Posts Tagged settlements
Having your cake and eating it too on United Jerusalem
Posted by MK in Ideology, Jewish Identity, Middle East, Politics on January 18, 2012
Nathan Diament from the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America writes on uniting Jerusalem in the Atlantic. Some of the arguments that he uses (which are by no means his original material) really tend to bother me; the more religiously motivated Jews have a way of making extremely disingenuous attempts to sound like they are reasoning objectively, when they are quite transparently creating these arguments after-the-fact as a way to justify their ideological beliefs.
The Case for a United Jerusalem – Nathan Diament – International – The Atlantic.
The reality, however, is that Jerusalem today is a demographically intertwined city. To be sure, there are neighborhoods, particularly east of the security barrier, where Jews seldom venture. But modern-day Jerusalem is far more an interwoven checkerboard of Jewish and Palestinian enclaves. The Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa, for example, lies between the Jewish neighborhoods of Talpiot and Gilo, while the Arab neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah lies between the Old City and the Jewish neighborhood of French Hill. Separating these neighborhoods between two countries would create an unwieldy and unsustainable border.
What he is saying has some truth to it, but only if you are trying to draw a line that cuts every Jewish neighbourhood from every Arab neighbourhood. If there is some wiggle room so that maybe some Arab neighbourhoods are absorbed into Israel and others are handed-over, then there is no longer such an issue with dividing the city. After all, Diament is pretty adamant that keeping the Arabs in Jerusalem is a good thing (look at this map to see what I mean, although it has been carefully designed to make the Israelis look bad so don’t read too much into it). Also, it’s not a coincidence that some of the Jewish neighbourhoods cut Arab neighbourhoods off from one another – in many cases, that was why they were placed there.
The other argument that really irks me is the one below (emphasis mine):
One significant reason against dividing Jerusalem is that many of the Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem wish to remain under Israeli sovereignty. Recent polling indicates that, despite the fact that municipal resources and services have not been evenly allocated between Jewish and Arab Jerusalem segments of the city, a plurality of Palestinians residing in eastern sections of Jerusalem would move from Palestinian Jerusalem to Israeli Jerusalem, if given the opportunity, should the city be re-divided.
The hypocrisy in this this argument is unbearable. Diament is not for a second criticising the poor treatment of Arabs in Jerusalem or demanding that they are allocated resources evenly, and yet he is trumpeting the fact that even though we treat them badly, we’re not quite as bad as the alternatives. Now that’s a hasbarah line that can sell!
Israel: sure we treat our Arabs badly, but we’re still slightly better than an Arab dictatorship.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you truly believe in uniting Jerusalem, then start working to unite it. That means reaching out to the Arabs and including them in Israeli society; it means advocating for equal treatment and equal allocation of municipal resources; it means finding money to make up for the years of neglect and bring their infrastructure up to the same standards as the Jewish residents; it even means allowing Arabs to buy land in Jewish areas.
If you aren’t comfortable doing that but you are still adamant that we cannot cede one inch of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, then the reality is you are not arguing for a united Jerusalem, just a Jewish-controlled but segregated one. That is something that I am a little uncomfortable with. Of course, this is in fact what Diament wants. He reveals his true argument near the end of the piece.
Proposals for joint sovereignty, deferred sovereignty, or even divine sovereignty ignore the deep-rooted significance of the holy city. The search for a “split the difference” compromise also ignores the fact that the Old City of Jerusalem has been the national capital of the Jewish people for the past 3000 years and is Judaism’s holiest site, while it is Mecca that plays that role for Muslims. The international community would never expect the Islamic world to cede sovereignty over Mecca; the Jewish people ought to be accorded no less respect with regard to the Old City of Jerusalem.
See, what he does right there is say that our claim over Jerusalem is stronger than their claim because it’s our number one whereas they have their number one already. That’s not quite how religion works. I don’t see many Jews saying “well, I guess the Mearat Ha Machpelah is less important than the Kotel, so we can give them that one and keep the more important one”. You can’t barter over who the site is more holy to, it’s holy for both and that’s pretty much as far as you’ll get.
