How Israel's Foreign Minister Views Hamas

Nadene Goldfoot                                               

   
Avidor Lieberman, Foreign Minister for Israel, spoke on CNN's Fareed Zakaria's program this morning.  He explained that he was against the cease fire, but found he was a minority with this opinion in the Knesset.  He felt that Israel could finally wipe out Hamas and had the force to topple them at this time.

Born on June 5, 1958 in Russia, he immigrated to Israel 2 years before I did in 1978.  Being much younger and a male, he did his stint in the IDF.

Avidor explained that Hamas is a radical terrorist group. 

He is 'bothered' that a terror group endured in battle against 'strongest army in Mideast.' One of many ways was in  their use of tunnels they had built and using them by popping out in Israel and taking lives is certainly a terrorist act.  Of course he neglects to say that Israel was following the rules of conduct in this fight by warning the civilians of their bombing way before the act, even though the terrorists saw to it that it was in vain and they fought by using this uncivilized tactic.  It is uncivilized to use your own people in gaining the advantage instead of trying to keep the civilians alive.  This fact alone prove they are a terrorist group.  Yet by doing this, they successfully deflected the blame of the deaths onto the Israelis who value all life, so no wonder he realizes that Hamas survived.  

This differs from the UN opinion of them.  Avidor feels that they differ little from ISIS. 
                                                                               

 William Schabas, a Canadian-born professor of international law at Middlesex University in London feels that it would "inappropriate " to assert that Hamas is a terrorist organization.  He's also very much against Netanyahu, even though his father is Jewish and he sits on the advisory board of the Israel Law Review.  I personally find this opposition from young people striving to make a name for themselves so take opposing stands and then later on, as maturity and extensive reading and research sinks in, often change their views. This has happened with Israeli historian, Benny Morris.   That Schabas is part of the board goes towards Israel's open-mindedness and democratic principles.  William Schabas is a product of English thinking which has been against Jews for centuries and certainly was when they held the mandate in Palestine.

"In 2014 Schabas was appointed the head of UN Committee investigating the Israeli role in 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. The move was criticized by Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird  and Geneva based NGO UN Watch, due to previous records of Schabas' alleged anti-Israel bias, a charge that Schabas denies.  Schabas was born on November 19, 1950, so is 8 years older than Lieberman.  

Avidor would like to see a more moderate Palestinian group taking over in Gaza.  He says that Hamas is radical in having a charter that says to wipe out Israel.  They have been firing rockets into Israel ever since they took over the power seat from Fatah and kicked Fatah into Judea and Samaria.
                                                                       

Abbas, born March 26, 1935, is older than either Lieberman or Schabas,  is threatening to sue Israel in the UN over crimes against humanity.  He has lost popularity.  They are no partner in peace for Israel with an attitude like this.  They had united several times with Hamas and their charter which is the same as the Muslim Brotherhood in regards to Israel.  Abbas is using his newly founded power in the UN now against Israel of an automatic majority.  He is making a new play to reassert his role and cast himself as the leader of all Palestinians by taking his cause to the UN.  

The UN Human Rights Council already met last month and adopted a resolution against Israel with a vote of 29 to 1 with 17 abstentions and has moved to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.  The USA was the only country against this decision.  

Netanyahu has pointed out that the report has already been written and  have decided that Hamas is not a terrorist organization.  He said they should really look at Damascus, Baghdad and Tripoli and go see ISIS, the Syrian army and Hamas.  They'll find their war crimes in these places but not in Israel.  This probe is just like what happened in 2009 and the Goldstone Report which Israel had rejected as being it was inaccurate and biased.  Goldstone even retracted that report but the die was already cast against Israel's reputation.  

Hamas's charter, which is also adopted by the unification of Fatah and Hamas, says,
1. “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will 
obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” 
(The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory). 
These are the words of terrorists.

2. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. 

It needs all sincere efforts.
Note, this is a religious terrorist war, like ISIS is bringing on the rest of the world.  

3. The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished 
Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose 
way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah 
over every inch of Palestine,
The Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS also share this goal.  

