“Sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek Yahweh until He comes to rain righteousness on you.” Hosea 10: 12
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Jonathan S. Tobin—UN Gaza War Report Leaves No Room for Israeli Self-Defense:
After months of anticipation, the report by the United Nations Human Rights Council about last summer’s Gaza war is out today and its contents are no surprise. While the UNHRC acknowledged that Hamas’s indiscriminate firing of rockets and missiles at Israeli cities and towns were acts of terrorism, it concentrated most of its fire on Israel’s attempts to defend its territory and citizens. The UNHRC not only described Israeli actions as “disproportionate and indiscriminate” but also considers the blockade of Gaza to be a violation of Palestinian human rights and should be investigated by the International Criminal Court. But while the toll of Palestinian civilian deaths was a tragedy, the UN Gaza war report is predictably skewed not just in terms of its mischaracterization of what were, in fact, highly restrictive rules of engagement that often put Israel Defense Forces personnel in danger, but also seeming to grant Hamas impunity to wage a terror war against Israel’s existence. In effect, what the UNHRC is doing is to create rules that allow Hamas to hide amid a civilian population, using them as human shields, and then to claim those trying to stop terror are the real criminals. The United States must not only reject this dangerous precedent, but it ought to withdraw from a biased UN agency that seems to exist largely to single out the Jewish state for unfair treatment.
The UNHRC takes the view that the large number of Palestinians who were killed by Israeli fire around or in their homes is, almost by definition, proof that the IDF misbehaved. Just as wrongheaded is the claim that Israel’s efforts to warn Palestinians to leave specific areas or even specific structures is insufficient to ward off charges of war crimes. But as this feature by Willy Stern published this month by the Weekly Standard shows, the legal process by which IDF strikes are approved is geared toward saving civilian lives goes beyond any notion of what international law requires. Indeed, the Israeli rules, which often endanger Israeli soldiers and allow terrorists to escape simply because of the possibility that civilians might be harmed, are such that they go well beyond the practices what other Western nations, including the United States in its conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq observe.
But when one boils down the UN report to its essentials, it comes to this: The only sort of Israeli action in Gaza that might pass the HRC’s test would be if Israeli soldiers knocked on every door and politely asked if there were any terrorists there and then left if they were told there weren’t. The fact that Hamas deliberately fires its rockets amid and from civilian structures places those in those buildings in harm’s way. Israel tries to warn civilians to leave and even goes to extreme measures such as firing duds at buildings in order to get noncombatants to evacuate them. But Hamas made it clear to civilians that those fleeing the fighting would be considered collaborators if they didn’t stay put. That’s a death threat that Gazans rightly treat as more worrisome than the prospect of being caught in a firefight involving the Israelis. The UNHRC standard is damaging to Israel, but it also hurts the Palestinians since it effectively leaves them at the mercy of the Islamist tyrants that have seized control of Gaza.
Moreover, asking the Israelis not to use heavy weapons in urban areas essentially gives Hamas a further incentive to dig in, as it did, in residential neighborhoods and then dare the Israelis to try to root them out. The results of such actions are sometimes tragic. Though any such deaths are awful, given the scale of the fighting initiated by Hamas, a death toll of even the number of civilians claimed by the UNHRC (other reports place the number of civilians much lower since the UN wrongly allows the Palestinians to declare many Hamas personnel to be noncombatants) is actually quite low. As I noted last week, the fact that other reports and even the verdict of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States is that Israel not only acted properly but also constituted a model for the conduct of armed forces in asymmetrical conflicts illustrates the UNHRC’s bias.
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To continue reading, click here.
SnyderTalk Comment: The U.N. is biased against Israel. That’s an undeniable fact. The recent Gaza report is just the latest example of the U.N.’s anti-Israel bias.
As an institution, the U.N. is ineffective from top to bottom. There are many reasons for this, but the “why” is less important than the fact that it is.
I have no confidence in the U.N. It should be rehabilitated or scrapped. Candidly, I don’t think rehabilitation is a realistic option.
