanyahu and the rest of the cabinet to sign off. Netanyahu read the papers and listened to Baker, but as a former ambassador to the UN, he knew firsthand how inherently biased international institutions were. He was concerned that an international entity founded for the highest of purposes would turn against Israel.

Seeing what was to come, and with the US exerting its influence, Netanyahu decided on an about-face in policy, and declared that Israel would not join the ICC. Looking back, that was a wise decision. As bad as the current situation with The Hague is, it would have been much worse if Israel were a member.

Nothing in the outward appearance of the ICC, where I visited a few years ago, indicates that it is a court. Unlike the glorious old palace that housed the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also located in The Hague, the ICC moved to a high-rise office building without any special outward markings a few years ago. When I visited in 2015, a guide supplied by the court led me through the various floors on my way to meet with Phakiso Mochochoko, head of the complementary legal division and one of chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's deputies.

"I don't know about Israel's experience [with international institutions], but I can say that there are currently processes underway in the court. The charter's laws and principles are the only thing that guides us," Mochochoko told me.

"The processes are clear, fair, and independent," he said.

Mochochoko went on to tell me that "Even if the prosecutor were a friend of Palestinian leaders, she could not pursue a case because they are her friends. That's not how it works. There are judges."

It seems he knew more than I did about a friendship between the prosecutor and the Palestinians.

Surprise? UK’s 'The Independent', Gives Platform to Terror-Supporting Amnesty Official - by Emanuel Miller

In what world does calling for a violent uprising of murderous violence, of glorifying plane hijackers and senior terrorists who advocate suicide bombing attacks, without appearing to recant, make a person a suitable candidate for a ‘human rights organization’?

Emanuel Miller..
Honest Reporting..
29 December '19..

There’s no doubt that life for many Palestinians is hard. However, their situation is a complex one that has arisen as a result of years of bloody violence directed against Israelis. Put briefly, their situation is a consequence, not simply a cause. That’s why pieces focusing on Palestinian suffering without any mention of Israel’s legitimate security needs are misleading and misinform readers.

Regular readers of these pages are no doubt aware of the UK’s The Independent, a media outlet which regularly exhibits an anti-Israel bent. But one such piece, entitled, “My friend was banned from travelling to visit his dying mother. This is the personal, intimate price of occupation” — which tells the sad story of how one man was not allowed to see his mother before she died in an Israeli hospital — runs significantly deeper than readers may realize.

The writer of this piece is identified thus: “Saleh Hijazi is deputy regional director for Amnesty Middle East and North Africa.”

That’s one way of describing Hijazi. Here’s another: A terror-glorifying, war-crime-supporting anti-Israel activist in the clothing of a human rights worker.

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The Perennial Victim Industry: Lies Palestinians Tell at Christmas - by Barry Shaw

The Palestinian leadership blames the "security wall" for all that ails their people. This is little more than propaganda seeking to malign Israel and projects Palestinians as oppressed victims.

Barry Shaw..
Israel Hayom..
25 December '19..

When Israel relinquished control of Bethlehem to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, 85% of this prosperous town was middle-class Christians. Business and life was good when it was part of Israel.

By Christmas 2019, Christians are less than 10% of the population in an economically stricken town.

How did this come about?

In 1995, Elias Freij was that the last Christian mayor of Bethlehem. He appealed to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, not to withdraw from the city as part of the Accords due to his fear for the future of Christians in Bethlehem. Rabin wanted an official and public statement from the mayor to that effect to take into his negotiations. Freij and the church authorities refused Rabin's request, and the rest is a tragic page in Christian history.

The Palestinian leadership blames the "security wall" for the current situation. They talk of Israel turning Bethlehem into "a prison."

The British artist, Banksy, has advanced his reputation in left-wing circles by promoting propaganda graffiti scrawled on walls throughout Bethlehem. He has even built a hotel in Bethlehem called The Walled-Off Hotel which is full of imagery of Israeli negativity such as a nativity scene in front of a section of security wall with a shattered bullet hole which he calls "The Scar of Bethlehem."

All this propaganda scandalizes Israel and projects Palestinians as oppressed victims.

Nowhere in Banksy's work is there a mention of Palestinian terror promoted and rewarded by the Palestinian Authority, a prolonged terror campaign that has murdered hundreds of Israel and made the security barrier a necessity, or the threatening behavior of Palestinian Muslims that has driven out most of the town's Christians.

Today, at Christmas 2019, Bethlehem is a once Christian town, with important churches, holy relics, and sanctuaries, and a few Christians that live in fear not of Israel, but of Muslim Arabs.

The Christians I once knew had businesses such as tourist shops selling olive wood carvings and religious symbolism to tourists. They are gone. Their homes and the shops now occupied by their Muslim neighbors.

The Palestinians will tell you it's all Israel's fault. They are, after all, the perennial victim. It's become and industry for them. This image sells as much as Banksy's souvenirs in Bethlehem.

But is this the truth?

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Barry Shaw is the international public diplomacy director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Israel Does Not Commit War Crimes. Period. - JPost Editorial

Israel needs to say categorically that enabling Jews to live in the West Bank is not a war crime.

JPost Editorial..
22 December '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/War-crimes-611794

Israel does not commit war crimes.

That is the message Israel needs to send the world, in light of the recommendation on Friday by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to investigate Israel regarding alleged war crimes stemming from 2014’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza; settlement activity since then; and the IDF’s response to weekly riots along the Gaza border fence.

Israel does have soldiers who have committed crimes while in action – as do all countries involved in active military campaigns. And when this happens, the country’s military and civil courts deal with the cases and hold those involved responsible.

