It’s about time, no?

The Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, (the “Malam”), headed by Colonel (Res). Reuven Erlich, has released a 500 page report refuting the Goldstone Report. In a summary published in the Jerusalem Post, the report is described to mostly focus on Hamas’ activities during Operation Cast Lead, including its use of humanitarian and/or civilian structures, such as “mosques, hospitals, ambulances and schools,” as shields and launch sites. For example, over 100 mosques and hospitals were used as Kassam launch sites. A video, also, shows the use of children as human shields by Hamas.

Rather than tell you all about it, and give you my opinion on it (since I don’t really have time to read and fully analyze it at present), you can find the English version of the document here.  Below is the table of contents:

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Main Findings I

2. Part One: An examination of how the Goldstone Report relates to Hamas and the terrorist threat to Israel from the Gaza Strip before Operation Cast Lead 1

Section I –The historical-security context of Operation Cast Lead 10

Section II – The nature of Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in and from the Gaza Strip 13

Section III – Hamas-governmental support for terrorism: the de facto Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip 32

Section IV – The Hamas-led military buildup in the Gaza Strip 45

Section V – The increase in terrorism from the Gaza Strip and the events leading to Operation Cast Lead 56

Section VI – Rocket and mortar shell fire during and after Operation Cast Lead 95

Section VII– External support for terrorism: Iran and Syria support the buildup of the military infrastructures 103

3. Part Two: The Use of Civilians in the Gaza Strip as Human Shields during Operation Cast Lead 108

Main Findings 110

Section I – Hamas’ combat doctrine for urban areas and its implementation in Operation Cast Lead 117

Section II – Hamas’ military use of public and administrative institutions and facilities during Operation Cast Lead 143

Section III – Hamas’ combat tactics of fighting in densely-populated areas during Operation Cast Lead 195

4. Part Three: Integrating the Hamas police and internal security services in military-terrorist activity both routinely and during Operation Cast Lead 262

Main Findings 265

Section I – Integrating the police and other internal security services into the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades 268

Section II – Cooperation between the police, other internal security services and the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades during Operation Cast Lead 288

Section III – Police and other internal security operatives with double identities killed during and after Operation Cast Lead 297

Section IV – Sayid Siyyam as a case study: Portrait of the interior and national security minister of the de facto Hamas administration, killed by the IDF in Operation Cast Lead, an example of the double identities of senior security figures 309

5. Appendix I: Analysis of the Ratio between the Military Operative and Civilian Casualties

during Operation Cast Lead 312

Section I: Main findings of a statistical study carried out by the Israeli defense establishment compared with data from Hamas and Palestinian NGOs in the Gaza Strip 315

Section II: Reasons for the statistical divergences 317

Section III: Operation Cast Lead vs. Other Areas of Asymmetric Warfare 323

6. Appendix II: A selection of Intelligence and 325

Terrorism Information Center Bulletins Issued in recent years on issues relevant to the

Goldstone Report Overview 325

Links to Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Bulletins on key issues 326

The Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip and its significance 326

Hamas’ essential nature and its military buildup 327

The Gaza Strip as focal point for anti-Israeli terrorist activity 327

The lull in the fighting and its unilateral termination by Hamas and subsequent deliberate escalation (June –December, 2008) 330

Using the civilian population as a human shields 331

The military use of administrative and public buildings 332

The police and other internal security services integrated with Hamas’ military terrorist wing 333

Palestinian Casualties during Operation Cast Lead 334

Documents Containing Basic Relevant Information 334

Serial publications 335

This is not an easy post to write.

As our readers know, I am a dedicated Zionist and strong supporter of Israel. It is with a heavy heart, then, that I must report a development today that will probably make the life of one Palestinian a truly living hell.

Earlier today, Israeli forces in Ramallah captured a Hamas terrorist by the name of Maher Ouda. Ouda is in his mid-forties and accused of being involved in the murder of at least 10 Israelis and possibly as many as 70 Israelis.

Well, tough luck for Ouda because now he’s really going to suffer. In an Israeli prison.

How do I know this?

Because today, Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah terrorist leader widely held to be the “Nelson Mandela” of the Palestinians who will apparently merely need to be released in order to bring them to some sort of, uh, holy land, showed the world what it means to be incarcerated in an Israeli jail for the murder of four Israeli civilians and the attempted murder of one.

Yes indeed. Today, Marwan Barghouti completed his doctorate.

He has finished his thesis and other obligations!! He is going to be considered by a faculty committee at an Egyptian university as to whether he has completed all of his obligations towards a Ph.D.

