A message for those who push Israel to choose ‘peace’

On June 13, 2016, Congressman Keith Ellison published an essay in the Huffington Post (“The quiet triumph of diplomacy”). He advocates a two-state solution for the Arab-Israel conflict. He says he dreams of visiting a Holy Land where Israelis fear nothing, and Palestinians are building an inclusive democratic society (ibid).

He’s like many westerners. He’s like too many wrong-headed Jews.

He pursues a dream that can never be born. That dream says ‘Palestinians’ want to create an inclusive democratic society if only Israel would allow them to do it.

He’s wrong. ‘Palestinians’ have no interest in building a society that’s either inclusive or democratic.

Certainly, there’s nothing wrong-headed about the West wanting peace. Peace is the universal messianic goal for mankind.

The problem in the Arab Middle East is, the ‘Palestinians’ don’t want what the West wants. They don’t want peace. They want conquest. Just look at the Palestinians’ map of their new ‘Palestine’. That map doesn’t show ‘Palestine’ side-by-side with Israel. It shows ‘Palestine’ replacing Israel.

That’s not ‘peace’. It’s ‘conquest’.

That’s the mistake the West makes. It yearns for something ‘Palestinians’ don’t want: peace with Jews.

How’s that going to work out?

Actually, we know how that works out. It doesn’t. There’s no peace in the Arab-Israel conflict because the ‘Palestinian’ dream requires the destruction of the Jewish state.

The West doesn’t understand this. It can’t understand that the so-called ‘Palestinians’ have never, ever demonstrated any interest whatsoever in living side-by-side with Israel. They want to erase Israel, not share space with Israel.

The West refuses to open its eyes. It blames Israel for the lack of peace. It won’t look at the websites, Palestinian Media Watch or MEMRI, where they’d see an almost daily drumbeat of Jew-hate in ‘Palestinian’ media.

When the West pursues its ‘peace’, it does nothing to address ‘Palestinian’ anti-peace, anti-Jew attitudes. The West ignores ‘Palestinian’ Jew-hate.

How’s that going to work out?

We know how it works out. It doesn’t.

The West doesn’t get it. It is pure nonsense to believe that a Western-style peace can be built upon a ‘Palestinian’ culture that hates Israel and Israel’s Jewish population. The ‘Palestinians’ don’t want a Western-style peace. The only peace they’ll accept is one based on a Middle East without Jews.

That’s it. Nothing else will work.

It’s not as if this is a secret. It isn’t. The PLO Charter (Article 22) states it. The Hamas Charter states it. It’s stated and restated every week in some form in ’Palestinian’ media: they want a world without Jews, not peace with Jews.

Think of it this way: ‘Palestinians’ don’t want a two-state solution. They want a one-Arab-state solution.

Question: since the Oslo accords some 24 years ago, what has provoked more Jew-killings in Israel than anything else? Answer: talk of peace between Jew and ‘Palestinian’. Why? Because nothing angers ‘Palestinian’ leadership more than thinking about living next door to a Jew.

Every Western effort to force Israel to sign a peace agreement with ‘Palestinians’ has failed. Each such effort, however, has resulted in Jews being attacked and murdered by ‘Palestinians’. In fact, the best way to get Jews murdered in Israel is to start talking about peace.

Let’s review. The Palestinian Authority (PA) doesn’t want peace. Read the PLO Charter. Read the Hamas Charter. Every week, watch videos on Palestinian Media Watch. You’ll see what the ‘Palestinians’ want.

‘Palestinians’ want to commit a genocide against the Jews. They call to murder Jews, not to make peace with Jews.

That’s not peace. It’s another holocaust.

Neither Hamas nor the PLO (Fatah) wants ‘peace with Israel’. They want peace with an Israel destroyed. In fact, that’s the definition of Middle East peace you’ll find in the PLO Charter, Article 22.

The West has to answer three questions: (1) did you ever look at the conquest-inspired PA map of ‘Palestine’? (2) do you know the difference between ‘peace’ and ‘conquest’?  (3) if ‘Palestinians’ want to erase Israel, how exactly can ‘Palestinians’ live in peace with an Israel right next door?

