OPERATION ‘PROTECTIVE EDGE’: GAZA MILITARY OFFENSIVE LAUNCHED, HUNDREDS OF HAMAS ROCKETS POUND ISRAEL, MURDERED PALESTINIAN SPARKS EXTENSIVE RIOTING

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Contents:

Where Apologies Are Needed: Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary, July 7, 2014— Some are reacting to the news that Israelis were responsible for the murder of an Arab teen by issuing apologies on behalf of all Jews for the crime.

Hamas Decides To Go For Broke: Elhanan Miller, Times of Israel, July 8, 2013— Hamas’s decision to end a 20-month-long ceasefire with Israel last week was a result of the movement’s gradual decline over the past year, accelerated by the unity deal with Fatah which has left it teetering on the verge of collapse.

Problems We Are Lucky To Have: Evelyn Gordon, Jerusalem Post, July 7, 2013— By any standard, the past week has been terrible.

Saving Ishmael and Isaac: Reuven Hammer, Jerusalem Post, July 7, 2013— During these dark and tragic days all of us have experienced feelings of anger, sorrow, grief and shame.

On Topic Links

Arab Murders Jews, Jews Murders Arab – Here’s The Difference [Video]: Jewish Press, July 7, 2014

Peace is the Only Path to True Security for Israel and the Palestinians: Barack Obama, Ha’aretz, July 8, 2014

I Believe in the Jewish People: Shalom Bear, Jewish Press, July 7, 2014

The Media’s Make-Believe Bibi: Seth Mandel, Commentary, July 8, 2014

Passivity Turned the Tables: Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom, July 8, 2014

WHERE APOLOGIES ARE NEEDED                                                             

Jonathan S. Tobin                                                                                                         Commentary, July 7, 2014

Some are reacting to the news that Israelis were responsible for the murder of an Arab teen by issuing apologies on behalf of all Jews for the crime. Some go further and also denounce anyone who tried to call the Palestinians to account for their applauding the kidnapping and murder of Israeli boys. But some of those who are now talking about Jewish collective guilt generally don’t apply the same standard to the Palestinians. Apologies for these crimes are in order. As our Seth Mandel wrote yesterday, the instances of anti-Arab incitement might not be as numerous as those of anti-Jewish rhetoric. Nor do they come from the organs of the Jewish state, as does the endless stream of hate that originates from official Palestinian Authority and Hamas sources. But they are nonetheless deplorable.

It doesn’t matter that what is rare among Jews is commonplace in the political culture of the Palestinians. If we have ignored or downplayed this virus, then it is appropriate at such moments to think seriously about where we have failed to sufficiently combat these awful tendencies. Even as we seek to place these views and the isolated actions of a few in the context of a conflict whose focus remains the determination of most of the Arab and Muslim world to destroy the Jewish state, there should be no downplaying the insidious nature of hatred expressed by Jews or, as our John Podhoretz noted earlier today, the profound betrayal of the Zionist enterprise that the actions of the killers of Muhammed Khdeir represent. If, while focusing so much on the behavior of Israel’s foes, we have, even unwittingly, given encouragement to those Jews who mimic the font of vicious anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic language that flows from the Muslim and Arab worlds, then we must hold ourselves accountable. As was the case when such things have happened in the past, this is the moment to say that we must be more vigilant in denouncing such expressions rather than ignoring or minimizing them.

But if our apologies are to be offered, is it too much to ask that both sides attempt to make amends? Is it offensive, as Bradley Burston says in a Haaretz piece, for Jews to have the temerity or the bad taste to mention the behavior of Palestinians during the two-week search for the three missing Israeli teenagers?

