Tag Archives: Israel

Jimmy Carter Doesn’t Understand International Law

This week, former President Jimmy Carter was the lead author on a predictably misguided piece over at Foreign Policy, in which he and former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson argue that in order for peace to prevail between Israel and the Palestinians, there must be a lifting of the blockade on Gaza, and the United States and European Union must recognize Hamas’s “legitimacy as a political actor.” It is replete with the usual nonsensical arguments we’ve come to expect from President Carter, and any United Nations leaders past or present, on this subject.

For those who understand that both Israel’s case for and methods for self-defense against Hamas forces in Gaza reside on solid legal ground (to say nothing of the moral imperative of a nation’s leadership to defend its citizens against indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilian populations), one paragraph is especially flawed (which is saying something):

There is never an excuse for deliberate attacks on civilians in conflict. These are war crimes. This is true for both sides. Hamas’s indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians is equally unacceptable. However, three Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian rockets, while an overwhelming majority of the 1,600 Palestinians killed have been civilians, including more than 330 children. The need for international judicial proceedings to investigate and end these violations of international law should be taken very seriously. (emphasis added)

One of the bedrock concepts of the international law of armed conflict (also known as the laws of war) is that of “proportionality.” This concept, intended to minimize harm to civilians during war, states that even if a target is deemed by commanders to be a necessary one from the perspective of gaining military advantage, an attack on that target is prohibited if the number of anticipated civilian casualties would be excessively disproportionate to the anticipated military advantage to be gained, as understood by the commander at that time. The laws of war do not say that civilian casualties ipso facto constitute war crimes. Comparing the number of civilian casualties between Israel and Hamas, and then deciding that Israel must be guilty of war crimes because Palestinian civilian casualties outnumber – even greatly outnumber – those of Israel, has no grounding in the laws of war.

As Prof. Laurie Blank at the Emory University School of Law notes in a recent piece for The Hill:

There is no doubt that, after an attack, the urge to simply count up the casualties and declare a war crime is powerful. However, an effects-based analysis — that is, using the numbers of casualties and extent of destruction to make legal claims — is simply incorrect. The law does not require that commanders be right all the time. The law also does not require perfect accuracy in targeting. But it does require extensive steps to protect civilians and reasonable judgments about the potential harm to civilians and the actions needed to minimize that harm.

Israel indeed undertakes such extensive steps to protect civilians, including by warning them, using several methods, to evacuate an area before the Israel Defense Forces engage. As Col. Richard Kemp, former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, recently observed: “…The IDF has developed the most comprehensive and sophisticated measures to minimize civilian casualties during attacks against legitimate military targets.”

In fact, Israeli targeting procedures go above and beyond what proportionality doctrine under international law requires, though tragically civilian casualties can still occur. Col. Kemp goes on:

In the last few days IDF pilots have aborted many missions because civilians remained in the target area…

…IDF commanders say they never intentionally fire at targets where uninvolved civilians are present,a policy that goes much further than the Geneva Conventions demand. This policy has been confirmed to me by foot soldiers on the ground and F16 pilots carrying out strikes into Gaza.

But mistakes happen. Surveillance and intelligence can never be foolproof. There have been reports of Hamas forcing civilians back in once buildings have been evacuated. There is sometimes unexpected fallout from attacks, for example when an adjacent building containing civilians collapses, often caused by secondary explosions resulting from Hamas’s own munitions.

Errors can be made in interpretation of imagery, passage of information and inputting of target data. We don’t yet know what happened to the four boys tragically killed on a Gaza beach; it is not credible that they were identified as children and then deliberately killed.

Weapons guidance systems sometimes malfunction and bombs, bullets or missiles can land where they are not supposed to. Even the most hi-tech communications systems can fail at the critical moment.

In light of Israel’s own rules of engagement, then, there is real reason to doubt that the IDF is firing on military targets knowing that Palestinian civilians will be killed.

But even assuming for a moment that the IDF is not adhering to its own rules of engagement, the real question under international law’s proportionality doctrine, as commonly understood, is not whether Palestinian civilian casualties exceed those of Israel, but rather whether IDF commanders are reasonably judging that anticipated loss of Palestinian civilian life – regrettable though it may be – is outweighed by the military advantage expected to be gained from hitting the target.

It’s critical to note here that Hamas makes calculated decisions as a matter of strategy to embed its operatives, weaponry, tunnel networks, and other terrorist infrastructure amongst Gaza’s civilian population and structures, including United Nations facilities – all of which, if left untouched, would pose serious risks to Israel’s population. At the same time, Hamas orders Gaza residents to ignore IDF warnings and stay within the line of fire, extolling the benefits of Palestinian civilian casualties both for their deterrence and propaganda value.

