Thursday 31 July 2014

OPERATION PROTECTIVE EDGE. Thursday 31 July. Morning/Afternoon Report.



BREAKING NEWS.
Malaysia has been training and supplying Hamas with gliders and mobile light aircraft to attack Israel from the air.
This was divulged by Hamas terrorists captured by Israel's IDF during the current Gaza war.

As of midnight Israel has lost 56 of its finest sons in battles against an Islamic terror enemy.

There are 159 soldiers in hospital, 15 of them in critical or life threatening condition.

Rockets falling on Israel since before 7 am. 26 rockets between midnight and 12 noon.
10 targeting Sderot. 7 intercepted by Iron Dome. 3 fell in open areas.

Masses of Israelis visiting injured soldiers in hospitals and bringing food and support to their families.

IDF Paratroopers killed 5 terrorists in a fire fight this morning in Khan Yunis.
Golani soldiers killed at least one terrorist in another confrontation. Many other battles going on throughout the Gaza Strip.

Israeli TV showing the aftermath of a battle in a mosque with enemy weapons captured,
and the opening to a deep tunnel.

IDF are referring to the tunnel system as "the Gaza Metro."

Israel TV reporting that 40% of the Hamas budget went into the tunnels that they see Israel destroying as new ones appear on the IDF intelligence maps.

An Israeli delegation is in Cairo today for talks with Egypt about the conflict.
There is a meeting of minds between Egypt and Israel. Neither is in a hurry to stop the fighting against Hamas.

For ongoing news updates and additional information go to one of my Facebook pages ;

Barry Shaw  or BARRY SHAW.

Tuesday 29 July 2014

Why Kerry's ceasefire proposal was shot down by Israeli politicians.

July 28. Why Kerry's ceasefire proposal was shot down by Israeli politicians across the board.

Here is what Israeli politicians were saying about the Obama/Kerry demand for Israel to immediately ceasefire on terms favored by Qatar and Turkey, two implacable Israel haters and supporters of the Islamic terror regime in Gaza, and my assessment;
Knesset Members from the right and left criticized recent statements and pressures on Israel from the White House and US State Department.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Kerry’s proposal “does not address Israel’s security demands in Gaza.”
Agriculture Minister, Yair Shamir, said, “Maybe it’s because they have a problem with the regime in Eqypt and they thought by going through Turkey and Qatar they’d be seen as honest brokers. Instead, they lost the allies they had and didn’t make any new ones. Kerry lost credibility in the eyes of everyone.”
Tzipi Hotovely, Likud MK, said that US proposals only served the interests of Hamas.
Danny Danon, called on Obama and his government to “cease firing at Israel. Would America ceasfire on al-Qaida when it is being attacked? John Kerry is disconnected from reality and ignores the security concerns of Israel.”
Eli Yishai said that Israel owes much to America but “that obligation cannot come at the expense of Israel’s future. The free world must support Israel not weaken it.”
On the left, Nahman Shai said Obama’s demand on Israel to stop the fighting prevents Israel from maximizing its military and diplomatic achievements. He doubted America’s ability to demilitarize Gaza and prevent future wars there.
The only voices praising US pressure on Israel to immediate stop fighting was from Israel’s far left.

There are worrying signs that the Obama Administration has adopted an “even-handed” policy in the Middle East that offends and endangers America’s allies, and emboldens the Islamic states, namely Qatar and Turkey, which have supported the Hamas/Islamic Jihad Palestinian branch of Islamist terror in Gaza.
Their failure to perceive the current conflict as a liberal democracy in the region under daily terror attacks from its implacable enemies across its border, and to stand unequivocally with its ally, Israel, has been damaging to Israel and Egypt who have merged in a shared determination to remove Islamic terror from their doorsteps.
It is worrying that Obama, Kerry, and others seem committed to have this fight shudder to a draw. They talk about asking Hamas to disarm itself after a ceasefire, as ridiculous a proposal for any diplomat to make, let alone the leaders of America.
This is the worst possible result that will condemn Israel to face yet another round of violence and death in a few years’ time. Better to allow Israel to plough and cleanse the soil of Gaza that will allow a more fertile political future there.

