The first Endgame post included the following:

Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian PM, has established a two year plan for creating the infrastructure of a Palestinian state. This has been described by the Palestinians as a proactive measure intended to lay the groundwork for peace. However, they have also made it clear that if no “peace” is forthcoming, then they will take their preparations and declare a state unilaterally. While it’s doubtful they would do so, the point of the exercise is to be ready and to function like a proper government in the view of the world’s western nations. It is also, of course to place pressure on Israel because Israel would end up losing a great deal of negotiating leverage if the world accepts a new Palestinian state. Also, becoming a high contracting party gives the Palestinians some advantages they do not currently enjoy on the diplomatic and other fronts.

In the comments, I added:

…the benefits will be of unilateral statehood by the Palestinians…

Part of the strategy, in my opinion, is to scare Israel into believing the Palestinians will actually unilaterally declare statehood. The way they will do it in order to get approval and recognition by other states is to couch their language carefully so it appears they agree to 1967 borders including Jerusalem, but the weak language will permit the Palestinian entity to actually pursue statehood encompassing all of Israel.

The benefits of statehood are many. Right now, on many international conventions, the Palestinians have no status because they’re not a “high contracting party,” i.e. a state. The minute they become a state with status among all nations, they can make many demands that they are precluded from making right now. Just as one example, consider that they had to ask the UNHRC to deal with the Goldstone Report by having other countries do their bidding. As a state, they could have taken diplomatic steps directly and on their own. The Hague and UNESCO conventions also deal with high contracting parties differently than with non-state actors.

and:

It’s a win-win strategy. If you threaten a state with all the implications, it may get the Israelis to give up more. If they don’t fall for it and you actually declare a state, you couch your language in a way that keeps claim over all of Israel (since negotiations were never completed) and you benefit from all the benefits attendant to high contracting parties.

and:

How do the Palestinians view the two states? What the stats I quoted [from a poll mentioned in the comments] show is that [they believe] the state we’ll call Palestine will have absolutely no Jews in it, since 98% of Palestinians believe it is essential that all the settlers should leave the occupied territories/West Bank. The question doesn’t state whether this includes east Jerusalem, but I suspect that for many of them it does.

The other state they would allow…will be called Israel. [For them] it will be composed of Jewish Israelis, non-Jewish Israelis of whom most are Arabs, and… all those Palestinian “refugees” (by which they mean all Palestinians) that also move into Israel. We know that they view this as part of the second state because a full 87% of Palestinians state it is essential that refugees be given the right to move into Israel AND receive compensation. A full 48% consider any alternative as unacceptable and 75% are in the “unacceptable” column regarding any sort of limitation on the numbers of refugees.

And

When you know what you are up against, you change tactics. The idea is that we’ve entered a period where the Palestinians intend to use means other than suicide bombs to achieve their goals, and what I’m reading from their behavior is supreme confidence about the outcome of their various campaigns around the globe.

Of course, Israel did not change tactics.

In the second endgame post, I expanded on the thesis and spoke of the numerous Palestinian bluffs. Among other things I referred to my bluff #2, the declaration of a Palestinian state. Two of the things said about that were:

#2 may happen, but everybody must know that there is absolutely no way that Israel would ever again leave the Western Wall or the Temple Mount. Since the trial balloon floated here provides the Palestinians with everything the Jordanians and Egyptians held in 1949, including the Temple Mount and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, there is no way Israel would ever permit this to happen. In other words, the world would be signing off on an interminable war. I doubt that any serious thinking western diplomat would ever let their governments go that route.

and

I was asked why Fayyad would propose a state…My response was that it’s a win-win threat to make. It scares the Israelis and may get them to make additional concessions to avoid this outcome, and if it doesn’t scare the Israelis and somehow a Palestinian state comes into being, the manner of its coming into being will ensure that they can proceed to demand the rest of Israel. The process of seeking to make Israel into part of Palestine continues in one way or another.

and in the comments I predicted:

Obama’s administration will not buy it and will not give in to this trial balloon. Clinton – the former President Clinton – was there in person when the Israelis offered his plan to the Palestinians and were refused. He knows what is on the line here and there is no way that a White House with a Clinton in it, even if not in the Oval Office, will think for a minute that this is a line that can be crossed with Israel.

There is no way that a President with Rahm as an adviser could be ignorant about the implications of modifying 242 or giving the Palestinians unilateral reign over the Jewish Quarter and the Temple Mount.

I closed my comments by predicting that:

My prediction is that all these bluffs will play well in the US and poorly in Israel. They [Palestinians] will probably get further concessions out of the Americans…and therefore from the Israelis.

It’s all one big game, however, and that’s the long term prediction here: they will keep things just at a simmer (turning up the heat when needed as they’re doing now) for as long as possible.

In the third Endgame post I wrote:

If they end up having to somehow actually go through with a declaration of statehood, then if they do have the blessing of the UN Security Council and especially if they modify UNSCR 242 and 338, then according to international law, east Jerusalem would become East Jerusalem and the official Palestinian capital. However…if this were to happen, the Palestinians would build in some mechanism that allows them to continue to seek the remainder of the land between the River to the Sea. In other words, it’s just another stop-gap in their master plan.

And I quoted from Salam Fayyad’s two year statehood plan to make my point:

Though the issue of refugees will be addressed in the final status negotiations, it is certain that no political settlement can be accepted by Palestinians without a just and agreed solution to this fundamental issue in accordance with international resolutions, including UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

The refugee issue will remain under the jurisdiction of the PLO, through its Department of Refugees’ Affairs. The Government affirms its full commitment to all PLO decisions in relation to this issue. Within limits of its jurisdiction, without derogation of PLO’s responsibility…

And I translated this:

Translation:
We are never going to accept any conclusion to the conflict without acquiring a right for all Palestinians to move into Israel. In order to avoid this appearing to be messy or part of our aggression as a newly formed government, we’re going to remove this issue from our government.

The conclusion was simple:

Thirty two government agencies are going to function in the new, never-before seen state of Palestine, but the refugee problem is handed off to the PLO. Why would they do that if they thought the achievement of statehood would be sufficient? They wouldn’t. The PLO is going to be the address for those things that a “state” couldn’t and wouldn’t do. Any fighting that takes place, any attacks, any language that is deemed too aggressive will be blamed on the PLO, and of course “refugee rights,” not the new state of Palestine.

They also are demanding that UNGA resolution 194, the so-called “right of return” resolution which the Arabs rejected when it was first presented 60 years ago, become the governing rule for the Palestinian refugees. UNGAR 194 is a Trojan Horse, code for the desire to recreate demographics so that Israel could stop being a Jewish state. It is a desire to return not to 1967/1949 lines, but a desire to return to 1920 lines.

Have you guys been watching the latest flags in photos coming out of the PA? Take a look at the logo they created for this UN state campaign – you can see they put “194″ right next to “Palestine:”

UN General Assembly Resolution 194 goes back to 1949 and has language about the return of refugees to their homes. The Arabs rejected it, but these days this resolution is their best friend because they claim it is the foundation of their claim for a “right of return.” We won’t get into whether they have a case (they don’t) but more important is the implication here. The Palestinians are asking for a state called Palestine in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem, and as part of that state, they expect to have UNGAR 194 also come into being. So the new Palestine is not the endgame, it is merely a tactic within the endgame.