Palestinian civilian casualties are not evidence of Israeli “war crimes”, but rather the result of Hamas’s intentional disregard for the laws of war. Carter’s call for “international judicial proceedings to investigate and end these [Israeli so-called] violations of international law” suggests he is ignorant (at best) of what those laws require of Israel under these circumstances, and indeed of Israel’s own exhaustive attempts to go above and beyond those requirements.

For an insightful read on the legal and geostrategic consequences of reading the laws of war to benefit whichever side can pile up the most bodies by putting their own civilians in harm’s way, see Prof. Kenneth Anderson’s recent post at the Volokh Conspiracy.

This post was revised at 9:50 am on Thursday, August 7th.

The BDS Movement’s History of Dishonesty

For many, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement began in 2005.  This movement calls for the economic, cultural, and academic boycott of Israel.  However, it is much older than 2005. 

The movement goes back to the beginning of the State of Israel, when Arab countries boycotted trade with Israel.  The modern BDS movement first came about in 2001, when participants at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban began labeling Israel as an “apartheid state.”

One of the reactions to South African apartheid was a call for divestment and political isolation of South Africa.  Naturally, after the label was placed onto Israel, divestment became the latest buzzword for Palestinian activists.

Despite numerous officials, including Richard Goldstone – who led a U.N. Human Rights Commission to investigate war crime allegations in Israel – stating “Nothing there [Israel] comes close to the definition of apartheid,” activists continue to make accusations.  The goal is to weaken the State of Israel economically because it is seen as a colonial occupier of Palestine that has established an “apartheid” system, separating Israelis and Palestinians.

The first university to boast a successful divestment campaign was Wayne State University (WSU).  The campaign at WSU began in 2002, when students and groups such as the local chapter of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) petitioned to divest from Israel.  Opposition to divestment was successful until April 17, 2003, when the student government voted in a 9-7 decision to adopt a resolution calling for the university to divest from companies that operate businesses in Israel. 

Many organizations see WSU’s divestment campaign as “a model“ for other campaigns across the country.  Hundreds of BDS campaigns have popped up on college campuses around the United States.  However, while numerous media reports tout the gaining momentum of the BDS movement, only a small amount have succeeded.

Israel’s university collaborations and economy have continued to flourish.  Even the small number of campuses that have voted in favor of divestment still have countless investments in Israeli companies, products, and scientific research.  Often, the student-governments divestment resolutions are later revoked.  In WSU’s case, the Board of Governors rejects it.

So, why was WSU’s divestment campaign the first to work?  Moreover, why have so many others have failed, if they are encouraged to use Wayne as a model?  As a former student and Israel advocate at WSU, I believe I can shed some light on this question.  It was simply a matter of demographics and cowardly tricks.

Often, those spending the most time arguing over the Israeli-Arab conflict tend to be Jews/Israelis and Muslims/Arabs.  Additionally, activists have successfully wooed leftist groups to the Palestinian cause, using “Pallywood” propaganda to manipulate public opinion into believing the Palestine cause is a matter of “social justice.”

The Detroit metropolitan area boasts one of the oldest and largest Arab-American communities, and one of the largest Muslim populations in America. WSU is a commuter school located in the center of downtown Detroit.  The school’s student body consists primarily of people from the greater Metro Detroit area who live off campus.

In 2003, the majority of those involved in on-campus Israel advocacy (myself included) were Orthodox Jews.  While WSU’s Jewish student’s population was quite small, the school boasts thriving Arab Student and Muslim Student Associations, whose constituents included members of the student council.  

The pro-Israel students were heavily outnumbered on campus and were caught by surprise when the student government held a last minute divestment vote on the night of Passover.  While there was a small amount of opposition at the student council meeting, the decision to hold the vote at a time when the vast majority of Israel advocates were unable to show up in opposition was simply an act of cowardice.

The BDS movement holds a very dogmatic view, where facts that counter BDS rhetoric are dismissed and dissent is not tolerated.  The movement tends to target progressive communities, appealing to them through the exploitation of human rights language.  Dirty tricks seem to be the standard operating procedure for the BDS movement.  Theircowardice has been noted in the past when they refusing to engage in dialogue, spout venomous rhetoric, and ram resolutions through student governments.  

There is an old saying: ‘if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.’  Though the BDS movement has had very little success, the movement has grown over the past decade.  With this growth comes the spread of more rhetoric.  While the BDS movement pretends to be a humanitarian campaign, it is in fact simply an ideological assault on the existence of Israel as a Jewish nation. 

Fighting the BDS movement is not difficult. Their claims are backed by nothing but false rhetoric.  When people tried to institute a BDS movement on the Park Slope Coop in New York, it failed.  Groups banded together and pushed through the rhetoric to show Coop members that BDS did not really represent human rights.

Much like the WSU divestors, the rest of the BDS movement is filled with cowards, unable to handle confrontation outside the echo chamber of their own supporters.  They were successful at WSU because they eliminated opposition. However, it is important to stand up to BDS supporters whenever you can, call out their rhetoric, and let them know that they do not represent the truth. 

