28-Apr-11: Dark clouds in the firmament

Our purpose in blogging is not to deal in political issues but to focus on the impact that terror has, has had and likely will have on the world - yours and ours. Yesterday's announcement of an understanding, treaty, agreement, merger, acquisition or whatever it turns out to be between Fatah and Hamas is a major cause of existential concern right across the political spectrum here today. For us, with our predisposition to seeing things in terms of acts of war and of terror, the indications are deeply worrying. Hamas prisoners in Fatah/PA jails are being freed. The weapons, the investment, the foreign aid, the political credit of Fatah/PA, mostly from the West, is flowing into the open arms of the terrorists of Hamas. It's a deeply unsettling scene.

A selection of news from the past day makes the point better than our commentary can.

Hamas: Interim Palestinian Government Not Able to Work on Peace with Israel

Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas leader who participated in the reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas, said on Wednesday, "Our program does not include negotiations with Israel or recognizing it....It will not be possible for the interim national government to participate or bet on or work on the peace process with Israel." [Reuters-Ha'aretz]  

"Palestinians Prefer Peace with Hamas over Peace with Israel"

Senior Fatah official Tawfiq Tirawi said Thursday, "If Israel thinks we have to choose between peace with it and peace with Hamas - any Palestinian you ask will tell you we prefer Palestinian unity over peace with Israel." The fact that Hamas is largely considered by the international community as a terror group was never a factor. "No Palestinian group is a terror organization in our eyes," he added. [Ynet]

Hamas Has Taken Over the Palestinian Nationalist Movement

The Palestinian reconciliation deal, if realized, heralds the takeover of the Palestinian national movement by Hamas. A "unity government" or "technocracy" - as the Palestinians called it - is a nice but empty headline. In real life, there is no a-political rule and there are no egalitarian governments. There is always a ruling side with partners being dragged behind it. The stronger, more organized, better armed side, i.e., Hamas, will rule the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. The Palestinian reconciliation deal justifies Netanyahu's warnings that any territory vacated by Israel will fall into Hamas hands and become an Iranian terror base. It strikes any proposals for interim agreements and unilateral withdrawals, intended to appease the world, off the agenda. [Aluf Benn in Haaretz]

Fayyad Will Not Be in New PA Government

Azzam al-Ahmad, the Fatah negotiator of the agreement with Hamas, said that Salam Fayyad, the prime minister in the West Bank who is despised by Hamas but trusted by Washington, would not be part of the interim government. [Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner in the New York Times]

Palestinians Launch Their Revolution

It's not yet certain that a political deal announced Wednesday by the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions will stick - similar pacts have been proclaimed and then discarded several times in the last four years. But one thing is sure: If Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas moves forward with the reconciliation with the Islamic Hamas movement, it will mean he has written off the Obama administration and the peace process it has tried to broker, once and for all. The reconciliation could mean the end of the West Bank administration headed by Salam Fayyad, a technocrat highly respected by both Americans and Israelis. If so, Congress will almost certainly suspend $400 million in annual U.S. aid. It could also mean the reorganization of Fatah's U.S.-trained security forces, which have worked with Israel to keep the peace in the West Bank for the last several years, and their eventual integration with the cadres of the Iranian-backed Hamas. [Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post]

Hamas-Fatah Pact: Is the Peace Process Over?

Former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold, noted: "Hamas is an international terrorist organization, period. That is not just an Israeli determination but the opinion of the EU and the U.S. government. There are no diplomatic acrobatics that are possible which could make an organization that has been committed to suicide bombing attacks and rocketing Israeli civilians into a partner for peace... Will the PA now release from prison Hamas terrorists who were engaged in attacks on Israel? The PA security apparatus, which is generally praised by Western observers, will have no value if those engaging in terroristic activities are not indicted, tried and put into prison, because of the new political ties with Hamas." [Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post]

Ramallah residents wary of unity deal

The atmosphere in Ramallah following the announcement of the unity agreement between Fatah and Hamas was not particularly festive on Thursday morning, as residents expressed skepticism at the pact's chances of success... "It's all nonsense, this agreement won't be successful," said Jamil Jobra, a Ramallah resident. "It will hold for maybe a month or two, not more. There is a very large gap between the sides... "Hamas has only one way, and it's the way of terrorism, not the way of peace," another resident added. [Elior Levy on Ynet]

And this to complete the gloom:

UN Security Council Fails to Condemn Syria

The UN Security Council failed to agree on a European and U.S.-backed statement condemning Syrian violence against peaceful protesters on Wednesday, with Russia saying Syria's actions don't threaten international peace. China and India called for a peaceful resolution of the crisis, while Lebanon's UN ambassador stressed the country's special relationship with Syria. Syria's UN ambassador welcomed the council's inaction, blaming the violence on "extremist groups."  (AP)

On the other hand, the BBC is reporting in the past hour that some 200 members of Syria's ruling Baath party "...are reported to have resigned over the violent crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrations". What do local Syrian insiders, living their lives under the jackboots of Assad's troopers, know that the experts sitting at UN headquarters don't?

24-Apr-11: Postscript to today's murder

The IDF says, according to the Jerusalem Post, that the PA policemen who opened fire this morning on two carloads of Jews near the Tomb of Joseph the Patriarch, were fully aware that the men they fired on were Israeli worshipers who were unarmed and posed no threat despite entering the area without proper security coordination.

24-Apr-11: Palestinian Arabs, possibly PA police, fire on Israelis en route to prayers; one killed, others wounded

We're in the midst of the Passover religious festival which for most Israelis is a week-long vacation. Early this morning (Sunday), 15 Israeli men, driving to the frequently-desecrated Tomb of Joseph on the outskirts of Nablus [see this nineteenth century picture and this account of its travails] came under fire. 

A 24 year-old father of four from Jerusalem is dead. He is Ben-Yosef Livnat, the son of Noam Livnat, nephew of Israel's Minister of Culture & Sport Limor Livnat. At least five other members of the group suffered serious to moderate injuries and have been air-lifted to the Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. The group, comprising of Breslov Hassisim, was reportedly traveling in a three-car convoy. Ynet says that while driving back from prayers, around 6 am, they came under fire from a Palestinian jeep. The fire continued even after the vehicles began to escape. Ynet quotes the PA Governor of Nablus, Jibril al-Bakri, saying the shooting was unintentional, calling it a "security incident" and not a "shooting attack", the implication evidently being the Israelis were shot by the PA police.

The Tomb of Joseph the Patriarch is one of the holiest of Judaism's
religious sites. The picture above is from before the destruction carried
out by Palestinian Arab thugs in October 2000. 

Arab mob pillages the ancient site at the start of
the Arafat War proclaimed by the Palestinian Authority in September 2000

Palestinian flag and thugs 'honor' the destroyed religious site.

