A German's View of Islam.

A message to liberals, main stream media & anyone appeasing Islam.

I used to know a man whose family were German aristocracy prior to World War II.  They owned a number of large industries and estates.  I asked him how many German people were true Nazis, and the answer he gave has stuck with me and guided my attitude toward fanaticism ever since.

"Very few people were true Nazis," he said, "but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care.  I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools.  So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen.  Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything.  I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories."

We are told again and again by experts and talking heads that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.  Although this unquantified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history.  It is the fanatics who march.  It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars world wide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.  It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or execute honor killings. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.  It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The hard, quantifiable fact is that the "peaceful majority" is the "silent majority," and it is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people.  The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.  The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a war-mongering sadist.  Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across Southeast Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians -- most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery? Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were "peace loving"?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt; yet, for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by the fanatics. Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because, like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Bosnians, Afghanis, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians and many others, have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.  As for us, watching it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts: the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

By Paul Marek
http://www.israelnationalnews.com

A New Front in the War on Journalista

As I noted earlier today, the government’s treatment of Fox News reporter James Rosen betrayed the Obama administration’s unhinged obsession with targeting journalists. But as troubling as that is, the problem goes deeper than the attempt by the Department of Justice to eviscerate the First Amendment. The news that one of the reporters who had been aggressively covering the Benghazi scandal had her computer tampered with should alarm more than just her fellow scribes. So, too, should the increasingly shrill attacks from the president’s cheering section on other journalists who have been following the stories about government misconduct.

As Politico reports:

Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter, says that her personal and work computers have been compromised and are under investigation.

“I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I’m not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I’ve been patient and methodical about this matter,” Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public.”

In an earlier interview with WPHT Philadelphia, Attkisson said that though she did not know the full details of the intrusion, “there could be some relationship between these things and what’s happened to James [Rosen].”

Like the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups, this incident illustrates the old line that said just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. After what happened to the Associated Press and Rosen, no one should be dismissing out of hand the notion that what’s going on with Attkisson is a matter of foul play.

While that doesn’t allow us to jump to conclusions, let’s also understand what we’ve been witnessing in the last week as the president’s supporters reeled in the face of a deluge of scandals that they are trying desperately to minimize or dismiss as the figment of conservative imaginations. The widespread sliming of ABC News’s Jonathan Karl—who followed up the reporting of the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes on the Benghazi emails—by the left is part of this equation. In particular, the misleading and vicious attacks by the left-wing groups Media Matters and FAIR on Karl tells us a lot about the way the president’s supporters view the stakes in this debate. They aren’t interested in winning a debate. They want to silence opposing views.

Liberals mocked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s claims over the weekend that the president and his staff have instilled “a culture of intimidation” throughout the government that can be linked to the IRS scandal. But the connection isn’t just to the outrageous behavior of the IRS, for which we’ve yet to receive an answer to the question of who ordered the targeting and why they did it. The blithe manner with which the Department of Justice has spied on journalists and the willingness to smear anyone who calls out the White House on any of these manners is a symptom of what really is a latter-day version of Nixonian tactics.

Some may consider it self-serving that even the liberal mainstream press is undergoing what Jonah Goldberg wittily referred to as their own version of the “Arab Spring,” as so many have finally awoken to the fact that the Obama administration is ensnared in a web of deceptions. The out-of-control nature of the president’s belief in big government isn’t just about taking over health care, it’s also about expanding the reach of the federal leviathan into every aspect of public life in ways that chill the practice of journalism and undermine our freedoms. Make fun of these newly-minted Obama skeptics all you want. The attack on the free press represents a fundamental threat to our democracy.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/

Posted with Blogsy

PMW reports prompt debate in Danish Parliament about its funding of the PA

Danish MP: "What will the Foreign Minister do to ensure

that our money is spent on the intended purpose,

and not on terrorists?"

Following Palestinian Media Watch's exposure of the Palestinian Authority's glorification of terrorists and payment of high salaries to security prisoners, including terrorists convicted of murder, debates have ensued in European Parliaments, among them Norway, the UK and Holland. Now, Denmark's financial aid to the PA is likewise being questioned in Danish Parliament.

Danish MP Søren Espersen asked Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal:

"Norway has started [investigating PA use of funding], the UK has started and they are asking: What's going on? ... What I want the [Foreign] Minister to do is to say: 'It matters to us very much that every coin we send [to the PA] for one purpose or another should be thoroughly checked...' What will the Foreign Minister do to ensure us that our money is spent on [the intended] purpose, and not on terrorists?"

Click to view

Two weeks earlier, MP Espersen had posed a similar question in writing to the Foreign Minister, inquiring whether Denmark and the EU were funding Palestinian terrorist prisoners. His question followed PMW's release of an interview with the wife of a prisoner who complained on PA TV that her imprisoned husband had complete control of his PA salary, leaving her and her children in poverty. Her statements confirmed PMW's repeated reports that the prisoner, not the family, is in control of the PA salary, and proved wrong the PA's claims repeated by the governments of Norway and the UK that the prisoner salaries are "social aid" that is given to the families.

