Israel's Disappearing Ongoing Terror Wave

                                                                           
                                                                                                         published at Honest Reporting

A week into the ongoing wave of terror against Israeli Jews, it has become nearly impossible to learn -- from major news sources outside Israel -- what is going on in Israel.

The terror wave itself is becoming invisible. Many reports minimize the hundreds of attacks against Israelis. Some suggest that attempting to stop a terrorist should be seen as the same thing as being a terrorist; other coverage depicts any Israeli defensive measures in such a way these will appear to cause the violence.

In a recent CNN report, terror against Israelis has disappeared. A video captioned "spiral of violence grips the Middle East" tells of Palestinians throwing "rocks and marbles" against "tanks and tear gas." Israel's Prime Minister is described as "stern and contentious" in contrast to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who "doesn't want the situation to escalate."

Readers would never know that Abbas and Palestinian officials have been "waging an unprecedented campaign of incitement against Israel" in what Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh describes as "calls for murder."

An Associated Press story in US News and World Report purports to be a timeline of "latest developments in the ongoing tensions between Palestinians and Israelis" but these tensions usually turn out to be that a Palestinian was stopped after killing or trying to kill an Israeli. Like many other stories, this one leads with the "shooting and wounding" of a Palestinian and then mentions that the "motorist" was trying to run over people at a checkpoint.

Similarly, BBC  writes "Israeli-Palestinian violence spreads over Gaza" which in itself is inaccurate since the Gaza government has taken credit for some of the attacks in Israel. These include what Hamas has praised as "the heroric terror attack," the murder of Eitam and Na'ama Henkin, a Tel Aviv University doctoral student and his wife who was a graphic designer, shot to death in their car in front of their four children.

The article claiming that "violence" is moving from Israel into Gaza has it backwards. Rockets have been fired in recent days from Gaza into Israel and violent rioters  from Gaza attempted to cross into Israel. BBC's "analysis" piece describes a "sudden and sharp escalation of violence" equating attacks on civilians with the attempt to prevent such attacks.

And as the reporting on the terror wave disappears, the terrorists are provided with a more sympathetic treatment than the Israeli victims of terror.

Terror Attack in Israel? CNN Can't Find the Words

                                                                                                                                                                     photo: Thomas Coex, AFP/Getty Images

On Friday, a Palestinian man rammed his car into five Israeli border policewomen and then ran over an Israeli riding a bicycle on Shimon HaTzadik Street near a light rail station in Jerusalem. The attacker got out of his car assaulting the pedestrians with a knife before police stopped him by shooting at him. The victims were taken to the hospital with moderate to light injuries and the attacker was also taken to the hospital. One other person was treated for shock.

CNN’s headline:

"Driver hits Israeli border police, authorities call it terror attack"

According to CNN, itself, Israelis aren’t the only ones who call it an attack.  The short article includes this:

"Hamas applauded the attack.

'Hamas movement blesses this heroic act and considers it a natural response to the Occupations (sic) crimes,' Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman posted on Facebook."

Of course, even more difficult for CNN is the term, terror.

During this November’s spate of terror attacks in Jerusalem, CNN reported in an outlandish manner on the brutal killings at a synagogue in the Har Nof  neighborhood. Their first headline read “Deadly attack on Jerusalem mosque” and their follow up story changed the headline to “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians dead in Jerusalem,” simply counting the killers who had hacked the rabbis to death among victims.

For news from Israel it’s usually most reliable to go directly to Israeli news sources, for instance to Times of Israel or Ynet News.  In their stories, you not only get the actual details about the attack but other connected information such as the fact that this street was “also the site of a November 5 hit and run terror attack that killed one border police officer and injured 13 others. The area has seen no less than five terror attacks this past year.”

By contrast, the only other information included in the CNN article is a seemingly gratuitous reference to the number of Palestinians killed during this summer’s conflict.

CNN used to call itself “the most trusted name in news” and it’s good to know that this slogan has been retired.

Now they call themselves “America’s best news team” but many American outlets did a better job than CNN reporting from Jerusalem this week.

Wait, Who's Opposed to UN Palestinian State Resolution?

Seems like someone should have checked to see if the Arab states’ resolution, presented by Jordan and Mahmoud Abbas, actually has Palestinian support.

The resolution demands that Israel shrink to the 1949 armistice lines, referred to as “withdrawing to the pre-67 borders and from east Jerusalem.”  This would be followed by the creation of a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian government of Gaza (Hamas) and a number of Palestinian factions including the DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine) are fully against it. This is because the resolution allows for Israel’s existence, something that these organizations oppose.

And recent polls indicate that Gazans themselves support Hamas over Abbas’ Fatah.

