Terror Victims' Voice - For those who cannot speak for themselves.

Someone is knocking off Iranian nuke scientists

2012-01-11T10:10:00.001-05:00

Another Iranian scientist involved in the development of Iran's nuclear weapons program met his end today when a motorbike pulled alongside his car and a rider attached a magnetic bomb. These bombs are designed, according to sources, to kill the target but not cause collateral damage. Photos of the car and the victim available on line confirm that's the case.

Fingers will be pointed at the U.S. and Israel for a role in the attack. But it will be years before the truth is told.

I wonder if the secrecy that shrouded the Manhattan Project would work today. Don't know what that was? Look it up. Meanwhile, Iranian scientists should think twice about their careers.

See today's news story here.

Alisa Flatow Stephen Flatow

Surprise! Terrorists launch phosphorous laden missile from Gaza.

2012-01-02T07:33:00.000-05:00

Jpost.com reports that mortars launched from Gaza contain phosphorous, a chemical designed to spread fire around the impact site and which is banned by all humane conventions of warfare.

Is this is a test of Israel's IDF to gauge the response to the use of internationally prohibited weaponry? Read the full article 2 mortar shells from Gaza contained phosphorous.

Alisa Stephen Flatow

Why Did Netanyahu Free My Daughter's Killer?

2011-11-30T08:29:00.000-05:00

Here's a Forward Op-Ed criticizing the Israeli government decision to free more than 1,000 jailed terrorists for Gilad Schalit. It's written by Frimet Roth whose daughter was murdered in the Sbarro bombing of August 2009.

The full article is Why Did Netanyahu Free My Daughter's Killer? – Forward.com

What's your opinion?

alisa flatow stephen israel terror gilad shalit

This isn't Showtime's Homeland

2011-11-15T13:36:00.000-05:00

This is the real stuff, not a made for TV series, about US efforts to capture would be terrorists before they can do harm. The case is that of

Barry Walter Bujol Jr., a 30-year-old Hempstead, Texas, resident and former student at Prairie View A&M University, has been convicted for attempting to provide material support to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a designated foreign terrorist organization...

To get an idea of how these cases unfold, read the full report from the US Attorney here.

Keep up the good work ladies and gentlemen.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

alisa flatow israel

Into the fray: A study in self-cannibalization

2011-11-15T04:53:00.000-05:00

The title of this column by Martin Sherman appearing on JPost.com sure caught my attention. And before you think it's about lifestyles in the Western world, read this lead off paragraph,

Over a century ago, Churchill warned that Western civilization will face an existential challenge from the Muslim world. It is now upon us.

OK, it really is about Islamism and the threat posed to the Western world in its rush to be politically correct by being welcoming of so-called diversity.

The bottom line? One shouldn't hesitate to call a spade a spade.

Read the full column here.

alisa flatow stephen israel terrorism islamism jihad

From the New York Sun - Understanding Israel can't be pushed

2011-10-28T09:11:00.000-04:00

Well, opening the editorial page of the New York Sun, brought this:
Hope for Talks in Middle East Lies in Recognition That Israel Can Not Be Pushed

Some highlights-

The recent exchange of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for a thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands is regarded as a cautiously hopeful sign even by Israeli hawks, as it appears the only possible de-escalation from the absolute collapse of the peace process that was almost implicit in the Palestinian bid for full membership as a state in the United Nations. The Israeli Right was fiercely opposed to Palestinian statehood from 1948 until relatively recently, when it realized that the Palestinians could not be induced to leave territory Israel occupied after the 1967 war; could not be physically expelled, because neither domestic nor international opinion would tolerate such an outrage; and could not be assimilated, both because of natural Arab resistance, and because of the danger of Israel’s ceasing to be a Jewish state and homeland, which has always been its only raison d’être. (There were Israeli bi-nationalists, jolly progressives who wanted to share; Canaanites, i.e. complete secularists; and territorialists who had wispy dreams of settling in Uganda or Ethiopia — but none of them ever had any grasp of reality.)

In 1917, in the desperate days of World War I, British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour promised “a Jewish homeland” in what was called, resurrecting Roman terminology, Palestine. In the same declaration, it was assured that this would not compromise the rights of the Muslim and Christian Arabs in the same and adjoining territory. As Britain was selling the same real estate to two different and hostile parties, before it was itself in possession of it, there was never going to be a solution that didn’t divide it in two. Nor has there been.

Apart from Anwar Sadat and the kings of Morocco and a few relatively enlightened people in the Persian Gulf, no Arab leader has really accepted the legitimacy of the Jewish state, despite promises at Oslo and elsewhere, and this was confirmed by Mahmoud Abbas in his address to the U.N. a few weeks ago. Every agreement except the Sinai-Suez Camp David agreement with Sadat (who was rewarded with assassination by the Muslim Brotherhood, now contending with the military for control in Egypt) has been designed to exploit Israel’s desire for peace with promises of what amounted to a truce, in exchange for concessions on the ground by Israel. And a vast swath of world opinion, partly thirsting for Arab oil, has cravenly accepted this protracted Arab confidence trick: land for a truce that is cancelable without notice.

Actually, this is a disservice. Read the full article and learn something.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Alisa kfar darom terrorism

News update from the DOJ National Security Division

2011-10-02T08:34:00.003-04:00

We have come a long way since the Police Gazette. Did you know that the US Department of Justice's National Security Division maintains a site chock full of terrorism related news?

As just about every other business and government out there, the US NSD wants to have some bragging space. Its virtual press room gives it to us. Most recently published is accomplishments for the year 2011 ranging from the arrest of someone trying to export military equipment to the sentencing of the head of an Islamic charity for his efforts to send money to Chechnyan terrorists.

I think we need to know that our government is out there watching out for us and the virtual press room does it nicely. You can go to the latest releases here. Well, that's what I think.

stephen flatow alisa terror

NY Sun - Clinton does a 180 on Jerusalem as capital of Israelven Symbolically Recognizing Jerusalem as Capital of Israel

2011-09-28T15:53:00.000-04:00

The New York Sun reports today on Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's about-face on the issue of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Secretary of State Clinton, in a sharp departure from her stance when she was a senator, is warning that any American action, even symbolically, toward recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel must be avoided for the reason that it would jeopardize the peace process.

The issue has arisen in connection with a lawsuit now pending before the US Supreme Court about the rights of American citizens born in Jerusalem to have their passports indicate "Jerusalem, Israel." After all, the thinking goes, that if you are born in London, it says London, England, so why not Jerusalem, Israel? Adding to the confusion is Clinton's own position when she was a senator in full support of a law requiring passports to indicate Jerusalem, Israel. The answer,

"the law infringes on the president’s prerogatives in respect of foreign policy."

Welcome to the world of Mid-East politics. Read the full story:

Clinton, in a Sharp Turnaround, Warns Against Even Symbolically Recognizing Jerusalem as Capital of Israel

A mess, don't you think? I do.

stephen flatow alisa terror

It's now a terror attack

2011-09-28T07:38:00.000-04:00

The Jerusalem Post is now reporting that the deaths of Asher and Yonatan Palmer were the results of a terror attack. The IDF originally classified their deaths as a result of an automobile accident.

It seems that the IDF changed its position because of evidence within the car, namely a rock with blood on it. This would be consistent with the theory that a rock was thrown from a passing car that went through the windshield of the Palmer car striking Asher and causing him to lose control.

While there have been rock throwing attacks before, this seems to be a new form of attack using the speed of the vehicles to create more damage and, in this case, resulting in murder.

And the world believes you can have peaceful relations with the people who took the lives of these two civilians?

Read the Jerusalem Post story.

stephen flatow alisa israel

In contrast to Holocaust denial, these Muslims learn

2011-09-28T03:42:00.000-04:00

Samuel G. Freedman writing in the Religions column of the New York Times covers a man bites dog story.

One afternoon this week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran addressed the United Nations General Assembly, once again casting doubt that the Holocaust had occurred. Almost exactly 24 hours earlier, an otherwise obscure college student in Morocco named Elmehdi Boudra was convening a conference devoted not to denying the Holocaust but to remembering it.

Why Morocco?

Uncommonly among Arab and Muslim nations, Morocco has accepted the reality of the Holocaust, rather than either dismissing it outright or portraying it as a European crime for which those countries paid the price in the form of Israel’s creation. Partly, no doubt, because of Mohammed V’s stand against the Vichy regime, the current king, Mohammed VI, called in a 2009 proclamation for “an exhaustive and faithful reading of the history of this period” as part of “the duty of remembrance dictated by the Shoah.”

I didn't know about the Moroccan king's role in saving lives during the Holocaust, did you? In any event, read the full column to get a flavor of what is also out there in the Muslim world.

stephen flatow alisa flatow israel

Lake Failure - an editorial from The New York Sun

2011-09-26T07:25:00.000-04:00

We tend to not remember that The New York Sun remains on the Internet. This editorial was posted on September 24, 2011 in response to the Palestinian effort to have the United Nations to declare a state of Palestine.

(For the young, Lake Failure is a parody on the name of the community in the suburbs of New York City that hosted the United Nations at the end of World War II.)

Call it Lake Failure — and what a bitter sea it is. This was reflected in the crabbed remarks of the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. After delivering his request for the recognition of a Palestinian Arab state, he treated the world to yet another speech of rejection of Israel. He’d already, at a meeting Friday of 200 representatives of the Palestinian Arab community in America, made it clear that the Palestinian Arabs would never recognize a Jewish state. “They talk to us about the Jewish state, but I respond to them with a final answer: We shall not recognize a Jewish state,” Mr. Abbas was quoted by ynetnews.com as telling the meeting.

You can read the full editorial here, Lake Failure. What do you think?

stephen flatow alisa

On Middle East peace: Heckuva job (not!)

2011-09-22T09:28:00.001-04:00

I love Frida Ghitis and I enjoy reading her syndicated columns as they appear around the country. This column On Middle East peace: Heckuva job (not!) is typical of her fine writing.

Her bottom line is that there is plenty of blame to go around for today's stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians, but the person who got everything off on the wrong foot was Barack Obama.

Enjoy this column, it's a good one. What do you think?

stephen flatow alisa terror

Defeat the So-called Unilateral Declaration of Independence

2011-09-16T08:36:00.000-04:00

SPEAK OUT IN OPPOSITION TO THE PALESTINIAN

UNILATERAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

SIGN THE PETITION THAT WILL BE SENT TO THE UN.

On September 20, the Palestinians are going to the United Nations to pursue unilateral statehood recognition. Israel does not oppose a Palestinian state, only its unilateral declaration. The Israeli government is dedicated to mutually negotiated resolutions that result in two states for two peoples, living side by side in peace and security. Both the United States and Israel believe that unilateral action will not lead to peace, but will instead complicate any peace process and possibly lead to violence.

• A UN resolution will not resolve the core issues - including borders, Jerusalem, the status of refugees, or the sharing of water.

• The Palestinian Authority recently signed an agreement with Hamas, a terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of Israel and continues to fire rockets into Israeli towns and schoolyards.

• A unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood is counter to all internationally accepted frameworks for Mideast peace, which all call for a mutually negotiated and agreed upon resolution of the conflict and prohibit unilateral action by either side.

Mahmoud Abbas must sit down at the negotiating table instead of standing up at the UN.

Sign the Petition - Now

Well, that's what I think.

stephen flatow alisa udi

PLO official: Palestine should be free of Jews. So what's the surprise?

2011-09-14T17:22:00.002-04:00

YNET is reporting on comments made by the PLO ambassador to the US that Palestine must be free of Jews. The people need "separation" he says. And they gripe about apartheid?

I have seen Palestinian Arabs interact with Jews on many levels. (I'm talking about the average Palestinian in the street, before you think otherwise.) And the interactions are good.

Elliott Abrams, a former US National Security Council official, said in response that according to such plans, Palestine will be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews.

Before we get worked up, remember, the PLO is headed by, in the words of Yitzhak Rabin, a terrorist, Abu Mazen, who also moonlights as a Holocaust denier.

We should expect nothing less from people trying to have their own state, should we? Sad, very sad.

Read the full post from YNET.

stephen flatow alisa israel

The Israeli blockade of Gaza is hurting

2011-09-12T07:37:00.000-04:00

OK, so this is not really a criticism of the blockade. Did you expect otherwise?

Stephen flatow alisa flatow Israel

Jeff Jacoby - The war on terror is a war of ideas

2011-09-11T18:24:00.000-04:00

In my book, many Americans, indeed many around the world don't understand the underlying premise of Jeff Jacoby's column. That is,

The war on terror, Bush accurately foretold, would be a long struggle fought on many fronts. But ultimately the only way to prevent al-Qaeda and its allies from imposing an "age of terror" was for America to sustain an "age of liberty, here and across the world." While Bush would get plenty of things wrong after 9/11, this ideological insight -- that the root of Islamist terrorism was the lack of freedom in the Middle East -- was one of the big things he got right.

While others claimed terrorism was driven by poverty or lack of education, the "fruit of US arrogance," and the reliable old standby, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In reality, as Princeton economist Alan Krueger demonstrated in a 2007 book, What Makes A Terrorist?, the best predictors of terrorism are "the suppression of civil liberties and political rights, including freedom of the press, the freedom to assemble, and democratic rights."

[Looking at Palestinian terror alone should dissuade anyone that terror is born out of a lack of education; the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad is populated with physicians and PhDs.]

The struggle against terror is not over, but we are, according to Jacoby beginning to engage its purveyors on the right battlefield. Read the full column, The war on terror is a war of ideas. And while you are at it, sign up for Jeff's email distribution list.

Well, that's what I think.

Stephen M. Flatow

alisa flatow israel

9/11

2011-09-11T18:14:00.000-04:00

Must remember
Flags at half staff
Cannot forget
There will never be closure

stephen flatow world trade center september 11th terror attacks terrorists Islamists

Israel's blockade of Gaza is illegal - NOT!

2011-09-09T09:48:00.000-04:00

Mitchell Bard addresses one aspect of the UN's Palmer Report, the legality of Israel's blockade of Gaza.

The 105-page report, which relied heavily on Israel's internal investigation into the incident as well as accounts from flotilla participants, concluded that Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip is consistent with customary international law, is legitimate due to the security threat posed by Hamas and does not constitute collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza.

Bard's posting comes on the heals of those who interpret the blockade as illegal. To get the full import of the Palmer Report and Israel's blockade, read the full Myths and Facts report.

Feds charge Virginia resident with support of terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Tayyiba

2011-09-07T09:10:00.005-04:00

The US Attorney for Virginia has announced that

Jubair Ahmad, 24, a native of Pakistan and resident of Woodbridge, Va., has been arrested on charges in the Eastern District of Virginia of providing material support to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), a designated foreign terrorist organization, and making false statements in a terrorism investigation.

It seems that Ahmad was responsible for posting of

a propaganda video to YouTube on behalf of LeT, after communications with a person named “Talha.” In a subsequent conversation with another person, Jubair identified Talha as Talha Saeed, the son of LeT leader Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. Talha and Jubair allegedly communicated about the images, music and audio that Jubair was to use to make the video. The final video contained images of LeT leader Hafiz Saeed, so-called jihadi martyrs and armored trucks exploding after having been hit by improvised explosive devices.

OK, so the Feds can take pride in nabbing this idiot but they downplay the significance of LeT. Calling it a terrorist organization doesn't do it justice because LeT is the group behind the Mumbai mass murders.

As for Ahmad's parents, I have a question- what do you think your son was doing in his bedroom with the door locked and the lights dimmed?

To the Feds, I say keep up the pressure. We face a threat from within, and we'll only have ourselves to blame if we let these wannabe killers pull off something beyond posting a video.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Read the full press release.

Stephen M. Flatow

Mujahedeen Khalq. Whose side are they on? Terrorists, freedom fighters or something else?

2011-08-14T17:19:00.005-04:00

Mujahedeen Khalq, a listed terrorist organization, is on the Op-ed pages of today's New York Timses. Mujahedeen Khalq, or Warriors of God, has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds in a little known war with Iran. Elizabeth Rubin takes them, and their outspoken American supporters, to task.

[A]n unlikely chorus of the group’s backers — some of whom have received speaking fees, others of whom are inspired by their conviction that the Iranian government must fall at any cost — have gathered around Mujahedeen Khalq at conferences in capitals across the globe.

This group of luminaries includes two former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff, Gens. Hugh H. Shelton and Peter Pace; Wesley K. Clark, the former NATO commander; Gen. James L. Jones, who was President Obama’s national security adviser; Louis J. Freeh, the former F.B.I. director; the former intelligence officials Dennis C. Blair and Michael V. Hayden; the former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; the former attorney general Michael B. Mukasey, and Lee H. Hamilton, a former congressman who was co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Ms. Rubin's position,

Mujahedeen Khalq is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran’s democratic activists, but a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us.

Personally, I'm puzzled by MK, and wonder if its supporters are on the right track. I can only think back to the heady days of American belief that Fidel Castro was the right man for Cuba at the right time in history, only to have those beliefs smashed when Castro aligned himself with the Soviets and embarked on a course of state-sponsored terror.