In what is left of Joseph's Tomb, religious visitors pray recently under IDF protection

UPDATE Sunday 11:30am: Over at the JoshuaPundit blog, they reported earlier this morning about renewed desecration of the Joseph's Tomb site: "the headstone smashed and swastikas sprayed on the walls, graffiti of a blood-dripping sword over a Star of David, and visible boot prints all over the tomb itself."


UPDATE Sunday 12:30pm: Yes, it was the Palestinian Authority police. And they used live lethal fire (Haaretz quoting the Defence Minister) in opening up on three Israeli vehicles filled with unarmed religious pilgrims visiting the sacred site of Joseph the Patriarch. Haaretz adds: "Following years of closure, Jewish worshippers are now able to enter Nablus often with a military escort to pray at the small building traditionally identified as the tomb of the biblical Joseph, located inside a Palestinian-ruled area. Those visits are coordinated with Palestinian security forces."

Ben-Yosef Livnat, murdered this morning

UPDATE Sunday 5:00pm: The man who was shot to death by the Palestinian police while en route to the Tomb of Joseph was laid to rest this afternoon in the ancient Jewish cemetery on the slopes of Jerusalem's Mount of Olives. Thousands of people were present, expressing their horror at the barbarity of the Palestinian Arab shooting of worshippers on their way to one of Judaism's most ancient and meaningful sites, and solidarity with the victims. Ben-Yosef Livnat (his picture is above) was 25 and the father of four very young children. The Wall Street Journal quotes Defence Minister Ehud Barak calling this an act of murder and that "no coordination mishap can justify such an incident." 


The Palestinian Arabs evidently do not see any coordination mishap in today's events. Palestinian Authority security services spokesman Adnan Dmeiri told the Palestinian Arab newsagency Ma'an that 

"officers on duty at the site had been summoned to give testimonies as witnesses to the incident, but none had been detained. Dmeiri said a committee had been formed to investigate the shooting but said it would not include Israeli officials. He denied media reports that the investigation would be under US supervision." 

Pretty clear which issues bother them and which do not. Oh, and the Ma'an editors also tell us, as confirmed by other news sources this afternoon, that after the killing "Palestinians set fire to the site." Yet again.

22-Apr-11: Terrorists living in the neighborhood

Three Arabs in Nazareth Indicted for Planning Terror Attacks

Three Nazareth residents - Ahmed Ghanem, Moataz Shatawi, and Nour el-Din Shahade - were indicted Sunday for conspiring to carry out terror attacks against Israeli soldiers, civilians, and policemen... The suspects reportedly built makeshift bombs from household items, were involved in illegal arms deals, and planned to attack Israelis. The indictment said the three had used an Internet site to learn how to assemble an improvised explosive device with a USB flashdrive.

Acre-based Israeli Arab lawyer charged with aiding terrorist organization

Israeli-Arab lawyer Suhir Ayoub allegedly passed information between Islamic Jihad leadership, prisoners in Israeli jails. She is accused by the Jerusalem District Attorney’s office of relaying information between a Gaza-based leader of Mahajat El Kuds, a group with close links to Islamic Jihad, and members of the group being held in Israeli jails. According to the indictment, Ayoub was hired by Mahajat El Kuds operative A’amar A’ashur Abu Hamza to pass on the information... 

Shin Bet: We uncovered Hamas terror ring in Jerusalem-area

The Shin Bet announced that a group of five Hamas militants, planning terror attacks in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, was arrested. The arrests had previously been under a gag order. The group has allegedly been operating since Operation Cast Lead, the Israel Defense Forces operation that took place in the Gaza Strip in the winter of 2008-2009. The group acquired weapons with the assistance of Hamas in an effort to sponsor terror activities. One of the group members was arrested in February, prompting another member to attempt to dispose a bomb they had created for a planned bombing in the contested Jerusalem Gilo neighborhood... The cell was preparing to carry out a shooting attack similar to that which took place in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where 8 students were murdered... Mahmet Dawiyat, the brother of cell-member Ahmed Dawiyat, admitted to preparing a pipe bomb which he said was to be used in an attack on an attack on a bus stop in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Eventually, however, Dawiyat decided to discard the explosive device in Jerusalem's Hebron road. In early March, a municipal cleaning worker was maimed after he had picked up the trash bag in which the device was hidden.

20-Apr-11: Daniel Viflic, 16 when he died Sunday, was victim of deliberate targeting of school bus

16-year-old Daniel Viflic was critically wounded when Palestinian-Arab-Gazan terrorists callously fired an advanced anti-tank guided missile at an unarmored school bus in southern Israel on 7th April. He sustained head wounds, shrapnel injuries and major blood loss in the attack and tragically died of his wounds on Sunday 17th April. Daniel had been on his way to visit his grandmother who lives in the Negev when the school bus was hit. All the other children on board had gotten off in the previous few minutes. He died in Be'er Sheva's Soroka Medical Center and was laid to rest in the Bet Shemesh cemetery. He is survived by his parents, Yitzhak and Tamar, his sister Adina, 13, and his grandmother Ida.

19-Apr-11: What happened that awful Sabbath night in Itamar?

Itamar, population 1,000

On Monday, two Palestinian Arabs from the Samarian village of Awarta, Hakim Maazan Niad Awad and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, were arrested by the Israeli police and charged with the massacre of five members of the Fogel family in the small Jewish community of Itamar.

The Jerusalem Post's account says the Awads confessed and reconstructed the steps before and after the killings. Their fellow villagers and clansmen, in the time-honored way, say the confessions are false, the murders were done by disgruntled foreign laborers, the Awads are "children", as pure as the driven snow and innocent of any wrong-doing. And what proof is there that a murder happened anyway?

Here is what is now known:

• The 11th March 2011 stabbing murders took days of advance planning.
• The Awads tried to obtain firearms from their local resident representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They did not succeed, so equipped themselves instead with wire-cutters and knives.
• They left Awarta on foot. Seeing that Itamar's periphery fence had an electric sensor, they abandoned the wire-cutter and climbed the fence instead. The alarm was not triggered.
• They walked across a forested hilltop, and arrived at a row of quiet Itamar homes. It was late Friday night - the Jewish Sabbath.
• No one was at home in the first house they entered. They found, and stole, an M-16 rifle, ammunition and body armor. Then they moved on to the house next door: the Fogel residence.
• Peering in through the window, they saw two children sleeping. These were four-year-old Elad, and 11-year-old Yoav.
• They entered and stabbed them both to death.
• They entered the parents’ bedroom, attacking with their knives. The parents fought back. Using the stolen rifle, they shot the young mother, Ruth Fogel, dead, and stabbed her husband Ehud dead.
• The murderers left the house. Then they heard a baby crying. This was three-month-old Hadas, in her crib in the parents’ bedroom.
• They did the logical, nationalistic, jihadist, religiously-inspired thing: returned to the bedroom and slashed the three-month-old baby to death.
• They now know they had overlooked two additional Fogel children. Amjad Awad says, lest there be any doubt about the matter, that they would have killed the remaining children had they realized they were in the house.
• The two murderers hiked back to their village in clothing soaked in the blood of their victims. 
• Their clansman, Salah Awad, affiliated with the PFLP, helped them dispose of the incriminating evidence. The stolen weapons were spirited away to a co-conspirator in Ramallah for hiding. He is now under arrest too.

