Israel says Hezbollah has 1,000 bunkers in Lebanon/Kiss Rock Star Gene Simmons Returns to Israel, Blasts Boycotters /other news
(Below is a list of some newsletters that you can copy and paste into your browser if you care to see more, of today's news. I will be adding more websites to the newsletter list, as time permits MBS)
jewishpolicycenter.org The Rising Unrest in Syria by Samara Greenberg • Mar 31, 2011 at 1:49 pm
For the first time under Asad family rule, the Syrian government is experiencing the kind of unrest that unseated the decades-long rulers of Tunisia and Egypt and threatens Libya's Muammar Qaddafi.
Anti-government demonstrations began mid-March in Syria's southern city of Daraa after 15 children were arrested for spray-painting walls with words that have recently rattled the Arab world: "The people want the fall of the regime." Thought to be contained,
the protests have now spread across the country, including to the capital city of Damascus and to
Hama, where Syrian security forces massacred thousands in 1982.
| | ![]() A government building destroyed by protesters in Daraa, Syria |
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In an effort to quell the uprisings,
Syria's government resigned Tuesday. But if that move calmed tensions at all, Asad further angered protesters on Wednesday when he gave his first speech since the uprisings began. That speech was expected to offer significant political concessions but
did nothing of the sort; Asad instead took the time to claim that the uprisings were the result of "
a big plot from outside" and said nothing about ending the emergency law that has stifled Syrians for the last 48 years.
The U.S. should take this opportunity to lead the European Union in applying more pressure on the Asad regime. Unlike Libya, Syria is actively and currently working against American interests in the region. From building nuclear reactors, supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, partnering with Iran, assassinating political rivals at home and abroad, and choking Lebanon, the time has come for Asad and company to face the music. The White House should begin by recalling its
recently appointed ambassador.
Who are the Libyan Rebels? by Samara Greenberg • Mar 30, 2011 at 1:08 pm
In a Senate hearing Tuesday, U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, testified that intelligence agencies had picked up
"flickers" of the presence of extremists among Libyan rebel fighters. Noting that most of the opposition's leaders are "responsible men and women who are struggling against Col. Qaddafi," Stavridis also said that intelligence has reported the presence of al-Qaeda and Hezbollah on the ground, although he lacks sufficient detail to say that their numbers are "significant."
![]() A Libyan rebel holds the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag as he walks past a burning tank. | |
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Stavridis' comments yesterday marked the first time a senior U.S. official publicly acknowledged an al-Qaeda presence, although the terrorist network and Libyan opposition groups are known to have long-standing ties. For years,
Libya has served as a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda. Libyans have served as senior members of the terrorist group and traveled to Iraq in disproportionately large numbers to carry out attacks on U.S. forces. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an enemy of Qaddafi's, formally joined al-Qaeda in 2007.
Moreover, according to a December 2009 Canadian intelligence report, the anti-Qaddafi stronghold of eastern Libya an "
epicentre of Islamist extremism." The report, written by the government's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, noted that "several Islamist insurgent groups" were based in eastern Libya and mosques in Benghazi were urging followers to fight in Iraq.
The United States has a long history of supporting rebel armies or opposition groups, which has backfired at times. Afghanistan is a perfect example. While American action in Libya and establishing the no-fly zone was a step in the right direction, many questions will need to be answered before deciding if arming the rebels is in America's long-term interest.
Facebook Finally Removes Page Calling for 3rd Intifada by Samara Greenberg
The page, titled "Third Palestinian Intifada," originally claimed that after the "popular intifadas" in Tunisia and Egypt, it was
time for a Palestinian intifada to take place on May 15 - the day Palestinians mourn Israel's independence. The organizers called on Palestinians to attack Israeli settlements and asked Hezbollah to launch rockets at Israel with the ultimate goal of liberating Palestine. "Judgment Day will be brought upon us only
once the Muslims have killed all of the Jews," the call read. The page had more than 340,000 fans.
| | ![]() Logo for the "Third Palestinian Intifada" Facebook page |
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Israeli Minister of Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein had previously sent a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
requesting that the page be shut down. Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman also contacted the social network and asked it to "remove this site,
which by it's very title incites violence."
