I'm a Zionist Arab; Jews are Great

Muhammad Zoabi, 16, angers his famous relative MK Zoabi by stating eloquently that Israeli Arabs should be thankful for the Jewish state.

By Gil Ronen http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/179359

 : 4/7/2014,  

Muhammad Zoabi, 16, an Arab Muslim from Nazareth, is causing anger in Muslim circles, and considerable joy in Jewish ones, by stating in a unique interview that he is a Zionist and loves the state of Israel.

"I really believe that I'm a lucky Arab and a lucky human being and a lucky Middle Eastern[er] that I was born in this little tiny piece of land!”, he stated. Pointing to the Golan Heights from the window of his interviewer's home, in the Israeli community of Massad, he noted how bad life is beyond the border, for Syrians.

People in Syria are being killed because they want freedom, Muhammad said. but in Israel, he explained to interviewer Susan Deane Taylor-Gol, “we are living freedom, freedom is our life! No one can take our freedom... We're the hope in the region. I think that if the Syrians and the Egyptians, and the Lebanese and the Jordanians and all of our neighbors want to have a really democratic life, they should come to us, and they are more than welcome!”

Zoabi explained that it is not easy to be a Muslim Zionist. He said that “the bad sides” of Arab culture have taken control of the society, that he has been attacked several times for his views, and that some people call him a traitor, or even “a Jew.” He added with a smile that he cannot understand how people could see the word “Jew” as an insult, when the Jews only recently emerged from a situation in which they were being ruthlessly slaughtered, to one in which they are “one of the smartest and strongest nations in the world.”

MK Hanin Zouabi (Balad) responded to Muhammad's pro-Israel Facebook page and video by saying that “the state of Israel has trained him into obedience. Sometimes, the oppressed identifies with the oppressor because he lacks pride and political awareness.”

Muhammad is unfazed by such statements and vows to “stand with the Jewish people until the last day of my life.” 

See video of the interview at  http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/179359

The Israeli Hospital that Saves Syrian Lives

An Inside Look into the Israeli Hospital that Saves Syrian Lives

Published on: January 28, 2014

For the past three years, death has become a way of life for Syrian civilians, who are caught in the throes of a brutal civil war. Last year, the IDF set up a field hospital to treat wounded Syrian civilians near the northern border.

Regardless of the tense relations between Israel and Syria, who are still officially at war, IDF soldiers have continued to apply a core Jewish value: “Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world.”

On February 16, 2013, seven wounded civilians from Syria approached Israel’s border in urgent need of help. Colonel Tariff Bader, a Druze officer, heads an Israeli field hospital near the border. He began his IDF service in 1993, and after completing his medical studies, rose the IDF’s ranks to become a senior medical officer in the IDF’s Northern Command.

“They arrived on Shabbat and were treated by the same people who treat IDF soldiers in the Golan Heights,” Col. Bader explained. “The ethical code of the IDF Medical Corps clearly states that soldiers must assist anyone who is sick or wounded – whether they are associated with the enemy or not.”  The incident on the border began the IDF’s extraordinary mission to assist Syrian civilians in need.

The victims of the civil war in Syria

Recently, the Israeli-Syrian border has become a focal point of tension due to the ongoing Syrian rebellion against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The main victims of this internal conflict are Syrian civilians. According to the United Nations, at least 100,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting over the past three years.

“When we realized we would be receiving many patients, we decided to build a field hospital so that we could treat people with serious injuries who require immediate care,” Col. Bader said, explaining that the victims were so badly injured that they would not have survived the trip to a civilian hospital.

“There has not been a single case in which an injured Syrian was denied medical treatment by the IDF or by a civilian hospital,” said Col. Bader. “I’m sure of that.”

A daily challenge to save lives

The Israeli hospital facility, which continues to operate today, includes surgery, orthopedics and radiology divisions. On a regular basis, nurses and orderlies lend a hand to IDF doctors at the border. Cases that call for serious operations require cooperation between the IDF Medical Corps and Israeli civilian medical services.

The field hospital is located very close to the border, making it a potential target for Syrians looking to exploit the conflict to attack Israel.

WATCH the IDF respond to Syrian fire on Israeli territory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tttP-HAhbko

In the past, mortar fire from Syria has wounded IDF soldiers in Israel. Despite the dangers of their work, soldiers risk their lives to treat Syrian victims. In many cases, medical forces must treat Syrian patients without any knowledge of their medical histories or health conditions. Despite the absence of cooperation between Israeli and Syrian medical services, some patients arrive with notes from Syrian doctors describing recommended care. These notes, written in Arabic or English, have become the only form of communication between doctors from the two countries.

While discussing the relationship between Israeli soldiers and Syrian victims, Col. Bader explained that their connection is quickly strengthening. “The Syrian people trust us now,” he said. “During the first month or so, they were a little hesitant to come to Israel. Today that is no longer the case.”

