Israeli-Palestinian exchange rate

The next time you hear someone use the faded old rhetoric of  comparing number of Israelis killed vs. number of Palestinians killed in order to bash Israel, just remind them of the exchange rate which Palestinians have imposed on the region.

As of today, 1 Israeli life is worth 1027 Palestinian lives.

Let's have a look at the region's skewed concept of "Fair Market Value", shall we?

Over the past 30 years, Israel has released around 7000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 19 Israelis and the bodies of 8 Israelis. Here is an overview of some of the most notable exchanges:

• Jibril Agreement in 1985: 1150 prisoners released in exchange for 3 Israeli prisoners. Among the released: Ahmed Yassin
• July 1996: A deal with Hezbollah to return the remains of 123 Lebanese soldiers in exchange for the remains of 2 Israelis.
• June 1998: Another deal with Hezbollah, to return the remains of 40 Hezbollah soldiers (including Nasrallah's son's remains) in exchange for the remains of one Israeli.
• January 2004: Yet another Hezbollah deal, 435 prisoners in exchange for the bodies of 3 Israeli soldiers kidnapped at the very beginning of the 2nd Intifada (Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Sawaid), and "businessman" Elchanan Tennenbaum.
  Among the released: Mustafa Dirani and Abdel Karim Obeid, two "jokers" originally intended as bargaining chips for Ron Arad.
• July 2008: 5 terrorists, among which Samir Kuntar, and the bodies of 204 other terrorists, were exchanged for the coffins containing the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. 
• September 2009: Israel released 20 female prisoners for a proof-of-life tape of Gilad Shalit.

No, Israel is no stranger to this history of lopsided prisoner exchanges.

Abbas congratulates Kuntar's family

Abbas congratulates Kuntar's family. Isn't it lovely that Abbas is the person we're counting on to make peace with? Excuse me while I retch...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday sent his regards to the families of Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar and the other four Lebanese prisoners scheduled to be transferred to Hizbullah.

Abbas praised the prisoner swap and congratulated the Kuntar family.

Praised them for what? Raising such a good little murderer?

His whole village can't wait for him to get back

In Kuntar's home in Abey, streets were decorated with banners welcoming the return of the former member of the radical Palestine Liberation Front. "Samir Kuntar is the conscience of Lebanon, Palestine and the Arab nation. Abey welcomes the hero, prisoner Samir Kuntar," reads one sign.

Samir Kuntar is the conscience of Palestine. I have an idea, let's give them a country!

If someone in my village had murdered a little Palestinian or Lebanese four-year-old girl, I would never want them anywhere near me. I would hope my government puts this kind of murderer in jail, where such scum belong.

Meanwhile, while they are all celebrating for their precious child killer, in Israel the Goldwasser and Regev families are mourning. Until the last minute they had still hoped.

It is a sad sad day

It is a sad day today. Today Samir Kuntar is freed. In exchange for the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. I won't even start about how unfair it is, that two reservists kidnapped in Israel are being exchanged for a cold blooded murderer who does not regret what he has done. I won't even comment on the danger that this puts Israel in, we all understand that there will be future kidnappings and that there is no more incentive to keep Israeli prisoners alive, and that Gilad Shalit's life may depend on this. I'll try to avoid talking about this piece of crap government which allowed this to go through, because otherwise I will just end up cussing and cursing.

I will talk of Peres' pardon. He has granted pardon to Samir Kuntar. My first thought was "WTF???". Why pardon such a beast? Why give him the pleasure of feeling that he has been forgiven? He belongs in jail for the rest of his life, even if it's not an Israeli jail. (Zero chance of that happening). From what I read in the comments of every news site allowing talkback, just about everybody feels the same, and is outraged at Peres for pardoning Kuntar.
Then I thought, what difference does it make? Kuntar is being released, all the rest is just words. He is going to be hailed a hero on the other side no matter what we say.

