Egypt Opening Border into Gaza Spells More Trouble

Egypt To Open Border with Gaza Without Israeli Involvement
Move Likely to Mean Flow of Weaponry by Hamas, other Terrorist Groups

• Border to be opened “in a continuous way”
• Rafah Opening to enable build-up of terrorist “military machine”
• Announcement comes just after Hamas-Fatah deal reached

Rafah border between Egypt and Israel.  Click to Enlarge.

Washington, April 29 – Egypt plans to open its border with Gaza on a permanent basis, allowing in people and goods through Rafah without supervision by Israeli authorities, Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi said Friday. The decision could mean serious security problems for Israel because of the increased ease of transporting weapons into Gaza, which has been under the control of Iran-backed Hamas.

The announcement came two days after Hamas and Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party reached a tentative power-sharing agreement to be signed next week in Cairo. The deal was brokered by Egypt, and an Egyptian team is expected to travel to Gaza to help implement it.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Menha Barkhoum said details of the Rafah opening were still being hammered out but that “We’ll open the crossing point for individuals in a continuous way.”

The reason for opening the border, al-Arabi said, was to decrease suffering on the part of people living in Gaza, despite a statement just days ago by the deputy head of the Red Cross in Gaza that there is NO humanitarian crisis in the area.

Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, when it took control of the area in a bloody coup against Fatah. Hamas called for opening the Rafah border on Feb. 11, a day after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left office.

Egypt’s al-Arabi also said recently that Egypt wants to “open a new page” with Iran, renewing full diplomatic relations which ended with Iran’s 1979 revolution. In turn, Iran has said it wants “further expansion of relations” with Egypt, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said.

A senior Israeli official expressed concern over Egypt’s decision to open Rafah and exclude Israel from monitoring the border. The Israeli official said Hamas already has used northern Sinai to build “a dangerous military machine.” A newly porous Rafah border would help Hamas bolster its anti-Israel weaponry. "What power could they amass if Egypt was no longer acting to prevent that build up?" the official said.

In the past, Egyptian security worked closely with Israel to control the border. Now, Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, reportedly said that Egypt “will allow up to 300 people from the Gaza Strip to exit each day."

Hamas’ charter calls for destroying Israel and killing all Jews. Article seven of the charter states, “Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! …there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”

Since January, Hamas and other terrorist groups have fired 328 rockets, missiles and mortars at Israel. Earlier this month, Hamas targeted a children’s school bus, hitting the vehicle with an anti-tank missile and resulting in the death of a 16-year-old boy.

By Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi

Psalm 83 with Ezekiel 38, Isaiah 17 and Zephaniah 2
Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

God's Answer to the Arabs...

Zephaniah 2:8-11 (New King James Version)

⁸ “ I have heard the reproach of Moab,
      And the insults of the people of Ammon,
      With which they have reproached My people,
      And made arrogant threats against their borders.
       ⁹ Therefore, as I live,”
      Says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel,

      “ Surely Moab shall be like Sodom,
      And the people of Ammon like Gomorrah—
      Overrun with weeds and saltpits,
      And a perpetual desolation.
      The residue of My people shall plunder them,
      And the remnant of My people shall possess them.”
       ¹⁰ This they shall have for their pride,
      Because they have reproached and made arrogant threats
      Against the people of the LORD of hosts.
       ¹¹ The LORD will be awesome to them,
      For He will reduce to nothing all the gods of the earth;
      People shall worship Him,
      Each one from his place,
      Indeed all the shores of the nations.
     

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

So Much for a Peace Partner...

PA Carries out Ahmadinejad’s Threat and Wipes Israel Off Map
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

The Palestinian Authority has carried out Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map” and literally has done so by displaying maps of “Palestine” covering all of Israel at the same time its leaders talk about “two states for two people.”

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah movement that controls the PA in Judea and Samaria, has in effect established a “one-state” solution in Fatah offices and in Palestinian Authority schools and offices.