Facebook originally issued no formal response to the letters, but refused to close down the page, stating it had not gone beyond the bounds of acceptable speech. In
a recent e-mail statement, Facebook spokesman Debbie Frost said, "We strongly believe that Facebook users have the ability to express their opinions, and we don't typically take down content, groups or Pages that speak out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas."
But according to Facebook rules, users cannot post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or incites violence, and removing offensive pages from Facebook is not unprecedented. The social network removed the "
Everybody Draw Mohammad Day" page last spring and the "
Kill a Jew Day" page last summer, among others.
Facebook made the right choice in removing the page that called for violence against the Jewish people of Israel. One must wonder, however, why it took the social network one month to do so. As
this blog previously pointed out, Facebook has a responsibility to proactively root out hate pages rather than wait for them to be reported, and then equivocate, before removing them, as is usually the case. Doing so would illustrate that Facebook supports each person's right to life, no matter their race, religion, or nationality.
Kiss Rock Star Gene Simmons Returns to Israel, Blasts Boycotters by Samara Greenberg
In an interview Tuesday with the Associated Press, Simmons described the visit as a "homecoming....
I'm Israeli. I'm a stranger in America. I'm an outsider," he said. Speaking of musicians who have recently canceled concerts to protest Israel's policies towards the Palestinians, Simmons noted, "The countries they should be boycotting are the same countries that the populations are rebelling," referring to the current Arab uprisings across the Middle East.
| | ![]() Kiss rock star Gene Simmons with and without his famous stage makeup. |
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Simmons, now 61, was
born Chaim Witz in Haifa to a mother who survived the Holocaust and Auschwitz death camp. His father was a carpenter in Tirat Carmel and Simmons describes his family at that time as "dirt poor." He moved with his mother to the United States at the age of eight, but can still speak Hebrew.
Although the rocker had not returned to Israel until this week, he has always supported the country. In 2006,
Simmons famously sent a video message to IDF soldier and Kiss fan Ron Weinreich, who was seriously wounded in Israel's war with Hezbollah, telling the soldier he is "a real hero.... I can't tell you how proud I am of you, and how much the world and Israel owes you a debt of gratitude," he said.
In his interview this week from Israel, Simmons told reporters, "I was born here [in Israel] and I'm proud of it." Amen.
camera.org
The murder of five members of the Fogel family in Itamar prompted familiar circumlocutions and evasions by
The New York Times where the killing of Jews is concerned. Unlike the gunning down of two American military men in Germany just a few days earlier - termed a "terrorist attack" - the Jewish family was said to have been killed by "intruders."
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Paul-Gordon Chandler uses the pages of the Christian Century to maintain the veil of silence over Muslim hostility toward Coptic Christians in Egypt.
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Al Jazeera's reporting on the unrest in the Middle East has received increasing attention. That
should not obscure serious concerns that its coverage is biased in favor of an Islamic fundamentalist agenda.
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James Zogby's book, Arab Voices, ignores those that urge Jihad and neglects what some Arabs say in Arabic about non-Arabs.
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Khaled Abu Toameh reports in the
Jerusalem Post about yet another example of Hamas treating journalists "with dignity."
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The little Nordic country famed, among less positive matters, for giving the world a vivid
synonym for traitor - Quisling - for its pro-Nazi regime during WWII, is seemingly obsessed with heaping contempt on Israel and its supporters. The latest example centers on renowned Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz's lecture tour of Norway, during which he offered to speak for no fee at any university on the subject of international law and Israel. All refused.
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The
Los Angeles Times goes on the defensive about its indefensible characterization of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as "the self-destructive tit-for-tat mentality that often seems designed to keep the conflict alive rather than to end it."
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The J Street Web site may want to update its myths and facts page, a section devoted to attempts to counter charges of anti-Israel activity, malfeasance, dubious fundraising, unsavory associations and the like. The question is how to explain away positive mention from Stephen Walt, the author of a book deeply hostile to Israel, and in the view of some, anti-Semitic.