Barry Shaw,
Special Consultant on Delegitimization Issues,
Strategic Dialogue Center,
Netanya Academic College,
Israel.

Author of 'Israel reclaiming the Narrative.'
www.israelnarrative.com







Saturday 26 July 2014

A simple fact and statistic to confound the cynical media.

A simple fact and statistic to confound the cynical Western media that has become the propaganda arm of Hamas.

It is clear to any observer that, after the population left Sejiya in Gaza, the only people remaining were Hamas and Islamic Jihad to fight the Israeli soldiers uncovering and destroying their terror tunnels.
I make this point to explain the body count for the dates of Tuesday and Wednesday, 22-23 July when fighting was it is peak there.
The established age group of known Palestinian terrorists is between 17-65, though a 16 year old was one of the terrorists captured in a terror tunnel.
I have the casualty list not of the IDF, but of the Gaza Health Ministry. Don't ask me how I got it. According to their figures 51 people were killed on Tuesday, and 55 on Wednesday. They have a number marked as "unknown" so, for my purposes I include them as terrorists as most were killed in Sejiya.
The known age group for terrorists and male casualties on Tuesday were 43 plus 8 unknown giving a total potential terrorist dead as 51 out of the 60.
On Wednesday their total figure was 63. Out of this 44 were males in the terrorist age group and 11 were unknown making a total of 55 out of 63 killed.
This makes nonsense out of the media's accusations that the majority were women and children.

Saturday 19 July 2014

False media reporting - under orders and deliberately.


How the media takes instructions from the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.

MEMRI uncovered what the Hamas Interior Ministry has been instructing social media activists and journalists what to show and what to print.

They include what you have been seeing on your TV screens and reading in your print media such as 
"Always call the dead "civilians."  Western media prefer to use the blanket word "Palestinians" carefully avoiding mentioning the number or identities of terrorists killed.

Hamas also instructs activists and journalists not to post photos of rockets being fired from among the civilian population, which happens all the time.

Hamas Interior Ministry to Social Media Activists: 
"Always call the dead “innocent civilians. 
Don't post photos of rockets being fired from civilian population centers."

"Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine, before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank. Don't forget to always add 'innocent civilian' or 'innocent citizen' in your description of those killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

"Begin [your reports of] news of resistance actions with the phrase 'In response to the cruel Israeli attack,' and conclude with the phrase 'This many people have been martyred since Israel launched its aggression against Gaza.' Be sure to always perpetuate the principle of 'the role of the occupation is attack, and we in Palestine are fulfilling [the role of] the reaction.'

"Avoid publishing pictures of rockets fired into Israel from [Gaza] city centers. This [would] provide a pretext for attacking residential areas in the Gaza Strip. Do not publish or share photos or video clips showing rocket launching sites or the movement of resistance [forces] in Gaza.

"To the administrators of news pages on Facebook: Do not publish close-ups of masked men with heavy weapons, so that your page will not be shut down [by Facebook] on the claim that you are inciting violence. In your coverage, be sure that you say: 'The locally manufactured shells fired by the resistance are a natural response to the Israeli occupation that deliberately fires rockets against civilians in the West Bank and Gaza'..."


Courtesy MEMRI Middle East Media Research Institute.


How the media invent their own statistics;

You will frequently hear the media say that the Gaza Strip "is the most densely populated area on earth."   THIS IS UNTRUE!

Journalists and talking heads in the London studios of Sky News and BBC should be told that LONDON, where they sit, has a population density of a third greater than the Gaza Strip!

Here are some statistics, easily available by Googling population densities by location;

MACAU has a p.d. of 73,350 people per square mile.
Wealthy MONACO has a p.d. of 42,143 people per square mile.
Lovely SINGAPORE has a p.d. twice the number of the Gaza Strip = 18,000 +
Crowded LONDON kicks in at 12,331 people per square mile.
GAZA STRIP has a population density of only 9,713 people per square mile.

Erdogan ratchets up his anti-Semitic rhetoric.



Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Israel in his most anti-Semitic speech yet.
He compared Bayit Yehudi Knesset member, Ayelet Shaked, to Hitler on Tuesday, 15 July when he criticized Israel’s actions against terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
Her remarks referred to an article by deceased Makor Rishon editor Eli Elitzur from 2002, at the height of the second intifada, from which the Bayit Yehudi MK quoted on her Facebook page on July 1;
“The Palestinian people declared war on us, and we must fight back. Not an operation, not low-intensity, not destroying terror infrastructure... This is a war between two nations. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, they started,” Elitzur wrote.
“This mentality is no different to that of Hitler,”  Erdogan said.
He referred to Israel’s aerial campaign against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza, as “systematic genocide.”
This is the man that condemned anti-Semitism and Zionism in the same sentence at a UN speech in Vienna in febraury 2013.  “We must consider — just like Zionism or anti-Semitism or fascism — Islamophobia as a crime against humanity."  Notice not anti-Zionism, but Zionism itself, an expression of Jewish self-determination and independence.
On Thursday Erdogan went further. “Israel is a country threatening the world’s peace. It’s a country that threatens the Middle East peace. [Israel] has never pretended to be pro-peace. It has always tormented [the Palestinian people], and today it is continuing to do so,”
He stressed that good relations with Israel were impossible under the current circumstances. 
“The government and I will never look positively [at Israel] as long as we are in power … [Israel] may seem like the winner for now. But it will eventually be defeated.” Erdoğan seemed to be echoing the Hamas ambition of defeating and destroying the Jewish State of Israel. 
He repeated his “systemic genocide” nonsense at a meeting of Islamic scholars in Istanbul to mark Ramadan.  “We have been witnessing this systematic genocide every Ramadan since 1948. The world remains silent because those who lost their lives are Palestinian.”   
With lies like this, Erdogan encourages Islamic scholars into a religious conflict with Israel.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading international Jewish rights NGO, labelling Turkey’s current climate as a “prescription for disaster" referring to violent pro-Palestinian protests that led the Israeli government reduce its diplomatic presence in Turkey.

"Recent acts of violence, rioting, threats and insults against Israel and Jews--including Turkey's historic Jewish community--by national leaders and personalities, are prescriptions for disaster," Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Center's associate dean, said in a statement released on July 18.


"When Prime Minister Erdo
ǧan falsely describes Israel's self-defense against Hamas as 'genocide'; when calls for the elimination of Jews are backed by the mayor of Ankara; when a popular Turkish singer tweets that it will be 'Muslims who will bring an end to those Jews' and 'May God bless Hitler', it cannot be business as usual."
"Finally, we call on NATO Secretary General Rasmussen to denounce the anti-Jewish campaign in Turkey. NATO was created to defend democracies and freedom, not bullies and bigots," the letter concluded.
With such a poisoned atmosphere, it is clear why Israel rejected Turkey’s efforts to be the broker for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Barry Shaw is the author of “Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.” www.israelnarrative.com

He is also the special consultant on delegitimization issues to the Strategic Dialogue Center at Netanya Academic College.

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Remove Hamas - find peace. A new plan for a better Middle East future.


For those advocating a Two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a major problem to finding a way forward has been the monster in the room. That monster is Hamas.

At the end of every painstaking set of negotiations no Palestinian leader, neither Arafat nor Abbas could bring themselves to sign an agreement. They were scared of their constituents, and the reason for their fear was the violent supporters of Hamas and its fellow bully, Islamic Jihad. There is an expression in this neck of the woods that the moment Abbas signs a peace agreement with Israel he’s a dead man. Removing that threat introduces hope of a way forward.

Despite officially designating Hamas as a terrorist organization, the international community has wasted too much time trying to foster a unity between Fatah and Hamas, hoping such a move would kosher this murderous group. They urged reconciliation between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and Hamas on the mistaken assumption that by uniting both parties this would improve the prospects of a peace process with Israel.  The recent outburst of incessant and insane Hamas rocket fire from Gaza against civilian areas in Israel has proven, beyond anyone’s doubt, how wrong-headed this assumption was.

No peace is possible while Hamas is in the room. It’s time to reassess the strategy.

Nobody can be in any further doubt that Hamas is the main obstacle to peace. The threat of Hamas prevents any possible progress to a Two-State solution, or any solution. Removing Hamas would give confidence to any pragmatic Palestinian leader genuinely concerned for the future of his people to live in peace and prosperity.