So, it's time to sit back and see how this plays out because, brother, this is bigger than us all.

What do you think?

Stephen Flatow Iran Mujahedeen Khalq

Hamas and the arts

2011-08-01T09:13:00.004-04:00

Reuters is reporting on the Hamas crackdown on film makers who do not toe the line.

"Cinema in Gaza is like writing on rocks with your fingers," says Palestinian writer-director Sweilem Al-Absi.

OK, I'm good with that analogy.

While Hamas has been investing heavily in Internet and television news, it is not too pleased with the work of Gazan film makers.

"Such was the case with "Masho Matook" ("Something Sweet"), a 2010 short film directed by Khalil al-Muzzayen, which depicts the interaction between Israeli troops and soccer-playing Palestinian children in once-occupied Gaza.

"Though the video vignette was submitted to the Cannes Film Festival, Hamas banned its screening locally, citing a four-second scene where Israeli soldiers appreciatively eye a comely Palestinian woman who breezes past them, her hair uncovered."

The Hamas answer is that the clip in question was "out of context."

If you add a free film industry to a free press as one of the signs of democracy, Hamas and its hold on the people of Gaza come up short.

Read the full article.

Flatow Gaza Hamas Reuters

Gaza Flotilla and Alice Walker

2011-06-30T12:43:00.004-04:00

Author Howard Jacobson writes on CNN.com "Why Alice Walker shouldn't sail to Gaza"

It should not need arguing, this late in the ethical history of mankind, that good people can do great harm. One of the finest and funniest novels ever written -- Don Quixote -- charts the damage left in the wake of a man who would make the world a better place.

Human beings are seldom more dangerous than when they are sentimentally overcome by the goodness of their own intentions. That Alice Walker believes it is right to join the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza I do not have the slightest doubt. But beyond associating her decision with Gandhi, Martin Luther King and very nearly, when she talks about the preciousness of children, Jesus Christ, she fails to give a single convincing reason for it.

Jacobson then takes on each one of Walker's reasons for associating with killers and thugs. And he does it well.

Read the full column.

Alice Walker is on the wrong boat

2011-06-29T08:53:00.003-04:00

Comes the news that Alice Walker, noted African-American author and civil rights crusader, will be on a boat intending to break Israel’s quarantine of Gaza. In case you don’t know it Ms. Walker, you’re not going to be riding the Love Boat with Gopher, Doc and Captain Steuben.

We all know that Gaza is under the domination and control of Hamas, a sworn and devoted enemy of the State of Israel and Jews everywhere. Thousands of missiles have been launched against Israeli citizens by Hamas and its allies. A few months ago, a school bus was a target of a missile attack in which a high school student was murdered. Gilad Schalit is still being held incommunicado somewhere in Gaza. Hamas has rejected an appeal from the International Red Cross to visit him.

Gaza does not contain a single Jewish resident (other than Gilad) since the Israeli government unilaterally removed all Jewish residents five years ago. This move, designed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to give new impetus to negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, was met with a Hamas takeover of Gaza following a brief civil war with supporters of the Palestinian Authority.

The quarantine of Gaza, a result of the Hamas takeover, is designed to keep more missiles and weapons from coming into the hands of Hamas. It’s perfectly legal for one country to protect itself against another country that is openly hostile to it. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis?

So, Alice Walker is going to Gaza to bring letters to the children of Gaza. What a laudable effort if it wasn’t laughable. A heroine of the American civil rights movement aligning herself with murderers and thugs. No matter what she says now, she’s lost her credibility.

As Dan Gordon has written in the American Thinker, Alice Walker Is Sailing in the Wrong Direction,

“The truth, however, is that this flotilla, and the actions of Ms. Walker and her compatriots, is behavior that will not only make the children of Southern Israel afraid, it will help murder them. That is not hyperbole, nor is it a question of theoretical murder. It is real. It is actual, and if, Heaven forbid, they are successful in breaking the Israeli naval quarantine meant to deny advanced weapons to internationally recognized terrorists, those murders will be a byproduct of their horrifically misguided actions.”

Shame on you Alice Walker.

Conrad Black - Canada as a moral leader

2011-06-09T08:30:00.001-04:00

Conrad Black, writing in The New York Sun about Canadian premier's thumbing his nose at American policy, for the good, I might add-

As befits a modest country unaccustomed to leading the world other than by homogenized measurements of the quality of life, Canada seems not to have noticed that Stephen Harper has kicked off his new term as head of a majority government with the assumption of the moral leadership of the world (in the usual unobtrusive Canadian way); and even more astoundingly, has done so by successfully contradicting the president of the United States.

By killing it [the Obama plan for Israel to return to 1967 borders] in the G-8 (U.S., Germany, Japan, the U.K., France, Italy, and Russia), Stephen Harper became the moral leader of the world’s statesmen, as the first head of an important country to debunk the 1967 fraud upon which the Arab-Israeli crisis, the longest-running and most definitive moral litmus test in the geo-political world (and least successful extended negotiation in history) is based.

What it boils down to is this- Stephen Harper has smarts and is willing to stand up for what he believes is right. Black's article goes through some Canadian history to give us the background to the importance of Harper's move.

Canada Emerges as a Moral Leader by Standing Up for Israel

Damascus on Trial - support for terror groups in spotlight

2011-06-06T12:14:00.000-04:00

Makes you kind of wonder.

Back in 1996 I had a meeting at the State Department with the then head of its terrorism section. We were trying to get information on Islamic Jihad, the group that murdered Alisa and seven others in the April 1995 attack near Kfar Darom. The information we received confirmed what we had heard elsewhere -- Islamic Jihad was headquartered in Syria.

Since that time, Syria has continued to provide a haven and support Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Now, with the world focused on Syria's actions against its own citizens and calls for the fall of the Assad government, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have to be a little concerned.

Middle East Forum writes, Damascus on Trial, read it to get an idea of Syria's role as the home to terrorists.

Syrians attempt to "breach" borders; double standard on horizon?

2011-06-05T10:45:00.003-04:00

From the New York Times,

Wave after wave of Syrian and Palestinian protesters from Syria approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire at activists who crossed a newly dug trench and tried to breach the border fence near the Golan town of Majdal Shams. The protests then spread out along the border.

The operative word in the above paragraph is "breach."

No other sovereign country would be forced to accept a massed invasion of its borders whether by so-called "protesters" or military forces.

The Jerusalem Post reports that armed gunman can be seen in the background. Are they there to fire on the protesters who turn back or on those going forward?

A crisis along the border between Syria and Israel works to the benefit of the Syrian dictatorship by directing attention away to its slaughter of its own citizens. In any event, no doubt that there will be criticism of Israel's response. Double standard in action, once again.

You can read the Times report here and JPost.com report here.

Europe sanctions Assad

2011-05-23T11:30:00.002-04:00

Last week I mentioned that American economic sanctions against Syrian President Bashar Assad will be meaningless unless European countries followed suit.

The New York Times reported this morning, May 23, 2011, that the European Union has imposed sanctions.

The 27-nation bloc instituted an assets freeze and a visa ban on Assad and nine other members of his regime.

Let's see what happens when Assad is deprived of access to his cash in European banks.

Assad and the sanctions, shmanctions

2011-05-19T08:04:00.004-04:00

Reading the news about the imposition of financial sanctions on Syria President X, I just had to check the OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSETS CONTROL - SPECIALLY DESIGNATED NATIONALS & BLOCKED PERSONS and there was his name on page 20 -

AL ASSAD, Bashar Hafez (a.k.a. AL-ASAD,
Bashar; a.k.a. AL-ASSAD, Bashar; a.k.a.
ASSAD, Bashar); DOB 11 Sep 1965; POB
Damascus, Syria; President of the Syrian Arab
Republic (individual) [SYRIA]

According to the New York Times story,.

The sanctions against Syria reflected mounting American frustration that Mr. Assad’s government was ignoring international condemnation by not pursuing a peaceful resolution to the popular uprising that has swept the country since March.

Well, "gee whiz, Phil," what's going on here? Is the Obama administration going to pressure the Europeans to impose sanctions, too? As the Times reports, the Europeans are considering it.

Now remember, we're the same country that has found it increasingly difficult to isolate Iran through the use of sanctions that are primarily American in nature.

Without European support, sanctions are meaningless. Tie up Assad's personal bank accounts and the ATM card no longer works.

More disconcerting is the face of post-Assad Syria. Who steps in to fill his shoes? Well, we'll just have to see, won't we?

The wheels of justice grind slow - Demjanjuk Convicted

2011-05-12T10:36:00.000-04:00

Former prison guard John Demjanjuk convicted of role in Nazi death camp.

Read the story from the New York Times.

Enough said.

Senator Menendez and associates weigh in on Hamas-PA deal

2011-05-09T09:18:00.004-04:00

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey and colleagues have signed a letter to President Obama addressing the recent unity agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

In the letter signed by 27 Senators, the Senators urged the Administration to stand by its refusal to work with any Palestinian government that includes Hamas and consider cutting aid to the country should the U.S. designated terrorist group remain in the government. Preconditions in U.S. law prevent aid from being provided to a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, unless the government and all its members have publicly committed to the Quartet principles.

The Hamas charter calls for the destruction of America's only democratic ally in the Middle East. That's inimical to American interests and the senators are correct when they remind the president of that fact.

Here's the full letter as released by Senator Menendez.

I am one terror victim's father who says "Thank you Senator Menendez, et al."

Stephen M. Flatow

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

The decision of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to form a unity government with Hamas – a designated terrorist group – threatens to derail the Middle East peace effort for the foreseeable future and to undermine the Palestinian Authority’s relations with the United States.

Hamas rejects peaceful efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and continues to call for the destruction of the State of Israel. Soon after this agreement was signed, senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar declared that "our plan does not involve negotiations with Israel or recognizing it." Hamas and other Iranian-backed terrorist groups in Gaza have also stepped up their smuggling of Iranian arms and increased their mortar and rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, firing more than 130 during the past month alone and nearly 300 this year. Hamas’ response to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, condemning “the assassination and killing of an Arab holy warrior” is emblematic of Hamas’ ideology and underscores Hamas’ continued support for terrorism.

The United States should stand by its refusal to work with any Palestinian government that includes Hamas. We welcome statements from the Administration recognizing that Hamas is a terrorist organization and insisting that it accept the Quartet conditions (of recognizing Israel’s right to exist, rejecting violence, and endorsing previous Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements). We strongly support Secretary Clinton’s 2009 Statement that: “we will not deal with nor in any way fund a Palestinian government that include Hamas until Hamas has renounced violence, recognized Israel and agreed to follow the previous obligations of the Palestinian Authority.”

It is imperative for you to make clear to President Abbas that Palestinian Authority participation in a unity government with an unreformed Hamas will jeopardize its relationship with the United States, including its receipt of U.S. aid. As you are aware, U.S. law prohibits aid from being provided to a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, unless the government and all its members have publically committed to the Quartet principles. We urge you to conduct a review of the current situation and suspend aid should Hamas refuse to comply with Quartet conditions.
Ultimately, the legitimacy of any peace process must always be weighed against the assurances Israel needs for its security and the security of the region. Hamas’ participation in the Palestinian government eliminates the trust and commitment to peace that must exist between the parties to move forward and therefore, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated, the choice is between “peace with Israel or peace with Hamas” because “there is no possibility for peace with both.”

As fellow Democrats, we thank you for your continued commitment to and investment in Israel’s security. We urge you to make clear to President Abbas and the international community the United States’ opposition to a Fatah-Hamas unity government that does not fully accept the Quartet principles. Such a government will prove fatal to the peace effort, as well as to efforts to establish a Palestinian state, and will severely harm relations with the United States. The Palestinian Authority needs to get back to the negotiating table rather than pursue futile and harmful efforts to join with Hamas or seek recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN.

Sincerely,
Senator Robert Menendez
Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr.
Senator Daniel Inouye
Senator Carl Levin
Senator Max Baucus
Senator Joseph Lieberman
Senator Kent Conrad
Senator Frank Lautenberg
Senator Charles Schumer
Senator Barbara Boxer
Senator Daniel Akaka
Senator Barbara Mikulski
Senator Ron Wyden
Senator Bill Nelson
Senator Debbie Stabenow
Senator Ben Nelson
Senator Mark Pryor
Senator Benjamin Cardin
Senator Sherrod Brown
Senator Amy Klobuchar
Senator Jon Tester
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Senator Al Franken
Senator Joe Manchin
Senator Christopher Coons
Senator Richard Blumenthal
Senator Claire McCaskill
Senator Tim Johnson
Senator Michael F. Bennet

Christians dying in Egypt

2011-05-08T11:56:00.003-04:00

We've written previously about the fate of Egypt's Coptic Christian community. Now that Mubarak is gone it seems that the Christians are now responding to violence with violence as this story from the Times relates - Clashes in Cairo Leave 11 Dead and Two Churches in Flames

Behind the violence may be a rumor.

Like many recent episodes of Muslim-Christian violence here, the strife began over rumors of an interfaith marriage. Muslims in the neighborhood said a former Christian had left the church and married a Muslim. They said they had heard that she had been abducted and detained inside the church of St. Minas against her will, reflecting a pattern of accusations that has recurred in several recent episodes of sectarian conflict.

So, let's see, Christians believed rumors that Jews kidnapped them to use their blood during Passover, so they murdered Jews. Today, Muslims believe rumors that a convert is held against her will, so they go after Christians. Christians stand up for themselves. Christians and Muslims die as a result. Churches are burned.

The usual suspects have now been rounded up by Egyptian authorities. What happens next is anyone's guess. But, if you are a Coptic Christian, I suggest you get out. Now.

Al Jazeera and The Economist - adding fuel to the anti-Israel fire

2011-05-03T09:26:00.005-04:00

Camera comments on nonsense involving Israel and alleged discrimination against its Arab citizens. From Camera:

The Economist -- and al Jazeera following suit -- took biased treatment of Israel to new depths with a segment claiming Israel, in its apparently diabolical attempts to torment Arabs, resorts to setting traffic lights so that Arabs must wait longer than Jews. The absurdity of this false charge prompted CAMERA to prepare a short video of its own exposing the bogus claims.

What do The Economist and al Jazeera gain from this anti-Israel incitement? More ad revenue from anti-Israel sources? This is certainly not news. Who needs The Economist and al Jazeera adding fuel to the fire?

Death of Bin Laden

2011-05-02T09:27:00.003-04:00

The celebrations of Osama Bin Laden's death caught me by surprise. At first I only thought of the disgusting visuals of Palestinians handing out sweets to their children when Israelis are murdered. I wondered if the obvious joy expressed by thousands of Americans were akin to that.

There is a story in the Talmud that describes God's anger at the angels when they celebrated the drowning of the Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds as they pursued the Israelites. Yet, the Israelites celebrated on the shore without such chastisement.

So, what's appropriate?

Lori Palatnik, writing on Aish.com, talks about "When Evel Falls." The article is too good to summarize here, so I am giving you the full article --

Is it proper to celebrate Osama Bin Laden's death?

As soon as I heard the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, I posted this wonderful news on my Facebook page as I waited to hear President Obama’s live announcement.

I immediately received many “likes” and comments of celebration. But one of my “friends” posted his displeasure that we were celebrating the death of someone. He quoted that when the sea engulfed and killed the Egyptians, God quieted the angels and told them not to cheer their death, that this was not something to celebrate.

Indeed, when the sea miraculously split, the seabed turned dry and the Jewish people walked safely to the other side. They then turned to watch the death of their enemy, as the now muddy seabed caught the Egyptian horses and chariot wheels.

The Jewish people broke into song, called “The Song of the Sea.” Miriam, with musical instruments, took the Jewish women aside and danced and sang in praise of God. And we are told that in heaven, the angels also broke into song. But the Almighty chastised the angels and said, “How can you sing when my people are dying?”

The Almighty chastised the angels and said, “How can you sing when my people are dying?”
Several questions arise. Why would God tell the angels not to celebrate and yet allow the Jews to sing? And God’s people were dying because He himself killed them!

What God is saying to the angels is that this is not a happy day for Him. He did not create the Egyptians for evil, but they chose evil, and now evil had to be wiped out. But the Jewish people had suffered at the hand of the Egyptians and they not only had the right to celebrate, they must celebrate.

The Shabbat before Purim is called Parshat Zachor, the Torah portion where we “remember.” What is it that we are recalling each year? Amalek, the arch enemy of the Jewish people who attacked us in the desert, and whose descendents rise in each generation to try and destroy us. Remembering Amalek fulfills one of the 613 mitzvot of the Torah. But why would we forget? Because there is a part of us that wants to rationalize evil away, and not to accept that it actually exists. We give it political reasoning or economic rationalization. But the Torah tells us that it does exist, we must not to close our eyes to it, and we are to do everything that we can to eradicate it from the world.

