[All notes below by Tom Gross]

OBAMA IN ISRAEL AND THE WEST BANK

American presidential candidate Barack Obama arrives in Israel this evening (local time), as part of his whirlwind tour of Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe.

He will stay until Thursday morning. He is scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Likud opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. He will also be escorted by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on trips to Sderot and the Western Wall, and make a visit to Yad Vashem. Tomorrow he will also travel to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

I am told that his only planned press conference in Israel will take place in Sderot. (For security reasons, I am not making public the time or location.)

 

TRYING TO MOVE AWAY FROM THE RADICALS

Since I last sent a dispatch on Obama, he has somewhat moderated his positions on Israel and Iran and sacked two of his most anti-Israel advisors (Samantha Power and Robert Malley) both of whom I strongly criticized in previous dispatches.

Nevertheless Obama retains many advisors, who in my opinion, hold beliefs that run strongly counter to American, western, Israeli, and democratic interests in the Middle East.

To try and reassure critics about his Middle East advisors, Obama has also invited Dennis Ross, a centrist career diplomat, who was lead negotiator on Israeli-Palestinian issues for Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, to accompany him. (Mr. Ross is also a subscriber to this email list.)

 

OBAMA’S NEW “ADVISOR” PROBLEM: CHUCK HAGEL

However, of particular concern to supporters of Israel is that Obama, the Democratic Party candidate, is being accompanied by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel on his trip to Israel, one of only two senators Obama is traveling with (the other being Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island).

One pro-Israel observer said: “If Obama is getting advice from Hagel about Israel, then the American Jewish community has a lot to worry about. Of all the senators with whom Obama could have traveled with, Hagel’s record on Israel is one of the worst.

“The message is heard loud and clear. While Obama has chosen to visit Israel with one of the most anti-Israel senators, by contrast, on John McCain’s most recent trip to Israel, he chose to visit with Joseph Lieberman.”

The Democratic Party has itself previously (in March 2007) released to the press examples of Sen. Hagel’s abysmal record on Israel:

* In August 2006, Hagel was one of only 12 senators who refused to call Hizbullah a terrorist organization.
* In December 2005, Hagel was one of only 27 who refused to sign a letter asking the Palestinian Authority to ban terrorist groups.
* In June 2004, Hagel refused to sign a letter urging President Bush to highlight Iran’s nuclear program at the G-8 summit.
* In November 2001, Hagel was one of only 11 senators who refused to sign a letter urging President Bush not to meet with the late Yasser Arafat until he ended violence against Israel.
* In October 2000, Hagel was one of only four senators who refused to sign a Senate letter in support of Israel.

* And here’s what the anti-Israel group, CAIR, wrote in praise of Hagel: “Potential presidential candidates for 2008, like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Joe Biden and Newt Gingrich, were falling all over themselves to express their support for Israel. The only exception to that rule was Senator Chuck Hagel” (Council on American-Islamic Relations, 8/28/06).

I mentioned in a previous dispatch:

When asked by Newsweek “Would you have Republicans in your cabinet?” Obama replied, “No decisions, but Dick Lugar embodies the best tradition in foreign policy. Chuck Hagel is a smart guy who has shows some courage, even though we disagree on domestic policy.”

(See: “Not since John Kerry has America had such an outstanding candidate for the Presidency” Feb. 5, 2008)

 

OBAMA LOVE FEST MOVE OVERSEAS

Even many liberal academics are acknowledging that we are witnessing one of the most biased media reporting of an American presidential election in living memory. Many prominent journalists have fallen over themselves to give gushing coverage to Obama while failing to report properly on his many fibs, flip-flops, and policy holes.

Obama’s present foreign tour is no exception. The three leading anchors of U.S. network television – ABC’s Charles Gibson, NBC’s Brian Williams and CBS’s Katie Couric – have all eagerly traveled abroad with Obama, and they are being joined by star political reporters from the major newspapers and magazines.

By contrast no anchors accompanied Republican candidate John McCain on his recent tour of Europe and the Middle East, and CBS didn’t even send a reporter, providing McCain with less than 30 seconds of coverage for his entire foreign tour.

Some Democratic strategists have now begun to fear that the over-the-top bias media elitists are showing towards Obama is actually proving counterproductive and is causing resentment among “ordinary” Americans.

The Hillary Clinton campaign also repeatedly complained of media bias towards Obama during the primary campaign.

 

PUBLIC BELIEF GROWING THAT REPORTERS ARE TRYING TO HELP OBAMA WIN

The latest Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely American voters, conducted on July 19, found that 49% of voters believe most reporters are trying to help Obama with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago.

Just 14% believe reporters are trying to help McCain win. And only one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters offer unbiased coverage.

According to the poll, even a high number of likely Democrat voters believe most reporters are trying to help Obama win.

45% of likely voters say that most reporters would hide information if it hurt the candidate they wanted to win.

A separate survey released yesterday also found that 50% of voters believe most reporters want to make the economy seem worse than it is. A majority also believe that the media has tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse than it really is.

These results are consistent with earlier surveys finding that large segments of the American population believe that most large media is biased to the left.

 

NYT REJECTS McCAIN’S EDITORIAL, WHILE RUNNING OBAMA’S

The latest media bias was revealed yesterday by the Drudge Report website.

It revealed that The New York Times, the most important newspaper in America, and also one of the more biased despite pretending to be “the paper of record,” turned down McCain’s editorial on Iraq – less than a week after it published a piece by Obama on the same subject.

“I’m not going to be able to accept this piece,” The New York Times Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email to McCain’s staff.

In McCain’s submission to the Times, he writes of Obama: “I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war – only of ending it... if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.”

Following the furor on the blogosphere yesterday about the Times’s refusal to print McCain’s op-ed, Shipley said the Times may reconsider.

The “paper of record” might also want to let its readers know that Shipley served in the Clinton Administration as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Presidential Speechwriter.

Obama’s piece can be read on The New York Times website. I attach McCain’s rejected piece below in the full articles section in case readers want to read what the Times won’t let them.

