02-Feb-17: What's the US view of Iran's friendly-ties initiative and the nuclear-capable rockets it doesn't plan to use?

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif [Image Source] There's
probably a simple reason for why he's laughing in so many
published news photos

There's some elaborate dancing going on as the US, Iran and Hamas make efforts to explain their relations with each another.

From a disturbing Reuters report published this afternoon:

Iran has tested a cruise missile called "Sumar" that is capable of carrying nuclear weapons in addition to test-firing a medium-range ballistic missile on Sunday, German newspaper Die Welt reported Thursday, citing unspecified intelligence sources... The newspaper said the Sumar cruise missile was built in Iran and traveled around 600 km in its first known successful test. The missile is believed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons and may have a range of 2,000 to 3,000 km, the paper said, citing intelligence sources... [T]he biggest advantage from Iran's point of view, a security expert told Die Welt, was that cruise missiles are not mentioned in any United Nations resolutions that ban work on ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons... Iran confirmed on Wednesday that it had test-fired a new ballistic missile, but said the test did not breach the Islamic Republic's nuclear agreement with world powers or a U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing the pact.

A nuclear agreement? As we (and others) keep saying there is no nuclear agreement. That's because the astoundingly ineffective JCPOA was never signed by the Iranians - deliberately. See "09-Sep-15: Figuring out what people have figured out about Iran and its nuclear plans" where we explain ourselves. But that's the undoubted bottom line: despite all the reportorial and editorial claims to the contrary, there is no signed agreement with Iran on its nuclear weapons program. And there almost certainly never will be.

What did happen, as the Reuters piece recounts, is that massive sanctions on the Iranians were lifted in January 2016 under the JCPOA in exchange for agreeing to curb - such an ambiguous term - its nuclear program. But according to the terms of a 2015 U.N. resolution endorsing the JCPOA, Iran

is still called upon to refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons for up to eight years. [Reuters]

Aren't they the same as cruise missiles? No.

Cruise missiles are harder to counter than ballistic missiles since they fly at lower altitudes and can evade enemy radar, confounding missile defense missiles and hitting targets deep inside an opponent's territory... [Reuters]

Also yesterday, President Trump’s national security adviser announced in Washington that the US is putting Iran "on notice" for its ballistic missile test and warning of new sanctions:

Calling Iran a “destabilizing influence” in the Middle East, National Security Adviser Mike Flynn declared Wednesday: “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.” The pronouncement marked a pivot away from the Obama administration’s policy of diplomatic engagement, which led to a 2015 multinational nuclear deal that has been denounced repeatedly by President Donald Trump and his aides. Iran has warned that new U.S. sanctions could constitute a violation of the nuclear deal, setting up a scenario in which the agreement could unravel—something that hardliners in both countries would welcome. Administration officials, while providing few specifics, said Mr. Trump has begun a process of reviewing current U.S. policy and is “considering a whole range of options,” including tougher sanctions. Asked if military force also was one of the options, the officials didn’t rule it out... “The important thing is here is that we’re communicating that Iranian behavior needs to be rethought by Tehran,” one senior official said. “That is something Tehran needs to think through, because we are considering these things in a different perspective.” Mr. Flynn said the latest missile launch was a violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the nuclear deal and “called upon” Iran to avoid any activity related to missiles designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. ["Trump White House Puts Iran ‘On Notice’ After Missile Launch", Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2017

Iran's propaganda machine didn't see things that way and had already pushed back by Wednesday evening, asserting that Iran's

missile program is legal as per International Law, has nothing to do with the nuclear deal, and is non-negotiable...  [and that] Washington's latest cat-and-mouse games with Tehran... seeks pretexts to decrease international pressures and condemnations following their thoughtless decision to ban Muslims and Syrian refugees from travelling to the United States... Missile tests are Iran’s inalienable right to defend its security and interests. No country or international body can have any say in this regard... Over the past decade, Iran has made steady and gradual advances in its missile development, pursuing advancement of its strategic missile capabilities with incremental increases in range and payload technology. Iran is developing all these defense capabilities through international cooperation, legal purchases, and indigenous development. As per International Law, nothing is wrong with that. Nothing at all. ["A Risky Proposition: Is Iran Ready to Drop Missile Defense?", FARS News Agency, February 1, 2017] 

(FARS is often called a "semi-official" news agency of the Iranian regime.)

So to what extent do the Iranians now see themselves as having to comply with American wishes? The answer suggested by the FARS article is: not so much:

Whatever one thinks of Iran, it has no ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons – unlike the United States, Israel, and their NATO allies. But it is always under constant military threat... [E]very now and then, the bloodthirsty warmongers reveal the real reason for viewing an Iranian missile defense capacity as unacceptable: The war against Iran is a risky proposition. Iranian ballistic missiles and military capabilities would prevent the US from attacking Iran at will. What scares the US is Iranian armed forces that have combat experience and a fighting doctrine of their own, able to take advantage of local and geographic factors, and design their combat style outside the traditional American box. That is what’s intolerable. [FARS]

We might be hearing more in the coming days about how intolerable US policy seems to the Iranians. Iran was

among seven Muslim-majority countries whose citizens he barred from the U.S. in an executive order Friday the White House said is aimed at keeping terrorists from entering the country. [National Security Adviser] Flynn said agreements Iran has made with the Obama administration and the U.N. are “weak and ineffective.” “Instead of being thankful to the United States for these agreements, Iran is now feeling emboldened,” he said... The senior U.S. officials briefing reporters on Mr. Flynn’s comments said the president at the moment doesn’t want “to take any action that would foreclose options or unnecessarily contribute to a negative response.” They also sought to separate the nuclear deal from U.S. concerns about Iran’s other actions such as ballistic missile tests. Tehran has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful power generation and research, and that its missiles are conventional and for defensive purposes. [Wall Street Journal again]

A few hours ago, Bahram Qassemi who speaks for Iran's Foreign Ministry told interested parties that Flynn’s claims are “baseless, repetitive and provocative”. His statements appear in a report on the oddly-named Iranian PressTV website [here]:

Qassemi further expressed regret that instead of expressing gratitude for the Iranian nation’s continued anti-terror struggles, the US administration keeps leveling groundless accusations and adopting unwise policies, which practically promote terrorist groups... [He] further slammed as “inappropriate and discriminatory” Washington’s recent ban on the entry of travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations as well as refugees into the US [and] stressed that the Islamic Republic's regional policies are transparent, expressing Tehran’s keenness to have friendly ties with all regional states based on mutual respect and non-interference in their domestic affairs. ["US claims on Iran missile tests baseless, provocative: Foreign Ministry", PressTV, February 2, 2017]

If you're wondering how "Friendly ties with all regional states" translates into action, the jihadists of Hamas might have an answer. Sami Abu Zuhri who, in addition to being an advocate for the usefulness of human shields, a groper of women, a sexual molestor of visiting reporters, a fan of slashing praying Jews to death in their synagogues and a one-time smuggling "mule" [all explained here], is one of Hamas' official spokes-thugs. He visited Algeria last weekend and while there was quoted [here] saying Hamas is keen to build "strong relations with all Arab and Islamic states, including Iran". Without giving any details, he said “Efforts and contacts are underway to boost relations with Iran and we hope we will achieve something positive”.

From here in Jerusalem, something positive is not the most likely of the outcomes we're expecting to see.

29-Jan-17: What's the exchange rate for American dollars into Palestinian Arab terror killings?

PA President Mahmoud Abbas meeting with US Secretary of
State John Kerry in Ramallah in November 2015 [Image Source]

The underhanded attempt, in the waning hours of the Obama administration, to ship $221 million to Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority, is now - surprisingly - on ice. 

As Associated Press reported on January 23, 2017

Officials say the Obama administration in its waning hours defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that GOP members of Congress had been blocking. A State Department official and several congressional aides said the outgoing administration formally notified Congress it would spend the money Friday morning. The official said former Secretary of State John Kerry had informed some lawmakers of the move shortly before he left the State Department for the last time Thursday. 

Two days later, in a report jointly attributed to its Middle East analyst Avi Issacharoff and to AP, Times of Israel said the cash transfer had been stopped:

The Trump administration has informed the Palestinian Authority that it is freezing the transfer of $221 million which was quietly authorized by the Obama administration in its final hours on January 20, a senior Palestinian source has told The Times of Israel. US officials conveyed to PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Tuesday that the funds were not expected to be handed over in the immediate future, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. On Tuesday, the State Department said it was reviewing the last-minute decision by former secretary of state John Kerry to send the funds to the Palestinians despite objections to the transfer by congressional Republicans. The department said it would look at the payment and might make adjustments to ensure it comports with the Trump administration’s priorities... ["Palestinians say Obama’s last-minute $221 million payout frozen by Trump", Times of Israel, January 25, 2017]

To be clear, no one serious is saying the Palestinian Arabs don't need aid or shouldn't get it. (Without getting into the matter of their endemic and world-class corruption, anyone can see they have huge needs, massively wasted resources and a kleptocratic and vastly inadequate leadership. They ought to be getting help.) The problem is that foreign aid to the Palestinian Arab gets turned by them into something lethal and hideous.

We have devoted dozens of posts in this blog to the open scandal of European and United States funding of the terrorism-addicted Palestinian Authority whose payments program (click on Rewards for Terror to see them) for the benefit of convicted and imprisoned Palestinian Arab terrorists is one of the major factors in ensuring the carnage and devastation continues.

Now (without denigrating the fine efforts of other commentators like PMW) there's a clear statement of how this works and why it should be stopped, via a well-crafted op ed in the Wall Street Journal:

Over the past 10 years, Washington has provided more than $4 billion in foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority. The goal has been to promote a government in the Palestinian territories capable of assuming the responsibilities of a sovereign state, including the recognition of the state of Israel as a legitimate member of the community of nations. The aid has focused principally on security and criminal-justice programs, U.S. Agency for International Development sponsored assistance for schools, health clinics, water and economic development, and generalized support for the Palestinian Authority’s budget. But unlike the many nongovernmental organizations that contribute charitable funds to the region, American assistance programs, while obliged to vet how the money is spent, have yet to ensure effectively that taxpayer dollars are not diverted to support acts of terror... ["Stop American Aid to the Palestinians Until the Terror Ceases", David Aufhauser and Sander Gerber in the Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2017]

Aufhauser and Gerber note that in authorizing the funds transfer, outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry violated

an informal agreement with Congress not to do so... Lawmakers had good reason to oppose the transfer. Much like with the $400 million cash ransom paid to Iran last year, no meaningful effort was made to account for how the money was to be spent or to prevent it from being used to kill innocents. [WSJ again]

Does funding of the European and US kind bring about more acts of Palestinian Arab terror?

[T]here is no question that this is happening. First, the State Department has acknowledged the diversion in reports to Congress, as documented most recently in a Dec. 16, 2016, Congressional Research Service report... [M]oney is fungible, and it is sophistry to argue that funds provided for good deeds do not enable the bad deeds of the same political entity, particularly given the scarcity of resources. Second, the Palestinian Authority’s support for killing—such as the stabbing rampage that took the life of Taylor Force, a West Point graduate, in Jaffa, Israel, last March—is indisputable because it is codified in law. Statutes pledge to “martyr” families triple the income for life of the average salary in the West Bank, free tuition, health insurance and clothing allowances. So popular is the program of pensions for the maiming and killing of civilians that, according to its own 2016 budget, the Palestinian Authority dedicates more than 500 full-time civil servants to its administration, at a cost of around $315 million, or roughly 8% of the budget of the would-be Palestinian state... [WSJ again]

In another WSJ op ed last summer (quoted in our post "14-Aug-16: Who actually cares that foreign aid is diverted from needy Gazans to terror? Not who most people think"), the writer urges

a broader reassessment of American aid to the Palestinian government... The deadlier the crime, the larger the prize, up to about $3,100 a month, or several times the average salary of a worker in Palestine’s non-terrorist economy... No U.S. official can plead ignorance. Palestinian law has sanctioned these payments since at least 2004, specifying how much money is earned depending on the circumstances of the attacker and the body count. [WSJ, August 11, 2016] 

