Conrad Black - A Better Two-State Strategy Beckons for Israel

Conrad Black, in the New York Sun, about the Palestinian exploitation of their plight, shot in their own foot so to speak and how Israel should react.

The fact that even reasonable people and countries have been gulled or worn down by this latest campaign of sophistical anti-Semitic trickery leads me to think that Israel should declare a Palestinian state: a narrower West Bank, a deeper Gaza, a clear access between them, the Christian and Muslim sites in Israel maintained by Americans, Germans, Indonesians and Malaysians, a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, as long as the main city is intact as Israel’s capital; the right of Palestinian return to the new Palestine and no negotiations about anything with anyone who does not recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Read the full column- A Better Two-State Strategy Beckons for Israel

Crocodile tears over new Israeli construction

From the AICE website, home of Myths and Facts.


MYTH:

The Israeli construction plan called the E1 project threatens the two-state solution and the contiguity of a future Palestinian state .

FACT

Ma’ale Adumim is a suburb of Israel’s capital, barely three miles outside Jerusalem’s city limits, a ten-minute drive away. Ma’ale Adumim is not a recently constructed outpost on a hilltop; it was established in 1975 and is now the largest Jewish city in the territories, with a population of approximately 46,000. The community is popular because it is clean, safe, and close to where many residents work. Israel has long planned to fill in the empty gap between Jerusalem and this bedroom community -- referred to as the E1 project.

The E1 corridor is approximately 3,250 acres and is largely uninhabited state land on steep hills. According to the plan, a new neighborhood of Ma’ale would be constructed with approximately 3,500 housing units. The plan also includes tourist, industrial and commercial areas and a nature reserve. 276

Every Israeli prime minister since Yitzhak Rabin has supported the plan and, according to the Clinton parameters, Ma’ale was to be part of Israel in a final peace agreement. The Palestinians agreed to this as well. The area is also included within the route of the separation fence on the Israeli side.

Critics of the E1 plan complain that it would kill the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute by making it impossible for the Palestinians to have a contiguous state. This is untrue because the Palestinian state would be contiguous around the eastern side of the city.

The other complaint is that linking Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem would cut off east Jerusalem from a Palestinian state, but Israel has proposed constructing a four-lane underpass to guarantee free passage between the West Bank and the Arab sections of Jerusalem that would actually reduce the time for Palestinian drivers traveling in a north-south direction. In addition, “access to Jerusalem through Abu Dis, Eizariya, Hizma and Anata is not prevented by the proposed neighborhood, nor would it be precluded by a string of neighborhoods connecting Ma’aleh Adumim to Jerusalem.” 277

Curiously, none of the critics of E1, who express such concern for the contiguity of a future Palestinian state, are disturbed by the fact that the failure to complete the project would preclude Israel from having contiguous borders as Ma’ale Adumim would become an island in the middle of the Palestinian state. Incidentally, this one-sided concern about contiguity is also evident in discussions regarding linking the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which are not contiguous either, and would require some rail or auto link that would break up the continuity of Israel in the Negev.

The hypocrisy toward the E1 project is further exemplified by the international silence over the illegal Palestinian Arab building in the area. The Palestinians want to prevent Israel from linking Ma’ale with Jerusalem by filling the area with their own homes and they also hope to surround Jewish neighborhoods built after 1967. If the Palestinians succeed, they can threaten Jerusalem from the east and block the city’s development while also threatening the Jerusalem-Jericho road, a strategically vital passage for the movement of troops and equipment through the Jordan Valley. The illegal construction has already reduced the area for building Israeli homes and narrowed the corridor to Jerusalem from about one mile to six-tenths of a mile.

According to the Oslo II agreement, Israel retained control over the area around E1 and therefore has the right to build in the area, but the Palestinians do not. Israel has built a police station and the infrastructure for completing construction in the area but has refrained from moving ahead on the project. In fact, every time a prime minister announces plans to begin work on E1, they mysteriously reverse course, usually within 24 hours, apparently after being threatened by the United States. This occurred in the most recent case when Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the project would move forward and then almost immediately backtracked after being condemned by the United States and many other Western nations.278

The two-state solution is not threatened by the E1 project; it is in danger from the continuing terrorism from Gaza and the refusal of Mahmoud Abbas to engage in peace negotiations. While settlement construction is controversial in Israel, there is broad consensus that Ma’ale Adumim will be part of Israel after any agreement with the Palestinians and that it should be linked to Jerusalem. After years of planning, the time to complete the E1 project is overdue and should no longer be held hostage to the specious complaints of the Palestinians and their supporters.

Footnotes are found on the website.   The entire article makes sense to me.  How about you?

How to start solving Gaza’s problems

Frida Ghitis is becoming one of my favorite columnists, not because she often writes in support of American and Israeli positions in the Middle East, but because she writes so damn well.

Her latest column lays out the truth about Hamas's goals.  If you think that Hamas is just anti-Israel you'd be mistaken.  They don't have it in just for Israel but for Jews, living everywhere.

The Hamas Covenant gets to the point quickly. “Israel will exist . . . until Islam will obliterate it.” Then the introduction helpfully explains, “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.”

And she tells you where you can read the Covenant yourself.  It's is, frankly, frightening stuff.  Now, of course, the left wing and fascist right wingers will not be buying into any of this stuff, but that's a subject for a different day.

Read the full column How to start solving Gaza’s problems

Shame On Anyone Who Ever Thought Mohammad Morsi Was A Moderate

Were you surprised by Egypt's Mohammad Morsi promulgating dictatorial powers?  You should not have been.

As Eric Trager in New Republic points out,

Nobody should have been surprised when Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi issued a “constitutional declaration” on Thursday asserting total political power. This was, after all, the former Muslim Brotherhood leader’s second power grab since he took office in June, complementing his earlier seizure of legislative and constitution-writing authorities by now insulating himself from judicial oversight. Yet Washington was caught entirely off-guard: Morsi’s power play was at odds with the administration’s view that the Muslim Brotherhood is a “democratic party,” and his impressive handling of last week’s Gaza ceasefire created a modicum of trust between him and President Obama. So the State Department released a predictably confused statement, urging “all Egyptians to resolve their differences … peacefully and through democratic dialogue.”

To get Trager's take on the full story, read it here - Shame On Anyone Who Ever Thought Mohammad Morsi Was A Moderate  

As for me, a wolf in the sheep's clothing of a democratic movement, is still a wolf.  Perhaps the most dangerous kind of wolf.  

