We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com
Dangerous Comparisons: Dan Diker, Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2014— The horrific kidnapping and murder of Arab teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a resident of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, apparently at the hands of Jewish teen terrorists, has shaken Israel to its core.
The Abyss Between Two Heinous Episodes: Ruth R. Wisse, Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2013— As America approached its national holiday this year, Israel and world Jewry were plunged into mourning for three students who were abducted and murdered by members of the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
The Fire This Time: Jonathan Spyer, New York Daily News, July 10, 2013— In recent years, even as the constant threat of terrorism from Hamas and Hezbollah loomed, Israelis would note the political conflagrations burning up the region all around them and would contrast these with the relative tranquility and normality in their own immediate neighborhood.
An Answer to Murder: Prof. Julien Bauer, Jerusalem Post, July 2, 2013— Israel is in a state of shock over the murder of Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach.
Israel is Doing its Best to Avoid Civilian Deaths. Hamas Can’t Say the Same: National Post, July 11, 2014— According to many critics, Israel is slaughtering civilians in Gaza.
There is No Moral Equivalence But Netanyahu Must Act Now: Isi Leibler, Candidly Speaking, July 9, 2014
Why Does Hamas Want War?: Daniel Pipes, National Review, July 11, 2014
Hamas’s (and Iran’s) Fail-Safe Strategy: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2014
Breaking the Kidnapping Cycle: Amiel Ungar, Jerusalem Report, July 8, 2014
Where are the Palestinian Mothers?: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2014
A Bloody Endless Peace: Daniel Greenfield, Sultan Knish, July 10, 2014
Dan Diker
Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2014
The horrific kidnapping and murder of Arab teen Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a resident of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat, apparently at the hands of Jewish teen terrorists, has shaken Israel to its core. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu immediately and unequivocally condemned the murder. Netanyahu said, “I pledge that the perpetrators of this horrific crime will face the full weight of the law. I know that in our society, the society of Israel, there is no place for such murderers…. I do not distinguish between terrorism and terrorism.” As might be expected of Israel, the unequivocal, across-the-board public condemnation; speedy capture of the prime suspects; visits to the victim’s home by senior Israeli ministers; and government assistance to the victim’s family all bespeak both national anguish and at the same time, the proper moral response of a free, democratic society to a moment of domestic crisis.
While the murder’s political motive renders it terrorism, the heart-wrenching public anguish in its wake is reminiscent of that which followed the 2012 New Town, Connecticut, school massacres and the Denver movie theater shootings. Even Rachel Fraenkel, mother of Naftali Fraenkel, one of three Israeli teens recently kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists, in the midst of her own mourning period condemned the apparent revenge attack, saying, “Even in the depths of the mourning over our son, it is hard for me to describe how distressed we were over the outrage that happened in Jerusalem – the shedding of innocent blood is against morality, it is against the Torah and Judaism, it is against the basis of our life in this country.”
Israel’s response to this tragedy notwithstanding, a new moral equivalence between Israel and Fatah and Hamas is being explicitly or implicitly suggested by Western media and other observers. This parity of legitimacy between terrorist groups or terrorism-supporting organizations and democratic states such as Israel that struggle against them is more dangerous than the hundreds of rockets and mortars that Hamas is firing indiscriminately into civilian neighborhoods in Israel’s southern towns and cities. The New York Times, for example, characterized these recent events as Israel and the Palestinians “descending into a spiral of personal vendettas and bloodletting” in a July 6 report. The Washington Post called it “spiraling violence could be the spark that ignites a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against the Israeli occupation.” Such characterizations are misleading. The latest terrorist acts committed by Hamas in Judea and Samaria, and in Jerusalem allegedly by Jewish teens, would seem to defy categorization as manifestations of “personal vendettas.” Instead, they illustrate the vast differences between the character of radical terrorist groups and that of Israel as a free society that is battling both radical Islamic terrorism and domestic terrorism.
Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an ideological precursor to al-Qaida. It is a major driver of the current reconciliation government with the Palestinian Authority, and publicly calls for the kidnapping and murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel as a matter of ideology, theology and policy. Hamas, as reflected in its 2006 victory in the Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections in its ongoing bid to take over the PA, enjoys broad Palestinian public support. Americans and Israelis remember that the streets of Gaza were filled with candy on 9/11, and with tears when the United States killed Osama bin Laden. The Hamas leadership in Gaza and the West Bank are in a marathon race for local public opinion, which largely supported the Hamas terrorist attack against Israeli children as an effective strategy to free Palestinian terrorists incarcerated in Israeli jails. The “outgoing” Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, publicly called for the kidnapping of Israelis during his “goodbye” address to the Palestinian public on the eve of the recent swearing in of the Palestinian reconciliation government. Hamas and Fatah both embrace and nurture a culture of incitement to murder Israelis, name streets, boulevards, schools, camps and public spaces after terrorists, and educate and train children to embrace jihad.
In Israel, unlike in some other Western countries, incitement to murder and violence is not protected free speech. It’s punishable by law. While enforcement has been lax in many cases, Israel has already punished soldiers and prosecuted others who have called for revenge against Hamas. The Israeli teen terrorists who are accused of carrying out the Abu Khdeir murder represent no one, are identified with no political party, religious sect or social movement. As Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to Washington noted, “They will not be hailed as heroes and no public squares will be named in their honor.” Instead they have earned the condemnation of the nation state of the Jewish people, as well as of the media, shapers of public opinion and public representatives. These deranged kids (some under 16) have banished themselves far beyond the outer fringes of Israeli society. That’s why suggesting a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas and Fatah via the “cycle of violence” news narrative is dangerous. It may make for neat news packaging, but does a disservice to Israel and other liberal democracies battling jihad and radical Islamic terror while striving to strengthen the moral fabric of their own societies.
THE ABYSS BETWEEN TWO HEINOUS EPISODES
Ruth R. Wisse
Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2014
As America approached its national holiday this year, Israel and world Jewry were plunged into mourning for three students who were abducted and murdered by members of the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Thirty-eight years ago, on July 4, 1976, jubilation greeted the news that an Israeli commando raid had freed 102 fellow citizens held hostage by Palestinian terrorists at an airport in Entebbe, Uganda. These different outcomes for the same kind of villainy directed at Jewish targets prompts us to ask which side is winning this unilateral war. Some would say that Arab violence against Jews is no villainy at all, but merely an alternate form of national politics. Representatives of the American government seeking peace in the Middle East have been shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders as though dealing with equivalent societies with an equal investment in territorial compromise. In the arts, the Metropolitan Opera in New York this season plans to present a work that gives sympathetic voice to Palestinian terrorists who in 1985 shoved a disabled American off a cruise ship and into the ocean because he was a Jew. Reflecting the abjuration of evil, the opera is called "The Death of Klinghoffer" instead of "The Murder of Klinghoffer."
Now that Jewish suspects have been apprehended in the Jerusalem murder of 16-year-old Arab Mohammed Abu Khudair, there are those who would cite the parallel between this heinous crime and the recent murders of Gilad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach, and Naftali Frenkel as proof of moral and political equivalence between the two societies. One anticipates that in the coming days the standard outlets for such views will offer standard justifications for Arab rioting and condemnations of Jewish extremism as part of the same alleged cycle of violence. But are the situations comparable? Arab rioters did not wait for the identification or apprehension of suspects in the killing of Mohammed Abu Khudair to begin destroying Jewish life and property. One of their first targets was Jerusalem's new light-rail system that connects Jewish and Arab sectors of the city. In their own communities, murderers of Israelis enjoy support, encouragement, adulation. News of the abduction of three Israeli boys had no sooner hit the Internet on June 13 than Arab celebrants were handing out candies and posting three-fingered salutes, called Gilad Shalits, for the Israeli soldier seized by Hamas and held for five years until "swapped" in 2011 for 1,027 Arab prisoners whose crimes had included the killing of 569 Israelis. The celebrants of mid-June were mocking the value that Jews place on individual life, one that contrasts so sharply with the value they place on taking Jewish life. Three Shalits would have given them three times the bargaining power had the abduction not ended with the boys being shot instead. Almost a month after the murder of the Jewish boys, the Arab perpetrators are still on the loose.