But it’s not clear that that the Palestinian Authority wants two states either.  Even when a Hamas-Fatah partnership looked like it was about to happen – as it did several months ago – Hamas was in no way asked to change its foundational agenda of removing Jewish Israel.

Naturally, the Israeli government opposes a resolution imposed on it by the UN – not only, or even primarily, because of the UN’s constant outpouring of resolutions against Israel far out of proportion to that of any other country, but because all the issues involved in creating a state of Palestine – something that the Israeli government supports – impact the entire existing state of Israel and the lives millions of people.

The US is expected to veto the resolution, in any case.

Meanwhile, a majority of the member states of the UN have already symbolically recognized a state of Palestine.

And Europe is rapidly following suit, reiterating after every vote that the support of their parliaments are merely “symbolic gestures.”

Even with a real UN resolution, demands are only symbolic without the work of negotiation between the two countries and the work of building the political structure for the state of Palestine. These resolutions have a way of ignoring the people actually involved, both Jews and Arabs.

Repeated polls have found that in predominately Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, more residents want to be part of Israel than of Palestine.  In a recent survey, 40% of Arabs said they would move into Israel if their neighborhood became Palestinian and 27% said they wanted to be part of a Palestinian state.

Mahmoud Abbas has said that when the state of Palestine is formed, not one Jew should be allowed to live there.

The Terrorist is being Treated in the Hospital

                                                                                              photo  by Sebastian Schiener

                                                                                                                   published at Times of Israel

There is something jarring about this sentence in the news. “The terrorist is being treated in [the] hospital.”

Wounded by security personnel too late, the terrorist had already murdered 26-year-old, Dahlia Lemkus, whose neighbors knew her as “the kind, giving, loving young woman” who was studying to be an occupational therapist. He had already stabbed two other people and sent a third into shock.

Islamic Jihad has taken responsibility for this attack. By responsibility it is meant that Islamic Jihad has congratulated itself for supporting and accomplishing the bizarrely un-brave act of jumping out of a car and stabbing random people with a knife.

Meanwhile, Israel mourns Dahlia, and the others killed by Palestinian terrorists this month: on the same day as Dahlia, 20 year-old Almog Shiloni from Modi’in who died after being stabbed in Tel Aviv as he was on his way back to his base; Chief Inspector Jadan Assad, the Druze border patrol officer who was killed by a terrorist ramming his vehicle into people in Jerusalem, and teenager, Shalom Baadani, who had been riding his bicycle and was killed by the same terrorist at another location nearby. The week before, American-Israeli 3-month-old baby, Haya Zissel Braun and 22 year-old Karen Yemima Mosquera from Ecuador were killed by another “car terrorist” at a Jerusalem light rail stop. While all these funerals have been going on and over a hundred Israelis this month have been dealing with injuries from terrorism, “the terrorist is being treated in the hospital.”

And, rightfully so. Because, as in America, perpetrators in Israel who survive their own acts of terror get quality medical treatment and the benefit of Western law.

Fatah and Hamas leaders have stated that stabbing people with knives or running into them with cars is a “natural response.” If this is the case then treating, in an Israeli hospital, someone who has set out to murder any Israelis he happens to see must be an unnatural response.

But both are learned responses.

It does not come naturally to decide to stab passersby with knives or to intentionally run over a baby with a car. Nor is it simply natural to try to treat humanely even those who commit such actions. These are learned behaviors.

At Dahlia’s funeral, her sister, Michal, implored Israelis to go on, emphatically, with every day life.

Treating the terrorist in the hospital; going on with life in Israel; not letting hate take over: some things to stand one’s ground for.

                                                                                                      comments welcomed at Times of Israel

UPDATE:  And now there are four more murders.  Four people killed and others injured while praying in their Jerusalem synagogue. 

Recognition in the Middle East

                                                                                                                         Tel Aviv -- photo: Reuters

In the UK and Europe, politicians are declaring recognition of a state of Palestine that does not yet recognize the state of Israel.

Yasser Arafat, the first leader of the Palestinian Authority, never did recognize Israel. Even after the handshake with Yitzchak Rabin and the shared Noble Prize for Peace, Arafat continued to wear an image of Palestine that included all of Israel; the Palestinian National Charter that claims Israel has no right to exist and endorses violence to achieve this goal -- never has been changed. The PA operates under this Charter even today.

Meanwhile Hamas, ruling over Gaza, explicitly broadcasts its non-recognition of Israel in its Charter and public statements. The fully Palestinian controlled state of Gaza has not renounced its campaign of firing rockets and missiles at Israeli civilians. And yet, there is a sudden urgency in Europe and the UK to recognize a state of Palestine.