Now at this point, you’re thinking, “Those horrid, vicious Israelis must have broken his thumbs so that he had to type with eight fingers.” Nope, it doesn’t say that in the story.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Surely some NGOs financed by Naomi Chazan’s New Israel Fund are planning to sue the Israel prison system for “shaking” Barghouti until all his knowledge spilled out.” Nope, as far as I know, the NGOs are busy undermining Israel with important accusations.

Your mind is telling you, “Well, hell, of course he had time to finish a doctorate, what else is he going to do?” Well, Israeli prisons permit conjugal visits, just ask Samir Kontar, the Lebanese terrorist and murderer who killed a little girl after murdering her dad in front of her and forcing her to watch. Yup, Samir got married and had conjugal visits during his horrendous stay in an Israeli prison.

Now you’re thinking, “Get outta here!”

Nope. It’s all true and I’m staying.

How did Barghouti get his degree?

Barghouti, 50, is one of several hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons who enroll in studies at universities around the world, including in Israel.
…
Barghouti was able to complete his thesis with the help of hundreds of books and documents that Israeli authorities allow inmates to bring into prison.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are currently enrolled as students with the Open University of Israel, which facilitates their studies by allowing them to sit exams in jail.

You’re thinking, “Sure, only ‘hundreds’ of prisoners are enrolled in university studies, but there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Ha!”

Maybe so, but some are still completing their high school studies. They’ll have opportunities in future arrests, especially if murder is involved.

That’s right, all you need to do is murder or plan to murder some Israelis and then you get to study for a number of years, generally uninterrupted except for the pesky conjugal visits or management duties for your in-prison political machinery that influences Palestinians outside prison.

And you don’t really need to worry about the 4 life sentences imposed upon you by the dastardly Israelis because at some point a live or dead Israeli soldier will be traded for your release and that of a thousand or so others. It’s not a question of “if” but “when?”

The sweetest part of the story is that it’s obvious that Israel wants to help the international community support the Palestinians as much as possible. Sure, the Palestinians get billions of dollars in aid from UNWRA and other bodies, but they don’t need to waste that money on things like education. After all, the Israelis will take care of any gaps. You didn’t believe me about the high school studies, but now you will:

Barghouti, who is also a Fatah member on the Palestinian Legislative Council, completed his high school exams while in Israeli prison in 1980.

See? I told you this was a painful post to write. I can only imagine the pain Maher Ouda is going through right now as he decides whether to apply for an MA degree. Poli Sci or Sociology? If only the Zionist occupiers would stop with the newspapers, television and radio available in Arabic, Hebrew and English and start offering cooking and yoga classes!

And yet…

“Dr. Marwan Barghouti.”

It has a nice ring to it.

Marwan Barghouti Thanks His Jailers for Their Kind Offer to Subsidize His Education

Tel Aviv Storm

Both photos taken by the talented Tommy Junger from his Tel Aviv-Jaffa collection.

Sunset * Tel Aviv

A rough week diplomatically for Israel. Fortunately, it remains a beautiful and vibrant place, despite setbacks.

Shabbat shalom!!

Two weeks ago Los Angeles was rocked by a Purim party of Olympic proportions. JConnectLA, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, and Atid – the young professional group of Sinai Temple and took over the entire Rodeo Collection on Rodeo drive. Music was provided by Moshav, Ram2, DJ Miles, and one of LA’s top DJ’s DJ Felli Fel.

When the party hit about 1000 people, the Beverly Hills Fire Marshall said enough. Purimpalooza party goers filled Purim baskets that were delivered to the Jewish elderly, and a local bone marrow registry swabbed party goers for bone marrow matches.

Purimpalooza in LA was started by Cheston Mizel, when he began the organization that became JConnectLA. The first event drew about 50-75 people. Purimpalooza has grown from year to year, changing venues and designs.

I just want to give a huge mazal tov to all the organizers, and the participants, for making the dream blossom that started seven years ago – an event to draw together Jews from all backgrounds – to help unify, inspire, and connect young Jewish people in Los Angeles. Shabbat Shalom!

Co-Sponsors: Valley Alliance, LEV Foundation, Jewlicious Festivals, Chai Center
Partners: Jews for Judaism, JAMS (of USC), Sephardic Mizrahi Young Leadership (SMYL), LA Jewish Chamber of Commerce, Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters
Media Sponsor: www.LosAngelesBlueprint.com

So I called the Israeli government amateurish and blamed them for recent debacles relating to Israel, especially the announcement of 1600 new units in Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem, on the eve of new peace talks with the Palestinians while US VP Biden was on a “let’s get everybody on the same page” tour of the Holy Land.