Bensouda, in what seems like little more than a fig leaf, wrote that there is also a “reasonable basis” to believe that Hamas and “Palestinian armed groups” committed war crimes. As if there is any doubt that the indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets on Sderot, Ashkelon and communities nearby – or purposefully setting alight thousands of dunams of agricultural land and forests – is anything but a war crime.

But it is obscene for Bensouda to place Israel and terrorist organizations on equal footing. Unlike Hamas – and what Bensouda called in sanitized language “Palestinian armed groups” – Israel does not intentionally harm civilians in Gaza or anywhere else.

Yes, civilians are harmed in Gaza by IDF actions, but they are not the target.

In 2015, a blue ribbon panel of former top military leaders and generals from eight democratic countries wrote a report after conducting an investigation into Operation Protective Edge. Their conclusion: Israel’s conduct in the conflict “met and in some respects exceeded the highest standards we set for our own nations’ militaries... The IDF not only met its obligations under the Law of Armed Conflict, but often exceeded these on the battlefield at significant tactical cost.”

Furthermore, Israel needs to say categorically that enabling Jews to live in the West Bank is not a war crime.

Jews living at the site of the biblical Shiloh, or in the shadow of the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, are not committing war crimes. One can argue the political wisdom of their living there, and one can say that making peace with the Palestinians is more difficult because they live there, but to say that a Jew living in Judea – the cradle of Jewish civilization – is a war criminal, is ridiculous.

Surprise! Media Turns Banksy's Small Anti-Israel Installation Into Major News! - by Tamar Sternthal

...far from being a huge mural which changes the face of the city itself, Banksy’s new piece is a small affair which sits atop a little end table inside the hotel. The diminutive size of the art installation, however, was apparently not a factor in the determination of news organizations to dedicate astounding amounts of high profile, high visibility coverage.

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA.org..
23 December '19..

A major media event has hit the biblical town of Bethlehem, Jesus’ birthplace, just days before Christmas: The secretive artist Banksy has produced a new exhibit depicting the nativity scene with Israel’s concrete security barrier in the background, topped by a bullet hole in the shape of the iconic star characteristic of the manger.

The opening of what the artists has dubbed “The Scar of Bethlehem” has garnered vast coverage: articles include those by the Associated Press (“Banksy takes politically charged Nativity Scene to Bethlehem“), Agence France Presse (“Mysterious artist Bansky unveils dark nativity in Bethlehem“), Reuters (“Banksy’s scar of Bethlehem’ nativity unveiled in West Bank hotel“), Sky News (“Banksy “nativity” appears at his Walled Off hotel in Bethlehem“); The Mirror (“Banksy paints baby Jesus nativity scene. . . “), The Independent (“Bansky unveils ‘Scar of Bethlehem’ nativity mural“), BBC (“Banksy ‘nativity scene’ appears in Bethlehem hotel“), CNN (“Banksy unveils ‘modified nativity’ scene in Bethlehem“), The Irish Independent (“Banksy highlights conflict with his ‘Scar of Bethlehem’ nativity“), videos by Reuters, Deutsche Welle, and Voice of America (seen below, the three-minute promotional piece does not include even one word about why the security barrier was built), and numerous photographs from the major wire services.

Based on the media frenzy, one would assume that the political art was a towering mural, a dominant feature in the city, outside the boutique Walled Off hotel, perhaps appearing on the security barrier itself, which sits right next to the high-end lodging based around Banksy’s work.

But far from being a huge mural which changes the face of the city itself, Banksy’s new piece is a small affair which sits atop a little end table inside the hotel. The diminutive size of the art installation, however, was apparently not a factor in the determination of news organizations to dedicate astounding amounts of high profile, high visibility coverage.

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Can you imagine? BBC News again self-conscripts to Banksy’s Israel delegitimisation - by Hadar Sela

There is of course nothing at all “different” about this latest exploitation of the nativity story for political ends – as the BBC obviously knows full well seeing as two years ago it collaborated with precisely such an initiative. And clearly the notion that the Palestinian people “cannot speak” is ridiculous given the amount of airtime and column space devoted to their views by the Western media- including the BBC. This latest Christmas exploiting self-conscription to a long-running PR campaign promoting anonymous agitprop intended solely to delegitimise Israel continues to further erode the BBC’s claim of ‘impartiality’.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
22 December '19..

For years the BBC has uncritically promoted the recurrent anti-Israel propaganda produced by the anonymous English political activist known as Banksy.

It hence came as no surprise to see that the lead report on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page on the morning of December 22nd did not concern the tens of thousands of people forced to flee Idlib province in Syria after over 400 airstrikes by Syrian and Russian forces but instead promoted yet another piece of the graffiti artist’s agitprop.

In addition to the report headlined “Banksy ‘nativity scene’ appears in Bethlehem hotel” audiences were offered links both on the ‘Middle East’ page and in the body of the article to two previous examples from the same BBC genre:

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Surprise? It's official. It's a Palestinian "value" to murder Israeli men on their way to prayer - PMW

How many lies can Zaki make in one sentence?

Itamar Marcus..
Palestinian Media Watch..
19 December '19..

Two Israelis, Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi and Aharon Bennett, were stabbed to death in October 2015 by 19-year-old Palestinian terrorist Muhannad Halabi. The terrorist attacked the Bennett family on their way to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Halabi murdered the father and another man, and also stabbed and seriously wounded Bennett’s wife, Adele and their 2-year-old son.

In the eyes of senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki, murderer Muhannad Halabi was following Palestinian “values,” when he only killed the father and “spared” the mother and the son. Zaki’s claim is false on two accounts.

1. PA ideology does not limit its support for murder to Israeli/Jewish men but supports murder of women and children as well.
2. Murderer Halabi did in fact try to murder the mother and the son, however they miraculously survived with stab wounds.