CNN, Fareed Zakaria program
The Jewish Press, Friday, August 22, 2014, Israel Keeping Distance, front page, page 3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Lieberman
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.613150
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Schabas
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/world/middleeast/abbas-seen-as-ready-to-seek-mideast-pact-on-his-own.html?_r=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas
http://www.standwithus.com/online_booklets/HamasCharter/HamasCharter.pdf

2009-Critique on Generation Islam from Christiane Amanpour-CNN

Tonight's Christiane Amanpour's Presentation on "Generation Islam"

from a Jewish lady's perspective

by Nadene Goldfoot

Christiane's opening words at 7 pm were blaming the Gazan's plight on Israel's birth 60 years ago and this being the cause of their hating America. Then she went on to say that December 27, 2008 was the date of Israel's offensive but blamed both sides. She explained that it lasted 22 days and that only 13 Israelis were killed while 1,300 Palestinians died. Palestinians see America siding with Israel and this makes them mad.

80% of Palestinians are on the dole. They have been receiving UN aid since 1948. There is now nothing in Gaza except destroyed buildings. The visual showed nothing but destruction. She didn't tell the audience that when Israelis left Gaza for the sake of peace they left intact buildings and businesses which the Palestinians tore down the minute they went into the areas.

Young Palestinians are prey for the militia. They blame Israel for the offensive. She didn't bring out that they aren't taking responsibility for their own destruction, and that the offensive wouldn't have happened if they had not shelled Israel for the past four years with thousands of rockets, nor that they were warned of what would happen if Hamas continued to attack Israel.

She then interviewed a very nice Palestinian doctor who worked in an Israeli hospital because in the offensive, his home was hit and 3 of his children were killed. This of course is a doctor who doesn't hate Israelis and listening to him causes viewers to be very sympathetic.

The next shot was interviewing a lady who didn't hate Israelis to start with but now said she'd kill them all if she had the chance. The offensive is causing her to hate. Never mind at all why the offensive happened. Nobody is talking about that to the viewers.

The subject switched to showing the bad effects of the war on the Palestinian children. Militants have become the symbol of power. One third of the children want to be martyrs. Ten children were in a family that they interviewed. The 90 year old grandmother now goes out of the house and sits in the dust. A little girl named Iah wanted peace but now hates Israelis. Her father was killed when Gaza was closed due to the shelling on Israel. His office was hit by a bomb.

The attitude of the people is disappointing to me. What bothers me is their continued denial of why Israel doesn't want to be a sitting duck in a shooting gallery and they find that this duck knows how to shoot back. It's as if they are pouring gasoline on their own house and lighting a match to it and then blaming Israel for the fact that it goes up in flames. It's like the old joke, a young kid kills his parents and then cries to the judge that he's now an orphan. Christiana doesn't bother to question the attitude of these militant Palestinians, like do they understand why this happened?

Children were interviewed who only spoke Arabic but the interpreter spoke as a sophisticated college professor. I would have loved to know the real words spoken. A boy scout was interviewed at a boy scout camp. They were learning to fight Israelis and were being taught self-defense. They want to grow up to defend their country. They were asked why they were so militant and they said that their dreams were of a free independant state. Then teenagers were shown practicing with real guns. She mentions that there is more extremism in Gaza today than there was last year. Was she blaming Israel and the offensive? I think so.

The Gazan children were shown to be dependant on Western volunteers (or working for an organization) who are speaking English. They are there to amuse and teach them. There are 700,000 children in Gaza and they have programs for a third of them. There is a Koran Camp for other children who wish to do that.

Two Palestinian American men were shown fighting for peace in different ways. I believe they were cousins. They were in the "occupied West Bank" which I call Judea and Samaria and they throw in the term "occupied" for political reasons. They are not teaching violence. They were more in tune to Martin Luther King and Gandi's non-violence approach. However, even they, when they spoke, said that Israel uses the excuse of security and that it is an excuse. They don't even realize why Israel had to build a wall and that security is the job of any state. Their attitude made me cringe.

The next shot was in a pre-school classroom with three year olds. They were being taught how to get what they wanted but not fight for it and it wasn't working very well. At least they videotaped a little girl causing a boy to cry and was questioned about what she was just taught to do. She finally said she was sorry and walked away. Muppets were used to teach lessons and Sesame Street has come to Gaza in Arabic. They were being taught diplomacy by a grant from a peace group.

Children were taken to the wall every Friday and chanted things at Israeli soldiers. I call that heckling. One did mention that he was afraid of the soldiers and that they had power. More than half of the population is under 18.

