31-Jul-12: Late night shooting attack at Yitzhar Junction

It's midnight, Tuesday night. At Yitzhar Junction 30 minutes ago, an Israeli vehicle [source] comes under rifle or pistol attack. According to Walla, there are two injured victims in the car, both of them residents of the Samarian (Shomron) community of Kedumim. Israeli army forces are said [source] to be combing the area for the shooters.

31-Jul-12: Intense mortar fire on southern Israel in past hour

Immediately after the Hamas attack on
the Hebrew University: Eliad Moreh recovered
from her injuries and speaks eloquently (we know
from personal experience) of the dangers of
underestimating what terrorism does to civilized
society [Image Source]

It's now just before 7:00 pm Tuesday here in Jerusalem. About an hour and a half ago, three mortars were fired by people in the Gaza Strip into a location that we don't intend to name, located very close to the Gaza/Israel border. And twenty minutes ago, in a separate round of firing, the Gazan terrorists shot five additional mortar rounds into southern Israel's Eshkol region. This firing is not strategic - at least not in the conventional sense - and it's not directed at any military target. It's deliberately indiscriminate; the shooters rarely care who or what gets hit. It's almost always like that with the Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Carefully and covertly placing bombs in public places before running away - now that's a different, far more deadly strategy. But it's no less characteristic of the tactics of the Palestinian Arab terrorists in this ongoing war. When the jihadists who place bombs under chairs or inside closets do their work, they know more or less whom they want to hurt. And the way they decide on targets and weapons tells us something about the passions that motivate them and the values that guide them.

Bear that in mind as we recall that today is the tenth anniversary of the Hamas bombing of the Frank Sinatra Cafeteria on the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The killers, sent there by Hamas which now controls the Gaza Strip, had no intention to take control of the space, to attack soldiers or anything military, or to frustrate some military or strategic or even economic plan of the Israeli side. They simply set out to kill, hurt and maim innocent people, and the more the better.

They killed nine that day, and maimed and injured a hundred more [source]; unbelievably, public celebrations followed in the streets of Gaza [source]. As with the attack on the Sbarro restaurant a year earlier which took the life of our daughter Malki, the Hebrew University atrocity was carried out by means of a nail-studded bomb. Nails are devastatingly effective if you want to puncture the greatest possible number of human bodies inside a confined space. It's a satanic choice. It was the Hamas choice.

It's worth noting that a terrorist called Anajas, one of the Satanic participants in the Hebrew University bombing team on behalf of Hamas was sentenced to multiple life terms, and was among the 1,027 killers and assorted Palestinian Arab thugs released in last October's Gilad Shalit transaction.

Consider also that the Hamas people who planned the massacre chose a university whose student body is 30% Arab - well beyond their proportion in Israeli society. The statistic is naturally of zero significance to Hamas and the many Europeans, Americans and others who travel with it.

31-Jul-12: Southern Israel: Two more incoming rockets from Gaza, responding to Israeli provocation

At the gates of Gaza: Delivery trucks, co-ordinated by the IDF's
COGAT unit [Image Source]

An update on the continuing indiscriminate fire by the Gazan terrorists on Israel and Israelis. In the past fifteen minutes (it's now 1:20pm on a hot Tuesday afternoon) we have gotten reports of two rockets crashing  into southern Israel and exploding not far from the border with the Gaza Strip. The rockets were of course fired from the Gaza Strip by any of an almost limitless list of real and imaginary groups, subgroups and sub-sub groups of the Gazan Palestinian Arab terror conglomerate. The Tzeva Adom incoming missile warning system began sounding at 1:00pm. 

We suspect these rockets are intended as retaliation by yesterday's outrage: the facilitation by Israel's military of 251 delivery trucks carrying more than 6,100 tons of goods into Hamas-controlled Gaza, including a ton of veterinary drugs. During the week just ended, more than 735,000 liters of heavy-duty diesel fuel for Gaza's  power plant were admitted via COGAT [details here]. COGAT is almost never mentioned in news reports - it's the arm of the Israeli military that serves to co-ordinate civilian issues among Israel and the Israel Defense Forces on one hand; the multitude of interested international organizations and diplomats on the second hand; and the Palestinian Authority and its Gaza equivalent on the third hand. 

Thousands of tons of goods arriving by road from Israel: no flotilla, no tunnels, no sniper cover. The insult to the Palestinian Arab pride of Gaza's population is understandably more than a normal person can bear.

30-Jul-12: Scenes from the front lines, courtesy of the Tayar Report

Rock-throwing 'heroes' near Ramallah, 2011

The chronology below picks up from our previous posting of Tuesday, July 24, 2012 [here]. Both are based on information received via on the Tayar Security Report, as edited and annotated by us. Yehudit Tayar creates her invaluable bulletins from first-responder, police and army reports. 

Thursday, July 26, 2012

• Near Bet Umar and Halhul on the Gush Etzion-Hebron road: Local Arabs launch a rock-throwing attack on anIDF patrol and on civilian vehicles
• The Jewish community of Hebron: Palestinian Arabs attack IDF soldiers and Jewish civilians with cement blocks. In the city’s Avraham Avinu quarter, soldiers manning an IDF post come under cement block attack by Arabs

Friday, July 27, 2012

• Tel Romeida: A Jewish resident of Hebron came under attack by Arabs when he went to immerse himself in the ancient ritual bath of the Tel Romeida Spring. [Similar circumstances to those of the July 19 attack we reported here – it happened again.]

