PRIMER

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

It's Israel's Fault!

[This is from Rabbi David Fass of Temple Beth Sholom.

Also, an update from my cousin Arnie, who contributed the post preceding this.

Arnie heard some sirens going off this afternoon as he was parking his car. He ran to what seemed to be a relatively safe place, in about 45 seconds heard a loud boom and later found the Grad rocket hit about 400 yards from where he parked his car.

The uncivilized behavior of Hamas and other terrorists from Gaza must be ended, permanently.

And this must include the safe return of Gilad Shalit.]

It's Israel's Fault

By Rabbi David Fass

It's Israel's fault that Hamas shoots rockets from Gaza into Israel.

It's Israel's fault there are civilian causalities in Gaza because private homes are harboring Hamas terrorists and/or missiles, guns, etc. and the families are threatened with death if they don't allow it.

It's Israel's fault that Gaza is literally hell on earth: incredibly crowded, no jobs, industrial chemicals and other waste pouring out into the streets that shirtless, shoeless little children play in, broken streets, broken buildings, sub-standard everything - because ever since Arafat, the Palestinian leadership has stolen almost every penny meant for humanitarian aid for their own people.

It's Israel's fault that fanatical murderers blow themselves up on crowded busses, in supermarkets, nightclubs, etc. with explosive belts strapped around their waists filled with screws and nails and other deadly shrapnel, as well as anti-coagulants to make sure those who are only wounded continue to bleed.

It's Israel's fault the Hamas government has placed dozens of Fatah members under house arrest out of fear that they might exploit the current IDF operation to regain control of the Gaza Strip, that Hamas militiamen had been assaulting many Fatah activists since the beginning of the operation last Saturday, at least 75 activists were shot in the legs while others had their hands broken, and over the weekend the movement had "executed" more than 35 Palestinians who were suspected of collaborating with Israel and were being held in various Hamas security installations.

It's Israel's fault that there actually are no Palestinians, just Arabs not allowed to settle in Arab countries, kept in limbo by their own people from Saudi Arabia, for example, to deflect attention and anger away from their brutal dictatorships.

It's Israel's fault that over the past week both the Reform and Conservative synagogues in Knoxville, TN, were vandalized. The week before it was a Molotov cocktail thrown at Temple Sholom in Chicago, and anti-Semitic signs on a synagogue in Irvine, CA.

It's Israel's fault, it's Israel's fault, it's Israel's fault...

Using the same logic, shouldn't the Israeli's, the Jews, out of our deep empathy and sincere concern for our fellow human beings, put an end to this provocation? It is surely not difficult. How hard could it be to dismantle Israel and move its people elsewhere? There must be any number of other countries willing to take us in, just as there were during WWII when six million of us were being slaughtered.

As far as the "Jewish problem" is concerned, conversion is an easy and permanent solution. I don't know what the attitude of the Muslim world would be towards mass conversions of Jews, but I'm sure that any number of Western religions would be licking their chops to get so many into their flock they were targeting anyway.

You see? Then it wouldn't be Israel's fault anymore, nor the provocative Jewish values that insist on a Jewish state. There would be no more Israel and no more Jews. That is what the world seems to want, isn't it?

Monday, January 5, 2009

Praying for the Success of Israel's Military Operation

[This was written by my cousin Arnold Schlissel shortly before visiting his second grandchild for the first time. His daughter Karen gave birth three days after the school where she teaches was hit by a Grad rocket manufactured in China.--Alan Stein]

When Hamas was elected some of us thought that it might turn it's attention to managing the Gaza Strip, and make efforts to deal with unemployment, extraordinary lack of infrastructure, health services, etc.

A few days ago I thought to myself that the objective of the current military operation should not only be a end Hama's firing of missiles into Israel, but to create a situation where a real dialog on a long term modus vivendi might begin. Over the weekend I read an article in the Hebrew press which changed my outlook entirely.

My view at this time is that as far as Hamas (and Iran) are concerned the (only) role of the Gaza Strip is to serve as the spearhead for on-going military efforts to destroy Israel. Neither Hamas (or Iran) has any interest at all in the welfare of the population of Gaza, with the exception of using normal societal institutions (houses of prayer, hospitals, schools and universities) as cover for its military activities. And of course its civilian casualties in its propoganda war. I'm not talking about the willingness to have the civilian population "make sacrifices" in the miliary confrontation, but a total and absolute lack of interest in its fate.

The article that caused me to adopt this view described the Hamas preparations for military encounter. Even with the understanding that all the weapons and munitions were provided by Iran gratis, free of charge, the enormous investment in infrastructure that Hamas made is an indication of its intent. Many socieities have underground infrastructure and facilities - Toronto has its underground malls, NYC its subways, etc. etc. But when a society has the pressing human needs that Gaza has, and so much effort is made in digging underground tunnels (throughout the Gaza Strip and not only the smuggling tunnels along what we call the Philedelphia road - the Gaza side of its southern border with Egypt) it is an indication of e its priorities and intent. (The article also described other investments in technology and training.)

