Jews and muslims

The Jews are *NOT* promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims!

The Jews *DON'T* hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is *NOT* one single Jew that has destroyed a church. There is *NOT* a single Jew that protests by killing people.

The Jews *DON'T* traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them!!

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and thePalestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel ' -Benjamin Netanyahu

Nobel Prizes-

Consider:

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000 ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1990 - Elias James Corey
1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics: (zero)

Physics: (zero)

Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN


____________________________________________________________________________

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000 -- Only FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's=2 0population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pa sternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
195 2 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Don ald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phil lips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Joseph son
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leon id Kantorovich
1976 - Mil ton Friedman
1978 - Herb ert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1 990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herb ert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abra ham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Ed elman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
198520- Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis

*TOTAL: 129 ONE HUNDRED TWENTY NINE!
*

the UN ceasefire?

Israel's government says any cease-fire must guarantee an end to rocket fire and arms smuggling into Gaza. During a six-month cease-fire that ended with the current operation, Hamas is thought to have used tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border to smuggle in the medium-range rockets it is now using to hit deeper than ever inside Israel.

no apologies

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An open letter to the world: Sorry, no apologies

By DAVID BREAKSTONE
January 5, Jerusalem Post



'Not by might and not by power, but by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts." Ironically, it was this verse from Zechariah, read on the Shabbat of Hanukka, that was being chanted in synagogues throughout the world several days ago, precisely as Israel 's air force was embarking on a display of might and power that it rarely demonstrates. So, do we believe in the message of our prophets or not?

With our reservists being called up by the thousands and our troops having into Gaza , I recall as well another chant, an echo of the first, and one that was no less sacred to me in my formative years: "Fighting for peace is like f--king for virginity." Both phrases continue to resonate within me, together giving expression to the cherished commandment of the Jewish tradition that we are to seek peace.

How, then, do I reconcile my unabashed support for the current military operation in Gaza with the values that I hold so dear? The answer is a complex one, but in its simplest form I would offer that we really are not fighting for peace; we are fighting to protect ourselves and for our right to some normalcy in our lives. Few, if any, are under the illusion that this military campaign is going to result in peace. Hamas has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to the destruction of the State of Israel, and no amount of bombs is going to alter that. The problem is, neither is any amount of diplomacy. The Hamas covenant explicitly rejects negotiations as a legitimate form of struggle against the Zionist entity.

Being the stubborn people that we are, however, we have repeatedly refused to accept this reality. Just over six months ago, we and Hamas agreed to an Egyptian-brokered "lull" in the use of violence against one another. Our hope was that our avowed enemy would use this period of calm to invest its resources and energies in promoting the social agenda on which it rose to power, and in the meantime reconcile itself - without ever having to say so out loud - to living alongside its hated adversary. Our fear was that Hamas would instead take advantage of the opportunity to act with impunity that it had bargained for to enhance its firepower. Unfortunately, it was our fears that were realized and not our hopes.

DURING THE past half year of relative quiet, a full 538 mortar shells and rockets were launched against Israel, and on December 21, Hamas unilaterally declared an end to the tenuous respite in its holy war against the Jewish state. Until the very last minute, our leaders were scurrying around the region, and calling around the globe, in an anxious effort to grasp at any diplomatic straw that might have prevented the renewal of all-out violence.

Leaders of Arab states were actively supportive of these efforts. So were leaders of the free world, particularly in Europe and the United States .

Nevertheless, Hamas chose to intensify its barrage of missiles rather than talk, its commitment to our destruction apparently even stronger than its will to survive. As the number of rockets exploding in southern towns and settlements surpassed 80 per day last week, and with the wounds inflicted by more than 5,000 such explosions over the past eight years still raw, our military and political leaders, having exhausted all diplomatic options, determined that enough was enough.

CLEARLY THEY were giving expression to the public mood as well. Some 90 percent of the country's citizenry supported the initial strikes against Gaza . But only a few days later, the question has already arisen as to whether or not our response has been disproportionate to the threat we are trying to fend off. A perfectly proportionate response, of course, would have been to fire one missile into Gaza for every missile fired from it. Or, perhaps, proportionality requires calculating the number of missiles per capita raining in on the population of Sderot and its environs, and sending an equivalent number back to terrorize the civilian population of Gaza City . That would give them a taste of their own medicine, wouldn't it?

We are, however, long past the point where dispensing medicine can do any good. Instead, we are interested in radical surgery, in eliminating as much of the cancer of radical Islamic terrorism as possible before it metastasizes throughout the region, and eventually the entire world. If someone, somehow can offer us a noninvasive procedure that will allow us to do that, I am confident with every fiber of my being that we will opt for it, even if the method is considered chancy and unproven.

We have taken risks numerous times in the past and, despite repeated disappointments, we will be prepared to do so again. We really are a peace-loving nation; it is all of our children who have been asked to cross the border, and on the other side of it are real human beings, good people among them who are no less deserving than we of the tranquility Hamas has denied us all. Our tradition, however, demands not only that we seek peace, but also that we choose life. I am deeply sorry about the terrible suffering of the innocent that we are perpetuating within Gaza , but under the circumstances, I offer no apologies.

The writer is a member of the Schechter Institute Executive Committee and executives of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization, where he serves as head of the Department for Zionist Activities.

Hamas uses human shields

Hamas Using Gaza Civilians as Human ShieldsThe White House on Tuesday condemned Hamas for using Gaza civilians as human shields, hours before the Associated Press carried eyewitness reports of Hamas fighters firing at Israeli soldiers from a school run by the United Nations before Israeli troops returned fire. The incident came amidst reports that the terrorist group had been hiding in hospitals, storing weapons in mosques, schools and homes and forcing fleeing residents back into their homes at gunpoint to act as human shields. The Iranian-backed terrorist group has been documented firing rockets from other UN-run schools and heavily populated areas, and its fighters have hijacked ambulances for use as personnel carriers in the hopes of avoiding the Israeli military. "For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry," Hamas MP Fathi Hammad told Al-Aqsa TV last February. "This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahedeen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine." Israel takes considerable steps to prevent civilian casualties—dropping flyers, calling residents and firing warning shots, among other measures—but it faces extreme difficulty in fighting an enemy that both targets innocent Israelis and hides behind its own civilians.

Hamas and war

Hamas the real Nazis

Jewish World Review January 7, 2009 / 11 Teves 5769

Who are the real Nazis?

By Jonah Goldberg









http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "Go back to the oven! You need a big oven, that's what you need!"


This is what one young woman thought passed for acceptable discourse during an anti-Israel rally last week in, of all places, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Other chants were similarly unlovely. You can watch it on YouTube if you like.


But why bother? The Fort Lauderdale outburst is just one window on the upside-down world of Israel hatred. Across the Islamic world, and in too many points West, it is still considered a penetrating and poignant insight to call Zionists the "new Nazis." For instance, in Sunday's Gulf News, Mohammad Abdullah al Mutawa, a sociology professor at United Arab Emirates University, penned an essay titled "Zionists are the new Nazis." He began: "Today, the whole world stands as a witness to the fact that the Nazi Holocaust was a mere lie, which was devised by the Zionists to blackmail humanity."


At a Saturday protest in New York against Israel's military assault on Gaza, some carried signs that read: "Israel: The Fourth Reich," "Holocaust by Holocaust Survivors," "Stop Israel's Holocaust," "Holocaust in Gaza" and "Stop the Zionist Genocide in Gaza."


Type "Israel" and "Nazi" into any news search engine and you'll be rewarded, or punished, with a bounty of such statements from just the last week or so. Gaza is the new Auschwitz, the Israeli Defense Forces are SS troops ... I find myself tempted to simply write "et cetera" because it's all so familiar by now. But to do that is to dismiss, and therefore accept, such grotesqueries as trivialities, when in fact such charges are deeply revealing -- just not about Israel.


First, let us note that if supposedly all-powerful Israel is dedicated to exterminating the Palestinian people, it is doing a bad job. The Palestinian population has only grown since 1948. There are more Arab citizens living in Israel proper today than there were in all of Palestine the year Israel was founded.


Perhaps one reason Israel fails at genocide is that it isn't interested in genocide? That would explain why Israel warned thousands of Gazans by cell phone to leave homes near Hamas rocket stockpiles. It would clarify why, even amid all-out war, it offers aid to enemy civilians. It would even illuminate the otherwise mysterious clamor from Israelis for a viable "peace partner."


But no. For millions of Israel haters, the more plausible explanation is that the "defiant" Palestinians have miraculously survived Israel's determination to wipe them out.


Meanwhile, calls for the complete extermination of Israel are routine. The Hamas charter, invoking the fraudulent "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as justification, demands the destruction of Israel. Hamas exists solely because it is dedicated to the complete obliteration of the "Zionist entity." Remove that "principle" and Hamas is meaningless.


A sick mixture of Holocaust envy and Holocaust denial is the defining spirit of Hamas. Indeed, Holocaust denial passes for a scholarly pursuit not just in Gaza but throughout much of the Arab and Muslim world.


The head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, literally earned a doctorate in it. His doctoral thesis became a book, "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism," in which he denounces "the Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that 6 million Jews were killed." In Hamas' eyes, Abbas is an incorrigible moderate.