Although the PA’s policy of promoting and rewarding the murder of Israeli men, women, and children has been documented thousands of times by Palestinian Media Watch, it is unusual for a senior Palestinian leader to admit in front of cameras that murdering a rabbi is a Palestinian “value” because the murderer did not also kill his wife and infant child: “We don’t kill people as we please. There are values, customs.”

The following are Zaki’s words and lies:

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Addressing the New Rocket Threat to Israel - by Jonathan Schanzer

Despite a steady stream of attacks perpetrated by their enemies in recent years, the Israelis have not needed to fight long or particularly bloody wars. Instead, they have been conducting limited operations. Israel has, in fact, often been able to determine the beginning and end of these flare-ups. Iron Dome’s ability to neutralize rudimentary rockets has made that possible. But now, with PGMs (precision-guided munition) in play, Israel may no longer be able to dictate the terms of conflict when its enemies want one. And let there be no doubt: They want one.

Jonathan Schanzer..
Pundicity/Commentary Magazine..
January '20..
Link: http://schanzer.pundicity.com/23598/the-new-rocket-threat-to-israel

Israel’s southern population came under attack once again in November 2019. The Iran-backed terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fired more than 450 rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip. Israelis sprinted to shelters, and the Iron Dome air-defense system once again shielded them from the onslaught. Thousands of miles from the action, sitting in the back seat of an Uber, I was on the phone with an Israeli official on the Gaza border who explained to me, without hesitation, that Israel had picked this fight.

There would be no attempt to spin this, the official said, even as rockets hurtled across the sky above him. Israel fired first, he said, by liquidating Baha Abu al-Ata, the PIJ military commander in the Gaza Strip. Israel tracked him for months, but he always surrounded himself with human shields. So the Israelis stalked him—and when, at last, he failed to shield himself with living human bodies, they struck with deadly precision. The Israeli Air Force did not just isolate its strike to the building, or the floor of the building, or the room on that floor. It struck al-Ata in his bed, reportedly with only his wife at his side. No one else in the building was hurt.

PIJ, in consultation with the group’s paymasters in Tehran, responded with predictable ferocity. Yet as rocket fire increased, and even when occasional volleys pierced the Iron Dome’s defenses (one struck a highway near the town of Ashdod, narrowly missing traffic), Israel’s decision makers demonstrated remarkable restraint. As the official on the phone explained to me, the Israeli Air Force was calmly and selectively taking out PIJ military leaders and operatives when they had a clear shot. The majority of the bombing runs, however, were aimed at PIJ rocket stores. “We’re hunting rockets,” the official said flatly.

That kind of cool-headed discipline would not be possible without the Iron Dome system. When rockets are prevented from hitting their intended targets, Israeli officials don’t hear calls from the public to send in ground troops. And for most defense officials (at least in this current government), there is no desire to escalate in Gaza. Even as it takes out occasional targets of opportunity, Israel prefers to keep its powder dry. The real danger lies to the north, where a brutal conflict is brewing.

Over the past five years, the Israelis have been fighting a quiet war nearly every night. During what is now known as the “Campaign Between Wars” or “War Between Wars,” the Israelis have taken out high-value targets—more than 200 of them, according to estimates published last year, and it’s probably closer to 300 now—from Syria and Iraq to Lebanon and beyond. As early as 2013, the Israelis spoke euphemistically about such strikes, noting that they were targeting “game-changing weapons” that Iran was transferring to its proxies amid the chaos of Syria’s civil war.

Recently, the Israelis have become much more specific. Their targets are precision-guided munitions, or PGMs.

Until now, Israel has been blessed with ill-equipped enemies. The efforts of Iranian proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and PIJ have been mitigated by Iron Dome, which has an 86 percent success rate (some Israeli officials say it's even higher) in neutralizing incoming enemy projectiles. That rate is boosted by the fact that Israel's foes have been firing unguided, or "dumb," rockets. Without GPS or target-acquisition capabilities, many of these rockets undershoot or overshoot their intended targets. When Iron Dome assesses a rocket's errant trajectory, it declines to intercept it and allows it to explode in an uninhabited space.

‘Historic Palestine’ – A Truly Misleading Anachronism - by Salo Aizenberg

Most people today use the post-1921 boundaries of the Palestine Mandate as their definition of “Historic Palestine” even though these artificially created boundaries are in fact an ahistorical, recent and artificial creation.

Salo Aizenberg..
Guest Post/Honest Reporting..
18 December '19..

“Historic Palestine” is a commonly-used term when discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict. The phrase suggests that a nation known as Palestine existed in the past, with the word “historic” giving the impression that this nation has deep roots in the region and thus has a natural claim to be revived in the form of a modern state called Palestine. By referring to the land thus without mentioning Jewish history, it also subtly suggests that a Jewish presence is foreign to the region.

This article discusses the origin and evolution of the usage of “Palestine” as a place name and how current notions of “Historic Palestine” are all based on a false understanding of the geographic and political history of the region.

Historic Palestine in today’s usage typically refers to the territory that now comprises Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Here are several recent prominent examples of usage of the term:

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Salo Aizenberg, one of the leading collectors of Judaica picture postcards, is the author of Postcards from the Holy Land: A Pictorial History of the Ottoman Era, 1880–1918 and Hatemail: Anti-Semitism on Picture Postcards.

The very ugly truth about BDS and campus anti-Semitism - by Jonathan S. Tobin

“The New Anti-Semites” should make for sobering reading for Jews and other Americans who may dislike Trump, yet still want to support the fight against anti-Semitism. There is no way to defend or rationalize the BDS movement without being compromised by its anti-Semitic purpose, discourse and conduct. Those who oppose Trump’s order may claim they are defending the moral high ground and free speech, but they are actually rolling in the mud with the worst sort of anti-Semites and supporters of terrorism.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
17 December '19..

