March 25, 2011, 6:44 AM
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What are we to make of the fact that no one has taken credit for Wednesday's bombing in Jerusalem?
Wednesday's bombing was not a stand-alone event. It was part and parcel of the new Palestinian terror war that is just coming into view. As Israel considers how to contend with the emerging onslaught, it is important to notice how it differs from its predecessors.
On a military level, the tactics the Palestinians have so far adopted are an interesting blend of state-of-the-art missile attacks with old fashioned knife and bomb-in-the- briefcase attacks. The diverse tactics demonstrate that this war is a combination of Iranian-proxy war and local terror pick-up cells. The attacks are also notable for their geographic dispersion and for the absence thus far of suicide attacks.
For the public, the new tactics are not interesting and the message they send is nothing new. With our without suicide bombers, Israelis understand that we are entering a new period of unremitting fear, where we understand that we are in danger no matter where we are. Whether we're in bed asleep, or our way to work or school, or sitting down on a park bench or at a restaurant; whether we're in Rishon Lezion, Sderot, Jerusalem, Itamar or Beersheba, we are in the Palestinians' crosshairs. All of us are "settlers." All of us are in danger.
The military innovations are important for IDF commanders who need to figure out how to answer the public's demand for security. They will have to draw operational conclusions about the challenges this mix of tactics and strategic architecture poses.
While the military rationales of the various Palestinian terrorists are important, like its two predecessors, the new Palestinian terror war is first and foremost a political war. Like its two predecessors which began in 1987 and 2000, the new terror war's primary purpose is not to murder Jews. Killing is just an added perk. The new war's primary purpose is to weaken Israel politically in order to bring about its eventual collapse.
And it is in this political context that the various terror armies' refusal to take responsibility for Wednesday's attack in Jerusalem, and their moves to shroud in ambiguity much of responsibility for their recent terror activity is noteworthy. In the past, Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad were quick to take credit for massacres.
Initially it seemed as though that standard practice was being continued in the newest round of murder. Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigades for instance were quick to take credit for the massacre of the Fogel family in Itamar on March 12. Hamas seemed to be competing for credit when its forces held a public celebration of the atrocity in Gaza City on March 13.
But then Fatah withdrew its claim of responsibility and Hamas never claimed credit.
As for the rocket and missile barrages from Gaza, Hamas took credit for the 58 projectiles shot off on southern Israel last Saturday. But then it let Islamic Jihad take credit for the longer range Katyusha attacks on Rishon Lezion, Beersheba, Gedera and Ashdod this week.
And again, no one took credit for the bombing in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
WHAT DOES this sudden bout of modesty tell us about how the Palestinian terror masters view the current onslaught against Israel? What does it teach us about their assessment of their political challenges and goals?
In the two previous terror wars, the terror groups had two motivations for taking credit for their attacks. The first reason was to expand their popularity. In Palestinian society, the more Jews you kill the more popular you are.
The main reason Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections was because the Palestinians believed that Hamas terror was responsible for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in August 2005. Even though Fatah actually killed more Jews than Hamas did between 2000 and 2005, Hamas reaped greater rewards for its attacks because its record was unblemished by political engagement with Israel.
The second reason the various groups have always been quick to take credit for attacks was because they wanted to show their state sponsors that they were putting their arms, training and financial support to good use. Saddam Hussein and the Saudi royals paid handsome rewards to the families of killed and captured terrorists. Over the past several decades, Iran, Syria and Hizbullah have spent hundreds of millions of dollars arming, training and financing Palestinian terror cells from Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad alike.
The fact that today neither Hamas nor Fatah is interested in taking credit for Wednesday's bombing in Jerusalem or for massacre of the Fogel family is a signal that something fundamental is changing in the political dynamic between the two factions. Before considering what the change may be, a word of explanation about Islamic Jihad is in order.
Islamic Jihad was by Iran in 1988. Unlike Hamas and Fatah, Islamic Jihad has no political aspirations. It has no political operatives and it is content to limit its operations to terrorism.
After the much larger and more powerful Hamas subordinated its command and control to Iran in 2005, Islamic Jihad has served as nothing more than a Hamas sub-contractor. It carries out and takes credit for attacks when Hamas doesn't wish to do so.