Once the patients return to Syria, any evidence of their presence in Israel can put their lives in grave danger. In order to keep the civilians safe, the IDF takes painstaking measures to remove any indication that they received care in Israel.

Committed to humanitarian aid

Soldiers who serve in the hospital are deeply committed to their humanitarian work. As an expression of respect for the hospital, people all over the world have sent gifts to members of the medical team. Soldiers have received everything from clothing, gift cards and radios from people abroad, who have also sent gifts intended for Syrian patients.

A large number of the patients suffer extreme trauma as a result of the conflict. After seeing death and destruction all around them, they carry difficult memories that are just as painful as their physical wounds. To e

ase the psychological trauma of children, clowns visit the hospital on a regular basis, giving the young patients a chance to smile and laugh.

“I myself am a father,” Col. Bader said. “The injuries of children leave the greatest impact on me. I remember a girl whose femur was completely shattered. Had our forces not been there to help her, she would have died or been disabled for the rest of her life. I am honored to do this work, both as a physician and a citizen of Israel. Some patients who arrived unconscious were shocked to find themselves in Israel when they woke up. Fortunately, other Syrians in the hospital helped us calm them down.”

This is not Col. Bader’s first time representing a major humanitarian effort as an IDF soldier. He was also a part of the IDF delegation to Haiti in 2010. Whenever he speaks publicly, he is clearly moved by his experiences. “I feel exactly the same about the lives we save on our own border,” he concluded. “It fills me with pride to accomplish this mission.”

Israeli youth send winter equipment to Syrian refugees

 ADELIE PONTAY, Jerusalem Post 09/01/2014 

An Israeli NGO is helping Syrian refugees survive by collecting winter clothing, but has to remove all traces of its origin before sending it to the war-torn country.

Operation Human Warmth was organized in response to the snowstorm last month during which 27 Syrian children died. Israeli Flying Aid launched the campaign in cooperation with two youth movements, DrorIsrael and Hano’ar Ha’oved Vehalomed.

Israeli Flying Aid supplies humanitarian aid to people around the world, including in countries that have no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. The organization does not usually publicize such actions so as not to be prevented from carrying out its missions. This time it is speaking out, in an effort to raise awareness of the refugees’ plight and to attract financial donations.

Gal Lusky, founder of Israeli Flying Aid, told The Jerusalem Post that because of the Jewish people’s past, there was a “moral obligation to be the voice of the voiceless.”

The aid effort is meant to “help Israeli children understand that Syrians are in desperate need of help, and that humanitarian reasons require one to put politics aside for a while.

“It is a great moment for democracy,” she added, “as these children might one day fight against each other, to educate Israeli youth,” and to act to help the children of their “worst enemy.”

Members of the public can bring sweaters, blankets, sleeping bags and other garments to 15 Hano’ar Ha’oved Vehalomed youth centers across the country through January 10. Members of the two youth groups are also going out and collecting the needed items.

The donations will be checked to ensure the safety of the refugees who will receive them. Thus, clothing with Israeli brand names or Hebrew writing will not be accepted, and all Hebrew-language tags will be removed.

Israeli Flying Aid will transfer them to Syrians in need. The NGO declined to say the supplies would be sent to Syria.

Some 100,000 members of the youth groups between the ages of 12 to 18 will participate in the operation.

Israeli Flying Aid plans to start another operation later this month with the Scout movement to collect dry foods and other goods to send to Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons. 

Peace-Dripping Nuclear Lamb

 Ali Salim October 8, 2013 

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4006/iran-peace-dripping-nuclear-lamb

They ignore the words of the Ayatollah Khamenei, who defined statesmanship as fraud and deceit hidden in smiles, and then sent Rouhani off to negotiate with the West. There are people who actually think that the Iranians, who spent so much on their nuclear bomb project, will actually give it up and abandon their dream of controlling the Arab oil fields, the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, then on from there.

The Middle Eastern Bazaar

Russia's Putin calculates his every move, and only goes to war to win. Considering the might of the West balanced against his own weakness, he apparently saw that the smart thing, should the U.S. decide to attack Syria, would be to stand on the sidelines and let Assad, his ally, tough it out alone. Concerned, even momentarily, that the U.S. might actually carry out its threat and attack the Syrian regime as it promised when the use of chemical weapons was called a "red line," Putin was quick to save the U.S. from itself. While Obama yelled "hold me back," however, in reality he did nothing and was planning to do nothing: the U.S. looked afraid.

Despite Syria having begun to reveal the locations of its chemical weapons storehouses, Putin is still squirming. He has no way of being certain that all the locations will be revealed – nor does anyone else. He refuses to let the chemicals enter Russia for destruction. No one knows where they will be destroyed or who will accept responsibility.

