Israel's Leftist youth do something good, but would they do it for 'settlers'?
The Jerusalem Post reports that a conglomeration of 'Zionist' youth groups has been collecting
winter clothes and blankets for Syrian refugees.
The items have been taken to a collection point, a representative
confirmed to JTA. From there, a partner aid organization is facilitating
the delivery of the goods to the refugees, who won’t know their country
of origin. The representative said the delivery date and method could
not be revealed due to the sensitive nature of the situation.
Because if the Syrians found out they were coming from the 'Zionist entity,' they'd probably burn them, even if they didn't really want to turn them away, because... 'Palestine uber alles.'
“I thought people would be reluctant to support an effort they would not
get credit for,” Gilad Perry, Dror Israel’s international
collaborations director, said in a statement. “I was amazed to see how
wrong I was. The generosity of people just caring for those who suffer
from the cold winter on the other side of the border, in an ‘enemy
country,’ overwhelmed me.”
Amazing. Leftist Israelis willing to do something for which they won't get any credit except in an article in the JPost.... Oh wait, how do you know they're Leftist? Well, if you're an Israeli, you recognize two of the three names of the groups involved, and there's a hint at the end of the article.
HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (Youth Who Work and Learn) is a sister movement
of Habonim Dror, long affiliated with the Labor Zionist movement.
So please forgive my cynicism. I'm all in favor of helping out Syrian refugees with clothes and blankets (but not with letting them unvetted into Israel, the US or any other western country). And there ought to be a lesson from the fact that Israelis are helping these poor people while they get nothing from any of the oil-rich Gulf countries.
But I have to ask another question. Suppose - just suppose - that there were Jewish revenants (known in the international media as 'settlers') who were expelled from their homes in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, who were out in the cold and the rain today who had no warm clothing and no blankets. Would the Leftist Zionist movements be willing to take up collections for them too? They'd even say thank you. You wouldn't have to cut out all the Israeli labels for them. And you could even get credit for helping them. So would the Labor Zionist movements help them?
Sadly, I think we already know the answer to that question. This is from a post I did in May 2012, citing statistics from the summer of 2011 - six years after
the Jews of Gush Katif in Gaza were expelled from their homes. Hint: There were no Labor Zionists lining up to help the Jews of Gush Katif, with or without credit.
Perhaps this is the time to look at some statistics regarding the Jewish
refugees from Gaza, who were expelled from their homes seven years ago
this summer. This is from a United Nations report(!) from June 2011.
About 230 of the 1,450 families from Gush Katif (16 percent) have moved into permanent homes, according to a December 2010 report released by the Gush Katif “committee”.
Unemployment among former Gush Katif residents is running at about 18
percent, while under-employment is 20 percent, said the “committee”.
Before the withdrawal, unemployment was 5 percent, with 85 percent
working in Gush Katif, according to JobKatif, an NGO created to help former residents rebuild their livelihoods.
While
unemployment is much worse in Gaza, the unemployment rate among the
evacuees is about double the rate of the general Israeli population.
Children have faced adjustment issues and the divorce rate increased,
along with financial problems, say former residents. Government
compensation that was received, was lower than the value of the land and
did not allow farmers to re-establish their farms, according to the
“committee”.
Shilat Kahalani, spokesperson for the Mateh
Binyamin Regional Council which covers 42 Israeli settlements in the
West Bank (known as Judea and Samaria to Israelis), told IRIN that many
former Gush Katif residents wanted to rebuild their homes and lives in
the West Bank, but were prevented from doing so by a building
moratorium which was only lifted in September 2010, having been in
force for 10 months.
About
380 farms existed in Gushi Katif (of which 240 were operational), but
only 28 percent of the owners of agricultural land have resumed
farming. Most business owners, too, have not returned to their trade
and were not appropriately compensated, according to the “committee”.
“Disengaging a community is not something that can be rebuilt easily,
and many families never received promised full financial support,”
Kahalani said.
A June 2010 report
on the findings of the Israeli “State Commission of Inquiry into the
Handling of the Evacuees from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria by the
Authorized Authorities”, placed blame on the state of Israel.
“The State of Israel failed in its handling of the evacuees,” it said.
“Five years after, most of the evacuees are still living in temporary
caravan sites; the construction of most of the permanent housing has
not yet commenced; and the decisive majority of the public structures
in the evacuees’ new settlements have not yet been built.”
“It
was a mission of the government to settle people in Gaza,” said former
Gush Katif resident Debbie Rosen, and “there must be a solution for
every settler”. She received half the value of her home in Gush Katif,
and she and her six children are still waiting for their new house to
be built, she added.
And for those who think that the
Ulpana neighborhood is going to be 'evacuated' quietly with the soldiers
called in to do the job embracing the residents in tears, consider
this.
“People in my community are unwilling to be evacuated
because on a personal level they witnessed the awful outcomes of such a
disengagement on the lives of the Gush Katif evacuees,” Binyamin council
spokesperson Kahalani said.
That might have something to do with the violence in Amona during my last trip to the US a couple of weeks ago (violence that I did not have time to cover).
If only the Labor Zionists cared as much for their own as they do for the other....
Labels: Gaza expulsion, Gush Katif, Judea and Samaria, Labor party, Syrian refugees
Tisha b'Av 5776
Undoubtedly correct. Wonder when the caption was added. My Great Uncle worked there in the 1930's....
Anyway, today is Tisha b'Av, the day that we commemorate the destruction of the two Holy Temples, the day that God told us would be a day for crying for generations (in response to the spies lying about the land of Israel - see Numbers 13-14), and the day that many other disasters and tragedies in Jewish history have taken place.
This year, Tisha b'Av was pushed off to the 10th day of Av, and it coincides with the day that the Jews of Gush Katif in Gaza were expelled from their homes eleven years ago.
A longer lists of the tragedies is
here.
Labels: First Temple, Gaza expulsion, Gush Katif, Second Temple, Tisha b'Av, Western Wall
Hamas admits Gazan water crisis its own fault
For years, Hamas has been trying to blame Israel for a 'water crisis' in Gaza. Now, they admit that the crisis was caused by
overpumping by 'Palestinians' using the towns from which Jews were expelled ten years ago.
