How to Handle Hamas - a new proposal

Yagil Henkin, an associate fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center, has some suggestions on how to deal effectively with Hamas.

While there is much discussion as to the continuation of sanctions against Hamas, Henkin asks, What sanctions should be applied and what can they achieve?

It is very unlikely that sanctions will cause the Hamas government to fall. Historically, embargoes have either failed to catalyze change, or were extremely slow in bringing it. In the best-case scenarios, sanctions have been helpful as part of a wider strategy.

After discussing the use of sanctions in the cases of Rhodesia and South Africa, Henkin turns to Israel's restrictions on building supplies and other materials going into Gaza (with the acquiescence of Egypt.)

SO, WHAT sanctions can be applied against Hamas? Apart from controlling the border and an arms embargo, the most effective way to apply pressure on Hamas is not to indirectly pressure them via their population, but rather pressure Hamas itself, as part of a wider strategy. The international community must act, if it is interested in the welfare of Gaza's residents and curbing radical Islam.

The steps to be taken?

First, Hamas leaders should be prevented from traveling abroad and being officially received - including the leadership based outside Gaza. Second, any organization affiliated with Hamas should be ignored, and, third, economic sanctions applied against individuals and businesses connected to Hamas.

Will this dissolve Hamas's obstinacy? Hopefully, but not certainly. Both Zimbabwe and Myanmar have survived government-targeted sanctions. But hopefully by focusing the sanctions and blame where they belong - on Hamas - while keeping civilians uninvolved, this will succeed. Sanctions may not catalyze change as effectively as we would like, but this neither renders them unnecessary nor suggests we should embargo lock, stock and barrel.

Read the full article, How to effectively sanction Hamas

New Terror Indictment - Homegrown conspiracy

The US Department of Justice announced yesterday that "Seven individuals have been charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad."

All the defendants are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, as well as conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad. In addition, Daniel Boyd, Hysen Sherifi and Zakariya Boyd are each charged with possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Daniel Boyd and Dylan Boyd are also each charged with selling a firearm to a convicted felon. Finally, Daniel Boyd is also charged with receiving a firearm through interstate commerce and two counts of making false statements in a terrorism investigation.

The full press release, the indictment is sealed, can be found here. Let's see what develops.

News of the Riverdale Bomb Plot-- or is it not the news?

Jonathan Mark of the New York Jewish Week comments on the Riverdale bomb plot. His take? The major media is out to lunch covering the story and has been replaced by alternative media such as the Village Voice, The Nation, The Amsterdam News, and on Air America. We could expand the list by adding The Worker and the countless bloggers who believe the would-be bombers were entrapped by the FBI.

As is usual in “entrapment” stories, Jews aren’t interviewed for their understanding of entrapment, or how the Riverdale plot seared Jewish sensitivities.

The Voice might have spoken to Samuel G. Freedman. A writer for The New York Times, he has written with great sensitivity about ethnic profiling and the humiliation felt by one Muslim girl when she was stopped by airport security. Freedman told The Jewish Week, “The fact is, you can’t be entrapped unless you participate in your own entrapment. There’s a big difference between profiling, say, a high school girl, and profiling people who are demonstrably criminal with histories of violence. There’s a huge, huge difference there.”

As Mark well understands the story is far from over. Read the The Chill is Gone.

Israel is not 60+ years old

Much is made over the State of Israel being a relatively new country--created by a remorseful world out of guilt for the loss of 6,000,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II. Despite this belief, as recently stated by President Obama, it's wrong. While the Holocaust might have been the catalyst that drove the United Nations to at long last give life to British intentions as to the Jews return to the land as expressed in the Balfour Declaration, the underpinnings of modern Israel are far older than that.

US Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey took to the floor of the Senate to speak about Israel on June 16, 2009. His speech followed the attack at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

This tragedy reminds us of the need of sound understanding of one of the darkest episodes in the history of the world. Far too many misrepresent the significance of the Holocaust, especially in regard to the State of Israel and her people. And far too many people deny it happened altogether, out of bigotry, hatred, and spite.

In the face of so much misunderstanding, I am compelled today to speak up about the role of the Holocaust in Israel's history and Israel's challenges in preventing anti-Semitic murder from continuing to happen.

Menendez clearly understands--"While the Shoah has a central role in Israel's identity, it is not the reason behind its founding and it is not the main justification for its existence."

To those who believe that Jews fell out of the sky into the midst of, as one commenter said in response to a recent post, "Indian country," the history outlined in Menendez's remarks may come as a surprise. I do not expect that anti-Semites will accept his comments as true, but there is not too much I or anyone else can do about them. Fair minded people, on the other hand, may come away with a new understanding and a new view.

Here is the speech from the Congressional Record. The index entry is [Congressional Record: June 16, 2009 (Senate)][Page S6613-S6614]From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov][DOCID:cr16jn09-91].

The UN's Ban Ki-moon honours courage of Palestinians

The boys and girls at the United Nations continue to defy logic when it comes to issuing news releases regarding the plight of Palestinian refugees.

A short while ago, the UN was beaming with pride as one of their top officials endorsed the "tradition" of Muslims caring for refugees. The only exception to this generosity is the Palestinian community that left Israel in 1948 and who continue to swelter in refugee camps set up in Arab countries.

Unlike Israel, which took in more than 650,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries immediately following the Independence War and immediately began a process to integrate them into the new country's society, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, herded the same number of Palestinians into camps in those countries.

60+ years later, the Palestinians are denied citizenship in their host countries, denied work permits, and basically treated as non-entities. For what purpose other than to foster anti-Semitism?

On June 30, 2009, according to a UN press release, "Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid tribute today to Palestinian refugees, who he said had shown great courage in the face of conflict, as well as to the efforts over the past 60 years of the United Nations agency tasked with assisting them."

Rather than ask for absorption of refugees, the UN lauds their courage. They should have the courage to insist on citizenship in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. They have been the pawns of the world's Arab and Muslim community for way too long.