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Israel Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 12, 2013 3 Comments

We have written extensively about the so-called Prawer-Begin Plan to redevelop Bedouin communities in the Negev desert. (added) The Plan never was official Israeli policy. It simply was a bill advancing through the Knesset but never fully approved and never law. The Plan would have included relocating...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 11, 2013 37 Comments

I had a conversation on Twitter today with Professor Claire Potter, the subject of the post Tenured radicals cannot be trusted with our academic freedom. Potter first forcefully and repeatedly opposed the academic boycott of Israeli educational institutions proposed by the American Studies Association because it...

Posted by David Gerstman on December 10, 2013 9 Comments
One of the tactics of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement is to disrupt appearances not only by Israeli speakers, but also dancers, artists and musicians. In 2010, for example, the Jerusalem Quartet had to stop its performance in London after a BDS protester would not stop shouting. In September 2011, a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in London also was disrupted. I had not been aware of the history of the Israel Philharmonic until recently. The orchestra was founded as the Palestine Orchestra by a Polish Jewish violinist, Bronisław Huberman. Huberman anticipated the rise of the Nazis, and set about creating the orchestra to save Jewish musicians in Europe. In all - including the musicians and their families - he is credited with saving nearly 1000 people. Throughout its history the Israel Philharmonic has featured some of the greatest contemporary musical talent. One of the guest artists who performs with the orchestra, is two-time Grammy winning Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 08, 2013 16 Comments
We noted previously the Senior Hezbollah commander assassinated, Hassan Laqqis. Hezbollah immediately blamed Israel. It certainly makes sense when you consider how professionally it was carried out. Unlike the Jihadis who blow up cars or themselves, the Laqquis hit was carried out precisely and using silenced weapons. The hit men (or women?) got into a heavily secured area without notice, and located their target late at night. There must have been precise intelligence not only as to his location, but his movements. Even more impressively, the gunmen escaped without being captured. There must have been help to get them away from the scene, and likely out of the country, before Hezbollah security woke up to what had happened. So we are talking minutes to get out of the area, and hours to get out of the country. While we cannot eliminate that the hit was carried out by Jihadis or some other intelligence service, it seems unlikely. Foreign Policy magazine had an article asserting that Laqqis was on Israel's Kill List:
There'll be a summit conference in the sky," smiled an Israeli intelligence official Wednesday morning when he learned of the assassination of Hassan Lakkis, the Hezbollah commander in charge of weapons development and advanced technological warfare, in a Beirut suburb around midnight on Tuesday, Dec. 3. The killing of Lakkis is yet another in the latest in a long series of assassinations of leading figures in what Israeli intelligence calls the "Radical Front," which comprises two countries -- Syria and Iran -- and three organizations: Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas....

Posted by David Gerstman on December 06, 2013 10 Comments
A few months ago, Secretary of State John Kerry allowed as to how he was worried about Israel's future if it did not reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. Israel's Prime Minister has played along sending his emissaries to negotiate with Palestinian partners who don't want to make a deal. So this week, out of his deep seated concern for the Jewish State, the New York Times reported Wednesday that U.S., Stepping Up Role, Will Present West Bank Security Proposal to Israel:
The presentation is to be made to Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday by John R. Allen, the former American commander in Afghanistan and a retired Marine general who serves as an adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry on the Middle East peace talks. ... “It will include many details and specifics,” said a State Department official who asked not to be identified under diplomatic protocol established by the agency. “He will be presenting a piece of what will be a larger whole.” ... State Department officials described the security briefing as an “ongoing process” and not a finished product on which the United States was demanding a yes-or-no vote from the Israeli side.
The Optimistic Conservative reacts skeptically to this last quote:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 05, 2013 12 Comments
I don't use the word "evil" very often here, but it certainly would be justified as to the Boycott Divestment Sanction (BDS) movement against Israel and BDS supporters in academia. See the BDS Tag for my prior writings on the BDS movement for background. Now that the National Council of the American Studies Association has endorsed an academic boycott of Israel, the ASA has joined the Jihad against Israel. The ASA National Council's justifications are flimsy and historically incorrect and biased. They cite the separation "wall" (actually mostly a fence, only a wall in certain places) as a justification without noting that the "wall" was build only after a year of unrelenting Palestinian suicide bombings at cafes, reception halls, buses, and even at Hebrew University. Several hundred Israelis civilians died in these suicide bombings. The "wall" put an end to that. So too did checkpoints, where even to this day sophisticated weapons for use against Israel are stopped.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 04, 2013 8 Comments