The Hamas paper Al-Risalah conducted an investigation into
the subject of Jewish agricultural land in Gaza that was evacuated in
the 2005 Disengagement plan, and found that despite Arab claims that
Israel has caused a water crisis in Gaza, local residents are in fact to
blame.
In its investigation, which relied on figures from the Hamas
agricultural ministry, the paper found that excessive use of water for
agriculture by local farmers was behind the shortage of water.
In particular the raising of vegetables that require vast amounts of
water, digging wells without supervision, and pumping water excessively
was found to be the culprit of Gaza's water woes.
The paper of the Hamas terror organization noted that prior to the
2005 expulsion of all Jews from Gaza, no more than 20 wells were being
used by Israelis in Gush Katif, and they were dug around a kilometer
from the coast so as to trap rain water.
The average pumping from these wells was around 20-30 cubic meters per hour.
Today, the number of wells in the area has tripled, and the Arab
agricultural unions working in the evacuated Jewish communities dug
close to 30 more wells - in addition to the 16 dug by the municipality.
But of course, they blame the Jews anyway.
Labels: Gaza, Gaza expulsion, Gaza Palestinians, Gaza water supply, Gush Katif, Hamas
Khameni tweets photo of Obama committing suicide
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone. For those who do not know, today is Tisha b'Av, a day that commemorates the destruction of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem 1,940 and 2,601 years ago. For a list of the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people on this day, go
here.
I just returned from afternoon prayers at the Kotel (Western Wall - the sole remnant of the Temple that is standing) myself.
Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khameni is celebrating in his own way:
What could go wrong?
Labels: Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Barack Hussein Obama, First Temple, Gaza expulsion, Second Temple, Tisha b'Av
Buji Herzog's mea culpa one of many about Gush Katif, most Israeli Jews favor retaking and rebuilding Gaza
Sunday will mark the 10th anniversary of the expulsion of some 8,000 Jews from Gaza. The expulsion was originally scheduled to happen on Tisha b'Av (that year, it actually fell on Sunday and was not delayed to Sunday as it is this year), but at the last minute, the government realized the deep historic symbolism that would evoke and postponed the expulsion (in those days it was all but forbidden to refer to it publicly as an 'expulsion' - it was called a 'disengagement') to Monday, which was the day after the fast.
There have been
many mea culpas over the expulsion of Gaza's (often referred to as Gush Katif's because the vast majority of the Jewish residents were there) Jews. But perhaps none so incredible as hearing it from opposition leader
Yitzchak 'Buji' Herzog.
Disengagement from Gaza was a mistake in terms of security, Zionist
Union chairman MK Isaac Herzog said Monday. “I don’t believe in the
ability to take unilateral steps diplomatically, but only by agreement,”
opposition leader Herzog added.
Speaking at a conference marking 10 years since the
disengagement, Herzog said he thinks “that it is important to rally
support so that Israel does not become an Arab-Jewish state at the end
of the road. We must go to an agreement, and only an agreement that
stands up to all the difficulties,” he said, the peace agreements with
Egypt and Jordan as examples. The conference was held in Nitzan, a
community near Asheklon where many evacuees of the Gush Katif
settlements in Gaza now live.
Herzog also spoke about the disengagement at a
conference last week sponsored by the Israel Democracy Institute and the
conservative daily Makor Rishon. There, he said that people from his
side of the political spectrum “also need to think about whether the
move in general was right. In principle it was the right move to
separate from the Palestinians. We took 8,000 people out of a sea of
Palestinians, but in implementation it was a decision full of mistakes.”
“Unilateral evacuation caused a feeling of deep
national trauma and the public understands today that when we said Gaza
will be the Hong Kong of the Middle East, we failed to understand and
the opposite happened,” he added. “Any separation that comes must be the
result of agreement with the Palestinians and on the basis of a
regional infrastructure and of an updated Arab peace initiative. Because
unilateral evacuation today, following the lessons of the
disengagement, will not work.”
It was the
Left that pushed then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to
expel Gush Katif's Jews (apparently threatening him and his sons with jail if they did not carry it out). And once he adopted the cause, he did so with vigor, literally running over the opposition (which was a significant number of Israelis if not a majority).
But here's the truly astounding part: Until now, polls have said that Israelis regret the expulsion but would not consider going back. That's no longer true. 51% of Israeli Jews now believe that the government should
retake Gaza and rebuild the Jewish communities that were destroyed ten years ago.
Some 51 percent of Israeli Jews said they were in favor of rebuilding Gush Katif where more than 8,000 Israelis lived prior to the 2005 withdrawal.
The poll published on the NRG news website collected the responses of 587 people.
Israel evacuated Gush Katif and parts of northern Samaria in 2005 under a plan launched by then prime minister Ariel Sharon.
The poll, part of a series being conducted by Israeli institutes and
the media upon the ten-year anniversary of the Disengagement, reflects
past polls indicating that the Israeli public is highly pessimistic over the withdrawal. A poll published in Maariv earlier
this month showed that the vast majority of the public believed that
the move represents a political, diplomatic, and domestic failure.
Wow.
Labels: Ariel Sharon, Gaza expulsion, Gush Katif, Yitzchak Herzog
Will the UN condemn this 'security fence'?
Egyptian President Abdel Fateh al-Sisi has finally had it with Hamas attacks on his territory. So he's doing what all good neighbors do:
He's building a fence.
In the wake of Friday’s attack in northern Sinai, which killed 33
Egyptian soldiers, Cairo has raised the idea of a building an eight-mile
barrier along its border with Gaza to deter Islamist terrorists from
moving in and out of the Palestinian territory.
“There is a big conspiracy against us,” Egyptian President Abdel
Fatah al-Sisi said in a live, televised address Saturday, in which he
blamed “foreign powers” for the atrocity and said Egypt is locked in an
“existential war”.