Saturday, July 28, 2012

• El Azim near the Israeli city of Ma'aleh Adumim: An Arab driver and his passenger deliberately crash their vehicle into an IDF checkpost at in an attempt to crush a ranking officer of the Border Police. The officer opens fire on the attackers, mortally injuring the driver who dies of his injuries soon after. The second terrorist is injured and a Border Police officer also suffers injuries. Both are evacuated to Hadassah Ein Karem Medical Center in Jerusalem.
• During the Sabbath, there are rocket attacks from Gaza: one strikes Zikim, four crash into the land between Sderot and the security fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel; one crashes close to Nir Oz and one north of Re'im

Sunday, July 29, 2012

• Between Bet Hagai and Kiryat Arba: Arabs carry out a rock attack an Israeli driver in his moving vehicle

Monday, July 30, 2012

• North of Kiryat Arba at Bet Anun Junction: Arabs carry out yet another rock attack on Israeli civilian vehicles causing property damage
• Near Kiryat Arba: An Israeli tour bus comes under rock attack by Palestinian Arabs – the windshield is shattered

The Tayar Security Report is compiled by Yehudit Tayar based on inputs from the Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron organization, cleared and confirmed by the IDF.

30-Jul-12: Iran's not-so-cute baby policy

An AP story that appeared in the small hours of this morning (Monday) ["Iran tells parents to get busy, have babies"] expands and rehashes on something that the LA Times ran a week ago: ["Iran's birth control policy sent birthrate tumbling: The birthrate plunged, helping to usher in social changes, particularly concerning the role of women"]

But notice that the LA Times has a pungent little remark in its July 22 story that somehow did not make it into AP. It's a non-direct quote from Iran's president:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, has sought to reverse the trend toward smaller families. Doubling the country's population of 75 million would enable Iran to threaten the West, he said. He has denounced the contraceptive program as "a prescription for extinction," called on Iranian girls to marry no later than 16 or 17 and offered bonuses of more than $950 for each child. So far, he has been widely ignored.

We're surprised that a statement from the mouth of the Iranian president - speaking openly of threatening the west, albeit over a period of a generation - has gotten so little attention, assuming it's accurate. 

29-Jul-12: [UPDATED] The terrorists in Gaza haven't gone quiet; they simply failed

After four rocket firings into Israel yesterday [our report] (but the IDF Spokesperson says seven), today has been quiet. Except that in the past half hour, it appears that one of those Gazan "home made rockets" - they're in fact deadly explosive devices manufactured by serious terrorist weapon producers - failed to make it over the Gaza-Israel fence and exploded on the Gazan side [source]. Over on the Israeli side, residents heard a resounding explosion [Hebrew-language source]. It's a virtual certainty that any deaths, injuries or damage to the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza from Gaza-based fire that (excuse the euphemism) dropped short will go unreported by any news media outside of Israel.


UPDATE: It's now 10:30pm Sunday night, and we have an Israeli report [here] of another "dropped short" rocket firing from Gaza that somehow did not manage to cross the border to hit something (anything) Israeli. Media reaction from outside Israel? Obviously, zero.

28-Jul-12 [UPDATED]: The Games have begun but over here the 'games' are continuing as usual, and one of the runners is injured

No special athletic prowess required or expected: ordinary Israelis
in Beer Sheva running for their lives to the nearest shelter after 
an incoming rocket alert is sounded [Image Source]

With the attention of much of the world's public and news media directed at the Olympics, there have been four rocket attacks on southern Israel this evening, Saturday. 

We're much more highly motivated on this subject than most people, and therefore know more or less where to look to find reports about these firings. Most people don't. They therefore have no idea that this happened and keeps happening more or less daily. How can people understand the defensive measures Israel's military takes if basic information about ongoing constant terrorist attacks goes unreported in the news media?

Two Gazan rockets crashed and exploded in the Eshkol region on Friday. (Reminder that the precise location of rocket landings is generally held back in these reports. Knowing the outcome is usable military intelligence that no sane person on the Israeli side would want to share with the terrorists of Gaza.) 

Then this evening (Saturday) two more crashed into open fields in the vicinity of Sderot, a city - not a town, not a village - in southern Israel that has the misfortune of being located very close to the Gaza Strip. The alarms were sounded (we're referring to the anti-missile Tzeva Adom warning system) causing the usual fear and anxiety in thousands of homes throughout southern Israel who somehow fail to get used to the indiscriminate firing of lethal weapons in their general direction. As a result, a woman of 29 suffered injury as she ran to a rocket shelter, and was hospitalized in Ashkelon [Ynet]. The Palestinian Arabs are saying that the terrorists are "a previously unknown militant group in Gaza called the Al-Furqan Brigades" and that they claimed responsibility in a statement. 

Two more Qassam rockets fired from the northern part of the Hamas-infested Gaza Strip hit open fields in the Eshkol region again, tonight [Ynet]. Fortunately no injuries, no property damage, and no consequences up until now (as far as we know) to the people who fired them. That might yet change.

UPDATE: Sunday morning, and the GANSO website reports on these terrorist attacks in its customarily laconic way:

MU, 29 JUL: Overnight, 3 HMRs and 1 Grad fired from Gaza toward the Green Line. No injuries reported.

Interpretation: Three "home-made" rockets, which is what GANSO regularly calls Qassam rockets, were fired into anywhere in Israel (the fire is almost always indiscriminate) during the night, plus one GRAD. We have not seen any reports from the Israeli side describing the fourth of last night's rockets as being a GRAD. But the GANSO people, based in Gaza and presumably with their own close ties with the neighboring terrorists, should be believed. To get a sense of the ideological thinking behind what GANSO does, check out this backgrounder, courtesy of EoZ. And remember that they are funded by the European Union.

27-Jul-12: Reflecting on the power of memory

The park; the youth club building; the banner across the street.
The entrance to our Jerusalem neighbourhood today

In the world of Jewish memories and experience, this time of year has an especially stressful character. It’s a very hot Friday here in Jerusalem at this moment. The Sabbath will settle in as the sun sets, and the following 25 or so hours of disconnect from the surrounding world, always welcome, will be especially so because of what follows it on Saturday night: the observance of the ninth day of Av.

