The former police commander for the Jerusalem district, Niso Shacham, told Police Commission Yochanan Danino that he will be quitting the police force. If he didn’t quit,, it was expected that he would have been fired in the coming weeks.

An indictment was filed against Shacham a few days ago, for sexual harassment of his subordinates, indecent assault, fraud and breach of trust, following an investigation and charges against him that began last year.

Shacham had relations with at least eight significantly younger and lower ranking female police officers. He was indicted for indecent acts on 2 officers, and sexual harassment of a third.

Shacham first came into the general public’s eye eight years ago, after he was caught on video, vulgarly giving orders to his policeman to use excessive force on the non-violent, unarmed civilians who had gathered in Kfar Maimom to protest the upcoming expulsion from Gush Katif.

He was not punished then for his actions, and was eventually promoted to be the Jerusalem Police Commander.

This story happened today, Thursday, but it goes back 30 years, when this writer was a greenhorn in Israel, trying to learn the Israeli culture.

A Gaza man was reported on Thursday to be prepared to sell his six-year-old daughter because he is so desperately poor.

“Hani al-Hadidi, 33, a construction worker from Gaza’s al-Shajaiya neighborhood, says he is struggling to provide for his wife and five children,” the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency reported. “No one dares to sell his children, but the hard situation we live in has forced me to make such a decision.”

The news site, closely affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, naturally followed this description of al-Hadidi’s dire state with the comment that Gaza “has been under a under a severe economic blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt since 2007.”

Now let’s go back 30 years to my greenhorn years, when I was trying to get the hang of Israeli culture after parachuting into Israel from planet America in October 1983.

By December, I was volunteering on the Jewish community of Atzmona in Gush Katif, which at that time was located a few hundred feet away from Rafiah. Even back then, Atzmona residents told me it was a drug smuggling capital.

I worked building greenhouses for a Jewish farmer named Chaim, but my foreman was Ahmed. That’s right, “Ahmed,” from Khan Yunis in central Gaza.

He had six children and told me life was good, he was making a decent living working for Chaim and that he could care less about politics.

Gaza’s few thousand Jews shopped in Khan Yunis and Gaza City for cheap vegetables and clothes. The Egged bus I took, when traveling north, rolled peacefully along the main drag through Gaza City.

Tens of thousands of Gaza Arabs worked in Gush Katif farming communities and in construction in the rest of Israel. Gaza was under Israeli control, but municipalities were run by Arabs, who – pardon the expression – never had it so good.

The unemployment rate in 1984, as seen in the chart below, was a miniscule 0.9 percent while it was four times that number for Arabs in Judea and Samaria.

I left Gush Katif in 1984 to learn more about other parts of Israel.

Three years later, an Arab in Gaza City stabbed an Israeli to death while he was shopping there. The following day, after four Arabs were killed in a traffic accident in Gaza, unfounded rumors spread the libel that Israelis had killed them as an act of revenge.

Arab blood was boiling, and the violence spun out of control, with a firebombing of an IDF patrol, mass rioting, blocked roads and tire burnings.

The Intifada was born and the unemployment rate began to rise.

In 1986, it was only 1.5 percent. By 1988, it climbed to 2.3 percent and then 3.8 percent in 1990.

Jews were thinking twice about employing Arabs because of terrorist attacks. In 1992, the jobless rate soared to 12 percent.

In the early 2000s, when Arabs were murdering Jews left and right, Arabs found themselves out of work not only in Gush Katif but also in the rest of Israel.  The unemployment rate soared to 50 percent  by 2003 and is estimated at more than 30 percent today.

Thirty years have passed since I worked for Ahmed in Khan Yunis.

I do not know Hanai al-Hadidi, the man who is ready to sell his daughter so she can eat and the family can have some income.

Maybe he is Ahmed’s son. Maybe not.