It's Palestinian Islamists who have ideological and political ties to Nazism stretching back to the days of "Hitler's Mufti," Haj Amin al-Husseini, a happy warrior for the Nazi cause.


So why the obsession with casting the Israelis as the new Hitlerites? One answer is surely that critics know such charges are painful to a country largely born of the Holocaust and marked by its scars. It also grabs attention, galvanizes radicals, vents legitimate frustrations and anger, and helps demonize the enemy and, hence, justify the murder of "Zionists everywhere," as Hamas often declares in its communiques.


But I think the desire to cast the Israelis as Nazis is fueled, deep down, by the haters' need to see their own hatreds and ambitions mirrored in their enemy's actions. Hamas has an avowedly Hitlerite agenda. The only way to make such an agenda defensible is to convince yourself and others that the Israelis deserve it. Hence, Hamas and its allies insist that when they aim rockets at grade schools and playgrounds, they are resisting the "new Nazis." It brings to mind Huey Long's reported prophecy that if fascism ever came to America, it would be called anti-fascism. Well, with Hamas, Hitlerism comes to the Middle East wearing the mask of anti-Hitlerism.
Posted by Jewu.info at 7:15 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The UN building

As some of you may know, it is a war crime to inflict damage to civilians in a UN program or building, unless said building was out of UN control and those in it were acting as fighters. In its official statement, the IDF claimed that there were enemy combatants within the building, and that IDF troops were taking heavy fire from the school. Further, while the UN has condemned this act, they have failed to specify who was in the building, besides the few "civilians" that we already know about. As is their policy, Israel has been helping to take care of any who have been injured in the violence.
In general, I simply want to supply all of you with a little more information. First, the media has been very quick to pounce on Israel, by describing Israel's use of force as "excessive," even going so far as to state that Israel is "throwing everything they've got at Gaza" (WBBM CBS News, January 5th, 2009). Second, CNN and CBS, among other news companies, have stated that Israel is "invading Gaza" (Morning of Tuesday, January 6th, 2009). The word "invasion" carries a heavy connotation: that Israel is launching an unprovoked attack on Gaza, and wishes to re-occupy the Gaza Strip. This is not the case. The Israeli government has released several statements, saying that they do not wish to re-occupy Gaza, and additionally, that this operation is in retaliation to the Qasam missile attacks launched by Hamas toward southern Israel.
Posted by Jewu.info at 6:19 PM 0 comments
President Bush and Sen Norm Coleman and me

As President Bush leaves office, and most liklely Sen Norm Coleman most likely losing his Minn reelection bid, we say goodbye to two of them most fervent supporters of Israel ever in US history. It was Sen Coleman who made it possibloe for my meeting with President Bush, detailed at this site with pictures


http://jonathanginsburg.net/bush_obama_etc

God bless them for this holy work-whatever else you think about their governance,
Posted by Jewu.info at 1:12 PM 0 comments
This is not a war against Islam

What are some of the ways that you have found helpful to
both teach and advocate support of Israel and to teach tolerance,
universalism, tzelem elokim??



I am NOT a pie in the sky person. I do not live in a Kumbaya world.
I am NOT, in this post, expressing my view on the current war.

I understand that there is a time for war and a time for peace.




>Aaron Tapper's Abraham's Vision at
http://www.abrahamsvision.org/
They do wonderful work. The board is 50-50 Jewish and Muslim.

>Seeds of Peace may give you some idead at http://seedsofpeace.org/


Abraham's Bridge http://www.abrahamsbridge.org/about.htm

For lot's of organizations, go to:
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/groups.html

On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Masorti-Movement/29629900029#/group.php?gid=52893913335&ref=mf

http://www.ceji.org/

http://jewishmuslim.org/
Posted by Jewu.info at 9:08 AM 0 comments
Pro hamas demo in Florida

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida last Tuesday to videotape a pro-Hamas demonstration. When you click on the link below to this must-see video, keep in mind, this didn't happen in the Gaza Strip - it took place right here in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Xl68kP4wo

meanwhile
from the NYTimes
"Israeli planes destroyed dozens of smuggler tunnels in the south, and Hamas fired some 25 rockets into Israel, one of which crashed into an empty kindergarten in the city of Ashdod, littering the floor with dolls and shrapnel."

Just lucky dozens of Jewish 5 year olds weren't killed

"NYTIsraeli officials said they were not ready to accept any cease-fire proposal that did not guarantee a permanent stop of rocket attacks as well as smuggling of weapons through tunnels under Gaza’s border with Egypt.

Since the operation began, Israeli officials in Washington said, the number of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza has fallen to about 20 a day from a peak of 80 on Christmas Day. “The situation has obliged them to contract and pull back the rockets,” said Jeremy Issacharoff, the Israeli deputy chief of mission in Washington. “The rate of attrition is important,” he said, noting that Hamas was now launching fewer rockets than Israeli forces had expected."
Posted by Jewu.info at 8:17 AM 0 comments
Monday, January 5, 2009
Jan 5 alert

Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
View this page at www.dailyalert.org
Subscribe RSS-XML
DAILY ALERT Monday,
January 5, 2009


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In-Depth Issues:


Israeli Intelligence Agencies: Hamas Feels Existential Threat - Roni Sofer (Ynet News)
Israel Security Agency Director Yuval Diskin told the political echelon on Sunday: "The Hamas leadership abroad is stressed, working to obtain a ceasefire and disappointed by the Arab countries failing to stand by its side. The situation of the leadership in Gaza is similar."
"A real threat exists today on the Hamas enterprise in Gaza. The leaderships in Gaza and abroad feel an existential threat."
Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said, "Hamas understands that violating the lull was a strategic mistake."



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Hamas Using PA Arms to Battle IDF - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)
Hamas claimed Sunday that it was fighting against IDF troops in Gaza with weapons confiscated from the Palestinian Authority in the summer of 2007.
They said Hamas has all the weapons that Israel, the U.S. and other countries had given forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas. This includes tens of thousands of rifles and pistols, heavy machine guns, night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests, as well as vast amounts of ammunition.
Hamas had also seized dozens of armored vehicles used by Abbas' forces.
Hamas also claimed that dozens of members of the rival Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, had volunteered to fight alongside Hamas units.



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IDF Soldier Escapes Kidnapping Attempt in Gaza (Jerusalem Post)
An IDF soldier managed to foil an attempt to kidnap him during night operations in Gaza Sunday, Israel Radio reported.
Soldiers entered a house which they knew was used as a Hamas command center, and discovered entrances to several tunnels.
One of the soldiers followed the gunmen into a tunnel and managed to contain several Hamas fighters in a firefight while underground, before teaming up with his comrades again.
The military assesses that the Palestinian terrorists were trying to lure the soldier to go after them alone into the tunnel in an effort to kidnap him.



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Israel Is Doing the U.S. a Favor By Taking On Hamas - William Kristol (New York Times)
An Israeli success in Gaza would be a victory in the war on terror - and in the broader struggle for the future of the Middle East.
Hamas is only one manifestation of the rise of a terror-friendly and almost death-cult-like form of Islamic extremism.
Israel is doing the U.S. a favor by taking on Hamas now. If Israel were now to withdraw under pressure without accomplishing the objectives of severely weakening Hamas and preventing the reconstitution of a terror-exporting state in Gaza, it would be a triumph for Iran.



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U.S. Jewish Leaders Taste Sderot Trauma - Haviv Rettig Gur (Jerusalem Post)
Leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on a solidarity visit to Sderot Sunday rushed into a fortified police building following the sounding of a "Color Red" siren as a Kassam rocket hit a few dozen meters from where they held meetings.
"We all live with a sense of suppressed rage," said Kenneth Bialkin, former chairman of the conference.
"You can't look at this and not wonder how the world can stand by and watch as Jews are attacked for being Jews, by people who want to destroy them."
"How do people not understand there is no justification for the course Hamas is taking?"



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Useful Reference:

Number of Wounded in Attacks from Gaza More Than Doubled in '08 - Matthew Wagner (Jerusalem Post)
Rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from Gaza wounded 947 in 2008, compared with 464 in 2007 and 227 in 2006, according to a report by Hatzalah.
A total of 1,683 Kassam rockets fell in Israel.