 

POLL OF U.S. JEWS: OBAMA BEHIND HIS DEMOCRATIC PREDECESSORS

American Jews are less supportive of Barack Obama than they were of previous Democratic nominees, a new poll has found. The lack of support comes despite the same poll finding that an overwhelming number of American Jews dislike the Bush administration.

The poll, commissioned by the new Washington-based leftist advocacy group, J Street, found that 58 percent of American Jews said they would definitely vote for Obama. In contrast, Al Gore and Bill Clinton both received approximately 80 percent of the Jewish vote in their respective runs for the presidency, while John Kerry received 76 percent in 2004. Jews are traditionally among the most left-wing groups in American society.

Polls indicate that were Hillary Clinton to have been the Democratic nominee, more Jews would likely vote Democrat this year.

The worst showing by a Democrat in recent decades was in 1980, when then-president Jimmy Carter received 45 percent of the Jewish vote compared to 39 percent for Ronald Reagan, who won the election.

 

IN CONTRAST TO U.S. JEWS, ISRAELIS OVERWHELMINGLY BACK McCAIN

Polls indicate that, in contrast to west European countries like France and Germany, where Obama is adored, Israelis strongly back McCain.

In France and Germany, where Obama will be heading later in the week, 65% and 67% of the population respectively say they would vote for him if they could. By contrast, in Israel, only 27% of respondents say they would like Obama to become president, compared to 36% for McCain.

In another poll, conducted by the Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University, if Israeli Arabs are omitted, among Israeli Jews, McCain (46%) has an even bigger advantage over Obama (20%).

The low support for Obama in Israel has, in my opinion, less to do with any belief that Obama is hostile to Israel and more to do with his demonstration thus far in the campaign of his naivety towards issues in the Middle East, particularly in regard to Iran’s nuclear program, which most Israelis consider to be an existential threat.

Many Israelis are also concerned that a hasty withdrawal by the U.S. from Iraq, as advocated by Obama, will strengthen Iran and al-Qaeda and further destabilize the Middle East.

“There is a certain amount of anxiety here about his positions and exactly how he would behave as president,” Hillel Schenker, vice chair of Democrats Abroad-Israel, admitted to the American-Jewish paper The Forward last week.

Even a majority of Israelis on the center-left said they favored McCain, which is unusual considering he is a Republican. McCain has long been a strong supporter of Israel in the Senate, and it appears unlikely he will radically change Bush’s generally pro-Israel policies. Obama’s positions are far less clear.

 

“POOR PHRASING”?

Last month, Obama declared before 7,000 pro-Israel Americans at the annual AIPAC conference: “Let me be clear... Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and must remain undivided.” They then gave him a rousing ovation.

Now, as with many other of his policies during the campaign, Obama has backtracked. “Poor phrasing” had, he said, resulted in his remarks on Israel being misunderstood.

“You know, the truth is that this was an example where we had some poor phrasing in the speech,” he said in an interview aired on Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria.”

Whether a gaffe resulting from his inexperience and badly-thought out Middle East policies, or a deliberate lie to impress pro-Israel voters, many see this as yet another example that he may be lacking the international credentials required of a president.

Obama is also reported to have embarrassed international figures, such as German Chancellor Merkel by demanding to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, a privilege normally reserved for elected presidents only.

 

“I’M SURPRISED AT HOW FINELY CALIBRATED EVERY SINGLE WORD WAS MEASURED”

When asked on his press plane on July 5 about the various “flip flopping” and contradictory statements, including those over Israel, Obama said, “I’m surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured.”

A reporter noted that that is precisely what happens with the president: he can change world affairs with one badly expressed word.

(Source: ABC blogs.)

***

“BY THE TIME HE’S FINISHED, OBAMA WILL HAVE MADE THE CLINTONS LOOK SCRUPULOUS”

Since securing the nomination less than eight weeks ago, Obama has been doing so much flip-flopping on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues – including public campaign financing, NAFTA, warrantless wiretaps, unconditional talks with Ahmadinejad, flag pins, gun control, and so on – that Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post, one of the few mainstream media commentators to be tough on Obama, wrote this month that “by the time he’s finished, Obama will have made the Clintons look scrupulous.”

 

QUESTIONABLE FRIENDS

Jews may also be concerned that many of the most significant persons in Obama’s adult life have been those who distain and vilify Israel – from Rashid Khalidi to the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama failed to stand up to his friend Khalidi, the Palestinian activist-professor and former PLO spokesman whom Obama honored at a farewell dinner. Obama failed to criticize his slander that Israel was an apartheid state.

And until Wright insulted him at the National Press Club, Obama stood by his friend and mentor Wright, even after Wright said he considered Israel a “dirty word” and made the absurd anti-Semitic claim that Israel had invented an “ethnic bomb” that kills only Arabs and black people.

 

OBAMA HOLDS FUNDRAISING LEAD

Among the general public, the latest range of polls shows Obama with a 5 to 7 point lead over McCain.

However, Obama still trails on foreign policy issues. A survey conducted last week jointly by ABC and The Washington Post, showed that 72% of Americans think that McCain will be “a good Commander-in-Chief,” while only 48% think that Obama will be.

It is not only in media coverage where Obama enjoys a considerable advantage but in advertising and campaign resources too. In June, Obama had another near record month for campaign fundraising. The fact that Obama’s poll lead is not greater therefore comes as a surprise to some.

 

MCCAIN: SANCTIONS MIGHT STOP IRAN, BUT U.S. WON’T ALLOW SECOND HOLOCAUST

John McCain said in an interview yesterday evening on Israel’s popular Channel 2 news that while stiffer sanctions might stop Iran’s threats against Israel, the U.S. in any event would not allow the Islamic Republic to try to destroy Israel.

Asked about Israel feeling the need to attack Iran, McCain replied, “I would hope that would never happen, I would hope that Israel would not feel that threatened, saying the U.S. and Europe could impose significant, very painful sanctions on Iran which I think could modify their behavior.

“But I have to look you in the eye and tell you that the United States of America can never allow a second Holocaust.”

Concerning possible military action against Iran, McCain said, “I think we have a lot of options to explore before we seriously explore the military option, and I don’t think we have exercised those enough.”

