Sunday, December 30, 2012

‘Tis the Season: how anti-Israel NGOs are abusing Christmas



DECEMBER 24, 2012, Ariella Kimmel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/tis-the-season-how-anti-israel-ngos-are-abusing-christmas/

The Christmas season is upon us, and yet instead of spreading messages of peace and good cheer, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are using this celebratory time of year to advance their politicized anti-Israel campaigns. Organizations such asChristian Aid(UK), Kairos Palestine, Sabeel, War on Want (UK), Amos Trust, and Adalah-NY-NY employ offensive and inflammatory rhetoric in Christmas carols, holiday messages and cards, nativity scenes, and other gift items to push their immoral agenda. Even more alarming, is the inclusion by some of these organizations of blatant anti-Semitism in their campaigns, and the silence of their European funders. As funders, these governments are enablers and share the moral responsibility for the repugnant actions of these organizations.

The manipulation by these organizations of religious symbols is offensive; instead of promoting co-existence and peace, as one would hope human rights groups would, they revive deep-seated Christian anti-Semitic theology. At the same time their messages conspicuously omit any references to deadly terrorism and other violence perpetrated against Israeli civilians.

For example, Christian Aid, which largely operates on a budget that stems directly from the public pockets of Britain and Ireland, holds a one-sided view on the Israeli-Arab conflict. Their publications systematically ignore the Palestinian role in the ongoing conflict and disregard Israel’s right to self-defense.

As in previous years,  Christian Aid has used their Christmas materials for politicized attacks against Israel. Christian Aid has published an “Advent Journey” and “Advent Reflections,” both under the title of “Healing in this Holy Land.” Within these publications there are clear theological overtones:

In Bethlehem, where Jesus was born…there is also an enormous wall around part of the town that makes the lives of Palestinians living in Bethlehem very difficult because they cannot move freely. As you think about Mary and Joseph making the journey to Bethlehem, pray for the people who live there now and whose lives have been affected by conflict.

Christian Aid describes travel restrictions imposed on Palestinians and other forms of suffering due to roadblocks and checkpoints, while completely removing the context of Palestinian mass terror which necessitate these security measures.

Two blatant examples of antisemitism this season include Kairos Palestine and Sabeel, who both invoke anti-Semitic imagery by linking their attacks on Israel to the ancient libel blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus (deicide).

Sabeel, which describes itself as “an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians,” is funded by the Swedish government via Diakonia. They are active in anti-Israel political campaigns, including church divestment resolutions, and support a one state formula, meaning the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state.

The director of the organization, Naim Ateek, has been no stranger to the use of offensive rhetoric in regards to Israel; this year in their annual Christmas message, he makes use of an anti-Semitic analogy equating the Palestinians with Jesus, and Israel with the evil Roman Empire responsible for his death. In a deft reversal of where Jews fit into the historical narrative, he writes that:

…people of first century Palestine were looking for salvation and liberation from the oppressive yoke of the Roman Empire…Today’s Palestinians are looking for salvation and liberation from the oppressive yoke of Israel.

Kairos Palestine, a Christian Palestinian group centrally involved in political warfare against Israel, including the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, published a 32-page “Christmas Alert” together with Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ). This text includes distortions on the situation of Palestinian Christians, for instance blaming Israel for a “severe water crisis” in villages near Bethlehem, ignoring the Palestinian Authority’s full responsibility for this crisis through mismanaging water distribution in Palestinian areas.

The falsehoods in the Christmas alert are interlaced with biblically-based sermons. One of these compares the situation of the Palestinians today with the “Parable of the Vineyard and the Tenants.” This parable invokes classic anti-Semitic deicide themes: the tenants (the Jews) reject the word of God (the owner of the vineyard) and kill his son, causing their land to be taken from them and given to “others.” This document casts modern day Jews as the evil tenants, and the Palestinians as Jesus, whom the tenants seek to kill.

Funding from European governments, both directly and through outsourcing designated for international aid, which is provided to these groups and their theologically-charged messages, exacerbates the impact and damage. The parliaments and taxpayers in the EU, Ireland, UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, and Norway should demand full transparency and an immediate end to such hate-producing activities. With this abuse of holiday and religious symbols, the NGOs and charities that claim to promote moral agendas are not offering messages of peace and good cheer. Rather, their intolerant and theologically charged messages further an already polarized and violent conflict.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

UN: Return Golan Residents to Syrian Slaughterhouse “Forthwith”


Evelyn Gordon @evelyng1234

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/21/un-return-golan-residents-to-syrian-slaughterhouse-forthwith/

The UN General Assembly, as Elliott Abrams noted yesterday, just passed nine resolutions in a single day condemning Israel, mainly for its treatment of the Palestinians, while completely ignoring the real disaster that befell the Palestinians this week: the Assad regime’s bombing of the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, which reportedly killed dozens of Palestinians and caused about 100,000 to flee. But the situation becomes even more surreal when one examines the actual content of the resolutions–because it turns out that while the UN is voting to condemn Israel, its alleged victims are voting the opposite with their feet.

One resolution, for instance, slams Israel’s 1981 annexation of the “occupied Syrian Golan” and demands that Israel “rescind forthwith its decision.” Given what’s happening across the border in Syria, where the ongoing civil war has killed over 44,000 people and created over 500,000 refugees, I suspect most of the 20,000 Syrian Druze on the Golan are thanking their lucky stars to be living safely under Israel’s “occupation.” But you needn’t take my word for it: According to the Hebrew daily Maariv, whose report was subsequently picked up the Winnipeg Jewish Review, Israeli government statistics show that the number of Golan Druze applying for Israeli citizenship (for which the annexation made them eligible) has risen by hundreds of percent since the Syrian civil war erupted, after 30 years in which very few did so.