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Israeli Forces Push Farther into Gaza - Sudarsan Raghavan and Griff Witte
Israeli ground forces backed by air and naval power moved farther into Gaza Sunday, targeting areas from which Hamas fighters are launching rockets. One Israeli soldier was killed and another wounded during a battle near Jabalya. A senior Israeli military officer said, "Most of the resistance we faced is from mortars and other things but not from fierce Hamas fighting." Some of the "other things" were improvised explosive devices. "There are a lot of obstacles on the ground. Hamas is using methods that were imported from Iran and Hizbullah."
Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Olmert, said the operation would end "when Israel understands that the civilian population in the south of the country will no longer be on the receiving end of Hamas rockets." (Washington Post)
U.S. Remains Firmly Behind Israel - Ben Feller
From the White House to Capitol Hill, U.S. officials remained firmly behind Israel. Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that Israel did not seek U.S. approval before a ground operation against Hamas in Gaza. "They have said, now, for a period of months...that they didn't want to have to act, where Gaza was concerned," Cheney said. "They had gotten out of there three years ago. But if the rocketing didn't stop, they felt they had no choice but to take action. And if they did, they would be very aggressive, in terms of trying to take down Hamas. And that's exactly what's happened."
Sens. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin - the top two Democrats - and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell all described Israel's actions as understandable. "I think what the Israelis are doing is very important," Reid said. "I think this terrorist organization, Hamas, has got to be put away." Said McConnell: "Hamas is a terrorist organization. Imagine in this country (the U.S.) if somebody from a neighboring country were lobbing shells at our population. We'd do exactly the same thing. I think the Israelis are doing the only thing they can possibly do to defend their population." (AP)
Israel Hinges End of Gaza Operation to Closing Tunnels - Adam Entous and Dan Williams
Israel has conditioned any halt to its Gaza offensive on international backing for new fortifications and monitoring on the Egyptian border to prevent Hamas from rebuilding tunnels and rearming, officials in Jerusalem said. Israel's assault in Gaza has included several air force sorties in which "bunker buster" bombs were dropped, designed to collapse the secret underground passages. The Israeli government has said it wants assurances that they will not be dug anew after any ceasefire. "The issue of rearming is fundamental. We want to prevent Hamas from being rearmed like Hizbullah was after the Lebanon war," a senior Israeli official said.
Israel wants any monitors to be heavily armed and equipped to search and destroy tunnels. "Theoretically, if those 9 miles are denied to Hamas as a resupply route, then Hamas is going to find it very, very difficult to govern, let alone smuggle in Grad and Katyusha rockets," said Matt Levitt, a former senior U.S. Treasury official. (Reuters)
Israeli President: No Ceasefire - George Stephanopoulos
In an interview, Israeli President Shimon Peres rejected international calls for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israeli forces. "The idea that Hamas will continue to fire and we will declare a ceasefire...does not make any sense." "They did things that are unreasonable," he said of Hamas. "They are shooting endlessly without reason or purpose." "We don't intend to occupy Gaza or crush Hamas but crush terror," Peres said. "Hamas needs a real and serious lesson. They are now getting it." ("This Week"-ABC News)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:


Next Stage of Gaza Operation: "Root Canal" for Terror - Hanan Greenberg
Some 40 IDF soldiers were wounded in clashes, and over 50 Palestinian gunmen were killed in the first day of the ground operation in Gaza, according to the Israeli army. In Sunday's cabinet meeting, the ministers were informed that 73% of the 300 rockets fired on Israel in the last week were launched from areas that have now been seized by the army. (Ynet News)
See also The Target: Hamas' Army - Ron Ben-Yishai
Hamas sustained grave blows from the air, yet its leadership has not yet shown willingness to reach a long-term and stable ceasefire agreement on terms acceptable to Israel. The IDF will continue ground operations until a truce is secured. The IDF will focus on causing casualties among Hamas' Izz al-Din al-Qassam fighting force. Another target is the fortified defensive system built by Hamas both below and above ground. In order to raze these targets, the IDF needs to gather additional intelligence - mostly via human sources within the Palestinian population. (Ynet News)
See also Inside Gaza - Yaakov Katz
According to Palestinian sources, Israeli units in Gaza have taken up positions in Sajaya, Beit Lahiya, Jabalya and al-Atatra, which are being scoured for Hamas gunmen and infrastructure. Troops moving through fields and orchards are being led by dogs from the IDF's K-9 unit that are trained to sniff out booby-traps. There has been fierce resistance from well-entrenched gunmen, with anti-tank missiles, mortar barrages, heavy machine gun fire and roadside bombs. (Jerusalem Post)
50 Palestinian Rockets Hit Israel on Sunday, Wound Four - Yanir Yagna and Yuval Goren
Gaza militants shot 50 rockets into Israel on Sunday, including seven rockets that struck Sderot and a Grad rocket that struck Ashdod. Four people were wounded. (Ha'aretz)
U.S. Seeks to Formulate Ceasefire Agreement - Roni Sofer
The U.S. has launched an international effort, which includes Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians, to formulate a ceasefire agreement that would neutralize Hamas' influence in the region, diplomatic sources in Jerusalem reported Sunday. According to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, Israel is interested in a ceasefire agreement that would include a stop to the rocket fire and the terror emanating from Gaza, as well as to Hamas' military buildup. The release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will also be stipulated as one of Israel's terms for a halt to the fighting in any agreement.
A senior source in Jerusalem said Sunday, "Contrary to the empty moves initiated by various countries, including the humanitarian ceasefire initiative promoted by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, the American initiative is based on the agreement of the four elements that surround the only geographical territory in the world that is ruled by a terrorist entity - Gaza." The official said that Olmert has made it clear to the Americans and other world leaders that Israel's conditions were not negotiable, and that if they are not obtained through a diplomatic course, they would be secured through the military operation. (Ynet News)
See also Diplomacy to Buy IDF "a Few More Days" - Herb Keinon
The IDF has a "few more days" to carry on with its Gaza offensive and weaken Hamas before facing intense pressure from the international community for a cease-fire, senior diplomatic officials said Sunday. Israel wants time to seriously weaken Hamas militarily, and then put into place a mechanism on the Egyptian border - possibly some kind of agreement that would allow American engineers to help combat arms smuggling - that would keep Hamas from rearming. Israel is not currently interested in linking the Gaza operation to attempts to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas, bring Gaza back under PA control, or bring the PA back to the Gaza border crossings. (Jerusalem Post)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):


Israel's Gaza Dilemma - Max Boot
Achieving total victory in Gaza would require Israel to wage war in the way that America fought Germany and Japan - all out until the enemy has no more capacity to resist. Then it would have to occupy the land and impose a peace at gunpoint to ensure that Gaza could never again be a launching point for attacks. None of this is beyond the Israelis' military capacity. Yet the odds are that they won't do it.
The Russians have inflicted World War II-level carnage in Chechnya since the mid-1990s, and they don't care what anybody else says. But Israel is not Russia - or Algeria or Burma or Syria or any other state that has taken a scorched-earth approach to counterinsurgency in recent decades. For all the accusations of brutality that are routinely flung at Israel's armed forces, their conduct has been exemplary by historical standards. They have shown far less propensity for indiscriminate killing than did European states in the 1950s when confronting insurgencies in such places as Kenya, Cyprus, Vietnam and Algeria.
The tragedy for Israel is that Hamas is the choice of the local people. The odds are that once Israeli troops leave, Hamas will rebuild its infrastructure, forcing the Israelis to go back in the future. The writer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. (Wall Street Journal)
The Three-State Option - John R. Bolton
Given the current landscape, we should ask why we still advocate the "two-state solution," with Israel and "Palestine" living side by side in peace. Let's start by recognizing that any two-state solution based on the PA is stillborn. Instead, we should look to a "three-state" approach, where Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty. Having the two Arab states re-extend their prior political authority is an authentic way to extend the zone of peace and build on governments that are providing peace and stability in their own countries. "International observers" or the like cannot come close to what is necessary; we need real states with real security forces.
Without a larger Egyptian role, Gaza will not achieve the minimal stability. Objections to this idea will be manifold, and implementation difficult. But either we do better, conceptually and operationally, or Iran will be happy to fill the vacuum. The writer, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was U.S. ambassador to the UN. (Washington Post)
Israel Is on Firmer Ground Against Hamas - Lawrence Freedman
The current operation in Gaza is a direct consequence of the 2006 war in southern Lebanon. As in 2006, Israel is responding to a cross-border provocation and is fighting in territories it once occupied but then abandoned in the hope of a quieter life. Hamas, long a follower of Hizbullah when it comes to strategy, believed that it too could mount a regular rocket barrage against Israel with impunity. Israel knows that if it fails again, it will have severely reduced any deterrent against future rocket attacks. So in addition to the immediate objectives, this war is about restoring deterrence - and especially the credibility of the IDF. Politically, Hamas has put itself into a position where a ceasefire will be seen as a defeat, because this will require accepting that it must stop firing rockets. The writer is professor of war studies at King's College London. (Financial Times-UK)
Observations:

Israel's Gaza Strategy - Martin Kramer (Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies-Shalem Center)


Unlike the Lebanon war of 2006, this war has been planned in advance, and every stage has been war-gamed. After the Hamas takeover in June 2007, Israel imposed a regime of economic sanctions on Gaza. The West Bank enjoyed an economic boomlet while Gaza languished under sanctions, with zero growth - reinforcing the message that "Islamic resistance" is a dead end.
The Israeli operation is meant to impress on Hamas that there is something far worse than the sanctions - that Israel is capable of hunting Hamas on air, sea, and land, at tremendous cost to Hamas and minimal cost to Israel, while much of the world stands by, and parts of it (including some Arabs) quietly applaud.
Hamas assumes (probably correctly) that its Palestinian opponents fed Israel with much of the intelligence it needed to wage precision warfare against Hamas. There is likely to be a vicious settling of scores as soon as a cease-fire is in place, if not before.
The temptation to "engage" Hamas has grown, which means skirting the Quartet's insistence that Hamas not be "engaged" until it accepts past PA-Israel agreements, recognizes Israel, and renounces armed struggle. Legitimation of Hamas could seal the fate of the "peace process," and give "resistance" the reputation of a truly winning strategy.
Israel is united in pursuing its war of demolition against Hamas. Its aim is not only to stop the rockets from falling in southern Israel, but to move a long stride forward toward a change of regime in Gaza
Posted by Jewu.info at 3:50 PM 0 comments
Friday, January 2, 2009
charles krauthammer on Hamas

Moral Clarity in Gaza


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By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 2, 2009; Page A15

Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

-- Associated Press, Dec. 27




Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage -- or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb -- will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.