McCain said he favors low-level contacts with Iranian officials, but not a meeting of presidents without preconditions. He said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would take advantage of such a meeting and its media coverage to call for the destruction of Israel.

-- Tom Gross

[All notes below by Tom Gross]

KUNTAR VOWS TO RETURN TO HIS MURDEROUS WAYS

Some commentators on CNN’s international network have (amazingly) tried to suggest that released Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar didn’t mean to kill anybody. This is despite the fact that Kuntar keeps on proudly boasting of his killings. In the latest example, Kuntar told Agence France-Presse after his release:

“I haven’t for even one day regretted what I did. On the contrary I remain committed to my political convictions. I feel enormous joy because I have returned to the ranks of the resistance and to my family.” (AFP, July 17, 2007 “Lebanon’s Kantar says no regrets over killings in Israel”)

***

PRAISING IMAD MUGHNIYEH

Indeed, within hours of his release, Kuntar visited the grave of Hizbullah’s former “operations chief,” Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed by a car bomb in Damascus last February, and heaped praise on him, pledging to continue in Mughniyeh’s footsteps. Kuntar stated:

“We swear by Allah to continue on your same path and not to retreat until we achieve the same stature [of “martyrdom”] that Allah bestowed on you. This is our great wish. We envy you and we will achieve it, Allah willing.” (Associated Press, July 17, 2007 “Kuntar: I’ll continue Mughniyeh’s legacy”)

(For background on Mughniyeh, who was responsible for the deaths of more Westerners (Americans, French, Argentinians, Israelis and others) than any modern terrorist leader apart from Osama Bin Laden, see “He’s not quite Osama Bin Laden... But he almost is” (Feb. 14, 2008).)

***

“THE CONFLICT WON’T END”

The next day Kuntar said: “This time yesterday I was in the hands of the enemy (Israelis). But at this moment, I am yearning more than before to confront them and I ask Allah to make this happen soon... Believe me – anyone who thinks freeing the Shebaa farms will end this conflict is delusional.”

(The Shebaa farms are a tiny slither of disputed territory which Syria, Lebanon and Israel all claim.)

***

Yesterday Kuntar gave an interview to the Nazareth-based Israeli-Arab Radio A-Shams, again vowing that he will join Hizbullah in carrying out future attacks on Israel.

 

CHILD MURDERER PRAISED BY “MODERATE” ABBAS

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas may be slightly more moderate than the leaders Hamas, or al-Qaeda, but as I have pointed out many times in previous dispatches on this list, he has hardly proved himself a moderate by any normal meaning of the word, and organizations like the BBC should stop describing him as one.

After his release, Abbas sent a message congratulating Kuntar, who is a Lebanese Druze, not a Palestinian moderate. Kuntar murdered a four-year-old child by bashing her head in. He also killed other innocents.

Unreported by the BBC and other western media, Abbas has made several pronouncements praising Kuntar in interviews on Palestinian TV and radio and to the WAFA (PLO) news agency.

Ziad abu al-Enain, director-general of the Ministry for Prisoner Affairs of Abbas’s “moderate” government and one of Fatah’s senior members, echoed Abbas. He said: “The Palestinians congratulate Hizbullah and its leader and send their best wishes to all the Lebanese people and to all the Palestinians upon the completion of the deal and the release of heroes, headed by the prisoners’ leader, Samir Kuntar.”

Processions were held in the West Bank to mark Kuntar’s release and “heroic acts,” paid for by diverted international donor money.

 

ABBAS MEETS ISLAMIC JIHAD HEAD IN SYRIA

Last Monday Abbas met the head of the ruthless Islamic Jihad terror organization, Ramadan Abdallah Shalah, in Damascus and discussed plans to coordinate efforts to act against Israel. Reports from Damascus say that Abbas agreed to release Islamic Jihad prisoners held in PA jails in the West Bank, in complete breach of the “road map” and all other promises and commitments that the “moderate” PA has signed.

 

ET TU HARIRI?

Michel Suleiman, the Lebanese president, accompanied by his entire cabinet, traveled to Beirut airport where a red carpet reception was laid on for Kuntar and the other released terrorists.

Suleiman said at the airport: “Your return is a new victory and the future with you will only be a shinning one.”

Even “pro-American” Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a Sunni Muslim, came to pay his respects to Kuntar, as did the Sunni majority leader of parliament, Saad Hariri (whose father Rafik was assassinated by Syria) and Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun. Each gave Kuntar and the other terrorists a hug and a kiss.

The Lebanese government declared a national day of celebration, closing all government offices and banks. Many private businesses closed as well.

 

DISAPPOINTING COVERAGE FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AND INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

There was disappointing coverage in the international press. Even The Wall Street Journal called Kuntar a “militant.”

The New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune went as far as to label him a “commando.” “Commando” is a term usually applied to those who rescue hostages, not those who deliberately kill them. The story also suggests that Kuntar’s parents’ divorce provides some kind of excuse or explanation for his brutal murders.

A few western media did run editorials critical of the Lebanese government. For example, in an editorial titled “A Strange Kind of Hero,” The Boston Globe wrote: “There is something morally repulsive in the hero’s welcome given the most famous – or notorious – of the Lebanese prisoners released by Israel... All wars are inhumane. But not all warriors lose their humanity.”

 

SOME ARAB MEDIA CRITICIZE HIZBULLAH

The London-based Asharq al-Awsat Arab newspaper on Thursday ridiculed the perceived “victory” of Hizbullah, saying it had cost the Lebanese economy $7 billion.

In Lebanon, al-Anwar struck a discordant note, carrying an editorial piece which said it was “shameful to see members of the government in Beirut join the celebrations of Hizbullah.”

The Saudi paper al-Watan pointed out that Hizbullah has yet to disarm and that UN Resolution 1701, which ended the war, has not been implemented.

Several Lebanese blogs criticized the government fawning over Kuntar and pointed out that far more Lebanese prisoners remain languishing in Syrian jails for the “crime” of calling for democracy and the government was doing nothing on their behalf.

