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by Omri Ceren

Just kidding, obviously. Every country on the planet is allowed to open fire on a mob rushing at its border:

About 60 people were hurt, including one woman who was hit by gunfire, as Egyptian border guards fired in the air and used clubs and water cannons to drive back hundreds of Palestinian women who surged across the border from Gaza Tuesday. The protesting Palestinians were demanding that Egypt back their demands for the border to be opened for shipments of food and essential provisions, in short supply due to Israel’s closure of its borders with the Strip.

Well, every country on the planet except Israel. Just imagine the propaganda that Reuters and AP stringers would produce after Israeli troops dealt similarly with similar mobs of Palestinian women. Actually, you don’t have to imagine.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

by Omri Ceren

Qassams have a 10km range and can pack up to 20kg of explosives and shrapnel. The time between the red alert siren and the rocket’s impact is about 15 seconds. So the Palestinians routinely launch rockets at Sderot at around 7:45am to target kids who are walking to school and are too far from buildings to get to a shelter. Now that power is back on in Gaza, Palestinian soldiers are right back at it:

Two barrages were fired shortly before 8 am, as Sderot’s children were making their way to school. Nine Qassam rockets and 13 mortar shells were fired at the western Negev communities on Monday afternoon. Three of the mortars landed in the Palestinian territories.

Surreal. No country on the planet would tolerate that for a day, let alone for the months upon months of that Israelis have been subjected to.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

by Omri Ceren

Maybe “makes them” is a little strong. But there’s certainly something in the way of an intriguing correlation:

Barak consented to ease the near-complete closure imposed on the Hamas-controlled territory, authorizing the entry of humanitarian aid and a one-time shipment of diesel fuel to power Gaza’s electricity station less than a day after it was shut down. Shortly after Barak’s pronouncements the relative respite in rocket attacks on southern Israel seemed over, with nine Qassam rockets and 13 mortar shells landing in and around communities in the western Negev.

On the day before the lockdown – which involved a less than staggering 30 percent energy cut and no fresh fruits or vegetables – the Palestinians launched forty rockets at Israeli schools and hospitals. Immediately after the lockdown, the number of Qassams dropped to one because Hamas got the message that the Israelis were serious about protecting Sderot. Then Barak lifted the closure ever so slightly, and the Palestinians immediately launched over 20 more Qassams and mortars. This is surreal. These people are lunatics. And the UN is set to condemn Israel. Of course they are.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

Breadth of the Beast is one of my favourite essayists on the web today.

His current essay Live incorrect or die correct

[..] Having our way so habitually has even made us a little shame-faced about it. We try very hard not to rub it in- not to appear to be “running up the score” on the opposition. In fact, we invented multiculturalism so that we could pretend that there really is no competition- that we are all just the same as everyone else and that there is no reason why any other culture should feel anymore threatened by us than we do of them.

The problem is that our perspective has become warped. We are not afraid of them because we have been on such a long winning streak. They hate us for our success and power- and they despise our smarmy, condescending, back-handedly racist multiculturalism.

At the same time, non western challengers are rising up in the Islamic world and Asia who do not share our values and our scruples. We don’t believe it, but they have no interest in becoming like us. We are so busy trying to console them for being so backward that we cannot comprehend that they don’t see it that way.[..]

Political Correctness is Unilateral Cultural Disarmament. As bad as it is here in the U.S. it is even worse in Israel.[..]

Enjoy.

Felix remains a fighter for the Jewish people believing that what is needed is a United Front and new leadership.

His blog is called My Weblog.

Good luck Felix.

By Janet Tassel, contributing editor to Harvard Magazine

Once again, we few subversives burrowing furtively inside the Union for Reform Judaism-we call it the Union for Deformed Judaism– girded ourselves for the Big Cringe: The Biennial. And once again, the leaders of Reform didn’t disappoint.

Some eight-thousand aging hippies and their guitars met and hugged in San Diego in December, re-enacting, where canes and walkers permitted, the glory days of Woodstock. There, amid songs and nostalgic tales of the ’60s, with the strains of “All the World Needs is Love” in the background, they held hands and unfolded their agenda: a scornful look at us miserable capitalist sinners, complemented by their utopian recipes for our redemption.

Many of the agenda items were warmed-over re-runs of resolutions from former biennials. The ever-green Resolution on the War in Iraq, replete with the same halachic lectures on torture, humiliation, and war itself, calling in 2005 for a “clear exit strategy,” has now been updated. Inasmuch as “the situation continues to deteriorate” and we have failed “to pursue all reasonable alternatives to war,” the URJ now insists on a “phased withdrawal of our troops from Iraq..” Footnotes to the gassy nine-page resolution indicate the Union’s reliance on such patriotic standbys as the Baker-Hamilton report, various New York Times and Washington Post articles, and a Gallup poll.

Then, there was the Resolution on Health Insurance, which asks, among other inane nanny-state meddlings, “Are we providing healthy food choices at our meetings, onegs, and in our classrooms?” Say goodbye to Entenman’s, everybody. But, far more important-and chilling, and against all rational medical and economic evidence, it proposes a “single-payer system in which the government provides health insurance.” In the face of the universal failure of socialized medicine, there is this jaw-dropping declaration:

Every uninsured family is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The time has long since passed when our leaders should have done what every other advanced country has somehow managed to do: provide all its citizens with essential health care. Our Canadian members, as well as British and Israeli Reform Jews, will be happy to tell us about the health care problems in their countries. But how many of them would prefer the American system to their own?

Hold on: I’ll call my sister-in-law in Toronto, who has been waiting for a knee replacement for a year. Her husband, a professor of economics, died waiting for heart surgery. Does the URJ have any idea how many Canadians and Brits-even Reform Jews– come to the United States for their health care?

Now let’s look at the Resolution in Support of The Annapolis Peace Conference, which, wreathing itself in flower power, hopefully sings paeans to giving peace a chance, begging for “a pattern of continuous negotiations,” but ending up baffled and contradicting itself, as it crashes into- while of course denying –the brick wall of harsh reality: The “gang rape” of Israel, in Frank Gaffney’s words, caused by the blinkered pacifism of partisans from the left.

But most cringe-making of all was the camel in the tent: the Resolution on Jewish-Muslim Dialogue. Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union, who prides himself on this initiative, said it this way:

As a once-persecuted minority in countries where antisemitism is still a force, we understand the plight of Muslims in North America today.

Yes, thank God, most American and Canadian Muslims are treated with dignity. But since 9/11, we do not lack for purveyors of hate who see Muslims as a fifth column and who engage in the ugliest form of stereotyping, casually ascribing to all the guilt of a tiny minority.

I am proposing that we work together with ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA is an umbrella body of more than 300 mosques that brings together 30,000 people at its annual convention. I was the first major Jewish leader to address this convention, and in my remarks this August, I discussed the dialogue project that we hope to launch after the Biennial.

Dr. Ingrid Mattson, the president of ISNA, will address us tomorrow. She is a powerful spokesperson for a community that is overwhelmingly moderate in their views, and what we want to do is join them, encourage them and learn from them.

Now, the interested reader can learn all about the “overwhelmingly moderate” Islamic Society of North America from Discover the Network.org and elsewhere, and about Ingrid Mattson from sites such as Militant Islam Monitor.org. But perhaps the best voices to heed would be those of truly moderate Muslims.

Nine such proven friends of America penned a plea, which appeared in The Jewish Week on January 2. Perhaps I may be forgiven for indulging in a rather long quotation from this important document. (Again, the entire article is available on line.) Its title is “Attention Rabbi Yoffie: Please Speak to Moderate Muslims.” After taking Yoffie to task on his idiotic equivalence between antisemitism and attitudes toward Muslims, and exploding the myth about “dialogue,” they continue:

ISNA, which URJ has accepted, apparently uncritically, as a “partner,” has a long history of association with extremist trends in Islam. ISNA has served as a front group for Wahhabism, the official sect in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia; the jihadist ideologies originating in Pakistan with the writings of a certain Mawdudi and the Deoband schools in that country-the latter of which produced the Afghan Taliban, and the Ikhwan al-Muslimun, or Muslim Brotherhood.

After taking on the “irresponsible” Ingrid Mattson, they continue:

Many Islamic mosque congregations, Sufi orders, and Muslim personalities have called for intelligent and sincere discussion with Jewish individuals and groups, to further interfaith civility and cooperation. This noble goal, to which we as Muslims are called by our revelation and our traditions, cannot be served by flattery toward groups like ISNA, in which radicals are camouflaged as moderates.

We therefore appeal to Rabbi Yoffie and other Jewish leaders to conduct a serious and thorough survey of the situation in Western Islam, identifying authentic moderates, and enabling them as interlocutors with Jews and other non-Muslims. We do not believe that ISNA qualifies for such a role. We fear that heedless acceptance of ISNA as an ally of URJ does harm to both our communities, by legitimizing a radicalism that.is fundamentally hostile to Jews and suppresses the intellectual and social development of Muslims.

Just this week, Frank Gaffney, Andrew Bostum, and others have alerted us to what Gaffney calls the scandal of “Front-gate, in recognition of the central role played in the drama by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)..” This scandal involves the firing of Major Stephen Coughlin, a contractor for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Coughlin committed the sin of blowing the whistle on Hashem Islam, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England’s “point man on Muslim community outreach,” according to Gaffney, and on the object of Islam’s admiration, ISNA.

As we mournfully await further reports on this schandeh, we continue to burrow, and cringe.

By Ted Belman

MJ Rosenberg of Israel Policy Forum comments on the events in Gaza and repeats all the Arab propaganda about Israel causing an humanitarian crisis then gives his, not so sage but predictable, advice,

But unilateral withdrawal failed. It failed because unilateralism is no way to solve any international conflict. Had Israel negotiated the Gaza withdrawal with Mahmoud Abbas, as Abbas wanted, there would have been a signed and binding agreement between Israelis and Palestinians governing Gaza’s future. As it was, Israel just picked up and left, handing Hamas the opportunity to increase its support by claiming that it drove Israel out, weakening Abbas and setting the stage for the shelling of Sderot and the ultimate Hamas takeover of Gaza.

Incredible. He believes that an agreement with Abbas would be “binding”. When has Fatah or Abbas ever been bound by an agreement.

The lesson is that we are no longer living in an era in which major powers can dictate to the powerless. Winston Churchill could not, today, dictate that the area east of the Jordan would no longer be Israel/Palestine but rather Transjordan. Nor could France and the United Kingdom draw lines on a map and call this acreage Syria and that one Lebanon.

No, in 2008, the only way to resolve disputes between nations is through direct negotiations. That means that all the problems posed by Hamas in Gaza can only be resolved through negotiations that will end the Israeli occupation, create a West Bank/Gaza Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its shared capital and ensure the security of both Israelis and Palestinians. As the Israelis say over and over again, it needs a partner. In fact, it has one in Mahmoud Abbas. But, being essentially powerless, he is not a partner Israel can hold responsible for very much.

Maybe a major power can’t dictate terms but they don’t have to capitulate either. He believes as a matter of faith, in negotiations. He obviously thinks that the Arabs will accept the existence of Israel. On what evidence. He believes that Abbas is a partner. On what evidence.

He recommends

moving on President Bush’s goal of establishing a Palestinian state by the end of his term. That state will not be a gift to the Palestinians, nor will it be a reward for good behavior. What it will be is a solution to a problem that plagues Israelis and Palestinians alike (while seriously damaging America’s interests worldwide).

Once again, on what grounds? He also repeats the idea that Israel is hurting American interests if it does fold.

He ends by demanding that Bush do something.

By Caroline B. Glick , JPOST

On Tuesday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had his first reported telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Their conversation was a sign of the rising intimacy in Egyptian-Iranian relations in the wake of November’s US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. According to media reports, the two men discussed the situation in Gaza.

Their conversation brought immediate results. Wednesday Mubarak allowed Hamas to take control of the international border between Egypt and Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans streamed across the border. Mubarak maintained his faith with Ahmadinejad even after the US Wednesday afternoon began demanding that he reassert Egyptian control over the border. Wednesday evening Mubarak said that the border will remain open.

Wednesday’s border takeover by Hamas was but the latest escalation of the Palestinian campaign for control over the international border. This campaign has been ongoing since Israel withdrew in 2005 and was sharply escalated after Hamas seized control over Gaza last June.

Many claim that Hamas’s aim of attaching Gaza to the rest of the Arab world by opening its border with Egypt is good for Israel because it allows Israel to disengage completely from Gaza. And there is some truth to this claim. With an open border with Egypt, Gazans will be far less dependent on Israel. To a degree this may help Israel to ease international pressure on it to continue to support Gaza by providing its Hamas-supporting population with electricity, fuel, food and employment opportunities.

But that is not the main significance of the move. Supported and directed by Iran and Syria, Hamas is uninterested in maintaining ties with Israel. Its short term goals are to end its diplomatic isolation in the West, and to force Fatah to accept its control over Gaza and reinstate open negotiations towards the reestablishment of a unity government between Fatah and Hamas.

Its medium term goals involve extending its control over Gaza to Judea and Samaria and then unifying the west and east banks of the Jordan River by overwhelming the border with Jordan in much the same way it took control over the border with Gaza.

For its part, in the lead-up to the Hamas border takeover on Wednesday and in its aftermath, Fatah has shown itself to be wholly incapable of influencing events either in Gaza or in Judea and Samaria. It has been unable, despite its massive financial resources, to in any way degrade Hamas’s popularity in Gaza. It has been unable to keep its own forces in Gaza from integrating with Hamas. It has been unable to stem Hamas’s rising popularity in Judea and Samaria.

Hamas’s border takeover was synchronized to take place at the same time as Hamas leaders were meeting with their Palestinian and Lebanese jihadist counterparts at an anti-peace conference in Damascus. The conference, held under Syrian and Iranian sponsorship was supposed to be held at the same time as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s peace conference at Annapolis. But since the State Department decided to invite Syria to attend that conference, Damascus decided to delay its anti-peace conference until this week. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas went to Syria in recent weeks to beg Syrian President Bashar Assad to cancel the conclave, organized to demonstrate Fatah’s weakness and unpopularity, but his appeals failed.

In this regard, it also bears noting that Fatah’s response to the erosion of its power has been to escalate its support for jihad. Its television and radio broadcasts are indistinguishable from Hamas’s. Its security forces in Judea and Samaria actively engage in terrorism against Israel. Its residual forces in Gaza are full partners in the rocket and mortar attacks on the Western Negev.

The strategic significance of Hamas’s border war clearly escaped the attention of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. In her address before the Herzliya Conference on Tuesday, Livni spoke as if Hamas can simply be wished away. The day before Egypt surrendered control over its border to Hamas, Livni claimed that in the Arab world, “Nobody wants to see Hamas succeed.”

Livni then went on to justify the negotiations she is holding with Fatah’s Ahmed Qurei towards and Israeli handover of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem claiming that by negotiating massive Israeli land giveaways she is preventing the Palestinian conflict with Israel from turning into a religious conflict. She also claimed separately that Israel’s conflict with Iran is not related to its conflict with the Palestinians.

All of Livni’s statements are demonstrably false. Discussing the surrender of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem with Fatah does not weaken Hamas. It strengthens Hamas. Either the discussions will succeed, in which case Hamas will seize control over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem from Fatah the minute that Israel withdraws, or the talks will fail in which case Hamas will say it just goes to show that there is nothing to talk with Israel about. It will then reunify its forces with Fatah and increase its subversion of Israel’s Arab citizens. In all cases, Hamas, with its clear vision of Israel replaced by an Islamic caliphate, comes out the winner.

Livni’s assertion that Iran is unconnected to the Palestinians is similarly ridiculous. Livni was a member of Ariel Sharon’s government in January 2002 when Israeli naval commandos seized the Iranian cargo ship *Karine A* in the Red Sea. That was a ship purchased by Fatah, filled with Iranian weapons en route to Fatah forces. It was commanded by Fatah officers and manned by Fatah sailors. Livni was there when the decision was made to use Fatah’s clear connections to Iran as a reason for not conducting negotiations with the group.

And of course, Iran today is Hamas’s primary sponsor. And its sponsorship of Hamas is facilitating Iran’s bid to secure Arab support for its war against Israel and the US. So Livni’s contention that Iran is unrelated to the Palestinians is both ridiculous and dangerous.

Livni’s championing of Fatah and continued Israeli territorial surrenders to the Palestinians is identical to her boss Ehud Olmert’s. So too, her dismissive treatment of the threat arising from Hamas’s continued control over Gaza, like her dismissive treatment of Hizbullah’s reinforcement in Lebanon and the importance of US’s retreat from strategic rationality towards Iran in the wake of the NIE, is no different from Olmert’s.

It is important to note this fact because a week before the publication of the Winograd Commission’s final report on the Second Lebanon War, Olmert’s blood is in the water. The publication this week of an open letter by fifty reserve company commanders essentially demanding that Olmert resign after the report is released is a preview of the public calls for his departure from office that will sweep the country starting January 31.

While the leaders of the radical Left in Peace Now, Meretz, and *Haaretz*are supporting Olmert’s bid to remain in office and launching smear campaigns against all forces rising against him, the fact is that even his most ardent supporters know that it will be difficult to protect Olmert from the public after the Winograd report is published. Consequently, leading figures on the Left, in Labor and Kadima are seeking ways to force Olmert out of office and replace him with Livni.

Livni escaped the public’s wrath over the consequences of the failed 2006 war with Hizbullah. During the war she took a backseat to Olmert and then defense minister Amir Peretz, rarely speaking publicly. Yet from the outset of the war Livni led the diplomatic campaign for a ceasefire. And her campaign was flawed and failed, no less, and indeed more than the military campaign.

Livni began her diplomatic machinations with two incorrect assumptions. First, she assumed that Israel could not defeat Hizbullah militarily. As a result, from the very beginning she opposed any escalation of Israel’s campaign in Lebanon. Second, she believed that the international community would agree to fight Hizbullah for Israel. As a result she worked hard to get a Chapter VII – that is legally binding – UN Security Council resolution setting up such a force.

The government’s refusal to authorize a timely ground assault in Lebanon ensured that Israel would not defeat Hizbullah. Livni’s belief that the international community would be interested in fighting Hizbullah led to Israel becoming the main champion of UNIFIL which both before and since the war has acted as a shield for Hizbullah against Israel.

And yet, Livni’s diplomatic skills couldn’t even secure her own limited and incorrect goal of securing a binding, strong international force in south Lebanon. In his book, *Surrender is not an Option*, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton wrote that on the eve of the Security Council vote on resolution 1701 which set the terms of the ceasefire, Livni complained to Rice, “You’ve given away the cease-fire, you’ve given away Chapter VII, you’ve given away Sheba Farms, now tell us why we should sign on to the resolution?”

But of course, when the next day the resolution passed unanimously in the Security Council, Livni was quick to tout it as a strategic success. And ever since, in spite of the fact that under 1701 Hizbullah has rearmed and reasserted its control over south Lebanon; paralyzed the Lebanese government; expanded its influence over the Lebanese military and intimidated UNIFIL, Livni continues to uphold the resolution as proof of her own competence. And she has yet to be called on this.

In his own speech on Wednesday at Herzliya, Olmert tried to silence critics of his government’s incompetent response to the Hamas takeover of Gaza. Olmert argued “If the quiet prevailing in the North would prevail today in the southern part of the country, would we be occupied with a daily counting of the number of rockets and missiles which would be hoarded there in storerooms?”

That is, in Olmert’s view, the nature of both Hizbullah and Hamas, their ties with Iran and Syria, and their burgeoning arsenals are unimportant. The only thing that matters is if they presently shooting at Israel. And Livni’s view is just as outrageous.

In her speech on Thursday at Davos, Livni proclaimed that the threat Iran poses to global security stems not from its nuclear weapons program and its support for terrorism but from its opposition to her negotiations with Qurei. Livni was quoted as remarking, “Iran is a global threat which threatens the peace process.”

The Olmert-Livni government’s ineptitude has brought about a situation where Israel is threatened by Iranian proxies on three borders. Its diplomatic fumbling of Iran’s nuclear program has led to a situation where Israel finds itself alone against Iran’s Manhattan Project. Its diplomatic fumbling of Hamas’s takeover of Gaza has led to a willingness of ever widening circles of Western diplomats and policymakers to recognize the jihadist movement as a legitimate actor in the region. Its diplomatic failures during the war with Hizbullah enabled Hizbullah to emerge from the war strengthened diplomatically and positioned to reignite the war whenever Iran orders it to do so.

Next week’s publication of the Winograd Commission report has the potential to finally end Olmert’s premiership. But if the post-Winograd political reshuffle is limited to replacing Olmert with Livni, Israel will be no better off.

Muslim opening prayer at Iowa Statehouse raises concerns

The prayer asked of “Victory over those who disbelieve,” and “Protection from the great Satan” among other things.

Pastor Steve Smith of the Evangelical Free Church in Albert City is among those concerned about the Muslim prayer. Rev. Smith admits that he doesn’t know about all the levels of Muslim but knows that the Jihadists believe those in the U.S. are the great Satan.

Rev. Smith also wants to point out the mention of

“victory over those who disbelieve.” He feels “this is a request in the Iowa Legislature for God to grant the Muslims victory over every non-muslim. Not a request for salvation.”

Smith takes it as a gesture not of prayer but more as a political statement, especially with the wars that have been going on in the Middle East.

“I’m not concerned about a Muslim Imam opening the Legislature in prayer but it concerns me with the statements that were made. He interpreted this prayer from his understanding of Islam.”

Here is the text of the opening prayer, as transcribed by Radio Iowa:

Imam Muhammad Khan of the Islamic Center of Des Moines spoke first in Arabic.

“I seek refuge in God against the accursed Satan in the name of God, most gracious, most merciful,” Khan said in English. Khan made no specific mention of the war in Iraq or foreign affairs, but he called God the “master of the day of judgment” and asked for “victory over those who disbelieve.”

“As we begin this new year…in a world with trials and tribulations, we ask you to open the hearts of our legislators and policy makers to make the right decisions for the people of Iowa,” Khan said. “…We ask that you guide our legislators and give them the wisdom and knowledge to tackle the difficult problems that face us today in order to eliminate the senseless crimes on humanity. Help them, Lord, to solve the complicated problems in the State of Iowa so that we can be a model to the world.”

Khan’s prayer lasted about four minutes and he closed with a few words for legislators.

“On behalf of the Muslim community of Des Moines and Iowa, I wish you all the success in this year for making the right decisions for us,” Khan said. Khan was the guest of State Representative Ako Abdul Samad of Des Moines, who is also a local Muslim leader.

Rev. Smith has urged others who may be concerned to contact their representative.
When asked about the prayer, Senator Steve Kettering replied in an e-mail that he had not heard the prayer, which did not take place in the Senate chambers.

“I cannot tell you what was said. I have received e-mail regarding this, but since it did not occur on the Senate side I do not have much information,” Kettering said. ” I should point out that the senate had a Catholic priest for their opening.”

Representative Gary Worthan of Storm Lake said that he agrees with the concern being shown over the Muslim prayer. He said that he has registered his concerns with the proper authorities.

As the father of two sons who have fought terrorism in the military, Worthan said the phrases mentioned earlier also jumped out at him and he said he shares concern for the same reasons as the constituents he is hearing from.