Egypt, which has declared a three-month state of emergency in
northern Sinai, also cancelled its planned role as mediator between
Israel and Hamas in talks aimed at maintaining a ceasefire that has held
since the end of the summer conflict.
Friday’s sophisticated terrorist attack - which Egyptian authorities
have indicated likely came from Gaza - was launched on Egyptian troops
with devastating effect. Old tunnels that had yet to be destroyed by
Egyptian forces or newly-dug tunnels that had not been detected were
likely used in the attack that combined the use of a suicide bomber on
one hand, with rocket propelled grenades and roadside bombs on the
other.
Egypt has also closed its borders with Gaza. Will anyone care about this 'blockade'? Will countries like Norway and Turkey send ferries to run Egypt's 'blockade' and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza?
Following Friday’s attack, the Rafah crossing between southern Gaza
and Egypt was closed immediately and will reportedly remain closed
indefinitely. Hamas leaders have reportedly stated that Gaza will
“explode” if the Rafah crossing is not re-opened quickly.
While the southern crossing into Egypt is closed, other border
crossings with Israel remain open. Humanitarian and trade supplies are
being delivered by Israel to the more than 1.8 million residents of Gaza
whose Hamas government fought a 50-day war against them this summer.
The war cost the lives of a reported 2,000 Gazans, according to Hamas
government figures, and 70 Israelis. Recent independent analysis of the
Gazan dead suggests that as many as half were terrorist combatants.
By the way, that article is Fox News - not Arutz Sheva.
But here's one from Arutz Sheva, which reports that Egypt plans to
expel anyone who lives within 500 meters of the border to prevent tunnels from being dug under their homes.
Egyptian military sources revealed details on the plan to the Palestinian Arab Ma'an News Agency on
Tuesday, divulging that all homes and farmland up to a depth of 500
meters (over 1,640 feet) into Gaza from the Sinai border will be seized
and evacuated, other than Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid.
The expulsion will take place to that depth all along the 13 kilometer (over eight mile) border. Additionally, a channel with a depth and width of 20 meters (over 65 feet) will be dug along the Gaza border.
The military source added that residents faced with evacuation are
being offered compensation for abandoning their homes, and around 200
families have already accepted the financial package to vacate.
There are still 680 more families in the area faced with impending expulsion.
Egypt's buffer zone plans are expected to be completed by the end of the year....
Here's betting that the United Nations, the US State Department and the European Union will all have nothing to say about this. After all, what difference does it make?
Labels: Egypt, Gaza expulsion, Gaza security fence, Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, Rafah, Sinai
Gaza envelope communities 'relocating'
Friday's murder of Daniel Tragerman HY"D (May God Avenge his blood) of Kibbutz Nachal Oz was a watershed event for the Jewish communities of the Gaza envelope. According to Haaretz some
70% of their residents have now fled to safer places.
In contrast to policies in place from the start of Operation Protective Edge
until now, Friday’s fatal attack set the Defense Ministry’s National
Authority for Emergency Management looking for solutions for families
wishing to evacuate the area.
Over
the last three days, some 400 families have requested assistance in
finding arrangements far away from the border. In contrast to earlier
stages of the fighting, such families no longer have to depend on
non-governmental agencies or private donations. The state is now
committed to financing their stay away from areas at risk.
All
sides are careful to note that this does not constitute an evacuation.
“This isn’t 1948,” clarified an employee at one local authority. “Don’t
label it an evacuation. These are arrangements for living away from
home,” said another employee. “We’re not evacuating any community.”
However, semantics cannot hide the fact that most residents living in high-risk areas chose to leave their homes again.
“We
were told not to call it an evacuation, only a breather, but we should
call a spade a spade. We left the kibbutz since it’s impossible to
remain there,” says Yael Stadin, community head at Kibbutz Ein
Hashlosha. Yesterday, with the assistance of the Authority for Emergency
Management and the Eshkol Regional Council, most kibbutz members left,
moving into a youth hostel in Jerusalem. One family, a mother and two
adult daughters, decided at the last minute to stay. A few hours later, a
mortar shell landed near their house and one of the daughters suffered
slight head injuries.
The
change in policy came after pressure from residents, communities and
local authorities that had to fend for themselves for over a month and a
half. The defense establishment emphasized that as far as the Home
Front Command is concerned, there is no change in guidelines, and
families have not been instructed to leave their homes. However, anyone
wishing to do so gets assistance.
The problem is apparently limited to communities that are close enough to be within mortar range. Iron Dome doesn't catch mortars and there are no warning sirens.
An estimated 30 percent of families remain in the Gazan border
communities. In more distant communities, outside the range of mortars,
some 80 percent of residents remain.
...
The death of Daniel Tragerman caused many people to make rapid plans for leaving their homes.
The
events of the last few days have drawn a clear distinction between
communities lying within mortar range – up to two kilometers from the
border – and all other settlements in the western Negev. In the absence
of a technological solution such as Iron Dome, the relatively simple
mortar has become Hamas’ most lethal weapon against civilians. Residents
living within two kilometers of the border find themselves facing a
difficult choice, of either remaining at home in a dangerous environment
or uprooting themselves for an unknown duration.
But if Jewish communities are abandoned, Hamas will step into the vacuum, as they did when the Jewish communities of Gaza were expelled (the government doesn't like me using that word, but that's the reality) nine years ago.
There has been a lot of talk recently about Gaza developing into a 'war of attrition.' There was a
war of attrition along Israel's border with Egypt 45 years ago. That war - which lasted from 1968-69 - saw hundreds of casualties. But it was conducted along the Suez Canal. There were few civilians involved.
Given this situation, I don't understand why we're even discussing a cease fire. Hamas must be destroyed.
Labels: Gaza envelope, Gaza expulsion, Hamas, IDF, mortar shells, Operation Protective Edge
Pigs fly: Shimon Peres (SHIMON PERES!) tells the Beeb he has 'problems' explaining support for Gaza expulsion
Shimon Peres has told the BBC that he has 'problems' explaining why he supported the Gaza expulsion (although the media STILL insists on calling it a 'pullout') nine years later.
