Friday, April 8, 2016
Dear Family & Friends,
More pictures about Meir Ettinger’s bris (beautiful) & continued imprisonment with no trial, no evidence, no case (tragic & unjust). I hope you click on Netzach Binyamin to see the You-Tube of the bris: – it’s inspiring! Remember: MEIR means the Enlightener!
Also click on photos at end of #3 for April 4,6,7,& 8 for more stories to enlighten you.
Then 8 deep articles as Food for Thought.
I’m in the Pesach Cleaning Parasha right now – although the younger women in my house are really doing all the work. G-d Bless them all!
Have a sweet night & a swell day! All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom
Our Website: WinstonIsraelInsight.com
2.Meir Ettinger: Worst Criminal on Earth?
6.HARD WAR – Israel, are you listening? By Lt. Col. Kent S Ralston USMC (Ret.)
1.Meir Ettinger: Prison guard is abusing me
Ettinger’s lawyer calls to suspend officer for ‘harsh abuse’ including false complaints. Prison response: Ettinger threatened to kill guard. By Ido Ben Porat, Shoshana Miskin First Publish: 4/7/2016, 9:45 PM
Meir Ettinger in court – Photo: Elishav Har Shalom
Administrative detainee Meir Ettinger – who has been jailed without trial or charges for over eight months – and his lawyer demanded the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) suspend an officer Ettinger claims abused him.
Sources close to Ettinger claim that since Monday, the day of his firstborn son’s brit milah (circumcision), the officer in question abused Ettinger on a number of occasions.
The officer allegedly refused Ettinger his time allowed to call his wife, and later also filed false complaints against Ettinger and took away all the electrical devices out of his room.
Honenu attorney Sima Kochav sent an urgent letter on behalf of Ettinger to the Eshel penitentiary warden: “I was shocked to hear that in the last few days my client has been going through harsh mistreatment and abuse by an IPS officer.”
“The officer is personally picking on my client, fabricating scenarios that never happened, filling complaints against my client, complaints regarding things that never happened, and preventing my client rights granted to him by law.
“We wish to express our displeasure, and while the IPS officer’s motives are not clear, he is abusing his power and greatly mistreating my client,” wrote Kochav.
Attorney Kochav further demanded that an investigation be opened against the officer.
“I ask on behalf of my client’s interest that an immediate investigation be opened regarding the IPS guard in order to clear the matter up. There is no need to emphasize the severity of submitting false information and that is a serious offense in the Penal Code. In your capacity as prison warden, I would ask you to act immediately to stop this abuse.”
The IPS issued a terse statement in response: ”In regard to administrative detainee Meir Ettinger, a complaint was filed after he threatened to murder a prison guard.”
Meir Ettinger: Prison guard is abusing me
2.Meir Ettinger: Worst Criminal on Earth?
Anticipating the Complete Redemption…???? ???? ?? ?????? ?????
06 April 2016 Meir Ettinger: Worst Criminal on Earth? 27 Adar Bet 5776
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Meir Ettinger, front Basel Awidat/Flash 90 |
[Gail Sez: Click on the baby’s new name underlined below: Netzach Binyamin for a wonderful set of Avraham Shapira’s photos & a lovely, inspiring 4:22 minute YouTube of the bris, the joyous (not wild & unkempt as the Jpost writer said 4/4/16] |
Meir Ettinger’s newborn son was named Netzach Binyamin this past Monday. But he was unable to attend.
This reminds me of how American soldiers coming home from Vietnam used to be persecuted, making their post-traumatic stress disorder worse. Many people felt that the soldiers didn’t try hard enough to stay out of the war. But what we didn’t know years ago has come back to haunt us in Israel.
What does this have to do with Meir? Because he and his wife (and now, son) are considered Hilltop Youth. They are persecuted for their goal of adding to Israel from the territory that has already been given to us, and note the heavily loaded, exaggerated terms (compared to a Jewish form of ISIS, etc.) used in the Wikipedia definition (of course, the youth themselves cannot be allowed to define themselves!). This is on top of his being from the Kahane family, which condemns him already — and if you think I’m exaggerating, consider that his grandfather, uncle and aunt were assassinated by Arabs in an attempt to severely intimidate the extended family, if not exterminate it, may it never be.
Arutz 7 reports concerning the refusal to let Meir attend his first-born son’s brith milah:
Attorney Ariel Atari who represented Ettinger in court said in response: “It is the right of a person that his son not begin his life within the walls of the prison. IPS’s argument in court that there is not enough time to prepare logistics to release him today is scandalous, given the fact that we applied for an appeal for eight days already. The reality in which an administrative detainee, with no incriminating evidence against him, cannot leave to attend his son’s circumcision, whereas a terrorist convicted of murder would be granted leave – should infuriate every law-abiding citizen.”
But the concept of “thought crime” was invented for such as Meir Ettinger, I am convinced. It’s only because of what he wrote on the Internet, the expression of his ideas — and not plans — that he is in jail now. This, while books like Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are selling like wildfire, and practically setting wild fires, elsewhere without any consequences for the publishers and the fundraisers.
It confirms any thoughts that there might be a conspiracy, first to dispirit the Jew and then to destroy him. Though I hate to say it, some Jews in high places are in on it, thinking they will be spared in the aftermath. They should learn this lesson while there is still time: If you agree that Israel should be dismantled and all Jews wiped out, and you are a Jew, you will be among the first to go. You have to be an example, you know.
The spiritually aware know better. They sense Mashiach in the air, with retribution not far behind. May the Victory of the Son of the Right Hand (and of all knowing Jews, as well as those of the rest of the world who appreciate it) be revealed quickly!
Mazal tov, Meir, Moriyah, Netzach Binyamin and family. May you increase with joy and may nothing harmful touch you.
Release Meir Ettinger! | Zaro Chayo v’Kayomo! (May his child(ren) live and endure!) | Brith of Netzach Binyamin ben Meir David Chai: Exclusive Pictures
[Gail Sez: Also see WinstonIsraelInsight.com of April 4,5,& 6 for the following pictures I copied. Now enjoy the beautiful Kosher YouTube of the bris & the dancing. Gail]
Posted by CDG, Yerushalayim, Eretz Yisrael Shlemah at 4/06/2016 10:02:00 AM
Meir Ettinger was not released for his son’s Brit despite major protests and a last minute appeal before the Supreme Court. The Brit went on though with hundreds of Jews coming to celebrate with the family.
