What really happened in the Middle East.

Terrorism Awareness Project has a presentation that puts the current and historical issues of the Middle East into perspective. It helps to dispel some common myths such as the one that Israel somehow stole the land from the Palestinians.

Be aware, however, that some of the photos are quite graphic. Watch it HERE

Bibi’s Bold Message

Bibi’s Bold Message

By P. David Hornik

FrontPageMagazine.com Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Israeli papers carried reports on Monday (here, for instance) about an article in the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat claiming Egypt was warning Hamas to strike a deal with Israel before Binyamin Netanyahu forms the next government. Otherwise, the Egyptian officials are supposed to have said, Hamas stands to “lose everything.” Read more...

Gaza Doctor Says Death Toll Inflated

Some of Lori's news links:

Analysis: Testing Israel's deterrence

U.S. Consulate Mistakenly Sells US Secret Files in Jerusalem

Abbas blames Hamas for Gaza destruction

Jerusalem Conference: 'Jerusalem Was Always a Jewish City'

R&R from the Rockets Suggests the Resilience of Israeli Youth

Netanyahu: 'Sooner or later we'll have to finish the job in Gaza'

IDF struck tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border

US president: We must talk to Iran

Netanyahu: Obama Will Try to Internationalize Jerusalem Sites

Obama hails 'anti-Israel' Arab plan

Charge: Ahmadinejad Rants to Hide His Jewish Roots

Hamas armed wing clashes with Israeli troops in central Gaza

Netanyahu: A divided J'lem would mean Iranian base mere meters away

Thanks Lori!

Von Campe radio interview with Jan Markell

This week Jan Markell interviewed Hilmar Von Campe. I suggest every American listen to what this man has to say. Jan's Radio Show. Scroll down to January 24, 2009 - Hour 2.

Hilmar Von Campe was a member of the Hitler Youth movement. His book is "Defeating the Totalitarian Lie: A Former Hitler Youth Warns America." Von Campe says that the same totalitarian issues that were present in Germany in the 1930s when Hitler came to power are now becoming evident in America. It is must-listening even if bits are lost due to Hilmar's German accent. It is also another wake-up call though it seems few are listening. www.voncampe.com

Myths and Facts about the Fighting in Gaza

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) takes a look at some Myths and Facts related to the Gaza conflict...

Myth: Israel’s attacks against Hamas are illegal since Israel is still occupying Gaza through its control of Gaza’s borders and airspace, and it is therefore bound to protect the civilian population under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. (Rashid Khalidi, What You Don’t Know About Gaza , New York Times Op-Ed, Jan. 8, 2009)

Read more HERE

Recently, several papers and the UN have variously inferred, and accused, Israel of using White Phosphorous in its incursion into Gaza. Camera takes a look at some of the claims HERE

Huge gas reserves discovered off Haifa

A historic natural gas reservoir found offshore from Haifa is poised to meet Israel's natural gas demand for about 15 years and reduce the country's dependence on gas imports from Egypt and offshore from Gaza.

The discovery of the natural gas field 90 km. offshore from Haifa, known as Tamar, was made by a US-Israel consortium including the Delek Group, through its subsidiaries Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, Isramco Negev 2, Dor Gas Exploration and US oil operator Noble Energy Inc.

Preliminary estimates indicate that the Tamar field might contain over 88 billion cubic meters of gas...Read more

Joel Rosenberg comments on the find HERE

Israel implements unilateral Gaza cease-fire

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel implemented a unilateral cease-fire early Sunday in its 22-day offensive that turned Gaza neighborhoods into battlegrounds and dealt a stinging blow to the Islamic militants of Hamas. But Israeli troops will stay in the Palestinian territory for now and Hamas threatened to keep fighting until they leave...Read more

Thanks Lori!

Update from Joel Rosenberg

U.N. outrage – but only when it's safe

Article by Hal Lindsey at WorldNetDaily.

According to reports from the Associated Press, Reuters and elsewhere, Israeli forces deliberately shelled a United Nations compound filled with "hundreds of refugees" and buildings filled with "humanitarian supplies."

