31-Aug-12: Multi-rocket attack on southern Israel at 6 this morning

A number of Gazan rockets were fired in the western Negev region of southern Israel around 6 this morning (Friday) after the Tzeva Adom incoming missile warning system sounded throughout the area. Initial reports say a residence in the beleagured city of Sderot took a direct hit [source], while another Gazan rocket crashed an exploded in open fields on the edge of Sderot. The home struck this morning has been hit before; the owner is interviewed in Haaretz.

The Islamist Hamas regime that controls Gaza has waged open rocket warfare - directed explicitly at Israeli civilians - for several years. The tally of terrorist rockets (which we track via the Challah Hu Akbar counter on the right of this page) is astonishing to anyone not aware of the frequency of the attacks. So is the apathy of the international organs who look on in silence.

30-Aug-12: Who killed Rachel Corrie?

[Image Source]

An Israeli court ruled yesterday in a civil case brought by the family of Rachel Corrie that the government of Israel bears no responsibility for her death in 2003. Seeing the large number of angry columns that appeared in the last 24 hours arguing one side or the other, we felt no need to join the shouting match.

Then we read a slick, subjective, sneering and thoroughly sickening advocacy piece that appears today on the website of TIME Magazine. Concealing much more than it reveals about yesterday's judicial decision, it is authored by the magazine's Jerusalem correspondent Karl Vick. Vick is the husband of the woman who manages press relations for the Corries. We'll leave it to others to comment on the ethical dimensions.

Once we read the TIME piece, we realized we need to say something. So it's the trigger for our republishing here a brief extract from a factual, moderate-toned and modest contribution to the Corrie controversy written by Lenny Ben David. It's published on the Times of Israel's website [here]. If you read nothing else about the Corrie decision, read this one and pass the contents around.

From Lenny Ben David's article:

Numerous pictures of Corrie standing defiantly in front of an Israeli bulldozer appeared in the media, but upon investigation it transpired that not a single one was from the incident that killed her. Some were taken hours before the fatal incident with a different bulldozer; others were sloppy photoshopped forgeries. Why were there photos after she was injured and not before?Corrie was not the only member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who was nearly crushed beneath the bulldozer’s maw that day. Indeed, at least two – “Will and Jenny” – were pulled away by their colleagues at the last second.Immediately after Corrie’s death, several leaders of ISM were interviewed. They didn’t express horror or even sorrow. They spoke of peace soldiers’ sacrifices in battle and the PR benefits of an American woman dying at hands of Israel’s army. [More]

The life and death (by deliberate act of murder) of our daughter Malki deserves, but certainly has never gotten, at least a tiny fraction of the worshipful attention paid by journalists to the Corries and their daughter's accidental death. We're content that Malki's memory is honored by a foundation bearing her name that we created and that, daily, does measurable, concrete and quite unique good for families of special-needs children in Israel, whether they are Christian, Moslem, Jews or of any other faith. 

Thousands of them in the last ten years.

30-Aug-12: How close to hell is Gaza? Depends whom you want to believe

Image from "Hungry in Gaza, More and More"

Gaza will no longer be “liveable” by 2020 unless urgent action is taken to improve water supply, power, health, and schooling, the United Nations’ most comprehensive report on the Palestinian enclave said on Monday.

That opening sentence is a direct and vebatim quote from a Reuters syndicated report issued two days ago. You can see it in a large number of places on the Web; here's one from Gulf News, an Arab newspaper that gave it considerable prominence.

Many, many news channels are focused on its grim and pessimistic message - one that plays well with the energetically marketed image of Gaza as "the world's largest prison", a "big concentration camp", "stressed, desperate and in poverty". Characterizations like those go hand-in-glove with the shameless apologetics of Hamas and the terrorism-friendly ideologues with whom it travels.

The paragraphs below, by contrast, come from an article written by an unusually authoritative expert on the subject, an Arab. The chances that it will appear in the Gulf News or Reuters or other news channels of global significance are next to none. The writer is Khaled Abu Toameh. We have frequently reprinted here things he has published over the past six years.

How Many Millionaires Live in the "Impoverished" Gaza Strip? | Khaled Abu Toameh / August 30, 2012

The world often thinks of the Gaza Strip, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, as one of the poorest places on earth, where people live in misery and squalor. But according to an investigative report published in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, there are at least 600 millionaires living in the Gaza Strip. The newspaper report also refutes the claim that the Gaza Strip has been facing a humanitarian crisis because of an Israeli blockade. Mohammed Dahlan, the former Palestinian Authority security commander of the Gaza Strip, further said last week that Hamas was the only party that was laying siege to the Gaza Strip; that it is Hamas, and not Israel or Egypt, that is strangling and punishing the people there. The Palestinian millionaires, according to the report, have made their wealth thanks to the hundreds of underground tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Informed Palestinian sources revealed that every day, in addition to weapons, thousands of tons of fuel, medicine, various types of merchandise, vehicles, electrical appliances, drugs, medicine and cigarettes are smuggled into the Gaza Strip through more than 400 tunnels. A former Sudanese government official who visited the Gaza Strip lately was quoted as saying that he found basic goods that were not available in Sudan. Almost all the tunnels are controlled by the Hamas government, which has established a special commission to oversee the smuggling business, which makes the Hamas government the biggest benefactor of the smuggling industry. Palestinians estimate that 25% of the Hamas government's budget comes from taxes imposed on the owners of the underground tunnels. For example, Hamas has imposed a 25% tax and a $2000 fee on every car that is smuggled into the Gaza Strip. Hamas also charges $15 dollars for each ton of cement, eight cents for a pack of cigarettes and 50 cents for each liter of fuel smuggled through the tunnels.

You can't arrive at a solution to the conflict through understanding what Abu Toameh reveals here. But his contributions and analyses certainly go some way towards understanding the never-ending torrents of hatred and aggression emanating from the ruling clique in Gaza.