Uniquely, there is a moment, a golden opportunity, to achieve that goal if the international community would back the necessary steps to achieve peace. The path will be dangerous and treacherous but, perhaps for the first time in decades, there is real hope for people of courage and commitment.

So what are the steps necessary to reach the goal of peace and reconciliation for Israel and the Palestinians?

Today, we have an unrepentant and violent Hamas determined, sooner or later, to cripple and destroy Israel. We have Israel, smarting from a month of rocket bombardment, itching to eradicate this terror threat. We have an international community that, as stated earlier, has officially called Hamas a terrorist organization. We have Egypt that hates Hamas as much as Israel does. And we have a Palestinian Authority too scared to reach a final settlement with Israel that would benefit their people because of Hamas. The combination of all these factors point the way forward.

You need a military solution to achieve a diplomatic solution.

Amazingly, after living under the constant trauma of one thousand three hundred rockets, the Israeli people are telling their government, “We can take it. Finish the job. Get rid of Hamas!” The international community should declare terrorist Hamas outside the law, allow Israel to do what it takes to remove the influence of Hamas from the Gaza Strip by destroying its arsenal of deadly weapons, removing its operatives, and imprisoning its leaders. Once this has been achieved, Israel should agree to step aside and allow the international community, with the aid of NATO, to permit the Palestinian Authority to assert new law and order in a demilitarized Gaza Strip.
Israel and Egypt will agree to lift the blockade of Gaza and allow the free flow of goods and financing into the area.
When order has been restored, the Palestinian Authority should hold elections in all the territory under their control with the stipulation that Hamas is outside the law and banned from participating. Following these elections fresh talks can begin with Israel for a permanent solution to a Two-State solution.

Based on what Israel and the Palestinians have just gone through, and with the added stimulus of hope outlined in this plan, it is highly likely that both sides will have the resolve to put their differences aside and conclude a deal. Israel has repeatedly shown willingness to compromise. It is expected that, having regained the Gaza Strip, a newly elected, internationally sanctioned,  Palestinian Authority will be sufficiently amenable to recognize, and live in peace alongside, the Jewish State of Israel.

The people of Israel are ready to do the dangerous and dirty work required to drain the terror swamp of Gaza and create the conditions for peace. It is up to the international community to find the same courage and commitment to back this plan and introduce a new diplomatic solution to a conflict that has gone on for far too long.


Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com  He is also the special consultant on delegitimization issues to the Strategic Dialogue Center at Netanya Academic College, Israel.


Monday 14 July 2014

Denial of painful truths block the path to peace.


What does it take for people of supposed reason and intelligence to see things as they really are?

Recently, the perceptive and erudite Alan Dershowitz told us how the repeated and incessant Hamas rocket attacks against Israel shatters established myths. He quoted three myths; that the primary cause of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is occupation and settlement building, that both sides share the blame for the “cycle of violence,” and that Mahmoud Abbas is part of the solution, not the problem. Skillfully, and with common sense, he deconstructed each of these concepts. He evidenced his arguments on recent Hamas decisions and actions, each of which, individually and collectively, exposes the truth that no peace is possible with such a fractured Palestinian society and Palestinian political structure in which the majority of the people (as evidenced by their last election results which gave Hamas an overwhelming majority) support a universally designated terrorist organization, and an Islamic one at that, that rejects the Jewish State of Israel anywhere
.
In Paris, aping Palestinian Arab youth, Muslims demonstrated their support for the Palestinian cause by throwing rocks and bricks at French Jews and tried to assault the synagogues into which they fled for shelter. One said that it was like “an intifada.” For these Muslim immigrants in France, just as it is for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Palestinian Salafists, and some will say the Palestinian Authority, their struggle is one of removing the presence of a Jewish State from the region.

The mob attitude, as well as Hamas words and deeds, changes the Palestinian cause into Anti-Semitism. No peace is possible with such racial hatred, on either side of the conflict.

For all French Jews, the frightening sight of fellow Jews fleeing for their lives into a Jewish sanctuary is synonymous with the need for French Jews to escape the dangerous streets of France and find shelter in the Jewish State of Israel.

