The prime minister said during the meeting that the establishment of an investigation committee was “not an option.”

“IDF soldiers and officers will not be subjected to investigation,” he stressed.

An official at the prime minister’s office said that there were “differing opinions on what should be done.”

Barak added that “we sent the fighters on the mission, and they deserve our full support.”

“Israel is prepared to fight against the legitimacy of the Goldstone report. In addition, Israel will act to amend rules of war to adjust them to the battle against terrorists who fight from among civilians,” he said.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:30PM: Solomon has more on the Silverstein panel incident. As he notes:

This is interesting for what it says about the “progressive” mind-set. Also note that while J Street doesn’t want an official affiliation with this panel, they were not above giving them space and using their own paid staff as enforcers.

9:10PM: Here’s the video of Richard Silverstein having a blogger kicked out letting a blogger know he was about to be booted out of his panel discussion (held in a room at the same hotel as the official J-Street conference).

I am told the blogger wasn’t doing anything wrong – just filming – and was a paid attendee. Someone from JStreet ended up apologizing.

8:58PM: You can watch the “pro-Israel” (read: not so much) J-Street conference live here.

Meanwhile, I have it on good authority that anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein had a blogger kicked out of his J-Street Blogger panel. My contact has promised me video of Silverstein having the blogger ejected, and I’ll post it then.

8:25PM: A new ADL poll shows that Americans are more sympathetic towards Israel than the palestinians, and support an Israeli strike on Iran.

Here are some of the highlights (you can click on any of the graphs to enlarge).

5:20PM: Meet the palestinian Sesame Street, where youngsters supposedly learn about non-violence and tolerance.

Or so we are led to believe. From 1:00 onwards, the tone takes a somewhat darker turn.

Call me crazy, but that pissed off bear bears an uncanny resemblance to Nassur.

5:02PM: The Syrians are trying to stir up trouble.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has denounced Israel’s “blatant violation of the sanctity of al-Aqsa Mosque,” following the recent wave of riots in Jerusalem.

In an official statement released Monday, the ministry said that “(Damascus) believes the Israeli security forces’ invasion of al-Aqsa was part of Israel’s scheme to Judaize Jerusalem and destroy the mosque.”

A Syrian news agency further quoted the official as saying Israel’s actions were “a crime against Arab history and heritage and against Muslims’ holy places.”

I’m not quite sure how allowing the Muslims – through the Waqf – to retain control over the Temple Mount, and never attempting to destroy the mosque, in the 40 plus years since we captured the old city of Jerusalem, quite fits in to this scheme.

1:34PM: Today’s caption bias comes to us courtesy of Reuters.

A tourist takes a photograph of the Dome of the Rock on the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) in Jerusalem’s Old City October 26, 2009. Israeli police stormed the compound on Sunday, hurling stun grenades at Palestinians who threw rocks at them, in another outbreak of violence at the holy city’s most sensitive site. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (JERUSALEM POLITICS RELIGION TRAVEL)

The caption makes it sound like Israeli police aggressively raided the Temple Mount, which was met by the palestinian response of throwing rocks.  There is no mention of the fact the whole reason for the Israeli police doing what they did was as a response to Muslims preparing to cause trouble, nor the fact they did not just throw rocks, but also deadlier petrol bombs.

9:34AM: Turkey continues to attack Israel, with Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan now claiming that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to use nuclear weapons against Gaza.

This doesn’t even dignify a response, given Israel’s proximity to Gaza and the fact Israelis would not agree to such action. But perhaps the Turks can include such a plot line in their favorite television show.

Meanwhile, Erdogan is calling someone who actually does intend to use nuclear weapons a “friend.”

The Turkish leader also stressed that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction, was a “friend” of Turkey’s.

“There is no doubt he is our friend,” Erdogan was quoted as saying. “As a friend so far we have very good relations and have had no difficulty at all.

6:00AM: Saeb Erekat, PLO Chief negotiator and master of propaganda, is up to his old tricks, accusing Israel of incitement and not being a partner for peace.

Dr Saeb Erekat, the PLO’s chief negotiator, on Sunday called on the US and Europe to demand that Israel end incitement against worshipers in occupied East Jerusalem.

“The international community must intervene and demand an end to Israeli incitement,” Erekat said in a statement. “Otherwise we fear that violence may spiral out of control.”

At least 30 Palestinians were injured and some 20 were arrested following the arrival of Israeli forces at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday morning. Nine Israeli police officers were also hurt in the clashes, which sparked amid announcements from right-wing Jewish groups and individuals, including Israeli parliament members, vowing to “ascend” the compound area under armed guard.

“This latest assault on the Al-Aqsa compound is part of a systematic and deliberate policy of incitement,” Erekat continued, condemning what he termed Israel’s latest violence against Palestinian worshippers in the holy city. “By escalating tensions to the point of violence, the Israeli government is looking for an escape clause to avoid meaningful negotiations.”

The PLO official urged Israel not to let extremists set the agenda.

“These are not the actions of a partner for peace, but a coalition of political forces in Israel that have consistently opposed peace between Palestinians and Israelis,” he said. “Israel is intensifying the violence of its occupation against ordinary Palestinians while it relentlessly pursues its colonization of occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.”

In the coming days, President Mahmoud Abbas will be meeting with King Mohammed VI of Morocco, who chairs the Organization of the Islamic Conference’s Al-Quds (Jerusalem) committee, Erekat announced. Abbas is expected to call on members of the committee to take decisive action to demand that Israel halt all settlement construction and other provocative policies in East Jerusalem.

Given that US President Barack Obama has called for the palestinians to end incitement against Israel, and Israel has repeatedly lamented the absence of a partner of peace on the palestinian side, I would fathom to say his choice of words is no coincidence. He is deliberately using those words commonly applied to the palestinians, in the tried and tested palestinian propaganda method of “turnspeak.”

5:48AM: Some scenes from yesterday’s Arab riots on the Temple Mount.

As you can see, they have a huge deal of respect for this holiest of sites.

Meanwhile, here in Israel, the cabinet had a heated discussion on whether Israel will set up a commission of inquiry on the Goldstone report’s allegations of war crimes, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak – who opposes such a commission – angered by PM Netanyahu’s comments to the Washington Times on the possibility of setting up a commission of inquiry “not because of the Goldstone report but because of our own internal needs.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:00PM: Fascinating BBC documentary on Entebbe, as part of the Age of Terror series.