The Brit of Meir Ettinger’s son took place in Jerusalem on Monday April 4th in the afternoon. In the end, Ettinger was not released for the Brit, but hundreds of members of the public came to support the family in his place.
On Sunday night, over 100 protestors held a rally near the Bridge of Strings and blocked traffic. The protestors held signs reading “Let Meir Ettinger attend his son’s Brit.”
Protestors Sunday night by the Bridge of Strings.
A protestor holding a sign reading “Let Meir Ettinger out for his son’s Brit.”
The morning of the Brit there was an appeal before the Supreme Court where lawyers from Honenu once again requested that Ettinger be released for his firstborn son’s Brit. The appeal was rejected and at the end of the hearing one of Meir’s brothers shouted at the judges, “Stop trying to reeducate us, you’re a bunch of Bolsheviks!” The brother was removed from the court house by security guards.
Meir Ettinger at the hearing before the Supreme Court.
In the end, the Brit took place in Jerusalem with a large crowd of supporters. Rav Yitzchak Ginsburgh served as the sandak and also recited the blessing normally recited by the father of the baby.
The name of the baby, “Netzach Binyamin,” being passed on a piece of paper to be
announced.
Rav Ginsburgh holding the baby during the Brit.
The crowd at the Brit.
After the Brit itself, there was the seudat mitzvah, where all those gathered ate to celebrate the occasion. Following the seudah, there was a chassidic hitvaadut (fabrengen) with words of Torah from Rav Ginsburgh as well as singing and dancing.
Rav Ginsburgh and Meir Ettinger together at a previous event.
[Gail Sez: Click on the underline of each photo below April 7, 6, 4 & 8 to see the story of it]
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APRIL 7, 2016 Activists protest outside Duma: Find the truth
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APRIL 6, 2016 Three Jews arrested: New round of Shabak torture?
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APRIL 4, 2016 Soldiers in trouble for receiving sweets from residents
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APRIL 8, 2016 Silent Intifada: Four Jews injured in terror attacks
4.Case Closed Against Binyamin Brigade Commander Who Killed Stone Throwing Arab
By: David Israel JewishPress.com Published: April 10th, 2016
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Col. Yisrael Shomer – Photo Credit: IDF
Following the public storm over the killing of a terrorist who was lying on the ground in Hebron on Purim day, the military prosecutor on Sunday announced closing the case against Col. Yisrael Shomer, Binyamin Brigade Commander, who was documented by B’Tselem — just like the 19-year-old medic was in Hebron — shooting to death an Arab youth after the latter had broken his car windshield with a huge rock. That shooting took place some nine months ago, in the village of A-Ram in Judea and Samaria.
The Brigade Commander has gone through nine months of hell for essentially doing his duty and taking down a terrorist who could have caused his death and the death of everyone else in his car. He was interrogated with a warning and could, much like the Hebron medic, face manslaughter and even murder charges.
Binyamin Brigade Commander’s car after the attack
The reasoning behind the decision not to prosecute went as follows: the colonel shot at the Arab terrorist as part of an arrest protocol. He was aiming for the suspect’s legs, but, apparently, his aim wasn’t so good and the bullet got the terrorist in the head. The lethal shot was not intentional, and therefore there will be no charges.
The IDF Spokesperson’s statement on Sunday, framing the shot which was taken while in motion as a tactic error. And since it was committed under operational circumstances it did not “cross the criminal boundary” and did not justify court proceedings.
It is doubtful whether the Binyamin Brigade Commander would have gotten away so easy if not for the sea change that Israeli society has undergone in the past two weeks, with an open, aggressive rebellion against the collaboration between leftwing NGOs and the military prosecution to end IDF soldiers’ careers and to punish soldiers for doing their military duty.
Indeed, the fact that the IDF statement has gone out of its way to insist that the colonel’s shooting was an operational error was a clear reference to the Hebron medic’s case, where the prosecution will argue that the shooting took place some 10 minutes after the operation had been concluded. About the Author: David writes news at JewishPress.com.
Case Closed Against Binyamin Brigade Commander Who Killed Stone Throwing Arab
5.Still makes no sense: Supporting “Palestine” while opposing Jihad by Prof. Louis René Beres
Any Palestinian state would undoubtedly become another conspicuous addition to the West’s list of Jihadist foes. Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com Published: Friday, April 08, 2016 12:24 AM
Prof. Louis René Beres, (Ph.D, Princeton, 1971) is emeritus professor of Political Science.
At his recent Washington summit on nuclear security, President Barack Obama correctly identified the looming threat of nuclear terrorism.[1]Nonetheless, the president continues to believe that he can simultaneously oppose Islamic radicalism and support Palestinian statehood. Such an ironic belief, it is easy to explain, makes no logical sense. A Palestinian state – any Palestinian state – would undoubtedly become another conspicuous addition to our extant list of Jihadist foes.
Palestine, therefore, would also become another possible nation-based source of anti-American nuclear terrorism.
What might actually happen? At some point, at least after they are finally able to stop slaughtering each other, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas could finally advance a joint plan for Palestinian sovereignty in the ‘West Bank’ (Judea/Samaria), Gaza, and East Jerusalem.
Such an announcement, while being expressly contrary to binding expectations of the PA’s Oslo Agreement with Israel, would also undermine authoritative international law at more general levels. Most obvious would be the plan’s flagrant indifference to requirements of The Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1934), also called the “Montevideo Convention.”
This foundational treaty remains the governing legal document on statehood.
Here, history needs more precise pride of place. On November 29, 2012, the U.N. General Assembly voted to upgrade the Palestinian Authority to the status of a “nonmember observer state.” By definition, however, this action was not a bestowal of sovereignty, or, indeed, of any “full legal personality.”
Significantly, there has never ever been a state of Palestine, not in 1948, when Israel lawfully emerged from its League of Nations mandate, or, for that matter, at any other time.
President Obama, stubbornly ignoring relevant history, remains convinced of a creditable symmetry between Israeli and Palestinian claims for statehood. Still buying in to the most elementary and rhetorical misrepresentations of international law obtaining in that region between 1917 (the Balfour Declaration) and 1947 (formal U.N. General Assembly approval of a “Jewish State”), he somehow remains willing to equate a mandated Israeli return to plainly indefensible borders with proper conditions of a contractual “peace.”