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Rafi Shotz, Israel's ambassador to Spain, slams
Ha'aretz's Gideon Levy for an Op-Ed in which he called most of Israel's diplomats "spineless propagandists void of values or a conscience."
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In his column Monday berating the Israeli leadership for not having accepted the Arab League initiative, veteran Ha'aretz journalist Akiva Eldar provides another example of his selective vision.
Israel Resource Review Issue of March 30, 2011
FIRST HAND ACCOUNT: MY VISIT TO UNWRA PALESTINIAN REFUGEE CAMPS (And what about the refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, and other Arab/Moslem countries? Why keep focusing on Israel, which actually has better conditions in their camps? Surely one would think that their Arab brothers would have them living in wonderful conditions. MBS) By: Rhonda Spivak, Attorney, Writer, and Member of Canadian & Israel Bar Associations, now edits Winnipeg Jewish Review at http://www.winnipegjewishreview.com/ by March 24, 2011 I have recently been to two Palestinian refugee camps run by the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency [UNWRA] near Bethlehem. My visit has unfortunately have left me with the impression that the Palestinians as a whole are far from giving up on the right of return to their 1948 homes and villages in Israel. I saw first hand how Palestinian refugees in UNWRA camps live in what I can only describe as a ‘time warp,†as these UNWRA camps perpetuate the...
http://search.swagbucks.com/?t=n&p=1&b=0&q=israel+lebanon+
(For TONS of articles on this topic, go to the link above. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon after the "world community" WHINED, the Useless Nations PROMISED that this would NOT happen. What the hell are the "observers" observing and why aren't US taxpayer$$$$ whining about US $$$ being paid to the Useless Nations NOT being used for what they say the money is used for? MBS)
www.dailyalert.org
Subscribe | | DAILY ALERT | Thursday,
March 31, 2011 |
In-Depth Issues:
Assad's Alawite Army - Robert Baer (Financial Times-UK)
The Syrian army is a palace guard, meant to keep the ruling Alawite sect in power.
When I was working in Syria in the 1980s, President Hafiz al-Assad instituted an unwritten rule that every large combat unit would be under the command of an Alawite officer.
There would still be Sunni commanders, but in name only. They were not permitted to put a single aircraft into the air or drive a tank out of the base without the authority of the ranking Alawite officer. Assad's son Bashar has left his father's military system in place.
If Assad and the Alawites are forced from power, Syria, unlike Egypt, will not have an army to fill the vacuum.
The writer is a former CIA operative in the Middle East.
Libyan Rebels at Risk of Failure on Battlefield - Robert Burns (AP-Washington Post)
Fresh battlefield setbacks by Libyan rebels seeking to oust Gaddafi are hardening a U.S. view that the poorly equipped opposition is probably incapable of prevailing without decisive Western intervention - either an all-out U.S.-led military assault on regime forces or a decision to arm the rebels.
Gaddafi has adopted new, unconventional tactics to counter the effects of coalition airstrikes, and apparently is convinced he can retain power, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday.
Gaddafi's land forces still outmatch the opposition by a wide margin and are not close to bein g forced to stop threatening the civilian resistance, the official said.
See also Battle Shows Libyan Rebels' Weaknesses - Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy)
At Bin Jawwad, hundreds of rebels along the road found themselves trapped between pro-Gaddafi snipers and fellow fighters further up the road who fired back with weapons they barely knew how to use.
The inexperience is evident: Many, if not most, rebels flee when actual fighting begins.
Gaddafi forces don't need aircraft. Instead, they shower the rebels with a barrage of artillery fire, followed by small arms fire, a ground offensive and strikes from houses inside the village.
See also Gaddafi's Forces Using Civilian Vehicles to Become Tougher Airstrike Targets (AP-Washington Post)
Israel's Radical Goodness - Giulio Meotti (Ynet News)
(I have to admit, that I am deeply surprised not to see the usual Jew haters, oops, I mean "anti-Zionists" accusing Israel of harvesting the organs of dead Japanese as they did with the Haitians. MBS) Israel was the first country in the world to send aid to Haiti after the earthquake. Israel was among the most generous countries after the tsunami in Asia. And now, when disaster struck in Japan, Israel was the first to dispatch a field hospital to assist in the recovery effort.