If the West doesn’t understand the significance of the anti-Israel map of ‘Palestine’ as printed and distributed by the PLO (Fatah), then it’s either incompetent or an anti-Israel advocate. Either way, someone that ignorant or prejudiced has no business telling Israel to surrender anything.

Western advocates for ‘peace’ aren’t asking Israel to surrender land for peace. They’re asking Israel to surrender to an Arab conquest so that the new Palestine can replace Israel.

Here’s a message for those who would push Israel for ‘peace’: if you do not address ‘Palestinian’ Jew-hate, there will never be peace. Israel will never surrender to those who incite to destroy it. 

Democracy is not compatible with Israel’s survival

Israel's Left embraces ‘democracy’. It defends ‘democracy’. It claims Israel can survive only by being a ‘democracy’ (Max Fisher, “Israel’s dark future”, vox, April 13, 2015).

Israel’s Left is passionate about ‘democracy’. But it has a problem. Democracy doesn’t work in Israel. It doesn’t help Israel. It threatens Israel’s chances for survival.

   

Consider ‘democracy’: a true democracy has four basic criteria and two underlying requirements. The four basic criteria are: free and fair elections; active participation by all citizens in political and civic life; basic human rights for all; and the rule of law equally applied (lecture, Stanford University, "What is Democracy", web.stanford. edu, January 21, 2004).

For a democracy, human rights means, specifically, freedom of religion, free speech, the freedom to enjoy one's own culture,  the freedom to choose between different sources of news and opinion, the freedom to associate with other people, the freedom to form and join organizations of your own choice, and the freedom to assemble and protest government action (ibid).

Israel allows all these freedoms to all citizens, subject to public safety and security--just like any other democracy. Still, Israel does not have a working democracy.

Look beneath the four criteria listed above and you’ll find two foundational requirements which must exist for a democracy to work. These are requirements Israel’s Left ignores: (1) for a country to be a democracy, its citizens must be willing to live together in peace; and (2) they must adhere to the rules of that democracy (ibid). If citizens can’t or won’t do these two things, democracy will not survive.

This is where Israel fails the 'democracy' test. Too many Israeli Arabs refuse to live in peace with Jews. They refuse to adhere to the rules of Israel’s democracy.

A democracy exists only when citizens observe certain principles and rules of democratic conduct (ibid). They must respect the law (ibid). They must reject violence (ibid).

The recent (current?) wave of Arab terror reveals the extent to which Israeli Arabs have become radicalized. Too many do not respect Israeli law. Too many choose violence in place of peaceful conduct. Too many listen to—and act on—incitement coming to their social media sites.

In a democracy, every citizen must respect the rights of his or her fellow citizens. S/he must respect others’ dignity as human beings (ibid). But Fatah-controlled mainstream Palestinian Authority (PA) media do not respect Jews or Judaism. It refuses to assign human dignity to Jews. Instead, it calls Jews pigs, apes and the spawn of Satan (see the website, Palestinian Media Watch). Israeli Arabs see this hate-speech every day.

This kind of hate does not exist in a democracy's mainstream media. It comes from outside democracy. It comes from those who embrace oppression, not freedom. It comes from the PA.

Too many Israeli Arabs turn to the PA for their worldview even as they reap the social benefits of carrying Israeli citizenship. Fewer and fewer think of themselves as equal partners with Jews in a democracy.

That's the fatal flaw in Israel's ‘democracy’. It has a population that grows increasingly unwilling to live in peace with its Jewish neighbours.

For example, in 2002-2004, 66% of Israel’s Arabs supported Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state (Meirav Arlosoroff, "Poll shows once again that for all their discontents, Arab citizens choose Israel--so why is Lieberman trying to kick them out?", haaretz, January 9, 2014).  Despite its misleading headline (ibid), haaretz still reported that, by 2014, Israeli Arab support for Israel had dropped to 47% (ibid).

In 2004, only 3% of the Israeli Arabs indicated a desire to live under the Palestinian flag (ibid). By 2014, that 3% had grown to 23% (ibid).

The further away from Israel these Arabs lean, the less democratic Israel will be. The current wave of anti-Jewish terror illustrates this point. The longer Arabs attack Jews, the more Jews will cry for a 'crackdown'. Can you blame them?