Khaled Abu Toameh's article today also throws some light on those oceans of ink expended on attempting to beatify Rachel Corrie, the idealistic young American woman whose parents have devoted the last nine years seeking to pin her superfluous, tragic death at the age of 23 on Israel and Israelis. It would be unthinkable for them to have to connect their loss to a process that has enriched and continues to enrich a kleptocratic thugocracy in Gaza City and in other dark corners of the Hamas underworld.

So don't expect the Gazan millionaire class to get headline coverage anytime soon.

28-Aug-12: Mortar rounds, two in the last hour, directed at Eshkol region

No injuries, no property damage, but in the past hour (it's now 9:45 pm in Israel) two separate rounds of mortar fire have been directed at the Eshkol region of southern Israel.

The terror-minded thugs of Gaza don't take the risks that they take in order to miss. It's just that hitting the target is a chancey thing for them, and they try their best. Fortunately they mostly fail, as tonight. But sometimes they don't.

And lest anyone here think that mortar fire is one of those playful, home-made kinds of thing, so beloved of liberal-minded journalists, here are some randomly-selected August 2012 reports to ponder:

• Mortar fire targeting Shiites kills three in Baghdad [August 25, 2012]
• Mortar fire hits Palestinian area in Damascus, killing 20 [August 4, 2012]
• Mortar fire at a funeral in Syria (0:56m Reuters video) 

28-Aug-12: Gasp: House of worship turns out to be a weapons factory... in Saudi Arabia

Source

Here's something to file away for the day when, inevitably, we find ourselves under fire from rocket-firing terrorists basing themselves in residential neighbourhoods and/or hospitals and/or schools and/or places of religious worship.

Today's edition of Arab News carries an article calling for the authorities (that would of course be the Saudi authorities) to step up their monitoring of places of worship. This comes in the wake of the shocking (who could possibly believe it?) discovery that a mosque in Riyadh, the Saudi capital and its largest city, had been serving as a front for a weapons manufacturing plant and terrorist activity.

Saudi scholars "demanded deterrent punishments to those who exploit the spiritual atmosphere in mosques to promote chaos in the country", according to the Al-Madinah daily yesterday (Monday).

A prominent member of Saudi's Fiqh Academy says "Officials concerned should also investigate why some expatriates are unofficially undertaking duties at mosques. They should also launch campaigns and raids at such mosques.”

In fact, agents of the Saudi Interior Ministry carried out what can only be imagined happening outside the Arab world: an unannounced raid that Arab News calls a "successful preemptive strike" against the Riyadh bomb makers and their "heinous deeds" (their term). Just imagine the reaction to a pre-emptive strike against a weapons-making center hidden away inside a Brooklyn mosque, a London mosque, a Haifa mosque.

The Arab News report goes through a list of Islamic worthies and their serious warnings about how really bad all of this is in terms of Islam's doctrines.

• The head of Islamic studies at the Umm Al-Qura University calls it "a matter of deep pain for all Muslims, especially students and teachers of religious knowledge". 
• The head of the Mecca branch of the International Islamic Relief Organization told parents and teachers "to protect their children or students from vicious ideologies they might be exposed to in the present circumstances". 
• A professor of politics at King Saud University solemnly intones that "the uncovering of a terror cell in Riyadh was not a matter to be taken lightly".  
• Several more Saudi experts say they are sure this dreadful tendency is an import from neighbouring Yemen. 
• And one, worried about the siren call of Syria, tells parents to ensure their children do not "go to Syria or other war fronts without the permission from their guardians. A family should be cautious about its sons being lured to war zones for jihad."

They sound so sincere. We're left in no doubt at all that the bomb makers with violent death in their hearts and in their feverish brows will take the religious advice to heart. Being people of faith themselves, the paramount value of listening to your preacher is certain to be self-evident to them.

Saudi religious figure, Salman Al-Odeh

Oh, and in case anyone's interested in a more balanced view of the issues that are current in Saudi religious circles, here's a Saudi religious leader called Salman Al-Odeh. He's shown preaching a sermon on Rotana's Khalijia TV channel two weeks ago, translated to English by MEMRI. Nothing especially out of the ordinary here - we have seen and heard this many times before. Some selected quotations:

• "The problem lies, first of all, in the exaggeration of the Holocaust. It has been turned into a myth of tremendous proportions.
  Interviewer: "A sacred myth..."Salman Al-Odeh: That's the other thing. The Holocaust has been made sacred. Talking about it, refuting it, or denying it is sometimes a legal offense for which one can be placed on trial. It has become, in effect, a sacred historical event...
• "Through this Holocaust, the Jews began to extort many government worldwide – in Europe and in the U.S. The Jews even began to perpetrate the same thing themselves against the Palestinian people, carrying out a Holocaust in Gaza and the occupied land. They attack children, women, and the elderly under the pretext of the Holocaust that they are trying to substantiate...
• "The role of the Jews is to wreak destruction, to wage war, and to practice deception and extortion... For thousands of years, the Jews were subject to persecution, deportation, killings, and accusations. Maybe much of this stemmed from their moral values, their treacherous nature, their schemes, and the ploys, which made other nations be wary of them...
• "The Jews believe that they have the right to kill anyone who does not adhere to their religion. This is written in the Talmud and some of their holy books... 
• "It is well-known that the Jews celebrate several holidays, one of which is the Passover, or the Matzos Holiday... They would lure a child in order to sacrifice him in the religious rite that they perform during that holiday..."

And so on.

28-Aug-12: Another axe attacker foiled this morning

An axe-wielding Palestinian Arab terrorist attacked and injured an Israeli Jew in the Samarian/Shomron community of Maaleh Levona this morning (Tuesday) [source]. The attack occurred at the community's entry gate. The injured victim was treated on the spot for light to moderate chest wounds in chest and then evacuated him the Sha'are Zedek Medical Center hospital in Jerusalem. Some ninety families make their home in Maaleh Levona, which was founded in 1982.