We are watching grand theater here; it’s very sophisticated diplomacy by the Palestinians. There’s a reason they keep photographing Abbas smiling, he has led his army to a battlefield victory. What he has done is successfully delay and dodge negotiations for as long as Obama has been in power. He succeeded in having Obama impose a precedent of stoppage of all settlement construction with eastern Jerusalem as part of that equation. He drove a wedge between the White House and Israel’s Prime Minister’s office. He has kept everybody off-balance by having different government officials make conflicting public statements about the Palestinian agenda. And then, just when it became clear that Obama was showing fatigue and was busy fighting Republicans and the economic malaise in the USA, Abbas moved forward with the UN statehood bid.

The anticipated benefits of the bid include the possible weakening or disengagement of the US from its hand-holding of the peace process and from Israel; providing a stronger role and influence to the Europeans, who tend to have populations and governments sympathetic to the Palestinians; winning all sorts of advantages in negotiations as others offer concessions to stop the statehood bid; the possibility of getting a state without making any concessions at all AND also generating a stronger diplomatic presence to pursue the refugee “return” issue (194) to the forefront.

Obama, must have been quite angry with Abbas. After all the support he gave the Palestinians and the pressure and demands he had placed on Israel, Abbas was now maneuvering with the Palestinians’ best self-interests even if it meant harming the US at the UN and internationally. Frantically trying to save Obama’s lousy Middle-East policy, one can only imagine all the concessions the Americans forced Israel to accept this week to try to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. And still the Palestinians said no. Why no? Because they know they are weakening the US greatly and putting a real wedge between Israel and the US while also creating a serious problem for the US as it seeks to maintain its Arab allies and friends. Whatever happens now, state or no state, the Palestinians pocket the advances made and use them as a baseline for any future talks.

Oh, and all this talk about how they’ll be made to pay a price for this action? They know it’s meaningless. They will simply threaten everyone that they’ll have to disintegrate their government or the PA or else…The money will be sent immediately.

They are winning this one by a landslide. It turns out that between Arafat and Abbas, Abbas is the shrewder one.

As for the speeches at the UN, I have to say that Netanyahu surprised with his effective speech, Abbas did not surprise with his speech riddled with falsehoods and Obama appears to have finally awakened to the little snow-job Abbas pulled on him and finally understands why Israel needs to have some real security.

Make no mistake, though, this is a huge victory for the Palestinians – an avoidable one, which Israel handled very poorly (there were many ways to handle this – I suggested an extreme one in this post and also in this post – and it’s going to be hard for Israel and even the US to regain leverage in talks in the future. Or worse, there will be an unofficial state declared and Israel will have to deal with all the legal pressure the Palestinians bring down on them.

BDS is for the birds
by: themiddle

He said,

“You have to ask yourself, are we funding an arms race on both sides? I have a lot of sympathy and respect for Israel as a democratic nation, as, you know, a fountain of peace and a fountain of democracy within the Middle East. But at the same time, I don’t think funding both sides of the arm race, particularly when we have to borrow the money from China to send it to someone else. We just can’t do it anymore. The debt is all- consuming and it threatens our well-being as a country.”

This is not an unreasonable statement, although it certainly deserves to be debated. As expected, this caused a significant outcry on the part of many politicians, especially among some happy Democrats who could finally beat up on a Republican politician on the issue of Israel after the Republicans have run roughshod over the Dems since Obama first hosted Netanyahu at the White House and did it late in the evening, through a side door and didn’t permit release of any official photos of the visit.

Not surprisingly, J Street, the lobby group that supports Israel by advocating for the Palestinians, criticized Paul for his statement.

J Street is alarmed by Senator Rand Paul’s suggestion that the United States should end all foreign aid, including to Israel.

The foreign operations bill is a pillar of the US-Israel relationship and advances American diplomatic objectives by providing aid not just to Israel but to key partners in the Middle East and elsewhere across the globe.

Senator Paul’s proposal would undermine the decades-long bipartisan consensus on U.S. support for Israel. Any erosion of support should concern Israel’s friends on both sides of the political aisle, and we call in particular on leaders and donors in Senator Paul’s party to repudiate his comments and ensure that American leadership around the world is not threatened by this irresponsible proposal.

Did you get that? J Street is worried that Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians (“key partners in the Middle East”) won’t receive any more US aid. Fair enough, they want to ensure that the US maintain a position of influence, and foreign aid has an impact in this regard.

However, J Street hilariously continues to explain their concern about Rand’s statement explaining that his statement could undermine the “decades-long bipartisan consensus on US support for Israel.”

Talk about hypocrisy. It was just a few days ago that we discussed J Street’s attack on a Republican politician who often sides with Israel, but who criticized the hanging of a Palestinian flag on the Palestinian DC mission’s building.

Apparently, J Street is fine attacking a Republican politician who opposes unilateral steps that benefit Palestinians, just as they are fine attacking a Republican politician who suggests cutting off aid to Israel, Egypt, Jordan and, of course, the Palestinians. What are the two items that we have in common here? In both cases J Street attacks Republicans and in both cases they oppose initiatives that might do damage to the Palestinians.

The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

Sure, some J Streeter might come on here and try to explain that the complaint about Rand’s statement reflects concern for Israel’s funding, but if that’s the case, why mention the other parties who receive aid in the press statement? And why attack a Republican senator on the basis of creating a schism in bipartisan support of Israel when one week earlier, in a matter of utmost importance to the Palestinians but that actually hurt Israel, J Street had no problem attacking a different Republican?

J Street’s actions indicate that it is partisan. It sides with the Democrats while attacking Republicans. To them it is immaterial whether the individual in question supports Israel or not. Rather, they focus on their party affiliation. Then they have the chutzpah to complain that somebody else is seeking to undermine the bipartisan support for Israel in American politics.

This is the same J Street that announced their support of the Palestinian initiative to pass a resolution in the UN Security Council criticizing Israeli “settlements.” Of course, the Palestinians consider the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem a settlement as well. Apparently, so does J Street. Otherwise, they would not support such a resolution which openly seeks to harm Israel and establish facts that circumvent UNSCR 242 and the Oslo Accords.

The J Street agenda is transparent. It is not Israel-friendly and it is partisan in support of American Democrats.

Article 1
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God’s prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution, Arabic is its language and Riyadh is its capital.

And yet today the 128-seat Fatah Revolutionary Council announced:

“The council also renews its refusal for the establishment of any racist state based on religion in accordance with international law and human rights conventions.”

Now, of course they were referring to Israel, which has asked the Palestinians to recognize it as a Jewish state as part of any peace agreement. To this, the legislative body of the Fatah party – the party which is parent to the PLO and currently to the Palestinian Authority – has responded:

The council affirms its rejection of the so-called Jewish state or any other formula that could achieve this goal.

This comes on the heels of the PA taking an official position on the fact that the Jewish people have absolutely no connection to the Western Wall at the Temple Mount, or to the Temple Mount itself. According to them, the site is owned by an Algerian Muslim family and has no connection to the Jews whatsoever.

As for racist states, as described by Fatah, strangely enough the countries that best meet its criteria are Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Oman, Pakistan, and Yemen or states that declare Islam to be their state religion such as Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates.

