Freedom House puts politics ahead of human rights
It's embargoed until midnight tonight US time, but since I didn't get it directly from them, I'm not subject to the embargo. Freedom House has issued its annual report on freedom of the press, and has downgraded Israel because - wait for it -
Israel HaYom hands out newspapers for free!
Israel declined due to the growing impact of Yisrael Hayom, whose owner-subsidized business model endangered the stability of other media outlets, and
the unchecked expansion of paid content—some of it government funded—whose nature was not clearly identified to the public.
For the uninitiated, Israel HaYom is owned by that villain Sheldon Adelson, and is handed out for free on street corners and at traffic lights throughout the country. It lives on advertising, and has become the
number one circulating hard-copy newspaper in the country, much to the chagrin of Haaretz (which has almost no hard-copy presence and exists as a web site for foreigners) and Yediot Aharonot (previously the top-ranking tabloid). In fact, the Freedom House report reads like
Haaretz talking points.
Every newspaper in this country has 'paid government content' - legal notices and the like. There are many more here than in many other Western countries because every government tender and every public offering of securities (among other things) has to be published in two newspapers. But the people issuing the tender (local authorities) and the issuer of the securities (to stay with those two examples) have the right to choose in which newspapers they will publicize. Moreover, Freedom House gives no indication of how the 'paid content' in 2016 compares to past years, nor does it give any indication how much more (if any) 'content' goes to Yisrael HaYom than to any other newspaper.
The result is that while Israel is still the freest country in the Middle East and North Africa, Freedom House has downgraded our press from 'Free' to 'Partly Free' and our worldwide rank has declined to 65 (62 countries are rated 'Free') - behind countries like Chile and Uruguay and most of Europe (Norway is ranked #1, Belgium, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands are tied for #2, the US is ranked #28 and the UK is ranked #41). Ghana was the only other country that declined from 'Free' to 'Partly Free' this year.
Israel's downgrading reeks of politics. Politics should play no role in this type of ranking. Shame on Freedom House!
Labels: Freedom House, freedom of the press, Haaretz, Sheldon Adelson, Yisrael HaYom
Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' Daily: Ezra Schwartz deserved to die
Haaretz, Israel's
Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily, has published an article (accessible only behind a paywall, and I will not pay to access the full article) that implies that Ezra Schwartz, the
Massachusetts teenager who was
murdered last month in a terror attack,
deserved to die because his yeshiva sent him to volunteer at an 'illegal West Bank outpost.' They even call it an 'Exclusive.'
The reality is that most Israelis don't pay to read Haaretz - in print or online - and it is only read by the European and US elites for whom the online service exists. They are the target market for articles like this one - the BDS'ers and the elites who try to ban Israeli products from Europe's supermarkets.
The reality also is that if your child attends an identifiably Zionist year-in-Israel program, they will probably visit places across the green line in Judea and Samaria or 'east' Jerusalem at some point. Those places might include 'illegal outposts.' There is no difference where you are going to hand out charity. A Jew is a Jew wherever he or she may be.
And the reality also is that the terrorists who murdered Ezra and tried to murder his friends had no clue why Ezra and his friends were there, and really didn't care why they were there. The terrorists were just looking for Jews to murder as they have for the last 150 years in this country.
Shame on the lowlife scum at Haaretz for dancing on Ezra's grave.
Labels: Haaretz, illegal outpost, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, Judea and Samaria, Palestinian terrorism, terror victims
They forgot the Beeb
Tell me this tweet isn't the perfect description for the mainstream media's relationship with Israel.
Labels: al-Jazeera, anti-Israel media bias, BBC bias, CNN lies, Haaretz, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, MSNBC
Obama makes one joke using Netanyahu's name, Haaretz turns it into 'starring role'
I just watched President Obama's entire 22-minute response to the White House correspondents' dinner on Saturday night. I watched it because Haaretz tweeted out a headline that claimed that Prime Minister Netanyahu had a '
starring role.' The one and only joke at Netanyahu's expense was just past the 3-minute mark, and it was really more at House Speaker John Boehner's expense and not Netanyahu's.
"I am determined to make the most of every moment I have left,"
Obama said Saturday at the annual dinner that raises funds for
scholarships for budding journalists. "After the midterm elections, my
advisors asked me 'Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?' And I
said, 'Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.'"
Obama said that he still has tasks on hand,
including issuing veto threats and negotiating with Iran. "All while
finding time to pray five times a day," he quipped, "Which is
strenuous."
"And it is no wonder that that people keep pointing
out how the presidency has aged me," Obama continued. "I look so old
John Boehner’s already invited Benjamin Netanyahu to speak at my
funeral."
The good news is that Obama has finally found some
decent joke writers. I'm not going to embed a 22-minute video so you can see one joke in the first three minutes, but if you have nothing better to do on a Sunday (unfortunately, I do), click through the first link above and you will find the video embedded.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Haaretz, humor, John Boehner, White House press corps
'Most pro-Israel administration evah' denies freezing Israel out of nuke talks
The White House is
denying a report on Israel's Channel 2 that its infant occupant is freezing Israel out of all reports on the P 5+1 nuclear talks because Mr. Netanyahu is coming to Washington.
