J Street claims to be the “political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.” Yet, 11 members of the U.S. House of Representatives backed by J Street recently either refused to back funding for Israel’s Iron Dome short-range anti-missile system or voted against it.

“Three of the House lawmakers who voted against funding for Iron Dome—Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Walter Jones (R-N.C.)—have received a combined $21,145 in this election cycle from J Street, according to publicly available Federal Election Commission (FEC) documents.

“The eight other J Street-funded lawmakers who abstained from the vote are Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Susan Davis (D-Calif.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.)” (“J Street in Congress Refuse to Support Iron Dome Funding for Israel”, Washington Free Beacon, Aug. 21, 2014).

Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, overwhelmingly have supported Iron Dome. As thousands of missiles were launched from the Gaza Strip during the July-August Israel-Hamas war, Iron Dome protected three quarters of the country’s civilians. Had the system not been in place, the number of noncombatants killed in Israel likely would have been much greater than the four who were slain. The response from Israel would have been much harsher, possibly leading to a wider war.

The disconnect between J Street’s “pro-Israel, pro-peace” self-description and the votes of the 11 noted above caused comment.

“Pro-Israel community insiders say that this is proof that J Street cannot even convince its own people to support a vaguely pro-Israel line,” The Free Beacon stated. “ ‘I suspect that if J Street had its druthers, its few congressional allies would have actually voted for Iron Dome funding, just to keep up appearances,’ said Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel.

“ ‘But J Street ’s allies in Congress are genuinely dedicated to being anti-Israel, and so they’re happy to take J Street money and then vote the wrong way, confident that the checks will clear,’ Pollak said. ‘It’s embarrassing for J Street, but it’s also the price of maintaining good relations with anti-Israel members of Congress.’ ”

J Street’s “pro-Israel and pro-peace” self-portrait misleads. Working toward peace with Palestinian Arab leadership has been a goal of the Jewish state at least since the country signed the Oslo accords in 1993. Israel brought the Palestinian Liberation Organization and its leader, Yasser Arafat, to the Gaza Strip, withdrew from West Bank cities and granted Palestinian Arabs autonomy prior to a two-state solution floated by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. Not only did Arafat reject the proposal, but he also launched an intifada that included suicide bombings and other attacks and resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 Israelis and visitors, and 4,000 Palestinian Arabs.

Regardless of Palestinian behavior, J Street claims that “being pro-Israel doesn’t require supporting every policy of its government.” True, but frequently opposing policies of Israeli governments chosen by majorities of the country’s voters and funding politicians who don’t support break-through defense programs like Iron Dome are hard to square with pro-Israel activism.

Guilt by association can be unfair. But groups as well as individuals are known by the company they keep—and the politicians they fund. On the Hill, J Street appears to need some new pro-Israel, pro-peace friends. –Ziv Kaufman

Professor Asa Kasher, whose biography states that “He led the writing of the first IDF code of ethics” published a thought-provoking article in the Jewish Review of Books, “The Ethics of Protective Edge,” discussing the principles guiding Israeli military activity against terrorists embedded in a civilian population.

Kasher describes competing humanitarian principles to which the IDF must adhere. He establishes at the outset that the guiding principle that “people may never be treated as mere objects or instruments” applies to “Palestinians in Gaza who pose no terrorist threat.” Nonetheless, this principle is tempered by the notion that “no state should shoulder as much responsibility for the safety of enemy civilians as it does for its own people.” These principles are encoded in the IDF’s concept of ‘purity of arms,’ that is “to use the minimum force necessary to subdue the enemy.”

Kasher recognizes that there are exceptions,

circumstances in which the principles of restraint and respect for human dignity in times of war might be disregarded. In his famous address to Parliament in 1940 Winston Churchill spoke of “Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”

But he contends that the sentiments expressed by Churchill are “now obsolete, not only for ethical reasons but for strategic ones.”

To illustrate the shift, he contrasts Israel’s military objectives and accomplishments in 1967 – the destruction of enemy armies – with the 2006 Summer war against Hezbollah which “significantly diminished the military force of Hezbollah, but it could and actually did continue launching rockets at northern Israel for a time.” According to Kasher, “In the ‘new’ wars of recent decades, victory has been replaced by the ideal of successfully accomplishing given missions.”

Consistent with this change, “the missions of Operation Protective Edge were defined in the course of the fighting as the elimination of the threat to Israel created by the Hamas offensive tunnels and the reduction if not elimination of the threat that Hamas’ rockets pose to most parts of Israel.” Kasher believes the response should deter Hamas from future attacks, “only as a by-product of the operation, not one of its military ends.”