Israel, Hamas and Obama’s foreign policy

When US President Barack Obama phoned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday night, in the middle of a security cabinet meeting, he ended any remaining doubt regarding his policy toward Israel and Hamas.

Obama called Netanyahu while the premier was conferring with his senior ministers about how to proceed in Gaza. Some ministers counseled that Israel should continue to limit our forces to specific pinpoint operations aimed at destroying the tunnels of death that Hamas has dug throughout Gaza and into Israeli territory.

Others argued that the only way to truly destroy the tunnels, and keep them destroyed, is for Israel to retake control over the Gaza Strip.

No ministers were recommending that Israel end its operations in Gaza completely. The longer our soldiers fight, the more we learn about the vast dimensions of the Hamas’s terror arsenal, and about the Muslim Brotherhood group’s plans and strategy for using it to destabilize, demoralize and ultimately destroy Israeli society.

The IDF’s discovery of Hamas’s Rosh Hashana plot was the last straw for any Israeli leftists still harboring fantasies about picking up our marbles and going home. Hamas’s plan to use its tunnels to send hundreds of terrorists into multiple Israeli border communities simultaneously and carry out a massacre of unprecedented scope, replete with the abduction of hostages to Gaza, was the rude awakening the Left had avoided since it pushed for Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.

In other words, in their discussion Sunday night, Netanyahu and his ministers were without illusions about the gravity of the situation and the imperative of winning – however defined.

But then the telephone rang. And Obama told Netanyahu that Israel must lose. He wants an unconditional “humanitarian” cease-fire that will lead to a permanent one.

And he wants it now.

And by the way, the eventual terms of that cease-fire must include opening Hamas-controlled Gaza’s borders with Egypt and Israel and ending Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza coast. That is, the cease-fire must allow Hamas to rebuild its arsenal of death and destruction quickly, with US political and financial support.

Until Obama made the call, there was lingering doubt among some Israelis regarding his intentions. Some thought that US Secretary of State John Kerry might have been acting of his own accord last Friday night when he tried to force Israel to accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms.

But then Obama made his phone call. And all doubts were dispelled.

Kerry is just a loyal steward of Obama’s foreign policy.

Obama is siding with Hamas, and its Muslim Brotherhood patrons in Qatar and Turkey, against Israel, and its Sunni Arab supporters – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

It is Obama who demands that Hamas have open borders so it can resupply, and receive billions of dollars – starting with an immediate cash injection of $47 million from US taxpayers – so it can pay North Korea for more missiles and import building materials to reconstruct its tunnels.

The fact that the US’s current preference for genocidal, Jew-hating jihadists over the only liberal, pro-American, stable US ally in the Middle East is a White House position, rather than that of a rogue Secretary of State was actually exposed even before Obama’s phone call.

Sunday CNN’s Candy Crowley interviewed Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes. She asked him what the administration thinks Israel can do to prevent civilians from being killed in Gaza beyond what it is already doing. Rhodes replied, “I think you can always do more.”

In other words, Rhodes said that no matter what precautions Israel takes to try to minimize Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza, the administration will never be satisfied. The White House will never acknowledge that Israel is in the right, or that it is fighting a moral war against a barbaric foe. And since the administration will never be satisfied, Israel can expect to be condemned by various UN bodies, including the Security Council, because no matter what it does to try to earn the support of the administration, it will never receive such support.

The discovery that the Obama administration is entirely in Hamas’s corner hit all of Israel hard. But it hit the Left the hardest. Few on the Right, which recognized Obama’s hostility from the outset of his presidency, were surprised.

As for political leaders, the government cannot risk giving the administration justification for its anti-Israel policies, so senior ministers have all said nothing.

Consequently, the harshest criticisms of the administration’s pro-Hamas position were heard from quarters where rarely a peep of criticism for Obama has been heard.

The Israeli Left went ballistic.

Haaretz, the far-left broadsheet that has seldom taken issue with even the harshest rejections of Israel’s rights, went bananas after its reporter Barak Ravid received the details of Kerry’s cease-fire agreement. As Ravid put it, Kerry’s document, “might as well have been penned by Khaled Mashaal. It was everything Hamas could have hoped for.”

Ravid continued, “What Kerry’s draft spells for the internal Palestinian political arena is even direr: It crowns Hamas and issues Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with a death warrant.”

And that is really the crux of the issue. The crowd at Haaretz is far more wedded to the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas than it is to the government of Israel. And the administration’s support for Hamas exposed the PLO as an irrelevance.

As the paper’s Amos Harel wrote the next day, Kerry’s pro-Hamas behavior convinced the Egyptians and other actors that the administration is “continuing its secret love affairs with the Muslim Brotherhood in the region.”

The Left understands that the administration’s behavior has destroyed it.

Leftists can no longer say that Israeli territorial withdrawals will win it international support.