Plus the Mecca comparison doesn’t hold up. Fortunately for the Muslims, Mecca is not claimed by two other religions. That said, I can definitely see a future where Shiite Muslims start demanding that Sunni Muslims cede control over Mecca and it’s administered by a joint Muslim authority rather than just Saudi Wahabbis.
The point is, Diament does not really want to keep the Arabs in Jerusalem and he doesn’t really want a united city. He doesn’t particularly care whether or not Muslims have access to their holy sites, which are not quite as holy to them as they are to him anyway, or so he says. No, he believes that Jerusalem was given to us by God and that means it should be a Jewish -controlled city. Arabs can live there if they want, but they can’t expect us to make it easy for them, they should just be grateful that they aren’t living in Syria or something like that.
Ironically, there is one point that he was completely right about, only he doesn’t seem to be doing much to change this:
One reason peace in the Middle East has not yet been possible is because most efforts to achieve it have been aspirational but untethered from reality
Israeli settlement approval committee better than expected
Posted by MK in Middle East on October 31, 2011
When I heard about this committee to retroactively legalise settlement outposts, I definitely raised an eyebrow (and possibly died a little inside, but hey).
Luckily, it doesn’t look like the thing has any legs. Or teeth, or other assorted body parts. Bibi made this pretty clear by telling the settlers not to expect much. Even right wing stalwart Benny Begin is vocally opposing the idea of the committee.
So who is left promoting this PR disaster that undermines the fabric of Israeli society and rule of law? None other than Danny Danon aka the nicest thing Israeli parliament ever did for Palestinian extremism.
Who even needs an anti-Israel media campaign when you have a deputy speaker of the Knesset travelling the world who is guaranteed to say the wrong thing at the wrong time at every opportunity?
On Friday officials in the Prime Minister’s Bureau told settler leaders not to expect too much from the committee.
Somewhat surprisingly, Minister without Portfolio Benny Begin has come out against the proposed body, arguing that it is immoral to steal land for settlements.
Last night Yesha Council of settlements head Danny Dayan told Haaretz, “It often seems as if the prime minister has conceded his authority to control two executive branch bodies: the Attorney General’s Office and the Civil Administration. The ministers must take action to restore the authorities to their original format.”
A plea to save Israeli democracy
Posted by MK in Middle East, Opinion, Politics on July 14, 2011
Those of you who were following this blog regularly would have noticed that I haven’t posted anything for a few weeks. This is because I found another outlet for most of the stuff that I was putting here, so I had no need for this site anymore.
That said, there is something that I need to write, and it cannot go in my regular forum. Therefore, I will use this site to publish it.
For those that are unaware (which hopefully is not many), the Israeli Knesset yesterday passed an anti-boycott bill. The best opinion piece that I’ve read on this piece was the editorial in The Jerusalem Post. It rightly criticises the boycotters vehemently, but notes that this is far from the correct way to go about combating them:
The bad boycott bill – JPost – Opinion – Editorials
Legislation that infringes freedom of expression is not the way to battle the local BDS movement. Boycott initiatives should be allowed to compete for support in the free market of ideas. Judging from the minuscule backing BDS receives locally, we can rest assured that reason will continue to win out.
Attempts to legitimize Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem through the stifling of criticism may just achieve the opposite, by providing BDS proponents with a truly worthy cause to champion – their own right to freedom of expression.
I will go into more detail on this bill shortly, but first I am going to say this for the record, and if you don’t believe me, please feel free to type “BDS” into the search field to your right and see for yourself:
I am completely and totally against BDS, or any other boycott of Israel.
BDS is a disgusting, racist policy that denies Jewish peoplehood and the Jewish right to self-determination. It apportions all of the blame for the Palestinians’ suffering on Israel – completely overlooking any culpability held by the Palestinian leadership, the Arab states or the international community. It makes disgusting, offensive and unfounded comparisons between Israel and Apartheid South Africa and even, on occasion, Israel and Nazi Germany. It undermines the suffering of people who truly lived through Apartheid and it practically spits in the faces of the victims of genocide, a crime that has been all too real in Sri Lanka, Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda and Cambodia while these self-proclaimed “humanitarians” have been shouting at Israel and turning their backs to the true criminals of the world.