Now, while Putin is demanding that Israel also destroy the weapons of mass destruction he pretends it possesses, he also fancifully claims that Syria has chemical weapons "only" as a strategic balance to the "Israeli threat." Putin has said that, given Israel's technological superiority, it has nothing to fear from Syria -- another manipulative lie, this time for the ears of the Arab and Muslim world, which, as usual, hears only what it wants to. Putin knows full well that if Israel so desired, it could attack and defeat Syria or any other Arab country without once taking recourse to non-conventional weapons, especially now that these countries have been weakened by the Arab Spring.

Putin, having negotiated with the U.S. and discovered how easily it could be swayed -- is now, like a rug merchant in an Arab bazaar, trying to renegotiate the original arrangement to extort more. Having identified America's weaknesses, Putin is now doing his best to exploit it to the maximum, making the U.S. the biggest loser: Given its current situation in the UN and Congress, even if the U.S. wanted to attack Syria, it could not carry out its threat: The U.S now cannot attack without support from the UN Security Council, and, possibly to its relief, it is not going to get it.

The Arab and Muslim world is hard, implacable and unrelenting: here, in the Middle East, might is measured in terms of results on the ground, not in rhetoric. Since the Kerry-Lavrov agreement was reached, the status of the United States has plummeted and burned, despite the American campaign to market Obama as the super-strategist who achieved a diplomatic success while carrying a big stick. The truth is that the U.S. made empty threats that were never carried out. Worse, everyone knows he could not have carried them out: both domestically and abroad, he looks weak.

In the Arab and Muslim world, the agreement to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons was represented as an American failure, both moral and operational; and as a strategic Syrian surrender to Israel. The worst aspect of the agreement, however, was that it gave the Syrian regime a green light to continue using conventional weapons to kill Syrian civilians. Putin came away from the agreement looking like a great statesman: mature, responsible and trustworthy. 

The various factions of the Syrian opposition, who have a vested interest, were not even invited to the deliberations. A number of days after the agreement was announced, they announced their refusal to accept it. As the various factions are also at war with each other, and shoot each other whenever the opportunity presents itself, there is really no alternative to Assad. Thus the American-Russian agreement will perpetuate the chaos and bloodshed for years to come. The agreement strengthens only Iran, which floods Syria with arms and logistical aid, even as it sedates the American administration with unscrupulous diplomatic rhetoric.

The Iranian Spin

Those parts of the West that have apparently succumbed to America's misguided interpretation of events are now celebrating "victory." Iranian president Rouhani arrived on America's shores and delivered at the UN a peace-dripping speech, bought and lapped up by the Americans, who seem to think Iran's "reversal" was the result of Obama's brilliant statesmanship. Rouhani finally recognized the existence of the Holocaust of the Jews and called for global cooperation, and there was even a rumor, since disproven, that in Tehran supreme leader Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa banning the development and use of nuclear weapons. Surely the millennium is at hand, but what if the lamb turns out to be a nuclear wolf in sheep's clothing? Now, after the American fiasco in Syria, the Iranians are certain that the U.S. will never strike them; that its only weapons are words on a teleprompter.

Having fully understood the U.S. mindset, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei set forth his plan of "heroic flexibility," a masterpiece of words, marketing a whole series of concepts without changing one single aspect of Iran's nuclear program. Only few in the Western world know that the Shi'ite operative principle at work is taqiyya: that to advance his goal, a Muslim can lie to the enemy, the infidel, the non-Muslim, with total impunity and religious sanction. Now that the U.S., in the eyes of the Middle East, has revealed itself as nothing more than a paper teleprompter, the Iranians have fallen over themselves uttering words such as "Lasting peace, No to war, Stability, Dialogue" -- all the tranquilizing words that can chloroform the West into a false sense of security, while deep in the mountains the centrifuges keep spinning, and Iran keeps on completing its bomb.

Even as the words came dripping off Rouhani's tongue, in Iran's backyards parades were held, featuring scores of long-range missiles capable of reaching Europe, the Persian Gulf, Israel, and American bases in the Middle East. Rouhani, who has attended several such parades, claims the weapons are just for self defense and that Iran has never started a war or initiated military confrontations against any country. Oh really? While Rouhani was devoutly dripping peace, Mansour Haghighatpour, a member of Iran's National Security Council, announced that as a result of Iran's "flexibility," American-Iranian relations would improve and break the back of the "reactionary" [pro-Western] Arab regimes in the Middle East and the "Zionist regime." This is the ayatollahs' real approach to peace.

The world's short memory may not recall that Iran fought a bloody, determined war for eight years against Iraq, and, thanks to the recent American withdrawal, has almost completely taken over the place. The missiles in Rouhani's peace parade bore the inscription "Death to Israel." At any given moment, Iranian fighters can be found slaughtering Syrian civilians while Iran provides training, arms and massive amounts of money to Hezbollah; and Iranian intelligence and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards maintain terrorist and espionage networks around the world, including South America.