The Israelis also ran a pediatric field hospital in Rwanda during the Tutsi genocide, assisted the Albanians during the Kosovo war and helped Turkey following the 1999 earthquake.
However, Israel's amazing altruism never had its legitimate space in the global media, because this radical goodness doesn't fit in with the Zionist stereotype of the colonialist, fascist and apartheid occupier.
The writer, a journali st with Il Foglio, is the author of A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism.
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| News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:News Resources - Israel and the Mideast: - Syria's Assad Blames Protests on "Conspiracy" - Edward Cody
In a televised speech, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared that protesters were dupes of unnamed enemies. "We are all reformers....But people were duped into taking to the streets." The Syrian leader seemed to be betting that his feared security services will be able to put down the protest movement, even at the cost of more bloodshed. Pro-democracy activists were particularly disappointed that Assad did not announce an end to the emergency rule that for the past 48 years has suffocated civil liberties and guaranteed a monopoly on political life by the ruling Baath Party. (Washington Post)
See also Text of Assad's Speech (SANA-Syria) - CIA Agents in Libya Aid Airstrikes - Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt
Small groups of CIA operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and to contact and vet the rebels battling Gaddafi's forces, according to American officials. British officials said that dozens of British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are also working inside Libya. (New York Times)
See also Obama Authorizes Secret Help for Libya Rebels - Mark Hosenball
President Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials said Wednesday. (Reuter s)
See also Libyan Foreign Minister Defects to Britain - Thomas Harding, and Robert Winnett
Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa flew into Britain Wednesday and told officials he was "no longer willing" to serve the regime. (Telegraph-UK)
See also The Defection of Moussa Koussa - Elliott Abrams
Koussa was for 15 years Libya's spy master. As Gaddafi's intelligence chief, Koussa had plenty of blood to answer for. He was probably responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, the act of terrorism that brought down Pan Am 103 in 1988. (Council on Foreign Relations) - Rights Group: Palestinian Militants Put Gazans in Danger - Fares Akram and Ethan Bronner
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights this week condemned the building and storage of anti-Israel rockets in densely populated areas, a practice that has led to injuries and deaths of civilians. The group said that locally produced rockets had fallen on homes in Gaza or exploded in factories where they were made or stored. It warned that "members of the Palestinian resistance continue to store explosives...in locations close to populated areas....This poses a major threat to the lives of the Palestinian civilians." (New York Times) - U.S. Court Backs Iran in Dispute over Assets
(Is this America's idea of justice? I expect some whiny liberal to now accuse me of being "anti-American". MBS) A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday backed Iran in a dispute with Americans who demand that Persian antiquities in two Chicago museums be used to pay damages for victims of a 1997 suicide bombing in Israel. The decision by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a lower court ruling allowing the U.S. plaintiffs to search for any and all Iranian assets in the U.S. to pay a $71.5 million judgment against Iran.
The case grew out of a September 1997 triple suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pedestrian mall that killed five people and injured 200. Two members of the Islamist group Hamas were convicted. The lawsuit filed by five groups of Americans who were either seriously wounded or relatives of the injured argued Iran bore responsi bility because it provided training and support to Hamas for attacks. (Reuters) - Israeli Military Maps Hizbullah Bunkers in Lebanon - Natasha Mozgovaya
Israeli military officials Wednesday released a map detailing nearly 1,000 sites and facilities monitored by Hizbullah in southern Lebanon. Israel believes that 550 underground bunkers have been stocked with weapons transferred from Syria since the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The map also details 300 surveillance sites and 100 other facilities belonging to Hizbullah. (Ha'aretz)
View the Map (Washington Post) - Former IDF Intelligence Head Doesn't See Conflict with Syria - Hilary Leila Krieger
Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, who finished a five-year term as head of IDF intelligence at the end of 2010, told The Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Wednesday that even if the current unrest in Syria brings a more radical regime to power, he didn't foresee conflict between Syria and Israel in the near term. He predicted that any new authority would first have to spend significant time consolidating its grip on the levers of government before taking action against a neighbor.