Quick back-of-the-envelope calculation based on the data above:

• Total US foreign aid funding to PA in past decade: $4 billion
• Percent of total PA budget that goes to PA's Rewards for Terror scheme: 8%
• The yield delivered up by the PA's Rewards for Terror scheme: We define that to mean the number of people (Israelis or visitors to Israel) murdered in Palestinian Arab-on-Israeli terror in the decade between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2016 [data source]: 180.
• How much US foreign aid produced each dead terror victim? We compute that by taking the US dollar share of the PA Rewards for Terror scheme; then divide that by the number of victims: 8% x $4 billion / 180 = about US$1.8 million. That's the value of US foreign aid (unrealistically assuming only US foreign aid is funding the PA's scheme) attributable to each of the victims murdered in this past decade's Palestinian Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks.

(This quick calculation is meant to provoke discussion and serve as an indicator of how terribly wrong things have gone. But be aware that the assumption that the sole funder is the US is inaccurate. Europe gets "credit" for providing a large share of the funding for the scheme. If we had added European funding to the numbers, the value of foreign aid per dead Israeli victim would be far higher.)

Congressional ignorance is not part of the explanation for why this still goes on. In July 2016 (as we noted in "08-Jul-16: Violence, terror, cash and the PA Rewards for Terror Scheme: Congress takes a look"), the US Congress' House Foreign Affairs Committee conducted hearings into how the Abbas regime's payments scheme works. It was was told that about a tenth of the PA's annual budget was spent on

"paying terrorists who attack Israelis and supporting their families... [T]he Palestinian Authority is investing $137.8 million this year in salaries to terrorists jailed in Israel and payments to the families of imprisoned terrorists or suicide bombers, in violation of the Oslo peace accords with Israel." ["The Palestinian Incentive Program for Killing Jews", Eli Lake writing for Bloomberg July 1, 2016]

There's nothing especially sophisticated about how the PA hides the payment scheme. Dr Yigal Carmon, president of the Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI], described for committee members how

the PA transfers funds to terrorist prisoners in Israeli or their families using two Palestinian Liberation Organization funds. The financial support of these individuals is mandated by [Palestinian Arab] law. Prisoners must be provided a monthly salary ranging from $364 to over $3,000 during their detention, and salaries or jobs upon their release. Those who commit the most grievous attacks receive the most substantial monthly payments and are also entitled to jobs in the Palestinian Authority institution upon their release. ["Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorists and Their Families $140 Million a Year", Morgan Chalfant in Washington Free Beacon, July 7, 2016]

Here's Eli Lake again:

One problem is that the payments to terrorists' families are exceedingly popular these days. Ziad Asali, the president and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, told me that in recent years the media and politicians have elevated these payments to something "sacred in Palestinian politics." Asali said the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and others are too weak to stop it. "This is where we find ourselves now. The vast majority understand there has to be an end to violence; it's not serving the Palestinians in any way," Asali said. "But I think nobody really has the stature and clout to confront these issues publicly." ["The Palestinian Incentive Program for Killing Jews", Eli Lake for Bloomberg, July 1, 2016]

If Asali is referring to the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs (which he seems to be doing), the numbers show he has it back to front. We explained that in a recent blog post based on a March 2016 Palestinian Arab poll of Palestinian Arabs:

60% of Palestinians backed Arab-on-Israeli-civilian terror attacks... We believe, and the polling data bear it out consistently over years, that when columnists and analysts speak of the desire of Palestinian Arabs to live in peace, to get on with ordinary, quiet, constructive lives - as compelling as this interpretation is, the data don't support it. It's, to put it kindly, wishful thinking unsupported by any evidence and contradicted by what we can measure based on Arab pollsters. Anyone paying attention to the incitement pumped, generation after generation, into their communities and heads will not be surprised. What the people living on the other side of the fence are saying is clear, credible and measurable. Being optimistic about the prospects for the sort of painful compromise that leads to peaceful relations is counterfactual and foolish, as much as we wish it were otherwise. That's a message we wish the public figures pushing their literally-hopeless "peace plans" would internalize. ["15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?"]

It's gotten worse since then. In December 2016, that 60% figure indicating "in favor of armed attacks and a return to armed intifada" had risen to 62% [see "15-Dec-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think now?"]

The Obama administration (as distinct from the Congress) paid no noticeable attention to the impact of its Palestinian Arab foreign aid on people's lives and deaths during its two terms. Now there's a new regime in Washington. Will they do better? Will the Europeans? 

A lot rides on the answers.

26-Jan-17: A Wednesday night Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack

The caption from this March 9, 2016 news photo
says these are "Guns used by two
Palestinians who carried out a shooting attack...
(Israel Police)"

Shortly after Wednesday night's vehicle-borne assault on Israelis standing at a bus-stop just outside northern Jerusalem [our post], a second murderous attack occurred in the same general area. Fortunately the outcome involved no serious injuries to those who were attacked.

From the Times of Israel report:

A Palestinian man opened fire at Israeli troops from a moving car in the central West Bank on Wednesday night, the army said. The soldiers fired back, and injured him. No soldiers were injured in the attack, which took place outside the village of Aboud, northwest of Ramallah. The Palestinian gunman received medical treatment on the scene, the army said. Inside the vehicle, the soldiers found a Carlo-style submachine gun, a makeshift weapon that is prevalent in the West Bank and in the Israeli underworld.