The longer Arabs continue their wave of terror, the more obvious it becomes that Israel's democracy doesn't work. That’s the bottom line here: democracy in Israel cannot work when 25 % of its citizens grow increasingly unwilling to follow the laws of Israel or live peacefully with Jews.

We know that Israeli Arabs express a growing willingness to reject Israel—and its democracy (ibid). That’s important because when citizens reject their democracy, violence begins (Stanford University, ibid). In that kind of environment, democracy fails.

Israel’s Left is wrong. Democracy has no connection to Israel’s survival.

Democracy is a false god. The Jewish people didn’t survive 3,000+ years because it remained loyal to 'democracy'. It survived because (despite its rebellions) its remnants remained loyal to HaShem, the G-d of Israel.

Ultimately, this is why Israel’s Left will fail. It embraces the wrong Deity.

Brexit, Muslim migrants, Israel and measure-for-measure

Britain has voted to become the first European Union (EU) member to leave the EU. Britain has performed a ‘Brexit’ (British-exit) (Jethro Mullen, Ivana Kottasova, “U.K. 'earthquake' crushes global markets”, cnnmoneyinternational, June 24, 2016).

One hot-button issue dominated the debate over Brexit: immigration (Zach Beauchamp, “Brexit isn’t about economics. It’s about xenophobia”, vox, June 23, 2016). For some, ‘immigration’ meant that British citizens didn’t want to compete for jobs with foreigners (Babatdor Dkhar, “Brexit: The EU referendum was a test of who can sell immigration best”, fworld, June 24, 2016). For others, the vote was about a ‘mixed’ fear. Those who wanted to remain in the EU feared economic disaster if Brexit won. Those who wanted to leave the EU feared that continued immigration would have a negative impact on public services (Muhammad Abdul Bari, “Brexit and the spectre of Europe's ugly nationalism”, aljazeera, June 18, 2016).

In less polite company, the Brexit vote was about stopping Muslim migration into Britain (Milo Yiannopoulos, “Milo On Why Britain Should Leave The EU — To Stop Muslim Immigration”, breitbart, June 20, 2016). This position argued that Britain could no longer afford to stay in the EU. The EU’s policy of free movement of people across EU borders would bring so many Muslims into Britain that Britain would lose its historic national identity. For that reason, they wanted out of the EU.

Were the British so concerned about national identity that they’d vote for an action that could threaten their economy? For an answer, look at some headlines. Even if the British didn’t read every one of these headlines, they knew all about them. They’d been talking about Muslim migrants for months.

These headlines come from the website, muslimstatistics. They cover the period, January 4, 2016-June 17, 2016. This is a partial list:

-“Germany: Muslim migrants linked to 69,000 crimes in first three months of 2016”, June 7, 2016.

-“Belgium: 35% of prison population is Muslim, who make up only 6% of population”, May 21, 2016.

-“Gap Between Migrant Contribution and Migrant Cost to UK is £17 Billion”, May 17, 2016.

-“Denmark: 78% of criminals in capital are of “non-Western origin” and 84% of foreigners are unemployed”, April 26, 2016.

-“Italy: 90% of teens would convert to Islam if Islamic State conquered their country – Survey”, April 20, 2016.

-“UK Muslim Poll: 52% wants ban on homosexuality, 23% want Sharia, 33% feel they influence decisions in the country”, April 14, 2016.

-“Sweden: 2015 Muslim hordes to cost 14x the National Defence budget”, February 20, 2016.

-“5,000 Islamic State Jihadi fighters running loose in Europe – Europol”, February 20, 2016.

-“UK Muslim survey: 76% of prominent Muslims ‘strongly’ support Jihad”, February 19, 2016.

-“Germany: Merkel Muslim crimes increased by 79% in 2015, or 208,344 incidents”, February 18, 2016.

-“Muslim migrant ‘crisis’ (hijrah Jihad) to cost Germany €50 Bn by [end of] 2017”, February 2, 2016.

-“UK: Muslims fill 44% of high security prisons, out of a 5% Muslim population”, January 28, 2016.

-“Sweden and Denmark have highest number of sexual assaults in Europe: EU’s flawed Muslim migration policy”, January 10, 2016.