Yadlin also noted that there might be a change for the better in Syria, as well as other Arab countries whose dictators are being pushed out, and urged Israelis to be mindful of the positive opportunities the current turmoil offere d. "A democratic Middle East is good for Israel. Two democracies hardly go to war," he argued. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):Observations: - Egypt Likely to Face More Difficult Relations with Israel, U.S. - Edward Cody
Egypt's relations with Israel and the U.S. are likely to become more difficult in the months ahead with an infusion of Arab nationalism and skepticism about Egypt's landmark peace treaty with Israel. Many of those who helped oust President Mubarak, including secular democracy activists and Muslim Brotherhood leaders, say the 32-year-old treaty should be respected for now. But they add that when stability is restored, the pact should be submitted to the Egyptian people for approval, through a new parliament scheduled to be elected in September and then perhaps in a public referendum.
"There was no real end to the war with Israel, just a truce," said Sha di Mohammed, 26, a leader of the movement that helped promote the Tahrir Square demonstrations. Mohammed Maher, a Muslim Brotherhood activist, said that if his group gains influence through the elections, Egypt is likely to pursue closer ties with Gaza, opening border crossings and promoting trade as a way to undermine the Israeli blockade. (Washington Post) - Shock Waves in Arab World Unconnected to Israel - Lee Smith
The fact that a wave of revolutions has shaken the foundations of Arab politics without the slightest apparent connection to popular outrage against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians should be surprising to most experts and politicians in the West. For over four decades, the driving idea behind the West's approach to the Middle East has been the supposed centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to Arab popular anger at the West.
This idea was a convenient point of agreement between Washington policymakers and Arab regimes. For Washington, the peace process was a good source of photo ops and a chance to show concern for human rights in the region without interfering with the propensity of America's Arab allies to tortur e and murder their political opponents. (Tablet) - Time for Regime Change in the Palestinian Authority - Mitchell Bard
It is ironic that Arabs are fighting for freedom across the region, but the Palestinians continue to tolerate a leadership that denies them freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and the press and denies rights to women and gays. Rather than demanding that these leaders negotiate peace with an Israeli government that has repeatedly called for talks without preconditions, the Palestinian people support hapless figureheads who still believe they can bomb Israel out of existence or who think they can win independence by asking the international community to recognize a non-existent state in lieu of negotiations.
It is time for the United States to demand that the Palestinia ns implement democratic reforms and put an end to the culture of incitement that leads to the horrific murder of Jewish children and their parents in their beds, attacks on public buses and rocket attacks on playgrounds and kindergartens. The president should declare that the obstacle to peace is a Palestinian leadership that is undemocratic and represses its people, that refuses to compromise or negotiate, that is unwilling to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish democratic state and that engages in incitement and terror that is perpetuating the conflict. (Fox News) - We - a Muslim-Palestinian social scientist, and a Jewish-American historian - believe there are many reasons why it's important, even essential, that Arabs learn about the Holocaust. Entire chapters of history have been expunged from the curricula that Arab governments teach their students. This is particularly true of the Holocaust.
- So methodical, so vicious and so exhaustive was the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jewish people that a new word was coined to describe it - "genocide." All genocides before and since are judged against the Holocaust. Without discussing the Holocaust, discussing genocide is meaningless.
- But what little Palestinians, and Arabs more generally, know about the Holocaust is often skewed by the perverted prism of Arab popular culture. If Arabs knew more about the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, perhaps Arab voices would be more forceful in trying to stop similar atrocities.
- We urge Palestinians to learn about the Holocaust so they can be armed with knowledge to reject the comparison between the Holocaust and the Palestinian Nakba.
- With all the suffering Palestinians have endured, their struggle with Israel is still, at its core, a political conflict, one that can end through diplomacy and agreements. The Holocaust was not a political conflict: the very idea of a "Nazi-Jewish peace process" is absurd.
Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi is the founder of the Wasatia movement, which promotes moderation in Islam, and the director of the American Studies department at Al-Quds University. Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. |
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