One can argue that money is not everything and that Arabs were deprived of their political rights, but the other half of the truth is that they had even less rights under Egyptian rule. The difference is that under Israeli rule, they can blame the Jews. If they had blamed Egypt, their lot would have been worse and they would not have gotten any sympathy from the anti-Zionist world, especially UNRWA, which has built up an empire than keeps more than half of Gaza’s population in bondage.

The facts are there, as they always have been there, but they are not facts that John Kerry want to see.

Is there anyone out there who can connect the dots between Ahmed and Hanai al-Hadidi?

The aftermath of a controlled explosion of a terror tunnel into Israel from Gaza looked like a mammoth counterterrorist bombing, but no one in the Gaza Belt area is breathing easier because who knows how many other tunnels have not been discovered?

The IDF revealed on Tuesday that the tunnel, containing several barrels of explosives, reached Israel from central Gaza, near what used to be Gush Katif before the Sharon government expelled all Jews from Gaza and then withdrew all soldiers. Hamas immediately demolished remaining greenhouses and turned the ground into training camps for terrorists.

Last week, another tunnel was discovered reaching Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha, but it has not yet been destroyed.

The tunnel that was blown up, as seen in the video below, was built with 500 tons of cement arches and was “extremely advanced and well prepared,” said Gaza commander Brig. Gen. Michael Edelstein.

The government woke up after the discovery of the second tunnel and decided that maybe it was not such a brilliant idea to allow building materials, such as cement, to enter Gaza. Maybe, just maybe, Hamas and other terrorist organizations will use the cement for non-peaceful purposes.

If Israel was under pressure from the United States, as usual, to ease restrictions on what can enter Gaza, it is just another example of the U.S. government – and it was true under Bush just as it is true under Obama – acting as authority for Israeli security without taking any responsibility.

If the terrorists had succeeded, God Forbid, in blowing up a few soldiers and a Jewish town, well, that’s the price of peaceful hallucinations in Foggy Bottom.

The IDF knows there still are dozens, if not hundreds, of terrorists’ tunnels remaining in Gaza,. It knows the location of some of them because after every rocket attack or mortar shelling on Israel, the Air Force immediately bombs a “weapons storehouse” or a “terror tunnel.”

Gen. Edelstein told reporters, “Yes. There are [more tunnels]. We are looking after them and we will do what we need to do in order to meet those threats — either here or in the Gaza Strip.”

That is what he said, but that is not the way the IDF has acted in the past. The government and military’s attitude to terror tunnels reflects Western thinking of dealing with terrorist organizations as if they were run by the State Dept., which enjoys talking to itself.

The latest tunnel that was discovered will be blown up because it was obviously a clear and present danger to Israelis, but no one the Defense Ministry has ever explained why there are no orders to the IDF to blow up all of the other tunnels that are known to exist. If the IDF were to be too aggressive, it might upset the United Nations.

Gen. Edelstein tried to reassure Gaza Belt Jews by saying that the military considered the construction of the tunnel an “extreme violation” of the ceasefire following the Pillar of defense counter terrorist operation last year.

It is nice of the military to consider it a “violation.” Maybe it will complain to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry? Maybe it will complain to the United Nations?

Even better, or worse, maybe it will complain to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas?

Jews in southern Israel have heard the refrain “The IDF will do whatever necessary to defend the citizens of Israel” so often that it does not even go in one ear anymore.

Amidst recent reports of rock attacks in the world’s holiest city, worshippers attacked at one of Judaism’s holiest sites, and Jews arrested minutes before Yom Kippur, one finds inspirational news involving the chief rabbi of Tzfat.

Through administrative “distancing” orders that deny due process, the military has by another name expelled several Jews from their homes in Yehuda and Shomron. Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu recently stated that such an order “contradicts the word of G_d” and is “worth less than the dust on the ground.”