"Conversations continue with Israel on the Iran nuclear negotiations,"
one senior State Department official said. "Under Secretary [of State
for Political Affairs Wendy] Sherman met with Israeli NSA Cohen and
Minister for Intelligence and Strategic Planning Steinitz in Munich and
will see NSA Cohen again this week."
The official noted that the Iran talks were, "obviously," the main topic of conversation.
"And
Secretary [of State John] Kerry continues his conversations with Prime
Minister Netanyahu about this issue, as has always been the case," the
official continued.
The White House also rejected the report,
noting Cohen's upcoming meeting next week at the White House with
National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
"This report is patently
false," National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey told the
Post. "We also continue our frequent and routine contact at various
professional levels within the intelligence, military, and diplomatic
spheres."
The report is one of many from Israeli television that has been criticized in recent months by the White House.
And you thought that the White House ignored everything coming out of Israel unless it was reported by Haaretz....
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Channel 2, Haaretz, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1
Two Hamas-loving Haaretz reporters arrested in Samaria
Two Hamas-loving Haaretz reporters - Gideon Levy and Alex Levac - were arrested on Monday at the entrance to Tulkarem, which is a 'Palestinian' city in Area A where
Israeli citizens are not permitted to enter (by the Israeli government - the 'Palestinians' would be happy to have lynching targets).
Haaretz itself has blamed the IDF for the incident.
"Their job is to help the vital work of journalists and not sabotage
it under false pretenses, and certainly not to arrest journalists
performing their duties," the newspaper stated Monday night.
Levy responded to the incident, saying that "should call a spade a
spade. It was a false arrest of journalists designed to thwart our work.
For 30 years I have surveyed the Occupation and I will continue even if
they arrest me every week."
The journalists openly rebelled against the IDF upon entering at a
checkpoint, police stated, and "provoked [against IDF officers], spat,
and cursed [at them]." It has now been revealed as well that one or both
of them attacked a high-ranking officer at the scene.
Here's hoping they get some jail time.
Labels: Haaretz, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily
Haaretz joins the 9/11 'truthers'
In an inflammatory cartoon in Thursday's editions, Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily is
blaming Prime Minister Netanyahu for 9/11.
The cartoon struck many as tone deaf, akin to depicting Netanyahu as Hitler.
Not surprisingly, it inflamed
those who already believe Haaretz is so left wing as to verge into
anti-Israel territory. But it also left even many diehard Bibi haters raising their eyebrows.
Haaretz is standing by the cartoonist, Amos Biderman, publishing another article article on Thursday in which Biderman claims - get this - that he didn't know that Americans were so sensitive about 9/11.
“It was certainly not my intention to insult or upset anyone,”
Biderman told Haaretz on Thursday. “I wasn’t sufficiently aware of the
great sensitivity that 9/11 holds for Americans.”
According to Biderman, his cartoon contained criticism of Netanyahu.
“I was mocking Bibi,” he said. “He’s been acting like a bull in a
china shop with the United States, which is Israel’s most important
strategic asset.”
Is that what it was? I thought cartoons were supposed to be funny. This one obviously is not.
Mike Doran came up with this response:
Hmmm.
Labels: 9/11, Binyamin Netanyahu, Haaretz, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, Jewish anti-Semitism
Chemi Shalev justifies 'Palestinian' terrorism
An amazing Twitter exchange between Northwestern University law professor Eugene Kontorovich and Haaretz US editor Chemi Shalev in which Shalev justifies Wednesday night's terror attack and the murder of three-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun HY"D (May God Avenge her blood).
Labels: Abu Mazen, East Jerusalem, Haaretz, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, occupation, Palestinian terrorism, Temple Mount
Oh my... Haaretz op-ed admits that the Left is free to speak in Israel but cannot make a case
An op-ed in Haaretz debunks an op-ed in the New York Times that claims that the Left in Israel has been
terrorized into silence.
As I write this, the most-emailed post on the New York Times website is a short piece called “How Israel Silences Dissent,” by Mairav Zonszein who, like me, moved to Israel from America where she was born. And like me, she is a leftist and a political activist. Zonszein describes a small group of thugs who mixed it up with Tel Aviv peace demonstrators at the start of the Gaza war, a death threat phoned into a theater against a renowned 75 year old stage actress, Gila Almagor, after a newspaper reported that the grotesque murder and immolation of a Palestinian teen in Jerusalem left her embarrassed to be an Israeli, the cancelling of an endorsement deal for a gifted comedian, Orna Banai, after she expressed sympathy for Gazan kids, and threats against a Haaretz journalist, Gideon Levy, who described Israeli pilots as war criminals. All these, Zonszein wrote, demonstrate “the aggressive silencing of anyone who voices disapproval of Israeli policies or expresses empathy with Palestinians.”
The thing is, they don’t.
Don’t get me wrong; they’re terrible.... My stomach churned when I watched, heard and read all these things, just as Zonszein’s did.