Citing PMW's report, MP Espersen asked:

"Can the [Foreign] Minister confirm the statement from the wife of a jailed Palestinian terrorist, in which she says that the Palestinian Authority pays money to terrorist prisoners, which logically means that Denmark and the EU support terrorist prisoners financially - as evidenced by this link [to PMW report on salaries paid to the prisoners and not to the families]?"

In his written response, Danish Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal said he was "not able to confirm the specific statement referred to with the enclosed link to Palestinian Media Watch." He then repeated the false information that the PA supports the families and not the prisoners:

"The PA pays various transfer payments outside of the EU's budget support,including support for families of Palestinians serving prison sentences in Israeli prisons or those detained administratively." (See complete answer of Danish Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal below.)

PMW notes that the PMW report and video that the Danish Foreign Minister could "not confirm" is still accessible online. In that video, the PA Minister of Prisoners' Affairs Issa Karake himself confirms that the prisoner, and not his wife, controls his own monthly salary. Despite this, the Danish Foreign Minister continues to maintain that the PA pays "support for families" and refuses to acknowledge that the PA pays salaries to the prisoners, who then control to whom they can pass on the salary.

Click to see PMW's latest report on the developing story in Norway.
Click to see PMW's latest report on the debate in the UK.
Click to see PMW's report to the Dutch Foreign Affairs Committee on PA glorification of terrorists.

The following is an excerpt of Danish MP Søren Espersen's question to Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal in Parliament about Danish funding going to imprisoned Palestinian terrorists, April 24, 2013, followed by the Minister's answer:

MP Espersen: "The idea was really to get some control over the money we (Denmark) send [to the PA]. Perhaps that is something the Foreign Minister could start to address. This is happening on a large scale in Norway at the moment. [They] are preparing a hearing on what the money from Norway [to the PA] is actually spent on. Is it, for example, as rumors have said on Norwegian TV, spent on [salary] payments for convicted terrorists [imprisoned] for life and their relatives, who are living good lives because one of their relatives has carried out a terrorist attack? Norway has started [investigating this], the UK has started and [they] are asking: What's going on? What I want the [Foreign] Minister to do, is to say: "It matters to us very much that every coin we send for one purpose or another should be thoroughly checked. What is it spent on? Is this what we want?" This is what I ask of the Minister, especially in cases that have to do with rewarding jihadists and terrorists who detonate bombs among civilians. What will the Foreign Minister do to ensure us that our money is spent on its intended purpose, and not on terrorists?"

Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal: "We continuously monitor the money we send [to the PA] to make sure it ends up precisely at the humanitarian causes, we support: Among other things, the purpose of ensuring the payment of salaries to employees, ensuring that senior citizens receive their pensions, and ensuring that there is a security structure in Palestine or the West Bank, which, in the long run and also in the here and now, [will] mean security for Israel. Naturally, I am somewhat engaged in this discussion because I think this world would be a much more peaceful place the day we succeed in achieving a two-state solution.
I heard Obama's speech when he recently visited Palestine and Israel. He gave an excellent talk about the children, who, whether born in Israel [or not], have a legitimate right to live in safety, and Palestinian children who also have a claim to a hope for a future. If the international community is not able to deliver the answers, from the EU, the US, and the UN, then I'm afraid the current deadlocked situation will continue, to the detriment of the people living in Palestine in the long term and also to the detriment of those people living in Israel."

[Danish Parliament debate, April 24, 2013, Excerpt from Question no. US 126

by MP Søren Espersen (DF, Danish People's Party)
to Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal (SF, Socialist People's Party)]

For full video of Q&A session in Danish, see:
http://www.ft.dk/webtv/video/20121/salen/85.aspx?i=2013-04-24T13:09:04&o=2013-04-24T13:18:43&ti=M%C3%B8de%20i%20Folketingssalen&dsc=Dato%3A%2024-04-2013&h=255&w=350

The following is an excerpt of Danish MP Søren Espersen's written question to Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal of April 10, 2013, followed by the Minister's answer of April 15, 2013:

Danish Parliament, April 10, 2013, Written Question no. S 1619 About imprisoned terrorists from MP Søren Espersen (DF, Danish People's Party) to Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal:

Question by MP Søren Espersen: "Can the [Foreign] Minister confirm the statement from the wife of a jailed Palestinian terrorist, in which she says that the Palestinian Authority pays money to terrorist prisoners, which logically means that Denmark and the EU support terrorist prisoners financially - as evidenced by this link [to PMW report on salaries paid to the prisoners and not to the families]?" http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8783

[§20-Question S-1619 About imprisoned terrorists,

by MP Søren Espersen to Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal,
submitted April 10, 2013]

Answer by Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not able to confirm the specific statement referred to with the enclosed link to Palestinian Media Watch.
In general, [we] refer to the answer to 22.8.2011 of URU 229. It appears from [this answer] that the EU supports the Palestinian Authority partly through budget support and partly through a series of aid investments and projects. Particularly the budget support aims to ensure the PA's ability to offer a wide range of basic services to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The EU's support for the Authority's general budget is mainly used for monthly transfers for salaries and pensions to government employees, senior citizens and vulnerable Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza. EU support to vulnerable Palestinian families is conditional upon the individual family's financial situation, and recipients are screened thoroughly, among other things, on the basis of international sanctions lists. In addition, the PA pays various transfer payments outside of the EU's budget support, including support for families of Palestinians serving prison sentences in Israeli prisons or those detained administratively. According to the PA, such transfer payments are granted according to the length of the sentence and not its nature."