The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented that professional unions and private PA groups display maps showing a rifle and a quill over “Palestine,” from the Lebanese border in the north to Eilat in the south and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

The maps have been circulated at the same time Abbas campaigns for international recognition of the Palestinian Authority based on the borders of Israel as they existed between 1949 and 1967, during which time Jordan, which had been mandated by the United Nations to rule part of Judea and Samaria, took over and occupied the entire region, including large swaths of Jerusalem, after the War of Independence in 1948.

Jordan surrendered the areas in the Six-Day War in 1967, later relinquishing all claim to it, and Egypt and Syria did the same in Gaza and the Golan Heights respectively.

The maps declare Abbas’ intentions of making what is often termed the “1967 borders” (actually armistice lines that were never recognized) the temporary outline of a would-be Palestinian Authority country, even though – as PMW noted – U.S. President Barack Obama has criticized such maps as a security threat to Israel, in the same category as the threat from terrorist groups who want to destroy Israel.

"I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security,” he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2008. “Not when there are still voices that deny the Holocaust. Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence."

Nevertheless, the PA’s version “Palestine,” as illustrated on the map with a rifle and quill, was displayed last week at a meeting of the General Union of Palestinian Writers, PMW reported.

The Palestinian Authority has embedded in its school system the ”one-state” idea of a Palestine – without Israel – for years. As far back as 2003, school posters have displayed the Palestinian flag over a map erasing Israel.

The policy has continued unchanged despite statements by Abbas to President Obama that the PA has ceased anti-Israel incitement. Earlier this year, a map was hung in the principal’s office in a PA school which erased Israel and replaced it with "Palestine", with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flag flying over Israel.



Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

God's Word against Egypt and Syria

From: www.britannica.com
Aswān, also spelled Assuan or Assouan, Greek Syene, city, capital of Aswān muḥāfaẓah (governorate), Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile River just below the First Cataract. It faces the island of Elephantine (modern Jazīrat Aswān), on which stand the ruins of the ancient city of Yeb. Aswān was the southern frontier of pharaonic Egypt. Its local quarries supplied granite for many ancient Egyptian monuments and are still operated. On the Nile’s eastern bank was the site of the ancient city of Swen (ancient Egyptian: “the Mart”), whence came the Greek Syene and the Arabic Aswan.

Ezekiel 29:9-10 (New King James Version)

⁹ And the land of Egypt shall become desolate and waste; then they will know that I am the LORD, because he (Pharaoh) said, ‘The River is mine, and I have made it.’ ¹⁰ Indeed, therefore, I am against you and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from *Migdol to Syene*, as far as the border of Ethiopia. (*This is the length of the Nile in Egypt--destroying the dam would wipe out most of Egypt)

Isaiah 17:1 (New King James Version)

 Proclamation Against Syria
¹ The burden against Damascus. “ Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap."

This is the recorded Word of the Lord against Egypt and Syria. With Egypt's amassed power and might, the only way for Israel to defeat Egypt and fulfill prophesy, would be to take out the Aswan Dam, located near the ancient city of Syene. From YNet News "Indeed, Lieberman’s declaration that we may bomb Egypt’s Aswan dam was a threat that we could have done without. However, let’s not forget that in one of late President Sadat’s memoirs written in 1970, before Nasser’s death and while the dam was nearing its completion, Nasser himself said that Egypt can no longer embark on wars, as it will be vulnerable to an attack on a venture that would ruin the whole of Egypt if destroyed."

The only way for Israel to defeat Syria would be to take out the city of Damascus. We are living in the Last Days, and we need to be in constant prayer!
Thanks to Jerry Golden from the Golden Report for bringing this to light.