In the week since President Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order about enforcing Title VI protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to Jewish students subjected to anti-Semitism on college campuses, efforts to discredit the move have continued to be heard. Both left-wing groups and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media, like The New York Times, are working to create the impression that the government’s determination to protect students against hate from the BDS movement is a controversial scheme that will repress free speech and hurt Jewish students more than it will help them.

The order was opposed by openly anti-Zionist groups such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voices for Peace, as well as J Street, which still claims to be pro-Israel but whose links to the anti-Trump resistance obligate it to oppose just about anything the president does. The two separate features published by the Times in the past few days on the topic show just how determined some in the media are to portray support for BDS on college campuses as idealistic activism endangered by a repressive administration. BDS backers were portrayed sympathetically, and the articles quoted more Jewish opponents of Trump’s decision than supporters.

As far as Trump’s critics are concerned, the talk of campus anti-Semitism from both the government and mainstream Jewish groups that support the order, including some that are deeply critical of Trump, like the Anti-Defamation League, is a subterfuge whose true aim is to suppress voices of dissent on Israel. But a new report titled “The New Anti-Semites,” authored by Marc Greendorfer of the Zachor Legal Institute and published by StopAntisemitism.org, is a powerful antidote to the disinformation about BDS being spread by those who wish to undermine efforts by the U.S. Department of Education to enforce the law and protect Jewish students.

The report is required reading for all those whose view of the issue is distorted by their distaste for Trump. It examines in excruciating detail the numerous incidents of anti-Semitic incitement related to the BDS movement around the world and in the United States, including those involving Students for Justice in Palestine, the group that the Times attempts to whitewash.

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Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.

Masquerading as human-rights organizations, while using donations to advance the campaign of terror against Israel - by Nadav Shragai

A precedent-setting lawsuit filed in Washington by the JNF-KKL and a number of families from southern Israel aims to tear the mask of a number of organizations posing as Palestinian human rights charities and expose their true faces as supporters of terrorism and destruction.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
14 December '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/12/14/funneling-hatred/

Between one round of violence in the south and the next, the "marches of return" and arson balloons and kites floated over the border from Gaza are still with us. With or without a cease-fire agreement, Hamas is not giving up on this particular weapon: over the past two years, they have started 2,155 fires that consumed some 35,000 dunams (over 8,600 acres) of forests, fields, and nature preserves. The total damage is estimated at some $50 million.

Recently, the 84th weekly protests on the Gaza border were held, but Hamas kept them in check. The organization is trying to play down the violent activity that characterizes the "marches" – rock throwing, improvised explosive devices and Molotov cocktails, and intermittent shooting and attempts to breach the border fence.

Of course, none of this happened in a vacuum. The Jewish National Fund and families of victims of terrorism have filed a civil suit in US federal court that is seeking to expose how money to fund these activities makes its way to the Gaza Strip. In particular, the suit aims to throw light on the groups that help move funds there, directly or indirectly. If the details of the suit are found to have legal basis, it will be possible to point to three links in the money chain, the first of which is the PNIF – the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces. The group was established by former PLO leader Yasser Arafat during the Second Intifada, in which some 1,000 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks.

Arafat founded the PNIF as an entity that would coordinate between the various organizations fighting against Israel, with the goal of promoting that warfare. It turns out that the PNIF was never dismantled and in fact helped establish the Supreme National Authority of the Return Marches and Lifting the Siege.

A total of 12 religious and nationalist Palestinian factions belong to the PNIF, including Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Liberation Front, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the PFLP general headquarters. All of them are recognized as terrorist groups by Israel, the US, and Europe.

Sarit, Israel's Eyes in the North: The Woman Who Watches Hezbollah - by Lahav Harkov

Sarit Zehavi, founder of the Alma Center think tank, has her eye on Hezbollah and her feet planted firmly in her beloved Galilee

Lahav Harkov..
Tablet Magazine..
16 December '19..

At the end of August, there was tension in the northern Galilee. Israel stopped Hezbollah from launching a drone from Syria by killing two terrorists, who had both been trained in Iran, before they could carry out the attack. Two drones crashed in Beirut, and the Lebanese blamed Israel, which denied involvement.

Sarit Zehavi, founder and CEO of Alma Research and Education Center, a think tank in the western Galilee focused on geopolitics and security on Israel’s northern border, posted a video on YouTube on Aug. 27, briefing viewers on how Israel foiled an Iranian attack from Syrian territory, and Lebanon’s connection to the incident. On Sept. 1, Hezbollah shot several rockets into northern Israel.

Zehavi’s son Mor was supposed to have his bar mitzvah several days later in their hometown, just a short drive from Israel’s border with Lebanon. But now, the plan looked like it was going to be a bust, and it reminded her of an entirely different bar mitzvah story—her father’s.

Nov. 29, 1947, was a joyous day in Israel, because the U.N. authorized the partition plan that was meant to split Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. And it was supposed to be a joyous time for the Zehavi family, who were refugees from Syria, because Moshe Zehavi—Sarit’s father—was supposed to have his bar mitzvah. His parents invited plenty of guests and his grandmother cooked up a feast.

The next day, about a third of a mile from the Zehavi family’s Petah Tikva home in central Israel, the first hostilities in what came to be known as Israel’s War of Independence took place when Arabs ambushed two buses full of Jews. Moshe’s bar mitzvah was called off.

When Moshe Zehavi turned 80, Sarit surprised him with a bar mitzvah at the ancient synagogue in Katzrin, in the Golan Heights. Moshe’s sister cried recounting the circumstances under which the original bar mitzvah date was canceled, Sarit said.