After the fact, we know these additional things about the barbarism of that night.

• Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad is 19 and worked in Israel as a laborer. Hakim Maazan Niad Awad is 18 and a high school student.
• The Awads received considerable after-the-fact support from clan members in the village and other friends in the area. Six accomplices are under arrest.
• Ynet quotes sources close to the investigation saying the Awad clansmen provided the investigators with a dispassionate account of the attack, "a chilling reenactment", a "shocking, cold, remorseless and detailed description". 
• Amjad is quoted saying he went to Itamar to "die a martyr's death".
• There is massive support among Palestinian Arabs not only for the general idea of killing Israelis but specifically for the massacre of the Fogel family members. This arises from an authoritative survey conducted by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, and the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and by Prof. Khalil Shikaki, Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR).
• American Educational Trust, self-described as "a non-profit, non-partisan organization incorporated in 1982 in Washington, DC, by retired U.S. Foreign Service Officers", publishes a website called Remember these Children. This purports to objectively report on the terrible price paid in terms of children's lives in the conflict between Israel and the Arabs. Our impression it takes a highly partisan Palestine-centric view of the conflict and of the victims. It is striking that the cold-blooded, deliberate murders of the three Fogel children are not recorded at all on the site, though the deaths of Palestinian Arab children in the same month, allegedly at the hands of the IDF, are.

One final point. 

In an blog entry last month (21-Mar-11: Why Palestinian Arab condemnations of babies being murdered in their beds are a fraud), we referred to the mealy-mouthed condemnations by Palestinian Arab political figures of the Itamar massacre, and in particular Mahmoud Abbas who is quoted saying it was

"a despicable, immoral, and inhuman act. A human being is not capable of something like that. Scenes like these - the murder of infants and children and a woman slaughtered - cause any person endowed with humanity to hurt and to cry." 

Did he mean it? Let's see.

The day before the Fogel family were slaughtered, the official Palestinian Authority television - the mouthpiece of the Mahmoud Abbas regime - broadcast a program in honour of one of its former employees, a woman called Ahlam Tamimi. She is serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison for one of the most heinous crimes known in these troubled parts. Yet the program praises her, praises the actions that put her in prison, and unequivocally identifies with the longing of Tamimi’s family members for her and for her release. The camera focuses on a certificate awarded by Fatah, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, calling Tamimi "the heroic prisoner." Watching this, which countless Palestinian Arab families did, no one would be left in doubt as to what official Palestinian Arab society thinks of Tamimi and of the chain of events that brought this evidently heroic figure to an Israeli cell. This Tamimi is the murderer of our daughter and of fifteen other innocent Israelis. She is articulate, capable and very proud of what she did, and everyone watching the program is encouraged to share that pride. The head of the Palestinian Arab political pyramid, Abbas, is closely identified with that pride. Killing Israeli children is something to be proud of, the program teaches and Abbas confirms. Palestinian Arab society holds this Tamimi up as an example to be emulated.

Understanding how Palestinian Arab society says one thing to the outside world and an entirely other, hateful thing to its own members is key to understanding why this ongoing war is so resistant to resolution. Discerning the things that we can learn from horrifying events like the Fogel family murders is critical to getting this right, a challenge that most people - under the influence of double-talking politicians and a compliant media - fail.

18-Apr-11: Passover approaches, and the rockets too

The Gazan terrorists are probably more tuned in to the nuances of the Jewish calendar than most people. The sense that on our side of the fence there is a family-focused festival, Passover, in which we celebrate our unique history and our struggle for freedom, is evidently hard for them to swallow.

Hence it's not entirely surprising to note that a handful of hours before Jews in Israel sit down to the Passover Seder, the thuggish jihadists honour the cycle of our communal lives by firing off another Qassam rocket from the vast arsenal with which they are equipped. This one came from northern Gaza and exploded this afternoon (Monday) in an open area close to one of the kibbutzim in the Sha'ar HaNegev region of southern Israel. Fortunately no injuries or damage were reported. Our prayers to Heaven are this will continue to be the case.

15-Apr-11: Gazans rocketing Ashdod

There are reports in the last few minutes (a bright and sunny Friday afternoon, with the Sabbath two hours away) that an incoming rocket alarm has sounded in Ashdod and neighboring towns. Residents reported hearing blasts - two separate rocket according to our friends who live there. Thankfully no reports of injuries or damage.

PRE-SABBATH UPDATE: There were indeed two rockets of the Grad kind. One landed in a residential neighbourhood of Ashdod. The intention of the jihadists under Hamas leadership was to do what was done yesterday to the Italian 'human rights' worker, only many times over, and with Jewish victims. Fortunately this time the result was zero losses, but we have been less lucky on many previous occasions. The Gaza regime has many thousands of rockets in reserve, deployed among the civilian population, and many more ("Iran providing Hamas with smuggle-ready rockets") on the way.

15-Apr-11: For the record, Hamas is blaming Israel for the murder of the Italian hostage

As if this sad, bizarre, ironic affair were not already mind-numbingly upsetting enough in all its aspects, the Jerusalem Post has the story: "Hamas claims Israel killed Italian to stop Gaza flotilla". And if you're ready to view pictures posted by or about the victim, Aussie Dave has re-posted them on his IsraellyCool site.

14-Apr-11: Moslem on Moslem massacres continue; outrage not so much

Iraqi policy and soldiers imposing
a siege on Camp Ashraf in 2009 (Source)

We wrote less than a week ago [9-Apr-11: A day in the life of the Middle East: [Fill in country name] government forces execute massacres of own citizens] about armed-to-the-teeth government forces killing their own citizens in various parts of the Middle East. We mentioned massacres in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain. And noted that they all happened on one single day, last week. Please remind us, we asked, what Israel is supposed to learn from its neighbours in the region.

Today there's this:

UN confirms 34 dead at Iranian camp in Iraq
UNITED NATIONS, April 14 | Thu Apr 14, 2011 12:35pm EDT
(Reuters) - The United Nations on Thursday confirmed 34 people have been found dead at an Iranian dissident camp in Iraq after Iraqi security forces launched an operation against the camp last week. "We are aware of 34 dead in the camp and its immediate environs," U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said. "We're trying to get further details." (Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Bill Trott)

Just 34 dead. Really hardly worth making something out of it.

