Latma: 92 Days And Noam Schalit Not Yet in the Knesset

At 4:50 at the Latma video this week:

Watch it.

^

Media Bias Bolstered The Schalit Campaign

.

My op-ed on the media mobilization on behalf of Gilad Schalit.

At Arutz 7.

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First Schalit "Victim"

The "Our Land of Israel" movement is claiming that the Jew knifed in Jerusalem today, a 17-year old in Ramot, is a "Schalit victim":-

תנועת א"י שלנו:

הפצוע בפיגוע ברמות הוא "קרבן שליט" תנועת א"י שלנו בהודעה בעקבות הפיגוע ברמות: "הפצוע בפיגוע ברמות הוא "קרבן שליט". נתניהו לא יוכל לומר ידינו לא שפכו את הדם הזה. הוא יהיה אחראי על כל המתרחש בעתיד. לאחר שעם ישראל יתפכח הוא יגלה את החורבן שנתניהו הביא עלינו ואת רוח הגבית

לטרור שהנחית עלינו" אומר שי גפן מנכ"ל התנועה

Shai Gefen, the spokesman, announces that "Netanyahu cannot say 'our hands have not shed this blood'.

^

Quotable Words on Gilad Schalit

1.

“...this is not a day of smiles. Besides the Shalit family, which is reunited with its son, there are hundreds of families whose loved ones will never return. Women, babies who were burned, slaughtered and butchered, and that the State of Israel, in the euphoria of the Shalit deal, forgot them this week. Families that no one bothered to update as to what is going on. Orphans who had to surf the internet to find that their parents’ killer is going home, and that nobody thought of a better way to tell them about it.”

Kalman Liebskind
(in Hebrew)

2.

So now Israel will have hundreds of terrorists literally just down the road, presumably poised to strike yet again and murder more Israel innocents.

Either way, this was a terrible decision to have to take.

On the other hand, once Shalit comes home the Hamas in Gaza will have lost their most valuable human shield of all. For five years, they have used their young Israeli captive -- whose fate has been the focus of such public agony within Israel -- to tie the Israelis’ military hands. Now, it would seem, all such bets will be off.

Melanie Phillips

3.

Just off the bus in Gaza after six years in an Israeli prison, one of hundreds traded to Hamas for an Israeli soldier, Wafa al-Bass declared her next goal: abduct more Israeli soldiers. Others who returned said they could not feel satisfaction until the thousands of remaining Palestinian prisoners were freed.

NYTimes

4.

...For by making this deal with Hamas, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has effectively buried Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas, already weakened by the failure of his UN ‘Palestine statehood’ stunt. For Israel, that stunt marked the end of the illusion that Abbas was a genuine partner in any peace process. Now Hamas has been strengthened by this deal. That is, to put it mildly, unfortunate; but now at least the illusion of a moderate Palestinian leadership is over...

...at a deeper level still, it is the fact that an obscene moral equivalence has been established by this deal between the innocent and the guilty.

This equivalence is being played out in the coverage which describes the deal as a ‘prisoner swap’ or ‘prisoner exchange’ – more than 1000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails for one Israeli prisoner held by Hamas. But Shalit was a hostage, kidnapped in an act of illegal aggression by an organisation whose aim is the destruction of Israel and which allowed him not one visit by the Red Cross during his five year incarceration.

By contrast, the released Palestinians have not just been tried and punished according to due process of law, but include among their number not just those who have committed some of the worst terrorist atrocities in Israel’s history – such as the blowing up of Sbarro’s pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, where 16 people were murdered including five members of the Schijveschuurder family -- but even worse, some of the masterminds behind such atrocities.

Melanie Phillips


5.

In the Israeli public there is a clear division of roles: The left wants everything here and now, the right is the responsible adult. It is the one that says "no." It is the one that demands that we wait. It is the one that circles above the immediate situation and points out the dangers of the proposed solution.  The problem is that nobody acknowledges the right wing as the adult. Nobody wants its authority. What child wants his life to be run by someone else?

The child by nature wants to act as he wishes, to try things out and get banged up and to be independent. From the age of 2, you will hear the words "by myself." That's what the child wants, to be allowed to make his own mistakes.