[Answer submitted April 15, 2013 by Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal

to §20-Question S-1619 About imprisoned terrorists by MP Søren Espersen]

For Danish version of this Q&A, see:
http://www.ft.dk/samling/20121/spoergsmaal/S1619/svar/1045214/1237431/index.htm


http://palwatch.org/
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Posted with Blogsy

Despite secrecy, interest builds around mysterious First Temple find outside Bethlehem

A 2,800-year-old pillar discovered by a tour guide under a Palestinian orchard points to major construction dating from Biblical times. So why isn’t it being excavated?

A mysterious First Temple-era archaeological find under a Palestinian orchard near Bethlehem is increasingly gaining attention — despite attempts to keep it quiet.

In February, a tour guide leading a group through an underground tunnel in the rural West Bank, not far from Jerusalem, was surprised to stumble upon the remains of a unique carved pillar.

The pillar matched monumental construction from the 9th or 8th centuries BCE — the time of the First Temple in Jerusalem. That signaled the presence of an important and previously unknown structure from that period.

Buried under earth and rubble, the pillar was now two yards below the surface.

The guide, Binyamin Tropper, notified antiquities officials. He was surprised when they encouraged him to leave the subject and the site alone, said Tropper, who works at an educational field school at Kibbutz Kfar Etzion.

“They told me — we know about it, keep it quiet,” he said.

The remains are in the politically charged West Bank, on the outskirts of an Arab village and on land privately owned by a Palestinian — all reasons the Israeli government might deem attempting an excavation there a major political headache to be avoided.

When it became clear that antiquities officials did not intend to excavate what he believed to be a potentially huge find, Tropper went to the Hebrew press, where several reports have appeared on inside pages in recent weeks.

Tropper has kept the location secret to avoid attracting the attention of antiquities thieves.

Early this month, several prominent Israeli archaeologists were brought to inspect the site. Among them was Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeology professor from Hebrew University.

There is no doubt the remains are those of monumental construction from the time of the First Temple, Garfinkel said.

The top of the pillar, known as a capital, is of a type known as proto-aeolic, he said. That style dates to around 2,800 years ago.

Another view of the recently discovered pillar
(Courtesy of Binyamin Tropper/Kfar Etzion Field School)

The pillar marks the entrance to a carved water tunnel reaching 250 yards underground, he said, complex construction that would almost certainly have been carried out by a central government. At the time, the area was ruled by Judean kings in nearby Jerusalem.

In its scale and workmanship, Garfinkel said, the tunnel evokes another grand water project of First Temple times — the Siloam Tunnel in Jerusalem, now underneath the modern-day Arab neighborhood of Silwan. That project is believed to have been undertaken by the biblical king Hezekiah to channel water into the city ahead of an Assyrian siege in the 8th century BCE, according to an account in the biblical Book of Kings.

The existence of a large water tunnel at the new site suggests the presence nearby of a large farm or palace, Garfinkel said.

“The construction is first-rate,” he said. “There is definitely something important there from biblical times, the 9th or 8th centuries BCE.”

Archaeology in the Holy Land has long been caught up in modern-day politics. The Zionist movement always viewed unearthing remnants of the ancient past as a way of proving the depth of Jewish roots in the land. Palestinians, for their part, have increasingly taken to denying the existence of any ancient Jewish history and tend to condemn all archaeology conducted by Israel as an attempt to cement political control.

Palestinians would thus be unlikely to be sympathetic to the discovery of a new site of significance to Israel on land they claim for a future state.

Tropper, the guide, said he hoped interest from professional archaeologists would prod the government to conduct an excavation. The site could be a source of income for the Palestinian owners and the nearby village, he suggested.

The Israel Antiquities Authority has been careful in its public responses to reports of the new finding, but did not rule out an excavation.

“This is indeed an important find, which preliminary information dates to the time of the kings of Judah,” the authority said in a statement Sunday.

“At the same time, it should be known that the subject is sensitive and requires treatment that is delicate and responsible. The Antiquities Authority, along with all other relevant authorities, has been dealing with this for some time in an attempt to bring about the complete excavation of the remains, and will continue its attempts to do so.”

Matti Friedman

Israel's History in Pictures: Women for the State

Library of Congress Archive: 1939 Jewish Demonstration against the British White Paper -- Led by the Grandes Dames of Jerusalem.

The British Mandatory forces brutally crushed the Arab Revolt in Palestine (1936-1939). Despite their heavy losses, however, the Arabs succeeded politically in forcing the British government to severely limit Jewish immigration and land purchases in Palestine.

In 1939, the British government headed by Neville Chamberlain issued the "MacDonald White Paper," a policy paper which called for the establishment of a single Palestine state governed by Arabs and Jews based on their respective populations and basically ending Jewish immigration to Israel. The White Paper was approved by the British Parliament in May 1939, thus signing the death sentences of millions of Jews precisely when the Nazi tide was threatening to engulf Europe.