“More and more people comprehend that this [Israel] is a well-managed country and it’s possible to live and raise children here,” one Druze who acquired Israeli citizenship explained. “In Syria there is mass murder, and if [the Druze are] under Syrian control they would likely be turned into the victims of these atrocities. People see murdered children and refugees fleeing to Jordan and Turkey, lacking everything, and ask themselves: Where do I want to raise my children. The answer is clear–in Israel and not Syria.”

But what the Golan’s own residents want, of course, is of no interest to the UN: It would rather Israel return the area, and its Druze, to the Syrian hellhole “forthwith.”

Then there was the resolution condemning Israel for violating “the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” But in East Jerusalem, too, the number of Palestinians requesting Israeli citizenship has risen sharply in recent years (West Bank and Gazan Palestinians aren’t eligible for citizenship, since Israel hasn’t annexed those areas). And while the number of Palestinians actually receiving citizenship remains small, Haaretz reports, “everyone involved agrees” it would be higher if Israel’s notoriously slow Interior Ministry would just process the applications faster.

The number of East Jerusalem Palestinians registering for the Israeli matriculation exam rather than the Palestinian one has also recently risen by dozens of percent, meaning these young Palestinians aspire to study at an Israeli university and work in Israel rather than studying and working in the Arab world. This, too, is a sea change: For years, Palestinians refused to allow their children to study the Israeli curriculum; now, private preparatory schools are springing up to enable these children to pass the Israeli exams.

Moreover, repeated polls have shown that if Jerusalem were redivided, many Palestinians–at least a sizable minority, and possibly a majority–would want to remain in Israel. But again, what East Jerusalem residents want is of no interest to the UN.

All of which just goes to show, if anyone had any doubts, that the UN and its member states have no interest whatsoever in the actual wellbeing of those under Israeli “occupation.” All they’re interested in is bashing Israel.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

HRW Contradicts Prior Promises


By Hillel Neuer 15th Dec.2012
http://www.unwatch.org/cms.asp?id=3660519&campaign_id=63111

GENEVA - Minutes after the U.N. voted on Nov. 29 to call “Palestine” a state, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a press release urging the Palestinians to use their new status to pursue Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Yet few noticed that HRW’s lobbying contradicted its own promises that this scenario would never happen.

In 2001, when Americans were debating whether or not to support the ICC, Human Rights Watch published “Myths and Facts About the International Criminal Court.”.

As part of its campaign to get the U.S. to ratify the Rome Statute and join the ICC, Human Rights Watch affirmed that the new court would never be used “to pursue politically motivated cases against Israel.” This concern was nothing but a “myth,” insisted HRW.

This was because “Future actions on Israeli or Palestinian territory will be covered only if the ICC treaty is ratified by Israel or by a broadly recognized Palestinian state.” And as HRW explained, in a Washington Post op-ed, “That will not happen until after a peace agreement, in which case the likelihood of Israeli military action against Palestinians greatly diminishes.”

Fast forward several years. Suddenly, HRW is lobbying for the Palestinian bid to become a U.N. state and an ICC member before a peace agreement — and indeed while the Palestinians have refused to even sit at the negotiating table with Israel.

What happened to HRW’s “that will not happen”promise?

The truth is that over the past several years, HRW has actively lobbied to make happen everything that it assured Americans would never happen.

On September 16, 2009, less than 24 hours after Judge Richard Goldstone released his infamous U.N. report accusing Israel of war crimes (which he retracted some 18 months later), Human Rights Watch published a detailed press release that “supported the fact-finding mission’s call for the Security Council to refer the Gaza conflict to the ICC”; argued that the ICC was “the obvious international tribunal for war crimes committed during the Gaza conflict”; and documented all of the possible ways that Israeli political and military leaders could be hauled before the ICC, including “if the ICC prosecutor acts positively on a declaration by the Palestinian National Authority requesting the court’s authority over crimes committed in Gaza.”

While HRW was sometimes cagey on expressing outright support for the formal ICC request submitted by the PA, there was no mistaking where they stood: “Human Rights Watch called on the ICC prosecutor to make a prompt legal determination on the Palestinian National Authority request, consistent with the ICC’s mandate to end impunity.” The latter phrase could only mean HRW wanted the ICC to decide in the affirmative.

Similarly, in a September 2010 speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council, HRW called on the 47-nation body to “urge the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to determine in a prompt manner whether he believes the court has jurisdiction over the Gaza conflict. Such a determination will clarify the avenues of international justice available.”

Again, HRW made it clear how they wanted the jurisdiction question to be decided: “The parties... have thus far not shown a willingness to conduct investigations up to international standards, so international prosecutions may be required.” Peace talks, said HRW, “in no way lessen the need for accountability. On the contrary, justice [i.e., ICC prosecution] for serious violations should be part of the discussion.”

On Nov. 6, 2012, Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth tweeted his objection to a New York Times editorial that had opposed the Palestinian U.N. statehood gambit.

According to Roth, the Times ignored the key salutary effect of the upgrade: the possibility of the Palestinians joining the ICC and “deterring both sides’ war crimes.”

Disingenuously, Roth and Human Rights Watch pretend that any international or UN-affiliated process on Israel would be fair and objective.

In fact, the greatest supporter of the Goldstone Report’s call for ICC prosecutions, apart from HRW, was the Hamas terrorist organization. One recalls the “Goldstone” scarves that were popularly sold in Gaza stores, next to posters of Hamas leaders. If Hamas cheered the call for ICC action, how can one logically claim that Hamas would be “deterred” by it?

By actively lobbying for Palestinian statehood prior to a peace agreement, and by urging Palestinians to pursue Israel in the ICC, Human Rights Watch promotes the Hamas agenda and the politicization of international law.

More than that, HRW breaks its word, and undermines the credibility of its organization.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Europe Once Again Shows that Palestinian Violence Pays

Evelyn Gordon

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/03/europe-once-again-shows-that-palestinian-violence-pays/

Just in case there were any doubts, last week provided conclusive proof: Yes, Palestinian violence pays. And the so-called “enlightened” countries–those Western states who claim to deplore violence and favor the peaceful resolution of conflicts–are the very ones who will reward violence the most. That’s precisely what happened with the Palestinians’ successful bid for UN recognition as a nonmember observer state.