Let's go to the videotape.
I'm sure the people of Sderot will never forget
how hostile Peres was to them.
While later taking a more supportive tack, in 2006, Peres publicly
upbraided residents of Sderot, who live about three kilometers from Gaza
- as “crybabies,” for complaining about 14 years of incessant
Palestinian terrorist rocket attacks on their town.
“I don’t understand what the hysteria is about. Kiryat Shmona was
shelled for years,” Peres said, referring to Israel’s northernmost town,
on the Lebanon border, Ynet News reported at the time.
“This hysteria over the Qassams must end,” he told journalists at the
Knesset, according to the report. “We’re just adding to the hysteria.
What happened? Kiryat Shmona was shelled for years. What, there weren’t
missiles?”
Yes, Kiryat Shmona was (and still occasionally is) shelled. But not with the consistency or the length of time that Sderot is shelled. I never heard that Kiryat Shmona residents had only 15 seconds to make it into shelters.
One day, God Willing, those who brought the Gaza debacle on us will pay a political price. One quarter of the Jews expelled from Gaza
still don't have a place to live nine years later. And whatever money they received to 'compensate' them for losing their homes and businesses is long since gone. Most of them are broke. And a lot of the money went in the early years when they were forced to live in hotels - and to pay for them. .
The entity that was set up to 'resettle' them spent a huge amount of its budget on public relations to garner support for the expulsion. Government corruption at its worst. Simply disgraceful.
Labels: Ariel Sharon, BBC, Gaza, Gaza expulsion, Hamas, rockets, Sderot, Shimon Peres
Was Ariel Sharon right after all?
Evelyn Gordon puts into words something I have thought about for a long time: That by expelling Gaza's Jews, Ariel Sharon saved Israel from a much more dangerous unilateral withdrawal and expulsion in Judea and Samaria.
I received this one by email (I think it was published by JPost behind a paywall).
If the Gaza pullout doesn’t kill us, it may well have saved us from a far more lethal West Bank one.
Last
week, I thought something I never dreamed I could think: that perhaps I
owe former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon an apology. Not that I’ve
altered my conviction that he bears direct, personal responsibility for
every rocket fired from Gaza over the last nine years, every
cross-border tunnel, every soldier killed there, every bit of damage
done to Israel’s global standing by the periodic wars with Gaza and even
many Palestinian casualties of these wars; all are the bitter fruit of
the unilateral “disengagement” from Gaza that he conceived, bulldozed
through the Knesset and finally implemented in August 2005. Yet if an
apology is owed – and I’m still not sure it is – it’s not despite his
responsibility for these evils, but because of it. Here’s why:
During the second intifada, then-IDF chief of staff (and now defense
minister) Moshe Ya’alon used to talk about the need to “sear the
Palestinians’ consciousness” – to make the intifada so costly for them
that they would never again resort to violence. The Gaza pullout now
looks uncannily like a similar exercise in consciousness-searing. But it
wasn’t the Palestinians’ consciousness Sharon seared; it was our own.
Sharon understood his countrymen. He understood that many Israelis
desperately wanted to believe peace with the Palestinians was possible
despite all evidence to the contrary. He understood that Israelis’
desire to be loved by the world made the country far more vulnerable to
international pressure than economic or strategic considerations alone
could ever do. He understood Israelis’ demographic fears – that absent a
two-state solution, a single Palestinian-majority state could someday
replace a Jewish state. And he saw how, even as the intifada still raged
in autumn 2003, the mere fact that Israeli casualties had dropped
markedly since its peak in early 2002 sufficed to enable these other
considerations to regain their sway. Consequently, various schemes to
cede land to the Palestinians were already making a public comeback.
Sharon also understood one other thing: Important as control of Gaza was
to Israel’s security, it paled beside the importance of the West Bank.
Gaza primarily threatened Israel’s sparsely populated south. The West
Bank threatened not only Israel’s major population centers, but also its
industrial and commercial base, its main international airport and its
seat of government.
Sharon assuredly didn’t belittle Gaza’s importance. He was an army
officer during the 1950s, when Palestinian terrorists used Gaza as a
base for staging bloody attacks inside Israel, and after Israel captured
it in 1967, he spearheaded construction of the Gaza settlements
precisely to ensure it would remain Israeli and never revert to being a
Palestinian terror base. That’s why the unilateral withdrawal plan he
unveiled in December 2003 was so shocking: It contradicted the
fundamental security doctrine to which he had hitherto devoted his life.
Nor was he naïve enough that he could possibly have believed the rosy
promises he sold the Israeli public about the pullout: that it would
promote peace with the Palestinians, enhance Israel’s security, give
Israel international legitimacy to fight Palestinian terror and buy
American support for retaining parts of the West Bank. Indeed, the exact
opposite occurred: The unilateral pullout bolstered Hamas, which rode
to victory in the Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006 partly by
claiming credit for driving Israel out of Gaza; it drastically decreased
Israel’s security, resulting in 16,500 rockets and mortars fired at
Israel from Gaza since the withdrawal and more soldiers dying there
since the pullout than before; it severely eroded international support
for Israeli counterterrorism measures, because once Hamas could
entrench its rockets, tunnels and booby-trapped buildings amid Gaza’s civilian population,
military operations against it necessarily caused far more Palestinian
casualties than they did pre-withdrawal; and US promises of support for
Israeli retention of parts of the West Bank evaporated the minute a new
American president took office.
All this seemed to leave only the most cynical of explanations for
Sharon’s about-face: He sacrificed Gaza, its 8,000 settlers and Israel’s
security solely to ensure his own reelection and/or the end of the
criminal investigations against him. At best, perhaps he convinced
himself that since he was (truly) head and shoulders above all his
possible successors, his reelection would benefit Israel enough to
compensate for this sacrifice.
I still can’t rule this explanation out. As the fantasies he peddled
about the disengagement show, he was plenty cynical enough (and
megalomaniac enough) to make it plausible.