Amy Goodman: In Gaza, it's the occupation, stupid

What silliness.  Amy Goodman weighs in on the attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians.  Of course, the boogey man is the "occupation."  My response is in a comment at the end of the post. 
It might make your blood boil, but you can read it here- Amy Goodman: In Gaza, it's the occupation, stupid

Glick on jpost.com, “The trap that Arik built”

Carolyn Glick on Israel, Hamas and Gaza, “The trap that Arik built” from jpost.com.  Israelis and their supporters do not have a lot to draw comfort from.

The cease-fire agreement that Israel accepted Wednesday night to end the current round of Palestinian rocket and missile attacks is not a good deal for Israel by any stretch of the imagination.

Supporters of Israel will not take comfort from the quiet from Gaza. Why?

At best, Israel and Hamas are placed on the same moral plane. The cease-fire erases the distinction between Israel, a peace-seeking liberal democracy that wants simply to defend its citizens, and Hamas, a genocidal jihadist terrorist outfit that seeks the eradication of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel.

At worst, the cease-fire places Israel beneath Hamas. The first two clauses require both sides to end hostilities. The third suggests Israel is expected to make further concessions to Hamas after the firing stops.

Over the weekend, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood held what the media claimed was a stormy meeting. Its members were split over what to do about Israel. Half wanted to go to war with Israel immediately. The other half called for waiting until the Egyptian military is prepared for war. In the end, the voices calling for patient preparation for war won the day.

And for their patience, the Muslim Brothers received the plaudits of the US government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her boss President Barack Obama were effusive in their praise of the Egyptian government, and joined Egypt in placing Israel on the same moral plane as a terrorist group.

Moreover, Obama and Clinton compelled Israel to accept wording in the cease-fire that arguably makes Egypt the arbiter of Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the agreement.
 

So what's left for Israelis to do?  Toss out the old and bring in a new group of politicians?

The full article is below.

November 25, 2012 Sunday 11 Kislev 5773 8:40 IST

By CAROLINE B. GLICK

Column One: The trap that Arik built

22/11/2012

The millions of Israelis who opposed the withdrawal from Gaza do not seek personal vindication for being right.

The cease-fire agreement that Israel accepted Wednesday night to end the current round of Palestinian rocket and missile attacks is not a good deal for Israel by any stretch of the imagination.

At best, Israel and Hamas are placed on the same moral plane. The cease-fire erases the distinction between Israel, a peace-seeking liberal democracy that wants simply to defend its citizens, and Hamas, a genocidal jihadist terrorist outfit that seeks the eradication of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel.

Under international law, Israel is not just within its rights to defend itself from Hamas. It is required to. International law requires all states to treat Hamas terrorists as criminals and deny them safe haven and financing. But the cease-fire agreement requires both the Israeli policeman and the Hamas criminal to hold their fire.

At worst, the cease-fire places Israel beneath Hamas. The first two clauses require both sides to end hostilities. The third suggests Israel is expected to make further concessions to Hamas after the firing stops.

Then there is the cease-fire’s elevation of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government to the role of responsible adult. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian President Muhamad Morsi openly supports Hamas. Morsi sent his Prime Minister Hesham Kandil to Gaza to personally express the Egyptian government’s support for Hamas’s criminal assault against Israeli civilians.

Over the weekend, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood held what the media claimed was a stormy meeting. Its members were split over what to do about Israel. Half wanted to go to war with Israel immediately. The other half called for waiting until the Egyptian military is prepared for war. In the end, the voices calling for patient preparation for war won the day.

And for their patience, the Muslim Brothers received the plaudits of the US government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her boss President Barack Obama were effusive in their praise of the Egyptian government, and joined Egypt in placing Israel on the same moral plane as a terrorist group.

Moreover, Obama and Clinton compelled Israel to accept wording in the cease-fire that arguably makes Egypt the arbiter of Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the agreement.

Aside from the administration’s de facto support for the Hamas regime in Gaza, it is hard to think of a greater humiliation than Israel being forced to submit complaints to its sworn enemy about the actions of the sworn enemy’s terrorist client.

And yet, for all of that, it isn’t clear that Israel had a better option than to sign on the dotted line. Israel might have gotten better results if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had ordered the ground forces poised at the border to take out a few Hamas ground installations. It certainly would make sense for Israel to end Gaza’s electricity supply.

But as it stands today, a full-blown ground invasion in the mold of the 2002 Defensive Shield Operation, where Israel seized control of Judea and Samaria from Palestinian terror groups and reasserted its security control over the Palestinian areas, so ending the Palestinian terror onslaught against Jerusalem and central Israel, was not in the cards.

Israel is in a strategic trap. And it is one of its own making. Starting with the Rabin-Peres government’s decision to embrace the PLO terrorist organization as a peace partner in 1993, Israel has been in strategic retreat. Each incremental retreat by Israel has empowered its worst enemies both militarily and diplomatically and weakened the Jewish state militarily and diplomatically.

In May 2000, following years of political agitation by the radical Left, then-premier Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to retreat from Israel’s security zone in south Lebanon. Hezbollah immediately seized control over the border area. Within months it kidnapped and killed three IDF soldiers and held them for ransom – hiding the fact that they had been murdered. The same Barak-led government that withdrew the IDF from south Lebanon was loath to acknowledge the failure of its policy and so did nothing when the three soldiers were kidnapped.

Within six years, Hezbollah was strong enough to launch an all-out missile war against Israel.

Facing them was the government that had just carried out the withdrawal from Gaza. The governing strategy of Ariel Sharon’s heirs, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, was based on surrendering land and demonizing as warmongers those who opposed surrendering land. When Hezbollah attacked Israel in July 2006, Olmert and Livni were in no position to order a serious ground invasion of Lebanon. And since that was the only way to win the war, Israel lost the war, paving the way for Hezbollah’s subsequent takeover of the Lebanese government.

As for that withdrawal from Gaza, just like the phony peace process with the PLO and the strategically demented withdrawal from south Lebanon, the withdrawal from Gaza was a self-evidently insane policy. It was obvious that it would lead to the strengthening of Palestinian terrorist groups and so put Israel’s population centers in striking range of their missiles.

After both the Oslo process and the withdrawal from Lebanon left Israel strategically and diplomatically weakened, with its politicians, generals and its very existence brought before international tribunals and targeted by diplomatic pogroms, there was no basis for the empty claim that by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel would gain international legitimacy to defend itself.

By leaving Gaza, Israel was saying – as it had in Lebanon – that it had no right to be there. And if it had no right to be there, it had no right to return.