Five years after Moshe’s belated bar mitzvah, Sarit found herself wondering if another family celebration would have to be scrapped. “If Nasrallah ruins this bar mitzvah,” Zehavi said, referring to Hezbollah’s chief, “I’ll kill him myself.”

Luckily, history didn’t repeat itself. The escalation stopped soon after the thwarted drone attack, and Mor’s bar mitzvah went off without a hitch.

Zehavi still has her eye on Nasrallah, though.

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Lahav Harkov is the Knesset Correspondent for The Jerusalem Post. She tweets at @LahavHarkov.

The Sbarro bomber trashes the ruler who protects her from the FBI - by Arnold Roth

How confident of her position Tamimi must be if she can launch a public attack on the monarch who, more than anyone else, is the reason she is free today and living under his protective rule. She evidently knows things about public opinion in Jordan that don't get well reported in the West. Then again, she might not fully realize that if King Hussein, who made the 1995 treaty with Clinton, were alive today (he died in 1999), Tamimi would today be in chains somewhere inside the US penal system? Thanks to his son and the law courts that serve him, she's outrageously free enough to publish op eds, to appear on pan-Arab TV networks and to be the poster child for Islamist bigotry, terrorism and the redemptive power of murdering Jewish children.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
15 December '19..

The Hamas terrorist who chose a Jerusalem pizzeria to bomb because of the many Jewish children inside whom she sought to kill - and succeeded - lives free today in Jordan. In an absolute monarchy, this can only be because Jordan's King Abdullah II wants it that way.

We suggest below why this shocking reality (a) is irrational from the king's standpoint, given what the bomber's values and goals are; and (b) involves much blurring and denying of facts and some disgraceful pretending.

The continuing freedom of the bomber, Ahlam Tamimi, is an almost completely unreported scandal. Though she’s officially regarded as an on-the-run fugitive by the US Department of Justice and is one of the FBI's 28 most wanted terrorists (there's an FBI website that lists them), she's not undercover, disguised or in hiding. She lives free-as-a-bird in the capital city of a country ruled by a close strategic ally of the United States.

Starting in January 2018, the US State Department began offering a reward of "up to $5 Million" for the capture and conviction of this Jordanian Islamist. But as we have come to understand, so long as she stays within Jordan's borders, she is safe from the US legal system.

That's not how the US officially looks at this; all its relevant agencies say she needs to be handed over to US law enforcement and taken to a Federal courthouse in Washington for trial.

So why doesn't that happen?

It's not because she's hard to find.

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Pick the Prefix: Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Reactionary, Totalitarian Palestine - by Divest This

Perhaps it is our general wussiness that keeps us on the course of dialog, discussion, argument, persuasion and compromise, rather than jumping into the sewer with those who have made it their life’s work to see the world’s one Jewish state dismantled. Although given the state of Israel and the Jewish world – vulnerable though it might be – versus the hell on earth Israel’s enemies have constructed for themselves, perhaps hanging on to our humanity is a wise strategic, as well as a moral choice.

Divest This..
12 December '19..

It dawned on me that all of Israel’s friends and defenders have been wasting our time over the last several decades.

Instead of writing thoughtful essays that provide facts and perspectives while making the case for the Jewish state, or organizing talks, educational programs or other campaigns that present arguments in favor of our cause or against our foes, we could all have spent that time doing something much simpler, so simple that it requires almost no thought.

So what could we have been doing, rather than bombarding the world with longwinded explanations based on facts and logic?

The answer is simplicity itself, and so easy to implement. For all it would involve would be to never use the term Palestine or Palestinian without first prefixing it with the string of pejoratives titling this piece.

We would not have to be mindless robots uttering the same phrase over and over again. Certainly whenever we find ourselves in debate, we would make sure the words “racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian” precede the use of any reference to Palestine, Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas (and maybe their friends and allies throughout the Middle East). But we could get creative with the ways we slip those words into the discussion over and over and over again. For instance:

Comparative: Yes, there is a difference between the racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian, corrupt Palestinian authority and the racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary, totalitarian, religious fanatics in Hamas. But the two have important things in common: they’re both racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary totalitarians.

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Ignoring the PA's "Pay for Slay" policy, and asking the world for funding, UN neutrality at its worst - by Maurice Hirsch, Adv.

This approach of the UN will neither relieve the hardships of the Palestinians nor promote peace. Rather, it guarantees more dependence, terrorism, and conflict.

Maurice Hirsch, Adv...
Palestinian Media Watch..
12 December '19..
Link: https://palwatch.org/page/17025

Today the UN marks International Neutrality Day, stressing that “Neutrality is critical for the UN to gain, and maintain the confidence and cooperation of all.” In direct contrast to this statement, just yesterday, Dec. 11, 2019, the UN together with the Palestinian Authority launched a $348 million appeal “to address critical humanitarian needs of Palestinians.”

Asking the world to once again dig deeply into the pockets of their taxpayers, the UN request ignores the fact that the PA squanders hundreds of millions of shekels every year.

Most notably, the appeal failed to mention the hundreds of millions of shekels the PA squanders financing its “Pay-for-Slay” terror reward policy. In 2018, “Pay-for-Slay” cost the PA no less than 743 million shekels. 502 million shekels were spent paying the monthly salaries of terrorist prisoners and released prisoners and at least 241 million shekels were spent paying allowances to the families of dead terrorists, the so-called “Martyrs.”

As of the end of October 2019, PA financial reports show that it has spent 490,709,000 shekels on the PLO Commission of Prisoners, of which 396,103,000 shekels was paid to terrorist prisoners and released prisoners. Hundreds of millions more have been paid in 2019 to the families of dead terrorists.