They can no longer say that Israel will receive US support if it places the security of Palestinian civilians above the security of its own civilians and military forces.

They can no longer say that the PLO is the answer.

The Israeli Left has been Obama’s ace in the hole since he first ran for office, fresh from the pews in Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic church. They were the grease in the wheels that legitimized the administration’s anti-Israel pressure group J Street. They were the ones who could be counted on to tell the US media and the American Jews that Netanyahu is to blame for Obama’s hostility.

Yet, rather than backtrack, and try to save the Israeli Left, the administration doubled down on Monday, releasing a series of statements condemning the Israeli media’s condemnations of Kerry’s pro-Hamas position.

By Monday afternoon, the administration went so far as to say that by criticizing Kerry, Israel’s media were endangering their country’s alliance with the US.

In other words, through his actions, Obama demonstrated that his “love affairs with the Muslim Brotherhood in the region,” are so central to his foreign policy calculations that he is willing to destroy the Israeli Left in order to strengthen the Brotherhood.

And this leads us to the larger point about Obama’s foreign policy, which his Sunday night telephone call to Netanyahu revealed. As rattled as Israelis are over Obama’s decision to support Hamas against Israel, Netanyahu made clear in his remarks Monday night that Israel has no choice but to keep fighting until we defeat this barbaric enemy.

Netanyahu didn’t mention Obama, but it was obvious that he was respectfully refusing to hand Israel’s head on a platter to Hamas’s friend in the White House.

And while it is hard for Israel to ignore Obama, it is impossible for Americans to ignore him. He runs their foreign policy.

Americans are the ones who need to be most alarmed by what Obama’s actions on behalf of Hamas reveal about the general direction of American Middle East policy under his leadership.

For the past five years, Americans from all quarters have concluded that the manifold failures of Obama’s Middle East policies – from Iraq to Iran, Libya, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and beyond – owe to a combination of Obama’s personal disinterest in foreign affairs and his presumed preference for withdrawal and isolationism over engagement.

Obama himself has often encouraged this perception with his endless golf games and his talk about fighting “the war at home.”

Obama’s open, public engagement in Hamas’s war against Israel shows that the popular assessment is wrong.

Obama is as involved in the Middle East as all of his immediate predecessors were. He is personally leading US policy on every front. Kerry is not an independent actor.

The problem is that in every war, in every conflict and in every contest of wills that has occurred in the Middle East since Obama took office, he has sided with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, against America’s allies.

Under Obama, America has switched sides.

Caroline Glick: A realistic alternative to the failed “Two-State Solution”

Caroline Glick, Senior Contributing Editor, The Jerusalem Post; Author, The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace in the Middle East (Crown Forum, 2014); Adjunct Fellow, Center for Security Policy speaks at the Center for Security Policy’s National Security Group Lunch on Capitol Hill regarding a realistic alternative to the failed “Two-State Solution”

With introductions by Rep. Doug Lamborn (Colorado, 5th District), Member, House Armed Services Committee; Co-Chairman, Israel Allies Caucus; Co-Chairman, House Republican Israel Caucus; Co-Chairman, House Missile Defense Caucus

 

US Muslim Brotherhood Political Party Protests in Chicago against Israel and Jews

Around 1,000 Jews and Christians gathered on Tuesday, 22 July 2014 for a mid-day rally to support the nation of Israel outside Metra’s Richard B. Ogilvie Transportation Center, the office complex of the Israeli Consulate at 500 W. Madison in downtown Chicago. The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the first U.S. Muslim Brotherhood political party, joined in solidarity with approximately 200 pro-Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS supporters in a counter demonstration at a time of increasing tensions between Muslims and Jews in the Chicago metropolitan area.

israel flags chicago

As reported on its Facebook event page, the anti-Israel event Stand with Gaza: Protest Zionism in Chicago! held on the 22nd of July was hosted through the US Palestinian Community Network,and convened by the Coalition for Justice in Palestine members in the Chicago metropolitan area. The event included participation by the following organizations: American Muslims for Palestine, Chicago Islamic Center, Islamic Community Center of Illinois, Mosque Foundation, Palestinian American Community Center, Palestinian American Council, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)-Chicago, andUnited States Palestinian Community Network.

Chicago Facebook

A highly visible law enforcement presence that included the Chicago Police Department (CPD), CPD SWAT Team, and US DHS police closely guarded the perimeters of the rally to prevent any escalation of violence, as Israel’s Operation Protective Edge entered its 15th day destroying HAMAS tunnels in the face of stiff opposition from Palestinian fighters, who continued to lob rockets and missiles into Israel.