The Americans, garlanded with olive branches, sit in the stands and watch as the Iranians land. The Iranians' visit means only that they have found the Achilles heel in the Western sanctions that threaten their economy. By showering the administration with compliments and marketing "ideological flexibility," the Iranians want to soften a superpower that dares not attack but takes refuge in words; cause the economic siege of Iran to crumble, and -- above all -- preserve their nuclear program.

On the eve of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan of Turkey was called "The Sick Man of the Bosphorus." Unfortunately, along the Potomac, there seem to be sick men as well, who mistakenly think the Iranians, after having spent so much on their nuclear bomb project -- and after suffering international economic sanctions, cyber attacks, and the loss of scientists under suspicious circumstances -- will actually give it up, rather than envisioning the Shi'ite apocalypse; the return of the Mahdi; control of Arab oil; occupying the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf; taking over the Middle East and after it, possibly world domination. The sick men of the Potomac seem mistakenly to think that the Iranians, captivated by Obama and possibly motivated by the Syrian fiasco, will suddenly decide they do not want a nuclear bomb or world domination, after all.

There are, along the Potomac, people who actually think that one bearded ayatollah at the United Nations means the Iranians have waived these desires. They ignore the worlds of the Ayatollah Khamenei, who defined statesmanship as fraud and deceit hidden in smiles, and then sent Rouhani off to negotiate with the West.

America is likely to get so caught up in words that it believes the legend it has created for itself.

The sanctions against Iran must be continued until there is proof that both its arsenal and nuclear potential have been destroyed. If the sanctions slacken or end, no leader will be able to renew the momentum.

There are people along the Potomac who wishfully think that the achievements of the negotiations in Syria increased their stature and deterrent capabilities; unfortunately, the opposite is true. More than one country has begun disregarding the United States; and many more, because of America's perceived weakness, are fearful. The Iranians, on the other hand, are laughing out loud.


Ali Salim is a scholar based in the Middle East

Israel’s secret doctors

 The story of Israeli doctors treating the Syrians either at field hospitals on the border or in Israeli hospitals raises the question of why, if the Syrian crisis is an internal Arab affair, why are we not seeing the Arab countries putting their money where their mouths ofgten are and support the humanitarian efforts on behalf of the injured? As is the case of the Palestinian refugees, the Arab Staters in the region sit back and let the West and the USA provide the vast bulk of the funds for UNWRA.

Below, is the story of the reaiity on the ground

===================================================

Robert Fulford robert.fulford@utoronto.ca

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/09/07/robert-fulford-israels-secret-doctors/

To help refugees from the Syrian war, Israeli doctors and aid workers must do their work furtively. When they go into refugee camps in Jordan, they change clothes so that they can fade into the background. They must be smuggled in and out. They don’t tell others where they’re going and when they go home they usually don’t say where they have been. Above all, they don’t want anyone to know the names of their patients.

They move “under the radar,” in the words of a clandestine organization in this field. When they treat Syrians in Israeli hospitals, they make sure no visiting journalist learns details that will identify the patients to authorities back in Syria.

Usually, Israel is glad to announce when it contributes to emergency relief. The case of Syrian aid is different.

Syria does not recognize Israel and forbids its citizens to go there. Israeli doctors are not welcome in Jordan, where their work has been denounced as a violation of Jordanian sovereignty. And Israel is anxious not to be involved in the Syrian civil war. It does nothing, officially, that could make it look like the medical corps of the rebellion.

For Syrians the possibility that their own government will punish them adds to the horror of their situation. This summer, in Nahariya, Israel, near the Golan Heights, scores of patients have been covertly brought across the border from Syria to be treated by Israeli doctors.

For patients’ friends or relatives, Israel becomes a last hope when no Syrian medical help is available. Masad Barhoum, clinical director at Western Galilee Medical Center, recently told an NBC reporter that many patients arrive unconscious. “When they wake up and find that they are in Israel they are anxious and afraid.”

A Syrian woman in the hospital said that she came to Israel because her daughter was hit by a sniper’s bullet. “The hospital in my town was destroyed. They saved her here, but now I am afraid to go back. We will be marked.”

An Israeli organization, iL4Syrians, operates anonymously in Syria and other desperate countries. Providing food and medical supplies for those who need them, it relies on secrecy to protect both its local contacts and its own practitioners. Its web site identifies no directors or staff but carries a defiant slogan: “Nobody asks permission to kill. We do not ask permission to save lives.”

They explain that “We focus on countries that lack diplomatic relations with Israel, transcending differences.” They argue that a respect for the sanctity of human life expresses Jewish tradition and culture. As they see it, this applies to Israel’s toughest and cruelest enemies as well as anyone else.