BDS is an insidious attempt to destroy the Israeli state and create an Arab-majority state in its place. Its founders have made the amoral and reprehensible decision to use the language of Western human rights and democracy to push what is a truly anti-democratic and racist policy and then they have the gall to claim to be helping Palestinians, when in actual fact they are pursuing an irrational and venemous hatred of the Jewish State and nothing more.
Now, where was I? Oh that’s right.
Having said all of that, the strongest defence against BDS is that its proponents are lying. They are defaming Israel, and truth is the best defence to defamation. Israel is not, as they claim, a colonial or theocratic nation – it is a multicultural democracy, the only true one in the Middle East. Or at least, that’s the argument that I would give now. As we shall see, that may be changing.
The Boycott Bill
The only actual translation of the bill that I could find comes from The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, so if anyone with better Hebrew than me can track it down and translate it, please send it to majorkarnage@gmail.com
I also will disclaim that I am not a qualified lawyer, I am halfway through a law degree in Australia. The Israeli legal system is built on the British Common Law, as is Australia’s, so my arguments should be valid; but I am not claiming to be an authority. That said, there are some VERY problematic aspects of this bill that I want to run through with people who are not familiar with the foundations on which a Western democracy sits.
In s 1, the definition of “boycott” is as follows: [emphasis added]
deliberately avoiding economic, cultural or academic ties with another person or another factor [sic] only because of his ties with the State of Israel, one of its institutions or an area under its control, in such a way that may cause economic, cultural or academic damage.
The key thing to notice here is the wording in bold – “an area under [Israel's] control”. It is not difficult to decode what is being said here, there is only one area that is not in the State of Israel, but is under Israel’s control: the land on the West Bank of the Jordan River. This phrase was inserted in order to protect the settlements from damage.
Criminalising a Boycott?
Then, s 2 outlines the civil offence of “boycott” created under the Bill:
(a) Knowingly publishing a public call for a boycott against the State of Israel will be considered a civil wrong, to which the civil tort law [new version] applies, if, according to the content and circumstances of the publication, there is reasonable probability that the call will bring about a boycott and he who published the call was aware of this possibility.
(b) [regarding breach of contract - not so relevant]
(c) If the court will find that a wrong according to this law was deliberately carried out, it will be authorized to compel the person who did the wrongdoing to pay damages that are not dependent on the damage (in this clause – damages, for example); in calculating the sum of the damages for example, the court will take into consideration, among other things, the circumstances under which the wrong was carried out, its severity and its extent.
s 2(a) is a very odd law, but there may be an explanation. The key difference between civil offences, including torts, and criminal offences, aside from the burden of proof, is that criminal offences require what’s called a mens rea (or intent) and an actus reus (action), whereas civil offenses generally require only the actus reus. This is because torts are not necessarily concerned with deterrence or punishment, they are offences that intend to undo damage that has been done. Defamation is an example – if you defame someone, you will be liable for defamation, no matter what you were intending to do.
The word “knowingly” is adding a mens rea to a tort offence, essentially making this a criminal offence with tort liability. The truth is that the authors of the Bill originally wanted a criminal offence, but were pressured into removing it; so what we have instead is a criminal offence dressed-up as a tort and with a civil standard of proof (“on the balance of probabilities” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt”).
Now, look at how broad the definition of “damage” is. “Economic damage” is simple enough – any money lost as a result of a boycott – but what exactly constitutes “cultural damage” or “academic damage”? Does this mean that an Israeli musician who declines an invitation to play at a nightclub in Efrat is liable for “cultural damages”? Or similar for a professor at Tel Aviv University who refuses to conduct a research project with a counterpart at the University of Ariel? How would the Court ever quantify that? How much money is participation in an academic study worth in damages?