Israel, on the other hand, is a model of contrasts with all of the states described above. It is democratic, it offers full freedom of religion, it has about 20% non-Jews who have citizenship and full civil rights just like the state’s majority Jews and it continuously seeks to make peace with the Arab and Muslim world.

But wait, it gets better. You see, the Palestinians have a constitution draft waiting to be implemented. It was commissioned by Arafat in 1999 and organized by Nabil Sha’ath who led the constitutional committee appointed by Arafat and who remains a key player in the PA today. The committee’s mandate and efforts were endorsed by the Central Council of the PLO in its various meetings during 2000. And what does the Palestinian constitution-in-waiting declare?

Article 3

The Palestinian people are a part of the Arab and Islamic nations.

Article 6

Islam shall be the official religion of the state. The monotheistic religions shall be respected.

Article 7

The principles of the Islamic Shari`a are a primary source for legislation.

Yes, yes, yes indeed. The Fatah Revolutionary Council, one of the two governing bodies behind the Palestinian Authority, has declared any future Palestinian state racist while maintaining that it has the right to declare a future Islamic state called Palestine…but, on the other hand, the Jews have no right to declare Israel Jewish and by doing so they are violating international laws and being racists.

I can’t wait to hear how the Palestinian supporters, especially Jewish ones, explain this one away.

By the way, the IDF has announced that 180,000 Palestinians were treated in Israeli hospitals this year, or about 500 a day, including 3000 emergency cases. Racists!

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and ARC International are deeply disappointed with yesterday’s vote in the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly to remove a reference to sexual orientation from a resolution on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. The resolution urges States to protect the right to life of all people, including by calling on states to investigate killings based on discriminatory grounds. For the past 10 years, the resolution has included sexual orientation in the list of discriminatory grounds on which killings are often based.

The removed reference was originally contained in a non-exhaustive list in the resolution highlighting the many groups of people that are particularly targeted by killings – including persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, persons acting as human rights defenders (such as lawyers, journalists or demonstrators) as well as street children and members of indigenous communities. Mentioning sexual orientation as a basis on which people are targeted for killing highlights a situation in which particular vigilance is required in order for all people to be afforded equal protection.

…

“This vote is a dangerous and disturbing development,” said Cary Alan Johnson, Executive Director of IGLHRC. “It essentially removes the important recognition of the particular vulnerability faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people – a recognition that is crucial at a time when 76 countries around the world criminalize homosexuality, five consider it a capital crime, and countries like Uganda are considering adding the death penalty to their laws criminalizing homosexuality.”

Would y’all like to see the list of countries that supported this change? Sure you would.

In favor of the amendment to remove sexual orientation from the resolution on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (79):

Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Brunei Dar-Sala, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Now let’s look at the opponents:

Opposed to the amendment to remove sexual orientation from the resolution on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (70):

Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bhutan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Micronesia (FS), Monaco, Montenegro, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Samoa, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela

Next time Queers Against Israeli Apartheid hijacks a gay pride parade with their anti-Israel activism, or John Greyson makes some lame video asking Elton John not to perform in Israel, make sure to remember this vote.

I know, I know, you are asking yourselves how the Palestinians would vote if they had a state. Would they vote like Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen? Or would they vote like Micronesia, Uruguay and…Israel?

Here’s a hint.

h/t Blazing Cat Fur

On the Day of Atonement, when considering wrongs to other human beings for which you bear some responsibility, start with the children of Area C.

To say this was troubling to me would be an understatement, so I decided to investigate Ms. Atwood’s accusation.

Atwood quotes a report from a group called Save the Children. This is a first-rate name for an NGO – who doesn’t want to save the children?! This NGO, funded by the European Union, is the kind of group which wrote an entire report about the Gaza buffer zone and the hardship it causes Gazans without any mention of the reasons behind the zone. Nope, no rockets launched at Israel in this report or Israeli children from the Western Negev getting shelled regularly from the Gaza buffer zone. Israeli children apparently don’t need saving.

Already skeptical, I read the Save the Children report which Atwood quotes in the Ha’aretz op-ed entitled “Life on the Edge.” I couldn’t find the information she described. The statistics she lists appear nowhere in that report and there is no portion of the report dealing with nutrition of children in Area C. There is a section asking the surveyed Palestinians of Area C whether they have sufficient food security and 5% say they have none, but this information is not broken down further to propose how children are affected.

Be that as it may, I thought that perhaps Ms. Atwood erred in quoting this report and that Ha’aretz doesn’t employ fact-checkers when the issue relates to some purported Israeli evil being done to the Palestinians. So I looked around and I believe I figured out what happened.

Al Jazeera posted an article describing a pending report by Save the Children in which, according to the reporter, the NGO was going to describe how Palestinian children in Area C are suffering from malnutrition and stunted growth. Save the Children, however, never included this information in their report. Somehow, however, it appears the Al Jazeera report or its contents got to Atwood.

So is Atwood right? Isn’t that the material question here?

After searching a bit, I came across information that might help to unravel this question. It seems the basis for the information somebody fed to her is actually from a different report called Food Security and Nutrition Survey For Herding Communities In Area C and it was authored in 2009 by World Food Programme (WFP), UNRWA and UNICEF. We can express doubts about the reliability of reports from UNRWA, but let’s give this report the benefit of the doubt for the sake of Ms. Atwood’s good name. Here is how WFP describes their conclusions:

Food Security and Nutrition Survey in Area C, West Bank

In October 2009, WFP/UNICEF/UNRWA carried out a food security and nutrition survey in the Israeli controlled Area C, which covers approximately 60 percent of the West Bank. The survey is part of a broader inter-agency programme of food security and nutrition monitoring, providing protection and assistance to herding and Bedouin communities.

As territorial fragmentation continues in the West Bank, livestock dependent communities living in Area C have been affected by subsequent years of dry spells combined with deteriorated range lands. They are facing increasing movement restrictions and their access to range land and natural water resources is severely limited.

To prevent these herding communities from falling into deeper cycles of indebtedness and increased risk of livelihood erosion, WFP and UNRWA launched a joint emergency programme in August 2009. The aim of the programme is to protect and assist 5,200 Bedouin and Palestinian herder families to maintain their livelihood and way of life in the face of political and environmental challenges.

The joint survey has found unusually high levels of food insecurity and malnutrition among the communities. It found that 79% of the surveyed Bedouin and local Palestinian herders are food insecure as compared to the 25% of households at the national level (West Bank). The level of food insecurity for these communities is even higher than in the Gaza Strip (61%).

With regard to nutrition, a wasting, underweight and stunting prevalence was recorded of 5.9%, 15.3% and 28.5% respectively. These rates indicate a poor nutrition situation according to WHO categorizations. These results further indicate a deterioration of the nutrition situation when compared to the available West Bank data from the 2006 Palestinian Family Health Survey.

Inadequate child caring practices, high disease incidence and low coverage of some essential public health interventions predispose the population to increased risk of malnutrition.

The actual report is available here and the relevant sections about child hunger begin at around page 22.

The Report’s conclusions contradict many of the report’s details. For example:

The higher rates in the surveyed Area C communities can be attributed to the increased administrative and military restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities in Area C, and several years of water scarcity and drought.