Palestine's Jews demonstrated in Jerusalem against the White Paper on May 18, 1939. The American Colony photographers returned four days later to film the protest of the women of the Yishuv, led by some of the leading women figures in Jerusalem at the time: Ita Yellin, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, and Sarah Herzog.

The women protestors were led by (right to left) those featured in the picture that can be seen on Arutz Sheva's main page: Rachel Yanai Ben-Zvi, Rabbanit Sarah Herzog and Ita Yellin protesting the British White Paper (May 22, 1939). Library of Congress caption: "The procession of young women raising their right hands in attestation to their claim."

The women heard speakers on Jaffa Rd and marched on King George St. One of the signs they carried translates roughly to "There is no betrayal for the Eternal of Israel", alluding to G-d's promises to the Jewish people

Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi arrived in the Land of Israel from the Ukraine in 1908, and she emerged as a leading figure in political Zionist organizations and the early Labor Party. She married Yitzchak Ben-Zvi who succeeded Chaim Weizmann as Israel's second president.

Ita Yellin made aliya to Palestine as a 12-year-old in 1880. Her father, Yehiel Michal Pines, was a well-known rabbi in what is known today as Belarus and a leader of the religious Zionist movement.

Ita Yellin headed the Ezrat Nashim charitable organization in Jerusalem, later known as the Hospital for the Chronically and Mentally Ill. She was married to Prof. David Yellin, a prominent educator, Zionist leader and Hebraist.

Sarah Herzog, known as the "Rabbanit," was married to the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Yitzchak Isaac Herzog. They moved to Eretz Yisrael in 1936 when he succeeded the Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook .

Mrs. Herzog succeeded Ita Yellin as volunteer head of Ezrat Nashim Hospital, displaying tremendous energy and tenacity to gather support for the hospital which is today named the Sarah Herzog Hospital in her honor. She founded the still-flourishing World Emunah Religious Zionist Women's Movement.

In the picture above, the women protesters against the British White Paper are stopped near the King David Hotel by a cordon of British police.

1939 Jewish Demonstration against the British White Paper --
 Led by the Grandes Dames of Jerusalem



source

IDF Latest Response to Arab Riots: ‘Nerf’ Bullets

The rules of engagement remain as crazy as before, but now with less effective weapons.

Arab rioters hurling rocks at Israeli soldiers during clashes in the village of Aboud, near Ramallah, March 8, 2013. 

Facing increased criticism from soldiers in the field, both enlisted and reservists, for issuing crazy-making orders and impossible rules of engagement, the IDF has decided to improve things by enhancing the technology available to the men and women in uniform facing Arab rock and Molotov cocktail throwers.

The Central Command, which controls Judea and Samaria, is examining the possibility of integrating a new non-lethal bullet to replace its rubber bullets. The new variety is a 40-millimeter bullet with a sponge tip—a “Nerf” bullet, if you will—giving it the advantage of being safe at close range. Maj. Yuval Yaron, head of weapons and technology for the Central Command, stated that the new bullets are currently undergoing testing at the Chief Medical Officer’s headquarters and are expected to be integrated by the end of the year.

Of course, the soldiers have not been complaining about their weapons, but about the confusing orders they must follow, orders that read like something produced by a team of commercial attorneys:

Responding on Friday to a highly critical article in Makor Rishon (IDF Soldiers Humiliated by Arab Rioters: We Are Sitting Ducks),read below) the IDF Spokesperson’s Office stated: “The IDF forces in Judea and Samaria are challenged daily by a complex reality requiring professionalism and determination together with judgment. The rules of engagement in Judea and Samaria facilitate an appropriate range of responses to a wide variety of threats faced by IDF forces and they are tested occasionally according to evaluations. It must be stressed that taking immediate action against violators of the public order and popular terror activists does not negate determined and effective action, and at its root lies the understanding that as small a number of injured as possible would help guard the security stability in the region.”

Now go fight for your country, young man…

Then there’s the special piñata suit:

Soldiers of the Central Command have already begun using new protective suits, and they will receive hundreds more in the coming month. The suits, which include a pair of special protective gloves, protect a soldier’s shoulders, chest, back, groin, thighs and calves. They are designed to absorb shocks, stones and clubs.

Yeah! We still can’t do anything against those Arab rioters, but now it’ll hurt less.

Last month, the Central Command’s Fire Formation received dozens of GPS units made by GARMIN, which specializes in satellite navigation devices. The devices are designed for navigation in the field, and they allow users to establish specialized routes. “It is a very user-friendly device which is right now designated for soldiers from special units only,” Maj. Yaron explained.

If you didn’t get what this means, it’s about a squad of soldiers having to escape in a hurry when a crowd of Arabs converges on them from all over and they’re not allowed to engage them—if they open fire, they’ll be investigated and go to jail.

Obviously, it isn’t the soldiers who need a GPS urgently, it’s the IDF brass and the Israeli politicians who’ve set out to destroy the best army in the region.

* * * *

IDF Soldiers Humiliated by Arab Rioters: We Are Sitting Ducks

You must read the IDF Spokesperson's response, it is a doozy!

Arabs kicking IDF soldier on the ground.

Enlisted soldiers and reservists from across the political spectrum expose the IDF failure in Judea and Samaria stone throwing and firebombing incidents: silence, ignoring reality, conflicting commands, entrenchment and escape.

