What I Saw During Operation Pillar of Defense

By Nira Lee

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/what_i_saw_during_operation_pillar_of_defense.html

Four years ago, watching the coverage of Operation Cast Lead from the comfort of my dorm, I was a conflicted college student. As supportive as I was of Israel, I still found it painful any time I heard about civilian casualties in Gaza. What I saw portrayed in the media didn't add up: on the one hand I knew that the IDF was engaged in careful efforts to prevent civilian casualties, despite Hamas's strategy of fighting from amongst its own civilian population. Yet the media made it seem like the IDF was actively targeting civilians.

Back then, I understood Israel's efforts at protecting civilians as a something akin to a talking point -- I had no personal involvement in the conflict. Yet I had no idea how true it is until I myself participated in last week's Operation "Pillar of Defense" as an officer in the IDF.

When I moved to Israel and enlisted, I joined a unit called the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which is devoted to civilian and humanitarian issues.

As an International Liaison Officer in the Gaza office, my job primarily entails coordinating transfers of goods, aid, and delegations into Gaza. I work closely with representatives of the international community, and although our perspectives may differ, we maintain relationships of mutual respect born of a common goal; I am here to help them succeed in their work improving the quality of life in Gaza.

While the day-to-day work is challenging in Gaza, I learned over the past ten days that the true test comes with crisis. At exactly the point where most militaries would use the heat of war to throw out the rulebook, we worked harder than ever to provide assistance wherever and whenever possible.

The eight days of Operation "Pillar of Defense" have been some of the hardest I have ever known physically and emotionally. The college student from Arizona would never have thought it possible to work 20 hours a day, fueled only by adrenaline and longing for just an hour of sleep on a shelter floor -- wearing the same filthy uniform because changing, much less showering, wouldn't allow me to get to a shelter in time when the next rocket barrage hit. And no, wearing the green uniform does not mean that you aren't afraid when the sirens sound.

Had you told me four years ago that there were IDF officers who stayed up all night under a hail of rockets, brainstorming ways to import medical supplies and food to the people of Gaza, I am not sure I would have believed you. But I can tell you it is true because I did it every night.

What amazed me the most was the singular sense of purpose that drove everyone from the base commander to the lowest ranking soldier. We were all focused completely on our mission: to help our forces accomplish their goals without causing unnecessary harm to civilian lives or infrastructure.

It is harder to explain the emotional roller-coaster -- how proud and relieved I felt every time a truck I coordinated entered Gaza, and how enraging it was when we had to shut down the crossing into Gaza after Hamas repeatedly targeted it. Or how invigorating it was help evacuate two injured Palestinians from the border area, only to be informed minutes later that a terrorist had detonated a bomb on a bus near my apartment in Tel Aviv.

So after all that I see and do, nothing frustrates me more than the numbers game that is played in the media. The world talks about "disproportionate" numbers of casualties as the measure of what is right and wrong -- as if not enough Israelis were killed by Hamas for the IDF to have the right to protect its own civilians from endless rocket attacks.

In my position, I see the surgical airstrikes, and spend many hours with the UN, ICRC, and NGO officers reviewing maps to help identify, and avoid, striking civilian sites. One of our pilots who saw a rocket aimed at Israel aborted his mission when he saw children nearby -- putting his own civilians at risk to save Gazans.

At the end of the day, what these "disproportionate numbers" show is how we in Israel protect our children with elaborate shelters and missile defense systems, whereas the terror groups in Gaza hide behind theirs, using them as human shields in order to win a cynical media war.

What's really behind the headlines and that picture on the front page? Every day, I coordinate goods with a young Gazan woman who works for an international aid organization. Last month we forged a bond when we had to run for cover together when Hamas targeted Kerem Shalom Crossing -- attacking the very aid provided to its own people.

During the eight days of Operation "Pillar of Defense", not one passed without a phone call, just to check in. "Are youok?" I would ask. "I heard they fired at your base. Please stay safe", she would reply. And every night I made her promise to call me if she needed anything. These are the things that the media fails to show the world, just as they underplay how Hamas deliberately endangers civilians on both sides of the border -- by firing indiscriminately at Israel from Gaza neighborhoods.

Maybe stories such as these make for less exciting headlines, but if they received more attention there would perhaps be more moral clarity, and thus more peace in the Middle East.