Av is a difficult month for people who live by the traditional Jewish calendar. The ninth day of Av is when the Babylonians destroyed the one-and-only Jewish temple in Jerusalem, bringing an end to independent Jewish life in what we call Israel today and killing some 100,000 Jews while exiling almost all the others. Some 640 years later, in the year 70, it was the turn of the Roman empire to conquer Israel and for the second time the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. This time, some two million Jews were killed; a million more went into an exile that lasted many centuries. An independent Jewish nation in its own land did not arise again until the establishment of modern Israel 64 years ago.

Av the ninth is marked by a sunset-to-sunset absolute fast that begins this coming Saturday night. There are mournful prayers, deliberate physical discomfort and a great deal of personal and community introspection. Beyond the ancient history aspects, the same date has been associated with some of the Jewish people’s blackest moments: on this day, the entire Jewish community of Spain was expelled in the fateful year 1492. On this day in 1942 in the city of Warsaw - one-third of whose entire population was Jewish at the time - the Nazi Germans began to liquidate the ghetto and send its inhabitants to their deaths in the Treblinka factory of death.

Once the ninth of Av is safely behind us, the rest of the summer for most religiously observant Jews gets easier and more enjoyable. The relaxation doesn’t quite reach our family, unfortunately. In 2001, our eldest daughter Malki, 15, was killed in a Hamas terrorist outrage in the center of Jerusalem. Even as most Jews breathe a sigh of relief with the end of the fast (this year, that means this coming Sunday night) we prepare ourselves for the annual pilgrimage to her grave and the public commemoration of the anniversary (called the azkara in Hebrew) of her murder.

We feel indescribable pain, but we are not morose or neutralized. We’re terribly sad, even overwhelmed by the feeling of loss. But we have full and constructive lives to live.

It’s not self-evident. With so much death and anger around, and a full-time industry of propagandists declaiming about the unbearable insults suffered by their pride, a person might be forgiven for thinking that in a community like ours here in Jerusalem, where hundreds of young people were killed in terrorist attacks, the mood would be characterized by vengeance and confrontation. It simply isn’t so.

Malki died alongside her best friend. They were two beautiful young girls, busy with a day full of good deeds, standing at the counter of a bustling pizza shop at lunchtime. For the past eleven years, they lie side by side in Jerusalem’s soil. Their friends from the neighbourhood and from their youth organization – many of whom were as close as teenage friends get to both girls – suffered an incomprehensible double blow.

I have heard people say over the years that they could easily imagine passionate young people reacting to the vicious and deliberate killing of their closest friends by resorting to their own acts of hate-based violence. The reality, as anyone who knows anything about Israeli society, is far from that. Here is what the friends actually do.

Every August for the past ten years, the graduating group at Malki's youth organization (it’s called EZRA) sits down and organizes a public fun fair and bazaar. It runs from mid afternoon until late at night, and it takes place in a small and pleasant public park just near where we live on Jerusalem’s north side.

The park happens to abut the building that serves as the clubhouse for EZRA in our part of town. When the building was still just a few weeks old back in 1997, we rented it for an evening and held Malki’s bat mitzvah party there. On the awful night of August 9 eleven years ago, the same building was filled with hundreds of youngsters conducting a prayer vigil while the search went on for the two girls in other parts of our city. We knew by then that Malki and her friend Michal had both been inside Sbarro that afternoon. But it took some hours (12 in the case of our daughter) for the friends and the families to learn the bitter outcome.

And it was in that same park, on a hot September night some thirty days after the Sbarro massacre, that we held a public memorial event there, an azkara, to allow our friends, our neighbours and us to express our grief, collectively and privately, at the loss of two such beautiful, innocent, good lives. The agony of that evening was greatly sharpened by the events that had kept most of us glued to our televisions throughout the afternoon and evening leading up to it: this happens to have been the night of September 11, 2001.

The EZRA fun day is held annually in memory of Malki and Michal, and with the stated intention of giving all the proceeds to charity. This year’s will be the tenth such fair. It is set for Monday afternoon, July 30, and will run from 4 in the afternoon until 10 at night. The banner announcing it is already stretched across the road leading into our community to create awareness (photo above). The Hebrew words state the message of the fair: “To give when you love”.

It’s a message which puzzles me, year after year. Why do the children in our community here in Jerusalem who have lost parents, siblings, friends to acts of overt hatred, respond by doing acts of charity, declarations of love? It’s not so obvious. They’re busy kids. The boys are weeks or months away from starting their army service, so they probably are grappling with complicated thoughts. Most of the girls will be starting their national service (most girls of religious orientation do this in place of army service, but some do go into the military) and are aware of the challenges ahead. Still, when they take time out to do something as a cohort of friends, a collective action, it’s about charity and remembering and – their choice of word – love.

It’s hard not to make invidious comparisons with what we see in the news from other parts of our region: grief stricken young men and women, strapping bombs to their chests and expounding on how anger and pride demand that they kill people and perhaps themselves as well. We’re all too familiar with the horrifying dynamic.

But over here, the dynamic is about recruiting vendors who will set up tables to sell school books, pens, small household appliances, decorative objects and works of art, clothing and gifts. They find jugglers, food-stall operators, people who will install inflatable bouncies in the shape of castles or large animals which delight the toddlers who are brought by their mothers. The volunteer team, all of them barely out of high school, advertise the event by flyers distributed throughout Jerusalem; by ads in bus stations, synagogues, message boards and other key locations.

It’s not just in our neighbourhood either. People of all ages have addressed the painful memories of their own lost loved ones by creating worthy undertakings, concerts, park benches, small libraries, and on and on throughout Israel. Our Malki, all of fifteen years old when she did it, served as youth leader for a group of nine year old girls in a city that is an hour’s bus ride from here. This coming Monday, the youngsters of that city too are holding their own memorial fair (proceeds to charity) in Malki’s memory as they do year after year. The cohort of friends now taking charge were only seven or eight when Malki was alive, so they cannot really have known her. Yet they understand the symbolism and it clearly resonates with them.