Such remarks will cause discomfort if not disquietude or worse among certain religious Zionists; for what Rabbi Eliyahu has done is articulate the source of a Jew’s ultimate loyalty. By contrast, in 2004 concerning the planned destruction of Gush Katif, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin stated in remarks more pagan than Judaic, “Refusal to obey an order given by the government is tantamount to a giant step toward civil war.”

Here’s a point of clarification for those who make that step-toward-civil war claim anytime refusal of orders comes up: When the government expels Jews from their homes and gives that land to neo-Nazis, there’s already a civil war going on. Ditto for the various aggressions the state has perpetrated against religious citizens.

Specific to Gush Katif, lest one forget what the attitude of Rabbi Riskin and such enabled, consider the words of Rabbi Dr. Hershel Reichman in 2009: “The truth is that the Gush Katif pogrom, which was perpetrated by the Jewish government, displaced and destroyed many more Jewish homes and synagogues than all the Arab attacks since 1948 did.” (See 15:00 here.) Patriotic soldiers like Avi Bieber, Chaim Atar, and members of the Golani Brigade should be remembered for their quintessentially Judaic refusal to aid this evil.

That there is even a debate in the religious sector about obeying such orders reflects a warping of core values. Rabbi David Bar-Hayim of Machon Shilo has stated in this regard:

“The question really should be not whether a soldier can follow an order which is opposed to what the Torah says. The question should be: How could anyone who defines himself as a Torah Jew for one moment imagine that the soldier must follow such an order? That’s the real question.” (See 45:20 here.)

Over thirty years ago, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l addressed such pernicious trends. “Emotionally, I feel Zionism—religious Zionism—has replaced Torah,” he stated in 1977, elaborating as follows:

“Memshalah and malchus are Divine attributes. Political government is thus only a compromise with a necessary evil…[T]o consider statehood as the highest achievement and most precious possession of man is again abominably pagan and a folly. A state is a relative good, by far not an absolute one. To say that Judaism has existed throughout the ages for one purpose only, namely to establish the State of Israel, is sheer madness, for to equate Judaism with statehood is blasphemy.”

The following year, Rabbi Soloveitchik likewise observed in a Yom Ha’atzmaut discussion with students at Yeshiva University:

“The highest good in our hierarchy of values is one: HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and our special relationship we have to Him, which expresses itself in observance, a unique morality, and a unique and singular way of life. This is the highest value, not the state. It has never been. The highest value is the Torah, and our specific relationship to HaKadosh Baruch Hu which the Torah then requires of us. There is no doubt about it. Yahadus does not revolve about the state, it revolves about HaKadosh Baruch Hu.”

These words are an ethical compass we need as much as ever. May the monotheistic consciousness of Rabbi Soloveitchik and Rabbi Eliyahu grow in Eretz Yisrael.

The Hamas regime in Gaza now is welcoming the announcement by Israel to build new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, convinced that Arabs will take them over the property as they did in Gaza after the expulsion of Jews from the region in 2005.

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said the Jewish homes to be built “will be homes for Palestinian refugees after liberation, “according to the terrorist organization’s website.

After the Sharon government expelled Jews from Gaza, Israeli security forces destroyed the homes but turned over greenhouses and public facilities to Hamas, which turned them into training grounds for terrorists.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that if a peace agreement is reached with the Palestinians, it would have to receive approval through a national referendum.

Netanyahu said Israel is entering the talks honestly, with the hope that they will be conducted in a responsible and realistic way, and, at least in the early stages, with discretion.

He added that the negotiations are not going to be easy, but emphasized that renewing the political process is a vital Israeli interest. He said Israel would have to strike a balance between preventing the creation of a binational state and the creation of yet another terrorist state under the influence of Iran.

Netanyahu pointed out that Israel’s negotiations partners must also offer concessions that would allow the Jewish state to maintain its security and national interests.

Several government ministers, including those from Netanyahu’s own Likud-Beiteinu faction have expressed their objection to the release of Palestinian terrorist from prison as part of the renewing negotiations.