If Jews today feel ashamed about the murderers of an Arab teenager—and we are right to feel that way—is it really out of bounds to note the mainstreaming of hate and applause for terrorism that is integral to Palestinian nationalism? Apologists for the Palestinians seem to think so. Palestinian identity has become inseparable not only from anti-Zionism but also from a sense of victimhood. It is true that the experience of the last two millennia culminating in the Holocaust has created a Jewish sense of victimhood that also tends to mire Jewish identity in purely negative history at the expense of more positive attributes. Yet the narrative of Jewish achievements and the triumph of the Zionist dream are able to mitigate the overpowering and lugubrious tale of woe. But for Palestinians, nothing is allowed to distract from their sacred “narrative” in which their martyrdom at the hands of wicked Jews is established.

It is not just that the Palestinian Authority has inculcated the youth of their country with hatred of Jews and Israel since they were given autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. The problem isn’t just hate speech and the glorification of terror by official media and textbooks. It’s that there is no place in Palestinian culture for competing views in which their leaders’ historic rejection of compromise is discussed. Palestinians cheered the ordeal of the three Jewish teens in much the same way that they have always honored those who committed acts of the most brutal terror against Jews. They feel no obligation to apologize for these horrible acts because they believe their victim status entitles them to inflict any possible cruelty on their enemies. What we must come to terms with in this discussion is that the contrast between Israeli and Palestinian society is not that one side obsesses with the wrongs committed against them and a desire for revenge and the other does not. These sentiments are natural to all human beings and are just as present among Jews as they are among Arabs. The difference rests in that the Israelis have, thank Heaven, never allowed their self-absorption to overwhelm their cultural norms that act as a check against such behavior. The Palestinians have enshrined their sense of grievance to a point where they no longer have any perspective on it or their collective relationship with other peoples.

That is why Jews, from Israel’s prime minister and chief rabbis to pundits on both ends of the spectrum, are falling over themselves to apologize for Khdeir and Palestinians are, with rare exceptions, treating the suffering of Jews as a non-issue and cheering the terrorist missiles now raining down on Israeli towns and cities. To state this does not relieve Jews of the obligation to account for senseless hatred against Arabs. But those who think Palestinians need not apologize for terror and a culture that glorifies such crimes are not only wrong but also helping to make peace impossible.

Contents

HAMAS DECIDES TO GO FOR BROKE                                                        

Elhanan Miller                                                                                                                

Times of Israel, July 8, 2014

Hamas’s decision to end a 20-month-long ceasefire with Israel last week was a result of the movement’s gradual decline over the past year, accelerated by the unity deal with Fatah which has left it teetering on the verge of collapse. Isolated by Israel, shunned by Egypt and battered by Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Hamas has decided to go for broke. True, it had used its massive missile arsenal with relative restraint as of Tuesday afternoon, but it nevertheless hopes that a new round of violence can reshuffle the deck and leave it with a better hand.

The Islamic movement’s distress calls — directed mostly at Ramallah — have intensified over the past week. With 44,000 Hamas civil servants out of work and without salaries as Ramadan began, Hamas foreign ministry official Ghazi Hamad convened a press conference on July 3 to warn that “the Gaza Strip is in grave danger and the unity government doesn’t care what’s happening here.” Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah never called to ask about the situation in Gaza as it faced Israeli air strikes, Hamad charged, nor did the PA government allocate any budgets for the four ministries run from Gaza.

Politicians, Hamad was quoted by London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi as saying, must find urgent solutions for a situation which is growing increasingly untenable. “The reconciliation is in danger,” he said.

But Hamas’s call was not heeded. On Tuesday afternoon, as operation Protective Edge was in full force, Hamas deputy political bureau chief Moussa Abu Marzouk said he was hoping that the conflagration in Gaza would inspire West Bankers to launch a third intifada. “Today, we are all called upon for a popular intifada, an intifada for prisoner Jerusalem. Today, more than ever before, we are demanded to express our rejection of the occupation … we are sick of talk of resolutions and peace,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Attempting to capitalize on the murder of Palestinian teenager Muhammed Abu Khdeir last week, allegedly by Jewish terrorists, Hamas political bureau member Izzat al-Rishq wrote that “such battles and intifadas are always sparked by the blood of heroic youth, and then adopted by the people.”

Meanwhile, on the Egyptian front, Hamas’s pleas have also fallen on deaf ears. The Rafah border crossing has remained largely shut for months, and Egypt continues to operate against smuggling tunnels unabated.

In a speech Monday marking the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War according to the Muslim calendar, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi made no reference to Gaza; a fact that spoke volumes for the new regime’s attitude toward the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is classified as illegal under Egyptian law. “No previous Egyptian president from the military has ever dared to ignore Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, neither before the Camp David [peace accords with Israel] nor after it,” claimed a TV report in Al-Jazeera, a staunch supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Israel, for its part, remains reluctant to provide Hamas with the satisfaction of a new intifada. It is bracing itself for a gradual escalation to match that of Hamas, but nothing more, for now. Nuclear talks with Iran reach their deadline in 12 days, and Israel would not want to see the world distracted from what it defines as its greatest existential threat — a nuclear Iran.

Contents

PROBLEMS WE ARE LUCKY TO HAVE                                                               

Evelyn Gordon                                                                                                                

Jerusalem Post, July 7, 2014

By any standard, the past week has been terrible. We buried three kidnapped teens after 18 days of hoping against hope that they were alive. Rocket and mortar barrages from Gaza escalated to levels unseen since November 2012. An Arab teen was horrifically murdered by Jewish extremists, sparking the worst Israeli Arabs riots since October 2000. And the situation could yet deteriorate in countless ways. All of which makes this a fitting moment to recall how lucky we are to have these problems, rather than the ones Jews endured for two millennia before Israel’s establishment. And no, I’m not being sarcastic. Take, for instance, the Arab riots. Rumors about Jews abducting and/or killing non-Jews have sparked riots for centuries, and as recently as the first half of the last century, such riots routinely produced scores of dead Jews. Prominent examples include the 1903 Kishinev pogrom, which killed 47 Jews; the 1946 Kielce pogrom, which killed 42; and the 1929 Arab riots in British-ruled pre-state Israel, which killed 133.

The current Arab riots, in contrast, have so far killed nobody – because unlike in previous cases, we now have a sovereign Jewish state with its own police force rather than being dependent on the goodwill of other countries’ legal authorities. Far more remarkably, however, no lethal anti-Jewish riots have occurred anywhere in recent decades – and that isn’t because the rest of the world has become so civilized; sectarian and ethnic massacres happen almost daily in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. Rather, it’s because there’s now a Jewish state ready to take in any Jew threatened by such violence.

If Jews were still living in, say, Iraq and Syria, they would undoubtedly be slaughtered alongside (or ahead of) their Christian, Sunni and Shi’ite countrymen. And had there been no Israel, they would still be living there: America and Europe would never have taken in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees. Even today, when most Diaspora Jews live in “safe” countries, Israel’s role as refuge remains very much alive. Consider, for instance, this remarkable May 28 report by New York Times contributor Masha Gessen about her first visit back to Russia after emigrating to the US. "A new kind of conversational shorthand has appeared in Moscow: “What’s your month?” people ask one another. They mean the month for which you are signed up for an interview at the Israeli embassy to receive initial immigration documents. The nearest available slot for people booking an appointment now reportedly is in November, but most of my friends have appointments in August or September. Even getting an appointment is an ordeal: The embassy’s phone lines are so overburdened that getting through to the right department can take hours. And according to a recent, leaked picture, inside the embassy, it is a mob scene reminiscent of 1990-91, the peak years of the Soviet Jewish exodus." This was at the height of the Ukraine crisis; if it dies down, most of those Jews will likely remain in Russia. But they want the reassurance of having somewhere to flee if necessary. And only Israel can give them that.

Calling Israel a refuge might seem like a bad joke when Palestinians are bombarding it from Gaza and recently murdered three teens in the West Bank. But it’s not. No country can promise 100 percent security all the time. America couldn’t prevent a neo-Nazi from murdering three people at Jewish sites in Kansas City in April; Belgium couldn’t prevent a jihadist from murdering four at Brussels’ Jewish Museum in May; France couldn’t prevent a jihadist from murdering a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012; and Israel couldn’t prevent Hamas from kidnapping and killing the three teens. Throughout Jewish history, some people have sought to murder Jews just because they are Jews, and as long as such people exist, sometimes, they’ll succeed.

But the very fact that we can decide how to deal with such attacks is a tremendous privilege. In previous centuries, Jews under attack had only two options – flee or die. And so millions fled to other countries as impoverished refugees, and millions more were slaughtered. Today, we have a third option: self-defense. 

We may wait far too long to exercise this option, or make a mess of it once we do; both are true of successive governments’ responses to the rocket fire. But these are our choices, which means we can change them. And even our abysmally inadequate response to date, consisting mainly of civil defense measures, is an improvement over millennia of powerlessness: Such measures have decreased rocket casualties by an estimated 86%; as a result, very few Jews are either fleeing or dying in southern Israel.

Finally, having power means having responsibility when it’s abused. But refraining from harming others because you lack power to do so isn’t morality; it’s impotence. Thus only sovereignty creates the possibility of a moral Jewish society – one that voluntarily shuns evil rather than simply being powerless to commit it. We haven’t achieved that yet. But without sovereignty, we couldn’t even try to do so. That Israel still falls so short of our aspirations isn’t surprising; 66 years old is young for a country. America at that age was rent by a bitter divide over slavery that ultimately produced a devastating civil war; Germany and Italy were under Fascist rule and preparing to launch World War II; Yugoslavia just seven years away from a civil war that tore it into five separate countries.

So instead of despairing that Israel isn’t yet the country of our dreams, we should redouble our efforts to make it so. And meanwhile, we shouldn’t belittle what we’ve already achieved. For the first time in 2,000 years, we have the ability to exercise self-defense and provide a haven for endangered Jews worldwide. True, sovereignty has brought a whole new set of challenges: Jewish hate crimes, terrorists launching rockets from amid civilian populations, international condemnations. But we should never forget how privileged we are to have these challenges rather than those of previous generations. They’re vastly superior to the choice between fleeing and dying.

Contents

SAVING ISHMAEL AND ISAAC                                                   

Reuven Hammer                                                                                                 

Jerusalem Post, July 7, 2014

During these dark and tragic days all of us have experienced feelings of anger, sorrow, grief and shame. Trying to deal with all of this we often look to sources – Jewish and non-Jewish – that parallel these events to help us to deal with them. The first that came to my mind were the harrowing stories of the danger that confronted both of Abraham’s sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Both were only a moment away from death. Ishmael was about to perish of thirst in the wilderness when “God heard the cry of the boy and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven,” and then “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water” and Ishmael was saved (Genesis 21:17-19). Isaac was bound on the altar when “Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son. Then an angel of the Lord called to him from heaven” and commanded him to stop and Isaac was saved (Genesis 22:9-12). The parallels between the fates of the two lads, in narrative and in language, are too close to be accidental.

Tragically, stories of Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel and Mohammed Abu Khdeir did not end that way. There was no voice of God that interfered at the last moment to save them. Or perhaps there was – “a still small voice” telling the captors to cease; if so, in their evil brutality they did not heed it. A non-Jewish source then came to mind – Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. In the Prologue, two households are described, “From ancient grudge to new mutiny/Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean….” The two young people die as a result of their parents’ feud and the Prince, who had tried in vain to bring an end to the fighting between the two clans, says, “See what a scourge is laid upon your hate/That heav’n finds means to kill your joys with love/And I for winking at your discord too/Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.” But at that point Capulet turns to Montague and says, “give me thy hand,” and the feud is finally brought to an end.

