As a technical writer, I can tell you that the hardest part of documenting a product is when it is a moving target, when the parameters keep changing. As a parent, I can tell you that if your rules keep changing, you’ll never really be able to get your children to listen to you. As a voter, I can tell you that the more a politician changes his/her position, the less likely it is that I will vote for him or her.

As an Israeli, I condemn any attempt to deny the followers of a religion access and the right to practice their religion on their holy sites. We as a nation would never enter the Bahai Temple in Haifa and remove all the Bahais. We have never attempted to close the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to Christians (and our police regularly enter only to stop Christian sects from killing each other (as told to me on three separate occasions by Israeli police).

We have only closed off the Temple Mount to Muslims after incidents of violence and even then, for very limited times and usually only restricting access to young males and not the entire Muslim population wishing to visit.

But when it comes to the Jews, our government rarely hesitates to block our access, restrict our rights, humiliate and insult Jewish visitors. And worse, the rules are arbitrarily enforced and constantly changing at the whim of the Jewish police and Arab WAQF who watches and waits to pounce because there is little more that can drive them to violence than the site of a Jewish man or woman whispering a prayer. Even moving one’s lips is enough to get you thrown off the Temple Mount…if you are a Jew.

When you expect rules to be followed, but keep changing them, the less respect you deserve, the less likely it is that anyone will uphold them.

The Jewish people have been fighting for centuries, for millennia, to be free – free to live in our land, free to worship our God, free to raise our children and practice our religion. And we have been successful throughout the world. The Soviet Union has collapsed and the Jews can now freely come here and, for the most part, practice Judaism if they choose to be there. Such it is in most of Europe, North, Central, and South America.

Really, it is only in Arab countries, Muslim lands, where Jews are restricted. For the most part, they have left; only small pockets of Jews remain. Syria has no Jews; Afghanistan might have one Jew left. Egypt has less than 40 and Yemen less than 20. There are reportedly around 35 in Bahrain and less than 10 in Iraq.

Only in Arab countries…and Israel, are Jews restricted from where they can travel, where they can pray. And not just pray. In Israel, for Jews wanting to visit the single most holy place in all of the world, the list of what we are not to do is both arbitrary and growing.

Can you imagine a sign such as this one placed at the entrance to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv forbidding entrance to non-Jews?

Tell me, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, what logic are you attempting to convey about the importance of the Temple Mount to others, when you fail to uphold our rights yourself?

Yes, the world should watch the video you are so proud to announce (below) and attend the seminar you are so desperately offer the UN. Perhaps, Mr. Prime Minister, you should consider attending it yourself.

Even as the Prime Minister of the State of Israel…EVEN as our Prime Minister, you do not have the right to stop us from praying on the Temple Mount.  Why can’t you just say that if Jews praying on the Temple Mount offends our enemies, that is simply proof of what is wrong with them?

You are a hypocrite if you call to congratulate our athletes in Rio for standing proud against Arab intimidation there, but fail to show the same pride here. Yes, Or Sasson was correct in offering his hand to the Egyptian athlete, even knowing that there was a good chance that good old Islam El Shehaby was going to refuse to shake it. So why is it wrong for a Jew to pray? What is wrong with you, Mr. Prime Minister?

Let us be free to pray in every corner of our land, as we are free all over the world. Let us return in pride to the Temple Mount, as we have returned in pride to all other corners of our land. Call it. Announce it. Demand it. From this moment onward, Jews WILL pray on the Temple Mount and if the Arabs turn violence, THEY will be removed, not us. If THEY provoke us, the Temple Mount will be closed every mourning for four hours a day – and only Jews will be allowed up there…and Christians, because we are not afraid of Christian prayers…and even Muslims, if they promise not to be violent because we are not afraid of Muslim prayers either. Let all who are prepared to pray on the Temple Mount be allowed to do so in peace. Remove those who cause violence, not those who are the victims.

And if you won’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister of the State of Israel, then remove yourself. I think, Mr. Prime Minister, it isn’t only UNESCO and the UN that needs that history lesson.

And the list of things we cannot do…here it is…at least as of an hour or so ago…

You aren’t allowed to pray, if you are a Jew, on the Temple Mount.

You aren’t allowed to move your lips in silent prayer, if you are a Jew on the holiest site known to our religion

You aren’t allowed to whisper, lest you actually be saying a prayer, if you are a Jew.

You aren’t allowed to bless your people, your family, your children, unless you are a Jew, or a bereaved father who is able to “sneak” the prayer into a guided tour after his child has been brutally murdered, stabbed to death in her bed.

As of this past week, you aren’t allowed to cry, even if you are overwhelmed with the holiness of the place and the amazing opportunity to enter this holy place.

And as of today, you apparently aren’t even allowed to mourn up on the Temple Mount. You aren’t allowed to rip your clothing up there, if you are a Jew, because the guards who honor Muslim sensitivities above all others are Jewish and they know that a Jew in mourning rips their clothes as a sign of their grief.

That’s right. Can you imagine? A Jew is not allowed to whisper, cry, rip his shirt in grief. If he does, an Arab will come over and tell a Jewish policeman…look at him, look what he is doing. Get him out of here…and the policeman will.

This is what we have come to? This is the freedom we have in our land? That even our tears are considered enough of an insult to demand our being denied access to OUR Temple Mount?

In December 2009, a British court issued a warrant for the arrest of then Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni over alleged war crimes committed by the Israeli government during Operation Cast Lead. Consequently, Livni decided not to take any chances and cancelled her planned trip to a Jewish National Fund conference in London. But this threat followed her once again this past week, when on her way to a conference in London she was summoned by Scotland Yard’s War Crimes unit for questioning.

Foreign governments are funding the. murder of Jews and we need to stop it.

There was no shortage of Israeli organizations that joined the fray of accusing Israel of war crimes for their activities during Operation Cast Lead. Some were gathered under the umbrella organization, “Coalition of Women for Peace,” and some, like “Zochrot” and “Israel Social TV,” acted alone. These organizations receive funding from foreign political entities and governments including Holland, Germany, Norway, and the European Union. This foreign funding is used to accuse Israel on a daily basis of war crimes, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and more. These funds also promote a policy of boycott against Israel, and represent the clear product of the campaign of delegitimization and dehumanization against Israel.

Another common denominator shared by these organizations is that they would all be affected by the “Transparency Bill,” which is going to the Knesset plenum for a vote this week. Given this, it is surprising to discover that the very person leading the opposition against this bill is none other than MK Tzipi Livni, who almost spent the night in a London prison cell because of these very organizations.

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while, and this week MK Livni sounded very different when speaking in London: “The British legal system unfortunately, is being abused by those who seek to blur the moral distinction between those fighting terror and those defending it, and we cannot accept that, especially because of the good relations between our countries and the partnership of values and interests.”

At the same time MK Livni is condemning those who seek to convict her and other Israeli officials by circumventing the Israeli judicial system and turning to international tribunals, she is voicing the complete opposite view in Israel. In the UK, and only in the UK, Livni seems to understand and recognize the problems of such organizations engaging in lawfare against a democratic state that is fighting a war of terror.

Livni and her colleagues from the Zionist Left must understand that this “British problem” is nothing compared to the problem in Israel. Only a sick democracy allows for foreign governments to meddle in its internal affairs and to advance a policy that undermines its very right to exist.

These delegitimization organizations are not “human rights” organizations, they are political pawns implanted in Israeli society by foreign governments in order to serve their interests. This objective was best illustrated by Britain’s former Minister of Middle East Affairs, Alistair Burt, who noted: “Since we began supporting these programs some significant changes have been made in the Israeli justice system, both civilian and military, and in the decisions they make.”

It is the right and the obligation of the Knesset to institute transparency laws on organizations that receive the majority of their funding from foreign governments, the very same organizations that were leading the calls to convict Livni and other Israeli officials for alleged war crimes. The “Transparency Bill” is just a drop in the bucket of the parliamentary action needed to halt this anti-democratic intrusion.

In France for example, the Penal Code states that contacting a foreign government or a foreign organization with the intent of engaging in hostile activities towards France is punishable by 30 years of imprisonment and a fine of over 450,000 euro. Israel can learn a lesson from France’s policy of self-protection and see to it that the right to freedom of expression is not distorted into the right to freedom of incitement.

Tzipi Livni above all else symbolizes someone who suffers from a severe case of Stockholm syndrome, as she has been leading the charge against the bill that seeks to defend Israeli democracy from foreign persecution and arrests. In one of the Knesset committees discussing the bill, Devorah Gonen, a bereaved mother whose son Danny z’l was murdered last year by terrorists, expressed the sentiment shared by many other bereaved families: “Foreign governments are funding the murder of Jews and we need to stop it.”

It would be wise for the leader of the Hatnuah Party to understand this and stop defending those who are advocating for her arrest. If not for her own sake, then at least for the sake of Israeli democracy and sovereignty.

{Originally posted to the author’s website, FirstOne Through}

On May 19, 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he was considering adding a right-wing party, Yisrael Beytenu, to his coalition. The Palestinian Authority’s reaction to this rumor was quick.

“The Israeli government sent a message to the world that Israel prefers extremism, dedication to the occupation and settlements over peace.”

In a region which has perfected finger-pointing, the Palestinian Arabs have once again shown their mastery of hypocrisy.

On June 2, 2014, the Palestinian Authority (PA) welcomed the terrorist group Hamas into a unity government. That move abruptly ended the many months of peace negotiations going on between Israelis and the PA which was shepherded by US Secretary of State John Kerry.  Within two weeks of forming the unity government, Hamas loyalists kidnapped and murdered three teenage Israelis and launched a war against Israel that killed thousands.

That’s a message of preferring “extremism” to peace.

Care to do a simple comparison of Yisrael Beytenu and Hamas?

Sources: Yisrael Beytenu positions; Hamas Charter

Hamas is considered a terrorist group by many countries,

• but the Palestinian Arabs decided to vote them into a majority of Parliament anyway;
• but the acting Prime Minister of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, decided to create a coalition government with them anyway;
• and the Palestinians actively killed the peace process that US Secretary Kerry had worked on for months anyway;
• and they launched a war that killed thousands anyway.

So should anyone be surprised by the audacity and hypocrisy of the PA condemning Netanyahu for bringing Yisrael Beytenu into his coalition?  Which party has aligned itself with racists and murderers, and shown a complete unwillingness to compromise and make peace time-and-again, Netanyahu or Abbas?

Related First.One.Through articles:

“Mainstream” and Abbas’ Jihad

Abbas Knows Racism

The Undemocratic Nature of Fire and Water in the Middle East

“Peace” According to Palestinian “Moderates”

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Fifteen countries illegally occupying other countries’ territories have denounced Israel for refusing to surrender the Golan Heights. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry – or perhaps just turn the page.

The current president of the United Nations Security Council, Chinese ambassador Liu Jieyi, recently chaired a closed meeting of the 15 council members and announced afterward that they share a “deep concern” about Israel’s position that it will not retreat from the Golan. They insisted that Israel’s presence on the Golan is illegal.

Ambassador Jieyi represents a Chinese regime that has been illegally occupying Tibet since 1950. China also illegally occupies various islands in the South China Sea, including the Paracel Islands, which it seized from Vietnam in 1974, and the Scarborough Shoal, from which it has blocked Phillippine forces since 2012.

Who are the other Security Council members who are so “concerned” about Israel controlling the Golan?

Among the permanent members of the Council, there’s Russia, which occupied a large portion of Ukraine just two years ago. There’s France, which occupies assorted islands in the Indian Ocean (near Madagascar) and Antarctica. And there’s Great Britain, which occupies a long list of small territories around the world, of which the Falkland Islands are the best known because of Argentina’s unsuccessful 1982 attempt to oust the islands’ British occupiers.

Among the non-permanent current members of the UN Security Council angry at Israel there’s Spain, which occupies the Canary Islands (near Morocco), as well as the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and seven other enclaves on Africa’s northern coast.

There’s Angola, which since 1975 has been occupying the territory of Cabinda. Somebody should ask the spokesmen for the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave and the Republic of Cabinda Government in Exile what they think about Angola’s concern regarding the Golan.

Don’t forget Malaysia, which occupies North Borneo, a territory the Philippines claim as its own. Not to mention Venezuela, which occupies Ankoko Island against the wishes of neighboring Guyana. Or Japan, which occupies the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, despite the protests of Taiwan and Communist China. Or Egypt, which occupies the Elba Mountains and the Hala’ib Triangle, territories that are claimed by Sudan.

The only Security Council member that tried to inject even a modicum of reason into the Golan Heights discussion was the United States. Although State Department spokesman John Kirby reiterated the standard U.S. opposition to Israeli administration of the Golan, he at least he acknowledged that “the current situation in Syria makes it difficult [to change the status of the Golan] at this time.”

That, perhaps, is the most important point to be made in this discussion. If Israel were to do as the UN Security Council is demanding, the Golan Heights would be in the control of the genocidal Assad regime or the equally genocidal forces of ISIS.

Anyone who does not appreciate what that would mean for Israel should read Hugh Nissenson’s classic Notes from the Frontier, a poignant chronicle of the months he spent on a kibbutz near the Syrian border in 1965 – that is, when the Golan was in Syria’s hands.

“The Syrian mountains [of the Golan] are about a thousand feet above us, and their fortifications on the slopes completely dominate our settlements,” a kibbutznik explained to Nissenson shortly after his arrival. “They shell us anytime they like, and there’s nothing we can do about it…”

Keeping in mind that Assad and ISIS possess weapons far more dangerous than those of 1965, it’s hardly surprising that Israelis are not anxious to return to the days of being attacked “anytime they like” and being unable to do anything about it.

Today there is something Israelis can do about it. They can stay right where they are and ignore the occupiers who hypocritically complain about others’ occupations.