Well, s 2(c) makes it clear that the damages being paid do not even have to do with the value of the damage caused – the implication being that they are punitive. This again goes against the idea behind tort law, which, in general, aims to return the plaintiff to the situation that they would be in had the offence never occurred. This is not about compensating people for loss suffered, it’s about punishing people who knowingly commit an act. Again, it is not a civil offence, it is a criminal offence in disguise.
This is nothing if not an assault on freedom of expression. Under this law, if a newspaper published an opinion piece that called for a construction company to refrain from building a block of apartments for Jews overlooking Ramallah, the paper and the author would be liable for punitive damages. If a theatre group refused to perform in Ma’ale Adumim, they would be liable for “cultural” damages. The law punishes Israeli citizens for voicing an opinion about the actions of other Israeli citizens, or for doing things that constitute political statements.
This is completely draconian, it doesn’t belong in Israel, it belongs in the USSR (where Avigdor Lieberman seemingly learned his political tricks).
Separation of Powers
Now I’ll turn to ss 3 and 4:
3. The Finance Minister is authorized, with the agreement of the Justice Minister and the approval of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, to set the regulations of this matter [special cases where it will be limited] and to limit the participation of he who knowingly published a public call for a boycott against the State of Israel, or who committed to take part in a boycott, in a tender that must to be carried out according to legislation.
4(a) The Finance Minister, with the approval of the Justice Minister, may decide in the case of someone who knowingly published a public call for a boycott against the State of Israel or committed to take part in a boycott [in special cases] that… [goes on to list a number of tax penalties and limits on government grants].
Again, this goes completely against the foundations of the democratic system. These provisions place the responsibility of placing sanctions on people and organisations with the ministry. This means that the ministers, the executive arm of government, are determining guilt and then applying what they see as an appropriate punishment.
The difference between Western democracies and authoritarian states comes down to this issue. In any of Israel’s neighbours, if someone does something that the government doesn’t like, they will find themselves being punished by the law. You see, the countries do not have an effective separation between the judiciary and the executive, meaning that the judges will do what the politicians ask (or the judges are the politicians). This is not the case in the US, the UK, Australia or most of Europe and until yesterday, it was not the case in Israel.
Under a democratic system, if a person commits a civil offence, they are tried in a court of law and the court applies whatever punishment it sees fit. This Bill bypasses the courts and places the judicial function in the hands of the people who write the law – a flagrant breach of the doctrine of “the separation of powers”.
In case you don’t believe me
In fact, Yisroel Beitenu MKs have not left a shred of doubt that this is the case. As soon as the Bill had been signed, they used it to launch an action against an Arab MK, Ahmed Tibi, who has called for a boycott of Ariel. The Beitenu officials allege that his calls would “make investors hesitant”.
Again, this is authoritarian thinking. They didn’t have a law to go after Tibi with, so they made one, and now he can be punished for voicing his opinion.
To re-iterate, I don’t agree with Tibi’s opinion in the slightest. Ariel will remain a part of Israel in any peace agreement and Tibi knows this. Beitenu knows this. As the Palestine Papers revealed, the US knows this and so does the Palestinian Authority. To call for a boycott of Ariel is only going to increase hatred, fuel the conflict and encourage Israelis to vote for dickheads like Lieberman.
That said, in a democratic society, as a MEMBER OF THE PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION, he has a right to call for a boycott of Ariel if he so chooses. In suing him under this law, the government is suing a member of the opposition for opposing a government policy.
To give an Australian comparison, this is like the Greens creating a law that it is illegal to criticise Australia’s asylum seeker policy, then immediately filing a lawsuit against Scott Morrisson. It’s is absolutely obscene, it’s not the Israeli society that I know and love.
It’s also not the end:
Lieberman: Court should not intervene – Israel News, Ynetnews
On Tuesday Ynet learned that Yisrael Beiteinu is already planning its next move with another bill, which will establish parliamentary inquiry commissions on the activities of left-wing organizations.
