The woman hanging out the window on the left of the building when everyone was escaping is pregnant. I have no idea how she got down from the window. You'll see her again briefly in the second video below.
Time for 60 Minutes and Jeff Fager to Correct Bethlehem Falsehood
In April, a 60 Minutes report on Christians in the Holy Land made a number of false claims about Israel's treatment of Christians in general, and in Bethlehem in particular. Among other things, the report claimed that Israel's 'security fence' (they called it a wall) completely surrounded the town of Bethlehem.
CAMERA is now trying to gently persuade 60 Minutes to correct its report. You can help. Here's how.
As you might recall, on Sunday night, CBS' 60 Minutes ran a nasty segment about Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system (if you follow that link, you can watch the segment).
On his personal Facebook page, Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, blasted the segment.
60 Minutes was right: The Iron Dome missile defense system does not take lives, it saves lives. But 60 Minutes missed the true connection between Iron Dome and settlements: Israel was compelled to build Iron Dome after it uprooted 21 Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip and Hamas took over Gaza and used it to launch thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. Israel and the Obama Administration, together, call for the immediate resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians, without preconditions, to discuss all the core issues–borders, security, mutual recognition – leading to a solution based on two states for two peoples. We deeply appreciate American support for the Iron Dome system, which gives Israel the time and space to make peace, if the Palestinians wish to do so.
The 'Palestinians' make peace? The wolves will lie down with the lambs first.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, February 18.
1) The Obama administration vs. Hezbollah
Today's New York Times features an op-ed, Hezbollah unmasked
by President Obama's national security adviser, Thomas Donilon. After
providing the details of Hezbollah's blood drenched history, (similar to
a case made recently by Ambassador Michael Oren) Donilon concludes:
Now that Bulgarian authorities have exposed Hezbollah’s global
terrorist agenda, European governments must respond swiftly. They must
disrupt its operational networks, stop flows of financial assistance to
the group, crack down on Hezbollah-linked criminal enterprises and
condemn the organization’s leaders for their continued pursuit of
terrorism.
The United States applauds those countries that have long recognized
Hezbollah’s nefarious nature and that have already condemned the group
for the attack in Burgas. Europe must now act collectively and respond
resolutely to this attack within its borders by adding Hezbollah to the
European Union’s terrorist list. That is the next step toward ensuring
that Burgas is the last successful Hezbollah operation on European soil.
I'm not a big fan of the administration, but this is a welcome development.
2) Bob Simon vs. Iron Dome
Two thirds of Bob Simon's segment Will Israel's Iron Dome help bring peace?
isn't bad. While his emphasis on American funding is a bit
disconcerting (especially because of what it's setting up later)
overall, the first part of his report is straightforward. But then he starts twisting the report to make his point:
Barak argues that if Iron Dome makes Israelis feel more secure, less
threatened, they'll be more willing to make peace with the Palestinians.
You wont find many Palestinians who agree.
Husam Zomlot: Before the Iron Dome, they felt no pressure to make any
concessions. After the Iron Dome, they will feel the pressure to make
concessions? Of course not.
Husam Zomlot is a PLO diplomat and a professor at Bir Zeit University.
Zomlot, of course, is a disinterested observer. (Not!) Why is this even relevant? It recalls Thomas Friedman who argued in Iron Empires, Iron Fists, Iron Domes:
Meanwhile, with a few exceptions, the dome and wall have so insulated
the Israeli left and center from the effects of the Israeli occupation
that their main candidates for the Jan. 22 elections — including those
from Yitzhak Rabin’s old Labor Party — are not even offering peace ideas
but simply conceding the right’s dominance on that issue and focusing
on bringing down housing prices and school class sizes. One settler
leader told me the biggest problem in the West Bank today is “traffic
jams.”
The problem isn't that Israel somehow "insulated" from the peace
process, but that no one wishes to negotiate with them. Abbas hasn't
budged on insisting on a full settlement freeze before he would
negotiate.
Though Zomlot here seems to be implying that terror helps bring needed
pressure on Israel, when Simon asks him specifically about that, Zomlot
denies that he meant that.
Later Simon badgers Barak:
Bob Simon: But how does it work? I mean, right now, Israel has just
announced the building of a gigantic settlement project. This is at the
same time that the Americans are providing the money for Israel's most
important defense system.
Ehud Barak: You know, we are highly grateful to the administration, to
American people as a whole for this support. I don't think that it's
relevant to the issue of Iron Dome.
Israelis argue that America's commitment to their security must be kept
separate from political disagreements between the U.S. and Israel.
Simon, of course, is exaggerating what the announcement of E-1 was. He's also misleading in that E-1 had always been assumed to remain part of Israel. But he's making a point, "how can Israel disrespect the United States?"
Strangely he doesn't ask a similar question of Zomlot: "The United
States has been giving millions of dollars of aid to the Palestinians,
why did they refuse to heed the administration and head to the UN in
order to gain statehood status?"
Bob Simon is stuck on believing that only Israel is responsible for
making peace. Somehow it escaped him that even though Israel withdrew
fully from Gaza in 2005, it did not achieve peace in its south. If
concrete Israeli concessions really brought peace, Israel would not have
had to build Iron Dome. This irony is somehow lost on Bob Simon.
On Sunday, when it was too late for most people to see it before the elections, CBS's 60 Minutes - the same 60 Minutes that lied in 2004 about George W. Bush's National Guard service - released a part of a September 12, 2012 interview with President Obama that had not been released before. But they released it by posting it online - not by putting it on television. People had to be lucky enough to find it.
Why did CBS release a clip that appeared to back up Obama’s
claim in the second debate on Oct. 19, a few days before the foreign
policy debate, and not release the rest of that interview at the
beginning?
Why on the Sunday before the election, almost six weeks after the
attack, at 6 p.m. does an obscure online timeline posted on CBS.com
contain the additional “60 Minutes” interview material from Sept. 12?
Why wasn’t it news after the president said what he said in the second debate, knowing what they had in that “60 Minutes”
tape — why didn’t they use it then? And why is it taking Fox News to
spur other media organizations to take the Benghazi story seriously?
Whatever your politics, there are a lot of loose ends here, a lot of
unanswered questions and a lot of strange political maneuvers that don’t
add up.
Think about the Rashid Khalidi tape (which could be released now that Obama is not facing any more elections).
The Right continues to play like a bunch of choir boys, playing 'fair and honest' while the Left continues to behave like a street fighter playing to win. So long as that continues, we on the Right will continue to complain about 'media bias' and continue to lose elections decided by an uninformed or deceived electorate.
What Bob Simon doesn't want to hear about Christians in the Middle East
I am sure that many of you remember that horrible 60 Minutes segment done by Bob Simon last month, which was called Christians in the Holy Land. Simon probably does not know about, and does not want to know about, a Christian village named Taybeh in Samaria.
This is a village whose population is 100% Christian. It is surrounded by a number of Muslim villages, some of which are extremely hostile.
The number of Christians living in Taybeh is estimated at less than 2,000. Residents say that another 15,000 Taybeh villagers live in the US, Canada and Europe, as well as South America.
Over the past few years, the Christian residents of Taybeh have been living in constant fear of being attacked by their Muslim neighbors.
Such attacks, residents say, are not uncommon. They are more worried about intimidation and violence by Muslims than by Israel's security barrier or a checkpoint. And the reason why many of them are leaving is because they no longer feel safe in a village that is surrounded by thousands of hostile Muslims who relate to Christians as infidels and traitors.
Just last week, scores of Muslim men from surrounding villages, some of the men armed with pistols and clubs, attacked Taybeh.
...
Palestinian Authority policemen who rushed to the village had to shoot into the air to drive back the Muslim attackers and prevent a slaughter.
The attack, residents said, came after a Muslim man tried to force his way into a graduation ceremony at a girls' school in Taybeh.
The man, who had not been invited to the ceremony, complained that Christians had assaulted him. Later that day, he and dozens of other Muslims stormed the village with the purpose of seeking revenge for the "humiliation."
Were it not for the quick intervention of the Palestinian security forces, the attackers would have set fire to a number of houses and vehicles and probably killed or wounded some Christians.
Palestinian government and police officials later demanded that the Christians dispatch a delegation to the nearby Muslim villages to apologize for "insulting" the Muslim man. To avoid further escalation, the heads of Taybeh complied.
Also at the request of the Palestinian government, residents of the village were requested not to talk to the media about the incident.
Even some of the leaders of the Christian community in the West Bank urged the Taybeh residents not to make a big fuss about the incident.
This was not the first time that Taybeh had come under attack. In September 2005, hundreds of Muslim men went on rampage in the village, torching homes and cars, and destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary, after learning that a Muslim woman had been romantically involved with a Christian businessman from the village.
The 30-year-old woman had been killed by her family.
Western journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have refused to report about the most recent attack on Taybeh, most probably because the story does not have an "anti-Israel angle."
The verdict passed by the Minya Criminal Court on May 21 convicting 12 Copts to life imprisonment while acquitting eight accused Muslims in the same case, known as Abu Qurqas sedition, has caused widespread anger among the Copts. Georges Wahib of United Copts, who attended the court session, said that when judge Abdel Fattah Ahmed al-Sughayar pronounced the verdict at the court yesterday "there was complete silence, as it came as a shock to everyone, then cries of grief and wailing could be heard from the Coptic families with shouts of we are innocent, while the Muslim side broke out into jubilation and shouts of Allahu Akbar."
...
The events of the case started on April 18, 2011 over a speed hump built in front of the residence of a wealthy Coptic lawyer, Alaa Reda Roushdi, which a minibus driver claimed was damaging cars. The fight that broke out led to the death of 2 Muslims, injury to 4 Copts, and the destruction and looting of Coptic-owned homes and businesses (AINA 4-26-2011).
Many rights groups criticized the verdict as being "unbelievable" and "extremely harsh" towards the Copts. All the Muslims defendants, "who torched at least 56 Coptic homes, as well as businesses and barns, were acquitted," said Wagdi Halfa, defense attorney of the Coptic victims, in an interview aired yesterday by Coptic TV Channel. He expressed his incomprehension at how Coptic lawyer Alaa Reda Roushdi, who was not even in Abou Qorqas during the events, and then kept under house arrest by the police for another three days, could get life imprisonment.
Adel Roushdi, younger brother of Alaa Roushdi said during the same TV interview that the Islamists wanted to get rid of his brother because of the parliamentary elections, where his brother was sure to win. He accused the police chief in Abou Qorqas of planning the whole episode.
But of course, Bob Simon and the rest of the Western media are only interested in blaming Israel and the Jews for the flight of Christians from the Middle East. They have their own agenda.
60 Minutes' Bob Simon did a segment on Tel Aviv on Sunday night. Simon got it all wrong again.
Let's go to the videotape.
A few comments.
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai is one of Israel's most leftist politicians, and Gideon Levy is one of Haaretz's most extreme writers.
Yes, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are like two different countries.
And contrary to what Simon claims, many, many Israelis have contact with 'Palestinians.' Thousands of 'Palestinians' are employed by Israelis. Thousands of 'Palestinians' are treated in Israeli hospitals. Simon is spouting complete nonsense.
I have to run out, but I may have more on this later.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