We recently sang “V’hi sh'amda” from our haggadahs:

For not just one alone has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us; and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand!"

Mr. Yisrael Yitzhak Cohen, a special Jew who lives in Toronto and who we had the privilege of living near for many years, is a survivor of Auschwitz and told us dramatic and horrific stories of what he experienced. He shared with us that when the Nazis tortured them in the camps they would point their guns and shout, “Sing Jews, sing.” And “V’hi shamda” is what they sang.

As the Nazis left the camp, killing every Jew they could find on the way out, Mr. Cohen, barely a skeleton, laid down among the corpses and feigned to be dead. When the Nazis were gone, he and a friend stumbled into the kitchen, found some flour and water and began to bake it into something they could eat. As they sat on the floor waiting to remove the matzah, American soldiers entered the room. They were liberated on Passover Sheni, 30 days after Seder night.

Mr. Cohen was a man who knew evil when he saw it, and would never forget. When our second son, Moshe, was born, we asked Mr. Cohen to honor us as the sandek [akin to godfather], to hold our son as he entered the covenant.

In havdalah we celebrate the ability to distinguish between light and darkness. In life we must know what is good and what is evil. Yes, we are commanded to remember that there is evil in the world, and not only are we allowed to celebrate when it is destroyed, we must.

As King Solomon wrote:

To every thing there is a season… A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance … A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/ci/s/When_Evil_Falls.html

Let's all pray there will be no further need for celebrations such as these.

NATO under fire after firing on Libya

2011-05-02T06:17:00.002-04:00

The New York Times reports today on the use of disproportionate force. This time, however, the butt of the story is not Israel, long accused of that in its wars with Hamas and Hezbollah, but NATO.

The charge has been levied by Russia. The same folks who brought us the Chechen wars.

NATO’s campaign of airstrikes against Libya came under the most intense criticism yet on Sunday, with Russian officials accusing the alliance of using “disproportionate” force in civilian areas a day after a strike on central Tripoli was reported to have killed a son and three grandchildren of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

NATO obviously denied the charge.

To my mind, NATO must ask and answer two questions- Does it want Qaddafi out of power? And what price is it willing to pay?

Read the full story.

Cohen- Price of Delusion. Libya and Qadaffi

2011-04-29T10:52:00.003-04:00

Roger Cohen’s column in the Times begins with his take on Qaddafi-

“Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is a vain man. Like the other Arab dinosaurs he has his dyed hair, his designer shades, his spoiled children and his compound full of sycophants. He doesn’t want, one day, to be dragged from a rat hole like Saddam
Hussein or hauled from a bunker like the Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo.”

“Qaddafi is not mad,” he writes, but deluded. And who or what helped along his delusion?

Qaddafi is a child of the United Nations, that austere body in New York City that gives the plenum to people like Qaddafi, Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad. It is the U.N. and its various councils that empower people like Qaddafi by giving them the veneer of legitimacy that allows them to murder their own people and to sponsor terrorism.

And of the rebels?

“Right now, three squabbling generals jostle for control. The Brits, holed up in a Benghazi hotel compound with one of the generals, are trying to help with that. The United States is offering nonlethal stuff worth millions of dollars: body armor, canteens, uniforms, wire cages for sandbags that can be used to make walls.”

But you sense from Cohen that he blames the U.S. for the rebel’s lack of progress in ousting Qaddafi.

“This embryonic force is not going to defeat Qaddafi in the foreseeable future. Nor can it, alone, apply enough pressure on him for his entourage to see the writing on the wall and act accordingly. That burden falls to NATO. But NATO hesitated as President Obama and America drew back. It is now trying to correct that lapse by escalating operations to take out supply and communications lines.”

I say that the U.N. created Qaddafi, let it now get rid of him. Small chance of that happening as its fecklessness is on display as it considers adding Syria to the UN’s Human Rights Council.

What will be in Libya will be. And I do not hold out much hope of a democratic future.

The full article is here.

New violence in Israel troubles a father's sore heart in N.J. | NJ.com

2011-04-16T22:02:00.008-04:00

My most recent column appeared in the Star-Ledger on Friday, April 15, 2011, New violence in Israel troubles a father's sore heart in N.J.

Originally intended as a political commentary on the Hamas missile attack at an Israeli school bus and the retraction of the Goldstone Report, the column became a personal recollection of my daughter Alisa's murder in April 1995 and the lessons learned since.

Sadly, innocent civilians are again being put in the crosshairs by Hamas and its allies in Gaza. (Thank you, Susie.) And Israel's reaction will be deemed wrong.

From ADL - Arab newspapers waste no time; anti-Semitic cartoons all the rage.

2011-04-13T04:54:00.003-04:00

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has collected a series of anti-Semitic cartoons printed in response to the retraction of the Goldstone Report.

The cartoons ran on Al-Jezeera and in other media outlets in the Middle East including this one from Jordan, which you will recall has a peace treaty with Israel.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised at this latest outburst from some of Israel's neighbors, but I would like, just once, to be surprised at the absence of such hatred.

You can see the rest of the cartoons and read the ADL press release here: Arab Newspaper Editorial Cartoons React to Goldstone Retraction

Brandeis University students embarrass themselves

2011-04-12T10:37:00.003-04:00

The Brandeis University student newspaper the Justice, is just chock full of nonsense. My college didn't have a regularly run student newspaper back in the day, so I can only wonder how much stupidity it would have published. Of course, in the 1960s we were concerned about civil rights, the war in Viet Nam, and nothing much else.

Ah, but the students on the Brandeis campus have much to be concerned about, especially the view espoused by two fringe but very vocal groups covered in this article appearing in the Justice: Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace present three generations of Palestinian refugees - News You have to read this tripe to believe it.

But, give them credit, they got the story printed. What a bunch of idiots.

Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

Makes my stomach turn- Sanctions Are Dropped Against Libyan Defector

2011-04-05T07:55:00.004-04:00

This is the kind of news that no one should have to read in the New York Times- a man who may be responsible for the terror bombing of PanAm 103 is standing in good stead with the Obama administration.

The Obama administration dropped financial sanctions on Monday against the top Libyan official who fled to Britain last week, saying it hoped the move would encourage other senior aides to abandon Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the country’s embattled leader.

But the decision to unfreeze bank accounts and permit business dealings with the official, Moussa Koussa, underscored the predicament his defection poses for American and British authorities, who said on Tuesday that Scottish police and prosecutors planned to interview Mr. Koussa about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other issues “in the next few days.”

So what is going on here? This is not a case where a bank robber gets immunity from prosecution for testifying against his buddies. Koussa is not a bank robber. He works for Qaddafi (the Times' spelling) at the highest level of government. Perhaps he's dangling information about Qaddafi's authorization of the bombing? Maybe, but does Koussa deserve a free ride because of it? What do you think? Read the full report from the New York Times: Sanctions Are Dropped Against Libyan Defector

Israeli leader’s son sentenced to prison for kidnapping Palestinian teen

2011-03-28T13:57:00.004-04:00

An Israeli court has sentenced Zvi Struk, 28, of the Esh Kodesh outpost near Shiloh, to 18 months in prison, one year of probation and restitution of $14,000. Struk was convicted of beating a Palestinian shepherd and killing a lamb in July 2007. The case is on appeal. Be that as it may, what's most telling are the judge's comments as reported by JTA

"I reviewed the medical records and the difficult photographs that were taken of the complainant immediately after the event, and I cannot avoid expressing disgust and deep shock over the signs of terrible trauma that the minor suffered," Judge Amnon Cohen said in the courtroom.

What a difference from Israel's opposites in the Palestinian Authority. First, they don't bring perpetrators of crimes against Israelis to justice, and, second, they glorify their criminals, especially the murderers of innocent civilians. What a difference it would make if Palestinians criticized their criminals the way Judge Cohen did an Israeli. Read the full story from the JTA Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

A visit to Israel: Sarah Palin and Sarah the matriarch

2011-03-27T15:01:00.001-04:00

From the New York Sun, an editorial about Sarah Palin's recent visit to Israel.

Here at home the central point we keep making about Mrs. Palin is that of all the streams of American conservatism hers is the one that is most welcoming to Jewish Americans. Her mantra is what she calls constitutional conservatism, meaning one that is grounded in the bedrock of the American Constitution. It is different from what, in a previous generation, was called Christian Conservatism, a political flag that rallied a magnificent band of followers but that was not the logical rallying cry of Jewish Americans.

The Sun is onto something, not necessarily about Mrs. Palin's role in Republican politics, but the position of the Republican Party as the one garnering more Jewish members. On another note, the Sun continues to use the phrases settlers and settlements when describing the Israelis who live in Jewish communities in Yehuda and the Shomron. Wouldn't it be nice if the Sun were to adopt usage of the latter in lieu of the former? Read the full editorial, Sarah and Sarah Well, that's what I think. Stephen M. Flatow

About the Itamar massacre

2011-03-17T09:09:00.003-04:00

Some have wondered why this blog has not mentioned the horrific murder of the Fogel family in the Jewish community of Itamar on Friday, March 11th.

Be assured that the murdered and their family members have been in my mind since I first read the news Saturday evening after the Sabbath.

Frankly, my silence is attributable to being as the proverbial deer blinded by the headlights of an approaching car. I’ve been frozen not only by the attack but the implications of the attack and the world’s response to it.

When the Associated Press could only conclude its Sunday report of the massacre by stating that the community of Itamar is “home to some of Israel’s most radical settlers,” a line picked up by the New York Times, my fear that we are sinking to the lows of pre-war Nazi Germany in the demonization of Jews became more real.

In that vein, I came across the following poem by Uri Tzvi Greenberg written in response to the Holocaust.

To God in Europe

We are not as dogs among the gentiles: a dog is pitied by them
fondled by them, sometimes even kissed by a gentile’s mouth
as if he were a pretty baby
of his own flesh and blood, the gentile spoils him
and is forever taking pleasure in him.
And when the dog dies, how the gentile mourns him!

Not like sheep to the slaughter were we brought in
trainload but rather-
through all the lovely landscapes of Europe-
brought like leprous sheep
to Extermination itself.
Not as they dealt with their sheep did the gentiles deal with
our bodies;
they did not extract their teeth before they slaughtered them
nor strip them of their wool as they stripped us of our skins;
nor shove them into the fire to turn their life to ashes;
nor scatter the ashes over sewers and streams;
like this that we have suffered at their hands!
There are none-no other instances.
(All words are shadows of shadow)
This is the horrifying phrase: No other instances.

No matter how brutal the torture a man will
suffer in a land of the gentiles
the maker of comparisons will compare it thus:
He was tortured like a Jew.
Whatever the fear, whatever the outrage,
how deep the loneliness, how harrowing the sorrow-
no matter how loud the weeping-
the maker of comparisons will say:
This is an instance of the Jewish sort.

What retribution can there be for our disaster?
Its dimensions are a world.
All the culture of the gentile kingdoms at its peak
flows with our blood,
and all its conscience, with our tears ....
(Tr. Robert Friend)

I conclude by reminding myself that it’s necessary for me to double my efforts to understand the message of this disgusting act of violence and to teach that lesson to our friends, neighbors, media people and elected officials. So I’ll ask God to give me the strength for that because my tank is getting perilously low.

Stephen M. Flatow

From Jpost.com: The Region: Egypt gets its Khomeini

2011-02-21T12:57:00.001-05:00

Barry Rubin writes in the Jerusalem Post, "Friday, February 18 may be a turning point in Egyptian history. On that day Yusuf al-Qaradawi spoke to a giant cheering crowd in Tahrir Square."

Al-Qaradawi, 84-years old, had been in self-imposed exile in Qatar for 50 years but his return to Egypt may mean that Egypt's Khomeini has entered the scene.

And The New York Times reports,

"Sheik Qaradawi, a popular television cleric whose program reaches an audience of tens of millions worldwide, addressed a rapt audience of more than a million Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate the uprising and honor those who died.

“Don’t fight history,” he urged his listeners in Egypt and across the Arab world, where his remarks were televised. “You can’t delay the day when it starts. The Arab world has changed.”

Rubin points out,

"IT WAS 32 years ago almost to the day when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned in triumph to Tehran to take over the leadership of that country. Qaradawi has a tougher job, but he’s up to the challenge if his health holds up. Up until now, the Egyptian revolution generally, and the Brotherhood in particular, has lacked a charismatic thinker, someone who could really mobilize the masses. Qaradawi is that man. Long resident in the Gulf, he is returning to his homeland in triumph."

Qaradawi has called attacks against Israelis and American soldiers legitimate resistance. And he is considered a terrorist by the US for his support of terror oganizations.

Giving Qaradawi access to Egyptians in the street is asking for trouble. So, in my opinion, the slide to another Islamist government in the Middle East begins.

Read Rubin's report: The Region: Egypt gets its Khomeini and The New York Times, After Long Exile, Sunni Cleric Takes Role in Egypt.

From JPost.com - Analysis: PA cabinet changes show Abbas is freaking out

2011-02-14T23:23:00.001-05:00

The "freaking out" reference is from the article headline; I didn't make it up.

In any event, could the chickens be coming home to roost for Mr. Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, after all these years? Abbas, I was personally told by the late Yitzhak Rabin, was a terrorist, and he, therefore, most likely has the penchant as his comrade in arms Arafat had for pocketing cash intended for Palestinians on the street, and working to keep power rather than democratically share it.

The uproar in Tunisia and Egypt may hit the streets of Ramallah, then what? An Islamist government takeover (read here Hamas) or will the moderates in Palestinian society gain a voice they have been forced to suppress for so many years?

Read the full JPost.com article - Analysis: PA cabinet changes show Abbas is freaking out

Is Iran afraid of Egyptian uprising? Hanging dissidents is proof

2011-02-14T08:36:00.004-05:00

From Frida Ghitis writing in the Miami Herald, Iran sees threat, promise, in Egyptian uprising

"When Arab leaders looked at the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, they saw the flames of revolution lapping at their own heels. To protect themselves, they rushed to make preemptive concessions, handing out cash, rolling back subsidy cuts, and promising new elections. Iranian leaders, on the other hand, chose to respond in precisely the opposite way. Instead of granting the people what they might demand, the government chose to protect itself by killing even more of its opponents, according to figures from human-rights organizations."

That's the Iranian approach- encourage change abroad but kill your opponents at home. The unasked question, for now, is what message President Obama will send to Iranians who are fighting, and dying, for change in their government.

Read more.

Whither Egypt - the Economist Debates

2011-02-06T00:30:00.003-05:00

The Economist poses the following debate position:
This house believes that Egypt will become a democracy within a year

Defending the motion is Anoush Ehteshami, Professor, Durham University and Joint Director, Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World.

Against the motion is Daniel Pipes, Director, Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford.

I think Pipes is correct. Read the entire column, Economist Debates: Egypt: Statements

What do you think?

Egyptian Elections - What's next?

2011-02-04T09:51:00.002-05:00

Read the column on: Egyptian Elections - the Dry Bones Blog

From the Jerusalem Post -- Editor's Notes: Missing a moment of truth

2011-01-31T05:42:00.000-05:00

Just having returned from 10 days in Israel, I can testify to a big news story that is not getting much coverage here in the West. I'm referring to the leak of cables and other items relating to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Rather than building on the leaked items, the PA is denying their authenticity.

Here is David Horovitz's take on PaliLeaks.

Instead of denying the charges of seeking a viable peace accord, Abbas should be telling his people that that’s exactly what he and his negotiators have been doing.

Shame on you, apoplectic analysts and commentators at Al-Jazeera and the Guardian.

And learn to live with it, Palestinians. These are your lives and ours. This is your future and ours.

Potentially, this could be your moment of truth – of awkward, hard-to-swallow, unavoidable truth. Your decades-belated 1948 moment, the beginning of your reluctant internalization that this small, glorious, bloodied land is fated to be shared.

Read the full column, Editor's Notes: Missing a moment of truth.

Israel's Netanyahu must make a bold move

2011-01-14T08:19:00.001-05:00

Frida Ghitis lays down a challenge to Israel's current policy towards the Palestinians-- Make a bold move. While she mentions that Israel has made what are called unilateral moves in the past, only met with Palestinian violence, she feels that "Israel must remain in the forefront of the quest for peace. That should never change."

I don't think anyone could argue that it was Israel, not the Palestinians or Arab countries, that has sought to end conflict since 1948. But actions by the Palestinians, those in Gaza and the West Bank, and all those who claim to be protecting them, e.g., Hezbollah, the Syrians, the Iranians, speak otherwise.

Anyway, read the full article. Netanyahu must make a bold move

Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

Hezbollah Forces Collapse of Lebanese Government - NYTimes.com

2011-01-12T13:50:00.001-05:00

This breaking story on the New York Times, Hezbollah Forces Collapse of Lebanese Government, points to Hezbollah's efforts to shift attention away from a soon to ber released report on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri.

It is surmised that Hezbollah will be be accused of having a role in the assassination. That's certainly not good news for Hezbollah or its masters, Syria and Iran.