Since all of these efforts are unofficial and unrecorded, no one can say how many Israelis are involved. I was alerted to this phenomenon by one of the regular letters of Tom Gross, an astute British-born commentator on the Middle East.

Gross has a 15-minute film showing a couple of days spent by an aid group visiting refugees. The refugees don’t expect them to arrive and are surprised when they learn that their benefactors are Israelis. That makes some of them nervous but in the film others say in Arabic “May God bless Israel.”

The team takes along a professional clown to perform for the children while food is being handed out; in one camp, however, the adults briefly riot over limited supplies. A journalist asks one of the aid workers, “Do people call you crazy?” She answers: “Not many people know.”

Information about this work has to be pieced together from fragments of journalism, like a paragraph in an Israeli/Arabic paper: “The Arab countries offer condolences but the best role is provided by the Israelis because they are crossing the border to provide assistance to the refugees, risking their lives without a word of thank you.”

These are dark days for much of the world, dreadfully dark for Syrians. Few can even imagine a solution that does not involve even more tragedy for them. W.H. Auden, in his poem “September 1, 1939” described an even darker time and offered the only advice that made sense to him: “Show an affirming flame.”

As Jews celebrate the start of the new year, it’s worth noting that these Israeli humanitarians have found a way to make their flame burn with a brave affirmation.

It's Not "Just" Attack with Gas

Arlene Kushner Sept 1st 2013 

http://tinyurl.com/ob5xgjd 

The "just" is being employed advisedly, of course.  But the fact of the matter is that there is more than one horrendous way for Assad to attack civilians associated with rebel forces. 

This past Thursday, information came out from Syria via BBC journalists that was picked up by very few news sources. I would have thought it would have been screamed from the rafters, but either it is "ho hum" or is simply running under the radar. 

My betting is that you haven't heard about this:

It was the end of a school day in the north of Syria, and, reportedly, a fighter jet overhead flew back and forth looking for a target (i.e., place where a group of people is assembled).  The one the pilot decided upon was the yard of a high school, where groups of teenagers just dismissed from a day at school were lingering.

What he dropped on the kids was some sort of "napalm-like" incendiary bomb that caused horrendous burning.  Ten young people were dead and many more injured, "writhing in agony."

The aftermath of the attack was filmed. The BBC link is here although I advise you not to look at the video portion unless you have a strong stomach. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-23892594

~~~~~~~~~~

The "fighter jet" wasn't identified by the BBC journalists as belonging to Assad's forces, but certainly it did.  The rebel forces don't have fighter jets.  The location of the attack, an area where those supporting the rebel forces are found, makes this even more clear. According to the Independent (UK) the attack took place in Aleppo. 

Credit : BBC Panorama

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-reports-of-napalmlike-bomb-attack-on-aleppo-playground-emerge-after-mps-vote-against-military-action-8790841.htm

It is only days ago that there were Americans saying that the military warning to Assad to stop using gas had to be delivered soon because there was fear of another gas attack, with the most likely target Aleppo.

~~~~~~~~~~

After I viewed the video, I confess that I responded viscerally:  My first thought was that Assad's head had to be bombed off.  Of course that probably would not be possible because he's hiding in a bunker. 

I make no apology for that initial emotional response to such gross and shocking inhumanity.  But, in short order, I began to think more rationally again, with regard to the wisdom -- within the full context of the situation -- of taking the Assad regime down.  There are a lot of people calling for this -- not because of the incendiary bomb, but for broader reasons regarding a weakening of Iran.

What has shocked me is how little the world has paid attention to this latest attack by the Assad regime.  Evidence seems clear in the video, but if further confirmation is required, let journalists begin to investigate.

And here I would suggest that you, my readers, can be a vehicle for spreading the word of the reports on what is going on.  

If you cannot definitively say, "Assad's air force dropped an incendiary bomb that burned young people to death," although there is an exceedingly good likelihood that this is precisely what happened, then you can say just that: There is a good likelihood of this having happened as reported, and it's important for people to know, to pursue the matter, and to raise their voices loudly.

For the record, use of an incendiary bomb is forbidden by international law, on a humanitarian basis.  I've checked this with an international lawyer.  Alan Baker, my frequent "go to" on such issues. As I said, it's not "just" gas.

Use the BBC link, or the Independent link, or both, for confirmation.  Put this up on websites, and on discussion groups, and ask why the world is not responding with horror. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Equally shocking to me (I suppose I should no longer be shocked but I haven't learned to move past this) is how brazen Assad is.  Defying all norms established by the international community with regard to humanity, he proceeds blithely even as he knows he is being watched. 

