Category Archives: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Israelis Should Ignore American ‘Ethnic Agitators’

Elections, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Will the America’s political caste succeed in infecting Israelis with the pigment burden? I hope not, but they’re trying mightily:

Bibi Netanyahu urged his supporters, on Tuesday morning, to head to the polls, by warning them that Arab Israelis were being bussed to the polls by “left-leaning organizations.” Does that sound like a familiar strategy? Something the Democrats do? Indeed, says Ann Coulter. And “Instead of [Republicans] cowering in the face of left-wing ethnic agitation, how about pointing out that they’re busing Somalis to the polls in Minnesota; that they’re dumping illegal-alien ballots at the polling booths in Arizona.”

Netanyahu’s realistic appeal was viewed as “racist” by the US media. Via Newsbusters:

… the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg repeatedly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral strategy which he labeled “the Israeli version of the Southern Strategy. … basically [trying] to scare his base into coming out and giving their votes to him by saying essentially the Arabs are coming.

When advocating for Israel’s 1.7 million Arabs citizens, Christiane Amapour had to be reminded by her fairer colleague, Jack Tapper, that “these Palestinian voters … are citizens with full voting rights.”

How about that? Not only do Israeli Arabs have equal voting rights – Israel is one of the few places in the Middle East where Arab women may vote. Israeli Arabs have freedom of speech, assembly and press, as is evident from the many Islamic, anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic journals that thrive in Israel. Arabs hold seats in the Knesset. Israeli Arabs have held government posts and serve on the bench. Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel.

That’s the real story here. For the rest, Israelis should ignore the terminally self-righteous preaching about racism coming out of the US.

In The Media, It’s All About The Angle, The Spin

Anti-Semitism, Europe, Islam, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Media, Reason

You ought to take note of the media’s meta-narrative on the issues, by which is meant the overarching theme that infests each and every news story. You’ll discover that there’s an angle, a spin. Thus, bimbo Brooke Baldwin (transcript not up yet), a CNN anchorette, framed a perfectly logical statement made by ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU as “controversial,” in Baldwin’s words. Said Bibi:

“I would like to tell all of the European Jews, and all Jews wherever you are, Israel is the home of every Jew.”

Because the thought process of the ubiquitous bimbo is so obtuse (blunt, not sharp); it’s hard to discern what is meant by such utterances. In other words, why is what Bibi said controversial? This is unclear to the rational individual.

The truth is that the subordinate satellites states that make up Europe refuse—and no longer have the power—to properly and vigorously defend their innocent citizens, Jewish and Christian, from an identifiable threat:

… the Monster State is inherently both stupid and evil. Like a primitive organism, it answers to nobody and nothing but its reflexive need to grow.

To wit, the Monster State refuses to protect its people from plagues. It welcomes high-risk travelers from the Ebola hot-zones. Simultaneously, it quarantines aspiring fighters for Jihad here at home, in the West, so the homeland is the only arena in which they can act-out.

The nightwatchman state of classical liberalism would keep killers out of the country, not in the country.

What Bibi said follows from an irremediable reality articulated in “A Modest Libertarian Proposal: Keep Jihadis OUT, Not IN.”

UPDATED: Palestinians Share Sweets And Tweets To Celebrate Synagogue Massacre (CNN, Making-Up The News)

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

Barack Obama shared not his moral outrage over the butchering of Israelis, but his penchant for moral equivalence. “The majority of Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly want peace,” he intoned (as the royal proboscis grew a bit). Not so. A preponderance of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza approve of attacks on Israeli civilians.

Duly, Palestinians shared sweets and tweets to celebrate the murder of four rabbis in prayer. A Druze Israeli policeman died of his wounds hours after he was shot in the gunfight that ended the attack. (Times Of Israel.)

MORE “sweet” images, via Powerline Blog.

“The Orthodox Jewish men were facing east,” reports the New York Times, “to honor the Old City site where the ancient temples once stood, when two Palestinians armed with a gun, knives and axes burst into their synagogue Tuesday morning, shouting ‘God is great!’ in Arabic. Within moments, three rabbis and a fourth pious man lay dead, blood pooling on their prayer shawls and holy books.”

UPDATE (11/19): CNN, Making-Up The News. On Tuesday, reports NewsBusters, “CNN initially broadcast to the world news that Israelis had shot two Arabs in a ‘mosque’ in Jerusalem. Only belatedly did they correct that false story and report that those terrorists shot in a synagogue had first murdered Jews worshipping [sic] peacefully. Those terrorists were armed with knives, axes, and a gun.”

CNN apologized, of course, and will doubtless defend themselves as reporting only the news as it first came to them. It is nonetheless the case that blaming the Israelis first is part of the “narrative” the Left employs whenever dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

UPDATED: Standing Armies Are Worse Than Useless (Israeli Major Gen. To US: Pot. Kettle. Black)

Ethics, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Just War, Middle East, Military

First up today, a think-tanker with the surname of Haas told CNN’s Don Lemon that Hamas kills Israelis and exploits Palestinians. No doubt. However, if given the option—something the dead are not afforded—would I rather be exploited by Hamas or killed by an Israeli bomb? I think you know the answer. (I was unable to locate the interview online.)

Next, this time on Fox News, a gentleman by the name of Adam Ereli, former U.S. ambassador to Bahrain, informed anchor Shepard Smith—and I paraphrase—that too much emphasis is being placed on Palestinian civilian casualties. Really? Are their lives forfeit for the sins of others?

This does not look good for Israel. My sense of this Gaza offensive is that a standing army such as Israel’s is unequipped to deal with guerrilla warfare. Standing armies are fat, lazy, imprecise and careless.

Not much has changed since I wrote, in 2012 (“Standing Armies Commandeered by Cowards”), the following about Israel’s previous futile confrontation with Hamas:

… The fight was started by Hamas. Hamas hides among unwitting civilians, who have no way of controlling its activities. This fact does not give Israel the right to kill innocent non-combatants, not even unintentionally.

Besides, murder is not “unintentional” when you know it is inevitable.

To make matters worse, Gazans are helpless—they are without siren systems to warn them of an impending attack, or bomb shelters in which to hide.

After its 2006 Lebanon fiasco, I proposed that Israel deploy the best of its special-operations units. Israeli commandos such as the “Sayeret Matkal” are trained in surgical strikes, including modern urban counterterrorism operations. “Sayeret” soldiers can trace and neutralize the source of an attack against Israeli civilians sans “collateral damage.”

Yes, what’s the matter with Israel’s Special Operations capabilities? Where are Israel’s precision Pac Men? Did the Israel Defense Forces rain bombs, willy-nilly, on the civilians at the Entebbe Airport—in Uganda, on July 4, 1976—where the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine held 100 hijacked Jews and Israelis hostage?

Not on your life.

Led by Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyau’s late great brother, 100 members of the “Sayeret” traversed 2,500 miles to rescue their brethren. They killed only those who needed killing.

It used to be that leaders like “Yoni” Netanyahu charged with their men into battle. Not anymore. Nowadays, celebrity, champagne-swilling generals give the order to chubby men in armored machines, who then bomb the anthills from above and afar. …

MORE.

UPDATE: Israeli Major Gen. To US: Pot. Kettle. Black. Retired Major General Amos Yadlin responded to the moralizing of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer brilliantly:

BLITZER: Should Israel, the IDF, be doing more to prevent civilian casualties?

YADLIN: The IDF are doing more than the Americans have done in Fallujah and more than the Americans have done in Germany in the second world war. We are the moralist army in the world. We have a code of conduct that we are allowed to attack only terrorists.

This too is true, but how much does it mean, and is it enough?