This is a partial fabrication. Water scarcity and drought have indeed affected the entire region for several years and Israel itself has been very hard hit. It is not surprising that Arab herders are affected in Area C, as are Jewish farmers inside Israel. However, Israel’s administrative and military restrictions have been eased over the past couple of years, which is one of the key reasons the Palestinian economy is booming. Last year, the PA and World Bank announced economic growth for the second year in a row at over 7%. This spectacular growth while the rest of the world dithers in a recession is favorably influenced by fewer military activities by the Israelis and the easing of roadblocks and Palestinian movement in Judea and Samaria/West Bank.

So fine, it’s partially a UNRWA report and we have come to expect deep bias from them. Ignoring the biased conclusions, there is something to learn in the report’s body. We learn that the population that’s affected is about 5200 families. Average number of children in these families is 5.2 so we’re talking about 26,000 children. Of these, 5.9% are wasting, 15.3% are underweight and 28.5% are experiencing stunted growth.

According to the report, the bodies in charge of providing food, aid and medical assistance to these Bedouins and Palestinian herders are a number of UN bodies including UNRWA and WFP. Not the Israelis. Still, as Atwood points out, they live under Israeli rule and that’s a meaningful point.

The report mentions that grazing lands are becoming more scarce and the drought is affecting water costs and the herding lands upon which these families make their living. While it’s easy to pin this on the Israelis, the fact is that in 1967 the entirety of Mandate Palestine – minus Jordan, of course – had a population of about 4 million. Today that population stands at 10 to 12 million. It should surprise nobody that grazing lands are disappearing – there are many more people, homes, cars, businesses and roads. There is less space for everybody.

Furthermore, these are rural, often nomadic families. Their levels of education do not enable them to work or compete in the modern world and they often do not have permanent homes – no, not because Israel destroys them but because they are nomadic and poor – which hampers availability of modern water sources and makes it more challenging to offer them income support in a modern society. Access to water appears to be what these families consider to be their greatest challenge. This makes sense when considering the following information:

Survey results indicate that the majority of households interviewed in herding communities in Area C are living in houses made of block, wood or metal sheeting (36%) followed by tents (25.5%), and other forms of accommodation such as apartments (6%) or single room properties (3.5%). This compares against the West Bank average where the majority of the respondents lived in houses or apartments (56% and 40%, respectively).

And they are nomads:

Survey results show that 80% of the interviewed families did not own agricultural land…Conversely, 57% of surveyed households in Area C possessed some livestock while only 5% of total households in the West Bank owned livestock.

As far as availability of medical and nutritional knowledge, the report points out that women in these families stop breastfeeding too early either because they are pregnant again, have received bad information from other family members or were not encouraged to breastfeed by medical professionals (provided by the UN support groups).

Among the children currently not breastfeeding (including those that have never been breastfed, representing 3.1% of the total), about 26.6% of them are breastfed for less than one year, against the recommended 2 years.

Table 16: Length of breastfeeding period
Length of breastfeeding period
Less than 6 months 10.2%
6‐11 months 16.4%
12‐15 months 37.2%
15 months and over 32.0%
Never breastfed 4.2%

Some of the reasons given by the mothers for not breastfeeding include detection of pregnancy (46.2%), availability of commercial baby formula (3.6%), advice from someone (2.1%) and information from the media (0.9%). About 47.3% of the mothers gave other reasons. Health care providers (doctors, nurses, midwife) and immediate family members (mother in laws and husbands mainly) were reported to provide advice that lead to cessation of breastfeeding.

This indicates a level of ignorance that may have import for the children’s growth as they grow up. It is notable that the rate of stunted growth of 28% is similar to the percentage of women who stop breastfeeding in less than a year. And there’s more:

Early introduction of complementary feeding greatly compromises the exclusive breastfeeding rate in the first 6 months of life among the inhabitants of Area C. About 12.9% of infants receive fluids and foods in their first 3 months of life, while a total of 48.8% of infants are not exclusively breastfed in their first 6 months of life.

Okay, so Ms. Atwood wants to blame Israel for the plight of the Bedouin in areas under its control although many of the factors pertain to the culture of these families or advice given by medical professionals. Is that fair?

To answer this question, it’s important to compare the nutrition of these herders and Bedouin children to other Bedouin children. WFP, the same organization which co-authored this Area C survey, also authored a survey of Sinai Bedouins in 2005. Of course, Sinai Bedouins have lived under Egyptian rule for the past century except for 10 years (1967-1977), so the Israelis can’t be blamed for their nutritional circumstances. What does this report tell us?

Bedouins live in small clusters of 3-4 households near to each other, and separated from other clusters by about 1-2 km. The mean family size is 5.4. It was found that 71.2% of the surveyed households lived in new houses built from cement blocks, but only 10% had piped water. Although 60% had toilet facilities, most toilets inside the houses were not used. This may be due to shortage of water supply or social habits. The percentage of households with electricity is high (71.7%), but it was provided for only 6-8 hours/day.

…The percentage of children enrolled in schools is 23.8% of the total number of school-age children…

Nutritional and health status of Bedouin children: The anthropometric data of the children aged 2-5 years old revealed that…20.6% were underweight (6.4% of those severely so). Wasting was prevalent in 6.0% of the children, with 2.0% severely wasted. Forty-three percent of the wasted children were also stunted, reflecting the presence of current, as well as previous long standing malnutrition. The prevalence of anemia (Hb <11gm) was 42.1%. These results indicate that the Bedouin children are severely under-nourished. Vitamin A deficiency indicators were present in only 3.3% of the examined children, while 5.4% of them had thyroid enlargement (goiter).

Nutritional and health status of Bedouin mothers: The anthropometric data of mothers revealed that only 38.8% of the mothers had normal BMI, while 32.3% of them were overweight and 20.1% obese. Only around 6.4% were underweight. Nearly 37.0% of those classified as overweight, and 42.0% of those classified as obese, were stunted. This indicates a relative or misleading obesity. In addition, 55.5% of stunted mothers had a BMI >25 (pre-obese or obese). About 39.2% of the examined mothers showed signs of vitamin A deficiency.

So in the Egyptian Sinai, child and parent malnutrition for this group of people seems even worse than in Area C. How do the nomadic Bedouin fare inside Israel when it comes to nutrition? Ynet reported on a Beersheba District Health Office report from 2009 on this subject:

About 9% of Bedouin children under the age of five suffer from growth delays and 4.4% are underweight. Bedouin girls are at higher risk, and suffer seven times more than boys from growth problems and 10 times more from weight problems.

The trend only widens as the children get older, and in the first and second grades some 13% of Bedouin children suffer from growth delays, while 17% are underweight.

Over half (56%) of Bedouin infants at the age of six-months-old suffer from anemia, and about a tenth of them have zinc deficiencies. At the average age of 18-months-old 27% of Bedouin children suffer from anemia, while 11.5% lack zinc, 5% lack Vitamin A and 3% have Vitamin E deficiencies.
…
The infant mortality rate among Bedouins stands at 11.5 deaths for every 1,000 births, and is almost three times higher than the national average of 4.1 deaths for every 1,000 births.

According to the report there has been a 5.5% decline in the infant mortality rate among Bedouins since 2004. The leading causes of infant mortality are related to birth defects and hereditary diseases.

Despite the harsh numbers, the report said a relatively high rate (90%) of Bedouin children are given all the routine vaccinations recommended by the Health Ministry and very few cases of infectious diseases are reported among this population. The average vaccination rate in Israel ranges from 92% – 97%.