There is an apocryphal tale told about Napoleon who was walking in the streets of Paris on the 9th day of Av. His entourage passed a synagogue and the sounds of wailing from within caused him to send an aide to ask what terrible thing had happened. The aide enquired, and reported to Napoleon that the Jews were in mourning over the loss of their temple. Napoleon asked with indignation: “How could this happen without me being informed? When did this occur? Which temple?” The answer given by the aide was that the loss occurred on this date 1,700 years ago and in Jerusalem. Napoleon was silent for a moment, and then is famously reported to have said: "A people that mourns its loss through countless generations will surely survive to see the rebuilding of its temple.”

A society that chooses to honour the lives of its murdered children through constructive acts of remembrance, joy and charity has a special resilience. Their pain is not removed or even lightened; their hopes and dreams are not necessarily granted to them; and the men (and women… and children) with the bombs strapped to their chests are not thwarted. But the strength of a society that knows how to remember is something to behold. It is a privilege to be living in its midst.

---

Click here for pictures of last year’s EZRA charity fair in memory of Malka Chana Roth and Michal Raziel, of blessed memory, which was attended by nearly a thousand people. For information on times and locations for Monday’s two charity fairs (one in Jerusalem, one in Maale Adumim), please email us at thisongoingwar@gmail.com

The Hebrew banner adjacent to the local EZRA youth organization branch reads "Latet K'sh'ata Ohev", "To Give When You Love". That has been the slogan of the annual bazaars in memory of Malki and Michal for ten consecutive years.

26-Jul-12: Hof Ashkelon in southern Israel struck yet again by Gazan rocket

The Tzeva Adom missile warning system sounded throughout the Hof Ashkelon region of southern Israel at about 19:35 this evening. Shortly afterwards, we received an as-yet unconfirmed report of a missile explosion. No further details yet, and no confirmation from the authorities. The same region was struck by a Gazan missile last night.

26-Jul-12: The Olympic Games start tomorrow. What have we learned?

Acutely aware of public opinion: Jacques Rogge, International Olympic Committee president

Reuters says (“Organizers try to quell anger over Munich tribute”) that the International Olympic Committee is finally taking a meaningful stand on terrorism - by “hitting back” at the demands for a forty-year-late minute of silence in memory of the slain Israeli victims of the massacre executed by the Palestinian Arab Black September terror organization at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972.

LONDON (Reuters) – Olympic organizers hit back at criticism on Tuesday of how they had honored 11 Israeli team members killed at the 1972 Munich Games, ignoring calls to hold a minute’s silence for them in the opening ceremony. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge led a surprise tribute in the athletes village in London on Monday, but that low-key event failed to satisfy relatives of the victims or Israeli officials.

The Reuters story [source] offers an especially toxic way of describing the Munich 1972 outcome: "Within 24 hours, 11 Israelis, five Palestinians and a German policeman were dead after a standoff and subsequent botched rescue effort." Meaning that stuff happens and the victims were from all over: from Germany, from Israel, from Palestine. Feh!

About Tuesday's "low-key" “surprise tribute”, we think there are some important points to be made :