So, what's next? It depends on how desperately Hezbollah feels it needs to direct Lebanese civilians attention away from the report. How does starting a war with Israel sound as a means of accomplishing that misdirection? Don't be surprised if it happens.

This Week in History: ‘The Engineer’ is assassinated

2011-01-07T08:41:00.003-05:00

From the Jerusalem Post, an analysis of the effect of killling of a terrorist responsible for the deaths of scores of innocent civilians in Israel and Gaza. (Why an analysis is necessary, I don't know.)

For instance,

"the assassination of Yehiyeh Ayash was a consequential event for the peace process, terrorism and Palestinian politics."

"When the traditional 40-day Muslim mourning period ended following the terrorist’s assassination, Hamas undertook a wave of vicious and especially deadly terror bombings in Israel. In the period between February 25 and March 4 of that year, four bombings rocked Israel, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. Perhaps as a result, Ayash’s family home in the West Bank town of Rafat was demolished by the IDF using explosives, the first demolition since the beginning of the peace process several years earlier."

Direct linkage? I don't think so. A convenient "excuse" to the mind of Hamas murderers? Most likely.

Yehiyeh Ayash was a murderer. In the same way that civilized society through history has resorted to the removal of murderers from society, so Israel acted towards him.

Hamas would have killed Jews regardless of Ayash's death. And what if, just perhaps, his death discouraged some young Palestinian from following in Ayash's footsteps.

Read the full column, This Week in History: ‘The Engineer’ is assassinated.

What do you think?

The Jews did it! Iranian says Mossad behind Egypt church blast

2011-01-04T06:47:00.001-05:00

You might ask how long it would take for an Iranian to blame Israel and the Jews for the devastating terror attack in Egypt that left more than 20 people dead and scores injured. Well, we didn't have to wait long as Iran's Press TV has published an op-ed blaming Israel's Mossad and Zionists for the bomb attack.

One Hassan Hanizadeh, an editorial writer at the Tehran Times but no apparent relation to Baghdad Bob, has written,

Although, at first glance, the finger is pointed at extremist Wahabi or Salafi groups, it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act.

Attacks on churches in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia can be analyzed in the context of a Zionist scenario aimed at driving a wedge between Muslims and Arab Christians.

The goal of the attack was "aimed at creating a rift between Muslims and Christians."

Read the full column, PressTV - Mossad behind Egypt church blast

The scary aspect of his column is actually found in the comments that follow. They tend to demonstrate that Hanizadeh is not alone in his let's point the finger at Jews world. Enough said.

David Cole - Reform Material Support Laws for Terrorists

2011-01-03T14:54:00.001-05:00

David Cole is a university professor with whom I do not necessarily see with eye-to-eye. In an Op-ed appearing in the New York Times on January 3, 2011, Cole discusses a problem with statutes that make it a crime to speak in favor of organizations classified as terrorists by the U.S. government.

DID former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Tom Ridge, a former homeland security secretary, and Frances Townsend, a former national security adviser, all commit a federal crime last month in Paris when they spoke in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq at a conference organized by the Iranian opposition group’s advocates? Free speech, right? Not necessarily.

Cole has been outspoken against the criminlzation of such conduct and brought suit to overturn its application. Unfortunately for him, the Supreme Court blocked speech or conduct that may be of indirect support to a terror organization.

I'm not sure how this should go. Who should be the arbiter of how much you can say, how much material, i.e. financial or goods, support can you provide, before it constitutes a benefit to a terror group. Where do we draw the line?

Read the full column, Reform Material Support Laws for Terrorists

What do you think?

Christians in Egypt are sitting ducks

2011-01-03T04:29:00.000-05:00

I have written recently about the attack on Christianity in the Middle East. Now we have two stories this weekend point to the perilous lives led by Coptic Christians in Egypt.

From the New York Times comes the news of a bombing, a suicide attack, against

"worshipers outside of a Coptic Christian church in the port city of Alexandria, Egypt, early Saturday, killing at least 21 people in the worst attack against Egypt’s Christian minority in recent memory."

Read, Coptic Church in Egypt Is Hit by Fatal Bomb Attack.

The follow-up story is how the community responded.

Amid shattered glass and scenes of grief, congregants returned to the Saints Church early Sunday for the morning Mass, passing a chain of riot police who patrolled the streets nearby without incident after a bomb exploded here Saturday and killed at least 21 people in the worst attack against Egypt’s Christian minority in recent years.

So, what is the rest of Egypt doing? President Hosni Mubarak blames outside forces. Christians want to know what the reaction would have been if the victims were Muslims. One man whose "cousin was injured in the blast and would have his leg amputated. “'I don’t feel afraid,” he said. “The only thing that makes me scared is the police.'”

The bottom line is that a two thousand year old community in Egypt is on the verge of being forced from the country they call home. And the world remains silent. Where is the outrage on America's college campuses against this human rights abuse?

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

More Christian casualities in Iraq

2010-12-31T09:19:00.002-05:00

We previously posted a story about the plight of a dwindling Christian community in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East.

Last night, the Times reports, 10 bomb attacks targeting Christians took place in Baghdad.

For some Christians here, the latest attacks represented the last straw. “We will love Iraq forever, but we have to leave it immediately to survive,” said Noor Isam, 30. “I would ask the government, ‘Where is the promised security for Christians?’”

Well, the answer is there is no security for minority religions in Muslim lands.

Read the full story.

The Double Standard

2010-12-31T08:36:00.004-05:00

After some rabbis in Israel instructed their followers to not sell land to non-Jews, the Jewish and non-Jewish world rose in protest. Here's one person's response.

What do you think?

A good news story - sports as bridge between peoples

2010-12-29T00:06:00.000-05:00

Palestinian Media Watch ran this story on December 28, 2010,
"Sports promote coexistence: Palestinian children hosted Israeli children for football game." Read it in full on PMW Bulletin.

Contrary to recent events in the Palestinian Authority that glorified murderers by naming parks and sports fields after them, it looks as though there are some in the PA who understand that there's more to be gained by kicking a football than lobbing a rock.

Let's hope that there are more stories of this type.

"Spy" hanged by Iran

2010-12-28T07:26:00.001-05:00

Iranian justice, whatever that might be, was meted out to Ali Akbar Siadat who allegedly confessed to spying for Israel's secret service, the Mossad.

There is no indication in any of today's reports when Siadat was tried, when the verdict was rendered, or if there was an appeal.

Read the following report, Ali Akbar Siadat hanged by Iran for relaying sensitive data to Mossad, and explain to me what constitutes "confronting the Iranian republic."

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Alan M. Dershowitz: The Finkler Question: Jews' irrational hatred of Israel

2010-12-27T02:18:00.000-05:00

One of the worst epithets that one Jew can throw against another is "self-hating." We most frequently hear it when a Jew criticizes Israel. What drives a Jew to become critical of a country that one would think a Jew would have a natural adherence to?

Alan Dershowitz examines that phenomenon in a Jerusalem Post column The Finkler Question: Jews' irrational hatred of Israel.

Why do so many Jews regard Israel as a pariah state? The extraordinary characters in Howard Jacobson's novel shed light on the psychology behind the country's Jewish detractors.

Any objective assessment of Israel’s actions over the 62 years of its existence as the nation-state of the Jewish people would rank it near the top in compliance with human rights, civil liberties and efforts to minimize civilian casualties. The Israeli government has repeatedly offered statehood to the Palestinians: in 1948, in 2000-2001 and in 2008. Each time the Palestinian leadership rejected these offers. The current Israeli government is now offering to negotiate, without any precondition, a two-state solution and an end of the occupation of the West Bank. (Following the end of the occupation of Gaza, Southern Lebanon and Sinai.)

So what gives according to Dershowitz?

When I am asked the question: Why is Israel so demonized and why are the Palestinians so glorified, especially by some Jews, I am used to responding that the answer is beyond my pay scale: it is more in the domain of Freud, Sartre and others who are capable of deeply exploring the human condition. But now I have a better answer. I can point to Howard Jacobson’s remarkable comic novel, The Finkler Question. Jacobson...not only poses the question more astutely than anyone I have read, he also provides more interesting and provocative answers.

Read the full column to find out what Jacobson has to say.

Christians in the Middle East - how are they treated?

2010-12-26T09:10:00.000-05:00

Two stories about Christians in the Middle East have been in the news. And the stories are opposites of each other because in one, it's Muslims who are making life hell for Christians, and in the other, cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians makes for a merrier Christmas.

The first, from The New York Times, Traumatized Iraqi Christians Lie Low for Christmas, paints a pale portrait of a Christian community in decline.

As they gathered to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the congregation here first contemplated death, represented by a spare Christmas tree decked with paper stars, each bearing a photograph of a member of a nearby church killed in a siege by Islamic militants in October.

The congregants on Friday night were fewer than 100, in a sanctuary built for four or five times as many. But they were determined. This year, even more than in the past, Iraqi’s dwindling Christian minority had reasons to stay home for Christmas.

Though the exact size of Iraq’s Christian population is unclear, by some estimates it has fallen to about 500,000 from a high of 1.4 million before the American-led invasion of 2003. Iraq’s total population is about 30 million.

Before you blame the 2003 invasion as the cause of Christian's plight, let's remember this--the only thing that protected Christians in Iraq was the dictator Saddam Hussein. It was in his interest to do so to give truth to the Muslim claim that Christians are always welcome in Muslim lands.

With murderous attacks as the basis for the declining Christian population, I think we see the true face of Islamism in its relationship to non-believers.

Contrast this story with this one coming via the Associated Press from Bethlehem. Bethlehem celebrates merriest Christmas in years.

The traditional birthplace of Jesus is celebrating its merriest Christmas in years, as tens of thousands of tourists thronged Bethlehem on Friday for the annual holiday festivities in this biblical West Bank town.

Officials said the turnout was shaping up to be the largest since 2000. Unseasonably mild weather, a virtual halt in
Israeli-Palestinian violence and a burgeoning economic revival in the West Bank all added to the holiday cheer.

Israelis are not going to take a back seat to anyone when it comes to protecting its citizens and tourists, so quiet translates into a Christian holiday that the "good old City" [hats off to Dickens] hasn't seen in a number of years. Shouldn't Palestinians be encouraged by this?

See this post by Jewish Virtual Library on the lives of Israel's Christian community-- Israel and its Christian citizens.

Well, that's what I think.

'Asia 1 Convoy' Reaches Syria but the story is interesting for what it doesn't say

2010-12-19T20:11:00.002-05:00

This post from DPNews.com points out the inability of folks to answer a question about Palestinian refugees. (According to its website, DP News is a full service news website that covers Syrian, Arabic, and International issues in politics, economy, NGOs, sport…etc., as well as online video and documentaries.)
Today's posting is about another aid convoy to Hamas-controlled Gaza.

The Gaza-bound humanitarian aid convoy 'Asia 1' is scheduled to reach the Syrian borders on Monday coming from Turkey. 15 countries are participating in the convoy, of which are India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Bahrain and Iran.

The Secretary of the Higher Follow-up Committee of the Palestinian National Conference Khaled Abdul-Majeed, during a conference of the Committee at al-Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, hailed Syria's support to the Palestinians' struggle against the Israeli occupation and its help to ease their sufferings and lift the siege on Gaza.

OK, maybe you have figured it out, but the unasked question is why there are still refugee camps in Syria 60+ years after the attack against the newly declared State of Israel resulted in the migration of Arabs to other countries? After all, Jews were forced to leave their homes in Arab countries at the same time. But they were welcomed into Israel and made part of the country. Why not the Palestinians?

Why have they been treated as second class citizens in other Arab countries? Why have they not been welcomed into Lebanese, Syrian or Jordanian society? Why can't they get jobs, buy a home outside of their "camp" and raise their families as do the Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanians?

So, rather than rush so-called humanitarian aid to Gaza, perhaps it's time for Mr. Abdul-Majeed, to ask the above question and see if DPnews.com reports on that press conference.

You can read the full report here 'Asia 1 Convoy' Reaches Syria.

Well, that's what I think.

Stephen M. Flatow

The enemy within Israel - maybe it's the media, too

2010-12-17T12:36:00.003-05:00

Caroline Glick takes on the Left, the Israeli and American media, and Saeb Erekat in her latest column in the Jerusalem Post. Column One: Bringing down Bibi

The lede -

The media and the US administration are again colluding with the Israeli Left’s political leadership to overthrow the Netanyahu government.

Why would she say that you may ask? Because two news stories received disparate treatment by the pols, other writers and the talking heads.

Last Friday, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority’s chief peace negotiator with Israel, published an op-ed in Britain’s Guardian newspaper in which he declared eternal war on the Jewish state. This he did by asserting that any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that does not permit the immigration of some 7 million foreign Arabs to Israel will be “completely untenable.”

Whoa! Is he saying what it sounds like he's saying? That if Israel doesn't allow the entry of everyone tagged as a refugee to within pre-1967, there will continue a state of war? Sounds like it to Glick and to me, too.

The second article was Tom Friedman’s latest column in The New York Times. Throughout his interminable career, Friedman has identified with Israel’s radical Left and so been the bane of all non-leftist governments.
In his latest screed, he compared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to someone in the throes of an LSD trip. Friedman harangued Netanyahu for failing to convince his cabinet to agree to the Obama administration’s demand to abrogate Jewish property rights in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem for another 90 days. He argued that by doing so, Israel – with some help from the Palestinians – is destroying all chance of peace.

So on the one hand, the chief Palestinian negotiator declared eternal war. And on the other hand, Friedman condemned Netanyahu – for the gazillionth time.
And characteristically, the Israeli media ignored Erekat’s article and gave Friedman’s screed around the- clock coverage.

I think Glick is onto something here. It goes beyond and free and open press in a country where everyone is entitled to have, and does have, an opinion about everything. It goes to the essence of Israel's existence as a Jewish state. Flood the country with Muslims and in a year Israel is gone.

Don't agree with Erekat, then face eternal war.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

A fair voice in the Middle East?

2010-12-03T09:48:00.004-05:00

When it comes to Middle East politics we are all familiar with the claims made about Israel-- it's an apartheid state, it's a colonizer, and on and on. So, it raises the question, can Israel be properly portrayed in the media?

There is a columnist that we've been reading for years, Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, who seems to defy the stereotype of Middle East report.

In mid-November Abu Toameh was interviewed by Arsen Ostrovsky who posted what follows on FrumForum. I recommend reading it in full. If you want to read it where originally posted, go here.

Abu Toameh: What the Western Media Misses

A few days ago, I was fortunate to attend a talk by Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh in Jerusalem.

Toameh gave an incredibly wide ranging talk about the peace process, the double standards rife in the West and the media when it comes to coverage of the Middle East and his perspective as a Muslim Arab of Palestinian descent living in Israel (and you thought you had identity issues!).

Toameh has been working as a journalist for almost 30 years now, covering Palestinian affairs, focusing predominantly on the West Bank and Gaza, including for the Palestinian press under the PLO and for various international media outlets in the US and Europe. He is currently at the Jerusalem Post writing on Palestinian issues. Toameh is also an Israeli citizen living in Jerusalem. In other words, he is aptly qualified to comment on the issues of his discussion.

However, if you expected Toameh to jump on the anti-Israel bandwagon with the familiar cries that Israel is an un-democratic apartheid state responsible for all that is wrong including the bubonic plague or to have a single-minded focus on the occupation, you would have been sorely disappointed.

Instead, he spoke openly, courageously and in his words, said it “as it is”. Asked what he thought was the essence of the conflict, Toameh said it was not about money or even settlements, as many so called pundits often imply, as a precursor to blaming Israel. Rather, his answer was very simple: “This conflict is about Israel’s very existence in this part of the world.”

But before you get any conclusions, Toameh is not a card carrying Zionist or as somebody once asked him “when did you get on the Israel lobby payroll”. In his own words, he says:
I’m not pro-Israel, I’m not pro-Palestinian and I’m not pro-American. But as a journalist, I’m pro the facts and pro the truth.

Here are some of Toameh’s illuminating comments:

I asked Toameh how, as an Arab Muslim Israeli, he responds to accusations that Israel is an apartheid state.

His response:

Israel is not an apartheid state. But there are problems and some discrimination with the Arab minority inside Israel. If Israel were an apartheid state, I, for example, would not be allowed to work for a Jewish newspaper or live in a Jewish neighborhood or own a home. The real apartheid is in Lebanon, where there is a law that bans Palestinians from working in over 50 professions. Can you imagine if the Knesset passed a law banning Arabs from working even in one profession? The real apartheid is also in many Arab and Muslim nations, like Kuwait, where my Palestinian uncle, who has been living there for 35 years is banned from buying a house. The law of Israel does not distinguish between a Jew and an Arab.

As for the uniqueness of the Israeli media in the middle East, Toameh added:

Israel is a free and open country with a democracy, that respects the freedom of the media. You can basically write any anti-Israel story and still walk in downtown Jerusalem or Tel Aviv without having to worry about your safety. Anyone can be a journalist in Israel.