As confirmed by CPD News Affairs Officer Jose Estrada in a report from the Chicago Tribune on 20 July, half a dozen cars in Chicago were targeted with anti-Jewish leaflets. These antisemitic incidents are now under investigation by the CPD Hate Crime unit. The anti-Jewish leaflets explicitly threatened violence against Jews in Chicago if Israel did not cease its military operations in Gaza.

chicago palestinians

The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations was represented at the anti-Israel event in Chicago notably by the USCMO Secretary General Ousama Jammal’s Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois, where he is currently Vice President. Another USCMO member group, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), co-founded and chaired by Dr. Hatem Bazian (also the co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine), showed up as well, carrying AMP posters and signs.

Member participation from the USCMO at the “Stand with Gaza: Protest Zionism in Chicago!” event marks its first public demonstration in solidarity with HAMAS, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Covenant commits HAMAS to the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel. The USCMO only recently concluded its inaugural banquet together with senior Muslim Brotherhood leadership in June 2014 at a Washington, D.C. venue. Jammal’s Mosque Foundation features a troubled history of individuals associated with Muslim Brotherhood front organizations openly supporting HAMAS, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Jamal Said, current sheikh at the Mosque Foundation, was listed by the Department of Justice as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) HAMAS terror funding trial. Several years ago, Said hailed “activists and freedom fighters who gave up their personal ambitions and their own lives so our cause may live.

In a deposition for Boim vs. Quranic Literacy Institute, Kifah Mustapha, current sheikh at the Mosque Foundation and active fundraiser for Muslim Brotherhood organizations, was identified as a “registered agent for HLF in Illinois” who raised money for the HLF from the mid-1990s until 2001 when HLF’s assets were frozen. Mustapha also served on a Volunteer Committee for the now defunct Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a support arm for HAMAS.

Dr. Hatem Bazian, AMP Chairman and frequent guest speaker at Muslim American Society-Islamic Circle of North America Muslim Brotherhood conventions, has openly called for an intifada in the United States. Bazian once stated: “We’re sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here.” He added: ‘They’re gonna say, ‘some Palestinian being too radical’ — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet!” At least two current AMP board members, Osama Abuirshaid and Salah Sarsour, have ties to HLF.

Law enforcement documents confirm that Salah Sarsour helped raise money for HAMAS and formerly worked for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). AMP’s Osama Abu Irshaid was an editor of the Arabic newspaper Al-Zaytounah published by IAP. Chicago Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys ruled in December 2004 that IAP (and Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, or HLF), was liable for a $156 million lawsuit for having aided and abetted HAMAS in the West Bank in the killing of David Boim, a 17-year-old American citizen. Thereafter, the U.S. government froze IAP’s assets and shut it down on the grounds that it was funding terrorism.

The AMP is also known for its Islamic anti-Semitism campaign advertisements on mass transportation across the country. Notwithstanding, members of Students for Justice in Palestine, co-founded by Bazian, have terrorized Jewish students with acts of antisemitism on collegiate campuses, while attempting to suppress individuals with pro-Israel views. SJP has used its connection with AMP to work more closely to further the goals of HAMAS, and is known for its nationally-coordinated Israel Apartheid Week.

Throughout the course of the anti-Israel counter demonstration on July 22 in Chicago at the southeast corner of Madison and Canal, common themes fomenting anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and anti-Zionist sentiment were evident among the crowd. The following chants were continuously repeated by the pro-Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS supporters:

  • “Israel, Israel, you cannot hide, we charge you with apartheid.”
  • “Netanyahu, you cannot hide, we charge you with genocide.”
  • “Hey Israel, we can see, you are no democracy.”
  • “Hey Israel, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?”
  • “Hey, hey, ho, ho, the occupation has got to go.”
  • “Free, free, Palestine, killing children is a crime.”
  • “We want justice, you saw how? End the siege of Gaza now.”


Conclusion:

As Jews and Christians gathered peacefully in Chicago to support America’s beleaguered ally Israel, the counter-demonstration of pro-Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS supporters screaming hate-filled invective posed a harsh counterpoint to their quiet prayers and songs.

Since Operation Protective Edge began on 8 July 2014, HAMAS terrorists have fired well over 2,100 rockets and missiles at Israel. In the absence of an agreement to a lasting ceasefire, more anti-Israel demonstrations are planned across the country. Chicago residents braced for more traffic disruptions as pro-Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS supporters prepared for the 25 July Chicago Day of Al-Quds, when they were expected once again to march through the downtown area.

The United West: Miami Hamas Supporters Threaten, Attack Jewish Reporter

“I’m gonna kill you mother f–ker, you and the all Israelis!” ”You want a push, I’ll show you a push!” “He’s a Zionist, this guy is not one of us, he’s a Zionist!”

On Sunday, July 20, those violent and hateful words were combined with physical assaults against an innocent Jewish reporter in Miami, FL at a demonstration sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). That Jewish reporter had been working undercover and was identified, then attacked by the demonstrators.

All of this is in our seventh episode of our special series on the war in Israel, “Operation: Protective Edge, An Inside Look – Destroy HAMAS.”