1. How many people did it actually attract? About 100, according to Associated Press: "Rogge bowed his head as a crowd of about 100 people — IOC executive board members, dignitaries and Olympic athletes and officials — stood in silence for a minute.” By our count, there are more newspapers that reported the ceremony than people actually participating. Some tribute.
2. Rogge, to his credit, has been consistent. He “has repeatedly rebuffed calls to hold a moment of silence during Friday's opening ceremony of the London Games. He said Saturday the opening was not the appropriate place to remember the Israeli team members”. [Source: Associated Press] To our way of thinking, nothing could be more appropriate than the highly-watched opening ceremony, assuming you want people to actually remember. 
3. At Tuesday's event, Rogge took the opportunity to wax eloquent in front of the crowd of one hundred about the physical surroundings and addressed lofty visions as he spoke of “the 11 Israeli Olympians who shared the ideals that have brought us together in this beautiful Olympic Village… The 11 victims of the Munich tragedy believed in that vision… They came to Munich in the spirit of peace and solidarity. We owe it to them to keep the spirit alive and to remember them." [Source: Associated Press]
4. In the interests of repaying what the IOC “owes” to the dead Israelis and their memory, Rogge met last night (Wednesday) with two widows of the dead Israeli Olympians. He managed to leave them “distraught and heartbroken” [report]. It's almost entirely unreported.
5. The Israeli widows handed Rogge a petition signed by more than 105,000 people from all over the world, calling for a minute of silence at Friday’s opening ceremony. Rogge said no again. They asked him whether his refusal was because the victims were Israeli. Rogge declined to answer. [Source: JC]
6. One of the two widows is Anki Spitzer, the prime mover behind the petition [it’s here]. She said: “I was looking him in the eye but he said we had two different opinions. We said ‘you didn't hear the voice of the world’. He said: ‘Yes I did’.” [Source: JC]  
7. We think Rogge spoke the truth. He is acutely aware of public opinion. The public opinion to which he is paying attention is against the minute’s silence – that is, the public that is important to Rogge and the IOC.
8. It is clear that a significant part of the Olympic community is embarrassed by and opposed to the singling out of Israeli victims for honoring. Who are they? Yesterday, in a blog posting [see "25-Jul-12: An effective 'spontaneous minute' that will speak louder than the IOC's roaring hypocrisy"], wequoted Thomas Bach, International Olympic Committee vice-president on this very matter. Here again is the key quote in which he spills the Olympic beans: "The threats to boycott the opening ceremony made by Arab states in the event of an official minute of silence have led the IOC to mark the 40 year anniversary in other ways, including a minute of silence on Monday inside the Olympic Village, led by IOC President Jacques Rogge. The Arab boycott “had been a possibility, according to some of our advice”, Bach said according to Israel’s Channel 2 news." [Source: Algemeiner.com]
9. It’s about the Arabs. Only Bach has admitted it so far.
10. The IOC has no problem holding massive memorial ceremonies. It’s not an issue of principle, and it’s not something that conflicts with the Olympic spirit. In 2002, at the Winter Olympics in Utah, they held a memorial service attended by 60,000 people [report and picture]. 
11. Not everyone is as appalled as we are at the insensitivity of the Olympic management team. The Palestinians, for instance, think it’s really OK. As PMW notes today, the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas is against the moment of silence: "Sports are meant for peace, not for racism", the headline in its newspaper says today. Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and a man who knows a thing or two about racism and terrorism, sounds a positively lyrical note in a report from the Arabic media yesterday: "Sports are a bridge to love, interconnection, and spreading of peace among nations; it must not be a cause of division and spreading of racism between them [nations]" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 25, 2012]
12. The Fatah/PLO/Palestinian Authority side opposes a minute of silence because, for them, the murder of Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is not terror at all. It’s heroism. Palestinian Media Watch routinely documents how they express this glorification of terror and terrorists; it’s an ongoing, daily thing. For them, the Munich massacre was done by a "star who sparkled... at the sports stadium in Munich". And so on.
13. Let's note by the way that Rajoub is himself a seasoned terrorist [see "We salute Shalit's kidnappers, says Jibril Rajoub"] who has been repeatedly arrested and imprisoned over the decades. He owes his freedom to a notorious 1985 transaction (eventually known as the Jibril Deal) in which he was among 1,150 Palestinian Arabs freed from Israeli prisons in exchange for three Israeli hostages held by a terrorist group. After his release, Rajoub moved to Tunis where he served as aide and advisor to Abu Jihad who was head of the Black September terrorist force in the early '70s [source]: the same Black September took executed the Munich massacre.
14. In a letter this week to Rogge, the terrorist Rajoub "expressed appreciation for [Rogge's] position, who opposed the Israeli position, which demanded a moment's silence at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London." As PMW points out, Rajoub is unable to bring himself to actually mention the murdered Israeli athletes. Their killing is simply termed "the Munich Operation”. Small wonder that Rajoub and the PA sing the praises of Rogge's refusal to permit a minute of silence for dead Israeli athletes. But the question for us is: Those people who are standing by and with and behind Rogge – do they subscribe to the Fatah/PLO’s endorsement of the IOC refusal?
15. We have heard it said that Tuesday’s pathetic “low-key” memorial moment gave worldwide exposure to the murder of the Israeli athletes and that makes it a positive thing. But we say the events of 1972 in Munich gave them worldwide exposure too; does that make the killings a positive thing? The more serious criticism is that the message of Tuesday's IOC 'event' fails to come to grips with what is being remembered. The Munich massacre of 1972 was followed by many more killings, based on the same hatred, the same contempt for other people's lives, and essentially by the same people. The terrorists who planned and executed are busy planning more. Though the Israelis came in peace, they died as Israelis and Jews. None of this was even hinted at in Rogge's vacuous "spontaneous" comments. He mentioned Israeli once in the video clip [here]. But the message was not about Israelis or about terror.
16. We say Tuesday's “spontaneous” IOC event was symbolic, but not in the way Rogge and the IOC intended. It actually possesses multiple layers of symbolism. Thanks to the ringing endorsement of the Palestinian Authority and its blood-soaked Olympic committee head, we now understand them a good deal better.

Friday is going to be day of pomp, enthusiasm and unstoppable optimism. But in certain ways the opening ceremony of the London Olympics is also - for those of us living daily in an ongoing war - likely to be a reminder of the deep gulf between those who have some understanding of terrorism and what it stands for, and those for whom slogans and lofty pronouncements conceal a fundamental emptiness. 

"Inspire a Generation has been revealed as the official motto for the London Olympics. 'It is the heartbeat, the very DNA of this organisation and a rallying cry for the athletes to come to the UK to perform at their very best and inspire the world." [Source: Daily Mail]

It would have been good to see the Olympic movement embrace something a little more substantial and focused on genuine humanitarian values.

26-Jul-12: Quote of the week: "Definitely wasn't us Iranians. Must have been the Zionists that bombed the Israelis"

Sober and measured assessments see the terrorist fingerprints of Iran's government all over the lethal attack by a human bomb on a busload of Israeli tourists at Burgas airport in Bulgaria on July 18. But there remains one reliable forum where doubts about Iranian culpability are the norm rather than the exception: the debating halls of the United Nations.

The speaker is His Excellency Mohammad Khazaee, the American-educated Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations since 2007. The remarks below were made in a  UN Security Council debate on the Middle East yesterday:

"It's amazing that just a few minutes after the terrorist attack, Israeli officials announced that Iran was behind it... We have never and will not engage in such a despicable attempt on ... innocent people... Such terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed implicating others for narrow political gains... I could provide... many examples showing that this regime killed its own citizens and innocent Jewish people during the last couple of decades." [Source]

AFP's syndicated version of his statement quotes him saying more explicitly that Israel staged the attack in which five Israelis were killed, along with their Bulgarian driver. The Iranian called this part of a campaign of "state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed at implicating others for narrow political gains." Khazaee said "the representative of the Zionist criminal regime leveled baseless allegations against" his country over the Bulgaria attack. But he made no comment at all about the post-Burgas gloating of his own president, as reported here.

Now could be a good time to review something important and factual we posted here five days ago: "21-Jul-12: How involved in terror against Israelis and Jews are the Iranians?" Maybe also this: "27-Sep-08: Racism - getting to basics". 