But I now think there’s an alternative explanation: Seeing that even the
second intifada hadn’t sufficed to cure Israelis of their
susceptibility to territorial concessions, he concluded that unless he
did something drastic, Israel would someday quit the West Bank. So he
sacrificed the less-important Gaza to teach his countrymen a lesson they
couldn’t possibly disregard. He bequeathed us a metastasizing horror in
Gaza to ensure that Israelis never, ever made that same mistake in the
West Bank.
For Sharon also understood one final thing about Israelis: Much as they
crave the world’s love, once a critical mass of them is convinced that
something is vital to their country’s survival, they are capable of
defying the entire world to secure it.
The Gaza experiment’s deadly results may finally have convinced that
critical mass of Israelis. Outside the radical left, not many would be
willing to risk a repeat in the West Bank right now. And while nothing
else that’s happened justifies the disengagement, averting a far more
dangerous withdrawal from the West Bank actually might.
Except for one minor problem: The success of the operation doesn’t
matter if the patient dies. And it’s not yet clear Israel can survive
the success of Sharon’s operation. It’s not clear it can survive the
security consequences – which, for the first time since 1948, have
turned Israeli communities within the Green Line into ghost towns
– and it’s not clear it can survive the cumulative toll on its
international legitimacy that repeated applications of Hamas’ wildly
successful “dead baby strategy” are exacting.
That’s why I haven’t yet decided whether Sharon actually deserves that
apology. I’m waiting to see whether anyone finds a cure for his
operation’s deadly side effects.
The main argument against this being Sharon's principal motivation for the Gaza expulsion is the fact that he also expelled the Jews in two northern Samaria towns (Homesh and Sa Nur) at the same time. How critical was Homesh to Israel's security? Here's a picture taken from the hilltop on which Homesh once sat:
Yes, that's the main Hadera power plant off in the distance, with the Mediterranean behind hit.
Labels: Ariel Sharon, Gaza expulsion, Judea and Samaria
Tisha b'Av 5774
Monday night and Tuesday are Tisha b'Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.
Five tragedies befell the Jewish people on Tisha b'Av
in ancient times, the two most important of which were the destruction
of the two Holy Temples:
- It was decreed that the generation which left Egypt
would remain in the desert for 40 years and not enter the land of
Israel, after believing the inaccurate report of 10 of the 12 spies in
the year 2449 (the current Jewish year is 5774).
- The first Bet Hamikdash (Holy Temple) was destroyed on 9 B'Av in the year 3339.
- The second Bet Hamikdash (Holy Temple) was destroyed on 9 B'Av about 1944 years ago.
- The city of Betar was captured and tens of thousands of Jews were killed in the year 3893.
- The wicked Turnus Rufus plowed the site of the Bet
Hamikdash and its surroundings and renamed it Aelia Capitolina, also in
the year 3893.
Since these tragedies occurred on 9 B'Av, it was decreed as a day of fasting and mourning.
Other tragedies that happened on 9 b'Av include:
- 4,000 Jews were expelled from England by King Edward I in the year 5050 (18 July 1290)
- 300,000 Jews were expelled from Spain by Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in the year 5252 (2 August 1492)
- Word War 1 started in 5674 - 1 August 1914 - with Germany declaring war on Russia
- The Jews of Gaza were to have been expelled from
their homes on Tisha b'Av nine years ago, but the Israeli government
postponed the expulsion for a day in an effort to avoid making this
list.
You can find out more about Tisha b'Av, including online audio and visual programs and a live webcast, for which you can register
here.
Posting tonight and on Tuesday (especially early in the day) may
be a little lighter than usual. I don't fast well, and must sleep
tonight or I will get caffeine addiction headaches.
For those of you who are fasting, have an easy and
meaningful fast, and may this day be a holiday next year instead of a
day of mourning.
Labels: First Temple, Gaza expulsion, Second Temple, Tisha b'Av
'Why Gaza saddens me'
Someone on the Left who seems to get it - Paul Estrin, the Chairman of Canada's Green party - says that
Gaza makes him sad. Here's why.
It has nearly been ten years. Since August 2005, Gazans have been in
control of their own destiny. Some might say otherwise, yet Gazans have
their own government and they are their own people: If their neighbours,
Egypt and Israel, close their borders to Gaza, one must look to a Gaza
run by a terrorist organization cum government that teaches and
propagates hate, death and destruction to understand why.
Since then, stories of resources being used, such as concrete
supposed to be used for infrastructure for civil use instead used for
purposes of terrors, or stories of repression of the people there by its
own government, or stories of how under Hamas rule people no income or
ways to support themselves … I’m reminded of Bill Clinton’s remark “It’s
the economy, stupid” … but instead of showing openness to the world, or
managing, or caring ... Gaza has instead shown that it is not
interested in peace, in building a stable economy, in a secure future.
The Gazan government has had ample opportunity over these past years,
nearly a decade, to alter its ways, change its mantra of death to the
Jews, and become respectable caretakers of the people in their charge.
They have not.
Surely they could have done more. Should have done more.
We can forgive them for at first being overjoyed with the departure
of the Israeli forces, and them as a terrorist organization unable to
initially take up the challenge of good governance.
We can forgive them for not immediately changing their charter. In
Canada and elsewhere, national charters protect the people. In Gaza, the
first article calls for the death of Israel and the Jew. (Let me quote
just a bit: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam
will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." I would
like to believe all of us in our organization can see how atrocious such
a statement is, and that we would believe in things like the right of
people to not be obliterated …)
They said, they being the Hamas government newly in power, they
needed time. They have had nearly a decade. What is the holdup … oh,
wait, the hate and desire to obliterate.
So, let us fast forward past a decade’s worth of battles, wars, incursions, etc.
How much aide has Israel given Gaza? How much has the world given Gaza?
Giving aid is worthwhile, a noble cause. But, has it gone to the people that need it? Ten years …
So, now, this month, what do we see:
Israel is more threatened than even because its neighbour, instead of
caring about the welfare and well-being of its citizens, cares about
the cause of killing, of carrying the banner of martyrdom, and of
watching its fellow people die.