In startling contrast, Israeli police instantly distinguished among several false leads to track down the Arab victim's suspected killers. Some Israelis had already denounced the presumed Jewish seekers of vengeance, with neither side waiting for formal indictment much less due process before engaging in self-recrimination on one hand and accusation on the other. The identification of Jewish suspects by the Jerusalem police triggered instantaneous condemnations: Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, who heads the Yeshiva at Elon Moreh, said Jewish law calls for capital punishment for crimes of murder, citing first the crime against the Israeli Arab and then the crime against the Jewish students…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Jonathan Spyer
New York Daily News, July 10, 2014
In recent years, even as the constant threat of terrorism from Hamas and Hezbollah loomed, Israelis would note the political conflagrations burning up the region all around them and would contrast these with the relative tranquility and normality in their own immediate neighborhood. These observations were made nervously, not with arrogance. Behind them was the assumption that it couldn't last. Sooner or later, the wave of political fury sweeping the region would erupt in Israel's immediate vicinity too. Now it has happened. The local version of the militant Islamist political orientation which is driving the instability in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt has now once more awakened in Israel and is spreading chaos in its wake.
Whichever particular wing or structure or iteration of the Hamas movement precisely was responsible for the recent kidnapping and murder of Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shayer and Eyal Yifrach, there is no serious doubt remaining as to the movement's responsibility for this atrocity. It was this act which proved the trigger for all that has followed: the rounding up of Hamas suspects as Israel scoured the West Bank in search of the boys; a rain of missiles and rockets from the Hamas sovereign enclave in Gaza, and now, the real possibility of a renewed IDF ground operation into Gaza.
There is a tendency to see the Israeli-Palestinian arena as somehow set apart from the rest of the Mid-East neighborhood. But this is an illusion. Firstly, in the most tangible way, the most potent elements of the Hamas assault on Israeli cities of recent days is made possible only by the movement's link with Iran. The M-302 missile which was fired on Hadera on Tuesday is a product of Syria, and was almost certainly supplied to Hamas by Iran. Similar materiel was discovered by the IDF on the Klos-C arms ship, apprehended by the IDF on its way from Iran to Sudan in March. Similarly, the Islamic Jihad movement, which has been rapidly gaining strength at Hamas's expense in Gaza in recent months, is a full proxy of Iran. But in a deeper sense, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are local manifestations of the particular, pathological Islamist political-religious-paramilitary style and ideology which has challenged order and made life a misery all across the region in recent decades, and with added strength in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring of 2011…So why then have Israel and its environs nevertheless managed to avoid the general collapse of these other countries? The reason is deterrence.
There is a single, dominant military element west of the Jordan River. This element is the Israel Defense Forces. But deterrence, alas, is a perishable substance, which must be periodically replenished. Hamas, facing difficult economic straits, with its tunnels sealed by Sisi's armed forces, with newer and yet more radical Islamist elements inspired by ISIS emerging from within, evidently decided that it was time for another round. As of now, Israel is engaging in a far reaching operation designed to hit at Hamas' capabilities. But more profoundly, in the simple and brutal logic of the neighborhood, Israel is trying to remind Hamas of the cost of tangling with the Jewish state. The objective of this is not to re-conquer Gaza, nor to impact on local politics, still less to impose suffering on the Palestinians for its own sake. When one's neighbors are Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the modest objective of quiet can only be bought at the cost of periodic military actions intended to remind the enemy of the cost of aggression and thus reinforce deterrence. Because of the strength of Israeli arms, the conflict between Israel and the PA territories don't resemble those roiling Iraq or Syria. The relative balance of forces, however, is a lesson which those who wish to turn the country into something resembling those hell-holes must periodically re-learn – through bitter experience.
Julien Bauer
Jerusalem Post, July 2, 2014
Israel is in a state of shock over the murder of Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach. Yet what is a national tragedy in Israel is perceived as a foot-note outside. Many people in the Western world were not even aware that Palestinian terrorists had kidnapped the three boys on their way home and that nothing had been heard about them since then. With the FIFA Mundial in Brazil on one side and the advance of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on the other, who cares about three Israeli Jewish teen-agers?