So as far as I'm concerned, the Gaza Strip is nothing more than a Hamas military base with civilians and societal institutions as assets. The bitter irony is that the democratic world is concerned about its citizens, when its elected government could care less.

We are all praying for the success of Israel's military operations.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Advice for President-elect Obama: Don't Try to Resolve the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Conventional wisdom is that American mediation is necessary for Arabs and Israelis to make peace.

History demonstrates the opposite. The few important breakthroughs have been made either without or despite our involvement.

In 1956, President Eisenhower's pressure forced Great Britain, France and Israel to end their Suez campaign. That action accelerated the decline of Great Britain, led France to distrust us, sowed the seeds of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, helped make the Soviet Union an important player in the Middle East and led to Egypt, the beneficiary of our intervention, joining the Soviet orbit.

In his memoir, Eisenhower's own vice president at the time, Richard Nixon, wrote "In retrospect I believe that our actions were a serious mistake." Eisenhower himself apparently recognized his intervention was a mistake. In a biography of Max Fischer, the wealthy industrialist and advisor to presidents from the 1950's until his death in 2005, Peter Golden quotes Eisenhower telling Fischer: "looking back at Suez, I regret what I did. I never should have pressured Israel to evacuate the Sinai."

The first real breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli conflict came with Anwar Sadat's historic trip to Jerusalem in 1977. Not only did this seminal event come without American assistance, it reportedly distressed then president Jimmy Carter, who saw it as jeopardizing his grandiose dreams of orchestrating a comprehensive settlement.

While Carter is often given credit for facilitating the resulting peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, his involvement in the negotiations probably delayed that agreement, as his presence generally encouraged Anwar Sadat to press for more and more Israeli concessions and resist any Egyptian concessions.

The Oslo breakthrough also came about without United States involvement. It resulted from Palestinian Arabs and Israelis meeting together secretly. Our subsequent American involvement was a key factor in the failure of the "Oslo Process."

I greeted news of the Oslo Process with cautious optimism. I was never under the misimpression that Yasser Arafat and the rest of the PLO were sincere in any desire for peace, but I hoped the combination of the enormous benefits and the change in behavior mandated by any agreements would lead to real changes in Palestinian attitudes.

Unfortunately, in America's eagerness to accelerate movement, we sidetracked those changes and benefits and helped doom an inherently difficult process.

One of the first actions required of the Palestinian Arabs, to be taken before the Oslo Process really began, was to be the changing of the Palestinian National Charter, deleting the provisions calling for the elimination of Israel.

President Clinton prevailed upon the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, to participate in the famous ceremony on the White House lawn without waiting for that change in the PLO charter. That was a seminal mistake, setting the tone for Yasser Arafat to weasel out almost all the commitments he made.

To this date, despite a widely publicized charade in 1998, the PLO charter has never been amended. After its establishment, the Palestinian Authority ignored the conditions under which its "police force" was supposed to operate, continued to facilitate rather than work against terrorism and, most importantly, incited its people rather than preparing them for peace.

As Dennis Ross, one of America's key mediators, has recognized, the underestimation of the importance of the Palestinian Authority's continued incitement against Israel was a fundamental error. Under pressure from the United States, Israel overlooked violations by the Palestinian Authority. This ultimately doomed a process which otherwise might have led to peace.

In the final analysis, only the Arabs and Israelis can end their conflict. Peace will be achieved only when the Arabs, including the Palestinian Arabs, make it a priority. Despite our best intentions, American involvement generally results in Israel unilaterally making concessions which feed Arab intransigence, ultimately intensifying the conflict.

This leads to the best advice anyone can give President-elect Obama on ending the Arab-Israeli conflict: Don't even try.

Note: The quotes regarding Suez are referenced at many places, including www.israpundit.com/archives/2005/06/eisenhower_and_2.php.

The Difficulty of Getting the Facts Straight

The Day, published in New London, Connecticut, on January 4 published a relatively simple timeline to help people understand the current Hamastan war.

PP believes the timeline was put together in good faith, but demonstrates the ignorance of even those who believe they can explain the conflict to others.

Some items correct outright errors; some create misimpressions because of errors of omission; others are technically correct but written in a way which is misleading.

Some of the errors are relatively harmless; others lead to significant misunderstanding.

We follow the text as published with some commentary.

A legacy of conflict

1948: Clashes between Israeli underground groups and Arab irregulars begin almost as soon as United Nations creates modern-day Israel.

1956: In the 'Sinai Campaign,' Israel swiftly conquers Sinai. Israeli troops remained in Sinai for many months.