“What you feel at the frontline is that they’re telling you, really, ‘Be a sponge, be a potted plant, just don’t make us look bad, don’t start fires.’ I can tell you that what happened to our company at this frontline is that people have undergone change. People have been educated into paralysis,” says Master Sergeant Y., 31′ who recently completed his reserves stint in an infantry battalion in Hebron.

The above testimony of a soldiers who has served at the Judea and Samaria front is not unique. It is part of several dozen testimonies accumulated in recent weeks by researchers for Makor Rishon from reserves soldiers and enlisted men, and they all tell a very similar story:

In hundreds of events of Arab provocation which frequently included stone and firebomb throwing at IDF soldiers, the IDF reaction has been silence, ignoring the provocations, entrenchment and escape.

The soldiers who were interviewed belong to the full political and cultural span: religious and secular, left and right wing.

When asked to describe their experiences at the frontline, they all used very similar expressions: “shame,” “humiliation,” “castration,” and “impotence.”

They spoke freely of situations where they ran away or hid from Arabs. “We went out to do a block and check between two villages at one in the morning,” M., 28, a company commander who did his reserve duty near Ramallah, recalled. “After 15 minutes in the field, we strated hearing whistles from the nearby village. We realized they were going to violate the public order. We were eight altogether, I was the chief. I knew it would take time to receive backup if we asked for it. I said, ‘It’s jot for us,” and we pulled out. We simply vanished. We ran.

“I came out of it nervous. I felt defeated. My soldiers told me, there we go again, fleeing the scene. IDF defeatism. I felt we had been brought out there as pawns in a game of chess, just to show up, not to act.”

Many soldiers argue that they aren’t being permitted to take care of violations of the public order, as well as of rock and firebomb throwing, while the number of these events keeps going up.

“You stand there like a dummy with nothing to do,” L., 25, a recently discharged Armor officer who served in Judea and Samaria related. “The policy is ‘Restraint,’ they call it ‘Containment,’ all kind of laundered words and nonsense. We are completely neutralized. We are soldiers with weapons, five magazines each, but our hands are cuffed behind our backs. We’re not permitted to defend ourselves at the most elementary level. How is it even conceivable that someone would raise his hand on an IDF soldiers and would get to remain standing, even smiling? But that’s the atmosphere right now.”

In recent weeks, enlisted and reservist IDF soldiers started a Facebook group called “Let the IDF Win,” whose goal is to educate the public and bring about a substantial change in the rules of engagement.

Senior IDF officers insist there’s nothing wrong with the rules of engagement, only in their application. Many agree that there is a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding, even defeatism, born by a permanent disconnect between the top brass and the fighting men and women on the ground. The most damaging component here is the threat of an investigation, should soldier react forcefully to Arab provocation.

“The spirit has changed,” L. explains. “There’s no longer an eagerness for action, for confrontation. Our feeling, as middle rank officers, is that even when action is called for, you’re better off not acting. If you do something, it’ll only end up with investigations and trouble.”

L. described a situation where an Arab “mooned” him right in front of his face. He says he felt humiliated, but when his soldiers urged him to shoot the Arab with a rubber bullet, preferably right in the “moon,” he told them to calm down.

“Because when the investigators ask me why I shot him, and I said it was because I felt humiliated, that’s not a good enough answer,” he explains.

Sergeant Y., 33, an infantry reservist, originally from France, was injured from rock throwing in Nebi Salach this winter. “I’m lying down and above me they’re throwing rocks. Not tennis ball-size rocks, cinder blocks, cement blocks, ceramic tiles – they each weigh as much as 50 lbs. And no one is responding. My buddies are saying, ‘We asked for permission.’ And I’m waiting -–and nothing happens.”

The IDF Spokesperson’s Office’s response reads like something written by a team of legal and psychological experts: “The IDF forces in Judea and Samaria are challenged daily by a complex reality requiring professionalism and determination together with judgment. The rules of engagement in Judea and Samaria facilitate an appropriate range of responses to a wide variety of threats faced by IDF forces and they are tested occasionally according to evaluations. It must be stressed that taking immediate action against violators of the public order and popular terror activists does not negate determined and effective action, and at its root lies the understanding that as small a number of injured as possible would help guard the security stability in the region.”

“Popular terror activists?”

These people are sick, honestly, they need help.

Minister of Industry and Commerce and Chairman of the Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett last week criticized the military and called to change the rules of engagement.

“The IDF must change the practices of engagement, to allow IDF fighters and citizens to protect themselves,” Bennett wrote on his Facebook page. “The IDF must allocate more forces and act more deeply if needed,” Bennett added. “I will work very hard to restore security to the residents of Judea and Samaria. Before it’s too late.”

It may require more than Facebook, though.

more arab weekend terror....NOT UNUSUAL

A Weekend of Fire and Stone-Throwing Terror in Judea and Samaria

source

A Weekend of Fire and Stone-Throwing Terror in Judea and Samaria

Another fire in Judea and Samaria.

Israeli and Arab firefighters worked together to extinguish an arson  fire in Beit El.




Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria experienced a violent weekend, being subjected to numerous terror attacks perpetrated by Arabs throughout the region.