26-Jul-12: Tomorrow, Friday, remember these victims of terror

www.minuteformunich,org

25-Jul-12: Qassam rocket crashed into Hof Ashkelon region of southern Israel at 10 tonight

At about 10 o'clock this evening, Wednesday, a Qassam rocket was fired from the Hamas-infested Gaza Strip and crashed and explosed in southern Israel's Hof Ashkelon region, home to 19 communities, including five kibbutzim, eleven moshavim, two communal settlements and a youth village. Haaretz is reporting that there are no casualties and no property damage. This is not the outcome the terrorists sought.

25-Jul-12: An effective 'spontaneous minute' that will speak louder than the IOC's roaring hypocrisy

Sixty thousand people standing in respectful silence at the opening ceremony.
London? No. Salt Lake City, 2002 - the Winter Olympics [Image Source]

The 2012 Olympic Games get underway in London in two days and three hours [check it here]. An online petition calling for sixty seconds of silence at the opening ceremony in memory of the eleven Israeli Olympians murdered in the Munich Olympic village exactly forty years ago by Palestinian Arabs has gotten more than 107,000 signatures. But it has failed to move the Olympic games organizers.

The families of the Munich 11 have tried for four long and lonely decades to obtain appropriate and respectful recognition of the Munich massacre from the International Olympic Committee. [We wrote about this earlier: "20-Jul-12: The Olympics, terror, cowardice and wisdom"] Now that it is clear they have finally and absolutely failed, the widow of one of the Munich dead says people sitting in the stadium at Friday’s opening ceremony should stand up and observe what she calls "a spontaneous minute when the IOC president begins to speak". She's absolutely right. The rest of us who will not be there should be doing everything we can to spread the word.

How did the organizers articulate their objection? Insensitively.

"We feel that the Opening Ceremony is an atmosphere that is not fit to remember such a tragic incident," Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, said Saturday. [Source: CNN]

How did the widows object to the objection? Determinedly, and with admirable dignity.

“If you believe that the 11 murdered athletes must be mentioned, stand for a spontaneous minute when the IOC president begins to speak,” said Ilana Romano, wife of Yossef Romano, a weightlifter who was murdered in the 1972 attack. The media, she said, should follow the lead of NBC sportscaster Bob Costas [it's explained here], who has pledged to hold his own on-air minute of silence. “Silence your microphones for a minute in memory of our loved ones and to condemn terrorism,” she said... The IOC, led by president Jacques Rogge, has steadfastly refused [the request for a minute of respectful silence]... [The widows behind the petition] were in London to present the petition to Rogge in a last-ditch attempt to get him to agree. They were due to meet on Wednesday night, after Rogge postponed a Tuesday meeting. [Source: Times of Israel]

It's not as if we lack a precedent. The victims of 9/11 were honored by the IOC at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah:

Sixty thousand people stood as one in respectful silence at the start of the program when the tattered American flag, recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center disaster, was carried into the stadium by eight U.S. athletes accompanied by three New York Port Authority police officers. The silence continued as the Utah Symphony and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed the national anthem with a kind of haunting dignity seldom heard in an age of embellishment. [Source: 2002 report in the San Francisco Chronicle]

So  why, really, is the IOC opposed to remembering the Israelis? Their deaths, unlike those of the tragic victims of 9/11, were integrally bound up with the Olympics, after all. There's a deeply disturbing answer. According to Thomas Bach, International Olympic Committee vice-president

The threats to boycott the opening ceremony made by Arab states in the event of an official minute of silence have led the IOC to mark the 40 year anniversary in other ways, including a minute of silence on Monday inside the Olympic Village, led by IOC President Jacques Rogge. The Arab boycott “had been a possibility, according to some of our advice”, Bach said according to Israel’s Channel 2 news. [Source: Algemeiner.com]

Craven is not a strong enough word for the IOC's conduct in this affair. If, as appears to be the case, this is why the IOC has decided what it decided, then those of us who understand the reasoning behind an "Arab boycott" and the hatred it represents must do everything we can to take back and publicly honor the memories of the Munich dead: stand for a spontaneous minute when the IOC president begins to speak. 

Like many things in life, this is far too important to be left to the officials. If we're not on the side of the victims, then we are giving our support to the killers and those who stand with them. 

25-Jul-12: Former Spanish PM: "When we see deadly terrorist attacks targeting tourists because they were Israeli, the marginalization of Israel is totally unacceptable"

Leaders pose for official event photo at Global Counterterrorism Forum in Istanbul, Turkey on June 7, 2012.
No Israelis were present. [State Department photo by Aydan Yurdakul/ Public Domain]

Spain's former prime minister between 1996 and 2004, Jose Maria Aznar, is himself personally a victim of terror who came close to losing his life at the hands of Basque terrorists in his homeland. We met and spoke at a terror victim conference in Bogota, Colombia in 2005. He shared some insightful observations with us  then. 

This week, in the run-down to Friday's launch of the London Olympics, Aznar published an important article in The Times of London under the title "How Dare the World Shun Israel on Terrorism". Elder of Ziyon has the full text on his blogsite. Some bullet quotations:

• As a terrorism victim myself, who was fortunate to survive a car-bomb attack, I cannot understand or justify the marginalization of other terrorist victims just for political reasons.
• Even in the most difficult times, I have always believed that weakness and appeasement are the wrong choices. Terrorism is not a natural phenomenon; it doesn't happen spontaneously; its not something ethereal. It can and must be fought using all the tools provided by the law and democracy - and most importantly, it can be defeated if there is the will to defeat it.
• Israel's ordeal is far from insignificant. Israel has much to contribute in this area and everyone else has a lot to learn if we really want to defeat the terrorists. Isolation not only renders Israel weaker against its enemies, but also makes all Westerners weaker.
• When we are about to mark the 40th anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the Olympic Village in Munich, in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists, it is a real paradox to see Israel excluded from the first meeting of the Global Counter-terrorism Forum [background here] last month in Istanbul. Worse still, in July, the forum organized its first victims-of-terrorism meeting. Israel was excluded.
• When we see deadly terrorist attacks, such as the recent one in Bulgaria, targeting tourists simply because they were Israeli, the marginalization of Israel is totally unacceptable.
• If we extrapolate Israel's experience of slaughter to Britain, it would mean that in the past 12 years about 11,000 British citizens would have died and 60,000 would have been injured in terrorist attacks. In the case of the U.S., the figures would be 65,000 dead and 300,000 injured.
• Israel is not the problem; it is part of the solution. We will become the problem if we continue to cold-shoulder Israel, the country most affected by terrorism and, possibly, the one that knows best how to defeat it.

24-Jul-12: Scenes from the front lines

The chronology below picks up from our previous posting of Sunday, July 15, 2012 [here] that is based on information received (and then edited and annotated by us) based on the Tayar Security Report. Yehudit Tayar creates her bulletins from first-responder, police and army reports. 

Friday July 20, 2012

• Rocket fired from Gaza lands in open field [our report on this is here]
• Arabs attacked Israeli bus with rocks near El Fuar, southwest of Hebron causing damage

Saturday July 21, 2012

• Rocket fired from Gaza lands in open area near the Erez Crossing.
• Adjacent to the security fence of the Kiryat Arba community: Arabs attacked Jewish girls with rocks 
• Near the community of Itamar in the Samaria district (Shomron): Israeli vehicles came under rock attack by Arabs, causing damage to the vehicles.

Sunday July 22, 2012

• Security report of fire directed at bus carrying military personnel near the Philadelphi Route, between Carmit and Har Sagi.  Damage is reported but fortunately no injuries.
• Near El Arub on the Gush Etzion-Hebron road - again, an Israeli bus comes under rock-and-block attack by Arabs.
• Near Halhul, north of Hebron on the Gush Etzion-Hebron road: Arabs attack an Israeli bus with rocks
• Bet Anun, north of Kiryat Arba on the Gush Etzion-Hebron road: Another Israeli bus comes under rock attack from Arabs 

Monday July 23, 2012

• The Abu Snena neighborhood of Hebron: IDF soldiers arrest an Arab, and find he is in possession of a 9.5 cm knife. The matter is now under police investigation.
• Near Bet Anun, north of Kiryat Arba (again): An IDF vehicle comes under rock attack by Arabs. Three IDF soldiers are injured and their vehicle is extensively damaged.
• Mivtarei Halhul on the Gush Etzion-Hebron road: A terrorist attack in which rocks are propelled from a fast-moving Arab vehicle towards a fast-moving Israeli vehicle. This happened at the exact same location as the lethal terrorist attack on Friday September 23, 2011 that resulted in the deaths of Asher Palmer and his year-old son Yonatan. [Our report at the time was called "25-Sep-11: "Only" rock throwers - but now a father and his infant son are dead"]. In Monday's attack, significant damage is caused to a vehicle driven by a woman resident of Kiryat Arba. In addition a police van and two Arab vehicles are damaged by rocks in the same attack. 
• Again near Mivtarei Halhul, north of Hebron: A separate rock attack by Arabs on an Israeli bus shatters the windshield.
• Near the Arab town of Beit 'Ur El Fuqa ("Upper house of straw"), which is adjacent to the Biblical community of Beth Horon and the modern Israeli community of  Beit Horon: Arabs hurl rocks at Israeli vehicles traveling on the major arterial Route 443 connecting Ben Gurion airport, Modi'in and Jerusalem. They shatter windshields but so far nothing worse. We ourselves have been struck in previous years by rocks hurled by Arabs standing on the ridge overlooking the highway.
• Between Asaf Hill and the community of Psagot in the Benjamin region: More rock attacks by Arabs on recognizably Israeli vehicles 
• Near El Arub on the Gush Etzion - Hebron road (again): Rock-hurling Arabs attack Israeli vehicles  causing damage to an Israeli bus and to a large number of Israeli vehicles.
• Near Yitzhar in the Samaria district (Shomron): Arabs attack recognizably Israeli vehicles with firebombs aka Molotov cocktails as well as with rocks .
• Adjacent to the Nablus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City: A female police officer is struck in the head and injured by rocks thrown by Arabs.

Tuesday July 24, 2012

• Tel Romeida, near Hebron: Following the massive Arab rock attack against an Israeli man bathing in the ancient spring at the site on July 19 [reported here], it is now known that he is hospitalized with internal bleeding following the attack. The state of his injuries is designated as moderate.
• Sussia in the Southern Hebron Hills: A crowd of Arabs and political activists gathered on the outskirts of the community and executed a riot. Large numbers of IDF and Israel Police service personnel were brought to the site to restore order. The area was declared a "closed military zone".
• A rocket is fired from Gaza and crashed into Arab-controlled territory described as "across from Reim".

The Tayar Security Report is compiled by Yehudit Tayar based on inputs from the Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron organization, cleared and confirmed by the IDF.

24-Jul-12: Three GRAD rockets fired at Ashkelon and all downed by Iron Dome anti-missile system fire [UPDATED]

We got notification in the last few minutes (a little after 8:00 pm) of three terrorist rockets of the GRAD variety that were fired at the southern Israel Hof Ashkelon region. All three must have been more or less on target because all three were intercepted by IDF Iron Dome counter-missile fire. (Intercepts are normally undertaken after the system computes the likelihood of a hit on meaningful Israeli assets.) Times of Israel is reporting that it knows of no injuries or damage at this stage. Three rockets in a single volley is certain to be answered by a military response.

UPDATE 11:30 pm Tuesday: The Times of Israel says they were two, not three. And one was shot down in mid-air while the second crashed and exploded harmlessly.

