Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The readers of this blog who disagree with me and who seem to think that I relish criticizing Israel are wrong. I don’t relish bringing to your attention heart-rending stories like this one written by Gideon Levy. I wish I could bring you stories about a military attempting to use its power temperately, defensively, and wisely. Instead, you’ll read here tonight about an Israeli military which sees a threat in Palestinian charity and which steals food literally from the mouths of orphans. A military force which loots not from private homes or public offices, which would be bad enough, but from charities. Do you think I enjoy this? No. It breaks my heart as it may yours:

The ovens have been brought downstairs, into hiding. The two bagel and cake bakeries have already been closed by army order. The Israel Defense Forces confiscated the ovens in one of them, but the employees in the other bakery managed to rescue and hide theirs. The popular clothing shop Pretty Woman, in the heart of the bustling mall in Hebron, and its neighbor, Mama Care, the high-end shop for baby clothes, are about to close. The same is true of the new and spacious supermarket, the modern physical-therapy institute, the beauty salon, the barbershop and the library: Everything will be closed by order of the GOC Central Command. Local food and clothing warehouses were also emptied out by the IDF last week, with an inventory worth about NIS 750,000, designated for the impressive orphanages of the Islamic Charity Movement. The goods were loaded onto trucks and confiscated.

In the well-kept orphanage we visited this week, the hundreds of children were eating only majadera (a rice-and-lentil dish) and yogurt for lunch: There is no meat, no chicken, no fish; everything has been taken away. The gates of the movement’s new school, a handsome stone building designed for 1,200 pupils, have also been welded shut by the IDF.

The army has declared war on the Islamic Charity Movement in Hebron, in the context of the war against Hamas, the war against terror. After emptying the offices of the city’s money changers of cash reserves several weeks ago, the next strategic target is the private bakeries and shops in the city, whose owners happen to lease their places of business from the owner of the buildings: the Islamic Charity Movement.

How pathetic is an occupation army that empties out warehouses of food and clothing earmarked for orphans; how absurd is GOC Central Command Major General Gadi Shamni, who signs closure orders for beauty salons and clothing shops; how outrageous is the confiscation of industrial refrigerators in which food for children is kept; how cruel is a military regime that closes libraries used by young people; how ridiculous are the excuses that closing bakeries contributes to the war against terror; how foolish is the battle against dairies whose products are earmarked for these children; and how difficult is the situation of the Israeli occupation in the territories if it must resort to such contemptible activities in order to establish its status.

Ah, you’ll say–it’s because the Movement is run by Hamas. Right? Wrong:

The Islamic Charity Movement in Hebron was established in 1962, long before the birth of Hamas, shortly before the beginning of the Israeli occupation. Since then the organization has established a ramified network of educational and welfare institutions, and has acquired a great deal of real estate all over the city, with the declared aim of providing assistance to the needy - mainly to local orphans and the children of the poor. The legal adviser of the movement, attorney Abd al-Karim Farah, young and energetic in an elegant suit and a well-kempt beard, who does not hesitate to shake women’s hands and is now studying Hebrew at a local ulpan, says that in the early days of the occupation the Military Administration helped and encouraged the activity of the charitable movement. He himself is a product of its institutions.

Today the Islamic Charity Movement cares for 7,000 orphans and children in distress from Hebron and surrounding villages. There are 350 youngsters at its boarding schools and 1,200 pupils attending its three city schools; another six are in outlying towns. The children have lost one or both parents, or come from severely distressed homes. Only a small percentage are children of the fallen. The movement’s institutions employ 550 people, assisted by hundreds of volunteers. Their monthly budget is 400,000 Jordanian dinars, over NIS 2 million. Attorney Farah says everything is supervised by accountants and the Palestinian Authority’s welfare and education ministries. Also, the curricula in the movement’s educational institutions are identical to those of the PA, according to Farah, who emphasizes that “everything is legal.”

Most of its budget comes from donations from abroad - from Arab countries, and European and American agencies - but the charitable organization also has quite a number of independent sources of income: from buildings and modern commercial centers all over Hebron that it owns and leases to private tenants and businessmen, two bakeries, a sewing workshop and a dairy, whose products are used by the children in the institutions and are also for sale in the open market. The movement has a board of directors that is elected biannually and was headed by Dr. Adnan Maswadi, an ear, nose and throat specialist, who was recently released from detention in Israel and was forced to resign. About 30 additional employees are presently under arrest for belonging to the organization.

