Middle East: Theater of the Absurd

To celebrate my return on the grid (yes I know you've missed me during my well-deserved holiday), a wonderfully absurd headline:

Lebanon files UN complaint against Israel
Officials in Beirut say IDF artillery response to Katyusha rockets was a violation of UNSC Res. 1701 and of international law.

Because Katyusha rockets are the very opposite of a violation of international law, right?

They don't even deny that Katyusha rockets were launched, they're just getting pedantic with the actual amount of them.

The Lebanese report claimed that only one rocket was fired from Lebanon into Israel and that the IDF fired six artillery shells.

Yes, tit for tat, that's what they're trying to get the UN to believe.

The sad part is really the fact that Lebanon knew it could lodge such a craptastic complaint at the UN without getting laughed at. It really shows that the UN has become completely irrelevant.

Katyusha rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon - World yawns

Rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon

Two Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon on Monday night, an Israeli police spokesman said.
It's the first time in more than six months that such a rocket has been fired from Lebanon into Israel.
Israeli munitions experts have examined the rockets, which landed in the northern city of Shlomi, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
One rocket landed on a house patio and the other near a road, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
Katyusha rockets have a range of up to 25 km (15 miles) -- much longer than the more crude Qassam rockets, which are more commonly fired from Gaza into Israel.

"more commonly fired" is a euphemism for "fired every single day".

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.

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

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