For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians. The religion of Jew-murder and self-martyrdom is ubiquitous. And deeply perverse, such as the Hamas TV children's program in which an adorable live-action Palestinian Mickey Mouse is beaten to death by an Israeli (then replaced by his more militant cousin, Nahoul the Bee, who vows to continue on Mickey's path to martyrdom).

At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides. It's a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.

That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza -- peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.

What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza's Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base -- importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.
Moral Clarity in Gaza

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Obama: Iranian Nuclear Weapons Are 'Unacceptable'
Bush Calls Israel America's 'Closest Ally' in the Mideast
Treasury Targets Iranian Oil Company
European Union Upgrades Ties with Israel
Government of Israel Evicts Hebron Squatters
Israel Prepares for Electric Cars

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Obama: Iranian Nuclear Weapons Are 'Unacceptable'
Emphasizing the danger of Iran's nuclear program, President-elect Barack Obama said on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that Tehran's threats against Israel and sponsorship of Hamas and Hizballah are "contrary to everything" that the United States believes in. "I think we need to ratchet up tough but direct diplomacy with Iran, making very clear to them that their development of nuclear weapons would be unacceptable," Obama said, adding that in order to change Iran's behavior, international sanctions would need to be tightened. Obama emphasized that he is willing to talk to Iranian leaders directly "and let them make a determination in terms of whether they want to do this the hard way or the easy way." Click here to learn about the importance of stringent sanctions against Iran.


Bush Calls Israel America's 'Closest Ally' in the Mideast
President Bush on Friday recalled his administration's work to bring peace to the Middle East and reiterated his personal commitment to the safety and security of Israel. "I was the first American president to call for a Palestinian state, and building support for the two-state solution has been a top priority of my administration," Bush told the Saban Forum. "To earn the trust of Israeli leaders, we made it clear that no Palestinian state would be born of terror... I believe that the day will come when the map of the Middle East shows a peaceful, secure Israel beside a peaceful and democratic Palestine." Bush also stated that Israel was America's "closest ally in the Middle East."


Treasury Targets Iranian Oil Company
The Treasury Department identified the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), as well as two of its Swiss-based international financial and commercial subsidiaries, the Naftiran Intertrade Co. (NICO) and Naftiran Intertrade Company Sarl, "as entities owned or controlled by the government of Iran." The targeted companies play a significant role in financing Iran's energy sector, and Treasury's step may result in Iran's further isolation from the international financial system. The United States has played a leading role in sanctioning Iran for its ongoing failure to comply with international penalties over its illicit nuclear program.


European Union Upgrades Ties with Israel
In a historic move, the European Union on Monday unanimously approved a plan to upgrade relations with Israel, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported. The improved ties will begin with a first-of-its kind meeting between Israel's prime minister and the leaders of all 27 E.U. member states in Brussels this April. As a result of the decision, Israel's foreign minister will start meeting three times a year with all 27 E.U. foreign ministers, and Israel and the E.U. will hold a strategic dialogue on issues such as the peace process, the Iranian threat, counterterrorism and organized crime. The E.U. also pledged to help Israel integrate into various U.N. agencies and to include Israeli experts in E.U. peacekeeping forces.


Government of Israel Evicts Hebron Squatters
Enforcing a decision by the Israeli government and supported by a Supreme Court ruling, Israeli troops removed some 250 fringe activists from a building in Hebron on Thursday, The New York Times reported. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak dispatched 600 soldiers and policemen to carry out the evacuation, adding that "what was tested today was the ability of the state to enforce its laws and its essence upon its citizens." The United Nations welcomed the Israeli move, which demonstrated the country's ability to confront radical fringe elements in Israeli society. It was also a show of Israel's willingness to take significant steps toward resolving the conflict with the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority must match Israel's commitment to peace by isolating Hamas, fighting terrorism and laying the groundwork for historic political compromise.


Israel Prepares for Electric Cars
Instead of filling up at the pump, Israeli motorists may soon be able to fill their cars up at the plug, the Associated Press reported. That's the idea behind Monday's demonstration of the parking lot of the future, equipped with stations to charge the battery-powered cars scheduled to ply Israel's streets in 2011. Israel's government has endorsed the project, which aims to blanket the country with electric cars and plugs. The California-based company, Project Better Place, is building the infrastructure to switch Israeli drivers over to battery power. The group has built 400 wired parking spots, mainly in and around Tel Aviv, since it launched the initiative in June.

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In-Depth Issues:

Iran Rocket Arsenal Tripled in 2008 (Jerusalem Post)
Iran has tripled the number of long-range rockets in its arsenal, Israel TV Channel 10 reported on Monday.
According to the report, Iran has over 100 Shihab-3 long-range missiles capable of hitting Israel, up from 30 missiles at the beginning of 2008.
While Iran's ability to strike Israel has long been known, this latest build-up points to an Iranian intent to launch a protracted counter-strike against those who seek to destroy its nuclear program.

Germany Increasing Exports to Iran, Despite Sanctions - Assaf Uni (Ha'aretz)
German exports to Iran are up 10% according to data from the Federal Statistical Office for the first three quarters of 2008.
During the first seven months of 2008, the German government approved 1,926 transactions with Iran, a 63% increase over last year, further cementing Germany's position as Iran's largest trade partner.

Haj Pilgrims Denounce Israel - Ali Akbar Dareini (AP)
Thousands of haj pilgrims to Mecca - mostly Iranians, Lebanese, Iraqis and Bahrainis - held a rally Sunday to denounce the U.S. and Israel.
Called the "disavowal of pagans ceremony," the Iranian-sponsored, anti-U.S. protest is held annually at the haj.

Pakistan Militant Group Builds Web of Western Recruits - Sebastian Rotella (Los Angeles Times)
For years, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani extremist group suspected in the Mumbai rampage, has actively recruited Westerners, especially Britons and Americans, serving as a kind of farm team for Islamic militants who have gone on to execute attacks for al-Qaeda, a close ally.
The Pakistani network makes its training camps accessible to English speakers, providing crucial skills to an increasingly young and Western-born generation of extremists.

PA Accuses Al-Jazeera of Favoring Hamas - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)
The PA has banned Al-Jazeera from Mahmoud Abbas' compound in Ramallah after the TV station failed to carry a live broadcast of a speech by Abbas to the PLO Central Council. Instead, the station broadcast live from Damascus, where Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was addressing a conference of radical groups.
PA officials accused Al-Jazeera of being biased in favor of Hamas, noting that this was not the first time that the station had served as a platform for Hamas and other radical Islamic groups.
Seven Palestinian reporters have been arrested by Abbas' security forces in the past few months for allegedly expressing sympathy with Hamas.

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Fair Use News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:

* Iran Rejects Obama's "Carrot-and-Stick" Proposal - Nasser Karimi
Iran on Monday rejected a proposal by President-elect Barack Obama that a combination of economic incentives and tighter sanctions might persuade the Iranian government to change its behavior. Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that the international community could develop a set of incentives that would persuade Iran to alter its nuclear program.
But Iran has rejected past offers of economic incentives by the international community in exchange for scaling back its nuclear activities, a sentiment echoed Monday by Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi. "The carrot-and-stick policy has no benefit," Qashqavi said. "It is unacceptable and failed." He reiterated Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment and said the U.S. must recognize Iran's "nuclear right" before the country would dispel concerns about its program. (AP/Washington Post)
* U.S. Oil Firm Sidesteps Sanctions on Iran - Farah Stockman
In the oil fields of Iran, a 2,000-pound drilling tool, called the azimuthal density neutron tool, probes deep under the earth for fresh supplies of crude, the lifeblood of one of the most formidable foes of the U.S. While helping to enrich Iran's economy, the drilling tool also presents a potential risk to American security, were it to fall into the wrong hands. It is powered by a radioactive chemical that scientists say could fuel a so-called "dirty bomb," capable of spreading radiation across many city blocks.
The tool is the type of sophisticated technology that the U.S. has sought for 13 years to prevent from reaching Iran, a country the U.S. government says is financing terrorism with its oil profits. But the device - developed by the oil-services firm Schlumberger in labs in Connecticut and Texas - was brought to Iran through a legal loophole that allows multinational corporations to use foreign subsidiaries to sidestep U.S. sanctions, according to a Boston Globe investigation. Scientists say that if the five curies of americium-241 used in Schlumberger's tool were to be lost or stolen, the material could be combined with TNT to create a crude nuclear device known as a "dirty bomb" that could contaminate an area of many city blocks. (Boston Globe)
* Nuclear Watchdog Head Calls Efforts Against Iran "a Failure" - Borzou Daragahi
The chief of the world's nuclear weapons watchdog organization considers five years of U.S. and international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions a failure, as Tehran moves ever closer to obtaining the means to develop weapons of mass destruction. "We haven't really moved one inch toward addressing the issues," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. "I think so far the policy has been a failure." (Los Angeles Times)
* After Israel Objects, Qatar Gives Up Plan for Aid Shipment to Gaza - Dion Nissenbaum
Israel has prodded Qatar, a friendly Persian Gulf nation, into calling off a delegation preparing to transport aid from Cyprus to Gaza. Israel urged Qatar officials to send any Gaza-bound aid via Israel, Israeli government officials said. "The message was delivered, not only to them, but to anybody else that wanted to transfer aid to Gaza, that there is a mechanism on how to do it," said Andy David, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry. Israeli officials say they will allow supplies to enter Gaza if and when Hamas prevents Palestinian militants from firing rockets and mortars into southern Israel. (McClatchy)
See also Police Seize Israeli Arab Boat Ahead of Gaza Sail
A boat scheduled to leave Jaffa port on Sunday with several Arab Knesset members and sail to Gaza was seized by the Israel Police early Sunday. (Ynet News)