-“Only 33% of Muslims in India work”, January 5, 2016.

-“UK: 45% of Muslims support hate preachers, 11% support jihad against the West – BBC Poll”, January 4, 2016.

British voters understood what had been happening since Muslim migrants began last year to flood into Europe. They saw it on their own streets. They knew about the crime, rapes and unemployment that came with the migrants.

Concurrent with this Muslim tsunami, the EU had continued its anti-Israel agenda (Steven J Rosen, “The EU’s Israel Problem Goes Far Beyond Labels”, thetower. org, issue 34, January, 2016). It worked to pressure Israel (ibid). It supported the ‘Palestinian Cause’ (ibid). It pushed Israel to surrender to its Muslim enemies.

On one level, that’s exactly what the Arab-Israel conflict is about. It’s about forcing Israel (in any way possible) to surrender its Jewish identity so that the Middle East became 100% Muslim. Look at the map of 'Palestine' printed by the Palestinian Authority: the Muslim 'Palestine' replaces the Jewish Israel.

In essence, that map demonstrates that when the EU supports 'Palestinians', it pushes for a Muslim take-over of Israel. But now, perhaps in some kind of Divine measure-for-measure punishment for promoting what amounts to a Muslim take-over of Israel, the EU now experiences a Muslim tsunami (“Will Islam conquer Europe?”, therealtruth, no date).

Under the weight of a massive Muslim migration, the EU could lose its identity to Islam (ibid). The cost of public services for Muslim migrants could provoke the collapse of the EU (Rebecca Perring, “EU will FALL amid terror and migrant strain - and it's starting in Germany, admits EU head”, sundayexpress, January 15, 2016).

Britain has voted to divorce itself from that tsunami. Like Israel, it wants to retain its national identity. It wants to survive its Muslim ‘problem’.

Here’s a prediction: in the face of Islamic pressure, Israel will survive. The EU will not.

Will Britain?

Islamic terror, American compassion--and aliyah

Today, I offer you a picture and a headline. Together, these two items tell you all you need to know about how America plans to protect you from Islamic terror.

This picture and this one headline also do something else. They whisper to you about aliyah. They whisper, it's time to pack your bags. 

Do you hear the whisper?

The picture alone is worth 1,000 words. Actually, in a world threatened by an Islamic terror that knows only horror and brutality, this picture may be worth more than 1,000 words.The headline, meanwhile, seems to be the picture's intellectual sister.

The picture is from the newspaper, Israel HaYom. I found it on the blog, statelymcdanielmanor. The headline appeared on several sites, including, mediaite, on June 22, 2016. 

Now.....page down for your look at how the world's greatest leader fights to keep you safe from Islamic terror:

































The picture is about President Barack Obama. It's about how America's President addresses the problem of Islamic terror: he just can't see it.

Feel safe?

The headline below is about Obama's chief law enforcement officer, the Attorney General of the United States, Ms. Loretta Lynch. Her job is, among other duties, to keep Americans safe. She helps lead the fight against terrorism in the United States. 

But she takes her orders from the President. She operates according to his point of view. 

Can you see where this is going? If the President doesn't see Islam and terror connected, what kind of orders would he give to his Attorney General?

Page down to find out. The story that accompanied this headline was written by Josh Feldman: 




Loretta Lynch: 'Our Most Effective Response to Terror' Is Compassion and Love

That's right: the Attorney General of the United States, America's chief law enforcement officer, is going to fight Islamic terror like a Christian preacher, not a cop.  

I bet that makes you feel safe. 

You're surprised at her comment? Why should you be surprised? If your boss sees no link between Islam and terror, what are you going to do? 

You're going to tow the company line. This is exactly what Ms Lynch did (Jim Treacher, "Loretta Lynch: we may never know why that Islamic terrorist killed all those people", dailycaller, June 21, 2016). 

America has a problem. An Islamic terror that rejects all things Western, including such concepts as compassion and love for one's enemy, has come to America. Since the 2001 9/11 attack, Islamic terrorists have killed more than 3,100 in the US. More than 2,900 died on 9/11. The remainder, some 134, died since then. 

63 of that 134 died in the last seven months. 14 died in California in December, 2015. 49 died in Florida in June, 2016. 