Continuing to pour our tax dollars into the U.N. is counterproductive. If we are determined to support the U.N. despite its corrupt ineptitude, we should impose conditions. If the conditions are not met, funding should be terminated.
That would send a message to a long list of other organizations at which the U.S. foolishly throws money. The Palestinian Authority is at the top of that list.
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Avi Issacharoff: Gaza Report Reveals UN’s Cluelessness—The UN report on the 2014 Gaza war didn’t reveal any findings that weren’t already known, or expose any startling discoveries. The bottom line, and most salient fact, is absent from this report: Israel did not initiate the war and was primarily focused on stopping Hamas rocket fire. From nearly day one, Israel agreed to stop the fighting, but Hamas insisted on continuing the rocket fire from within residential areas, knowing that it would carry a heavy price and lead to international condemnation of Israel. The report sounds at times like a bad joke, claiming that it “cannot conclusively determine the intent of Palestinian armed groups with regard to the construction and use” of cross-border tunnels.
Mitch Ginsberg: Next time, ask a general—The UN report on last summer’s Gaza war, while more even-handed than its predecessor — written shortly after the 2008-2009 conflict — is still willfully or perhaps unknowingly ignorant of modern military affairs. What it needed, aside from Israeli cooperation and an open mind, was a general, preferably one who has commanded troops under fire in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The first thing this officer could have provided is perspective. Whether one accepts the UN death toll, as provided by the Hamas Interior Ministry, or the Israeli one, an international reader still has no way of knowing if the tragic toll in human life — of civilians as opposed to enemy combatants — is disproportionately or even outrageously high. A senior Israeli officer told me during the war, after detailing all that is being done to spare civilians, that even if the ratio comes out as one militant killed for every two civilians, “I’d sign off on that.”
Keith Zakheim: Obama Must Understand Jabotinsky to Understand Netanyahu— There they go again. Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren writes a book – and a Wall Street Journal opinion piece – offering a devastating critique of Barack Obama’s treatment of Israel. And when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly asked by the U.S. Ambassador (according to an anonymous source in Haaretz) to publicly repudiate Oren, Bibi refuses. Why is it that after 60 years of fairly connubial bliss, the U.S. and Israel now seem to be estranged lovers? Some put it down to personal antagonism between Obama and Netanyahu; or to public insults (an Obama advisor saying “Bibi is a chickens**t); or to Bibi’s un-White House sanctioned Congressional speech about Iran. In my view, while these things have certainly not helped the relationship, it seems to me that the root of the dysfunction is neither personal nor episodic; rather, it stems from President Obama’s lack of understanding of the powerful philosophical influence of the great Zionist pioneer and thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky on the Israeli Prime Minister.
David Horovitz: Shame on you, Mary McGowan Davis— It’s not often I find myself agreeing with Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the populist leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party who wants to annex most of the West Bank and would therefore usher in Israel’s destruction as either a Jewish state, a democracy, or both. But when Bennett greeted the publication Monday of the UN Human Rights Council’s report on last summer’s Israel-Hamas war by succinctly telling its compilers, “Shame on you,” he had it exactly right. Shame on you, Mary McGowan Davis, for accepting the mandate to sit on the commission in the first place, and then to replace the discredited William Schabas as its head, when the UNHRC that appointed you and set your terms is so demonstrably, openly, ridiculously, obsessed with delegitimizing and thus weakening Israel, in a gross distortion of its ostensible purpose. (As of last summer, the majority of the 100-plus resolutions passed by this outrageous body since its inception in 2006 had focused on Israel. That’s one country out of the world’s 200 or so, almost all of which are engaged in some kind of conflict.)
Captain (res.) Dor Matot: IDF Officer: “Our Morality Cost Us Our Lives”—I served in Shujaiyeh during the 2014 Gaza war. We did not enter Shujaiyeh at the beginning of the ground incursion because of the large civilian population there. When we went in the following day, Hamas gunmen were awaiting our arrival. Five of our soldiers were killed and 20 others were injured. In this instance it is understood that our morality cost us our lives. We were sent into a carefully laid trap because of our considerations in harming the Palestinian population.