And yet, these are the same people who are embraced and loved by the
international community, with marches on Parliament Hill in Canada’s
capital, and in cities throughout the world, holding banners and
chanting about the destruction of the state of Israel and of death to
the Jews.
Meanwhile, Gaza uses UN locations to launch or house weapons … yet
the international community cries out, a day after the UN itself
admitted this and said that this practise puts at risk those in these
facilities given that these places then are not safe havens but rather
places of war to be targeted ..
Meanwhile, Gaza is giving children grenades … and asking their citizens to be sheep to the slaughter.
Gazan officials tell their people to be killed while they hide in bomb shelters.
Cowards? No, this is worse than cowardice. It is vile and ugly and they should be put to shame.
Read the whole thing. No, it's never been about a 'Palestinian state.' It's always been about destroying Israel. It was started by the Arab countries immediately after Israel's War of Independence. Many of the Arab countries have given up on destroying Israel, even if they won't say so. But they're still not willing to face the consequences of their actions. They're not willing to help resolve the monster they created. And the monster still wants to destroy us all.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Canada, Gaza, Gaza expulsion, Hamas, Islam, Palestinian people
This was Gaza
In two weeks, we will observe the 9th anniversary of the expulsion of Gush Katif and the destruction of several thriving communities in Gaza.
Here's what it looked like before the communities were destroyed. Very different from today, isn't it?
A pity that we ruined what we had accomplished with our own hands....
Labels: Gaza expulsion
Hamas' Marzouk would rather Israeli control of Gaza than the 'blockade'
There are two amazing sides to this amazing coin. First, that Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas' number two outside the Gaza Strip, wants Israel to take over the Gaza Strip. And second, that Marzouk has in essence admitted that
Israel does not currently 'occupy' Gaza - a contradiction to one of the 'Palestinians' main talking points.
Abu Marzouk told the Rai al-Youm newspaper that Israeli
reoccupation of the Gaza Strip would mean that Israel would have to
provide the Palestinians with electricity, water and jobs.
“We prefer the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel to returning
to the state of blockade that prevailed before the current aggression,”
Abu Marzouk, who is based in Cairo, said.
“Occupation means providing
electricity, water and jobs. Providing these daily matters is the
responsibility of the occupying state.”
Abu Marzouk said that he
relayed this message to a Norwegian envoy, who met with him in Cairo a
few days ago to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip.
Abu
Marzouk also held talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas, who has been seeking to persuade Hamas to accept the
Egyptian-brokered cease-fire proposal that was announced last week.
Abu
Marzouk said that Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip
reject the proposal “because it encourages Israeli aggression.”
...
Abu Marzouk said that Hamas couldn’t accept Netanyahu’s demands to stop smuggling and manufacturing weapons.
He
quoted Abbas as telling him during the meeting: “We can’t defeat Israel
and we are powerless in front of America. Therefore, there should be a
cease-fire and Hamas must accept the Egyptian proposal immediately and
without any amendments.”
Hamas is looking for Israeli soldiers to target in Gaza. They must be destroyed.
Labels: Gaza, Gaza expulsion, Hamas, occupation, Operation Protective Edge
The human shields are well-fed
With all that's going on, Israel is continuing to allow
humanitarian aid into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing point. That means that no human shields will go hungry.
Despite the ongoing rocket fire by Gaza terrorists,
Israel has not halted the entry of trucks into Gaza – and on Thursday,
some 200 trucks carrying food and “basic supplies” entered Gaza. The
government said that the trucks were allowed to pass through for
“humanitarian purposes,” and were inspected and found not to be carrying
any items or equipment that could be used to attack Israel.
The trucks are said to be carrying a greater than normal
supply of food, officials said. According to sources, the IDF and
Defense Ministry officials urged the government's Coordinator of
Government Activities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, Yoav Mordechai, to
allow an increased amount of supplies into Gaza, so that residents would
have enough to eat in case the IDF begins a ground assault against
Hamas.
The trucks enter Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is
often targeted by Gaza terrorists for missile attacks. The workers at
the crossing are all Israeli, and have been given special safety
instructions by the Home Front Command, officials said. It should be
noted that one of the terror tunnels destroyed by the IDF several days
ago was located right next to the Crossing.
With that, officials said, the IDF has pulled two “gestures” granted after the conclusion of Operation Pillar
of Defense in 2012. Palestinian Arab farmers have been banned from
tending to their fields which abut the security fence around Gaza, and
cannot approach within more than a few hundred meters of the fence. In
addition, fishing boats have been restricted to within three kilometers
of the Gaza coast.
The IDF has also allowed 240 Palestinians with foreign citizenship to
leave Gaza, at the request of their governments. Among them are
citizens of the US, Sweden, Greece, Romania, and Serbia. They will be
allowed to leave the country, or to travel to Palestinian
Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria.
It goes without saying that the IDF has not taken steps to cut off
Gaza's electricity, which is supplied by Israel, as numerous ministers
and MKs have demanded. IDF officials said that among the reasons for
allowing the shipments to continue and the power to flow was to prevent
Hamas from painting a picture of a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, in
which people have no food, water, or power.
According to former National Security Adviser Yaacov Amidror, the only way to stop the rocket fire is to
retake Gaza.
"We’ve never had a crushing blow that hurt the other side’s the ability to launch missiles," Amidror told Channel 10 News,
adding that he believes the only way to achieve complete quiet is to
"retake Gaza and be there for six months to a year to clean it out."
Amidror, who in the past headed the Research Department of Israeli
military intelligence, explained that the extent of the IDF’s operation
in Gaza depends on “how much we are willing to pay for quiet in the
south.”
He estimated that an operation retaking Gaza would require three to
13 days. “Then we would have to remain there between six months and a
year, in order to clean up Gaza. Only then will we be in a situation
where they won’t fire at Israel,” said Amidror.
He stressed that the price of such a military operation would be
dozens of casualties, but added, "I think eventually there will be no
choice. If we cannot force Hamas to ask for a ceasefire by attacking
from the air, we may have to go into Gaza.”