1967: The '6-Day War' begins with Israeli attack on Egypt to block what it considers an imminent invasion. Israel expands borders to become the region's dominant military power.

1973: The 'Yom Kippur War' is launched by Syria and Egypt. Ends with a cease fire within a month.

1987: The First Intifada is begun by Palestinians and lasts several years.

2005: The Second Intifada begins in 2005 and continues. Rockets launched from Gaza fall on Israel.

Dec. 27, 2008: Israel attacks Hamas targets in Gaza, causing many civilian casualties.

We take the statements individually and include some comments.

1948: Clashes between Israeli underground groups and Arab irregulars begin almost as soon as United Nations creates modern-day Israel.

[This contains several errors.

The clashes began long before the reestablishment of Israel.

Israel wasn't created by the United Nations. The United Nations passed a resolution calling for, but not creating, two more states in Palestine, alongside the existing Arab state which is now called Jordan.

Accepting the resolution, the Zionists created a state; rejecting the resolution, the Arabs attacked.

Simply put, while the United Nations recommended a state, it was the Zionists who recreated Israel.]

1956: In the 'Sinai Campaign,' Israel swiftly conquers Sinai. Israeli troops remained in Sinai for many months.

[This omits the context of Egypt violating the earlier armistice agreement by blocking Israeli traffic through the Suez Canal and starting to block traffic through the Straits of Tiran. It also omits the fact that Israel was joined by Great Britain and France.]

1967: The '6-Day War' begins with Israeli attack on Egypt to block what it considers an imminent invasion. Israel expands borders to become the region's dominant military power.

[This again omits the context of Egypt again blockading the Straits of Tiran, in violation of the commitments made at the end of the Sinai Campaign.

The assertion that Israel expanded its borders is technically correct, since Israel incorporated reunited Jerusalem in its borders, but is misleading since it implies Israel incorporated the captured, disputed territories.]

1973: The 'Yom Kippur War' is launched by Syria and Egypt. Ends with a cease fire within a month.

[This is correct, although it doesn't capture the perfidy of launching a war of annihilation on the holiest day in the Jewish year.

Also omitted in the timeline is the complete rejection of Israel overtures, including offering to completely return the territory captured in 1967, in return for peace.]

1987: The First Intifada is begun by Palestinians and lasts several years.

2005: The Second Intifada begins in 2005 and continues. Rockets launched from Gaza fall on Israel.

[The second intifada began five years earlier, in September 2000, after the Palestinian Authority rejected the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state on almost all of the disputed territories, including portions of Israel's capital of Jerusalem, which would have been redivided.]

Dec. 27, 2008: Israel attacks Hamas targets in Gaza, causing many civilian casualties.

[This entry completely omits the context, including the bombardment from Hamas-controlled Gaza of Israeli civilians living in Sderot, Ashkelon and other areas near the Gaza Strip.

Although there is an element of subjectivity involved, considering the population density in Gaza and the way Hamas deliberately operates from densely populated areas, the civilian casualties have been astoundingly slight.]

Overall, in comparison to background given in other newspapers, the timeline in The Day is less inaccurate than most.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Stop Hamas, Support Israel

[Sent by Sheri.]

A young friend felt the need to inform people about the true situation in Gaza, please forward to your list of members if you feel this would be helpful.

As I write this. The Israeli army has begun a ground offensive in Gaza. We have many friends whose children are now fighting in dangerous conditions there. We pray for G-DS protection.

Regards Sheri

Dear all,

Wars in the 21st century are fought and won in the public-media arena, not in the battlefield. Please take a few moments to distribute this mail to anyone you know.

Remember that in this type of war YOU have more influence than the solider in the battlefield. If you can create any further publication (video-youtube / audio / texts/ etc.) you are urged to do so.

Test yourself:

1. How many Jewish settlers live in Gaza?
a) A million
b) Ten thousand
c) A hundred thousand
d) Zero

2. How many Israeli soldiers are located in Gaza?
a) Approximately 20,000 -Israeli army is not prepared to reveal the exact figure
b) One
c) About 100,000
d) Zero

3. How many rockets has Hamas fired at Israel until Israel commenced its present actions?
a) One - Israel reacted immediately
b) 499 - Israel announced that it would react after 500 rockets have been fired, and this is what it did
c) 72 being the number of virgins a suicide bomber receives in heaven
d) More than 5000

4. Who supports Israel's actions in Gaza?
a) The Palestinians
b) Egypt
c) Every human being who cares about freedom, democracy and human rights
d) All the answers are correct

5. Why are the people of Gaza firing rockets into Israel?
a) In order to end the occupation of Gaza
b) In order to kill Jews

6. Since Hamas took control over Gaza it has invested in:
a) Improving infrastructure and the wellbeing of the population of Gaza.
b) Developing a TV series for children showing Mickey Mouse as a suicide bomber.
c) Killing Palestinians who support the secular and legal leadership of Fatah.
d) Answers b and c are correct

7. How is it that you did not know of this until now?
a) The Israelis have prevented the entry of the press
b) Hamas in Gaza prevents the entry of the press

Answers
1. d 2. b 3. d 4. b 5. b 6.