Yes, I did say BBC.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Those were the days we didn’t negotiate with terrorists.

8:15PM: Richard Goldstone speaking with PBS’ Bill Moyers.

Fellow Understanding the Goldstone Report contributor Avi Bell, Professor of Law at Bar Ilan University and at University of San Diego Law School, has already done the hard work of watching the entire interview and analyzing Goldstone’s responses. Here’s what he had to say:

1. The Goldstone report draws its conclusions on the basis of 36 incidents it says it investigated. The report says that incidents are illustrative and therefore justify the broader conclusions made by the report. But Goldstone admits that the report lied in saying that the incidents are “illustrative” and in saying that the Mission worked according to its self-described neutral mandate rather than the official biased one. Goldstone says “We chose those 36 because they seemed to be, to represent the most serious, the highest death toll, the highest injury toll. And they appear to represent situations where there was little or no military justification for what happened.” In other words, the Mission chose incidents that were seen as NOT ILLUSTRATIVE, and, rather, most likely to support a finding of war crimes.
2. Goldstone repeatedly misstates the law in the interview.a) Goldstone implicitly misstates the rule of distinction. Goldstone rightly says that the rule of distinction requires combatants to distinguish between “combatants and innocent civilians.” But then, he “proves” that Israel violated the rule of distinction by saying “We found evidence in statements made by present and former political and military leaders, who said, quite openly, that there’s going to be a disproportionate attack. They said that if rockets are going to continue, we’re going to hit back disproportionately.” Stating that a counter-attack will be disproportionate to the attack isn’t a violation of the rule of distinction. The rule of distinction requires that Israel not aim its fire at civilians as such. It has nothing to do with how much fire Israel can aim at legitimate targets.b) Regarding the rules of distinction and proportionality, Moyers asks Goldstone, “Who is to say that? Who is to make that distinction?” Goldstone answers, “Well, that distinction must be made after the event.” That is absolutely, positively, not the law. The law is that commanders must make judgments on the basis of knowledge they have at the time, not that one second-guesses them after the event and judges them guilty on the basis of knowledge they may not have had. Thus, for example, Newton testified “In order to properly assess a real proportionality assessment therefore, the relevant question is what did the commander know? What information was available to him?”This is not an isolated misstatement by Goldstone. Throughout the interview, he keeps giving examples of judging after the fact. For example, he says: “We spoke to the owner of a home in Gaza City. He said he looked out of his window and he saw some militants, whether Hamas or other Palestinian groups, setting up their mortar launchers in his yard. He ran out and said, “Get out of here. I don’t want you doing this here. You’re going to endanger my family, because they going to bomb. Get out.” And in fact, they left. Whether that was typical or atypical, I don’t know, we didn’t, obviously, cover the field. But assuming they had disobeyed them, assuming they had launched the rockets from over the objections of the household owner, and his family, they launched the rockets and disappeared. It would be a war crime, as I understand it, for Israel to have bombed the home of that innocent household, who didn’t want this to happen.” Goldstone again, is wrong. Even if the facts were as Goldstone stated them, and the owner was absolutely innocent, the launching point of rockets would still be a legitimate target, and it would be permissible to attack it if the collateral damage were proportionate to anticipated military advantage, notwithstanding the damage to an innocent owner.Here’s another example. Moyer prompts “so there was intention,” meaning Israel deliberately violated the rule of distinction. Goldstone responds: “Well, certainly. You know, one thing one can’t say about the Israel Defense Forces is that they make too many mistakes. They’re very, a sophisticated army. And if they attack a mosque or attack a factory, and over 200 factories were bombed, there’s just no basis to ascribe that to error. That must be intentional.” Goldstone again is arguing that he can determine whether there was a crime by looking after the fact at what was destroyed, without any evidence of what the commander thought was the military advantage in attacking the site and what the commander thought would be the collateral damage. In Goldstone’s favor, here he at least tries to provide an excuse for his misstatement of the law: his preposterous assumption of Israeli omniscience.

   c) Goldstone falsely states that the only legal way to fight in an urban area is with commando actions. Moyer asks him: “But when the terrorists, the militants, whatever one wants to call them, are known to be embedded in, as you say, those tight, complex, concentrated areas, what’s the other army to do?” Goldstone says: “It’s for example, to launch commando actions, to get at the militants and not the innocent civilians.” This is clearly not in line with the practice of any other state in the world.

3. Goldstone says that NATO fighting in Yugoslavia was basically legal (Goldstone’s comment: “Take the United States fighting wars in Kosovo and Iraq and Afghanistan. They have certainly at a high level, gone to extremes to protect innocent civilians. Where they’ve made mistakes, and mistakes have been made, in Kosovo, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, apologies have followed. The United States, in general, has accepted and tried its best, with the assistance of military lawyers, has tried its best to avoid violating international humanitarian law.”). But Israel’s government specifically said, and the report noted that “The Israeli Government states that this expression of its objectives is no broader than those expressed by NATO in 1998 during its campaign in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” (paragraph 1201). And the report responded by intimating that Israel’s objectives were therefore illegal (paragraph 1202 – “The Mission makes no comment on the legality or otherwise of NATO actions there”), before then saying explicitly that Israel’s objectives were illegal.
4. It’s interesting to see what Goldstone calls a good investigation. He dismisses the more than 100 Israeli investigations now ongoing because, he says, “it’s now, what, seven months since the end of the war. There’s only been one successful prosecution against a soldier, who stole a credit card, which is really almost fodder for cartoonists, in the plethora of alleged war crimes.” In other words, Israeli investigations will only be credible if they find Israelis guilty. The other reason he advances for attacking the Israeli investigations is “in those military investigations, as far as I’ve read, in only one cases have the military even approached the victims in Gaza. And obviously, to have a full investigation, one needs, as you say, to hear both sides.” This is rich, considering that Goldstone never spoke to any of the persons he accuses of committing crimes. Goldstone adds that Israeli investigations shouldn’t be trusted because they are done in “…secrecy? And, you know, I always quote Justice Brandeis, who said, “The best disinfectant is sunlight.” And this is happening in the dark. And even with the best good faith in the world on the part of the military investigators, the victims are not going to accept decisions that are taken in the dark, and don’t involve them.” But Goldstone is still refusing to refuse the evidence (written submissions, etc.) on the basis of which the report was written.
5. Goldstone states of Israel, “It’s got a wonderful legal system, its got a great judicial system, its got retired judges who certainly, in my book, would earn the respect of the overwhelming number of people around the world, including the Arab world, who, if they held open, good faith inquiries, would put an end to this.” It’s worth reciting this in relation to Goldstone’s claims of the inadequacy of Israeli investigations. As paragraph 1803 of the report admits, the Israeli investigatory system ends at the High Court of Justice. Anyone who is disappointed with a decision not to investigate an incident or bring charges against an individual, or failure of a military court to convict may appeal to the High Court of Justice. This includes non-citizens, like alleged Palestinian victims, and interested observers like Goldstone himself. And the High Court of Justice has no standing requirement, so anyone may bring suit, even if they are not directly harmed. If Goldstone really cares to have new investigations, and has any real evidence to show that crimes were committed aside from the conclusory statements in the report, why doesn’t he file a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice? Why doesn’t he suggest it to any of the alleged Palestinian victims? Is he afraid to put his alleged evidence to the test of a court?