Most European countries understood that this move would at best not advance the peace process, and at worst hinder it. So some had planned to vote no, while others planned to abstain. But then Hamas dramatically escalated its rocket fire on Israel, forcing Israel to respond; Hamas thus became the center of world attention while the Palestinian Authority was sidelined. So in an effort to give the PA a boost, European governments switched their votes at the last minute: Those who had planned to vote no abstained, and those who had planned to abstain voted yes. In other words, they agreed to support something they had previously considered “unhelpful” just because Hamas fired lots of rockets at Israel.

But the hypocrisy doesn’t end there. These same European countries are now furious at Israel’s response: They thought they had an understanding with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would let the UN vote pass quietly. And in fact, they did. The only minor detail they’re overlooking is that Netanyahu agreed not to retaliate for the UN vote in exchange for what he thought was a European commitment to either vote against or abstain. In short, the Europeans reneged on their side of the unwritten deal, but are furious that Israel isn’t upholding its side anyway.

That is a microcosm of what’s wrong with the peace process as a whole: As far as most of the world is concerned, bilateral Israeli agreements are binding on one side only: Israel. Thus it’s perfectly fine with the Europeans for the PA to violate one of its cardinal commitments under the peace process: that all disputes will be resolved through negotiations rather than unilaterally–or as the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement put it, “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.” But it’s an outrage, completely beyond the pale, for Israel to respond by doing something that no signed agreement actually bars it from doing: In no agreement did Israel ever promise to halt construction in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

So here’s what we’ve learned from the past week’s events: Palestinians should keep shooting rockets at Israel, because Europe will reward them for it by punishing Israel. And Israel should never again make any agreement with the Palestinians, because the Palestinians won’t be bound by it at all, whereas Israel will be bound not only by what the deal actually says, but by what the Palestinians and their Europeans allies think it should have said.

You’d think countries that claim to abhor violence and favor diplomacy could find better lessons to be teaching, wouldn’t you?


Wednesday, November 28, 2012

BBC's Hypocritical Reporting

Wyre Davies’ historically incorrect reporting upgraded by BBC to ‘analysis’


http://bbcwatch.org/2012/11/26/wyre-davies-historically-incorrect-reporting-upgraded-by-bbc-to-analysis/

It was reported in the BBC Middle East News that Wyre Davies’ grossly historically incorrect claim  of rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli civilians are a result of the partial blockade on the Gaza Strip – rather than the other way round.

Has that error since been corrected? No: in fact the report concerned was expanded and upgraded to the category of ‘analysis’.

Davies’ expanded article  is, if anything, even more egregious than  the original report and is far more occupied with promoting a narrative than with anything which could be remotely described as fact-based analysis.

“You can feel the palpable lifting of that burden among Gazan colleagues. This is such a small densely populated stretch of land that few areas have escaped the impact – direct or indirect – of Israeli bombing in recent days.

In the BBC Gaza office, that feeling was most tangibly felt on the first day of this conflict when Omar, the 11-month-old son of our cameraman Jihad Misharawi, was killed when a missile hit his home. It was a pointless, terrible tragedy that deeply affected Jihad’s colleagues who live and work here in these testing conditions.

What has shocked me most over the last eight days – during which I have reported exclusively from Gaza, with BBC colleagues complementing in Israel – is the appallingly high number of children killed and injured.”

In fact, according to figures released by the IDF, of a total of 165 people killed in Gaza during the operation, 93 belonged to one of seven different terrorist groups. 68 civilians died, of those 25 children and 9 youths. That civilian to combatant ratio is one of the lowest known, reflecting the considerable efforts made to avoid civilian casualties wherever possible.

[The above article, the full text of which can be read via the link above, indicates the attitude of the BBC reporters who are working in the Middle East.

We wonder how these reporters would have reacted to the British response to Arab terror at the time of the mandate]

How the British responded to Palestinian terrorists

By RAFAEL MEDOFF

11/27/2012 21:39

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/OpEdContributors/Article.aspx?id=293684

Some Israelis today are left wondering which makes more sense – England’s current advice, or the positions taken by British leaders when they themselves had to deal with the forerunners of Hamas.

In the midst of Israel’s recent action against Hamas, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned that the Jewish State would “lose a lot of international support and sympathy” if it sent in ground troops. Hague’s assertion was widely understood as an attempt to pressure Jerusalem to refrain from going all-out against the terrorists.

Israelis have heard this before – as a matter of fact, they heard it from another senior British foreign affairs official, William Waldegrave, the minister of state in the Foreign Office, when he visited Gaza in March 1989. At a press conference, Waldegrave dramatically brandished four rubber bullets, which he accused Israel of firing “indiscriminately” at Arab rioters.

Afterwards, Waldegrave met with the mayor of Jerusalem, Teddy Kollek. Since Kollek was a longtime Labor Party figure and well known political dove, Waldegrave probably thought they were kindred spirits.

The British official was in for quite a surprise.

Kollek told Waldegrave – and told reporters afterwards – that “the British have no right to preach morals to Israel” on fighting terrorists, considering how the British themselves treated Palestinian Arab terrorists in the 1930s. The mayor pointed out that recently-released British government documents described “British army atrocities against the Arabs in Palestine” during those years.

The documents recounted the British authorities’ response to the assassination of a British district commissioner in Jenin in 1938. The killer was captured, jailed, and then shot to death “while trying to escape.” But the Mandate government decided that was not enough, and that “a large portion of the town should be blown up.”

Other anti-terror tactics employed by the British against the Palestinian Arabs in the 1930s included shooting handcuffed prisoners, blowing up civilians’ homes and forcing Arabs to drive “mine-sweeping taxis” in front of British soldiers searching areas where they suspected mines were planted.