In addition, in its appeal the UN ignored the fact that in the years 2011 – 2018, the PA transferred funds totaling more than 7 billion shekels to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The PLO is not subject to any financial transparency and it is not clear what happened with these funds. Having said that, Palestinian Media Watch has already proved that the PLO uses the funds it receives from the PA to fund internationally designated terrorist organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Reviewing *Print to Fit:The New York Times, Zionism and Israel, 1896-2016* - by Ricki Hollander

To be sure, during the New York Times’ long history, there have been accurate and impartial articles about Israel, and even occasional praise in editorial commentary. But the dominant mindset at the newspaper is one of enduring unease with Jewish nationalism and a Jewish state under the guise of espousing progressive and liberal values. It is conveyed through emphasis on the views of Israel’s critics who are presented neutrally and dismissal of the views of its supporters who are presented as partisan and extreme. It is expressed by focusing on Jewish military actions while downplaying Palestinian terrorism and violence, and by treating Palestinians and their leaders as victims alone, without agency and without responsibility for the ongoing conflict.

Ricki Hollander..
CAMERA.org..
10 December '19..

As a longtime media critic who closely follows the New York Times’ coverage of Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I read Jerold Auerbach’s latest book, “Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel, 1896-2016,” with great interest. Having spent almost two decades analyzing New York Times’ reporting about the Jewish state, I’m well-acquainted with the newspaper’s anti-Israel bias, which is an entrenched feature of its coverage.

The newspaper’s negative treatment of Jewish causes has a history that has been discussed before: In her 2005 book, Buried by the Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper, Northeastern University journalism professor Laurel Leff described the Times’ shameful habit of burying news about the Holocaust at the back of the newspaper. Leff suggested that editors deliberately downplayed news about Nazi targeting and genocide of European Jews as part of a conscious effort by publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger to ensure the newspaper would not appear “too Jewish.” Former New York Times Executive Editor Max Frankel similarly lamented “the staggering, staining failure of The New York Times to depict Hitler’s methodical extermination of the Jews of Europe as a horror beyond all other horrors in World War II” as Sulzberger “went to great lengths to avoid having The Times branded a ‘Jewish newspaper.’”

Print to Fit goes back even further, starting decades before the Holocaust. Auerbach’s contribution is to demonstrate through meticulous documentation just how much a part of its DNA is the New York Times’ animus against the Jewish state. The author, a professor emeritus of history at Wellesley College, brings his historian’s eye to dissecting the newspaper’s long course of bias against the Jewish state, tracing it back to the purchase of the newspaper in 1896 by Adolph S. Ochs.

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Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley crucial to ensure Israel’s survival - by Amir Avivi

As the Beatles once said, “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.” Israel doesn’t have the luxury to close its eyes and fantasize on “detached from reality” peace agreements. We need solutions that are viable and ensure Israel’s security for eternity, which obviously includes sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.

Amir Avivi..
Opinion/JPost..
08 December '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Sovereignty-over-Jordan-Valley-crucial-to-ensure-Israels-survival-610297

In the November 27 article written by Jonah Naghi called “Securing the Jordan Valley,” Naghi based his article on a proposed plan written by an extreme Left group of current and formal generals known as Commanders for the Security of Israel. The article suggested, among other things, to secede the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians in a 10- to 15-year process as part of a two-state solution.

As a former general who served for 30 years in the IDF on all fronts – including the Jordan Valley – I find this article and ideas troubling and full with wrong assumptions and misconceptions that cannot go unanswered, especially when it undermines the basic ability of the State of Israel to exist and thrive long-term.

The importance of the Jordan Valley to Israel was widely understood and agreed by all Zionist parties in Israel until the late 90s. The first plan dealing with the Jordan Valley was drafted immediately after the Six Day War – 1967, by former labor minister Yigal Allon and is known as the “Allon Plan”. The broad aim of the plan was to annex most of the Jordan Valley from the Jordan River to the eastern slopes of the Judean and Samarian ridge (the West Bank) along what is known today as Allon’s Road.

Former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, when describing the principles of the Oslo agreement that he himself initiated, declared that the Jordan Valley will be forever the eastern border of the State of Israel and the Palestinians will have autonomy in Judea and Samaria within Israel’s borders.

In the last elections Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a plan to apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley. The plan has the support of the right-wing and center parties and the vast majority of the Knesset members.

Going back to Naghi’s article, the generals behind it believe that you can “ensure Israeli security without limiting Palestinian sovereignty.” In other words, we can “let the cats guard the cream” and be sure they won’t drink it.

What drives this kind of thinking?

There is a struggle for the soul of the State of Israel - by Victor Rosenthal

The state is threatened physically by its enemies, and I think we understand that. What we don’t understand is that it is also threatened by those who think that they want to make it “better,” by emulating the universalist, pluralist societies of Europe and North America. Like Aharon Barak, it’s possible that they don’t understand that by ending the explicitly nationalist definition of the state, they would also remove the foundation that underlies the ability of the state to be a refuge, a homeland, and a place – the only place on Earth – that Jewish culture can develop in its completeness.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
09 December '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/12/the-soul-of-the-state-must-be-jewish/

There is a struggle for the soul of the State of Israel.

It isn’t about whether Israel should withdraw from Judea and Samaria, how the IDF should act in Gaza, or whether the buses should run on Shabbat, although your answer to these questions may be implied by your position on a more fundamental one. It isn’t a matter of Right and Left, religious or secular, hawk or dove.

It’s just this: how seriously do you take the idea that Israel is a Jewish state.

Most Jews in Israel and in the diaspora take it as a given. Of course it is a Jewish state, or more correctly, the Jewish state. But the struggle I mentioned starts when you try to explain what that means.