Toameh says he finds it ironic that as an Arab Muslim living in this part of the world, the only place he can express himself freely is in a ‘Jewish newspaper’, noting that:

We don’t have a free media in the Palestinian area, we didn’t have one when I was working there in the late 70’s and early 80’s, we didn’t have one when the PLO came here after the signing of the Oslo accords and we still don’t have one under Fatah and Hamas.

But what about the media’s need for an anti-Israeli angle on stories? Toameh says that when he tried to alert many of his foreign colleagues that Palestinians were dying because of an internal power struggle or gross corruption by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, their reflex response was:

Where’s the anti-Israel angle to the story? Give us an anti-occupation story. Make our lives much easier. An Arab killing an Arab, that’s not a story for us.

Toameh notes that the same foreign journalists would then ask him: “are you on the payroll of the Israel lobby?” Do they [the Jews] pay you to say these things against Arafat and the PLO?’ Toameh’s response to them:

what do the Jews have to do with this? I’m telling you what the Palestinians are saying about there being corruption in the Palestinian Authority. I’m even telling you that the PA is saying that the PA is corrupt.

It is a sad reflection on the state of society, and in particular, the media industry, that not only are they not sufficiently concerned or outraged at the death of Arabs by Arabs (which coincidentally has claimed many more lives than the Israel – Palestinian conflict), but that they will only muster even an iota of concern if they can put in an ‘anti-Israel’ angle.

On the proposed loyalty oath as well, Toameh offered a pragmatic response: “I have no problem with it because it applies equally to both Jews and non-Jews alike.”

One of the biggest and most intractable sticking points has consistently been the Palestinian demand for a right of return, which Israel will not agree to because it would mean the death knell of Israel as a Jewish state.

However, Toameh offers a very simple and pragmatic three stage solution, where the Palestinian refugees could:

1. Go to the future Palestinian state;

2. Resettle elsewhere, including other Arab states; and

3. Be offered compensation.

Most tellingly though, and in a statement seldom ever heard from Arabs (or the West), Toameh then asked: “and what about Jewish refugees that were forced to flee Arab nations”, suggesting that the issue of Jewish refugees must also be part of any future solution.

Focusing on the problem from Arab dictatorships and their insistence on inciting their people against Israel, Toameh says that we have a problem in the West in failing to believe what people tell us.

If Hamas say they want to destroy you, you have no reason not to believe them. And if Ahmadinejad says he wants to destroy you, there’s no need to start analysing what he means by that. Stop fooling ourselves and if anyone thinks that Hamas will ever recognise Israel’s right to exist, you’re also living in an illusion. Take it from their mouth directly…the PLO however is different – they will tell you one thing in English and then another in Arabic.

On the subject of Arab dictatorship, Toameh says:

Arab dictators survive by constantly blaming the misery of their people on Jews and the West and never accepting responsibility for anything. And by inciting against Israel and the West, you divert attention from problems at home. Why? Because you always need to make sure that your people are busy hating someone else. If they’re not hating Israel and the West, they might wake up one day and come to you, and God forbid, demand reform and democracy.

The crux of the message is:

If you keep inciting your people, then they ask ‘well, why are we then making peace with the Jews?’ We should be killing them as Hamas is saying’.

So what does Toameh think about Mahmoud Abbas, the PA President?

Abbas is corrupt, discredited, weak and does not have much power. He is reliant on Israel, whose presence in the West Bank is ironically the only reason he has managed to stay in power.

And if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders as demanded by Abbas and the PLO:

Abbas will collapse and Hamas will take over the West Bank in less than a day. If I were Israel, I would not give Abbas one inch of land in the West Bank – not for ideological reasons, but to avoid a situation where Hamas and others would take over the area.

When we asked him how best to defeat the extremists, radicals and terrorists like Hamas and Hizbullah, Toameh answered:

The first and most important thing is you go to the Arab governments and tell them stop the incitement that’s feeding these radicals and driving people into their hands. Sometimes there’s no difference between what is written about Israel and the Jews in the papers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia with what is written by Hamas.

Noting again the billions of dollars in aid provided by the US and EU to various Arab dictatorships, Toameh says in other words, and even clearer, they should tell them: “Stop calling for my death with my money.”

I asked Toameh about what steps were needed to move forward. According to him, the answer is “very simple” and involves the following steps:

1) The Palestinians must start investing money (provided to them mainly by the US and EU) for the welfare of their people instead of incitement. Then dismantle all militias, establish a free press and democratic institutions, end the infighting, insist on good governance and speak with one voice so at least we know who we’re talking to. And then he suggests they should go speak with Israel and see what it has to offer them.

2) Deal with the enemies of peace – if you weaken the enemies of peace, like Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, the moderates will rise and start speaking out. But as long as Iran is breathing down the neck and threatening, together with Hamas and Hizbullah, who are threatening to kill anyone who makes concessions, no moderate Arab will ever dare sign an agreement with Israel. Toameh says:

I don’t even rule out military action against any of them because this is the only language these guys understand. Talking to them and appeasing them is even more dangerous.

3) “We can’t move forward when you don’t have a clear, strong, reliable and credible partner on the Palestinian side” says Toameh. According to him: “Abbas is not a partner. He and Fayaad might be nice guys with good intentions – but they cannot deliver. So the PA are not partners because they cannot deliver and Hamas are not partners because they don’t want to be partners.”

* * *
Well done. What do you think?

Christian communities and the Pope

2010-11-26T08:42:00.004-05:00

Want to bring a bomb on board, ask a nice woman to carry it for you

2010-11-26T06:46:00.003-05:00

A Thanksgiving Day story from the Associated Press about the disabled and air travel security sent shivers down my spine.

“For air passengers already fed up with being hauled off to the side of the security line for a pat-down or facing aggressive questions about bulky clothing or odd items in their luggage, advocates for the disabled have this to say: Welcome to our lives.

“For the disabled and infirmed — many forced to go through security lines in wheelchairs with ample hiding places for contraband, wearing prosthetic limbs that could harbor drugs or explosives or lugging oxygen tanks that could really contain god-knows-what — the added discomfort and inconvenience that many travelers are now experiencing is something they've put up with for years.”

But what really caught my eye is this-

"I didn't mind; it wasn't really that bad," 89-year-old Marquerite Aswad, who
uses a wheelchair, said Tuesday after arriving at Newark Liberty International
Airport from Fort Myers, Fla. "It was a lady, and she didn't pat me very hard.
She said, 'You look like a nice woman; I don't think you're hiding anything in
there.'"

Is the TSA kidding? Looking “like a nice woman” brings gentility in the scanning or search process? What kind of stupidity is this? OK, you terrorists, get yourself an old lady in a wheelchair and get a free ride to martyrdom.

Seriously, don’t they know at the TSA training sessions that one’s level of niceness has nothing to do with the security process? Instead of forcing the wheelchair-bound into pat downs, or the removal of artificial legs, why don’t the TSA folks learn how to question people like Mrs. Aswad before they board a flight.

“How long have you lived in Fort Myers? Where did you live before? Who helped you pack your luggage? Did anyone give you anything to bring with you? Why are you traveling to Newark? Who are you visiting? Where do they live? Where are the gifts you are bringing them? Where did you buy them? Who drove you to the airport?”

These are the types of questions I’ve been asked on international air travel before and since our Muslim brothers turned American airliners into missiles. The purpose of this type of questioning is to not only hear what the traveler has to say, but to watch how he answers. It’s the style of answer—maybe you’re too pat in your reply, and the body language—maybe the glance away, that leads to further questioning and examination of your luggage and private parts.

I know it’s not going to happen soon, but maybe, just maybe, one day the folks at TSA will wake up and realize that the present system is just plain silly.

Read the full story.

Free Palestine!

2010-11-24T03:23:00.000-05:00

Bret Stephens' column in the 11/23/10 edition of WSJ.com is worth reading in full.

Free Palestine!
Can Palestinians abide a single free-thinking blogger in their midst?

Should the United States offer—and Israel accept—diplomatic guarantees, plus $2 billion worth of fighter jets, for the sake of a 90-day settlement freeze? Er, no. Israel can afford the planes, or at least it can afford them better than the perception that it's getting a free ride from U.S. taxpayers. The U.S. should not put a price on things it ought not to do anyway, like recognizing a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. And bribery is generally a bad idea, particularly between friends.

Then again, bad ideas are what you get when you're operating from bad premises. Premises such as: There is a deal to be had between Israelis and Palestinians, or that the settlements are the core of the problem.

So what is the core of the problem? Consider the predicament faced by a Palestinian named Walid Husayin from the West Bank city of Qalqilya. Mr. Husayin, 26, is suspected of being the blogger known as Waleed al-Husseini and author of an essay, posted on the Proud Atheist Web site (proud-a.blogspot.com), titled "Why I Left Islam."

The pseudonymous Husseini makes no bones about his opposition to religions generally, which he says "compete with each other in terms of stupidity." But nothing seems to exercise his indignation more than the religion he used to call his own. Islam, he writes, is "an authoritarian religion that does not respect the individual's freedom of choice, which is easily noticeable from its barbaric verdicts such as stoning the adulterous, pushing homosexuals off a cliff and killing the apostates for daring to express a different viewpoint."

And that's just Husseini getting started. The essay proceeds by way of a series of questions, such as "Is Islam a religion of tolerance?" Answer: "The sacred texts of Islam also encourage blatant war and conquest of new territories." What about equality? "Islam has legitimized slavery, reinforced the gap between social classes and allowed stealing from the infidels." Women's rights? "I have a mother, a sister and a lover and I cannot stand for them to be humiliated and stigmatized in this bone-chilling way." The prophet? "A sex maniac" who "was no different than barbaric thugs who slaughtered, robbed and raped women." And so on.

This being the Arab world, it should come as no surprise that Mr. Husayin has spent the past 24 days in detention, that he has been forbidden from receiving visitors or speaking to a lawyer, that he faces a potential life sentence, and that people in Qalqilya have called for him to be burned alive.

The systematic violation of Palestinian rights by Palestinian officials is an old story, as is the increasingly Islamist tilt of what was once supposed to be a relatively secular, progressive society. Whatever might be said in favor of freedom for Palestine, there has been to date precious little freedom in Palestine, whether in the Hamas-controlled statelet of Gaza or in the parts of the West Bank under Fatah's dominion.

That's a problem. It's also a problem that when the Associated Press covered Mr. Husayin's ordeal, reporter Diaa Hadid offered that "the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is among the more religiously liberal Arab governments in the region," and that "Husayin's high public profile and prickly style . . . left authorities no choice but to take action."

How nice to see AP reporters sticking up for free expression. Indeed, the consistent willingness of Western news organizations to downplay stories about Palestinian illiberalism and thuggery goes far to explain why so much of the world misdiagnoses the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Settlements are a convenient alibi: They foster the illusion that the conflict can be resolved by Israeli territorial concessions alone. But if that were true, Gaza would have turned peaceful the moment settlements were withdrawn five years ago. The opposite happened.

Why did Gaza become more violent, internally as well as toward Israel and Egypt, the moment it was rid of Israelis? That's the central question, and one too few observers seem willing to address for fear of where the answer might lead. Yet it ought to be self-evident. The culture of Palestinian illiberalism gave rise to the discontents that brought about civil war and then Hamas's swift rise to power. Hamas is theologically committed to Israel's destruction. That commitment is politically popular: It shapes, and limits, what even the most progressive Palestinian leaders might be willing to concede to Israel in any deal. The result is what we now have: Negotiations that are going nowhere, at an increasingly heavy price for all parties, including the United States.

Like George W. Bush before him, President Obama has observed that the U.S. can't want peace more than Israelis or Palestinians themselves do. But America can, uniquely, stand for freedom like no other country. Mr. Husayin—assuming he's the author of those blog posts—surely knew how much he risked by speaking his mind, and it's tempting to conclude he had it coming.

But if Palestinians cannot abide a single free-thinker in their midst, they cannot be free in any meaningful sense of the word. And if the U.S. can't speak up on his behalf, then neither, in the long run, can we.

If you want to read the column on-line go here but I do not guarantee the link will work because of WSJ.com policies.

Israel is a rogue state- I'm convinced

2010-11-23T00:47:00.001-05:00

English universities are famous for their debating clubs and societies. It's something few American universities college have and, when they do, it's without the pomp and ceremony accompanying the mother country's.

Anyway, there was a debate last month at Cambridge University. As reported in the Jerusalem Post,

When Cambridge University’s prestigious student debating society hosted a debate last month on the motion “Israel is a rogue state,” Israel’s supporters bleakly anticipated another hostile, demonizing and divisive event, and braced, too, for acceptance of the motion in the final vote.

But the motion was surprisingly and firmly defeated, with 74 percent of the votes opposing it.

One speaker, student Gabriel Latner, spoke for the motion and demonstrated that Israel is a rogue state. For that reason, the motion was defeated.

Read the full report on-line, including portions of Latner's presentation, When Gabriel Latner turned tables on the Israel-bashers. The full text of the news story is below.

Nice going Mr. Latner.

The Jerusalem Post
When Gabriel Latner turned tables on the Israel-bashers
By Jonny Paul
17/11/2010

Canadian law student won Cambridge University student union debate for Israel... despite losing it.

LONDON – When Cambridge University’s prestigious student debating society hosted a debate last month on the motion “Israel is a rogue state,” Israel’s supporters bleakly anticipated another hostile, demonizing and divisive event, and braced, too, for acceptance of the motion in the final vote.

But the motion was surprisingly and firmly defeated, with 74 percent of the votes opposing it.

RELATED:
Is Israel ‘a rogue state’? You’d better hope so

At the root of that thoroughly unexpected result was the extraordinary content of the speech delivered by one of the proposers of the motion – content that subsequently prompted students unsympathetic to Israel to protest the result and demand an apology from the Cambridge Union Society.

For Gabriel Latner, a 19-year-old, second-year law student from Toronto, advanced an argument in support of the motion that “Israel is a rogue state” that would have made any Israeli diplomat proud.

Proposing the motion was Lauren Booth, an arch anti- Israel activist and sister-in-law of the Quartet’s Middle East envoy, former prime minister Tony Blair. Booth recently converted to Islam after a religious experience on a visit to Iran.

Alongside her were Mark McDonald, founder of the group Labor Friends of Palestine, and Latner.

Opposing the motion were Ran Gidor, the Israeli Embassy’s counsellor for political affairs, Shiraz Maher, a former Islamic extremist, and and Paul Livingston, a third-year law student from Glasgow.

Since that remarkable October 21 night at the Cambridge Union Society, Latner has been celebrated by the pro- Israel camp, and vilified by the not so pro-Israel camp. His performance has been discussed heatedly on Facebook and on a range of blogs; he’s become a figure of interest on campuses; and he has been the focus on ongoing interest at the Union, which initially banned him for life for allegedly swearing at Booth at the event, then reinstated him after he apologized.

The young man himself says he has been somewhat shocked at the attention.

“The fact that a rough draft of my speech went viral surprised me, I really didn’t think anyone would care,” he told The Jerusalem Post this week. “I’ve been getting on average 15+ emails and Facebook messages a day since the debate – some positive, some not.

“I’ve been sent links to dozens of sites that carried the story and scanned copies of newspaper articles about it. I even got a call from family in Australia who read about it in their local paper. I’ve received notes from Cambridge Dons and MPs about this. I expected people in Cambridge might care, but no one outside the bubble."

So how did Latner, arguing that evening for the motion that “Israel is rogue state,” become a new hero for supporters of Israel, and a villain for the detractors? He had applied to the Cambridge Union Society, which had circulated a request for student volunteers to participate in the debate, with the offer to speak for either side, and was – rather to his surprise – invited to appear for the proposers of the motion.

He was not required to submit any of his content ahead of the event.

Latner, who said he comes from a Reconstructionist Jewish background and has been to Israel several times, including reportedly as an IDF volunteer, said he was galvanized by a strong desire to win – even though, as it turned out, “winning” on behalf of Israel meant his side losing the debate.

Describing himself as a “classical civil libertarian,” Latner set out his argument to show that Israel is indeed a “rogue state” – but in the very best sense of the term. And he did so, in a 10-minute address before the approximately 800-strong audience, by highlighting the anomalous nature of Israel.

He began as follows: “I’m tempted to do what my fellow speakers are going to do – simply rehash every bad thing the Israeli government has ever done in an attempt to satisfy those of you who agree with them.”

And indeed, he continued, “It would be so easy to twist the meaning and significance of international law to make Israel look like a criminal state. But that’s been done to death.

“It would be easier still to play to your sympathy,” he acknowledged, “with personalized stories of Palestinian suffering, and they can give very eloquent speeches on those issues. But the truth is that treating people badly, whether they’re your citizens or an occupied nation, does not make a state ‘rogue’. If it did, Canada, the US and Australia would all be rogue states based on how they treat their indigenous populations.

Britain’s treatment of the Irish would easily qualify [it] to wear this sobriquet. These arguments, while emotionally satisfying, lack intellectual rigor.”