Even after the murders were announced, reactions from Western capitals were ambivalent. The first reaction of the White House was a blanket denunciation of killing innocent people, without an iota of empathy, without even recognizing that the three teen-age victims had names. A little later, President Obama did some damage control: he expressed some understanding, “as a father,” for the teen-agers, he called them by name, but ended with an appeal for calm and negotiations, meaning no serious Israeli response to the savagery of its enemies. The same approach, “we are sorry but life must continue as if nothing had happened,” was taken by the European States.
What should be Israel’s answer? Some are arguing for a massive operation in Gaza, others want to continue heavy pressure on Hamas in Judea and Samaria, or propose, “as a Zionist response,” to establish new settlements. The first two options, the most military ones, are of dubious interest. They will weaken Hamas and other radical groups for a short period of time. After a few months or, at best, a few years, the violence will come back. But “planting new roots” in Israel, on both sides of the Green Line, is of a different nature. It is civilian and not mostly military. It changes the map either for the foreseeable future or, at a minimum, until an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is reached. To build settlements in a haphazard way, one here, one there, is emotionally satisfying but not politically savvy. The choice has to be strategic, understood by Israel’s enemies as a consequence of any act of savagery, and must also be geared towards the future.
An area with these three requirements is E1, the hill between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim. This land is empty. Sooner or later, it will be inhabited–if E1 becomes an Arab district, it will ensure the weakening of Israeli sovereignty east of Jerusalem. If E1 becomes a Jewish district, it will prevent Arab districts, both the old and the new, from encircling Jerusalem and cutting the link between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim. E1 represents a rare case of either-or, of one side winning, and the other side losing. To build on E1 will most probably lead to international condemnation of Israel. The Security Council will blame Israel and, under the Obama administration, it can be expected that the US will not veto such a condemnation, and will abstain. It will not be the first time Israel is blamed. Only a few years ago, Israel was pilloried for constructing the new Jerusalem district of Har Homa. Today Har Homa is part and parcel of Jerusalem.
To make the rationale for building on E1 perfectly clear, not just as a superficial reaction but as a fundamental policy decision, the name E1, not fitting for the Holy City, should be changed, to Beit haShlosha, the House of the Three. Establishing the House of the Three will be a tribute to Naftali, Gil-Ad and Eyal, an answer to Palestinian savagery, and a step forward for Jerusalem.
(Julien Bauer is Professor of Political Science at l’Université
du Québec à Montréal. He is spending a semester in Jerusalem.)
ISRAEL IS DOING ITS BEST TO AVOID CIVILIAN DEATHS.
William Saletan
National Post, July 11, 2014
According to many critics, Israel is slaughtering civilians in Gaza. It’s “purposefully wiping out entire families,” says an Arab member of Israel’s parliament. It’s committing “genocide — the murder of entire families,” says Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. Iran says Israel has committed “massacres against the defenceless Palestinians.” The charges are false. By the standards of war, Israel’s efforts to spare civilians have been exemplary. Israel didn’t choose this fight. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the terrorist organizations that dominate Gaza, claim that Israel provoked the conflict by arresting Hamas members in the West Bank. But arrests in one territory don’t justify aerial bombardment from another. Israel didn’t hit Gaza until terrorists had fired more than 150 rockets into Israel and had rejected a cease-fire.
Some of the pictures that purport to show devastation from the Israeli strikes are fakes borrowed from other wars. As of Thursday afternoon, the death count ranged from 30 to 60 or more, depending on where you mark the onset of the conflict. Every death is tragic, and the longer the assault goes on, the higher the toll will go. Still, given that Israel has struck more than 750 targets so far, you’d have to conclude that either Israel is failing miserably to kill people or, more plausibly, it’s largely trying not to kill them. Israel’s defence minister admits his forces have targeted “terrorists’ houses” as well as “arms, terror infrastructures, command systems, Hamas institutions, [and] regime buildings.” The houses belong to Hamas military leaders. An Israeli official boasts that “there’s not a single Hamas brigade commander that has a home to go back to.” Israel’s legal rationale for targeting these homes is that they were “terror command centres” involved in rocket fire or other “terror activity.” But while Israel has tried to kill commanders in their cars (and has succeeded), it has avoided unannounced strikes on their homes.