Here though, they should appreciate that the hatred expressed in various forms and at all levels of Palestinian society against Israel is, at its deep heart, a burning Anti-Semitism that does not allow even the so-called moderate arm of the Palestinian political spectrum to accept the notion of a Jewish state, and insists in having a Jew-free Palestine.

Anyone with a modicum of reason and common sense can see that Israel is fighting a war against terror – Palestinian terror. Yet, the media and diplomats in Western liberal democracies, whom you would assume to have an ounce of knowledge about the basic values of Israel, and the lack of such values in the rest of the violent Middle East, are in denial. Why? We can’t accuse them all of being Anti-Semites. Instead, they are tainted with the opinion that all Israel has to do is give up land for peace and we can all live happily ever after. If only!

What fools they are! How closely they resemble the Three Monkeys. It’s “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” when it comes to their attitude toward the Palestinians. But if Israel is forced to defend its citizens from Palestinian terror all hell is let loose. Israel is deserving of intense retribution, according to the naïve elite that wrongly makes the moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Dershowitz references this in his myth about “the cycle of violence” that fails to value the struggle of a liberal democracy against totalitarian and religious terror regime, even if that terror falsely disguises itself in a cloak of liberation.   These mordant fools of the press, politics, and academia need to be told that the shallowness of their thinking discredits them. If their judgment on such a basic issue is not valued or appreciated, how can they be trusted to formulate the fate of Israel?

Here I want to appeal to the “Two-Staters” - those who have, for forty years, been championing the elusive, if not impossible, Two-State Solution. They seem to be the same people who are scrambling to force Israel into negotiating a ceasefire with Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. I will grant that they are people of goodwill and capable of following a fairly simple thought process. So, I will address them directly;
If you accept, and current events make this point undeniable, that Hamas is a spoiler in the peace process, a Hamas that is an officially designated terrorist organization and is doing everything possible to prove it? 

Doesn't it make sense therefore that, instead of keeping them and their deadly weapons in place, you should be encouraging Israel to do the dirty work and degrade their stockpiles and weaken their leadership to insignificance? Wouldn’t you think this would give the opportunity for the “moderate” branch of the Palestinian Authority to assert their control of the Gaza Strip, and improve the prospects of the people living there? And wouldn’t this herald a better future that would encourage Israel to sit down and hammer out a permanent peace agreement with a de-militarized Palestinian entity that has asserted itself in both the West Bank and Gaza?

Clearly the political status quo is unsustainable. If you truly want peace in our neck of the woods, this means enforcing a profound change in the existing political framework, one that strengthens the moderate and liberal democratic voices and eliminates, as much as possible, the radical intolerant violent elements. Going toe to toe with violent, fundamental, terrorists requires courage and commitment, and the full support of fellow travelers who share this vision. Israel has the courage and the necessity for take up this challenge. The consequence of failing to support Israel in this mission inevitably means we will have a repeat of Palestinian terror in the next year or so after they, once again, build up their weapon stockpile.

It also means that “Two-State” dreamers will continue to dream for another forty years.


Barry Shaw is the special consultant on delegitimization issues to the Strategic Dialogue Center at Netanya Academic College. He is also the author of “Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.” www.israelnarrative.com

Saturday 12 July 2014

How Mandela’s legacy has faded so badly.


At a recent event celebrating the legacy of Nelson Mandela, held at the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Academic College, with an audience of mainly elderly ex-South Africans, it was strange to sit in front of a couple of ladies who were gently singing the words of the South African anthem.
It occurred to me that, since making Aliyah from Manchester, I have never felt the urge to break into “God Save the Queen.” That was in my past. Good luck to it. Most attending this special event left the nation of their birth for a new life in Israel but carried it with them to Israel. They demonstrated they are still rooted to their past. The event was an attempt to make Mandela’s legacy relevant to Israel. Those singing, or humming, their old anthem may not have known the contents of a recent statement issued by Mandela’s ANC party which has caused outrage in the South African Jewish community.

I was given a copy as I entered the auditorium by someone who, like me, is active on behalf of Israel. The statement is truly shocking!
It was written by Jessie Duarte, the deputy Secretary-General on the ANC.  In it, she wrote “The state of Israel has turned the occupied territories of Palestine into permanent death camps.” She writes that they are “reminded of the atrocities of Nazi Germany.” She asks the people of Israel has the term “lest we forget” lost its meaning.
The statement condemns what she, on behalf of the ANC, calls “the barbaric attacks on the defenseless Palestinian people of Gaza.” 

I was reading this statement on a day when 150 Palestinian rockets had been fired at civilian areas throughout Israel. Israelis suffered daily rocket attacks before responding with surgical strikes against a massive bank of terror targets. Six million Israelis (does that number ring a bell, Mrs. Duarte?) are within range of the Palestinian rockets fired by “the defenseless people of Gaza”.   Not one word about this appeared in the iniquitous ANC statement. At an event commemorating Mandela’s legacy, how deeply has his failing and corrupt party fallen?

One of the panelists, Nic Wolpe, is a proud ANC member. He tried to amuse the audience by telling of a recent experience at Yad Vashem  where he was accused of being an anti-Semite. I don’t know what he said to draw such a response but he jokingly questioned if, as a Jew, he could be called an anti-Semite. He assumed it was possible. One can only imagine what offensive words he said that in the global center of Holocaust memorial located in the ancient capital of the Jewish people he was called an anti-Semite. Such is the abusive and insensitive nature of ANC, as witnessed by Wolpe’s words and Duarte’s official document.

Wolpe may wallow in the glory of Mandela but, as a South African Jew and a member of the ANC, if he puts his hand on his heart and reads the awful words of his party against Israel, words that are deeply offensive for any Jew, he must hang his head in shame. If he doesn’t, he deserves the epithet of being called a Jewish anti-Semite.

Wolpe discussed the period when Nelson Mandela’s moved the ANC into the armed struggle stage. Mandela is not celebrated for this dark period of South African history but for the pragmatic and charismatic leader and masterful politician he later became. But for those in awe of him, the armed struggle as an essential element of the black march to freedom. As such, the ANC and many others find equivalence in Hamas and Palestinian violence. For them, it is part of the process. But when Mandela and the ANC turned to "armed resistance" in 1961, they did so on the basis there must be no killings of white civilians. The Palestinians, on the other hand, deliberately  target  Jewish civilians for terrorist murder including suicide bombings and rocket attacks.  This point is lost on the ANC. They airbrush out Palestinian terror crimes and falsify Israel’s response with passionate but bogus claims that convert Palestinian terrorists into “the defenseless Palestinian people of Gaza.”

Wolpe is a member of a party that endorsed the infamous “Israel Apartheid Week” in 2014. Even fellow panelist, Benjamin Pogrund, a close friend and advisor to Nelson Mandela, accused anyone supporting IAW as promoting “nothing more than slander designed to harm Israel.” (The Jewish Press, March 6, 2013)  
How can Wolpe remain a member of a party that has harming Israel as a cornerstone of its policies? It is a party that endorses the BDS campaign against Israel. How much worse can it get? Well, it is a party that lies without shame. It is the party that perpetrated the lie that Israel was the last major country that aided the Apartheid regime in South Africa, when they know full well that the wheels of the White regime’s industry and military turned thanks to the $2 billion fuel supplies from the oil rich Arab nations, mainly Saudi Arabia, and Israel’s business with South Africa was miniscule in comparison. Yet, ANC supports the Arabs and boycotts Israel.  How perverse can they be?

They need reminding that Mandela said in October 1999 that “I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel within secure borders.” This has not happened, not under Arafat or rejectionist Abbas, and certainly not under Hamas and Islamic Jihad. 
Let’s be honest; it won’t happen for two profound reasons explained by Palestinian human rights activist, Bassan Eid, a panelist at the Mandela Legacy event. 
He admitted that the Palestinians had failed to produce a Mandela. Certainly not Abbas who speaks the same twisted language as Duarte by referring to the Holocaust when Israel was a forced to respond to incessant Palestinian rocket attacks against its citizens. How easily they drop these Jewish symbols to demonise the Jewish state. We are reminded that Abbas has a master’s degree in Holocaust denial. 

One of the biggest failings of Arafat, Abbas, and the ANC, is that they failed to apply unity and reconciliation when it comes to Israel. Unity and reconciliation were two pillars of Mandela’s wisdom.

Some perceive Shimon Peres as the Israeli Nelson Mandela. Even if this were so, the Palestinians have failed to produce a De Klerk. Without De Klerk even Mandela’s road to peace would have failed.

Panelist, Benjamin Pogrund, a close friend and advisor to Mandela, assumes that he has to support the Palestinian cause because it’s good for Israel, and it’s good for his Jewish soul. He is reliving the echoes of his past and imposing it on the Palestinian conflict and Israel even as both Fatah and Hamas reject the notion of a Jewish state. His view is shared by many. They do nothing to hone Hamas into a pragmatic party seeking true democracy, a la Mandela. They do nothing about finding a Mandela figure among the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders. Mission impossible, I suspect. No matter. The cause is just as it reflects the old ANC struggle for freedom and liberty. Worthy causes, to be sure. As such, they are in denial as to the real face and aim of the Islamic terror arm of Palestinian society.

Proof of this could be seen in the Palestinian rocket fire. Does it not occur to them that the Palestinians are fighting Israel not for a land over there, but for the land here? Did they notice the violent ANC party of the Palestinians failed to target one West Bank settlement? Instead, they used all their terror assets to try and destroy central and southern Israel. Doesn’t it occur to them that this is the ultimate aim of both Fatah and Hamas, and everything else is a distraction aimed at weakening Israel in advance of the final fatal blow?
No matter, they say. Just give them victory, a la ANC, and they will share Mandela’s legacy. Such is the political absurdity that is driving the ANC-type dreamers, all blinded by Mandela’s unique example.

If the ANC supports the notion of a nation that respects all its citizens then Israel is their shining example of the Rainbow Nation. A “Judenrein” Palestinian state would be an apartheid state. It would be a state where even the Christians flee, Archbishop Tutu, as they have done from a Bethlehem under Palestinian control.  Or if you live in Islamic Hamastan, where minorities quake in fear, if you are gay in Gaza you’d better find safety in Tel Aviv.

All this they fail to see. They are so blinded by Mandela that the Palestinian cause, no matter how evil, is a blessed cause, and it is Israel that is preventing it from coming into fruition.  So let’s demand that Israel get out of the way, or curse it forever!  It is this that is at the deep dark heart of the ANC statement. It is a dangerous concept for which they will take none of the deadly consequences when it goes wrong. They share the struggle without taking responsibility for a deadly outcome. Theirs was successful. They naively assume that every struggle will end the same way. Nelson Mandela was a unique figure at a unique moment in history. You can’t cut and paste Mandela on to the Palestinian conflict. Finding similarities is like seeing distant water in an arid desert. It is a mirage devoutly to be wished, but it will not keep you alive because it is a false image.

Noted South African writer, Nadine Gordimer told HardTalk’s Stephen Sacher in April 2011 that “the original values of ANC are being betrayed.” Can there be any doubt about the truth of this following the latest foul ANC statement?

The problem of the ANC without Nelson Mandela is that is has sunk to become the failing, violent, divisive, corrupt party it is. It was so under Winnie Mandela. It is so today. Remove Nelson Mandela from the ANC and you have Fatah, and even worse, Hamas.



Barry Shaw is the Special Consultant to the Strategic Dialogue Center at Netanya Academic College. He is the founder of the Netanya Terror Victims Organization, and also the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com

Friday 4 July 2014

An eye for an eye leads to blindness.


Even as Israel sent its forces in a house-to-house search for the three missing teenagers, critical Palestinian and foreign voices were heard condemning Israel for imposing “collective punishment” on Palestinian society. Was this criticism justified? Or was it part of a Palestinian narrative to pick on Israel at every opportunity to gain global sympathy, even as they commit horrendous crimes on innocent Israelis, including youngsters and babies?