Now the Knesset will again be playing judiciary and punishing organisations that disagree with government policies.
There is hope
Of course, the situation is very depressing, but I don’t want to leave you by saying “the end is nigh”. Fortunately, Israel is still a democracy and does still have a functional and independent judiciary with a strong and proud history of taking on the Government. Groups know this and are using the system to defeat this attempt to destroy Israel from the inside:
Gush Shalom first to appeal ‘Boyc… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.
Activist Uri Avneri and the Gush Shalom peace movement appealed to the High Court on Tuesday in a request to cancel the “Boycott Law” which was approved in its final reading in the Knesset late Monday night.
According to the petition, which was submitted by Attorneys Gabi Laski and Nuri Ramati, Gush Shalom claimed that the law violates the basic principles of democracy.
… Overnight Monday, four human rights organizations announced that they plan to appeal the new law at the High Court, in a letter sent to government officials prior to the bill’s approval in the Knesset.
Groups participating in the appeal include Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights and Coalition of Women for Peace.
You read that right. In a bitter twist of Orwellian irony, the very groups that support a policy opposing Israel’s existence are now at the forefront of defending its legitimacy. I am placing my faith in the High Court of Justice, who I believe will strike this law down as unconstitutional and undemocratic.
The question, however, is where this leaves Israel. Most reports have indicated that Netanyahu opposed the Bill, but refused to come out against it for fear of damaging his coalition. That shows a contemptible lack of conviction and a frightening willingness to sacrifice Israel’s democracy for short-term political gain.
Zionists everywhere are speaking about the so-called “campaign against Israel’s legitimacy”, but they are misguided. BDS is based on a lie and will never undermine Israel’s legitimacy, so long as Israel remains the tolerant, democratic society that it is and has always been. The true threat to Israel’s legitimacy comes from inside – in fact, from the strongest opponents of the BDS movement.
For those of you still with me after that long article, I have one thing left to say: please, help stop the delegitimisation of Israel. This will go out to many in the Zionist community, all of you have friends and relatives there. Call them, tell them to campaign for their democracy, tell them not to let Lieberman destroy what Ben-Gurion built and what so many have fought and died to protect: Liyot am chofshi, ve’aretzeinu – Eretz Zion ve’Yerushalayim.
Here lies President Barak Obama/Whose word no man relies on…
Posted by MK in Ideology, Middle East, Political Science on May 27, 2011
Who never said a foolish thing,
Or ever did a wise one.
Following a theme that I’ve been seeing of comparing Obama to poetic figures, Walter Russell Meade referenced a poem by the Earl of Rochester, written about King Charles II of England, but ascribed here to Obama and his Middle East policy. This is in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s astounding speech to a joint session of US Congress, which was met with an almost unbelievable number of standing ovations and a great deal of support. As Meade says:
The Dreamer Goes Down For The Count | Via Meadia
Netanyahu beat Obama like a red-headed stepchild; he played him like a fiddle; he pounded him like a big brass drum. The Prime Minister of Israel danced rings around his arrogant, professorial opponent. It was like watching the Harlem Globetrotters go up against the junior squad from Miss Porter’s School; like watching Harvard play Texas A&M, like watching Bambi meet Godzilla — or Bill Clinton run against Bob Dole.
The speech once again showed that whatever you make of his views, methods and stances, Bibi is a very smooth political operator and an outstanding orator. Obama’s speeches have made his career, so the fact that an (albeit US-educated) Israeli can wipe the floor with him in his home turf says a hell of a lot.
Here are the full video and transcript:
Firstly, I would like to draw your attention to his response to the heckler – brilliant and quick, with some of the loudest applause of the whole speech.
You know, I take it as a badge of honor, and so should you, that in our free societies you can have protests. You can’t have these protests in the farcical parliaments in Tehran or in Tripoli. This is real democracy. So as we share the hopes of these young people throughout the Middle East and Iran that they’ll be able to do what that young woman just did — I think she’s young; I couldn’t see quite that far…we must also remember that those hopes could be snuffed out, as they were in Tehran in 1979
It is very difficult to argue with most of Bibi’s stances after watching that in full. He also did make some unprecedented concessions. He not only unequivocally reaffirmed his belief in the two-state solution, but he actually recognised the Palestinian narrative.