The report goes on to suggest the reasons for the problem.

Despite the high vaccination rates, there has been no drop in the rate infectious diseases that are not preventable by vaccinations, such as digestive tract diseases, that could be related to poor infrastructure and living conditions in the Bedouin sector.

The report says, “It’s difficult for the residents to keep their houses cool or warm and to maintain personal and environmental hygiene in the absence of access to flowing water and waste disposal systems.
“
Bedouins living in unrecognized communities are in much poorer condition that those living in permanent communities, and according to the report, children born in unrecognized communities have a lower average weight at birth, are 2.4 times more underweight at the ages of six and seven-years-old and have a lower vaccination rate than Bedouin children living in permanent communities.

In other words, the Bedouin who have agreed to move to planned Israeli communities and essentially give up their nomadic lifestyles do not suffer from the same levels of malnutrition, disease and infant mortality as those who have ignored Israel’s plans and who continue to live as their culture has dictated for hundreds and possibly thousands of years.

And this is the real conclusion to draw here. The problem is that it is extremely challenging to change someone’s culture, particularly when the individual resists the change. Perhaps Israel can do more, maybe Egypt can, maybe the UN can, but it appears that even with great efforts exerted, actual change is difficult to achieve. Much of the malnutrition happening to children in these families is not due to the authorities’ ignorance or ill-will, but rather a desire or inability to change patterns that have a very strong foothold in this nomadic society.

None of this explains Ms. Atwood’s op-ed and truthfully, I am extremely troubled by the shallowness of her article, her research and her commentary. Along with the unjust and incorrect criticism of Israel in her article, she also throws a bunch of “yes but” comments intended to illustrate those issues people raise when they reject “compromise” in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Incredibly, she only raised one “yes but” for the entirety of the Arab world and several for Israel – including a “yes but…you’re an antisemite” remark.

A few months ago, Ms. Atwood visited Israel to receive a prize for her career’s efforts. She came under withering public criticism from anti-Israel advocates. She decided to come anyway, positioning herself as an advocate for open speech and the importance of cultural exchange. At the time I wrote that somebody should be sure to have her tour with a knowledgeable person who could explain the complexities of the conflict fairly.

However, after receiving the lucrative award, she wrote an op-ed criticizing Israel. It became clear to me that the people who showed her around were those who had encouraged her not to go in the first place. Or perhaps she felt she needed to atone for taking money while her friends on the Left were opponents of Israel.

She blamed the conflict and its outcomes such as “Child-killing in Gaza” and “Killing aid-bringers on ships in international waters,” not to mention the tendentious (as if the other two aren’t?) “Civilians malnourished thanks to the blockade?” on Israel. Not enough one sided propaganda? She then added for good measure: “Forbidding writing paper? Forbidding pizza? How petty and vindictive!” She added, “Am I a tool of terrorists for saying this? I think not.”

It is a wonder to behold. Petty and vindictive to place pressure on people bombing Israeli children for years? Petty and vindictive to attempt to force the hands of those who hold an Israeli captive for years without a single visit permitted by a Red Cross worker or anybody else for that matter?

She wrote:

“but until the structural problem is fixed and Palestine has its own “legitimized” state within its internationally recognized borders, the Shadow will remain [she was claiming a shadow hangs over Israeli society but I suspect this is really the shadow that hangs over the wacko who gave her the tour of the country].

Israel, of course, offered a legitimized Palestinian state per the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 242 – which is the only meaningful international document (338 is essentially a rehash) pertaining to internationally recognized borders in the conflict – in 2000, 2001 and again in 2008. The Olmert offer in 2008 even included an internationalized Holy Basin! The Palestinians, throughout these offers, have relented on nothing and rejected all that was offered. Their explanation? In 2008, Abbas explained why we don’t have peace and two states by stating that after Olmert’s fair and generous offer, “The gaps were too wide.”

In other words, Abbas gave the biggest “yes but” imaginable.

And now this op-ed in Ha’aretz. What a terribly sad read for me. I did not think that a person with her intelligence and worldliness could fall for the usual bullshit that accompanies very complex issues surrounding this conflict. Is it possible that the work of such a great author could descend into the realm of cheap, shallow propaganda?

This is the BBC film about the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla which has garnered severe reprobation from supporters of the Palestinians, including accusations of racism against the BBC.

Wondering who could possibly find “racism” in this film, I looked up the person to whom this accusation was specifically attributed in the Jerusalem Post. Her name is Ewa Jasiewicz.

Who is she? A Journalist, a coordinator of the Free Gaza movement and a former ISM activist. Jasiewicz has been quoted in the past (by the BBC, no less) saying,

“I have been a journalist for five years and no one will manipulate me into any sort of agenda or violence.”

So then, one has to believe that when Jasiewicz sees this BBC film about the flotilla her group organized, a film which has not any form of racism in it or in its broadcast, and states,

the whole tone and framing of the program was “utterly Islamophobic and racist and demonizing of Muslim activists.

That she is either a poor reporter, a liar or has lost all sense of proportion when it comes to understanding racism.

Hmmmm, which could it be?

To help us learn, here is a video of Ewa introducing a pro-Palestinian movie to a group of activists and among other whoppers, such as calling Gaza a “ghetto,” there is a priceless moment where this woman, a leader of the Free Gaza movement, a journalist who calls this BBC film “racist,” (at minute 6:00 of the video) tries to prepare the listeners for the obviously derogatory use of the term “al Yahud” (the Jew) by Palestinians in the film. She says that “of course” they only mean Israelis and Zionists, not all Jews.

Of course. This from a woman who uses “ghetto” as part of her rhetoric.

In minute 8:00, she takes great pride in supporting the Palestinian “resistance” and she clarifies that she means both Palestinians “staying alive” and their “armed resistance.” In other words, she is supportive of the rockets launched by Gazan Palestinians at civilians in the Western Negev, Ashkelon, Be’ersheva, Sderot and so on. She is happy she and other activists were “able to help everybody.” This, of course, raises the question of whether she also supports the violence planned and executed by members of the Free Gaza flotilla against Israeli troops.

As a clue as to where she stands on this issue, in the second part of this video, towards the very end, she will claim that all of Israel’s actions are illegal and all of Hamas’s actions are legal in this conflict.

Conclusion? If you watch her lips move and the subject is Israel and the Palestinians, you can assume that what she says is going to be biased and part of an agenda. and very possibly an outright falsehood or even an intentional lie. You can also assume that the people, like her, who organized the flotilla, have little to contribute in the way of an honest discussion about what happened. If you watch the ending of the BBC film, you will see the key Free Gaza organizer of the flotilla admit that the loss of lives is simply part of the struggle on behalf of the Palestinians…

By the way, you can thank me later. I could have picked videos with Ewa’s previous haircut. She looks much better now. I guess Free Gaza activists care more about fashion than ISM activists, or at least they let their bangs grow out.

Hookups happen. I mean, they did back when Israel was well-liked by Europeans and they came as volunteers to kibbutzim and hooked up with Israelis. Today, alas, the kibbutz volunteers have been replaced by hard-working, paid, Thai laborers and all the European lovelies and their American counterparts are heading over to the West Bank and East Jerusalem (after a few nights partying in Tel Aviv, of course) where a different type of volunteer work calls out.

There is apparently a dark side to all of this, however. Ha’aretz, Israel’s leftist, pro-Palestinian newspaper reports today (bold is my editorial):

The Palestinian Authority, as well as the leaders of the Palestinian popular protests in villages such as Bil’in, Na’alim, Umm Salmuna, have been trying to keep the following story away from both public knowledge and the media’s eye: One of the more prominent Umm Salmuna activists – a village south of Bethlehem, long entrenched in a battle against the West Bank separation fence – is suspected of the attempted rape of an American peace activist who had been residing in the village as part of her support of the local protest.
…
The European and American female activists reportedly agreed to let Aladdin stay with them after he had told them he feared the Israel Defense Forces were on his tail, adding that he had been severely beaten at an IDF checkpoint only a week before.

During his stay Aladdin allegedly attempted to rape a Muslim-American woman, nicknamed “Fegin” by fellow activists. The woman escaped, later accusing the popular protest man of the attempt. One villager who had encountered the American following the incident said she had been in a state of shock.

Aladdin then refused to apologize for the incident, when news of it reached the village’s popular committee, the popular protests’ governing body, allegedly saying that the incident had been marginal and normal.

Wait, that’s not all. Ha’aretz then adds:

…the Umm Salmuna case is not the only one. Separation fence activists know of other incidents in which Palestinians molested and sexually assaulted foreign peace activists…

None of this is surprising, although it is shameful that knowledge of these types of assaults is being kept from visiting activists who are essentially being sacrificed for the cause in which they so passionately believe. If organizers know these assaults are taking place but are keeping them under wraps in order to protect their anti-Israeli movement, they are putting politics far ahead of the personal safety of their supporters. We’ve seen the truth twisted in service of the Palestinian movement to destroy Israel, but this is a twist of different order.

So, if you’re female and planning to go help Palestinian activism against Israel over in the West Bank, do be careful and make sure you’re always around friends, especially when you go to sleep at night.

——

Update: ck quotes from Norman Finkelstein’s Gaza book:

Having just spent several months perusing Mahatma Gandhi’s collected works, and deeply inspired by his commitment to living the life of the impoverished masses, I had resolved to rough it in Gaza. But this was easier said than done. Along with several other delegates I volunteered to stay at a Palestinian family’s home rather than a hotel. Dressed to the nines, hair gelled, and reeking of cologne, several Palestinian youths met our group to select their home-stays. They departed with first one young female member of our delegation, then another, then another. The only candidates left hanging at the end of the evening were middle-aged men. We checked into the hotel.

Yup, the struggle to save Palestine continues. Thank you, young female activists!

—–
On a side note…Amazingly, this article came, as noted above, from Ha’aretz. I was shocked to see it in there and literally double-checked that I was on the right site because they have so few stories covering Palestinian society in any note other than “victims.” The reporting in Ha’aretz typically resembles the leftist-Islamist alliance against Israel that we see in the West today. The Left provides the idealistic ammo against Israel, even as they ignore the fact that they’re supporting a society whose values, beliefs and actions are antithetical to the Left’s own ideals. Ha’aretz editors should wonder whether having given up any pretense of objectivity in their journalism undermines confidence in their reporting. They should ask themselves whether the constant portrayal of Israeli society in heinous terms, while depicting Palestinians as harmless victims of the heinous society, is responsible. Because it sure isn’t fair, objective journalism.

Let’s review.

Iran one-upped them with the NPT treaty recently. The treaty, incredibly signed by the US, essentially excuses Iran’s movement toward nuclear weapons while singling out Israel – which has an assumed arsenal that has never been used or even acknowledged officially – for censure and potential diplomatic conflict.

Regarding its proxy armies, the rockets possessed by Hizbullah now possess bigger payload, greater range and guidance systems superior to those it had in 2006. The Iranians, with Syria’s assistance, have been able to restock Hizbullah’s arsenal under the watchful eyes of UN peacekeepers who were supposed to ensure that adherence to UNSCR 1701 (which prohibits the arming of Hizbullah with rockets) is maintained. The result – and make no mistake, Israel has allowed this to happen by not preventing it – is that Iran has a trump card that will effectively prevent an Israeli attack on Iran and presents a constant threat to Israel. If Israel attacks Iran, we can expect that it will be bombed heavily by Hizbullah in retaliation. Even Hamas has shown that its rockets now reach Ashkelon, Ashdod and Be’er Sheva, so that the southern Iranian proxy army will present another challenging front in such a war.

But this post isn’t about Iran.

Turkey, a former ally that has obviously turned into an enemy, even if Israel’s leadership is struggling to maintain a semblance of diplomatic relations, is also laughing at the Israelis’ stupidity. Their flotilla can be considered a significant victory over Israel, and has given the Turks a platform to attack Israel in the media and in international forums. This creates another front for Israel, a diplomatic one, that it fights hobbled by the fear that it could lose all relations with Turkey – a powerful Muslim country with extensive trade ties to Israel and a former prospect for strategic alliance against extreme regimes. Israel is finding it difficult to fight this one because of the diplomatic fallout, while Turkey, which has already made its strategic choice to side with Iran, continues to dangle the existing ties as a reward for Israel limiting its response to provocations.

But this post isn’t about Turkey.

No, this post is about the clever Palestinians and how they are defeating Israel in their latest war against the Jewish state. Watch this video, particularly from 0:45 to 2:15:

Now, I love Fellini. Watching that clip made me think of his movies. There I am, watching an abandoned replica of a boat without an ocean wave anywhere within miles, and this wooden boat is being attacked by soldiers from the same army that attacked its likeness on the high seas a week ago in what will surely be remembered as one of Israel’s worst blunders ever. Felliniesque? You bet. You couldn’t write a script this absurd.

The fact is that the Israelis don’t get the war they’re in. It is no longer a war between armies, or terrorists against civilians and armies, but rather it has changed into a war of ideas and images. It is also not accidentally so. The war is led by the Palestinians, primarily from the PA, with the intention of making this into their new intifada. Why use bullets or bombs that hurt your image, when you can make the Israelis use bullets and bombs and undermine their image? Can’t get them to use bullets? Get them to use tear-gas. Can’t get them to use tear-gas? Get them to create media images for you to disperse across the internet and the nightly news. Boat replicas in the desert are useful in that regard.

Think about this video. The protesters know they are heading for a protest and the Israelis know they are coming. The reporters and TV are there, brightly labeled, so that nobody in Israel can claim they didn’t know this was a set-up. The goal is not to send aid to Gaza but to generate useful images that correspond to a collective memory of what happened last week with the fauxtilla. What do the Israelis do? Exactly what they did to help Turkey give them a spanking on the high seas, they walk into the director’s mise-en-scene, performing their role of bullies or murderers to perfection. In the video above it would have been better from the perspective of the Palestinian filmmaker if somebody had been killed or injured, but even this crazy running up to the boat and then after the protesters makes them look crazed.

Why would the Israelis continue to comply with the media arrangements created for them by their enemies? Well, because they are morons. I mean it. They have had ample opportunities to comprehend that the nature of the war against them has changed. Beginning with Muhammad Al Dura, continuing with Jenin in 2002, later with the family at the beach in Gaza and then Kafr Qana in Lebanon II, the enemies of Israel have shown repeatedly and consistently that the Israeli bombs, tanks and commando heroics are rendered meaningless by even one successful media event where the other side appears to be a major victim. Of course, the media events aren’t singular in nature, they are continuous or happen over and over. Think back to the repeated showings by the media of the destruction of Beirut in 2006, even as two thirds of the city simply went about its business because the only areas hit were Hizbullah neighborhoods and targets.

The media war doesn’t just even the playing field, it actually inflicts losses on the Israelis. Israel is made out to be a monster and an ogre in these wars. It becomes the side that kills innocent civilians and it reveals itself to be the bully. So what if the enemies have sworn to destroy Israel or exterminate all of the Jews (Hizbullah and Hamas have both made such claims), or that Fatah has sworn to claim all of Israel or that Iran has vowed to destroy the state?

These claims are rendered moot, valid though they may be, when Israel gives the media and internet gifts that show ITS supposed violent inclinations. The reasons for this happening are easy to understand since Israel is a free country where the press operates freely. The press is there to cover the story, is unafraid to cover the story, and since the enemies surrounding Israel are individually weaker or perceived to be of the third world while Israel is perceived to be of the First World, it isn’t hard to show who the underdog is. It also doesn’t hurt that the enemies place all sorts of spoken and unspoken restrictions on the reporters who cover them, not to mention their civilians. The open courts in Israel, the open debate in the Knesset and the freedom of expression enjoyed by Israelis also mean that all criticisms of Israel are voiced openly and regularly. Often, the state itself subsidizes or helps to create its own enemies. We’ve all seen Israeli Arab Knesset members attack Israel, or have read organizations like Adalah and B’tselem advocate against Israel. These organizations are staffed by Israelis, Jewish and non-Jewish, who grew up and were educated in Israel. Consider, for example, Omar Barghouti, one of the leaders of the international boycott movement against Israel. He’s getting an advanced degree at Tel Aviv University, subsidized by Israeli taxpayers.

In the Sixth Fatah Congress, the membership declared that they would attack Israel by modeling their fight on the fight against South African apartheid. They also decided to keep the refugee camps open because they were an effective tool in the war against Israel. These decisions are reflected regularly in the anti-Israel activism that we see all over the world. The ongoing incitement against Israel that we see across the internet, the pressure on cultural outlets to avoid including Israel at festivals and exhibitions, the movement to prevent artists and people with high profiles from visiting Israel or if they do, to ensure they criticize it heavily, the constant attempts to unlink Jews from their connection to Israel or to the Land of Israel as their historic home, and, of course, the ubiquitous presence of anti-Israel activism on most major and large university campuses across North American and Europe.

And what is Israel doing? It’s sending out soldiers to attack a fake boat in a desert placed there by people who invite the media to watch.

Israel seems to have missed the fact that it’s no longer the age of CNN, it’s the age of Youtube and Facebook and blogs.

It is time for Israel to figure this out, because this war, the media war, is no different than the real wars it has had to fight. If it loses, then Israel will no longer be the state of the Jews. The former commandos who now sit in Israel’s prime minister’s and defense minister’s office should wake up and realize that their army still needs fighters like those in Shayetet 13 and Sayeret Matkal, but now they also need to learn to fight just as effectively in the media war. And sometimes, that will mean restraining the real soldiers and letting the media commandos figure out the best way to tackle the battle.

The third intifada is the media intifada and we are well into it.

And somehow, all these calamities – including Monday’s deadly events – seem to be part of a larger corruptive process afflicting Israel. One has the sense that a sullied and bloated political system, fearfully aware of the steaming mess produced over the years by its own actions and malfunctions, and despairing of the possibility to undo the endless tangle it has wrought, becomes ever more inflexible in the face of pressing and complicated challenges, losing in the process the qualities that once typified Israel and its leadership – freshness, originality, creativity.

Freshness, originality and creativity. Yes, that is precisely what is lacking, as well as sensitivity to what is going on around the world to Israel and to Jews these days and an insensitivity to how Israeli actions are making things worse. Where is the inventiveness that we used to see Israel engage in, that today its high tech sector creates seemingly effortlessly? Did all the promising IDF commanders leave the army? Did all the promising politicians go into private industry? Israel always seemed to be able to do a great deal with very little, but it may well be that its powerful military has gotten so big and fat that they are focused on doing things without the ingenuity of an impoverished army. It might be that Israel’s politicians view themselves as leaders of a country that isn’t midget sized and instead believe that extensive media coverage make a country with a population smaller than Los Angeles into some mid-size power and they also no longer seek creative and original solutions to complex problems.

It would serve Israel well to bring back into focus the importance of doing things they way they had to when resources were far more scarce for them.

And yes, all of these events are symptoms. The illness, however, is that there’s no peace. To get to peace, Israel must be at its most original and most clever. Yes, the Palestinians are holding out and don’t want to sign a deal. However, it is the duty of the government to find a solution that will work. Olmert and Barak have laid the groundwork for a deal that Israel can live with and that, theoretically, should also satisfy Palestinian demands. No, not all of them, but many of them. The trick now, is for Israel to figure out how to press the supporters of the Palestinians and powerful brokers like the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia, to push the Palestinians into these deals.

It was widely reported in the press, that Carter asked for forgiveness from the Jews, and I don’t forgive him. The former president, and master of distortions, wrote to JTA: “As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.”

In order to seek forgiveness, one has to acknowledge the mistakes that one made and resolve to repair the damage caused. If we Jews don’t forgive Carter, God certainly never will. As our tradition teaches — God will only forgive one who has made peace with those that they wronged. And Jimmy, you have a long, long way to go.

Carter’s admission that he has caused the Jewish community harm might work in confession, but doesn’t work with on Yom Kippur, and it doesn’t work with me.

Carter admitted no specific mistakes. He offered no way of repairing the damage caused by his irresponsible accusations.

I personally heard Carter tell an audience of 3k students at UC Irvine, to the applause of the administration and students, that the US Congress was “in the pocket” of the Jews.

How many other college student audiences around the country heard the same accusations? How many books did he publish accusing Israel of things that have no basis in fact? How many times has he appeared on TV demonizing Israel and backing Hamas?

In order for me to forgive Carter he has to admit to his distortions and lies and publicly renounce his books and speeches. Carter needs to return money to anti-Semitic Middle Eastern countries that back his center. He needs to replace Habitat for Humanity with Hadassah. He needs to go on Birthright Israel. He needs to listen to Matisyahu. He needs to watch G-d Cast, read The Forward, spend the winter in Miami. He needs to study Judaism with Rabbi Telushkin, and volunteer for Challah for Hunger. We need to see Jimmy Carter crusading against the humanitarian track record of Hizbollah, Hamas, and Fatah, and doing brunch at Jeff’s Gourmet Sausage on Pico. While he is on this apology tour, he needs to appear at every campus where he defamed Israel, and give speeches urging that Muslim extremist recruiting groups like the MSU and MSA be banned permanently. He needs to learn Hebrew, spend Shabbat at Beit Jewlicious, and sit at David Abitbol’s feet and learn about the expulsion of North African Jews, Sephardic Jewish culture, and eat chumous. And that is just for starters.