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

* EU Votes to Upgrade Israel Relations - Barak Ravid
The EU's 27 foreign ministers unanimously approved upgrading relations with Israel on Monday, despite vigorous efforts by the PA and Egypt to thwart the move. The first expression of this decision will be a meeting between Israel's prime minister and all the leaders of the EU member states in Brussels this April. In addition, Israel's foreign minister will start meeting three times a year with all 27 EU foreign ministers.
Israel and the EU will also conduct a strategic dialogue on issues such as the peace process, the Iranian threat, counterterrorism and organized crime. Separately, the ministers decided to shelve a proposed action plan for the peace process in 2009, in response to an Israeli request. In addition, the EU pledged to help Israel integrate into UN agencies and to include Israeli experts in EU peacekeeping forces. (Ha'aretz)
* Israel Pardons 45 More Fatah Terrorists - Ali Waked
Israel granted full pardon on Sunday to another group of 45 men belonging to Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. The gesture, made in the framework of last year's amnesty agreement between Israel and the PA, was finalized at a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian officials. (Ynet News)
* Abbas: Israel Never Prevented Palestinians from Making Haj Pilgrimage Like Hamas Does
PA leader Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas of preventing thousands of Palestinians from making the annual haj pilgrimage to Mecca, Israel Radio reported Saturday. Abbas told reporters in Mecca that Israel had never once prevented Palestinians from making the holy visit. Palestinians wishing to travel to Saudi Arabia through Egypt were not given permits. (Jerusalem Post)

Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

* Israel's New UN Envoy Sees Cracks in Arab Animosity
Gabriela Shalev, Israel's first woman ambassador to the UN, sees cracks in the longstanding Arab cold shoulder and animosity directed at the Jewish state. When the U.S. and British ambassadors gave lunches in her honor and asked who to invite, Shalev said, "I always asked for the Palestinian observer (Riyad Mansour) - he's very nice and we're friends, more than colleagues - the Jordanian ambassador and the ambassador from Oman." "It's easier for me to connect to them than some of the other ambassadors," she added. "We have a lot in common. I can approach them in Arabic."
At a dinner for new ambassadors, Shalev said Turkey's UN envoy deliberately sat her next to the ambassador from one of the "not so moderate Arab countries," which she refused to identify. "We had a wonderful talk all through the evening," she said. "We talked about peace and the Middle East. We found a lot of things in common." Two days later, Shalev said she saw the ambassador at the UN. "He nodded his head, and he was not as nice and friendly as the evening, and I understand it. Maybe people are watching."
Shalev had some advice for President-elect Obama: Leave the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to the parties themselves. "We have to deal with our own problems without any pressure - not of the UN, not of the U.S., but it should be bilateral between the parties." (AP/International Herald Tribune)
* Media Ignore Militants' Muslim Identity - Mark Steyn
In the assault on Bombay, much of the media abandoned offending formulations - "Islamic terrorists," "Muslim extremists" - and found it easier to call the perpetrators "militants" or "gunmen" or "teenage gunmen." The veteran British TV anchor Jon Snow opted for the more cryptic "practitioners." At the Habad House, the murdered Jews were described in almost all the Western media as "ultra-Orthodox," "ultra" in this instance being less a term of theological precision than a generalized code for "strange, weird people, nothing against them personally, but they probably shouldn't have been over there in the first place." Are they stranger or weirder than their killers?
The New York Times was being silly in suggesting this was just an "accidental" hostage opportunity - and not just because, when Muslim terrorists capture Jews it's not a hostage situation, it's a mass murder-in-waiting. The sole surviving "militant" revealed that the Jewish center had been targeted a year in advance. (Washington Times)

Observations:

Arab Peace Initiative Can Be a Starting Point, Not a Diktat - Ron Prosor (Guardian-UK)

* It is important to realize that the Arab peace initiative cannot be seen as a "take it or leave it" offer. It cannot serve as a diktat, or replace the need for bilateral negotiations, on both the Palestinian and Syrian tracks. The plan is an interesting starting point for negotiations, but the international community should be under no illusions. Elements of the text are a cause for grave concern as regards the survivability of the State of Israel.
* The demand that Palestinians should be able to relocate to areas inside the borders of the State of Israel jeopardizes Israel's very existence. It is difficult to understand why Palestinians, having created a state of their own, would subsequently insist on sending their own people to the Jewish state.
* Israel's concern over the future of Jerusalem should also not be underestimated. From time immemorial, Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish people, and will always remain so. The 1967 borders might provide a reference point for negotiations, but the demographic realities and security concerns of Israel's population must be taken into account.
* The Saudis, Kuwaitis and other Gulf states could do more to encourage the Palestinians towards compromise. Instead of perpetuating unattainable fantasies that have long held back the Palestinian cause, they should help their Palestinian brethren set realistic, attainable goals.
* Three realities must be acknowledged: Israel exists, Israel belongs, and recognizing Israel would be to the benefit of every Arab society. Everyone in the region with the ability to promote this understanding must be urged to do so.

The writer is the Israeli ambassador in Londo

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Israeli Study Improves Doctors' Reports
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David Ben Gurion's Vision & Reality: 60 Years Later
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Mumbai Victims Remembered at Memorial Service in Skokie

Mumbai memorialMumbai memorial
More than 1,000 people gathered at the Holiday Inn in Skokie Wednesday night, December 4, to pay tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India last week.

Speakers included Rabbi Gedaliah Dov Schwartz, head of the Beit Din (Rabbinical Court) of the Chicago Rabbinical Council (CRC); Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, regional director of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois; Dr. Steven B. Nasatir, president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and Deputy Consul General of the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest, Gershon Kedar.

The following are excerpts from the speech of Gershon Kedar:

"Israel has shown that the most decisive and effective response to terrorism is not deterrence, for how can terrorists willing to commit suicide be deterred? But rather through a pro active synergy of both defensive and pre-emptive activities with intelligence gathering at its heart. And Israel is, of course, ready to share her expertise with all other countries facing scourge of terror.

But it is also poignant to ponder how each and every one of us can meaningfully respond to terrorism. And the appropriate response comes from the very values cherished by the victims themselves--- Life, respect for every human being, love for every fellow Jew and above all Jewish unity. This is what the terrorists wanted to snuff out, but the deaths of the victims command us to promote these values even more. The terrorists want to destroy- we will answer through "tikkun olam."

Terrorists want us to live in continual fear, but we refuse...And we will all carry on celebrating life, and later this month on Chanukah, we will, with the help of Chabad, publicize the victory of light over darkness all around the world."

Read the full text of the speech by clicking here.

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs website - Click for the latest news, official statements, videos, and presentations relating to the current conflict as well as views of the Israel behind the headlines.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority

Economic Surge for Palestinians in West Bank - Yaakov Katz (Jerusalem Post)

There has been an economic surge in the West Bank in the past year, according to an internal Israel Defense Ministry Civil Administration report obtained on Monday. Palestinian unemployment has dropped 3% since the beginning of the year, while average daily wages are up 24%. In addition, since the beginning of the year, the IDF has removed 113 roadblocks and dirt mounds throughout the West Bank, enabling easier travel between Palestinian cities.
The value of the olive harvest jumped from NIS 200 million in 2007 to NIS 517.5 million in 2008. There was also a 10% increase in the number of workers employed in settlements, as well as a 10% increase in permits issued for Palestinians working in Israel.
Intriguing Israeli Study Shows Photos Help Improve Doctors' Reports


Patient Photos Aid Docs Reading Faceless CT Scans (AP)
Imagine sitting in a dark room all day, evaluating CT scans and other medical images on a computer screen but never actually seeing real patients. That's life for many radiologists.

But an intriguing Israeli study found adding photos of patients' faces to the file made these doctors more meticulous when looking at the X-rays. They reported more details and said they felt more empathy for patients who were otherwise strangers.

Adding patients' photos is a simple, low-tech way to reap rewards for both doctors and their patients, the researchers concluded.