"The U.N. compound in Gaza had only that morning become a makeshift shelter for hundreds of Gaza City residents seeking sanctuary from relentless Israeli shelling," said a U.N. official in Gaza. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

The official claimed that shortly afterwards a shell hit one of the U.N. schools used as a sanctuary. Three people were wounded. He also said that two other shells hit a warehouse that contained humanitarian supplies and a U.N. parking lot.

A school. A warehouse housing humanitarian supplies. Three Israeli shells also hit a hospital in the al Quds neighborhood, setting its pharmacy afire. It couldn't sound any worse.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the damage caused to the al Quds hospital was "completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international humanitarian law."

U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon thundered into the region to express his outrage at the targeting of the U.N. school and compound being used to shelter hundreds of refugees. He expressed "strong protest and outrage" at the shelling of the compound and demanded an investigation...Read MORE

More articles and news:

Academic Jew-Hater

Israel Must Defeat Hamas

A Petition to the U.N. on Hamas’s Crimes

IAF Pounds Hamas; 40 Targets Hit

More from Joel Rosenberg plus some more headlines

NOTES FROM CONFERENCE CALL WITH BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Warns of Iran’s “nightmare scenario”

Iran warns Hamas not to accept truce

Gaza economy grinds to a standstill

Dr. Gary Frazier and Jan Markell talk about the war in Israel HERE

THE TRUTH OF WHAT IS HAPPENING IN ISRAEL

Here is a personal perspective from someone who has lived in fear under constant missile attacks in Israel. Grab a coffee, get comfortable in a nice cosy chair; then read it and put yourself in their position. What if it happened in your town or street...on a daily basis?

Dear Friends,

As you all know, Israel is in a middle of a war. First, we would like to thank you for your prayers and to tell you that we are doing fine. I know that the news broadcast picture the Palestinians as the victims and us as the aggressors. But the truth must be said. In the last eight years… eight years! The cities in the south west side of Israel suffer from attacks by the Hamas…

Read it HERE at Overcomer’s blog.

Something else to think about:

Europe's Rampant Muslim Jew-Hatred, and Absent Jewish 'Islamophobia'

The War Against the Jews

A formula for perpetual war

Hal Lindsey makes a few salient points about the current crisis in Gaza:

As the current Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza continues, the worldwide propaganda assault against Israel grows exponentially. In the light of this, it's important to review a little history about Gaza. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and completely turned its administration over to the Palestinian Authority. All of the Jewish settlements were disbanded and their residents forcibly removed. The Israeli agricultural, commercial and residential assets – which were considerable – were left for the Palestinians...

I especially concur with his thoughts here:

What is it about Israel that makes it the world's pariah state? How can it be that no insult to the Arabs is too slight to justify wholesale murder, whereas no atrocity, no matter how outrageous, justifies an Israeli defensive response? It matters not how reasonable and legitimate the defensive action would be for any other nation. But leaders from around the world have streamed into the U.N. to defend the "Palestinian democracy" – as if such an entity exists. READ MORE

A new post by Joel Rosenberg:

ROCKETS FIRED FROM LEBANON AT ISRAEL: Fears of a second front

From another blog…

“I can't forget Zionism is an extremist racist political ideology cloaked behind the Holocaust religion. I do believe a lot of innocent Jews died in WWII, but I don't believe in the Holocaust as a sacred, holy, untouchable, beyond questionable historical event. To me that's ridiculous. I also believe a lot of other nationalities and religious people died in WWII too. I'm sure the Japanese consider nuking cities something very much worth remembering, but they're not forcing me to bow before their shrines or pray to their God. I know my grandfathers honored their dead comrades buried at Normandy. It was a WORLD war and people died in horrible ways, en masse, across the globe.”

I came across this statement elsewhere but I’m not going to link it unless someone specifically asks. The writer is obviously intelligent and articulate but the essay contains vexing opinions and assertions relating to Zionism, Christianity and Israel in general which I have strong concerns with, and which I want to address at a later time. I’m primarily interested with the following remarks because I’ve come across this thinking before.

“…but I don't believe in the Holocaust as a sacred, holy, untouchable, beyond questionable historical event. To me that's ridiculous. I also believe a lot of other nationalities and religious people died in WWII too.”

Make no mistake; the statement betrays a fundamental prejudice and this is patently obvious to me later in the article. There is no question that millions have died “en masse” around the globe and that it should be properly acknowledged. But how does that fact trivialize the Holocaust? And how is it relevant to the current crisis in Gaza? The drivers in this conflict are totally different.

The Jews have been subject to attempts of mass extermination throughout history and it very nearly happened during WW2. No other race has had to face the constant threat of extinction and irrational hatred as have the Jews and that is just one of the many reasons why we should ALWAYS remember the Holocaust. One should ask - what is it about Israel – as distinct to any other race - that attracts such consistent hatred and prejudice?

More from Joel Rosenberg

DISPATCH FROM ISRAEL:
WORLD PRESSURE MOUNTING ON ISRAEL TO STOP WAR AGAINST HAMAS

Ground realities in Gaza

By Richard M Bennett, intelligence and security analyst, AFI Research.

Israel's patience with Hamas finally snapped on December 27, 2008. The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Tel Aviv finally took the momentous decision that it was no longer possible politically, militarily or morally to endure the constant barrage of Hamas missiles on its citizens in the south of Israel...READ MORE

Also take a look at Tamar Yonah's BLOG

Killing Their Own

By Jacob Laksin

FrontPageMagazine.com Tuesday, January 06, 2009

From reprimands of “disproportionate response” to condemnations of civilian casualties, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has drawn de rigueur denunciations from the international community. Less noticed is that while Israel has taken great pains to avoid innocent deaths in Operation Cast Lead, at great peril to its fighting men and women, Hamas vigilantes have spent recent days deliberately assaulting and killing their fellow Palestinians, just as they have done for years.

According to the Jerusalem Post, since the beginning of the Israeli offensive, more than 75 Gaza Palestinians have been shot in the legs or have had their hands broken; more than 35 have been executed by Hamas operatives who accuse them of being Israeli “collaborators.” Of course, Gaza is not teeming with Israeli spies and most of Hamas’s victims are not only not traitors but likely helped vote the terrorist group into power in the January 2006 legislative elections. Instead, Hamas’s campaign of homegrown terror is the latest example of the terrorists turning on their Palestinian compatriots – a brutal but seldom-discussed cycle of violence in which Palestinians emerge as their own worst enemy...
Killing Their Own

Also:

Israel’s Operation Cast Lead aims to stop Hamas from launching rockets from the Gaza strip at the Jewish nation’s soft underbelly and prevent the terror group from obtaining more powerful rockets from its Iranian sponsor. But the hidden agenda in this crisis is Tehran’s manipulation of its terror proxies to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s atomic weapons program.

Iran is arming Hamas and terror proxy Hizballah in Lebanon with long-range rockets that eventually will threaten Israel’s major cities and the Jewish nation’s nuclear facilities at Dimona. That situation could create a “Mexican stand-off” between Tehran and Jerusalem. That is an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would cause Tehran to unleash its proxies to attack Israel’s key cities and Dimona... Tehran's Sinister Agenda in Gaza

The Right to Defend

By Alan M. Dershowitz

FrontPageMagazine.com Monday, January 05, 2009

Israel’s military actions in Gaza are entirely justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its act of self-defense against international terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defense against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality. Israel’s actions certainly satisfy that principles.

When Barack Obama visited the city of Sderot this summer, he saw the same things that I had seen during my visit on March 20 of this year. Over the last four years, Palestinian terrorists—in particular, Hamas and Islamic Jihad—have fired more than two thousand rockets at this civilian area, which is home to mostly poor and working-class people. The rockets are designed exclusively to maximize civilian deaths, and some have barely missed schoolyards, kindergartens, hospitals, and school buses. But others hit their targets, killing more than a dozen civilians since 2001, including in February 2008 a father of four who had been studying at the local university. These anticivilian rockets have also injured and traumatized countless children.

Read The Right to Defend