Israel’s Declaration of Independence says that Israel will be the Jewish state, and that it will be democratic in nature. It details at least some of the ways it will be democratic, but “Jewish” is not further explicated.

The former President of Israel’s Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, took an extreme position. He said

The content of the phrase “Jewish state” will be determined by the level of abstraction which shall be given it. In my opinion, one should give this phrase meaning on a high level of abstraction, which will unite all members of society and find the common among them. The level of abstraction should be so high, until it becomes identical to the democratic nature of the state.

And he added,

The basic values of Judaism are the basic values of the state. I mean the values of love of man, the sanctity of life, social justice, doing what is good and just, protecting human dignity, the rule of law over the legislator and the like, values which Judaism bequeathed to the whole world. Reference to those values is on their universal level of abstraction, which suits Israel’s democratic character, thus one should not identify the values of the state of Israel as a Jewish state with the traditional Jewish civil law. It should not be forgotten that in Israel there is a considerable non-Jewish minority. Indeed, the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish state are those universal values common to members of democratic society, which grew from Jewish tradition and history.

In other words, according to Barak, “Jewish values” are identical with secular democratic liberalism, and therefore when you call Israel a “Jewish state” you just mean a free, democratic, liberal one – so much so that even non-Jewish minorities will feel at home in it.

That is one side of the dichotomy. The other side could be represented by MK and Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has often said that he – and any Orthodox Jew – would prefer the state to be governed according to the laws of the Torah. “Israel is a Jewish state, and it will return to be ruled as it was in the days of Kings David and Solomon, according to Torah law, in line with the way society lives in 2019,” he said in June.

Smotrich is not likely to get his way, because a majority of Israelis do not wish to be governed by religious law, even if it is updated to take into account the social and technological changes of the past 3000 years or so. But it would be a fatal mistake to move too far in the opposite direction and adopt Barak’s point of view, which removes virtually all content from the idea of a Jewish state.

The Jewish state is a refuge for persecuted Jews, and it is a homeland that is available at any time and with minimal friction to any Jew, persecuted or not. Most Israeli Jews agree with this, and they are proud of how Israel absorbed the Jews from Yemen, Ethiopia, and the former Soviet Union. But someone who thinks that the “Jewishness” of the state is no more than its democratic nature might ask why only Jews should benefit from this refuge. Why not, for example, “Palestinians,” who also view themselves as exiles?

If a Jewish state is only a democratic state (even in the Jewish “prophetic tradition”), then there is no justification for it being more than a “state of its citizens,” as the extreme Left and Arab minorities in Israel have demanded. There would be no reason to privilege Jewish symbols, like the flag and the national anthem, the holidays and the calendar, and even the Hebrew language. Immigration need not be made easy for Jews and difficult for non-Jews. And maintaining a Jewish majority would not have to be a national goal. This is a prescription for the end of the Jewish state.

Losing the Semantic War on ‘Palestine’ Without a Fight - by Mitchell Bard

It is unlikely anything could have been done to preempt the shift in language, and now it is yet another genie that cannot be put back in the bottle. The usage is widespread. Still, it is important to point out the bias, inaccuracy, and misleading nature of the word “Palestine” when used in the context of the conflict with Israel.

Mitchell Bard..
Algemeiner..
05 December '19..

I have written before about the importance of semantics in the discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how frustrated many people are about losing various battles over nomenclature, such as references to the disputed territories as “occupied,” and “Judea and Samaria” as the West Bank. An arguably more important semantic battle regarding this area has gone largely unnoticed — and been lost without a fight.

Many of Israel’s detractors, professors, the media, and others now routinely refer to the conflict as “Israel-Palestine.” Here are a few examples:

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Mitchell Bard is the Executive Director of AICE and Jewish Virtual Library.

How Israel will be blamed for the absence of PA elections - by Maurice Hirsch

...Let there be no misgivings. Abbas and his Fatah Party have no desire whatsoever to hold elections for either the Palestinian Parliament or the chairmanship. They know that they are far from being guaranteed to win. Thus, while pretending to want to play the democratic game, from their point of view, elections are to be avoided at all cost.

Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, Adv...
Opinion/JPost..
04 December '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Why-Israel-will-be-blamed-for-the-absence-of-PA-elections-609913

When Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his advisers sit down to plan how to escape the possibility of holding elections for the Palestinian Parliament and the chairmanship of the PA, they will no doubt come up with the ultimate, traditional Palestinian solution: Blame Israel!

There are two dominant parties in Palestinian politics: Fatah and Hamas.

In the formative years of the PA (1994-2005), Fatah, the dominant member of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the party of PA founding father Yasser Arafat, ruled the roost. Fatah’s candidate was elected PA chairman and Fatah ruled the nascent Palestinian Parliament.

Hamas, the internationally designated terrorist organization, spent the formative years of the PA building its power. On the one hand, it carried out hundreds of terrorist attacks. On the other, it created an entire social welfare network as an alternative to the corrupt PA/Fatah rule. Both means served the same goal: to curry favor with the Palestinians in order to pave the way to effectively compete against Fatah.

In the 2005 elections for PA chairman, the time was not yet ripe for Hamas to make a challenge. Accordingly, it boycotted the elections. Only 800,000 of the potential 1,700,000 voters cast their vote. Abbas received only 62% of the votes cast.

The 2006 elections for the PA Parliament were completely different.

Those elections followed Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza, and the replacement of the comatose Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon with interim prime minister Ehud Olmert. Both events emboldened Hamas.

Abbas, who had taken different steps to facilitate an additional Fatah victory, and who wanted to legitimize his rule and the rule of the Fatah-led parliament, insisted that Israel allow Hamas to participate in the elections, even in Jerusalem. To his horror, Israel agreed.