But then, that’s the point: I watched, heard and read all these things. The criticisms reached me. The criticisms of the criticisms reached me. Discussion of the criticism and of the criticisms of the criticisms reached me. No one was silenced. The week after thugs punched three demonstrators, there was another demonstration, this one larger, and protected by more police. The actress, the comedian and the journalist received hours of airtime and hundreds of column inches. The murder of the Palestinian kid in Jerusalem was condemned by multitudes, including the parents of the three Israeli boys who were murdered weeks earlier.
Although most Israelis supported the war in Gaza, especially at the start, there were voices of dissent in all media and especially on the internet....
The simple fact is, a lot of the media, and a lot of academia, and a lot of NGOs and civil society in Israel lean left, and sometimes far left. We have ways of expressing ourselves, and we did express ourselves. I was not intimidated. The thugs did not keep me away from the demonstrations, and did not make me too fearful to bring my kids along. If we’re honest, the dozen right-wing bullies shouting threats infuriated lots of us, but they intimidated no one. Leftist Israelis may not have shown as much anguish or empathy as Zonszein thinks we should have. But that was not because we were aggressively silenced. Perhaps we were too silent, but not because we were silenced.
...
But we haven’t been silenced. We’ve just failed to make our case. For a dozen years, we have failed to win a majority in the Knesset. We have failed to convince other Israelis that the cost of holding onto the occupied territories is greater than the dangers of relinquishing them. In Zonszein’s analysis, this is because a right-wing cabal has shut us up, and there’s little we can do about it.
The truth is, we’ve failed because we’ve failed, and there is a lot we can do about it. Rather than whine in the New York Times about how we’ve been silenced, we need to figure out how to speak to other Israelis so that they will listen. The answer is not to convince readers of the New York Times that Israel is no longer a democracy. The answer is to accept that Israel is a democracy, and that democracy demands that we speak to our fellow citizens and listen to them, that we persuade them rather than dismiss them. Zonszein argues that democratic politics in Israel are hopeless. The fact is, it is in Israeli democracy that our greatest hope lies.
The writer, Noah Efron doesn't seem to acknowledge the possibility that maybe the Left has failed because most Israelis have realized that its ideas are not workable. Ideas don't just fail because they're not well presented - sometimes they fail because they're just plain wrong. But at least he recognizes that the Left has had the opportunity to present its ideas. Maybe one day others on the Left will reach the same epiphany.
Labels: anti-Israeli Israelis, Haaretz, Israeli Left, Israeli media bias, New York Times
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! UPDATED
Haaretz reporter Amira Hass was barred from a conference at Bir Zeit University because - wait for it -
she's an Israeli Joooo. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Hat Tip:
Gershon D).
Hass attempted to attend the "Alternatives to Neo-Liberal
Development in the Occupied Palestinian Territories – Critical
Perspectives" conference at the university, which is located near
Ramallah where she lives.
But she was ejected from the hall by the organizers, Hass
claimed, after students at the admission desk noted she worked for the
Israeli publication and alerted security authorities to intervene.
...
Her colleagues and professors told her that she was being ejected on
the one hand "for her own protection" and also to give the students "a
safe space" free of Jews.
Meanwhile, the University has officially denied that there was a problem.
"The administration has no objection to the presence of the
journalist [Amira] Hass," it insisted, in an official statement. "The
University distinguishes between friends of the Palestinian people and
its enemies ... and works with every person and institution who opposes
the occupation."
But Hass - who is well-known in Arab and leftist circles for her aggressive anti-Zionism, and provoked outrage last year for justifying rock-throwing attacks against Jews - angrily noted that she was "not told" about the policy and that "Palestinian
citizens of Israel [i.e. Israeli Arabs - ed.] who teach at Israeli
universities are not subject to the same policy."
Gee, maybe Hass ought to rethink who is democratic and who is not....
UPDATED 6:09 PM
PS The event was funded by the
German government.
Labels: Amira Hass, Haaretz, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, Palestinian anti-Semitism, Ramallah
Should God be in the IDF?
I've been sitting on an email Mrs. Carl sent to Israel Radio on Wednesday morning, waiting to see if someone would be able to download the broadcast she heard so I could post the email with the broadcast. There's now an article in Haaretz that expresses similar sentiments to those expressed on Israel Radio (what a surprise), so I'm going to post that article, and then I will post Mrs. Carl's comment to Israel Radio. After that, I will forward all emails that urge her to write this blog in my place, or at least to co-author with me :-)
There's been a controversy in the IDF - at least since Operation Cast Lead - over God's role in the army. I should preface this by saying that I firmly believe - as do many Israelis - that without God's help, the IDF would be defeated regardless of how good our technology is and how strong and clever our soldier's are. I believe that it is God who Wins the wars for us, and everyone else is just an actor carrying out God's wishes.
The opposite conception is known as כחי ועוצם ידי - my power and the strength of my hand wins. There are even people who have gone so far as to say that had we not gotten caught in the latter conception after the Six Day War, the Messiah would have come (just heard that again this week). I don't purport to be God's accountant, and I have no idea how He would have reacted had we attributed His victory in 1967 to him, but the possibility must at least be acknowledged.
As you might recall, as the troops were going into Gaza for Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, then-IDF chief rabbi Avichai Ronsky
handed them brochures which summarized
what the Torah has to say about going to war with non-Jews.