If you failed to know the right answers check the full story in the attached brochure.

Join the Facebook group "Stop Hamas, Support Israel."

Prayer for the Israel Defense Forces

May He who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bless the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces and the security personnel who stand guard over Israel and the cities of our God, from the Lebanese border to the Egyptian wilderness, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the edges of the desert - or wherever they might be - on land, in the air, or at sea.

May God cause our enemies who attack us to suffer defeat at the hands of the troops. May the Holy One, blessed is He, shield and protect them from any adversity of anguish, any ordeal or suffering, and send blessing and success to everything they do. May He bring those who hate us under their sway, and glorify the forces with the crown of salvation and the mantle of victory, so that the verse, "The Lord, your God marches with you to do battle for you against your enemies and to save you," will be fulfilled through then, and let us say Amen.

(Courtesy of the OU.)

Friday, January 2, 2009

Annie Lennox: Partially Correct, But Misguided

Like many so-called peace activists, Annie Lennox aims her darts at the wrong party.

That she appeared with the bigoted former mayor of London Ken Livingston makes one wonder whether she is sincere in her desire for peace but misguided or shares Livingston's hatred of Jews.

Annie Lennox, other celebrities call for end to IDF Gaza op

Singer Annie Lennox and other celebrities on Friday called on Israel to stop its air attacks on the Gaza Strip.

[There is no indication in this article that they even bothered to call on Hamas and the other Arab terrorist groups to stop attacking Israeli civilians.]

Speaking at a press conference in London Friday alongside activist Bianca Jagger, comedian Alexei Sayle and politicians including former London mayor Ken Livingstone, Lennox said violence could never be a solution to conflict.

[This is the one statement attributed to Lennox that is correct. Unfortunately, she seems unaware that the Palestinian Arabs are the ones who need to be convinced of this.

Israel's actions are simply aimed at preventing Hamas and the other Arab terror groups from continuing to try to achieve their goal, the elimination of Israel, by violence.]

Jagger called on US President-elect Barack Obama to condemn the Israeli air strikes. Israel is responding to rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas.

[Of which Jagger seems unaware.]

Protests have been held around the world condemning the Israeli strikes, which have killed more than 400 people and left 1,700 injured.

[They'd be taken more seriously if there had been protests around the world condemning the eight years of rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.]

Demonstrators are due to march in London Saturday to call for an end to the violence.

[All the violence, or just the actions taken to protect Israeli civilians from Arab terrorist attacks?]

As long as so-called peace activists whitewash Arab terrorism, their activities are actually counterproductive when it comes to really ending violence and bringing about the peace to which Hamas is so bitterly opposed.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Israelis Have a Right to Live

Consider what you'd expect of your government if you lived in the Greater Waterbury area and a single rocket was launched at your community from Danbury, by a terror group that also happened to have been elected to govern Danbury.

Consider what you'd expect of your government if on some days not a single rocket, but dozens, were launched at your community.

Consider what you'd expect of your government if, over a course of eight years, thousands of such rockets were launched at your community, perhaps most landing in open fields, but hundreds hitting cars, homes and schools and many causing injuries and even death.

We know how President-elect Barack Obama would react. He said "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that."

Our incoming president said that while visiting tiny Sderot, whose residents have been terrorized by just that sort of rocket barrage from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups in Gaza ever since Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority rejected peace and the establishment of another Palestinian Arab state in 2000.

Gaza-based terrorists launched 4 rockets in the last four months of 2001, 35 in 2002, 155 in 2003, 281 in 2004, 179 in 2005, 946 in 2006, 896 in 2007, 1212 in 2008 through November, hundreds of which were launched during a six-month "cease-fire," observed by Hamas mostly in the breech. Hundreds more were fired at Israel in December.

At first the rockets were almost all crude Kassams, with a range of just a few kilometers, aimed at Jewish communities in and around the Gaza Strip. As the years went on, the range of the Kassams increased and they were joined with Grads, mostly imported from Iran. One Grad rocket, which on the last day of 2008 hit the school where my beautiful cousin Karen, expecting to give birth to her first child any day now, teaches was made in China.

One trait all these rockets have in common is they have absolutely no military value. They have no guidance system and serve just one purpose: to terrorize ordinary people and make life unlivable.

It's almost impossible for the ordinary person to imagine why Palestinian Arabs resort to behavior so alien to the Western mind. They claim many grievances against Israel. Their terrorist actions would be totally unjustified even if their grievances were real, but even those are grievances are phony.