If his direction was becoming visible at this point, Latner now made it explicit: “By the end of my speech,” he declared, “I will have presented five pro-Israel arguments that show Israel is, if not a ‘rogue state’ than at least ‘rogue-ish’. Let me be clear, I will not be arguing that Israel is ‘bad’. I will not be arguing that it doesn’t deserve to exist. I won’t be arguing that it behaves worse than every other country. I will only be arguing that Israel is ‘rogue’,” he said.

The speaker, having noted that the word “rogue” is actually “value-neutral” even though it has “come to have exceptionally damning connotations,” now highlighted the five promised areas to demonstrate the extent of that Israeli ‘rogue-ness’.

“The fact that Israel is a Jewish state alone makes it anomalous enough to be dubbed a rogue state,” was his first argument. After all, he had calculated, “the chance of any randomly chosen state being Jewish is 0.0051%.”

Next he showed how Israel’s treatment of Darfurian refugees is “anomalous.”

Asking why refugees from Darfur cross deserts to reach Israel, he continued: “Why would they take the risk? Because in Israel they are treated with compassion – they are treated as the refugees that they are – and perhaps Israel's cultural memory of genocide is to blame. The Israeli government has even gone so far as to grant several hundred Darfurian refugees citizenship. This alone sets Israel apart from the rest of the world.”

For his third argument, Latner suggested that Israel’s readiness to negotiate with terrorists complies emphatically with the dictionary definition of ‘rogue’ – “behaving in a way that is unexpected, or not normal.”

Sticking with the dictionary, he invoked the definition of “rogue” as “occurring at an unexpected place or time.” “When you compare Israel to its regional neighbors, it becomes clear just how roguish Israel is,” he exclaimed. “And here is the fourth argument: Israel has a better human rights record than any of its neighbors.

At no point in history has there ever been a liberal democratic state in the Middle East – except for Israel. Of all the countries in the Middle East, Israel is the only one where the LGBT community enjoys even a small measure of equality. In Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Syria, homosexual conduct is punishable by flogging, imprisonment, or both. But homosexuals there get off pretty lightly compared to their counterparts in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who are put to death.

“Israeli homosexuals can adopt, openly serve in the army, enter civil unions and are protected by exceptionally strongly worded ant-discrimination legislation. Beats a death sentence,” he said. “In fact, it beats America.”

For his final argument, Latner pointed to Gidor, the Israeli diplomat, who was present as the lead speaker of the opposing side, arguing against the motion.

“Ran Gidor’s presence here is the all evidence any of us should need to confidently call Israel a rogue state,” he asserted.

“Consider, for a moment, what his presence here means. The Israeli government has signed off to allow one of their senior diplomatic representatives to participate in a debate on their very legitimacy. That’s remarkable.

“Do you think for a minute, that any other country would do the same?” he asked. “If the Yale University Debating Society were to have a debate where the motion was ‘This house believes Britain is a racist, totalitarian state that has done irrevocable harm to the peoples of the world,’ [do you think] that Britain would allow any of its officials to participate? No. Would China participate in a debate about the status of Taiwan? Never.

“And there is no chance in hell that an American government official would ever be permitted to argue in a debate concerning its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay,” he said.

Speaking to the Post this week, Latner stressed that “My speech wasn’t motivated by ‘pro-Israel’ or ‘anti-Palestinian’ sentiment.

I’m not an Islamophobe, even though some Islamophobes who read my speech think I am. I’m not a neo-conservative, even though critics of my speech think I am, as do some of my supporters. I’m all about freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom in general. I’m a civil libertarian, and a fan of democracy,” he said.

“The philosophical underpinning of my support for Israel, and for the Palestinians for that matter, isn’t based on my Jewishness or any historical arguments: I believe that each person has an innate right to self-determination, and national, cultural, regional or political groups have the right to exercise that personal autonomy as a collective.

"Zionism, as well as Palestinian national aspirations, is simply an expression of the underlying philosophical maxim that people are born free and that each of us has the right to plot our individual course through life,” he added.

In the aftermath of the debate, a group of student union societies – which included the Palestinian, Socialist Workers, Arab, Islam, Pakistan and Turkish societies – sent a letter of protest to Cambridge Union Society President James Counsell.

“How can the Union justify inviting a speaker who clearly lacks any credibility to speak on behalf of the proposition?” they asked in the letter. “Who was responsible for selecting Latner to be on the program? Undermining the fairness of debate in such a fashion can only have negative consequences for the reputation and credibility of the Union itself.”

Calling for an investigation, the signatories said: “Our issue is not with the outcome of the debate, but with the unprofessional manner in which the debate itself took place. The events which transpired undermined its credibility, and also that of the Union. As such a prestigious and renowned society, we are perturbed by the fact that the basic values that the Union stands for were not upheld. It shows a great deal of disrespect to Union members and the other speakers involved in this debacle.”

The signatories also called for “a full and unreserved public apology for the offence caused by sanctioning a debate that lacked the basic and necessary prerequisites of balance and fairness, and for the lack of respect that entails to the members of the Cambridge Union... In addition, we would like assurances that for future events an equal opportunity is given to the relevant societies in suggesting speakers that best represent their cause.”

But the Cambridge Union itself said it had received “no letters from any groups regarding the phrasing of the motion prior to the debate.”

It noted: “The Cambridge Union tries to spark interest amongst its membership by producing pithy motions, as is evident from other debates this term such as ‘Is Islam a Threat to the West,’ and ‘This House Hates Human Rights.’ However, the caliber of our guest speakers should dispel any notion that we seek to simplify extremely complex contemporary issues.”

Other students praised Latner’s speech and the event itself.

“I think Gabriel’s speech was really wellinformed,” the Union’s President-Elect Lauren Davidson told the independent student newspaper Varsity. “The Union exists to provide a platform for free speech, and so we don’t check speeches in advance. In almost all our debates, speakers from each side twist the motion and it’s usually thought very clever and funny.”

Davidson added, “The motion was not asking ‘Is this house pro or anti-Israel?’ It was asking whether Israel is a rogue state, which Gabriel argued exactly according to the motion. So, he was not arguing for the wrong side.”

Incidentally, Latner said he’s now running for the presidency of the Union.

Don’t touch my junk! Charles Krauthammer tells you why

2010-11-22T12:49:00.000-05:00

According to Krauthammer,

The only reason we tolerate the airport security hassle is that people are too cowed to question the absurd taboo against profiling.

He's right.

We've been cowed too long and need to state the obvious--Arab Muslims brought us airplane hijackings and airborne murder as a political statement. Show me a septuagenarian with a bomb strapped to his or her backside and I'll change my opinion.

We have to thank John Tyner for calling attention to the stupidity of present airline screening procedures by announcing clearly and loudly, "don't touch my junk" as we was about to have a thorough pat-down before boarding a flight. According to Krauthammer,

Don’t touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the teaparty patriot, the
late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter.

He's right, it's time to call a spade a spade, put political correctness to the side and do a little profiling in order to catch the next would be terrorist and let us regular folk get to the airport gate a little bit earlier.

Read the full Krauthammer column as it appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Don’t touch my junk!

Michael Gerson gets it right on Eric Holder and terror trials

2010-11-21T07:08:00.004-05:00

About a year ago we wrote of the American government’s decision, announced by Attorney General Eric Holder, that terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay would be tried in civilian courts. We thought it would be a disaster, and it turns out we were right. The first Guantanamo Bay prisoner tried in civilian court beat the U.S. last week when a jury of our peers convicted him of 1 out of 200 plus charges arising from the 1998 African embassy bombings.

Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post, takes Holder and the Obama Administration to task for using the civilian court to try Ahmed Ghailani and losing the case. (A minor conviction was gotten.)

The case of embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani - the only Guantanamo Bay detainee the Obama administration has brought to trial in the United States - was intended to increase public faith in civilian prosecutions. But a terrorist hugging his lawyers in victory can’t be considered a confidence builder. Days before the Ghailani verdict, the White House admitted that Mohammed, because of massive, public resistance, would not be seeing the inside of a Manhattan courtroom anytime soon. “Gitmo,” one official told The Washington Post, “is going to remain open for the foreseeable future.”

We’ve been personally through this type of trial before. The case of Sami Al-Arian. The weaknesses in both cases was pretty much the same-- the trial took place years after the event in question, many charges were brought, and the evidence is confusing. In my opinion, more than the layperson can digest.

So, Gerson asks the question,

Where do these developments leave Holder, for whom failure is not only an option but a habit? A recent profile by Wil Hylton in GQ attempts to put his tenure in the best possible light - the lonely, naive man of principle undone by politics. But the portrait is unintentionally devastating. Holder clearly views the war on terrorism as a distraction. “The biggest surprise I’ve had in this job,” he told Hylton, “is how much time the national security issues take.”

Doh.

By insisting on civilian trials for terrorists, the Obama-Holder team embarked on a dangerous course of action. Obama needs a way to back off this course and get the next trials before military tribunals, where they belong.

National security is not a traffic infraction violation. It’s life and death stuff and we should learn to play by the rules need for it. And that’s what I think.

Read the full Op-ed.

Lincoln University harboring anti-Semite?

2010-11-07T10:17:00.004-05:00

Lincoln University is the “first degree granting historically black university” located in southeastern Pennsylvania. It also harbors a radical anti-Semite on its faculty, Pakistani-born Kaukab Siddique.

Why do I think he’s an anti-Semite? Watch this video.

Siddique and his anti-Israel, Holocaust denying is the subject of an op-ed by Richard L. Cravatts, PhD. in the Jewish Press. He asks, "should academic free speech accommodate Holocaust denial?"

If you scratch a Holocaust denier long enough, you may reveal an anti-Semite, but not always. You will, however, probably find someone like the morally repellant Kaukab Siddique, a Pakistani-born tenured associate professor of English and journalism at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, who seemingly puts great faith in conspiratorial dramas in which a crafty and all-powerful enemy (i.e., Jews) weaves oft-repeated claims about the Holocaust just to elicit the world's sympathy and promote Zionism and the creation of Israel.

Siddique has been embroiled in an intellectual firestorm ever since his paroxysms of hatred toward Israel were exposed in a video taken during his appearance at a Labor Day rally in Washington and posted by The Investigative Project and reported on by the Christian Broadcasting Network. Siddique was filmed crying out to the crowd: "I say to the Muslims, 'Dear brothers and sisters, unite and rise up against this hydra-headed monster which calls itself Zionism...we must stand united to defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel, if possible [apparently not necessarily] by peaceful means."

It seems that Lincoln University will take no action because the above language was uttered at a non-university event. So what?

Imagine for a moment that a tenured professor at Lincoln was discovered to be a white nationalist, with his postings sprinkled on the pages of a hatesite such as Stormfront.org in which he railed, as visitors to that odious site do, against the dangers of non-whites to white culture, the harm non-whites do to society through criminality, high birthrates, and low morals, and the overall superiority of the white race to other groups.

Ask yourself, would that professor long survive at Lincoln University? I don't think so. But Lincoln University is not going to take action in the case of Siddique.

Therefore, I think it right that we complain to the Lincoln University administration about its refusal to address adquately Siddique's remarks and his continued presence on campus.

Read the full Op-ed.

That's what I think.

Don't look at us, says Sikh

2010-11-06T19:01:00.003-04:00

An item in today's New York Times about the needs for Sikhs to remove their turbans for pre-flight searches caught my eye because of this line,

“While you’re spending that much time on Sikh Americans, who have absolutely no incidents of terrorism in the country, other people are getting through,” Jasjit Singh said.

OK, here's a guy who calls it as it is. The "it" is, of course, the root cause for the need for travelers to be searched before boarding flights, Muslim terrorists.

It is Arab and Muslim terrorists who have brought the curse of body scans and searches upon us. It started with the Palestinians who hijacked airliners in their self-proclaimed war with Israel and the West, and it's now Muslim Islamists who use airlines to wreak havoc upon unsuspecting civilians.

But the Sikhs? What's done them in? Well, their turbans may not be susceptible to accurate scanning even with the new body scanners. And so,

Three national Sikh advocacy and civil rights organizations have said federal transportation officials plan to always search turbans at airport screening stations, even if wearers pass through state-of-the-art body imaging scanners.

Lots of luck to our Sikh neighbors.

Read the full news report.

Go here for more information on Sikhim.

Palestinians and their Arab brothers

2010-11-04T05:42:00.000-04:00

For a fellow with a PhD. in history, Abu Mazen, can't seem to get his facts (or sentiments) straight. While in Kuwait to build support for the Palestinian Authority's decision to avoid negotiations with Israel, he said,

"Kuwaiti-Palestinian relations are historical and excellent. It is a great honor for us that the Fatah movement was launched in Kuwait."

Does he have amnesia? Where was he when Kuwait expelled thousands upon thousands of Palestinian Arabs from the country following the Gulf War. (That was the war when missile attacks by Iraq against Israel were greeted by parties in the streets of Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank.)

Author Hassan A El-Najjar writes

Following the 1991 Gulf War, Palestinians in Kuwait were reduced from a thriving immigrant community of more than 400,000 to less than 30,000 in 1998. Kuwaitis forced them out of the country using a systematic and violent campaign of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinian official support for Iraq during the crisis was used as an excuse for that campaign.

So, with friends like the Kuwaitis who needs enemies. Rather than tour the Middle East gathering support for his policy of delaying negotiations, he should be sitting down with the people who can resolve his problems for once and all time--the Israelis.

Well, that's what I think.

Riverdale bombers were no dupes--Editorial - NYPOST.com

2010-10-20T04:28:00.002-04:00

There is good news and bad news coming out of the conviction of the would-be synagogue bombers this week. From the New York Post:

Good news this week: Four Muslim converts who plotted to bomb a pair of Riverdale synagogues and shoot down military planes were convicted.
The bad news: Activists are turning the "Newburgh 4" into a cause célébre -- a
supposedly hapless squad of dimwits armed with fake explosives, arrested by the
feds before they did any harm.
Dimwits we'll buy, but that doesn't make them innocent. Even idiots can detonate explosives -- and this dangerous crew showed an unseemly eagerness to enlist in jihad.
And they're not alone.

The Post makes a good point when it compares these guys to others that the US has caught, prosecuted and convicted- the Newburgh 4 are home grown.

They're being grown in American prisons where Islam is the religion of choice among the violent and the gullible, and in mosques around the country. (Watch "My Name is Khan" to see how it happens.)

In any event, one could only hope that this is the last case that ever comes our way, but we know that's not going to be true.

Read the full editorial - Riverdale bombers were no dupes.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Letter to Editor of Star-Ledger

2010-10-13T09:47:00.001-04:00

Readers of Terror Victims Voice read my post about an op-ed written by Pete McDonough Jr. regarding the effect of Israeli security checkpoints. I sent a letter to the editor of the Star-Ledger that was printed today. Here's the letter as published.

"Humiliation vs. security

Pete McDonough Jr. writes in “On West Bank, humiliation is constant” (Oct 8): “Ask any Palestinian on the streets of Ramallah to describe his or her life, especially those who travel around the occupied territory, and ‘humiliation’ is among the first words uttered.”

Now, I don’t have any objection to my money going to educate others around the world, and the Palestinians can, in my opinion, use a lot of education when it comes to public relations. However, when that teacher, in this case McDonough, enters the political fray of the Middle East, he’s out of his league.

Yes, there are checkpoints in the West Bank, but McDonough fails to ask why they are there. In case he doesn’t know, they are there to reduce the threat of suicide bombings and other serious attacks in Israel. And by all indications, the checkpoints are working.

McDonough admits that the “conflict is more than anyone could hope to understand in a short visit, even one involving meeting with cabinet ministers and other ranking government officials.”
New Jersey politics may be rough and tumble, as McDonough knows, but it doesn’t result in suicide bombings, ambushes, knife attacks and military retaliation. Yes, the situation is “complicated,” and until he learns the difference between sitting shiva for a murdered terror victim (as I did for my daughter) and humiliation suffered at a checkpoint, I think McDonough would do us a service if he kept his comments to himself. "

Where are their parents?

2010-10-12T14:04:00.001-04:00

If there is to be peace in the Middle East, there has to be respect. As you will see from the video below, a car is set up for attack by rock throwing Arab children in the presence of the media. The news then reports,

Two Palestinian children in eastern Jerusalem were hit by a car driven by a settler leader after they threw rocks at the vehicle.

David Be'eri, the director of Elad, a nonprofit organization that runs the City of David and helps move Jews into homes in Silwan, told Israeli media that he accidentally hit the children after the car came under attack from rocks thrown by several children on the morning of Oct. 8.

A video of the incident shows the car swerving to avoid hitting a child standing in the street and then plowing into the other two. The Palestinian boys reportedly sustained leg injuries. The back window of Be'eri's car was smashed.

Jerusalem police questioned Be'eri.

David Be'eri is no wild eyed fanatic, he's an anthropologist. You can see that he ran for his life after the accident because to stop would have brought him harm.