No distortion of history could deny the 4,000-year-old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land. But there is another truth: The Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they’ll be neither Israel’s subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people living in their own state. They should enjoy a prosperous economy where their creativity and initiative can flourish. Now, we’ve already seen the beginnings of what is possible. In the last two years, the Palestinians have begun to build a better life for themselves.
And then he argued for his demand that the Palestinian Authority recognise Israel as a Jewish state, with a very strong argument.
And I regret to say this: They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And, worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy the Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.
My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people — and I told you it wasn’t easy for me. I stood before my people, and I said, ‘I will accept a Palestinian state.’ It’s time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, ‘I will accept a Jewish state.’ Those six words will change history. They’ll make it clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end, that they’re not building a Palestinian state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it. And those six words will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace
I actually think that he was right on the mark here. If the Israelis are willing to accept the Palestinian narrative, accept their claim to the land, treat them as the nation that they define themselves as and affirm their right to their national homeland, why is it so unreasonable that they reciprocate?
Of course it is difficult for them to accept the Zionist narrative, but if they reject everything that 5 million Israelis – and probably another 10 million Zionist Jews in the Diaspora – define themselves by, how can there ever be a peace agreement? How could they ever compromise on anything pragmatically if they can’t make that ideological concession?
He even addressed the refugee issue very well – and he is absolutely right. In the same way that everyone must recognise that the borders will not be identical to pre-1967, not every descendant of Palestinian refugees will be able to move back to the precise town or village where their ancestors lived; but a just solution can be found through other means.
We recognize that a Palestinian state must be big enough to be viable, to be independent, to be prosperous. All of you, and the president, too, have referred to Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, just as you’ve been talking about a future Palestinian state as the homeland of the Palestinian people.
Well, Jews from around the world have a right to immigrate to the one and only Jewish state. And Palestinians from around the world should have a right to immigrate, if they so choose, to a Palestinian state.
And here’s what this means: It means that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel.
The issues that are controversial are the lines he drew on the map – specifically, refusing to leave the Jordan valley or to divide Jerusalem.
But Israel on the 1967 lines would be only nine miles wide. So much for strategic depth. So it’s therefore vital, absolutely vital, that a Palestinian state be fully demilitarized. And it’s vital, absolutely vital, that Israel maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River.
Solid security arrangements on the ground are necessary not only to protect the peace, they’re necessary to protect Israel in case the peace unravels. Because in our unstable region, no one can guarantee that our peace partners today will be there tomorrow. And, my friends, when I say “Tomorrow,” I don’t mean some distant time in the future. I mean tomorrow.
…Throughout the millennial history of the Jewish capital, the only time that Jews, Christians and Muslims could worship freely, could have unfettered access to their holy sites, has been during Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.Jerusalem must never again be divided. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel. I know this is a difficult issue for Palestinians, but I believe that with creativity and with goodwill, a solution can be found. So this is the peace I plan to forge with a Palestinian partner committed to peace. But you know very well that in the Middle East the only peace that will hold is a peace you can defend. So peace must be anchored in security.
That said, I would like to believe that if negotiations were happening, these issues could be addressed. Bibi is unique at the moment in terms of all parties involved in the negotiations in that he alone has laid-out exactly where his lines are and what he wants. Neither Obama nor Abbas and (definitely not Hamas) have stated what it is exactly that they hope to achieve and what their vision of a solution is. So long as Abbas refuses to sit down at the table, it is hard to see how that will ever happen.
It’s true that Bibi too is now refusing to sit down, as a result of the unity agreement with Hamas, but again, how could he negotiate with Hamas? What hope could there possibly be? Hamas see it their God-given duty to kill Jews, they think that if they kill a Jew they go to heaven and if they are killed by a Jew they go to heaven. They believe that Jews controlling a state on what should be Muslim land is a crime against God and that violence is the only way to address this. And yet Israel is supposed to negotiate with them?