Bye-bye London

Caroline Glick - January 21, 2013,
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2013/01/bye-bye-london.php

In an interview with Haaretz in November 2010, British novelist Martin Amis said the following about discussions of Israel in his motherland:

I live in a mildly anti-Semitic country, and Europe is mildly anti-Semitic, and they hold Israel to a higher moral standard than its neighbors. If you bring up Israel in a public meeting in England, the whole atmosphere changes. The standard left-wing person never feels more comfortable than when attacking Israel. Because they are the only foreigners you can attack. Everyone else is protected by having dark skin, or colonial history, or something. But you can attack Israel. And the atmosphere becomes very unpleasant. It is traditional, snobbish, British anti-Semitism combined with present-day circumstances.

After participating last week in a debate in London about Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines organized by the self-consciously pretentious Intelligence Squared debating society, I can now say from personal experience that Amis is correct. The public atmosphere in England regarding Israel is ugly and violent.

The resolution we debated read: "Israel is destroying itself with its settlement policy. If settlement expansion continues Israel will have no future."

My debating partner was Danny Dayan, the outgoing head of the Yesha Council.

We debated Daniel Levy, one of the founders of J-Street and the drafter of the Geneva Initiative, and the son of Lord Michael Levy, one of Tony Blair's biggest fundraisers; and William Sieghart, a British philanthropist who runs a non-profit that among other things, champions Hamas. Levy has publicly stated that Israel's creation was immoral. And Sieghart has a past record of saying that Israel's delegitimization would be a salutary proces and calling for a complete cultural boycott of Israel while lauding Hamas.

We lost overwhelmingly. I think the final vote tally was something like 500 for the resolution and 100 against it.

A couple of impressions I took away from the experience: First, I can say without hesitation that I hope never to return to Britain. I actually don't see any point. Jews are targeted by massive anti-Semitism of both the social and physical varieties. Why would anyone Jewish want to live there?

As to visiting as an Israeli, again, I just don't see the point. The discourse is owned by anti-Israel voices. They don't make arguments to spur thought, but to end it, by appealing to people's passions.

For instance, in one particularly ugly segment, Levy made the scurrilous accusation that Israel systematically steals land from the Palestinians. Both Dayan and I demanded that he provide just one example of his charge. And the audience raged against us for our temerity at insisting that he provide substantiation for his baseless allegation. In the event, he failed to substantiate his allegation.

At another point, I was asked how I defend the Nazi state of Israel. When I responded by among other things giving the Nazi pedigree of the Palestinian nationalist movement founded by Nazi agent Haj Amin el Husseini and currently led by Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas, the crowd angrily shouted me down.

I want to note that the audience was made up of upper crust, wealthy British people, not unwashed rabble rousers. And yet they behaved in many respects like a mob when presented with pro-Israel positions.

I honestly don't know whether there are policy implications that arise from my experience in London last week. I have for a long time been of the opinion that Israel shouldn't bother to try to win over Europe because the Europeans have multiple reasons for always being anti-Israel and none of them have anything to do with anything that Israel does. As I discuss in my book, these reasons include anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, addiction to Arab oil, and growing Muslim populations in Europe.

I was prepared to conduct a civilized debate based on facts and reasoned argumentation. I expected it to be a difficult experience. I was not expecting to be greeted by a well-dressed mob. My pessimism about Europeans' capacity to avail themselves to reasoned, fact-based argumentation about Israel has only deepened from the experience.

One positive note, I had a breakfast discussion last Wednesday morning with activists from the Zionist Federation of Britain. The people I met are committed, warm, hardworking Zionists. I wish them all the best, and mainly that means, that I hope that these wonderful people and their families make aliyah.

While their work is worthwhile, there is no future for Jews in England.

Egypt’s U.S.-Subsidized Politics of Hate

Jonathan S. Tobin
01.15.2013

http://tinyurl.com/ajjwn75

Better late than never is the only way one can describe the New York Times’s decision to run an article about Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s history of anti-Semitic slanders. As we wrote here on Contentions two weeks ago, a video of an Egyptian TV interview with the Muslim Brotherhood leader from 2010 has surfaced in which he describes Israelis as “the descendants of apes and pigs” and called for a boycott of the United States. As I noted at the time, revelations about the nature of what passes for rhetoric about Israel and the Jews might come as a shock to readers of the Times–since much of their news coverage, as well as the work of op-ed columnists like Nicholas Kristof, had sought to portray the Brotherhood as moderate and friendly people who just happen to be Muslims–but not to those who have been following these developments without the rose-colored glasses that liberals seem to require to discuss the Arab world. The conceit of the piece about Morsi’s comment is, however, to call attention to the difficult position the Egyptian president has been placed in by reports about his despicable language.