So, where are the parents of these boys? Maybe they should be questioned by social workers for their shameful lack of parental supervision.

A dead end in Dubai

2010-10-11T16:35:00.001-04:00

We previously wrote about the assassination of Hamas murderer, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai.

Well, there seems to have been a break in the case after all this time. The identity of one of his alleged killers has been uncovered by the Dubai police. Unfortunately for Dubai's gendarmes, the man has been dead since 1973.

The Jerusalem Post, citing a story in the Wall Street Journal, writes,

“In cooperation with Interpol, British and French police, Dubai police were on
the trail of one of the alleged assassins of senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud
al-Mabhouh. The man reportedly entered Dubai under a British passport with the
name "Christopher Lockwood." However, they discovered that the man's "real" name was Yehuda Lustig and that he had changed it in 1994 to the more Anglicized
"Christopher Lockwood," according to the Journal's report.”
“According to the Defense Ministry, the real Lustig died in a battle along the Suez Canal during the war, as yet another lead pursued by Dubai police chief Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim leads to a dead end.”

Sounds like something out of the French Revolution segment of History of the World, Part I. Mel Brooks fans will know what I mean.

Read the full report.

Humiliation versus murder, which do you choose?

2010-10-10T10:25:00.004-04:00

Pete McDonough, Jr., a former press agent for NJ Governor Christine Whitman, has just returned from the Middle East as an American paid PR consultant to the Palestinian Authority.

His taxpayer paid trip resulted in a column appearing in the Star-Ledger, “For Palestinians, daily humiliation.”

“Ask any Palestinian on the streets of Ramallah to describe his or her life, especially those who travel around the occupied territory, and “humiliation” is among the first words uttered.”

Now, I don’t have any objection to my money going to educate others around the world, and the Palestinians can, in my opinion, use a lot of education when it comes to PR. However, when that teacher, in this case McDonough, enters the political fray, I think he’s crossed the line.

“Travel in the region for Palestinians always involves being stopped at checkpoints, ushered out of their cars and through narrow inspection points before being allowed to go from one part of their country to another.”[“Country?” The P.A. was offered one in 2000 but turned it down.-Ed.]

“As an American with in a consular vehicle, the checkpoints are no bother. If I were Palestinian, I could look forward to possibly being detained and searched for no reason other than my nationality and route of travel.” [The checkpoints exist to stop murderers from entering Israel. Their success is well documented.-Ed.]

“The stories from Palestinians I worked with bear an unsettling resemblance to the tales of racial profiling in states throughout our own country. The profiling in Palestine, though every bit as dehumanizing is omnipresent.” [Young boys and women are recruited as suicide bombers. –Ed.]
“Had I spent the last week working with Israeli officials, I have no doubt that they would have just as profoundly opened my eyes to the daily threats that their own people suffer through. I have no reason to expect that those threats are any less pervasive or pernicious than the humiliation experienced by Palestinians. The Arab-Israeli conflict is more than anyone could hope to understand in a short visit, even one involving meeting with cabinet ministers and other ranking government officials.” [So, he didn’t ask any questions about why the checkpoints exist? –Ed.]

“The situation is even more complicated by the political pressures to which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is subjected by hardliners in his government who insist that he not budge at all on plans to resume the expansion of settlements, and by the irrational demands of Hamas extremists who insist that Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas reject any peace negotiations unless Israelis withdraw completely from any and all occupied territory.”

New Jersey politics may be rough and tumble as McDonough knows, but it doesn’t result in suicide bombings and military retaliation. Yes, Mr. McDonough, the situation is “complicated” and until you learn the difference between sitting shiva for a murdered terror victim (as I did) and humiliation suffered at a checkpoint, I think you should keep your comments to yourself.

Read the full column.

Well, that's what I have to say.

From the IPT - CAIR, Academic Scheme to Inflate Book Sales

2010-10-07T04:56:00.002-04:00

The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has uncovered a link between CAIR and a University of Chicago professor to boost sales of his recent book on terrorism.

University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape, whose research finds religious extremism has a limited role in suicide bombings, is working secretly with a suspected Hamas front to pump up sales of his new book, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned. That includes a secret agreement by CAIR to have its chapters around the country to buy them in bulk so they can manipulate the sales to move up the bestseller ranks. Pape is also scheduled to appear at this weekend's national banquet for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

"Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It," is Pape's latest project touting his thesis that religion is not a prime factor in suicide bombings. Rather, it is a response to occupation, he argues. That's appealing to CAIR, which court records show was part of a Hamas-support network in the United States. Prosecutors say CAIR, which touts itself as the nation's leading Muslim civil rights organization, never withdrew from the conspiracy to support Hamas politically and financially. And the FBI cut off communication with CAIR in 2008, saying it won't resume until "we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS."

Terror's supporters can be found on college campuses around the country. Read the full story CAIR, Academic Scheme to Inflate Book Sales.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Israel hacking Iranian computers? Not a new war tactic.

2010-10-04T09:23:00.004-04:00

From the New York Times, two stories about a computer worm that has been directed at Iranian computers involved in Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. Shades of the code breakers of World War II!

From September 29th,

“Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews preempt a Persian plot to destroy them.

“That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment. [The Hebrew word hadas which forms the basis of the name Hadassah, commonly used as a substitute for Esther, means myrtle, a kind of plant. Ed.]

So what’s so terrible? Nothing in my book if it the worm serves to slow down, if not derail Iran’s drive for a bomb. As for the Israelis,

“Not surprisingly, the Israelis are not saying whether Stuxnet has any connection to the secretive cyberwar unit it has built inside Israel’s intelligence service. Nor is the Obama administration, which while talking about cyberdefenses has also rapidly ramped up a broad covert program, inherited from the Bush administration, to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. In interviews in several countries, experts in both cyberwar and nuclear enrichment technology say the Stuxnet mystery may never be solved.”

The follow-up story came on October 2nd.

In a good discussion on the roots of cyber warfare, they have to come back to the original thesis that Israel was behind the Stuxnet attack.

“But many military and intelligence analysts, including several with direct knowledge of Israeli intelligence operations, have said it is unlikely that either an Israeli or United States operation would leave such blatant clues. That leaves the possibility that someone wanted to plant evidence pointing incorrectly to Israeli involvement. Most computer security specialists say the authorship of the program may never be discovered.”

Bottom line- Who cares about the Times' take on the root of the worm? What's good about this worm is that it demonstrates it's still good war planning to be screwing with your enemy’s head. The Allies did it in WWII, why not the West now?

When the punishment fits the crime

2010-09-29T07:46:00.003-04:00

Writing in the Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby writes "Ultimate evil calls for ultimate penalty."

"ELECTED OFFICIALS don't usually acknowledge wanting to torture people in dark alleys, so it made news recently when Boston Mayor Thomas Menino expressed such a wish during a talk at Emerson College.

"Menino had been speaking about the murder of Richel Nova, a Domino's pizza delivery driver who was brutally stabbed to death after being lured to an abandoned house in Hyde Park on Sept. 2. The suspects charged with Nova's late-night slaughter -- two teens and a 20-year-old -- are accused of lying in wait with knives, stabbing him repeatedly in the chest and throat, and rifling his pockets for money as he lay dying. Then, prosecutors say, the three drove off in Nova's car and ate most of the pizza from its blood-stained box."

"Maybe you guys can tell me," he said to the Emerson students, "what do they think when they do that? Don't they think life is worth anything?"

"A student asked Menino whether the three suspects ought to be tried in a state that, unlike Massachusetts, authorizes the death penalty.

"I'm not in favor of the death penalty," he answered. The death penalty is "a hot-button issue that doesn't solve anything. . . It's unfair. I just don't think the death penalty is the way to go."

Now Menino gets in trouble, he says,

"If I saw these guys in a dark alley, I'd like to have a fight with them," the mayor said. "I'd do some things that would be worse than the death penalty. . . . I would slowly torture them."

Torture, Mr. Mayor? You can imagine what comes next, the stuff hit the fan. Prosecutors, fearing that Menino had tainted any possible jury selection, forced him to retract his statement about torture. According to Jacoby,

“But the mayor took back the wrong words. It is his blanket opposition to the death penalty he ought to rethink, not his healthy and perfectly understandable urge to give Nova's killers a taste of the unspeakable evil they inflicted on their victim. It may not have been very genteel to speculate out loud about making the perpetrators suffer, but Menino was only giving voice to an innate and normal human craving: the desire to see justice done, to see those who prey on the weak or innocent get what they deserve.”

Where and when, in Massachusetts and other states that have outlawed the death penalty, does the punishment fit the crime? And what does that absence of punishment do to the rest of society?

To read what Jacoby has to say, go here.

Hamas video threatening Gilad Shalit

2010-09-23T03:14:00.000-04:00

Hamas posted a video of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit on Youtube on Monday, suggesting he would be killed if a deal was not soon reached.

In the animated video, two masked men are shown standing on either side of Gilad Schalit in a dark room, with one of them holding an AK-47 assualt rifle.

From the folks at Hamas. At the end of the 24-second video, gun shots are heard as the movie goes black and the words "Is the mission completed?" are seen written in Arabic.

Sad, very sad.

Stephen M. Flatow

From Israel a Christmas Blessing by President Shimon Peres

2010-09-22T08:50:00.000-04:00

Israel's president Shimon Peres extends Christmas wishes to Israel's Christian community; a growing one at that.

I give him credit and that's what I have to say.
Stephen M. Flatow

Israel and solar power

2010-09-20T21:25:00.001-04:00

A side of Israel many people don't see - its technology side.

Frida Ghitis - "Middle East peace requires courage"

2010-09-12T09:19:00.005-04:00

Frida Ghitis writing in the Miami Herald - "Middle East peace requires courage"

One of the most extraordinary moments in recent Middle East history came in 1993, when the world discovered that Israeli and Palestinian teams had held secret peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, formerly sworn enemies, came together on the White House lawn, formalizing their commitment to peace. The decision, and that memorably awkward hand-shake, prodded along by President Bill Clinton, required uncommon courage. They called it the Peace of the Brave. [Ed. - Yes, they did and it gave rise to a new vocabulary, such as, a Sacrifice for the Peace, to describe the murders of innocent civilians such as Alisa Flatow.]

The term deserves dusting off because it highlights one of the key requirements for peace, and one whose absence could prove the undoing of the new effort unfolding under U.S. sponsorship. Bravery, courage, are indispensable because no matter how comforting the idea of peace, reaching an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is a frighteningly dangerous process.

To reach a deal, the leaders -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas -- must make compromises that will break the hearts of millions of their followers. They will have to accept terms that will anger some enough that they will kill. And they will have to sign on to borders that could make their land -- especially in Israel's case -- vulnerable to unthinkable risks.

The euphoric events of 1993 gave way to disappointment, but they also helped draw the blueprint guiding the new quest for peace.

No one claims the new effort suffers from unrealistic expectations. Skepticism about its chances for success prevails. I call it skepticism and not pessimism, because many who claim peace is impossible in fact hope for failure. By their standards, they are optimistic.

When the leaders of Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah say the process will fail they remind us of their plan. Their solution is the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a fundamentalist Muslim regime; an alternative, backed by weapons, militias and money, that looms over the peace talks like a thick dark shadow, but also provides some of the impetus to persevere.

Ironically, the negotiating sides already agree on the solution's rough outlines. With the possible exception of the future of Jerusalem, everyone knows what is required for peace.

Even more frustrating is that the subject of closest agreement has become the most contentious. Partly because of missteps by the Obama administration, the issue of settlements has moved front and center and could provide a timid Mahmoud Abbas a way out of the talks. Abbas says without a settlement freeze he will pull out. Netanyahu says that, like all other differences, this should be resolved "through direct continuous talks.''

Already in the Clinton days that problem was essentially solved. Settlements take up about 4 percent of the disputed land. Most settlers live on a few large blocs, which in an agreement would be swapped for equal amounts of land within Israel proper.

To be sure, tough disagreements remain. But a basic obstacle to peace today is that Abbas, the Palestinian representative, appears to lack the power, the legitimacy and, yes, the courage, to close a deal.

Abbas, who rules only over the West Bank, asked for permission not just from Palestinians but from the Arab League, to start negotiations. When talks started in Washington, Hamas, which controls Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians, signaled its rejection by murdering more Israelis. The London-based Arab newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi editorialized that Abbas "negotiates without being granted the authorization to do so by his people.''

Adding irony to this sad situation, majorities of Palestinians and Israelis desperately want a peace deal. Contrary to what an ill-informed article in Time recently argued, Israelis are eager for peace. For years a vast majority of Israelis has expressed strong support for a two-state solution. A recent War and Peace Index poll found 80 percent support negotiations, easily outnumbering opponents of compromise.

A majority of Palestinians also back negotiations. But in the Arab world, public opinion carries less weight. Writing in the influential Arab daily Ashar al-Awsat, Mamoun Fandy wrote, ``The Palestinian division is not simply an internal one, as some may think, but is first an Arab division, and secondly a regional one.'' Even if Abbas achieved an agreement, he argued, he would find much of the Arab world pressuring Palestinians to reject it.

That's why Abbas announced shortly after leaving Washington that, "I can't allow myself to make even one concession.'' If he meant that, the new peace process is already over. Clearly, these are not the words from a man with the courage to make the peace of the brave. But then, Arafat ultimately lost his nerve. Maybe Abbas can find his.

Read the column on-line.

I know that Netanyahu has made previous decisions that did not rest well with sectors of his political support, but he made them anyway. Abbas, considered a terrorist by Yitzhak Rabin, does not, in my opinion, have either the willingness or the guts to make similar decisions. Will we back to base one again? The next days and weeks will tell.

What do you think?

Building a mosque near Ground Zero - opinions for and against

2010-09-05T10:40:00.004-04:00

Sunday’s edition of the Asbury Park Press contains dueling op-eds on the proposed construction of a mosque near the World Trade Center site. The op-eds are written by Aref Assaf, president of the American Arab Forum located in Paterson, NJ, who is in favor of the mosque’s construction, and John Skoufis, a retired chemist who lives in Denville, NJ, who is not in favor of its construction.

Mr. Assaf frequently writes about Palestinian issues and finds it hard to condemn terrorism unequivocally. I had not read anything by Mr. Skoufis before today but a Google search indicates he brings a “conservative” approach to many issues.

Assaf begins,

“President Barack Obama's remarks supporting the right to build a mosque near ground zero reverberated across the country, nationalizing a passionate debate over the project. The dispute is the most prominent in a series of debates around the country where Muslims have sought to build mosques.”

[A comment from your editor, Mr. Obama’s support was tempered by his questioning the smartness of building a mosque so close to Ground Zero. This is a typical Assaf ploy. But enough from me.]

He continues

"Shamefully, Republican leaders and right-wing media pundits have made it their objective to use the issue not only to undermine public support for Obama but as a tool in the upcoming midterm elections. Gratefully, a few Republican leaders have sided with what's right. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have decided that scapegoating American Muslims was, in fact, too costly politically."

Read the full op-ed.

This is from John Skoufis,

"The proposed building of a mosque/cultural center near ground zero has engendered vociferous debate from extremists on both sides of the issue. One side tries to marginalize opponents by portraying them as bigots and Islamophobes while the other side makes unfounded claims that all Muslims are terrorists.
"We need to tune both out and discuss, rationally, our position.
"I will leave it to others to make their case for condemning those who object to this building. But the siren cry of bigotry and First Amendment and legal rights do not suffice since the vast majority, more than 70 percent, believe this mosque has both legal and constitutional rights to build while simultaneously objecting to the location. Some 70 percent of Americans cannot be labeled as bigots or against religious freedom."

Read the full op-ed.

What do you think?

Will Palestinian cult of death destroy hope of peace?

2010-08-23T06:05:00.005-04:00

As many others were in the early 1990s, I was optimistic that peace would come to Israelis and Palestinians with the signing of the Oslo Accords. I was woken from my reverie by the attack in which Alisa was murdered. It took several years more for mainstream folks to understand the implications of what the late Israeli Prime Minister personally told my wife and I,

"Yassir Arafat was a terrorist, is a terrorist, will always be a terrorist, and is surrounded by terrorists."

With the so-called "direct negotiations" about to take place between the two sides, the recently made threats by Jibril Rajoub and Ahmed Qurei to renew attacks against Israeli civilians, must thoroughly dampen, if not eliminate, any optimism that this new round of negotiations will have the desired result.

We previously wrote about the naming of a square in a Palestinian city after a mass murderer. They've just done that again. This worship of murderers is sick and I can think of no other society that does it so well. How do you reconcile yourself with people who glorify those who killed your children?

It says on the Jerusalem Post editorial page,

The Israeli government, with mainstream support, has signalled that it will consider the painful concessions necessary for a viable accord – provided that the PA, for the first time, both internalizes Israel’s sovereign legitimacy and emphasizes that legitimacy to its own people, creating the climate for mutual compromise and long-term reconciliation.

If only the Palestinian leadership will meet them half-way.

That's what I think.

Tom Friedman - let's try some constructive criticism

2010-08-09T10:00:00.000-04:00

In case you missed Tom Friedman's column in the Sunday Times, read it now.

I've long been an admirer of Israeli filmmakers. They have an ability to touch the heart of an issue without melodrama and without finger pointing. So, when Friedman writes about a film, "Precious Life," he got my curiosity up.

The film is a documentary about Israeli medical efforts to save the life of a young Palestinian child from Gaza. From there, the story gets more interesting and I want you to read Friedman's column to get the gist of the movie.

I have been to Israeli hospitals. And I have seen first hand that they treat all patients-- Jews, Arabs, Christians, Muslims, Druze and all others-- with equanimity and first rate medical care. It's a far cry from medical treatment in other Middle Eastern countries. All that Friedman writes about medical care is true.

What disturbs Friedman today is the lack of constructive criticism when speaking of Israel and he raises one key point-- everyone there is open to it.

But there are two kinds of criticism. Constructive criticism starts by making clear: “I know what world you are living in.” I know the Middle East is a place where Sunnis massacre Shiites in Iraq, Iran kills its own voters, Syria allegedly kills the prime minister next door, Turkey hammers the Kurds, and Hamas engages in indiscriminate shelling and refuses to recognize Israel. I know all of that. But Israel’s behavior, at times, only makes matters worse — for Palestinians and Israelis. If you convey to Israelis that you understand the world they’re living in, and then criticize, they’ll listen.

As Friedman explains,

Destructive criticism closes Israeli ears. It says to Israelis: There is no context that could explain your behavior, and your wrongs are so uniquely wrong that they overshadow all others. Destructive critics dismiss Gaza as an Israeli prison, without ever mentioning that had Hamas decided — after Israel unilaterally left Gaza — to turn it into Dubai rather than Tehran, Israel would have behaved differently, too. Destructive criticism only empowers the most destructive elements in Israel to argue that nothing Israel does matters, so why change?
How about everybody take a deep breath, pop a copy of “Precious Life” into your DVD players, watch this documentary about the real Middle East, and if you still want to be a critic (as I do), be a constructive one. A lot more Israelis and Palestinians will listen to you.

U.S. Muslim leaders turn-in wannabe terrorists

2010-08-08T09:05:00.004-04:00

14 people have been indicted by the U.S. for

“funneling “money, personnel and services” to the Shabab, the Islamist terrorist group fighting an insurgency in Somalia.”

According to The NY Times,

“The newly unsealed indictments included charges against two women arrested Thursday in Rochester, Minn., who are accused of raising money and sending it to the Shabab, as well as charges against Omar Hammami, an Alabama man who has appeared in videos promoting the group and is believed to have become a crucial Shabab figure.”

What’s interesting about the news is the high level of cooperation between Muslim leaders and U.S. law enforcement officials.

According to IPT News,

“Federal law enforcement officials are praising Somali-Americans for their help in an investigation which resulted in the indictment Thursday of 14 people on charges of providing money, services and personnel to the terrorist organization al-Shabaab. A large part of the credit goes to Abdirizak Bihi, a Somali community leader in Minneapolis who persevered despite opposition from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and hostile mosque leaders.”

That’s welcome news because it shows that there are Muslim leaders who don’t fall under the sway of CAIR.

Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr. said,

“The indictments unsealed today shed further light on a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to the Al Shabab terror organization from cities across the United States. These arrests and charges should serve as an unmistakable warning to others considering joining terrorist groups like Al Shabab — if you choose this route, you can expect to find yourself in a U.S. jail cell or a casualty on the battlefield in Somalia.”

Strong words from Mr. holder, let’s see if they hold up.

For more on Al Shabab, go here.

There's no room for a double standard on anti-Semitism

2010-08-04T10:05:00.003-04:00

Anti-Semitism, not "the occupation, lies at the root of terrorism directed at Jews in Israel and around the world. So what happens when a Hollywood player, Oliver Stone, reveals his anti-Semitism?

Jeff Jacoby, writing in the Boston Globe and on his website compares the reaction to Mel Gibson's tirade against Jews to Oliver Stone's. He asks, "is there a double standard?"

LATE IN JULY, a Hollywood honcho uncorks a blast of anti-Semitic bile, the sort of malignant stereotype about Jews one might expect from David Duke or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Is that newsworthy?

It certainly was in 2006, when Mel Gibson, arrested in Malibu for drunken driving, demanded to know whether the arresting deputy was Jewish, and then launched into an anti-Semitic rant: "F-----g Jews," he raged. "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

Calls went out for folks to boycott Gibson movies and to never work with him again. More than 1,000 news items were filed in the week after the incident.

Now, turn to Oliver Stone, the most recent prominent Hollywood figure to blame Jews for the world's ills and "Jewish domination of the media". One week later, less than 150 items have been posted. "On ABC, CBS, and NBC, the news shows completely ignored the story. The New York Times restricted its coverage to two short items in its "Arts, Briefly" section -- and few other papers ran even that much.

No widespread calls for a boycott of Stone and his work.

So, Jacoby wonders,

Gibson and Stone are both guilty of indulging in rank anti-Semitism (for which both promptly "apologized"), but only Gibson was buried under a newsroom avalanche of outrage and disgust. What explains that glaring difference? Surely the media don't think Jew-baiting is intolerable only when it comes from a right-wing Christian like Gibson. Surely they wouldn't overlook Stone's noxious rant just because he is a pluperfect left-wing activist.
Surely that can't be the explanation for so disgraceful a double standard.

Can it?

Oh, yes it can. And that's what I think.

Lockerbie bomber's release - something rotten?

2010-07-20T13:19:00.006-04:00

Those of us who follow the health of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi are surprised that the man is alive. After all, weren't we told that he was released from prison because he was dying from cancer and had only weeks to live.

Now there are rumors that oil giant BP might have had a say in al-Megrahi's release. Secretary of State Clinton is looking for answers and Senators from New Jersey and New York are planning to meet British PM Cameron while he is in Washington.

No one seems to know all the circumstances surrounding al-Megrahi's release and it's something worthwhile to investigate. Did BP violate law? Did Scot politicians and government officials? Let's see.

Read the full article from the Star-Ledger, British prime minister to meet with N.J. Sens. Lautenberg, Menendez to discuss Lockerbie bomber.

Daniel Gordis: Rest in pieces

2010-07-19T14:34:00.000-04:00

Those who come across Terror Victims' Voice on a regular basis know that I am a fan of Daniel Gordis. The reason for that is that Gordis is one of the finer writers addressing Israeli affairs. His writing is most elegant and to the point. He expresses in words what many feel but find difficulty expressing. His July 16, 2010 column in the Jerusalem Post is no exception.

Gordis writes about his encounter with his Israeli Arab handyman Khaled. Khaled comes across a photo on Gordis's wall of broken tombstones in a Jewish cemetery. Khaled is shocked that people would destroy Jewish tombstones. Even in death, Jews are hated.

When we come across people such as Khaled, and I have been in that situation myself, you don't know quite how far to go when explaining facts that may be unknown to your listener. Gordis, too, runs into that problem.

Gordis then shifts from Khaled to the speaker at a program in Tel Aviv. Contrary to what might have been Khaled's open mind, Gordis comes up against Dr. Raif Zreik of Tel Aviv University.

Zreik, it was immediately obvious, is an intellectual to be reckoned with. Educated at Hebrew University, Columbia and Harvard, he is extraordinarily articulate, speaks a mellifluous Hebrew and doesn’t pull punches. Nor did he waste any time.

Zreik began by explaining why he knew he wouldn’t change our minds. The difference between an intellectual and an ideologue, he said, is that an intellectual can surprise himself. Intellectuals are sufficiently open-minded and rational that they occasionally find themselves adopting positions different from what they’d originally thought. An ideologue can never do that, he said.

By the end of the evening it is clear that it is Zreik who turns out is the ideologue.

This week, Jews will mark the fast day of Tisha B'Av (the 9th of the month of Av.) It's a date set out in Jewish history with one tragedy after another happening on that date. It was the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem on that date almost 2,000 years ago that resonates with Jews around the world today. But is Tisha B'Av still relevant in modern times?

Gordis thinks so.

For me, moments like an evening with Dr. Zreik, articulate and brilliant though he is, make the case for this period of mourning. It’s not just about the past, but also about the future, about what could still happen, and what may already be beginning.

Read the full column Rest in pieces .

Well, that's what I have to say.
Stephen M. Flatow

Jeff Jacoby - "There is no ‘good’ communist "

2010-06-27T08:57:00.004-04:00

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby comments on the acceptability of Communism to a liberal world.

IF JOSÉ Saramago, the Portuguese writer who died on Friday at 87, had been an unrepentant Nazi for the last four decades, he would never have won international acclaim or received the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature.

But Saramago wasn’t a Nazi, he was a communist. And not just a nominal communist, as his obituaries pointed out, but an “unabashed’’ (Washington Post), “unflinching’’ (AP), “unfaltering’’ (New York Times) true believer.

Without a hint of irony, AP’s obituary quoted a comment Saramago made in 1998: “People used to say about me, ‘He’s good but he’s a communist.’ Now they say, ‘He’s a communist but he’s good.’ ’’

But the idea that good people can be devoted communists is grotesque. The two categories are mutually exclusive. There was a time, perhaps, when dedication to communism could be absolved as misplaced idealism or naiveté, but that day is long past.

Communist regimes have murdered, according to Jacoby, 100 million men, women and children. And Communism is still a horror to those who live under it.

Anyone who imagines that the horrors of communist rule is a thing of the past ought to spend a few minutes with, say, the State Department’s latest human rights report on North Korea.

Jacoby's position, and it should be ours, is that there is no such thing as a good Communist. Read the full column - There is no ‘good’ communist

American home grown terrorists sentenced in Pakistan

2010-06-24T14:43:00.004-04:00

From the New York Times of June 24, 2010,

A Pakistani court sentenced five American Muslim men who had been arrested in Punjab Province to 10 years of labor in prison on Thursday for conspiring to carry out terrorist attacks, in a case that amplified worries about the radicalization of Muslims in the United States.

We spend a lot of time in America trying to understand the mindset of young men and, perhaps, women, who yearn for a jihadist lifestyle.

Experts say that the young Americans, often children of integrated Muslim immigrants, are not immune to the calls of jihad by militant organizations, which play on feelings of frustration and confusion about identity common in young, first- and second-generation men.

Once again, let's blame "confusion of identity" for sending these young men off the path. Perhaps a Muslim lifestyle is to blame; perhaps it is a lifestyle that cannot coexist within America's melting pot. Nonsense, there are many sects and people of deep religious belief whose children do not dream of jihad and martyrdom. Stop blaming society and point the finger where the trouble lies-- propagators of those who would harm us picking on susceptible and impressionable young men to do their dirty work.

Well, that's what I think. Read the full story.

The West is backing the wrong side

2010-06-15T06:59:00.003-04:00

Caroline Glick writes in the Jerusalem Post,

By backing the terrorist group against Israel, western countries are backing Hamas against Fatah and Islamist states against ME moderates.

The leader of the group is America's own Barack Obama.

Led by US President Barack Obama, the West has cast its lot with Hamas. It is not surprising that Obama is siding with Hamas.

Is this just another incident of "he just doesn't get it," or something worse for the Israelis, that is, a reversal of a decades old alliance between the U.S. and Israel? While Glick understands Obama's shift because of his associations and actions, how about the leadership of other western countries?

What is alarming however is how leaders of the free world are now all siding with Hamas. That support has become ever more apparent since the Mossad’s alleged killing of Hamas terror master Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at his hotel in Dubai in January.

Israel is not the only player affected by these steps.

As for Fatah, it is hard not to feel sorry for its leader Mahmoud Abbas these days. In what was supposed to be a triumphant visit to the White House, Abbas was forced to smile last week as Obama announced the US will provide $450 million in aid to his sworn enemies who three years ago ran him and his Fatah henchmen out of Gaza.

So too, Abbas is forced to cheer as Obama pressures Israel to give Hamas an outlet to the sea. This will render it impossible for Fatah to ever unseat Hamas either by force or at the ballot box. Hamas’s international clout demonstrates to the Palestinians that jihad pays.

This is the Obama's foreign policy? What a mistake. And it's one that can only lead to more bloodshed in the Middle East.

Read Our World: Hamas rises in the West

Steve Averbach

2010-06-13T16:53:00.006-04:00

Steve Averbach died last week, the victim of a 2003 terror attack. I write about him because I know his parents, and because Steve didn't let his injuries stop him from living a productive life.

The attack in which Steve was injured happened on a public bus that he was riding to work on May 18, 2003. His training as a police officer led him to act quickly to stop a terrorist disguised as a Jew. When the terrorist saw Steve draw his pistol he detonated his bomb vest; his ultimate target, the central bus station was not reached but 8, now including Steve, died as a result of the blast.

Gil Troy wrote:

For 2574 days, Steve Averbach lived in hell. Each day was endless, filled with anguish and indignity. He suffered. His saintly wife Julie suffered. His family suffered. Strangely, such suffering - which in Israel is multiplied exponentially considering the thousands of casualties - is invisible, even to many American Jews, who label Israeli intransigence the only obstacle to peace.

Steve's suffering illustrated the risks of peace - and the need for peace. His heroism, carving out moments of beauty and pockets of meaning amid this nightmare, proved how deep our reserves as human beings are - and how one person can not only face tragedy but touch so many others with his strength, vision, idealism.

There are many more like Steve Averbach in Israel. They don't whine about their particular predicament. They work to return to full strength, they work to help others, and, by so doing, continue to build up the state of Israel. Like Steve, they are all heroes. May Steve Averbach's memory be for a blessing.

Jeff Jacoby - Moderate Muslims say "no" to Ground Zero mosque

2010-06-06T11:34:00.004-04:00

IS GROUND ZERO the right place for a major new mosque and Islamic cultural center? That is the question swirling around the proposed Cordoba House, a 15-story, $100 million Muslim development to be built just 600 feet from where the World Trade Center stood. The ambitious plans for Cordoba House include not only a mosque, but also a 500-seat auditorium, a swimming pool, a restaurant, and a bookstore.

Read what some Muslims have to say about building this mosque in Jeff Jacoby's article here; you might be surprised.

World's response to Gaza flotilla is worthy of satire

2010-06-04T10:07:00.006-04:00

The YouTube video embedded below was removed by YouTube because of alleged copyright infringement claim by the publisher of the original music, Warner/Chappell Music Inc. (Stinkers in my book.) Here's the new link.

Here's one response to the so-called humanitarian intentions of the Gaza flotilla. Of course, Hamas supporters won't find it funny but satire is not necessarily meant to be funny.

Two takes on the Gaza blockade

2010-06-03T08:47:00.003-04:00

The New York Times publishes two op-eds today in support of the Gaza blockade and Israel's actions to enforce it. The first is by Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., and the second is by Daniel Gordis, a noted writer.

Oren's column can be found here, An Assault, Cloaked in Peace.

PEACE activists are people who demonstrate nonviolently for peaceful co-existence and human rights. The mob that assaulted Israeli special forces on the deck of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara on Monday was not motivated by peace. On the contrary, the religious extremists embedded among those on board were paid and equipped to attack Israelis — both by their own hands as well as by aiding Hamas — and to destroy any hope of peace.

Gordis' column can be found here, A Botched Raid, a Vital Embargo.

Like every other country, Israel has as its foremost obligation the protection of its citizens. Given that, why should it have allowed the flotilla to enter without inspecting its goods? If the United States were to impose a blockade on Iran (which seems unlikely), and another country dispatched a string of ships in a similar operation, is there any chance the United States Navy would let them through without inspection?

What's your take on this?

Israel does not have a lot to explain

2010-05-31T18:17:00.003-04:00

Herewith a video taken of the attacks against IDF troops landing on the ship Mavi Mamara containing "peaceful" activists.

Terrorists get college education? Israelis hope to say "no more."

2010-05-25T04:29:00.004-04:00

The Jerusalem Post believes that a newly introduced bill removing some of the privileges enjoyed by Hamas terrorists held in Israeli prisons is a step in the right direction towards balancing Hamas's treatment of Gilad Schalit.

In an attempt to put pressure on the Hamas leadership in Gaza to release Gilad Schalit, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation this week approved a bill that, if ratified, would take away some of the amenities enjoyed by Hamas terrorists currently incarcerated in Israeli prisons, including many captured by the IDF during December 2008-January 2009’s Operation Cast Lead. No longer would these inmates be allowed to enjoy the cultural edification of multi-channel cable TV. Nor would they be permitted to pursue a higher education through Israel’s Open University. Access to books and visits by relatives might be curtailed. Prolonged isolation of prisoners is also being considered.

Gilad Schalit is the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas from Israeli soil about four years ago and remains hidden by Hamas without being allowed contact with the outside world during that time.

The Israeli bill should be enacted, sooner rather than later. It will not free Gilad Schalit, but it will salve the wounds of Schalit's absence.

Read the full editorial.