Nathan Thrall, "Mismanaging the Conflict in Jerusalem": New Episode in the Times's War Against Israel

Tweet

Are you familiar with "The International Crisis Group"? Probably not. However, if you go to their website, you will find their explanation of the recent violence at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem:

"Clashes broke out between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at Al-Aqsa Mosque starting 10 Sept after govt, fearing violent escalation at site during visits by religious Jews during Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashana), revived limitations on Muslim access 9 Sept."

Mention of the fact that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located on the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site? Not a chance. After all, as Palestinian Authority President Abbas declared on September 16, 2015:

"We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr will reach paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is ours, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is ours, and [the Jews] have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem."

The International Crisis Group also fails to mention that Palestinians had brought pipe bombs to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to throw at Jewish worshipers.

Which brings us to another risible guest New York Times op-ed entitled "Mismanaging the Conflict in Jerusalem" by Nathan Thrall, "a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group," which concludes:

"Last month, a survey of Palestinians found support for an armed intifada at 57 percent (and at 71 percent among 18- to 22-year-old men). Support was highest in Hebron and Jerusalem. Two-thirds of those surveyed wanted Mr. Abbas to resign.

Mr. Kerry is scheduled to have meetings with Mr. Abbas and with Mr. Netanyahu in an effort to achieve their shared goal of restoring calm and returning to the status quo. Violence is politically threatening to both leaders, especially to Mr. Abbas, and both will continue to work to suppress any escalation.

Yet if they succeed only in ending the unrest, they will have merely restored the stasis that gave rise to it. This is what Israelis call 'managing the conflict.' There is certainly no guarantee that if the two leaders fail to stop the flow of Palestinian and Israeli blood, things will eventually get better.

But what does seem guaranteed is that most Palestinians will continue to believe that if the occupation is cost-free, there will be little incentive to end it. Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu have taught them that."

No mention by "senior analyst" Nathan that a June 2014 poll conducted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy determined that sixty percent of Palestinians "reject permanently accepting Israel’s existence and instead suggest their leaders 'work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea.'" Or stated otherwise, the only territorial compromise that these sixty percent of Palestinians are willing to accept is the extermination of Israel.

Also, no mention by "senior analyst" Nathan of Jeffrey Goldberg's October 16, 2015 Atlantic article entitled "The Paranoid, Supremacist Roots of the Stabbing Intifada," which states:

"The current 'stabbing Intifada' now taking place in Israel—a quasi-uprising in which young Palestinians have been trying, and occasionally succeeding, to kill Jews with knives—is prompted in good part by the same set of manipulated emotions that sparked the anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s: a deeply felt desire on the part of Palestinians to 'protect' the Temple Mount from Jews.

. . . .

The violence of the past two weeks, encouraged by purveyors of rumors who now have both Israeli and Palestinian blood on their hands, is rooted not in Israeli settlement policy, but in a worldview that dismisses the national and religious rights of Jews. There will not be peace between Israelis and Palestinians so long as parties on both sides of the conflict continue to deny the national and religious rights of the other."

Let's be honest, "senior analyst" Nathan's op-ed is very much in keeping with US Secretary of State Kerry's absurd attempt to link the current wave of stabbing with Israeli settlement activity. It is also very much in keeping with the war against Israel being waged by The New York Times, which recently sought to question whether the ancient Jewish temples stood on the Temple Mount.

Disgusting.

New York Times Editorial, "Israel’s War in Gaza": The Blind Leading the Blind

In an editorial entitled "Israel’s War in Gaza" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/opinion/Israels-War-in-Gaza.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0), The New York Times relies on three would-be authorities: President Obama, the UN and Nathan Thrall. Regarding President Obama, the editorial tells us:

"There was no way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was going to tolerate the Hamas bombardments, which are indiscriminately lobbed at Israeli population centers. Nor should he. As President Obama said on Friday, 'No nation should accept rockets being fired into its borders, or terrorists tunneling into its territory.'

. . . .

Hamas leaders deserve condemnation for storing and launching rockets in heavily populated areas, cynically knowing they will draw Israeli fire to places where civilians live and play. Still, in a call with Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Obama was right to express concern about the 'risks of further escalation and the loss of more innocent life.'"

Of course, if President Obama says it, it must be right. No mention by the Times that the US, the UK and Afghan government forces have killed a total of some 6,500 innocent Afghan civilians in recent years (see: http://www.thenation.com/afghanistan-database).

Also no mention by the Times of US drone attacks in Pakistan. As reported in a 2014 Huffington Post article entitled "The Toll Of 5 Years Of Drone Strikes: 2,400 Dead" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/obama-drone-program-anniversary_n_4654825.html) by Matt Sledge:

"Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a pair of reports in October fiercely criticizing the secrecy that shrouds the administration's drone program, and calling for investigations into the deaths of drone victims with no apparent connection to terrorism. In Pakistan alone, [the Bureau of Investigative Journalism] estimates, between 416 and 951 civilians, including 168 to 200 children, have been killed."