One hears false accusations, for example, that Gaza is occupied, yet Israel completely left Gaza more than three years ago, even uprooting every Jew living there, leaving Gaza judenrein. Israel has actually left most of Gaza eleven years earlier, handing over the administration of all the Arab-inhabited areas to the Palestinian Authority back in 1994.

One hears false accusations that Israel has imposed a siege on Gaza, depriving its residents of needed food, fuel and medicine, yet even during the current hostilities Israel has been transferring huge amounts of such items to the people in Gaza. Gaza also shares a border with Egypt, so Israel couldn't possibly prevent those items from reaching Gaza unless Egypt was doing the same. There is certainly no shortage in Gaza of inessential items such as mortars along with Kassam and Grad rockets.

One hears assertions that the people of Gaza are mired in poverty. This is one of the few assertions which is true, but even here the blame neither lies with Israel nor justifies launching Kassams at Israeli civilians.

Gaza was sorely neglected from 1948 to 1967, the period during which it was occupied by Egypt. By almost all objective standards, things improved dramatically after the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel found itself saddled with Gaza.

Under Israel's administration, roads, schools and hospitals were built. The economy, fueled by the wages Arabs were able to earn in Israel, grew at a fast pace. Infant mortality, generally considered one of the most reliable indicator of health care, dropped tremendously.

All these improvements stopped only with the onset of the first intifada in the late 1980's, with conditions going downhill when most of Gaza came under the administration of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, getting worse when the Palestinian Arabs launched their second intifada after rejecting a peace that would have brought them an independent state in September 2000, and got even worse when Israel left completely in 2005.

Meanwhile, rockets keep falling on Israeli civilians and, as they say in Hebrew, ayn breira, the government has no choice: it has to defend its people.

For eight years, Israel has tried almost everything short of war.

Israel has tried cease-fire after cease-fire; unfortunately, the Palestinian Arab definition of cease-fire seems to be that Israel ceases to go after the terrorists firing at its citizens. (Of course, when Israel targets those shooting at it during a cease-fire, it gets condemned for violating the cease-fire!)

Israel has tried pinpoint attacks on rocket squads, but the Kassams and Grads are both hidden in homes, schools and even hospitals and mosques and can be set up and launched quickly, so this isn't very effective. It also leads to civilian casualties among Palestinian Arabs, since the launches are so often from heavily populated areas. (It is said that for Hamas, if innocent Israelis are murdered, that's good, but if Palestinian Arab civilians get killed, that's even better.)

Israel has tried going after the terrorist leaders, only to be accused of targeted assassinations. (Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is supposed to turn terrorists over to Israel; that's just one the many provisions of the Oslo Accords the Palestinian Arabs have egregiously violated.)

Israel has tried negotiations, but it has nothing left to negotiate, having completely left Gaza. There's nothing else Israel can offer the Palestinian Arabs other than Israel itself.

That, of course, is the real crux of the matter. Hamas has no interest in peace, or even in a Palestinian Arab state living in peace next to Israel; as enshrined in its charter, its purpose is the replacement of Israel by a Palestinian Arab state.

Ultimately, ayn breira, Israel has no choice. There being no possibility of peace as long as Hamas exists in anything resembling its current form, Hamas must either be eliminated or completely disabused of ever achieving its goal.

Israel has thus embarked on an operation, with the absurd name "Operation Cast Lead," which even the relatively moderate Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia apparently hope will succeed, even as they are publicly critical. (Egypt and Saudi Arabia are only slightly less at risk from the Muslim Brotherhood than is Israel.)

Israel began with air attacks on Hamas installations. Thanks to the extraordinary care Israel took to minimize civilian casualties, including phone calls to thousands of homes containing or near rocket and weapons storehouses, collateral damage has been surprisingly light.

Unsurprisingly, many voices which have been silent while Israeli civilians were targeted with Kassams and Grads for the last eight years, not to mention suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks since even before the reestablishment of Israel six decades ago, have suddenly risen to protest and demand an end to "violence by both sides," as if there was a moral equivalence between Arab terror and Israel defense against terror.

Some, while paying lip service to Israel's right to defend its citizens, even accuse Israel of a "disproportionate" response. This is patently absurd, since thus far Israel's response has not only not been disproportionate, but has been insufficient to convince Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Arab terror groups to stop launching rockets at Israeli civilians.

Israel will almost certainly have to step up its efforts, including the use of ground troops, in order to permanently stop the launching of rockets. It will be a difficult operation, made even more problematic by international pressure for another counterproductive cease-fire which would serve the purpose of giving Hamas an opportunity to replenish its stocks of Kassams and Grads and further increase their range.

Iran, which has supplied Hamas with many of the longer range Grads, as it and Syria have (in violation of Security Council resolutions) supplied Hezbollah with Katyushas, is also developing missiles which can reach Western Europe and eventually America. It is also developing nuclear warheads with which to arm those missiles.