As IDF, police, and intelligence units probed Arab towns and villages in and around Hebron, acting on scant information, they were obstructed and hindered by the collective will and actions of local Palestinian residents. Collectively, they refused to offer any information that would help lead Israel to the kidnappers or to the location of the boys. Collectively, local Palestinians, and those in Gaza, celebrated the abduction and disappearance of the young boys, as if this was a cause for revelry.  Collectively, they complained about the efforts that were made to find the boys. Collectively, they interfered with attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Let’s be honest. This was a collective crime encouraged by instructions from Hamas, originated by the incitement and daily drip of hate and celebration of their terrorists by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in their official media outlets, official events, the naming of squares and streets honoring Palestinian murderers of Israelis, and by their official statements and exhortations. Hamas retains a creed to kill Jews. It openly calls for the destruction of Israel. But the Palestinian Authority has also been complicit. It glorifies the murderers of innocents. When caught and imprisoned by Israel, it pays its murderers salaries in excess of those paid to their own civil servants. They pump out the vision of a Palestinian world without the Jewish State. This narrative is confirmed regularly by Mahmoud Abbas with his utterances of a Palestinian state without Jews.

Top down, bottom up, or vice versa, Palestinian society is indoctrinated by Jew hatred. It is a reflection of a wider Arab phenomenon. Abbas has broad and popular support for deeds such as the teenage kidnapping. Even if he knew nothing about the plot, and did not approve of it, the atmosphere had been laid by him. Such grotesque incidents were collectively supported by rank and file Palestinian Arabs. They even blamed Israel for such evil acts, thereby deflecting their responsibility for such inhuman and unacceptable behavior.
To confirm. This was a collective Palestinian crime. The organizers and murderers of this terror act may be few in number, but we witnessed an outpouring of collective support from the bulk of Palestinian society and from the wider Palestinian supportive elite. 

Bari Atwan, a regular anti-Israel BBC talking head, when asked by Jon Sopel if he would condemn the murders of the three Israeli teenagers by Hamas replied that it had not been proven to have been committed by Hamas, and Hamas had not admitted carrying out the incident. When pressed further by Sopel if Atwan would condemn the murders if it is proven that Hamas was responsible, this Hamas-apologist stubbornly said, “No!” before departing on a rant about “excessive crimes committed by Israel” to divert attention away from having to answer a very relevant question. This echoed a Palestinian blogger on Sky News who also filled his air time with the usual Palestinian narrative of “Israeli international crimes” and the “Israeli injustices” leaving no time to answer questions of Palestinian terror crimes against Israeli teenagers.

This is how individually, and collectively, Palestinians and their supporters condone the uncondonable. They cannot bring themselves to express any reasonable remorse for the abduction and slaughter of three innocent Jewish boys, reasonable remorse for Palestinian terrorist crimes deliberately targeting civilians, including children and babies. Have we ever heard any such heartfelt condemnation from Palestinians or Arabs? None that I can recall.

This, in no way, justifies the brutal murder of the east Jerusalem Arab youth. Six Israelis have been arrested for this inexcusable crime which was loudly and publicly condemned by Israel’s Prime Minister and President, and by the vast majority of stable-minded citizens, including the relatives of the three murdered Israeli boys. If Mohammad’s murder was executed by Jewish hands it will be demonstrably decried by rabbis and Jews everywhere. This is how it should be. There is no room in Israel for the hot-headed passion of the mob. There is no room in Jewish ethics or morals for such a barbaric deed. It was never a part of our Jewish DNA. Now, apparently, it is. It must be quarterized and removed before this cancer spreads and irrevocably damages the rest of our Jewish and Israeli soul. Neither shooting a Jewish Prime Minister in the back, nor burning alive an Arab boy, can be sanctified under any Jewish ethical, religious, or nationalistic code.

Both tragic events were not an eye for an eye. They were not even a life for a life. No matter what excuses will be made, the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir was not even a life taken for a cause. His, like the killing of Gilad, Eyal, and Naftali, was a live taken for hate.

Steps can be taken to deter and prevent a repeat of awful acts like the murder of Naftali, Gilad, and Eyal. 

Killing Muhammad is not one of them.

Barry Shaw was the Founder of the Netanya Terror Victims Organization. He is also the author of “Israel Reclaiming the Narrative” available on Amazon and from www.israelnarrative.com
Barry Shaw is also the Special Consultant on anti-Israel Delegitimization Issues to the Strategic Dialogue Center at Netanya Academic College in Israel.