Keep Rafah closed

Over the past few weeks of escalated violence between Israel and Hamas, several ceasefire plans emerged in an effort to end the hostilities. Hamas, however, has made the reopening of the Rafah border crossing a high priority for any ceasefire arrangement.

Last week, a 5-hour humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was agreed upon, during which Hamas fired mortars into Israel. Hamas’s unwillingness to stop sending rockets into Israel, even for such a short period of time, is a clear sign that it is not interested in providing needed lifelines to Palestinian civilians.

So why is the reopening of the Rafah border crossing in the south a top priority for Hamas ceasefire talks?

Power.

Hamas, founded as the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, is a terrorist group whose goal is to destroy Israel and kill Jews. Hamas utilized tunnels in and around the city of Rafah to smuggle fuel, weapons, equipment, and information between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. While Egypt was under the rule of President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood regime, smuggling operated without much interference. Control of the tunnel systems helped bring Hamas into power in Gaza and made their leadership very wealthy.

Unfortunately for Hamas, Mr. Morsi was removed from office by the Egyptian military following mass protests and demands from the Egyptian people. Egyptian prosecutors have indicted Mr. Morsi on numerous charges, among them espionage with foreign militant groups, including Hamas. Following the coup d’état in the summer of 2013, the Egyptian army destroyed countless smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza and severely weakened Hamas’s control in the region.

Making the Rafah crossing an official border crossing would require Egypt’s recognition of Hamas as the legitimate sovereign government of Gaza. After purging their own government of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian officials do not want the crossing controlled by Hamas, which will only serve to bring Brotherhood infiltrators into the region and destabilize the Sinai Peninsula. However, Egypt has stated that it would be willing to open the crossing on the condition that Palestinian Authority forces under Mahmoud Abbas maintain control.

Additionally, a Hamas controlled crossing will set up regional disputes between Egypt and its regional rival (and Hamas ally), Iran. Over the past few years, Iran has sought to strengthen its ties with Hamas; this relationship provides Hamas with Iranian weapons and technology. In March, Israel captured an Iranian ship carrying rockets to Gaza.

Reopening the crossing will revitalize the smuggling in the area that helped bring Hamas into power in the first place. Old tunnels will be restored to working condition and new tunnels will be erected. Moreover, opening the Rafah crossing will only serve to empower Hamas and win favor with Iran, which has been seeking to gain a stronger foothold in the region.

The U.S. Government has recently announced its intent to provide $47 million in aid to displaced Palestinians, and despite being under constant attack, Israel continues to provide humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip. Israel brings Palestinian wounded to Israeli field hospitals for treatment as Hamas uses ambulances to transport their terrorists. Hamas continues to prove that they are not interested in helping the Palestinians better their lives. Hamas has no interest in anything other than fulfilling their goal of destroying Israel, which they will happily pursue on the backs of dead Palestinians.

Operation Protective Edge is now in full swing and Israeli officials have vowed to “eradicate Hamas.” To that end, it is imperative that Israel continues its offensive in order to wipeout what many consider a weakened Hamas.

If Israel is serious about eradicating Hamas then it is imperative that it reject any ceasefire proposal that calls for the Rafah crossing to be reopened. It will not improve the condition of Palestinians living in Gaza; it will only serve to strengthen a weakened Hamas.

“We are Hamas!” Cry Greenwald’s CAIR Buddies

In a July 9 article posted on this site, Misleading Claims by Greenwald and New York Times on NSA/FBI Spying on American Muslims, I discussed a false claim by former London Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald that a recent classified document leaked by Edward Snowden indicates the U.S. government has been targeting the email of innocent American Muslim leaders solely because of their religion.
 
According to Greenwald, among these American Muslims targeted for surveillance by CIA and NSA was Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).   CAIR claims to be “America’s largest Muslim civil rights organization.”  However, a New York Times article on this Snowden leak noted that CAIR has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and in 2007 was an unindicted co-conspirator in its prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity later convicted of providing material support for terrorism by funneling money to Hamas. 
 
Moreover, at a 1994 symposium at Barry University in Florida, Nihad Awad said “I am in support of the Hamas movement.”
 
CAIR’s support of the terrorist group Hamas was confirmed this week at a CAIR rally in Florida when protesters cried out, “We are Hamas!”  “We are Jihad!”  “Hamas kicked your ass.”
 
CAIR’s Maryland office this week announced that it collected over 1,000 letters urging Maryland’s senators “to end the killing in Gaza.”   A CAIR-Maryland official claimed “American taxpayers are funding Israel’s use of excessive, inhumane force against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
 
Reflecting CAIR’s notorious history of refusing to condemn Islamist terrorism, it has said nothing about Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israel or its “human shields” strategy to generate negative press for Israel by deliberately firing rockets from densely populated civilian areas in Gaza, using hospitals, disability centers, mosques and schools as launching sites.
 