Here's some background about that submachine gun:

...One of the most notable symbols to emerge from six months of Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank has been the “Carlo,” otherwise known as the Carl Gustav submachine gun. The homemade or craft-produced rudimentary automatic weapon has been used in the majority of shooting attacks on Israeli civilians and security personnel. It’s not accurate and it has a limited range, but it’s cheap and more than powerful enough to cause mayhem and death — and it’s nearly impossible to prevent its production... “There has been an expanded effort to seize illegal weapons that pose a concrete and lethal threat to Israeli civilians and security forces,” an army spokesperson said. But nothing has been done so far to seriously curb the creation and proliferation of these homemade guns. While some more advanced rifles and firearms require specialized tools, the Carlo has remained so popular because of how little machinery and technical know-how is required to produce it, according to N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services (ARES), a specialized technical intelligence consultancy. A drill press, some welding equipment and blueprints from the internet are all that’s needed to create one of these potentially devastating weapons, a fact that presents a real challenge for Israel and countries around the world that are trying to prevent such guns from winding up in the hands of terrorists and criminals...  The Carlo, as it is known, derives its name from the Carl Gustav m/45 submachine gun, a design that was adopted by the Swedish army in 1945 and later licensed to Egypt, where units were sold under the names Port Said and Akaba, according to a forthcoming report... ["Say hello to ‘Carlo,’ the cheap, lethal go-to gun for terrorists", Times of Israel, March 16, 2016]

For a change, the Ma'an News Agency report eschews the use of "alleged" in its report of last night's terrorist attack, but calls what happened "an exchange of fire" between "Israeli forces" and a "Palestinian".

There's also a timely reminder of the ongoing nature of attacks like last night's in this brief report from Israel National News:

The Israel Defense Forces, Shabak Israel Security Agency and police carried out a widespread operation, Wednesday evening in Hevron, to seize a weapons factory in Hevron. The factory contained eight lathes for making weapons, which were dismantled. The operation was part of an ongoing campaign of nightly operations against weapons factories in Judea.

No one's suggesting this is the last or only Palestinian Arab gun-making workshop. More power to the IDF, the Shin Bet and the men and women of the Israel Police in their ever-vigilant efforts.

25-Jan-17: Vehicle ramming assault tonight on Jerusalem's northern edge (and the backstory)

A photo taken at the scene (credit: Elazar Yisraeli) [Image Source] 

A brief Times of Israel bulletin posted to its website a little after 7:00 pm (Israel time) this evening says:

The IDF is investigating reports of an alleged car-ramming attack in the central West Bank. According to initial reports, the incident occurred at a crossing near Ma’ale Michmash, north of Jerusalem. The driver of the vehicle is said to have been shot. No Israelis have been reported injured.

Over on the Rotter (Hebrew-language) forum, there are several user-contributed posts which indicate what happened. In our words:

• A pick-up truck with Palestinian Authority license plates drove into a bus stop located next to the gas station near the Israeli community of Maale Michmas (population: about 1,400) just before 7 this evening. 
• The community is part of the Mateh Binyamin region, located on Jerusalem's northern edge. 
• Eyewitness say the Arab driver tried to crush people standing at the bus stop, of which there appear to have been many. But his vehicle was effectively blocked by the presence of protective metal security posts embedded in concrete at the bus stop. 
• No Israelis were hurt, as far as we can tell. Gunfire ensued as armed passers-by sought to stop the attacker. 
• He was shot and according to unconfirmed reports is alive but injured.

(But note that what happened has a disturbing backstory which we added at the foot of this post.)

Rule of thumb: When Arab-on-Israeli
acts of terror are thwarted, they are almost invariably
labelled "alleged". But never in Arabic.

UPDATE 7:50 pm Wednesday January 25, 2017: Times of Israel says the attacker is dead and that he had more than a simple vehicle-borne assault on people's bodies on his mind:

The Israeli civilians who were standing at the bus stop were uninjured. According to the military, the driver swerved from his lane and crashed his truck into the metal bollards surrounding a bus stop near the Ma’ale Michmash settlement in the central West Bank. Israeli troops who were stationed nearby opened fire, killing the Palestinian man. When the soldiers checked the vehicle, they found that the driver had a knife in his hand, the army says. The identity of the Palestinian driver has yet to be revealed.

On the website of the Palestinian Arab news site Ma'an, the latest flash bulletin reads: "Palestinian killed near settlement after alleged vehicular attack". Evidently they mean tonight's thwarted murder-by-vehicle "alleged" assault.

Arab reports, quoting the Palestinian Authority health ministry identify the thwarted attacker as Hussein Salem Abu Ghosh, 24, from Qalandiya. One such report says

Hussein is the cousin of Hussein Mohammad Abu Ghosh, 17, who was killed a year ago on January 26, 2016, after he and Ibrahim Osama Allan, 23, stabbed a settler, identified as Shlomit Krigman, 24, who later died from her wounds at the Hadassah Israeli medical center, in Jerusalem. Another Israeli woman was seriously injured in the same incident... ["Israeli Army Kills A Young Palestinian Man Near Ramallah", IMEMC News, January 26, 2017]

We wrote about the tragic murder of Shlomit Krigman ["26-Jan-16: Two attackers stab women at neighborhood grocery store; instantly become figures of emulation"] a year ago. Seems the hideous process of Arab-on-Israeli terror-emulation has not yet completed running its course.

Why are we not surprised? (Answer: Because it's precisely what the ongoing daily incitement to fresh acts of terror, murder, violence and hatred on the part of the Palestinian Authority and the Abbas clique that rule it is calculated to achieve.)

23-Jan-17: Another Shalit Deal outcome, another life sentence, another bereaved family

Malachi Rosenfeld, of blessed memory [Image Source]

As reported Sunday via the Israeli web-based all-news video channel i24news.tv:

Abdullah Ishaq, a Palestinian convicted in the 2015 drive-by shooting death of an Israeli man in the West Bank was sentenced by a military court Sunday to life in prison plus 30 years for the attack. Malachi Rosenfeld, 25, was fatally wounded in the drive-by shooting attack near the West Bank settlement of Shilo on June 30, 2015. Three other Israelis sustained moderate injuries in the incident. Ishaq was given life for the death of Rosenfeld and the additional 30 years for the three injured. He was also ordered to pay 250,000 shekels ($65,800) in restitution to Rosenfeld's family as well as another 25,000 shekels ($6,500) to each of the Israelis wounded in the attack. He was part of a West Bank based Hamas terror cell arrested the month after the attack. Ishaq is said to have been the driver of the car in the attack. The members of the cell confessed to carrying other shooting attacks against Israeli targets that ended without casualties, including firing at an ambulance vehicle. Israeli media reported the terror cell's leader was released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner-exchange deal four years earlier. In the 2011 swap, Israel released 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas and kept in Gaza for five years. ["Palestinian given life sentence for death of Israeli in 2015 shooting attack", i24news, January 22, 2017]

For some context, a reminder of what we wrote a year and a half ago: "19-Aug-15: The road to Malachi's death and the decisions that made it possible". And before that "19-Jul-15: Another catastrophic outcome of the 2011 Shalit Deal" and "29-Jun-15: Drive-by shooting attack near Shvut Rachel tonight".