He is thumbing his nose at the world, confident that he can proceed without paying a price. And this is precisely why he must pay a price.

~~~~~~~~~~

Now to Barak Obama, and his statement last night. 

I make a public confession.  For one fleeting moment, after I heard that he was going to address the American people, I imagined that he was going to say that there had been sufficient justification for action in Syria in any event, but now with evidence of an attack on young people with an incendiary bomb, the case is even stronger.

Silly me... I was quickly brought back to the reality: Obama is a coward who has made a fool of himself.

~~~~~~~~~~

According to unattributed sources within the administration, Obama's turn-around on speedy action in Syria was made unilaterally at the last moment.  Advisers gathered expecting to discuss details of the attack, only to be told that the plans had changed.  Understand that he is not surrounded by advisors we would call "right wing" or "hawks."  And yet they were on board for moving on Syria.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which carried this story, Obama's change of mind was facilitated by reassurance he received from chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, who said that the timing of the attack did not matter: Whether strikes were launched tomorrow, or a week from now, or a month from now, the military would be able to ensure the effectiveness of the operation. he reportedly maintained.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4424723,00.html

I take strong issue with Dempsey on this.  What he is saying -- if indeed he said this as reported -- is akin to nonsense. Already too much time has elapsed, and too much has been said by the president. 

There are reports of military equipment being moved in Syria away from the places the US is most likely to attack.  Reuters, for example, reported on some missiles and launching equipment being moved from a key military site last week as a "precautionary measure":

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-syria-crisis-missiles-idUSBRE97S12920130829

Other reports have alluded to precautionary troop movements.

What is worse, there are multiple reports of prison inmates being moved by bus, by the thousands, to those sites most likely to be targeted -- to serve as human shields.  This is also in defiance of international law.

See, for example: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/syria-human-shields-president-assad-2237439

And Dempsey maintains that the timing is irrelevant here?

~~~~~~~~~~

Obama's reluctance to act against Syria has been evident from the start, whatever the surface bravado of his words.  He has now surrendered to that unease -- which was exacerbated by the negative response of the British Parliament and Cameron's subsequent pull out.

He has fallen back on the excuse that it will be more of a "democratic" process if he permits Congress to debate the issue and then vote on it.  (Obama: the champion of democratic process.) For the record: this is not required of him by law, as he is not declaring war on Syria; there is ample precedent for the sort of action he was supposed to take.

Congress is not scheduled to re-convene after its summer recess until the 9th of September.  That is when the debate will begin; who knows when the vote will be held.

There is mixed opinion here: Is Obama hoping that the Congress will vote against, so that he is off the hook?  Or is he looking for support so that he isn't going it alone?  He says he intends to attack Syria eventually; but if Congress is opposed? 

My contempt for all of this is boundless.

~~~~~~~~~~

I will note here that the argument is being made that with the delay Obama will at least have access to the findings of the UN team that went to the site of the gas bombing and came out with samples -- and thus will his case be bolstered.  I find this a bit of nonsense as well.  For it has already been concluded that there was a gas attack.  If the UN now says the blood samples show there was a gas attack, how does this make Obama's case stronger?

The issue (allegedly) was one of being sure that Assad ordered the attack.  But the UN team's blood samples will not provide evidence of this.

~~~~~~~~~~

A case can be made that the longer the delay, the less the sense of immediacy, the easier to dispense with it all together. 

Coming full circle, there is also concern about additional attacks against the Syrian population that Assad will pursue with great equanimity if has not been attacked.  If the whole point is to warn him that his current behavior will not be tolerated, then he has to be warned, does he not?

In fact, Obama's delay is causing Assad to feel even more emboldened.

~~~~~~~~~~

Here in Israel, where criticism of Obama is strong, it is being said that Netanyahu now knows he cannot count on Obama on Iran.

My own opinion is that Netanyahu, who is not foolish, figured this out a long, long time ago. 

Perhaps there are others, either here in Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East, who have now been disabused of any notion that Obama is someone to be depended upon.  Neither the government of Israel nor that of other countries such as Saudi Arabia, eager for the attack, were informed in advance of Obama's change in plans. The president's credibility has sunk to a new low.

What is certain is that in Iran, they're sniggering.

~~~~~~~~~~

What I would like to suggest is that, if you are an American, you contact your representatives in Congress now, as they prepare to convene for the big debate. 

Tell them that before they vote, they should be aware of the evidence of an incendiary bomb attack by the Assad regime on Syrian teenagers.  Provide the BBC link, complete with video.

For your Congresspersons:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

For your Senators:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