He admits that contemporary Israeli doctrine goes against conventional strategic wisdom, but he defends that choice:

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said that “if someone is victorious in battle and succeeds in attack but does not exploit the achievements, it is disastrous.” This is not the spirit in which Operation Protective Edge was undertaken, for good reasons.

Kasher could have also mentioned the Israeli doctrine contradicts the advice attributed to the eminent political philosopher, Machiavelli, which reflects Sun Tzu’s perspective:

People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.

Kasher’s emphasis on mission success rather than victory ushers in a less ruthless approach to war that he calls consistent with Jewish values, although such an approach goes against the advice of the most eminent historic strategists.

Nevertheless, Kasher draws the line on how far Israel should go in avoiding harm to the enemy population when it conflicts with protecting the lives of Israeli citizen-soldiers. Kasher states,

One must bear in mind that most of the IDF combatants, in particular in the army and navy, are conscripts. As citizens in military uniform, they are entitled to ask the state, as well as the IDF and its commanders, whether they are being placed in greater jeopardy to save the lives of enemy non-combatants who have been repeatedly warned to leave the scene of battle. An affirmative answer to this question would be morally unacceptable.

In a Sept. 4, 2014 article about the murder of Steven J. Sotloff, The New York Times reported the following:

Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli defense minister, on Wednesday signed a declaration outlawing ISIS though there has not been any indication of activity by the group in Israel or the Palestinian territories.

The Times got it wrong. ISIS activity has been documented in the Gaza Strip. Writing in The Gatestone Institute in Early July, Khaled Abu Toameh reported the following:

Last month, Hamas sent its policemen and militias to disperse a rally organized by ISIS followers in the Gaza Strip to celebrate the recent “military victories” of the terrorist group in Iraq. Hamas prevented local journalists from covering the event as part of its attempt to deny the existence of ISIS in the Gaza Strip.
…
Earlier this year, masked militiamen in the Gaza Strip posted a video on YouTube in which they declared their allegiance to ISIS. The militiamen are believed to be members of a radical Islamist salafist group that has been operating in the Gaza Strip for the past few years.
…
At the funeral of two Islamists killed by the Israel Defense Forces last week in Gaza, funeral-goers carried flags and banners of ISIS.

That’s not all.
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A few days ago, Snapshots posted an entry about the newly established organization “In Defense of Christians,” which is hosting a summit next week in Washington, D.C. about the mistreatment of Christians in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East.

The organization’s focus is primarily on Christians in the region, but its website says that it is devoted to promoting the cause of religious freedom and the welfare of all religious minorities in the region.

Interestingly enough, the organization’s website mentioned the plight of Baha’i but made no mention to their country of origin, Iran, where they are brutally mistreated along with Christians, Jews and Muslims.

This prompted Snapshots to ask a pretty obvious question: Why did In Defense of Christians, an organization ostensibly created to promote the cause of religious freedom make no mention whatsoever of Iran, which is one of the worst abusers of religious freedom in the world?

The organization’s website did not even include Iran in a drop down menu listing the countries that were on its radar.

Well, sometime in the past few days, that has been rectified. The drop-down menu on the organization’s website now includes a link to Iran and Sudan, another country where religious minorities are brutally mistreated.

Hold the Hallelujahs.
(more…)

Sadly, gruesome beheadings by Islamist terrorists are being posted on the internet. But only some of them receive the attention they deserve from American mainstream media. The Times of Israel reported:

A jihadist group operating in the Sinai Peninsula has taken responsibility for executing five more people for collaborating with Israel, after it announced Thursday that it had beheaded four people on the same charges.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for the execution for espionage of nine Bedouins in all, Israel Radio reported Tuesday.

[…]

In a video released Thursday, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for the executions and said the men had provided intelligence to Israel’s Mossad agency.

The video showed men in black masks beheading the accused collaborators as they knelt on the ground….

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis ironically translates to “Supporters of the Holy Temple,” named after the Jewish Temple that Islamists deny ever existed. (Beit Ha-Mikdash is Hebrew for the Temple.) Regardless of whether these victims were in fact working with Israel, the mere suspicion brought about their execution, as the fact that Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff were American brought about theirs.