7:35PM: Now this is rich.

Justice Richard Goldstone has turned down an invitation by the Israeli Press Council to speak at a journalism conference in Eilat, slated to be held in November, according to a statement issued on the council’s Web site on Sunday.

Goldstone, who headed the UN fact-finding mission charged with investigating Hamas and IDF actions during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, has accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the campaign, sparking widespread controversy in Israel.

In response to the invitation, Goldstone wrote in a letter to Press Council Director-General Eric Bahar that he would not be able to attend the conference, due to a prior speaking engagement at New York’s Fordham University law school, according to the statement.

In the letter, Goldstone also expressed his disappointment with the Israeli reaction to his commission’s report, likening it to bullying and stressing that he had urged the government to cooperate with his investigation.

7:26PM: A 21-year-old palestinian woman has stabbed a security guard at the Qalandiya checkpoint in northern Jerusalem.

A security guard stationed at the Qalandiya checkpoint in northern Jerusalem sustained light to moderate injuries Sunday afternoon after being stabbed by a Palestinian woman in the abdomen.

The assailant was apprehended. The guard was treated at the scene by Magen David Adom emergency services personnel and later evacuated to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

“The guard was lying on the ground with a stab wound to his lower abdomen, and the young female terrorist was apprehended,” one of the paramedics said, “The guard was in great pain; he was in a state of shock.”

According to Magen David Adom, the stab wound was five centimeters deep (about two inches).

Guards manning the checkpoint spotted the knife in the woman’s handbag as she passed through the metal detector. She stabbed one of the guards who approached her with a knife she pulled out from under her skirt.

But the checkpoints are the problem, right?

4:35PM: Alan Howe of the Herald Sun has written this excellent op-ed on the Goldstone Report.

They say that you should set a thief to catch a thief.

The none-too-smart and ideologically unsound United Nations works on more simplistic levels – it sets angry Arabs to catch its Jews.

Works every time.

There’s no shortage of angry, resentful and underachieving Arabs at the UN, nor will it run out of like-minded Africans too soon.

By and large, Arabs and Africans are not good at democracy. They don’t do personal freedoms all that well. Many of them are fond of cruel and unusual punishments – you know, public stonings for miscreant young women wanting to marry the man of their choosing, that sort of thing.

That the UN powerlessly condemns such behaviour is, apparently, beside the point.

In a sneering perversion of logic, some Arab and African nations, to whom human rights are an unnecessary indulgence, sit at some of the UN’s top tables – the UN Human Rights Council and even the Committee Against Torture.

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Sharing leg space under the UN’s influential desks are such legendary stalwarts of democratic fairness and equality as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Cameroon, Madagascar, Jordan, Nigeria, Senegal and China. Tin pots, basket cases, thugs – take your pick.

They were just some of the countries that, as members of the Human Rights Council, initiated and sat on an inquiry into the Israeli actions in Gaza, which took place almost a year ago.

Led by esteemed South African jurist Richard Goldstone, they lived up to cheeky Oscar Wilde’s putdown of Britain’s then greatest poet, William Wordsworth. Wilde said of Wordsworth’s famous bucolic lessons that “he found in stones lessons he had already put there”.

The UN Human Rights Council had its finding sewn up in January when it sent “an independent … fact-finding mission” to the “occupied Gaza Strip”.

O CCUPIED by whom? The Israelis walked away from Gaza four years ago, courageously dismantling the settlements there and controversially forcing its grumpy civilians to leave.

The only Israeli in Gaza that I can think of is the kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, who has been held by Hamas terrorists for more than three years. Now there’s someone Goldstone might have spoken to.

Gazans paid Israelis back in spades for the long-sought opportunity to be masters of their own fate: they sent thousands of Qasam rockets over the border and on to local towns, the deadly fusillade becoming a political imperative in democratic Israel.

Israelis wanted their Government to stop the shelling and end the terror. That’s why the Israeli army entered Gaza last December in a controversial invasion in which about 1400 people were killed, mostly Palestinians. That’s the thing when you take on the Israelis; they don’t come at you with some wobbly rockets that Uncle Ali knocked up out the back last night.

And if you are going to employ the terrorist tactics of hiding and operating in densely populated areas and schools, expect some painful collateral damage.

The UNHRC didn’t appear to be on a hunt for the truth – that often being unbearable – but they are keen to reinforce the prejudices of each other by condemning Israel. Its predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission, did the same until, thoroughly discredited, it embarrassed even Secretary-General Kofi Annan and he shut it down.

So with a slight change of name – the acronym stays the same, saves on stationery – it’s back to the same unquenchable hatred for Israel.

Goldstone’s report predictably accused Israel of human rights abuses in Gaza – so self-defence is now a crime?

A RESOLUTION endorsing the report’s finding went further, upsetting its author. It contained “not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report”, said Goldstone, sounding almost surprised.

So which fearless, peace-loving and virtuous states signed on?

Senegal, for a start. Kids are big business in Senegal, but not the Toys ‘R’ Us kind. There they are sold into forced labor, prostituted and often trafficked to other countries to become domestic servants – the illegal variety that has almost no identity and whom you can imprison and rape with impunity.

This year Senegal arrested nine HIV-prevention workers, reportedly beat them, accused them of consorting with criminals (being in police custody in Dakar, I guess they were), charged them with “indecent and unnatural acts” and jailed them.

Senegal – and I wish this were a joke – is also a key player on the UN’s Committee Against Torture.

Egypt also saw merit in the loony resolution. Now here’s a country that keeps the Committee Against Torture busy. The committee has expressed concern at the “persistence of the phenomenon of torture and ill-treatment of detainees by law enforcement officials”.

In 2002, the very committee on which now Egypt sits found it guilty of a pattern of “torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.

Nigeria voted yes. I’m voting Nigeria’s one of the nastiest governments on earth. Prisoners of its corrupt judicial system are raped and tortured. The lucky ones.

In Nigeria’s northern states, lashings and stonings are popular and, if you see an amputee in the streets, it is unlikely that he is a member of the Limbless Soldiers’ Association. Of course, there are restrictions on freedoms of speech, movement, assembly, religion and the press.

Djibouti voted yes, but I wonder what the genitally mutilated, repressed women of that Horn of Africa hellhole really think?

Cameroon voted yes, and if you are up for a few entertaining minutes just look at official travel advisory for it.

While you are there you might check advisories for Zambia, Pakistan, Ghana, the Philippines, Russia, Richard Goldstone’s homeland South Africa, Qatar, Mauritius and all the others who sit in judgment on a world gone mad.

1:48PM: Ynet’s Yair Lapid writes about his upcoming interview with Swedish “journalist” Donald Bostrom – of organ harvesting blood libel fame.

I’m supposed to interview Donald Bostrom at the upcoming Dimona media convention. But maybe I’m supposed to take the stage and punch him in the face?

Bostrom is the Swedish journalist who published the infamous article accusing IDF troops of harvesting organs from Palestinian bodies. We are dealing, of course, with a blood libel of the worst kind. However, Bostrom, who never saw such body and was unable to bring any proof for his story aside from a bunch of wild Palestinian rumors, still argues that the matter must be probed.

The moment such story emerges, he says, the press’ job is to publish it. And now I’ve been tasked with the unpleasant duty of explaining to Bostrom that he doesn’t understand how the press works during war.

According to Bostrom, freedom of expression means that if someone lies, the journalist isn’t supposed to verify the truth – but rather, publish the lie in a “balanced manner” (that is, next to a weak denial that convinces nobody.) Journalists like Bostrom never lie; they merely report the truth about what they were told by liars.

The story published by Bostrom, if you try for a moment to cool off and read it objectively, stems from lack of understanding: Israel, by law, sends anyone hurt by IDF fire to a post-mortem examination. Absurdly, this is part of our attempt to seek the truth. When the Bostroms of the world call, we want to give them accurate answers: Who killed him? Under what circumstances? When?

However, the Palestinians saw the bodies with the stitching marks on them and didn’t get it. Why is there a need to perform a post-mortem? They asked themselves. He was hit by a bullet and died. So then they started to circulate wild rumors, and Hamas’ PR department sold the story to the global media, and Bostrom bought into it.

Because from Goldstone to Bostrom, the State of Israel gets slammed time and again in the same way: The Palestinians lie. They realized, much before we did, that the war takes place not only on the streets of Gaza, but also on millions of TV screens. In their view, if we are allowed to use phosphorous bombs, they are allowed to use lies. This is the classic weapon of the weak: Cheap, effective, risk-free, and let’s admit it: Painful.

So is Bostrom an anti-Semite? Of course he is. Does he know he’s an anti-Semite? That’s a different story. I tend to believe that if we connect him to a polygraph and ask him whether he hates Jews, the needles will not shake. He doesn’t hate us; he just thinks we’re different.

It’s hard to blame him. This notion, that we’re different, came from us after all. If for 2,000 years you dress up differently, believe in a different God, celebrate different holidays, and on top of it insist on telling everyone that you’re completely different than them, ultimately they’ll believe you.

The problem is that this is a double-edged sword. When we say we’re different, we in fact mean to say that we’re better. It’s very nice, but human nature doesn’t work that way.

People always tend to prefer people who are similar to them; and what’s worse, they are always willing to believe about others things they would believe about themselves. They are different, these Jews, and everything is possible with them. They may be so smart that thye figured out the mystery of the ribosome, and they may be so cold-hearted that they created a hedge fund and stole $50 billion, and they may be so cruel as to harvest organs. You can never know; after all you can’t know what goes through their mind.

And the most painful part is that they placed us in the same category with the liars.

12:48PM: In case you think the Arab rioters are throwing “mere rocks” (which can be lethal on their own)

Palestinians stand near a fire that started after Arab youths threw a petrol bomb during clashes with Israeli police in Jerusalem’s Old City October 25, 2009. Israeli police fired stun grenades at Arab youths who threw rocks at them (and petrol bombs, of course – ed.) in the compound of Jerusalem’s flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City on Sunday, Israeli and Palestinian officials and witnesses said. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (JERUSALEM POLITICS CONFLICT)

No doubt if any of the palestinians get burned, they will:

• Blame Israel
• Get their medical treatment in Israel at the taxpayers’ expense

9:08AM: Arab rioters have planned a “spontaneous” welcome to the working week on the Temple Mount.

Security forces, who were already on high alert in Jerusalem on Sunday morning, didn’t have to wait long to be called into action, confronting Muslim rioters on the Temple Mount and arresting 12 people.

Police, who were accompanying a group of tourists up to the mount, had caught several Muslim youngsters on video camera preparing to cause trouble, including filling barrels of oil to pour onto the ground to hinder the access of security forces and the visitors.

Following the discovery, police reinforcements stormed the mount and were pelted with stones by the young rioters. The forces dispersed the riots using stun grenades, among other means at their disposal.

Those of us who have constructed Understanding the Goldstone Report, have been following the claims under contention since the events themselves almost a year ago, and have read the report in detail.  We offer a wide range of analysis, from careful examination of specific incidents and controversies to broader legal and conceptual issues.  In so doing, we have come to the following conclusions:

• The report violates international standards for inquries, including UN rules on fact-finding, replicating earlier UNHRC biased statements.
• The Commission systematically favored witnesses and evidence put forward by anti-Israel advocates, and dismissed evidence and testimony that would undermine its case.
• The commission relied extensively on mediating agencies, especially UN and NGOs, which have a documented hostility to Israel; the report reproduces earlier reports and claims from these agencies.
• At the same time, the Commission inexplicably downplayed or ignored substantial evidence of Hamas’ commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of terror, including specifically its victimization of the Palestinian population by its use of human shields, civilian dress for combatants, and combat use of protected objects like ambulances, hospitals and mosques.
• The Commission openly denies a presumption of innocence to the Israelis accused of crimes (while honoring Hamas’ presumed innocence) and acknowledges that it made accusations of crimes without proof that would stand up in court.
• The report contains numerous gratuitous digressions into issues beyond the purview of a fact-finding commission that are inaccurate and profoundly hostile to Israel and Jews.
• The Commission distorted legal standards, imposing on Israel standards that reverse their generally understood and applied meaning, while ignoring important rules of international law that put the onus of responsibility on an organization as base, by Goldstone’s own standards, as Hamas.

In all our analyses and conclusions, we have adhered to principles of empirical evidence and consistent reasoning.  Since the skeptical reader might well accuse us of making up our mind in advance, we emphasize that one should not agree or disagree with us because of how one feels about Israel or the Palestinians, but because of the evidence. We invite readers to examine our arguments without prejudice, make up their own minds and, where they see problems, challenge our arguments. Sweeping and inflammatory rhetoric not welcome.

I have also played a behind-the-scenes role with this website, although admittedly not as much as I would like due to time constraints.

I encourage anyone genuinely wanting to understand the Goldstone report to visit the site and evaluate the evidence and analyses presented.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:45PM: There have been reports that Hizbullah terrorist Abdel Nasser Issa, his son, and three others have been killed in a blast in Issa’s home in southern Lebanon.

For their part, Hizbullah has denied anyone was killed, or that the house was being used as an arms depot, instead claiming the munitions that caused the blast were IDF leftovers from the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

7:35PM: I am guessing this is the closest the palestinians will ever come to cloning.

Hamas supporters, playing the role of judges (R) and of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, hold a mock trial for Abbas in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip October 12, 2009, following his decision to postpone action on a U.N. report that criticized Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Abbas on Sunday defended his decision to back the deferral of a vote on a U.N. war crimes report, saying he wanted to secure broad support for the document.

It is good to see that Hamas and their supporters can still find time from their busy schedules helping the “starving” people of Gaza to stage a lame propaganda event such as this.

Naqba Dwarf adds:

No-one asked me to take part in this.

I could have played the part of the jailer, or Mahmoud’s cellmate.

Screw ‘em!

1:50PM: According to Ma’an News, an Egyptian News site has reported the reason for the PA’s decision to defer submitting the Goldstone Report on time was Qatar.

Qatar’s representative to the UN Human Rights Council Abdullah Dosari was the one who pressured Palestian Ambassador Ibrahim Khreisha to defer submitting the Goldstone report on time, according to an Egyptian news site.

The Cairo-based Rosonline reported on Sunday that the Palestinian Authority came under pressure after it was accused of complicity in deferring the report, and thus requested an exceptional emergency session of the Human Rights Council to discuss it.

The PA would have needed support from 16 of 47 member countries.

However, according to the Egyptian website, Qatar surprised the Palestinians with its stance, which was believed to have stemmed from increasingly good relations between Qatar and Israel. Despite that, the website alleges, Qatar has been leading a campaign against the PA on Al-Jazeera TV, which is based in Qatar, accusing the PA of treason for deferring the Goldstone report.

In the same regard, the PA minister of economy, Bassem Khoury, was interviewed by Al-Jazeera two days ago, and during the interview, he accused Qatar of complicity to defer the report “because it contains criminalization of Qatar’s friends, Hamas and Israel.”

When asked about the validity of the allegations that Israel stipulated allowing a new Palestinian mobile company to deferring the Goldstone report, Khoury said 51 percent of the company was owned by a cousin and son of the Qatari emir.

He asserted that the ball was in Qatar’s court on Goldstone, and said that if they were really against deferring the report, they could simply demand it be considered since Qatar is a permanent member of the Human Rights Council.

So whichis it? Qatar’s business interests in a mobile phone company or increasingly good relations between Qatar and Israel? And how could a country be simultaneously good friends with Hamas and Israel?

12:40PM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has implored the Arab world to ignore lies that Israel is planning to dig under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

“There is an extreme minority that has spread lies according to which Israel is planning to conduct excavations beneath the Temple Mount,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said regarding the recent unrest in east Jerusalem.

“I want to make it clear that these are lies, and I call on the majority of Arabs in Israel not to believe these lies,” said the PM at the onset of Monday’s cabinet meeting, “The vast majority of Israel’s Arabs are not being dragged in by these provocations.

“I want to tell the Arab citizens of Israel – those who want to lead normal lives – that you are a part of the State of Israel. The government is working to make certain that you (Arab sector) enjoy full equality in every field, be it education, economy, employment or infrastructure,” he said.

In response, a spokesman for the Islamic Movement has taken the “No, he’s a big fat liar” approach (a favorite amongst school children).

Islamic Movement spokesman Attorney Zahi Nujidat said in response to Netanyahu’s statements denying that Israel is digging beneath the Temple Mount: “Netanyahu’s statements amuse us. We are the ones saying – don’t believe Bibi’s lies.”

6:05AM: In the wake of Turkey’s decision to bar Israel  from an air force drill, leading to the cancelation of the entire event, Israeli officials called an emergency meeting at the Foreign Ministry to discuss the crisis between the two countries.

A senior source at the ministry told Haaretz about concerns that strategic ties with Turkey are in jeopardy after Operation Lead Cast in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

Foreign Ministry sources confirmed that the meeting had taken place following instructions by ministry director general Yossi Gal, but they declined to give details.

Officials are debating the depth of the crisis. One view holds that “strategic ties” has become a unilateral description of the situation and that Turkey’s government under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not interested in such links.

“It may be that the reality has changed and the strategic ties that we thought existed have simply ended,” said a senior Israeli official. “Maybe we need to be the ones who initiate renewed thinking regarding our ties and must adopt response measures.”

Supporters of this approach point out that of the countries with diplomatic ties with Israel, Turkey might be the most hostile.

But other officials argue that the situation can be saved. “There is a serious crisis and we need to address it quickly,” said a senior official who has experience with the Turkish file.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is clearly of the latter opinion.

“Our interest is not to reach a point of friction or crisis with Turkey. We consider Turkey an important strategic partner of Israel’s and an anchor of stability,” Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon said Sunday night, in hopes of calming the storm that followed Turkey’s decision to bar Israel  from an air force drill, leading to the cancelation of the entire event.

—-

Ayalon hinted that the Turks also have something to lose from the move: “The commitment to strategic partnership is two-sided. It is important for both sides to maintain the meaningful strategic bond in Israel’s ties with the Turkish government, which has proven to be moderate in the past.”

I doubt Turkey has reciprocal feelings about the value of its strategic relationship with Israel. After all, they barred Israel from the drill in the first place.

Perhaps they’ll have second thoughts once Iran achieves its nuclear capability goals.

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Mr Peres lied.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

11:55AM: I would bring out the flying pig, but someone from the Leftist Ha’aretz criticizing the Goldstone Report is already old news.

Nobody knows yet when the next war will break out. Maybe in a decade, maybe in a year, or maybe even next month. It is also not clear where the next war will erupt – perhaps on the Gaza border, perhaps the West Bank, or maybe in Jerusalem.

But it is already clear what the next war’s name will be – the Goldstone War. It will be the war brought upon us by the Goldstone report, Judge Goldstone and his Goldstoner followers.

It’s a simple story. In the absence of peace in the Middle East, deterrence prevents war. Israeli deterrence has been eroded considerably by two Lebanon wars, two intifadas and two unilateral withdrawals. Thus Israel is incessantly subjected to terror attacks.

To prevent the region’s deterioration into complete chaos, Israel must exercize force once every few years. These limited demonstrations of power do not achieve a decisive military victory or a breakthrough in the peace process.

Their entire purpose is to stabilize the violent relationship between Israelis and Arabs. Thus they create a temporary, strong-arm balance that subdues the conflict and ensures calm for a few years.

For better or worse, Operation Cast Lead created such a balance. It weakened Hamas and deterred it, at a terrible human cost. It strengthened the moderate Palestinians and enabled them to grow, at an intolerable moral cost.

Cast Lead granted Israel’s southern residents a rare time-out. Brutal as it was, the operation created an infrastructure of stability on which it was possible to build – layer by layer – a new, sober peace process.

However, in recent weeks the balance has been disrupted. Hamas is rearing its head while the Palestinian moderates are becoming more radical. A trickle of Qassam rocket fire has resumed in the south, while the embers on the Temple Mount are glowing red-hot.

This is no coincidence. The Goldstone report and the Goldstone spirit are causing a situation in which the deterrence that was achieved for such a high price at the beginning of the year could expire prematurely. They are bringing the next round of Israeli-Palestinian war closer.

More than enough has been written about Richard Goldstone’s double standard. However, today it is clear that Goldstone is not only guilty of a double standard (see Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Tibet…), but of a double political crime.

With one hand he pushed peace further away, by making it clear that even after Israel withdraws to the Green Line it is not permitted to defend its citizens and its sovereignty. With the other hand he brought war closer, by binding Israel in a straitjacket that prevents it from exercising its power in the future.

On the one hand Goldstone played into the Israeli right wing’s hands (by increasing the risks of withdrawal). On the other hand he inflamed Palestinian extremism (by burning Israel at the stake).

The Palestinians see Goldstone as a sort of Delilah, who found the Israeli Samson’s weakness and sheared off his tresses. This can lead to only one outcome – violence and more violence, more and more violence – up to war.

The problem isn’t just Goldstone. The problem is the Goldstoners. For decades the Goldstone bunch has been conducting an insane incitement campaign against Israel. Israel contributed its part to this campaign with the occupation, the settlements and its arrogance. But the Goldstoners are not driven by an honest attempt to divide the land, create peace and establish universal justice that would apply to all nations. They are driven by a deep need to isolate Israel, condemn it and destroy it.

Although some of the leading Goldstoners are Jews and Israelis, they don’t recognize Jewish history, the Jewish tragedy and the difficult circumstances in which the Jewish state is trying to survive. They treat Israel like a wicked, omnipotent power that is responsible for all the conflict’s sins and the region’s ills.

The Goldstone report would never have been written without the joint work, joint bias and joint Israel-hatred of all the Goldstoners. Thus the report reflects both the Goldstoners’ holy fury and their complete belief that the Palestinians can do no wrong.

That belief is now endangering not only Israel but calm and stability. In their fanaticism and extremism, Goldstone and the Goldstoners have brought us closer to bloodshed.

11:20AM: BREAKING NEWS: Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize “”for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

11:10AM: Yet another threat by Iran.

Iran  would “blow up the heart” of Israel  if it was attacked by the Jewish state or the United States, a Revolutionary Guards official was quoted on Friday as saying.

“Even if one American or Zionist missile hits our country, before the dust settles, Iranian missiles will blow up the heart of Israel,” the IRNA news agency quoted Mojtaba Zolnour as saying.

Notice how the threat has been made even in the event of  the US striking them.

7:45AM: Ha’aretz reports that Democratic congressmen close to Barack Obama told an Israeli source the Obama administration is furious over supposed Israeli incitement against the President, which includes attempting to portray Obama to the American public as an enemy of Israel.

And in other anger-related news, Hamas has declared today a “day of rage” for Al-Aqsa Mosque.

12:48AM: Here’s more on the Gaza donkey-zebra story I posted about yesterday.

If the zoo looked familiar to you, this is perhaps where you last saw it.

12:40AM: The National Post’s Jonathan Kay suggests opponents of Israel boycott protein.

For years, Canada’s anti-Israel activists, church groups and unions have been urging us to boycott every Israeli product under the sun — from wines, to academics, to fruit, to high-tech goods, to films.

It is time to take the campaign to the next level.

This week, the Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded to three scientists — including a woman named Ada Yonath.
Yonath is not only the first woman to win a chemistry Nobel since 1964, she also happens to be a citizen of the Zionist entity — which means her research is a subject of concern to all social-justice-loving activists.

It turns out that Yonath won her award for her research on ribosome, a key component of the cellular machinery that translates DNA sequences into protein chains — the exact sort of protein chains that form the basis of human life in Israeli soldiers and settlers. Much like American F-16s, these protein chains are essential to the Israeli war machine.

In other words, the Nobel Prize committee is essentially rubber-stamping Israeli genocide.

Ribosomes build proteins from genetic instructions transmitted by messenger strands of Ribonucleic acid — much like the Zionist lobby in Washington carries out the wishes of its Israeli paymasters.

Interestingly. ribosomes were first observed in the 1950s — just a few years after the creation of the state of Israel. Coincidence?

Oh and here’s someone who isn’t producing any protein strands: Muhammad al-Durrah. I guess Ms. Yonath’s “humanitarian” research doesn’t apply to Palestinian kids.

At this point, you are thinking “What can I do?” The answer lies inside you — inside every cell, in fact.

Ironically, many of those who claim to support the Palestinian cause go about their day to day life without thinking about how their continuous use of ribosomes serves to essentially validate Ms. Yonath’s military research project.

Do you need all those trillions of proteins you’re producing? Do you even know what they do?

Didn’t think so.

Protein strands or social justice — which is it going to be?

I know what Muhammad al-Durrah would pick.

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The PA has been waging a diplomatic campaign against Israel for the past two weeks over what it terms “provocations” on the Temple Mount

According to reports that have reached Israel about Fayyad’s meeting with the ambassadors, the PA prime minister described last Sunday’s clashes as “an assault by extremist religious settlers on the Temple Mount compound” and said it was “a provocation planned in advance that was aimed at sabotaging the peace process and derailing [U.S.] President [Barack] Obama’s peace initiative.”

Warning that the situation on the mount was flammable and could swiftly deteriorate, he added, “I remind you that this is where the Al-Aqsa Intifada began, after [Ariel] Sharon’s visit” to the mount in September 2000. “The Palestinians’ popular response stems from the Israeli aggression, and we are liable to lose control over events.”

Sounds like a threat to me.

Of course, if there is another “intifada”, just know that it won’t be a spontaneous outpouring of emotion, but something very deliberate and planned.

Meanwhile, even the Left wing Ha’aretz knows where the blame for this recent violence lies.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:50PM: Israeli television has shown pictures proving the Islamic movement had prepared for the riots, hiding rocks inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, contrary to Arab claims that Israel started the confrontation by denying Arabs entry to the Temple Mount.

As the Jerusalem Post reported:

Earlier Monday, Jerusalem police explained their decision to allow only worshipers over the age of 50 into the Temple Mount, revealing that wheelbarrows filled with rocks had been discovered throughout the Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday.

Palestinians had filled the wheelbarrows with stones and bricks in preparation for riots in the Old City, police assessed.

The discovery of the wheelbarrows, in addition to intelligence information and the call on Palestinians to “come and defend” Al-Aqsa, led the police to restrict entrance to the Temple Mount.

It’s 2000 all over again.

10:32PM: The PA continues to show its true colors, urging its people to “confront” Israel and imploring the world to stop us from worshiping our religion in Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority on Monday evening condemned Jerusalem’s decision to restrict entrance to the Aqsa Mosque compound, calling on Palestinians to confront Israel in light of the “Israeli aggression.”

“We call on the Palestinian public to confront Israel and its plans, that are intended to prevent the Palestinian people from fulfilling their aspirations of establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied territories,” read a statement issued by the government of PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad in Ramallah.

The PA government publicly decried “Israel’s attempts to conduct Jewish prayer services in the Aqsa compound” and urged the world “to force Israel to halt is efforts to Jewify the city.”

Earlier Monday, Jerusalem police explained their decision to allow only worshipers over the age of 50 into the Temple Mount, revealing that wheelbarrows filled with rocks had been discovered throughout the Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday.

There is no chance of peace with a people who deny our thousands-year connection to the land of Israel and the holy city of Jerusalem, and will resort to violence at the drop of a hat.

3:50PM:

Palestinian women take part in a protest in Gaza City calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails October 5, 2009. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA POLITICS CONFLICT)

Palestinian women take part in a protest in Gaza City calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails October 5, 2009. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA POLITICS CONFLICT)

I’m thinking of conducting my own protest….calling for the release of palestinians from really bad photograph poses.

10:25AM: The latest Richard Goldstone interview with CNN.

Pay special attention to the following:

• Goldstone stating “We didn’t look at whether Hamas is entitled to use military force to gain independence for the palestinian people. We looked at what methods Hamas used,” (1:06) the implication being his acceptance of the notion that Hamas’ aim is solely to gain independence for the palestinians, rather than being its stated aim to rid the land of the Jews.
• Goldstone’s claiming a lack of time did not allow his team to find that Hamas did, in fact, operate out of civilian areas  (1:20), despite the ease of accessing such evidence on YouTube.
• Goldstone stating definitively that the infrastructure to Gaza had no military justification, mentioning specifically the bulldozing of agricultural land (2:30). I am no military expert, but I can imagine military purposes such as establishing a buffer zone. Goldstone does not even entertain this prospect, and states his views as fact.
• Goldstone repeating the laughable idea that both sides (i.e. including Hamas) can now use the report as a roadmap for investigating themselves (5:55)

7:20AM: Our peace partners, the Jordanians, are doing the best to calm the situation on the Temple Mount.

By adopting the palestinian narrative of events, of course.

Jerusalem is a “red line” to Jordan, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said here on Sunday.

“UNSC permanent members are urged to act immediately and shoulder their responsibilities, so as to halt Israeli unending violations,” Judeh told reporters, adding that Israel must be pressured in order to actually commit to achieving peace and re-launching negotiations.

“Dangerous violations, such as allowing Jewish extremists to barge into courts of Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as continuing excavations in Muslim holy places, destroying houses and displacing the Arab population in a bid to alter the demographic landscape in East Jerusalem are all condemned and rejected,” Judeh stressed.

Earlier today, Judeh, in a meeting with EU Middle East representative Marc Otte, warned against the Israeli escalation and violations in occupied East Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque.

In a related development, the Jordanian foreign ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador in Amman and handed him an objection note over unremitting violations on Muslim and Christian holy places in East Jerusalem.