The last time Israel targeted buildings in Gaza, a year and a half ago, it used leaflets and phone calls to warn residents to get out beforehand. It also fired flares or low-impact mortars (known as a “knock on the roof”) to signal impending strikes. Human rights groups didn’t accept these measures as protection from legal responsibility, but they did hail them as progress. Israel claims to be applying the same measures today. Hamas and other Palestinian sources confirm that the Israeli military has issued phone warnings to families in the targeted homes. The worst civilian death toll — seven, at the latest count — occurred in a strike on the Khan Yunis home of a terrorist commander. Hamas calls it a “massacre against women and children.” But residents say the family got both a warning call and a knock on the roof. An Israeli security official says Israeli forces didn’t fire their missile until the family had left the house. The official didn’t understand why some members of the family, and apparently their neighbours, went back inside. The residents say they were trying to “form a human shield.”
Human shields are a difficult problem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hamas is responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza, because it deliberately sets up rocket launchers and military infrastructure in civilian areas. That excuse is too broad. The low death rate in this week’s airstrikes — and the explanations from Israeli officials as to how the casualty rate has been minimized — show that it’s possible to degrade Hamas’ military assets without killing hundreds of people. The Khan Yunis scenario is different. There, the human shield was voluntary. According to Ha’aretz, an Israeli officer insisted on Wednesday morning that if other civilians followed this example — responding to prestrike warnings by going onto the roofs to form human shields —Israel wouldn’t be deterred. Maybe the officer was bluffing. But what if this scenario happens again? And what if the would-be martyrs appear on the roof while Israel still has time to avert the strike, which wasn’t the case in Khan Yunis? Would their deaths be homicide? Would they be suicide? That’s a tough call. But anyone concerned about the deliberate targeting of civilians in this conflict should first look at Hamas. The rocket fire from Gaza into Israel began well before the Israeli assault on Gaza. Initially, the rockets were Islamic Jihad’s idea. But in the last few days, Hamas has joined in with gusto, claiming credit for missiles fired at several Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.
Apologists for Hamas argue that its weapons are less precise than Israel’s, so collateral damage is inevitable. That won’t wash. Hamas now has longer-range missiles, known as M-302s or R-160s, that are more precise than its clumsy old Grad rockets. It has been firing the new missiles at cities anyway. Hamas has also flatly rejected the principle of sparing civilians. According to a Hamas spokesman, “All Israelis have now become legitimate targets.” I’ve criticized Israel for demolishing the West Bank homes of suspected Arab terrorists. That policy is indefensible. But in the Gaza war, it’s clear that Israel has gone to great lengths to minimize civilian deaths. The same can’t be said of Hamas.
CIJR Wishes All Our Friends & Supporters Shabbat Shalom!
There is no Moral Equivalence But Netanyahu Must Act Now: Isi Leibler, Candidly Speaking, July 9, 2014—The words of last week’s Torah portion resonate loudly, as we read of the non-Jewish prophet Balaam’s description of “the people that dwells alone and is not counted among the nations.”
Why Does Hamas Want War?: Daniel Pipes, National Review, July 11, 2014 —Politicians start wars optimistic about their prospects of gaining from the combat, Geoffrey Blainey notes in his masterly study, The Causes of War; otherwise, they would avoid fighting.
Hamas’s (and Iran’s) Fail-Safe Strategy: Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2014—What is Hamas doing? Hamas isn’t going to defeat Israel.
Breaking the Kidnapping Cycle: Amiel Ungar, Jerusalem Report, July 8, 2014—Before the bodies of Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel, the three Israeli teens abducted and murdered in Judea in mid-June, were discovered, I was asked to write about a hypothetical ransom deal under which Israel would release a boatload of convicted terrorists in exchange for the release of the trio.
Where are the Palestinian Mothers?: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, July 1, 2014 —In March 2004 a Palestinian teenager named Hussam Abdo was spotted by Israeli soldiers behaving suspiciously as he approached the Hawara checkpoint in the West Bank.
A Bloody Endless Peace: Daniel Greenfield, Sultan Knish, July 10, 2014 —"War is peace," entered our cultural vocabulary some sixty-four years ago.
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