According to the U.S. State Department, which has designated Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) a terrorist group, “In August 2012, ABM claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on the southern Israeli city of Eilat, and in September 2012, ABM militants attacked an Israeli border patrol, killing one soldier and injuring another.”

This enemy of Israel is remarkably similar to – even part of the same movement as – the enemies of the United States and all people of goodwill. So is Hamas. And Hezbollah. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger highlighted this in an article published in The Sunday Times of London:

To a globalised, largely secular world judging itself to have transcended the ideological clashes of “history”, the views of [Muslim Brotherhood ideologist Sayyid Qutb] and his followers appeared so extreme as to merit no serious attention. Yet for Islamic fundamentalists these views represent truths overriding the rules and norms of international order.

They have been the rallying cry of radicals and jihadists in the Middle East and beyond for decades — echoed by al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Iran’s clerical regime, Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation, active in the West and openly advocating the re-establishment of the caliphate in a world dominated by Islam), Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Syria’s extremist militia Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), which launched a big military assault this year.

Apparently, they also “merit no serious attention” from the American press. Even though Reuters covered the Sinai beheadings, as did the Israeli, some international and Arab media, few if any major U.S. news outlets picked up the story.

Could it be that the fact that Israel is fighting the same enemy murdering Americans and threatening American interests simply does not fit with the popular press narrative? How can the media continue to portray the Jewish state as the bad guy when Israel is fighting the really bad guys, the same bad guys arrayed against the U.S.? Best to ignore the truth, then.

But the facts are plain. When attacked by Jabhat al-Nusra forces in Syria several days ago, United Nations peacekeeping troops fled into Israel. Even Saudi Arabia, earlier this year, designated Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, parent organization of Hamas, as terrorist groups.

Yet, The New York Times at one time wrote that Hamas was “vague on whether [eliminating Israel] remains its ultimate goal.” (CAMERA Monograph, page 77) Though written to minimize the threat posed by Hamas in the minds of readers, perhaps The Times actually stumbled upon the truth. Eliminating Israel may not be Hamas’ “ultimate goal.” Perhaps Hamas, like its ideological brothers at ISIS/ISIL and other terrorist groups, seeks to be part of a global Islamist caliphate.

In that case, the public really must demand of the media… Where’s the coverage?

Amnesty International [Amnesty], the internationally known human rights organization, has for many years engaged in anti-Israel agitation under the guise of advocating for the rights of Palestinians. Amnesty activities are intended to undermine Israel’s standing in the world and hamper the Jewish state’s capacity to defend itself. The group’s actions against Israel are often synchronized with other groups with a similar agenda (like Human Rights Watch) and the United Nations Human Rights Council. Such activity is especially visible during Israeli military operations in response to terrorist attacks.

Using the language of human rights, Amnesty lodges trumped up charges against the Israeli Defense Force, accusing it of war crimes and disproportionality in its responses to terrorist attacks. Amnesty often relies on dubious witness testimony, bolstered by controversial interpretations of laws and regulations relating to the legitimate use of force. In parallel to these accusations, Amnesty campaigns to render the Jewish state defenseless in the face of terrorist attacks, for example by lobbying the United States government to deny Israel crucial support for its military operations.

And so on Aug. 4, Amnesty’s web site contains a call to “Stop US shipment of fuel to Israel’s armed forces as evidence of Gaza war crimes mounts.” Characteristically presenting its charges in the context of a feigned evenhandedness, Brian Wood, who has the title of “Head of Arms Control and Human Rights” at the organization, states

“The USA and Iran are both guilty of enabling violations of international law by providing military support to the conflicting parties. Without the supply of military technologies neither side in the Gaza conflict could have repeatedly violated international law with impunity on such a scale. Until violators on both sides are held accountable, no shipments of military supplies that can be used for serious violations should be permitted,”

Of course, the effect of such calls for denying military supplies falls entirely on Israel. Iran and other suppliers of weapons to Hamas are not in the least bit affected by Amnesty’s call for an arms embargo – and Amnesty knows that. The result, if Amnesty’s demands were to be implemented, would be to give terrorists free reign to continue to launch rockets onto Israeli communities. In reality, Israel is the only target of Amnesty’s campaign.

Amnesty also published Updates that superficially reinforces its sham evenhandedness. But as always, the outrage is overwhelmingly directed at Israel, not at Hamas. Amnesty cannot find evidence of Hamas using civilians as human shields. It obviously doesn’t look very hard, as the Islamist organization’s own spokesman effectively called for citizens to act as human shields.