The claim that Corbyn is merely a critic of Benjamin Netanyahu, is a lie of epic proportions - by Adam Levick

...risible, and obviously contradicted by the fact that the Labour leader has spent his entire political life demonising and delegitmising Israel, and supporting those who espouse antisemitism and advocate for the state’s total destruction.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
03 December '19..

In an op-ed at The Times, Gabrielle Rifkind, a psychotherapist and “Middle East specialist in conflict resolution”, argues that British Jews and Jeremy Corbyn need to “reconcile” their ‘differences’.

The piece, “We need a path towards reconciliation for Labour and British Jews”, Dec. 3, includes the following:

There is now a need to hold morally complex ideas together that both abhor antisemitism but are also even-handed and capable at looking at constructive solutions and outcomes to the Palestine-Israel conflict. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader has exacerbated the problem as his sympathies lie with the Palestinians. Whilst it is understandable that one identifies with the weaker party, to resolve conflict it is essential to engage with all sides to find solutions.

Jeremy Corbyn is seen as hostile to the state of Israel. More accurately, he is a critic of the current Likud government. He had a close relationship with the progressive activist Uri Avnery who was on the political left in Israel and his natural homeland is the politics party Meretz.

Before we get to the most egregiously inaccurate claim (in bold), we should briefly note Rifkind also errs in associating Avnery, the late Haaretz columnist, with the Israeli Meretz Party. In fact, he’s far left of the Zionist Meretz Party, having founded the radical left group Gush Shalom which calls for the full Palestinian right of return, and having personally promoted BDS.

But, Rifkin’s assertion that Corbyn is not hostile to Israel, but only a “critic of the current Likud government” is risible, and obviously contradicted by the fact that the Labour leader has spent his entire political life demonising and delegitmising Israel, and supporting those who espouse antisemitism and advocate for the state’s total destruction.

The examples of Corbyn’s hatred for Israel, which often crossed the line to antisemitism, are too numerous to cite, but here are a few:

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Israel bashing and the further forays of Peter Beinart in his fight against Israel and Zionism - by Yisrael Medad

Arabs who support the idea of an Arab Palestine engage in falsification of history, identity theft and something even worse than bigotry. And a Jew supporting them is no friend of Zionism—no matter how much he claims to be one.

Yisrael Medad..
JNS.org..
03 December '19..

Peter Beinart has made another foray in his fight against Israel and Zionism. The contributing editor at The Atlantic has written as a supporter of IfNotNow, and has helped inspire other radical anti-Zionists. But, of course, he denies what is obvious to all in his thinking and actions.

In remarks he recently delivered in the framework of a Munk Debate, the question of which was “Be it resolved, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” his fellow debater was New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, and since a debate consists of arguments from both sides of an issue, I, at least, can only presume that Beinart thinks anti-Zionism is, at least a bissel, not quite anti-Semitic.

Indeed, in the published version, Beinart asserts that “No, anti-Zionism doesn’t always mean anti-Semitism.” Perhaps indicative of his convoluted presentation, the Munk Debates site highlighted his words that “equating Palestinian politics with bigotry undermines the quest for peace.”

Having followed him since his 2010 essay in which he promoted the view that the reality of Israel challenged the liberal values of Jewish college students they had imbibed as Americans such as a belief in open debate, a skepticism about military force and a commitment to human rights and contradicted them. Beinart, however, did not so much as seek to explain to those students that those values very much existed in Israel, did not exist in the Arab/Muslim culture that threatened Israel’s existence and that, despite their innocence, they did not have think they were required to shed those values when it came to Israel.

Rather, he sought to rip out the heart of Jewish solidarity from these youth and pit them against Israel. Ever since, he has been pirouetting—twisting ideas, terms and concepts so as to confound and discombobulate a younger generation of Jews.

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Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israeli journalist and political commentator.

The realization that there's no one in Israel who gets up in the morning and thinks up ways to harm Egypt - by Dudi Caspi

Egyptian-born Hussein Aboubakr was 14 when he discovered much of what he was told about Israel was a lie and the revelation sent him down a harrowing path, from which he emerged as a pro-Israel advocate in the United States. "I dream of making the Arabs understand what Israel really stands for," he says.

Dudi Caspi..
Israel Hayom..
01 December '19..

Hussein Aboubakr loves Israel. This is always a welcome sentiment, of course, but it is twice as moving when it comes from an Egyptian-born Muslim, and even more so when you consider that Aboubakr is one of the most outspoken activists fighting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement in Los Angeles.

Aboubakr, 30, defines himself as a Zionist. His sympathy for Israel forced him out of Egypt and in the last seven years he has been living in the United States. He moved to Los Angeles after getting a job with Stand With Us – a non-profit pro-Israel education and advocacy organization, seeking to bolster Israel's image among the American public.

Our interview is conducted in Hebrew, which Aboubakr speaks fluently and with a barely detectable accent.

"There's a new generation today of Western Arabs who grew up in the US, speak English and understand how to take advantage of the system," he said. "They were brought up to honor the edicts of Islam even though they are completely secular. People like that are, in fact, the driving force behind BDS. They run an anti-Israel campaign in American academia, but they also have an anti-US campaign.

"They think I'm a traitor. They come to my lectures to heckle me. They won't hear of anti-Semitism in the Arab world and they accuse me of racism."

Touching on current affairs and the recent flare-up in southern Israel during which Islamic Jihad terrorists fired over 450 rockets at Israel in retaliation over the elimination of top Islamic Jihad commander Baha Abu al-Ata in his Gaza home, Aboubakr said, "It's hard for me to see Israelis undergo this annual rocket event. Usually, there is [security] escalation, then Hamas receives more money from Qatar, and uses most of it to increase its arsenal. Israel eliminated a terrorist, not a social worker."

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