"[There is] a biblical ban on surrendering a single millimeter of it
[the Land of Israel] to gentiles, though all sorts of impure distortions
and foolishness of autonomy, enclaves and other national weaknesses. We
will not abandon it to the hands of another nation, not a finger, not a
nail of it." This is an excerpt from a publication entitled "Daily
Torah studies for the soldier and the commander in Operation Cast Lead,"
issued by the IDF rabbinate. The text is from "Books of Rabbi Shlomo
Aviner," who heads the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the Muslim quarter of
the Old City in Jerusalem. [Deuteronomy 7:2 and the Rabbis' gloss on it says "you shall not give them a place in the land. CiJ]
The
following questions are posed in one publication: "Is it possible to
compare today's Palestinians to the Philistines of the past? And if so,
is it possible to apply lessons today from the military tactics of
Samson and David?" Rabbi Aviner is again quoted as saying: "A comparison
is possible because the Philistines of the past were not natives and
had invaded from a foreign land ... They invaded the Land of Israel, a
land that did not belong to them and claimed political ownership over
our country ... Today the problem is the same. The Palestinians claim
they deserve a state here, when in reality there was never a Palestinian
or Arab state within the borders of our country. Moreover, most of them
are new and came here close to the time of the War of Independence." [That's a statement of historical fact. CiJ]
The
IDF rabbinate, also quoting Rabbi Aviner, describes the appropriate
code of conduct in the field: "When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you
are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers. This is terribly immoral.
These are not games at the amusement park where sportsmanship teaches
one to make concessions. This is a war on murderers. 'A la guerre comme a
la guerre.'" [Deuteronomy 20:13. CiJ]
When Rabbi Ronsky's appointment came up for renewal later that year, then-Defense Minister Ehud '
secular revolution' Barak
declined to renew it.
While the current chief rabbi of the IDF is far less likely to be as politically incorrect as Rabbi Ronsky was, there are other people in the IDF who still believe that God Runs the show. Here's what Mrs. Carl described hearing on Israel Radio on her way to work Wednesday morning (when she couldn't just pop in a music CD because it was before Noon on the day after Tisha b'Av).
I listened to the program this morning on my drive to work.
(I usually listen if I can – the discussions are usually interesting and thoughtful.)
I heard the topic about unauthorized speakers coming to Army bases to speak to soldiers about spiritual topics. I heard one recording of someone offering Tzitzit, and another of someone speaking.
She didn't remember the names of the people involved, but one of the people she heard about might have been Colonel Ofer Winter, the commander of the Givati Brigade. This is from
Haaretz, which is not only generally anti-Israel, but generally anti-Judaism as well:
Col. Ofer Winter, the commander of the Givati Brigade, is a thorough officer. Before going into Gaza he
asked Kabbalists and yeshiva heads to pray for the operation’s success.
“They promised to do it and asked me to take something upon myself –
more mitzvoth, more enhancement of the mitzvoth,” the commander told
military correspondents of the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Bamishpacha. [For those of you overseas, BaMishpacha is the Hebrew language Israeli version of Mishpacha. CiJ]
And
so it was. “I decided to take it upon myself to pray the morning prayer
with great purpose,” Winter added. “We’re in a combat situation, of
nights without sleep, so sometimes the morning prayer comes after a
sleepless night. It’s very hard, but I know it’s for the soldiers and I
try to keep it up, lengthen my prayer and pray more intently.”
“At this time of war of all times, when the desire to join the troops is
strong, we must reiterate that what the Jewish people needs most is for
the Torah students to sit and study Torah more strongly,” Winter
explained. “The study of Torah protects the Jewish people more than
anything. Those who can sit and study – that is their obligation.”
Winter added that before going into combat he reads his soldiers the
words “Hear, O Israel, ye draw nigh this day unto battle,” from
Deuteronomy 20:3. According to the colonel, “When a person’s life is in
danger, he gets connected to his deepest inner truth, and when that
happens, even the greatest unbeliever meets God.”
Columnist Uri Misgav wasn't happy with Winter.
This needs to be discussed as part of the investigation into the war.
There are concerns that the army of the people, in a process amazingly
similar to the one in civilian society, is breaking up into tribes —
almost militias — whose character derives from the values of the
commanders and their initiatives.
...
Is this a new policy for the Israel Defense Forces?
...
That is missionary terminology of Gog and Magog
heralding the end of days. The written message Winter sent his soldiers
— he declared a religious war on the Gaza enemy who blasphemes against
the Lord of Hosts — was just for starters. Remember his calls to the
government; for example, “Just have them release the handbrakes for us.”
According to his troops, at the end of the clash in which five Hamas
fighters were killed, their brigade commander raised his hands to the
heavens and said "thank you God.”
This ultra-Orthodox-Zionist
ethic was fully expressed in the interview in Bamishpacha. Winter
apparently felt at home. “A miracle like at the Battle of Khuza'a I’ve
never seen in all my military career, “ he said, referring to a village
east of Khan Yunis.