Well, yeah, but it's not like they weren't shooting at all before we left Gaza either, although then most of the shooting was focused on the Jews who lived in Gaza. I'm not sure what he means by 'cleaning it up' but it's sure going to require a lot more than cleaning the streets.
So we have two choices: Rule Gaza or suffer from rocket fire from Gaza. Kahane was right. The only way to have real peace and quiet here is to pay the Arabs to leave. Maybe we need to admit that reality too.
Labels: Gaza electricity supply, Gaza expulsion, humanitarian aid, Kerem Shalom crossing point, Operation Protective Edge, Rabbi Meir Kahane, Yaakov Amidror
How we got here
For those who have forgotten, here's a video from 2004 that highlights the debate over Israel's expulsion of Gaza's Jews and abandonment of the territory. Who was right and who was wrong?
Let's go to the videotape (with English subtitles).
Speaking of history, for what it's worth, one of my children told me last night that he had a conversation with Mrs. Carl while I was in the US in which he said "I remember Abba telling me all about Obama eight years ago. Every single thing he said would happen has come true." I invite you to go back to my archives from 2006 and 2007 and see how many more things I predicted correctly.
Unfortunately. this blog did not exist until January 2006, and my predictions with respect to the Gaza expulsion were wiped out when Charles Johnson purged all comments on his blog from those who did not agree with his new political views.
Labels: Ariel Sharon, Ashkelon, Binyamin Netanyahu, Gaza expulsion, Gush Katif, Hamas rockets, Limor Livnat, Sylvan Shalom, Yuval Steinitz
Oh my: Cost of Oslo accords would have financed 50 years of guaranteed income for 'Palestinians'
Research by Moshe Feiglin's Jewish Leadership faction in the Likud party shows that the cost of the failed Oslo accords - NIS 900 billion ($250 billion) and counting - would have financed
50 years of guaranteed income at current levels for each 'Palestinian' who would have left Israel instead.
The failed attempt
at regional peacemaking known as the Oslo Process has cost the state of
Israel over 900 billion shekels – more than $250 billion – since 1993,
and the costs keeps rising, according to a study by the Likud party's
Jewish Leadership faction, which is headed by MK Moshe Feiglin
(Likud-Beytenu).
By comparison, the total state budget for 2014 has been set at about 400 billion shekels, or about $115 billion.
The numbers came as a shock to the researchers, who recently gave a much lower estimate of the total financial costs of the botched endeavor.
Jewish Leadership's report on the study's results note that the same
amount of money would have sufficed for ensuring that 3.5 million Arabs
receive the same income that they currently enjoy, for a period of 50
years, in exchange for voluntary repatriation to Arab countries.
Instead of turning Gaza, Judea and Samaria into arms depots and
terror hotspots, Israel should apply its sovereignty to all of these
areas, settle them, make them flourish, and adopt a policy of reducing
the size of the Arab population and isolating it.
The research, which was led by Jewish Leadership's R&D Head,
Michael Fuah, examined nine fields of expenditure and tallied up what it
said were the minimal costs of the Oslo process to date, as follows:
Transfers of funds to the Palestinan Authority – 88 billion shekels
Added costs to Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) – 37 billion shekels
Added costs to the IDF – 300 billion shekels
Costs to Ministry of Public Security (police) and damage from massive car thefts – 105 billion shekels.
Hiring of civilian security guards all over Israel – 220 billion shekels
Construction of separation fence around territory handed over to the Palestinian Arabs – 4.7 billion shekels
Loss in tourism revenues during peak years of terror – 150 billion shekels
Cost of evicting Jews from Katif Bloc – 9.5 billion shekels
The study also found that more than three times as many Jews were murdered in terror attacks between 1994 and 2012 (the Oslo years) as between 1977 and 1993.
Thank you Uncle Shimon.
Labels: Gaza expulsion, IDF, Israel police, Oslo accords, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorism, PLO, security fence, Shimon Peres, Shin Bet
IDF bars Jews from Homesh ghost town
The IDF has announced that it will bar the traditional pilgrimage of Jews to the
ghost town of Homesh in northern Samaria (the picture at the top is a view from the town, and yes that's the Hadera power plant and the Mediterranean Sea in the background). The Jews of Homesh were expelled from their homes by Ariel Sharon in 2005 in order to convince the 'Palestinians' that Israel wasn't only willing to sacrifice Gaza on the altar of a 'Palestinian state.' Every year since 2006, Jews have returned to Homesh on Passover to express their desire to return to live in the site.
The army ban comes on the heels of growing tensions between the
military and the religiously devout portion of the Israeli settler
community following the violent clashes in Yitzhar which left a number of Border Policemen injured.
Before
dawn Tuesday, security forces entered the settlement to carry out
demolition orders against homes that were built illegally. During the
operation, settlers attacked police and destroyed an army post.
...
The army’s decision to deny access to Homesh during Passover was met
with criticism by the religious Zionist camp. Orit Struck, a member of
Knesset from the pro-settler Bayit Yehudi faction, said the move
amounted to “collective punishment against a large constituency.”
“I
call on the defense minister to order that the event be permitted to
proceed as planned and to act against lawbreakers with means and norms
that befit a state of law and that do not include collective
punishment,” Struck said.
For those of you who voted for the Jewish Home party, they seem real effective, don't they?
Labels: Gaza expulsion, IDF, Samaria
Bennett slams idea of leaving 'settlers' in 'Palestinian state'
Prime Minister Netanyahu's office has confirmed that he meant to say in Davos on Friday that Israel proposes
leaving Jewish towns and their inhabitants in a 'Palestinian state' as part of a 'peace agreement.' Jewish Home party leader
Naftali Bennett reacted on Sunday evening with fury.
Economics Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) quickly shot down the idea in a Facebook post.
“The idea that Jewish communities will live under Palestinian
sovereignty, as expressed by the Prime Minister's Office, is a very
grave matter, and it reflects a panicked loss of values,” said Bennett.
"2,000 years of longing for the Land of Israel did not transpire so that
we could live under Abu Mazen's rule”
The idea “pulls the ground out from beneath our settlement of Tel Aviv” as well, he stated.