“I would like to emphasize,” says Farah, “that our movement has no official connection with Hamas. Perhaps some of our workers belong to Hamas, just as in other institutions such as the municipalities, but there is no formal connection. Nor are there transfers of money to Hamas, as Israel claims. Our financial reports are open and transparent. We are in no way the infrastructure of Hamas.“

The IDF has declared war on orphans. And you wonder why the IDF couldn’t defeat Hezbollah during the last war. It’s too busy carting away computers from offices like this one to learn to fulfill its mission to actually defend the homeland. How it grieves me as a Zionist to read about such shameful behavior. But the next time Israel is forced to fight a war against Lebanon or Gaza or Iran and loses as it did in 2006 think back to this incident and you’ll begin to understand why.

For those who want to read it Levy has provided the IDF’s justification for this lunacy:

The IDF spokesman’s response: “During recent weeks forces of the IDF, the Shin Bet security services and the Civil Administration have been operating in order to strike at the institutions of the Islamic Charity Movement, which belongs to the Hamas terror organization and works to increase support for the organization, to disseminate its ideas, to find and enlist activists, and to transfer money for terrorist activity.

“Hamas activity is carried out under the civilian cover of support for the population and charity, but in fact the goal of the movement is to strengthen the power and control of the terror organization Hamas, as part of the expansion of terrorist activity against the State of Israel and its attempt to increase power in Judea and Samaria.

“In the context of the activities and protests of the Islamic Charity Movement in Hebron, the movement has transferred money to terror activists and their families, educated young people in the spirit of jihad, supported the families of shaheeds [martyrs] and prisoners, and worked to disseminate Hamas principles among the Palestinian population. By these acts the Hamas terror organization has exploited the Palestinian population and its weaker elements, in order to harness them to the terror network.

“In the context of the activity, the IDF operated against a number of economic assets of the Islamic Charity Movement in Hebron, and ordered their closure and the confiscation of some of their property. These assets constituted a source of income for the Hamas terror organization, which earned substantial sums of money from them for terrorist activity. The IDF will continue to adopt all the means at its disposal against the terror organizations and those who help them, and against Hamas in particular, in order to provide security to the inhabitants of the State of Israel.”

There you have it. Not a single shred of evidence. Show us a document or anything that authenticates the claim. Besides, how likely is it that the PA would allow a Hamas charity to operate unhindered in the heart of the West Bank given the enmity that exists between Fatah and Hamas?

The Islamic Charity Movement protests that its books are open and subject to scrutiny of the Palestinian Authority and prime minister Salaam Fayyad, well-known for his probity and honesty. It says it has nothing to do with Hamas and certainly doesn’t provide any funding for it. As the cheating husband said to his wife when caught in flagrante delecto: “Who are you gonna believe–me or your lying eyes?” The IDF has been caught red-handed and expects us to believe its unsupported charges.

If you’re the Israeli army and you intend to punish orphans about the only thing you can do to justify it that sounds half-way plausible is to accuse the charity of supporting terrorists. And some credulous Israelis and their supporters will believe it. The rest of us believe our “lyin’ eyes.”

Thanks to Rupa Shah for alerting me to this article.

tags gideon-levy, haaretz, idf-accuses-islamic-charity-movement-of-hamas-ties, Twilight-Zone-When-charity-ends-at-home

You couldn’t find any greater “political dissident” than Gideon Levy in Israeli journalism. And even he has just come out in a Haaretz column saying that Ehud Olmert sincerely wants peace with the Palestinians:

After listening to many of his statements, some of them very impressive, one comes to recognize that Ehud Olmert perhaps truly desires peace with the Palestinians. The fact that he has not zigzagged, not even once, that he only reiterates the same things, speaking like Uri Avnery (even if 40 years late), that he does not backtrack or stutter - only reinforces this feeling. It is permissible, therefore, to succumb to the temptation and believe that the man who told Haaretz on November 28, “two states, or Israel is finished,” indeed has undergone a profound change.

It’s quite an achievement for Olmert to persuade a crusty old die hard “peacenik” like Levy that he is the genuine article. But the point that Levy makes is that it’s not enough to be sincere. You have to make difficult decisions that make enemies in order to achieve such a goal. And that’s Olmert’s problem. He wants victory but without the heavy lifting.

Levy proposes a radical solution. Fire the right-wingers in his current coalition and replace them with left-wingers:

Olmert’s first test…is to dismantle the coalition that is blocking him. He has a suitable alternative: Meretz instead of Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, for a total of 60 Knesset seats. Another historic effort to bring the Arab factions into the government would create a stable coalition of 70 seats. A coalition that allows you to make peace.

This step is not devoid of risks…It is doubtful whether the Arabs would join. Perhaps they only would provide support from the outside. This coalition would also take a barrage of sharp public criticism. But someone who speaks in terms of “Israel is finished” cannot allow himself - or us - the luxury of preserving his cozy, safe and paralyzing coalition while Israel continues to slide toward the denouement he himself has envisioned. How can Olmert himself rationalize his inaction in light of such a terrifying vision? He failed to save the state because of Lieberman? He did nothing because of Yishai?

Of course, this very path was suggested to him by Haaretz columnists BEFORE he formed his coalition. The fact that he chose to ignore the advice and pursue a center-right coalition strategy speaks volumes about his political inclinations. So I’m not sure why Olmert would change his spots at this late in the political game.

But you just never know. Personally, I think Levy’s idea holds great merit:

With such a coalition and with the determination Olmert expressed in his speeches, an assault could be mounted toward the political goal. Thousands of prisoners could be freed, changing at once the atmosphere in the relations with the Palestinians. A voluntary evacuation-compensation bill could be passed, outposts could be dismantled, funding for the settlements could be halted and the long journey of extracting the most dangerous abscess of all from the territories could begin. The siege on Gaza could be lifted, and Hamas could be called upon to join the process, which would only benefit the miserable residents of the Strip…

A new government in Israel, whose establishment would underline the seriousness of its intentions to generate a real change in direction, would herald a historic turning point. Olmert would take a risk upon himself in forming it, but what does he have to lose? What is the alternative? To survive another year, to make lofty speeches, to flatter Bush, to sit idly and go down in history as a footnote between one calamity and another? Now is the time and this is the step: a peace government for Israel.

In addition, Olmert could open negotiations with Syria and even Hamas if he chooses.

What can he do now? He can take a dump in the crapper. That’s about all his current coalition partners allow him to do before they start braying about him betraying the Jewish people with his compromises for peace.

tags Believing-Olmert, gideon-levy, haaretz

On Rosh Hashana, Jews do cheshbon nefesh, a spiritual accounting of their deeds during the previous year. The purpose of course is to do t’shuva and “return” from our misdeeds and set out on a new path. Gideon Levy has done his own literal accounting of the Palestinian child dead for the past year in his most recent Haaretz article, Twilight Zone–the Children of 5767. This is the kind of reckoning we all wish to avoid. But I hope you will not avoid Levy’s searing article. Those who do, are like the Israeli fretting in his breakfast nook over the bloodied Burmese monks while soldiers representing him enforce a festering Occupation on their Palestinian neighbors:

It was a pretty quiet year, relatively speaking. Only 457 Palestinians and 10 Israelis were killed, according to the B’Tselem human rights organization, including the victims of Qassam rockets. Fewer casualties than in many previous years. However, it was still a terrible year: 92 Palestinian children were killed (fortunately, not a single Israeli child was killed by Palestinians, despite the Qassams). One-fifth of the Palestinians killed were children and teens - a disproportionate, almost unprecedented number. The Jewish year of 5767. Almost 100 children, who were alive and playing last New Year, didn’t survive to see this one.

…We set out each week in the footsteps of the fighters, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, trying to document the deeds of Israel Defense Forces soldiers, Border Police officers, Shin Bet security service investigators and Civil Administration personnel - the mighty occupation army that leaves behind in its wake horrific killing and destruction, this year as every year, for four decades.

And this was the year of the children that were killed. We didn’t get to all of their homes, only to some; homes of bereavement where parents weep bitterly over their children, who were climbing a fig tree in the yard, or sitting on a bench in the street, or preparing for an exam, or on their way home from school, or sleeping peacefully in the false security of their homes.

A few of them also threw a rock at an armored vehicle or touched a forbidden fence. All came under live fire, some of which was deliberately aimed at them, cutting them down in their youth. From Mohammed (al-Zakh) to Mahmoud (al-Qarinawi), from the boy who was buried twice in Gaza to the boy who was buried in Israel. These are the stories of the children of 5767.

The first of them was buried twice. Abdullah al-Zakh identified half of the body of his son Mahmoud, in the morgue refrigerator of Shifa Hospital in Gaza, by the boy’s belt and the socks on his feet. This was shortly before last Rosh Hashanah. The next day, when the Israel Defense Forces “successfully” completed Operation Locked Kindergarten, as it was called, leaving behind 22 dead and a razed neighborhood, and left Sajiyeh in Gaza, the bereaved father found the remaining parts of the body and brought them for a belated burial.

…The day after Rosh Hashanah we traveled to Rafah. Dam Hamad, 14, had been killed in her sleep, in her mother’s arms, by an Israeli rocket strike that sent a concrete pillar crashing down on her head. She was the only daughter of her paralyzed mother, her whole world. In the family’s impoverished home in the Brazil neighborhood, at the edge of Rafah, we met the mother who lay in a heap in bed; everything she had in the world was gone. Outside, I remarked to the reporter from French television who accompanied me that this was one of those moments when I felt ashamed to be an Israeli. The next day he called and said: “They didn’t broadcast what you said, for fear of the Jewish viewers in France.”

Soon afterward we went back to Jerusalem to visit Maria Aman, the amazing little girl from Gaza, who lost nearly everyone in her life to a missile strike gone awry that wiped out her innocent family, including her mother, while riding in their car. Her devoted father Hamdi remains by her side. For a year and a half, she has been cared for at the wonderful Alyn Hospital, where she has learned to feed a parrot with her mouth and to operate her wheelchair using her chin. All the rest of her limbs are paralyzed. She is connected day and night to a respirator. Still, she is a cheerful and neatly groomed child whose father fears the day they might be sent back to Gaza.

For now, they remain in Israel. Many Israelis have devoted themselves to Maria and come to visit her regularly. A few weeks ago, broadcast journalist Leah Lior took her in her car to see the sea in Tel Aviv. It was a Saturday night, and the area was crowded with people out for a good time, but the girl in the wheelchair attracted attention. Some people recognized her and stopped to say hello and wish her well. Who knows? Maybe the pilot who fired the missile at her car happened to be passing by, too.

…And what did 16-year-old Taha al-Jawi do to get himself killed? The IDF claimed that he tried to sabotage the barbed-wire fence surrounding the abandoned Atarot airport; his friends said he was just playing soccer and had gone to chase after the ball. Whatever the circumstances, the response from the soldiers was quick and decisive: a bullet in the leg that caused him to bleed to death, lying in a muddy ditch by the side of the road. Not a word of regret, not a word of condemnation from the IDF spokesman, when we asked for a comment. Live fire directed at unarmed children who weren’t endangering anyone, with no prior warning.

…In Nablus, we documented the use of children as human shields - the use of the so-called “neighbor procedure” - involving an 11-year-old girl, a 12-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy. So what if the High Court of Justice has outlawed it? We also recorded the story of the death of baby Khaled, whose parents, Sana and Daoud Fakih, tried to rush him to the hospital in the middle of the night, a time when Palestinian babies apparently mustn’t get sick: The baby died at the checkpoint.

…Bushra Bargis hadn’t even left her home. In late April she was studying for a big test, notebooks in hand, pacing around her room in the Jenin refugee camp in the early evening, when a sniper shot her in the forehead from quite far away. Her bloodstained notebooks bore witness to her final moments.

And what about the unborn babies? They weren’t safe either. A bullet in the back of Maha Qatuni, a woman who was seven months pregnant and got up during the night to protect her children in their home, struck her fetus in the womb, shattering its head. The wounded mother lay in the Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus, hooked up to numerous tubes. She was going to name the baby Daoud. Does killing a fetus count as murder? And how “old” was the deceased? He was certainly the youngest of the many children Israel killed in the past year.

Happy New Year.

Indeed. Thanks to Sol Salbe for sharing the cartoon.

tags children-of-5767, gideon-levy, palestinian-children-killed-by-israeli-army

Gideon Levy adds his voice to the Israeli media dissenters who question Israel’s performance in the aftermath of its attack against Syria last week. As I wrote yesterday, his, Yigal Laviv and Larry Derfner’s are still small voices in the sea of self-congratulation that constitutes Israel’s mainstream media. But it’s often that still small voice of dissent that turns out to be right, witness what happened here in the U.S. regarding Iraqi WMD.

Here is what one of Israel’s finest columnists has to say:

We can rely on friends like the United States: Our faithful ally has once again come to our assistance. Were it not for the American media, we would know nothing whatsoever about that mysterious night. Only because of the United States is the fog now beginning to lift. It is such a sign of weakness that 10 days after the action that was - or was not - taken by the Israel Air Force in Syria, the Israelis were fated to grope around in the dark or to rely on the American media, as if there were no local media here.

The combination of sweeping censorship and media representatives that do not fight enough on behalf of the freedom of information is dangerous. Israel attacks, or does not attack, bombs or does not bomb - who knows? And nothing is said to the people, everything is secret, without any public supervision or accountability. The public is expected to keep quiet and to blindly support its government and army, no matter what. This is an intolerable situation at all events, but the special circumstances of the incident in Syria make the blackout on it especially dangerous.

For months now, the security establishment has been flooding us with incessant warnings about an impending confrontation with Syria. The source of these warnings and the degree to which they can be trusted has never been clarified. The average news consumer knows merely that Syria has proposed peace and has cautioned against starting a war. He also knows that Israel did not relate favorably to the peace proposal and did not even try to challenge it or to examine how serious it was. The situation is explosive, the defense establishment has told us time and again.

And then suddenly one night - boom! Suspicious cargo from North Korea, according to the report in The Washington Post; North Korean know-how for enriching uranium, according to Fox News; an aerial-photography mission, according to The New York Times; or weapons systems and “a big hole in the desert,” according to CNN.

It’s any man’s guess what happened and, mainly, any man’s guess whether such an action, if taken, was at all justified. Did we once again go off on a dangerous and pointless military adventure, as some say - or perhaps it was indeed a necessary and unequaled action? Against the backdrop of the defense establishment’s own warnings about the explosive nature of the situation, such acts can have fateful significance. And if, heaven forbid, a war does break out now with Syria, what will they say? That the situation was already explosive and that that action did nothing to change it? Will we go to war when we do not even know what was, or was not, done in the skies of Syria, in our names?

There are serious doubts here. At the helm of the decision-making process in Israel today stand the prime minister, who has a proven military failure chalked up to him, and the defense minister, who has an innate tendency toward military adventurism. There is no one we can rely on with our eyes closed - certainly not on Ehud Olmert or Ehud Barak. One wants to wipe away the stains of his failure in Lebanon and the other wants to prove he is better than his predecessor. To this must be added a battered army, which is likewise trying to get people to forget its failure. And what about us? We are expected to support them and their actions with our eyes shut…

The Israeli media have unconditionally given themselves up to the smoke screen. It is not the media’s job to weigh the considerations of war; their job is to report. When they do not even try to fight for this, they are not doing their job properly. As was to be expected, the smoke screen is gradually dissipating meanwhile, but not thanks to the Israeli media. Only after everything is clarified will we know whether it was correct to jeopardize ourselves, in a situation that was so explosive, or whether we perhaps got involved in yet another adventure…

I have a number of commenters here who like to trumpet Israeli democracy as a sterling example of how Israel stands out from its neighbors. I too value Israeli democracy such as it is. But I wonder how Israeli democrats can stomach not only the government’s silence, but the ironclad censorship imposed on a supposedly free Israeli media. Any supporter of Israel should always remember that Israel is unlike all other western democracies in that a military censor vets all military related media information. In situations like this, it makes an Israeli newspaper resemble the old Pravda, where readers looked everywhere for hidden meaning to interpret the nation’s political health.

Any of my readers who are pro-Israel patriots should ask themselves whether in a wartime situation they would prefer to live here with the media coverage we provide (which admittedly can be pretty shabby) or in Israel with the utter silence that their media provides.

On Saturday night, I heard Yossi Beilin speak for the first time here in Seattle under the auspices of Find Common Ground and their local leader Barbara Lahav. He is the Meretz party leader in the Knesset and a former justice minister in Ehud Barak’s last government. There is no question that Beilin is absolutely brilliant and a master tactician with sharp analytical skills. There is no question that he has made a tremendous contribution to the prospects for peace in the region. There is also no question that he has that Israeli arrogance that admits to no weakness and bespeaks self-confidence and certitude.

But one thing turned me off big time that night. He was asked by Jeri Rice, a prominent leader of the local Jewish peace community and major funder of Israeli Peace Forum what he could tell us about the Syria attack. Now, I understand as an MK he’s privy to information that we may not be. But his answer nevertheless deeply disappointed. He said he wasn’t going to condemn the attack and had information that prevented him from doing so. He added that as long as the attack did not cause any humanitarian hardship he had no problem with it.

The upshot of his reply was that he knew something we didn’t which allowed him to feel perfectly comfortable with what the IAF had done. Something about the smugness of this irked me.

And this led me to another problem I have with Beilin. He has only one principle: ending the Occupation. Beyond that he seems to have few principles and is open to negotiating just about anything. I felt his support for the Lebanon war up until the very last minute (he turned against it after three weeks) was disastrous for the Israeli left. But I imagine he made a cold calculation that being right on the war was less important than retaining whatever credibility might be lost with the Israeli Jewish public by doing the right thing and savaging the war as he must’ve known he should have done.

I consider myself a pragmatist as well. But I have my limits. And Yossi Beilin went beyond them during the war. And he went beyond them in his rather curt dismissal of Jeri’s question.

tags find-common-ground, gideon-levy, israeli-attack-on-syria, jeri-rice, thanks-to-the-washington-post, yossi-beilin

Aussie Dave (isn’t it churlish, Dave not to link to my blog when I’ve linked to yours; and isn’t the ‘anti-Israel’ calumny a bit tiresome by now??) and his allies commenting here are up in arms over my post about the three Palestinian children killed by the IDF. And I’m a VERY BAD Jew for allegedly caring only about Palestinian lives, and not Israeli. Hey, go ahead take your best shot. But then spend a few minutes reading what one of Israel’s best journalists has to say on the same subject. How do you defame Gideon Levy? How do you belittle his commitment to Israel? How do you frame him as a Palestinian dupe?

I don’t usually post all or even large portions of articles. But in this case, I want everyone (especially those who have attacked me) to read this because it’s important:

Again children. Five children killed in Gaza in eight days. The public indifference to their killing - the last three, for example, were accorded only a short item on the margins of page 11 in Yedioth Ahronoth, a sickening matter in itself - cannot blur the fact that the IDF is waging a war against children. A year ago, a fifth of those killed in the “Summer Rain” operation in Gaza were children; during the past two weeks, they comprised a quarter of the 21 killed. If, heaven forbid, children are hurt in Sderot, we will have to remember this before we begin raising hell.

The IDF explains that the Palestinians make a practice of sending children to collect the Qassam launchers. However, in this case, the children killed were not collecting launchers. The first two were killed while collecting carob fruit and the next three - according to the IDF’s own investigation - were playing tag. But even if we accept the IDF’s claim that there is a general trend of sending children to collect launchers (which has not been proven), that should have brought about an immediate halt to firing at launcher collectors.

But the IDF does not care whether its victims are liable to be children. The fact is that it shoots at figures it considers suspicious, with full knowledge - according to its own contention - that they are liable to be children. Therefore, an IDF that fires at launcher collectors is an army that kills children, without any intention of preventing this. This then is not a series of unfortunate mistakes, as it is being portrayed, but rather reflects the army’s contempt for the lives of Palestinian children and its terrifying indifference to their fate.

A society that holds ethical considerations in high regard would at least ask itself: Is it permissible to shoot at anyone who is approaching the launchers, even if we know that some of these people may be small children, lacking in judgment, and thus not punishable? Or are we lifting all restraints on our war operations? Even if we accept the IDF’s claims that its sophisticated vision devices do not enable them to distinguish between a 10-year-old boy and an adult, the IDF cannot evade its responsibility for this criminal action. Even if we assumed a completely distorted assumption that anyone who goes near the launchers is subject to death, the fact that children are involved should have changed the rules. Add to this the fact that the firing at launcher collectors has halted the Qassams, or even reduce their number, and you arrive at another chilling conclusion: The IDF shoots at children to wreak vengeance and punish.

No child in Sderot is more secure as a result of this killing. On the contrary.