Arab arsonists took advantage of the dry and hot weather this weekend and ignited brush fields in several locations, in an attempt to cause damage to homes and property and to destroy produce.

In Amona, Arabs set fire to fields surrounding the community. A similar fire was started in Hashmonaim. Two Arab minors were arrested by the IDF in Samaria on suspicion of starting a third fire. They were released after their personal information was taken. On Shabbat afternoon, a fire was ignited near Beit El. Israeli and Arab firefighters worked together to extinguish the fire.

In Elazar, in Gush Etzion, three Arab youths infiltrated the community on the eve of Shabbat. The civilian-based Rapid Response Team (RRT) was alerted. The youth were caught and taken for questioning. A similar incursion took place in Carmei Tsur. Three suspicious figures were identified laying an object on the community fence. More forces were called in to bolster security.

Multiple incidents of stone throwing attacks were recorded throughout Judea and Samaria. Responding to the escalation in violence, the IDF had authorized it forces to use the small caliber 0.22 Luger sniper rifle to stop rioters. Five rioters have been wounded so far. Near Eli, several cars were hit by rocks. A few of the passengers were lightly wounded, one suffered a head injury. He was taken to the hospital.

Dozens of Arabs marched on the Hill 904 community, near Amona, as they do every Friday. The Arabs threw stones at the homes. Two Jews were arrested during the incident by the Border Police on suspicion of the throwing stones at the Arabs. They later said they’d rather defend themselves with stones than with live fire. No Arabs were arrested.

An attorney from the Honenu legal aid organization was dispatched to defend the two. A spokesman for Honenu later stated that “Minister of Justice Tsipi Livni and Minister of Internal Security Aharonowitz are shamefully obsessed with graffiti (i.e. the ‘Price Tag’ actions) and its definition as an act of terror, while ignoring the threats the residents of Judea and Samaria face daily. So the police and army know who the ‘real’ terrorists are and who are merely engaged in their hobby of Jew killing.”

The two were released a short while before Shabbat.

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Beyond the BBC mantra on ‘international law’

BBC Watch readers will not need to be reminded of the mantra repeatedly and incessantly promoted by the BBC according to which:

 ”Under international law all of the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal.”

Of course that simplistic, politicised statement glosses over a multitude of differing opinions and factors, many of which are touched upon in this video from Shalom TV in which Professor Eugene Kontorovich of Northwestern University provides interesting food for thought. 

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Pro-Palestinian ads misrepresent apartheid

By: Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe
Special to The S.F. Examiner

On my recent trip to San Francisco, I was deeply disturbed to learn about the posters in The City accusing Israel of apartheid. As a black South African who lived under apartheid, this system was implemented in South Africa to subjugate people of color and deny them a variety of their rights. In my view, Israel cannot be compared to apartheid in South Africa. Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is.

These new Muni ads compare
 Israel's treatment of
Palestine to apartheid.

Apartheid was a legal system of segregation and oppression based on skin color, with a very small white minority dominating over the vast majority of people of color.

As a black South African under apartheid, I, among other things, could not vote, nor could I freely travel the landscape of South Africa. No person of color could hold high government office. The races were strictly segregated at sports arenas, public restrooms, schools and on public transportation. People of color had inferior hospitals, medical care and education. If a white doctor was willing to take a black patient, he had to examine him or her in a back room or some other hidden place.

In my numerous visits to Israel, I did not see any of the above. My understanding of the Israeli legal system is that equal rights are enshrined in law. Black, brown and white Jews and the Arab minority mingle freely in all public places, universities, restaurants, voting stations and public transportation. All people have the right to vote. The Arab minority has political parties, serves in the Israeli parliament (Knesset) and holds positions in government ministries, the police force and the security services. In hospitals, Palestinian patients lie in beds next to Israeli Jews, and doctors and nurses are as likely to be Israeli Arabs as Jews. I also understand that an Israeli Arab judge presided over the trial of former Israeli President Moshe Katsav, who was convicted of misconduct. An Ethiopian Jew recently won the title of Miss Israel. None of the above was legally permissible in apartheid South Africa!

I believe that it is slanderous and deceptive for Israel’s self-defense measures against the terrorists’ campaign of suicide bombing, rocket attacks and other acts of terrorism that have occurred, and continue to occur, to be labeled as apartheid. I am shocked by the claim that the free, diverse, democratic state of Israel practices apartheid. This ridiculous accusation trivializes the word apartheid, minimizing and belittling the magnitude of the racism and suffering endured by South Africans of color.

I urge all people, young people in particular, to visit Israel and learn the facts for themselves so that they can confidently refute these false allegations against Israel. The misapplication of the term apartheid makes a mockery of a grievous injustice and threatens to undermine the true meaning of the term.

In my view, Israel is a model of democracy, inclusion and pluralism that can be emulated by many nations, particularly in the Middle East.

The Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe is a member of the South African Parliament, the president of the African Christian Democratic Party and the chairman of the South African Israel Allies Caucus.
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related: 

New Muni ads claim Israeli ‘apartheid’ against Palestinians

By: Chris Roberts
S.F. Examiner Staff Writer 

Yet another salvo has been launched in the ongoing, polarizing and divisive Israel-Palestine debate — and it’s on Muni.

Several San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency buses bearing a pro-Palestine, anti-Israel advertisement are currently ferrying The City’s commuters.

The ads, paid for by American Muslims for Palestine, feature a quote from Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu comparing the situation in the Holy Land to apartheid in South Africa, along with a reminder that Israel receives about $3 billion in foreign aid from the U.S.

Zahra Billoo of the Council on American-Islamic Relations speaks
at an event Tuesday announcing
The new ads by the Americans Muslims for Palestine.

“End Apartheid Now!” the ads proclaim. “Stop U.S. Aid to Israel.”

The “apartheid” campaign is the latest in a series of messages on Muni vehicles related to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Ads that used the term “savages” and urged the “defeat” of “jihad,” paid for by a New York-based pro-Israel lobby called American Freedom Defense Initiative, first appeared on buses last year.

City officials slammed the inflammatory ads as “Islamophobic,” and Muni donated the proceeds from the sales to The City’s Human Rights Commission. There are no plans to transfer the $5,030 that paid for the current “apartheid” campaign, Muni spokesman Paul Rose said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations Ads then put ads using “jihad” in a nonmilitarized, religious context on the transit system, before “jihad” ads featuring Osama bin Laden and other faces of terror — also paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an “anti-Muslim” group — were bought in response this year.

These latest “apartheid” ads will run on Muni buses until June 6.


 San Francisco Examiner

Security Chief: IDF Taking Off the Silk Gloves

The IDF is ending its ‘silk glove treatment’ of Arabs who attack Israeli towns with rocks and firebombs, security chief says.

The IDF is increasingly determined to stop Palestinian Authority-resident Arabs’ attacks on Israeli communities, and is willing to use live fire if necessary, says Yehuda Dana, security chief for the Beit El region.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Dana said there has been an escalation in Arab attacks on Israeli civilians in recent months. “Their brazenness has crossed the line – they are doing what they didn’t do for years, like reaching the fence of an Israeli community and throwing rocks into the community, causing injuries,” he related.

Until now, Arab rioters were handled “with silk gloves,” he said, with soldiers restricting themselves to non-lethal means of riot dispersal such as tear gas and rubber bullets
“Unfortunately, the Palestinians realized that they were facing an opponent that could not defeat them,” he said.

However, he said, things are changing. “There is a change in the decisiveness, in the determination to end this phenomenon… I hope the other side realizes that the ‘silk glove treatment’ is over.”

Dana gave the new commander for the Judea and Samaria Division, Brigadier-General Tamir Yadai, much off the credot or the change. “We met with the new District Commander and the conversation was positive hope the commander’s spirit reaches every last soldier,” he said.

“Yadai made it clear that rocks will not be allowed to cross the fence around communities, and that it is unthinkable that residents or property be damaged,” he explained. “He emphasized that he would take a firm approach in response to such incidents.”

Residents of the Beit El region were pleased to see IDF troops taking a strong stance against rock attacks and firebombing, Dana said, but are waiting to see if the situation will last. “Ultimately the results will speak for themselves,” he concluded.

Arutz 7

IDF Tour Guide: The Air Force Museum

Today we’re introducing a new series: the IDF Tour Guide. Each week, a professional tour guide will take you to a different museum or heritage site that deals with IDF history and heroism. To kick off the series, we’re going to the unique Air Force Museum near Be’er Sheva.

The Air Force Museum is the only museum in Israel where the entire staff is made up of soldiers on active duty, including tour guides who speak five different languages – Hebrew, English, Spanish, French and Russian. The logistic workers, plane mechanics, administrators and photographers are all soldiers as well.

Now, to introduce your personal tour guide: Cpl. Rom Aloni, 20 years-old, serves as a guide in the museum as part of his regular army service.

more pics. cont. reading - IDF Blog

BDS and Lawfare Updates: Unable to defeat the IDF militarily or weaken the population through persistent terrorism, this is what happens, read on....

"The Palestinian people today live in a prison in their own territory, surrounded by a huge wall"....
Oh Please get your facts right, at least sound a little educated....

Spanish politicians call for cancellation of Israeli concert

Left-wing politicians in the autonomous region of Galicia in Spain recently called on their local government to cancel an upcoming concert by Israeli singer Achinoam Nini and boycott Israel. The Galician Left Alternative, an umbrella organization that represents the region’s third largest political bloc, went on to condemn “the employment of the Israeli singer…who has sympathy to the Zionist military.” The anti-Israel coalition’s education and cultural council has demanded that the May 21 concert be canceled because it contributes to “the colonization of Palestine and violence that the Israeli state exercises against the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people today live in a prison in their own territory, surrounded by a huge wall.” A number of months ago the same left-wing coalition vetoed a parliamentary resolution commemorating the Holocaust.
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Jordanian and Turkish airlines disavow sponsorship of tourism conference in Jerusalem

Royal Jordanian and Turkish Airlines recently decided to rescind their sponsorship of an Israeli tourism

conference in Jerusalem after pro-Palestinian campaigners pressured the companies to boycott the event. The Royal Jordanian logo had appeared on the “supporter” page of the conference’s website, alongside the logos of Turkish Airlines and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After this was discovered, twitter users in both Jordan and Turkey mounted a campaign calling for the boycott of The Second Jerusalem International Tourism Summit. Royal Jordanian has flown to Israel since the 1994 peace treaty Amman signed with Jerusalem.

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University of Sheffield decides not renew contract with Veolia

The University of Sheffield recently decided not to renew its waste collection contract with Veolia following a student boycott campaign. The campaign, launched by the Palestine Society, and supported by the student union, called on the educational institution to sever its ties with the multinational corporation over the latter’s providing of services to Israeli cities in Judea and Samaria, lands liberated after the 1967 Six Day War. Last October, the student union voted to endorse the BDS movement. “It is enormously gratifying that university management appears to have been responsive to the concerns both of ourselves and of the wider student body,” pro-Palestinian activists wrote. In its action, the British university decided to award the contract to one of Veolia’s competitors. Veolia is a French company with activities in water management, waste management, and energy and transport services. The company has a major operation in Israel.

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Oberlin College students pass anti-Israel divestment resolution

Students at Oberlin College in Ohio recently passed a divestment resolution against the Middle East’s sole democratic state. The college is a liberal arts institution situated in Oberlin. In a press release, Oberlin College Students for a Free Palestine noted that a majority of the student senate passed the resolution after a three-hour debate. The resolution calls for the divestment of Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar, Veolia, Elbit Systems, G4S and SodaStream, companies representing “a wide range of injustices perpetrated on the Palestinian people by Israel." Next semester students plan to take the resolution to Oberlin College Board of Trustees’ Finance Committee, and to urge the latter to adopt the policies outlined in the resolution. Among the sponsors of the resolution were the Student Labor Action Coalition, Mexican American Students Association, La Alianza Latina, South Asian Students Association, and the Oberlin Queer Wellness Coalition.

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The Briefing: Israel, and the Jewish community at large, is beset by a dangerous international campaign utilizing new strategies to delegitimize the Jewish State. Unable to defeat the IDF militarily or weaken the population through persistent terrorism, the extremist groups, Islamic terrorists and their rogue regime allies have embarked upon a global effort to demonize and isolate Israel, casting it as a pariah state.The widespread Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and its utilization of Lawfare, is the main component of the "Durban Strategy" adopted by Israel's opponents at the U.N.'s Human Rights Conference in 2001. Tactics like the Gaza Flotilla,  the effort overseas to indict IDF officers and elected officials for war crimes, blood libels in the media, the boycotting of Israeli academics, and the persistent debate over whether a Jewish State has a right to exist, are having a perilous impact on Israel's security and diplomatic capabilities.  As the Anti-Defamation League has stated: "The BDS movement at its very core is anti-Semitic."

These reports are offered to better inform the Jewish community and Israel's supporters worldwide on how lawfare and boycotts are used by hate groups to try to destroy Israel through other means.

Pass this report along to other supporters of Israel!

Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center

10 Hata'as St. Ramat Gan, 52512 Israel
Phone: 972-3-7514175    |    Fax: 972-3-7514174
info@israellawcenter.org
http://www.israellawcenter.org
Blog:  http://israellawcenter.wordpress.com
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ShuratHaDin
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/#!/ShuratHaDin

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Guardian promotes book by ‘one-stater’

 "Good" old Harriet....done it again..

Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that Harriet Sherwood’s romanticised piece entitled “Gaza gastronomy” – which appeared under the ‘Food & Drink’ heading of the Guardian’s ‘Life & Style’ section on May 14^th 2013 – revolves around unveiled promotion of a book co-written by former Guardian contributor Laila el Haddad

.

El Haddad – known on Twitter as ‘gazamom‘ despite the fact that she was born in Kuwait, grew up in Saudi Arabia and lives in the United States – was also a polemicist for Ali Abunimah’s‘Electronic Intifada‘ where she told tall tales of a “Gaza genocide” and “Gaza facing humanitarian crisis” for years on end. Her Guardian articles were no less over-dramatic as she informed readers that “Calling Gaza a prison camp is an understatement“. El Haddad obviously missed the irony of a person whose Guardian profile describes her as someone “who divides her time between Gaza and the United States” claiming lack of freedom of movement.

It comes as no surprise to learn that el Haddad’s new book (like its predecessor) is published by the firm established by former Human Rights Watch MENA advisory board member and prominent Quaker Helena Cobban. Neither is there anything strange about the fact that el Haddad is a policy advisor for the pro-BDS, pro-’one-state’ Al Shabaka.

Sherwood of course omits from her article any mention of the political views underlying and seasoning Laila el Haddad’s cookbook or her promotion of it at ‘Israel Apartheid Week‘ events and even during last November’s conflict between Hamas and Israel.

But el Haddad’s views are an important part of this particular attempt at ‘soft’ campaigning being promoted and enabled by Sherwood. In a Guardian article from 2009 she stated quite clearly “I am a proponent of a one-state solution”. That ‘solution’, though often garnished with the language of ‘human rights’ and ‘equality’, has one aim: the dissolution of Israel and the denial of the Jewish right to self-determination.

Would the Guardian consider it appropriate to promote a cookbook authored by a proponent of the reversal of rights for women or gays? Of course it would not. But it does choose to deliberately ignore the basic ingredients of Laila el Haddad’s discriminatory recipe.

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