The study involved 15 radiologists at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and 318 patients who agreed to be photographed before undergoing CT scans. The color photos appeared automatically when the doctors opened the patients' computer files.
Entertainment

Hollywood Actors Say They Love Israel

Zach Braff
'Scrubs' star Zach Braff falls in love with Tel Aviv

Ruta Kupfer (Haaretz)
Braff says that when you come here (Israel), "you just feel this amazing sense of community. We hear so much about Israel and politics with the Palestinians and you feel so separate from it. So I really wanted to see for myself." He says he was "lucky" to be able to come and see things firsthand and to talk to Israelis. "As a Jew I think it's really important to come to this place. There is such a tremendous sense of community, tremendous bond for obvious reasons. I don't know if Israelis have a sense of it because they live here, but I love it."


Chris Rock and Ben Stiller Enjoy visit to Israel
BenStiller,ChrisRock
U.S. film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, left, U.S. actor Ben Stiller, second from left, U.S. actress Jada Pinkett Smith, second from right, and U.S. actor Chris Rock, right, in Israel to attend the Israeli Premier of "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa". (AP Photo)

Actor Chris Rock says Israel is better than Hollywood. Ben Stiller agrees.The two Hollywood stars were in Israel for the premiere of their latest movie, "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa." The premiere was in the coastal Israeli city of Netanya on Saturday. Stiller says it's a good place to roll out a new movie. He said, "This is better than any premiere we have had so far."
Rock expanded on that. He said, "It's much better than Hollywood. They don't like us in Hollywood, but here they love us."

Why Israelis mourn Mumbai

http://www.tnr.com/images/single_line.gif

Jerusalem, Israel

Gavriel and Rivkie Holtzberg, the young Israeli couple who ran the Chabad
House in Mumbai and were murdered there by jihadists, died bound and
helpless, like those Jewish martyrs disparaged for their quietism by the
Zionist ethos. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Holtzbergs never served in the
Israeli army--yet when they were buried on Tuesday, Israeli society mourned
as though they were fallen soldiers. When their coffins arrived at
Ben-Gurion Airport, they were draped in the national flag. Israeli leaders,
including President Shimon Peres, who doesn't usually attend the funerals of
terror victims, came to the Holtzbergs' funeral. When I came into work that
morning, I found the young woman in the room beside mine weeping.

The devastating scene of the Holtzbergs' surviving two-year-old son, Moishe,
calling out for his mother during a memorial service, was repeatedly shown
on TV. But Israelis weren't only mourning the destruction of the Holtzberg
family; they were mourning the loss of national heroes. Newspaper accounts
recalled how Gavriel bribed prison guards in India to smuggle in wine for
Shabbat to an Israeli inmate held on drug charges. Even after they lost a
child to Tay-Sachs disease, the Holtzbergs insisted on remaining at their
post--to continue, as Gavriel explained, "to do mitzvas," fulfill the
commandment to help their fellow Jews.

In embracing the Holtzbergs, Israelis were restoring to the national ethos
the old concept of kiddush hashem, religious martrydom--confirming a process
that began with the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The iconic image of that war was a
photograph of a religious soldier being led into Egyptian activity as he
carried a Torah scroll. That image was so jarring precisely because it cast
an Israeli soldier in the role of a pre-Zionist model of heroism. Since
then, all our wars have ended inconclusively, expressions of the limitations
of power. The more nuanced Israeli attitudes toward heroism are reflected in
Jerusalem's renovated Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, which now not only extols
the secular heroes, like partisans and ghetto fighters, but also those who
responded to dehumanization by maintaining their religious dignity, running
underground schools and prayer groups.


=250x250;ptile=2;kw=ron;kw=politics;kw=tnr;ord=82510960?>

Since the Mumbai massacre, there have been calls here for the Israeli
government to subsidize security at Chabad houses across the globe, seen by
Israelis as extensions of home. "Our Chabad," summed up one headline on an
Israeli news web site. The warmth with which so many Israelis have responded
to Chabad proves--along with the growing popularity of prayer lyrics in
Israeli rock music and of informal "secular" prayer groups spreading in Tel
Aviv and elsewhere--that large parts of Israeli society may be entering a
post-secular phase.

Still, it is doubtful the country would have reacted with the same emotional
intensity had the Holtzbergs been ordinary ultra-Orthodox Jews rather than
Chabadniks. Mainstream Israelis resent ultra-Orthodox Jews for separating
from the state and its obligations even as they demand that it subsidize
their separatism. Chabad neither separates nor demands, but gives. Israelis
encounter Chabad's embrace most often abroad. When our young people just out
of the army travel the most remote corners of the world (because military
service doesn't provide enough dangers and thrills), they invariably
encounter a Chabad house.

Israelis also love Chabadniks for their courage: Rivkie and Gavriel weren't
yet buried when Rivkie's father announced his intention of taking over their
work in the Mumbai Chabad house. Though few Chabadniks are drafted into the
army, they don't avoid danger zones: Chabad activists rush to the front
lines during war, providing religious services and dancing with soldiers to
raise morale. One friend told me about her sister who was serving in a
border post so sensitive that a visitor required special permission from the
general in command of the front: "And then who shows up on Hanukah with
jelly donuts? Chabadniks."

Contrast Chabad's embrace of the Israeli ethos with ultra-Orthodox
anti-Zionists--one of whom, Leibish Teitelbaum, a member of the Satmar
hasidic sect, was killed in Mumbai. Teitelbaum's family demanded that his
coffin not be draped in the Israeli flag, even though his body had been
retrieved and flown home by the Israeli government--a reminder that Jewish
anti-Zionism is less an ideology than a character flaw, a lack of capacity
for gratitude. Chabad defines itself by its love for every Jew; the
anti-Zionists define themselves by the Jews they despise.

Israeli society reciprocated the Teitelbaums' contempt, barely noting that
other funeral. Watching the mutual estrangement that even a common Jewish
death couldn't heal, it felt like one of those moments in Jewish history
when schismatic sects evolve into separate faiths.

Israelis know Chabad's flaws--the cars mounted with the late Rebbe's
photograph and the words "Welcome King Messiah," the replicas built around
Israel of the Rebbe's house in Brooklyn, complete with red bricks chipped in
all the original places. And also Chabad's hardline politics: There was no
territorial compromise, including Israel's withdrawal from Sinai in 1982,
that Chabad didn't vehemently oppose. But many Israelis overlook the
messianic looniness and the political rigidity because they crave a
connection with a form of traditional Judaism that loves them
unconditionally. And though it's rare in Israel's grudging public discourse
to express gratitude, this week at least, Israelis offered Chabad that same
unconditional love in return.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a contributing editor at The New Republic and a senior
fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center
in Jerusalem.

Aipac update

www.aipac.org December 3, 2008
Hamas Rockets Strike Gaza Energy Source
Report: Palestinian Economy Improving
Israel Mourns Victims of Mumbai Massacre, Offers Aid
Lawmaker Supports Obama's Call for Ban on Sale of Gas to Iran
Palestinian Authority Considers West Bank State
Israelis Pioneer Laser Treatment for Sealing Wounds

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Photo
Hamas Rockets Strike Gaza Energy Source
Hamas rockets slammed into southern Israel on Wednesday, damaging a power cable transferring electricity to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported. Wednesday's barrage was the latest in a string of more than 200 rocket and mortar attacks fired from Gaza. Israeli military sources also noted an upsurge in Hamas activity along the Gaza-Israel border, where terrorist cells have planted explosive devices. Though a fragile calm had taken hold along the Gaza border in recent months, Hamas terrorists in the coastal strip have overseen a massive arms buildup and are again using the territory as a base for launching attacks at the Jewish state. Click here to learn about Hamas' terrorist activity in Gaza.
Report: Palestinian Economy Improving
According to a new report by Israel's Ministry of Defense, the Palestinian economy in the West Bank has improved dramatically over the past year, The Jerusalem Post reported. Ministry statistics show a three percent drop in Palestinian unemployment, a 24 percent increase in daily wages, olive harvest revenue jumping more than 150 percent, a 10 percent increase in Palestinians working in Israeli settlements and a 10 percent increase in work permits for Palestinians in Israel. The report, which incorporated data from the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations, attributes much of the improvements to recent concerted efforts by Israel to improve conditions in the West Bank. The report also credits increased cooperation between the Israel and Palestinian Authority to fight terrorist elements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Israel Mourns Victims of Mumbai Massacre, Offers Aid
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert thanked his Indian counterparts on Sunday for their cooperation and care for Jewish and Israeli hostages during last week's deadly Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported. Olmert said Israel had provided intelligence assistance and offered aid to Indian authorities in the aftermath of the attacks. "Last week marked one of the worse acts of terror ever to take place in India," Olmert said. "The images of the Jewish victims and the horrific sight of the Chabad house managers wrapped in prayer shawls are shocking and take us back to images from history that we hoped wouldn't repeat themselves. But it seems that the hatred of Jews and Israelis is what spurs these horrible deeds." Some 180 people were massacred in the Mumbai rampage. Seven people, Americans and Israelis among them, were killed at the city's Chabad House, a Jewish center targeted by the assailants.
Lawmaker Supports Obama's Call for Ban on Sale of Gas to Iran
Echoing President-elect Barack Obama, a leading Republican senator has called on the United States to press for an international ban on the sale of gasoline to Iran, a move that would affect Iran's economy immediately. "Iran has vulnerabilities susceptible to pressure from the United States and its allies and we must exploit them before it is too late," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) wrote in an op-ed. "As an example, despite Iran's tremendous crude oil reserves, it relies on huge volumes of imported gasoline to meet its domestic demand. The Iranian government then subsidizes this gasoline for the Iranian people." Kyl noted that sanctioning Iran in this manner has received the endorsement of President-elect Obama, and would constitute "a possibly game changing dislocation to Iran's economy. Learn more about Iran's dangerous behavior.
Palestinian Authority Considers West Bank State
Top Palestinian negotiator Maen Areikat has indicated that the Palestinian Authority would be willing to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank alone until the terrorist group Hamas gives up control of the Gaza Strip, The Washington Times reported. "We would prefer to see a situation where there is national unity," Areikat said. "But if we don't agree, the PLO is mandated to continue negotiations." Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in a violent coup in June 2007, faces international isolation until it recognizes Israel, renounces terrorism and accepts previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Israelis Pioneer Laser Treatment for Sealing Wounds
A team of Israeli researchers has developed a new technique to allow surgeons to seal incisions by laser, with less scarring and less exposure to infection, the Web site Israel 21c reported. The new technique, developed by Prof. Abraham Katzir and a team from Tel Aviv University's Applied Physics Group, is called laser-welding. When the laser begins to overheat and risks burning the tissue, the device reduces laser power, and if the temperature is too low to complete a closure, laser power is increased appropriately. "Sutures or stitches are not water tight, and blood or urine can pass through cuts, causing severe infection," Katzir said. Israel has long been at the forefront of developing new and innovative medical techniques.