Chilling: Two teens arrested for Itamar massacre
Posted by MK in Uncategorized on April 17, 2011
Want to talk to me about “resistance”? Read this:
Before entering the house, the suspects noticed Yoav and Elad Fogel in the home’s window. Yoav [age 11] and Elad [age 4] were the first to be stabbed after the suspect entered the home. The suspects then entered the parents’ room. Ehud and Ruth tried to fight off the attackers, but were eventually overcome and stabbed to death. Ruth was also shot, but due to the weather at the time of the murder, the gunshots were not heard. The suspects fled the home, fearing that the gunshots had been heard.
Outside of the home, the suspects realized that their gunshots had gone unnoticed and they had not yet been discovered. Amjad Awad subsequently reentered the home in order to steal an additional M-16 rifle that was there. Back inside the parents’ room, Awad noticed three-month-old Hadas and stabbed her to death. While leaving the home once more, the suspect noticed that there were more children but apparently figured that he was running out of time. The lives of Roi Fogel, 8, and Yishai Fogel, 2, were spared.
I’m actually speechless. All I can do is read-over that sentence again.
“Back inside the parents’ room, Awad noticed three-month-old Hadas and stabbed her to death. ”
And as if that wasn’t bad enough:
According to a senior Shin Bet official, despite the suspects’ young age, Hakim and Amjad “described what they did with self-control and did not express regret over their actions at any stage of the investigation.”
I say in all seriousness that these are not the actions of human beings. There is no humiliation or provocation imaginable to justify murdering children in person and in cold blood. It takes an inhuman bloodlust to stick a knife into a three-month-old baby.
For those of you who aren’t squeamish, the family decided to release photos of the victims so that the crime could not be downplayed as these things usually are.
Don’t give terror a free pass
Posted by MK in Uncategorized on March 17, 2011
I didn’t say anything in the last couple of days about the Israeli settler family who were murdered as they slept, or the Israeli government’s response – announcing 500 new units to be constructed in the 3 blocs that almost everyone agrees Israel will hold on to in any final-status agreement (see HERE). This is a huge issue though, and would have received a lot more coverage if the Japan earthquake weren’t overshadowing it all.
The Wall Street Journal‘s Bret Stephens has written an extremely eloquent piece on some of the implications of this saga and the reactions to it, in the context of the broader issues. He argues that the world jumps to criticise Israel for acts of little or no consequence (like construction in an area that they realistically will never withdraw from), whilst giving a “free waiver” to any Palestinian crimes (like butchering children as they sleep), dismissing them as “understandable”, given the alleged severity of Israel’s actions.
Stephens: Are Israeli Settlers Human? – WSJ.com.
I have a feeling that years from now Palestinians will look back and wonder: How did we allow ourselves to become that? If and when that happens—though not until that happens—Palestinians and Israelis will at long last be able to live alongside each other in genuine peace and security.
But I also wonder whether a similar question will ever occur to the Palestinian movement’s legion of fellow travelers in the West. To wit, how did they become so infatuated with a cause that they were willing to ignore its crimes—or, if not quite ignore them, treat them as no more than a function of the supposedly infinitely greater crime of Israeli occupation?
…It is precisely in this sense that the frenzied international condemnation of Israeli settlements and settlers does the most harm. Having been accorded the part of George Orwell’s Emmanuel Goldstein—perpetual target of the proverbial two minutes of hate—they have drained whatever capacity there was to hold Palestinian actions to moral account, to say nothing of our ability to understand the nature of a conflict that is more than simply territorial. The demonization of the settlers has made the world not only coarse but blind.
Much of the conversation that I’ve seen from left-leaning Zionists has been condemnation of the new settlement policy whilst almost overlooking the actual horror of the event. An act as barbarous as this cannot possible be looked-on with anything but disgust.