Lilach Shoval: ‘IDF is a moral army fighting in an immoral neighborhood’— Israel Defense Forces Capt. (res.) Matan Katzman spoke Wednesday before the Human Rights Subcommittee of the European Parliament in an effort to counter recent testimony by Breaking the Silence, an organization dedicated to exposing alleged wrongdoings by the Israeli army. “The IDF is a moral army fighting in an immoral neighborhood,” said Katzman, who serves in the Givati Brigade and was speaking on behalf of StandWithUs, an educational organization for Israel advocacy, and the My Truth initiative, which gathers IDF soldier testimonies. Katzman co-founded My Truth with fellow soldier Avichai Shorshan in response to a damning report released by Breaking the Silence about IDF conduct during last summer’s Gaza conflict. When the group sought to export their testimony to European audiences, the My Truth organizers felt something needed to be done about the unfair portrayal of the IDF.
NGO Monitor: UN Report on Gaza: Improvement over Goldstone, But NGO Reliance Hurts Credibility—The report of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the 2014 Gaza war, like the 2009 Goldstone Report, quotes extensively from biased and unreliable political advocacy NGOs. By repeating the unverified allegations of such groups, the UN investigation is irrevocably tarnished. These NGOs were referenced, cited, and quoted at a high volume: B’Tselem had 69 citations, followed by Amnesty International (53), Palestinian Center for Human Rights (50), and Al Mezan (29). These groups are not appropriate for professional fact-finding. Anne Herzberg, NGO Monitor‘s legal advisor, noted, “The COI makes numerous assertions about feasible precautions, identification of military objectives, military necessity, and standards applied by reasonable commanders. In at least four independent studies by military experts…all concluded that not only did Israel exceed the requirements of international law in the Gaza conflict but that its precautionary efforts to protect civilians were unprecedented in the history of warfare.”
Gideon Sa’ar and Zaki Shalom: An American Military Option against Iran: A Vanishing Idea— The Obama administration’s strong desire to reach an agreement with Iran on the nuclear issue, along with the administration’s perceived need to respond to the criticism leveled against it following the Lausanne understandings, has led it to sharpen the rhetoric invalidating the military option against Iran. • This position by the US administration requires the advancement of a clear alternative position based on a credible military option that is capable of setting the Iranian nuclear program back many years; senior US military officials claim this is possible. • However, what in effect amounts to a removal of the military option from the agenda serves to weaken the position of the administration and the international community in the negotiations with Iran during this final, critical leg. It is also a bad omen regarding the outcome of the negotiations.
Bassam Tawil: Establishing a Palestinian Islamist State— The Middle East is at it again. At the top of the list, no one, it seems, is even thinking of stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability — and by extension at least several other countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. First, It is dangerous enough for any openly expansionist regime, theological or not, to have nuclear weapons; Iran has recently shown itself to be nothing if not expansionist. Second, and, if possible, worse, several of the countries around Iran — who correctly feel in its crosshairs, have already announced that they will be building or buying nuclear weapons as well; and have probably already started. The Islamic State (ISIS) is also rumored to be on the market for a nuclear warhead; you too can apparently buy one for around $400 million. So we shall all have uncontrolled and uncontrollable nuclear proliferation to look forward to.
Yvette Alt Miller: Blacks and Jews in the Crosshairs— As the world reels in the aftermath of the horrific massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charlotte, South Carolina, from some quarters, there is praise for the crime. To a frightening number of people, Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old white supremacist who murdered nine church-goers in cold blood after first attending a Bible study class with them, is not an object of horror and revulsion, but a role model: possessing courage “to do what most white supremacists only talk about”. That quote, from a neo-Nazi website monitored by the Anti-Defamation League, was echoed across the white-supremacist blogosphere, according to the organization. Chillingly, this hatred goes beyond loathing of African Americans, who were the victims of Roof’s rampage, and links a visceral abhorrence of black people with an enmity towards Jews. Roof writes in his online manifesto: “I think that if we could somehow destroy the jewish (sic) identity, then they wouldn’t cause much of a problem… Just like (racial epithet), most jews (sic) are always thinking about the fact that they are jewish (sic)… The other issue is that they network… I don’t pretend to understand why jews (sic) do what they do. The are enigma (sic).”