There is a perfect venue for this rapprochement to begin with the Jewish community; the perfect place for Carter to ask forgiveness, renounce his former ways, and promise to live a life free from anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel — Jewlicious Festival 6.0.

Friday Night at Jewlicious Jimmy, stand up in front of a hundreds of young Jews, ask forgiveness, break bread with us, and tell us how you will attempt to undo the vast damage you have wrought.

Fire trucks and ambulances lined outside the supermarket as shattered glass littered the entire area. Nine people including three young women were evacuated to Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon for severe shock.

The Qassam rocket caused heavy damage to at least 15 cars in the parking lot where it had exploded. The smell of serious gas leaks had Sderot firemen hosing the entire parking lot with water in order to prevent any fire.

Inside the supermarket, known as Victory, wine bottles lay shattered upon the floor, as shoppers made their way outside across puddles of wine and broken glass. Rocket shrapnel caused heavy damage to store merchandise, as the glass windows in the supermarket’s front entrance completely shattered.

A worker at Steimetsky Book Store across the street from the supermarket told Sderot Media Center, that she and her co-worker watched the Qassam rocket drop into the parking lot, about five meters away from the supermarket. “We saw the sparks and the smoke, and watched the rocket explode on impact. It was one of the most terrifying sights, I’ve ever seen,” said the worker, a student at Sapir College, who asked not to be named.

Another Sderot local, Shani, who works as a cashier at the Victory supermarket, heard customers yelling Tzeva Adom, and moved away from her cash register seconds before the Qassam rocket hit the parking lot. “The glass exploded everywhere,” Shani told Sderot Media Center. “If I had been standing at the register, I would have been one of those injured in terror attack.”

Over 23 Qassam rockets were fired at Sderot and the western Negev. Seven rockets hit the Eshkol Regional Council earlier in the day, and a mortar shell landed in Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council, causing no reported damages or injuries. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for all the rocket attacks.

Since the ceasefire began on June 21, over 400 Qassam rockets have been fired at Sderot and the western Negev, making the number of rockets fired at Israel during this ceasefire significantly more than the number fired in the previous Hamas-Israel ceasefire in 2007. To date, over 10,000 Palestinian rockets have been fired at southern Israel since 2001.

Photo by Hamutal Ben-Sheetrit, Sderot Media Center

Palestinian Rocket Destroys Sderot Home

December 19 is a significant day for Israelis civilians living on the other side of the Gaza Strip.

It is the day where the Hamas-Israel ceasefire officially comes to an end and the question to whether Palestinian rocket fire will resume on Israelis civilians living in the south, will officially be answered.

The question has been answered–to some degree–a little earlier than expected. After Israel entered the Gaza Strip to blow up a Hamas dug tunnel intended for the killing or kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, Hamas fired a massive barrage of rockets-over 60–upon Israeli civilians through November 4-5.
Several more Palestinian rockets were fired at Israel throughout the past week, with a barrage of Qassam rockets fired at Sderot and the Eshkol region on Sunday, November 16 and Monday, November 17. The ceasefire to this effect has been violated, two and a half weeks into November, more than 80 times by Hamas with the firing of over 80 Qassam and mortar rockets at Israelis civilians living in the Negev.

Hamas’s Ceasefire Violations

But the firing of Qassam and mortar rockets are not the only violations carried out by Hamas during the course of this ‘ceasefire.’ While bomb shelters and other forms of protection have emerged alongside Sderot homes and playgrounds, Hamas has engaged and supported the rearming of its army, production of rockets, smuggling money through tunnels, and training its soldiers for combat and abducting hostages.

It is clear that on Hamas’s end, the aftermath of the ‘ceasefire’ is one that entails the continued terrorizing of Israeli civilians in Sderot and the western Negev.

As early as July 2008, a month into the ceasefire, Palestinian terrorists continued producing rockets and conducted training exercises for newly recruited militants. In a rare video obtained by Reuters back in July, Palestinian militants of the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC) are shown preparing and stockpiling rockets for future use against Israel. The video shows masked Palestinian gunmen stirring explosive material against the backdrop of newly made rockets.

The Reuters video further portrays Palestinian militants, known as the Gaza Qassam Brigades, in field combat exercises, training to use machine guns, grenades and snipers.

According to the IICC, Hamas has thousands of rockets in stock, ready to be fired at Israel ‘s Negev cities and communities.

In another video, released also in July by Hamas and reported on by Haaretz, Hamas operatives are seen participating in advanced military training exercises in the southern Gaza Strip, the area in which the Gush Katif settlement block was located before Israel’s 2005 disengagement from the area. The Palestinian militants are seen practicing military maneuvers learned in combat training in Iran.
In addition to training Palestinian soldiers, Hamas invested its energies during the ceasefire to train young Palestinian children to hate Israel and the United States in a special parliamentary summer camp. According to Haaretz, the summer camp’s main objective was to train these young Palestinian children to become future militants.

Palestinian women in Gaza were also not forgotten. Dozens of women in the Gaza Strip also underwent military training, primarily in combat and suicide missions. During the ceasefire, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad allowed a Lebanese TV correspondent to film and interview women terrorists. According to the IICC, the women are trained for both offensive and defensive maneuvers. On a defensive scale, these Palestinian women are trained to fire small arms, launch rockets throw grenades, and attack IDF soldiers, as well as blow themselves up near IDF soldiers using explosive belts.

In the past, Hamas, the PIJ and Fatah have used women to carry out suicide bombing attacks in Israeli territories and attack IDF soldiers during operations in the Gaza Strip.

In August, PRC operatives invited CNN and other network reporters to Gaza, for an exclusive video interview and photo-op of the progress made in their ongoing rocket production. The PRC presented a new advanced form of rockets called Nasser-4, which can travel up to 16 miles ( 25 kilometers ). The extended distance enables the rockets to reach Ashkelon, which has a population of 120,000 and Ashdod, which has a population of 200,000.

The PRC also revealed in the video, Palestinian operatives training to conduct raids on Israeli army bases and capturing Israeli soldiers. Indeed, the PRC was one of the Palestinian terror organizations behind the abduction of Gilad Schalit two years ago.

While international community may not consider these videos as blatant evidence for serious ceasefire violations, the videos do make it clear that Hamas and other Palestinian terror networks are continuing to construe a terrifying reality for Israeli children and families living along the Gaza border, and as far away as Ashkelon and Ashdod.

SO will Palestinian rocket fire resume on Sderot after December 19? It is a reality which Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups have been preparing for since the ceasefire began. These terrorist groups have had no qualms in making their preparations publicly known to the international world and Israel. After all, it is the children of Sderot and the Negev, not the politicians and Israeli Knesset members, who are forced to wait until the rocket fire resumes again.

Since early November, residents of Sderot and the western Negev have been awaken almost every morning to the sound of the Red Alert siren followed by a rocket explosion between two o’clock to three o’clock in the morning. These Palestinian groups are simply offering Sderot residents a taste of what is to come, and at the same time aiming to recondition Negev Israelis to life under sirens and rocket explosions.

Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time before Palestinian rocket fire becomes part of the daily and nightly routine of Sderot and western Negev residents. Hamas and other Palestinian terror networks have made it clear that they will strike Israeli civilians with massive Qassam and mortar rocket attacks, when it strategically suits them to do so.
Visit www.sderotmedia.com for the latest videos of Sderot.