 

GERMAN PRESS: “A DISASTROUS DEAL FOR ISRAEL”

As I pointed out in the previous dispatch, the prisoner swap deal was brokered by Germany, but German media commentators criticized Israel for allowing itself to be blackmailed.

The center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote:

“The macabre Israeli-Lebanese deal, which saw living Lebanese prisoners being swapped for the bodies of Israeli soldiers, is a major success for the Shia militia. The prisoner exchange shows who really has the power in Lebanon and who can force archenemy Israel to make concessions: It is Hizbullah, it is Nasrallah. That elevates the radicals’ image in Lebanon, in the Arab world and in the Muslim world.”

“A MACABRE DEAL THAT WEAKENS ISRAEL”

The center-right daily Die Welt wrote:

“That Hizbullah is celebrating the macabre deal as a triumph is understandable – but it is also psychopathic. It shows that human suffering doesn’t count in the fight against Israel and that murder pays. In such an atmosphere, how can one hope for peace – and for the trust necessary for an agreement? Hizbullah uses the fight against Israel to gain power in Lebanon, with the approval of both Syria and Iran.

“The problem is not just that the unequal prisoner swap allows Hizbullah to fudge its designation as a terror group by becoming a recognized party to a war. Rather, it means that terror, kidnapping and murder can be profitable. This situation weakens the Israeli deterrent, rewards abductions and provides imprisoned terrorists with the hope that they might soon be freed.”

“OLMERT HAS ABANDONED A VITAL PRINCIPLE”

The business daily Financial Times Deutschland said:

“When it comes to prisoner exchanges, there was one aspect that was always seen as non-negotiable by the Israeli government: Israel never frees a terrorist who has blood on his hands, no matter what is being offered in return. A country under threat like Israel cannot get around upholding this convention.

“Nevertheless, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has now abandoned this principle by freeing a prominent terrorist in order to secure the remains of the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbullah. What the prime minister wants to present as a triumph of negotiation, is in truth a sign of weakness: Israel can be blackmailed, kidnappings are worthwhile.”

“ISRAEL TURNED OVER A BRUTAL MURDERER AND ITS DIGNITY”

Germany’s leading news weekly Der Spiegel, said:

“Some had hoped that Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev still lived. But on Wednesday, a deal negotiated by German intelligence led to Hizbullah handing over two coffins with their remains. In exchange, Israel turned over a brutal murderer – and a bit of its dignity.”

“THE DEAL WAS VITAL FOR THE MORALE OF ISRAEL’S ARMY”

The left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung opined:

“The image of a country that will do anything to bring its soldiers home, dead or alive, has been restored. That is vital for the morale of Israel’s army, because who would like to be sent to fight in a foreign country if there was a risk that he or she would be forgotten there? Nevertheless, the unequal trade has made Israel more vulnerable. The government in Jerusalem has shown that it can be coerced.”

***

GERMAN JEWS AGAINST HIZBULLAH CONTACTS AFTER BEIRUT CELEBRATIONS

Dieter Graumann, vice-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said that German politicians and analysts should recognize Hizbullah as a terrorist organization and eschew contacts with its leaders. Graumann added Hizbullah’s “cynical celebrations” over the reciprocal release of Samir Kuntar and four other terrorists showed the Lebanese group “is a ruthless terror organization whose activists and supporters are no freedom fighters but rather cold-blooded murderers.”

 

ISRAELI PRESS CRITICIZE DEAL

In its editorial today, Israel’s best-selling newspaper Yediot Ahronot, writes:

“When we say that Gilad Shalit must be released at ‘any price,’ we mean the entire price that we will pay. We will set murderers free. We will cause many of them to go back to killing us. We will give impetus to encouraging terrorism and we will go back to dying on buses, in malls and elsewhere. This is as insane as it is immoral.”

The paper continues: “If we do not change the rules of their brutal game, we will continue to be kidnapped and blackmailed. We must try and release Gilad Shalit at any price but the price must be theirs.”

***

“HIZBULLAH BETTER AT PR THAN ISRAEL”

Ma’ariv suggests that “Hizbullah is much better than the IDF and the other official Israeli bodies in information battles.”

***

“LEBANON AND HIZBULLAH ARE ONE, AND ISRAEL MUST FIGHT AS SUCH”

The Jerusalem Post writes: “A vital lesson Israeli strategists must draw from this nauseating display of perverted unity: Lebanon and Hizbullah are one. If, heaven forbid, there is another war, the IDF must wage it with ferocity – not on Hizbullah’s terms, but across the Lebanese battlefield.

“Ever since the June 1982 Lebanon War, the Israeli military has allowed itself to be hamstrung in targeting Lebanon. International media coverage of that war, often manipulative and tendentious, along with Western – particularly U.S. – opposition to striking at the country’s infrastructure, made vanquishing our enemies impossible.

“Even among Israelis there was the lingering sense that Lebanon was essentially a peace-loving society taken hostage by violent, unrepresentative factions.

“Ultimately, that assessment reigned supreme, inhibiting the IDF from finishing Yasser Arafat off. Instead the PLO was merely ousted from its Beirut and southern Lebanon strongholds and exiled to Tunisia.

“... Artificial distinctions between ‘Lebanese’ and ‘Hizbullah’ targets were swept away by Wednesday’s display of barbaric unity. Lebanon was revealed in its hostile unanimity. If new conflict comes, Israel must internalize that unanimity of hate-filled purpose, and defeat it decisively.”

 

“IT HAS BEEN 30 YEARS YET YOU STILL CANNOT DISTINGUISH BETWEEN A NATIONAL HERO AND A CHILD-KILLER”

LETTER TO THE LEBANESE PEOPLE

(Published in the Israeli press in Hebrew.)

Israeli Uri Orbach writes an open letter to the people of Lebanon, whose national hero is a child-killer:

Israel has no disagreement over borders with you, the Lebanese people, yet we certainly have a big dispute when it comes to your moral boundaries. We identified the bodies of our Udi and Eldad within a few hours. And how about you? For 30 years now you have failed to identify who your Samir Kuntar is.