The reason there is no peace in the Middle East is that Palestinians believe this, teach it and put it on their television, via Palestinian Media Watch (h/t @haivri): Sheikh Muhammad Al-Tawil teacher in Al-Aqsa Mosque school: "What's happening at the Al-Aqsa Mosque (i.e., Temple Mount...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 04, 2013 15 Comments
Just one day after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah gave a gloating television interview about the triumph of the Iranian nuclear deal, the former head of Hezbollah's rocket forces, someone involved in procuring arms from Iran, and a close associate of Nasrallah was assassinated outside his home in Beirut. Via Times of Israel:
Lebanese Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah on Wednesday accused Israel of assassinating a top operative outside his home overnight. A statement released by Hezbollah said Hassan al-Laqis was killed near his house in Beirut as he was coming home from work. Laqis was at one point one of the main commanders of Hezbollah’s rocket division, which fired hundreds of missiles at Israel. According to reports in the Lebanese media, Israel tried to assassinate him during the 2006 Second Lebanon War and failed. A statement released by Hezbollah said Hassan al-Laqis was killed near his house in Beirut as he was coming home from work. Laqis was at one point one of the main commanders of Hezbollah’s rocket division, which fired hundreds of missiles at Israel. According to reports in the Lebanese media, Israel tried to assassinate him during the 2006 Second Lebanon War and failed.
Via WaPo:
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied that Israel was involved, the Associated Press reported. “Israel has nothing to do with this incident,” Palmor said. “These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah. They don't need evidence, they don't need facts, they just blame anything on Israel.” The commander was shot five times in the head and neck, the Lebanese Daily Star newspaper reported, citing an unidentified security official. Hezbollah said Laqees had spent his life serving the “resistance” against Israel and lost a son during the group’s 2006 war with Israel. He was previously the target of several failed assassination attempts, it said.
The Daily Star of Lebanon reports an unknown Sunni jihadist group claimed responsibility:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 03, 2013 2 Comments
In an interview airing now on Lebanese OTV television, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah discusses the Iranian nuclear deal (summary translation via NOW Lebanon):
The Iran nuclear deal has significant repercussions. The region’s peoples are the biggest winners from this deal because regional and international forces have been pushing for war with Iran which would have had dangerous repercussions in the region. The deal pushed off the [potential Israeli and US] war [against Iran]. Israel cannot possibly bomb nuclear facilities without the US’ green light. Monopoly of power is no longer present. All American wars have failed. John Kerry made it clear that the US does not want more wars. The US and Europe have failed in the region. It is unlikely that normalization will take place. Iranians wanted to reassure the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia. [interview in progress, check link for more]
More translation at Naharnet:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 03, 2013 6 Comments
A highly criticized Swiss analysis suggested a moderate possibility of polonium poisoining as the cause of Yasser Arafat's death.  Arafat's widow had requested the testing. Palestinian political officials immediately announced (as they had even before the Swiss report) that Israel was the culprit. AFP now is reporting that a French group of experts dismisses the claim of poisoning (h/t NOW English): https://twitter.com/AFP/status/407878555729928192 Arafat's death: French experts dismiss the poisoning theory  (via Google Translate):
So says a source close to the ... The experts appointed by the French justice to investigate the death of Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004 near Paris, depart the thesis of poisoning the Palestinian leader, told AFP on Tuesday a source familiar with the matter. "This report rejected the theory of poisoning and goes in the direction of a natural death," the source said, confirming information from France Inter. Recent reports of Swiss and Russian medical tests on samples of the remains of the historic Palestinian leader had revealed the presence of abnormal amounts of polonium-210 in the body and seemed to support the theory of poisoning.
Update: Al Jazeera is reporting similar findings:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 02, 2013 4 Comments
We have written many times before about how we only hear about the non-Jewish Arab refugees created when the Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, but hear almost nothing about Jewish refugees from Arab countries: The claim that the Nakbah -- the catastrophe -- created only one refugee problem is a fundamental part of anti-Israeli agitation and an impedement to peace as Palestinians insist on a right of return for non-Jewish refugees and their descendents. In fact, there were an equal number of Jewish refugees who fled Arab countries for Israel. (The Forgotten Refugees - Full Documentary Movie is available on YouTube) Approximately half of Israel's current Jewish population are such Jewish refugees from Arab countries or their descendents. This exchange of populations goes unrecognized because Israel absorbed and welcomed its refugess, while Arab countries -- long before there was a "Palestinian" national identity -- kept the non-Jewish Arab refugees in separate camps and refused them and their descendents citizenship or other civil rights in many cases. There is an effort to change this misperception and to recognize the Jewish Nakbah, the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Arab countries, as part of any international discussion of Palestinian refugees. The effort at the U.N. is being led by Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor, as reported by The Times of Israel, UN Jewish refugees panel aims ‘to rectify history’:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 01, 2013 20 Comments
Daniel Seidemann is an Israeli who runs a non-governmental organization, Terrestrial Jersusalem, that describes itself as " an Israeli non-governmental organization that works to identify and track the full spectrum of developments in Jerusalem that could impact either the political process or permanent status options, destabilize the city or spark violence, or create humanitarian crises." According to NGO Monitor, Terrestrial Jerusalem receives its funding mostly from Europeans and one U.S. foundation and actively seeks to undermine Israeli policies which seek to maintain, among other things, a unified Jerusalem under full Israeli control. Seideman has written that he sees some measure of re-division of Jerusalem as inevitable and considers Israeli actions as contrary to the peace process:
Upon my arrival in Israel more than forty years ago, I too subscribed to the "Jerusalem mantra," whereby Jerusalem was "the-eternal-undivided-capital-of-Israel-that-would-never-be-redivided" (one word, and a noun). It was consensus, the impermeable devotion to an article of faith. The harsh realities in the ensuing years undermined that faith, and finally, in the summer of 2000, during President Clinton’s Camp David summit, it collapsed. It then became apparent, and has remained so, that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will end within the borders of a politically divided city. Jerusalem was deflowered at Camp David.
We have noted before the problem of Palestinian rock throwing, and how it is minimized by Western media as not consequential. Particularly when the rocks are thrown by children, it's no lose for anti-Israeli groups:  If the rock lands its mark, the mission was accomplished; if the child also is arrested, it's doubly good because the phalanx of international and Israeli leftist photographers will be there to record the moment as reflecting Israeli brutality (as just happened with the Bedouin protests). Seidemann recently was the victim of such rock throwing while stalled in traffic in East Jerusalem. His account of the event got particularly attention because he blamed Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem not the rock throwers (for an alternative, more accurate legal history of why East Jerusalem is not illegally occupied, see Prof. Eugene Kontorovich's lecture, The Legal Case for Israel).