Naomi Shepherd, in her book Ploughing Sand (about British rule in Palestine) describes how eight Palestinian Arabs in Halhul died of heat exposure when, “on a scorching day,” British soldiers “rounded up a group of men during a search for arms and kept them standing without water for hours.” After an attack on a British patrol in the village of Kawkab Abu Haija, the British army “destroyed the entire village.” When a British army vehicle ran over a mine near Kafr Yasif, soldiers burned down 70 houses and machine-gunned nine villagers.

HUGH FOOT, a district commissioner in 1930s Palestine who narrowly escaped assassination by Arab terrorists, later recalled the arbitrary nature of house demolitions: “When we thought that a village was harboring rebels, we’d go there and mark one of the large houses. Then, if an incident was traced to that village, we’d blow up the house we’d marked.” The tactic was “drastic,” High Commissioner Harold MacMichael conceded, “but the situation has demanded drastic powers.”

An Associated Press correspondent permitted to travel with a British anti-terror unit in October 1938 reported how he watched them “blow up with dynamite about a dozen houses in an Arab village from which shots twice were fired at the troops... [W]hen the troops left there was little else remaining of the once busy village except a pile of mangled masonry.”

In another Arab town, Miar, the British troops “dynamited about forty stone houses” and arrested hundreds of villagers. Sometimes Arab detainees were “put to to work building roads.”

Reports in The New York Times that month offered similar descriptions of British “clean-up” operations, as the Timescalled them. In Lydda (today known as Lod), “twenty-one Arabs’ homes were destroyed by British troops because of recent attacks on military police.” In Nablus, “severe measures by British troops resulted in about six casualties.”

While some British officials privately expressed unease at the harsh counter-terror methods, most voices in the Colonial Office apparently supported the crackdown. “I do not feel we have the right to interfere,” Lord Dufferin asserted. “British lives are being lost and I don’t think that we, from the security of Whitehall, can protest squeamishly about measures taken by the men in the frontline.”

His colleague Sir John Shuckburgh emphasized that the British authorities in Palestine were faced “not with a chivalrous opponent playing the game according to the rules, but with gangsters and murderers.”

All of which may leave some Israelis today wondering which makes more sense – England’s current advice, or the positions taken by British leaders when they themselves had to deal with the forerunners of Hamas.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

The BBC's pro-Palestinian propaganda machine has swung into action



The Telegraph by Peter Mullen World November 19th, 2012

The Rev Dr Peter Mullen is a priest of the Church of England and former Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. He has written for many publications including the Wall Street Journal

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/petermullen/100190323/finally-the-bbcs-pro-palestinian-propaganda-machine-has-swung-into-action/  

The BBC has been slipping up recently. No – I don’t mean to refer to unpleasant recollections of Savilegate and McAlpinegate. Let us just leave them conveniently on the Corporation’s CV. Instead I am wondering why it took the BBC so long to get into its full propaganda mode in its reporting of the war between Israel and Hamas. I don’t say there was ever anything distantly approaching even-handedness. You never get that with an ideological pressure group as committed to its own unassailable self-righteousness as the BBC. But at least for the first few days of the war there was the pretence of objectivity.

But true colours will inevitably show themselves and, sure enough, over the weekend the Corporation began to screen its horrific and heart-breaking accounts (with pictures, of course) of the Gazan children slaughtered by the nasty Israelis. What is never explained – because propaganda aims not to explain but to seduce – is the fact that Hamas stores its rockets and high explosives in schools and hospitals, and those leaders who are not so far up the pay scale that they are allotted their personal bunkers are obliged to live in their own houses with their families. And even the most meticulously targeted airstrike cannot distinguish between a terrorist and his three-year-old son when they are sitting in the same front room.

The BBC loves to announce the casualty figures which invariably show that Palestinians have suffered many more deaths and injuries than the Israelis. This is entirely a matter of chance – but a distinction needs to be made. The Israeli forces do not target non-combatants or children. In fact they go to great pains to avoid killing innocent bystanders. By contrast, Hamas deliberately targets innocent women and children in Israel. That is the sole purpose of their rocket attacks. Let me spell it out: what terrorists do is propagate terror. It is simply a matter of good fortune, aided by the Iron Dome defence system, that more Israeli civilians have not been killed. More than 750 rockets have been fired into Israel over the last six days, including long-distance projectiles made in Iran.

Now the conflict is entering a new and much more dangerous phase. The attacks from Gaza may be subdued, but other threats are rapidly emerging. To the east, Jordan is unstable, the crowds demonstrating for the sacking of the government and their own version of the Arab Spring. To the west, post-Mubarak Egypt is not the steadying influence on the region that it was for so long. But the most terrifying scenario is the prospect from the north, from the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon who are even now waiting eagerly for the ragbag rebel Syrian army to take possession of Assad’s copious stores of chemical weapons. There is an extreme likelihood that these would be used against the civilian population in Israel.

I learned of this real and present danger from Sky, by the way, not from the BBC.



Tuesday, November 20, 2012

An Arab View



by Khaled Abu Toameh
November 19, 2012

This hostility is the direct result of years of anti-Israel and anti-Western incitement in the Arab and Muslim world -- not only toward Israel but also toward the United States. In today's world of the Palestinians, anyone who talks about peace with Israel is a traitor and a collaborator; but anyone who calls for the destruction of Israel and fires rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is a hero.

There is nothing more nauseating than watching people celebrate as rockets are being fired toward Israel from the Gaza Strip.

This is what happened last week when Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

As soon as the sirens went off, many Palestinians took to the streets and rooftops, especially in Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods, to cheer Hamas. Sometimes they responded to the Hamas rockets by launching fireworks into the air as a sign of joy, and chanting, "We are all Hamas!" and, "O Jews, the army of Mohammed is coming after you!"

Scenes of jubilation over the rocket attacks on Israel were also reported in several Palestinian cities in the West Bank, including Ramallah, the center of Palestinian "pragmatism and moderation."

Later, upon learning that Hamas's rockets had failed to kill Israelis in the two cities, the Palestinians voiced disappointment.