The brutal theft of Malachi Rosenfeld's life was enabled by two largely ignored realities:

1. The Palestinian Authority's appalling Rewards for Terror Scheme and - largely unwittingly - by the millions of European and American taxpayers whose funding of that terror-support mechanism allows it to continue day after day.
2. And the decision to free 1,027 terrorists, the vast majority of them killers, in the catastrophic Shalit Deal of 2011, the reverberations of which continue to bring extreme misery into the lives of innocent families.

14-Jan-17: Shock, horror: Press freedom under Hamas isn't what it ought to be

Reporting from the Israeli side of the border with Hamas-controlled Gaza
[Image Source]

It's the coldest part of winter in our part of the world, and there have been serious interruptions to the electricity supply in the Gaza Strip. The Islamist thugs who rule the enclave have responded in traditional fashion. And yes, personal violence is of course central to the story.

“Hamas forces blocked journalists from filming the gathering, and an Associated Press journalist was briefly detained at gunpoint until he handed over his mobile phones to plainclothes security men...” [Associated Press item reported last Friday]

Our attention was drawn to this via a piece that appeared Thursday on the website of TheTower.org [here] which says operatives of Hamas

blocked journalists from filming a major protest against power cuts in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, detaining an Associated Press journalist at gunpoint and badly beating an Agence France-Presse photographer who refused to relinquish his camera. The journalists sought to cover a demonstration against chronic electricity shortages in Gaza, which the AP described as “one of the largest unauthorized protests in the territory since the Islamic militant group took power a decade ago.” According to the Foreign Press Association, the Hamas men “stuck a pistol in his chest and verbally threatened the reporter until he agreed to give them the phones.” ["Hamas Holds AP Journalist at Gunpoint, Beats AFP Photographer for Covering Major Protest", The Tower, January 12, 2017]

It quotes a statement of the Tel-Aviv-based Foreign Press Association, a not-for-profit that represents the interests and views of correspondents working in our part of the world, saying that

In addition an AFP photographer was badly beaten to the head by uniformed policemen required medical care after he had refused to give up his camera. The memory card of his camera was confiscated and he was placed under arrest. He was subsequently released and the memory card was returned. The Foreign Press Association condemns this violent behavior in the strongest terms, and finds it especially shocking in light of verbal promises we have received from Hamas officials to respect the freedom of the press. We hope that Hamas will properly investigate this incident and provide an explanation and apology for this unacceptable behavior by their forces.
The Board of the Foreign Press Association. January 12, 2017

Especially shocking? We're shocked that the hard-boiled and experienced reporters of the FPA are shocked that verbal promises of the thuggish murderers who make up the leadership and rank and file of the Islamist Hamas terror group turn out to have not been respected. Almost as if Hamas tells lies.

The people at The Tower provide a valuable service in their article - evidently ignored by the FPA - by quoting a 2009 report for the Gatestone Institute authored by veteran Palestinian affairs journalist Khaled Abu Toameh:

Foreign journalists who manage to cross into the Gaza Strip face many restrictions imposed by the Hamas government. Local facilitators hired by foreign journalists are also under scrutiny by the Hamas government. That is why they are careful not to bring the dirty laundry out by telling the foreign media about things that could reflect negatively on Hamas.

Arabic-language news coverage of massive anti-Hamas protests in the
Gaza Strip this past week: Israel can't be blameed, so don't expect much Western
news coverage [Video Source]

They go on to quote egregious examples of the bare-knuckles Hamas management of media coverage of the Gaza Strip. including this from former AP correspondent Mark Lavie who wrote in August 2014:

Journalists, of course, won’t tell you what you’re missing in the coverage. Their anchors or editors won’t tell you why large parts of the story are colored a certain way or taken from a certain angle. They don’t want to put their reporters’ lives at risk. This is the main reason that video and pictures seem to flow freely out of Gaza. But critical elements of the story itself can’t, and neither can all the pictures and video. It gives the impression that the story is being covered, when only part of it—sometimes a small part—is being covered.

To see the report that Associated Press eventually put out after the events of January 12, 2017, see "In Rare Demonstration, Thousands Protest Power Cuts in Gaza". And for startling video clips - some of them emanating from fed-up (and courageous) Gazans - posted to YouTube in the last couple of days showing massive Gazan street rioting against Hamas, go here, here, here and here.

Heavily spun reporting of Gazan suffering under the boot of the Hamas Islamist regime - invariably with Israel being blamed - has been a news-reporting industry constant since Hamas violently seized control in 2007. Here's a sampling of posts we wrote after previous Gazan electricity crises:

• 29-Dec-15: Gaza and what manipulative, highly-politicized foreign aid can buy
• 30-Apr-15: What Gaza's oppressed know that reporters don't, and why it matters
• 27-Oct-14: In Gaza, the electricity is flowing again no it's not yes it is
• 13-Jul-14: Even more darkness in Gaza
• 18-Nov-13: Behind the celebration of terror, a pervasive darkness
• 28-Oct-12: What lies behind ongoing efforts to paint Gaza as a region under Israeli siege?
• 11-Feb-08: Electricity and appropriate assurances
• 21-Jan-08: Electric wars - a sad tale of two realities
• 1-Oct-07: About carrots and sticks

11-Jan-17: Is there a new prisoner release deal?