Iran Inflitrates USA

A series of talks on a serious subject: radical Islam's infiltration of American culture, finance, education and life.
http://tinyurl.com/6ojnbk

From Richard Baehr

Daniel Kurtzer is now rumored to be in line to be the Middle East envoy in the Obama administration . Bad choice I think. Kurtzer is an Orthodox Jew but that does not mean he is not wrong about almost everything when it comes to this conflict. Ed Lasky, in his usual thorough manner, examined Kurtzer's latest book on the subject.
http://tinyurl.com/6rxgpu

6. What recession? With tighter security controls in place (the IDF), the economy is growing rapidly in the West Bank. The picture is different in Gaza.
http://tinyurl.com/6pxsyb
http://tinyurl.com/6m382u

Daily Alert Nov. 28 2008

Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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DAILY ALERT

Friday,
November 28, 2008
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In-Depth Issues:

Behind Mumbai's Terrorist Attacks - Fareed Zakaria (Newsweek)
One misconception is the assumption that these attacks were aimed primarily at foreigners. Look at their targets.
The two hotels they attacked - the Taj and the Oberoi - are old, iconic Indian hotels. It used to be true that these places were affordable only by Westerners, but today they are filled with Indian businessmen.
If the aim was to hit Americans or other Westerners, the big American chains all have hotels there, and there are many more distinctly American targets.
One of the untold stories of India is that the Muslim population has not shared in the boom the country has enjoyed over the last ten years. There's enough alienation out there that there are locals who can be drawn in to plots.
That tends to be a pattern, from Madrid to Casablanca to Bali - some hard-core jihadis who indoctrinate alienated locals they can seduce.
The writer, a Mumbai native, is editor of Newsweek International.

Syria and the Nuclear Cops - Editorial (Wall Street Journal)
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed last week that it had discovered a "significant number" of chemically processed uranium particles at a suspected Syrian nuclear site destroyed last year by Israel.
The IAEA also reported that satellite images of the site taken prior to its destruction had the markings of a nuclear reactor.
So what did IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei do with this information? Why, urge the approval of a Syrian request for a $350,000 feasibility study for a new reactor.
See also IAEA Chief: Will Confront Syria with Imagery of Suspect Site (AFP)
The UN atomic watchdog hopes to confront Syria soon with satellite imagery of a suspect nuclear site bombed by Israeli planes last year, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Thursday.
The UN says the remote desert site, Al-Kibar, had been a covert nuclear reactor close to completion.
See also Nuclear Chief "Baffled" as Syria Site Photos Disappear (Irish Examiner)

Israeli Surgeons Weld Wounds Shut with Surgical Laser - Judy Siegel (Jerusalem Post)
A team of applied physicists at Tel Aviv University led by Prof. Abraham Katzir have developed an efficient and safe way to close incisions.
Katzir and his team use a technique called "laser welding" in which biological glue is smeared on the two sides of the incision.
Then a laser warms it at the correct temperature to create a hard "shell" that protects the wound and allows it to heal.
They use a temperature-controlled carbon dioxide laser and special silver halide optical fibers to prevent overheating and burns.

Introducing Israel Studies in U.S. Universities - Interview with Mitchell Bard by Manfred Gerstenfeld (Institute for Global Jewish Affairs)
The anti-Israeli activism on college campuses during the Second Intifada created the incentive among the American Jewish philanthropic community to promote education and scholarship on Israel at universities.
The first two centers for Israel Studies were established in 1998, their initiators driven by the concept that it was important to teach American students about modern Israel.
Israel Studies remained largely neglected, however, until 2004. Since then it has rapidly grown.
There are at present nine Israel Studies centers throughout the U.S. By the end of 2008 about 15 chairs in Israel Studies will have been endowed.
The program for visiting professors from Israel started in 2004-2005 and, in the current academic year, has 27 such scholars teaching on 26 campuses.
See also U. of California to Reopen Study-Abroad Program in Israel - Josh Keller (Chronicle of Higher Education)
The University of California announced on Tuesday that it would end its six-year suspension of study-abroad programs in Israel, and would reopen a program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem next year.

For Researchers: Search the Daily Alert Archive
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This invaluable Internet resource documents the recent history of Israel and the Middle East.
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Fair Use News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:

* Indian Commandos Storm Jewish Center in Mumbai - Keith Bradsher and Somini Sengupta
Indian commandos Friday morning stormed the Habad Jewish center that had been seized by terrorists during a coordinated series of attacks on Mumbai. While many of the targets seemed to indicate a focus on tourists and Westerners, most of the victims were Indians. The gunmen appear to have come ashore at the Sassoon Docks, not far from the Leopold Cafe, one of the first places struck Wednesday night. They moved on to the train station, then opened fire on Cama and Albless Hospital. At one point, the gunmen hijacked a police vehicle and opened fire near the Metro Cinema. (New York Times)
See also Cool and Composed, They Killed and Killed - Randeep Ramesh, Duncan Campbell and Paul Lewis (Guardian-UK)
* 10-20 Israelis Among Mumbai Hostages
"There are between 10 to 20 Israeli nationals being held hostage, but it could be more," said Eli Belotsercovsky, deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in New Delhi. (AFP)
See also Brooklyn Rabbi and Israeli Wife Caught in Attacks - Fernanda Santos
In 2003, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, moved from Brooklyn to Mumbai, India, to manage a mix of educational center, synagogue and social hall known as a Habad house, one of about 3,500 outposts around the world run by the Lubavitch Hasidic movement. The place soon became a year-round magnet for Israeli backpackers, Jewish businessmen and tourists, as well as for the Iraqi and Indian Jews who live there. Mrs. Holtzberg served visitors coffee and homemade kosher delicacies. Rabbi Holtzberg always offered a helping hand to someone who was sick or stranded. On Wednesday, the Holtzbergs' Habad house became the target of terrorist gunmen. Firing grenades and automatic weapons, the men took the Holtzbergs and at least six other people hostage. (New York Times)
See also India: Holtzberg Toddler Reunites with Grandparents - Hagai Einav
Shimon and Yehudit Rosenberg, the parents of Rivka Holtzberg, who with her husband Gavriel run the Habad center in Mumbai, arrived in India from Israel on Friday morning and were reunited with their two-year-old grandson, Moshe Tzvi, who was rescued from the house the day before by Sandra Samuel, an Indian cook at Habad house. (Ynet News)
* Canada Leads in Pushing UN Censure of Iran - Paul Lungen
A resolution that Canada spearheaded censuring Iran for violations of human rights passed in a UN General Assembly committee last week. The resolution accuses Iran of "torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including flogging and amputations." It criticizes Iran for executing juveniles, killing people by stoning, and discriminating against women and girls. It also calls on Iran to end human rights violations affecting religious and ethnic minorities, among them Jews, Christians, Kurds, Arabs, Sunni Muslims and, in particular, Baha'is. The resolution was co-sponsored by 42 mostly European and North American democracies, plus Israel, Fiji and Micronesia. Seventy members of the General Assembly's Third Committee voted in favor of the motion. (Canadian Jewish News)
See also Iran Furious at Peace Plan Advert Bearing Its Flag and Israel's - Ian Black
Iran has angrily dissociated itself from Arab and Islamic attempts to publicize an offer to make peace with and recognize Israel. Officials in Tehran are furious that the Iranian flag appeared on an advertisement, published in the Guardian and other papers, promoting the Saudi-brokered initiative. The Iranian embassy in London protested that the Islamic Republic objects "to any move taken by some Arab countries to push the recognition of the occupying Zionist regime in any manner." (Guardian-UK)