It pains me to say I told you so…
Posted by MK in Australia, Middle East on January 14, 2011
So Fiona Byrne, the mayor of Marrickville Council, when justifying why her council decided to boycott Israel, said:
Last week at least 165 Israeli professors signed a petition declaring a boycott on activities at the Ariel University Centre in the occupied West Bank declaring Ariel an “illegal settlement” which has the intention of preventing the Palestinian people from establishing an independent state.
Remember this little nugget of wisdom from this post:
The movement is not one that is happy to negotiate and find halfway ground – its rhetoric is all-or-nothing. When Israelis partially support anything in the BDS ideology, the BDS leaders tend to use it to justify themselves by saying “I’m agreeing with this Israeli, only extending it a little further” rather than moderating their views.
See? These “we support BDS, but only to a certain extent” initiatives are only ever counter-productive. They are all-or-nothing, the only way to deal with them should be to decry the whole movement.
Also, note that she affirms that they are not a one-state solution movement, but very carefully avoids saying what they do actually believe on the subject:
A handful of people have assumed that Marrickville Council’s support of BDS implies that we support a one-state solution to the conflict. This is not at all the case. The BDS is not an anti-Israel resolution. It is about identifying institutions that directly support the occupation of Palestine, and choosing not to do business with them.
And as for it not being an anti-Israel resolution, she goes on to say:
Many Australians remember how international boycotts and sanctions of South African goods in the 1980s helped to bring an end to apartheid. It is no accident that Archbishop Desmond Tutu is today one of the most outspoken critics of Israeli policies in Palestine and one of the principal advocates of the BDS movement.
Without going into too much detail, the Apartheid comparison is completely inapplicable and makes it very clear that this IS an anti-Israel resolution and they ARE advocates of a one-state solution. I will explain this later when I’m not sitting half-asleep in an airport lounge.
Israel: pro-peace, pro-settlements, allied with Saudi Arabia, against Egypt and more…
Posted by MK in Culture, Middle East, Opinion on January 12, 2011
Chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saed Erekat came out today and said that peace talks are now over. As if this were actually news:
“The talks [with Israel] have ended,” Erekat declared. “The government of Binyamin Netanyahu is trying to scrap all what was agreed upon in previous sessions of negotiations. They want to take us back to point zero.”
He added that the Netanyahu government’s platform was based on settlements, dictates, walls, incursions, assassinations, sieges and closures.
The talks have ended and it’s time for the Palestinians to make decisions, he said without elaborating.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu himself seems to disagree with Mr Erekat – coming out and saying that actually, Israel would have committed to another settlement freeze, but the US wouldn’t promise not to ask for more when (and this is definitely not “if”) the peace talks failed again. He re-iterated that he wants peace and it’s actually Erekat’s camp that’s holding everyone up:
Israel was willing to extend the settlement freeze for another three months but decided not to “because the US said that what would happen is that we’d end up spending a lot of political capital, and on the 91st day, they [the Palestinians] would ask for more,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday during a speech to foreign journalists.
Netanyahu reiterated that “no coalition will prevent me from pursuing a peace that I believe in. If I move forward with a peace agreement, it means I believe in it, and I can get the support of the Israeli public.”
Speaking about the Palestinians, the prime minister said, “I hate to use cliches, but this is a cliche I have to use. The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
He added, “There is no shortcut for negotiations, the only way to get to peace is negotiations.”
On the other side of things, an Iranian newspaper has called Wahhabism, the Saudi Arabian brand of Islam, the “dark side of Islam“. They even had that awesome picture above with the half Saudi and half Israeli keffiyeh, just to show how Saudi Arabia is in league with the Jews. Makes sense, right?
Well probably not for close Saudi ally Egypt. See, Egyptian sensors have stalled their decision on whether to classify upcoming Hollywood flick Fair Game because there is an Israeli actress in the movie, which apparently doesn’t sit well with Israel’s closest ally in the Arab world and one of only two Arab countries to recognise Israel. Seems fair enough to me, those Israelis can’t really act.
RSS This