Released terrorists received as heroes in Gaza by Hamas after the Shalit
Deal, October 2011 [Image Source]

In a rather strangely worded article today, Ynet reports on the substance of an article appearing in a major Arabic-language Israeli newspaper published in Nazareth, Kul al-Arab, that asserts another prisoner-release deal has been achieved or is close to being done between the Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza and the government of Israel.

The main points in summary:

• The deal, if one indeed has been done, is brokered by Qatar. Ynet says a Qatari official, Mohammad al-Amadi, who supervises Qatar's rehabilitation projects in Gaza, is involved in the negotiations.
• For its part, Hamas would hand over the bodies (Ynet oddly calls this "the release") of two IDF soldiers presumed to have been killed in action during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. It is widely believed that Hamas has held those bodies for ransom since that time. The soldiers are Lieutenant Hadar Goldin and Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul.
• In Ynet's language, the transaction "may also involve the return of Avraham 'Abera' Mengistu, an Ethiopian-Israeli reportedly held hostage by Hamas after he was seen crossing the border into Gaza out of his own volition in 2014." The popular sense here is that, despite the silence, Mengistu is believed to be alive. His family are said to know nothing at all about a deal.
• The Hamas conditions include Israel releasing 60 of the 1,027 Shalit Deal prisoners who were unjustly released in a successful act of Hamas extortion in October/November 2011 (the vast majority of those freed had been convicted of homicide in varying degrees) and who had subsequently been arrested and re-imprisoned in Israel. 
• Israel, according to the quoted source, conditioned this proposed re-release of Shalit Deal prisoners on their being promptly expelled to the Gaza Strip or to Qatar. Hamas rejected the condition, the report says. Readers are left with the impression that the Hamas stance prevailed, and the terrorists will not be subject to expulsion. 

The Israel National News version of today's report [here] concludes with

"Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) has said he will not deal with Hamas for dead bodies."

This might all be nonsense or spot on or something in between.

08-Jan-17: Where the World Council of Churches stands as Israelis are rammed to death

The driver of the truck rammed into a crowd of young Israelis in
Jerusalem [Image Source]

A hideous, cowardly attack by a Palestinian Arab terrorist at the wheel of a heavy truck changed the lives - in the absolute worst possible way - of at least four Israeli families today.

The man drove at high speed onto a Jerusalem sidewalk and into a crowd of IDF cadets and having immediately killed several, turned his vehicle around and prepared to batter and crush some additional victims. He was forcefully stopped and will not be a terrorist ever again.

But had he survived and been caught and arrested and tried and sentenced, here is what the World Council of Churches would likely have urged its faithful followers - hundreds of millions of Christians - to do for him:

"To pray for, visit, and tend to [his] needs... no matter the reason for [his] detention... [And] for the churches in the Holy Land to remember [him] through prayers and acts of solidarity that restore to [him his] freedom with justice and dignity”.

How do we know? Because those words, very slightly changed in order to address a larger number of Palestinian Arab terrorists behind Israeli bars, issued forth from the publicity bureau of the Secretary General of the World Council of Churches, Olav Fykse Tveit, almost three years ago. 

We documented the WCC's extraordinary stand in a blog post at the time ["17-Apr-14: Christian solidarity with unrepentant murderers: where's the outrage?"]. And then soon afterwards in another ["6-Jun-14: Fear and loathing at the World Council of Churches"]. And another ["11-Jun-14: Where does this strategic deafness and moral blindness at World Council of Churches lead?"] And another ["15-Sep-16: Justice, peace, terror, truth - and the World Council of Churches"]. And this one last week ["02-Jan-17: At the World Council of Churches, a stunning theology of terror"]

The most recent of our short essays about the baffling amorality of the Christian leadership at the WCC focuses on another call by Tveit for solidarity with and sympathy for the many New Years Eve revellers murdered and injured when an Islamist gunman in the service of ISIS attacked a crowded Istanbul nightclub. Tveit was moved to observe that

Four victims (left to right) of today's truck ramming attack:
Shir Hajaj, 22; Erez Orbach, 20; Yael Yekutiel, 20; Shira Zur, 20
May their memories be for a blessing. There are many more injured.

"Innocent people are suffering again and again. This is an evil act. This attack is particularly shocking, in the first place because there seems to have been a clear intention deliberately to target people who were simply enjoying themselves... In the face of this brutality, the human family, all people of faith and of good will, must stand together to recommit to respecting and caring for one another, to protecting one another, and to preventing such violence... God in your mercy, be with the victims and their families and those who accompany and help them.” [Quoted here]

String and powerful words. But neither Tveit nor, as far as we can tell, any other WCC management team insider has expressed sentiments remotely like this for innocent Jewish victims of evil Arab-on-Israeli terror. Not today, not on August 9, 2001 when our fifteen year-old daughter Malki was murdered here in the center of Jerusalem by people doing lethal, cruel brutality in the name of Hamas, and not ever.

On the one occasion when we made direct contact with WCC officials in their Geneva head office, we were told by their corporate spokesperson not to expect any response. His name is Mark Beach and at the time (mid-2014) he served as WCC director of communication, but he had zero interest in directing any communication at us. We wrote about that particular shabbiness here. He's no longer doing that job but we don't expect a response now either.

Instead we ask Christians - and especially Christians whose congregations are affiliated with the WCC - to condemn them for their bigotry, for their dangerous hypocrisy and for the succour they provide to bestial practitioners of terrorism. We are more than willing to provide additional background; please email us at thisongoingwar (at) gmail (dot) com

The family of the perpetrator of today's killings say they are “thankful” for what he did and are calling the killer's death “the most beautiful martyrdom”. In their ugly recourse to a religious category, are they so different from the WCC people and their grotesquely-politicized theology of terror?