Israel may be the country being hit by Iranian missiles now, but if Israel doesn't put an end to them, it will not be the last. If for no other reason, it is thus in the interest of the entire democratic Western world, including the United States, that Hamas and the other fanatical Islamist terror groups be defeated. The more we equivocate and the more we try to get Israel to reach an accommodation with with terrorists unwilling to compromise, the more we put ourselves at risk.

But the bottom line goes even beyond that self-interest. The bottom line is really just that, like everyone else, Israelis have the right to live and their government not only has the right, but the obligation, to ensure that right.

Normal Mothers Want Their Children to Live

The key stumbling block preventing a resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict and the reason so many people have difficulty understanding it both hit home during a recent meeting with Haim Blumenfeld, Chief Superintendent of the Ashkelon City Station of the Israeli Police: normal mothers want their children to live.

Blumenfeld came to Connecticut right after making a presentation at the Anti-Defamation League's Advanced Training School's course on Extremist and Terrorist Threats, held for senior law enforcement agents in Washington, DC.

I listened to Commander Blumenfeld as he described the challenges of bringing some sense of security to Israelis living in Ashkelon and Sderot while the residents are under daily fire of Kassam and Grad missiles fired from nearby Gaza. I viewed scenes of devastation, including ordinary homes ruined after direct missile hits and the shells of municipal buses whose riders had been incinerated after they were bombed.

War is an unpleasant business. We've all gotten jaded with scenes of devastation not only in Israel, but Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Georgia, Somalia, the Congo, Haiti and countless other troubled areas around the world, so those scenes, horrific though they were, did not shock me.

One short video Blumenfeld showed did shock me. A video of Maryam Mohammad Yousif Farhat, the woman popularly known as "Umm Nidal," made a deep impression, even though I'd heard about it and even read the text. Understanding that video leads to a depressing insight.

Umm Nidal was one of the Hamas candidates in the 2006 elections. She is a celebrity, with no fewer than three shahid sons having given their lives in the cause of murdering Jews.

Normal mothers would be devastated by death of even one of their children, but not Umm Nidal. In the video of a farewell ceremony for one of her sons, just seventeen years old, she ordered him not to return "except as a shahid." She is shown after his death, calmly explaining that she wanted to "choose the best for him. And the best is not life in this world."

Umm Nidal is no fringe figure. Sari Nusseibeh, considered a symbol of the moderate Palestinian Arab, praised her with the words "When I hear the words of Umm Nidal, I recall the hadith stating that 'Paradise lies under the feet of mothers'" in an interview on Al-Jazeera. She won that election to the Palestinian Authority legislature.

I'd known all this, but it didn't completely register until I watched that video of the mother sending her beloved son to his death and later explaining how it was for the best.

It's difficult for people living in normal, civilized societies to comprehend the total dysfunction of large portions of Palestinian Arab society. We tend to think other people must, at heart, be much like we are, with the same desires and wanting mostly to live normal lives. It's natural to look at the Arab-Israeli conflict from that perspective, leading to the expectation that if we can just get the Arabs and Israelis to listen to us then both will be eager to make reasonable compromises in order to achieve peace and allow their children to start living normal lives.

Such reasoning just doesn't apply to societies where mothers proudly send their children out to murder other, innocent children and those mothers and their shahid sons are considered role models. I had subconsciously realized that, but repressed that understanding before viewing the video shown by Haim Blumenfeld.

I am still optimistic that an Arab-Israeli peace will eventually come, but I sadly recognize it cannot come before the sickness endemic to so much of Palestinian Arab society is expunged. Former United States negotiator Dennis Ross, seeking to understand the failure of the Oslo Experiment, correctly concluded it was a serious mistake to underplay the incitement of the Palestinian Authority.

As recently as this summer, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas congratulated the notorious terrorist Samir Kuntar upon his release by Israel. Kuntar was the perpetrator of one of the most vicious acts in the Arab-Israeli conflict, proudly crushing the skull of a four year old girl after murdering her father in front of her eyes.

I don't know the antidote, but as long as mothers like Maryam Mohammad Yousif Farhat joyfully send their teenage sons to their deaths and the "moderate" leader of the Palestinian Authority feels the need to celebrate the release of murderers, as long as so much of Palestinian Arab society is infested with a sickness too alien to our senses for most normal people to comprehend, any Arab-Israeli peace will remain an unfulfillable dream.

Comment & Analysis: Media Give False Impression of Events in the Gaza Strip

The Waterbury Republican-American started the new year by publishing a highly biased, extremely misleading letter under the ironic title "Media Give False Impression of Events in the Gaza Strip."

PRIMER sent out an alert, including this Comment & Analysis, consisting of "Comments" (quotes from the letter), each followed by an "Analysis" of the misleading or false information in the letter.