“We decided to attack the place before dawn so
no one would notice us. But for some reason the soldiers were late. We
didn’t know what to do; dawn was breaking …. Then suddenly clouds
protected us, ananai kavod,” he said, using a rabbinic phrase combining the word for cloud with the word for divine presence.
“It
suddenly covered us, all the soldiers, a heavy fog that accompanied us
throughout the assault. No one saw us. Only when the houses were blown
up that were to be blown up and there was no danger to our lives did the
fog suddenly lift. Really, ‘for the Lord your God is He that goeth ...
to save you,’” Winter said, borrowing from Deuteronomy 20:4. Has Givati
turned into the Jewish Jihad Brigade?
Misgav goes on to call for Winter - a decorated officer - to be relieved of his command, lest he turn all his soldiers into 'religious fanatics.'
Enter Mrs. Carl and her email to Israel Radio. On the whole, Israel Radio is as
Leftist and anti-religious as Haaretz:
My feeling is:
1. Yes, I agree, it should have always been made much clearer that this was an optional motivational speaker, and attendance was NOT required or even necessary if the soldier was not interested.
2. In all armies, no matter what the religious position, encouragement, including spiritual words of “chizuk” or strengthening before battle, are accepted practice and seen as something good before going in to face the terrible challenges of battle. This was not something unreasonable. Yes, Christian, Druze, even Muslim speakers should also be provided, depending on the soldiers’ preferences, but I would assume the assumption here was that the majority of listeners were Jewish, and there presumably weren’t any requests for other types of speakers.
3. What I heard in the second clip was someone encouraging the soldiers to keep up and maintain the feelings of unity and solidarity and love and “achdut” that have been seen so clearly in the past 6 weeks. To take these feelings back with you when you go home, and try to keep up the feeling of unity and solidarity. This seems a Universally Wonderful message – especially in our argumentative, divisive society. (After all – look at how you are trying to create a controversy and argument over calls for unity!!)
4. I believe the speaker was trying to speak poetically when he spoke of writing a new “perek” in “Tanach” – this is the Hebrew literary equivalent of “writing a new chapter in our nation’s history” – a common phrase in English. In fact, it could NOT have been a “religious” harangue because in the orthodox/religious world it is forbidden to add anything to the Tanach. So it must have been a poetic device.
Putting this topic as the LEAD HEADLINE in the 10:00 news clip seems a little bit of an over-reaction to natural attempts to give encouragement to our soldiers. I see this as equivalent to the outpouring of supplies - dry goods and food – that were flowing down to the military camps. Yes, I agree, it should have been more controlled, it should have all been organized through the official military and affiliated soldier-support organizations, yes it was too much – but the source of it was deep love and a need to help our soldiers – our brothers and sons (and sisters and daughters) – in blood and in spirit.
Are you going to criticize the nation for expressing too much love and solidarity and unity?
Does the media have an agenda to increase the divisiveness in our nation, when we are so desperate for unity?
And do you see how ridiculous (I hope) that last question was – how ridiculous it is to take a natural thought, question, or action, and start to wrap it in layers of agenda and evil intent?
Again – I agree – the optional nature of these things must be made absolutely, unequivocally clear to every single soldier. And it has to be made available to everyone, of every religion, if requested. (Did you know that President Lincoln added Jewish chaplains to the US army only after it was requested by Jewish soldiers during the Civil War?)
But would you deny a little bit of encouragement to a soldier about to go into battle and feeling sick and maybe he would be strengthened by a feeling that he is loved and shielded by the prayers of his fellow Jews? Even if he is not officially “religious”?
This reminds me of 21 years ago when the Left tried to throw Chabad (Lubavitch) out of the army and the airport because they opposed Oslo. Freedom of speech in this country isn't always all it should be. And there is a lot more secular coercion than there is religious coercion - all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
Labels: Gaza, Givati Brigade, God, Haaretz, IDF, Judaism, Operation Protective Edge, secular revolution, Torah
Netanyahu throws away Kerry's 'cease fire' plan
Some tweets from Haaretz's Barak Ravid's twitter feed over the course of the afternoon.
[Translation: The Rightist DeGaulle on the Leftist Sartre: "Sartre is also France." Remember that when you think that the Leftists who read HaAretz are not also Israelis, at a time when many of them are being killed in Gaza].
Crazy times? I think it's even crazier that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are supporting Israel. Change!
Heh.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, cease fire, Egypt, Gaza, Haaretz, Hamas, John Kerry, Operation Protective Edge, Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
In Tel Aviv today, Haaretz held a '
peace conference.' The picture above is of the yefei ha'nefesh (beautiful people - but it loses something in translation) attending the conference fleeing for their lives upon the announcement that Hamas has just shot a rocket at Tel Aviv (Hat Tip:
Dan F).
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Labels: Haaretz, Hamas rockets, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, Middle East peace process, Tel Aviv, yefei ha'nefesh
Shimon Peres' legacy
The saddest part about this Caroline Glick column is that most of the world still sees Slimy Shimon Peres as an angel in disguise and not as the sleaze bag he really is. Shimon Peres' legacy is a
nuclear-armed Iran.
Peres’s legacy will be Iran’s nuclear arsenal.