To force this mad initiative through, Sharon had to explicitly disavow the platform he was elected to implement. Sharon won the 2003 elections by pledging never to surrender Gaza.

After he betrayed his voters, Sharon demonized and, when possible, fired everyone in positions of power and influence who opposed him.

He called a referendum of Likud members to vote on his plan, and when his opponents won the vote overwhelmingly, he ignored it. He fired Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya’alon, then IDF chief of General Staff. He fired his cabinet ministers. He castigated as “rebels” his party members who opposed his plan.

Moreover, with the active collusion of the legal system, Sharon violently repressed his political opponents. Young girls were thrown into jail without trial for months for participating in anti-withdrawal demonstrations. Privately chartered buses en route to lawful demonstrations were interdicted by police and prevented from traveling.

Protest organizers were arrested in their homes at 3 a.m. And with the active collusion of the media, all debate on the merits of the withdrawal plan was stifled.

As bad as it was in Israel, the situation in the US was arguably even more devastating. Since Oslo, Israeli opponents of the Left’s strategic insanity were intellectually and politically buoyed by their conservative counterparts in America.

The latter helped legitimize political opposition and enabled the conceptualization and maintenance of alternative policies as viable options.

Despite government repression, some 45 percent of Israel’s Jewish population actively participated in anti-withdrawal protests. In the US, virtually no one supported them. The absence of opposition owed to the fact that in America withdrawal opponents were boycotted, demonized and blacklisted by the American Jewish community and the previously supportive conservative media.

During the years of the fake peace process, conservative US Jewish groups and conservative publications led by Commentary, The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal forcefully opposed it. But when Sharon joined the radical Left by adopting its plan to withdraw from Gaza, these formidable outlets and institutions enthusiastically followed him.

Leading voices like former Jerusalem Post editor and Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, Commentary editors Norman Podhoretz and Neil Kozodoy, commentator Charles Krauthammer and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol not only lined up to support the dangerous planned withdrawal. They barred all voices of opposition from the pages of their publications.

To greater and lesser degrees, their shunning of voices that warned against the Gaza withdrawal continues to this day.

So, too, with the exception of the Zionist Organization of America, every major American Jewish organization supported the withdrawal.

Like the editors of Commentary, the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal, they barred voices of opposition from speaking to their groups.

All commentators who warned of the strategic calamity that would befall Israel in the aftermath of a withdrawal from Gaza were marginalized and demonized as extremists.

In a notable gesture, this week, Stephens along with Commentary’s Max Boot, acknowledged their error in supporting the withdrawal from Gaza. Their recantations are noteworthy because most of their colleagues who joined them in pushing Israel down the garden path and cheered Sharon’s “democracy” as 8,500 Israelis were thrown out of their homes and off their land in order to free it up for a terrorist takeover, continue to deny that they were wrong to do so.

But Stephens’s and Boot’s belated intellectual integrity on Gaza is not enough to make a difference for Israel today.

Israel has only two options for dealing with the ever-escalating threat from Gaza. It can try to coexist with Hamas. This option is doomed to failure since Hamas seeks the annihilation of the Jewish people and the eradication of Israel. Recognizing this state of affairs, in a public opinion survey taken on Wednesday for Channel 2, 88% of Israelis said that a cease-fire with Hamas will either not hold at all or hold for only a short time.

74% of Israelis opposed accepting a cease-fire.

The other choice is to destroy Hamas. To accomplish this Israel will need to invade Gaza and remain in place. It will have to kill or imprison thousands of terrorists, send thousands more packing for Sinai, and then spend years patrolling the streets of Gaza and arresting terrorists just as it does today in Judea and Samaria.

Whereas the first option is impossible, the latter option is not currently viable. It isn’t viable because not enough people making the argument have the opportunity to publish their thoughts in leading publications. Most of those who might have the courage to voice this view fear that if they do, they will be denied an audience, or discredited as warmongers or extremists.

So they remain silent or impotently say that Israel shouldn’t agree to a cease-fire without mentioning what Israel’s other option is.

The millions of Israelis who opposed the withdrawal from Gaza do not seek personal vindication for being right. They didn’t warn against the withdrawal to advance their careers or make their lives easier. Indeed, their careers were uniformly harmed.

They did it because they were patriots. They felt it was their duty to warn their countrymen of the danger, hoping to avert the disaster we now face. They should be listened to now. And their voices should be empowered by those who shunned them, because only by listening to them will we develop the arguments and the legitimacy to do what needs to be done and stop fighting to lose, again and again and again.

caroline@carolineglick.com

All rights reserved © 1995 - 2012 The Jerusalem Post.

Israel, Hamas and Gaza

So, we ask, just how did this latest conflict between Israel and Hamas begin?  Well, Israeli citizens have been the target of hundreds of missiles, rockets and mortars launched from within Gaza over the past months and that the government whose job it is to protect its citizens had to act.  Unless you are virulently anti-Israel, you will understand that Israel had no other choice but to respond as it is.

You can think otherwise, but I'd like to know your logic.

How Israeli's see the "Arab Spring

True or false?
Alisa Flatow terrorism Islamist
Stephen M. Flatow

Arab Lawyers Honor Terrorist - only in the Middle East

A story from the JPost.com website caught my eye last night.  "Arab Lawyers Union honors Palestinian Suicide bomber" the headline read.

The Arab Lawyers Union on Friday awarded its highest decoration to the Palestinian woman who carried out the 2003 suicide bombing at Maxim’s Restaurant in Haifa, which killed 21 and wounded 51. The Cairo-based union, which represents lawyers from 15 Arab countries, dispatched a delegation to the home of suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat in Jenin to present her family with the award.

Abu Eisheh, a lawyer who visited the family, said the Arab lawyers were proud of what Jaradat did “in defense of Palestine and the Arab nation.”
 

Turns out the ALU is a UNESCO NGO.  Among its goals is

Promote and protect human rights, basic freedoms and the primacy of law; and

Participate in the decolonization of the Arab Countries, to their liberation and the establishment of social justice

 

Of course, honoring a terrorist promotes human rights, and just what Arab countries are colonized?

You cannot make up this stuff.  It also reinforces the belief that UNESCO is worthless if they count folks like these among its NGOs.

Read the full report.

Stephen M. Flatow

Dearborn, Michigan - a fitting place it seems for hatred

Sarah Honig is a columnist who writes predominantly in the Jerusalem Post through her column, Another Tack.  On October 4, 2012 she examined the state of affairs in Dearborn, Michigan.