Apparently unbeknownst to Obama and the editorial board of The New York Times, the Israeli Defense Forces are also seeking to minimize civilian casualties:



Of course, this does not mean that civilians are not going to be killed in a war in which Hamas uses schools to store its missiles (see: http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-strongly-condemns-placement-rockets-school), but the IDF is making efforts to reduce civilian casualties, which include leaflets asking civilians to evacuate battle zones, phone calls to civilians warning of an imminent attack, and "knocking-on-the-roof" (a warning with a rocket that does not contain an explosive charge) prior to an air strike.

The Times editorial also quotes the United Nations:

"The United Nations says that of the more than 260 Palestinians killed, three-quarters were civilians, including more than 50 children."

However, the United Nations receives its casualty figures from the health ministry in Gaza, which is run by . . . Hamas. Hamas, needless to say, is actively interested in inflating the number of civilians killed for propaganda purposes.

Finally, the Times editorial refers its readers to a guest op-ed by someone named Nathan Thrall, which was published by the Times yesterday (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/nathan-thrall-how-west-chose-war-in.html). Thrall would have us believe that Israel, with the help of Egypt and the West, brought the current war with Hamas upon itself. However, Thrall's risible essay fails to mention:

• The Hamas charter, which calls for the murder of all Jews, not just Israelis.

• Past suicide bombings in Israel perpetrated by Hamas operatives (425 terrorist attacks between September 2000 and March 2004, which killed 377 and wounded 2,076).

• The thousands of rockets fired into Israeli population centers from Gaza by Hamas and Islamic Jihad over the course of more than a decade.

Thrall does, of course, repeat Obama's declaration that the situation in Gaza is "unsustainable."

Truly an instance of the blind leading the blind.

Nathan Thrall, "How the West Chose War in Gaza": The New York Times Continues to Wage Op-ed War Against Israel

In a guest New York Times op-ed entitled "How the West Chose War in Gaza" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/opinion/gaza-and-israel-the-road-to-war-paved-by-the-west.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0), Nathan Thrall would have us believe that Israel, with the help of Egypt and the West, brought the current war with Hamas upon itself. Thrall begins:

"AS Hamas fires rockets at Israeli cities and Israel follows up its extensive airstrikes with a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the most immediate cause of this latest war has been ignored: Israel and much of the international community placed a prohibitive set of obstacles in the way of the Palestinian 'national consensus' government that was formed in early June.

That government was created largely because of Hamas’s desperation and isolation. The group’s alliance with Syria and Iran was in shambles. Its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt became a liability after a July 2013 coup replaced an ally, President Mohamed Morsi, with a bitter adversary, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Hamas’s coffers dried up as General Sisi closed the tunnels that had brought to Gaza the goods and tax revenues on which it depended."

No mention by Thrall of the Hamas charter, which calls for the murder of all Jews, not just Israelis.

No mention by Thrall of past suicide bombings in Israel perpetrated by Hamas operatives (425 terrorist attacks between September 2000 and March 2004, which killed 377 and wounded 2,076).

No mention by Thrall, after an initial fleeting reference in his first paragraph, of the thousands of rockets fired into Israeli population centers from Gaza by Hamas and Islamic Jihad over the course of more than a decade.

Bear in mind, Hamas, after losing the support of the Muslim Brotherhood when Sisi came to power in Egypt, and after losing the support of Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei by siding with the opposition in Syria, is bereft of backing, and Israel now needs to come to its aid in order to pay Hamas's 43,000 civil servants. You see, when a terrorist organization is facing collapse, you need to help it back on its feet. Yeah, right.

Those rockets fired into Israel which Thrall so studiously ignores? See the following table provided by the IDF (http://www.idfblog.com/facts-figures/rocket-attacks-toward-israel/):

Rocket fire? Mere mosquito bites, right? Who cares if they are now being indiscriminately aimed at Beersheva, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem? But can you imagine the response in the US if debris from exploding rockets was falling on the heads of the inhabitants of Philadelphia, New York and Washington? Americans would not put up with this for an instant.

Thrall declares:

"It is unsustainable for Gaza to remain cut off from the world and administered by employees working without pay. A more generous cease-fire, though politically difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would be more durable."

Of course, Thrall is aping President Obama, who three days ago also declared that the situation in Gaza in "unsustainable" (http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-even-after-truce-status-quo-unsustainable/). Regrettably, it never occurred to Thrall or Obama that it is "unsustainable" for Gaza to be ruled by a terrorist organization calling for the murder of all Jews, and that a cease-fire should begin with a renunciation by Hamas of its offensive racist charter.