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

* Palestinian Rocket Hits House on Kibbutz - Shmulik Hadad
Palestinians in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket Thursday evening that damaged a house in a kibbutz in southern Israel. Tami Tuchman, 61, whose home was damaged, said she had fled with her dog to their family's bomb shelter when the Color Red rocket alert system sounded at the kibbutz. (Ynet News)
* Hamas Weakening in West Bank - Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
The achievements of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad over the past year and a half, in making the West Bank a much more bearable place to live, cannot be ignored. In Jenin, Nablus and Hebron, armed militants are no longer on the streets, and the general atmosphere of anarchy has faded. And while the economic situation isn't great, it's immeasurably better than in Gaza, under Hamas. Israeli defense sources confirm that PA security forces are close to crushing Hamas' military infrastructure in the West Bank. Hamas has also drastically reduced its money transfers to its charity organizations in the West Bank, fearing the PA will get its hands on the money. (Ha'aretz)
* Jerusalem Symposium Discusses Scandinavian Anti-Semitism - Cnaan Liphshiz
"Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in Scandinavia," Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, a scholar of Western European anti-Semitism, told a discussion on Scandinavian anti-Semitism and Israel-hatred hosted on Tuesday by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Gerstenfeld presented cartoons from the Norwegian mainstream press and noted, "There is something wrong with a society which is willing to accept these Nazi cartoons. With a Jewish population of only 1,300, Norway has led the pack in anti-Semitism before, during and after WWII." Zvi Mazel, a former ambassador to Sweden, spoke of a "deep-rooted" anti-Semitism in Sweden, while Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Center in Israel - which co-sponsored the event - addressed Norway and Sweden's failure to prosecute Nazi war criminals. (Ha'aretz)

Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

Terror Attacks in India

* Mumbai Attacks Suggest Outside Help - Craig Whitlock and Karen DeYoung
Counterterrorism officials and experts said the scale, sophistication and targets involved in the Mumbai attacks were markedly different from previous terrorist plots in India and suggested the gunmen had received training from outside the country. "This is a new, horrific milestone in the global jihad," said Bruce Riedel, a former analyst for the CIA and National Security Council. "No indigenous Indian group has this level of capability." Several analysts and officials said the attacks bore the hallmarks of Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad, two networks of Muslim extremists from Pakistan that have targeted India before. The Hindu newspaper reported Friday that at least three of the suspects held by police were members of Lashkar-i-Taiba. (Washington Post)
* India: Homegrown Terror or International Jihad? - Benedetta Berti
India is reeling from the worst series of terrorist attacks in its history. The Deccan Mujahideen, which claimed responsibility, is apparently linked with the Indian Mujahideen (IM), a splinter group of the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). In the past six months, four IM attacks in major Indian cities claimed the lives of over 140 people. IM's previous attacks consisted of a series of coordinated, simultaneous blasts aimed at causing the highest number of casualties. A senior officer of the Indian Police Service, briefing parliament on the group's September 2008 attack in Delhi, stated: "This group...doesn't attack parliament or police stations. They go directly for maximum chaos and maximum financial damage." Following the Delhi blasts, the IM threatened to hit Mumbai in its next operation.
The highly coordinated and planned nature of the attacks, as well as the terrorists' modus operandi, also suggest the existence of a strong international connection between IM and international as well as regional terrorist groups. The Mumbai operation was qualitatively more sophisticated and deadly and shared several characteristics of al-Qaeda's operational strategy: the choice of targets, the deliberate decision to kill the maximum number of Western citizens, the simultaneous use of suicide missions, as well as hostage-taking. Thus, it is clear that the terrorist organization has received assistance and backing from al-Qaeda-affiliated organizations and has adopted an international jihadist agenda. The writer is a Neubauer Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. (Jerusalem Post)
* How Not to Deal with Militant Islam - Sadanand Dhume
Over the past four years, Islamist groups have struck in New Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad, among other places. The death toll from terrorism - not counting those killed in Mumbai - stands at over 4,000. India's failure to protect Mumbai offers a textbook example for fellow democracies on how not to deal with militant Islam. The country's antiterrorism effort is reactive and episodic rather than proactive and sustained. Its public discourse on Islam oscillates between crude, anti-Muslim bigotry and mindless sympathy for largely unjustified Muslim grievance-mongering. Finally, India's inability to modernize its 150-million strong Muslim population has spawned a community susceptible to militant Islam's faith-based appeal. (Wall Street Journal)

Other Issues

* Sanctions? What Sanctions? German-Iranian Trade Booms - Matthias Kuntzel
While the U.S. reacts to reports that Iran had enriched enough uranium for a nuclear weapon with concern and calls for tighter sanctions, in Germany it is business as usual. On Thursday, many of the leading lights of German-Iranian trade gathered at a conference in Hamburg on "Iran Sanctions: Practical Consequence for German Firms" to discuss how further to promote German business with Iran. "Even in these difficult times" the conference announcement states, the Chamber of Commerce wants to "support" German firms "developing markets in Iran." "We would be delighted if we could thus contribute to the success of your business with Iran."
One speaker was Norbert Eisenmenger, managing director of the European-Iranian Commerce Bank. As its latest report notes, the bank closed out 2007 "with record earnings yet again." "Net profit doubled...the volume of transactions increased by 35%." The topic "Financing Iranian Business Deals" was covered by Sabine Hummerich, representing Bank Melli Iran, which is fully-owned by the Iranian regime. The 2007-2008 report of Bank Melli's German subsidiary in Hamburg notes that net income increased by 33% over the previous year. In June 2008, the EU placed sanctions on Bank Melli. (Pajamas Media)
See also Berlin Loves Iran - Editorial
As Europe's largest exporter to Iran, Germany has unique leverage over that regime. But Berlin refuses to use it, unwilling to go beyond the relatively soft UN trade restrictions. German exports to Iran are up 14% in the first seven months of this year, according to Germany's Federal Statistical Office. (Wall Street Journal)
* Terrorists Feel Exempt from International Law - David Altman
At the end of the Vietnam War, visiting PLO representatives congratulated the commander of the North Vietnamese army, General Vo Nguyen Giap, on his victory over the American superpower and asked him when he predicted terror organizations would be victorious over Israel. Gen. Giap answered: "Never! You will never be victorious due to lack of determination." Some believe this meeting represented a turning point in the development of Islamic terrorism, which began to educate its society in the sanctity of suicide and initiated the era of suicide terrorism, believing that the more people willing to prove their readiness to die for a cause, the greater the determination and the closer the victory.
Today, a new, different terror army is being developed, one that enjoys the advantages of feeling exempt from any international law or accountability. In addition, they handicap the power of their opponent through exploitation of the claims of internationally accepted values of human rights, correct treatment of prisoners of war, and prevention of harm to civilian populations - though none of these values apply to them, but only to their opponent. The writer is the senior vice president of Netanya Academic College and the deputy chair of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue. (Jerusalem Post)
* Security Fence Makes Vast Difference to Life in Israel - Licia Corbella
Since the security fence was built, there have been no more suicide murders and no more sniping at children walking to and from school in Jerusalem. Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Muslim journalist who lives in Israel and writes for the Jerusalem Post, says life was unbearable and extremely dangerous before the fence was erected.
"It's very simple," explains the reporter who once worked for a PLO newspaper. "I live in Jerusalem. I have three children and I can tell you that for three years I was afraid to take my children to the shopping malls here in Jerusalem. For three years if you asked me to meet you in downtown Jerusalem, I would have refused and for three years I was afraid to stop my car at a red traffic light next to a bus because I didn't want to die in a suicide bombing. The suicide bombers killed both Jews and Arabs."
Today, Abu Toameh says he feels much safer and Jerusalem is a bustling city again, instead of the veritable ghost town it became for three years until the barrier was built. "Look, the wall is bad. I don't like walls....But let's be honest, what other choice did the Israelis have?" he asks. "If I were the Israeli authorities, I would write on the wall that this wall was made by Yasser Arafat and Hamas," said Abu Toameh. (Calgary Herald-Canada)

Observations:

The Starting Point for Peace - Lior Ben Dor (Guardian-UK)

* I read with great interest the Guardian's suggestion that president-elect Obama should "tear up" the 2004 letter from President Bush to Ariel Sharon regarding Israel's major settlement blocs within the West Bank (Editorial, Nov. 24). The future borders of the state of Israel will not be determined on the pages of this newspaper. Instead, they will be determined by negotiations between Israel and the legitimate leadership of the Palestinians.
* In 2005 Israel took the initiative as regards peace with the Palestinians by evacuating nearly 30 settlements, including every Jewish settlement in Gaza and more in the northern part of the West Bank. This process cost the Israeli taxpayer $2.5 billion and risked heightening tensions within Israeli society. However, Gaza became a launch pad for rocket attacks against Israeli citizens and terrorist action at our borders. This reality worsened still further after Hamas seized total control of Gaza in a bloody coup in 2007.
* The Israeli public overwhelmingly supports the concept of land for peace, if it brings the reward of greater security with a pragmatic, peaceful neighbor. Evacuation of settlements would be less popular, however, if the consequences are likely to be increased violence against Israel's citizens and the creation of a vacuum to be filled with extremist terror. The precedent of Gaza has increased the skepticism of the Israeli public towards similar arrangements in the West Bank.
* Thus while the 1967 borders are the natural starting point for negotiations, the demographic realities of Israel's population, and the understandable security concerns of the Israeli public, will need to be taken into account. These issues are on the agenda for any negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg