Perspectives on Israel from around the web
Perspectives on Israel from around the web
Ocean Guy has an apt quote from Cal Thomas.
Crossing the Rubicon2 reproduced a headline "22% of Israelis are in Mourning For a Relative or Friend Lost in a Terrorist Attack" from the Jerusalem Post.
As it relates to my brother's family:
My brother was a friend of Rabbi Shimon Biran from Yeshivat Sha'alvim.
My sister-in-law worked with the brother's of Dr. Shmuel Gilles.
My oldest nephew learned in Yeshiva with the son of Col. Dror Weinberg.
My next nephew was in the same class as one of the surviving Dickstein children.
In America we don't usually know so many people who died unnaturally. But that is the nature of this war against the Jews of Israel.
She also links to an essay by Alan Dershowitz showing how successful terror has been. It also makes me question the conclusion Daniel Pipes on the subject of "Does Terrorism in the West Help the Islamist Cause?" Pipes argues that anti-Western terror is counter-productive to Islamist goals. But I think that Dershowitz is right here. Terror put the Palesitinian cause on the map and still is justified by many among the elites of the West. The more terror against the West, the more those same people ask "Why do they hate us?" and "What can we do to make amends?" Those questions affect much of our (the Western) policy to those who would kill us and work to undermine the effectiveness of force to be used against those enemies.
Were the Palestinians expelled? Palestine Postings answers ( or Elder of Ziyon does ) with headlines. Ephraim Karsh answers with scholarship.
The fake bomb in the bus station. Jewish terror? Or a smear? Willow Tree argues that it was obviously a government plant. (Read the comments too, for a further clarification of her view.) CosmicX is suspicious too but not necessarily as certain as Willow Tree.
Normally, like Olah Chadashah in CosmicX's comments, I am suspicious of conspiracy theories. However there is precedent. I've posted on this before. In a nutshell, in September 1995 an Arab man in Halhul (near Chevron) was killed by a group of men in Israeli army uniforms who spoke some Hebrew. After the murder a representative of the extreme Israeli group Eyal called to take "credit" for the murder. For the next few days government ministers were threatening to get rid of Hevron's Jewish community and generally condemning Jews living in Yesha.
About a week later three Arabs were arrested for the murder. (A fourth apparently escaped capture.) There were, of course, no apologies from the government.
What's more disturbing is that we now know that Eyal wasn't a group. It was Avishai Raviv, a Shabak agent who was charged with spying on (and, apparently delegitmizing) Israel's nationalist camp. Some number of government ministers had to have known from the start that Eyal was Raviv and said nothing. The silence of any minister at that point was interfering with the investigation of a felony. Needless to say since Raviv got off - though he surely was more culpable than Margalit Har Shefi of not preventing PM Rabin's murder - no one else has been made to account for this dirty trick. So yes, ten years ago the government was willing to smear its opponents. It makes it easier to believe that it's happening again.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad
Posted by David Gerstman at July 14, 2005 04:00 PM
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Perspectives on Israel from around the web
Ocean Guy has an apt quote from Cal Thomas.
Crossing the Rubicon2 reproduced a headline "22% of Israelis are in Mourning For a Relative or Friend Lost in a Terrorist Attack" from the Jerusalem Post.
As it relates to my brother's family:
My brother was a friend of Rabbi Shimon Biran from Yeshivat Sha'alvim.
My sister-in-law worked with the brother's of Dr. Shmuel Gilles.
My oldest nephew learned in Yeshiva with the son of Col. Dror Weinberg.
My next nephew was in the same class as one of the surviving Dickstein children.
In America we don't usually know so many people who died unnaturally. But that is the nature of this war against the Jews of Israel.
She also links to an essay by Alan Dershowitz showing how successful terror has been. It also makes me question the conclusion Daniel Pipes on the subject of "Does Terrorism in the West Help the Islamist Cause?" Pipes argues that anti-Western terror is counter-productive to Islamist goals. But I think that Dershowitz is right here. Terror put the Palesitinian cause on the map and still is justified by many among the elites of the West. The more terror against the West, the more those same people ask "Why do they hate us?" and "What can we do to make amends?" Those questions affect much of our (the Western) policy to those who would kill us and work to undermine the effectiveness of force to be used against those enemies.
Were the Palestinians expelled? Palestine Postings answers ( or Elder of Ziyon does ) with headlines. Ephraim Karsh answers with scholarship.
The fake bomb in the bus station. Jewish terror? Or a smear? Willow Tree argues that it was obviously a government plant. (Read the comments too, for a further clarification of her view.) CosmicX is suspicious too but not necessarily as certain as Willow Tree.
Normally, like Olah Chadashah in CosmicX's comments, I am suspicious of conspiracy theories. However there is precedent. I've posted on this before. In a nutshell, in September 1995 an Arab man in Halhul (near Chevron) was killed by a group of men in Israeli army uniforms who spoke some Hebrew. After the murder a representative of the extreme Israeli group Eyal called to take "credit" for the murder. For the next few days government ministers were threatening to get rid of Hevron's Jewish community and generally condemning Jews living in Yesha.
About a week later three Arabs were arrested for the murder. (A fourth apparently escaped capture.) There were, of course, no apologies from the government.
What's more disturbing is that we now know that Eyal wasn't a group. It was Avishai Raviv, a Shabak agent who was charged with spying on (and, apparently delegitmizing) Israel's nationalist camp. Some number of government ministers had to have known from the start that Eyal was Raviv and said nothing. The silence of any minister at that point was interfering with the investigation of a felony. Needless to say since Raviv got off - though he surely was more culpable than Margalit Har Shefi of not preventing PM Rabin's murder - no one else has been made to account for this dirty trick. So yes, ten years ago the government was willing to smear its opponents. It makes it easier to believe that it's happening again.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad
Posted by David Gerstman at July 14, 2005 04:00 PM