Security personnel serving the Binyamin region of Samaria, along with service personnel from the IDF, pursued the attacker and came under a hail of rocks thrown by local Arabs. Nevertheless they succeeded in tracking him down and apprehending him.

Searches are underway now to see if other potential attackers are hiding in the vicinity which is close to a religious high school for girls - just the kind of 'quality target' that attracts the sort of people who attack unsuspecting civilians with an axe.

The area has known previous attacks of a sadly similar nature. We described one two years ago: see "9-Jul-10: One small life-changing event illustrates 4 things to know about how terrorism works".

Another Palestinian axe-man [kneeling in the photograph below] succeeded in murdering a defenceless, unarmed thirteen year old Jewish child, Shlomo Nativ, in the Judean community of Bat Ayin in 2009 [source]. In the same attack, he injured a seven year old. It's sometimes important to try to understand the state of mind of people who carry out acts of terror with their bare hands. Children are not simply caught up - to use the hackneyed and complete wrong expression - in some kind of crossfire. We know they are primary targets.

[Image Source]

28-Aug-12: About that major Egyptian armed offensive against Sinai terrorists: has it been called off?

Egyptian weapon systems pour into Sinai
earlier this month [Image Source]

We and everyone else outside the clique that runs Egypt today don't know for sure what's happening in the new Egypt. But as Egyptian weapons including tanks and helicopters take up position in the formerly demilitarized Sinai over angry Israeli objections [see "Israel voices worry over Egyptian tanks, troops in Sinai"], it might be (based on the report below from Egypt) that Egypt's new Moslem Brotherhood leadership has called off the anti-terrorism sweep, preferring instead to talk with the terrorists. Meanwhile its forces remain there.

Al-Masry Al-Youm (Egypt) carried this Arabic-language report in its Monday, Aug 27, 2012 edition (translated to English here):

• Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi sent a secret delegation on Sunday to meet with Salafist jihadists in the Sinai, scene of the August 5 border attacks. Security sources said the militants agreed to halt terrorism operations for one week, in exchange for the release of prisoners and a halt to the army's "Operation Eagle" counterinsurgency...
• "The delegation met with a number of Salafist figures in two mosques in Sheikh Zuwaid, and they reached an agreement to stop terrorist operations for a week, in return for the release of prisoners and the halt of Operation Eagle that is being implemented by the armed forces with the aim of cleansing the Sinai of terrorists," the sources said.
• "The chief of presidential staff... will hold meetings with the jihadist Salafist leaders in order to develop a program for dialogue and stability in the region," the sources added.
• Three presidential cars arrived and entered the cities of Rafah and Sheikh Zuwaid at 7 p.m. and then were later seen on the highway outside the city at 11 p.m. en route to Cairo...
• The presidency has concluded a deal with jihadist groups in the Sinai following threats by these groups to expand their terrorist operations to a number of Egyptian governorates should the Egyptian army continue with Operation Eagle, aimed at cleansing the Sinai of Jihadists.
• The source said that it is due to these negotiations that Operation Eagle was stopped 48 hours ago.

The nostalgic and optimistic among our readers might enjoy 'Egypt's tanks are in Sinai for fighting terrorism'. The rest of us might want to note that Egypt's deployment on Israel's southern border in the wake of "the battle to defeat the Sinai jihadists" now suddenly includes main battle tanks (MBTs) and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), particularly in the northeastern Sinai area, between the coastal city of El Arish and the border with Israel and Gaza [source]. 

• The U.S.-made MBTs are M-60A3, exported to Egypt in the 1980s. Between 20 and 30 have been deployed in eastern Sinai.
• The Boeing-produced Avenger air defense system, also deployed near the Israeli border, contains the Stinger surface-to-air missile. These were supplied to Egypt over the last five years.
• Egypt has deployed Dutch-produced YPR-765 armored personnel carriers with their 30 mm automatic gun turrets. The Egyptian Army is believed to have about 430 such APCs. [source]

An AP syndicated story from August 15 ["Sinai terror group warns Egyptian army to cease crackdown: Statement on Jihadist website says Israel, not soldiers is groups main focus"] now also provides some interesting after-the-fact reading.

We wrote some weeks ago about worrying signs emanating from Sinai and the Egyptian moves. See "10-Aug-12: Egypt is pouring forces into Sinai but does anyone know for sure what they are actually doing there?" We very much hope the concerns we expressed prove to be misplaced.

27-Aug-12: Yet another rocket attack on Sderot this afternoon

Three rockets yesterday, including two that did damage to industrial plants. A morning attack today to coincide with children returning to school for the new year. And now, at about 2 this afternoon, another attack from the bottomless stockpile of rockets stored in Gaza's homes, schools, mosques and hospitals. 

From the reports we have seen [Hebrew source here, Israel National News English-language report here], neither human injury nor property damage resulted from this afternoon's rockets (there were two of them) which, it is reasonable to assume, were timed to coincide with when most of the Israeli school-children in the vicinity were on the roads heading home from the first school-day of the year. 

But that's not the point. 

Each rocket attack increases the anxiety and diminishes the confidence of innocent children, and of course their families. There is no other strategic dimension to these attacks. The terrorists of Gaza are not about to cross the border and attempt to seize the city of Sderot and its 24,000+ residents. Nor are they aiming at this strategic target or that army camp. They have neither the ability (with the Qassam weapon platform) nor the desire to do anything more than fling something that might possibly kill, in the general direction of the Israelis, any Israelis, within range. 

The people of Sderot have less than 15 seconds from the time a rocket is fired at it to run for shelter. Can you imagine living like that, ever? Sderot has been under almost-constant bombardment from the terrorist forces of Hamas-controlled Gaza since Israel handed to the Palestinian Authority the flourishing communities it had established in the Gaza Strip in 2005. Thousands of rockets have been fired at Sderot since then. The names of the eleven people killed by the terrorists who fired these rockets are here.

It's not well known that the European Union funds a Gaza-based organization called GANSO that 'impartially" reports on rocket firings. Its website consistently refers to the lethal Israel-facing rockets of the Gazan terrorists as HMRs. The acronym stands for home-made rockets. It's clearly meant to convey the message that they are really not that dangerous, and certainly don't even up the asymmetry between the noble Gazan strugglers and the over-equipped Israeli dominators, or something along those lines. Today's GANSO bulletin refers to this morning's attack on Sderot this way:

Pal. ops. fired 1 HMR from Beit Hanoun, NG, toward the Green Line.

That's a literal quote. The "ops" are the terrorists. Beit Hanoun is a residential area in Gaza that is home to more than 33,000 people. "HMR" you already know means something quite different from it really is. And "toward the Green Line" is an outrageous lie for European consumption. The lethal Qassam rockets, which are designed to kill and do in fact kill, are fired at Israeli civilians 100% of the time, even if they don't always succeed. 

There's no one in the European Union who has the wit or the interest to tell the GAMSO people to discontinue their propaganda-laden reporting, so it and the rockets keep coming.

27-Aug-12: Rocket fire on Sderot this morning

Though rocket fire on southern Israel is an almost daily matter (unknown to the vast majority of people), there's extra nervousness in the region this week. That's because more than two million Israeli children ended their summer holidays [background] and are back in class this morning. And based on the performance of years gone by, the sadistic terrorists of Hamas-controlled Gaza see special significance in attacks on Israeli schools and school-buses.

A little after 8 this morning, the city of Sderot - which suffered a triple-rocket attack yesterday morning - came under rocket attack again. The details are not yet known, but we know the Tzeva Adom missile warning system began sounding throughout the area about twenty minutes ago, at about 8:20 Monday morning. More details when they come in.

26-Aug-12: Evening rocket attack on southern Israel

At least one Qassam rocket, fired by the explosive-rich terrorists of the Gaza Strip, crashed and exploded in southern Israel's Eshkol region just before 8 this evening (Sunday). So report both the IDF and Times of Israel. Haaretz has a flash report that there were two. No injuries and no property damage as far as we can tell at this stage.

26-Aug-12: [UPDATED] Initial report - Incoming rockets in Sderot

Reports coming in over the last few minutes (it's now 9:05 am, Sunday morning) say there has been a rocket attack on the beleagured southern Israel city of Sderot, with one report saying a rocket made a hit on a building in the industrial zone. Sderot has the misfortune of being located closer to the Gaza Strip than any other Israeli city. It has population of 24,000.

UPDATE Sunday morning 10:00 am: Times of Israel now reports that there were two Qassam rockets, obviously both fired from Gaza from the burgeoning terrorist-rocket-firing industry nurtured there by the Strip's Hamas masters. They both crashed and exploded in Sderot's industrial zone, causing injuries to one man and damage to buildings.
UPDATE: An IDF Spokesman's Unit tweet [source] says there was a third rocket Sderot-bound this morning. The third one crashed into open space and did no damage though that, of course, was the opposite of the terrorists' intentions.

25-Aug-12: Predawn rocket attack on southern Israel this morning

No official report anywhere yet as far as we can see, but eyewitness reports from southern Israel [Hebrew source] say the Tzeva Adom incoming missile alert woke thousands of families in the Sha'ar Henegev region around 4 this Sabbath morning, causing the usual range of feelings (terror, fear, anger, bewilderment). One resident reports that he heard three landings - perhaps Qassam rockets, perhaps GRADs, perhaps mortars. We will keep checking this evening (Saturday night in Jerusalem) to see if we can find some official corroboration.

It's a disturbing trend: lately, most incoming rockets are treated by news editors, including Israeli, as not rising to the level of newsworthy. It seems people have to be injured physically or worse before the outside world is entitled to be informed. This is not the way to respond to terror.

24-Aug-12: Lone wolf killer of children with his hundreds of contacts and lengthy visits to jihadist training schools might not have acted entirely alone, it seems

We know about the dead. We know about the killer. We are starting to know about his friends and colleagues. Connecting the dots.

Four months ago, we wrote here that 

The murders of three French servicemen followed shortly afterwards by the killing of a four innocent Jews – a young schoolteacher and two of his small children and then a third little girl – are receding into the background.  ["19-Apr-12: How the murder of three French children has become the launch of a new chapter in the conquest of Europe by the terrorists"]

Those killings, and especially the murder of the three little children near the town's Jewish school, now turn out to have been done by someone who, it is beginning to start to seem to possibly be potentially suspected, was not merely an "angry petty criminal" who had "radicalised himself" - to quote today's BBC report. 

But rushing to make premature judgments would be deeply, seriously wrong.

The evidence shows the self-described jihadist, a garage mechanic who said he was connected to al-Qaeda, made more than 1,800 calls to over 180 contacts in 20 different countries (mainly Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Kazhakstan, Saudi Arabia, Bhutan and the UK) between September 2010 and February 2011. He made several trips to the Middle East and Afghanistan in the same period. This was noticed, though not enough by the people paid to protect the public security. France's intelligence services started paying attention in 2009 as a result of an investigation into his sister, Souad, and his brother, Abdelkhadar. They are both currently in the custody of French police. 

In February 2011, the Germans alerted their French colleagues that Merah had travelled from Cairo, via Frankfurt, to Toulouse. His trip included a visit to a Salafist/Sunni Islamist school of obedience in Egypt. Then in March 2011, after Merah had a long stay in Afghanistan, the police in France put him under tighter surveillance (no one is saying what this means, for now at least, perhaps since the outcome is so tragic). During this period he frequently changed SIM cards that were registered in his mother's name, suggesting the Merah clan was aware of the investigation and sought to protect him. The BBC quoting Le Monde says he had contact with one known Salafist in Toulouse during this period, and with two others "who recently left for Mauritania" [source].

It's worth recalling that the Merah clan is not sitting this investigation process out passively. The father, Mohamed Benalel Merah, said soon after his son's death on March 22, 2012, that he plans to sue the French government. 

A lawyer for Mohamed Benalel Merah, who lives in Algeria, said the suit was against those "who gave the orders at the top of the police"... French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, who is assisting Algerian lawyer Zahia Mokhtari, filed the suit in Paris [in early June]. "This is a suit against unnamed persons for murder with aggravating circumstances concerning those who gave the orders at the top of the police," said Ms Coutant-Peyre. [source]

On the other hand, there's no sign so far of anyone suing the persons who gave orders at the top of the jihadist hierarchy. We can hope. Perhaps eventually someone in a position of French authority will connect the dots.

23-Aug-12: Theology and sociopaths

Our daughter Malki

We are an ordinary family who, for more than a decade, have known the identity of the murderer of our fifteen year-old daughter, Malki. She is a woman who appears in her own television program each Friday night. She is the central figure in hundreds of YouTube videos.

From a distance (since our own government never communicated with us about this, never allowed us to be heard, never consulted with us), we watched as the woman who brought unspeakable pain into our lives was charged, convicted and sentenced to many terms of life imprisonment. 

Then with a rising sense of horror, we saw a media campaign unfold which presented her as a hero and warrior and that sought her release. We were confident the famous 'red lines' of our government would never be breached and mass murderers of Israeli children would remain behind Israeli bars until the day they drew their last breath. That illusion irretrievably fell away in October 2011.

Even then, having endured the worldwide news coverage of the rapturous welcomes given to the woman in Cairo and Amman, we were unprepared for the steps that followed: the official reception held at Jordan’s Family Court building; the self-hosted weekly television program beamed by satellite throughout the world; the tumultuous crowds in Arab capitals proclaiming their adulation during her visits; the grand public June wedding in which she was the shining, smiling star alongside the convicted, unpardoned and unjustly freed murderer who is now her husband. 

All along, we knew that civilized people everywhere, at least those outside the Arab world, were revolted by the deeds, the declarations, the triumphalism of the barbaric woman with the lying, smiling eyes.

Now meet James M. Wall. His is a name we had never heard until this week. It turns out to be a name worth knowing if, like us, your fifteen year old child was murdered in cold blood along with fourteen other innocent patrons in a restaurant.

As comforting as it might be to think otherwise, Wall is not marginal to the public discourse of the United States. Nor is he regarded (as far as we can tell) as a shrieking crank or a red-neck. He served as editor of a prominent journal called The Christian Century for 27 years, from 1972 to 1999. Wikipedia calls it "the flagship magazine of U.S. mainline Protestantism" [source]. He continued there as a regular columnist until a few years ago, even after his retirement. Though it appears he has stopped writing for it, his name remains on the masthead as Senior Contributing Editor.

These days, Wall writes a blog under the title “Wall Writings”. From where we sit, his output has some quite unpleasant tones. In a December 2011 piece on US politics, for instance, he characterizes pro-Israel Republican candidates as “wear[ing] the Jewish kippah”.

But as we learned, Wall is capable of advocacy journalism of a far more pungent sort. In October 2011, he posted a lengthy article to coincide with the extorted release from prison of Ahlam Tamimi, our child's murderer. We were referred to that article for the first time yesterday, in the wake of what we wrote here and here earlier this week.

At about the time he wrote it, in October 2011, an Arab newspaper dotingly quoted Tamimi making this statement: 

“I have never regretted what I have done, and if given another chance I’ll do it again” [source]. 

Yet extraordinarily, the Wall piece 'lionizes' her. (That’s the term used by the clear-eyed Christian analyst who pointed us to it). With loving attention to the human aspects of her story, Wall urges his readers to resist the Israeli view of the Jordanian woman's "crimes"; those quote marks around the word crimes appear in Wall's essay. Wall leaves readers in little doubt that the atrocities to which Tamimi confessed in court - atrocities to which she confesses afresh frequently, proudly and in public - were not crimes at all but something very different.

A small handful of excerpts from Wall's rambling article entitled “Ahlam and Nezar, A Palestinian Couple Released in The Prisoner Exchange” captures the logic of his case:

• “This bias against Palestinians [in the news reports about Israel freeing 1,027 killers and terrorists] was so blatant that… Noam Chomsky was moved to accuse the media of treating the released Palestinian prisoners as “unpeople”. It is time to tell their stories, and to do so without apology.”
• “The Palestinians who were sent to jail… saw themselves as resisting an occupying army, taking actions they believed appropriate to deal with that occupation. What Israel did is what all occupying, colonizing armies do. They punished those who resisted their colonizing... What this comes down to is a conflict of narratives, based on who is telling the story, the military occupiers or those who are resisting occupation/colonization.”
• “From Israel’s perspective, Ahlam played a role in causing a massive act of murder [but] she saw it, initially, as an act of war. And of course, war itself is organized, sanctioned murder.
• “[Tamimi’s] crime, for which she was sentenced by a military court for multiple life terms, was for “choosing the location and securing transportation to reach that location”.

Concerning that last bullet, Wall probably missed out on reading the court papers. Tamimi was indicted on 23 charges. One is for possession of explosives and three concern related offences. 19 relate to deliberate killing and conspiracy to kill. She pleaded guilty to them all. As prisoners in this country may, she addressed the court:

"The deed which I did… leaves me happy. Why? The anger expressed in your faces regarding what I did is the same anger that lies within me and within the entire Palestinian people and is surely even greater than that. 15 killed, 122 injured, this is a small number relative to the many, large numbers of those who are gone, because of you." [Our translation of the Hebrew transcript]

No one, certainly not James M. Wall, can have thought this woman was framed or tortured into confessing her crimes or misquoted. Wall must have known what every other news reporter and political pundit knew: that Ahlam Tamimi was - and is - unstoppably proud of causing the deaths of Israelis. She set out to find a corner of Jerusalem where the number of young Jewish lives that could be snuffed out by a bomb concealed in a guitar case was as large as possible. In this, she succeeded hugely. She says she will do it again if her god gives her the opportunity. We don’t know Wall, but we know he knew this. And yet what he writes about Ahlam Tamimi is imbued with admiration for her. 

What kind of Christian values inform the opinions of a man who cannot bring himself to condemn the murders of fifteen innocents? 

What theological insight brings a man with Wall’s prominence, intelligence, standing in the community, to look right past the overwhelming, explicit pride of a killer who says “I did well. I will do it again. And so should you”? 

If his appreciation of the deeds of this sociopath is not an obscenity, what is?

James M. Wall’s views are hardly the opinions of a nobody. They are uttered by one who speaks from the foremost ranks of Christian leadership in the US. As Senior Contributing Editor of The Christian Century and its driver for more than a quarter century, he and the journal lay claim to formidable credentials since it is

a progressive, ecumenical magazine based in Chicago. Committed to thinking critically and living faithfully, the Century explores what it means to believe and live out the Christian faith in our time. Founded in 1884 as the Christian Oracle, the magazine took its current name at the turn of the 20th century. Notable contributors in the early decades included Jane Addams and Reinhold Niebuhr. In 1963, the Century was the first major periodical to publish the full text of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail." The Century continues to inform and shape mainline Christianity...  [More]

Wall engages in unambiguous advocacy for the self-admitted murderer and her deeds. He has the right to express himself freely, obnoxiously and even offensively. But what does it mean that The Christian Century still has him on its masthead nearly a year after the Tamimi article? Does the editorial board agree with his line? Do they disagree? Will they disavow him and them? Are his views Christian?

Is it Christian to embrace the unrepentant murderer of children who says she prays for the chance to do it again?

23-Aug-12: Another two rockets are fired into southern Israel today. Situation normal.

As absurd as this is, Israel suffered yet another rocket attack around noon today. The source, as is so often the case, was the rocket men of Gaza - the horde of terrorists who sit on a mountain of weaponry and explosives and who store them in residential neighbourhoods, mosques, hospitals and schools hoping that Israel fires back at the source. Civilian hostage taking at its most cynical.

Today's rockets exploded harmlessly [source], as is so often the case, in an open area - this time, an open area in the Sha'ar Hanegev region. That's midway between the southern cities of Beersheba and Ashkelon. "Exploded harmlessly" is not what the terrorists intended. They will keep firing these explosives at anything Israeli until they hit something human and/or serious. They have no strategic objective other than to (a) terrorize and (b) inflict damage and pain on their enemy. This is it is right to call them terrorists.

22-Aug-12: Scenes from the front lines, courtesy of the Tayar Report

Rachel's Tomb on Jerusalem's southern margin: The fortifications
are a result of the ceaseless acts of violence perpetrated
by Palestinian Arabs despite - or because of - the site's unparalleled
historical significance

The chronology below is a continuation of the reports we have published in recent months based on information received via the Tayar Security Report, with some editing and annotating by us. Yehudit Tayar produces her invaluable bulletins on the basis of first-responder, police and army reports.

Tuesday August 14, 2012

• The security authorities allow us to reveal that an Arab was arrested in the Shechem (Nablus) area arising out of a police investigation into the poisoning of a Ra'anana family. It is believed the suspect broke into the family's home and placed poison into a beverage container that he found in the residence. The husband is critically injured as a result of the poisoning; his wife, and the grandmother, plus a toddler and a police officer are all moderately injured as a result of poisoning.

Friday August 18, 2012

• At sunset and just as the Sabbath was commencing, a traveler in the hills near Eilat came across the remains of a rocket - evidently one of the rockets that had been fired at Eilat on Wednesday night (see "15-Aug-12: Double explosion in Eilat tonight seems to be terrorist rocket fire, but they're still checking")
• The Border Police post at Rachel's Tomb, situated on the Jerusalem side of Bethlehem and one of the Jewish people's most beloved historical shrines, came under attack by Palestinian Arabs equipped with Molotov cocktails and rocks. Property damage resulted, but fortunately no injuries.

Saturday August 19, 2012

• South of Shechem (Nablus) at or close to the Hawwara security checkpoint, Arabs traveling in a vehicle mounted a rock-hurling attack at the passengers and driver of an Israeli vehicle. Yehudit Tayar writes: "I wish to point out that the press does not relate to the continuous attacks and acts of attempted murder of innocent Israeli travelers on the roads."
• Near El Arub on the Gush Etzion-Hebron road: An Israeli bus belonging to the Gush Etzion Development Authority came under attack by rock-throwing Arabs. The bus was carrying Israeli youngsters. Such rock-throwing attacks have become very common in that area, as well as elsewhere in Judea and Samaria.

Sunday August 20, 2012

• IDF allows us to release this: The Shabak (Israel Security Agency) and the IDF apprehended the members of a terror cell back in May 2012. This was evidently part of the activity of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP follows a Marxist-Leninist line, and is the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization, after Fatah. The terror gang members were preparing to execute shooting attacks and kidnappings in order to acquire bargaining chips to secure the release of currently-imprisoned terrorist colleagues. Their intended targets included the heavily-traveled security crossing at Maccabim-Re'ut on the major Highway 443 artery serving Jerusalem.
• The road connecting Kiryat Arba and Hebron: Palestinian Arabs attacked a young Israeli cyclist with rocks.
• The Azuz Junction near Karnei Shomron: Several Israeli vehicles came under rock attack by Palestinian Arabs.

Monday August 21, 2012

• A rocket was fired from Gaza into a location within southern Israel. Yehudit Tayar says: "I am not at liberty to disclose the location for reasons of national security."
• Adam Junction (Tsomet Adam) in the Benjamin Region: An Israeli vehicle comes under rock attack by Palestinian Arabs and is damaged.
• The community of Itamar, near Bet Faruk, in the Shomron (Samaria district): An Israeli driver reports to the IDF that he saw Palestinian Arabs preparing to launch a Molotov cocktail attack at him. Some time later, a different Israeli vehicle is attacked near Bet Faruk - the perpetrators appear to be Palestinian Arabs hurling Molotov cocktails. The IDF initiated an investigation of the attack.
• North-west of Ramallah, between Rantis and Beit Arye/Ofarim: An Israeli driver reports that Arabs attacked him with rocks. The IDF is investigating.
• Abu Dis, north of Bethlehem in the Jerusalem suburbs: A group of Palestinian Arabs throws Molotov cocktails at a Border Police post.

The Tayar Security Report is compiled by Yehudit Tayar based on inputs from the Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron organization, cleared and confirmed by the IDF.

21-Aug-12: What might civilized people be thinking when sociopaths like Tamimi bask in adulation?

The unrepentant, unjustly freed murderer Tamimi
with the unrepentant, unjustly freed murderer Tamimi
at their June 2012 wedding in Amman, Jordan

After receiving some offline comments on the Tamimi speech we publicized yesterday, we have a few further thoughts to share. The urge to do this is triggered by a sense that something deeply disturbing is going on; it's being ignored or willfully not noticed by people who ought to be noticing.

When a politician or public figure on our side of the fence makes an ignorant or dumb or smart or incisive statement, particularly when it's about the Arabs (you know the examples), his/her comments are greeted with near-instant analysis and frequently with condemnation from a global array of press and politicians. The Arab media focus obsessively on such things. Outside the Arab/Islamic world, we frequently see European, American, Australian and other critics drawing wide inferences about how those specific Israeli views are going to bring on the next Black Plague or an increase in pogroms in France. The claim, at minimum, is that irreparable harm is going to be caused to the souls and DNA of innocent Israeli children, to world peace and so on. 

To illustrate: when a posse of Israeli delinquents (it happens to be a very current issue here) beat up an Arab youth in a street fight, the New York Times says the event has led to "a stark national conversation about racism, violence, and how Israeli society could have come to this point" That's an actual quote: check it out. We think the Times' journalist's conclusion is overwrought nonsense, but that's not the point. Israel is not, never has been and should never be, immune to criticism, or even object to it, and mostly doesn't. 

Now think for a moment about how Ahlam Tamimi and her hundreds of published interviews and speeches are treated by global public opinion. Pay attention in particular to how Arabs view her, since they are her principal audience.

No one - certainly not the woman herself - denies the fact that she planned and carried out a premeditated killing on a large and vicious scale, which was the whole point of doing it. The law convicted her on the basis that she's a murderer; she says (more or less) that she did it for the freedom and honour of her nation. The fact that she planned to kill and succeeded mightily has never been in dispute. She does not miss an opportunity to say that it was children, and specifically Jewish children, and even more specifically orthodox Jewish children like ours, who were the target. She regrets that she did not kill more - it's there in yesterday's video and in numerous other speeches and earlier videos recorded in her Jordanian freedom.

She appears on television and in front of adoring crowds (ask us if you want to view the video files) and expresses the vilest kind of racist hatred of Jews, Israelis and Zionists. She has done this many times since she unjustly got her freedom in October and her message is hugely amplified by the social media. She is a star on YouTube, a hero on Facebook. She is globally broadcast via satellite television into every corner of the Arabic-speaking world. It's arguable that she has the largest footprint of any ordinary murderer (ignoring "celebrities" like Hitler, Mao, Stalin et al) in human history. If that seems like an overstatement then we urge you to concede that she is in the major leagues. The fact that most people don't know this is largely because most people don't speak Arabic.

She smiles warmly when she says she killed those Jews, and her god wanted her to do it. She points to how she has subsequently been rewarded with freedom, fame, a wedding that received live television coverage. The adoring crowds applaud and ululate. The encouragement (and probably the will) to emulate her actions is clear.

How many Arabic speakers are there in the world? A quick query on the web turns up these numbers: "280 million native speakers, and an extra 250 million non-native speakers" [source]. How many Arabic newspapers? Many.

Here's our point: We have searched and have not yet found a blog, article, published speech or op-ed in her language, Arabic, which criticizes the woman or her views. So far, not one. If our readers can point us to exceptions, please do.

This is deeply shocking. Tamimi's message resonates throughout the Arab and Islamic world. Her views don't even rise to the level of controversial. She's simply a hero, wall to wall. She and her vile deeds, opinions and intentions appear to represent some sort of global consensus in the Arab and Islamic world. There is no public debate, no expressions of outrage - not even concerning the passivity of the Kingdom of Jordan where she lives and from where a vibrant Tamimi-focused industry of online and broadcast videos sends its message of hatred and death out to the world. 

Does the absence of criticism throughout the Arab world mean they support the deliberate killing of the innocent people among their enemy? Does their silence mean they support the murder of children as Tamimi certainly does, and they want to see it happen again and again as she certainly does?

What does this say about the discourse underway in the Arab world? What light does it throw on the global news media? 

What can we learn from here about the chances of ever making peace? 

20-Aug-12: What would it take to make you as happy as this woman?

The link to the 2m 46s video is here

Please spend two minutes and 46 seconds in watching the edited extract of a television  interview with the woman who planned and executed a massacre of innocent civilians, most of them children, eleven years ago. Following the killings, she went to her place of work which happens to have been a television studio, and calmly read the evening news bulletin, starting with a report of the massacre that she herself had perpetrated some hours earlier.

After an intense criminal investigation, she was arrested less than two months later and charged with the murders of fifteen people, along with a host of other felonies. She was convicted and sentenced to sixteen terms of life imprisonment. But as a result of a controversial and cynical political deal, she was freed (not pardoned) in October 2011 and released to the land of her birth where she has become a major celebrity. Her recent wedding to her cousin, another unjustly freed murderer, received live television coverage and extensive media attention. Not only a celebrity but a hero.

Watch how the woman's face radiates the joy that comes from recounting how the death toll grew steadily in the hour or so that she spent fleeing the scene via public transport, unhindered by the police. Absorb the message of how members of the public, unaware the murderer was seated beside them, expressed happiness at the deaths of anonymous children. 

Imagine the feelings of the families of the innocents murdered by a person like this as they see her achievements celebrated and honored, as they listen to the prideful boasting of an unrepentant killer whose only regret is that she did not manage to kill more. She has confessed over and again since being allowed out of captivity. There can be absolutely no doubt that her deeds are an inspiration to countless others seeking the glory and vindication that her society has delivered to her.

The video, which went to air in July and has just been translated and edited by MEMRI, is here. 

This post continues after the pictures below.

Ahlam Tamimi, a very happy person, lives in complete and unfettered freedom in the Kingdom of Jordan from where she has traveled several times in the ten months since her release to such places as Tunisia, Lebanon and Qatar to give public speeches. She hosts a television program of her own that is broadcast by satellite throughout the Arabic-speaking world. She married her cousin in June. 

Among the fifteen people murdered by her on August 9, 2001 is our daughter Malki who was fifteen years old. A sixteenth victim, the young mother of a two year old child, has remained in a vegetative state since being injured in the attack.

What should a civilized society do in the wake of this woman's story?

[UPDATE: Please read our follow-up post: "21-Aug-12: What might civilized people be thinking when sociopaths like Tamimi bask in adulation?] 

18-Aug-12: Why the Palestinian Arab economy remains so weak - and what this means

Construction site in Israeli city of Maale Adumim

Let's start with a quotation:

The Palestinians could have built one of the best economies in the region after the beginning of the peace process in 1993. But instead of using the billions of dollars that were given to them by Americans and Europeans to create new jobs, the PLO leadership stole most of the funds and later blamed Israel for damaging the Palestinian economy. Suicide bombings and financial and administrative corruption are the main reason why the Palestinian economy remains as weak as ever. The Palestinians are experts in shooting themselves in the foot and then blaming Israel.

We know little about Hisham Jarallah other than that he is described as a journalist based in the West Bank and that he wrote the words above. Few Palestinian Arab voices have been heard that speak plain sense about the central role that people's personal welfare plays in the way they relate to Arab/Israel conflict. His appears to be one. The Gatestone Institute published his article on their website yesterday. The title - not so politically-correct but absolutely justified - is: "How Palestinians Keep Shooting Themselves in the Foot".

Instead of using the billions of dollars that were given to them by Americans and Europeans to create new jobs, the PLO leadership stole most of the funds and later blamed Israel for damaging the Palestinian economy... [Meanwhile] as the Arab countries continue to impose strict employment restrictions on Palestinians, Israel is opening its doors to Palestinian workers from the West Bank. Palestinians say, in fact, that Israel is becoming one of the largest employers of Palestinians in the Middle East.

He refers to data released this past week by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in Ramallah. They show some 80,000 Palestinian Arabs are now working in Israel, including the demonized "settlements". There has been modest growth in the past year, and then last week Israel's government issued work permits to 10,000 more Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank.

The move has been received with a sigh of relief among Palestinians, especially as it comes on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan. The figures also showed that Palestinians employed by Israelis earn more than those who work for their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A Palestinian construction laborer often earns more than a senior ministry official in the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank or the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip.What is interesting about the bureau's report is that the number of Palestinians working in Jewish settlements has increased despite calls from the Palestinian Authority to boycott the settlements. 

Billions of dollars have been handed over to the Palestinian Authority in the past decade, but the results are thin and few. Arab governments routinely pledge undying support to the their Palestinian Arab brothers and when the spotlight has moved on, quickly forget their promises and commitments. Jarallah notes that Lebanon, Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan impose apartheid-like restrictions on their Arab brethren from Palestine, 

This strategy needs to be viewed in connection with the decades-long history of Palestinian Arab kleptocracy. That's the process of theft and pillage practiced by the Arafat circle and then later (until today) the Abbas circle: they help themselves to the bulk of the goodies arriving as international aid, ensuring their personal enrichment while consigning their fellow Palestinian Arabs to the dust-heap. Understanding how the massive inflow of aid money and foreign contracts has made the decision makers in Palestinian society rich and their towns and communities poor is a necessary step to comprehending how and why this ongoing war goes on. Why would these 'leaders' ever want to see the bonanza end?

Munib R. al-Masri, a business tycoon, is generally regarded as the wealthiest Palestinian Arab alive today. In 2005, The Atlantic magazine ran a major piece entitled "In a Ruined Country: How Yasir Arafat destroyed Palestine" [here]. It focused on some comments made by al-Masri. Hear now what he said:

The money [Arafat] spent to buy the loyalty of his court, al-Masri gently suggests, could easily have paid for a functioning Palestinian state instead. “With three hundred, four hundred million dollars we could have built Palestine in ten years. Waste, waste, waste. I flew over the West Bank in a helicopter with Arafat at the beginning of Oslo, and I told him how easy we could make five, six, seven towns here; we could absorb a lot of people here; and have the right of return for the refugees. If you have good intentions and you say you want to reach a solution, we could do it. I said, if you have money and water, it could be comparable to Israel, this piece of land.”

The reality was always quite different from the vision. 

"For those at the top of the heap the rewards were much larger and more systematic. The amounts of money stolen from the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people through the corrupt practices of Arafat’s inner circle are so staggeringly large that they may exceed one half of the total of $7 billion in foreign aid contributed to the Palestinian Authority. The biggest thief was Arafat himself." [The entire September 2005 article is very long but worthy of your attention.]

[H/tip The Palestinian Failure, by A. Jay Adler.]

Why is it that the proclivity of the Palestinian Arabs over decades to consistently and repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot gets so little analytical attention?