The right cannot tolerate this approach because it knows that there is no such thing as "by myself." It knows that in spite of the terrible hatred between the two poles of the nation, we are still the same body...

Karni Eldad
 
^

On Gilad Shalit and Human Rights Groups

Take note:

The exchange of 477 Palestinian prisoners for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held by Hamas, has highlighted calls by several human rights organizations and NGOs for Israel to stop violating international law by removing Palestinians from occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).

“Holding these prisoners and detainees in Israel flagrantly breaches international humanitarian law, which prohibits the transfer of civilians, including prisoners and detainees, from the occupied territory to the territory of the occupying state,” according to Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem.

“Israel’s disregard for this prohibition is one of the main reasons that the prisoners and their families are unable to exercise their right to visits in a reasonable manner,” B’Tselem added.  Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has made similar calls.

...The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) continues to call on Israel to allow the resumption of the family visit programme for Gazans, suspended in 2007 after Shalit was captured.

Consider this:

Since June 25, 2006, when Gilad Shalit’s captivity began, NGOs that claim a human rights mandate have demonstrated little interest in Shalit’s human rights. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Gisha, and Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) did not conduct sustained campaigns on his behalf. Gilad Shalit was simply not a priority for these NGOs.

More:

Israel's exile of prisoners to the Gaza Strip and abroad is a serious war crime, rights groups said Monday...In a joint statement Monday, prisoner rights group Addameer and legal rights organization Al-Haq highlighted that while the deal was cause for celebration for 1,028 families, aspects of the exchange were "fundamentally at odds with international law." Unlawful deportation or transfer breaches the Fourth Geneva Convention and "qualifies as one of the most serious war crimes," the groups said.

The protections of the Fourth Geneva Convention are inviolable, even if prisoners consent to exile and even though Hamas negotiated the deal, the statement said, pointing to the "stark asymmetry in power" between the Palestinian and Israeli parties.

^

Are You Ready for the Fatah Opinion on Gilad Shalit?

From MEMRI:

Fatah-Affiliated Website: Shalit Spent His Time in Bars and Brothels, and Engaged in Robbery, Murder, and Rape


An article published on a Fatah-affiliated website, by journalist Sami Foda, stated:

"[Gilad Shalit is] a young man who spent his time in bars and brothels, playing games and pampering himself. He enjoyed the pleasures of a land not his own. He went around robbing, stealing, torching, raping, trampling, and desecrating the soil of this land that is not his own. He viciously strove to shed the blood of the martyrs, killed innocent people...a stupid murderer who did not mind killing our elderly, our men, our youth, and our women, and even our poor children, [so] pure and innocent.

...A Zionist soldier, he became seeped with Zionism to the bone...[He is] a gullible [boy], the genetic grandson of the Zionist leaders by virtue of his affiliation with, and loyalty to, his Nazi leaders. This monster joined the army of Zionist gangs, to carry on the legacy of his fathers, the apes and pigs of the Haganah, Irgun, Stern, and Palmach organizations, in order to carry out the orders of his fascist masters. That was the Zionist soldier Gilad Shalit, 19 years-old when he was captured by the Palestinian resistance...

These are the type of people with whom we ae to make peace?

To co-exist?

^

This is "religious thinking"?

I left this comment at this blog:

Your words "When it comes to the value and dignity of even a single human life, there can be no calculations of utility, no negotiation of practicalities. Whatever the pros and cons, they cannot hold water against the infinite worth of a person and the sacred regard owed to it by us all" are not only insensible and illogical but in their sweeping dissonance and without any discussion, they go against the Halachic dictum: "“One does not ransom captives for more than their value because of Tikkun Olam (literally: “fixing the world”; for the good order of the world; as a precaution for the general good) and one does not help captives escape because of Tikkun Olam.” (Mishna, Gittin 4:6)[1]. One of the aims of this restriction is to avoid encouraging kidnappers, or those seeking financial gain by capturing Jews and demanding a Kofer (a ransom) in exchange, due to the knowledge of how sensitive Jews are to rescuing their prisoners at any price."