One of the points I made in the ensuing debates is that Israel snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. After a year of stalling by the Palestinians, the Israelis with a right wing government in place managed to enlighten the world that there were no peace talks because of the Palestinians, not the Israelis. The world believed and pushed the Palestinians back to the table.

Needless to say, the new construction announcement has given them a perfect excuse to avoid talks again, and allows them to put the blame on Israel. Not only can they blame Israel for the breakdown in talks, but they can retroactively claim that their previously-expressed reservations about going into talks with Israel were justified, as were their demands to halt all “settlement” construction not only in Judea and Samaria/West Bank but also in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Post tells us:

…On Friday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he and Tunisia’s leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, have begun to discuss how the Arab League should respond to an Israeli plan for new construction in Ramat Shlomo.

Speaking during a visit to Tunisia, Abbas said Israel’s move “got in the way of” plans to begin US-mediated indirect talks with Israel.

And the Americans are laying it on thick, trying to reclaim the supposedly deteriorated confidence of the Arabs,

In a bid to salvage those negotiations, Mitchell and the top US diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Arab League chief Amr Moussa and the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates over the past two days, Crowley said.

“We have reached out … to a range of leaders,” he said. “We jointly remain committed to this process, acknowledging that, obviously, it is a difficult environment, given the Israeli statement.”

Boo hoo and sob! Amr Moussa’s poor old feelings must be shattered. He deserves a massage and champagne, preferably provided by an attractive US State Department employee.

Of course, one US government female employee isn’t available to provide this service to Mr. Moussa and his cronies. She’s busy yelling at Netanyahu.

The US State Department said Clinton spoke to Netanyahu by phone for 43 minutes to vent US frustration with Tuesday’s announcement that cast a pall over a visit to Israel by US Vice President Joe Biden and endangered the indirect peace talks with the Palestinians that the Obama administration had announced just a day earlier.

Clinton called “to make clear that the United States considered the announcement to be a deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship and counter to the spirit of the vice president’s trip,” department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

“The secretary said she could not understand how this happened, particularly in light of the United States’ strong commitment to Israel’s security and she made clear that the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process,” he said.

43 minutes!!! Clinton yelled at him for 43 minutes! You’d think he was given oral sex by Monica Lewinsky.

Well, actually, this is worse. Nobody in Israel can claim to have enjoyed blissful physical pleasure by announcing the construction on that particular day. I mean, Bill Clinton can at least explain what happened by alluding to the loneliness of being President, the need to have his ego massaged, the type of mid-life crisis many men go through at that age and the fact that except in some authors’ or screenwriters’ active imaginations, it really is unusual to have a woman agree to provide oral sex under the desk like a good little servant while the man is on the phone doing business.

Forty three minutes of yelling would seem fair under those circumstances. Netanyahu, of course, must be pretty pissed off since he got the 43 minutes of yelling, but received no reward. In fact, he must be pretty afraid at this point that the Americans will force another Wye Accords-type agreement down this throat, just as they did in 1998 when he agreed to remove Israeli forces from key areas of Judea and Samaria/West Bank.

Hmmmm…how to repay Netanyahu for all of the pressure and yelling coming at him from the Americans?

Hey, I know! Let’s get Eli Yishai, the minister whose ministry announced the construction right in the middle of Biden’s visit, to repay him somehow. Repay with something that’s worth 43 minutes of berating by Hillary.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky & Maharat Sara Hurwitz

while Orthodoxy literally means “correct belief” but in actuality encompasses an entire range of thought and behavior that is regulated by Torah, Orthopraxy (”correct action”) is much more limited in scope, requiring only the adherence to certain behavioral norms without any semblance of philosophical commitment to the system from which such behavioral norms emerged.

And further describes them as

an informal, incognito group of unknown size and scope who, for the most part, practice halachic norms but do not really believe in God (or that He chose us as the nation that would carry His moral message to mankind) or understand what they are doing. They might not even believe in the divine origin of the Torah, but identify themselves with the Orthodox community for social, ethnic, cultural or even aesthetic reasons.