Thomas Sowell: Hillary and History— There are no sure things in politics, but Hillary Clinton is the closest thing to a sure thing to become the Democrats’ candidate for president in 2016. This is one of the painful but inescapable signs of our time. There is nothing in her history that would qualify her for the presidency, and much that should disqualify her. What is even more painful is that none of that matters politically. Many people simply want “a woman” to be president, and Hillary is the best-known woman in politics, though by no means the best qualified. What is Hillary’s history? In the most important job she has ever held — Secretary of State — American foreign policy has had one setback after another, punctuated by disasters.
Shiryn Ghermezian: New Webpage Documents Over 100 Testimonies of Antisemitism on US Campuses; Jewish Students Report Feeling Targeted, Terrified—A new webpage was launched on Monday featuring over one hundred personal testimonies from Jewish students who have experienced antisemitism on campuses across the U.S. over the past year-and-a-half. Behind the project is the non-profit campus watchdog AMCHA Initiative which gathered the extensive testimony from public reports, and students at 47 colleges and universities in 20 states. In their reports on the site, some students said they felt intimidated and frightened. Others said they wanted to hide their Jewish identities for fear of being targeted by classmates. One student from University of Washington said that after seeing his Star of David, some people “brand me as someone toxic, someone worthy of their disdain and vitriol.”
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Jerusalem pushes democracies to reject UN Gaza report
Herzog aligns with Netanyahu on Iran
Khamenei appears to reject key aspect of Lausanne framework
Cyber attack ‘could derail Iranian nuclear agreement,’ war game finds
Gazan terrorists fire rocket at South
IAF strikes Gaza rocket launcher after projectile attack on southern Israel
Palestinian who murdered Italian activist escapes Gaza prison to join ISIS
Report: ISIS mints coins, currency soon to be in circulation
High Court orders demolition of 17 homes in West Bank outpost
After deadly mob attack, IDF instituting changes, asks for stepped up police presence
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‘No One is Surprised Anymore that Israel is Singled Out’
Former Ambassador: UN Report on Gaza ‘Completely Predictable’
Khamenei Rules Out Lengthy Freezing of Nuclear Work
‘Government That Allows Rockets Shouldn’t Exist’
Druze Attack on Ambulance Tipped Off by Soldier?
Gaza Rocket Lands in Ashkelon Region
Attorneys: Evidence Shows Stabber Meant to Murder
US Rabbi: We Failed Israel, and Ourselves
Zambian Jewish Community Disappearing
‘Ukrainians Wish They Were Jews’
India Issues Terror Warning to Israelis
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Hamas raps UN report criticism, but praises condemnation of Israel
U.S. Backs Israeli Self-Defense after UN Gaza Report
U.S. Jewish Organizations Deride UN Report on Gaza War
UN’s Gaza report will make the rounds, but won’t put Israelis in the dock
Analysis: UN’s softer Gaza accusations may end up more damaging for Israel
UN report: Tunnels into Israel legitimately targeted IDF
Assad mouthpiece praises Israeli Druze killing of Syrian man
Islamic State releases new gruesome execution video
Palestinians giving up on statehood, ex-security chief says
Ex-Tunisian president to board Gaza blockade-busting boat
Foreign Ministry chief meets Turkish counterpart in sign of thaw
17 arrested as Ethiopian Israelis protest cop’s clearing
The ‘other’ China seeks Israeli business, too
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The Kurds Are Building a Country with Every Victory Over ISIS
US response to Kurdish advances in Syria tempered by caution
Syrian Kurds victory over ISIL could stir up problems
US announces new tank and artillery deployment in Europe
Syrian Kurds take town, base near Islamic State stronghold
Why the Arrest of Rwanda’s Intelligence Chief in the UK Is Causing Waves
Nighttime Fasting Can Help with Weight Loss and Blood Sugar Levels
In absurd finding, UNHRC report dubs terror tunnels ‘legitimate’
Pakistani Crisis Born Not Just of Heat, but Politics and Faith
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Putin plot? Russia spreads ‘Free Texas’ mantra
The Pentagon goes nuclear on Russia
Iran’s leader issues ultimatums as deadline for nuclear deal nears
Iran’s Forces and U.S. Share a Base in Iraq
Iran sentences 18 Christians to prison in new crackdown on Christianity
‘Iran Supporting More than 100 Shiite Terror Groups’
Netanyahu says potential Iran nuclear deal is ‘terrible’
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Email Distribution List:
I have created an email distribution list that I use to notify people when I post a new SnyderTalk. If you would like to be on that list, send your email address to nhsny@yahoo.com, and put “add me to your distribution list” in the subject line. If you know others who are interested in SnyderTalk content, tell them to send me their email address, and I’ll put them on the list.