While there may be pros and cons in a theological/halachic argument, if you do not contemplate what is the worth of one future dead Jew due to the encouragement of terror, or at ther least, future kidnappings which Hamas has already announced it will pursue, does not serve well a religious-based outlook.

And to further justify your position in writing, "That hundreds of terrorists must be released to save a single person is a moral travesty and a mockery of justice, but it is also a profound moral success, a resounding victory for life, goodness, and our assuredness in the incalculable value of a human person" is unfathomable. If lives are to be lost - and the statistics assure us the many will die soon - what success is there? Would you, from a moral standpoint, suggest those future bereaved families demonstrate outisde Gilad's family home just as they were outside PM Netanyahu's home?

^

The Looming Pain

I published Frimet Roth's thoughts on the Schalit deal.

I'll ignore Esther Wachsman's comments although they do indicate why Israel failed itself in this instance.

Here is Sherri Mandell:

Why are so many of us against the exchange that allows murderers and their accomplices to go free? Because we know the suffering that these murderers leave in their wake.

Yes, I want Gilad Schalit released. But not at any price. Not at the price we have experienced.

My son Koby Mandell and his friend Yosef Ish Ran were murdered by terrorists 10 years ago when they were 13 and 14 years old. They had been hiking in the wadi near our home when they were set upon by a Palestinian mob and stoned to death. It was a brutal, vicious murder.

...MOST PEOPLE don’t understand the continuing devastation of grief: fathers who die of heart attacks, mothers who get sick with cancer, children who leave school, families whose only child was murdered. We see depression, suicide, symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. You wouldn’t believe how many victims’ families are still on sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. We see the pain that doesn’t diminish with time. We literally see people die of grief.

Bereaved families face acute psychological isolation.

...nobody understands the duration or the severity of their pain and longing. In the aftermath of a prisoner exchange, this isolation will only be exacerbated.

So will the feeling that our children’s deaths don’t matter.

When people tell me that my son Koby died for nothing, I always used to say: No, it is our job to make his death mean something.

But now I am not sure. It seems that the government is conspiring to ensure that our loved ones’ deaths were for nothing.

Cheapening our loved ones’ deaths only enhances the pain...

And note, one of the most prominent buzzwords in the media is "hug" as in 'hug Gilad'.

And kudos to Marc Goldberg (who has echoed what my own son told me) who writes if he is captured, don't save him through a "prisonaer exchange".
^

Judge Dorner - A 'Dictator'

Here is how the JPost reports on the statement by Justice Daliah Dorner, retired from the Supreme Court and now chairperson of Israel's Press Council:-

Dorner: Public opinion should dictate coverage of Schalit

Her thinking goes like this:

Public opinion and not legal or political measures should be the factor that forces the media to behave in an ethical way while covering the homecoming of Gilad Schalit over the next few days...official controls on press freedom is not an option.

“I would never control the media, but I will say to those who are responsible for the fate of Gilad Schalit that it is up to them to persuade the public that an invasion by the media will cause this boy harm,” she said.

“If they are successful, then public opinion itself will control the media, because the media wants to do all it can to keep the public happy.”

...she believes that public opinion is one of the natural ways to control the press. "Only those who are very brave can write something that everyone will hate or disagree with,” she said.

Unfortunately, Dorner has it all backwards.

It is the media that controls, quite successfully in most cases, public opinion. They shape it, frame it, manipulate it and actually hide any opinions or actions which do not fit the opinions of the editorial boards and staff.

It is they who dictate and Dorner, obviously willingly blind, deaf and dumb, goes along with the charade that Israel's democracy is healthy due to the freedom of the press.

Israel's Media watch, since March 1995, has proven that that charade exists, that there exists an axis of upheaval whereby links between politics-money-media dominate public discourse and Israel's democracy is under the thumb of media dictate. The press dominates the public, feeds them garbage, entertains and unethically.