08-Jan-17: Pakistanis, working for Iran, plotted murders of Israelis in France, Germany

From news coverage of the suspect's earlier arrest last summer [Image Source]

A brief report put out by Kuwait's official newsagency caught our eye last week:

BERLIN (January 3, KUNA): The office of the German Prosecutor General has on Tuesday officially accused a Pakistani national of spying for Iran. Sayed Mustafa, 31 years, confessed of receiving money from an Iranian secret service for spying on the former head of German-Israeli Society Reinhold Robbe over at least one year, said a statement by the Prosecutor General's office located in Karlsruhe city. The defendant is also accused by Paris of spying on a professor of economics for the same Iranian secret service, according to the statement. The man. arrested in last July is to stand trial after his interrogation complete in mid-December [Source: Kuwait News Agency KUNA]

The fractured English aside, it sounds like more than spying is involved here, unless the Kuwaitis mean for us to believe that Iran is seeking insights into economic theory or wants to get a deeper understanding of how Germany's parliament works (Robbe has been an elected member of the Bundestag for the past 23 years). Both options are unlikely.

Now there's a different version of this murky story from an official German source:

German federal prosecutors pressed charges against a 31-year-old Pakistani student who they believe targeted Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician Reinhold Robbe on behalf of the Iranian intelligence agency, German media reported on Friday. Robbe, who served as president of the German-Israeli Society (DIG) until 2015, was being eyed as a possible assassination target, according to information reviewed by German public broadcasters NDR and WDR, as well as the daily "Süddeutsche Zeitung." According to the federal prosecutors' indictment, the suspected agent, named as Syed Mustufa H., compiled a thorough "movement profile" on Robbe and staked out the DIG offices in Berlin - signs authorities said were a clear indication of an assassination attempt.
The suspect paid particularly close attention to Robbe's public transportation travel habits and charted alternate routes that he took on the way to the DIG Berlin building. Prosecutors said the suspect's actions were part of a broader operation to identify possible targets with friendly ties to Israel in Germany, France and other European countries, the reports said. The Pakistani man is also accused of spying on a French-Israeli professor at a business school in Paris on behalf of Iranian intelligence. The suspect was previously detained by authorities in July 2016 under suspicion of espionage and was known to Germany's domestic intelligence agency (BfV). The Pakistani suspect is believed to have been spying for Iran since July 2015. The exact motive for carrying out a possible attack on Robbe is still unclear. However, security agencies speculate that the Iranian government could have been preparing a retaliatory move against people closely linked to Israel should Israel carry out airstrikes against Iranian nuclear power plants. Despite his extensive observation of Robbe, files confiscated from Syed Mustafa H. indicate that some of his methods were those of an amateur... The suspected agent officially studied engineering in Bremen and also worked at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in the northern German city, the reports said. It is the first known case of a German politician being the target of an espionage operation by the Iranian intelligence agency, the reports said. [Deutsche Welle, January 7, 2017]

We're left wondering: Does this suspected spy/assassin have a surname and is it H? (Associated Press says this is "in keeping with German privacy rules"). Is there a good reason for not publicly identifying the Iranian spy agency? Is this really just an espionage story? And can we expect the wiley - and ruthless - Iranians to intervene and extract their agent from the German authorities clutches as they recently did in Kenya? ["14-Dec-16: Kenya, one way or another, clarifies its stance in the face of Iranian terror"]

In Pakistan, the alleged agent's July 2016 arrest in Germany on charges of serving the Iranians was a real story: see "Germany arrests Pakistani man accused of spying for Iran" [Express Tribune, Pakistan, July 8, 2016]. The photo at the top of this post is from the news coverage at the time.

Israel's Ynet, like us, is inclined to look past the espionage claims and to view the arrest as more pertaining to a sleeper assassination squad in the service of the Iranian regime:

A 31 year old Pakistani man has been indicted for being involved in an attempt to assassinate Reinhold Robbe - a member of the socialist-democrats and former president of the body responsible for strengthening relations between Israel and Germany. [He] was recruited by Iranian intelligence services, and was tasked with following known, outspoken Israel supporters in Germany... Mustafa and other operatives were to have been given orders to assassinate these targets should Israel have struck the Iranian nuclear reactors... Mustafa was arrested in July on suspicion of spying, and has been known to German intelligence services as a suspected Iranian agent since at least 2015. [Ynet, January 8, 2017]

And an Israel-based video news network pursues a similar line:

While the motive of the possible attack remains unclear, authorities reportedly suspect that the individuals were targeted as part of a planned worldwide retaliation scheme, in case Israel carries out an airstrike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Another suspect, also a Pakistani national, was arrested in connection to the affair but was released due to insufficient evidence, as he was able to erase the hard drive of his computer prior to his arrest, possibly destroying incriminating information. He left Germany immediately after his release. German media noted that it is the first known case in which a German politician was the target of an operation by the Iranian secret service... [i24NewsTV, today]

As for Iranian motivation (and perhaps fingerprints), a reminder of a news snippet we highlighted here just last month: 

Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, while speaking at a conference in Tehran, said that were President-Elect Trump to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear “deal” signed by the Obama administration, Iran would destroy the State of Israel... ["Iran threatens to destroy Israel - again", Washington Times, December 12, 2016]

We suspect this story has some way yet to go.

02-Jan-17: At the World Council of Churches, a stunning theology of terror

WCC's Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit [Image Source]

We have devoted a dozen or more posts to things the World Council of Churches has said or done [click here] about terror. Frankly, and with sincere respect for a value system of which we are not a part, it's been hard to say anything positive about them. Here's the latest example of why.

Yesterday, the WCC secretariat, based in Geneva, issued a statement to the media in relation to the Istanbul New Year's Eve Reina nightclub massacre. You might have noticed that credit for those brutal and cruel killings was today claimed by an Islamist terror group ["The Latest: Islamic State claims Istanbul nightclub attack", Associated Press, today].