That's the second thing. He is being hailed a hero in Lebanon. The world barely notices. Shouldn't Amensty care about this? Shouldn't they make sure that, murdered that he is, he is returned to Lebanon, but in a prison?? Shouldn't the UN care? On CNN, I actually heard his brother say that Kuntar "didn't mean to kill Danny Haran and his daughter, it was an accident."
No, an accident is when I spill tomato juice on my white shirt. Killing Danny Haran in front of his 4 year old daughter, so that his death would be the last thing she sees, and then smashing her head against a rock with a rifle butt is no mistake. It is a heinous, cold-blooded, intentional murder.

How would the world react if the tables were turned? If we had kidnapped Samir Kuntar, who just patrolling along the border, in order to free a convincted murderer? How would they react if we gave back a dead Samir Kuntar in order to have the convicted murderer walk free in our streets??




Samir Kuntar's brother is saying "it happens all the time, they [the Israelis] say he's a terrorist, for us he's a hero", making the average CNN viewer think the usual, wrong, paradigm. "One side's terrorist is the other side's freedom fighter".

The real truth is that Samir Kuntar is a murderer, but for Hezbollah/Lebanon (is there a difference nowadays?), since he is only the killer of Israelis, he's a hero. Heck, they'll probably ask him to run for government.

It's a sad day for the world. It has sunken to new lows. Not that this wasn't predictable.

Nothing positive in the release of Samir Kuntar

(This seems to be something I forgot to publish, but has been here since December 2007... Oops)

This is a comment I got from Monday's What kind of terrorists are being held in Israeli prisons?

It's actually a whole article which also talks about the moral differences between Samir Kuntar and abducted Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

The whole article is here: Hizbullah's Promise to the Murderer of Jewish Toddlers

Fast forward to July 12, 2006. The only reason Ehud Goldawasser and Eldad Regev were abducted by Hizbullah was to force Israel to release Samir Kuntar. Now, the dilemma is whether or not Israel should release Kuntar in order to secure the release of Goldwasser and Regev. And since there has been no news as to the health of the two Israeli soldiers, Kuntar may be exchanged for two body bags.

The July 12 abduction plot was originally named "Operation Freedom Samir Kuntar" by Hizbullah. However, just days before the operation was launched, Hizbullah changed the name to "Operation Truthful Promise." This was based upon the "true promise" that Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah made to Kuntar's family to have him freed from Israeli prison.

Hizbullah has never claimed that Kuntar was innocent or that he may have been framed. Kuntar is their hero and they demand his release as if he were being held unlawfully. Sadly, Israel has an extensive history of releasing prisoners with blood on their hands. Most expect that it might happen again, this time with Kuntar.

It is important to keep in mind that prisoners in Israeli jails are serving time for something. Israel is not a "gangster" or "lawless" state that imprisons people based solely on a whim. Every prisoner was charged, stood trial, was convicted and properly sentenced. They were not kidnapped simply because they were Arabs. Hence, there is no justification in comparing the kidnapped Israeli soldiers to Samir Kuntar.

If Israel were to release Kuntar, it would be the biggest surrender. The Sinai Peninsula, Israel gave back under negotiations; the West Bank and Gaza Israel also gave away under negotiations of the Oslo Accords. In 1985, during the famous "Ahmed Jibril Exchange," Israel released 1,200 prisoners for the release of three IDF soldiers. Some of those prisoners who were released had blood on their hands, including Kozo Okamoto who killed 26 people in Israel. But even all those 1,200 prisoners put together cannot compare to the savage murderous act committed by Samir Kuntar. Israel also currently holds 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been incarcerated for conspiring, carrying out or masterminding murderous terrorist attacks (suicide bombings, shootings, etc.), which targeted Jewish civilians in Israel. But even all those 10,000 prisoners put together cannot compare to Kuntar.

Kuntar could have shot little Einat or blown her up, but instead, he took his loaded gun and just bludgeoned her on the head repeatedly for several minutes until she was dead. Lets not also forget the fact that several minutes prior to murdering Einat, Kuntar drowned her father in front of her, and forced her to watch.

There is a fine line between a humanitarian release of prisoners, or releasing prisoners for the sake of peace, and knuckling under to unadulterated extortion. The latter will be viewed as a response by a weak state that can be brought easily to its knees by extortion. What obscene messages does it send to the families of those Israelis murdered by Kuntar and future Kuntars? And what demoralizing message does it send to the Israeli troops and security services who risk their lives in order to capture and arrest Arab terrorists?

There is no doubt that Goldwasser and Regev need to be unconditionally released from Lebanon, Syria, Iran or from wherever they are now being held. Olmert's "good-will gesture" has disaster written all over it. Appeasement didn't work with Hitler and it will not work with Hizbullah. What exactly is there to negotiate? How far will Israel go to assure its own disappearance?

There will be nothing positive coming from the release of Samir Kuntar.

In Bercy park in Paris, people protest a poster supporting our three missing soldiers.



What do you make of this? The protesters are not capable of putting their posters next to the one standing, no, they need to completely remove the Israeli one in order to make a pathetic little point. Just like in real life, they can't even conceive putting a Palestinian country next to Israel, they need to completely wipe Israel off the map to exist. They can't stand hearing another point of view other than their own, which is exactly the problem in the Middle East.

The mairie of Paris has put up this poster in support of three abducted soldiers. On June 25th 2006 Gilad Shalit was abducted from Israel proper by terrorists who built a tunnel to enter Israel from Gaza. In this terrorist attack, the terrorists killed two Israeli soldiers. Israel had completely disengaged from Gaza about 10 months prior to this incident. During these ten months, Kassam Rockets from Gaza into Israel proper never ceased. Less than a month later, on July 12th, on the northern border, Hezbollah launched Katyusha rockets into Israel as a diversion, then attacked two IDF Humvees with anti-tank rockets, and abducted Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. During this unprovoked attack, four Israeli soldiers were killed. Israel had completely disengaged from southern Lebanon more than 6 years prior to this incident, in May 2000.
A year after Gilad's abduction, a voice recording of him was given by the military wing of Hamas, asking that the Israeli government proceed with a prisoner swap.
We haven't heard anything from Hezbollah about Udi and Eldad.

200 people in Paris protested the fact that this poster has been put up in the Bercy Park. As you can see in the video, the three faces are covered with an appeal for the Palestinian prisoners, as if there is some sort of moral equivalent between them, and some injustice has been done by showing support for the Israelis.
First of all, why not put up your protest next to the missing Israeli soldiers? Why is it that pro-Palestinian ALWAYS has to equal virulent anti-Israel?
Second of all, do you really believe that there's some sort of moral equivalent? Our three soldiers were abducted from inside Israel, by terrorists who live in areas which have no reason to target Israel any longer*, in order to later have the upper hand in some sadistic negotiation. We have no news from them, they have no medical treatment, access to them by the Red Cross is denied, we don't know their whereabouts or even if they are still alive, how they are treated, or rather, how they are tortured, or when this will all come to an end. Talking from experience though, how many abducted Israeli soldiers have come back home?
Their prisoners are, in fact, prisoners. They were not abducted, they are not MIA. They were caught during a terror attempt, or during a raid on a terrorist source, or arrested, or whatever. Their families know where they are, how they are doing, they can even go visit them (since they always seem to complain that the ride to the prison is so long. Pfff), they get regular doctor visits, Amnesty International and the Red Cross are ever present when it comes to non-Israeli prisoners, they get three HALAL meals a day, they get to pray whenever they wish (confirmed by the fact that they once complained that they had to pray in the direction of the toilet, the poor dears), they even get to have cellphones (with which they took pictures to complain about their treatment). Most importantly, they have contact with their families and they know how long their sentence is.

In the video you can see a poster of a young man, Salah Hamouri, who the protesters say is a French-Palestinian student. The truth, it turns out, is slightly different. But why should they care about itty bitty details like the truth?
Salah Hamouri is an Arab-Israeli, not a Palestinian, who also has a French nationality (as does Gilad Shalit, incidentally). He was arrested with two other Arab-Israelis for suspicion of plotting to kill Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Belonging to the PFLP, they were convicted of assisting the enemy at a time of war. That's quite different from the image they try to paint to the audience.

The protesters managed to get the Israeli poster removed last week.

Yesterday on the radio I heard that the mairie de Paris decided to put the poster back up, though I can't find any mention of it online.


*There never *is* a legitimate reason to target Israel, but your average terrorist-Joe will always be able to complain that they only target Israel because of some unjust occupation. But seriously, what do people in Gaza want more from Israel after they completely disengaged from Gaza? What do Hezbollah in southern Lebanon want after Israel completely disengaged from southern Lebanon? Oh right, they want complete annihilation of Israel.

Amnesty, at the height of hypocrisy

A few months ago, Amnesty International declared that "Last summer's war criminals must be punished". When you read that article a little more deeply, you see that they feel Israel, Lebanon and the international community haven't done enough to prosecute those responsible for war crimes and other grave violations.
Absurdly enough, in the same document, AI calls for Hezbollah to give more information about the abducted soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Absurd, because AI, who generally fights for the unconditional release of illegally abducted prisoners, does not ask Hezbollah for the release of our soldiers in this document, only for Hezbollah to give information about them. Bunch of hypocrites.

But in any case, the whole concept of addressing any parts of this document to Hezbollah or Lebanon is a moot point. Do they even care what pseudo-do-good-organizations like Amnesty International think?

Israel is capable of judging its own military activities, without the need of an external 'international community' who wouldn't know the first thing about the situation in the Middle East. Lebanon is not capable of that (reminder: Rafik Hariri). Hezbollah doesn't care to be capable of that.
In fact, Israel will do just that, following this absurd AI document.

Winograd Commission to address 'war crimes'

Chairman of commission probing Second Lebanon War tells MK
Gal-On committee will examine Israel's actions in context of
international law, following allegations of war crimes.

Just like in the past, where Israel judged whether Ariel Sharon was a war criminal (he was not), whether there was a massacre in Jenin (there was no massacre in Jenin), whether the Anti-Terrorist fence was illegal (is was not, however parts of its path were revised in order to better accommodate 'Palestinians'), Israel will judge its own military of whether any war crimes were committed.
Does anyone think Hezbollah will do the same?
Does anyone think Lebanon will do the same?

Back to Amnesty's document, the double standards it employs are completely ridiculous.
It laments the 'indiscriminate killing of civilians' and wants to hold those responsible accountable.
Let's compare the Israeli side to the 'other' side.

Hezbollah abducted two and killed three soldiers on our side of a UN recognized border. This was followed by Katyusha rockets fired randomly (and not especially towards military targets) into Israel. All this was an unprovoked attack.
Israel responded by sending helicopters over southern Lebanon.

Here already started the world's echoing call for Israel to stop using this disproportionate force. This would mean that they expected Israel to randomly fire Katyusha rockets back towards Hezbollah.
Who thinks that by doing this Israel would have avoided the world's wrath about 'indiscriminate killing of civilians'?
No one?
Didn't think so.

As the war drew on, we saw a regular pattern of events. Katyushas being fired into northern Israel, at one point getting as far as Hadera. Hezbollah would fire these rockets indiscriminately into Israel, with the hope of creating as many casualties as possible. Hezbollah would listen to Israeli news reports about recent Katyusha landings in order to better orient the next rockets and to create more casualties. It was impossible to know where the next Katyusha would be aimed at. I doubt anyone thinks they were the least worried about their human rights record.

In contrast, Israel preceded every one of the IAF's attacks by distributing thousands of pamphlets asking the civilian population to leave the area. Israel addressed every accidental civilian casualty with deep regret, and reiterated their call for the civilians to leave the areas that were being attacked. Does this sound like a country whose aim is to 'indiscriminately kill the civilian population'?

In some places the Lebanese civilian population was blocked from leaving these places where they knew Israel would attack. Hezbollah had placed launching pads for the Katyusha rockets near civilians' homes, sometimes inside them. Hezbollah counted on the civilian population in order to hide among them. This, for the terrorists was a win-win situation. Either the Israelis would avoid attacking them because of the high civilian population, and thus have the terrorists free to do as they wish, or Israel would attack them and then obviously harm the civilian population meant to 'protect' them, making Israel seem as a vicious killer to the world and ultimately have Israel retreat in order to retain a certain level of conscience. They therefore needed the civilians to stay there as their shield. This is forbidden according to the Geneva Convention (Article 37 outlaws the use of civilian populations as a shield for military actions. It explicitly prohibits "the feigning of civilian, noncombatant status; and the feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict."), and in the even that it does happen, it is solely the responsibility of the side who hid among the civilian population. But again, I doubt anyone thinks Hezbollah were the least bit worried about their human rights record.

In contrast, Israeli civilians hid in underground shelters built years ago for their security by the Israel government. Some Israeli civilians from the north left the north in order to find shelter with family living in the center or the south, and were free to do so without having Israeli soldiers block their way, in order to make sure that Israel was correctly portrayed as the victim on CNN when the number of casualties would be compared.

It is absurd that Amnesty International should treat Israel in the way it does, given the obvious respect Israel has for human rights.
It is even more absurd when compared to the way Hezbollah is being treated with silk gloves, given its obvious disregard for anything remotely attached to human rights.

Why is it always Israel who has to do an act of goodwill towards the 'Palestinians' ?

Abbas: 'This is just the first group of prisoners to be freed'

What?? It was hard enough to find 250 prisoners with no blood on their hands.

Some prisoners knelt and kissed the ground as they arrived at the checkpoint and
boarded the buses. Leaning out of bus windows, some flashed V-for-victory signs and held up Palestinian flags and posters.

I think people don't realize this enough. When 'Palestinians' make a V sign with their fingers, it's NOT a sign of "peace, dude". It's a victory sign. So these newly released prisoners are flashing victory signs. Does this make anyone else feel uncomfortable? If freed terrorists claim victory, this is not a good sign.

The protesters voiced their opposition to the gesture and called for Jewish
prisoners to be released first, Israel Radio reported.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the prisoner release was part of a package
of goodwill gestures that was to give new momentum to stalled peace efforts.

Why is it always Israel that has to do goodwill gestures? We're not the ones randomly firing homemade rockets into their civilian centers. We're not the ones who are holding captive one of their soldiers in a secret location, giving no one access to him, and giving him no access to anything. We're the ones who disengaged from Gaza. Wasn't that one big heck of a goodwill gesture?

I would think that what with the world always complaining that we're always abusing of our disproportionate force and that we must restrain ourselves, then just the fact that we didn't flatten Gaza completely should be considered a gesture of goodwill.

And where are our boys?

Bring our boys back home.

We Will Not Capitulate

Last year I found this article, a proposed text for a speech by the Prime Minister that would explain to the world exactly what it is we’re fighting...

We Will Not Capitulate

Ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world. I, the Prime Minister of Israel, am speaking to you from Jerusalem in the face of the terrible pictures from Kfar Kana. Any human heart, wherever it is, must sicken and recoil at the sight of such pictures. There are no words of comfort that can mitigate the enormity of this tragedy. Still, I am looking you straight in the eye and telling you that the State of Israel will continue its military campaign in Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces will continue to attack targets from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are fired at hospitals, old age homes and kindergartens in Israel. I have instructed the security forces and the IDF to continue to hunt for the Katyusha stockpiles and launch sites from which these savages are bombarding the State of Israel.

We will not hesitate, we will not apologize and we will not back off. If they continue to launch missiles into Israel from Kfar Kana, we will continue to bomb Kfar Kana. Today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Here, there and everywhere. The children of Kfar Kana could now be sleeping peacefully in their homes, unmolested, had the agents of the devil not taken over their land and turned the lives of our children into hell.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time you understood: the Jewish state will no longer be trampled upon. We will no longer allow anyone to exploit population centers in order to bomb our citizens. No one will be able to hide anymore behind women and children in order to kill our women and children. This anarchy is over. You can condemn us, you can boycott us, you can stop visiting us and, if necessary, we will stop visiting you.

A voice for six million citizens

Today I am serving as the voice of six million bombarded Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of six million murdered Jews who were melted down to dust and ashes by savages in Europe. In both cases, those responsible for these evil acts were, and are, barbarians devoid of all humanity, who set themselves one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish race off the face of the earth, as Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinejad proclaims.

And you - just as you did not take those words seriously then, you are ignoring them again now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen again. Never again will we wait for bombs that never came to hit the gas chambers.

Never again will we wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we have our own air force. The Jewish people are now capable of standing up to those who seek their destruction - those people will no longer be able to hide behind women and children. They will no longer be able to evade their responsibility.

Every place from which a Katyusha is fired into the State of Israel will be a legitimate target for us to attack. This must be stated clearly and publicly, once and for all. You are welcome to judge us, to ostracize us, to boycott us and to vilify us. But to kill us? Absolutely not.

Four months ago I was elected by hundreds of thousands of citizens to the office of Prime Minister of the government of Israel, on the basis of my plan for unilaterally withdrawing from 90 percent of the areas of Judea and Samaria, the birth place and cradle of the Jewish people; to end most of the occupation and to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to calm things down until conditions are ripe for attaining a permanent settlement between us.

The Prime Minister who preceded me, Ariel Sharon, made a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip back to the international border, and gave the Palestinians there a chance to build a new reality for themselves. The Prime Minister who preceded him, Ehud Barak, ended the lengthy Israeli presence in Lebanon and pulled the IDF back to the international border, leaving the land of the cedars to flourish, develop and establish its democracy and its economy.

What did the State of Israel get in exchange for all of this? Did we win even one minute of quiet? Was our hand, outstretched in peace, met with a handshake of encouragement? Ehud Barak's peace initiative at Camp David let loose on us a wave of suicide bombers who smashed and blew to pieces over 1,000 citizens, men, women and children. I don't remember you being so enraged then. Maybe that happened because we did not allow TV close-ups of the dismembered body parts of the Israeli youngsters at the Dolphinarium? Or of the shattered lives of the people butchered while celebrating the Passover Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya? What can you do - that's the way we are. We don't wave body parts at the camera. We grieve quietly.

We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the bodies of our enemy's children - we express genuine sorrow and regret. That is the monstrous behavior of our enemies. Now they have risen up against us. Tomorrow they will rise up against you. You are already familiar with the murderous taste of this terror. And you will taste more.

In a loud and clear voice

And Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza. What did it get us? A barrage of Kassam missiles fired at peaceful settlements and the kidnapping of soldiers. Then too, I don't recall you reacting with such alarm. And for six years, the withdrawal from Lebanon has drawn the vituperation and crimes of a dangerous, extremist Iranian agent, who took over an entire country in the name of religious fanaticism and is trying to take Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem - and from there to Paris and London.

An enormous terrorist infrastructure has been established by Iran on our border, threatening our citizens, growing stronger before our very eyes, awaiting the moment when the land of the Ayatollahs becomes a nuclear power in order to bring us to our knees. And make no mistake - we won't go down alone. You, the leaders of the free and enlightened world, will go down along with us.

So today, here and now, I am putting an end to this parade of hypocrisy. I don't recall such a wave of reaction in the face of the 100 citizens killed every single day in Iraq. Sunnis kill Shiites who kill Sunnis, and all of them kill Americans - and the world remains silent. And I am hard pressed to recall a similar reaction when the Russians destroyed entire villages and burned down large cities in order to repress the revolt in Chechnya. And when NATO bombed Kosovo for almost three months and crushed the civilian population - then you also kept silent. What is it about us, the Jews, the minority, the persecuted, that arouses this cosmic sense of justice in you? What do we have that all the others don't?

In a loud clear voice, looking you straight in the eye, I stand before you openly and I will not apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not whine. This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity. For the right to live normal lives within our recognized, legitimate borders. It is also your battle. I pray and I believe that now you will understand that. Because if you don't, you may regret it later, when it's too late.


By Ben Caspit, July 31st, 2006
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/457/743.html

"FREE THEM NOW" Rally in New York

I know I have some readers from New York and its surroundings, so in case you haven't heard about this rally, here's the info:


FREE THEM NOW!
One long year has passed since IDF soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev were kidnapped by Hamas and Hezbollah.
Show the world we have not forgotten and will not forget them.
Join us in demanding their immediate and unconditional release.
Monday, July 16th, 2007
12:00 noon / Rain or Shine
Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (1st Ave. and 47th St.)

Please urge your organization's leadership and membership to join you there.
Sponsored by the: Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Jewish Community Relations Council of New York
In cooperation with the United Jewish Communities, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, UJA-Federation of New York, and American Zionist Movement

A Whole Year and Still Nothing About Our Boys

Unfortunately I haven't got much time to blog these days, but I would like to mark the fact that a year ago today, Hezbollah terrorists penetrated Israel, crossed a UN approved border, killed three Israeli soldiers, abducted two Israeli soldiers, fired Katyushas into Israel, and all this in an unprovoked attack. Israel had completely withdrawn from southern Lebanon in 2000.

According to Bibi Netanyahu, not in the smartest of ways:

"The Barak government's irresponsible withdrawal from Lebanon brought
Hizbullah to the fence, paved the way for Nasrallah and caused the problems
in Lebanon in 2006,"

In the next few weeks, I'll post flashbacks to things that marked last year's war and the world reaction to it. Here's a start.

A year ago today, Dan Gillerman made some informal comments at the Security Council Media Stakeout.


To watch the video click here.
(Real Media, requires Real Player... Maybe I'll find a way to embed these type of videos into blogs one day, until then, you'll have to click... sorry.)

Two days later he made an excellent speech at the UN Security Council, during a meeting about the "Situation in the Middle East". The full video is almost two hours long. I'll spare you the suspense, it's a lot of Israel bashing and incoherence about victims and restraint and fallacies.

In the midst of this room full of darkened opinions, there is one candle of intelligence and enlightment. Dan Gillerman. You can see his contribution in the next two youtube clips.

Part I of Dan Gillerman's Speech at the UN's Security Council

Part II of Dan Gillerman's Speech at the UN's Security Council

As brilliant as his speech is, there is a drawback. His audience is the UN. His words fell on deaf ears. Just like Herzog's speech after the UN's ridiculous decision to equate Zionism with racism. In a movie, or in an Ayn Rand novel, speeches like these would wake up the dormant neurons in the audience, they would realize what the "big picture" is, they'd get up and give a standing ovation (in the movie), or nod in silent agreement and act accordingly (in the Ayn Rand novel), and the world's intelligence level would have increased a notch.
Not here.


In the days following the start of the war, Cox and Forkum had some excellent comic strips made.



This one is actually from right after Gilad Shalit was abducted, but I discovered it on July 13th. I like this image so much. For me it represents the whole situation of the Middle East.

The media world exploded. Countless staged pictures of dead children on the Lebanese side, the now infamous Green Helmet Guy, incredible exaggerations in captions which have nothing to do with either the picture or reality, photoshopped pictures on Reuters exposed by LGF, objects meticulously placed in order to ignite reader disapproval against Israel, pictures showing what Hezbollah wanted the world to see, pictures wrongly identified, debris of same building shown over and over again to insinuate constant Israeli destruction and contempt for Lebanese civilians... And the list goes on...

And in all this, world condemnation of Israel, excessive force, Israel should use restraint, blahblah. And where are our boys? Geneva convention anyone? Has Amnesty done anything in order to know anything at all about them? Has the Red Cross condemned anyone because the illegally abducted Israeli soldiers haven't been given access to their services?

www.banim.org