Blaming it all on the Jews

A new anti-Israel screed, posing as a serious academic “study”, is causing a stir in the United States, accusing the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC of essentially dictating American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Authored by two prominent professors, the document goes so far as to claim that it was supporters of Israel who pushed America into the Iraq war, and who regularly compel the US to act against its own national interests.

In other words, like anti-Semites have done throughout the centuries, they are blaming all of their country’s troubles on… the Jews.

Sadly, this wretched bit of propaganda will undoubtedly garner a great deal of attention, if only because its authors teach at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, two of the nation’s premier institutions.

The Palestinians are already using the document to score political points, distributing it as widely as they can.

But perhaps the most upsetting part of this sorry tale is to be found in the following line of the Ha’aretz story on the study, which describes the sources used by the authors of the report: “They rely mainly on an analysis of Israeli and American newspaper reports and studies, along with the findings of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem” (emphasis added).

So there you have it – Israel’s foes relying on material provided to them by an Israeli organization in order to besmirch the Jewish state.

It’s about time that groups such as B’Tselem stop playing into the hands of those who hate us.

Stop Palestinian Rocket Attacks

Though you would never know it from reading the Western press, Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza on Israeli towns and cities have become almost a daily occurrence of late.

On Wednesday of this week, there were at least 12 rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists at the Negev.

Fortunately, their accuracy and aim is way off the mark, but that does not justify the manner in which these attacks go almost entirely unreported.

Worse yet – the Israeli government has thus far refrained from undertaking a serious military operation in order to bring about an end to these assaults.

Instead of sweeping into northern Gaza and eliminating the terrorist infrastructure behind these attacks, Israel has largely confined itself to occasional pinpoint assaults. But as Wednesday’s rocket barrage demonstrated, this approach has been completely ineffectual.

Now comes word that instead of adopting an offensive posture, Israel will be investing in a more passive tactic. As Yediot Aharonot reports, the army has decided to install 11 shelters in Kibbutz Nir Am, near the town of Sderot, which has been a regular target of the rocket assaults. As the kibbutz residents told the paper, this is not enough to meet the kibbutz’ need, nor is it even clear whether there will be sufficient funds available to repair and establish the shelters.

But all that is largely beside the point. The question which Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert needs to address is: why are Israel’s citizens being made to hunker down and hide in shelters, rather than the terrorists who are shooting at them?

15 Rockets and Counting...

A cease-fire may have gone into effect in Gaza last week, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the Palestinians from continuing to attack Israeli towns and cities.

Just this morning, Palestinian terrorists fired yet another Qassam rocket into southern Israel. The projectile hit an open field next to a kibbutz, but thank G-d no one was injured in the attack.

This is the 15th rocket that the Palestinians have launched at Israel since the start of the cease-fire, and yet the government continues to refrain from going into Gaza to halt the assaults.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting this morning, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that the Palestinians are "partially keeping" the cease-fire - I guess he means the "fire" part, because they have certainly been ignoring the "cease".

In any event, the ongoing rocket attacks demonstrate once again the futility of relying on wishful thinking in the formulation of Israeli defense policy.

Hoping that the Palestinians will stick to the cease-fire, despite their track record of violating every previous one, was both fool-hardy and dangerous, and it has now left Israel with its hands tied diplomatically behind its back.

Indeed, how many more rockets will it take for our leadership to realize that the only way to stem the violence is to hunt down its perpetrators, rather than negotiate with them?