Jews and Arabs have long been engaged in a feud and rulers have tried unsuccessfully to bring it to an end. Indeed, “all are punish’d” as innocent young people pay the price of our inability to make peace and find a way to live with one another. Perhaps the time has come for true leaders of both sides to extend a hand to one another and say, “Stop. Enough. The price we pay is too high.” Both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have condemned these killings. Both have said that the victims from the other side were human beings and that such killings are not to be tolerated. Both co-operated in trying to bring these events to an end. Could they not now take the next step and put aside the ancient grudge as well? If they cannot go that far, there are some steps that they should be able to take to change the atmosphere of hatred that has brought about these brutal murders and others like them. If Abbas means what he says, he should make certain that the PA ceases immediately all of its vilification of Jews in educational material and in other publications. He should insist that Hamas – if it is to be part of a unified government – remove its noxious propaganda against Jews and its encouragement of kidnappings and acts of terror.

But it is not enough for us to make these demands of others. We must take action ourselves. Netanyahu must control his own cabinet members and make certain that they do not engage in incitement as too many have done. There must be zero tolerance of Jewish incitement. We must stop ignoring so-called price-tag actions and bring the perpetrators to justice. Those involved in calling for death to Arabs must be stopped and punished. Israel must not tolerate the teaching of hatred by rabbis and others in religious schools and institutions and in the army. Books such as Torat Hamelech cannot be published and sold and those rabbis who endorse such thinking must be removed from positions of power and certainly from the payroll of the government. Yeshivot that preach vengeance and that teach that Arabs are inferior to Jews or somehow less human must be closed, even if they find sources within Jewish texts that seem to justify their beliefs. Religious schools – and indeed all schools – should teach that the Torah itself teaches that all human beings are equal, that all are created in the image of God, that killing any human being is a crime against God.

At this moment the most important text of the Torah is “of man, too, will I require a reckoning for human life, of every man for that of his fellow man!” (Genesis 9:4). The most important verse of the Prophets is “To Me, O Israelites, you are just like the Ethiopians – declares the Lord” (Amos 9:7) and the most important rabbinic teaching is, “Only one man – Adam was created… in order to bring peace among humans, so that no one can say to another, ‘My father is greater than your father!” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:5). It was the great Rabbi Akiva who declared that stealing from or defrauding a non-Jew was worse than stealing from a Jew because it also desecrated the Name of God – chillul Hashem (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kama 113a). That is certainly the case regarding murder and even of teaching hatred. It is too late to save these youths – Jewish and Arab – but it is not to late to take steps to prevent future deaths and to begin to act vigorously to remove hatred and to bring about an end to fighting and the beginning of peace.

Contents

On Topic

Arab Murders Jews, Jews Murders Arab – Here’s The Difference [Video]: Jewish Press, July 7, 2014—I want to make something very clear, the person or persons who were responsible for the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir are murderers of the worst kind and should be dealt with just like we SHOULD be dealing with Islamic terrorism.

Peace is the Only Path to True Security for Israel and the Palestinians: Barack Obama, Ha’aretz, July 8, 2014 —As Air Force One prepared to touch down in the Holy Land last year, I looked out my window and was once again struck by the fact that Israel’s security can be measured in a matter of minutes and miles.

I Believe in the Jewish People: Shalom Bear, Jewish Press, July 7, 2014—The murder of Mohammad Abu-Khdeir has shocked the Jewish nation because this is something Jews do not do.

The Media’s Make-Believe Bibi: Seth Mandel, Commentary, July 8, 2014 —One of the lessons of the past week’s unrest in Israel, one would think, is the importance of news outlets getting their stories right before leveling explosive accusations.

Passivity Turned the Tables: Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom, July 8, 2014 —What a passive country. We were passive about the "price-tag" attacks and the attempted arson of mosques — and we ended up with a young Arab burned to death.

Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research/ L'institut Canadien de recherches sur le Judaïsme, www.isranet.org

Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284 ; ber@isranet.wpsitie.com