Bennett called on Netanyahu to immediately deny that the idea reflects his policy.
He wants Netanyahu to deny the truth? Maybe Bennett needs to wake up to reality. Saying that he's going to leave the revenants behind in a 'Palestinian state' has two huge advantages for Netanyahu and for his Leftist allies (like Yair Lapid whom Bennett helped bring into the government). First, he avoids the heart-rending scenes of the IDF forcibly expelling Jews from their homes. And second, he avoids having to pay 'compensation' when the revenants flee for their lives into a rump state of Israel.
It is Netanyahu - and not Bennett - who has learned the lessons of the Gaza expulsion. And in fact, Ehud Olmert would have done the same thing in 2006 had the Second Lebanon War not quashed his plans. It's a brilliant strategy. Despicably evil, but brilliant.
Others knew better than Bennett how to respond to Netanyahu.
Two hawkish Likud MKs also warned against Netanyahu's idea. Deputy
Minister of Transportation, MK Tzipi Hotovely, said that “a diplomatic
plan that relegates the Jewish settlement enterprise to Palestinian
sovereignty will not receive political backing in Likud. The commitment
not to uproot settlements is not enough. It is important that Israeli
sovereignty be maintained.”
Deputy Defense Minister MK Danny Danon rejected the plan and said:
“Whoever thinks that Jews will live under Palestinian control in Judea
and Samaria is invited to try and visit Gaza today and understand the
meaning of 'tolerance' in the Middle East.”
Danon added: “In areas where the military will not be present and
bear responsibility – no Jew will enjoy security. We will not abandon
the settlers behind enemy lines.”
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel warned against implementing the idea and said that it will lead to a bloodbath.
“One of the basic civil rights is the right to life,” stated Forum
Director Nahi Eyal. “No one has a moral and legal right to hand over
responsibility for the security of Israel's citizens to Palestinian
policemen and murderers whom the government released from jail in recent
months.”
Well, yes. But you'd have to go back to the Shamir government (1990-92) to find the last government in this country in which moral and legal values were predominant.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Danny Danon, Gaza expulsion, Judea and Samaria, Middle East peace process, Naftali Bennett, revenants, Tzipi Hotovely
Sharon's legacy
Many Jews abroad feel unbridled admiration for Ariel Sharon.
Many Jews in Israel feel utter contempt for him. Here's why - from the Washington Post of all places.
Many of those Israeli evacuees maintain a simmering anger, and
hundreds of families who were settlers in Gaza can be found living today
in communities such as Nitzan, a kind of upscale refugee village built
on sand dunes beside the Mediterranean Sea, just a 20-minute drive from
the Gaza border.
“Welcome to my little piece of junk,” said
Rachel Saperstein, who knocked on the side of her government-issued
caravilla, Israel’s version of a FEMA trailer.
“It’s made of cardboard, you know,” she said.
Saperstein,
73, a retired English teacher at a girls’ school in the Gush Katif
settlements in Gaza, has lived in her mobile home for eight years.
“Sharon
could have been remembered as a brilliant general, a great leader. But
what did he do before he was turned into a vegetable? He destroyed
people’s lives,” Saperstein said as she sat in her little temporary
home. “He sent Jewish soldiers in to drag Jews out of their houses.”
Here the evacuees kindle a deep sense of betrayal and loss — and they place the blame squarely on Sharon.
“I
have very mixed feelings about him,” said Esther Lilintal, 76, whose
job in the Gaza settlement was to help newcomers. “Until his turnaround,
Sharon was a hero to us. He was much loved. The young men would carry
him on their shoulders when he came to visit.”
Some of the residents here expressed open hatred for Sharon. Others have tried to forgive, but said they would never forget.
“When
he had his stroke, many people thought, ‘Yes, he is being punished for
what he did. He is getting his due,’ ” she said. “I understand that
feeling very well.”
Sharon suffered a massive stroke six months
after the Gaza withdrawal. He lingered for eight years in a coma until
he died Saturday.
Residents here say they wonder what Sharon
achieved by pulling out of Gaza. Israel and Hamas remain belligerents.
They fought two brief but intensewars
in 2008 and 2012. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu served as finance
minister in Sharon’s government in 2005. He resigned over the Gaza
pullout and warned that it was a mistake.
In all fairness, Netanyahu resigned after all the votes had been taken. Netanyahu voted in favor of the expulsion every single time. Netanyahu the elite soldier was courageous. Netanyahu the finance minister under Sharon was a yellow-bellied coward.
There have been many complaints about how the Gaza evacuees were
treated after their eviction. The Nitzan community lacks permanent
synagogues. The girls’ high school is not complete. Half the town looks
like a California suburb under construction. The other half, with the
mobile homes, looks like rural poverty.
“You
want to know the legacy of Sharon? It is broken houses, broken
community, broken people,” said Aviel Eliaz, 42, a community manager in
Nitzan.
Eliaz said that almost nine years after the settlers were
evicted, they are still battling government bureaucrats for
compensation. He said that families lived with too many kids in spaces
that were too small, that hundreds of families still were in mobile
homes, that divorce had increased, that children had emotional problems.
“What Israel did to us after they evicted us was the disgrace,” Eliaz said, and he blamed Sharon.
“He
planned every last detail of how to get us out” of the settlements in
Gaza, “but he never planned for what to do the day after.”
Yes, is a disgrace. And Netanyahu is planning to do it again in Judea and Samaria to keep Masters Kerry and Obama happy.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Ariel Sharon, Binyamin Netanyahu, Gaza expulsion, Judea and Samaria, Middle East peace process
This is rich: VIP's at Sharon funeral have to wear orange bracelets
Attendees at Ariel Sharon's funeral were given
orange bracelets (link in Hebrew) like the one pictured above (Hat Tip for Photo:
David HaIvri) to identify them.
The orange bracelet was the symbol of opposition to Sharon's expulsion of Gaza's Jews from their homes in 2005.
Labels: Ariel Sharon, Gaza expulsion