In the specific Schalit case, what the media downplayed was a central element of the reality of the family's campaign:

there while on the one hand, the Schalit family not only used emotional extortion based on their son - which we would accept - but also on the fact that Noam's twin brother, Gilad's uncle, was killed in the Yom Kippur war and so, whereas on the other hand, they are now demanding, basically, that the rest of us do not use the same emotional pressure, they have acted in an immoral manner and the position they have taken, because it is immoral, it threatening to the rest of us but that is the development of individualistic Israel which the press feeds.

^

Arnold Roth Updates on the Murderers of His Daughter Malki

Confirmation from the Pardons Board

We received a phone call a few minutes ago from the director of the Department of Pardons at Israel's Ministry of Justice notifying us of the official decision to release two prisoners convicted of carrying outthe Sbarro restaurant massacre. The woman, Tamimi, will be exiled to Jordan. Her accomplice, Muhammad Douglas, will be exiled to "chutz l'aretz" (Hebrew: means somewhere outside Israel's borders). What the unspecified location means, we don't know but it hardly matters. He and she will have their lives to live, despite having been sentenced in a court of law and after a full and proper trial to sixteen consecutive life sentences. And despite (in her case) having expressed pride in what she did, and an utter lack of remorse.

 
Read a mother's reaction to Gilad Shalit's release.
 
^

My Comment on Yossi Klein Halevi's Shalit Piece

Here.

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But Pals. Traffic in Live Body Parts

What's he complaining about?

Israel Traffics Palestinian Body Parts, Says Qaraqe’e

RAMALLAH, August 28, 2011 (WAFA) – Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, Sunday said that Israel is the largest international trade center for body parts, due to its continuous trafficking of the remains of
Palestinian bodies, which are held by the Israeli government.

During a speech he delivered in the national day of the Campaign to Recover the Remains of Palestinians and Arabs from Israel, as well as to reveal the fate of missing persons in Israel, Qaraqe said Israel is violating the international law, agreements and norms by continuing to withhold the remains of Palestinians, which is what he called a 'heinous crime'.

Gild Shalit is alive and they're trafficking his body whole.

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Are These Human Rights Groups Human?

Are these human rights groups - human?

Amnesty International & the Israel Section

B'Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights
in the Occupied Territories

Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights

Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement

Human Rights Watch

International Federation for Human Rights

Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Gaza

Physicians for Human Rights - Israel

Public Committee Against Torture in Israel

Rabbis for Human Rights

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel

Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights

Well, read this and also read this.

Does their joint statement call for Shalit to be released?

Do they all demand Shalit's release seperately or together?

What do you think?

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RIP: Sami Ahmad An-Nadi

Reported:-

A 22-year-old worker was killed Monday when a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border collapsed, medics said.  Sami Ahmad An-Nadi, from Khan Younis, was trapped in the tunnel in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Gaza medical services spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said An-Nadi's body was taken to the Abu Yousif An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.

The spokesman said over 160 workers have been killed in tunnel accidents since February 2006.

But you noticed "since 2006"?  Why then did the 'closures' begin?  After the Shalit kidnapping which occurred on June 25, 2006.

So, who is to blame?

^

North Koreans Better Than Hamas?

A.

Former President Jimmy Carter left North Korea on Friday with Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an American who was sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegally entering the country, the Carter Center said.Mr. Gomes was granted amnesty by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, the Carter Center said in an e-mail. Mr. Gomes, 31, and Mr. Carter boarded a plane at Pyongyang Airport.

B.

"I got the impression that Gilad Shalit is alive and well," said Tuesday former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, following a meeting with the father of the abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier, Noam Shalit...Following their meeting, Noam Shalit said that he "didn't hear anything new about Gilad."

The two met after Carter visited the Gaza Strip earlier Tuesday, and gave Hamas leaders a letter addressed to the captive soldier from his parents. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said after his meeting with Carter that "the organization welcomes all efforts to finalize the Shalit affair."

Of course, maybe Carter is better with Asians than Arabs, or vice versa, or whatever?


- - -

Anybody Know - Who Is Funding the Shalit March?

A lot of money is invovled -

ads,
logistics,
T-shirts,
banners,
sleeping accommodations,
food,
PR/press/media,
phone calls,
press conferences,
etc.

Anyone know?



(kippah tip: TW)



- - -

What Did Hillary Mean? And What Is the US Doing for Gilad Schalit?

