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

No, I’m not talking about the 1903 Kishniev pogrom, the mother of all Jewish pogroms. Nor am I talking about Kristallnacht.  Instead, I’m talking about a pogrom instigated BY Jews. The terror attack on Yeshivat HaRav in Jerusalem seems to have unhinged the extreme nationalist community in Israel. Yesterday, there was a pogrom in the East Jerusalem neighborhood where the terrorist attacker lived. Extremist Orthodox-nationalist elements affiliated with the yeshiva rampaged through the streets breaking windows, destroying property, and seeking out residents to assault (they wisely stayed indoors). The police allowed themselves to be outmanuvered and outmanned and did little to restrain things.

The State will attempt to destroy the home of the terrorist’s family ‘legally.’ But the pogromists were trying to avoid that legal nicety and do it themselves much like a good old-fashioned American lynch mob used to do in the early part of the last century. So this is what it’s come down to–vigilante justice by those who don’t have much respect for the State or Israeli democracy to begin with. Keep in mind these are the type of people whose rabbis call for the murder of prime minister Olmert and sending other ministers to the gallows. So of course they would take the law into their own hands.

Thank God, there are other Orthodox Jews who stand for something different. In Ynetnews, Gadi Gvaryahu of 12th of Heshvan [the date of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination], reminds us that while Arabs may have sins of hate we too have our own:

One cannot but recall that Jewish murderers who massacred others with a machine-gun at the Cave of the Patriarchs and in the Islamic College in Hebron.One cannot but recall…the rabbis who asked that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s murderer be allowed to get married and celebrate his son’s bar mitzvah. Had the murderer from Jabel Mukaber who carried out the yeshiva attack stayed alive, would we also allow him to get married and have children?

One cannot but recall the funeral held for “Baruch (Goldstein) the man” [Baruch Ha-Gever] at his magnificent gravesite and the park around it. And this is what one of the important rabbis of Religious Zionism said in his eulogy for the killer from Hebron: “He is a martyr killed by gentiles for being a Jew, and therefore he joins the victims of the Nazi Holocaust.” One cannot but recall the honor bestowed upon his relatives. So take off the masks.

One cannot but recall the Jew who entered the Islamic college in Hebron armed with a machine-gun and murdered three students. He was sentenced to life in prison and later pardoned by the president. Today he is known as a rabbi and publishes articles. And we have not forgotten the Jewish murderer who killed seven Arab laborers at the Gan Havradim junction in 1990. So take off the masks.

Gvaryahu also unmasks the genocidal hate that masquerades for halachic wisdom in the extremist community:

The words written by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu [Safad chief rabbi] regarding [Arab] murderers who deserve death are entrenched in our holy Torah and the time has come to take off the masks for this important discussion.

This is what Rabbi Eliyahu wrote in Ynet over the weekend: Showing mercy on the murderer’s family is like showing mercy to a drug addict and giving money for the next dose. Having pity on murderers? This would ruin the world.

Later, the rabbi wrote: A murderer should be exterminated; anyone who says that “a person is still a person” in fact sentences the murderer’s next victims to death.

Yet this is what Tana Devei Eliyahu (parasha 26) has to say about this:

“A man must distance himself from theft, whether from Jew or Gentile, or anyone in the marketplace. One who steals from a Gentile will ultimately steal from a Jew. One who defrauds a Gentile will ultimately defraud a Jew. One who swears falsely to a Gentile will ultimately swear falsely to a Jew. One who lies to a Gentile will ultimately lie to a Jew. One who sheds the blood of a Gentile will ultimately shed the blood of a Jew. But the Torah was not given to desecrate, but rather to sanctify His great Name.”

There is no doubt that Yeshivat HaRav suffered a devastating blow and that they deserve the great sympathy and nihumim of all Israel. But we must draw a line in the sand and say what is permissible and what is impermissible. It is not permissible to take the law in one’s own hands. It is not permissible to execute justice against an entire Arab community merely because of one evil man within it. It is not permissible to see all Arabs as Amalek and thereby guilty of some kind of original sin by Biblical extension. Gvaryahu is truly doing the Lord’s work in drawing such red lines. The extremists seem to have lost all sense of proportion, all sense of right and wrong when it comes to alleged enemies of the Jewish people. Let someone step forward and remind them that Jews have moral obligations and constraints even when it comes to those who may hate us.

Someone must tell the Jerusalem police that their response was shameful. There will of course be a next time since the haters were not mollified in their thirst for vengeance. I hope the police and State in general do not make such a feeble showing next time. For this would only signal how little stock Israel puts in its vaunted democracy and its inclusion of non-Jewish minorities within the commonweal.

tags 12th-of-heshvan, gadi-gevaryahu, Jabel-Mukaber, take-off-the-masks, yeshivat-harav-jerusalem-terror-attack, ynetnews

In March, 2007, after several embarrassing episodes in which Israeli security screeners harassed prominent Israeli Arabs (and an especially egregious example here) at Ben Gurion airport, the Shin Bet head announced with fanfare that the procedures would “soon change.” It’s only taken five months and lo and behold there is a new plan. Only problem is it doesn’t end discrimination or harassment at all; it merely disguises it:

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz announced Tuesday that Jewish and Arab citizens traveling abroad will receive the same color stickers for their luggage during security checks at the airport. Prior to the decision, security personnel at Ben Gurion Airport used different color stickers for each population sector, each color indicating a different security level. From now on, all citizens traveling abroad will receive a white sticker, indicating that they have already gone through the security check.

According to Transportation Ministry spokesman Avner Ovadia, the use of different color stickers left non-Jewish passengers feeling humiliated and discriminated against. The decision to use a single color for all citizens was made in an effort to bridge the gap between different sectors in Israel.

Ynet spoke to airport security personnel about the changes and learned that now instead of the colored stickers, luggage will be differentiated according to numbers displayed on the identical white stickers. Now everyone will have a white sticker - but Israeli Jews will receive a sticker labeled 1, Arab families and Israeli Arabs will receive a sticker labeled 2 and Arabs traveling alone a sticker labeled 5.

An airport screener said that the change was made for the benefit of the Arab public. “But it’s stupid; anyone who understands the process can see the different numbers for Jews and Arabs.”

To paraphase The Who: “Meet the new plan, same as the old plan.” If I were an Israeli Arab I’d be thinking along the lines of the character from Hester Street who says memorably: “They can’t piss on my back and make me think it’s rain.”

So we have Israeli Arabs enduring the degradation and humiliation of airport petty harassment. But now they are insulted even more provocatively by the supposed reform of a process which hasn’t been reformed at all. This is what happens in a national security state which takes the position that 20% of its citizenry are automatic security risks regardless of who they are or what they believe. I call it “flying while Arab.”

Here in the States we have a similar problem of racial profiling or “driving while Black.” Thankfully, many states have outlawed this procedure and demanded that law enforcement withdraw it from their repertoire. Unfortunately, in Israel ethnic discrimination against Arabs is embedded far deeper and interwoven with an even more noxious strand of national security threat. I should add there have been a number of incidents in which American Arab passengers have been ejected from flights in this country because of unfounded fears that they are security threats.

Apparently, the airport’s security director looks at Arab travelers and sees nothing but “happy, shiny people:”

Ben Gurion security director, Shmuel Zachai, said in response: “All the stickers in the airport are white and meant to improve the sense of equality. Ever since we implemented the change we’ve barely received any discrimination complaints.”

“Barely?” What does “barely” mean? And does the fact that Israeli Arab MKs are breathing down Diskin’s neck on this issue not constitute a “complaint?” Or would he like every Arab traveler pissed off at their treatment to take up a picket sign and stand outside his office. Would he then believe there was a problem? The only problem is those Arabs would know the Shin Bet would likely never let them fly again from Ben Gurion in retaliation.

Hat tip to Sol Salbe for another great story lead.

tags ben-gurion-airport, driving-while-black, israeli-arabs-security-risks, israeli-democracy, mistreatment-of-israeli-arabs, racial-profiling, ynetnews, yuval-diskin

Not much seems to be happening lately regarding the Shin Bet’s prosecution/persecution by public vendetta of Azmi Bishara. But there have been a few interesting pieces in the news about it. Israeli TV journalist, Amnon Levy, publishes a highly skeptical piece at Ynetnews, Don’t Believe the Shin Bet:

To tell you the truth, I wanted to write about the Bishara affair for quite some time, to say that I feel there’s something wrong with the whole deal; I don’t believe the Shin Bet, and I believe that a red line has been crossed in our relationship with elected Arab officials.

I wanted to say all this, but I was afraid, because how would I know? Did I see the classified information? Did I hear the information revealed through phone-tapping? Do I know exactly what they found out there?

They are talking about Bishara receiving money in exchange for classified defense information handed over to Hizbullah during wartime. If that’s true, that’s very grave…

I decided to overcome the fear and write. For too long we have allowed what is referred to as “classified security considerations” to scare us. Too often the public debate had been silenced because of secret evidence that nobody saw, but security officials who waved it in our faces promised that it included clear-cut proof of a grave offence.

…The time has come to overcome the fear and say what appeared quite clear from the start: I do not believe that Bishara handed over intelligence information to the enemy.

First of all, in order to hand over intelligence information, the traitor must possess such information. Does anyone believe Bishara knew something that was not published in the press? Does anyone think that any security official ever handed him sensitive information? That he has access to such information? After all, to this day Arab political representatives are kept away from any location that has sensitive information.

…[Interpreting] such talks [between Bishara and Lebanese journalists] as treason is…very dangerous…Arab Knesset members serve as a very important and authentic mouthpiece for their constituents in the Knesset. It may be unpleasant to hear their words, but it’s necessary. In the framework of their job, they represent the constituency that elected them not only before the State of Israel’s institutions, but also in the world, and particularly in the Arab world. This is their role. They were elected for that purpose. This is how it works in a democracy.

Azmi Bishara was the most fluent and challenging Arab-Israeli spokesperson in recent years. Silencing him and making him run away from Israel not only constitutes the crossing of a red line – it is also an idiotic act: There is an attempt here to make the difficult political and ideological argument with Bishara shallower, and bring it back to a security argument like we used to have when Israeli-Arab communities were under a military administration.

Instead of facing him at the Knesset, security officials brought the argument back to the interrogation cells. And so, we reverted to the classic role played by Arab-Israelis: Not partners for dialogue, but rather, mere enemies. Not partners, but rather, mere traitors. Not people that should be convinced, but rather, mere Arabs that must be imprisoned.

On a parallel track, Bishara published his first interview with an Israeli Jewish publication (also Ynetnews) and confirmed much of what Levy supposed:

Former MK Azmi Bishara mocked the treason allegations against him in his first interview with the Israeli press since his abrupt departure from the country in April…

“What intelligence information could I have? If anything, Hizbullah could sell me information,” Bishara said.

Bishara refuted claims of his suspected role in directing Hizbullah rockets during the Second Lebanon War.

“In the conversation that they recorded, I said, ‘How come the rockets are falling on Arab villages? We understand that as far as Hizbullah is concerned, it is targeting Haifa, so why fire at Arab villages, what’s going on here?’ That was the daily small talk every single Arab had at the time. That’s what they call handing Hizbullah information?”

Bishara also said that he did not leak any sensitive information that was not already circulating.

“If I tell a friend, a Lebanese reporter, ‘Listen, there are rumors that some sort of operation by Hizbullah was foiled during the war. All the journalists are saying it, they just haven’t published it yet.’ Is that disclosing information? Shin Bet views the Lebanese reporters I spoke to as foreign agents.

“Should I fear that the Shin Bet is watching me? I know it’s watching me. If I’m afraid of anything, it’s the atmosphere of incitement against me, which could cause people to act. I’m not afraid that Israel, as an institution, would dare to assassinate anyone. That’s not the situation today.”

tags amnon-levy, azmi-bishara-shin-bet-treason-charges, ynetnews

There is a certain unfortunate myth among pro-Israel activists that Israel is one big happy democracy in which the Arab minority partakes of all the benefits equally with the majority Jewish population. The apologists will argue speciously about the higher standard of living Israeli Arabs enjoy compared to inhabitants of neighboring Arab countries. I say specious because the comparison should be to other Israelis and not to citizens of foreign countries. And if you compare the Israeli Arab standard of living to the general Israeli standard, the former is at the very bottom rung of society. Another argument is that Israeli Arabs vote and participate fully in Israeli democracy. While this is true, it ignores the fact that there is such a stigma among the Jewish-dominated political parties against cooperating with Israeli Arab parties that none will probably ever be brought into a coalition government. Which in turn weakens the political voice of the Arab minority.

But the issue at hand today is Israel’s outrageous airport security program at Ben Gurion which automatically labels ANY Israeli Arab traveler as a security risk. I’ve written here about the distinguished Hebrew University law professor who was ignominiously detained at the airport and prevented from attending an academic conference due to the humiliating security procedures. Hardline Israel bloggers pooh-poohed my charges of bias. I wonder how they’ll argue away this latest outrage reported by Ynetnews:

A Foreign Ministry cadet and the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Salem Jubran, Rania, was recently subjected to humiliating security inspections at the Ben Gurion and Barcelona Airports.

Jubran, 26, the first Israeli Arab ever to complete a Foreign Ministry cadet training course, was asked by security personnel at the airports to prove that her Ministry employee documents were authentic and that her father was indeed a Supreme Court justice.

Several days ago, Jubran sent an angry letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and on Wednesday Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin announced that the inspection procedures at airports will soon change.

The only silver lining in this story is that Israel apparently actually has some shame and feels compelled to reexamine its security procedures regarding Israeli Arabs. That being said, the Israeli security apparatus has a long history of appearing to respond to public outcry over incidents like this only to relapse into the same old bad treatment as soon as the furor dies down. So we’ll have to see whether anything really changes at Ben Gurion.

Here is what happened to Jubran at the airport:

Two weeks ago, Jubran arrived at Ben Gurion on her way to a vacation in Barcelona. The security guard at the airport ordered her to open her suitcase and tagged it with a yellow label indicating it was considered a high security risk.

“At this point,” Jubran described in her letter to the prime minister, “I asked to sort the matter out with the shift manager. Following my request, two shift managers appeared. I presented to them my Foreign Ministry employee certificate, but they ignored it and began repeating the questions I had already been asked before.”

“The inspection was carried out in a rude and disrespectful manner towards me personally, as an Israeli citizen, and more so as a Foreign Ministry employee,” she added.

Only after Jubran contacted the Foreign Ministry’s representative at the airport was she allowed to board her flight.

And lest you think the affair ended there, the same thing reoccurred on her return:

On her way back to Israel from Barcelona, Jubran was forced to undergo a similar experience. Her luggage was again labeled with a special “security risk” tag, a procedure reserved for most Israeli Arabs.

Jubran tried presenting the documents attesting that she was a Foreign Ministry cadet and the daughter of Justice Jubran, but this raised even more suspicion.

“The security guard started questioning me about the Foreign Ministry employee card and the Foreign Ministry’s location, as if I was a fraud,” she described.

When she was about to board the flight, Jubran was again told that she would not be allowed to get on the plane, and the matter was resolved only after she was found to be telling the truth.