Letters pointing out the assininity of the letter may be sent to The Waterbury Republican-American opinion@rep-am.com.

Comment:
Media Give False Impression of Events in the Gaza Strip

Analysis:
Ironically, this is true. By publishing biased, misleading letters such as this, the media does give a false impression of events.

Comment:
During the recent presidential election, the news media reported two issues Americans are most concerned about are the U.S. economy and the Middle East conflicts. In deed, U.S. universities have seen a great increase of interest in Middle Eastern studies. Therefore, it is imperative truthful, scholarly information be available.

Analysis:
Again, true. Unfortunately, one won't find "truthful, scholarly information" in Hajjar's letter.

Comment:
For example, Israel's recent massacre of Palestinians in Gaza combined with Israel's decades-old propaganda spin is causing a seriously dishonest impression of what is really happening.

Analysis:
There is no "massacre" of Palestinian Arabs, although Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian Arab terror groups do constantly try to massacre Israelis and Jews.

At this point, according to the United Nations, there have been between 320 and 390 deaths in Gaza, with just a quarter of those being civilians. Given that terrorists masquerade as civilians, the United Nations estimate is almost certainly an overestimate. (These figures are available from the New York Times at .)

Comment:
To begin with, Gaza has been home to the Palestinians for thousands of years.

Analysis:
There wasn't even a place called Palestine thousands of years ago. It wasn't until after the Romans put down the final Jewish revolt in the second century of the common era that Hadran renamed the Judea and Samaria, calling it Philistia, which has since morphed into Palestine.

Most if not all of the people who currently call themselves Palestinians have no connection to the people who lived in Judea and Samaria at that time, as nomads constantly moved across the Middle East. It is only very recently that the Arabs living in the area decided to call themselves Palestinians; at the time Israel was re-established, the term Palestinian was generally understood to refer to the Jews.

Comment:
It is Israel that invaded Gaza, Israel that killed thousands of Palestinians over the years and destroyed all forms of Palestinian livelihood.

Analysis:
Egypt occupied Gaza from 1948 until 1967, when Israel temporarily found itself occupying Gaza at the end of the Six Day War. Israel immediately offered to return Gaza to Egypt in return for peace, but was completely rebuffed.

During its occupation, Egypt had completely neglected Gaza. In contrast, conditions improved dramatically under Israeli administration. Israel built roads, hospitals and schools. Life expectancy increased tremendously.

This progress came to a halt in the late 1980's with the outbreak of the first intifada and things have gotten progressively worse since 1994, when the Palestinian Authority took over most of Gaza.

Israel completely left Gaza in 2005, only to have the Palestinian Arabs use Gaza as a launching pad for Kassam and Grad missiles aimed first at Sderot, then Ashkelon, and now Ashdod and Beersheva.

Comment:
Some Israelis are protesting the attacks, but they do not have the political power to stop them.

Analysis:
Every country contains some extremists. It's a tribute to Israeli's democratic character that fringe elements are able to protest against their own state while it's being attacked.

More telling is that before the start of Operation Cast Lead, even Meretz was publicly saying the Israeli government had to respond to Hamas' bombardment of Sderot and Askelon.

Comment:
The Israeli media, but few other media worldwide, reported the Palestinians of Gaza broke a truce recently and Israel had no choice but to retaliate with bombs dropped from U.S.-donated jets.

Analysis:
As the title of the writer's letter says, the media gives a false impression of the events, in this case by generally omitting the context of the bombardment of Israeli civilians by Hamas, both before the end of the so-called cease-fire and after Hamas unilaterally decided to not renew the cease fire.

Comment:
Among rational analysts, it was Israel that decided to break the truce several times last month.

Analysis:
During the so-called truce, Palestinian Arabs still bombarded Sderot and other areas with hundreds of Kassams and Grads. At one point, Israel found some terrorists in the midst of preparations for an attack and acted to prevent that attack. By Hajjar's "rational analysis," Israel's acting to prevent one of hundreds of cease-fire violations amounts to "breaking the truce."

Comment:
With President Bush, a panderer to Israel, now a lame duck, Israel knew there would be little or no U.S. pressure to stop its attacks. During Israel's decades-old destruction of Gaza, there has been outcry by the international community, but Israel always ignored this because it had the support of U.S. politicians and government.

Analysis:
As explained above, it was only during Israel's administration of Gaza that conditions improved.

Comment:
For years, Israel has shut off Gaza's food, water, electricity and medical supplies. How would we like it if our most bitter enemy, al-Qaida, could do the same to us? That is what Israel, the Palestinians' worst enemy, does.

Analysis:
Even though Gaza also borders on Egypt, Israel has continued to supply food, water, electricity and medical supplies to Gaza even while terrorists from Gaza have constantly been attacking Israel, although it has occasionally briefly stopped deliveries immediately after attacks.

The Palestinian Authority itself has pointed out there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and no shortage of fuel, at the same times Hamas shut down power generators claiming there was a shortage.

Israel has actually shown far more concern for the welfare of the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza than Hamas has shown.

Comment:
Don't be fooled by Israeli propaganda and our politicians' cowardice.

Analysis:
Don't be fooled by Hajjar's propaganda.

Comment:
Gaza, smaller than Rhode Island, is the most populous piece of land on earth per capita.

Analysis:
Hajjar actually means Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth. That is frequently asserted, but false. As noted by The Spectator , Gaza's population density of 3,823 people per square kilometer is far less than that of Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which contain more than 6,000 people per square kilometer, and is even less than that of Tel Aviv, which has a density of more than 5,000 people per square kilometer.

Comment:
It is also, directly be cause of Israel, the poorest area on earth.

Analysis:
The assertion that Gaza is the poorest area on earth is highly questionable. In any case, as explained above, its poverty is the result of Egypt's neglect and the maladministration of the Palestinian Authority, not of Israel.

Comment:
The Gazans have no tanks, anti-aircraft weapons, navy or helicopters.

Analysis:
The lack of sophisticated weapons is not an excuse for terror.

Comment:
Israel has all of the most deadly weapons on earth and has used them against civilians.

Analysis:
As is typical of Israel-haters, Hajjar accuses Israel of that which the Palestinian Arabs are guilty.

Israel has taken great care to avoid harming civilians. Given the high population density of Gaza (exaggerated by Hajjar but still considerable) and the fact that Hamas deliberately operates out of residential areas, it is a tribute to Israel that so few Arab civilians have been injured or killed during the current round of hostilities.

Israel's care is in sharp contrast to that of Hamas, which deliberately targets civilians.

Comment:
So why would impoverished, outgunned Gazans start a war with Israel? It did not. Israel did and will now proceed to massacre hundreds of civilians.

Analysis:
It certainly doesn't make rational sense for Hamas to start a war with Israel, but Israel's enemies have always operated using a value system alien to those of us in the West.

Hamas, not Israel, started this "war." Hamas and other Arab terror groups in Gaza kept attacking Israel during the so-called cease-fire, refused to renew the cease-fire, and kept attacking Israel after refusing to renew the cease-fire. Israel's finally responding to being attacked does not constitute "starting a war." It merely constitutes self-defense.

There is certainly no "massacre" in Gaza and even the United Nations'k inflated count of civilian casualties in Gaza is in the neighborhood of just sixty, far from "hundreds."

Comment:
George Hajjar Jr.
Waterbury
The writer is a social worker and university professor who performed doctoral research in the Middle East for more than six years.

Analysis:
One hopes that his doctoral research is nothing like his error-filled letter.

The following is the full text of the letter.

Media Give False Impression of Events in the Gaza Strip

During the recent presidential election, the news media reported two issues Americans are most concerned about are the U.S. economy and the Middle East conflicts. In deed, U.S. universities have seen a great increase of interest in Middle Eastern studies. Therefore, it is imperative truthful, scholarly information be available.

For example, Israel's recent massacre of Palestinians in Gaza combined with Israel's decades-old propaganda spin is causing a seriously dishonest impression of what is really happening.

To begin with, Gaza has been home to the Palestinians for thousands of years. It is Israel that invaded Gaza, Israel that killed thousands of Palestinians over the years and destroyed all forms of Palestinian livelihood.

Some Israelis are protesting the attacks, but they do not have the political power to stop them.

The Israeli media, but few other media worldwide, reported the Palestinians of Gaza broke a truce recently and Israel had no choice but to retaliate with bombs dropped from U.S.-donated jets. Among rational analysts, it was Israel that decided to break the truce several times last month. With President Bush, a panderer to Israel, now a lame duck, Israel knew there would be little or no U.S. pressure to stop its attacks. During Israel's decades-old destruction of Gaza, there has been outcry by the international community, but Israel always ignored this because it had the support of U.S. politicians and government.

For years, Israel has shut off Gaza's food, water, electricity and medical supplies. How would we like it if our most bitter enemy, al-Qaida, could do the same to us? That is what Israel, the Palestinians' worst enemy, does.

Don't be fooled by Israeli propaganda and our politicians' cowardice.

Gaza, smaller than Rhode Island, is the most populous piece of land on earth per capita. It is also, directly be cause of Israel, the poorest area on earth. The Gazans have no tanks, anti-aircraft weapons, navy or helicopters. Israel has all of the most deadly weapons on earth and has used them against civilians. So why would impoverished, outgunned Gazans start a war with Israel? It did not. Israel did and will now proceed to massacre hundreds of civilians.

George Hajjar Jr.
Waterbury
The writer is a social worker and university professor who performed doctoral research in the Middle East for more than six years.