The war-crimes investigations Amnesty calls for start and end with Israel’s pre-ordained guilt. They are given the seal of approval from a U.N. Human Rights Commission dominated by serial human rights abusers doctrinally aligned against the Jewish state.

Amnesty International promotes itself to impressionable young Americans at the high school and college level.
People of conscience need to expose and publicize the moral rot at the core of Amnesty International. One place to start would be exposure of Amnesty’s major donors and their political and ideological allegiances.

The Baha’i Garden in Haifa, Israel. The Baha’i are badly mistreated in Iran, which has a terrible record when it comes to religious freedom. Oddly enough, a new group dedicated to promoting religious freedom seems intent on ignorning the mistreatment of religious minorities in Iran. (Photo: Dexter Van Zile)

Given the violence that Christians and other religious minorities have endured in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, the recent creation of a group called In Defense of Christians, should be cause for celebration.

The organization’s website and Facebook page provide numerous links to articles and videos about the mistreatment of Christians at the hands of radical Muslims in the Middle East. In the past few months, its website and Facebook page have been used to draw attention to violence against Christians in Iraq at the hands of ISIS.

The organization, which was founded sometime after 2012 in response a keynote address offered by Archbishop Francis Chullikatt at the Catholic Prayer Breakfast held annually in Washington, D.C., is charged with engaging in “policy advocacy for vulnerable Christians and other religious minorities.”

The organization says that it will focus most of its efforts on influencing the actions of “the U.S. foreign policy community” in an effort to convince them to “promote values abroad that are consistent with the universal rights of religion and conscience.” The statement continues in part:

These values are not exclusively Christian, nor does IDC seek only to protect the human rights of Christians, but all religious groups. These rights are universal, applicable to all human persons. In this sense, “Christian” refers not only those who confess the Christian faith, but also Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Baha’i, and even the freedom to confess no religious belief at all.

IDC believes that America’s foreign policy apparatus, especially the State Department, too often projects indifference on the question of persecuted religious minorities in the region, especially Christians – a policy that only invites further violence. In some instances, the U.S. government even provides significant foreign aid to regimes that persecute Christians, as with Pakistan and now Egypt. With a vigorous and sustained public awareness and advocacy campaign, IDC believes this can change.

All this is well and good, but there are some troubling aspects about the organization that give room for some nagging doubts.
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The Algemeiner on September 2, 2014 published an article exposing three “heath workers” killed in an Israeli missile strike as Islamic Jihad operatives. The Algemeiner piece reproduces the original report from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights [PCHR], one of the better known non-governmental “human rights” groups in Gaza that western news media occasionally cite. PCHR’s entry on Aug. 2 stated,

At approximately 15:30 (August 1), Israeli warplanes bombarded an ambulance of the Ministry of Health. As a result, 3 health workers were killed: ‘Aatef Saleh al-Zameli, 42, the driver; Yousef Ejmai’an al-Zameli, 33, a nurse; and Yousef Jaber Darabih, 25, a volunteer paramedic.

The Algemeiner published the martyr photographs of the “driver,” “nurse” and “volunteer paramedic” proudly posted on the web site of the terrorist group, Islamic Jihad, in their military garb.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center [ITC] continues the arduous task of exposing the facts about who was killed in the Gaza Strip during the most recent escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.

An analysis so far found that 273 of 600 names evaluated whose status could be identified (out of 667 names looked at) were terrorist operatives. That amounts to 46 percent or nearly half of the fatalities. The Center’s investigators continue to investigate the remaining fatalities. There is every reason to expect the completed evaluation will show a similar breakdown of combatants to non-combatants. The ITC analysis published photographs showing terrorist groups claiming credit for a slain operative. Not surprisingly, most of the male fatalities aged 18-30 are identified as members of terrorist groups, providing validation for the age demographic study by CAMERA and others that cast doubt on excessive civilian fatality claims offered by Palestinian and UN organizations and repeated as fact by the media.

If one accounts for civilian fatalities resulting from misfired Hamas rockets, executions of “collaborators” by Hamas and those persuaded or forced to act as human shields, it is already evident that the media improperly served the purposes of Hamas propaganda by promoting the perception of indiscriminate Israeli fire. Rather than repeating the mantra-like statement that the majority of the fatalities resulting from Israeli bombardment were civilians, it is increasingly apparent that civilian fatalities resulting from Israeli fire, separate from circumstances involving human shields, make up a minority of the total number of fatalities.