For years, many Israelis as well as Israel’s supporters in the US, the
Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf and even the French have been
scratching their heads wondering why Israel hasn’t struck Iran’s nuclear
installations yet. Over the past few months, we received our answer.
The ongoing police investigation into allegedly illegal conduct by
then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt.- Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has revealed the source
of Israel’s paralysis.
Apparently led by Peres, the triumvirate of security chiefs serving
between 2008 and 2011 – Ashkenazi, then-Mossad director Meir Dagan and
then-Shin Bet director Avi Dichter – colluded to undermine Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and then-defense minister Ehud Barak’s
legal authority to order Israel’s security forces to take action against
Iran.
According to a Haaretz report on Wednesday, between 2008 and 2011, the
four men leaked plans and discussions of possible Israeli strikes on
Iran to the media in order to prevent them from being carried out. The
four men opposed an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations and
stridently rejected any Israeli operation not coordinated with the US.
Ashkenazi and his associates are being investigated by the police for
crimes associated with criminal insubordination to Israel’s elected
leadership. Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein ordered the police probe
in January after information unearthed by the media and by the State
Comptroller’s Office raised strong suspicions of a conspiracy led by
Ashkenazi to usurp the powers of the government.
According to media reports of the investigation, the police have
discovered tape recordings of numerous telephone conversations between
Ashkenazi and Peres. According to Channel 1 and Haaretz, Peres’s
attorney requested that Weinstein prohibit the publication of the
details of phone conversations.
Haaretz’s report didn’t specifically state that the conversations in
question related to actions by Peres and the security chiefs to prevent
military operations against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But the same
day the report appeared, Amir Oren, Haaretz’s senior commentator,
published an article praising Peres for preventing Israel from attacking
Iran.
Oren wrote, “Peres’s involvement in blocking the Iranian adventure
[i.e., a military attack against Iran’s nuclear installations] is… the
most important action he took as president.”
As Amnon Lord wrote last December in Makor Rishon, Peres’s role in the
security chiefs’ conspiracy to prevent Netanyahu and Barak from ordering
a strike against Iran’s nuclear installations was to provide
“pseudo-constitutional and pseudo- moral support” for their unlawful
subversion.
The four men were very likely not acting by themselves. Lord argued
that the Obama administration was a fifth partner in this criminal
conspiracy.
The US was represented in its efforts by the then-chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen. Mullen visited Israel almost every
month during this period and constantly praised Ashkenazi’s leadership
publicly.
As Lord noted, these trips were reciprocated by Ashkenazi and
then-Military Intelligence commander Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin who flew
regularly to Washington.
For the Americans, Lord wrote, the point of cultivating these ties was
“to influence the IDF’s high command and cut it off from the political
leadership of Israel.”
In the case of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as in the case of the
phony peace process, Peres’s motivation, like that of Ashkenazi, Dichter
and Dagan, was clear and crass. He wanted power.
The facts already established by the Ashkenazi et. al. conspiracy
probe reveal that from his earliest days as chief of staff, Ashkenazi
was preparing the ground for a post-IDF run for prime minister. His will
to rule distorted his perception of his place in the chain of command.
Instead of viewing Netanyahu and Barak as his commanders, as the law
stipulates, he saw them as his political rivals, and behaved
accordingly.
As for Peres, he had been searching for a leftist politician who
could defeat Netanyahu. Ashkenazi was his knight in shining armor.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Amos Yadlin, Gabi Ashkenazi, Haaretz, Iranian nuclear threat, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, Meir Dagan, Middle East peace process, Oslo accords, Shimon Peres
Haaretz's newest blood libel
Some
bald and unsubstantiated allegations from Haaretz, arising out of the alleged killings of two 'Palestinians' in Beitunia ten days ago.
Even the Palestinian Authority, despite its declarations, is not hastening to assist in finding out the truth. After two weeks, the Palestinian security forces have yet to hand over to the IDF the bullets removed from the bodies of the two young men during the autopsy in the Ramallah hospital.
And still, the shooting of rubber bullets, for which the soldier was suspended, reveals a few things about the conduct of the army during violent clashes with demonstrators. The soldier was suspended from his job, and a Military Police investigation was opened against him, because the firing of rubber bullets was not part of his assignment during the demonstration. Although he was trained as a combat soldier, his job (the precise nature of which cannot be disclosed due to a military court gag order,) is connected primarily to communications.
The Border Policeman and the other soldiers who fired rubber bullets during the demonstration were authorized to do so; the communications soldier was not. His suspension, which under ordinary circumstances would not have aroused any interest, attracted media attention because it took place in the wake of an incident that was to a great extent documented by security cameras and television cameras. Had it been a matter of soldiers who killed unarmed Palestinians in undocumented incidents — which take place almost on a monthly basis on the West Bank — there probably would have been no news coverage.
But the soldier is not so exceptional. A fact that is not widely discussed is that for quite a few soldiers who participate in dispersing demonstrations it’s a chance to take part in the “action” - firing shots, albeit it with non-lethal ammunition, in the midst of the chaos, and the adrenaline rush of a confrontation. We can reasonably assume that the soldier was seeking an exciting experience, or an escape from boredom, and that the Border Police acceded to his request to allow him to fire rubber bullets at the demonstration.