How many more will die in the next seven months?

This is a problem for which America has a solution. That solution is compassion and love (see also, Steve Dennis, "Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick says we need to Love terrorists during his September 11th memorial speech", americaswatchtower, September 12, 2007). That solution begins with the President's refusal to say that Islamic terror threatens America. 

They say that understanding the problem you've got means you've got half the solution. What have you got when you refuse to say what your problem is? 

A bigger problem. But Islamic terror isn't just a 'problem'. it's a problem that kills. You ignore it at your peril.

America, your leaders will protect you from killers--with love. That's the core plan. Your leaders will be compassionate. Through that compassion, they will abandon you to terror.

Here's some advice: if you value your life, never stay where terror will be opposed by compassion and love. If you want to be safe, you must understand that, whenever the ruthless battle the compassionate, the ruthless win. 

Don't wait for compassion and love. It's the wrong way to fight terror. It's wrong because, as a famous saying says, when you are compassionate to the cruel, you end up being cruel to the compassionate. You will create the opposite of what you intend. The compassionate will be slaughtered, not saved.

If you are an American Jew, get out. Make aliyah. Do it now. Don't wait for love to conquer all.  

In the US, anti-Semitism rises and falls. But the number of violent assaults against Jews surges ("ADL audit: Anti-Semitic assaults rise dramatically across the country [USA] in 2015". adl. org, June 22, 2016). On-line Jew-hate has exploded (ibid). 

Where do you think all of that hate and violence will lead? It will certainly not lead to love and compassion for Jews.

America will fail to protect its Jews. It is more concerned about compassion for Muslims than for its Jewish population.

Think about the terror. Think about your American leaders. Think about how they plan to protect you. 

You should worry.

Come to Israel. This is your home. Come now. Come before it's too late.

Yes, Israel is not DisneyWorld. That's true. But Israel is the world's leader in fighting Islamic terror. Israel is the start-up nation. Israel is the home of the Jewish people.

Come home--now.

(note: I have problems controlling font size. I have tried several fixes. All fail. Can anyone advise?)

Shurat HaDin Conference, “Towards a new Law of War”, Day 2

(Last updated: June 22, 2016)

June 21, 2016 is the second and last day of this year’s second annual Conference called, “Towards a new Law of War”. The Conference has been sponsored by Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin (“Tuvia Brodie, “Shurat HaDin Conference, ‘Towards a new Law of War’, Day 1”, tuviabrodieblog, June 20, 2016).

Yesterday, I gave you a report of Day 1. Here’s a review of the second and final day.

Disclosure: I’ve tried to be accurate here. If I have put errors into speakers' mouths, those errors are mine alone. For space reasons, this is a condensed account

Irwin Cotler has served as an MK and Minister of Justice for Canada. He spoke of how the United Nations delegitimizes Israel.

Each year in the UN General Assembly, he said, the UN adopts something like 20 Resolutions against Israel, and perhaps 4 for everyone else (I couldn’t tell if he was exaggerating to make a point, or if these were ‘real’ numbers). This anti-Israel bias has become a UN standard: make sure you condemn one nation, Israel.

There are many committees at the UN working against Israel. Almost every day, people meet somewhere in the UN infrastructure to condemn Israel.

This UN behaviour is a form of ‘Lawfare’ against Israel. It’s the use of law and/or international code as an instrument of war against Israel. We have to fight back.

We can fight by acting like a claimant—not the accused. We have to make the case that these UN condemnations are prejudicial. We have to argue that this prejudice corrupts the values of the UN—and hurts all of Mankind. He described how we can make that case.

We also have to reverse the conventional paradigm about the Arab-Israel conflict—that Israel’s Apartheid is the sole problem that brings misery to the Middle East. We have to argue the truth—that it’s Arab Apartheid that causes Middle East misery.

Prof Rachel Vanlandingham, Former Judge Advocate, US Air Force, spoke about Judea-Samaria. She asked, how should these ‘territories’ be classified legally? This is, she said, an important question because the world uses a double standard for Israel when classifying Judea-Samaria as ‘occupied’ (see below).  She further argued that Judea-Samaria is really sui generis, meaning it’s unique.  Standard legal classifications for ‘occupied territories’ don’t fit here. 