Wait. Is that 34 human beings? And according to AP,  three bodies appear to have been crushed to death, likely from being run over by a car.What horror. And where is the outrage?

The massacre happened at Camp Ashraf in northeastern Iraq, home for the past thirty years to thousands of Iranians who oppose the Iranian regime. It was guarded by the U.S. Army from 2003 to 2009. Then control was transferred to Iraqi armed forces.

The BBC says 3,500 people live there. UN observers were asking to visit the camp for five days. They were finally allowed in on Wednesday, and found a number of women among the dead, and many more injured. Two days ago (according to this source), the Iraqi government announced plans to close the camp down by the end of 2011. It appears New Year came early for them.

14-Apr-11: Gazan jihadists grab Italian journalist, threaten to murder him in name of glorious revolution

The SKY News article is here

Reports are emerging this evening (Thursday) that "Islamist extremists in Gaza" have kidnapped an Italian journalist they call Vittorio Arriogoni and say they are going to kill him within 30 hours if the Hamas terrorist regime that controls Gaza does not release a number of prisoners. Palestinian Arab prisoners, that is.

SKY News has a picture of a beaten-up face here in a report that connects the kidnapping to what it calls "a Salafist organisation, inspired by al Qaeda". It's a screen grab taken from a video in which, it says, there are demands for the release of "mujahideen" who have been arrested by Hamas and are being held in jails in Gaza and in particular a sheikh who was arrested last week. SKY News says this Italian journalist arrived in Gaza as part of an "aid" convoy in 2008 and he has become famous - in Italy, at least - for what it calls "his passionate defence of Palestinians under Israeli occupation".

An AP wire story this evening quotes one of the founders of the appalling ISM organization saying the man who was kidnapped is one of its activists and that his name should be withheld.

The journalist's name sounds like it might be a mis-spelled version of Vittorio Arrigoni whose anti-Israel writings are all over the web. Our impression is that there are details missing from this story that might emerge in the coming hours and days.

UPDATE Thursday 9:40pm: Aussie Dave of IsraellyCool has posted some videos of the/a Italian journalist who seems to be the central figure in this. And he quotes this Palestinian Arab newsagency (in Arabic but click to get the English translation) blaming the kidnapping on - who else? - the Israelis.

UPDATE Thursday 10:40pm: Honest Reporting points out the irony of

"...Hamas refusing to negotiate a prisoner swap with terrorists – even as they still deny Red Cross access to Gilad Shalit and play mind-games to pressure Israel – is even more so. But irony aside, let’s hope Arrigoni emerges from captivity quickly and safely."

UPDATE Friday 07:00am: The jihadists have killed him.

13-Apr-11: Ready for statehood? [Part 2]

More on the momentum that's building internationally and at the UN for a Palestinian Arab state.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), which annually reviews textbooks from Israel, the Arab world and Iran, unveiled its 2011 report on PA school textbooks in a briefing yesterday. Summarizing Jpost's report:

• Generally the Palestinian schoolbooks teach a total denial of the existence of Israel. Where an Israeli presence is mentioned, it is generally very negative.
• There is zero education about or towards co-operation and co-existence between Israelis and Arabs.
• The books blame Israel for all of the PA's environmental problems.
• In geography textbooks, maps of the Middle East generally omit Israel.
• “Palestine” is shown to encompass Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. 
• The city of Jaffa is shown on maps of Palestine. But the cities of Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan, as well as the many Israeli kibbutzim and moshavim (communal settlements the length and breadth of the country) are not displayed - they are wiped from the map.
• A book entitled History of Ancient Civilization, published in 2009 for fifth-graders, says the countries in the area are Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Israel is not mentioned.
• A map of the Old City of Jerusalem omits the Jewish Quarter. 
• A postage stamp from the British Mandate period has the Hebrew text erased. The omitted Hebrew words are “Palestine: The Land of Israel”. See the pictures below.
• Some textbooks described the Canaanites as an Arabic-speaking people whose land was stolen by Jews.
• Some textbooks say the Jews came from Europe to steal Palestine after the British conquered it in 1917.
• The books erasing Jewish claims to such holy sites as the Western Wall and Rachel’s Tomb. For example, National Education, a textbook for seventh-graders published in 2010, refers to the Western Wall as the “Al-Buraq Wall,” and to Rachel’s Tomb as “Al-Bilal Mosque.”
• Many of these officially sanctioned Palestinian textbooks include multiple references to martyrdom, death, jihad and refugees returning to cities and towns in Israel.
• They frequently demonize Israelis and Jews. 
• Though there are some positive developments in the Palestinian educational system- mention of democratic values and respect for women, elders and authority – no Israeli is depicted as a friend or partner. 
• The Oslo Accords are rarely mentioned.
• Political agreements in general are presented as resulting from Arab and Muslim weakness.
• 118 textbooks currently used in Palestinian schools were analyzed, along with 22 teacher guides distributed by the PA Ministry of Education and Higher Education. These are used not only in the PA-controlled area but also in the Hamas regime's Gaza Strip.

To the surprise of no one, the report reminds us that the bulk of funding for these problematic textbooks comes from the EU. Some comes from the US.

Photograph of cover of an official PA school text
book (personally photographed by this blog's writers).
Note the Palestine postage stamp in bottom right corner.

Same book cover - Palestine postage stamp enlarged. It was
issued in the 1940s by the British mandatory authority.
Note the Arabic text on right, and blank space (at the bottom) to its left.

The stamps of Palestine, during the Mandate period (1917 to 1948)
always included Hebrew text, as seen at bottom left. The Hebrew writing
says "Palestina" followed by the letters Aleph Yud which stand
for "Eretz Yisrael", meaning the Land of Israel.

Are the Palestinian Arabs ready for an internationally recognized state? It would be nice to think so - for them and for us. It would be nicer still if they gave a sign of understanding that living with us as neighbours requires educating their own children for peace and for neighbourly relations.

The ongoing scandal of official Palestinian textbooks reminds us there's no sign that that process has begun. 

13-Apr-11: Ready for statehood? [Part 1]

The Lancet's indictment of Israel's impact
on Palestinian Arab pediatric health is here.

The BBC gives prominence today to a report that

"The government in the West Bank is largely ready to govern a Palestinian state, the United Nations has said. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has successfully built some institutions and public services required for a future state, the UN said... "In six areas where the UN is most engaged, governmental functions are now sufficient for a functioning government of a state," said the report released by Robert Serry, the UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process (Unsco). It says the Palestinian Authority - which has limited self-rule government in the West Bank - has built up areas such as governance, rule of law, health and social services, and infrastructure up to a level expected of a state."

This is interesting. Evidently it is important that the Abbas regime be perceived as having done good things so that the nations of the world can give it recognition as a country.