Dearborn, Michigan, may have started off as a no-account aggregate of farms and modest homesteads but it would evolve into a singular omen. This once-quintessential emblem of old-time Americana would stand out as a powerful indication of important things to come. Dearborn encapsulates within itself something akin to an ever-unfolding prophesy of America’s future.

It’s perhaps no quirk of fate that the latest episode in Dearborn’s annals is about protecting the honor of a prophet via anti-blasphemy laws – the draconian sort which proliferate in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other centers of Islamic enlightenment. It’s all along the lines of the international ban on anti-Islam speech proposed at the UN General Assembly by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood and darling of America’s own elected leader, Barack Obama.

Obama's recognition of Muslim grievances gives rise to something dangerous to the American way of life.

This perception of righteous resentment, accentuated by their own favorite president, brought Dearborn’s Muslims out for an extraordinary rally to urge that legal prohibitions be legislated against free speech, if that speech is deemed hurtful to “the religious feelings of Muslims.”

Not the feelings of Jews or Hindus, mind you, just Muslims.

Yet, we should not necessarily be surprised because Dearborn, home of the assembly line, was also the operational headquarters for Henry Ford.  Ford, no friend of the Jews, in fact he blamed them for every ill in the world, was an idol of one Adolf Hitler.

Read Ms. Honig's full column here.

Wall Street Journal - Call a terrorist a savage? How uncivilized

Worth setting forth in full, a column on the ads now appearing in New York City subways equating terrorists with savages.  The column appeared in the Wall Street Journal and is written by William McGurn.

Call a Terrorist a 'Savage'? How Uncivilized

An anti-jihad message is 'hate speech' by today's topsy-turvy standards.

By WILLIAM MCGURN

"In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."

So reads an advertisement that went up a week ago in New York City subway stations. Sponsored by Pamela Geller's American Freedom Defense Initiative, the ads were meant to provoke, and they did. Denunciations poured in, activists plastered "racist" and "hate speech" stickers over the ads, and an Egyptian-American activist even got herself arrested after spray-painting one poster pink.

Establishment opinion quickly rallied to a consensus. As the Washington Post put it, while the words could be read as "hateful," "an offensive ad" nonetheless has the "right to offend." A rabbi summed up the media orthodoxy in the headline over her column for CNN: "A right to hate speech, a duty to condemn."

Certainly that's one way to read this ad. Then again, most Americans probably read it the way it is written: Israel is a civilized nation under attack from people who do savage things in the name of jihad. Whatever the agenda of those behind this ad might be, the question remains: What part of that statement is not true?

Ah, but the use of the word "jihad" inherently indicts all Muslims, say the critics. There are millions of peaceful Muslims for whom jihad means only a spiritual quest. So why do so many people associate jihad with murder and brutality?

Might it be because violence is so often the jihadist's calling card? Might it be that some of these killers even incorporate the word jihad into the name of their terror organizations, e.g., Palestinian Islamic Jihad? [Ed. Note -  the group that murdered Alisa Flatow] That may not be the exclusive meaning of jihad, but surely it is one meaning—and the one that New York subway riders are most likely to bring to the word.

The same goes for "savage." Exhibit A is Oxford's online dictionary, which defines a savage as "a brutal or vicious person." There are innumerable Exhibit Bs, but let me invoke one of the most powerful.

This is a Reuters photo that ran on the New York Times front page for Sept. 1, 2004. It shows an Israeli bus after it had been blown up by a suicide bomber. Neither bloody nor gory, the photo is nonetheless deeply disturbing, because it shows the lifeless body of a young woman hanging out a window.

The Times news story added this detail about the reaction to that attack. "In Gaza," ran the report, "thousands of supporters of Hamas celebrated in the streets, and the Associated Press reported that one of the bombers' widows hailed the attack as 'heroic' and said her husband's soul was 'happy in heaven.' " What part of any of this is not savage?

Two years ago, Time magazine ran a cover photo of an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears had been cut off by the Taliban. This weekend, an al Qaeda-affiliated jihadist group in Kenya threw grenades into an Anglican church, killing a 9-year-old boy attending Sunday school. In light of these atrocities, "savage" seems profoundly inadequate.

The point is that what makes someone a savage is not the religion he professes. It's the actions he takes. Notwithstanding the many Jews and Christians who have been attacked, those bearing the brunt of this savagery are innocent Muslims who find themselves targeted—at their mosques, in their markets, at a wedding reception—simply because they belong to the wrong political party or religious tradition.

The people of Libya appear to understand this better than the president of the United States. The Libyans know that a civilized society is one where the strong protect the weak. In July they voted for such a future when they rejected Islamic radicals in their first free elections since toppling the dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The Libyans' problem is that the extremists are better armed and better organized than their elected government, which leaves the strong free to prey upon the weak.

Back home in America, amid all the gooey indignation about how the subway ads are hate speech but must be defended, the idea seems to have taken hold that the beauty of the First Amendment is that we get to insult each other's religions. Certainly that's sometimes the price of the First Amendment. Its glory, however, is as the cornerstone for a self-governing, free society whose citizens know that someone saying something disgusting about your faith is no excuse for murder.

What a curiosity our new political correctness has made of our public spaces. Let your sex tape loose on the Internet and be rewarded with your own TV show; photograph a crucifix in a jar of urine and our museums will vie to exhibit it; occupy someone else's property and you will be hailed by the president for your keen social conscience.

But call people who blow up, behead and mutilate "savage"—and polite society will find you offensive.

##

I couldn't agree more. Thanks Mr. McGurn.

 

Stephen M. Flatow

NY Times still calls them "militants"

Not that I truly expect the New York Times to change its ways with all things Israelis, but today's report on the cross border attack into Israel that took the life of an Israeli soldier continues the canard that the attackers and others like them are "militants."

An obscure militant group based in Egypt’s North Sinai region claimed responsibility over the weekend for a cross-border attack that killed an Israeli soldier last week. The claim called fresh attention to the uphill struggle the newly formed Egyptian government is facing to control the restive Sinai region.

If not terrorists, what are the members of "Supporters of the Holy Places" the group that has claimed credit for the attack? To claim that the attack was in retaliation for the idiotic anti-Islam movie just adds insult to the injury.

With condemnation of Jews a near daily occurrence in the Muslim world, killers like the Supporters of the Holy Place have a place, but it's in hell without the 72 virgins promised to them by their Islamist teachers.

Well, that's what I think.