So will Glenn Greenwald take back his false story that the U.S. government monitored the email of CAIR Executive Director Awad solely because he is a Muslim?  Will he concede that CAIR has clear ties to the terrorist organization Hamas and is playing a key role in promoting Hamas’ agenda in the United States?  Will Greenwald condemn CAIR’s one-sided attacks on Israel and its failure to call for an end to Hamas rocket attacks and its human shield strategy that is designed to cause the deaths of Palestinian women and children?
 
Not likely.  It turns out that Greenwald has close ties to CAIR and has been paid thousands of dollars to speak at CAIR fundraising banquets, according to a July 20, 2014 Newbusters article. 
 
Edward Snowden’s credibility has been undermined by assessments by U.S. intelligence experts that he was working for Russian intelligence.  Now there is clear evidence that Glenn Greenwald, Snowden’s principal media collaborator, is a shill for an American offshoot of an Islamist terrorist organization.
 
Hopefully the news media soon start seeing Snowden and Greenwald as the charlatans that they are.  Their 15 minutes of fame cannot end soon enough.

Obama to the rescue – of Hamas

Operation Protective Edge is now two weeks old. Since the ground offensive began Thursday night, we have begun to get a better picture of just how dangerous Hamas has become in the nine years since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. And what we have learned is that the time has come to take care of this problem. It cannot be allowed to fester or grow anymore.

We have known for years that tunnels were a central component of Hamas’s logistical infrastructure.

What began as the primary means of smuggling weapons, trainers and other war material from Hamas’s sponsors abroad developed rapidly into a strategic tool of offensive warfare against Israel.

As we have seen from the heavily armed Hamas commando squads that have infiltrated into Israel from tunnels since the start of the current round of warfare, the first goal of these offensive tunnels is to deploy terrorists into Israel to massacre Israelis.

But the tunnels facilitate other terror missions as well.

Israel has found tunnels with shafts rigged with bombs located directly under Israeli kindergartens.

If the bombs had gone off, the buildings above would have been destroyed, taking the children down with them.

Other exposed shafts showed Hamas’s continued intense interest in hostage taking. In 2006 the terrorists who kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Schalit entered Israel and returned to Gaza through such a tunnel.

Today the presence of sedatives and multiple sets of handcuffs for neutralizing hostages found in tunnel after tunnel indicate that Hamas intends to abduct several Israelis at once and spirit them back to Gaza.

In an interview with Channel 2 Monday evening, Minister Naftali Bennett spoke of a mother at Kibbutz Netiv Ha’asara who told him that her children wake her in the middle of the night and tell her that they hear digging beneath their beds.

As Bennett said, this state of affairs simply cannot continue. People cannot live in fear that there are terrorists burrowing beneath their homes, digging tunnels to murder or kidnap them.

These tunnels must be found and destroyed not merely because they constitute a physical danger to thousands of Israelis. They must be located and destroyed, and Hamas’s capacity to rebuild them must be eliminated because the very idea that they exist makes a normal life impossible for those immediately threatened.

Hamas’s tunnels are also the key component of their command and control infrastructure inside Gaza.

Hamas’s political and military commanders are hiding in them. The reinforced bunkers and tunnel complexes enable Hamas’s senior leadership to move with relative freedom and continue planning and ordering attacks.

The sophistication of the tunnels and the malign intentions of Hamas are not in the least surprising.

But Hamas’s rapid advances in both tunnel and missile technology are deeply worrisome. At a minimum, they indicate that if it is allowed to end the current round of fighting as a coherent, relatively well-armed terrorist army, Hamas will be able to rapidly rebuild and expand its capabilities.

As a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is not a stand-alone terror group. It is part of a much larger web of Islamic jihadist terror groups including al-Qaida and its affiliates as well as the Shi’ite Hezbollah. Like Hamas, all of these threaten several major Sunni Arab states.

Due to their recognition of the threat Hamas and its allies pose to the survivability of their regimes, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have taken the unprecedented step of supporting Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas.

They understand that a decisive Israeli blow against Hamas in Gaza will directly benefit them. Not only will Hamas be weakened, but its state sponsors and terrorist comrades will be weakened as well.

Presently, Hamas’s most outspoken state sponsors are Qatar and Turkey.

As Israel’s Calcalist newspaper reported earlier this week, Qatar is Hamas’s biggest and most important financier, a role it plays as well for ISIS, al Nusra, the Muslim Brotherhood and various jihadist groups in Libya.

Turkey for its part is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Like Qatar, Turkey has also been a major supporter of ISIS and al Nusra, as well as Hamas. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s slander against Israel has grown so hysterical in recent weeks that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been trying to downplay Turkey’s animosity, called him out on his open anti-Semitism.

By Tuesday morning, IDF forces in Gaza had destroyed 23 tunnels. The number of additional tunnels is still unknown.

While Israel had killed 183 terrorists, it appeared that most of the terrorists killed were in the low to middle ranks of Hamas’s leadership hierarchy.