  

Prof Eugene Kontorovich, Northwestern University School of Law, stated that ‘occupation’ is not fully defined. Existing definitions aren’t consistently applied.

When the world says Israel ‘occupies’ Judea-Samaria (the West Bank), it means a ‘belligerent occupation’. That means that Israel maintains actual control of Palestinian Authority (PA) land.

But there’s a problem with ‘belligerent control’ as 'occupation'. Citing military takeovers in Indonesia and Russia, Kontorovich showed that a belligerent military control of someone else’s land is not always called, ‘occupation’.  For example, Russia forcibly occupies two territories. But no one says that its demonstrably belligerent occupation of another is "occupation". 

Israel is different. Despite its far less 'belligerency' in the 'West Bank', its presence there is termed, 'occupation'. 

The same is true regarding an Armenia takeover of Azerbaijan territory. No one says that Armenian take-over is ‘occupation’. But a less ‘belligerent’ Israeli hold on territory claimed by the PA is called ‘occupation’.

 That means Israel is treated with a double standard. As speaker Avi Bell (San Diego School of Law) put it, there’s an ‘Israel rule’: what is permitted in war to Western [and some non-Western] nations is forbidden to Israel.

Uzi Shaya of Shurat HaDin spoke about how teenage terrorists find all they need on Social Media to become killers. For example, after two 14-year old Arab Muslim youth walked into a supermarket in Israel and murdered an IDF soldier, investigators made a disturbing discovery. These teens didn’t belong to any terror group. They weren’t religious. They came from good families. But they each had Facebook, twitter, Instagram and youtube.

The boys had used Social Media to become ‘home-made terrorists’.

Social Media is like the Wild West. There are no controls. All things ‘terror’ are there: the incitement to kill, the manipulation to create the desire to kill and instructions how to kill.  

With Social Media, you can sit at home and become a radical terrorist. Nobody in the West is prepared for this kind of terror. That has to change.

Servers like Facebook show little interest in blocking anti-Israel hate sites. Recently, Shurat HaDin did an experiment. It created two identical hate-filled sites. The sites were identical except for one thing: one site called to kill ‘Palestinians’. The other called to kill Jews. Then, Shurat HaDin sent Facebook two complaints, one against the ‘kill Palestinian’ site, and one against the ‘kill Jews’ site.

Immediately, Facebook took down the ‘kill Palestinian’ site. The ‘kill Jews’ site is still up, several months later. That has to be fixed.

Twitter has had similar issues. So has youtube. No Social Media will stop anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate postings. They all claim freedom of speech.

Hamas cannot open a bank account. Hamas officials cannot get visas. But they can operate on twitter, etc. They can spread hate with no restrictions.

Michah Larkin Avni, founder of Stop Incitement Movement, called the use of Social Media to foment terror a ‘Facebook Intifada’. Social Media is part of jihad. In fact, IS (Islamic State) actually refers to Social Media as an ‘open-source jihad’.

There was much, much more about the dangers of Social Media. There were also discussions of Syria, refugees and IS—and how UN code fails to address what’s happening in Syria.

At the end of the Conference, Israel Minister of Education and head of the Jewish Home Party, Naftali Bennet, spoke. I won’t go into details. But he gave a good speech.

I hope this short-hand review was meaningful despite its brevity. I hope you can see how people from around the world fight for Israel on multiple battlefields, all of them unconventional.

This fight to defend Israel is the fight to change the laws of war so that moral nations can fight on the unconventional battlefield. Because of its enemies, Israel has become the driving force behind innovative, legal strategies to counter the new ‘weapons’ terrorists invent to attack us.

Thanks, Shurat HaDin, for the work you’ve done for Israel (see the Shurat HaDin website). Thanks also for a great Conference.

Shurat HaDin Conference on Laws of War, Day One

Today (Monday, June 20, 2016) and tomorrow (Tuesday, June 21^st) belong to the Israeli NGO, Shurat Hadin.  It’s holding its second annual “Towards a new Law of War Conference”. For these two days, it has brought to the Jerusalem Dan Hotel high-quality legal, military and political experts to discuss Israel and international law. Conference topics for this year include, among other discussions,  the International Criminal Court (ICC), cyberwar, the financial battle against terror, the sovereignty status of Judea-Samaria-Gaza, incitement on Facebook and Social Media, and legal, humanitarian and military issues surrounding ISIS and Syria.

Shurat Hadin works to make terrorism pay a price for its terror. It sues terror entities in court. It wins.

Since its founding by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, esq in 2003 (Tsivya Fox, “How is One Israeli Law Center Bankrupting Terrorism?”, breakingisraelnews, May 16, 2016), Shurat Hadin has won more than 2 billion US dollars in judgments against sponsors of terror, including Iran and North Korea. This year, it won a 655 million dollar judgment against the Palestinian Authority for terror murders against US citizens in Israel.

I don’t have space to review all the Conference’s speakers. Here’s my version of some of the action:

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat spoke about Jerusalem’s security arrangements. He stated that, for Jerusalem, the best defense is offense. He explained how Jerusalem does that. 

Venture Capitalist Jonathan Medved, CEO of VC company, OurCrowd, spoke about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. But instead of describing how to fight BDS, he spoke of how Israel is causing BDS to choke.

The reality of Israel, he said, is that foreign investment into Israel rises each year at a double-digit rate. In 2015, more than 4.5 billion dollars flowed into Israel. Foreign investors are buying more than 100 Israeli companies a year. Foreign investors aren’t talking about divesting. They’re talking about investing into Israel.

Prof Rachel Vanlandingham, former Judge Advocate, US Air Force, spoke about the International Criminal Court (ICC). She suggested that, when one looks at how the ICC treats Israel, one is forced to ask if the ICC has been hijacked to serve political ends. She discussed why one would ask such a question.

Atrtorney Yael Vias Gvirsman, Director, International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic at Radznyr Law School began her presentation with the question, what should Israel’s position be towards the ICC? As she explored this question, she reminded everyone that Israel had ratified the ICC—but didn’t sign it (in the late 1990’s) for fear that the ICC would become politicized against Israel.

Dr Korir Sing’oei, Legal Advisor in the office of the Deputy President of Kenya told a cautionary tale about the ICC, one that suggested Israel was correct to be wary of a politicized ICC.

In 2013, he said, the ICC hauled the Deputy President of Kenya into court (at the Hague) to try him for crimes against humanity just at a time when Kenya was roiling in violence. His view of the ICC is that the ICC was not an instrument of justice. It didn’t address the rights of the victims, nor did it appear to work to bring justice to Kenya. It was, in his opinion, political.

During this first day, two Israeli politicians spoke: Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid. Both gave professional speeches. 

Livni spoke of her basic political value: Israel is Jewish and democratic; Israel must not sacrifice its democracy to its Jewishness (at least, that’s what I believe she said). I disagree with that. I say, she’s wrong.

Lapid was different. Yes, he was off topic. But I really liked what he had to say: he spoke about the UN He offered detail-after-detail to show that the UN has lost its morality and credibility over its demonization of Israel. At least, that’s what I heard him say.

There were other speakers and other topics. I don’t have time here to review all of them. But one favourite of mine from last year’s Conference, Prof Geoffrey Corn from South Texas College of Law, returned to talk about cyberwar. 

He began with a question: is international law sufficiently resilient to deal with the changing nature of war, especially cyberwar? He quoted a US Army General telling a recent NATO Conference that NATO was unprepared to deal with Russian cyber attacks.

It seems that few are prepared. Some of the issues I heard Prof Corn raise include:

-Are we prepared to say that cyber has become an instrument of war?

-Can cyber attacks be an act of war?

-What kind of cyber attack constitutes an act of war?

-If a cyber attack is an act of war, how does a state legally respond to it?

These are questions, Corn suggested, international law is going to have to deal with. So will Israel. According to speaker Dr Udi Levy, Former Israel Intelligence officer, Israel is dealing with just this issue, on multiple fronts.

Former US Ambassador John Bolton spoke (“Bolton warns: Hillary will sign America up to the ICC”, Arutz Sheva, June 20, 2016). So did a number of others.

These speakers are experts. Their expertise shows. Their speeches suggest that Israel is a lot stronger then we’ve been led to believe.

Tomorrow is Day 2. We’ll talk about Judea-Samaria-Gaza; incitement on Facebook and social media; ISIS and Syria. MK Naftali Bennett is scheduled to speak. If you’re interested in attending, we’ll be at the Dan Jerusalem Hotel. I’ll try to give you another report tomorrow evening.

Can you picture the bully of the Middle East?

(An earlier version of this essay appeared as, "Israel is the bully in the Middle East", published at Arutz Sheva [but not here] on January 7, 2016. This is an updated version)

Everyone hates Israel ("Israel: Most hated countries", no date). Israel is a top-ten most hated country for lots of reasons. for one thing, "they killed Jesus" (This is a statement that makes anti-Zionism really just another form of anti-Semitism) (ibid). Then,  they (the Jews of Israel) are hypocrites. They (Jews of Israel) say they're the "holy land". But the place is full of racists (ibid).

Those Jews of Israel are liars, bigots and thieves (ibid). They stole the land of the 'Palestinians' and now lie about it, saying the land is theirs.

You get the picture. Hating Israel shows up on virtually every internet news outlet, in one form or another. It's big business. It's big partly because the world's media keeps it big.

The world media feeds this hate. It makes money from this hate. It gives haters what they want to hear, what they want to read.

The bottom line for Israel is simple: those Jews are not victims. They are , collectively, a bully that dominates, controls and abuses you.

Is that true? Is Israel the bully in the Middle East?

Fortunately, this question is not rocket science. In fact, this question is so easy to answer, we can answer it with a picture. 

This picture shows you a truth. It's a truth that'll help you put the 'Israel-the-bully problem' into a concrete, visual perspective.

These days, you certainly need some perspective about Israel because of what the world says about Israel. Here's a sampling of what the world says:

-Israel bullies the Middle East (Ahmet Tasgetiren, "The Bully of the Middle East", middleeasteye, November 30, 2001).

-Israel is a bully ("Israel is a bully on the verge of global isolation", rtquestionmore, February 8, 2012)

-Israel bullies 'Palestinian' women ("Amnesty accuses Israel of judicial bullying", aljazeera, July 10, 2013).

-Israel is the regional superpower (Fareed Zakaria, "Israel has become the Mideast superpower," thestar, November 22, 2012).

-Israel dominates the Middle East (Fareed Zakaria, " Fareed Zakaria: Israel dominates the Middle East, washingtonpost, November 21, 2012).

-Israel has such greed for power, it even tries to push around the US (Lenny Defranco, "Israel or the United States: who's the f**king superpower here?", breitbart, March 4, 2015).

-Israel acts like it rules the world (Linda Heard, "Does Israel rule the world", gulfnews, June 1, 2010).)

So far as world media is concerned, everyone ‘knows’ Israel is the bully of the Middle East. Everyone 'knows' that Israel is so big and domineering it thinks it owns the world.

Well, if you believe that, take a look here: 

                     

(courtesy of "When people say Israel is the source of all middle east problems", 9gag, no date)

In this picture, Israel appears in red. It's so tiny, you can barely see it (it's near the middle of the map, below Turkey).

This is what a map of the full Arab Middle East looks like. Israel is truly the tiniest of nations. 

The Arab nations, on the other hand, are in green. They dominate the map's landscape. They dominate the Middle East.

As you can see, Israel doesn't dominate anything. It's almost invisible.

By tradition, bullies are big. Often, they're very big.  They use their size to push around the little ones in the schoolyard. They abuse the most vulnerable.

Even when bullies are relatively small, they pick on the vulnerable one. In the Middle East, Israel is the vulnerable one. Israel is vulnerable because the UN makes it so. 

If you attended elementary school, you should know what a bully looks like. He's not the littlest guy in the schoolyard.

In the Middle East, Israel is the littlest guy. It's surrounded by bullies. 

Look at the map. Tell me who's got the 'bully potential' here--the big guys in green, or the tiny, almost invisible guy in red?

This map teaches a lesson. The Middle East is not a civil place. It's an ugly place. 

It's ruthless. It's filled with hate for the 'little one'.

It's a brutal place where the Arab majority bullies and terrorizes the minority--and then tells the world that they're the victim.

This picture tells you all you need to know about the truth of the Middle East.