You can read the full Times report here.
Alisa Flatow
Stephen M. Flatow

Romney on the Palestinians

So, what's to be with the Palestinians?  Has everyone given up hope for a two state solution in view of the Pal's refusal to sit down and negotiate with Israel?


From the New York Sun's editorial page:

A better strategy, we suggested, would be to “pursue — or at least explore — a three-state solution.” The idea we sketched would be that “at least parts of Gaza are turned over to Egypt” and the Palestinian Arab areas of the West Bank that are not necessary for Israel’s security or part of its religious patrimony could be turned over to Jordan. Both Jordan and Egypt, we noted, at least have peace treaties with Israel.

I agree with those who say the Palestinians are not interested in having a state of their own. They subscribe to the PLO belief that if they wait enough, Israel will implode with the forced absorption of the West Bank Arab population. It's not going to happen.

Read the full editorial here: Romney on the Palestinians

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Corrie family loses in Israeli court

An Israeli court has ruled that the state of Israel was not responsible for the accidental death of Rachel Corrie in a 2003 bulldozer accident.  Corrie was crushed by the bulldozer as she stood in its path in a misguided attempt to protect homes slated for demolition by the Israeli army since they were used to hide smuggling tunnels bringing weapons into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

I'm not going to comment on Rachel Corrie other than to say that she was no innocent Alice in Wonderland.  Her face tells the story in this photo of her burning a mock American flag just a few days before her death on behalf of people who were using her as a pawn in a deadly game.  They are the same people who send their youngest men and women to kill Jews in suicide attacks.

The saddest part of her story is that Corrie's family continues to fail to see that they have been used by Jew-haters for almost 10 years in their efforts to destroy Israel and, ultimately, the Jewish people.

You can read a story about the trial and verdict here.

William Kristol to President Obama - who are you in bed with?

William Kristol has sent an open letter to President Obama about the Obama's campaign "Rabbis for Obama."  The problem is this - some of its members are not exactly what one would call friends of Israel.  And for a president who is being criticized daily by many for his positions on Israel, the Palestinians, settlements, the peace process, and the like, it may not have been a good idea to add them to the list.

One paragraph from the letter:

“Rabbis for Obama” includes many leaders of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) Movement, a movement inimical to Israel’s well-being. It includes founders of the pro-Hamas “Fast for Gaza” initiative. It even includes one person who was pleased to dine with Iranian President Ahmadinejad in 2008 and another who says the United States and Israel bring terrorism on themselves. Several members of “Rabbis for Obama” are officials of Jewish Voice for Peace, a radical group that the Anti-Defamation League featured in its list of the “Top 10 Anti-Israel Groups in America.”

Now before you start shouting that the Obama administration has done more for Israel militarily than any other president by increasing arms' sales, let me tell you that you are right but you miss the point.  American arms sales to Israel are part of the foreign aid package Israel gets each year. That's right kiddies, Israel gets money from the US to spend in the US buying weaponry from American companies.  So, not only is it aid to Israel, it's aid to American workers.  The military aid goes up with the cost of arms.
The gripe with President Obama is over his creation of issues on borders and settlements that were not issues on the Palestinian radar.

In any event, here's the
Letter from ECI Chairman William Kristol to President Obama

Syrian attacks may create terror but they're not terrorism

Alisa Flatow Stephen Flatow
The NY Times of August 22 carries a news report about Syrian government efforts to squash support for the insurgents challenging the Assad leadership.

Gunfire and shelling rocked Damascus, Syria, and its suburbs on Wednesday as opponents of President Bashar al-Assad reported a widening campaign by the military to sow fear and death in neighborhoods where the rebels are strong and the government is too weak to assert full control.

Later on we read that this is a deliberate effort to scare the hell out of the non-combatant population in an effort to drive them away from supporting the rebels.

“Terror is the basic approach,” said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Center for the Middle East. “From the beginning of the uprising the logic was hit and hit hard, punish and scare, and that would be the way to do it.”

Now, of course, this is crazy logic but since when have the Assads been logical about anything?  And the tactic does not appear to be working as support for the rebels is unabated.

My take-- it's out and out murder.  Assad wants to put as many Syrians in the grave as he can before he is put into his grave.

Well, that's what I think.

Read the full report.

Israel and the double standard. Where's Alice Walker's outrage now?

Alisa Flatow Israel terrorism
The double standard employed by Israel's critics leads one to wonder just what goes through the minds of these self-styled do-gooders of all different stripes and colors.

In any event, there have been no cries of disproportionality of Egypt's response to last weeks terror attack in Sinai including use of the Egyptian air force to attack terror camps.

So, Alice Walker, what do you have to say?  I can't hear you.

That's what I have to say.  How about you?

Stephen M. Flatow

Iran-backed attacks abroad, NY Times analysis

Alisa Flatow
This New York Times analysis of Iranian attacks against Israelis abroad is on point.

The Iranian mullahs learned their lessons many years ago when they ordered the slayings of Iranian dissidents in faraway places. The 1980 murder in Bethesda, Maryland of former government official Ali Akbar Tabatabai and then of dissident Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar.

Bungled and intercepted attacks against Israelis by Iranian agents and their proxies, most notably, Hizbollah, are the most recent evidence, as the Times reports, of how the Iranian strategy has changed.

Interestingly, with respect to the Bulgarian airport attack in July 2012, the US and Bulgarian governments will not go public with their accusations of Iranian involvement in the murders. The Israelis immediately put the blame on Iran.

Where do we go from here? How will Israel, indeed, any country react when its civilians are killed on foreign soil?

Yoram Schweitzer, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, said those responsible wanted to see Israel embroiled in fighting with its neighbors. “Precisely for this reason it is best for Israel to adopt a restrained policy and respond at a time of its own choosing,” Mr. Schweitzer said, “in a targeted and covert fashion.”

Is it time for everyone and anyone who has ever worked against the Iranian clerics to duck and take cover?

Read the full report in Murky Plots and Attacks Tied to Shadow War of Iran and Israel - NYTimes.com

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Patient Jihad

Alisa Flatow
Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, of Palestinian Media Watch, write in Jewish Ideas Daily about the patience embedded in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. It does not bode well.

Marcus and Zilberdik analyze the statements of new Egyptian president Morsi.

Encouraging as these statements may be, in fact they accord neatly with the Brotherhood’s sophisticated strategy for dealing with outsiders.

It's a scary future because Jihadist war lurks behind the soft words.  Read the full article at
Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features » The Muslim Brotherhood’s Patient Jihad

America at work against terror

Alisa Flatow Stephen Flatow
The US Department of Justice has a website for its (should I say our) National Security Division.  It's chock-full of information and links on this country's efforts to combat terror right here in the US.

One of the fascinating pages to visit is the Press Room.  Here you will find press releases about recent terror related prosecutions (terror supporters will call this "persecutions") brought by US Attorneys around the country.

Here are some recent releases.  Each is worth a read in order to get an understanding of who's walking around our streets planning to do our country and others harm.

July 30, 2012

Chicago Man Pleads Guilty to Planning Travel to Somalia to Join al Shabaab Terrorist Organization in Jihad Combat

July 26, 2012

California man pleads guilty to attempting to illegally export missile components to Iran

 

July 25, 2012

Man pleads guilty in plot to detonate Ohio bridge

 

July 13, 2012

Uzbek National Sentenced to Nearly 16 Years in Prison for Threatening to Kill the President and Providing Material Support to Terrorism

 

July 10, 2012

Massachusetts Man Agrees to Plead Guilty to Plotting Attack on Pentagon and U.S. Capitol and Attempting to Provide Material Support to Terrorists

 

Having participated as a witness in the trial of Sami Al-Arian, I can tell you that these cases are not easy.  Each one should be viewed as a victory not only for the US, but for each of us.

 

Well, that's what I think.

Israel’s ‘peace of paper’ with its neighbors - Frida Ghitis

This item was below my radar until it popped up in a second Google News Alert.  Anyway, here it is and the news is, well, not unexpected.

We have always known that the rare examples of peace between Arabs and Israelis were built on a fragile foundation. Now cracks in that foundation have started becoming more visible, and they are making ominous sounds as they grow.

And just how do those cracks sound when they happen?

Mursi is on record calling the Israelis “vampires.” As the top vote-getter in the first round, he has been careful not to antagonize Washington and its generous aid package by engaging in new anti-Israel rants. But his surrogates have had no such compunction.


During a campaign rally, Mursi watched and assented while the Islamist preacher Safwat Higazi told the crowd in a soccer stadium that Egypt under Mursi will usher in a new Islamic caliphate whose capital will be in Jerusalem, where Israel’s capital now stands. As Higazi cried out, “Our capital shall not be in Cairo, Mecca or Medina,” thousands chanted in unison, “Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem.” Over the loudspeaker Mursi supporters heard the call to “Banish the sleep from the eyes of the Jews.” The runner-up, who will face against Mursi in the runoff, is Gen. Ahmed Shafiq, former President Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister. Shafiq has warned that the Muslim Brotherhood and Mursi would start a new war with Israel. But when voters have doubted Shafiq’s worthiness, his favorite achievement to cite is that he shot down two Israeli fighter jets. There could hardly be anything more heroic in the eyes of Egyptian.

And so goes the sad state of affairs in the enlightened Arab countries of the Middle East.  Read the full article Israel’s ‘peace of paper’ with its neighbors.

Stephen M. Flatow
Alisa Flatow

Eileen Fleming, extreme anti-Israel candidate runs for Congress

Eileen Fleming, an extreme left-wing, anti-Israel in the name of human rights resident of Florida is running for Congress in Florida's 5th Congressional District. 

Just how anti-Israel is she?

First, her website home page features articles on the Israeli air force attack on the USS Liberty in the Six-Day War in 1967 when it was mistaken for an Egyptian war ship.  Israel apologized for the attack following investigations by US and Israeli armed forces and civilian groups.  But that has not been enough for Miss Fleming.

Second, Miss Fleming's position on all things Palestinian is one of either ignorance or intentional malice towards Israel and Israelis.  She has bought into the canard that Arab Christians are fleeing Israel when the opposite is the case, and decries the physical separation of Israeli and Arab communities without mentioning the reasons why the wall and fences were necessary in the first place.

Third, Miss Fleming cannot distinguish between the thousands of missile attacks launched from Gaza by Hamas, et al, and the need for an Israeli response in Operation Cast Lead.

The list goes on and on.  Surely, she won't win the election, but America is such a great country that it gives her the opportunity to run for elected office.

That's what think.

Stephen M. Flatow

Israel returns bodies, Palestinians hold parties

Sometime during the day of May 30, 2012 Israel returned the bodies of more than 90 Palestinian terrorists to the Palestinian Authority.  And the Palestinians reacted by celebrating the return of their martyr heroes.

Admittedly shaken by this, I penned the following column that appeared in the Monday, June 4, 2012 edition of the New York Post.

As a “goodwill gesture,” Israel last week returned the remains of 91 Palestinian suicide bombers and other terrorists. The Palestinian Authority responded by holding a “national rally” to glorify the “martyrs” and will bury them with “full military honors.”

I know, I know — sounds like the same old news from the Middle East: Israelis making one-sided concessions, Palestinians heaping praise on murderers. For most, it’s probably getting a little boring.

Not for our family. For us, it’s personal.

You can read the full column at this link -
Palestinians honor dead terrorists—Stephen M. Flatow - NYPOST.com

What do you think about the glorification of terrorists?  I'd like to know.

Wanna be terror supporter goes jail

Another sponsor of terror is going to jail. 

Hor I. Akl was sentenced to more than six years in prison today after previously pleading guilty to criminal charges related to a scheme to send hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hizballah, a designated foreign terrorist organization, announced Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio; and Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Cleveland Division.

As I wrote about 17 years ago, people who mean to do harm to others are right here in the United States. I was then referring to the case of Sami Al-Arian, a supporter of the violent terrorists of Palestinian Islamic Jihad which murdered Alisa and seven others in 1995.  But this most recent case clearly indicates that Al-Arian was just one man in a long line of terror's supporters and sponsors.

Way to go USA!

Read the full press release.

alisa flatow israel

Speaking for Frank Lautenberg

I had forgotten about this video I made on behalf of Senator Frank Lautenberg's election campaign from a number of years ago.  Frank was a staunch supporter of our family and other victims of terror.
alisa flatow


Stephen M. Flatow

So much for secrets, I agree with Peter King

What's with the intelligence community?  I always thought that operatives--in the good old days, spies--were to be anonymous, working in the background, with methods of operation and identities protected.

Comes now the CIA and Saudi intelligence authorities talking about the operation that interrupted another Al Qaeda underwear bomb plot.

As reported in the New York Times,

The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday.

 I'm not the only one puzzled by this behavior.  Congressman Peter T. King of Long Island, New York has also weighed in:

But American intelligence officials were angry about the disclosure of the Qaeda plot, first reported Monday by The Associated Press, which had held the story for several days at the request of the C.I.A. They feared the leak would discourage foreign intelligence services from cooperating with the United States on risky missions in the future, said Representative Peter T. King, a New York Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

OK, guys, good job here, but let's keep these stories out of the newspapers.

Well, that's what I think.

Stephen M. Flatow

Comments on terror bombing video

The Mike Kelly column on the terror bombing video has generated two letters to the editor that focus on the comments made by one of Kelly's interviewee's, Aref Assaf, a pro-Palestinian activist.

Aref Assaf of the Paterson-based American-Arab Forum, one of North Jersey's leading Palestinian activists and a frequent critic of Israel's policies, also condemned the video.


"Any person or group that glorifies the killing of innocent people is something I can't condone," said Assaf, who was born in a West Bank refugee camp and still has family there.

But Assaf said the video's release did not surprise him.

"This is part of the price of continued violence between two people fighting over the same land," he said.

Whoa, you read that correctly, he's equating Israel's responses to terror as the same thing as the terror attack. And he fails to define what he means by "same land."

Two letters to the editor of the Bergen Record have taken Assaf to task for those comments.  While available on line, the links are hard to follow, so here are the letters in full:

Persistent ‘straw men’ in Mideast

Regarding Columnist Mike Kelly’s "Video as senseless as terrorist attack" (Page L-1, May 1):

Kelly’s column reminded us that monumental events often have lasting impact and that the horror of acts of violence do not dissipate with the passage of time and the public’s short-term memory.

Yet I was taken aback by the comments of Aref Assaf, president of the American Arab Forum. Assaf, described by Kelly as one of North Jersey’s leading Palestinian activists and a frequent critic of Israel’s policies, condemned the video but said, "This is part of the price of continued violence between two people fighting over the same land."

Is Assaf drawing moral equivalency between terrorist bomb attacks and responses by the Israeli military concerned about the safety of its citizens, both Arab and Jewish? By using the term the same land, is he saying that Palestinians are fighting over Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beer Sheva? These are two fundamental questions that must be answered by Palestinians when they decide to join Israel at the negotiating table, where Israel has offered to sit with her neighbors for 64 years.

The "settlement excuse" for not negotiating is in truth a "straw man." The maps for a just territorial compromise that would involve land swaps and the evacuation of some Israeli communities in the West Bank were drawn and agreed to by the negotiators at the end of President Clinton’s administration. The problem then, as it remains today, is the inability of Palestinian leaders to say yes to territorial compromise and no to terror. Israel is waiting for the Palestinian Authority to demonstrate its sincere desire for peace.

Neal I. Borovitz
River Edge, May 2
The writer, rabbi of Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge, is chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey.

and

Regarding Columnist Mike Kelly’s "Video as senseless as terrorist attack" (Page L-1, May1) on the Internet video of the bombing that killed Alisa Flatow:

Aref Assaf of the Paterson-based American Arab Forum asserts, "This is part of the price of continued violence between two people fighting over the same land."

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Arabs have been attacking the people of Israel long before it was a state, including long before the West Bank was taken by the Israeli Defense Forces.

This violence has absolutely nothing to do with land. It is about existence: The Arabs simply do not want Israel to exist. Period. The truth is plain to see.

Herbert Burack
Teaneck, May 2

Well said.

Theatrical production at Guantanamo could have been handled better.

Experience is a good teacher. I believe it applies to all aspects of life.  Whether you are learning your way around Facebook, your car, or any other thing worth learning, we learn best from our mistakes.

So why did the government prosecution allow the defendants to stage a theatrical production?

Prosecution of terrorists and their supporters has a history.  Mistakes have been made, yet they are fortunately far outweighed by the numerous successes.

Already the trial of terrorists that started this week at Guantanamo Bay is seemingly off to a bad start for the US.  Having been a witness, maybe a stakeholder would be a better word, in the trial of Sami Al-Arian about nine years ago, I believe I am qualified to offer my opinion as to the events now unfolding at Guantanamo Bay as the US puts several on trial for their role in the mass murder that we call "9/11."

Alisa Flatow was murdered in April 1995.  In November of that year FBI agents seized the computers and other records of Sami Al-Arian, long a vocal supporter of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  Victims' parents such as myself surmised that Al-Arian would soon be indicted for a role in Kfar Darom bombing that claimed the life of one American citizen, my daughter.

That was not to be because it wasn't until years later that Al-Arian was arrested in connection with that bombing and others involving American citizens and it wasn't until 2003 that he went to trial.  Found not guilty of the most serious charges, and a mistrial  declared on the others, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to providing material support to PIJ and was sentenced to a term in prison to be followed by his deportation.  (He's still in this country.)

What went wrong in the Al-Arian case?  To my way of thinking, the delay between seizing the evidence, interpreting it and presenting it at trial was almost eight long years.  Add to that a plethora of charges, and the inherent difficulty in proving conspiracy cases, and we wound up with almost nothing.

So now we turn to the proceedings at Guantanamo Bay.  A prosecution more than 11 years after 9/11 is the best we can get.  So we have to deal with it.  But, already, a mistake has been made by allowing the defendants to be in open court and slow down the proceedings with their antics.

What should have been a short, sweet, and to-the-point hearing about pleas to the charges turned into a mockery of murder and it was directly in the face of victims' families who watched by closed circuit TV.

The defendants have been able to work on their theatrics for quite some time, and the government should have been prepared for it.  At the first sign of difficulty, these killers should have been led out of the courtroom and taken to a room where they could watch the proceedings on CCTV.  Any disruption on their end of the hearing would have been invisible, and the court could have proceeded to have an uninterrupted hearing.

Here are some links to the coverage of the hearing:

New York Daily News ; LA Times

I hope the government has learned from its mistakes. 

Well, that's what I have to say.  What do you think?

Stephen M. Flatow

Just another insult - Islamic Jihad posts video of attack

I previously posted a video distributed by Islamic Jihad commemorating the terror attack that killed Alisa Flatow and 7 others in April 1995 near the settlement of Kfar Darom.

Mike Kelly, writing in New Jersey's Bergen Record, comments on the video.

He writes,

The video seems like an amateurish cartoon. But what it depicts is as real as the grave in a Paramus cemetery where Alisa Flatow's body lies.

You can read the full column here.

Yom Hazikaron in New Jersey

Israel is now commemorating Yom Hazikaron, a day of remembrance.  It's a solemn day that begins with sirens throughout the country calling the nation to stand at attention for 2 minutes in remembrance of Israel's war dead and victims of terror.