23-Jul-12: Dr Jihad: "No chemical or biological weapons will ever be used by Syria, and I repeat, will never be used, during the crisis" except...

Syrian despot al-Assad and family: Don't ignore the photo above, but know that the story it illustrates
is about as far from heart-warming as stories get. [Image Source] And Dr Jihad actually exists.

The Foreign Ministry of the disintegrating Syrian Arab Republic found time today to hold a press conference. 

The country is in the midst of a bloodbath that speaks more eloquently than any press conference ever could about the reality of getting in the path of one of the last remaining, old-style murderous despots. We only know about this via non-traditional channels. Syria's ongoing street killings, the daily massacres, get media coverage because of the easy access that embattled participants themselves have to YouTube, Twitter and similar channels that barely existed a decade ago. Conventional media reporting in which foreign correspondents are accredited to Syria and get access to government representatives and public events? Forget it. In its 2011 annual table, Reporters Without Borders described Syrian "freedom of the press" thus: 

"Total censorship, widespread surveillance, indiscriminate violence and government manipulation made it impossible for journalists to work" in Syria last year, which fell to 176th position in the index.

But today they held a media conference at the Foreign Ministry in Damascus. We know that Al Jazeera sent a representative because they photographed and reported it. They had some revealing things to say which, it's far to assume, the Syrians wanted us to know:

At the foreign ministry media conference, the Syrian government acknowledged for the first time that it possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and said it will only use them in case of a foreign attack and never internally against its own citizens. "No chemical or biological weapons will ever be used, and I repeat, will never be used, during the crisis in Syria no matter what the developments inside Syria," spokesman Makdissi said. "All of these types of weapons are in storage and under security and the direct supervision of the Syrian armed forces and will never be used unless Syria is exposed to external aggression." [Source]

Dr Jihad addresses the media conference in Damascus today. 
Screen shot of the official Syrian site [Image Source]

We will write again, separately, about those last words. They seem to be crafted to specifically address Israel. Meanwhile, back to Syria.

The uniquely well-named spokesperson for the collapsing House of al-Assad today was JihadMakdissi PhD. It was Dr. Jihad who took the stage to explain just how very interested the Syrians are in hearing their Arab League colleagues suggest that Bashar al-Assad should give up power:

"We are sorry that the Arab League has descended to this level concerning a member state of this institution... This decision [presumably, whether or not al-Assad goes] only concerns the Syrian people, who are the sole masters of fate of their governments. If the Arab nations who met in Doha were honest about wanting to stop the bloodshed they would have stopped supplying arms... they would stop their instigation and propaganda... All their statements are hypocritical."

In the official Syrian government version of the media event [here], Dr. Jihad offered some creative observations about what it euphemistically termed "recent events taking place in some of Damascus neighborhoods".

"It is clear that the Syrian army is defending the Syrians and that we are in state of self-defense. There might be clashes in certain areas but the security situation is much more better."

Could it be getting "much more better" because the al-Assad regime's men are now finally openly flaunting those weapons of proven mass destruction? Syria's chemical strategy worked wonderfully well for them in 1982. The notorious chemical massacre at Hama cost tens of thousands of Syrian lives, but in Wikipedia's words, it "ended the campaign begun in 1976 by Sunni Islamic groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, against Assad's regime". 

"Much more better" than that, the junior al-Assad could hardly hope to achieve.

Dr. Jihad went on today to explain why the world should trust the Syrians on this chemical/biological weapons issue.

...We are defending ourselves. If there are such weapons, they are for defending Syria against external aggression. Any military person knows that such weapons can't be used in a guerilla warfare." On the possibility of a comprehensive war taking place in the region in case Israel decided to bombard the sites of the chemical weapons in Syria, Makdissi said "Don't ask a diplomat about a war option, I don't talk about a war and, God's willing, there will not be a war."

Good point: Syria is not at war. Right.

[Image Source]

As to how Syrian insiders look after the best interests of their own people, the matter is open to - how to say this? - considerable differences of viewpoint. Under the headline "Photographs have emerged showing intimate details of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's family life", the UK's Telegraph newspaper yesterday published some visual reminders of the unbridgeable gap between the reality of the self-indulgent al-Assads and the grim facts of daily Syrian massacres. 


Accompanying the extraordinary pictures, the Telegraph's Nick Meo ["Family photo album reveals Assad private life"] offers some of the most devastating understated commentary on the Syrian situation to have emerged in recent months:

Most parents would want to safeguard a young family - and many other Syrians, of all political hues, have already done exactly that by fleeing the country, or making plans to leave. It is one of the more contradictory facts about the couple who have presided over 18 months of bloody repression of their people - with Mr Assad ordering the arrest, detention and torture of thousands of his own compatriots, or sending tanks to shell rebel villages indiscriminately - that they have tried to preserve the nearest thing possible to a normal family life. They were never an ordinary family, with their palaces, private jets and billion dollar fortune. But now photographs have emerged - apparently taken for propaganda reasons - showing in intimate detail how they led an apparently warm family life, one to which it may never now be possible to return... The photographs, from Mrs Assad's private collection, were handed to a foreign friend in Damascus before the uprising started in the spring of last year. They are believed to have been taken between five and seven years ago in Syria, probably by a professional photographer, and appear intended to portray the family as happy, normal and modern. Their cosy intimacy looks too natural to be have been staged. Unseen by the photographer, and by most visitors to Syria, were the torture chambers, tanks and chemical weapons that the family relied on to maintain their brutal rule. Also unseen among the photographs of Hafez, now aged 10, with his sister, eight-year-old Zein, and their brother Karim, now seven, are images of those less fortunate Syrian children who have died in the course of the uprising: some blown apart in artillery barrages against rebellious suburbs, others slaughtered in their villages by loyalist Shabiha militia who cut their throats in vengeful rampages.

Read the Telegraph article here.