Good things are good. We are sure that when the Palestinian Arabs have something good and constructive going on in their lives - something worth protecting - then things will be much better for us, their neighbours. It's when they are cheated of good things by the thugs and kleptocrats who have ruled them for decades (Arafat of course, and those who came with him and after him) that terrorism is seen as a legitimate response.

So here is why we find this BBC report, and what is happening at the UN, so disturbing. There are two specific issues.

First, the Serry report, entitled "Palestinian State-building: A Decisive Period", speaks highly of the PA's health system:

"The health care system in the oPt is well developed in areas under PA authority; the range, quality and availability of public health services in oPt and key health indicators, such as infant mortality and life expectancy, bear comparison with those in neighbouring states such as Egypt and Syria."

This is echoed by findings released this week as well in a World Bank report called "Building the Palestinian State: Sustaining Growth, Institutions, and Service Delivery" (online here). To give just one instance of how well their health system is doing:

"Among children under the age of 5, only 11.5 percent suffer from stunting (low height for age) and a mere 1.4 percent from wasting (low weight for height). In the average middle income country, 3 out of 10 children are stunted, i.e. more than three times the figure for WB&G [West Bank and Gaza]. Performance in terms of wasting incidence is even more compelling: one in 10 children in a middle income country suffers from wasting, i.e. the rate is 7 times lower in WB&G."

Elder of Zion has done some excellent digging around to remind us that what today is presented as a great achievement by an "outstanding performer" (referring to the PA) was presented just two years ago as the opposite. No prizes for guessing whose fault it was.

The BBC's 2009 analysis was called "Palestinian health care 'ailing'" (online here). An opinion piece penned by a Harvard researcher in the New York Times (online here) was called "Gaza’s Stunted Growth Problem". Both confidently made the same point by quoting the British medical journal The Lancet which asserted that "the trend for stunting among Palestinian children is increasing, and that there is a concern about the long-term effects..."

According to the NY Times:

"Stunting, which is caused by chronic malnutrition and affecting cognitive development and physical health, poses a serious threat to normal childhood development and may cause severe health problems for children in the future. The report’s conclusions that the main reasons for the ailing Palestinian health system are the occupation, the recent conflict in Gaza, and inter-Palestinian fighting stress the need for an honest assessment of the health situation within the context of broader Israeli-Palestinian peace talks."

The BBC adopted The Lancet's assertion that "10% of Palestinian children now have stunted growth" and left readers with the clear impression that this is somehow a terrible statistic.

But it's not. The April 2011 World Bank paper we just mentioned says: "Among children under the age of 5, only 11.5 percent suffer from stunting (low height for age) and a mere 1.4 percent from wasting (low weight for height). In the average middle income country, 3 out of 10 children are stunted, i.e. more than three times the figure for WB&G."

Strange how this works. A 10% stunting rate in 2009 is an indictment of the Israelis who are somehow responsible for the health and growth of Palestinian Arab children. And an 11.5% rate for the same bad thing in 2011 somehow becomes a clear sign that the Palestinian Arab authorities are running their health system well.

We all need to draw our own conclusions - not so much about stunting and children's health (which are very important) but about the cynical way reporters and editors of the news twist and distort to fit their ideological agendas.

But there's more. As uplifting as it is to know that the Palestinian Arabs have a government good enough to be allowed to join the community of nations (maybe), there's another report released this week that suggests they remain stuck in the same self-inflicted black hole as they occupied for the past sixty years. We are about to post a separate blog entry that looks at this in the next few minutes.

10-Apr-11: Still more Gazan rockets fired into Israel

Two mortar shells fired from northern Gaza landed in the Eshkol region around an hour ago (2:30pm Sunday afternoon). Then about half an hour ago according to Ynet, around 3:15 this afternoon, a Qassam rocket, also fired from northern Gaza, crashed and exploded in south of Ashkelon. The Color Red alert was sounded before the second explosion, and again, thank Heavens, it appears there were neither injuries nor damage.

10-Apr-11: A Sunday full of Gazan rockets looking for Jewish victims

A sunny Sunday, and it's another day full of Gazan rockets. Ynet says two landed in the Sha'ar HaNegev and Sdot Negev regions, causing no injuries or damage, about an hour ago (1:00pm Israel time). Half an hour later, another crashed into the Eshkol region, again - thank Heavens - causing neither injuries nor damage.

10-Apr-11: Iron Dome works; more batteries to be installed

Israel's Army Radio reported a short time ago that the Obama administration has approved funding of more than $200 million for the stationing of additional Iron Dome anti-rocket batteries in Israel's south. This comes after the missile defense system successfully intercepted nine Grad and Qassam missiles from Gaza during this hectic weekend. Here are several short videos of how it looks from the ground when it works - not a simulation but actual warfare.

Today's NY Times puts it in perspective:

Developed over more than three years by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., an Israeli company, Iron Dome is meant to intercept and destroy rockets with radar-guided missiles... Residents of Beersheba generally have about 45 seconds to take cover when a rocket alert is sounded. Iron Dome is designed to protect against mid-range rockets, like those that have struck Beersheba and the Israeli port of Ashdod, 20 miles north of Gaza. But the system is known to be ineffective against shorter range Qassam rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza at Israeli border communities like Sderot. Amir Peretz, a former Israeli defense minister and a resident of Sderot, said Sunday that 13 mobile batteries would be needed to cover southern Israel and the north, which was struck by thousands of rockets during Israel’s war against Hezbollah in 2006. There has been public criticism of the Iron Dome program in Israel in recent months, with the major newspapers questioning why it had still not moved into operational field testing. Critics of the program have suggested a fear of failure, but public pressure seems to have moved up the schedule. There is also a matter of cost. Many of the rockets fired out of Gaza are crude and cheaply produced, whereas estimates of the cost of each missile fired to intercept a rocket range from $25,000 to $100,000.

As of today, only two Iron Dome batteries are deployed in Israel's south.

10-Apr-11: Sunday morning rocket crashes into south Ashkelon

Ynet says a Qassam rocket (but INN says it may have been a more powerful Grad), fired from the northern end of the Gaza Strip, exploded in the southern part of the Israeli city of Ashkelon. The Color Red attack alert was sounded before the explosion, and at this stage there is speculation that it was stopped by an Iron Dome anti-missile missile. There are no reports of injuries or damage.

10-Apr-11: Quiet night, not so pleasant dawn

After a night free of Gazan missiles, three mortar shells crashed into southern Israel this morning (Sunday) in time for the morning rush hour (Sunday is a busy working day in this part of the world). Ynet says the mortars landed in the Eshkol region; no injuries are reported. One of the rockets, which were fired around 6 am, struck a power cable, causing blackouts in several communities in the region.

10-Apr-11: So this is Europe's contribution to our stability and welfare?

Terrorists, and Hamas are the leading example, neither
respect nor protect civilians; not their own, not the enemy's

In a public statement today, Europe's foreign minister Baroness Catherine Ashton (the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission, to give her the fullness of her weighty title) condemns "yesterday's mortar and rocket attacks out of the Gaza strip, which once again hit the innocent civilian population and which must stop immediately."

No one, and there are no exceptions to this statement, sees anything but hot air in a condemnation of the jihadist Hamas regime. Hamas, like other terrorists, has never concealed its intentions to use terrorism and every other tactic in pursuit of the messianic goals defined in its blood-curdling Hamas Charter. They are not misfiring or miscalculating. The innocent victims are the target and always were.

What does bother us, a lot, is the attention she and it (the statement) pay to Israel's defensive measures.

"I also deplore the loss of civilian life in Gaza and call on Israel to show restraint. The lives of civilians must be spared everywhere and in all circumstances. Only an immediate cessation of all violence can bring back the calm necessary to allow for a lasting truce in the Gaza strip."

Restraint.

Nauseatingly, she and her Brussels comrades place Israel and the terrorists on an equal footing. The effect is they negate the essence of the terrorist playbook that characterizes everything the Hamas regime does to Israel and its inhabitants. And so on that basis, the carefully calibrated and executed steps Israel takes in pinpointing Hamas terrorists on the ground, and eliminating them and their tunnels and weapons caches as surgically as warfare ever allows, are not enough to meet the 'restraint' test. Otherwise why call for more of it?

Her British compatriot, Col. Richard Kemp, previously commander of Her Majesty's forces in Afghanistan, knows infinitely more than Ms Ashton about how war is done. Regarding Israel's much-condemned military measures during the 2009 Operation Cast Lead, he said to the UN Human Rights Council (video here) that the Israeli Defence Forces "did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare". Does that count as restraint? Does it count for anything?

Wouldn't it be refreshing to hear Baroness Ashton, or indeed any political leader, acknowledge publicly that the fight against terrorists - dressed in civilian clothing, embedded within civilian settlements, using sophisticated explosive weapons against unprotected school buses and restaurants and other deliberately chosen civilian targets - needs to be fought to win?

And if she has a view on this, we would be interested to know the Baroness' assessment of the appropriate degree of restraint when it's your family that is under attack by the highly-equipped, religiously-inspired thugs?

9-Apr-11: A day in the life of the Middle East: [Fill in country name] government forces execute massacres of own citizens

Another day, another cluster of massacres in the Islamic Middle East.

Note how each of these reports from today's media (one single day's worth of news) follows the familiar format of armed-to-the-teeth government forces killing their own citizens.

Syria
Syrian city of Deraa hit by deadly clashes [BBC]

At least 23 protesters have been killed during anti-government rallies in the southern Syrian city of Deraa, witnesses have told the BBC. There are also unconfirmed reports of deaths in Homs, Duma and Harasta, as protests swept the country. However, state-run Syrian TV said that 19 members of the security forces had been killed "by armed groups" in Deraa. Deraa has been a focus of unrest since anti-government protests erupted across Syria in mid-March. The protests have posed an unprecedented challenge to President Bashar al-Assad's 11-year rule. He has offered to consider reforms, but activists say his proposals do not go far enough.

Syria again
Syrian Forces Open Fire on Demonstrators in Two Cities [New York Times]

Syrian security forces fired live ammunition at protesters in two cities on Saturday, a day after the single bloodiest day of Syria’s three-week anti-government uprising. In Dara, the security forces fired to disperse a funeral march for some of the 37 people killed in protests across the country a day earlier, a human rights group said. Several people were wounded, said Ammar Qurabi, who runs Syria’s National Organization for Human Rights... Earlier, the security forces fired live ammunition to break up a sit-in in the port city of Latakia, the heartland of Syria’s ruling elite... Latakia is significant because it lies in a province that has strong historical ties to the minority Alawite sect of President Bashar al-Assad.

Libya
Gadaffi forces pound Ajdabiya [Herald-Sun/Australia]

FORCES loyal to Libyan leader Moamar GadaFfi have pounded the strategic oil town of Ajdabiya with heavy fire. In Misrata, rebels said at least eight of their fighters were killed by government forces after a Red Cross ship docked there earlier with critical supplies. Al Jazeera said there were reports Ajdabiya, considered a gateway to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, was on the brink of falling to government troops. The town was being hammered from the north, south and west... As for Gadaffi himself, state television showed him visiting a school in Tripoli, where young students shouted their support. Sky News, which rebroadcast the pictures, was unable to immediately confirm when the film was made. The Libyan leader has rarely been seen in public since the uprising against his government began in February.

Yemen
At least 14 protesters shot in Yemen [Sydney Morning Herald]

Police fired volleys of live rounds at demonstrators in Taez on Saturday, in what local residents said was some of the worst violence since anti-regime protests broke out in Yemen in January. At least 14 people were shot and wounded, three of them seriously, while at least 300 others needed treatment for tear-gas inhalation, medics said. Witnesses said security forces attacked the anti-regime protesters who were gathered near the government offices of the flashpoint city, south of Sanaa. The latest violence came after four protesters were shot dead and more than 100 others wounded in Taez during clashes on Friday that carried on overnight into Saturday.

Egypt
2 Protesters Are Killed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square [New York Times]

Egypt’s security forces shot and killed at least two protesters and injured dozens more in a predawn attempt Saturday to disperse peaceful demonstrators spending the night in the capital’s iconic Tahrir Square, according to government security officials and witnesses. The crackdown was the most brutal since the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11 and since the military started running the country. The military on Saturday denied that anyone had been killed and described the protesters in the square as “thugs.” It also appeared to be trying to distance itself from the violence, saying the forces in the square were police officers under the control of the Interior Ministry. But the army’s recounting of the events was contrary even to a report from the Ministry of Health, which reported that one person had died. The violence is likely to pose new challenges for the military, which has faced increased anger from civilians after widespread allegations that it has tortured protesters in recent weeks and that it is moving too slowly to replace holdovers from Mr. Mubarak’s authoritarian rule.

The moment that the Egyptian police opened fire is captured in this startling video.

Bahrain

An Iranian news source quoting Bahrain's Interior Ministry says two protesters died in police custody on Saturday of injuries sustained during a crackdown on demonstrators. The Bahrain Center of Human Rights says the Bahrain authorities have detained nearly 800 protesters, including at least 25 women since protests demanding an end to the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty began on February 14.

Each of the reports above was published today. One day. And by no means an atypical one. (We're not even going to mention the daily bloodbath in Iraq.)

So how does the Arab world deal with this? The roof body of the Arab countries, the Arab League, is responding, predictably, to these Arab-on-Arab killings in the time-honored way  by convening an urgent meeting on Sunday to discuss... Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

"We will discuss Israel's escalating steps and aggressions against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and the Israeli insistence on destroying the peace process," said Mohamed Sobeih, the Arab League assistant secretary general for Palestinian Affairs and Occupied Arab Lands. [Full report at this Egyptian source]

Now remind us please what Israel is supposed to learn from its neighbours in the region?

9-Apr-11: You'll know better when they tell you about those pathetic home-made Gazan rockets...

The ongoing effort to paint the armed-to-the-teeth, embedded-within-the-civilian-population Hamas terrorist forces as pathetic victims continues.

"It was not known that the bus targeted on the outskirts of Gaza carried school children," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding that the road where the bus was travelling was often used by Israeli military vehicles.

Do you remember the last time the terrorists of Hamastan attacked or struck an Israeli military target? Attacking Jewish school buses is not new, and Hamas deliberately and massively attacking innocent Israeli children is central to their strategy. The only aspect of this that's new (this strategic warfare website report from 2009 said Hamas still did not have the Kornets) is now they have the ability to do it better. It's a significant and very worrying upgrading of the jihadists' offensive capability.

From yesterday's New York Times

"Israeli security officials said that the Kornet antitank missile fired on Thursday was an advanced and accurate weapon deliberately aimed at the bus. The missile, which is laser guided, has a range of about three miles, and in this case, according to initial findings, it hit its target from a distance of nearly two miles, the officials said."  

Reminder: the bus was standing still when hit, having deposited about fifty school children just minutes earlier.

From a military equipment website

And the Kornet - what's that?

The Kornet (Russian: "Корнет"; English: Cornet) is a Russian anti-tank missile (ATGM). It is a second generation ATGM intended to deal with main battle tanks and to engage slow and low flying helicopters... The launcher fires Kornet missiles with tandem shaped charge HEAT warheads to defeat tanks fitted with ERA or with high explosive/incendiary (thermobaric effect) warheads, for use against bunkers, fortifications and fire emplacements. Armour penetration for the HEAT warhead is stated to be 1,200mm. Range is 5km. The missile has semi-automatic command-to-line-of-sight (SACLOS) laser beamriding guidance, flying along the line of sight to engage the target head on in a direct attack profile.

So how did these super-sophisticated armor-piercing weapons reach this sensitive, terror-afflicted part of the world? A January 2011 article called "Iran Secretly Shipping Thousands of Weapons to HAMAS" gives some indications.

9-Apr-11: Dozens of high-power rockets, 100+ mortar sheels, fired into Israel since Thursday

Dozens of Grad rockets and some 100 mortar shells have crashed into Israel since Thursday when a school bus was hit by a guided anti-tank missile fired by the Gazan jihadists. Five (says Jpost) of the Grad rockets were intercepted by Israeli Iron Dome rocket defense system batteries stationed near Beersheba and Ashkelon. Haaretz is reporting (Saturday night, right after the end of the Sabbath) that  six Gazan terrorist rockets crashed into Israel this evening (one was intercepted by the Iron Dome system). No injuries were reported, but one landed in the grounds of a community close to the Ashkelon coast, and four others landed in open areas nearby. Some 38 rockets were fired into Israel during the day today.

8-Apr-11: The rockets of Gaza keep crashing into Israeli targets

From a Gazan tourist snapshot

The targets of the jihadists of Gaza are... anything at all on the Israeli side of the fence between us.

The entirely indiscriminate fire that seeks out Jewish property, Jewish school-buses, Jewish children, Jewish lives, anything Jewish, has continued all day. Three Qassam rockets crashed into the Hof Ashkelon region in the past hour (it's almost sunset on Friday), and five mortar shells hit just south of Ashkelon around four this afternoon. As always, the firing comes not from uniformed soldiers of some mythical Gazan force but from men dressed as civilians, operating from civilian areas, using their civilian neighbours and their children as cover. This ongoing war has long been an asynchronous war in which the jihadist side knows  literally no limits other than the limits of their ammunition and weapons. It - and the suffering of the people from among whom they operate - will end only when they are stopped, as two Gazan terrorists were stopped this afternoon (IDF press release).

8-Apr-11: Gazan jihadists, in busy morning, declare truce and fire rocket volley into Israeli towns

Terrorism is like conventional war in the way people suffer and die, but different in that the terrorists place themselves entirely outside system of rules. They say X and do not-X. They wear no uniforms, and operate from inside civilian lines. By and large they direct their fire at the enemy's civil lines as the principal target. Fighting them means understanding at least these basic notions. And when their terrorist ideology is an iteration of a theology, be ready for great confusion, ignorance and criticism on the part of onlookers unthreatened (at least for now, and at least in a direct sense) by the terrorism and the fire emanating from their quarters.

This morning, a beautiful Spring Friday morning, the terrorist hordes operating from within the Hamas failed-statelet of Gaza fired off a volley of a dozen mortar shells. These were not directed (and are never directed) at a military or strategic target. The goal, as always with terrorists, was to inflict pain and damage on anything on the enemy's side of the fence. The bombardment from Gaza this morning landed in open areas in the Eshkol region; no injuries are reported, and there is some property and infrastructure damage.

Last night, after a day in which 45 missiles indiscriminately rained onto Israel from various parts of Hamas-controlled Gaza including a vicious anti-tank guided missile attack on an unarmored school bus (as we reported yesterday - a teenage Israeli boy is lying in hospital today critically injured as a result), the Palestinian terror groups collectively notified the news media they were declaring a unilateral ceasefire. Ynet points out that this was evidently in order avoid Israel striking back.

This Hamas strategy is part of an ongoing tactic by which the Palestinian Arabs more-or-less-successfully present themselves to the more gullible branches of the news industry as simple, peace-loving souls residing in the path of a ruthless Jewish neighbourhood bully. Thus in today's crop of headlines, we have such insightful items as "Gaza violence: Hamas declares ceasefire with Israel" from the BBC, and "Israel kills two Hamas militants hours after truce" from AFP. Astonishing really how simple it is for the terrorists to persuade some of the world's most sophisticated editors and reporters of how real their fantasy truces are, as exemplified by this gem from the BBC this (Friday) afternoon:

On a more reality-based plane, a Washington Times backgrounder today describes how Israel’s security agencies are stepping up finely targeted attacks on Hamas‘ leadership wherever they can be located.

The article quotes an Israeli official terming this “intelligence-based prevention.” As examples, in the past two months, Israeli operatives have intercepted a German ship in international waters, fired a missile at a suspected Hamas leader in Sudan, and captured a Hamas engineer in the Ukraine, according to Israeli and Western officials and press reports from the region. Last month, Israeli commandos boarded the Victoria, a German ship carrying Chinese-made land-to-sea rockets from Iran and to Gaza. It quotes an IDF spokesperson:

“We consider Hamas accountable for any rockets fired from Gaza into Israel... We are not looking only for Hamas leaders. If we find a three-man rocket team, they will be targeted whether or not they are leaders. This is to prevent rockets from coming down on Israeli civilians... We are not looking for any escalation. We do have operational plans in our drawers. Hopefully, we won’t have to pull them out, but we will not tolerate these kinds of attacks against Israeli civilians.”