Our local Jewish federation, UJC of MetroWest, New Jersey, held its annual Yom Hazikaron last night.  It was a program that combined a mixture of song, prayer, poems and reflection, to make a meaningful evening.

As the father of a terror victim, Alisa Flatow, I was asked to say a few words.  I called my remarks, "A Father Reflects."  Here they are:

20 years ago the words Yom Hazikaron would have been unknown to American Jews. Today, due to the experience of American families shared in common with Israelis 6,000 miles away, Yom Hazikaron has a place on our calendar, too.


Over the past 20 years, unprecedented numbers of young and not so young Americans have travelled to Israel to study, to tour, and volunteer in the IDF. Some go for as little as a week, others for 10 month programs at yeshivot and universities, and others for longer periods. Some decide to stay.

They ride the buses; they go the same resorts, restaurants, theaters and museums as Israelis. They learn the language or brush-up on the intricacies of dik-duk. They learn the bus system.

They learn that yehi b’seder is not just a way to brush off a problem but a core belief that no matter how dark they are now things will work out for the better.

Most importantly, they learn daily what it means to be a member of an ancient people made modern in the past 100 years.

Sometimes they pay the ultimate price for being in Israel—they die. But whether the victim is a Michael Levin, a lone soldier from Pennsylvania, or a Joan Devanney, a teacher spending a year on a special program for Jewish educators; or a Marla Bennett or Ben Blutstein, studying at Hebrew University, or an Alisa Flatow, studying the texts that make Jews what we are, their families never blame them for being in Israel as the cause of their loss.

And while we may tempted to blame their loss on being in the wrong place at the wrong time, we know in our hearts that because our daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, nephews and cousins were living a dream, in the land they loved, among the people they loved, they were in the right place.

* * * *

From Jeff Jacoby - 'Victims' who persecute

Jeff Jacoby's latest column deals with recurring anti-Semitism, or as it may more properly called, Jew-hatred.

HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY always falls during the week that follows Passover. At first glance, the two would seem to have little in common -- one memorializes the millions of European Jews annihilated by Nazi Germany; the other commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt.


Yet for all their obvious differences, a fundamental similarity links these two crucial chapters in Jewish history. Both were attempts at genocide, and in both cases the perpetrators justified their savageries by claiming that they were the real victims, threatened by the people they intended to wipe out.

Will Jew-hatred ever go away?  I don't think so because the world's weaklings need someone to blame for their weakness.

Read the full column here.

What's going on here? Israelis standing up for Palestinian? Yes.

Sounds a little strange, doesn't it, that Israelis would be protesting on behalf of a Palestinian who has been sentenced to death.  Well, it's not strange because the man sentenced to die is a Palestinian whose horrible crime is that he sold land to Jews in Hebron. 

Yet, with all the shouting about Israeli apartheid, about discrimination, about a lack of civil rights, the Israelis of Hebron seem to be the only people who care about Muhammad Abu Shahala.

David Wilder and Noam Arnon, on behalf of the the Jewish Community of Hebron, have mounted an international campaign to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to rescind the death sentence.

You can read the full story here.

Israeli Police detain 'flytilla' activists. Why not try Syria?

So called pro-Palestinian activists do not not have the courage to challenge dictatorships, so they are determined to invade Israel.  The movement arriving by air is called a "flytilla" and I tip my hat to the flexibility of the English language for coming up with that phrase.

Seriously, does any country have to allow entry to folks calling for its demise?  I think not. What do you think, I'd like to know.

Read the full article from JPost Police detain 'flytilla' activists

Alisa Flatow Memorial Scholarship Fund

A terror victim’s legacy: ‘This is how we go on’

Alisa Flatow

On the flight back from a recent trip to Israel, my wife Rosalyn reminded me that Purim was six weeks away. Jews, my wife included, seem to mark many things by their proximity to holidays.

So begins my latest article about Alisa's impact on the life of her family.  It's a story common to the families of many terror victims--a refusal to surrender to the forces of evil in this world.

To read more, go to "A terror victim's legacy: 'This is how we go on'" in the New Jersey Jewish News.

From the murderers of Islamic Jihad, a tribute to the April 9, 1995 terror attack that killed Alisa Flatow and 8 others

Even the murderers of Islamic Jihad use the Internet.  A depiction of the April 9, 1995 terror attack near the Jewish community of Kfar Darom that killed Alisa and 8 others has appeared on the Internet.  The story and video appears on Israel National News.

Organ donation, a look back after 17 years

Immediately following Alisa's death on April 10, 1995, her parents authorized the donation of Alisa's organs for transplant.

Not all the transplants were successful, as this Jerusalem Post story revealed a few days after Alisa's death.

 Two who receive Alisa Flatow's organs die

Are the Palestinians getting fed up being used as cannon fodder? Cartoon criticizes leadership

Palestinian Media Watch has released a story with a cartoon that is critical of Palestinian leadership that puts Palestinian citizens in danger.

You can see the cartoon and its accompanying article here - PA cartoon criticizes Palestinian leaders for deaths in Gaza - PMW Bulletins

It's a small comment on the fecklessness of the PA leadership, but maybe it's a start to bigger things.

Stephen M. Flatow  alisa flatow

An Ovation for the NYPD

I haven't commented on the uproar surrounding revelations that the NYPD was using 21st Century methods to prevent terror.  I am referring to its using the Internet to look at Muslim related websites in order to see what's happening out there.

Politicians in NJ are tripping over each other to run to the microphone in order to condemn the NYPD for spying.  Why NJ you may ask?  How about it being a breeding ground the radical Muslims who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993?

The way I see it, most websites are open to the public and anyone, and I mean anyone, can view them or even sign up for those that require registration.  There should be no expectation of privacy on posts to the Web.

You may say this is trite, but if you use the Internet, you should expect others to read what you post.  And if it's hostile and threatening, you should expect that someone is going to look further.

In any event, here's an editorial from the New York Sun addressing the issue.
An Ovation for the NYPD

What do you think?

Stephen M. Flatow alisa flatow

From India - Warrant against 3 Iranians in Delhi blast case

News out of India of arrest warrants being issued for 3 Iranian men involved in last month's terror attack on the wife of an Israeli envoy.  The Indians are asking Interpol to help locate them.

(To see some good old-fashioned anti-Semitism, read the posted comments following the article.)

The full story is here: Warrant against 3 Iranians in Delhi blast case - The Times of India

alisa flatow terrorism