I should make clear that I am all in favor of high level security procedures to maintain the security of Israeli citizens both within Israel and abroad. But I am absolutely opposed to racial profiling of all Israeli Arabs as security risks. This is just a lazy person’s way of doing security. You place all the onus on the particular Israeli Arab victim to prove them ARE NOT a risk, rather than putting the onus on the security apparatus to maintain profiles of those specific Israeli Arabs who may pose a real security risk. And I should add here that Israeli Arabs in general have proven just as loyal to the State of Israel as its Jewish citizens. So the idea that as a class they should be suspected of disloyalty or allegiance to a terror group is simply preposterous. All this does is fuel mistrust and suspicion among Israeli Jews of their fellow Arab citizens.

Let the Shin Bet actually do its job and find any Israeli Arab suspects out to harm Israel, rather than putting all Arabs into the box of being a potential terrorist.

tags ben-gurion-airport, israeli-arabs-security-risks, israeli-democracy, mistreatment-of-israeli-arabs, Salem-Jubran-Rania-Jubran, ynetnews, yuval-diskin

You remember when Claude Rains tells his subordinate in Casablanca to “round up the usual suspects?” Well, in the aftermath of Akiva Eldar’s blockbuster story yesterday that Syrian and Israeli unofficial interlocutors had negotiated a draft peace agreement, now come the usual denials. You see, in both an Arab nation and in Israel you mustn’t be seen to want peace more than your enemy. In fact, you mustn’t be seen to want peace at all. At least, not in any meaningful way. Sure, it’s OK to TALK about wanting peace and to claim you want it more than your enemy. But to actually sit down and talk and come to an agreement? Never! At least, not until it eventually happens. But at this rate, that might not happen until Hell freezes over.

So here are the laughable denials:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that no government officials were involved in secret contacts with Syria…

“No one in the government was involved in this matter,” Olmert told reporters in northern Israel. “It was a private initiative on the part of an individual who spoke with himself. From what I read, his interlocutor was an eccentric from the U.S., someone not serious or dignified.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry also rejected the report.

“No negotiations took place, the Haaretz report is completely false,” a Syrian Foreign Ministry official said in Damascus.

Official Israeli response to the report was more tentative.

“This is the first we have heard of the talks, we have never sanctioned anybody to speak to the Syrians and the prime minister first learned of these conversations through the newspaper report this morning,” said Olmert’s spokeswoman Miri Eisin.

You’ll note the pointed “no government officials were involved,” which is of course true. Just as Oslo was initiated by private individuals, so this negotiation proceeded. And just as Oslo proceeded to official negotiations, so too this track could’ve easily done the same but for the fact that neither Sharon nor Olmert appear to have WANTED peace with Syria.

Despite Olmert’s cynical and derisive put down, these were not just any individuals. Alon Liel was a former director general of the foreign ministry (under Ehud Barak), which is the number 2 post there. The Syrian interlocutor was no “eccentric from the U.S., someone not serious or dignified.” He was a wealthy Syrian-American businessman and confidant of Bashir Assad. He was chosen not only because of his ties to the Syrian regime, but because of his American ties as well, since everyone believed it would be important to draw the Americans into this process.

What is amazing is the sheer volume of politicians and academics who would have almost no reason to know the ins and outs of this matter, now claiming that they know for sure the entire thing is a hoax:

A figure described as a very senior official in the office of then-prime minister Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying that “there was no reports to Sharon, there were no reports to his office, there was no connection between Sharon and Alon Liel, this never happened.”

“This is absolute nonsense.”

If Alon Liel reported his contacts to someone say, in the foreign ministry, and those reports were relayed directly to Sharon without any intermediary, why would this “very senior official” think he would perforce have to have been in the loop? Has he never heard of a prime minister who kept his subordinates in the dark about secret policy initiatives?

According to Ynetnews, Sharon confidant and henchman, Dov Weisglass issued a non-denial denial:

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s bureau chief Dov Weisglass told Ynet that “the Haaretz report is baseless. Sharon was never updated on such negotiations. Someone may have said something once, but it’s on the level of gossip. There was no such thing in practice.”

“Someone may have said something once…[but] there was no such thing in practice.” Make sense to you?

Then, Olmert brought out the rightist academics to trample further over Liel and Eldar’s bodies:

Prof. Eyal Zisser, head of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University, told Ynet that “this is no more than a journalistic fabrication. On the one side there were good Israelis who wanted to promote the issue and themselves, and on the other side there are always the same Syrians who want to advance the issue and themselves, and they held talks.”

You heard it, the dean of the Israeli press corps and one of its most distinguished members, Akiva Eldar, has created a “journalistic fabrication.” This begs the question: despite the obviously august academic qualifications of Herr Professor Zisser, what the hell gives him the chutzpah to think he would be enough in the know about this to make a definitive judgment about it? This is an example of the punditocracy raising its ugly maw to trash talk those who are trying to do something to make the Mideast better. Remember the old saw: “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.” To that I would add: “and academics (at least some of them) bloviate.”

And for anyone who doubts Herr Professor’s mastery of his field, here he dazzles with his penetrating and unique analysis of Syrian-Israeli relations:

According to Zisser, “The Syrian side is interested in a dialogue in principle, but is not determined and is not ready to exert the required efforts. No one expects a Syrian living in the United States for many years to really be a serious representative, while Alon Liel is not an authorized representative of the State of Israel and is not the country’s confidant. He is one of the people who are on the margins.”

He added that “Israel in principle should always try and reach peace, but I definitely understand the prime minister who is deterred by it at the moment. The Syrians are tough clients who are unwilling to do the minimum in order to reach peace. When you have such a client, when there are difficult internal problems and when the Americans object, it is clear that one would fear negotiations.”

Alon Liel is “one of the people who are on the margins.” I like that. Richard Armitage was Codi Rice’s number 2 at the State Department, an equivalent post to the foreign ministry director general. Is Armitage “one of the people on the margins??” C’mon. This is insipid, insidious character assassination of the highest order. Not satisfied merely to demean the peace effort, Zisser has to make sure he inserts the knife cleanly between Liel’s ribs.

One can see the emptiness of Zisser’s analysis here: “The Syrians are tough clients who are unwilling to do the minimum in order to reach peace.” It would seem to me that the draft outline Liel worked out with his Syrian partner showed the Syrians are willing to do far more than the minimum to reach peace. In fact, the deal as described in Haaretz was incredibly favorable to Israel even compared to the 2000 deal cut with Barak (which he chickened out on at the last minute). Perhaps it is “clear” to Zisser why Olmert “would fear negotiations” under the current circumstances. But it’s not “clear” to anyone else with eyes in their head and a head upon their shoulders (at least a head that isn’t full of academic analyst cliches as Zisser’s appears to be).

Ynetnews quotes another academic security hawk squawking about the foolishness of such an initiative and the mistake of Syrian engagement:

Prof. Yitzhak Ben Israel head of the Security Studies Program at Tel Aviv University, also believes that the report on the understandings was not serious…”The question whether we should talk to Syria is a tactical question – what you gain and what you lose. At the moment, there is no reason for Israel to rescue Syria, which is now under pressure. There is no reason for us to make their lives easier.”

This kind of narischkeit makes my blood boil. For these academic whores Israeli-Arab relations are a zero sum game. It’s all power politics. Who’s up and who’s down. Forget about real flesh and blood people dying every day on behalf of the power game. In fact, I’d say that a Syria-Israel peace agreement would “rescue” Israel quite as much as Syria. Is Olmert so well off after last summer’s military debacle that he himself doesn’t need a bit of “rescuing?” Here’s a guy whose popularity rating is around 30%. His party would poll 12 seats were an election held today.

And talking about pressure, is Syria the only one facing pressure? Olmert faces one definite criminal inquiry and two possible others as well as well. He’s not even speaking to either his defense or foreign ministers. For anyone seeking a definition of political dysfunction you couldn’t do better than to use this as a perfect example.

So whose life “would be made easier” by a peace agreement? Only Syria’s? What about the lives of the poor Israeli Jews and Arabs living in the north who suffered the brunt of Hezbollah shelling and who would suffer immensely more were there ever a war with Syria? Shouldn’t we consider what might make their lives easier? What a swine this Ben Israel fellow is. Sitting up there in his sleek academic office on Mount Olympus, while the rest of Israel suffers from the utter stagnation of Israeli peace efforts with its enemies.

tags alon-liel, eyal-zisser, haaretz, syria-israel-deny-peace-negotiations, yitzhak-ben-israel, ynetnews

Thanks to Sol Salbe for informing me of this article. Lt. Col. (res.) Ron Ben Yishai, Defense columnist for Yediot Achronot (and serving in the paratroopers), provides a primer in Ynetnews on the IDF's uses of artillery and why it is the least effective and most liable to error in situations like the one faced in Beit Hanun. If you read the following closely (paying special attention to the italicized passages) you will find that, whether he intended to or not, Yishai is laying out the strongest case that can possibly be made for the ultimate failure of the entire Gaza counter-insurgency operation.

Thanks to Sol Salbe for once again pointing out two sizzling stories in the Israeli media about Israel's tortured relations with Syria. Both point to the absolute bollocks Ehud Olmert is making of that relationship by refusing outright to even discuss peace with the Syrian leadership. Haaretz's TV critic writes about an appearance by senior Arab affairs correspondent, Ehud Yaari (Hebrew version), on an Israeli public affairs show, Ulpan Shishi (Studio Six). The critic writes that according to Yaari: “Syria has presented Israel with an offer which is nothing short of sensational: In return for a withdrawal from the Golan Syria is willing to sign a peace agreement, distance itself from Iran and Hezbollah, give up its demand for ...

Noam Shalit, father of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, has spoken to the press almost every day since his son's capture by Hamas militants. Yet he has never questioned the government's position that it will not negotiate with the kidnappers for fear of encouraging more such kidnappings. Shalit pere has basically been a good solider like his own son. Until today. Ynetnews reports that Mr. Shalit has blasted the government for its refusal to negotiate a deal to save his son's life: “Everything has a price,” he responded. “I don’t believe there can be any process to gain Gilad’s release that won’t cost a price. That’s not how things work in the Middle East. The question is only ...

We all of course grasp the hopeful news, meager though it is, emanating from Gaza during the current crisis. Ynetnews reports that one of the three groups responsible for kidnapping Gilad Shalit, the Army of Islam, released a statement claiming it would not kill him because it violated Islamic precepts: Islamic Army, one of the groups behind Gilad Shalits' kidnapping, says it will not kill the IDF corporal despite the expiration of an ultimatum issued Monday. 'Islamic principles stipulate that prisoners should be respected,' a group spokesman states. "Some think that the groups who conducted the operation can kill him, but our Islamic principles stipulate that prisoners should be respected," said Abu al-Muthana, spokesman for the Islamic Army, small group ...

At funeral, relative holds aloft body of infant murdered in Israeli artillery massacre (photo: Hatem Moussa/AP) Israel has nothing short of a disaster on its hands with yesterday's bloody massacre of eight Palestinian beachgoers enjoying a day with their family at the seaside. Yesterday, there were seven victims but the NY Times reports that the body of an eighth washed ashore earlier today. Israeli government sources say that it's likely that an errant shell fell 400 meters off course and landed amongst a Palestinian family. However, the IDF isn't prepared to say what precisely happened and how. According to Haaretz: "We still do not have an ...