It has been 30 years yet you still cannot distinguish between a national hero and a child-killer. For you, it’s enough that someone killed a Jew, even if it happens to be a young girl from Nahariya, in order for you to welcome him with great honor.

You are celebrating your “victory” and show contempt to our pain. One more triumph like this and you shall be lost. While going from one victory to the next, you are stuck with your misery and fanaticism.

With every proud display and rally for your heroes, you are being taken over the by Hizbullah gang. The fire coming out of this bramble has been eating up Lebanon’s cedars for years now...

 

HIZBULLAH MOVES INTO “EVERY TOWN” IN SOUTH LEBANON

Hizbullah is bolstering its presence in south Lebanese villages with non-Shia majorities by buying land and using it to build military positions and store missiles and launchers, The Jerusalem Post reports, citing intelligence sources. The decision to build infrastructure in non-Shia villages – where Hizbullah has less support – is part of the group’s post-war strategy under which it has mostly abandoned the “nature reserves,” forested areas in southern Lebanon where it kept most of its Katyusha rocket launchers before the 2006 war with Israel.

Behind the change is the mandate given to UNIFIL by the United Nations after the war. According to the mandate, the peacekeeping force can patrol freely throughout southern Lebanon but cannot enter villages or cities without being accompanied by soldiers from the Lebanese Armed Forces, which regularly tips off Hizbullah ahead of raids.

Hizbullah has trebled its pre-war missile arsenal, Israeli sources said. It now has some 40,000 short and medium-range missiles inside Lebanon, and UN Security Council Resolution 1701 – the resolution that put an end to the 2006 and provided an expanded mandate for UNIFIL – has been completely ineffective in stopping arms from pouring in to Hizbullah from Syria.

Israel has criticized the Italian and French governments, whose soldiers are meant to stop the smuggling, for not doing so. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni raised the matter last week with visiting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, whose country currently commands the UNIFIL forces; and Defense Minister Ehud Barak phoned French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to discuss the issue.

Israel is dismayed that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is presently “hugging Assad, not scolding him” about helping Hizbullah with its arms build-up.

 

HAMAS SAYS IT HAS LEARNED FROM HIZBULLAH DEAL

Hamas has said it will harden its stance in negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit, its young Israeli hostage. Hamas leaders in Gaza told journalists that they would now “insist absolutely” on the release of prisoners who had killed Israeli civilians, and are serving life sentences.

“The deal with Hizbullah proves that patience and fortitude will lead to us seeing celebrations here (in Gaza) similar to those in Lebanon,” said one.

(In other words, by its questionable deal in which Israel received only two corpses from Hizbullah, it will be now be much harder for Israel to secure the release of a live prisoner, Gilad Shalit.)

***

A Hamas cell that was plotting suicide attacks inside Israel with chemical explosives was arrested in May, Israeli security officials revealed last week.

The cell, the officials said, was involved in manufacturing a bomb belt that was discovered in a Tel Aviv apartment on Yom Kippur, last September, and was designated for use in a suicide attack in the city.

During the investigation, the four cell members (who all come from Nablus) confessed to having built a laboratory in a Nablus apartment building where they experimented bomb building with different chemical materials, such as sulfur and nitric acid.

The four said they used an instruction video that was prepared by a senior Hamas bomb maker who was killed in 2002 during clashes with IDF troops.

 

BRITAIN BANS HIZBULLAH; GORDON BROWN TO ADDRESS KNESSET

The British parliament last Tuesday ratified a government decision earlier this month to outlaw Hizbullah’s military wing and accused the Iranian-backed Lebanese group of supporting terrorism in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

“It will now be a criminal offence for British citizens to belong to, fundraise and encourage support for the military wing of the organization,” the British Home Office (interior ministry) said in a statement.

The Iranians have been accused by the British and others of using Hizbullah as “sub-contractors” to carry out terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Gordon Brown tomorrow becomes the first British Prime Minister to address the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. Brown has been a lifelong sympathizer with the Jewish state, unlike various other senior British politicians.

 

ISRAEL MAKES ARRESTS IN AL-QAEDA PLOT AGAINST BUSH

On Friday Israel released the names of six Arabs – two of them Israeli citizens and the other four Palestinian residents of eastern Jerusalem – who had tried to set up an al-Qaeda cell in Israel, and planned to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush during his visit to Israel in May.

Israel’s Shin Bet counter-intelligence agency said one of the suspects – a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – had used his cell phone to film helicopters at a sports stadium in Jerusalem that was used as a landing site for Bush. The suspect then posted queries on websites frequented by al-Qaeda operatives, asking for guidance on how to shoot down helicopters.

The Shin Bet said personal computers seized from several of the suspects contained bomb-making instructions and emails to al-Qaeda operatives abroad.

***

ISRAEL ARABS “SPIED FOR AL-QAEDA”

In a separate development, earlier this month Israel indicted two of its Bedouin Arab citizens for links to al-Qaeda and for planning attacks inside the Jewish state. The two, from the Negev town of Rahat, were charged on July 9 in the Beersheba District Court in southern Israel.

The indictment filed against them accuses them of gathering information and sending al-Qaeda members in Saudi Arabia and Iraq details of targets in Israel for possible large-scale attack. These included Ben-Gurion Airport, the Ashkelon power plant, the Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv, the Beersheba central bus station and targets in Eilat.

Both suspects have confessed to the charges, according to news reports.

Last December, two Israeli Arabs from Jaljulya in the “Galilee Triangle” in the north of the country were arrested for aiding al-Qaeda with information on Israeli targets.

 

A DIFFERENT TREATMENT OF PRISONERS

Samir Kuntar’s and the other terrorists healthy appearance upon release demonstrates how Arab prisoners are treated well in Israel, in complete contrast to the treatment of Israeli prisoners by Hizbullah and Hamas. In prison, Kuntar received frequent Red Cross and NGO visits, completed a social science degree courtesy of Israel’s tax-payer funded Open University, he got married and he received conjugal visits.

Hizbullah and Hamas, on the other hand, have psychologically tortured the families of their hostages, releasing only occasional pieces of misleading information, and have not even been willing to provide “proof of life” let alone allow Red Cross and NGO visits.

Indeed even Lebanese government ministers have lied. For example, in 2006 then Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh said the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, were “in good condition” when at least one was already dead and the other very seriously injured.

 

P.A. BLOOD LIBEL: PRISONERS ARE USED FOR NAZI-LIKE MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS

The Palestinian Authority is intensifying its longstanding blood libel campaign against Israel, falsely accusing Israel of conducting horrific Nazi-like medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners. These fabrications have been featured repeatedly in the Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which is under the direct authority of “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas.

Among the examples from this month alone:

“[Israel] is instigating slow death... doctors in Israeli prison clinics use the prisoners as guinea pigs for clinical drug testing under the pretense of ‘treatment.’” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 6, 2008)

“Many of the male and female inmates received injections from needles they had not seen before, and which caused their hair to fall out permanently... others lost their sanity, or their mental condition is constantly deteriorating... and some are suffering from infertility.” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 4, 2008)

“The doctors in these prison clinics are using the prisoners as guinea pigs for clinical testing of drugs and treatment-methods.” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 3, 2008)

Abd Al-Nasser Piroanah, the head of the Statistical Department in the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoner and Released Prisoner Affairs, said that “the first to use prisoners for medical experiments were the Nazis, who did it in the detention centers of the German army during WWII.”

For further coverage of this, see this PMW bulletin.

 

HEBREW UNIVERSITY TO READMIT CONVICTED TERRORIST TO THE SCENE OF HIS CRIME

A radical leftist professor at Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem says he will sponsor a convicted Arab terrorist who stole bomb-making materials from his lab to be allowed back to work in the very same lab.

In 2002, at the height of the wave of Palestinian suicide bomb attacks against Israeli civilians, Hebrew University doctoral student Adel Hadmi stole 160 liters of acetone – a chemical which is used for making the explosive acetone peroxide – from the Laboratory for Medicinal Chemistry at the Hebrew University where he worked.

Hadmi was convicted of being a member of a terror cell that planned terror attacks against Israelis, and of recruiting other Arabs to the cell. He has now been released from prison, and Prof. Amiram Goldblum has offered him the chance to once again undertake doctoral studies at the very same laboratory the acetone was stolen from.

Goldblum is one of the most radical founders of the “Peace Now” group. Others in “Peace Now” broke with Goldblum after he defended Saddam Hussein’s Scud attacks on Israel. In 1990, after an Arab stabbed and killed three Israelis in the Baka neighborhood of Jerusalem where Goldblum lives, Goldblum’s neighbors threw stones through his window after he expressed statements apparently “understanding” the murderer.

The laboratory’s previous director, Prof. Avi Domb, has started a campaign to stop Goldblum readmitting Hadmi.

 

A MODERATE! AT LAST!

“I admire Bin Laden, but would not have sanctioned the 9/11 attacks – except for those on the Pentagon, CIA HQ, and the White House.”

-- Lebanese Sunni cleric Sheikh Maher Hamoud, the imam of Al-Quds mosque in Sidon (Lebanon), speaking to NBN TV on July 7, 2008.

[The above item was first published by myself on the National Review Online on Tuesday, July 15, 2008]

 

PALESTINIAN COURT SENTENCES “COLLABORATORS” TO EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD

On Tuesday, a Palestinian military court (headed by the “moderate” government of President Abbas) sentenced two Palestinians to death by firing squad for supposedly “collaborating” with Israel.

Human rights groups have sharply criticized Palestinian military courts, saying trials are unfair because there is no right of appeal, and arguing they should not try civilians.

At least 65 Palestinians have been sentenced to death by PA courts since 1995. 13 have been executed by hanging or firing squad. Many others were killed while they were in detention, in hospital, on their way to court, or even while they were inside courtrooms.

(... as not covered properly in most western newspapers.)

 

IRAN UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCE AGAINST TEACHER TRADE UNIONIST

For details of the death sentence, click here.

I also attach below an article by leading Iranian journalist and Middle East expert Amir Taheri about how Iran’s outlawed trade union movement is growing in importance despite the regime’s brutal attempts to crack down on it.

It comes as little surprise, but is nevertheless disappointing, that it has been left to the populist New York Post to run this editorial, while the supposedly liberal New York Times is more interested in criticizing America and her democratic allies. (Amir Taheri is a long-time subscriber to this email list, as are some of the German newspaper editorialists I quoted earlier in the dispatch.)

-- Tom Gross

THE TERRORISTS WIN

[All notes below by Tom Gross]

This morning Israel has begun the process of a “prisoner swap” with the Lebanese political and terror organization Hizbullah.

However, Israel is receiving only dead soldiers, kidnapped and murdered by Hizbullah in an unprovoked cross border raid into Israel in 2006. By contrast, Hizbullah is getting five live prisoners including the notorious child killer Samir Kuntar.

While people in Israel are relieved that the families of the young kidnapped conscripts Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser can finally bury their loved ones, there is despondency and even outrage by many about the terms of the deal the Israeli government has agreed to.

Israel is demonstrating to terror groups that hostage-taking works -- and it works even when terrorists kill their hostages before handing them back.

Times have changed from the days when Israeli special forces crossed half a continent to mount a daring raid to rescue hostages at Entebbe.

Now many countries are negotiating with terrorists. For example, in Iraq in 2005, Germany paid $5 million for the freedom of a kidnapped aid worker. Italy and France have also paid ransoms in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and it is widely rumored that the British government, on behalf the state-owned broadcaster the BBC, paid a considerable sum of money to Hamas to secure the release of kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnson last year, as did Fox News to secure the release of two of its employees kidnapped in Gaza a year earlier.

Such capitulation to terrorists will only serve to encourage terrorist groups to kidnap more innocent people.

Hizbullah and other extremists are today the heroes of many in the Arab world.

 

CHILD KILLER

Kuntar, now 45, took an Israeli family hostage in the northern Israeli coastal town of Nahariya, shot and killed Danny Haran in front of his 4-year-old daughter Einat. He then crushed her head with his rifle butt until she was dead. Danny’s wife managed to hide from Kuntar in the attic with her two-year-old daughter Yael, whom she accidentally suffocated while trying to keep the toddler quiet. Kuntar also shot dead a policeman who tried to rescue the little girl.

Kuntar has admitted this was a carefully planned operation. He told the court during his trial that he and his accomplices traveled by a rubber dinghy from Lebanon with “instructions to avoid opening fire, to take hostages and bring them to Lebanon.” “I was commander of the cell,” he said.

In 1985, the PLO seized the Achille Lauro cruise ship to demand Kuntar’s release. An elderly wheelchair-bound American Jew, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and tossed overboard, left to die in the Mediterranean with his wheelchair.

During his time in prison Kuntar married Kifah Kayyal, an Israeli Arab woman from Acre residing in Ramallah, who was serving a life sentence for her terrorist activities as part of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP).

While in prison, Kuntar was reportedly a gang leader among inmates, and other prisoners feared him.

Kuntar has never expressed remorse for the killings and recently vowed to continue fighting Israel once released.

This morning, the BBC, CNN International, and France 24 networks have all described Kuntar as “a fighter” and have not properly explained his crimes in many of their reports.

 

KUNTAR’S FREEDOM PARTY

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah welcomed his returning comrades by saying he was “more determined than ever” to wage war on Israel.

“My oath and pledge,” he wrote in a letter printed in a Palestinian newspaper, “is that my place will be at the battlefront, which is soaked in the sweat of your giving, and the blood of the most beloved among men, and that I shall continue down the path, until complete victory.”

Kuntar is scheduled to be flown to Beirut in a Lebanese Army helicopter later today, where he will be warmly received by the heads of the Lebanese government, and festively welcomed in an enormous street party Hizbullah has arranged for him. Lebanon has officially declared a national holiday.

In Israel, by contrast, the mood is one of mourning. Nothing better illustrates the gulf between democratic Israel and some of its neighbors in their attitude towards murderers and the sanctity of human life

 

IS THIS THE KIND OF MAN THEY WANT AS THEIR IDOL?

In an editorial, the Israeli tabloid Yediot Ahronot says, “In releasing Kuntar we are paying a heavy price in that the Israeli book of laws does not include the death sentence.”

The Jerusalem Post notes: “The Lebanese people and government – and those others in the Arab world, including many Palestinians, say they are delighted by Kuntar’s release. They might want to ask themselves whether this monster is worthy of such glorification. Is he the kind of man they want as their idol? And if so, what does that say about them? Kuntar has never expressed remorse, and, according to the Palestinian Authority newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida, wrote a letter recently to Nasrallah promising not to abandon the jihad against Israel.”

Yesterday’s Yediot Ahronot also showed the picture that many Israelis feared: the abandoned Atzmona synagogue in Gaza now being used as a terrorist training base.

 

SENIOR PA OFFICIAL: NASRALLAH FORCED YOU TO YOUR KNEES

The signing of a deal with Hizbullah and resumption of negotiations with Hamas for the release of Gilad Shalit has infuriated moderates among the Palestinian leadership. “You proved that Israel only understands force,” said one of the more moderate members of the PA. “We, who denounce the use of terror, need to beg for the release of prisoners?”

 

OTHER CHILD KILLERS TO BE GIVEN HEROES’ BURIALS IN LEBANON

Israel is also expected today to release the remains of several Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists. These include (1) the remains of terrorists who carried out the Ma’alot massacre of 1974, in which members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine murdered 22 Israeli high-school pupils in the town of Ma’alot in northern Israel.

(2) The bodies of the terrorists who carried out the Coastal Road Massacre in 1978, including the remains of Dalal Mughrabi, the leader of the attack. In that assault, members of Fatah hijacked a bus on Israel’s coastal road and killed 37 civilians, including 13 children.

(3) The bodies of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists responsible for the attack on Kibbutz Matzuba in 2002, in which six Israeli civilians were murdered. The terrorists had been working in conjunction with Hizbullah.

***

AMONG THE WORST TERRORIST ATTACKS IN ISRAEL’S HISTORY

The PA said in its request that it wanted to “honor” Mughrabi (see paragraph 2 above) by holding a large funeral for her in Ramallah on the West Bank. Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official closely associated with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, described Mughrabi as “the first Palestinian woman to carry out one of the most courageous operations in Israel.”

“We want to turn Dalal’s funeral into a national wedding, a major celebration,” the Fatah official said. “The operation she carried out off the shores of her hometown of Jaffa was heroic and exemplary. She will always be remembered as a symbol for the Palestinian women’s struggle.”

It was among the worst terrorist attacks in Israel’s history.

The Sabbath massacre came on the eve of Israeli Premier Menachem Begin’s scheduled departure for Washington in 1978, where he was to confer with President Carter on the Egyptian-Israeli peace talks.

Here is how it was reported in 1978 in Time magazine.

 

GERMAN BROKERS

Today’s prisoner exchange deal was brokered by UN-appointed mediator Gerhard Konrad. Konrad holds a senior post in Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, BND. Konrad learned Arabic in Damascus as part of his intelligence training, according to Israeli sources.

These sources tell me that Germany maintains the best foreign intelligence network in the Middle East, which was built up during the days of the Stasi, the former ruthless East German spy agency.

 

NOAM SHALIT: DON’T FREE PALESTINIANS WHILE MY SON IS STILL HELD IN GAZA

Today’s lopsided exchange with Hizbullah also complicates the negotiations for the release of another kidnapped Israeli, Gilad Shalit, seized by Hamas in Israel when he was 19 years old in June 2006 and held in Gaza since. Hamas is now demanding the release of some of its most bloody terrorists for Shalit’s life.

On Monday Shalit’s father Noam lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over a plan to release dozens of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Olmert reportedly agreed to free the prisoners following a request by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for “a goodwill gesture” when they met on Sunday at Nicolas Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Forum in Paris.

Shalit also said that that Abbas, who is wrongly described by western media as a moderate, did nothing to secure his son’s release during the first year after his kidnap, before Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip.

THE INTERNET MURDERER

Among the prisoners Abbas says Israel should release are female prisoners, including Amana Muna, who while pretending to be a teenage Israeli girl, lured Israeli teenager Ofir Nahum over the Internet to a meeting point near Jerusalem where he was brutally murdered five years ago.

Muna, who is serving a life term, has recently been transferred to another prison after she severely beat up other female prisoners.

Senior former members of Israel’s Shabak security service have strongly criticized Olmert for today’s deal with Hizbullah and for his announcements that he will release Palestinian prisoners.

One said that the many previous releases of Palestinian prisoners failed to significantly improve the standing of Palestinian leaders but instead served to bolster the manpower of forces that act against Israel. He also related the frustration that Israeli security forces feel when they see that after expending tremendous efforts around the clock to capture terrorists they are then released in gesture politics.

 

FINAL PLEA TO PM BY FAMILIES OF 12 MISSING IRANIAN JEWS GOES UNANSWERED

The request by the families of 12 missing Iranian Jews asking Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to ask Hizbullah to supply information about their whereabouts, has gone unanswered.

The 12 Jews were arrested in the 1990s as they sought to escape from Iran across the border with Pakistan and they are believed to be held in Iranian prisons.

Among the missing Jews is Babak Teherani, the son of Los Angeles parents, Ilana Cohen-Teherani and Yousef Shaouliian Teherani. A Muslim neighbor from Tehran, who later joined the Teherani family in Los Angeles, has testified that he saw the boy, and the other 11 missing Jews, alive and well in a dark and damp Tehran prison in 1996.

The center-left Olmert cabinet has been criticized in Israel for not even considering the fates of the wives of the Iranian Jews, while paying much attention to the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. They point out that the release of live hostages should take precedence over dead ones.

 

85 VICTIMS OF HIZBULLAH ATTACKS FILE UNPRECEDENTED CIVIL SUIT AGAINST AMERICAN EXPRESS BANK IN NEW YORK

Eighty-five American, Israeli and Canadian victims of Hizbullah terror attacks on Monday filed an historic civil action in the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan against American Express Bank Ltd. (“AMEX Bank”) and the Lebanese-Canadian Bank SAL (“LCB”). The suit, Licci v. American Express Bank, requests $650 million in compensatory damages and an unspecified sum of punitive damages.

Amex Bank, headquartered in New York, serves as one of LCB’s correspondent banks in the United States, and in that capacity processes LCB’s dollar transactions. LCB’s main office is in Beirut, and it has branches throughout Lebanon and a branch in Canada.

The plaintiffs, whose family members were killed or who were themselves injured by rocket attacks fired at northern Israel by Hizbullah in the summer of 2006, allege that AMEX Bank and LCB unlawfully executed millions of dollars in wire transfers for Hizbullah between 2004 and 2006. The plaintiffs assert that Hizbullah used the funds transferred by Amex Bank and LCB to prepare and carry out rocket attacks on Israeli cities and kibbutzim between July 12 and August 14, 2006.

 

BARAK: UN RESOLUTION ON THE LEBANON WAR IS A FAILURE

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak yesterday branded the United Nations resolution that ended the Second Lebanon War as a failure, saying that it had not achieved the aim of disarming Hizbullah. Barak told his Labor Party that the resolution “had not worked, does not work now and will probably never work.”

Israel has complained that despite the resolution’s call for a strict ban on arms shipments to Hizbullah, the group has rearmed and now has a significantly larger rocket arsenal than it did during the war. The European-led “peacekeepers” in southern Lebanon have done virtually nothing to prevent Hizbullah from rearming, as they were supposed to do in accordance with the UN resolution.

***

BREAKING THE CEASEFIRE

Meanwhile, almost completely unreported in the international media, missiles are continuing to be fired from the Gaza strip into Israel, despite the supposed ceasefire.

Among the attacks, on Sunday, several mortar shells fired from Gaza landed near Kibbutz Nahal Oz in southern Israel. On Saturday, a Qassam rocket landed near the community of Shaar Hanegev.

Hamas yesterday announced it had arrested two Fatah members who had launched the rockets towards Israel.

***

PALESTINIAN SHOOTS TWO ISRAELI COPS IN OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM

A police manhunt is continuing after a Palestinian gunman hiding in a Muslim cemetery shot two Israeli policemen on patrol in the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday night. One of the shot Israelis remains in critical condition and doctors say his chances of survival are slim.

 

“HIZBULLAH TRYING TO TRACK IAF PLANES”

The Iranian and Syrian militaries have assisted Hizbullah in setting up advanced radar installations on Mt. Sannine in Lebanon’s Beka Valley which can be used to track Israeli planes from the Mediterranean Sea in the West to Damascus in the East, the Azerbaijan-based Trend News Agency reported earlier this week.

Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are suspected of having direct involvement in helping Hizbullah train to use these systems.

 

HIZBULLAH’S TRIUMPH

I attach below an analysis of the long-term implications of prisoner exchanges, by lawyers Justus Reid Weiner and Diane Morrison.

Among their points:

* Prisoner exchange is governed by international humanitarian law as detailed in the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions (1949). At the end of a conflict the states implement an exchange of captured soldiers. In the interim, the captured soldiers are entitled to the status of Prisoners of War, who must be provided with adequate facilities and care as well as communication with the outside world.

* Israel’s enemies, using proxy guerilla organizations such as the Iranian-proxy group Hizbullah, operate outside the legal framework of the laws of war – routinely committing war crimes such as indiscriminate attacks (the deliberate targeting of civilians as such) and perfidy (disguising combatants as protected individuals such as civilians). The organizations’ fighters are unlawful combatants who are not entitled to the protected status of POWs, and are subject to prosecution as war criminals.

* By exchanging prisoners with the proxy organizations as if they were law-abiding states, Israel can be seen as upgrading the status of the organizations’ unlawful combatants. Such exchanges afford them the same rights as lawful soldiers, without demanding from their leaders the reciprocal obligations. At the same time, Israel downgrades the rights of its own captured soldiers by overlooking the organizations’ systematic depravation of POW rights for Israeli soldiers under the Geneva Conventions.

-- Tom Gross