OPINION and ANALYSIS

Week ending 23 July 2014

This week Bev offers up twelve great Zionist reads from around the world. Print out those that appeal to you for a Shabbos Read-Fest!

1. Palestinians: The Arabs betrayed us again

Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, 21 July 2014

“They have money and oil, but don’t care about the Palestinians, even though we are Arabs and Muslims like them. What a Saudi or Qatari sheikh spends in one night in London, Paris or Las Vegas could solve the problem of tens of thousands of Palestinians.” — Abdel Bari Atwan, Palestinian editor.

2. How many Israelis must die before we are ‘allowed’ to defend them?

Hilik Bar, The Guardian, 20 July 2014 (This applies equally to the SA media!)

The subtext to British media questions about proportionality is that only more deaths would gain sympathy for our campaign.

3. Western media’s pro-Israel bias?  Hardly!

Tom Gross, National Post, 20 July 2014

People in the West might not realize it, but many Arab media are far more honest about the ills of Hamas than we might find in the West.

4. Iran’s fingerprints all over the Hamas-Israel conflict

Sayeh Hassan, The Toronto Star, 19 July 2014

Terror groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have long depended on the Iranian-Syrian axis for arms, training and funding.

5. The greatest possible problem for Europe

Douglas Murray, Gatestone Institute, 19 July 2014

There are now at least twice as many young British Muslims who have gone to Syria to fight alongside ISIS and other such groups than there are fighting for Queen and country here in the British armed forces.  The Israel-haters are no real problem for Israel, but they are the greatest possible problem for Europe.

6. Guardian editor defends Hamas’s right to kill Israelis, AGAIN

Adam Levick, Algemeiner, 18 July 2014

“So the Palestinians of Gaza are an occupied people, like those in the West Bank, who have the right to resist, by force if they choose – though not deliberately to target civilians. But Israel does not have a right of self-defence over territories it illegally occupies – it has an obligation to withdraw.”

7. Sixty-six years later, too many Arabs still dream of slaughtering Israel’s Jews

Clifford May, National Post, 18 July 2014

So long as Hamas and other jihadists seek nothing less than the extermination of the Jewish state and people, while Palestinian peacemakers insist that it is for Israelis alone to make concessions, the conflict in this corner of the Middle East is irresolvable.

8. Five myths about Hamas

Nathan Brown, The Washington Post, 18 July 2014

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about Israel’s ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, he says that “without action, the price that we would pay would be much greater.” But predicting how Hamas is likely to act and react requires probing what the organization can do, what it wants and how it sees itself. From Hamas’s angle, the current fighting offers just as many opportunities as threats. Let’s examine five myths about the militant Islamist organization.

9. The Palestinian – Israeli conflict and anti-Semitism

Dr Philip Dexter, Politicsweb, 17 July 2014

Phillip Dexter says it does the Palestinian cause no good to deny the Holocaust or the blame the Jews as a group

10. Hamas driven only by hatred of Israel

Ido Aharoni, Newsmax, 15 July 2014

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is not one over land, but rather a century-old assault against Jewish national sovereignty in the Land of Israel. It is the result of a structural failure within the Palestinian National Movement to face its own opposition.

11. Asymmetric warfare evolves in tragic directions

Ed Fitch, Vancouver Sun, 14 July 2014

Among the greatest challenges facing modern military commanders is the imperative to “think like a terrorist.” As that was my last job in uniform, I know first-hand this is a task as distasteful as it is essential.

12. The Myth of Palestinian Centrality

Efraim Karsh, BESA Centre, 7 July 2014

The “Palestinian cause” has been at the forefront of discourse on the Middle East for nearly a century. It has long formed the primary common concern of pan-Arab solidarity and its most effective rallying cry, yet neither the Arab states nor Palestinian leaders have truly acted in the interest of the “liberation of Palestine.”