Finally two 21 year old young men were shown at the University in Gaza. One joined Hamas and the other was interested in starting a business. Both were angry young men but were expressing it in different ways. One said that you're being judged. He wanted to defend the honor of his people against attacks on them. (Israel doesn't go around attacking Gazans for sport. This only happens when they are being attacked first, and then they took attacks for four years trying not to retaliate before they were forced to do so.) This little fact was not brought out by any of the Palestinians; only blaming them.

The student who had already joined Hamas said that terrorists were from all walks of people; from scientists to militants. He wanted to be a journalist but would be a terrorist now. The other was already a CEO of his own company. He walked around showing Christiana the destruction and what had been there before. She told him that most people think the university is a hotbed of terrorism. He said that wasn't true. There they study English and human rights. The university is looking for leaders. They are against violence. He wants to be a part of the global community. They concluded with the statement that Al Kadah looks less attractive.

I was happy to see a few interviewees who wanted to be a part of the world and were getting tired of living like they have been. It was marvelous to see in the first part of the program which did a study on Pakistan and Afghanistan that the children were so eager to learn, even by sitting outside with a teacher without any materials except a stick for writing. They were even studying English and realized that to be a part of the modern world this language would be advantagous to learn and was a tool for success.

The only solution to the Palestian problem shown was possibly the fact that a very few young people were interested in getting on with their lives and were not interested in spending their life killing Israelis. I only wish more would adopt that attitude. They didn't seem to be as impressed with learning anything like the other two country's children. They are more focused on the Israelis and Americans that they hate and this is taking precident.

Reference: CNN 6:00pm program

Former President Nixon and His Lovely Comments About Jews

Nadene Goldfoot

Today at 12:45 just after lunchtime, I turned on KGW and heard this being said by Nixon. It was from a newly released tape. I didn't get to catch why they were playing this, and was horrified at what he was saying.


ON JEWS AND ANTI-SEMITISM

Anti-Semitism is stronger than we think. You know, it’s unfortunate. But this has happened to the Jews. It happened in Spain, it happened in Germany, it’s happening — and now it’s going to happen in America if these people don’t start behaving. ... It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries.
— Nixon in a Feb. 21, 1973, phone conversation with the evangelist Billy Graham, discussing Jewish-American opposition to evangelical outreach efforts.


Well-according to Nixon we'd better start behaving!!!We've had this problem for centuries.
The bad thing, and we can say that every president has probably been anti-Semitic, is the timing right now on top of CNN's timing. This is the 3rd president to find fault with Jews/Israelis, and they've had to chastise us. It's a bad thing for the public to hear as it just vilifies us and convinces anti-Semites that they're right. It also shows me that anti-Semitism is so deep in our culture, that we are fighting the hole in the dike with our finger and the hole is again growing. Nixon was a Quaker, and look how he feels. Yikes.

According to these tapes, he was speaking about the Jews' opposition to being converted by the likes of Billy Graham. " Nixon worried that Jewish leaders were stirring up anti-Semitic sentiment in their opposition to evangelical Christianity efforts, like Campus Crusade."

Reference: http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-nixons-extreme-racism-revealed-in-newly-released-tapes/

CNN's Lying About Israel

by Nadene Goldfoot

While watching CNN’s Iranian coverage Sunday night June 21st, the reporters started talking about how American presidents have in the past needed to confront friendly countries they disagreed with. They immediately brought up Israel in 1982 and stated that Israel slaughtered the Lebanese, and that Reagan had to tell Begin to stop and he did.

Five minutes or less later they brought up Israel again with the same subject of presidential interjections saying that Isael slaughtered the Gazans, and was told to stop by the American president. All this was in reference to Obama’s lack of wanting to interfere with Iran’s political situation right now.

I about fell out of my chair, and me home from the hospital after only six days after having open heart surgery. I could not believe what CNN was telling the world; twice relating how we slaughtered people!

I was in Israel starting in 1980, living in Safed from 1981 to the end of 1985, and remember the Lebanon War very well. Safed is in the Northern Galilee and was very close to the Lebanon border. In fact, my favorite department store was in Kiriat Shimona, which was north of us and they drove to many times. I had been to the "Good Neighbor Fence."

That’s not what happened at all, of course. We do not go around slaughtering people. What happened was that Lebanon was made up of a minority of Christians and a majority of Muslims. The Christians were led by a Major Hadad who patrolled the border of Israel and Lebanon, and he was considered our very good friend. In fact, Major Hadad would come to our hospital for R and R, and we had an agreement with him to take his family into Israel if G-d forbid anything happened to him.