Israel's calculated, rational and lawyer-aided non-stop strategy to blunt the ongoing attacks of the jihadists goes largely unreported and/or unappreciated by the reporters who ply their trade for the brand-name news channels. Which of them, for instance, has given coverage to the several dozen Israeli families whose children were on the school-bus that was hit by a Hamas anti-tank missile yesterday? (Answer: not one.)

It falls to the Jerusalem Post to try to redress the imbalance with a Tovah Lazaroff article today appropriately entitled "A terrible day that could have ended still more tragically". She allows Israeli parents living in Israel's beleagured southern communities to express what so many of us feel: that the fate of a child hung on such small details as how long the bus stood in traffic, or the amount of time it took the children to board. Had yesterday's trip had taken even a little longer, had they stopped along the way, the jihadists would probably have had a jolly time celebrating the outcome, the reporters and editors would have pseudo-solemnly intoned about the inane concept of some illusory 'cycle' of violence and the rest of us might have been asking ourselves for the umpteenth time how far the mindless, religiously-inspired hatred that infects every inch of that jihadist society will take them on their descent into the dark void.

7-Apr-11: Terror rocket intercepted

Ynet tonight says residents in Ashkelon reported Thursday seeing Israel's new Iron Dome defense system intercept a Grad rocket fired towards the southern city from the Gaza Strip. Eyewitnesses told Ynet they saw the rocket explode in midair and realized that the system had intercepted its first rocket. Haaretz says "Iron Dome's success Thursday marks the first time in history a short-range rocket was ever intercepted. According to reports from the area, the interception could be seen in Israeli towns near northern Gaza. The second Iron Dome battery was positioned in the area of Ashkelon over the weekend, in addition to a battery already placed north of Be'er Sheva."

7-Apr-11: More on this afternoon's rocket attacks on southern Israel

An hour ago, we reported on a direct hit taken by a bus in the south of Israel and the critical injuries suffered by a teenage boy. We now know this was a clearly-marked bright yellow  school bus. BBC says the bus had just finished unloading most of its children, leaving at least some of us to imagine what this jihadist attack might have reaped had more children had been on the bus when the anti-tank shell struck.

AFP says an additional fifteen rockets or mortars or anti-tank shells have been fired indiscriminately into Israel by the thugs of Gaza in the past couple of hours. Anything they hit is a win, and just firing is a victory because sowing fear is what makes them terrorists.

"None of you would give up on the security of your country, and Israel will also defend itself," Shimon Peres, Israel's president, told UN Security Council ambassadors during a visit to New York this afternoon, according to the Jerusalem Post.

To which we would add: No one, anywhere, would willingly put up with having a next-door neighbour armed to the teeth, and ready to fire his rockets in every direction, without striking back hard.

7-Apr-11: Rocket strikes Israeli school bus, critically injuring boy

Ynet is reporting that a 16-year boy was critically injured this afternoon (Thursday) after a bus driving in the Sha'ar Hanegev region was hit by a 'smart' (guided) anti-tank missile rocket fired from the Gaza Strip. Haaretz says the driver of the bus was also hurt. (Reuters reports that it was a mortar - they are wrong.) The Jerusalem Post says the boy and the driver were the only people on board in the attack which came in the vicinity of Kibbutz Saad. Hanania Reich, a paramedic who arrived on the scene, recounts. 

“We were first to arrive together with soldiers. On the road lay a young victim, unconscious and bleeding. We began to resuscitate him and eventually MDA came and evacuated him by helicopter.”

Immediately after the attack on the bus, additional mortars were fired into the area from the same Gazan sources and residents have been instructed to stay inside buildings. This attack comes some hours after the IAF scored direct hits on three smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza and one in the northern area of the Strip early this morning in response to Gazan-Palestinian-Arab anti-tank missiles fired into Israel.

2-Apr-11: Quotes of the week: Judge Goldstone - too little and much too late

On Friday, Judge Richard Goldstone, principal author of a UN report bearing his name, published an extraordinary confessional in the pages of the Washington Post. It starts with these words:

"We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council..."

The editor of the Jerusalem Post, David Horovitz, writing with his customary eloquence, pays close attention to Goldstone's words and places them into a thoroughly deserved moral context:

"Yom Kippur has evidently come early this year for Richard Goldstone.
He couldn’t quite bring himself, in his Friday article “Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes,” to write, “I have sinned, forgive me.”  But the astounding piece in the Washington Post by the Jewish justice, who presided over the Goldstone Report that accused Israel of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, represents nothing less than an apology to Israel.
“If I had known then what I know now,” he writes in the first extraordinary paragraph of his mea culpa, “the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”
How dramatic the about-face.
And how terrible that it was necessitated.  How tragic, that is, that Goldstone so misplaced his moral compass in the first place as to have produced a report that has caused such irreversible damage to Israel’s good name. Tragic least of all for the utterly discredited Goldstone himself, and most of all for our unfairly besmirched armed forces and the country they were putting their lives on the line to honorably defend against a ruthless, murderous, terrorist government in Gaza...
An apology just isn’t good enough. The very least he owes Israel is to work unstintingly from now on to try to undo the damage he has caused.
Yom Kipper came early this year for Richard Goldstone.
His show of penitence has come far too late."

We believe Goldstone's report did more harm to the global struggle against terrorism than any other single action anywhere and any time. We hope the Horovitz article gets read in full and distributed as widely as possible.

UPDATE Sunday morning: The acerbic British columnist Melanie Phillips has weighed in with a plain-speaking, no-holds-barred dissection of Goldstone's mea culpa:

What self-serving rubbish. There was ample evidence at the time from numerous sources that Hamas was telling lies about the number of civilians who were killed by Israeli fire. There was ample evidence that Hamas was deliberately putting civilians in harm’s way. There was ample evidence that Hamas does not operate under the rule of law or uphold human rights. There was ample evidence that Israeli rules of engagement required the IDF to avoid hitting civilians wherever possible. There was ample evidence that Israel always investigates allegations of misconduct made against its soldiers and holds them to acount under the rule of law. Yet Goldstone, having accepted the poisoned chalice from the UN Human Rights Council to subject Israel to a show trial whose verdict preceded the evidence (despite his protestations that he modified this odious remit), chose to believe the propaganda put out by Hamas... Like all previous blood libels against the Jews, the poison this one has injected into the global bloodstream has no antidote. The damage is done – and no amount of self-serving recantations by Richard Goldstone will undo the terrible harm he has done.

Her article is here.