In recent years, most of the clashes between the IDF and the Border Police on one hand, and Palestinian demonstrators on the other, take place at times and in locations that the two sides have chosen in advance — what the army dubs “focus points of friction.” Although the encounter takes place repeatedly, sometimes on a weekly basis, the commanders do not have total control over the soldiers. There is always a possibility that a soldier will violate the rules of engagement, without his commanders knowing exactly what he is up to during the demonstration.
The potential for damage is exacerbated when the shooter is a soldier attached to a force and is not part of an organic unit. In the IDF there are many such job-holders — drivers, dog handlers, intelligence operatives and others — who wander among the units and join them for a few hours or a few days. This is potentially dangerous because the soldier is not part of the regular chain of command. The operational commander in the field didn’t know him before they were teamed up for the assignment, whereas his commanders are at the base and are unable to supervise him and to make sure that he is following orders.
During the years of the second intifada there were several incidents in which non-combat soldiers who found themselves in the line of fire caused problems for the unit to which they were attached, whether by firing irresponsibly on civilians or by operational mistakes (and even firing inadvertently at other soldiers). This is a weak point which almost invites mishaps, although judging by what the investigation has found until now, the soldier from the communications unit is not connected to the killing of the demonstrators.
The items I highlighted in bold reflect unsubstantiated allegations by Haaretz. The first paragraph (that I quoted - there were a couple of others before it) and the last half sentence reflect reality. And with good reason: There is no proof thus far that the IDF is responsible for the alleged killings.
Labels: blood libel, Haaretz, IDF, IDF rules of engagement, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, Naqba day, open fire rules, Pallywood
Ooops....
Haaretz (presumably unintentionally) puts a huge 'settlement' in Israel.
Via Eugene Kontorovich
Labels: East Jerusalem, Eugene Kontorovich, Haaretz, occupation
Ode to a terrorist
It's the kind of 'reporting' we've come to expect from Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily.
On Saturday, the IDF killed Hamza Abu al-Haija, whom it described as a
ticking time bomb, who was being directed to carry out a mass terror attack against Israelis in Judea and Samaria. Abu al-Haija was the son of Sheikh Jamal Abu al-Haija, the Hamas Sheikh in Jenin, who has been held in an Israeli jail since Operation Defensive for 12 years. Jamal was sentenced to nine life sentences for his role in sending a suicide
attacker to the Meron junction in August 2002 to carry out an attack
that killed nine Israelis. The IDF came to arrest the son, Hamza, but Hamza
came out firing from his hiding place and was killed. Haaretz's Gideon Levy turns Abu al-Haija into a
martyr.
Hamzi didn’t act like a wanted man. He was spending the day in his
family home, acting normally; he wasn’t armed nor did he betray any
signs of the nervousness typical of men on the run that I’ve met over
the years. Wearing sweats, he was playing with his little niece and
joined the conversation we were having with his mother. He smiled a lot
and said he was not afraid.
He
told us that on the evening of December 18 soldiers had come to his
home to arrest him while he was celebrating the birth of a nephew with
friends. They heard suspicious noises from the street and at first
thought it was a force from the Palestinian Authority, which has also
been trying to arrest Hamas men in the camp. Only when he and his three
friends ran to the roof and looked down did they realize it was the
Israel Defense Forces.
Hamzi
managed to escape by fleeing over the roofs and through the alleys, but
his friend, Nafaa Saidi, was shot and killed by the soldiers. In the
three ensuing months, no one tried to arrest him and Hamzi continued
with his routine; during the day he would stay in his family’s home, but
at night he would sleep elsewhere.
Of course, he didn't act like a wanted man. He just happened to be on the run all the time. But don't let that stop Levy from trying to humanize him.
I first met Hamzi in June 2003. He was 11, with both parents and his
oldest brother in jail, and the five remaining children, all of then
young, were forced to fend for themselves. I described Hamzi then as a
scared and quiet boy. His mother, Asmaa, was placed in administrative
detention (arrest without trial). She spent nine months in prison, all
the while suffering from a brain tumor. The family home was destroyed in
2002 by a missile fired by an Apache helicopter, but was rebuilt and is
now roomy, pleasant and well-tended, with pictures of the father and
his sons on a large poster in the living room. Two of Hamzi’s brothers,
Abed and Amad, are also imprisoned in Israel.
Ater
hearing that her son had been killed Saturday, Asmaa was hospitalized.
When we parted from him two weeks ago and told him to take care of
himself, he told us, “There’s nothing to worry about.”
I'm sure there was no reason - no reason at all - for that home to be destroyed or for Israel to try to arrest the son. /sarc But in fact, there were
many reasons.
According to the IDF, Israeli security forces surrounded Abu
al-Hija’s house, where he barricaded himself. After refusing to come
out, soldiers stormed the hideout where a shootout took place. Abu
al-Hija was the only person in the building after everyone else
evacuated.
When he attempted to escape, Abu al-Hija opened fire first on
an army dog sent inside the building and then on troops. The IDF
returned fire and shot Abu al-Hija dead.
Abu al-Hija was “wanted for numerous shooting and bombing attacks as
well as planning future acts of terrorism.” The Palestinian Ma’an News
agency reported that an IDF bulldozer was used to demolish part of the
house where Abu al-Hija was hiding.
IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner confirmed that Abu al-Hija opened
fire on security forces while attempting to escape. Lerner said that
Abu al-Hija was a “ticking time bomb,” waiting to carry out numerous
terrorist attacks against Israel.
Abu al-Hija’s father, Jamal Abu al-Hija, is a famous Hamas leader who
was arrested in 2002 by Israel. Sentenced to nine life sentences, Jamal
Abu al-Hija took part in at least six known terrorist attacks,
including the Jerusalem Sbarro pizza shop bombing in 2001 that killed 15
people.
In a statement from prison, Jamal Abu al-Hija extolled his son’s
“heroism” and “blessed his confrontation with occupation forces until
his last bullet.” He added that he had been praying for his son’s
martyrdom from prison.
What nice people. Just give them a mistake, and I am sure that they will stop trying to murder everyone around them. /sarc.
Labels: Haaretz, Hamas, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, Jenin, Palestinian terrorists
Ugly Betty sues Haaretz
Anat Kam Ugly Betty got an early release from prison on Sunday, and took a total of three days to sue Haaretz for
disclosing to the government that it was she who gave classified information to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau.
Anat Kam is suing Israeli newspaper Haaretz for 2.6 million shekel on charges of leaking her identity through the IDF documents she submitted to journalist Uri Blau.
Kam was released earlier this week,
after serving just two thirds of her prison sentence for espionage. Kam
was convicted of stealing the documents during the period of 2005-2007,
when she served in the IDF as a secretary in the IDF's Central Command
headquarters. She copied thousands of sensitive documents to a
disk-on-key (USB drive) which she proceeded to hand over to reporter Uri
Blau of the left-wing Haaretz.
Blau published some of the information in the documents, but he
claimed that the information he used was not classified or damaging to
the country's security.
Kam was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for her theft. The sentence was later reduced by one year, after an appeal by Kam's lawyers that the sentence was unnecessarily harsh.
Now, she and lawyer Ilan Bombach are suing the daily for revealing
her identity - after it was promised to her that her safety would not be
compromised and her identity would be kept secret throughout the media
leak.
I would say that lawsuit ought to be thrown out as against public policy, but hey... this is Israel.
Labels: Anat Kam, Haaretz, treason
Pigs fly: Haaretz says Netanyahu was right about Iran all along
Incredible. In an editorial by Nehemia Shtrasler, Haaretz admits that Prime Minister Netanyahu was
right about Iran all along.
It’s inconvenient, even embarrassing, but we must admit that Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right. He was the main, perhaps the only,
force behind putting Iran’s nuclear program on the global agenda. Were
it not for him, Europe’s leaders and U.S. President Barack Obama would
have closed their eyes, tsk-tsked - and awakened one morning to a
nuclear Iran.
In our cynical world there is neither justice nor
honesty, only power and vested interests. Israel was the only country
Iran threatened to destroy. The Europeans and the Americans believed the
nuclear threat would only get as far as Israel, at most, and they could
live with that - quite well, even.
Someone had to wake up the West, to frighten them into realizing that
they could be next after Israel, that the Iranian threat was serious.
That’s what Netanyahu did. Without his pressure, there would have never
been tough sanctions, sanctions that led to economic collapse, the steep
devaluation of the Iranian rial and crippling inflation that reduces
the value of workers’ salaries by the day. As a result, there are long
lines at the banks, where Iranians wait in a desperate attempt to
exchange rials for gold and dollars.
This economic stranglehold has led to chronic domestic unrest that poses
a real threat to the Ayatollahs’ regime. That is why President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad was replaced by President Hassan Rohani, who indeed has
changed tack. The purpose of his “charm offensive” in the West is to
achieve the critical goal of ending the sanctions.
...
So it is ridiculous for commentators to now say that Netanyahu should
stop threatening and start should supporting Obama’s diplomatic efforts.
That’s for The New York Times, from its safe home, to say. But the
truth is that now is precisely the time to turn up the pressure on Iran,
to get it to pivot from words to deeds. For 20 years now Tehran has
been playing the West for a fool, promising to permit inspections while
enriching uranium, talking about civilian energy needs while developing
detonators and missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. The sanctions
must not be relaxed, even slightly. Instead, Iran must be forced to
relinquish all of its nuclear-bomb manufacturing capacity. Only
afterward can it receive a full complete “Marshall Plan” from the United
States.
The world must not fall into the North Korean trap. In 2005, the entire
world applauded the U.S. diplomatic coup of obtaining North Korea’s
promise to suspend its nuclear program in exchange for avoiding
sanctions. But not a single centrifuge was dismantled, not one nuclear
reactor was shuttered. Washington settled for a goodwill agreement and
international monitoring that became a joke. Within 18 months after the
agreement was signed, North Korea exploded its first nuclear bomb.
Incredible. Most of that editorial could have appeared in Yisrael Hayom....
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Haaretz, Iranian nuclear threat, leftists