Anyone who takes an honest look at the progression of events during the past two months will discover that the Qassams have a context: They are almost always fired after an IDF assassination operation, and there have been many of these. The question of who started it is not a childish question in this context. The IDF has returned to liquidations, and in a big way. And in their wake there has been an increase in Qassam firings.

That is the truth, and they are hiding it from us. When Gabi Ashkenazi and Ehud Barak assumed their positions, the reins were loosened. If Barak were a representative of the political right, perhaps a public outcry would have already been sounded against the IDF’s wild actions in Gaza. But everything is permitted to Barak, and even the fact that the victims are children does not matter - not to him and not to the Israeli public.

Yes, the children of Gaza gather around the Qassams. It is practically the only diversion they have in their lives. It is their amusement park. Those who arrogantly preach to their parents “to watch over them” have never visited Beit Hanoun. There is nothing there, except for the filthy alleys and meager homes. Even if it is true that those launching the Qassams are taking advantage of these miserable children (which has yet to be proven), this should not shape our moral portrait. Yes, it is permissible to exercise restraint and caution. Yes, it is not always necessary to respond, especially when the response ends up killing children.

The way to stop the firing of Qassams is not through indiscriminate killing. Every launcher can be replaced. The start of the school year bodes ill, for us and for them. Anyone who truly seeks to stop the firing of Qassams should reach a cease-fire agreement with the current government in Gaza. That is the only way and it is possible. The liquidations, the shelling and the killing of children will work in exactly the opposite direction of what is intended. In the meantime, look what is happening to us and to our army.

tags aussie-dave, children-of-war, gideon-levy, haaretz, isreally-cool, three-palestinian-children-killed-by-idf

The horror of the Lebanon war has caused many of us to take the eye off the ball that is Operation Summer Rain, that odd non sequitur of a military campaign still raging in Gaza. Summer Rain is the IDF response to the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. It is a brutal, disproportionate campaign against the people of Gaza, militants and civilians alike. It is much like Lebanon in that Israel still has not succeeded in its two goals of freeing Shalit and ending militant rocket fire against southern Israel. The only difference with Lebanon, unfortunate though it is for the Gazans, is that they have none of the weaponry or military training of Hezbollah and so ...

God, if this interview with Sheikh Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, doesn't make you pissed then nothing will. I bet many of my fellow bloggers in Lebanon are enraged: Hezbollah would not have abducted two Israel Defense Forces soldiers on July 12 had it known that the action would lead to war in Lebanon, the movement's secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview on Lebanon's NTV Sunday. "We did not think that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not," he said. Nasrallah also said ...

Haaretz journalist, Gideon Levy, has written a stunning and lucid account of the lessons he believes Israel should learn from the failed Lebanon war. His is definitely a contrarian approach and not shared by the majority of Israelis. But all movements and ideas which challenge conventional national wisdom begin as minority opinions and gradually move to the mainstream. One can only hope this will happen in Levy's case. And as the title of the smash Israeli vintage pop hit says: Lu Y'hi ("If [only] it could be"). The failure in this little war might teach us an important lesson for the future, and maybe influence us to change our ways and language, the language we speak ...

Gideon Levy, a senior Haaretz correspondent, paints a heartbreaking "what if" scenario regarding Israeli relations with Syria. What if, when a peace deal with Syria was dangled before Ehud Barak's eyes in 2000, he had had the courage to go for it instead of getting cold feet and turning it down? What if the settler movement had not clouded the eyes of Israelis with patriotic Biblical fervor and Israel had ended the Occupation? And why does Israel seem to miss every opportunity thrust upon it to achieve peace with its enemies? Ending the occupation could have prevented this unnecessary war. If Israel had returned the Golan Heights and signed a peace treaty with Syria in a ...

Today, another two Qassam rockets hit Ashkelon despite the fact that the IDF simultaneously moved troops into northern Gaza in order to quell precisely such rocket fire: It [The IDF] intends to capture a broad swath of territory of about one-and-a-quarter kilometers into Palestinian Authority territory, close to Beit Hanun, in an effort to hinder Qassam rocket launchers from targeting Ashkelon and to push them back toward Gaza City and the Jabalya refugee camp. A lot of good it's doing. And even if the latest IDF incursion does swallow up ground the rocketeers used for their launches--do we doubt for one second that militants will find some other way to achieve their aims of hurtling missiles at Israeli territory? ...