Israel Could Avoid Mistakes With Security Prisoners That Help Its Enemies

As a country that has been uniquely targeted by terrorism, Israel (which has no capital punishment) has ended up with a fair amount of what are termed 'security prisoners' on its hands. Almost all of them have been tried and convicted in Israeli criminal courts and all been represented by counsel and given rights they could expect nowhere else in the Middle East.

Many of them have been convicted of terrorist assaults on civilians that turn the stomach with their brutality and callousness. Yet the Palestinian Authority continues to insist that these 'holy martyrs' ( PA leader Mahmoud Abbas' term for them) be freed as part of any peace settlement, and the PA ups the ante by demonstrating its support for terrorism by continuing to pay salaries to these men and their families.

The latest one to hit the news is one Arafat Jaradat. He was a 30-year-old member of the Al-Aksa Brigade awaiting trial after being arrested for throwing stones at Israeli civilians and security personnel during a riot.He had apparently sustained an injury from being hit by rubber bullets and had received treatment by Israeli medics.

Arafat Jaradat passed away while being held in Meggido Prison. The Israelis say his death was due to heart failure, and invited the Palestinians to examine the body themselves. Needless to say, the Palestinians used this opportunity to claim that Jaradat had been 'tortured to death', make a martyr out of him and give him a full heroes' funeral to gin up further violence directed against Israel.

Of course, the UN, which has done nothing about actual rape, torture and even extrajudicial killings in places like Egypt,the Sudan, Iran and yes, Gaza and the Palestinian Authority was on this like flies on dog droppings, calling for 'an independent inquiry' into the death at the Palestinian's instigation. This, of course lends a miasma of authenticity to stories from the usual suspects claiming that Jaradat 'died under Israeli torture.'

One could mention a number of logical reasons why this is sheer Arab fantasy. Jaradat was, in terms of the sort of people usually jailed by Israel a small fish, so there was no need to interrogate him at all, let alone allow the Palestinians to examine the body if the Israelis had tortured him.

The Israelis did it, yet again, out of a totally misplaced inclination of fair play and transparency that never fails to get them into trouble with these particular actors.

There's a much better way to deal with these situations.

When Israel was faced with trying to get back the remains of two IDF soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev who had been abducted by Hezbollah, the UN, which supposedly was conducting a peacekeeping operation did nothing and said nothing. The bodies weren't returned to Israel, they were swapped for the freedom of terrorist killers, including Samir Kuntar, who murdered Israeli civilian Danny Haran in front of his four-year-old daughter Einat so that was the last thing she ever saw and then smashed her skull in with his rifle butt. Kuntar, by the way, was feted by the Palestinian Authority upon his release, and has been made an Honorary Palestinian Citizen.

After Kuntar was released and the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers were opened, both of them showed obvious signs of torture and had been mutilated.

There is something here for the Israelis to learn.

First, the Israelis need to understand that no matter what, the Arabs are going to be willing to lie, fabricate, dissemble and perpetuate fraud in order to score victories with the already committed enemies of the Jewish State and their gullible dupes. Remember the Jenin 'massacre'? Gaza Beach Blanket Bingo? Mohammed al-Doura? I could cite literally dozens of others.

The Israelis should have known what was going to happen the minute they allowed the Palestinians to examine Jaradat's body and how the PA was going to make use of it the Israelis released it to them.

It would have been far, far better if they had simply done their own in depth, videotaped autopsy, filed it away somewhere and then treated the body to a nice quiet and anonymous burial.

They would thus have denied the PA a 'martyr'. And if the UN decided to intervene, the Israelis could simply allow them examine and view (but not remove) the records of the autopsy.

If the PA wanted the remains back that badly, the Israelis should bargain hard and make them give up major concessions for it.

The PA and Hamas shouldn't be given the tools to make propaganda. And as for the convicted murderers already in Israeli prisons, the monthly salaries the PA sends them and the tax monies Israel collects on the PA's behalf ought to be expropriated by Israel to pay for these prisoner's room and board.

Getting hit in the wallet might actually provide an incentive for the PA to end its support of terrorism against Israelis.

WAPO Fact Checker: 'I Don't Fact Check Our Own Writers'

WAPO Fact Checker Glenn Kessler apparently got his pee pee whacked by his bosses at the Washingtone Post after he gave a story the Post ran on June 21 about Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s old firm claiming it invested in companies that were “pioneers” in the practice of shipping jobs overseas four Pinnochios for untruthfullness.

Kessler now says he refuses to fact check stories published in his newspaper, and thus will not award any Pinocchios even for comments made by political candidates about stories reported in the Washington Post:

Kessler has announced he is not going to issue any Pinocchios based on claims that President Obama’s campaign has made based on a disputed Washington Post story — although he says the Obama campaign misquotes the WaPo story.

Why? Because “The Fact Checker does not check the facts in the reporting of Washington Post writers or columnists.” He does this in a column that defends the Post’s reporting. {...}

The column then goes on to say that the Obama campaign has made false claims regarding the story – which, remember, the Romney campaign still claims was inaccurate to begin with.

“[T]here is little in the Post article that backs up the Obama campaign’s spin,” Kessler says.

Nevertheless, he refuses to scold the Obama campaign for this. “Given that this debate involves an interpretation of a Post article, we are not going to award any Pinocchios.”

Translation? 'Umm, I like my job and it's been made clear to me that if I want to keep it, dissing the Washington Post's own biased reporting had better not ever happen again.'

And that apparently includes bogus campaign ads based on it.

Obviously, you can't fault Kessler for this...it's his bosses.

What was that about freedom of the press and journalistic ethics again?

The Left's' Embrace Of Hate And Violence...A Flashback

Michelle Malkin does a superb job of reminding us where the violent rhetoric and deeds really come from in American politics with The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.

In it she goes over all of the venom and hate-filled words and acts of the angry Left over the last decade...the Bush assassination fantasies, the Palin hate and the threats of murder and rape, the physical attacks on military recruiters and their facilities, the threats against conservative pundits and the physical attacks on Tea Party activists and Republicans..it's all there, although she missed one of my favorites, Air America talk show host Randi Rhodes saying on the air that President Bush 'oughta be treated like Fredo in 'The Godfather'...you take him out fishing, badda bing, two in the head and its done.'

I heard that one personally, and it's obvious that someone had a word with her during the break about the felony offense of threatening the life of a president because she later announced she was 'kidding'. Trust me...she wasn't. And I heard that with my own two ears.

Even better, Michelle has a mug shot gallery of Leftards who have actually been arrested for assault,vandalism and other assorted offenses.

This would normally be a day to ramp down such sentiments, but after the obscene hatred exhibited by the Left in the last day or so, the outright lies that have been told, the capitalizing on tragedy..well it's time to remind ourselves where the hatred and vitriol in American political discourse really comes from.

Don't be intimidated.

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Must See Interview: Melanie Phillips On Israeli TV

Simply the truth, unadorned.And she's spot on about why Israel is losing the information war...

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Why Israel Is Losing The Information War

Many people who are informed about what's actually happening in the Middle East constantly wonder why Israel fares so badly in the information wars. The following example gives us a pretty good idea why.

Jawaher Abu Rahmah, a 'Palestinian' activist, died on January 1st. Saeb Erekat, the right fork of Yasser Arafat's tongue, claimed that she died during a demonstration in the 'Palestinian' town of Bil'in, killed by "poison" contained in tear gas fired at the demonstration by Israeli soldiers after it deteriorated into what could best be termed a riot.

'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas called Abu Rahmah's death a "new Israeli crime carried out by the occupation army against our helpless nation."

She was given a martyr's funeral as a victim an Israeli "war crime", with crowds of mourners and the usual Palestinian stringers who work for the dinosaur media in attendance.

The story was almost instantaneously reported around the world as fact by the AFP, the Guardian, The AP, The Independent, UPI, Voice of America, and even the Jewish Telegraphic Agency among others, while TIME's resident Israel basher Tony Karon got off a piece celebrating this as the occasion of an alliance between 'Palestinian' activists and Israeli Leftists.

The real story? According to the IDF, there's no evidence Abu Rahmah was even at the Bil'in demonstration, nor does she show up on any of the videos. There's no evidence that she died from inhaling tear gas ( if it was in fact 'poisonous' why weren't there other deaths?) and the death certificate shows the cause of death as "Inhaling gas of an Israeli soldier according to the family."

This is an indication that no doctor actually examined Abu Rahmah, but that the death certificate was simply filled out by a nurse or orderly. And the accounts of her actual health are contradictory.

Was Abu Ramah the victim of an honor killing exploited by the PA? It certainly wouldn't be the first Pallywood production we've seen.

And really, none of the facts matter at this point.

Run with me for a second.Let's say that evidence surfaces that Abu Ramah was never at the demo, and that this was an honor killing rather than death by teargas. What changes?

By the time the truth comes out, the Palestinian propaganda machine and their allies have already publicized their version, it's gone around the world and the media has already gone on to the next story. The Muslim world will certainly never hear the truth, Israel's enemies in the West will simply take the Pal version as factual and the media circus has moved on

And that's the core of the problem.

Jews culturally are geared toward parsing facts and evidence, which is one reason so many of them are attracted to the legal profession. Anyone studying the Talmud or Gemara (commentaries on Jewish Law as given in the Torah)essentially receives a legal education in miniature.

But what happens when you're up against people that care nothing for facts and everything about impact and propaganda? What happens when you fight an information war against people who care nothing for the truth and merely want to consume your flesh?

In today's media climate, you're left foundering trying to decipher the facts while the other side has already made its impact.

This is the sort of thing that happens when you play defense instead of offense..the other side controls the game and you're limited to reacting.

That's why Israel has been losing the information war.

Israel would be far better off going on offense by publicizing the Palestinian Authority's inherent corruption, the status of women and homosexuals, its official endorsements of terrorism against Israel's civilians, and its refusal to make a single concession in any negotiations

As for Abu Ramah, instead of reacting to the 'Palestinian' narrative with frantic attempts to dredge up facts, Israel would get a lot further by going for impact and simply calling out Erekat and Abbas for lying, challenging them to prove Abu Ramah was there and that the IDF killed her, and reminding the world of all the other fairy tales the Palestinians have spun over the years.

Cross posted at American Thinker and Big Journalism.

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