Never mind that the rockets could have fallen on their heads. As far as these Palestinians are concerned, there is no problem if a number of Arabs are killed on the way to destroying Israel.

The celebrations reflect the strong hostility that many Palestinians continue to feel toward Israel despite 20 years of a peace process, and billions of dollars of Western aid. This hostility is the direct result of years of anti-Israel and anti-Western incitement in the Arab and Islamic world.

The hostility is directed not only toward Israel, but also its friends -- above all, the United States.

Similar outbursts of joy had erupted in many parts of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem immediately after Palestinians heard of the 9/11 terror attacks in the US.

And this was not the first time that Palestinians had expressed joy over the targeting of Israeli cities.

During the 2006 war in Lebanon, Palestinians and some Arab citizens of Israel took to rooftops to cheer Hizbullah's rocket attacks on northern cities in Israel.

During the second intifada, many Palestinians, particularly in the Gaza Strip, used to take to the streets to sing and dance and hand out candies after hearing about another suicide bombing inside Israel.

And when Saddam Hussein fired rockets at Israel in the early 1990's, Palestinians also took to the streets and rooftops, chanting, "O beloved Saddam, strike strike at Tel Aviv!"

Last week, by the way, many Palestinians in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron were chanting: "O beloved Qassam [Hamas's armed wing], destroy, destroy Tel Aviv!" and "The people want the destruction of Israel!"

No one is expecting the Palestinians to express solidarity or sympathy with Israel in its confrontation with Hamas.

But when many Palestinians express their joy in public over the firing of rockets and missiles at Israeli cities, one is entitled to wonder whether there is a majority of Palestinians who would ever agree to any form of compromise with Israel.

In today's world of the Palestinians, anyone who talks about peace with Israel is a traitor and a collaborator; but anyone who calls for the destruction of Israel and fires rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is a hero.



Wednesday, November 14, 2012

BIG - Briefing "Pillar of Cloud"

Background:


For the third time in a month, the civilians of southern Israel are under rocket attack from the Gaza Strip.

The current attacks began on Saturday night (Nov.10) when an anti-tank missile was fired at an army jeep traveling on the Israeli side of the border fence. Four IDF soldiers were injured. Since then, over 120 rockets have been fired at Israeli civilians.

The lives of 1million Israeli civilians are being threatened and daily life in southern Israel has been totally disrupted.

The residents of communities near the Gaza border suffer constantly from rocket and mortar shell attacks. These attacks occur almost on a routine basis, as do escalations of other types of terrorist activities carried out by Hamas and the other terrorist organizations that operate under Hamas’ protection.

The pauses between the waves of rocket attacks are shortening. In the past month, Israel has been subjected to three separate periods of escalation. Since the beginning of the year, more than 800 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel, a record amount since the end of Operation Cast Lead (January 2009). This peak is similar to the attacks that occurred in 2007-8.

Main Messages:

• The goal of Israel’s operation is clearly defined and is aimed at removing a strategic threat to Israeli citizens. Israel is not interested in a deterioration of the situation.

• Israel has demonstrated great restrain for a long period but cannot stand for the recurring attacks on its citizens. No other state would accept a similar reality.

• Israel is acting in self-defense and out of its duty to protect its civilians from terrorist attacks.

• Hamas rules the Gaza Strip and is responsible for all that occurs in Gaza and all that is launched from there.

• It must be noted that Israel disengaged completely from the Gaza Strip in 2005. The result of Israel’s disengagement is that Gaza has become a giant ammunition dump. In addition, it provides a breeding ground for terrorist groups to organize and to operate, including groups associated with al-Qaeda and Global Jihad. All this under the rule, responsibility and sponsorship of Hamas.

• Weapons smuggled from Libya, Iran and Sudan accelerated the process of Gaza turning into a terror base. These weapons also increased the danger posed to the Israeli population.

• Hamas and the other terrorist organizations hide among the civilian population of Gaza. They also deliberately direct their fire at the civilian population of Israel. These acts constitute a double war crime.

• The targets of the Israeli operation are all military. Israel will make every effort to prevent harm to the civilian population of Gaza, and regrets any injury to civilians.

• The border crossings from Israel to the Gaza Strip remain open, allowing for the routine passage of goods and humanitarian aid.

• The international community must act to stop the attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip and should not wait for an Israeli reaction to act. Time and again, Israel has warned that it would not tolerate these attacks.

What has happened today November 14th?

• Following several days of Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza at Israeli towns, on 14 November Israel launched a military operation called 'Pillar of Cloud,' beginning with a series of targeted airstrikes against senior militant leaders and weapons facilities in the Gaza Strip. The first targeted was a top Hamas commander Ahmed al-Jabari.

• Other key Hamas militant leaders have also been targeted, reportedly including al-Jabari's number two, Raed al-Atar, as well as Hamas's longer range Fajr rockets.

• Key stats for November 10-13:

o Rockets and mortars fired at Israel: 112 (causing 8 injuries)

o Israeli airstrikes into Gaza: 14 (causing 7 deaths and 26 injuries according to Palestinian reports)

o Iron Dome rocket interceptions: 6

Saturday, October 20, 2012

UK funding for anti-Israel NGOs



The British Government is recklessly allocating taxpayer funds to groups which hope to build a Palestinian state, not alongside Israel, but in place of it.

Alex Ryvchin October 16th 2012 “The Commontator”

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1834/uk_funding_for_anti_israel_ngos

When the British taxpayer-funded Hebron Rehabilitation Committee issued a statement in August describing a terror attack by Islamic Jihad as a “heroic operation”, it should have been met with a very swift and severe response from the British Government, and a review of the Foreign Office’s funding practices.

Equally so, when hip-hop artist, Shadia Mansour embarked on a tour of the West Bank on the British taxpayers’ dime, it should have prompted the question: why on earth is the government funding a hip-hop artist’s tour abroad, let alone one to serenade Palestinian children with hateful references to Israel as a “terrorist state” and Judaism as “the hijacked faith”?

Both Mansour and the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee received funding from the Foreign Office, which distributes British taxpayer money through its missions in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The ostensible purpose is to advance the government’s “objectives and policy goals” in the region.

No doubt the Government (and the taxpayer) must be wondering just how the Government’s “objectives” align with those of a hate-filled rapper and a group which lauds terrorists.

But these cases are hardly unique. They are indicative of a broader trend of financing individuals and organisations whose political activities undermine the Government’s own policies promoting peace in the Middle East.

For its part, the government has been unequivocal in its rejection of the unconscionable movement of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, and has steadfastly maintained that peace will only come through negotiations and co-operation. Yet the Foreign Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development continue to fund groups that actively advocate the total isolation of the Jewish state.

This well-financed campaign trivialises and politicises human rights, adds fuel to the conflict and, to be clear, seeks nothing less than the ultimate destruction of Israel.

One leading boycott activist – Ahmed Moor – removed the cloud used to obfuscate the motives of the movement, when he declared: “Boycotts, divestment and sanctions does mean the end of the Jewish state… Ending the occupation doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean ending the Jewish state itself.”

Another textbook example of an organisation which receives Government funding by speaking the language of human rights and then proceeds to promote a movement aimed at the destruction of a democratic state is Defence for Children International – Palestine Section (DCI-PS). The organisation is highly active in encouraging anti-Israel boycotts, divestment, and sanctions and frequently accuses Israel of “apartheid" in a bid to justify its calls for Israel’s total isolation.

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of DCI-PS’s use of humanitarian issues to advance a clear political agenda is the manner in which it represents entirely unbalanced, de-contextualised, and often hysterical accusations as fact.

Aside from its frequent references to Israel’s penchant for “deliberate targeting” and “terrorising” of civilians, the group has reported on alleged civilian deaths while admitting that “no reliable evidence could be gathered” to support some of it claims.

The government’s support for such organisations contributes to the dissemination of unreliable and sensationalised information which impacts both on the public discourse and the policy decisions which follow it.

As for DCI-PS and other NGOs more interested in slamming Israel than advancing legitimate humanitarian interests, their impact is twofold. Firstly, their tactics subvert the government’s efforts for peace in the region. Secondly, any measure of objectivity or credibility they may claim is lost amidst their extreme rhetoric and shameless politicisation of human rights.

It is not only humanitarian virtues that are being exploited by organisations with radical political agendas. Indeed, the Holy Land Trust (HLT) uses its position of privilege as a religious group to espouse virulently anti-Israel views under the guise of religious ideals.

HLT is the recipient of numerous government grants. It counsels it’s members to be evasive with Israeli authorities upon entering the country, supports calls for an academic boycott of Israel (another attack on the government’s position that peace is to be achieved through co-operation and not division), and its executive director and founder, Sami Awad, has asserted that non-violent demonstrations are “not a substitute for the armed struggle” in spite of his group’s stated“commitment to the principles of nonviolence,”

Such activities are not only an egregious misuse of donor funds, they do absolutely nothing to serve the interests of peace.

The government’s foreign policy in the Middle East is centered on helping Israel and the Palestinians“find a way back to negotiations as soon as possible.” This is how peace will be achieved. This is how Israel will realise its dream of peaceful co-existence with its neighbours. This is how the Palestinians will realise their dream of statehood.

Yet the government recklessly allocates taxpayer funds to groups which hope to build a Palestinian state not alongside Israel but in place of it, which ignore the relentless campaign of terror against Israeli civilians that demonises Israel through absurd accusations of “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing”.

By doing so, the government is merely eroding its very own vision of a two-state solution and fostering an atmosphere of mutual distrust and animosity at a time when understanding and co-operation are most needed.

POST SCRIPT

UK money pays for Palestinians jailed in Israel

 A report by the watchdog, Palestinian Media Watch, has revealed that every month almost £3 million from the Palestinian Authority goes towards paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. These salaries are drawn from the PA general budget, funded by international donors, among them the UK.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Arab Spring and the Israeli enemy


http://www.arabnews.com/arab-spring-and-israeli-enemy

ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIM

Saturday 6 October 2012

Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967.

The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations. From the period of 1948 and to this day many confrontations have taken place. Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world ever experienced. On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people

I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.

The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?

The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.

These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars.

In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people.

In Syria, the atrocities are beyond anybody’s imaginations? And, isn’t the Iraqis are the ones who are destroying their own country? Wasn’t it Tunisia’s dictator who was able to steal 13 billion dollars from the poor Tunisians? And how can a child starve in Yemen if their land is the most fertile land in the world? Why would Iraqi brains leave Iraq in a country that makes 110 billion dollars from oil export? Why do the Lebanese fail to govern one of the tiniest countries in the world? And what made the Arab states start sinking into chaos?

On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine. The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days. The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakbah (catastrophic war). The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugees.

And on 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went in war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land and made more Palestinian refugees who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them. The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset). The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated. And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves and under constant attacks from their own forces.

Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of the Israeli planes dropping bombs on them. It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the est. In Yemen, the world’s saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis. In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten.

Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs’ sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure. Many Arabs don’t know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn’t one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail is an Israeli-Palestinian?

The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis. Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations.

almulhimnavy@hotmail.com


Thursday, September 20, 2012

ISRAEL IS A “PRISONER’S PARADISE”

by Tom Gross 18th September 2012
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001304.html


The American cable network MSNBC, as part of its “Lockup: World Tour” series, has confirmed what the Israeli authorities have been saying all along: that attempts by certain NGOs and international journalists to portray Israeli prisons as particularly horrific are pure propaganda, and Israel in fact has among the most humane prison systems in the world.

In its episode on Israel, MSNBC’s “Lockup: World Tour” showed meditation rooms, dance and art lessons, petting zoos, computer rooms and various classes that prisoners, including convicted Palestinian terrorists, are allowed to attend. At one point MSNBC even described some aspects of Israel’s prison system as “glowing”.

The MSNBC series first started seven years ago, and over the years it has filmed gruesome prison conditions in Asia, America and some European countries.

The program noted that Israel has fewer prisoners per capita than most Western countries, and released inmates achieve much higher levels of reintegration into society than most other countries. The Israeli prison service helps inmates to obtain advanced education, including university degrees (and in some cases even PhDs), and runs skills development and job placement courses. (Most imprisoned Israelis have been convicted of drug or property crimes, while the rates for murder, rape and other violent crimes remain relatively low in Israel.)

At Hermon Prison in the Galilee, MSNBC noted that the facility looks more like a college campus than an American-style prison. Inmates are allowed a high degree of freedom of movement and can attend a wide range of sports and “therapy” classes.
At Neve Tirza, Israel’s only prison for women, the MSNBC presenters say they were surprised to find a petting zoo, and a meditation room with fish tanks. Inmates are shown taking dance and art lessons, and even nursing their infant babies in the prison’s fully equipped ward for new mothers.

At Rimonim prison, inmates are allowed to bring their own clothes and personal appliances with them to prison. Inmates cook together in communal kitchens, and prison staff eat food prepared by inmates. Jewish and Arab inmates socialize both with each other and with the guards, in what MSNBC terms “a very social and festive environment.”

“I feel like I am in a hotel,” says one Palestinian inmate as he shows MSNBC around his cell -- which is bigger than many New York apartments I have visited -- with kitchen equipment, bookshelves and a private bathroom. “Nothing is lacking.”

As I have pointed out in previous dispatches on this list, prisoners in Israel, including hardened Palestinian terrorists, have not only received free dental care, but sometimes the most advanced kinds of dental care that may prove very costly for a citizen who is not a prisoner.

Israel allows prison furloughs to a much greater extent than most countries. Surprisingly (in my opinion), even rapists have been allowed to go home regularly to visit their families at weekends.

In contrast to the propaganda fed by EU government-funded anti-Israel NGOs to other international media, convicted Hamas terrorists are even allowed to post pictures on Facebook using their Iphones, showing photos of their cells with pets, posters, football flags, and music boxes.

***
Here are a couple of the clips from the MSNBC series, which was first broadcast last May and rebroadcast by MSNBC last weekend:

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/documentaries/47430316#47430316




Thursday, September 13, 2012

What part of 'Iran will get the bomb if you don't stop it' Mr President, don't you understand?


Published in: Melanie's blog Sept.11th.
http://www.melaniephillips.com/what-bit-of-iran-will-get-the-bomb-if-you-dont-stop-it-mr-president-dont-you-understand

So now the crisis in relations between President Obama and the state of Israel has finally blown publicly open. On the very anniversary of 9/11, the day when America learned firsthand a little of what Israel has been living through for more six decades after the enemies of civilisation set out to murder as many people as possible in New York and Washington DC order to destroy the US and the west, Obama has shown his anger at Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu by refusing to meet him when Netanyahu comes to the US at the end of the month to beg for decisive action to prevent a second attempted genocide of the Jews.

The reason for Obama’s ire? Netanyahu made a desperate statement earlier today which sharply -- if obliquely -- called the President to account. The reason for his desperation was that, after Israel had all but said it would refrain from attacking Iran’s nuclear plants if only the President would draw a ‘red line’ in negotiations by threatening force if they failed, Obama had refused on the risible grounds that, according to Hillary Clinton, negotiations were ‘ the best approach.’

In response Netanyahu said:

‘The world tells Israel “wait, there’s still time”. And I say, “Wait for what? Wait until when?” Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu told reporters on Tuesday.

“Now if Iran knows that there is no red line. If Iran knows that there is no deadline, what will it do? Exactly what it's doing. It’s continuing, without any interference, towards obtaining nuclear weapons capability and from there, nuclear bombs, “he said’.

The evidence of Israel’s desperation in suggesting that it may go it alone to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites lies in what it fears may result if is forced to do so. Such an attack risks appalling consequences for Israel’s population, surrounded as it is on virtually all sides by Hezbollah’s rockets in the north, Hamas’s rockets in the south, and Syria’s rockets on the other side of the Golan heights – all backed by Iran – not to mention Iran’s own ballistic missiles.

Appalling as these consequences might be, however, a nuclear armed Iran, arguably the most significant terrorist state in the world and which regularly issues threats to annihilate Israel, would be a far worse prospect. If America were to join such an attack, however, the terrible risks to Israel would be lessened and the likelihood of destroying Iran’s nuclear programme significantly higher.

So Netanyahu has resorted to talking over Obama’s head to the American people. Quite right—the American people should be made aware that, faced with arguably its most threatening enemy since Hitler, the Jewish people is being abandoned once again by an American president who, if returned to office for a second term, might deal an utterly fateful blow against the free world.

Se tell us, Mr President -- since you are so angry with Israel’s PM, which bit of what he said, that you are providing Iran with the time it needs to finish building a nuclear weapon in order to carry out its declared aims of annihilating Israel and the west, did you think he got wrong?

US Department of State spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said today that that the US did not see public discussion of the Iranian nuclear program and any ‘red lines’ as helpful.

‘“We don't think it’s particularly useful to have those conversations in public. It doesn’t help the process and it doesn’t help the integrity of the diplomacy. To be standing here at the podium parsing the details of the Iranian nuclear program is not helpful to getting where we want to go,” she said, briefing the media.'

But the diplomacy isn’t going anywhere – except towards the creation of an Iranian nuclear bomb. And as for public rows being unhelpful, well the President could hardly deliver a more public snub than refusing to meet Netanyahu. After all, Obama could perfectly well have had a row with him in a private meeting. The point of such a public snub – if it’s any more than a mere temper tantrum – is to signal to Iran that the US really does not ‘have Israel’s back’ at all. Unless this whole kerfuffle is one giant disinformation campaign (possible), it’s hard to think of a more treacherous thing to do.