Evidently the Palestinian Muslims had gone in and slaughtered the Christians at some point. Sharon was Defense Minister who apparently did not know that the Christian Falange had gone into Sabra and Shatilla camps to exact revenge on the detestable Palestinian Arab PLO slaughterers of the Lebanese Christians. Sharon was blamed for the attack and was fired by Menachem Begin. It was an eye for an eye attack of Lebanese against Lebanese.

Eventually Sharon was exonerated. It was the Christian militia who did the killings and not the Israelis. That didn’t seem to enter into CNN’s reporter’s verbage, though. To me it shows that CNN never did report the facts correctly in the first place or their reporters wouldn’t have said such things in the first place.

I was there living through the whole experience. When it started I was on a bus going down the hill from Safed headed for Haifa to go to the hospital, and was alone. I had fallen in Haifa while at the school where I lived (Ulpan) and had crushed my right elbow which also had broken the lower bone and was scheduled for a talk with the doctors about when they could take the six screws out of my arm that was holding me together. What I saw was Israeli tanks coming up the hill as we went down. Upon arriving at the hospital, I was told to go back home as fast as possible, that a war was starting and the doctors would be too busy to deal with me. They expected lots of wounded soldiers coming to their hospital. Here I was, a West Coast American, in the midst of my first Israeli war.

After arriving back in Safed, I checked out the bomb shelter in our apartment building. Almost everyone lived in apartments. Homes such as I left in Portland were unheard of. The bomb shelter couldn't take in dogs, and we had brought our German shepherd with us. She was my baby and I was not about to leave her in the apartment alone, so knew I wouldn't be in any bomb shelter. Luckily, we lived on the bottom floor anyway. I thought we might be safe.

My job became baking cakes for the soldiers to eat. All these eighteen year olds had to get to their posts, and did a lot of walking to them. Coffee and cake booths were set up so they could eat something. All these teenagers must have been experiencing sugar-highs. It was good, though. It gave me something to do so that I couldn't shake with fear. I was helping.

Being a teacher, I somehow knew instinctively that the school would need me. I reported to school the next school day (my day off) and found all the men teachers in the army, and that I truly was needed. I taught in the city's junior high, which was across the street from my building. The children were hysterical when they heard a helicopter landing at the hospital up the block from our building. All their family; uncles, brothers, fathers, and many women were in the army, and of course they feared for their lives. They'd huddle in corners while I taught English. One time I remember just stopping my lecture and looking at them. They looked back and said, "Keep talking, Nechama." I did. They needed to hear something familiar. So that's what I did during the Lebanon War. It's something that can't be forgotten.

What my 9th graders did was something amazing. They were needed in the hospital to speak English to the Lebanese or Arabic. They were translators. They told me that they saw things they shouldn't have at their age. They did see the need for English, though, as it was a language they used to speak to the Lebanese. After all, we took in anyone who was injured. Our students studied languages a lot. What was amazing to me was seeing the Arab kids helping the Jewish kids with Arabic studies and vice versa with their Hebrew studies. They all helped each other with English.

I saw units of men with white beards patrolling our streets. They were men left behind to protect us. Women stepped in and took over their husband's jobs. Of course we also had many women teachers in our building, and the Vice Principal was a woman who took over for the principal who had to report into the army. You just didn't see hardly any men on the streets. We were a city of women and children.

As for the Gazan war, CNN never remarked that Israel had been under attack for eight years and it was its citizens who were under missle attack. They never reported that finally Israel said, "Enough", and told the world many times that they wouldn’t take the attacks anymore, no matter what Condoleeza kept saying, and that the Gazans would have to stop or suffer the consequences. The Gazans were warned and did not stop. Israel did everything they could to lessen the harm to the Palestinian citizens, even putting their own lives in harm’s way many times. Nothing was mentioned of this-only that Israel slaughtered them. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I’m saddened to see such an international TV station play such a heavy role in discriminating against Israel, and that its reporters have done such a sloppy job. They seem to have no idea of the terrible consequences that can happen when so many people hear these horrid lies about Israel. After all, it takes very little for so many people to turn against Jews; even today. As for CNN-I now have more reason to watch Fox News, and have lost a lot of respect for CNN's reporting skills.