There are two plausible internal Palestinian explanations for Fatah's and Hamas's newfound reticence and they are not mutually exclusive. The first explanation of their silence is that the recent talk about Fatah and Hamas forming a unity government is serious. Fatah's announcement Thursday that it has arrested two Islamic Jihad terrorists in connection with the Jerusalem bombing is notable in this vein. It signals that after four years of fighting Hamas forces in Judea and Samaria, Fatah is looking for a more politically convenient group of usual suspects.
The second reason that Hamas and Fatah may be keeping mum about who is responsible is because they both know who did it and they are using the terror to gain leverage against one another at the negotiating table. If Hamas is carrying out the attacks, it leaders may simply be using them to strengthen their bargaining position in the unity talks. Fatah knows that if Hamas takes credit for the attacks its mass popularity in Judea and Samaria will grow. And if Fatah is carrying them out, its leaders may be using them to show Hamas that they are serious about burying the hatchet with the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
WHILE THE internal political dynamics of the various Palestinian terror groups are interesting, they are not the main game in town. For both Fatah and Hamas, the most important target audience is Europe. But before we discuss how the Palestinians' assessment of Europe is connected to their move to obfuscate organizational responsibility for terrorism, it is necessary to consider the concrete political goal of their new terror war.
Fatah is in the midst of a global campaign to build international support for a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence in September. From Israel's perspective, the campaign is threatening for two reasons. First, a unilaterally declared Palestinian state will be in a de facto state of war with Israel. Second, if the Palestinians secure international recognition for their "state" in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza, the move will place 500,000 Jews who live in these areas in the international crosshairs.
Much of the discussion about this goal has centered on whether or not US President Barack Obama will veto a UN Security Council resolution endorsing such a declaration. And based on Obama's behavior to date, the Palestinians have good reason to believe that he may support their move. But in truth, the discussion about how the US will respond to the planned Palestinian declaration is largely beside the point. The point of the threatened declaration is not to get a UN Security Council resolution supporting it. The point is to get the EU to enact further sanctions against Israel.
And this brings us back to the new policy of not taking credit for attacks on Israel, and to the decision to launch a new terror war in general. On the face of it, at such a sensitive time for the Palestinians diplomatically, it would seem that they would want to keep their traditional good cop-Fatah, bad cop-Hamas routine going and have Hamas take the credit for the recent attacks. Indeed, it would seem that the Palestinians would want to hold off on attacks altogether until after they declare independence.
The fact that Fatah and Hamas have neither waited until after September to attack nor sought to differentiate themselves from one another as the attacks coalesce into a new terror campaign indicates strongly that the Palestinians no longer feel they need to pretend to oppose terror to maintain European support for their war against Israel.
The Palestinians assess that Europe is swiftly moving towards the point where it no longer needs to pretend to be fair to Israel. The British, French and German votes in favor of the Palestinians' anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution last month were the latest sign that the key European governments have adopted openly hostile policies towards Israel.
More importantly, these policies are not the consequence of Palestinian lobbying efforts and so Israel cannot hope to change them through counter-lobbying efforts. Europe's abandonment of even the guise of fairness towards Israel is the product of domestic political realities in Europe itself. Between the rapidly expanding political power of Europe's Muslim communities and the virulently anti-Israel positions nearly universally adopted by the European media, European governments are compelled to adopt ever more hostile positions towards Israel to appease their Israel-hating publics and Muslim communities.
Take British Prime Minister David Cameron for example. When Cameron called Gaza "an open air prison" last year, it wasn't because he had just spoken to Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas. And he certainly wasn't acting out of conviction. Cameron surely knew that his statement was an utter lie. And he also surely knew that Hamas is a jihadist terror group that shares the ideology of its fellow Muslim Brotherhood spin-off al Qaida.
But for Cameron, far more important than Gaza's relative prosperity and Hamas's genocidal goals was the fact that in the last British elections, the UK's Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC-UK) successfully ousted six members of parliament who expressed support for Israel.
The Palestinians recognize that they don't need to pretend to be good to get Europe to support them. After the people of Europe have been brainwashed by their media and intimidated by the Muslim communities, they have developed a Pavlovian response regarding Israel whereby every mention of Israel makes them hate it more. It doesn't matter if the story is about the massacre of Israeli children or the bombing of synagogues and nursery schools. They know that Israel is the guilty party and expect their governments to punish it.
What the Palestinian silence on who committed what atrocity tells us is that in this new terror war, the Palestinians believe they cannot lose. With Europe in tow, Fatah and Hamas feel free to combine their forces and advance both militarily and politically.
Originally published in the Jerusalem Post.
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'Fatah and Hamas feel free to combine their forces and advance both militarily and politically.'
You left out another important key to this likely final putsch by those who snared,trapped Israel by way of the peace process.
The Israeli leadership's weak and vacillating lack of resolve and clear vision of defeating this two headed enemy.
There is no concept in Israel of defeating Hamas and Fatah because of the peace process lie.
The West SET THIS TRAP TO RESTRAIN Israel for the peace lie.
Immobilized like a paraplegic at deaths door the best Israel's leaders can do is lie and tell the public about the firm response to terrorism they will never give to Fatah or Hamas until it is too late.
The Palestinians know full well that they have free rein while Israel is handcuffed and restrained.
Much like the Jews of Europe who passively boarded the trains to their final resting place.
Jews have once again proven too stubborn to learn from recent history,too naive to wake up.
The Palestinians know exactly how far Netanyahu and Barak will go.
So we will see more lies of harsh responses, empty fields and building targeted while Jewish blood flows deep and free in the streets because there are no red lines in Israel ,the people stand for nothing and fall for the peace lie.
That is their only vision unlike the enemy whose final vision is becoming a reality with the help of Jewish quisling in charge.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/deborah-lurya/for-leftist-collaborators-and-leaders-the-mark-of-cain/199938886704513 This is dedicated to all traitors and collaborators who proposed to betray their fellow Jews, think again!
As a Brit I would agree that Cameron knew that his comment about Gaza being an open prison was a lie. He also made a bit of a fool of himself when he condemned Israel for the Mavi Marmara incident - and *then* called for an inquiry! Surely the most intelligent thing for a leader to do would be to wait for the results of the inquiry before issuing a condemnation!
Cameron was always pro-Israel but he seemed to undergo a change when he became PM. I don't believe he was lying before because the Jewish community in the UK is tiny and not worth worrying about in terms of votes. He therefore had no opportunistic reason to express pro-Israeli sentiments.
I do think there is some form of Muslim and/or Arab pressure behind the UK's stance on Israel, but I don't think that ordinary Brits have any animosity towards Israel nor any great love for the Palestinians. I'm not sure Israel is particularly on their radar anyway. Future damage can be done by the slow drip-drip of poison emanating from the BBC and the media, and if Israel doesn't get its side of the story out, there will be - as ever - no competing narrative.
If only Israel would find a way to reach the ordinary people I believe things would change. Brits are beginning to get angry about the change in their society, brought about by so-called leaders of the Muslim communities demanding (and commanding)so much attention and special treatment. They need to see the link between what Israel is fighting and where they share common ground with their own extremists. At the moment, the Palestinians are generally presented as an oppressed group who would - to paraphrase Melanie Phillips - bend their suicide belts into cucumber frames if not for the suffering imposed on them by Israel. Presented with this one-sided story of a down-trodden underdog, many Brits just don't see that they are actually a part of the whole global jihad. Nor do they realise that their taxes help support the Palestinians.
I believe Cameron's recent speech about the failure of multiculturalism was meant to address the growing concerns of the ordinary Brit - whether this will be followed by an tangible action is debatable.
Where the main problem lies is in the so-called Intelligentsia and opinion-formers plus the NGO's, Unions, BBC, media and other similar institutions. Students and academics are also part of the 'anti' group - largely because they are ideological and there is no alternative narrative being told.
As I've said before, Israel is way behind the Palestinians in their use of the media. For all intents and purposes Israel has not tried to tell their story and I'm afraid to say that if they don't, the other side will continue to dominate.
So if they believe they cannot lose, they need some persuasion
Israel seems to me like the little boy in the playground. He believes if he stands up to the bully, things will only get worse
1. Time for Israel to come out of denial. In the world you have few friends, so stop trying to appease them
2. An eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth. Hit them where it hurts. Stop treating prisoners well, cut off aid from Gaza, no more electricity
3. Most of the Western media hates Israel and distorts the truth. So deny their reporters entrance. Arm your spokemen / women with "three quesions to ask / three points to make" about (for example) the BBC's blatant misrepresentation
4. Time to get your own version of Al Jazeera
5. Deal with Iran. You need to cut off the hydra's head. You have the power - do it.
Your God is with you. He will never forsake you. Christians all over the World are waiting for you to act, and we are praying
Shalom Shabbat
Israel should develop an offensive diplomatic approach with regard to increasingly hostile European countries.
The idea is very simple. If Europeans want to create an Arab state in the heart of Israel (dedicated to Israel’s destruction), perhaps Israel may call for the creation of several new states in various European countries. Fortunately there are plenty of separatist movements in Spain, France and other countries in Europe.
For example, Israel may announce that it supports the establishment of an independent Basque, Catalan and Galician states in Spain, and an independent Basque and Breton states in France. Throw in an independent Corsica as well. The representatives of corresponding nationalist organizations should be invited to open official offices in Israel. Other European countries have developing separatist movements as well.
But maybe more importantly, Israel should use the growing Arab and/or Muslim communities in European countries to call for the establishment of Arab and/or Muslim states, particularly in the United Kingdom and France with parts of London and Paris as their capitals respectively. Surely, the leadership and general population in both countries will cheer this idea. Wouldn’t they want to teach Israel a lesson regarding how an Arab and Muslim minority should be treated?
The guiding principle of Israel’s relations with Europe from now on should be this: If you want to light my house on fire, I will light your house on fire. Fortunately there is a lot of “flammable” materiel around. Perhaps those who want to harm Israel will learn that doing so may carry a very high price.
"What the Palestinian silence on who committed what atrocity tells us is that in this new terror war, the Palestinians believe they cannot lose. With Europe in tow, Fatah and Hamas feel free to combine their forces and advance both militarily and politically."
What it also tells us is that the Palestinians are counting on an Israeli military reaction to the new terror war.
No matter how justified, the Palestiian/western left narrative will be that any physical defense by Israel is 'proof' of her inherent aggression. The Palestinian assessment is that both Europe and Obama have fully accepted the meme that Israel does not have the right to self-defense because she hasn't the right to exist...
Now that the meme is accepted, the next step in the Palestinian strategy is to secure a European/American 'protected' independent Palestinian state from which to conduct a war against Israel, whose sole purpose is the elimination of Israel and genocide upon the Jews.
An Israeli strategy is needed that addresses the new European and American realities. Obama's presidency shall pass and he does not represent the majority American view of Israel, though his view is growing in adherents. European leadership however does represent the majority view, so that is not going to change within the foreseeable future. Europe, with the latest UN declaration is effectively declaring a de facto state of war upon Israel.
And with the new UN declaration that it now has the 'right' to arbitrarily declare war upon a member nation... under the new "Responsibility to Protect", the mechanisms are in place to establish a unilaterally declared Palestinian state, one protected by the world's military assets.
So it is past time to develop a strategy both that reflects the new realities and develops tactics to neutralize those new realities.
The best potential leverage Israel has is European cowardice and western economies dependence upon the flow of oil from the M.E. Cowardice however is only present when the coward believes they have something to fear and Israel's ambivalence, derived from its left, is the greatest obstacle to Israel establishing a basis for Europe to fear it. Europe will continue to try to appease the Islamic 'alligator' and Israel is the greatest 'morsel' Europe can offer Islam.
Discussion of all of this however is ultimately futile, until Israel faces its fundamental issue; as long as the majority of Israeli's continue to be swayed by the ambivalence of the left, it will continue to follow the path of appeasement and, there is little-to-nothing it can do to stop its march to the gallows.
Once and if it abandons its ambivalence, Israel can free itself from the chains of restraint that are compelling her toward suicide.
No one can save Israel from the Islamic 'beast' but Israel... To do that requires that the majority of Israelis decide that they will not "go quietly into the night", because they have every right to exist and that if necessary, they will fight the entire world for that right to exist.
Israel's right to exist extends beyond mere national survival; Israel's uniqueness is beyond dispute and rests upon a historical foundation that Israel's secular population has abandoned. The Judeo/Christian ethical system is the spiritual foundation, the 'heart' that is joined to the Greco/Roman 'intellect'ual foundation, that underlies Western Civilization.
Israel and America are the last, best hope for mankind, one cannot stand without the other, and should either fall, a new modern dark age awaits.
To develop the needed determination, it is critical that Israeli's understand an important truism; in any fight, it's not the size of the 'dog' that matters, its the amount of 'fight' in the dog that determines who prevails.
To develop the motivation to emotionally embrace that truism, all Israeli's need do is look to the innocence of their children and accept that anything that threatens those children is an evil that must be fought. And that whatever the sacrifice, their children's future is worth it.
The silence also had an unintended benefit. Netanyahu used it to daemonize the "settlers" and nationalists. It gives the Israeli Police and the IDF one more excuse to beat up Jews and let Arab terrorists go free.
for the last some 6 years I've been reading Caroline's op-eds every times whenever they appear i the JPost. A few times I as I remember tried to send a comment, but unfortunately they were not successful to be published. now I make another atempt. I wish to make it clear that I totally agree with her view here in this latest, but I need to say that I'm slightly (or almost) disappointed. I think she just perhaps put on an extra emphasis on two well-known figures in the EU-elites who count. Ms. Glick should have thoroughly turned on the morally absolutely bankrupt, confused, incomptent, what's more base and devious Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy "supremo". That woman clearly hates Israel as it is clear from a number of her intonations, utterings, and even more actually of what she *omits* from her press statements. The good news perhaps is that others are starting to recognize this, too as pro-Israel Christians, our supporters take note of this. The woman has proven to be already a complete embarrassment to Europe, and she is crystal-clearly and instinctively a sort of soft-enemy of the state of Israel. There's no point in obfuscating about this. A couple of lines could have been added to the "pro-Israeli", but in reality clandestinely anti-Israeli Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, too. Or the latest French FM in line, the "traditional", but old-time antisemite Alain Juppé. He reportedly joined an obnoxious letter of a number of ex-EU policymakers and officials to call on the EU to boycott Israel. Juppé was allegedly allowed entry to "Quai d'Orsay" on condition that he withdraws his name from the would-be list of boycotters.
I believe the outright treachery and antisemitism of MANY in Europe should not be something for the pro-Israeli media to shy away from in order to name and shame these evil individuals. I hope Carolnie and others will continue to reflect on the utter immorality of the (nowadays mainly) West-Europeans and their despicable games.
Thank You.
In other words Israel must give them enough rope so that they can hang themselves and then totally annihilate/devastate them so they cease to be a factor in the region. Ironically only a major war can save Israel now, a war where the Palestinians, Hizbullah and Syria will be effectively nullified.
Perhaps The Palestinians are over playing their hands, hopefully this is true because I would like the arrogant trolls to pay for all their unwarranted hatred.
In the United States, we have a Public Broadcasting System(PBS) which is supported largely by our tax dollars. PBS now broadcasts news programs from Europe, with the same brain washing Europe gets. Add to that, PBS daily broadcasts of Al Jazeera.
Caroline describes elegantly how like Pavlov's Dogs, we are all not only being subliminally brain washed to become ever more insensitive to news of attacks upon Israel.We are being programmed to actually hate Israel. At the same time, Israel's enemies are having a hissy fit over their hysterical misperceptions of a Zionist domination of the US media, screaming about how Al Jazeera is the best of the news services for unbiased news coverage.
In addition, it is my sense that in the US Military not unlike on US college campuses, Jewish Americans are forced to declare themselves anti-zionist or else they are branded as un-American and treated as outcasts.I believe Jonathan Pollard was so damaged from the way he was treated as a civilian analyst for The US Navy, he felt he had nothing to lose and in essense commited suicide. Parents of American high school students who are contemplating a career in the US military beware. Save your children, keep them away from Uncle Scam, unless they are fully prepared to wave the flag of anti-zionism every minute of every day and then some, like beat up on a fellow Jewish person from time to time. Just say NO! Major in something else.
Walking into the world of the PA is like entering a world of a Graham Greene character: "He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return." What is the character of the Janus-faced Terrorist Entity but duplicity, convolutions, and violence? When Yasser Arafat was in charge, I remember thinking, naively, that he wasn't able to control the extremist elements. Then it was discovered that he was in the middle of the violence. A leopard doesn't change his spots. He had renounced nothing. It is not surprising that his political children are the same way.
You have to hand it to the PA: they are great at public relations in the international arena. Or obfuscation. They have done so much to legitimize the Janus-faced Terrorist Entity among the governments, NGOs, and activists of the world. No mottley bunch of terrorists in the world have gain so much celebrity status than the Palestinian factions.
Since 1993, the PA could have built a legitimate state that could have been a source of pride for their people. But no, they were so wrapped up in their Cimmerian death cult and vendetta. The excuse of the "occupation" is ringing with the moral clarity of a cracked bell.
After the expulsion from Gaza, the greenhouses that produced so much produce were left standing so that the Palestinians could invest in their future. However, the desert wind has left the plastic film in tatters. From palm tree oasis to wasteland, isn't that the politcal fable of the PA? Other peoples of the world would not have squandered such a grand opportunity for self-determination.
And what about the upheaval in Egypt and Lybia? Could there be some changes going on among the Palestinians in order to absorb and utilize the momentem created by the changes going in these countries and elsewhere in the ME?
If international recognition of some Palestinian state wins approval in the EU and the US, a no-fly zone could might be attempted against Israel too. A low profile among Hamas and Fatah would make it easier to credibly make such an effort against Israel. Hamas and Fatah among the Palestinians would be just as easy to ignore as the Muslim Brotherhood is in Egypt and Lybia.
Actually Israel has been doing hasbara continuously since even before Independence -continuously explaining why she has a right to exist. No other nation ever needs to do this including the United States which gained its territories by treason against a lawful monarch, military conquest against Mexico, illegal purchases with Mexico and France, bullying diplomacy and making facts on the ground against Spain and Britain and mass murder and expulsion of the native Americans.
Israel should take Lev Jabotinsky's advice and quit apologising for breathing. She should do whatever needs to be done. Unfortunately Netanyahu and the Israeli left are appeasers and Netanyahu the weakest PM Israel has ever had.
If the people of J Street love the Arab-Palestinian society so much, I think that they should move to Jordan, Lebanon, or Saudia Arabia. I'd wish them luck with their Hamas brethren. They can live there happily, if they're accepted well as Jews in that society, or work to change THEIR society there. Too bad these people didn't go through the Holocaust.
I have been viewing these wars from the perspective of President Eisenhower's farewell speech...so since 1973 these wars (Yom Kippur war was perpetrated solely to raise the price of oil) have been financed by high oil prices that allow Moscow, EU, and Washington to sell expensive weapons to fat with cash OPEC...so the Arabs on Judea and Samaria are merely pawns of a war machine...Iraqi civil war, with minimum oil coming to market, was the US goal!
Iraq, Libya et al invasions are just to keep the majority of their oil off the market. The dictators of Iran, that parade as religious, are the agent provocateur that must be protected and kept in office at all cost, and keep most of their oil off the market!
Again you can raise invalid objections and even call me names and turn up your nose, but you cannot disprove/ignore the correlation...
So which terror group killed the Jews this time is more likely an intelligence agency that is in fact a marketing team for the countries weapons manufacturers…who set off civil wars by manipulating ethnic masses…
European taxpayers must be made aware that, while being required to tighten their belts, they are being forced to pay for acts of terror. They may not care about those committed abroad but surely they care about the state of their own pockets.
In the final analysis Israel stands alone as she did in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and the various skirmishes over the years. The upheavals in Egypt, Libya, Iran and Syria are simply the people changing one form of slavery for another. Certainly the Palestinians and the Arab nations have proven their willingness to subjugate particularly Israel and generally the free world through terror and violence. They have no fear of being criticized for their actions for they are only doing what others who are more "civilized" would like to in the name of antisemitism. It is time for us to stop apologizing, bowing and scraping and do what we have done well in the past knowing that G-d is with us.
I am a little surprised at the amount of credit given to the Palestinian leadership in this piece. Casting the murder of the Fogels and the attack in Jerusalem as part of a tight, unified war strategy is a stretch. To suggest that it is further fluently paired with a communications strategy aimed at Europe strikes me as a mite paranoid. There are many actual state governments who are too disorganised to pull this kind of thing off.
As a European myself, I would also caution against overestimating the relevance of the continent's Muslim minorities to national politics. To take the UK and David Cameron as an example: if he were so in thrall to the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, he would never have dared make the anti-multiculturalism speech on February 5th, where he essentially put Britain's Muslim organisations on notice, harshly criticising their inadequate opposition to terrorism. At the same time as he spoke, the English Defence League, an extreme-right-wing organisation which is virulently anti-Muslim, held its biggest rally in history. Polls consistently suggest that the indigenous British public wants to protect its culture from immigrants, a trend followed around Europe. Also, British media is dominated by Rupert Murdoch, who is quite right-wing and sympathetic to Israel - it's untrue to say that the UK public suffers from constant anti-Israel indoctrination.
There's no significant political cost for Cameron for being pro-Israel. So, if he does say something critical of the Jewish State, it's not inconceivable that he might genuinely believe that Israel actually is doing something wrong. And I don't think anyone, even Caroline, would argue that the Gaza policy is a success.
As far as not taking responsibility for the terrorism, this works in two ways:
One, it avoids admission of guilt of terrorism, which is somewhat important for the arab claim to a new state.
And two, by pretending that it was an amateur job, it inspires real amateur attacks.
On the other hand, while this is bait for "an israeli overreaction," a point can justifiably be made for a population transfer, as that random attacks on civilians by arabs shows that on the whole, the murderous arab population is out of control, and is an unsafe threat to the jewish state.
I don't know what's going on. The land was "given" to Abraham because of his faith. After 1900 years it has been restored to Jacob. Will anyone be "allowed" to take it again from Jacob? I think not.
Counter-Propaganda : In several European countries they are laws punishing the broadcasting of false news. In France when a leftist jewish journalist ( Charles Enderlin ) broadcasted a fake, truncated, newsreel about the fictitious killing of a young arab ( Mohamed Al-Dura ) by israeli fire in Gaza on the french public television "Antenne 2" he was brought to court by a local jewish politician ( Philippe Karsenty) and he was condemned twice
for his spreading of false informations. So there is an urgency to set up a media watch tackling judicially the broadcasters of false informations.
Will Europe fall prey to the Muslims before they can sell out Israel?
Will Obama relinquish a second term to vote for a Palestinian state?
Will the Arab states seek Israel's assistance to save them before they become vassals of Iran?
Will Iran fall under the weight of its own iniquities?
Will the Palestinians revolt against their leaders to retain their excellent life styles acquired in partnership with Israel?
Will an intelligence coup pinpoint the perpetrators of the recent nasty events and thus allow for proper retribution?
Will the MSM relearn to support Israel after having an epiphany about justice for all?
Will Congress cut off funding for the Palestinians after one-to-many atrocities?
Will Plutonium poisoning from Fukushima Japan end all need to consider other issues?
Will oil become obsolete as an energy source?
Actually, it is oil's obsolescence that will that will change the world for the benefit of Israel. And there is hope just today for this possibility: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/artificial-leaf/
In the end, we cannot know from where our salvation will arise.
Europe is in very serious trouble. The lies that it and its media engage in, are as much a threat to it as they are to Israel or anywhere else. Europe is engaging its own destruction.
By the time most people wake up to that fact, it will be too late, as things are at the moment.
Europe, with US help, was able to drag itself out of a totalitarian nightmare during WW2, but given the technology that now exists, such a rescue is unlikely to be possible.
The future does not look good.
Philippe, you are absolutely correct. Sometimes I feel that either the organisations or people involved are not incisive enough to deal with and address the reality that is happening, or they do grasp what the nature of the beast is, but are too limited in their reach, penetration, into the western mind, media, awareness.
I realise that common sense is usually given the 'silent treatment', but there are ways to confront "honest" journalists to live up to their claimed respect for the truth, for instance.
Caroline, your reports need to be carried far and wide!!