President Obama, stubbornly ignoring relevant history, remains convinced of a creditable symmetry between Israeli and Palestinian claims for statehood.
Prima facie, all of the Islamic world, not only Jihadists, effectively calls for a One-State Solution from Israel. This unambiguous demand is for Israel itself to disappear, and then, to be suitably transformed from “Occupied Palestine” into a larger and blessedly uniform “Palestine.” Further, this new state, in an immutable aspect of Arab diplomacy not even presumed subject to negotiation, would either be “free of Jews” altogether, or more generously allow “former Israelis” to remain as aptly deferential subjects. With such an allowance, of course, these remnants of a formerly Jewish state could still stay alive, but only under well-known historical conditions of codified subordination and ritualized inferiority.
Such expected Islamist views of Dhimmitude would not be narrowly political or military, nor would they bead hoc constructions of the moment. Rather, they would stem from the doctrinally unchanging notion of umma (community), a core concept whose foremost and overriding obligation is to answer the obligatory call of Jihad. As had already been declared by leading representatives of all four Sunni schools of law, back on January 9, 1956: “Palestine is a permanent possession of the global Muslim umma, and must therefore be governed in perpetuity by full Islamic law.”
It’s not complicated. The complete elimination of any Jewish State existing in the Dar al- Islam (the World of Islam) has always been a permanent Islamic duty, deducible from continuously-binding rules on the status of non-Muslim minorities (dhimmi) living under Islamic authority. This means, among other things, that even if they should somehow be grafted into a “unified” Palestinian whole, that sovereignty’s constituent Palestinian communities would remain unalterably opposed to Israel’s survival as an independent state.
It’s not hard to understand. A Palestinian state, any Palestinian state, even if it could somehow avoid rapid physical takeover by ISIS or ISIS-type proxies, would have a profoundly injurious impact on American strategic interests. In every conceivable scenario, this 23rd Arab state, whatever its ultimate governing authority, would gratefully harbor the very same sort of Jihadist adversaries that we are now trying to destroy elsewhere.
Credo quia absurdum. “I believe because it is absurd.”
Incontestably, America’s ongoing war against ISIS and related sources of nuclear terrorism requires a secure and U.S.-supported Jewish State. Any American effort, however well-intentioned, to carve yet another Islamist state from Israel’s still-living body would substantially degrade U.S. security. Also worth noting here is that our strategic interests and our legal obligations coincide. While not widely understood, especially by some of our current presidential aspirants, international law is an integral part of the law of the United States. This incorporation is true, especially, by virtue of Article 6 of the Constitution (the “Supremacy Clause”), and also of several supporting and reinforcing U.S. Supreme Court decisions (most notably, the Paquete Habana, 1900).
It follows that any further official support of Palestinian statehood – either by this president, or by his successor – would represent both a meaningful infringement of America’s strategic interests, and a violation of American Constitutional law.
Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) lectures and publishes widely on Israeli security matters. He is the author of many major books and articles on international relations and international law. The chair of Project Daniel (Israel, 2003), his popular writings on terrorism and world affairs can be found in such publications as The New York Times; The Atlantic; The Hill; The Washington Times; The Jerusalem Post; Israel National News; and U.S. News & World Report. Professor Beres’ latest scholarly writings on these subjects were published in The Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School), The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; Parameters: Journal of the U.S. Army War College; The Brown Journal of World Affairs; The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; and Oxford University Press. His twelfth book, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy, will be published in April 2016 by Rowman & Littlefield:
Sources:
[1] Professor Beres’ early book on this subject was Terrorism and Global Security: The Nuclear Threat (Boulder, Co: Westview Special Studies in National and International Terrorism, 1979), 161 pp; Second Edition, completely revised, 1987.
Supporting “Palestine” while opposing Jihad by Prof. Louis René Beres
IsraPundit by Ted Belman April 7 , 2016
6.HARD WAR – Israel, are you listening? By Lt. Col. Kent S Ralston USMC (Ret.), AMERICAN THINKER
Western civilization is immolating itself on the sword of political correctness. Our leaders fail to recognize the existential threat that we now face and are unwilling to take the decisive actions necessary to combat the threat of radical jihadist Islamists.
Leadership on both sides of the political spectrum refuse to identify how we might counter this threat. This is not necessarily a new type of threat that we have not experienced before. However, what is new is our refusal to properly utilize the tools at our disposal to combat this threat.
We often hear our leadership say that it is against our values as Americans to use some of these ruthless but effective tools. Gen. George S. Patton once said, “War is cruel, ruthless and brutal and it takes a cruel, ruthless and brutal man to fight it!” It was the implementation of this approach that ultimately secured victory in 1945.
Unfortunately, our nation does not presently possess Patton’s “cruel, ruthless and brutal man” in any senior leadership position in our government or military. Politicians and generals alike often state that it is against our long-held American values to target civilians or torture prisoners. However, our country’s history is replete with examples of our leadership doing what is necessary to win. We can only logically extrapolate that those who would refuse to fight hard war would be willing to sacrifice our lives and freedom on the altar of the absurd fallacies of American values crowd.
During the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington hanged spies and executed deserters. During the Mexican-American War, Gen. Winfield Scott ordered the execution of fifty members of the St. Patrick’s Battalion in 1847. Many members of this unit were determined to be deserters from the U.S. Army who joined forces with the Mexican army under Santa Ana. Both Union and Confederate generals during the Civil War executed prisoners in retaliation for executions by their counterparts. Gen. William Sherman during his famous march from Atlanta to the sea issued General Order V which stated,
Army Corps commanders alone are entrusted with the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton gins, etc., and for them this general principle is laid down: in districts in neighborhoods where the Army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.
It was also Gen. Sherman who once famously exclaimed, “War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want!”
During the wars against the Plains Indians in the late 1800s, the U.S. Army targeted villages after Indians had attacked and killed white settlers and raped women. In response, the Army sent in one of the greatest cavalry leaders in the old West: Col. Ranald McKenzie. His job was to kill Comanche Indians, and this he did with great efficiency. He relentlessly attacked Indian villages and destroyed their pony herds which were vitally important to the survival of these Indian communities. These starving and broken Comanche Indians retired to the reservation and were no longer a threat to the local citizens.
World War II has an abundance of examples of bombings of German and Japanese cities. The firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 is estimated to be the single most destructive bombing raid in history. Approximately 100,000 Japanese citizens were killed during this attack.
Unfortunately, after World War II, the U.S. abandoned the concepts of total and hard war and adopted a more politically correct view of war. Subsequently we have never again won a war.
Now we are faced with brutal Islamic extremists who are willing to kill innocent civilians without remorse. President Obama naively refuses to even recognize the threat. Sun Tzu in his timeless essay The Art of War stated, “Know the enemy and know yourself; and in 100 battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant of both your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril. Such people are called “mad bandits”. What can they expect if not defeat?”
While I was a young Marine in attendance at Infantry Training School there was an oracular sign hanging on the wall of the classroom that simply stated, “When civilized man can no longer stand the horrors of war and declares that he will no longer fight. Then he will surely be killed or enslaved by the uncivilized.” Have we reached that point? Are we no longer willing to do what needs to be done to secure victory?
HARD WAR – Israel, are you listening? By Lt. Col. Kent S Ralston USMC (Ret.), AMERICAN THINKER
IsraPundit by Ted Belman April 7, 2016
7.US Vows to Block New Russian Arms Sale to Iran: Iranian missile system purchase not banned by nuke deal By Adam Kredo, FREE BEACON
Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter
The Obama administration is vowing to stop Russia from selling to Iran advanced fighter jets, saying that such sales would violate United Nations resolutions governing the comprehensive nuclear agreement, according to comments by a top State Department official to the Washington Free Beacon.
State Department Spokesman Mark Toner told the Free Beacon in a statement on Wednesday that the United States is opposed to Russia selling Iran a cadre of advanced Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter jets.
These sales do not directly violate the nuclear agreement signed last summer by Iran and global powers, according to officials, who explained that the sales are instead in violation of a U.N. resolution overseeing the deal.
Toner’s remarks come just a day after another top State Department official informed Congress that the administration views these arms sales as a violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution governing the nuclear agreement.
However, the administration does not view a separate sale by Russia to Iran of an advanced missile defense system as breaching the agreement, according to a State Department official.
The issue of Russian arms sales to Iran has become a diplomatic hot button in recent months, as Moscow seeks to increase its military relationship with Tehran following the implementation of the nuclear agreement.
“In terms of the specific reports about the proposed sale of the Sukhoi Su-30SM multi-role fighter jets, for example, we would almost certainly veto such a sale, as provision of such equipment to Iran would further exacerbate existing tensions in the region,” Toner told the Free Beacon in a statement.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which oversees the nuclear deal, “prohibits the sale to Iran of specified categories of conventional arms as defined for the purposes of the U.N. Register of Conventional Arms, without approval in advance on a case-by-case basis by the U.N. Security Council,” Toner explained.
This “includes the Su-30SM fighter,” he said.
The administration says it is tracking multiple reports of upcoming Russian arms sales to Iran and will express any concerns “through the appropriate channels, whether bilaterally with Russia or at the UN if any specific transaction violates any U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Toner said.
The Obama administration has reservations about a separate Russian sale to Iran of the advanced S-300 missile system, which fires ground-to-air missiles. The sale is permitted under U.N. resolutions because it is considered a defensive weapon, according to the State Department.
The nuclear agreement itself “deals strictly with Iran’s nuclear program and does not deal with anything else, including arms sales or missile tests,” a second State Department source, who was not authorized to speak on record, told the Free Beacon.
“U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 includes the restrictions on arms sales to and from Iran as well as restrictions on Iran’s missile program,” the official said. “So a proposed sale of the Su30 fighter jet, for example, would have to be brought before the Security Council for a vote, per Resolution 2231, and as we have aid, we would almost certainly veto such a sale.”
This type of sale “would be a violation of UNSCR 2231, [but] not a violation of the” actual nuclear deal, the official said.
The S-300 sales “would not be a violation” of the U.N. resolution because ground-to-air missile systems do not fall under the international body’s purview, the source said.
Though it is not a violation of the nuclear deal or U.N. resolution 2231, the administration has expressed opposition to the S-300 sale.
Thomas Shannon, the State Department’s undersecretary for political affairs, told lawmakers on Tuesday that it has raised concerns about the S-300 transaction.
“Russia has been in the process of selling S-300s to Iran since 2008,” Shannon said in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We have made it very clear to the Russians that we consider this to be a bad move, to be destabilizing and is not in keeping with what we’ve been trying to accomplish” with Iran.
UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect the Obama administration’s continued opposition to the sale by Russia of an advanced missile to Iran.
8.ISIS descends on Jordan’s border, activates suicides. Jordanian command post in Daraa
DEBKA
ISIS forces in southern Syria overran several Jordanian border crossings south of the Yarmouk River on Tuesday, April 5. This disastrous turn of events is illustrated by an exclusive picture obtained by DEBKAfile of an ISIS fighter unfurling the organization’s flag at one of the crossings which sports a Jordanian flag.
The picture taken the same day shocked the royal court and the Jordanian military command in Amman.
Our military sources report that an urgent conference was called at the Military Operations Command (MOC), north of Amman to devise measures for containing the Islamic State’s leap into more territory on the Syrian-Jordanian border. It was attended by Jordanian, American, Israeli, Saudi and UAE officers.
They voiced apprehension about three developments which give Daesh a substantial edge
1. A group of high ISIS officers traveled south from headquarters in Raqqa in the last few days, took command of the 3,000 fighters of the affiliated Yarmouk Brigades, and is now working to form a continuous jihadist enclave along Syria’s borders with Israel and Jordan, like the 90-kilometer ISIS strip blocking part of the Turkish border.
This enclave would directly threaten the Israeli Golan and northern Jordan.
2. When ISIS forces retreated last week from Palmyra, a group headed south, fetching up outside Jebel Druze without entering this mountain region. It is now feared that the jihadis are about to turn west toward the Israeli border and link up with the Yarmouk brigades. This would double the number of ISIS forces in southern Syria and make possible a major new assault on the Jordanian and Israeli borders.
3. The strengthening of ISIS forces in southern Syria has attracted some of the Syrian rebel groups fighting the Syria army to the jihadist flag and the Yarmouk Brigades. The largest militia to enlist recently is the Al-Muthana movement. Although its leaders deny taking an oath of allegiance or any other ties with ISIS, Al-Muthana is currently fighting alongside ISIS. This has sent a disturbing signal to the hundreds of other anti-Assad militias in the neighborhood.
Jordan has meanwhile stepped forward to stem this flow of strength to ISIS.
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that Jordanian military intelligence officers specializing in guerrilla warfare have been infiltrating rebel-held areas in the South, especially Daraa, the regional hub, for the purpose of whipping rebel militias together into a front against ISIS. These officers have succeeded in setting up a joint war room with the three biggest rebel groups in the south, the Southern Front, Jaish Fatah al-Junub and Jaish al-Islam, for action under the direction of the MOC outside Amman.
On Monday, April 4, the joint force saw combat, when rebel forces under Jordanian commanders launched an attack to drive the ISIS forces back into their former corner in the narrow triangle near the meeting-point of the Syrian, Israeli and Jordanian borders. ISIS hit back with suicide bombers, who blew themselves up next to the Jordanian-led rebel assault force. It was the first time ISIS had unleashed suicide bombers so close to the Israeli border.
ISIS descends on Jordan’s border, activates suicides. Jordanian command post in Daraa
9.Negative Voting:They are All Crooks, Liars or Both! #1By Batya Medad Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com 4/7/2016, 11:04 PM
New York-born Batya Medad made aliyah with her husband just weeks after their 1970 wedding and has been living in Shiloh since 1981. Political pundit, with a unique perspective, Batya has worked in a variety of professions: teaching, fitness, sales, cooking, public relations, photography and more. She has a B.S. in Journalism, is a licensed English Teacher specializing as a remedial teacher and for a number of years has been studying Tanach (Bible) in Matan. Batya blogs on Shiloh Musings and A Jewish Grandmother.
Negative Voting: They are All Crooks, Liars or Both! Part 1
I’ve reached a rather jaded stage in my following of politics, an occupation or hobby I’ve had for over half a century. There isn’t a political party I support either here in Israel or in my native United States of America. If you read my political articles here (this blog,) you know that I don’t vote in American Elections, although I’m not shy about blogging/writing my opinions.
I’ve reached the conclusion that if I were to vote in the 2016 Presidential Elections, I’d cast a “negative vote.” That means that I’d vote for anybody but a Democrat. I’d vote Republican, not because I think a specific candidate is so great, but because as weak or rotten as the Republicans may be, the Democrats are a gazillion times worse.
credit
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by REUTERS/Brian Snyder and iStock.
The two only Democratic frontrunners promote foreign policy, not only in terms of US-Israel Relations, but in general which I consider as bad for the world. Not only wouldn’t either be any better than the present POTUS himself, but don’t forget that Hillary was Obama’s first Secretary of State and is responsible for some of his bad moves, when he was still on a learning curve. And Bernie has been on the extreme Left of the American political spectrum since POTUS was in diapers.
Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images
And although I’ve written some blog posts which could be perceived as pro-Trump, I really don’t think he’d be all that different from Cruz would be if elected. My feeling is that in order to win, the Republican machine must rally around someone with a good chance, because otherwise the Democrats will just use the anti-Trump or whomever statements in their campaign later on. It will just backfire. A lot of time and money were invested in Bush III and some other losers who hadn’t a chance in hell to win. The “machine” should have just done their campaigning as a national anti-Democrat campaign and let the wannabes fight it out without interference.
Many of my friends are hoping for a Cruz nomination. He has been making inroads in the primaries, and it would be easier for the Republicans to market him.
You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned much about ideology and platforms. It’s more image and marketing and branding that really counts in politics and elections. So few politicians who make it to office end of keeping their promises. In Israel they claim that “it looks different from here.” And I think a lot can also be blamed or credited to the “Yes, Minister” syndrome which humorously portrayed how little power the office holder/minister has versus his bureaucratic/permanent/civil service staff.
When I, bli neder (no vow,) write a Part 2, I’ll tell you about the much more complicated Israeli political system.
Negative Voting: They are All Crooks, Liars or Both! #1By Batya Medad
10.Stabs at glorifying terrorism By Ruthie Blum
04/10/2016 21:33 JPost.com & IsraelHaYom 
Last month, Lakin’s son, Micah Avni – still mourning his father’s brutal murder at Alyan’s hands – addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Richard Lakin. (photo credit:COURTESY OF FAMILY)
Last October 13, a few weeks into the current “knife intifada,” a 22-year-old Palestinian named Baha Alyan boarded a Jerusalem bus with an accomplice-Hamas terrorist Bilal Ghanem, who had served time in an Israeli prison & went on a stabbing & shooting spree whose purpose was to kill Jews.
The two monsters were pretty successful in their endeavor that day, managing to wound more than a dozen passengers and slaughter three: Haim Haviv, 78, Alon Govberg, 51, and Richard Lakin, 76, who suffered multiple gunshot and stab wounds and died two weeks later. Alyan was killed by Israeli security forces; Ghanem was arrested.
While Lakin, an immigrant to Israel from the United States, was lying critically wounded in the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon paid a visit to his bedside. It was the least Ban could do, while calling on “both sides” to ease tensions and exercise restraint – especially since Lakin had been a lifelong promoter of peace and social justice.
Upon Lakin’s death, Ban even stressed this fact in a condolence letter to his widow, which he ended by assuring her that the UN would “continue its efforts to promote a return to negotiations aimed at resolving this bitter conflict once and for all.”
Four months later, in February, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas invited 11 families of “martyrs” to his compound in Ramallah to honor them for having sons who were killed while committing terrorist attacks against Israelis. Alyan’s parents were among these distinguished guests.
Right around the same time, as was reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an event was held at Al-Quds University to commemorate Alyan’s “cultural legacy,” sponsored by the PA’s High Commission for Youth and Sports. At this event – called the “human chain of readers” – Alyan’s father declared: “Without education, the people would not have been able to confront the occupation. Baha [‘light’] is an idea, and the idea will never die. Today I have over 1,000 lights, students who are continuing in his footsteps. …The occupation has turned the entire Palestinian people into seekers of martyrdom.”
This week, the PA ministries of culture and education organized a similar event in Alyan’s name, this one at a high school. According to Palestinian Media Watch, the event for 10th-graders was held at the Shariah School for Boys in Kalkilya, and an advertisement on Facebook bore the PA’s official logo and featured Alyan’s photo.
“Baha [Alyan] is the idea and the idea doesn’t die,” was the motto of the event, as pointed out by PMW.
Last month, Lakin’s son, Micah Avni – still mourning his father’s brutal murder at Alyan’s hands – addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Speaking on behalf of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, Avni called the international body to task for its refusal to condemn Palestinian terrorism in general, and Abbas specifically for his part in it.
“My father, Richard Lakin, was a kind, gentle person,” Avni said. “An elementary school principal who educated thousands of children. A human rights activist dedicated to promoting coexistence.
“He marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. He founded a school in Israel where Muslim, Christian and Jewish children studied together. He wrote a book called Teaching as an Act of Love. [But] last October, two Palestinian terrorists attacked a bus full of civilians in Jerusalem… [and] shot [him] in the head, and stabbed him multiple times after he fell, severing most of his vital organs.”
Avni expressed indignation that the UN never publicly denounced his father’s murderers “or the rampant Palestinian incitement that fuels this brutality.”
He said, “The UN office here has a Web page devoted to ‘UN Response to Acts of Terrorism,’ [which] contains a long list of terror attacks and UN condemnations. My dad isn’t on it. In fact, not a single Israeli victim of the latest wave of Palestinian terror is on it.”
Lakin’s devastated son concluded: “The passionate goal of my father and the people of Israel is peaceful coexistence. Your failure to condemn Palestinian violence and your continued rationalization of Palestinian terror is pushing peace away, making more death inevitable.”
Avni might have anticipated that his speech would fall on deaf ears. But he could not have guessed that a day after it was delivered, three Islamic State suicide bombers would blow themselves up in Brussels, making his words ring even truer.
The writer is the web editor of The Algemeiner (algemeiner.com) and a columnist at Israel Hayom.
Stabs at glorifying terrorism By Ruthie Blum
 Peace Now activists hold a protest in Jerusalem.(Photo by: REUTERS)
| 11.Two-statism – The slim chance of success; the grim cost of failure | By MARTIN SHERMAN JPost.com 04/07/2016 | |
| Obdurate refusal of two-staters to admit any possibility of error reveals ideological fanaticism and intellectual dishonesty. |
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... in our founding statement [we announced] that we would be artisans and partisans of the two-state solution. We adamantly refuse to drift with those who through a failure of nerve, a lack of political seriousness or a sectarian maximalist agenda are exiting the paradigm of two states for two peoples.” The editors, Spring 2016 edition of Fathom magazine, published by BICOM (Britain Israel Communications and Research Center) “…I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning.” – Jibril Rajoub, deputy secretary of the Fatah Central Committee, to Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV channel, April 30, 2013. “Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim” – George Santayana, Life of Reason, 1905 As readers will recall, last week I took issue with the editor of Fathom magazine, Alan Johnson, who decided to withdraw an invitation for me to submit an essay because of my position on how Israel should deal with the predicament it faces regarding the Palestinian-Arabs – i.e. by providing the non-belligerent population the chance of building a better life elsewhere out of harm’s way in third countries, by means of generous relocations/rehabilitation grants.
Political prudence & moral merit
To be more precise, what Johnson took umbrage at was the harsh response he inferred I would prescribe, should, for some reason, the generous relocation grants offered the Palestinian- Arabs be rejected. True, if the initial package of incentives for leaving/ disincentive for staying is not effective, then measures may well have to be taken to make the former more tempting and the latter more daunting. This admission seemingly horrified Johnson’s delicate sensibilities, deeming my policy proposal a blueprint for “starving the Palestinians out of the West Bank.”
However, as I pointed out last week, Johnson, and two-staters in general, while challenging proponents of alternative paradigms to provide and justify an acceptable “Plan B,” should their original intentions not be fulfilled, feel little obligation to do the same themselves.
This is of course entirely inappropriate.
After all, given the inherent uncertainty of the political decision-making environment, when assessing the practical prudence and/ or moral merit of any course of action, apart from the desired outcomes the policy is designed to attain, two additional factors should be appraised: the chances of success and the cost of failure.
No matter how enticing the projected outcomes a given policy might be, if the chances of attaining them are remote and/or the cost of failing to do so is exorbitant, political prudence and moral merit may well dictate abandoning it, and compel a search for more plausible and less hazardous alternatives.
Exasperating pigheadedness; infuriating arrogance
Yet this is a calculus that two-staters never seem to undertake – nor feel any need to. As I have emphasized several times in the past, despite the fact that the two-state dogma has been regularly and repeatedly disproven, somehow it has never been discarded or even significantly discredited. Impervious to reason and reality, two-staters cling, with exasperating pigheadedness and infuriating arrogance, to a political credo that has wrought untold tragedy to Jew and Arab alike.
The obdurate refusal of two-staters to admit any possibility of error, or even to concede that such possibility exists, reveals more than a hint of ideological fanaticism and intellectual dishonesty.
After all, if Johnson and other two-staters were compelled to consider the realities that foisting statehood on the Palestinian-Arabs might precipitate, they would rapidly realize that these would be far more cataclysmic than those that would result from an initial rejection of relocation grants, and the responses called for to contend with them, far more drastic.
As I suggested last week – and promised to elaborate on this week – “my proposed Humanitarian Paradigm for the resolution of the Palestinian predicament will be the most humane of all currently debated options if it succeeds, and result in the least inhumane realities, if it does not.”
But more than that, for many Palestinians it would provide a solution for precisely the predicament the ill-fated two-state endeavor has created for them.
The ravages of two-statism
After all, for many, the ravages of two-statism are no longer a matter of speculation, but of empirical fact. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the place where the ill-conceived enterprise began almost a quarter-century ago: Gaza, the scene of tumultuous jubilation at the triumphant arrival of Yasser Arafat in the summer of 1994.
Compare and contrast the giddy euphoria of then with the dismal despair of now. It is despair that is, demonstrably and indisputably, the direct consequence of the attempt to establish Palestinian self-determination in the Gaza Strip – despite massive international financial aid and political support.
Ironically, for many Gazans, beset by devastating unemployment, awash in flows of raw sewage and under the yoke of theocratic tyranny, the most immediate desire is to leave.
If we are to believe the ever-more frequent reports from Arab and left-leaning sources, generous grants to facilitate their emigration would be no less than a blessed fulfillment of their most fervent dreams.
This is not difficult to understand, since more than a decade after Israel evacuated Gaza, it has become an unsustainable entity, with over 45 percent of the workforce unemployed and 80% of the population dependent on foreign aid.
Gaza ‘uninhabitable’ by 2020?
Even the most doctrinaire advocates of two-statism such as Gershon Baskin was recently forced to confess: “The internal conflict between Gaza and the West Bank is not close to resolution. Gaza remains in ruins with nearly two million people living in total poverty. A majority of Gazans would leave if they had any place to go.” Jerusalem Post, March 2) This assessment echoes those of numerous other sources.
For example, a report published (September 2015) by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development warned that Gaza could become uninhabitable by the end of the decade. Al Monitor (September 24, 2015) in a post headlined “Gazans consider the Strip ‘uninhabitable’ now,” cited the predicament of a mother of five from Beit Hanun in the north of the Gaza Strip, who admitted, “I always think about emigrating, and I am constantly looking for a safe place for my family and myself.”
In similar vein, Electronic Intifada (October 2014), not normally my preferred source of information, in a scathing, dismissive critique of the reconstruction efforts, lamented: “Young Palestinians in Gaza, facing unemployment rates as high as 60%, have lost hope and are putting their lives in the hands of smugglers in a bid to reach Europe and a future.”
Fleeing despair and desperation
Thus, well before the current wave of Muslim migrants engulfed Europe, the lengths some Gazans are prepared to go to extricate themselves from the fruits of the unfortunate two-state experiment are vividly conveyed in several media outlets.
Thus, Haaretz quoted one Gaza resident as declaring: “It’s better to die at sea than to die of despair and frustration in Gaza.”
An Al Jazeera article, headlined, “Palestinian Migrants Fleeing Gaza Strip Drown in Mediterranean Sea,” described how Gazans increasingly turn to smugglers to escape economic privation and deadly conflict. The New York Times wrote of Gazans “Fleeing Gaza, only to face treachery and disaster at sea,” and Ynet reported that “Scores of Gazans die at sea in attempt to flee…”
Now, imagine that an orderly mechanism had been established to help nonbelligerent Gazans extricate themselves from the clutches of the cruel, corrupt cliques that have (mis) led them, time and time again, into penury and disaster, and provide them the resources to build a better life for themselves and their families elsewhere, not as penniless refugees but as relatively affluent immigrants? Surely that is a far more humane approach than insisting they remain tethered to tyranny, in the forlorn hope that a formula that has failed so dismally before, will suddenly magically succeed.
Slim chance of success
Of course, there is little reason to believe that if the IDF were to evacuate Judea-Samaria (as was the case in Gaza) and all trace of Jewish presence were obliterated (as was the case in Gaza), that the same fate would not befall the Arab population that resides there.
Those who might invoke quarantines, security barriers and recurring military campaigns to account for the Palestinians’ socioeconomic plight, should be brusquely reminded that all of these are products of the post-Oslowian two-statism. They are the consequence of post-Oslowian Arab terrorism, not the cause of it.
Indeed, after decades of bloodshed and broken pledges, it seems that the entire “rationale” for continuing to cling to the two-state creed is the quasi-messianic belief that somehow the Palestinians, as a collective, will not only change, but miraculously morph into something, not only different from what they have been for decades, but into the antithetical opposite.
But furthermore, for the two-state construct to be not only momentarily feasible, but sustainably durable, this envisaged metamorphosis cannot be limited to any one particular pliant Palestinian interlocutor, who, whether by ballot or bullet, may be removed by a more radical successor (as was the case in Gaza), eager to repudiate all the perfidious pledges of peace made to the hated Zionist entity.
Slim chance (cont.)
Of course, such hope for a benign sea change in the collective Palestinian-Arab psyche has always been wildly fanciful, but at least in the heady days immediately following the signature of the Oslo Accords there may have been a reason, however flimsy, to succumb to the allure of naïve optimism.
But a gory two-and-a-half decades later, there can be no such excuse – particularly in the post Arab Spring ascendancy of jihadism, sweeping across the Mideast, menacing the Jordanian monarchy and challenging Egypt’s control of Sinai.
It seems inconceivable that under such conditions, and given our experiences, anyone with a modicum of concern for the future of the Jewish state could still adhere to such a patently perilous and implausible paradigm.
Sadly, it seems that obsessive two-staters have failed to internalize the lesson of the Golan Heights, which many land-for-peace adherents urged be handed over to Bashar Assad, then a reputedly moderate, Western- educated reformer. Imagine the dread that would prevail today if affiliates of al-Qaida and ISIS were deployed on the heights overlooking the Galilee and the city of Tiberias.
Now imagine forces of a similar ilk deployed – whether with compliance, or in defiance, of some Palestinian-Arab regime in Judea-Samaria – on the heights overlooking Israel’s coastal megalopolis, within mortar range from its only international airport and tunnel reach of its Trans-Israel Highway (Route 6).
Draw your own conclusions as to the prudence & morality of the harebrained two-state scheme.
Grim cost of failure
However, suppose for a moment that a Palestinian state were established on the strategic heights commanding Israel’s most populous and prosperous region – the narrow Coastal Plain.
Suppose, if, as is far from implausible, and irrespective of the purported goodwill of any initial Palestinian regime, control is taken over by a more inimical successor, which began to carry out terrorist attacks along the 500-km. front and from the commanding topographic territory, adjacent to Israeli population centers and infrastructure installations, whether overhead rocket salvos, underground tunnel attacks, or small arms ambushes on transport arteries.
Clearly, the consequences for the civilian populations on both sides of the new frontier would be severe. Israel, faced with recurring disruption of its socioeconomic routine and attrition of its population, would have little option but to retaliate harshly – far more so than in the previous Gaza operations, on a far wider front, with far greater topographical inferiority and far greater exposure of its urban hinterland. Extensive collateral damage among Palestinian-Arab civilians – and commensurate international censure of Israel – would be inevitable…
Moreover, if the regime in Amman were to veer Islamist, the IDF could well find itself embroiled in battle against Jordanian regular military forces, with the consequences unclear but certainly dire…
I could go on, but I think the issue of the grim cost is reasonably clear.
Intellectual cowardice?
Given the starkly slim chances of success and the gruesomely grim cost of failure, the refusal of two-staters such as the folks at Fathom to foster discussion on competing alternatives, likely to produce more humane outcomes, if they succeed, and less inhumane ones, if they fail, is, to say the least, disappointing.
Could it be that two-staters are no longer able to defend their position by rational debate and therefore need to fall back on avoiding debate?
More unforgiving souls might consider such avoidance nothing less than intellectual cowardice.
Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategic-israel.org). |
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Two-statism – The slim chance of success; the grim cost of failure
12.Murder Or War? By: Moshe Feiglin
JewishPress.com Published: April 10th, 2016 Latest update: April 7th, 2016
MK Moshe Feiglin
The soldier in Hebron shouldn’t have had to pull the trigger and kill the terrorist who had just attempted to murder his comrade. The officers in the area should have done so, and the order should have come from the chief of staff, the minister of security, and the prime minister. It should have been an order that was as clear as day and made public to all. Let me explain:
The seminal event that brought about the establishment of the State of Israel was the Holocaust, in which Jewish lives were considered worthless, or less. This view was held not only by the Nazis and their accomplices, but by the entire world. The Americans and British did not bother to waste even one or two bombs to halt the death industry and save Jewish lives. In other words, Hitler’s speeches and the culture he created, which negated the right of Jewish existence, filtered down and strongly influenced the world – both actively and passively. The entire existence of the State of Israel was designed – first and foremost – to reverse this reality.
It is important to note that the State of Israel has always based its right to exist on this very point: on the restoration of the right of the Jews to exist and the natural legitimacy of Jewish lives. (Ensuring national existence, however, is nothing more than the foundation for the actualization of our national destiny.)
For years, I tried to convince Ya’alon and Netanyahu that Israel must attack Iran – primarily because of Ahmadinijad’s calls for the destruction of Israel and only secondarily because of the technical security problem that Iran’s bomb creates. I explained time and again that the Holocaust did not begin in 1939. It began in 1933, with the rise of the Nazis to power and Hitler’s speeches calling for the destruction of the Jews. Those speeches were the beginning of the process of delegitimization of Jewish existence.
My attempts to convince Israel’s leaders, however, failed. The result is that Ahmadinijad’s calls for Israel’s destruction have remained in the air and we feel their effect. Just like Germany in the 1930s, Iran, which calls for the destruction of the Jews, has remained a legitimate and courted member of the UN. Israel’s status and the legitimacy of Jewish existence are dissipating.
The brandished knife or scissors, received on our part with moral hesitation, achieve the same effect as Ahmadinijad’s words. They undermine the right of all the Jews to exist. It is once again legitimate to slaughter a Jew, simply because he is a Jew. It is still permissible to harm the terrorist, but only on the basis of the value of self-defense – because the terrorist is “just.” Our “ethical” rigor over the terrorist’s “rights” confirms the world’s conviction that we agree that Eretz Yisrael belongs to the terrorist and that he is the good guy in this story.
The result is that very quickly, the self-defense principle also stops working for us. It is now almost forbidden to harm a terrorist. All we can do is try to shoot down the missile that he shot – and only while it is still in the air.
Ahmadinijad and the knife-wielding terrorist from Hebron are on the same axis. Both challenge the right of the Jews to sovereign existence (essentially, the right to exist). Please do not be confused. This is not a national territorial dispute. We have no common border with Iran and the last thing that the Arabs of Hebron want is a state.
We are dealing with the negation of the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty of any type on the face of the earth, and particularly, in the Middle East. In this respect, the scissors in the hands of an Arab teenager are more dangerous than an Iranian bomb. In Western culture, which associates morality with weakness, the scissors are much more convincing and thus negate our legitimacy more than the atomic bomb.
We tried to evade our destiny and exchange justice for ethicality. Time and again we make the open-fire rules more stringent. We sacrifice hundreds of soldiers in our failed attempt to win some legitimacy in the merit of our “ethicality.” We do not attack civilians. We do not shoot at mosques. We send our sons into the alleyways and tunnels – we will not bomb from the air and we will not turn off electricity and water. We try to maintain all the rules of the Western world – and we have remained the “bad guys” in this story.
Why?
Because it is impossible to exchange justice for ethicality. Even worse, when you surrender your destiny (and your justice in the process) and base your entire existence on “the ethical code,” then you are tested there and only there – on the ethical playing field. But the ethical playing field is really a killing field. To remain there, we pay with the blood of our soldiers and civilians. The only way to get off the killing field is to fight back with the same weapons. At the moment that Ahmadinijad says that Israel must be destroyed – his life must become illegitimate. Israel should have eliminated him. If a knife-wielding terrorist comes to murder Jews, he must be eliminated immediately. His life has become illegitimate. He must be eliminated with no strings attached to the ethical killing field (which, in its current context, is patently unethical) upon which he hides.
The elimination must be immediate, on the spot, with no courtroom proceedings. Elimination of the terrorist is vital because it exchanges the challenge and question mark over the legitimacy of Jewish existence with a clear exclamation point. Any other procedure provides a shred of legitimacy and the slippery slope waits at its threshold.
A terrorist must never live to the day of his trial – even if he were to receive the death penalty at its end. A judicial proceeding raises him up to the level of a partner in the discussion, and thus, his claim must be evaluated. Maybe we really don’t have the right to live…We’ll let the judges decide.
There are situations and planes upon which the court has no place. War is clearly such a situation. The war in which we currently find ourselves is the most difficult and subtle of all of Israel’s wars.
About the Author: Moshe Feiglin is the former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. He is the founder of Manhigut Yehudit and Zo Artzeinu and the author of two books: “Where There Are No Men” and “War of Dreams.” Feiglin served in the IDF as an officer in Combat Engineering and is a veteran of the Lebanon War. He lives in Ginot Shomron with his family.
Murder Or War? By: Moshe Feiglin