Egyptian figures quoted by the Times get the last word here, as they seem to argue that it isn’t reasonable to expect Morsi to apologize since to do so leaves him vulnerable to criticism from his Islamist supporters and their allies who like that kind of talk. The conclusion seems to be that Americans should judge Morsi only by his recent behavior that has been aimed at least partly at ensuring that the flow of billions of dollars of U.S. aid should continue.

The problem is that Morsi’s use of a phrase that is commonly employed throughout the Muslim world to describe Jews as well as other comments that are straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is so common in Egypt as to make it almost unexceptionable. That is no small measure the result of Brotherhood propaganda and mainstream Islamist thought in which demonization of Israelis, Jews and Americans is commonplace. Try as writers like Kristof might to paint the Brotherhood as a responsible political movement, Jew-hatred is one of its core beliefs. The question here is not so much whether Morsi will publicly disavow these slurs but whether the Obama administration will continue to buy into the myth that Morsi is some kind of a moderate whose government deserves to continue to be treated as an ally.

The administration has tread carefully with Morsi over the last several months, even as he moved quickly to consolidate power in Egypt. With the apparent approval of Washington, Morsi has sought to eliminate any possible check on his ability to govern more or less in the same fashion as deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak. Though the Timesmore or less admits that Morsi’s rhetoric provides us a window as to how he would govern were he not restrained by his need for U.S. cash and Egypt’s relative military weakness, the underlying assumption seems to be that it is America’s interest to prefer him to any possible alternative. It also assumes that Morsi’s influence on events in the region, such as Hamas’s missile offensive against Israel last November, has been entirely benevolent.

In fact, Hamas’s aggressive attitude and risk taking as well as its attempt to increase its influence in the Fatah-controlled West Bank is directly related to the rise of the Brotherhood in Cairo. It is true that President Obama cannot be entirely blamed for the creation of this mess since Mubarak would have fallen no matter what the U.S. did. But his subsequent coddling of Morsi and the Brotherhood as well as the rebukes issued to the Egyptian military set the stage for a situation in which the most populous country in the Arab world is run by a raging anti-Semite who is working to undermine U.S. influence in the region and to strengthen radical forces while being subsidized by American taxpayers.

Morsi’s talk about “apes and pigs” is not a side issue to be ignored in the name of stability or preserving an American ally. It goes straight to the heart of whether Egypt should be treated as a nation ruled by a radical and hostile government that is confident that nothing it does will cause it to lose its American subsidy.
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We think it appropriate to bring to the attention of our readers in the UK an event on the 29th January in Hackney, London ” The Other Side of the Wall”, at which there will be an opportunity to meet a Palestinian from the West Bank who now stands with Israel.

Details can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/baaw3qn

Abbas Reinstates a Radical Political Doctrine

Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

• Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader of the PLO and the Fatah movement, presented a radical political doctrine in his speech on January 4, 2013, honoring the anniversary of Fatah's establishment. The messages Abbas conveys express the political and national vision that he bequeaths to the Palestinian people.

• In his speech Abbas avoids all mention of a historic compromise with Israel that would bring the conflict to an end. Nor does he mention the land-for-peace formula or the establishment of a Palestinian state beside Israel. Instead, Abbas chose to reemphasize that the Palestinian people remain on the path of struggle to realize "the dream of return" of the Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants.

• Abbas pledged to continue the path of struggle of previous Palestinian leaders, mentioning the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who forged a strategic alliance with Nazi Germany, and heads of Palestinian terror organizations who were directly responsible for the murder of thousands of Israeli civilians. All are equal and suitable partners in the Palestinian struggle, and their ideological platform, even if it is terrorist and/or radical-Islamist, is a source of inspiration for the Palestinian people.

• In honor of the anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, at the end of December the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military arm of Fatah, held parades of armed men in the city of Hebron, the town of Bani Na'im, and the Kalandia refugee camp just north of Jerusalem. In Hebron and Bani Na'im, scores of activists armed with assault rifles participated.

• Anyone who expected that Abbas would follow a more moderate course after the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 2012, upgrading the status of the PLO's Observer Mission to that of an observer state, was undoubtedly disappointed with Abbas' remarks. He was not preparing the Palestinian people for making peace, but rather reverting to rhetoric perpetuating and even escalating the conflict.

Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi is a senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He is a co-founder of the Orient Research Group Ltd. and is a former advisor to the Policy Planning Division of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader of the PLO and the Fatah movement, who lately has also been exalted with the title “president of the state of Palestine,” presented a radical political doctrine in his speech on January 4, 2013, honoring the anniversary of Fatah’s establishment. Abbas spoke by telephone from Ramallah to a crowd of thousands gathered in Gaza’s Al-Saraya Square.

Abbas’ speech is of great importance because he directly addresses the activists of the movement, who are the main propof the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian people as a whole. The messages Abbas conveys in his speech to the nation express more than any other statement the political and national vision that he bequeaths to the Palestinian people, in terms of which he asks them to proceed.

In his speech Abbas avoids all mention of a historic compromise with Israel that would bring the conflict to an end. Nor does he mention the land-for-peace formula, the establishment of a Palestinian state beside Israel, recognition of Israel, or Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Instead, Abbas chose to reemphasize that the Fatah movement has not changed since the day of its establishment – marked by its first anti-Israel terror attack on January 1, 1965 – and that the Palestinian people remain on the path of struggle. The keywords in his speech were the “dreams” and “national goals” to be achieved; that is, “historical justice,” as the Palestinians view it. Translated into the language of action, that means, according to Abbas, “realizing the dream of return” of the Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants.

Abbas reinforced his uncompromising message with a pledge to continue the path of struggle of previous Palestinian leaders, mentioning the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who forged a strategic alliance with Nazi Germany, and heads of Palestinian terror organizations who were directly responsible for the murder of thousands of Israeli civilians, including Halil al-Wazir Abu Jihad (Fatah), Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (Hamas), Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi (Hamas), Fathi al-Shikaki (Islamic Jihad), George Habash (Popular Front), Abu Ali Mustafa (Popular Front), Abu al-Abbas (Arab Liberation Front), and Izzadin al-Qassam (leader of the jihad war against the Jewish Yishuv and the British in the 1930s).

Abbas refrained from setting red lines for the “Palestinian struggle,” condemning terror, or denouncing Palestinian terror organizations and leaders. All of these, in his view, are equal and suitable partners in the Palestinian struggle, and their ideological platform, even if it is terrorist and/or radical-Islamist, is a source of inspiration for the Palestinian people in their ongoing endeavor to achieve their national goals.

This is not just a matter of lip-service about solidarity with historical leaders who have left this world. Abbas regards the tradition of national unity with Palestinian terror organizations as an imperative and a duty that are incumbent on him and on the Palestinian people, a key to “realization of the dreams” – in other words, the destruction of the State of Israel.

In honor of the anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, at the end of December the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the military arm of Fatah, held parades of armed men in the city of Hebron, the town of Bani Na’im, and the Kalandia refugee camp just north of Jerusalem. In Hebron and Bani Na’im, scores of activists armed with assault rifles participated.

Anyone who expected that Abbas would follow a more moderate course after the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 2012, upgrading the status of the PLO’s Observer Mission to that of an observer state, was undoubtedly disappointed with Abbas’ remarks. He was not preparing the Palestinian people for making peace, but rather reverting to rhetoric perpetuating and even escalating the conflict.

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The following is a translation of Abbas’ speech:

In the name of Allah the merciful and compassionate, O members of our heroic Palestinian people, O members of heroic Fatah, O heroic residents of Gaza:

Peace on all of you, dear Gaza, peace on you O Gaza of Hashim [grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad], O the one [Gaza] that clasps the struggle to its soul, all through its bitter history and various forms, peace on you O Gaza, O those born from its womb, the first cells of your pioneering movement [that were set up] in 1957, some eight years before it was founded on January 1, 1965, peace on you O Gaza, which launched the First Intifada.

Peace on the souls of your martyrs [shahids] O Gaza, and peace on you who have taken the patient path and are gathered in Al-Saraya Square, square of the martyr Yasser Arafat, to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the Palestinian revolution. Peace to the heroes who bore the burden and the pain so as to maintain the national Palestinian personality. Peace to those who stand firm against the blockade. Peace to every sister and brother of you, every son and daughter.

To all I send all my love from the bottom of my heart.

My brothers and my sisters, this mass gathering is being held on the anniversary of your revolution, which began under the most difficult of conditions. Our situation on the day of the establishment [of the Fatah movement] was harder than our situation today, since the world had not recognized the existence of our people outside the context of the expulsions and the misery, and we did not have an entity nor a state on the political map of the world, which regarded us as a problem of refugees who needed nothing more than charity. Yet the spearhead of this proud people decided to alter the course of history. Your modern revolution transformed the problem of your people through sacrifice, determination, and faith in the reality of a state with a flag of its own, to be flown at the United Nations beside the flags of the rest of the countries of the world.

The Fatah of yesterday is the Fatah of today. It was established for the sake of Palestine, and Palestine remained its compass, and it upheld the ideal that cannot be questioned, that of fealty to the [Palestinian] problem, and according to [this principle] national unity is the foundation of the national Palestinian endeavor and safeguarding the national identity is the first priority. If it were not for unity in the framework of Fatah, the sole legitimate representative that will not be divided and will not be replaced, we could not have progressed from a situation of misery and from refugee tents to a situation in which the [Palestinian] problem is the most important one in the international arena. In this context of the struggle of the heroes, the Palestinian problem has become a symbol of liberation, of defiance, and of rebellion against injustice and tyranny all over the world!

I bless you, sons of our people and those congregated in the square of the martyr Yasser Arafat, on this wonderful day marking the establishment of [the movement], which became a foundational moment in our path of struggle, and which is exalted in the restoration of the national unity that has no substitute when it comes to achieving our national objectives.

I bless you and strengthen the hand of each of you, since you have inscribed [on the pages of history] the most wonderful epics of heroism, patience, and steadfastness, and you have remained firm in your hearts even as your role in worthy actions and in sacrifices along this path increased, as, for example, when the names of the martyrs and the gravestones of leaders multiplied, commanders of the struggle and warriors, innocent children, mothers and sisters, who fell in the path of freedom amid all the Israeli aggression that wreaked injustice, and to which our precious [Gaza] Strip was subjected!

Brothers and sisters, all of our Palestinian people lives under occupation and blockade, while our eyes and our hearts are directed at Al-Quds [Jerusalem], which is being subjected to an enormous settlement campaign, in which the occupiers compete with time and think it is an opportunity [for them], and under these circumstances the obligation falls on all of us, Palestinians and those who are not Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, and with us the liberals in the world, to unite our efforts, our hearts, and our resolve for the rescue of Al-Quds, our eternal capital city, and this by providing the means and elements of steadfastness, and support for the residents of the city, righteous Muslims and Christians.

And as for Gaza, the first Palestinian soil from which the army and the colonists exited, we focus our thoughts on ending the blockade imposed on it, so that Gaza will be free and liberated and connected to all the other parts of our homeland.

On the anniversary [of Fatah] we renew with a faithful heart the pledge to the heroic martyrs to walk in the path of the brother-martyr Abu Amar [Arafat] and his brother-friends, the leaders of all the national forces: Abu Jihad, Abu Iyyad, Abd al-Fatah Hamud, Abu Ali Ayyad, Abu Sabri Saydam, Abu Yusuf al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan, Kamal Nasser, Abu al-Walid Saad Sa’il, Faisal Husseini, Abu al-Hol, Abu al-Mondhir, Abu al-Said, Ahmed Yassin, Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi, Ismail Abu Shanab, Fathi al-Shikaki, Majed Abu Sharar, Suleiman al-Najab, Bashir al-Barghouti, Hani al-Hassan, Abu Ali Mustafa, Abu al-Abbas, Samir Rusha, Abu al-Abd Khatab, and tens of thousands of heroic martyrs, and here it is obligatory to mention the first pioneers: the Mufti of Palestine, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Ahmed al-Shukeiri, Yehiyeh Hamuda, Izzadin al-Qassam. These left on our shoulders and on our conscience their last bequest to continue in the path and to act in unity, and there is no other alternative than unity for achieving the national objectives and arriving at victory.

Blessings to our heroic prisoners and a blessing to all the members of our people in the homeland and in the diaspora and in every place where the Palestinians have agreed on the united dreams and objectives and the fulfillment of the dream of return. In the near future, with the help of Allah, we will achieve our unity on the road to ending the occupation so that the flag of the state of Palestine will wave over the churches of Al-Quds and the minarets of the mosques, as our eternal martyred leader Yasser Arafat reiterated at every opportunity, and we, with the help of Allah and the resolve of our people and the support of the friends and the brothers and the free world, will realize our objectives, and we will celebrate on the next anniversary of the revolution that has begun, so as to achieve the victory, and the victory will come, will come, will come.

With the help of Allah we will meet with you in proud Gaza very soon.

Source: http://www.wafa.ps/arabic/index.php?action=detail&id=145853  

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Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi is a senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He is a co-founder of the Orient Research Group Ltd. and is a former advisor to the Policy Planning Division of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.