In the course of his article, he argues against Orthoprax’ outward practices but otherwise empty inner spiritual life. What Rabbi Pruzansky engages is a polemic against such an modus operandi and further describes Orthopraxy as something that “transcends all the traditional (and artificial) divisions in Orthodox life. It compasses right wing and left wing, modern, centrist and yeshivish, haredi and non-haredi alike.” Rabbi Pruzansky aims to prod the Orthoprax in the world towards better standards of behavior as well as thought. However, it could also come as detrimental to pushing those who are within the Orthoprax camp to feeling bad about their observance. Granted, there are plenty of places in North America where having Jews be Orthoprax is a higher level of observance than they would otherwise have been. Moreover, there is also a danger of תפסת מרובה לא תפסת תפסת מועט תפסת* – that is, some Orthoprax that may feel that it’s not for them, and not try to also develop inner Jewish beliefs, etc.
As to his proposed solution to his developing a problematic, he says

How do we triumph over Orthopraxy and reconnect our divine service to God? We can – must – infuse our mitzvot with a recognition of their divine imperative by returning to fundamentals. We should study ourselves, and teach our children, not only “how” we do things but also “why.” We all must learn the details of the mitzvot – from Shabbat to Pesach, from kashrut to monetary integrity, from the laws of Chanukah to the laws of Tisha B’Av – but also the framework of those mitzvot, how they combine to create a faithful, moral, decent servant of Hashem.

The one problem with this solution is that the answer consists of learning הלכה (Jewish way, practices) and not השקפה (Jewish outlooks) and, for someone who is not that familiar with Orthodox thought, is not tremendously helpful. In any event, I like הלכה and I’m all for studying it, but that may be an unsatisfactory solution for this issue of Rabbi Pruzansky’s.
Neverthless, Rabbi Pruzansky throws in the following:

Orthopraxy underlies such phenomena as the female clergy, the Partnership Minyanim (in which women chant portions of the davening, and a quorum of both ten men and ten women are needed to begin services), and the integration of Christians into special worship services.

Although I have no idea as to what Rabbi Pruzansky when he mentions “the integration of Christians into special worship services”, “female clergy” is nothing more than a reference to Maharat Hurwitz, who has been in the news lately, as a title change to Rabba(h) was proposed and then taken back by Rabbi Avi Weiss along with the development of Yeshivat Maharat. “Partnership minyanim” are what they sound like. As to the latter two topics, Rabbi Pruzansky clearly does not understand that these are not Orthoprax inventions. Granted, they are not typical Orthodox institutions, nevertheless, that is not what underlies them. For Jewishly-learned women aspiring to roles whereby they can use their personalities and Torah knowledge to serve our people, involves many factors, the primary of which is sociological. Since there are these תלמידות חכמים (learned Jewish women) who are ready, able, and willing to spread their Jewish wisdom, are they supposed to just sit on their knowledge and not work in the Jewish communal field? When I lived in New York, I knew several young ladies who were disappointed that after studying for years, they couldn’t go further with their training and had to go into teaching science or become librarians, etc. Granted, on the other hand, I can understand the uncomfortability that some of our fellow Orthodox brethren feel regarding such a move, with such a change. In fact, while I was an undergraduate student working on an anthropology paper with another student on women rabbis, I came up with a rough draft of an introduction that would explain why women should not be rabbis (the paper did not include this introduction).
As to partnership minyanim, they hew to halakhah, albeit with debate on how certain issues of halakhah are understood. Interestingly, Rabbi Pruzansky elsewhere points out that “it is surprising to see that many ModOs are such textual fanatics” – that is there is such a careful looking at halakhah amongst us Modern Orthodox. Now, this falls into the precise suggestion of his quoted above that “we should study ourselves, and teach our children, not only ‘how’ we do things but also ‘why.’ We all must learn the details of the mitzvot….” This is what the Modern Orthodox do – investigate halakhah. However, apparently, learning halakhah is not sufficient for Rabbi Pruzansky, as he describes in the latter piece, that some things are just meta-halakhic issues….

—
* A term meaning you reach for a lot, [stuff will fall out of your hand and] you won’t grasp it; you grab for a little bit, you will have grasped. It is a stammaitic term found twice in the Babylonian Talmud: once on Yoma 80a and once on Rosh HaShanah 4b (although, in the latter reference, it is תפשת מרובה לא תפשת תפשת מועט תפשת.

From Seth Cohen at Boundless Drama of Creation Blog – a discussion about a school in North Carolina that is 40k short and will close. The parents created the school from scratch in 2006.

There are nineteen Jewish children in Asheville, North Carolina, far from the Jewish centers of life in New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta. These children are getting a daily dose of Jewish education, culture and language, and they are sharing experiences that will help cement their identities for years to come. They may go elsewhere in life, far from Asheville – perhaps even to our own communities. We know this.

So with all we know, let me ask this – will we, the Jewish people, let this school fail? And if we do, what does it mean about what we say?

Please read the whole story if you have a chance. This issue is huge – there are many facets. Perhaps they are better off in a public school with a really good after-school program?