Thursday’s shooting of a disabled but not yet dead terrorist – and the defense establishment’s condemnation of the soldier who killed him – may have been a case of the ‘pot calling the kettle black.’

Particularly by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who, it turns out, has been down this road himself before.

Nearly 30 years ago, then-Lt.Col. Moshe Ya’alon commanded the elite Sayeret Matkal unit tasked with eliminating arch terrorist Abu Jihad in a special operation in Tunisia.

Abu Jihad had masterminded the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, the most deadly terror attack in the history of the state. In that attack 37 Israelis, including 12 children, were murdered in cold blood by a terror cell led by Dalal Mughrabi.

The Palestinian Authority celebrates the anniversary of the event every year to this day.

Abu Jihad also was behind the attack on the Tel Aviv Savoy Hotel in 1975, in which three IDF soldiers and eight other hostages were murdered.

Both attacks were carried out by the PLO’s central Fatah faction, led by Abu Jihad.

On the day that Abu Jihad was assassinated at his home in Tunis, foreign media reported the IDF soldier who carried out the attack, special ops commander Nahum Lev, was in his 20s. Lev was the first religious officer in the elite commando unit, considered a “daredevil,” according to investigative reporter Ronen Bergman. He was a deputy under Ya’alon in leading the Abu Jihad operation, code-named “Show of Force,” which involved both the special forces units and the Mossad.

Several minutes later, however, a different man confirmed Abu Jihad’s death by shooting him again, just to make sure he really was neutralized. The man firing the weapon was the operation commander, Ya’alon himself.

Moments later, Ya’alon was heard on the comm device telling command, “The director and his three workers are on their way to a world that is wholly good.”

The man who told this story to Arutz Sheva on condition of anonymity said he related the incident for a reason: “Before everyone pounces on a combat soldier in a complex situation and hands down a verdict, they should show some sensitivity. Ya’alon rushes to condemn like other politicians but if they judge the soldier, then why not [also] judge Boogie (Ya’alon)?”

What is the difference between those decades ago, and last week – other than the fact that in the current situation, an Arab filmed this incident and posted it on social media?

The soldier who now sits in Prison 4, has said he considered the terrorist still to be a threat.

Whether or not he was actively a threat at that moment, it is certainly true that at some point in the future he would absolutely return to being a threat had he lived, as others have. About that there is no doubt whatsoever. One has only to examine the recidivist rate among those who were swapped in the exchange for former IDF soldier Gilad Shalit to see that truth.

Moreover, the terrorist was wearing a bulky, zipped-up jacket on an unseasonably hot day – standard wear for suicide bombers. It was reasonable to consider that he might be wearing a suicide belt, and could still detonate it, injuries notwithstanding. That discussion is also heard on the video footage.

Whether he followed IDF protocol or not is a separate issue. Many people forget rules when under pressure – the army has guidelines on how to deal with that – but, imprisonment? For shooting a terrorist considered a mortal threat?

Almost 30 years ago, a man who later became this country’s IDF chief of staff and then its minister of defense didn’t think it at all unreasonable.

How odd that today he believes the exact same action to now be “extreme.”

The annual assembly of the UN’s World Health Organization today adopted a resolution criticizing Israel — in the organization’s only debate on a specific country — with Syria protesting “inhuman Israeli practices” that target “the health of Syrian citizens.” Click here for links to documents.

The WHO resolution against Israel was not yet published, but was likely a copy of last year’s condemnation.

Observers of the world body in Geneva said the annual hypocrisy nevertheless reached a new low this year.

“To see the Assad regime point the finger at Israel out of professed concern for the health of Syrians is, frankly, a sick joke,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, a non-governmental monitoring group accredited to the UN.

“They’ve slaughtered 80,000 of their own people, and are now busy destroying the lives of millions more. The real question is this: Why is the UN allowing mass murderers to deflect attention from their crimes by scapegoating democracies?”

“A world health assembly should be about Hippocrates, not hypocrisy,” said Neuer.

Syria’s report expressed concern that “the health conditions of the Syrian population in the occupied Golan continue to deteriorate, as a result of the suppressive practices of the Israeli occupation.”

Out of 25 agenda items on the WHO’s conference agenda, all but one address global themes.

The exception, today’s Item No. 20 — entitled “Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan” — turned a spotlight on one specific country: Israel. No other country in the world — not Mexico, Russia, Syria, or anywhere else — is treated this way.

Despite what’s being said at the UN, the Palestinians’ own health minister recently acknowledged Israel’s extensive medical care for Palestinian children and its training of Palestinian doctors.

The UN debate also failed to mention that only last week, an Israeli hospital saved the life of a four-year-old Syrian girl, in a successful operation for a deadly heart condition.