Minister Israel Katz from Likud said that while he is pleased with the renewed talks, he would vote against releasing murderers, once the issue is brought up to a cabinet vote. Katz added that he also objects to the creation of a Palestinian state. Still, Katz sees the reopening of talks as a strategic achievement for Israel, which would afford it a better maneuvering ability.

Minister Uri Ariel of Jewish Home said he could not figure out how the Americans are demanding that Israel release murderers, while insisting on keeping Jonathan Pollard imprisoned.

Despite promises similar to Netanyahu’s, Israel has never had a referendum on any issue whatsoever. Indeed, the most recent episode of uprooting thousands of Jews from their homes in Gaza was accompanied by a campaign of deception on the part of then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon over the issue of a referendum.

Initially, there was a consensus, at least on the right, that a major decision like the uprooting of an entire Jewish enclave would certainly have to go through a referendum. This seemed even more necessary after Sharon had been unable to receive approval from the majority in the Knesset for the move. In February, 2005, the Gush Katif decision was passed by a vote of 59 to 40, with 4 abstentions, not a resounding support for such a move.

Sharon refused to take the law to a national referendum, but did present it to the Likud membership for a party-wide vote. There Sharon’s proposition suffered a humiliating defeat, 59.5 to 39.7 percent, which prompted his desertion from his own party and the creation of the Kadima party.

Netanyahu, however, will not have Sharon’s wiggle room once a treaty is signed. A law passed by the Knesset in 2010 requires that any political deal that would require a retreat from disputed territories would have to be approved by a nation-wide referendum.

It’s getting interesting.

When an Israeli politician starts talking about pain and sacrifice, watch out. Someone is about to get shafted.

MK Dov Lipman from Yesh Atid recently professed his love for Eretz Yisrael in the ironic context of saying how it “will pain me greatly” to destroy Jewish communities, as part of the two-state “solution” that he supports. Lipman had a related exchange in an interview from February:

Interviewer: And the fabric of Israeli society and the way the army functions is such that we could actually dismantle dozens of settlements in the course of a peace agreement without ripping the country apart?

Lipman: It can be done, if it’s done the right way. We can certainly learn the lessons of the [2005] Disengagement in terms of there being some things that you can do and certain things that should not be done. Yair also has been outspoken about how the evacuees have been treated…

In reality, Lipman and his ilk have learned nothing from the destruction of Gush Katif, the chief lessons of which are: Stop expelling Jews, and stop empowering Israel’s enemies. As Iran stated after this colossal injustice which has caused so much misery:

“The Zionist regime retreats in the face of the slightest resistance. The willingness of the Zionists to leave behind their synagogues in Gaza demonstrates conclusively that they have no God, and therefore, of course, no religious connection to the Holy Land; they will now be easily ejected from all of occupied Palestine.”

The terminology Lipman uses also betrays his coarseness toward what the government perpetrated in 2005. Citizens formerly of Gush Katif are not “evacuees” who were saved from a hurricane or such. As a Gush Katif expellee has commented about the similar falsification in usage of “uprooting”:

“I don’t consider the word choice to be a matter of semantics or euphemisms. It reflects a world outlook. The use of uprooting seems to desensitize the mind, soften the reprehensible event, and merely serve to pave the way for future expulsions in disputed parts of the Land of Israel. It exonerates the Israeli government of its crime against the Gush Katif residents in particular, and the Jewish nation in general.”

If Dov Lipman is truly pained greatly over expelling more Jews, let him lead the way by leaving his home in Beit Shemesh and moving his family to a caravan for several years. But as with the prime minister, who spoke in 2011 about making “painful compromises to achieve this historic peace,” other Jews always seem to suffer the pain. Likewise, when “public security” minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch recently called to intensify Israel’s already repressive gun control policies, one doubts that he will lack for personal protection.