From a halachic perspective it is fairly clear that these children’s education comes before even paying the mortgage on a shul, or any other program, except giving out food and money to the poor – it is that important.

Today I’m reposting my Jewish Week story for this week, because it is perhaps one of the craziest stories I have ever written. Enjoy, and feel free to leave comments below.

The Curse That Rocked Great Neck

Rabbi Mordechai Aderet: Party crasher frightens guests.

Like biblical plagues raining down on them from an angry God, the white-bearded, black-hatted rabbi laid a string of curses upon the unsuspecting suburban partygoers. Banging a siddur on a table and screaming “Shema Yisrael,” the rabbi, accompanied by a four-man entourage — all of whom had burst into a Great Neck home — lit into those gathered for an evening of celebration, mixed dancing and traditional Iranian fare in honor of a little girl’s first birthday.

After “shrieking Hebrew oaths,” the “uninvited” rabbi launched into a “lengthy diatribe” during which he told those who chose to remain at the party that they would be cursed with “illness, bankruptcy and tragedy for eternity,” according to a petition signed by some of those in attendance.

“They just came right in like a storm, inside the middle of the party,” said a woman who attended the December party but, like many others contacted by The Jewish Week, asked to remain anonymous because she fears for her safety. “They started to curse everybody, saying — ‘You’re going to have tragedies, everyone who stays here.’”

Guests and their children were allegedly so frightened by the rabbi’s intrusion that many left, while others stood shaking and crying, according to those in attendance.

After the rabbi left, rumors began circulating around the community about the presence of naked women at the party. Those in attendance suspect the rabbi and his men of spreading the reports.

The actions of Rabbi Mordechai Aderet — and the sheer incongruity of medieval-like curses being hurled at well-off Persian Jews in Great Neck, of all places — have sent shockwaves through the local Jewish community.

Other rabbis in the community seem stunned by Rabbi Aderet’s alleged behavior. Those at the party drafted an emotional memo to a Great Neck bet din detailing their “deep distress, sadness and anger” over the rabbi’s actions. It urged the rabbis making up the religious court to “use your influence to prevail upon your colleague to cease and desist from his unauthorized, illegal and unethical harassment of members of our community.”

And the bet din, run by Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Haim, in turn circulated a letter among Great Neck rabbis that referenced the incident, but without mentioning Rabbi Aderet’s name, according to those who saw it. Only one rabbi is believed to have signed the letter.

“No one else wanted to even get near it,” said the one signatory, Rabbi Yamin Levy, who is vice president of yeshiva affairs at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and serves as a part-time rabbi at a Great Neck congregation, Beth Hadassah. “Rabbis don’t want to go on record as appearing like they’re against a colleague.”

Reached by phone, Rabbi Ben-Haim said he would not comment on Rabbi Aderet, then hung up. Rabbi Aderet refused to speak with The Jewish Week himself but asked that the paper call one of his main supporters who would speak on the rabbi’s behalf.

In an indication of how controversial Rabbi Aderet has become in Great Neck, the congregant tapped to speak for him would not agree to use his name, saying that his business might suffer from the association.

“They [the partygoers] exaggerated the event in order to take revenge against Rabbi Aderet and the Orthodox Jewish community because they don’t want Great Neck to become Orthodox,” Rabbi Aderet’s supporter said. “They don’t want another Five Towns.”

The supporter, who accompanied Rabbi Aderet to the party, claims he was invited, though he could not produce an invitation. Partygoers say Rabbi Aderet was not invited and that invitations were sent out to all of those on the guest list.

Rabbi Aderet’s supporter suggested The Jewish Week call Rabbi Avraham Cohen of Torah Va Danesh, an Orthodox synagogue in Great Neck, for comment. When reached, the rabbi said through a secretary that he “doesn’t want to get involved.” Continue reading…

Early this morning I was rudely awakened by friends warning me that my personal blog was hacked. What? Was this a joke? Why would my new personal blog, which has a daily readership of less than 15, be targeted by hackers?

Was it because I am Jewish? Because I’m a staunch supporter of Israel? Or because my WordPress blog invited these hackers? I guess we’ll never know. (Update: My hosting service was able to resolve and fix the issue. My blog is safe to visit. Thank you Fatcow!)

But what my good friends on Facebook discovered is that the self proclaimed “Turkish Muslim” hackers (see image above) from thehacking.org are run by a gun toting fanatic … with (shockingly) a Facebook profile.

Is there something we can do about these hackers, terrorists, and hacking-terrorists online?

I’d love to hear your ideas.