Hamas’s senior commanders, as well as its political leadership have hunkered down in hidden tunnel complexes.

In other words, Israel is making good progress.

But it hasn’t completed its missions. It needs several more days of hard fighting.

Recognizing this, Israel’s newfound Muslim allies have not been pushing for a cease-fire.

In contrast, the Obama administration is insisting on concluding a cease-fire immediately.

As Israel has uncovered the scope of Hamas’s infrastructure of murder and terror, the US has acted with the UN, Turkey and Qatar to pressure Israel (and Egypt) to agree to a cease-fire and so end IDF operations against Hamas before the mission is completed.

To advance this goal, US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Cairo on Monday night with an aggressive plan to force on Israel a cease-fire Hamas and its state sponsors will accept.

As former ambassador to the US Michael Oren told the media, it is clear that neither Israel nor Egypt invited Kerry to come over. Their avoidance of Kerry signals clearly that the US’s two most important allies in the Middle East do not trust US President Barack Obama’s intentions.

And their distrust is entirely reasonable.

The State Department has openly applauded Turkey and Qatar for their involvement in attempts to achieve a cease-fire. Last week Israeli officials alleged that the US was responsible for Hamas’s rejection of the Egyptian cease-fire proposal. By attempting to coerce Egypt to accept Qatar and Turkey as its partners in mediation, Obama signaled to Hamas’s leaders that they should hold out for a better deal.

Due to Turkey’s membership in NATO and the glamour of the Qatari royal family, many Westerners find it hard to believe that they are major sponsors of terrorism. But it is true. Turkey and Qatar are playing a double game.

While sending his ambassador to Brussels for NATO meetings, Erdogan has been transforming Turkey from an open, pro-Western society allied with Israel into a closed, anti-Semitic and anti-American society that sponsors Hamas, ISIL, al Nusra and other terrorists groups.

As for Qatar, the tiny natural gas superpower presents itself to Americans as their greatest ally in the Muslim world. The emirate gives hundreds of millions of dollars to US universities to open campuses in Doha and pretends it is a progressive, open society, replete with debating societies.

Qatar hosts three major US military bases on its territory. And it is becoming one of the most important clients for US military contractors. Earlier this year Qatar signed an $11.4 billion dollar arms agreement with the US.

At the same time, according to the Calacalist report, Qatar is the major bankroller of ISIS and al Nusra in Syria and Iraq. It gives $50 million a month to jihadists in Libya. It gives Hamas $100m. in annual aid. And in the past two years Doha has provided Hamas with an additional $620m. dollars, including $250m. it transferred to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal’s personal bank account, and $350m. in military aid to Hamas, transferred after the Egyptian military forced the Muslim Brotherhood government from power last July.

Add to that the $100m. per year that Qatar pours into Al Jazeera’s satellite network – which has dedicated itself to undermining pro-Western Arab regimes while popularizing the likes of al-Qaida and Hamas, and Qatar is the largest financier of international jihad in the world.

Rather than notice that Qatar and Turkey are playing a double game, and treat them with suspicion, the Obama administration has embraced them.

Chances that Kerry will secure a cease-fire in the near future are small. In all likelihood, the government will be able to buy the time necessary to complete the mission in whole or large part. But the fact that the US has chosen at this juncture in the operation – with Israel enjoying unprecedented support from the most important Sunni states in the region – to side with Hamas and its state sponsors in their demand for an immediate cease-fire speaks volumes about the transformation of US foreign policy under Obama’s leadership.

Siege for Siege: Hamas Claims Victory through Western Airline Capitulations

At a press conference in Doha, Qatar on Wednesday, and covered on Al Jazeera, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal billed the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas as a “Palestinian victory.” In particular Mashal claimed credit for the decision of Western nations to cease air travel to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, and said that Hamas would not accept a ceasefire until the “siege” of Gaza was lifted, and threatened they they would continue “siege for siege” by “besieging” the Israeli airspace.

The reality of course is that Hamas did not actually do anything to close or hamper Israeli airspace. Reports that a rocket had landed in the vicinity of Ben Gurion airport sent western airlines into a panic, even though the reality was that shrapnel from a missile which had already been intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome system  landed in a neighborhood near the airport . The decision by the Federal Aviation Administration to prohibit U.S. carriers from travel to Israel, and the decision of various western governments to do likewise, is now serving as a quick and easy Hamas propaganda victory.

As Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently noted, “If the FAA’s decision was based on airline safety, why was Israel singled out, when flights are still permitted into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen?” On June 8th and 9th the Karachi airport was the scene of deadly attacks by the Pakistani Taliban. Kabul Airport has also been the scene of violent attacks.

While obviously passenger safety is a foremost concern, the flawed decision to prohibit air travel has created the best chance so far for Hamas to credible claim victory. The FAA decision should be reversed immediately.