No, it’s not the political elites who tend to lose their homes or lives. The victims are people like the DeYoung family formerly of Kfar Darom and Yitzhak Ames Hy”d. Unlike Lipman or Netanyahu, openly hostile politicians such as Ibrahim Sarsur and Jamal Zahalka at least have the decency to abstain from claims of compassion when they propose loathsome deeds.

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian Authority terrorist late Wednesday night after he and another terrorist firebombed an IDF checkpoint they were manning in a “pillbox” watch tower in Samaria.

The two terrorists attacked the IDF post, near the Jewish community of Einav, and soldiers shot back, killing one of the terrorists. The second terrorist was lightly wounded and was treated at a PA hospital in Tulkarm, approximately 10 miles east of Netanya.

The attack, a major escalation in Palestinian Authority terror, followed a long day of riots, firebomb and rock-throwing attacks on soldiers and motorists, especially on the north-south highway connecting Jerusalem with Kiryat Arab-Hevron. One soldier was slightly wounded by a rock and several cars sustained damage.

Tension and violence have grown since the death on Tuesday of jailed Palestinian Authority terrorist Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, who was suffering from throat cancer that had quickly spread and became terminal. The Palestinian Authority accused Israel of “murdering” him by not treating him properly and immediately set the stage for an escalation in terror by shutting down schools before noon on Wednesday as a sign of mourning.

Grieving for “martyrs” usually is accompanied by comforting them with riots, rock throwing at Jews, launching rockets on civilians in southern Israel and – Wednesday night – firebombing one of those “degrading” IDF checkpoints where soldiers are on the lookout for terrorists ready to blow up Israelis in urban centers.

The terrorists who threw a firebomb at the IDF at Einav and was killed was a high-school age student, identified as Amar Nasar.

More of the same is expected on Thursday, when Hamdiyeh, who was convicted and jailed for planning a suicide bombing, will be buried in Hevron.

The escalation of terror is the “welcome mat” for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry when he visits Ramallah and Jerusalem next week.

Hours before the Palestinian Authority terrorist attack on the IDF checkpoint, U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters at the daily briefing, with a straight face, that “nobody wants to see violence of any kind, either by demonstrators or by security services in response to peaceful demonstration.”

It is not quite clear what “peaceful demonstration” she was talking about since virtually all of them are accompanied by firebombing and rock-throwing, the latter which Haaretz’s Amira Hass wrote on Wednesday is the “right and duty” of PA Arabs trying to get rid of the “foreign occupier.”

Kerry will be talking about Turkey and Syria as well as his beloved “peace process,” which, unlike Israel, is all the Palestinian Authority is interested in.

One of Nuland’s choice comments in her briefing with reporters on Wednesday was a reference to “the remarks that the President made when he was on his trip, that both sides are going to have to help create an environment for peace.”

The question of what creates an environment of peace was not lost on reporters covering the State Dept. but was a bit too much for Nuland to handle.

One journalist, referring to Kassam rocket fire on Sderot Wednesday morning, asked, “Exchange of fire has resumed between Hamas and Israel. Do you think that November ceasefire has gone?”

Nuland acted as if the rocket attacks never happened, saying, “I’ve seen these reports. I’m not in a position to evaluate them one way or the other. But as you know, we considered that November ceasefire to be absolutely fundamental for everybody involved. So we’ll have to see what happens now.”

What has happened since she finished her media briefing was more rock and firebomb attacks on civilians and soldiers.

The Palestinian Authority strategy for years has been to win concessions from Israel piece by piece to create situation in Judea and Samaria similar to that in Gush Katif before the 2005 expulsion. The idea it to make life so unbearable for Jews that the IDF has no choice but to defend them – and that means killing the enemy – or surrendering the land and moving the checkpoints back to the “Auschwitz borders,” the term used by former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Abba Eban to describe the 1949 Temporary Armistice Lines that existed until the Six-Day War in 1967.

If the Palestinian Authority can get to that point, it would take only one or two missiles on Tel Aviv to push the checkpoints back to the Mediterranean Sea.