~~~~~~~~~~

You might want to see Alan Baker's comments for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on the situation in Syria.  He is taking a broad international position:

http://jcpa.org/frustration-disgust-international-inaction-syria/

Credit: cjnews

~~~~~~~~~~

Lastly, let me share an upbeat article from the JPost Magazine about Israeli medical care provided to Syrians wounded in their horrendous civil war. This is the sort of article not only to read and share, but to save in order to refute malicious charges against Israel:

http://jcpa.org/frustration-disgust-international-inaction-syria/

Confused about the Middle East?

Mr Al-Sabah, and thank you for clearing up the confusion.

http://now.msn.com/a-short-guide-to-the-middle-east-letter-to-the-editor-published-in-the-financial-times

Sir, 
Iran is backing Assad. Gulf states are against Assad!


Assad is against Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood and Obama are against General Sisi.


But Gulf states are pro Sisi! Which means they are against Muslim Brotherhood!


Iran is pro Hamas, but Hamas is backing Muslim Brotherhood!


Obama is backing Muslim Brotherhood, yet Hamas is against the US!


Gulf states are pro US. But Turkey is with Gulf states against Assad; yet Turkey is pro Muslim Brotherhood against General Sisi. And General Sisi is being backed by the Gulf states!


Welcome to the Middle East and have a nice day.

Israeli tablets to purify water for Syrians

Israeli government blesses a deal for Israel Chemicals to sell AquaTabs to UNICEF for Syria despite a law nixing trade with an enemy state.

By Viva Sarah Press October 17, 2012, Israel 21C http://tinyurl.com/cfdmuwp  


Citing humanitarian reasons, the Israeli Finance Ministry recently gave the green light for a subsidiary of Israel Chemicals – which is owned by the Israeli company but is based in Ireland – to sell water purification tablets for distribution in war-torn Syria, even though it is considered an enemy state.

With clean water availability at an all-time low in Syria, the United Nations international aid agency UNICEF has been working to rehabilitate the country’s water sources.

The organization turned to Medentech, Israel Chemicals’ Ireland-based subsidiary, with a request to buy its AquaTabs water purification tablets. But the law prohibiting Israeli companies from selling a product to a hostile state could have sunk the plan.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz was called to authorize the deal and did so, noting that the world’s best-selling water purification tablets would not be sold directly to Syria but rather to the UN agency.

Humanitarianism trumps politics

The Israeli law drafted in 1939 forbids Israeli companies from knowingly selling products that will benefit an enemy state. According to a report in Calcalist, the government must authorize all business agreements between Israel and enemy nations.

The Israeli business daily reported that while this is not the first time the government has okayed such a transaction, it is unusual.

But as Israel is known for its humanitarian efforts around the globe, obtaining special authorization and waiving the law for the water purification deal was more a formality than an anomaly.

The AquaTabs are effervescent tablets that kill micro-organisms in water to prevent cholera, typhoid, dysentery and other water-borne diseases. The chlorine pills are considered a better alternative to boiling water to remove contaminants.

“UNICEF is urgently scaling up its emergency response to reach hundreds of thousands of children with child protection, water, sanitation and hygiene, health and nutrition, and education initiatives,” according to a UNICEF statement.

According to the UN about 1.2 million Syrians have been internally displaced within the country, and hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring countries. The UN also estimates that there are another one million Syrians still living in their homes in need of humanitarian aid.

Syria Running for the U.N. Human Rights Council!!

Is this the real world we are living in? One has to ask, how does the sane part of the world allow the utterly hypercritical UN HRC to continue to operate this way. So much for Kofi Annan's attempts to reconstitute a human rights committee that has cresibility. 

By Hillel Neuer, UN Watch, http://www.unwatch.org/cms.asp?id=3280354&campaign_id=63111 

GENEVA - In the past decade, the U.N. Human Rights Council elected Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya as chair, hailed Sri Lanka’s “promotion and protection of all human rights” after its army had killed thousands of civilians, and convened an emergency session to lament the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the Hamas terrorist organization.

Even so, historians will now have to decide whether the U.N.’s flagship human rights body is about to sink to a new low.

According to a U.S.-sponsored and EU-backed draft resolution that was debated today during informal meetings at the council in Geneva, the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad is a declared candidate for a seat on the 47-nation U.N. body, in elections to be held next year at the 193-member General Assembly.

As part of the U.N.’s 53-nation Asian group, Syria’s candidacy would be virtually assured of victory due to the prevalent system of fixed slates, whereby regional groups orchestrate uncontested elections, naming only as many candidates as allotted seats.

That’s how non-democracies like China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia won their current seats, and how Pakistan and Venezuela are about to do the same.

Fears that Syria will indeed win—in a 2013 election for a position starting the following year—appear to have mobilized the U.S. and the European Union into taking the unprecedented action of asking the council to declare in advance that a candidate country, in this case Syria, be declared inherently disqualified to join its ranks.

In a strongly-worded resolution condemning the Syrian government for committing atrocities, slated for a Friday vote, paragraph 14 “stresses that the current Syrian government’s announced candidacy for the Human Rights Council in 2014 fails to meet the standards for Council membership” as set forth in its founding charter. That Syria is a contender came as a major revelation.

Shockingly, the perfectly reasonable attempt to keep Syria away from the world’s highest human rights body was met with strong resistance.

In today’s discussions, Cuba declared itself “totally opposed,” and demanded the paragraph’s deletion, a position quickly echoed by China. It was for the General Assembly to decide whom to elect, insisted Havana.

“We don’t like to speak to country candidacies,” added Egypt. Brazil argued that the reference to council membership was “outside the scope of the resolution.”

Russia insisted that no action be taken until Assad’s candidacy was formally submitted. Likewise, India believed the subject was “premature.”

However, as noted by the Americans, the public record shows otherwise. Syria actually had declared its official candidacy in early 2011, around the time the killings began.

It was only after UN Watch revealed Assad’s bid and organized an international coalition of human rights groups to fight it that Western democracies rallied to the cause, applying heavy pressure on the Asian states. At the last minute, on May 11th last year, a deal was announced: Kuwait would replace Syria.

Assad’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari made clear, however, that his country had agreed only “to reschedule the timing of our candidacy,” saying they would run instead in the 2013 elections, for a three-year term.

His Kuwaiti counterpart corroborated the pact. “We agreed to exchange terms,” said Ambassador Mansour Ayyad Alotaibi. “Syria is not withdrawing,” he told reporters.

But once Kuwait’s entry ended the controversy, no one—until now—had paid any attention to the fact that Syria would actually run again soon.

Though it’s truly difficult to imagine how the Asians could, in face of all the horrors taking place, allow Syria to be one its candidates, the reality is that they did so just last year, changing their minds only after massive lobbying.

What is more, this past November Syria won unanimous election to two human rights committees of UNESCO, the U.N.’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Despite the suspension of Assad’s regime from the Arab League, the very same nations’ UNESCO ambassadors in Paris refused to allow objections to a country’s human rights record to interfere with their backroom rotation deals—lest one day the precedent be used against them. They nominated Syria, and it was duly elected.

After UN Watch campaigned against this obscenity, too, the U.S. and Britain attempted remedial action. Yet despite their best efforts, the old boys’ club could not be convinced to expel one of their own. Syria remains a full member of UNESCO’s committee to judge human rights complaints, and of its committee dealing with human rights organizations.

And unless America’s laudable effort succeeds, Syria may soon win a seat on the world’s highest human rights body as well.

Syria's Objectives? Not in Your Newspapers

Why have the media ignored the following report by RPS (The Syrian Reform Party)?
Whether or not the opinion makers agree with RPS, its existence and activities are highly relevant to understanding the news.

RPS reports that the Assad regime has paid hundreds of farmers $1,000 each to show-up in the attempts to breach the Israel border and $10,000 to their families should any of them succumb to Israeli fire.

RPS states that it "strongly believes in ownership and title of the Golan Heights. But unlike a regime bred on the use of violence, the Syrian people, demonstrating how peaceful they are as they endure one massacre after another, believe in peaceful negotiations to repatriate our land"

Who and what is RPS? Their mission statement includes inter alia the following worthy objectives

a) to build a true democracy in a New Syria where multiple parties are represented and elections are held free from fear, intimidation, and repressive measures.

b) to help pass laws to prohibit the establishments, in a New Syria, of any political parties whose charter calls for violence against other countries or people and to disassociate itself from any other group whose aim, through violence or otherwise, is to impose their ideologies unto others.

c) moderate, in the “New Syria”, our armed forces to protect rather than threaten and to educate our internal police force to safeguard human rights and to respect human dignity.

to vacate from Lebanon and repair the damage done from years of occupation by supporting and helping all Lebanese willing to espouse transparency and accountability and to do so in an environment free from pressure.

Discussion on the Status of "Nakba" Day

The Right to Demonstrate:
Israel believes in the right to demonstrate peacefully, whatever the object of the protest. However, violent rioting that endangers lives cannot be tolerated.


Meaning of "Nakba Day"
The so-called "Nakba Day" is not a protest against the 1967 "occupation", but a rejection of Israel's basic right to exist, as indicated by its being held on the day of Israel's Declaration of Independence. Instead of promoting a positive agenda of their own, the Palestinians display total negativism, relying on denial, exclusion and rejection of Israel.

On achieving peace:
The obvious needs to be stated again: an end to the conflict can only be achieved through negotiation, compromise and recognition, and not through violence, riots and unilateral moves.

The Infiltration of Israel:
Dozens of Syrian rioters ran over the border between Israel and Syria near the village of Majdal Shams, on the Golan Heights. The Israel Army, the IDF attempted to block this massive breach of the border with the utmost restraint.

This outburst of cross-border violence could not have taken place without the consent – or the active support – of the Syrian army, given its tight control of the border zone. This appears like an attempt by the Syrian regime to create a distraction from the violent crackdown it is currently carrying out throughout the country.

Violent riots in South Lebanon, including attempts to run over the border fence, are organized by Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese proxy.