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Exodus 13
3 Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand Yahweh brought you out from this place. And nothing leavened shall be eaten. 4 On this day in the month of Abib, you are about to go forth. 5 It shall be when Yahweh brings you to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall observe this rite in this month. 6 For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to Yahweh. 7 Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and nothing leavened shall be seen among you, nor shall any leaven be seen among you in all your borders. 8 You shall tell your son on that day, saying, ‘It is because of what Yahweh did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ 9 And it shall serve as a sign to you on your hand, and as a reminder on your forehead, that the law of Yahweh may be in your mouth; for with a powerful hand Yahweh brought you out of Egypt. 10 Therefore, you shall keep this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year.”
SnyderTalk Comment: Read His Name is Yahweh.
You can tell that Passover is very important to Yahweh, and Passover is not Easter.
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His Name is Yahweh explains why the Name of God, Yahweh, is so important. It’s available in eBook format and in paperback. It’s also available for free in PDF format.
- God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This [Yahweh] is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.” (Exodus 3: 15)
- “Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—this time I will make them know My power and My might; and they shall know that My name is Yahweh.” (Jeremiah 16: 21)
- “Behold, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘Yahweh our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23: 5-6)
- Yeshua said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8: 58)
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Philippians 2: 9-11—Jim Hutchens
Click here to download the entire audio presentation for free and with no strings attached. Share it as often as you want.
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Blessings in the Book of Revelation is a book that you need to read, especially now. There are blessings throughout the Scriptures but Revelation is the only book in the Bible actually containing a specific blessing for reading it. It’s repeated twice, once at the beginning and again at the end. This is the reason that I believe Revelation should be the first step toward studying biblical prophecy. Though not easy to do, Revelation can be broken down and understood by anyone, not just the academic elite. So, Revelation’s blessings are for everyone. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
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Other Books by Neil Snyder
- Stand! is a suspense novel that exposes the lies, corruption, and greed underlying the theory that man-made CO2 emissions are responsible for global warming. Professor Wes Carlyle and Karen Sterling, his research collaborator, carefully scan the audience for their would-be attacker—a member of the enviro-gestapo who has been following them for days. Wes spots his man in the back of the room leaning against the wall. Suddenly, another man in the audience steps forward and moves toward Karen at a menacing pace. With a vicious stroke, he swings a billy club at her head. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
- What Will You Do with the Rest of Your Life? deals with a question that every Christian has to consider: what should I do with my life? Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
- Falsely Accused is a true story about a young woman who was accused of committing a double homicide. It’s about a travesty of justice, and it reveals Yahweh intervening in the life of a believer to rescue her from danger in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Everyone will enjoy the book, but young people in particular need to read it because the mistakes made that led to the problem could have been avoided. They were the kinds of mistakes that young people are prone to make. As they say, forewarned is forearmed. Click here to order the eBook. Click here to order the paperback.