Here's the Council's statement:

WCC condemns terrorist attack in Istanbul on innocent New Year revellers | 01 January 2017 | World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, condemns the latest terrorist attack against people in Istanbul celebrating the New Year. At least 39 people were killed and dozens more were wounded when a single gunman attacked a crowded Istanbul nightclub... "Innocent people are suffering again and again. This is an evil act. This attack is particularly shocking, in the first place because there seems to have been a clear intention deliberately to target people who were simply enjoying themselves at the New Year’ Day,” said Tveit... “In the face of this brutality, the human family, all people of faith and of good will, must stand together to recommit to respecting and caring for one another, to protecting one another, and to preventing such violence.” The WCC offers its deepest condolences to the bereaved and injured. Tveit said “God in your mercy, be with the victims and their families and those who accompany and help them.” [Online here]

Most reasonable people will agree it's right for a highly influential religious group to call on the Almighty to come down on the side of the victims. It would be incomprehensible if the Reverend Mr Tveit had taken the opposing view and called for compassion for the murdering savages of ISIS.

But wait.

We want to point out how differently the same Mr Tveit expressed himself in relation to a different collection of savages who. unlike the perpetrators of the Istanbul barbarism two days ago, have been caught and in most cases tried and convicted on terrorism charges. In relation to those savages, Mr Tveit very publicly urged the Christian faithful who seek leadership from his office to pray and to help them in practical ways and not to give any thought to the things those prisoners had done to be locked up. 

The scene outside Istanbul's Reina night-club [Image Source]

That nauseating appeal for sympathy for actual and thwarted murderers got our attention in April 2014 [here] when the WCC called for solidarity by its faithful with what it disingenuously terms 

"some 5000 Palestinian men, women and children, languishing in Israeli jails". 

For their benefit, believer-members ought

"to pray for, visit, and tend to the needs of all prisoners, no matter the reason for their detention. For Israel and Palestine, prisoners have taken on even greater significance than in the past."

Just turn those words over in your mind: "no matter the reason for their detention". It makes us wonder what kind of evil faux-theology this man amd his cohort practice. 

He and they certainly don't view themselves as a satanic cult. By their own account, they are: 

the broadest and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian unity.  The WCC brings together churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 110 countries and territories throughout the world, representing over 500 million Christians and including most of the world's Orthodox churches, scores of Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches, as well as many United and Independent churches. While the bulk of the WCC's founding churches were European and North American, today most member churches are in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific. There are now 348 member churches. For its member churches, the WCC is a unique space: one in which they can reflect, speak, act, worship and work together, challenge and support each other, share and debate with each other... [From the WCC website today]

It didn't matter to Olav Fykse Tveit, the WCC's chief executive, an educated and cultured man on a mission and a Norwegian Lutheran clergyman, that many of the Palestinian Arab prisoners for whom he intervened are convicted, self-confessed killers of innocent people. 

Mostly of innocent Jewish people, if you're already asking. 

How much did it matter that most of the rest - other than the actual killers - are unrepentant terrorists? Or that Palestinian Arab society from president Mahmoud Abbas on down embraces all of them as heroes, as we have noted with utter revulsion in this blog dozens of times over the past decade? 

The answer: not one little bit. (For other comments we made at the time, see "17-Apr-14: Christian solidarity with unrepentant murderers: where's the outrage?")

So now let's play "what if". 

What would the reaction have been yesterday in Istanbul - or in Paris or Brussels or Sydney or Nairobi - if the head of the World Council of Churches had called for 

• the freedom of the Istanbul killers to be restored; 
• the justice of the Istanbul gunmen's cause to be respected; 
• the dignity of the Istanbul shooters - with their high-powered weapons firing point-blank at innocent, unsuspecting and unarmed revellers in the night-club - to win faithful Christian people's solidarity. 

Mourners prepare to bury one of the Istanbul massacre victims [Image Source]

Freedom, justice, dignity, solidarity. Mr Tveit asked his flock two years ago to beseech all of those from Heaven so as to benefit, and deliver solace to, Palestinian Arab prisoners behind Israeli bars. (Full disclosure: Several of those convicts happen to be the murderers of our fifteen year-old daughter Malki. So yes, we do lack a certain scientific objectivity on this.) 

Would he have dared make a request like that from his Geneva pulpit for the Istanbul shooters and plotters? The answer is obvious. He can do what he did because, and only because, the victims of the Palestinian Arab terrorists are who and what they are. Do we need to be more explicit than that? We hope not.

With time, it gets clearer that this important Christian group has developed and propagates a theology of terror and of terror-victimhood that deserves unsparing critical scrutiny but doesn't - as far as we know - get it.

And in case anyone's wondering why we don't try to get the World Council of Churches to give its viewpoint - we actually did. We wrote to them several times back in 2014. As noted here, the only substantive reaction we ourselves ever got from our efforts came as a couple of polite personal notes on behalf of Mr Tveit from the WCC's then director of communication, a certain Mr. Mark Beach who no longer holds that position. In an email from Geneva to us dated June 5, 2014, Beach addressed - in a certain not-too-helpful way - the questions and the sharply critical comments directed over and again at his boss. Now please note, as we asked him to, that we were writing not only as members of a concerned public but as parents of a beautiful child of 15, murdered by the very thugs for whose dignity the Christians of the WCC had been asked to pray. 

Probably not that moved by our letters, Mr Beach informed us that:

"Yes, I believe we would have nothing further to say."

And indeed we never did hear from him again. The background is here ["6-Jun-14: Fear and loathing at the World Council of Churches"]. 

We don't expect Mr Tviet or the World Council of Churches insiders to change their spots. But we're baffled by how ordinary religion- and morality-minded Christians who see the rank hypocrisy and genteel bigotry of the WCC leadership don't demand that the WCC leadership be kicked down the stairs of their exceedingly well-appointed Swiss headquarters and out into the street.

Call us perplexed.

PS As happened in 2014, the managing clique at World Council of Churches has remained silent and egregiously unresponsive to the criticisms aired here and elsewhere. So... interested members of WCC-affliated churches - there are millions of you out there - are invited to make contact with us [thisongoingwar (at) gmail (dot) com] so we can confidentially share some plans for expanding this protest of WCC malevolence.

UPDATE: We found it important to add some observations in the wake of a gruesome and cruel Palestinian Arab terror attack. See "08-Jan-17: Where the World Council of Churches stands as Israelis are rammed to death"