Of course Netanyahu, who has been playing a desperate game of diplomatic poker with Obama for the past four years in order to protect Israel from this viscerally hostile President, is undoubtedly trying to alert US voters to the danger of electing this man for a further four-year term. In which case Obama has fallen neatly into the trap, by ensuring that this row gives this damaging accusation against himself the highest possible visibility.

Indeed, there is yet worse. For while the US snubs Israel, its sole ally in the Middle East against those who wish to destroy America and the west, America is about to roll out the red carpet for Iran’s President Ahmadinejad -- whose country is in a state of self-declared war with America, kidnaps westerners, is behind numerous acts of terror against American and western interests, arms Hezbollah and Hamas, has been helping blow up American servicemen in Afghanistan and Iraq, threatens the annihilation of Israel and is the greatest single threat to the peace of the world.

As Anne Bayefsky writes, next month Ahmadinejad will be welcomed to the United Nations in New York and there provided with a global platform from which to spout his poison – and thus strengthen Iran still further. What a difference from Canada, where the Harper government only last week severed all diplomatic ties with Iran in protest against its genocidal aims.

The moral bankruptcy of the club of terror that is the UN should need no further advertisement. But the American public should realise that their own Commander-in-Chief -- and Democratic candidate for another four years as President -- threatens to make their own great country complicit in another demented attempt to wipe out the Jews and after them, the west.

Sickeningly, faced with a deranged Judeophobic regime bent on genocide, the Jewish people finds itself at its moment of greatest danger, and despite the weasel words of support from the feeble and faithless allies on which it is forced to depend, once again where it really counts entirely alone.



Thursday, August 23, 2012

What might civilized people be thinking when sociopaths like Tamimi bask in adulation?

By Frimet and Arnold Roth 21-Aug-2012

http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/21-aug-12-what-might-civilized-people.html

After receiving some offline comments on the Tamimi speech we publicized yesterday, we have a few further thoughts to share. The urge to do this is triggered by a sense that something deeply disturbing is going on; it's being ignored or willfully not noticed by people who ought to be noticing.

When a politician or public figure on our side of the fence makes an ignorant or dumb or smart or incisive statement, particularly when it's about the Arabs (you know the examples), his/her comments are greeted with near-instant analysis and frequently with condemnation from a global array of press and politicians. The Arab media focus obsessively on such things. Outside the Arab/Islamic world, we frequently see European, American, Australian and other critics drawing wide inferences about how those specific Israeli views are going to bring on the next Black Plague or an increase in pogroms in France. The claim, at minimum, is that irreparable harm is going to be caused to the souls and DNA of innocent Israeli children, to world peace and so on.

To illustrate: when a posse of Israeli delinquents (it happens to be a very current issue here) beat up an Arab youth in a street fight, the New York Times says the event has led to "a stark national conversation about racism, violence, and how Israeli society could have come to this point" That's an actual quote: check it out. We think the Times' journalist's conclusion is overwrought nonsense, but that's not the point. Israel is not, never has been and should never be, immune to criticism, or even object to it, and mostly doesn't.

Now think for a moment about how Ahlam Tamimi and her hundreds of published interviews and speeches are treated by global public opinion. Pay attention in particular to how Arabs view her, since they are her principal audience.

No one - certainly not the woman herself - denies the fact that she planned and carried out a premeditated killing on a large and vicious scale, which was the whole point of doing it. The law convicted her on the basis that she's a murderer; she says (more or less) that she did it for the freedom and honour of her nation. The fact that she planned to kill and succeeded mightily has never been in dispute. She does not miss an opportunity to say that it was children, and specifically Jewish children, and even more specifically orthodox Jewish children like ours, who were the target. She regrets that she did not kill more - it's there in yesterday's video and in numerous other speeches and earlier videos recorded in her Jordanian freedom.

She appears on television and in front of adoring crowds (ask us if you want to view the video files) and expresses the vilest kind of racist hatred of Jews, Israelis and Zionists. She has done this many times since she unjustly got her freedom in October and her message is hugely amplified by the social media. She is a star on YouTube, a hero on Facebook. She is globally broadcast via satellite television into every corner of the Arabic-speaking world. It's arguable that she has the largest footprint of any ordinary murderer (ignoring "celebrities" like Hitler, Mao, Stalin et al) in human history. If that seems like an overstatement then we urge you to concede that she is in the major leagues. The fact that most people don't know this is largely because most people don't speak Arabic.

She smiles warmly when she says she killed those Jews, and her god wanted her to do it. She points to how she has subsequently been rewarded with freedom, fame, a wedding that received live television coverage. The adoring crowds applaud and ululate. The encouragement (and probably the will) to emulate her actions is clear.

How many Arabic speakers are there in the world? A quick query on the web turns up these numbers: "280 million native speakers, and an extra 250 million non-native speakers" [source]. How many Arabic newspapers? Many.

Here's our point: We have searched and have not yet found a blog, article, published speech or op-ed in her language, Arabic, which criticizes the woman or her views. So far, not one. If our readers can point us to exceptions, please do.

This is deeply shocking. Tamimi's message resonates throughout the Arab and Islamic world. Her views don't even rise to the level of controversial. She's simply a hero, wall to wall. She and her vile deeds, opinions and intentions appear to represent some sort of global consensus in the Arab and Islamic world. There is no public debate, no expressions of outrage - not even concerning the passivity of the Kingdom of Jordan where she lives and from where a vibrant Tamimi-focused industry of online and broadcast videos sends its message of hatred and death out to the world.

Does the absence of criticism throughout the Arab world mean they support the deliberate killing of the innocent people among their enemy? Does their silence mean they support the murder of children as Tamimi certainly does, and they want to see it happen again and again as she certainly does?

What does this say about the discourse underway in the Arab world? What light does it throw on the global news media?

What can we learn from here about the chances of ever making peace?