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

NO Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza-Red Cross

 The Gaza Strip is not suffering from a humanitarian crisis, the deputy head of the Red Cross in Gaza said this week.
Mathilde Redmatn, who had been assigned to Congo and Colombia in the past, said that the “fabric of life” in the region was problematic.
“There are two peoples, one living under closure and one living under daily rocket fire, which violates international law,” she said. Her comments were made available on Thursday by the IDF Spokesman’s Office.
“There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. If you go to thesupermarket, there are products. There are restaurants and a nice beach. The problem is mainly in maintenance of infrastructure and in access to goods, concrete for example,” Redmatn said.
“Israel has the legitimate right to protect the civilian population; this right should be balanced with the rights of 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip,” she said.
Redmatn condemned Gazan rocket attacks on southern Israel, while also calling on the government to allow more materials to enter the Strip.
“Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip is against international law because it is directed at civilians,” she said. “We conduct confidential or bilateral dialogue with Hamas on the matter. As time passes, the dialogue also develops.”
She said the Red Crosswould continue to seek access to abducted IDF soldier Gilad Schalit – who will begin his sixth year of captivity on June 25 – but stressed that the organization lacked the capability to “force anything on Hamas.”
The Red Cross and the IDF are in close contact to “coordinate the entry of goods into Gaza and the entry and exit of people, sometimes our personnel and sometimes patients who are going to Israel to receive medical care,” she said.
The organization is now seeking to strengthen its relationship with soldiers stationed at the Erez border crossing and around the Gaza Strip, the official said.
“Our goal is not to negotiate peace, but to ensure the well-being of the civilian population,” Redmatn said. “We understand and recognize Israel’s right to security, but it needs to maintain the balance between that and the right of Palestinians living in Gaza to a living and to proper medical care. Of course this is also the responsibility of Hamas to its citizens and therefore we also have relations with them.”

IsraelNationalNews.com

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

No US Support for Unilateral Declaration of Palestinian Statehood

God is orchestrating all that is happening in this troubled region...according to HIS timetable, not Obama's...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told NPR’s Charlie Rose on Wednesday that the Obama administration does not support a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Only a day earlier, speaking in Tunisia, Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud ‘Abbas reaffirmed plans to turn to the United Nations General Assembly by September for international support for statehood, claiming that such a move is consistent with President Obama’s own timetable. Clinton said the president will continue to pressure both Israel and the Palestinians, stressing that “negotiations are the only way, but more than that, they are an immediate need.” Clinton also called on Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad to end the violence against protestors demonstrating against his regime. She demanded an end to the “arbitrary arrests, detentions and torture of prisoners.” Clinton warned that Iran is seeking to benefit from the regional unrest and said that it is Iran itself that is the biggest threat in the region.

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

PLO: Israel's Peace Plan is 'Re-occupation'

  I'd like to reiterate: Arabs do not want peace...they want all of Israel!!!
 
by Chana Ya'ar

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) -- the greater umbrella organization which preceded and may well survive the Palestinian Authority -- had nothing but scorn in response to the idea of Israel formulating a new plan for peace with its Arab neighbor.

Details of peace initiatives being considered by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have been recently been leaked in Israeli media.

“Deliberate Israeli leaks of the so-called 'Netanyahu initiative' show it to be little more than a reinvention of Israel's occupation as a system of annexation and control, rather than a genuine attempt to end the occupation and abide by international law and the requirements of peace,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the PLO.

Among the ideas allegedly being considered is one involving a further pullback of IDF forces from Judea and Samaria. The plan would effectively turn Area B – until now under IDF military control and PA civil authority – into Area A, under complete PA control.

Another involves an interim peace agreement.

“There will be no negotiations without a cessation of all settlement activities, without clear terms of reference in conformity with international law, and without a binding time line,” Ashrawi said Tuesday.

International efforts are also being made to pressure Israel into more concessions.

The Los Angeles Times has suggested the Quartet of peacemaking nations (Russia, the EU, U.S. and the U.N.) lean on Israel by announcing its recognition of a new PA country within the borders of the 1949 armistice agreement (the so-called “1967 borders), and with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.

But Awshrawi observed in response that the Quartet has not yet officially recognized the PA as a sovereign nation. She added with some contempt that Quartet recognition would not be a substitute for United Nations recognition – which the PA has vowed to seek by September.

The PA has categorically refused to negotiate on any point since Netanyahu entered office, with the exception of three brief meetings brokered by the White House. The meetings one month prior to the end of a 10-month freeze on all Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria. They were immediately discontinued by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas when Israel refused to renew the ban on Jewish construction as a precondition for talks
Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Arab Video~Israel Does Not Exist

 A new Palestinian Authority TV program recognizes all of the Land of Israel – from Tel Aviv to the Negev – as "Palestine," belying PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ “recognition” of Israel.

 

Palestinian Authority TV defines Palestine: Tel Aviv, Haifa, Galilee, Negev and all of Israel

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV2PDCuM5rc&feature=player_embedded

The program was broadcast last week and was spotted and translated by Palestinian Media Watch. Abbas has stated in the past year that he recognizes the existence of the State of Israel but has steadfastly refused to identify it as a “Jewish” state.

However, the program on official PA television, geared for teenagers, defines all of Israel as Palestine, after the video is introduced with the headline, "Palestine: We will return one day to our home.”

The video shows views from the northern Galilee to the Negev, including metropolitan Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and concludes, "This [video] is our gift to Palestine and to all the Palestinians inside and outside, and throughout the world."

The video is not the first time that Abbas, head of the Fatah movement, and the Palestinian Authority, have provided anti-Israel material in Arabic while telling American and European audiences they seek co-existence with Israel.

PMW noted that at a recent Fatah event in the presence of Mahmoud Abbas and many other senior PA officials, an Arab performer sang "I am returning to ["Palestine"]," which was described in the song as including all of Israel.

The words of the song at the Fatah event, as translated by PMW, include, "We commit and promise to stand behind you, oh Mahmoud Abbas, until Judgment Day. I am returning to you… from Rafiah [in Gaza] to Rosh HaNikra (on the northeastern tip of Israel), north and south, are the picture's borders. From Haifa… to the [Jordan] valley (all of Israel). I am returning to you, the purest land, oh land of the free."

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

 

IsraelNationalNews.com

Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

The Libya Precedent

Monday, April 11, 2011
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor

“We are facing a diplomatic-political tsunami that the majority of the public is unaware of and that will peak in September.” - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak

The Palestinian Authority is planning to cash in on the wave of unrest and uncertainty sweeping the Middle East, working behind the scenes to build support for a UN resolution welcoming the State of Palestine as a member whose territory includes all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

That includes land that Israel has controlled for forty years, including some Israel had intended to keep in any two-state solution scenario. Especially Jerusalem.

In the event that such a resolution was to pass, Israel would automatically be an occupying force on land belonging to a fellow UN member.

Ehud Barak called the situation “very dangerous” and said that “paralysis, rhetoric and inaction” will only serve to deepen Israel’s international isolation.

Unfortunately for Israel, paralysis, rhetoric and inaction when it comes to America's allies are the Obama administration’s strong suits.

When strong, decisive leadership was demanded during Iran’s failed revolution in 2009, Obama was on the golf course. For six long days, Iran teetered, waiting for some word from the United States.

When Obama finally broke his silence to condemn the Iranian government's reaction to the demonstrations, his criticism was tempered by his reference to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "President" Ahmadinejad and to Ayatollah Ali Khameni as "Supreme Leader."

The demonstrators heard what they needed to hear. Obama recognized Ahamadinejad's presidency as legitimate while acknowledging Khameni as Iran's 'Supreme Leader'.

Since the catalyst for the revolt was Khameni's legitimization of Ahmadinejad's election, Obama's 'condemnation' cut the legs out from under the revolution. Obama justified his inaction by saying he “didn’t want to meddle” in Iran’s internal affairs.

When Hosni Mubarak’s reign was imperiled, Obama lost no time meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs, calling for his ouster with no regard for how it might impact Israel.

He lost even less time intervening militarily in Libya, devoid of either legal justification or Congressional support.

But the so-called “Arab Spring” isn’t the catalyst for backing the Israelis into a corner. It is the justification.

One wonders why Obama the great peacemaker would lead the US headlong into an unplanned, ill-conceived and ultimately useless military excursion against, of all people, his pastor’s old friend Muammar Ghadaffi?

Especially without the advice and consent of the Congress? And without any clear threat to any US interests?And without any endgame strategy -- or even and endgame?

I am starting to suspect that the only purpose for the attack on Libya is to establish a precedent.

“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.”(Zechariah 12:3)

Obama had plenty of time to go to the Congress for authorization. He probably would have gotten it, too. But he didn’t, even though bypassing Congress violated the Constitution and could even justify articles of impeachment.

But Obama didn’t even try. Instead, he worked the Arab League as if it was the US Senate and the UN Security Council as if it was the Congress.

Armed only with international authorizations, he proceeded to commit US forces to combat in what the War Powers Act defines as an illegal war.

One can want Ghadaffi removed, Ghadaffi can deserve to be removed, and it might be extremely satisfying for him to be removed, but none of those reasons make the war legal. And Obama knows it, which is why nobody in the administration will call it a war.

Again, we have this problem of discerning whether Obama is a brilliant strategist playing six moves ahead of everyone else – or if he is the most incompetent buffoon ever trusted with the keys to the nuclear football.

In September, 2009 the Palestinian Prime Minister announced his government would seek statehood within two years. Last September, President Obama said that he expected to have a framework for an independent Palestinian state within one year.

And this September, the Palestinian Authority says it is prepared to take his membership before the UN General Assembly. Thanks to the Islamic and Arab majorities at the UN, it is expected to pass the General Assembly easily.

Membership is determined by the General Assembly and not by the Security Council. In the GA there are no vetoes. In the GA, Washington’s voice is no louder than that of Micronesia’s.

What would a unilateral declaration of statehood mean to Israel? It would mean that Israel would then be in daily violation of the rights of a legal UN member state with all the legal and diplomatic consequences thereunto appertaining.

Using the intervention in Libya as our guide, it means that the UN and Arab League would be perfectly justified in ordering no-fly and no-go zones in Israel to defend Palestinian ‘patriots’ seeking to repatriate their own land.

Using that same template, President Obama could order the United States forces to intervene militarily against Israel, without either the consultation or approval of the Congress. If Obama wants to duck questions, he can always order the assault and then go on vacation for a couple of weeks.

In Ha’aretz last week, Ari Shavit compared the risks posed to Israel in 2011 to the biggest military setback Israel ever faced, the 1973 war. The Yom Kippur War was the closest Israel had ever come to being annihilated by the Arab enemy.

He wrote that “2011 is going to be a diplomatic 1973,” because a Palestinian state will be recognized internationally.

“Every military base in the West Bank will be contravening the sovereignty of an independent U.N. member state.” He added, “A diplomatic siege from without and a civil uprising from within will grip Israel in a stranglehold.”

Mikhail Jubran, writing for the Palestinian Chronicle, called 2011 “The Year of Living Dangerously.”

Did you notice that it’s only April?

Story source
here



If this planned resolution should pass, and I believe it will pass, plus, any establishment of no-fly zones would open the door for UN warplanes and UN "boots on the ground" against Israel - using military force to insure compliance with the new Palestinian state. If that should happen, then, in my opinion we would see a fire ignited in the Middle East and elsewhere as never before seen.

Don

Israel's Blessing!

Despite the world of troubles facing Israel, a miraculous resource discovery has come to the land.

President Obama has dissed Israel, the UN is no friend, and the nations surrounded Israel are hostile. It took Moses 40 years to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the only land in the Middle East without oil—long a source of wry humor. But Israel, at last, has been granted an almost miraculous blessing.
First, in 2009, Israel announced the discovery of a major natural gas field off its coast in the Tamar region. Then at the end of last December, an immense natural gas discovery was confirmed in the Eastern Mediterranean within Israel’s territorial waters. It has the potential for making Israel a major energy exporter over the next decade while providing the country with possibly 200 years of natural gas. This could negate Israel’s plans to buy natural gas from Russia.
Noble Energy, Inc., a Houston-based company, made the discovery. It said drilling tests in its Leviathon field confirmed it was the world’s largest offshore gas find in the past decade and “easily the largest exploration discovery in our history,” said Charles Davidson, CEO of Noble, which has a controlling interest in the field. Leviathon is nearly twice the size of the Tamar field, also off the coast, discovered by Noble and its partners in 2009. The Leviathon discovery confirmed geologic models of the basin and “validates it contains significant natural gas resources,” Noble said. Chairman Gideon Tadmor of a partner company, Delek Drilling, said the field is “the largest gas discovery in deep water in the past decade. The field covers about 125 square miles, a story in Bloomberg News reported. The field could yield as much as 21.1 trillion cubic feet of gas, an independent engineering firm calculated, Energy-pedia news reported March 29.
The natural gas find could be followed by oil beneath the gas. In any case, the increased wealth and energy independence will make Israel considerably less dependent on energy from other nations, even in the short-run. If the gas discovered is turned into LNG (liquid natural gas) potential buyers would include European countries and including Greece and Cyprus. Leviathon is estimated to start producing gas in 2016, with Tamar to start earlier, in 2013.
Frontpagemag


Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua

Goldstone Recants Report...too little~too late

 by Chana Ya'ar and Gavriel Queenann

"If I had known then what I know now," Judge Richard Goldstone wrote on Friday in The Washington Post. "The Goldstone Report would have been a different document."

"While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy," Goldstone wrote

The comment marks the recanting by Goldstone, who chaired the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, of charges that Israel deliberately targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead. The operation, which commenced on 27 December 2008 and concluded on 18 January 2009, was aimed at stopping terrorist rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians in southern Israel. Most military observers regard the operation as having had only limited, short-term success.

"Our mission was in no way a judicial or even quasi-judicial proceeding," Goldstone continued, noting a common misconception about his eponymous report. "We did not investigate criminal conduct on the part of any individual in Israel, Gaza or the West Bank. We made our recommendations based on the record before us, which unfortunately did not include any evidence provided by the Israeli government. Indeed, our main recommendation was for each party to investigate, transparently and in good faith, the incidents referred to in our report. McGowan Davis has found that Israel has done this to a significant degree; Hamas has done nothing."

"Simply put," Goldstone concluded, admitting the egregious error of assuming Hamas would follow the report's recommendations, "The laws of armed conflict apply no less to non-state actors such as Hamas than they do to national armies. Ensuring that non-state actors respect these principles, and are investigated when they fail to do so, is one of the most significant challenges facing the law of armed conflict. Only if all parties to armed conflicts are held to these standards will we be able to protect civilians who, through no choice of their own, are caught up in war."

Goldstone insisted the purpose of his report was “never to prove a foregone conclusion against Israel,” and that he was the one who had insisted on changing the original mandate adopted by the Human Rights Council, “which was skewed against Israel.”

He maintained that Israel, like any other sovereign nation, “has the right and obligation” to defend itself and its citizens against attacks from abroad and within. “Something that has not been recognized often enough is the fact that our report marked the first time illegal acts of terrorism from Hamas were being investigated and condemned by the United Nations,” he wrote.

He added that he had hoped the inquiry would have begun “a new era of even-handedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.”

Goldstone went on to note that his report recommended that each party investigate the incidents that were raised. Israel did so; Hamas did not.

“At minimum I hoped that in the face of a clear finding that its members were committing serious war crimes, Hamas would curtail its attacks. Sadly, that has not been the case... That comparatively few Israelis have been killed by the unlawful rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in no way minimizes the criminality... In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise,” he admitted.

“So, too, the Human Rights Council should condemn the inexcusable and cold-blooded recent slaughter of a young Israeli couple and three of their small children in their beds.”

Netanyahu Responds

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called on the United Nations to cancel the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead following an op-ed piece written by the author of the report, retired South African Judge Richard Goldstone.

“Everything we said was proven to be true,” said Netanyahu. “Israel did not willfully harm civilians. Israel's investigating institutions are trustworthy, while Hamas investigated nothing.

“The fact that Goldstone withdrew his conclusions must lead to the cancellation of the report once and for all. We expect this farce to be rectified immediately."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak added that in order to repair the damage done by the report, the judge should present his current conclusions to all the international bodies to whom he presented the original report – and not merely give his opinion in an op-ed piece.

The IDF is “a moral army that operated according to international law,” Barak sa
Baruch atem b'Shem, Yeshua