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said today, June 22, 2010

Gee, let’s do this every week.

at an Event Celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Month, what did she mean?

When she said:

Men and women are harassed, beaten, subjected to sexual violence, even killed, because of who they are and whom they love. Some are driven from their homes or countries, and many who become refugees confront new threats in their countries of asylum. In some places, violence against the LGBT community is permitted by law and inflamed by public calls to violence; in others, it persists insidiously behind closed doors. These dangers are not “gay” issues. This is a human rights issue.

Why did she not specify a certain religion?


But better, although actually worse, did you know that in Albania, US ambassador John Withers went on television to publicly express support for a young man named Klodian Cela who "came out"?

That in Slovakia, US Chargé Keith Eddins marched to represent the United States at that nation’s first ever Pride Parade last month? And that he was exposed to tear gas?

Hillary, what is the US doing for Gilad Schalit?


.

- - -

Shalits Going To Bethlehem for Matriarch Rachel's Yahrtzeit

As received:

26 October 2009

For Immediate Release

100,000 People to Visit Rachel's Tomb on the Anniversary of her Death

Prayers this Year will be Dedicated

to the Release of Gilad Shalit

(JERUSALEM) – As the situation at Jerusalem's holy sites intensifies, a mass pray-in with 100,000 expected participants from every corner of Israel and many overseas communities will be held at Rachel's Tomb - Kever Rachel – in Bethlehem on Thursday (October 29, 2009). The 11^th day of the Jewish month of Heshvan is commemorated around the world as the day on which the matriarch Rachel died en route to Efrata in Bethlehem.

For thousands of years Jews have traditionally turned to Rachel to pray for her children. This year organizers have called for special prayers to be dedicated to the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli solider held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since July 2006. "We call on Jews and non-Jews all over the world to dedicate their prayers on this holy day to Gilad's immediate release in good health," said Rabbi Yosef Schwinger, Director of Israel's Holy Sites Authority. “For generations Rachel has prayed for her children to return home safely, and we hope that this year our prayers will be answered and Gilad will return home to his family."

These prayers will take place from 11AM-12 Noon on Thursday.

Members of the Shalit family are expected to be present at the prayer

Will You Be Attending?

Just received this:

1070 days Gilad Shalit in captivity

1070 students to protest outside the offices of the International Committee for the Red Cross on May 27 2009. 1070 students will be joined by hundreds of other protesters to draw attention to the 1070 days that Gilad Shalit has been held in captivity by Hamas terrorists.

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has not visited Gilad Shalit, in order to ascertain his physical and emotional wellbeing,

The protesters will be demanding that the International Red Cross do everything in its power to pressure Hamas to allow a humanitarian visit to Gilad.

We want Gilad free!!" said Dr. Chagit Hadar, international coordinator of the efforts to free Gilad Shalit.

Protesters will assemble at 12 noon on May 27, 2009 outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross at 801 2nd Ave, Manhattan.

Members of the United States Congress, New York State Assembly and New York City Council will join the protesters and speak at the rally.

FOR MORE DETAILS OR TO ANNOUNCE THAT YOU WILL BE ATTENDING CALL;

DR HAGIT HADAR 01 5168492533

Please make very effort to come.


Finally, adopting an activist approach.

LGF Has An Idea for Bibi

Bibi is reordering his Gilad Shalit team.

Little Green Footballs' Charles Johnson has an idea:

Writing in the New York Times, a former United Nations security officer describes what the UN did in Somalia in 1995, in response to a hostage situation.

[Our strategy was therefore simple: United Nations assistance was withheld from the Somali clan or region by which or in which hostages were being held until those hostages were released - added by YM]...In 1995, for example, the water supply for Mogadishu, the capital, was shut off by the United Nations humanitarian agencies until a hostage who worked for another aid organization was released. On the first day of the shutoff, the women who collected water from public distribution points yelled at the kidnappers; on the second day they stoned them; on the third day they shot at them; on the fourth day, the hostage was released.

Isn’t that interesting.

Imagine how the United Nations would react if Israel shut off the water supply to Gaza, in response to the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit.