Goldstone - a Man Detached from Reality

I have tried to fathom out what drove a man like Richard Goldstone to take up the poisoned chalice of the UN Human Rights Council mission to Gaza.
I pondered how such an eminent person could lead such a blatantly biased committee. I was angered by the false conclusions of his 'fact-finding' mission, by his refusal to listen to expert and non-partisan military and legal witnesses, by his dismissal of brutal and continuous Hamas war crimes against Israeli civilian targets, his total ignorance of the Hamas slaughter of fellow-Palestinians during the Gaza conflict.
Yet, despite this and more, Goldstone insists that he performed in an even-handed manner.

I read his report. I heard his recent protestations against the growing criticism of him and his work.
My examination shows that he is a man detached from reality, both political and military, that surrounded the Gaza conflict and its subsequent consequences.

A man detached from reality is a man detached from the truth.

To highlight Goldstone's detachment from reality let's go back to the beginning.
Richard Goldstone prides himself as being the leading jurist in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in his native South Africa. While turning up evidence against the De Klerk regime he did not consider investigating the crimes committed by the ANC.
He used the same biased tactics in investigating the Gaza conflict. he refused to address the nature, actions, charter, and violent history of Hamas. He respectfully addresses them as 'the Gazan Authority' thereby refuting the internationally accepted claim that Hamas is recognised as a terrorist organisation.
Equating Hamas with Israel in his even-handedness portrays, yet again, that he is out of touch with reality.

He fails to list the evident crimes perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians over an eight year period. In deference to his Hamas hosts in Gaza he failed to produce the evidence of how Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields and civilian infrastructure, including the Shifa Hospital, as their command and control centers and as part of their weapons and explosive storage. He even omits the Hamas slaughter of fellow-Palestinians during the Gaza fighting.

Ignoring these crimes, Mr. Goldstone, does not mean they did not occur.
Ignoring these crimes, Mr. Goldstone, shows your lack of even-handedness.
Ignoring these crimes, Mr. Goldstone, is a deliberate dereliction of your duties.
Ignoring these crimes, Mr. Goldstone, displays your detachment from reality and the truth.
Based on this alone, your findings are flawed and biased.

But let us go deeper. Let us go back to the origins of your iniquitous mission.

Richard Goldstone likes to tell the world that his instructions were to carry our a fact-finding mission to investigate potential misdemeanours on both sides or the conflict.
This is clearly incorrect.

His mandate clearly states that it was 'an urgent fact-finding mission to investigate all violations of international human rights law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression.'

Note the language. This mandate prejudges everything in a blatantly biased fashion. It prejudges only one side as the aggressor. It failed to instruct the panel to investigate any Hamas or Palestinian crimes.

Either Goldstone is lying, or he is out of touch with reality, when he claims to have received an even-handed brief.

Professor Chinkin rejected Israel's claim that it acted in self defence. She then disqualified herself from the panel when she publicly accused Israel of war crimes while the conflict was raging and before the outset of the mission.
Goldstone should have demanded her dismissal. He did not., thereby approving and heading a biased committee that was ready to prejudge Israel according to their official brief.

Leading figures such as Mary Robinson and fellow South African, Desmond Tutu, both refused to head this committee in the certain knowledge that it was a biased and political mission.
Goldstone proved he was our of touch with reality by not appreciating this vital point and by accepting the chairmanship.

Goldstone showed no understanding or appreciation of the events that forced Israel to take the actions it did in self defence.
His mandate was deliberately timed to avoid confronting uncomfortable issues like eight years of Hamas rocket and mortar fire against Israeli civilian targets.

Goldstone blames Israel for not opening up to his prejudged mission. He now accuses Israel of being guilty for the biased text of his report by not cooperating with him and his fellow members.
Yet he had applications from numerous organisations, individuals, witnesses, and experts, all anxious to plead on behalf of Israel. They were either turned down or ignored by Goldstone.

Goldstone saw many destroyed or damaged buildings in Gaza. That, for Goldstone, was sufficient to accuse Israel of 'deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and causing collective punishment'.

Goldstone did not investigate if these buildings were in the heartland of Islamic terror. He did not question if prolonged and intensive fighting had taken place there. He did not reason that many buildings had contained Hamas or Islamic Jihad armed fighters, weapons, explosives, or had been booby trapped. His lack of military expertise did not prevent him from accusing Israel of war crimes simply based on his vision of structural damage.
For Goldstone, damaged buildings equals war crimes.

His 'fact-finding' mission heard heresay that was written as evidential proof of war crimes. One family were reported to be farmers when members of this family were poster boys for Izz a-Din al-Qaddam Martyrs Brigade and armed terrorists.

His witnesses gave their evidence with the Hamas minders breathing down their necks. Yet Goldstone found no defect in this method of collecting evidence.

The Goldstone Report demands that both sides must submit to an independent enquiry and report back to the United Nations within six months or face potential prosecution at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Goldstone knows that non-state actors, such as Hamas, can be guilty of serious crimes against human rights and clearly defined war crimes yet receive a free pass. They cannot be brought to justice according to United Nations definition. Only Israel can be dragged to the dock.
In a previous article I have written about the Nazi-style legal system employed by the United Nations.
Here we have it in all its disgusting glory.

How much further proof do we need to show that Richard Goldstone acted outside the norms of reality? We are now in an unreal Kafka-type existence where the victims will be put on trial by the murderous dictators and terrorists.

Richard Goldstone cannot see how adversely he has affected the Middle East peace process. The 'moderate' Mahmoud Abbas and his Fattah party is under pressure from a rampant Hamas who see the Goldstone Report, backed by all their majority supporters in the United Nations General Assembly, as part of their ongoing war against the Jewish state who they see as an abomination.

As mentioned earlier, Goldstone's lack of reality failed to see that his report would turn into a political and legal weapon against Israel by the Human Rights Council of which he was a head.
He recently said that he was 'saddened' by the fact that Hamas crimes were not addressed in the continuing attack against Israel.

He really did not want it to end this way, but it is, Mr. Goldstone, and it is all because you are out of touch with the reality of our vicious world.

It is us, in Israel, that must pay the price for your detachment from reality and your blindness to the truth.

The United Nations apply a Nazi legal system on the Jews.

It is becoming common practise for nation states and non-nation actors to apply legal means to achieve political results.
Known as 'lawfare' these methods have been increasingly applied against Israel.
They are being used as yet another weapon in their armoury to eliminate the Jewish state.
As such, their roots reach back to wartime Germany. Their ultimate application is eerily similar to that created by the Nazis.

Back in the dark days of European history Nazi Germany operated a legal system that gave legitimacy to the machinations of the Third Reich.
The raison d-etre for the Nazi anti-Semitic programs were to remove a stain to world peace, namely the Jews, and to create a new world order.
When Hitler condemned the Jews for all of the world's woes German jurisprudence rubber stamped the measures demanded by its leaders.
The Jews, they claimed, were guilty of the most heinous crimes against humanity and laws were established to deal with these Jewish criminals.
It became legal to deprive Jews of work, to make them wear the Yellow Star, to herd them into Ghettos, to deprive them of their property, to transport them to the death camps, and to execute them.
This was all performed under a veneer of a legal respectability, that everyone involved in this genocide was obeying his duty in law and, therefore, upholding the legal rulings that applied in the territories controlled by Germany.
Records were kept at each stage of the deligitimisation and extermination of the Jews. These records showed that the law was being enforced. The book-keeping was part of the legal system that proved, in Nazi eyes, that everything was being done in a legally-acceptable and systematically transparent manner. German courts upheld the fragmentation of Jewish society and its elimination as required by Nazi law.

Few dared question whether the Jews were truly guilty as charged. The law, and the resultant punishment, took its course - and the rest is history.

At various stages of the 'legal' genocide of the Jews, whether in the Ghettos or the concentration camps, the Germans employed Jews to enforce their actions.

The horrors of the Holocaust should have buried the notion that Jews are the enemy of the world and are easy prey to fanatics and their supporters.
Sadly, the old hatred was merely dormant. It has re awoken in a different form and has found itself coalescing under the auspices of the United Nations.

The year is 2009 and it is happening, again, before our very eyes.

The United Nations is enacting a Nazi-style legal system.

It began before the United Nations Human Rights congress in Durban that decreed that 'Zionism is Racism'.
Israel had already been targeted by member states for accusations and deligimisation.
Just as perversely as the European Jews were the victims of the evil Third Reich and their anti-Semitic supporters so now the Jewish state is solely and exclusively being dehumanised, sentenced, and condemned by nations guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.

Massacres and genocides by brutal dictators have largely been ignored. Only the Jewish state has had laws and rulings applied against it that do not apply to other members.

These rulings were not made in order to have Israel reform itself to the fictitious demands and, therefore, feel at ease among the league of nations. They are biasly enacted to turn Israel into the Jewish pariah among the nations.

The United Nations Human Rights Council, hatched in a Wannsee-type conference in Geneva this year by malevolent instigators, shrewdly selected a naive jurist to be their Jewish Kappo.
Richard Goldstone thought he had been elected to uphold the law. In his academic simplicity he assumed that he would apply universal jurisprudence. Instead, he became a prisoner to the imposition of Nazi-style justice.
His victims - the Jews of Israel.

The year is 2009 and it is happening, again, before our very eyes.

His report, replete with documented evidence, eye witness testimony, statements of legal requirements and recommendations that fit neatly into the prescribed illegality of the guilty party will be brought to the United Nations General Assembly.
Lengthy discourse will inevitably condemn Israel.

The parties who are truly guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the very ones who are creating the lawfare against the Jewish state, get a free pass.

The United Nations has become a chamber akin to the Third Reich.
As in Nazi Germany, there will be one or two brave voices that will attempt to rescue Israel, but these will be minority individuals battling against a Nazi-like system determined to enforce The Final Solution of the Jewish Nation.

The year is 2009 and it is happening, again, before our very eyes.

The ones perpetrating the campaign against the Jewish state are, as with the Third Reich in the 30's and 40s, those guilty of the worst crimes today. They include Libya, the Hamas-led Palestinian protest, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, China, Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan.

Those that support the Goldstone Report and the current UN motions against Israel do so in the same spirit of evil intent as Nazi Germany, or assume that the blood libel against Israel must be true. Just as there were those who gave lip service to the thought that Jews were capable of the crimes imposed on them by the Nazi laws so today some assume that Israel deliberately targeted and massacred innocent people in Gaza.

The inversion of Nazi-type justice imposed on the Jewish state while defrauding Israel by portraying it as a Nazi-type regime is meant to isolate, deligitimise, and eventually eradicate the Jewish state.

Israel, as with the Jews in Nazi Germany, finds itself in the harsh spotlight of those who would do us harm.
The report is not an end in itself just as the Nazi judgments were not an end in itself but plainly the beginning of the end for European Jewry.

The intent, the destiny decreed by the perpetrators, is the same.

The year is 2009 and it is happening, again, before our very eyes.

Goldstone - Attorney for the Prosecution.

Richard Goldstone earned a reputation during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings in South Africa.

There is little truth and zero reconciliation in his recent adventure in heading the UN Human Rights Council campaign in Gaza. On the contrary, the result of his botched activities has relit the blaze anew in the region.

His South African Commission was charged with granting amnesty for crimes and human right violations during disturbances in his homeland.

Not only is there no amnesty in his committee's brief into the Gaza conflict. The ultimate aim, since its inception, was to brand Israel as the guilty party to the conflict.

It is enlightening to learn that Bishop Desmond Tutu, the instigator of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, was one of the candidates who refused to head this biased committee.

It is not the purpose of this article to question the motives of why Richard Goldstone accepted the poisoned chalice. It is sufficient to examine his code of conduct and behaviour during the enquiry.

We are told to respect Goldstone as an international jurist of impeccable character. His role as head of the United Nations Mission to Gaza is clearly one of Prosecution attorney against the State of Israel. His actions, lack of desire to question and probe witness statements falls abysmally short of a neutral investigator in search of facts and the truth.

Indeed, his findings read like the case for the prosecution.

Where was the impartiality that the world expected of him? Where was the balance to counter his fellow committee members who had displayed premeditated bias against Israel leading into his commission?

On these counts he failed. Therefore, his code of conduct must be brought into question.

When his co-jurors refused to ask pointed questions of witnesses why did Goldstone not demand answers to key questions? Questions like, "Do you, or your family members, belong to a terrorist organisation?" Was your property used for the storage of weapons and explosives?" "Were you, or any member of your family active in terrorist or armed acts against Israelis, either military or civilian"? "Was there any military or terrorist activities in or near the vicinity of your property?"

Not only were these questions not asked, the committee accepted eye witnesses as being 'credible and reliable'.

When such eye witnesses are people who are proven to belong to organisations like Islamic Jihad and the Izz a-Din al-Qassam then one must query the motivation of Goldstone.

Clearly his findings portray the attorney for the prosecution.

When Goldstone reduces the background to the conflict, rejects Israeli eye witnesses, almost dismisses Hamas human rights abuses, fails to even mention repeated Hamas massacres against Palestinians it is patently obvious there is an agenda at work that is certainly not Truth or Reconciliation.

The fighting within Gaza has stopped but rockets are still being launched into Israel. Seven hundred and twenty rockets have been fired at southern Israel during 2009. Where is Goldstone's UN Human Rights Council investigation against Hamas for these international war crimes?

Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2004. The irony for the UN HRC is that the only remaining Israeli in Gaza is being held illegally and against his will by Hamas - yet another profound human rights abuse that is worthy to bring Hamas to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Gilat Schalit is being held, with no access by any human rights NGOs or the International Red Cross and no trial for more than three years.

His case received barely a mention in the Goldstone Report. Why, if Goldstone's brief was not to be the prosecution attorney against Israel.

Highlighting the suffering of the people of Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, southern Israel and, of course, the fate of Gilat Schalit would embarrass the case that the UN HRC is trying to build up against Israel.

And Goldstone played his role perfectly in downgrading these issues.

It is precisely the fate of Gilat Schalit that the UN Human Rights Council should be advocating. His rights have been horribly abused for two thousand days. His rights have been abused further by being so ignored by the 'holier-than-thou' human rights organisations who are really politically motivated and only apply human rights abuses when it suites their cause.

Goldstone would have been advised to follow the Jewish calling that 'Justice, justice, shall you pursue' and not rush to judgement based on dubious eye-witness testimony obtained in tainted circumstances.

Has Goldstone conducted a deliberate, in depth, investigation, as he was duty bound to perform, his reputation would be intact today -even if he would prove Israeli war crimes.

Instead he is complicit in a conspiracy to drag Israel, and Israel only, into the International Criminal Court.

True, he has demanded that Israel refute his allegations within six months. Again, the actions of a prosecuting lawyer.

He did so, he claims, to avoid criminal charges being brought against Israel. I ask if he is being naive, or malicious?

It is clear to everyone in Israel that Israeli military personnel and politicians will be victim to impeachment in a number of European countries as a result of his report even if Israel rebuts his report in full.

Not only did Goldstone act as the prosecuting attorney against Israel, he became the fall guy and judge, by virtue of his report, that condemns Israel to a guilty verdict obtained by stealth by the UN Human Rights Council.

Fighting Goldstone.

As predicted the UN Human Rights train is rolling. It's destination predetermined by those that control the railroad. It is steaming ahead carrying Israel, inevitably, to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Along the way it is picking up passengers that will be condemned when the train reaches its final station.
Israelis dare not travel for fear of summary arrest and being placed in the cattle car to a fate that singles out the Jews from any other nation or race.
And as the cattle cars, full of protesting Jewish victims, rolls under the gate of the final destination they will see the sign has been changed.
No longer 'Arbeit Macht Frei'. Now the sign reads 'Our Facts Will Imprison You'.
The Jew, again, denigrated and condemned by those with a passion to elicit a judgment against Israel that they dare not apply to any other country or people.
The Jew, in the form of Israel, is to become the eternal pariah.
As in the past, they have recruited their kappo. In this case a learned and respected jurist of the Jewish faith to be their front man. Whether through an academic sense of justice, ego, or ambition, Richard Goldstone took the path where others feared to tread.
However this ends, he will forever be portrayed as a modern day Judas.

A report has been delivered that is rife with deliberate avoidance of fairness and balance, a carefully pre-selected time frame that eliminates any explanation, defence, or historic perspective that would justify Israel's actions in Gaza, and false conclusions that condemns Israel for crimes not committed.

Richard Goldstones statement to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on 29 September is fraught with disingenuous comments.
He said that his committee had accepted their brief 'out of a deep concern for the hundreds of civilians who needlessly died'. Yet his committee gave only token attention to the eight years of thousands of rocket and mortar attacks coming from Gazan territory into Israel's civilian population. Israelis lined up to give their narrative. Goldstone refused to accept their evidence.

They pre-decided to select the time frame of 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009 to avoid having to seriously consider the historic background of the Gaza conflict. By doing so they eliminated the need to pass judgment of eight years of war crimes and human right abuses by the Hamas regime in Gaza.
Their clock only started ticking when Israel retaliated in self defence.

Richard Goldstone lied when he told the world that his committee had been instructed 'to investigate all violations of international law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza'.
This is not true.
In Article 14 of the UN HRC decision to appoint the committee it clearly instructs them 'to investigate all violations of international law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people due to the current aggression'.
What further proof is needed to show such one-sided and biased instruction?

In advance of the committee's work one of the jurists, Professor Christine Chinkin, an expert in international law, signed a petition published in the British Sunday Times that determined, prior to any fact-finding mission, that Israel had committed war crimes.

When the commission was presented by a law suit calling for her dismissal as a biased juror it was summarily dismissed.
There is no difference between Chinkins bias and that if the UN Human Rights Council.
The identity between Goldstone and the Council is this predisposition is absolute.

Let me go back one further step. The first station on the journey to Geneva and The Hague was the one that called for the investigation. Thirty three countries participated in the vote to establish the mission to Gaza. One country only voted against. That was Canada. Not one western democratic country supported the decision. The vote was made up entirely of third world and Islamic countries. Needless to say, many have the most atrocious record in human rights abuses.

Mary Robinson, a darling of the UN Human Rights Council and no great friend of Israel was asked to chair the committee in its fact-finding mission to Gaza. She refused saying that it was 'guided not by human rights, but by politics'.

The Goldstone report, a result of the Missions investigation, is less a fact-finding exercise and more of a lie-finding one.
The committee found time to ask inane, one sided, often irrelevant questions of witnesses while refusing to admit eye-witnesses to Hamas terror attacks or to listen to expert witnesses who are able to clarify the actions of the IDF in Gaza. Experts such as Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an expert in warfare in urban conditions such as Gaza. Failure to consider his statement, or those of Israeli victims of Hamas aggression against civilian targets, or even for the Goldstone committee to look into the massacre by Hamas of Fatah Palestinians in Gaza during the conflict, amount to a massive suppression of evidence.

Palestinian testimony was taken under the watchful eye of Hamas minders. Goldstones committee seemed oblivious that such 'evidence' is surely tainted with fear of retribution.
Neither did the committee consider it beneficial to conduct such interviews in privacy.
On the other hand the report declares that Israel may penalise witnesses. What one-sided cant!

A glaring fault is the UN Human Rights Council constant referral of Hamas as the Gazan authority. Despite the established fact that Hamas is internationally condemned as a terror organisation Goldstone never uses the 'terror' word and refers to Hamas as a civil authority.
This is vitally important for, by doing so, it can refer to Israeli attacks against the Hamas infrastructure as attacks against civilian targets and, therefore, war crimes.

Neither, in the eyes of the Goldstone committee, are there any Palestinian terror organisations. Occasional reference is made to 'armed groups' though none are given an identity.
Goldstone, it seems, has never heard of Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade, the PFLP, and others. To Goldstone, Hamas does not participate in any armed, military, or terror, activities. They are a civilian authority in their white-wash of Hamas in Gaza. This gives them the loophole to portray Hamas as an innocent civil force for good.

In their questioning of Palestinians they never ask if any members of the family belong to any terror organisation, whether homes were used as storage facilities for weapons, whether any member of the family belonged to 'armed groups' , or were actively fighting in the conflict.
All were innocent civilians or, as on one family case, farmers.
Until, that is, one turns to the facts given by the IDF, in advance of the UN Human Rights investigation and freely available, that several were wanted terrorists guilty of numerous actions against Israeli civilians and against IDF soldiers.
Of course, it is not convenient for the Goldstone committee to consider IDF statistics as reliable.
It does not fit into their pre-arranged concept of 'fact-finding'.

His definition of witnesses as 'credible and reliable' cannot be dismissed even when clearly identified as being members of Palestinian terror organisations.

Goldstone does not consider properties hit or destroyed as having been used for terrorist activities. All are civilian in nature.

Neither does Goldstone take into consideration that certain buildings could have been hit by a misdirected missile.
In his book, 'Israel went out of its way to deliberately target civilian infrastructure and collectively punish the people of Gaza'.

Israel may yet answer the Goldstone Report point by point. It is certain that Hamas, the Gaza authority, will not be held to any accountability.

The perpetrators of the UN Human Rights Council report will not be satisfied with a reading of the report to the UN Security Council.

They want that train to keep rolling until it arrives at The Hague, the doors of the cattle wagons are opened, and the Jews of Israel are herded into the Auschwitz dock of perpetual discrimination.

A critical review of the Goldstone Report

I

The UN Human Rights Council will debate the report prepared by a mission headed by Richard Goldstone this week in Geneva.

The report investigated the Gaza conflict.

There is a resolution to send the issue to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

No matter that this report was damned even before its genesis into an official United Nations Mission.

Richard Goldstone said that he accepted his role "because my fellow-commissioners are professionals, committed to an objective investigation".

Really?

Mission member, Christine Chinkin, pre-judged Israel's actions in Gaza to be war crimes. In a letter to the Sunday Times, she and other signators, said that Israel's actions against Hamas attacks were 'acts of aggression, not self defense', thereby pre-judging the investigation before it began.

Mary Robinson, no great friend of Israel, refused to head the UN Mission saying that it was "guided not by human rights but by politics".

The UN Mission failed to include the statistics of over seven thousand rockets fired indiscriminately into Israeli civilian areas over an eight year period. It failed to include the Israelis killed and injured, and the tens of thousands terrorized during this pre-Gaza conflict period.

They considered that their brief only applied to the subsequent conflict, thereby divorcing the significance of the background and build up to events in the Gaza Strip. Doing so, radically reduced the justification of Israel's defensive measures.

This also flies in the face of the official brief given to the Mission by the President of the UN Human Rights Council who, on 3rd April 2009, instructed the Committee 'to investigate all violations of international law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations conducted in Gaza from 27.11.08 to 18.1.098 whether before, during, or after.

The Committee decided to focus primarily on events after 19 June 2008 when a ceasefire was agreed. They did not reason to consider the intensive and continuous rocket and mortar attacks that had created the situation in which Israel was forced to take action to protect its citizens.

The Committee was supposed to take into serious consideration the credibility and reliability of witnesses, verify sources, and cross-reference relevant material and information. This they failed to do.

The Committee did not attempt to identify the individuals responsible for the commission of offences. Neither did they pretend to reach the standard of proof applicable in criminal trials. Yet they stated, from their one-sided and dubious eyewitness testimony that they had found 'significant elements of crimes'.

Their significant elements of proof were derived and reliant on testimony given by witnesses under the watchful eye of Hamas handlers and not in private and closed environments.

Goldstone admits, in his report, that 'there was a certain reluctance by the persons interviewed in Gaza to discuss the activities of armed groups.'

I bet there was! But why didn't Goldstone and his fellow-commissioners demand to interview witnesses free from Hamas intimidation?

Goldstone's observations provide a glimpse into the dangers faced by those speaking against the regime in Gaza.

Goldstone's failure to address the issue of Hamas intimidation undermines the very basis of his conclusions.

None of the witnesses were asked questions relating to Palestinian terrorist activities in civilian areas, location of weapons. This supports the case that they were party to a biased political campaign and not a neutral, fact-finding, mission.

Even when Hamas terrorists mixed with the civilian population, the UN Mission rejects the notion that there was any intention to deliberately put civilians at risk.

In Gaza, the UN Committee investigated thirty six incidents. Let me highlight one of them.

Khaled Muhammad Abd Rabbo reported the deaths of two of his children on 7th January 2009. Their house is in Jabaliya near the Israel border. He claimed that he saw no armed Palestinian activity in the area. he further claimed that Israeli tanks took position near his house. He said that soldiers, using a megaphone, caled residents to come out of their houses. His family came out holding a white flag and one of the soldiers got out of a tank and fired at his children for no reason.

Contrary to the claims of Abd Rabbo, Palestinian sources reported on armed Palestinian acitivites in the area of his house and on an exchnage of gunfire between Palestinian and IDF forces.

At the time Khaled claimed his children were killed four other Palestinians were killed nearby. They were Ibrahmim Abd al-Rahim Sulieman, an Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade terrorist, Shadi Issam Hamad, a terrorist belonging to the PFLP, Muhammad Ali al-Sultan and Ahmad Adib Faraj Juneid, both Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade terrorists.

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade report on the incident reveals information about the echange of fire between the IDF and the terrorists in the area where Khaled Abu Rabbo's children were killed.

He, however, did not tell the UN Commission about this exchange of fire.

The possibility exists that his children were killed by Palestinian gunfire as no autopsy took place.

For Goldstone, it may be inconceivable that someone would blatantly lie about the death of his children.

There is , however, a known factor in this area that people prefer to advance the Palestinian nationalist cause by glorifying the death of children by turning them into martyrs. True, his children were tragic victims, but a place in history is preferable to the truth in Palestine.

Goldstone, however, reported Abd Rabbo's account as fact - and also as a war crime committed by Israel.

A second glaring incident reported by the UN Human Right Mission against Israel involved statements given by Wali and Salah al-Samouni.

They described the shelling of Wali's house where the extended al-Samouni family had taken shelter. They told the committee that, on 5th January 2009, Israeli helicopters fired a missile at them as they left the house. This was followed by more missiles fired at the house. After the incident the wounded went down Salah a-Din Street and were refused medical aid by the IDF soldiers who fired shots over their heads to frighten them away.

They claimed that there had been no armed Palestinians and no activity around the house. Salah al-Samouni told the UN members that, "Everyone is a farmer. I swear to Allah that everyone is a farmer".

The UN Mission questioned him about damages caused by the IDF to his house, to the surrounding area, even down to statistics as to the size of the agricultural area destroyed by the IDF.

The UN Mission did not ask about the identity of the dead Palestinians in this incident. Nor did they ask about the possibility that they may have been terrorist operatives. It did not challenge their claim that there were no armed Palestinians in the area, despite the reports at the time both by both Palestinian terrorist organisations and by the IDF about exchanges of fire in the immediate area.

The UN Mission, headed by Goldstone, did not press witnesses about his claim that soldiers did not provide medical attention, in contradiction given by a female member of the family who had told the B'tselem NGO that soldiers had given them medical aid.

A simple examination of freely available Palestinian sources shows that both Wali and Salah al-Samouni hid important details from the Committee which could shed light on the event.

At least three members of the family were affiliated with the Islamic Jihad. Tawfiq Rashad Hilmi al-Samouni, who was killed on 5th January, was an Islamic Jihad terrorist. A Palestinian leaflet depicts a picture of an armed Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni with the caption "He along with mujahadin Walid Rashad al-Samouni, blew up a tank, causing the deaths of a number of Zionists on the first night of the war south of the Zeitun neighbourhood."

The family insist that there was no Palestinian terrorist activities near the house and that the nearest activity was at least a mile away and that was limited to firing rockets into Israel.

Islamic Jihad reported, however, that its fighters had fired an RPG at an Israeli tank and had opened fire on the enemy. At 1.20 a.m. an Islamic Jihad engineering unit detonated a 50 kg. bomb near an Israeli tank by the Al-Tawhid mosque near the house od Wali al-Samouni.

At 6.30 a.m. the Islamic Jihad engineering unit detonated another bomb near an IDF infantry unit. According to another official statement, one of its operatives, Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni was killed in fighting in the area.

Yet, according to the UN Goldstone Report, these ' innocent farmers' and their family were deliberately targeted and killed by Israel and this amounts to a war crime.

My colleague. Maurice Ostroff, has been able to conduct an unsatisfactory email correspondence with Richard Goldstone.

Ostroff questioned why Goldstone did not call epert witnesses and he quoted Colonel Richard Kemp, C.B.E. , former Commander of British forces in Afghanistan who praised the IDF as "having made more effort to reduce civilian casualties and deaths than any military force in history".

These measures included dropping over 900,000 leaflets over Gaza warning residents to move to safe areas in advance of military actions. The IDF also sent thousands of SMS text messages and over 30,000 phone calls to Gazan households urging them in Arabic to leave homes where Hamas may have stashed weapons or be preparing to fight.

Each day the IDF declared a three-hour cease fire in order to allow over one thousand five hundred trucks of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

This only stopped temporarily whenever Hamas targeted the crossing points.

The UN Mission dismissed these measures as 'ineffective'.

Despite Kemp's expertise in urban warfare against terrorists and insurgents in places such as Basra and Fallujah in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the Goldstone Committee to today refuse to consider calling him to give evidence as a professional witness.

Other submissions and evidence have been sent either directly to Goldstone and to the UN Human Rights Council. Many clearly show blatant war crimes perpetrated by Hamas. All have been summarily swept aside by the Goldstone Committee.

Goldstone told Ostroff that time restraints have prevented him from broadening his scope to include those who can shine a different light on his Committee's conclusions.

While the report paased judgment against Israel in respect to almost every allegation it seeks to absolve Hamas of almost any wrongdoing. The word 'terrorist' is almost entirely absent. Thousands of rocket attacks against civilian centers in Israel receives only token mention and are termed 'reprisals'.

In Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council received so-called evidence from Shawan Jabarin, director-general of Al-Haq, a Ramallah-based MGO.

As with many Palestinian representatives, Jabarin wears two hats. he is also a leader of the PFLP terrorist organisation which does not shy away from acts of murder and attempted murder. This organisation denies the most fundamental human right - the right to life.

Goldstone received his statements, but not people like Colonel Richard Kemp. Goldstone reportedly slept when a Sderot NGO group showed video of Israeli children being traumatised by falling Hamas rockects on their schools and playgrounds.

And so, the Goldstone Report returns to Geneva this week.

Is Goldstone so naive as to imagine that although his findings 'do not pretend to reach the standard of proof applicable in criminal trials' that his colleagues on the UN Human Rights Council, with their ulterior motives, and others out to get Israel, will not fuel a judicial campaign against Israel especially as he has given Israel six months to respond to his biased report or face the potential of being dragged to the International Criminal Court at The Hague?

Israel has already investigated over one hundred allegations of wrongdoing with twenty three cases still pending. These efforts were deemed insufficient by his Commiteee.

On the other hand, no investigation can be expected to be conducted by either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. Neither can we expect a non-state party such as Hamas to be held to accountability, or to be brought to trial for proven war crimes.

Today it is Israel on the altar of political bias. Tomorrow it will be American and Britain.

On 17 September, 2009, an Afghan Presidential Panel claimed that thirty Afghan civilians were killed in a US airstrike.

Will we see the UN Human Rights Council investigate the military activities of Coalition forces fighting Al-Qaida and the Taliban in the civilian areas of Afghanistan as Obama decides to increase his strikeforce there?

Last week, Sir Jock Stirrup, the UK Chief of Staff visited Israel. It was whispered in his ear that what the Israeli IDF and leaders face today can comfortably apply to British forces and politicians next.

The American and British forces in both Iraq and in Afghanistan use the same weaponry, the same tactics, when fighting their terrorist enemy in their urban warfare. Their enemy also uses the same human shield and tactics in these fields of operation.

Western countries have a vested interest in protecting Israel and containing the fall-out of the Goldstone Report.

The Goldstone Report. Where is it heading?

Where were the protests in the last few years about the war crimes perpetrated against Israel by both Hizbollah from Lebanon and then by Hamas in Gaza? Where were the Human Rights groups? Where was the UN Human Rights Council?
They stayed stoically silent as first thousand of Hizbollah Katusha rockets rained down on Israeli towns and villages. They did not issue a word when, later, eight thousands Kassam rockets slammed into towns, schools, kindergartens. Their silence was palpable as rockets slammed into civilian centers in Israel killing, maiming, and destroying.
Thousands of rockets deliberately targeted the Israeli civilian population was clearly a war crime. Yet no Human Rights Watch and no UN Committee considered this worthy of investigation. Only total silence.

Israel responds to the continuous and growing threat of larger and more sophisticated rockets and, suddenly, these austere organisations find their voice and begin to take action - against Israel.

It was as if they had been waiting to the inevitable response. It was if it was all planned in advance. Attack, attack, and keep attacking the Jewish State and when they act to put an end to it we will be waiting for them..

A committee was formed to reach a premeditated conclusion. They searched and found the perfect head of their committee of investigation. A renowned Jew whose deliberations would be interpreted as 'Look! Even a learned Jew condemns Israel's actions!'

And so the UN report on the Gaza conflict had its token Jew. It's aims, from the start, was to conclude that Israel's actions in Gaza were unlawful, unjustifiable, and they amounted to war crimes.

Headed by Judge Goldstone they listed the lies and portrayed them as facts and evidence. They spent time exploring sites and reporting that they were civilian, educational, religious buildings when they had been targeted by the IDF when sheltering terrorists or being used as weapon storage facilities.

The Goldstone Report references Islamic terrorists as being 'policemen'. Nowhere in his Gaza report does he include any mention to booby trapped schools. Nor does he investigate the cold-blooded slaughter of Palestinians by fellow Palestinians in Gaza during the conflict as worthy of mention or consideration as a crime.

Let me make it clear. The Goldstone Report is not an end in itself.
The perpetrators of this committee have another agenda. It is an agenda they have been working towards for some time.
From its inception the aim has been to drag Israel into the International Court of Criminal Justice in The Hague.
Mark my words. Israeli leaders and IDF officers will be named, accused, and charged to appear in the dock.

And here is the danger not only for Israel but for all those who attempt to fight tyranny.
Jews/Israelis are always the first on the chopping block. They are never the last.
What is bad for Israel today will be far worse for American leaders and officers tomorrow. Already the Obama Administration is forcing an issue of CIA abuses against terrorists that can result in the naming of CIA agents and military officers.
British and American actions in Iraq and in Afghanistan have so far avoided the spotlight. This has been partly due to the reluctance of much of the Western media to examine the result of their brave soldiers actions in these war zones. It is partly due to military and Government censorship. It is also partly due to the powerful political clout that America and Britain have in the UN. A political clout that an isolated Israel does not have.

However, it is clear to any semi-knowledgeable person that the same rules apply whether fighting Hamas and Islamic terror in the confines of Gaza or taking on the Taliban in the villages and alleyways of Afghanistan.
Targets are carefully chosen, armaments are selected, yet innocent people get killed in such urban warfare.
It is unjust to claim that Coalition forces go about their actions to intentionally harm the civilian population in Iraq or Afghanistan.
It is equally unjust to accuse the IDF of deliberately targeting civilians.

However, justice is not the name of the game. The radical and premeditated aim of the Goldstone report was to create the indictment that will cause the UN to bring Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
And Richard Goldstone became the patsy when he accepted the brief to head the committee.
yes, he gave lip-service to suspected Palestinian war crimes but these will be drowned out by the baying for Jewish blood by the anti-Israel lobby groups worldwide.

This leaves Israel exposed to the abuses of 'political correctness'. Israel waits, like the sacrificial lamb, to be called to its slaughter on the altar of the Human Rights court.

Should Israel become the initial scapegoat for the free world's war on Islamic terror then, with clear certainty, America and Britain will surely follow Israel into the dock and be condemned for the actions they take in fighting the scourge that is, today, throttling the attempt at brave action taken in defence of freedom and liberty.

Palestinian Chief Judge denies Jewish History.

I have frequently made the point, going back to Arafat days, that the Palestinian negotiations with Israel have been fraudulent.

I continued this claim throughout the apparent pragmatic and moderate tone of current PA leader, Mahmoud Abbas. While greeting Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni warmly during their periods of office, and more coldly to current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he reported back to his own people that he would never accept the concept of the Jewish State of Israel.

My clarion call has always been to listen to what the Palestinian leadership is telling its own people, not what they may say to Western diplomats and to the world's media.

The message to their own people is constant. The message is that the Jews are occupying Palestinian land. The message is that the 'armed struggle' will continue until all the land will be reclaimed to the last drop of sand, from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean).

The message is that the Jews have no rights, no history, no claims, to any part of 'occupied Palestinian land'.

This mantra has been taken up by several European countries and leftist-liberal organisations and activists who wrongly assume that 'occupation' means Palestinian territory in Gaza, the West Bank, and other hotspots.

Occupation, to Palestinians and their radical supporters, really means Haifa, Tel Aviv, Netanya, Hadera, Beer Sheva, Tiberias, Afula, Raanana, Kfar Saba, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Yavne, etc., etc.

It certainly means Jerusalem. All of Jerusalem, not only east of the city.

They deny any Jewish claim to any plot of land in the State of Israel. They falsify and create a Palestinian narrative, history, culture, architecture to these places, dressing it in Arab and Islamic garb when Palestinian rights to these places is unsupportable.

Arafat denied that Jews had any claim on any part of Jerusalem. This falsehood has been perpetuated by the current leader Abbas who, at the recent PA Congress in Bethlehem, publicly claimed that all of Jerusalem is considered the Palestinian capital.

The Palestinian hijacking of Jerusalem took another step forward when the radical Islamic Chief Judge of the Palestinian Authority, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, declared that Jews have no history in Jerusalem, that there was no evidence to support Jewish claims that Jews ever existed in Jerusalem, or that there was ever a Jewish Temple there.

"Jerusalem", he said, "is an Arab and Islamic city and it always has been so."

"Israel" he said "was trying to turn Jerusalem into a Jewish city. This is a flagrant violation of all religious, legal, moral, and human values."

Tamimi's denial of Jewish history and heritage also, by direct implication, denies the source of Christianity.

Without the Jewish Temple and Jewish religious history to Jerusalem, Jesus never could have come to the Temple to pray.

According to Tamimi it must have been a mosque. But, hold on a minute, when the Jewish Jesus was walking the streets of Jerusalem and preaching there was no Islam. Mohammed had not conquered and killed in the name of Islam. So what was Jesus doing there? Or maybe there was no Jesus because, according to the informed cleric, no Jews lived in Jerusalem, there were no Jewish religious centres or synagogues, and there was certainly no JewishTemple.

In which case there could have been no Sanhedrin court that judged Jesus before he was handed over to the Romans. Or maybe the Sanhedrin was really an Islamic court performing Sharia law on Jesus?

And if Jews never populated Jerusalem and the Jewish Temples did not exist then what did the Babylonians and later the Romans destroy?

If they destroyed anything it must have been a mosque, according to Tamimian logic.

If this was not so serious it would be laughable. It is serious because this historic falsehood and denial is driving the Palestinian narative that is preventing a peaceful resolution of the region's conflict.

We are all prisoners to this dangerous illusion. It is this insane blindness that is at the root of a conflict of decades. It is this unreasonable denial that may keep us locked in conflict for decades to come.

A Muslim Child

What chance for peace if this is typical of the education of Muslim children worldwide.
Jews beware! Your fate is being set by an Islamic indoctrination program that makes the Nazi regime anti-Semitic incitement look amateurish.

View this short video and shudder:

Pirates foiled by Israeli security guards.

Pirates have become the latest scourge of shipping routes off the coast of Africa.

Recently an American cargo ship captain became a hero when captured by pirates and later rescued by US Navy Seals.

Insurance restrictions have prevented most ships from carrying armed personnel. Insurance companies, it seems, prefer to pay out millions in ransom to criminal gangs who terrorise the worlds shipping routes.

Over the weekend it was briefly reported that a cruise ship had repelled a pirate attack.

When reported that the pirates had been driven away by members of the ships crew opening fire on them many in Israel asked the question, "Could it be?"

The answer was, "Yes, it could!"

The MSC Melody, with 1500 people on board, was attacked north of the Seychelles by six men in a speed boat. The pirates opened heavy fire on the luxury cruise ship in an attempt to capture it.

The captain, Commander Ciro Pinto, said that "it felt like we were in a war."

The pirates, and the passengers, were surprised by the rapid and decisive response by the security team on the Italian cruise ship. The expert security personnel responded with fire on the small speed boat causing them to call off their attack and retreat.

The ships security squad were Israelis hired by MSC Cruises because Israelis are the best trained security agents.

Cruise line security is a popular job for young Israelis who have been discharged from army service.

It gives them a wonderful opportunity of earning good money and seeing the world.

They also take their jobs extremely seriously.

El Al has the leading reputation in airline security, and Ben Gurion Airport is the most efficiently secured airport in the world.

Now the cruise lines with well trained Israeli security experts onboard have the safest cruise ships in the world.

Just ask the passengers on MSC Melody last weekend. Just ask the surprised pirates who thought they had hit a soft target.

Sleepy Malmo is a cauldron of Islamic Jihad.

I once visited the sleepy, leafy, Swedish town of Malmo. I was there for a sporting event. I was representing Israel. My presence there did not create a stir. It was an international running event. I disappeared down the field and returned home anonymously but with pleasant memories of an attractive, if boring, peaceful city.

The Malmo of 2009 is not as quiet, or attractive, any more. Not if you are Israeli. Or a Jew. Or a caring natural Swede.

The shocking, and rapid, take over of this town by an influx of radical Muslims has changed the landscape - and not for the better.
Backed by anarchists and leftists, they are making their presence felt - and it is not a pretty sight.

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/556299.aspx

Take a good look at the video. Look at what appeasement, dressed as multiculturalism, leads to when you lay down your own traditions and principles, and adopt neutrality in accepting people into your presence who have absolutely no desire to accept the tolerant society you offered them.

When it is too late. When you see that they have taken over the agenda in your town, your country, what do you do then?

Don't just look at Malmo and shake your head in dismay. This is happening in your town. In your country....

...And what are you doing about it?

The free world rewards terror.

Why are the influential leaders in the free world so blindly stupid when it comes to tackling to rise of Islamic radicalism in their midst?

From local to national to international levels of decision making it is staggering how they constantly get it wrong.
As an example, in sport the Malmo organisers of the Davis Cup match between Sweden and Israel decided to hold the event in an empty stadium. They were under threat of violence from anti-Israel protesters led by an aggressive Muslim campaign to have the tournament banned.
The result was a surprising victory for Israel. The Swedes, who were the strong favourites to win this important match were doubtless affected by the silence of the empty seats instead of being raucously cheered on by their local fans.

This politically tinged event was not as serious as the terror attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Islamic Pakistan. However, as a result of this terror attack, the International Cricket Council plans to meet in Dubai to discuss the location of future international cricket matches. That's Dubai, the country that banned Israeli tennis player, Shahar Peer, from competing in a WTA tournament in their country.
Maybe the best idea is for the ICC to locate all future cricket matches to Malmo and prevent the public from watching the games.

In Britain, radical Muslims are allowed to take to the streets with chants of 'Death to Jews' yet a Dutch politician is banned from entering the country even when he was being invited to make a private presentation to the House of Lords of the growing threat of radical Islam.

One Muslim member of the distinguished house had intimidated the political decision makers with the threat of recruiting ten thousand angry Muslims if Geert Wilder was allowed into the country.

Maybe it will take the gruesome murder of a prominent personality in the streets of London, as happened in Holland with the murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004 by a radical Muslim, to wake them up. Apparently, the July 7 terror attacks in London did not do the trick.

Throughout Europe, and increasingly in the States, the wolves are in the sheep pen. The problem is that the blind shepherd is behaving as if they are sheep.
He is telling you that he can see and knows what he is doing but, clearly, he doesn't.

Even the upcoming European Song Contest is not immune from stupidity and bias. Well, we all know the political bias from the traditional scoring given to third rate songs. Greece will give twelve points to Cyprus and Cyprus will give twelve points to Greece, all the Scandinavian countries will share the points between them, etc, etc.

The Israeli song will be sung by Achinoam Nini, known as Noa, and Mira Awad, and Israeli Arab singer. The song is called 'There must be a better way', a sentiment strongly felt by the majority of Israelis, both Jewish and Arab.

One would think that this is a positive message in line with Western thinking, but you would be wrong.
Israel's appearance is yet another opportunity of attacking the country. Voices are rising that this is just a cynical ploy of Israel by attempting to portray a human face when their policies are brutal and inhumane. After all, look at what they did in Gaza.

Which brings me to the serious part of this article.

Recently leaders of the free world joined Arab leaders in Sharm-el-Sheikh and agreed to donate the enormous sum of 4.4 billion dollars to the Palestinians of Gaza.
This weepy-eyed and generous donation by many of the free world leaders answers their innocent souls. They have been duped into believing the false propaganda of a slaughter of innocents by those nasty Israelis.
This huge contribution for the reconstruction of Gaza was taken in the hope that such a gesture would lead to a future of peace and tranquility borne out of the weight of such an impressive funding for the Palestinians.

They ignored the fact that while Tony Blair was visiting a United Nations school in Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, the schoolchildren of Ashkelon were prevented from going to school following yet another Hamas rocket attack that damaged one of the local schools.

The Bush Administration insisted, years ago, that they wanted the Palestinians to show that democracy works in the Arab world. So what did they do? They voted an Islamic terror organisation into power.

Of course, members of the free world immediately refused to meet or negotiate with Hamas.
After all, it is a terror organisation that has refused to back down from terror tactics and continues to declare its aim is to destroy the Jewish State.
Clearly you can't deal with such a regime. Clearly Hamas must not touch one dollar of the 4.4 billions that is coming to the Palestinians.

Tell me. Are these leaders stupid, blind, or incompetent?

Maybe somebody should let them know that Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, heads all the local and government institutions there. They also have power in parts of the West Bank.
How can they not get their hands on the money?

Their stupidity goes deeper. In order to functionalise the release of these huge funds the international leaders insist that Hamas and Fatah must come together and form a unity government. Isn't that nice. Peace and harmony among the Palestinians. This may stop Hamas killing their Fatah opposition members as they have been doing since the Palestinian elections.
Progress is being made in Hamas's direction. The one Palestinian leader, uncorrupted by Palestinian politics, Finance Minister and acting Prime Minister, Sallam Fayad, has been forced to resign.
Fayad was the singular ray of hope for a clean and pragmatic Palestinian leadership. And now he is gone.

What do the leaders of the free world think will happen under a so-called Palestinian unity government?
The world will be told of the success of the Western and Arab leaders in forging unity among the Palestinians. The funding will then be released to the Palestinian Authority. And then Hamas will assert their Islamic control over all of the Palestinian territory.

In other words, Hamas will control, if Israel lets them, territory that is a ten minute drive to (or thirty seconds for a rocket to hit) Netanya. One minute for a rocket to hit Ben Gurion Airport. Just one kilometre from Kfar Saba.

Should Israel protest this dangerous and false step at Palestinian unity we will be seen as being against peace.

No steps will be demanded by the international quorum that Hamas should relinquish its Charter calling for the destruction of Israel. They will be powerless to stop the continuation of the Islamic terror campaign against Israel.
Just as Bush was wrong in pushing democracy on a people bent on pursuing the death of Jews and Israel in the name of justice for the Palestinians, so the current international community are dead wrong in pushing for Palestinian Authority unity today.

Leaders of the free world from Hillary Clinton to Gordon Brown and the rest of the European appeasers tell you that not one penny will fall in the hands of terrorists.

Please tell them that their money is going to do precisely the opposite.
Here are the facts.

The international committee which met on March 2nd pledged massive funding to the Palestinians. The largest share will be given to the Palestinian Authority. This official institution supports terrorism and donates huge amounts of money directly to proven terrorists and to their families.

Through the Palestinian Authority, the Ministry for Prisoner Affairs transfers an 800 shekels monthly stipend to Palestinians serving jail terms in Israeli prisons. According to the Palestinian prisoners ministry statistics in March 2008 there were 11600 prisoners in Israeli jails. This has increased following the recent Gaza conflict in which many wanted and armed terrorists were captured by IDF forces.

According to Palestinian law every Palestinian prisoner is entitled to financial assistance from the Palestinian Authority on the condition that he or she was sentenced for activities connected to 'the struggle against Israeli occupation'. This is a euphemism for terror activities.

During his stay in an Israeli prison a Palestinian terrorist is entitled to a salary ranging from one thousand shekels a month for serving a term of one to five years, 4000 shekels for serving more than 25 years. These are, of course, those caught for more serious terrorist acts against Israeli citizens.

Furthermore, married prisoners receive an additional 3000 shekels a month, plus 50 shekels for every child.
Prisoners living in the Jerusalem area get an additional 300 shekels. This is to promote terror activities in the Israeli capital by the local Arab population.
In addition, every prisoner receives an allotment of 800 shekels a year to buy clothes.

It goes on.

A bonus is given to every prisoner released from Israeli jails. The sum varies from $500 a prisoner for those who spent less than a year behind bars to $10,000 for those serving terms of twenty five years or more.

Once released, these prisoners are entitled to a job in a government office. As a way of rewarding released terrorists those who have served a term of five to seven years in an Israeli prison receive jobs and the rank of captain in their 'security forces'. If the term is longer than 25 years he is entitled to the rank of deputy minister and of brigadier general with seniority. The time spent in prison is counted into his pension.

After release, Palestinian terrorists receive a salary for six months until they begin working in their official jobs. A prisoner who served more than five years receives between 1200 and 2000 shekels every month until he begins work.

Families of suicide bombers, terrorists wounded in actions against Israelis, and Palestinians whose properties were damaged also receive large payments for their support of ' the Palestinian struggle'.

The balance sheet of this industry of terror comes to in excess of forty million dollars a year.

The Palestinian Authority has never apologised for terrorist attacks carried out against Israel. On the contrary, the financial aid given to Palestinian terrorists and their families perpetuates the terror campaign against Israel.
It also gives the official Palestinian Authority seal of approval to terror activities.

Not making international assistance to the PA conditional on its abandoning support for terrorism will allow the Palestinians the resources and the funding to strengthen its attacks against Israel.

The fact that the free world is encouraging Hamas to become part of the overall governing body of the Palestinians without surrendering its ambitions against the Jewish state, and are giving them massive amounts of money as well proves that the free world is either blind, incompetent, or stupid.

The fact that they are funding terror activities even as they deny doing so leads me to the blind shepherd metaphor. Truly, are they blind, incompetent, or stupid?

Either way Israel will be the loser. That is why we need a tough, strong, leadership at this time of great peril.

Britain's irrevocable march to Islamization.

What is going on in Britain?

In January violent Muslims and their supporters were allowed to demonstrate with calls of 'Death to the Jews' in London.

Then Dutch politician, gert Wilders, was prevented from wentering Britain for a private showing of his movie 'Fitna' on the grounds that his visit was racially provocative.

In February Muslims were allowed to march in London under the banner 'Islam for UK! Shariah for UK!'.

This march was organised by people who had put together a rally one year earlier in London where chants of 'Bomb the UK!' were heard. One of its leaders, British jihadist Anjem Choudary, had been jailed for inciting murder at another London protest.

This latest London march is not considered provocative or racist by the British authorities who approved the rally and covered the cost of the police protection.

This happened, by the way, as a parade to celebrate St George's Day in the British Midlands was banned for being racist.

St. George is the patron saint of England. It was never considered provocative to the Welsh, Scottish, or Irish who live in Britain. It did not offend its Jewish population.

Now it seems Britain, in a further display of dhimmi subservience to Islam, is prepared to surrender its own heritage.

Will there come a point in time where the rank and file Brit will say 'enough is enough'? Or will they continue to allow their country, apathetically, to slide irrevocably to Islamization without protest?

Western suckers.

Well, here we go again! Yet again, American and European leaders are meeting in some Arab country to pledge obscene amounts of money to the world's biggest cry babies. Sorry, that should read the world's richest refugees. Who do I mean? What, you can't guess? Why, the Palestinians, of course.

Despite having Swiss bank accounts bulging with cash, they plead victimhood and poverty - and the world lap it up.

Despite receiving huge amounts of foodstuffs, materials, fuel, equipment, and other aid, the West accept the lie that the Palestinians are under siege due to an Israeli blockade on Gaza.

In fact, the Palestinians in Gaza have received in excess of 1200 trucks carrying 124,000 tons of aid, and twelve million liters of fuel that entered the Gaza Strip from Israel at the Kerem Shalom, Erez, and Nahal Oz crossing points since the recent conflict ended.
Hundreds of Palestinians have entered Israel for medical treatment at Israeli hospitals.
Some blockade!

Truth be told, the crossing points that are closed to the Palestinians are those controlled by the Egyptians - not Israel.

Hey! Why should that simple fact get in the way of portraying Israel as the bad guy and the poor Palestinians as victims of the Jewish Zionists?

So, leaders of eighty countries have met in Egypt and pledged to shovel a further 3 billion dollars to Hamas controlled Gaza.
Hillary Clinton pledged one billion dollars on behalf of the suffering American tax payer.
That's on top of everything else they have received up to now, and will receive in the future, including from Israel.

The various United Nations organisations, that are self-perpetuating on the false premise that people living in the Gaza Strip are refugees, can now budget their salaries and expense accounts for the next decade.

UNWRA is a huge organisation. A huge proportion of its efforts goes into the Gaza Strip which is headed by Hamas, soon to take control over the Palestinian Authority.

And don't tell me that the billions will not find its way to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. If this funding does not end up in the pockets of Hamas then I'm a ballerina!

The corruption of the Palestinian Authority, and the authoritarian method of Gaza control by Hamas, make the fact that Hamas will be the recipient of this funding blindingly obvious.

Who works for UNWRA and receive wages during the day and play terrorist at night? Why Hamas and Islamic Jihad members, of course.

Want to know who finances the activities of UNWRA in Gaza?

50% is financed by tax payers in the European Union countries.
31% is financed by American tax payers.
Only 7% is financed by Muslim countries.

And you thought that the Arabs would be first in line to help their fellow Muslims? Wrong again!

In the current world economic crisis, why do Western governments continue to pour tax payers money into an area that is ruled by a tyranical Islamic terror regime that is dogmatic in its ambition to eradicate Israel?

Don't they get it?

Why is a ruthless, lawless, corrupt Gaza deserving of massive Western aid when other better deserving sources of poverty, famine, and disease, go ignored?

And they are getting it while they continue to fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel. Over one hundred rockets have so far landed in Israel since the so-called ceasefire.

You would have thought that the donors would have made their contributions conditional on Hamas stopping their terror activities not only against Israel but also against their fellow Palestinians who may prefer secular Fatah to the radical Islamic organisation.

By the way, Hamas kills Palestinians. Look it up. During the recent conflict Hamas killed more Palestinians than Israelis. That's a fact.

It was not for want of trying. It just happened that the pro-Fatah Palestinians were easier prey than the well-trained Israeli soldiers and well-protected Israeli civilians under rocket bombardment.

And you wonder why Israelis voted for a tougher, no nonsense, Government.

We are living in a tough, ruthless, and corrupt neighbourhood where our enemies have just been revitalised by well-meaning (read 'stupid') Western leaders who give away your money freely with no strings attached.

A Prediction for Britain.

As is my nature I want to send you a provocative prediction for a nation that was once was proudly called Great Britain.
It is now named after a TV comedy series - Little Britain.

My prediction is that the UKIP will receive a huge rise in support in future General Elections.

They will do so as the only political voice that will speak up for the disenfranchised rank and file Brits who are gravely concerned about the unrivalled and violent rise of the Islamic voice in Britain.

I further predict that many Jews will vote on behalf of this party.

People associate UKIP with the BNP, once known as the National Front. British Nazi Oswald Mosley, was pounced on when marching to make a political address in Belle Vue, Manchester, in 1933. A prelude for the anti-fascist riots of Cable Street, London, in 1936.
This was a time when British Jewry said enough to free speech when Anti-Semitic remarks and actions were being expressed in official form against the Jews of Britain.

This notion is incorrect. UKIP attempts to be a mainstream party representing the basic patriotism of the indigenous population. One of their platforms is to represent an authentic British voice in challenging the muzzling of British objections to the Islamic influence that is growing throughout Britain.

They now recognise that both Jews and Christians in Britain face a common enemy and that the political establishment has allowed this enemy to take root in their country and to spread their message. They object that anyone, including political figures from Europe such as Gert Wilders, are prevented from expressing a note of concern while chants of 'Death to Jews' is allowed on the streets of London as free speech..

No one spoke up, or attempted to stifle anti-Semitic remarks such as this, or 'Gas the Jews' ,or 'Oxford University will be a Jew-free zone in five years'.

It seems that threatening Jews in Britain is considered free speech while attempting to highlight to true agenda of radical Islam is to be prevented.

Some will say that UKIP adopting this issue cynical but UKIP is adopting the Arabic political philosophy that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

You may find my comments controversial, but they are based in fact. None of the leading political parties in Britain are prepared to get their fingers burnt by raising an issue that is festering below the surface in many communities in Britain. Only UKIP is ready to speak out, and the outcome remains to be seen.

Watch this space..

Barry Shaw
The View from Here
Israel

The two-faced rich bitches.

Yesterday I wrote about the anti-Semitic tennis tournament in Dubai that has banned Israeli Shahar Peer from their event.

I wrote about the hypocricy of the world's leading female tennis stars who cluck sympathetically at Shahar but still head for the Arab state in search of fame and fortune.

I asked the question what if the ban had been against black athletes such as the Williams sisters?

Would the world have gotten away with a sympathic nod to the two black sports women and allowed the show to go on had tournament organisers of a heavily sponsored sports meeting declared that they wanted an all-white event?

I doubt it.

Had this sort of thing happened at the Dubai tennis event there would have been an enormous international outcry about the racial discrimination of the UAE and an instant boycott of their sporting calendar?

This would be right and proper. Why is this not happening now with Shahar Peer?

Now come the news that Venus Williams is showing more sympathy for the sponsors of the Arab tennis match than one of her fellow players.

In a bout of confused thinking she said, "There are so many other people involved. Sponsors are important to us. We wouldn't be here without sponsors. We can't let sponsors down.
Whatever we do, we need to do as a team - players, sponsors, tour and whoever - and not all break off in one direction. We are team players."

I'm still trying to get my head around that statement. Let me get this right, Venus. If the organisers of a major event with huge sponsorship decide to ban you then it's OK for the other players to say sorry but we're going. After all, can't let the sponsors down.."

She went on, "I have to look at the bigger picture. The big picture is that Shahar Peer didn't get a chance to play, but making an immediate decision we also have to look at sponsors, fans and everyone who has invested a lot in the tournament. I think there are rules and protocols as to how you can proceed."

By the way, Venus Williams sits on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Players' Council. As such she represents and makes decisions for women tennis players.

She could have led a boycott of the Islamic and Anti-Semitic tournament and set an example to the world of sport.

Instead of using her role that all players stand united she chose to say, SHOW ME THE MONEY!"

Dubai epitomises a world where Jews are getting kicked in the balls (in Dubai, it's tennis balls) by Muslims whose racist actions are being appeased and, thereby, supported, by non-Muslims.

I would have once called them Christians but they seem to have abandoned their religion as well as their principles.

In other words, Venus Williams and the other tennis stars support, by their participation, a JUDENREIN tennis event to protect their sponsors.

If I may use the expression of calling a spade a spade without being accused of racism, the words and deeds of Venus Williams and all the other tennis players supports Anti-Semitism.

Racism in sport

It has become a prominent and just theme in many sports that racism has no place on the sports field.
Action is taken against racist chants at football games. The Olympic ethic that salutes performance and excellence is one that should permeate all aspects of sport.

It is disturbing, therefore, when racism rears its ugly head in a high profile sport - and is allowed to win.

I refer to the decision of the Dubai WTA tennis tournament to ban Shahar Peer. Peer is ranked among the world's leading women players. She is finding new form after a good display in the Pataya tournament in Thailand.
She was expected to go to Dubai and continue her rise up the rankings. The ban will affect not only her earnings but, more importantly, her world rankings, a vital element in a professional player's career.

The organisers made the lame excuse that they prevented the Israeli from participating for her own security.
It is clear that the ban of Peer was a political move, and not one of security fears.

The Tennis Channel rightly decided not to televise the tournament. Disturbing, however, is the reaction of the governing body of tennis.
When the women's tour ended last year in Doha, Larry Scott, the WTA CEO, stated,"We see women's professional tennis as a catalyst in producing social change."
Where is the change? And where is Larry Scott today in defence of one of his leading players?
Well he did say that he was 'deeply disappointed' with the Peer ban. Is that it, Larry? Is that the best you can do?

More significant has been the reaction of other players.

"It's not acceptable," said Amelie Mauresmo.
Ana Ivanovic felt bad for Shahar Peer.
"All the players support Shahar. The players have to be unified", said Venus Williams.

All empty words. All these fine players said to Shahar Peer, "Hard luck, Shahar. We're with you. See you after Dubai!"

That is not right. That is not true sport. That is not players unity.

What if the ban had been against Venus Williams because she is black? The world would have been in uproar.

I can't imagine that the other players would have said, "Bad luck, Venus. We are all with you but, hey, the money's good. We'll give you a hug after Dubai.."

If professional players despise racial prifling in sport they should have stood united and volutarily banned racism in sport and agreed not to attend Dubai unless the Israeli player was reinstated.

That would have resounded around the world.

Instead Israeli sportsmen and women see a reflection of the Munich Olympics.
After the massacre of the Israeli Olympians the other sports people murmured a prayer and the Games continued.

Again, in Dubai, in world tennis, racism matters - unless it's directed against Israeli or Jewish athletes.

America is out of control.

The View from Here.

Watch out world! America is out of control.

Poor Obama's honeymoon period is well and truly over. True, most Americans haven't woken up to the cold dawn of a dour future. They still think the music of the Inaugural Ball is still playing. After all, their new Government is doling out piles of cash. That can't be bad, can it? Well, yes it can.

Why am I upset? Because the US Congress have proven to me that they are totally insane.
They have approved what they call a Stimulus Package of eight hundred Billion dollars within twenty four hours. Great, right? Wonderful, right? NO. IT'S NOT.

The way they did it was incredibly stupid and shocking.

This bill is the biggest financial bill in world history.
The bill was contained in one thousand one hundred pages (That's 1100 pages!) and the Congressmen were forced to pass this bill within an emergency twenty four hours.
This means that it is impossible for any lawmaker to even read this bill in the required time. It is impossible to read or understand the implications of the bill within the alloted time. Yet the US leadership insisted that the bill must go through in record time. Why? Why weren't they allowed time to seriously consider and debate this huge financial hand out? Why? You won't believe why this was rammed through Congress....

The reason given was that Nancy Pelosi had to leave for an eight day trip to Europe to meet the Pope.

Don't laugh (or cry). That is the truth.

This bill was too important to wait until Pelosi returns from Europe. And Pelosi's meeting with the Pope was too important to be delayed. So the bill had to be forced through NOW. Forget about reading the details, or the fine print.

Don't ask where the money is coming from. Just pass the bill.
They hope that the Chinese will cough up the money in the form of a loan. But one of China's leading financial experts said he thought that American was mad for what they are doing.
Maybe Obama can suck up to the Arabs. They will provide the money if America agrees to butter up to the Muslim world.

$800,000,000,000 slipped through Congress with no reasoned debate on the consequences in a record 24 hours.

And the world will suffer from the result of throwing a vast amount of unaccountable money into a black hole.

America is out of control, will be deeper in debt and, someday, someone will have to pay the bill.

Barry Shaw
The View from Here
Israel

The Insidiousness of Appeasement.

There have been rampant and violent Muslim protests against Israel's recent action against the Hamas Islamic terror regime in Gaza.
It is clear that the Islamic voice has become bolder and brasher throughout Europe and also in the States.

Worryingly, a lot of the vocal and physical abuse was not aimed at Israel but against Jews everywhere.
Jews have been beaten. Jewish children suffered physical and verbal attacks. Signs stating "Hitler was right!" were displayed. Cries of "Gas the Jews!" were not challenged by the police, even when this racial incitement was heard in front of the White House.

The anti-Israel rallies were allowed to continue despite obvious evidence of racial incitement. Even when police were attacked, as in London, only a rare number of violent protesters were arrested.

Free speech is permitted if you abuse Israel and Jews but not, it seems, if you express a counter argument, or wish to stand up for your rights.

Reports are continuing of pro-Israel speakers being disallowed to give the Israeli position at many universities as provosts either refuse to allow experts from airing facts, or capitulate to the treat of violence should such speakers be allowed a platform.

Appeasement goes too far when people displaying the Israeli flag can be accused of subversive activities, as was the case in Germany.

Apparently, the appearance of an Israeli flag can enrage the Islamic mob to the extent that German authorities look on this as being an incitement to violence.

They do not see the removal of the Israeli flag from an apartment window as a significant appeasement to the Muslim rally.

The removal of the Israeli flag signified to the mob the desired removal of the Jewish state - and they succeeded in employing the German police to carry out their demand.

Such is the submissive 'dhimmi' attitude that is prevalent in Europe, and is reaching the shores of America.

It is not healthy. It is not fair. It is not honest. But it is the way of the future for a long continent, and maybe a lost world.

Now see the attached report:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/024760.php

Barry Shaw
The View from Here
Israel

The Middle Class Humanitarian Crisis

Charity is a fine thing when donated to a worthy cause.

Calls for humanitarian aid, or funds for the needy, are well deserved when they apply to the dying, the starving, or the diseased in our world.

The huge numbers of people dying of malnutrition or disease in Africa and Asia is heartbreaking. Thousands, if not millions, do not live in any thing more than a hovel bereft of running water and certainly with no electricity.

Charity organisations face a daunting task when trying to cope with this massive blight on our planet.

Compare that with the plight of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians have been the worlds biggest charity case for so many years. Their status as 'victims' has been perpetuated for years. Their 'cause' has been blindly echoed in most of the Western media magnifying the level of their needs out of all proportion.

If the word 'disproportionate' deserves to be used it must be applied to the exaggerated amount of money that has poured into the restricted Palestinian terrortiries (not a spelling mistake) for decades.

The Palestinians have received more funding, more humanitarian aid, more world sympathy, than the mega-disasters of Darfur, Ruanda, and other genocides and famines in Africa and Asia.

Why do they deserve more money than the starving masses of Africa? Why do they receive more UN aid and charity than the homeless in other parts of the world?

Why have they made themselves the professional schnorrers of the world? Why are they always at the head of the queue? Why do the United Nations maintain a refugee status, dating back over sixty years, that does not apply to any other ethnic, religious, or national group save for Palestinians?

Maybe the reason is that the Palestinians, and the anti-Semites, can use their cause as a weapon to hit Israel , despite the fact that their cause can be easily and quickly settled with pragmatism and a genuine desire to create a state of their own living alongside the Jewish state.

It is certainly true that, traditionally and systematically, the Palestinian leadership from Arafat to Hamas, have robbed their people of the massive funding that has come their way.

But the Palestinians act as if they do not want a pragmatic settlement to the conflict . They are caught up in a rhetoric, religious and political in nature, that says suffering is a victory, death is a victory, and that peace with a Zionist enemy is a defeat.

Only a solution that eliminates the Jewish state is acceptable, no matter how long it will take.

This, ultimately, is what the funding is for.

We now see violence on the streets of London because certain media broadcasters in Britain refuse to air the appeal for humanitarian aid to the Palestinians of Gaza.
The violence really says that the political message is more important than the charity.

But let us examine the humanitarian crisis in Gaza more closely. True, many buildings were destroyed and and infrastructure damaged as a result of the conflict that erupted due to eight thousand rockets fired by Hamas into Israel over the years.

I ask a simple question. Didn't the majority of Gazans vote for this Islamic terror regime in Palestinian elections of 2005?
Does this not imply that they rallied to Hamas who were electioneering on a program of death and destruction against the Jewish state?
Does this not make them as collectively guilty as the German nation who identified solidly with Hitler and the Third Reich?

This is not to support the death of innocent children or civilians, though none were deliberately targeted by the IDF as were the one million Israelis who suffered the rain of Islamic rockets from Gaza - not to mention those killed or maimed by Palestinian car bombs, suicide attacks, and gunmen over the decades of the conflict.

But let us look at the so called humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Look closely at the footage that your media relays to you on the damage in Gaza.
Look at the buildings that have been hit. Don't most of them look new constructions?
The modern housing estates are far from the desolate hovels of the truly needy.

Israel reported, and this was confirmed, that the IDF texted mobiles and called thousands of phones warning the inhabitants in advance of an attack on the Hamas terrorists that were hiding in their midst.
Doesn't this prove that most Gazan families have phone lines and mobile phones?

Most of the families in Gaza possess a vehicle of sorts from an old truck to new automobiles.

Israeli soldiers, who were forced to enter many of the Gazan homes, reported that most were well furnished and equipped. In many the children had computers with games or access to the internet.

So where is the tremendous humanitarian crisis?

What sort of humanitarian crisis do the Palestinians have that makes their need greater than the desperately hungry in our ravaged world?

Surely it is, in truth, a propaganda exercise that can also raise funds for the intractable Islamic leadership in Gaza?

Yes, they have a temporary water shortage. Yes, there are homes to reconstruct? Yes, there are those requiring, and receiving, medical attention.

But the world has ignored the fact that one thousand and eight three trucks of humanitarian aid (that's 1083) were transported from Israel into Gaza during the three weeks of the conflict.

What could the starving people of Darfur have done with half that amount of aid? What would the homeless thousands in India have done with the other half during that period?

Palestinian needs have become a middle class humanitarian crisis. They have become the cause celebre in our politically incorrect world.