Prime Minster Cameron, who abstained from the British Parliament vote, specified that recognition will not affect diplomacy, and Sweden’s Prime Minister clarified that his parliament’s vote is intended to encourage two states.  Sounds benign but these recognitions seem confused.

The Gaza half of Palestine speaks and acts with unambiguous commitment to violent elimination of Israel. This is not encouraging for a two state solution.

Nor is the West Bank half of Palestine, presided over by Mahmoud Abbas in his ninth year of a four-year term, especially encouraging. President Abbas states both that not a single Jew shall be allowed in the future state of Palestine and that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state should not be required; after all, neither Jordan nor Egypt said the word, Jewish, when they made peace with Israel.

Of course, this word game wasn’t operating when Egypt and Jordan signed peace agreements with Israel since there was no question that they recognized Israel as a Jewish state.

In popular culture in the Middle East, mentioning Israel at all causes conflict.

A recent example:  two Arab-Israeli singers are participating in Arab Idol, the most popular show on Arab television. When the program displayed a map showing all the countries of the participants, viewers were outraged because Israel was included. Quickly an apology was issued and the two singers who live in northern Israel were now shown as living in Palestine.

Those governments outside the Middle East wanting to encourage the two state solution would do well to notice that the state of Israel still needs to be recognized there as well.

Gaza War Grade: Incomplete

The IDF prevented a disaster by demolishing the tunnels through which Hamas had planned surprise terror for Rosh Hashanah. The rockets, guns, IDF uniforms, handcuffs, drugs, and even motorcycles stored in the tunnels were to be used in massive attacks and kidnappings at kibbutzim and homes closest to the Gaza border.

Dozens of other tunnels and huge stockpiles of weapons were destroyed. The IDF killed many terrorists and a number of Hamas terrorist leaders. According to a poll conducted by Geocartography Institute, 61% of Israelis feel that the IDF won.

But interestingly, the question was framed in this way: “Do you agree with the statement that the IDF won while Israel lost?” That a majority agreed with this statement may be explained by another question in the same poll: 

Respondents expressed frustration with the ceasefire that ended the operation with Hamas still in power in the Gaza Strip. Fifty-eight percent said the IDF should have been allowed to continue the operation in order to degrade the terrorist organization’s military abilities and called the truce a mistake that wastes the achievements of the Israeli armed forces.

Meanwhile, as in previous wars, Hamas has declared itself victorious.  An excellent Gatestone Institute article explains what’s wrong with that assessment and even Mahmoud Abbas blames Hamas for the deaths and destruction in Gaza that he now says “could have been avoided.”

The photo above (why is there no dust on that white robe?) represents winning to Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who has not appeared in Gaza during the war until now and is pictured here, smiling, raising his hand in a V for victory sign amid the rubble of his own house.

UN, Media: No Outrage

Last week in Syria, one percent of the al-Sheitaat tribe was killed, 700 people, some by beheading. Their murderers are members of ISIS, known also as Islamic State.

On a single weekend last month, another 700 people were killed in Syria. Syria’s war death toll is up to nearly 200,000.

This past Friday, in one small village in Iraq, ISIS executed 80 Kurdish men and kidnapped 100 women and children. Elsewhere in Iraq, they hauled off 300 Kurdish women to rape. Young girls returned to their families and committed suicide.

On a single day this month, ISIS slaughtered 1,500 Iraqi Christians. Christians have been fleeing Iraq, where they will be murdered unless they convert to Islam. At least 200,000 have fled to Kurdistan.

Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority apparently believe that ISIS is responsible for some of the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. 

ISIS objects that Hamas is “not doing enough to destroy Israel” and Hamas considers ISIS to be a threat to their own power.  But they have the same long-term goals—establishing an Islamic caliphate.

A practical difference between ISIS and Hamas at the moment is that Hamas is attacking Israel, a strong country with a strong army. The Jews of Iraq, a community with a 2500-year history, experienced over many years what the Iraqi Christians are experiencing now. There are no longer Jews in Iraq.

Like ISIS, Hamas uses terror, targets civilians, and executes political opponents. They kill their own people as “suspected collaborators.” Using cement intended for building homes to instead build terror tunnels, setting up headquarters in hospitals, launching rockets from neighborhoods, ordering their own citizens not to evacuate dangerous areas and at the same time preventing or intimidating journalists from filming or reporting Hamas’s actions are all in line with their strategies that may seem more complex than those used by ISIS. But their larger agendas are the same.

That there is so little attention to the horrific slaughters by ISIS or to the violence and subterfuge of Hamas threatens all of us who are their intended targets.

--published at Times of Israel