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 30, 2013 5 Comments
Days of Rage is just about every day in the anti-Israel movement. Today is was a Day of Rage over an Israeli proposal, still working its way through the Knesset, to relocate about 15% of the Bedouin who live in the Negev Desert from dispersed, mostly dilapidated housing built without permits into newer, more centralized housing also in the Negev. That plan has sparked the usual cries of Ethnic Cleansing from anti-Israeli international groups and Israeli leftists. In fact, no one is being cleansed. The vast majority of Bedouins will stay where they are, and none will be forced out of the area the Bedouins have inhabited in Israel. The Day of Rage has not received a lot of attention in U.S. media, or even on social media outside of the hastag #StopPrawerPlan. But not for lack of trying. AP reports:
Large protests over a plan to resettle nomadic Bedouin Arabs in Israel's southern Negev desert caused injuries Saturday and led to some arrests as well as condemnation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Protests focused on a bill that would move thousands of Bedouins into government-recognized villages. Opponents charge the plan would confiscate Bedouin land and affect their nomadic way of life, but Israel says the moves are necessary to provide basic services that many Bedouins lack and would benefit their community while preserving their traditions.

Posted by David Gerstman on November 28, 2013 9 Comments
The Israeli delegation has just returned from the Philippines after nearly two weeks of providing emergency care to the island nation's survivors of Typhoon Haiyan. According to the Jerusalem Post the first baby delivered by the Israeli medical teams was named "Israel." In fact Israel - the IDF particularly - has been one of the world's great first responders in recent years, helping countries across the globe deal with the results of man made and natural disasters. The IDF has a map on its blog, with links to many of its notable accomplishments. View #IDFWithoutBorders in a larger map Japan, 2011, Earthquake/Tsunami According to the IDF:
The majority of the medical equipment taken to Japan by the IDF, including x-ray machinery and lab equipment, will remain in Japan in order to benefit the physicians and local authorities providing care to the community of Minamisanriku and its vicinity. ...
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