“All Israeli procedures are illegal, as they signify a breach to Israel’s commitments in its capacity as an occupying force in the West Bank,” a ministry statement said.

Such procedures, the statement carried on to say, represented a major obstacle before efforts to launch serious negotiations that would result in achieving the two-state solution, and eventually, inclusive peace.

A masked Palestinian hurls a stone at Israeli border police during clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Old City, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009. Israeli police used stun grenades Sunday to disperse Palestinian rioters at a volatile Jerusalem site holy to Jews and Muslims, police said. The incident took place during a visit by a Jewish group to the compound in Jerusalem’s Old City known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

So much for the old city of Jerusalem being holy to Muslims. Unless their definition of holy somehow encompasses going around topless or wearing wife-beaters.

Artwork from inside the Church

And may I also say, if you’re in need of Industrial photography in Israel, you might want to give this guy a call: he’s clearly very good at this!

You can see the pictures on the photographer’s own web site here and this is what he wrote on the photography site about the pictures (I’ll included the technical photography stuff too!)

I enjoy history, particularly the history of religions. Thus it was in delighted anticipation that I accepted a brief to photograph a short sketch of a Holy-Land Church of my choosing for a proposed Christian tourism website.

I chose the Church of The Holy Sepulchre in the heart of Old City of Jerusalem. It is saturated with religious tradition and history and is among the most venerated shrines in Christendom.

Within the Church are the last five Stations of the Cross – The Via Dolorosa. Traditionally, it is here that Jesus bore the Cross to Calvary, and here where he was crucified, died, buried and resurrected…

Because of budget constraints, I was required to shoot fast to finish as much as possible of this massive church within in five hours. Coupled with this, the church was alive with a Cecil B. DeMille multitude of tourists and pilgrims. In view of the crowded, difficult conditions, I decided that i would have to shoot fast using a very light tripod and to avoid changes by using one lens throughout – the Sigma 12-24. Settings were at 800 ISO more or less throughout. AWB – Standard everything – Let the S5 do the thinking for me. Saved a lot of time this way. The rest of my equipment, flashes, lenses, stayed in my backpack unused. Some slight Photoshop tweaking on most pics.

http://roniti.com/sepulchre/

Should you be further interested here is a brief history of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre:

When Hadrian reconstructed Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina (135 CE), Christianity was considered a Jewish sect and its various sites treated accordingly. The hill of Golgotha (Calvary) and the Holy Sepulchre were obliterated and replaced by temples dedicated to Rome’s pagan gods. Inadvertently, the Temple of Venus which stood on Calvary helped Queen Helena, Emperor Constantine’s mother, to identify the site when she came to the Holy Land in 326 CE to find the places connected with the life of Christ. Constantine removed Hadrian’s temple and enshrined the hill of Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre in an immense and magnificent basilica in 326 CE, which was destroyed by the Persians in 614. Abbot Modestos rebuilt the shrine, but it was razed by the mad Sultan Hakim in 1009 and has never since been rebuilt to its original great size. The Byzantine emperor Monomachus began reconstructions in 1098, among them reducing the height of the dome and moving the main entrance to its present location at the south side of the church. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was Jerusalem’s most revered Christian edifice and its liberation from the Muslims was the primary goal of the Crusading armies. Once they had gained control of the city, the Crusaders began renovations to the church intended to bring under a single roof all of the sites related to the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Crusaders were defeated in 1187 by Saladin, who allowed Christians to use the shrine under condition that the key to the shrine – right of entry – remained in Muslim hands. Saladin’s proviso is still in force, despite the fact that, whenever it was expedient, the Muslims would arbitrarily apportion rights in the shrine to one or other of the Christian sects claiming privilege. As a result, Roman Catholics, Greeks, Armenians, Copts, Syrians and Abyssinians have had to jostle for favors and the establishment of rights within the church – a situation that has not been in the best interests of the shrine. Since reconstruction implies possession, it has been extremely difficult for the different sects to agree among themselves on any procedure for repair. Earthquake, fires and the ravages of time have taken their toll and the church has fallen into an abysmal state of disrepair, despite infrequent renovations since the 16th century. Between 1936 and 1934, the British were forced to install ugly reinforcements to save the church from collapsing. In 1958, the different communities sharing rights within the shrine were able to agree on a program of repair for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

–
Herbert Bishko

“They loved him everywhere; an unconditional love. He never did anything bad to anyone, he always wanted to help,” said the enraged son of Avraham Ozeri, who was killed in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood on Thursday.

Ozeri was widowed 10 years ago and survived by two children, a son and a daughter and six grandchildren.

The son, Amos Oz (no relation to the famous author), managed to see his father on the morning of the horrible day.

—-

The son continued to describe his deceased father and said, “He was the salt of the earth, a person that whenever spoken of, a connection was somehow made to love of country.

“That was his main motto in life and for that reason I was shaken that this happened to him. He said that ‘the Arabs will live there and we will live here’,” Oz said.

Amos also spoke of the fact that his father was an athlete his entire life. “There wasn’t a marathon in which he didn’t participate; he was the oldest runner. All the sports organizers knew and saluted him. In his youth he was in the Lechi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel).”

Oz commented on the cruelty exhibited by the terrorist and said, “An 86-year-old man…even animals don’t kill old animals. What reason is there to kill an 86-year-old person? What will you gain from this?

“He could be your great-grandfather. Animals is not the word; animals have respect for other animals,” he said.

Although they were not close, his neighbor Pnina Baldav said that Avraham was a major figure in her family’s life. “He was a simple and wonderful person. Each morning he went to the cultural center where he volunteered. I understood that everyone has been crying there for the entire day.”

Baldav added that “We have been living near each other for 23 years. Despite his age, he always helped carry our bags up the stairs and would always come quickly if we asked for anything else.

“Actually, we didn’t even need to ask, he would just come. Just last week, he left a note asking why we don’t water our plants. He didn’t want them to dry out. My heart hurts, he was a wonderful person,” said the neighbor.

Rachel Tzadok, who was Avraham’s neighbor for 27 years said, “Our acquaintanceship was very long. After his wife died 10 years ago, my husband helped him and saw him often.”

Tzadok also described Ozeri’s personality and said, “He had a heart of gold; he helped anyone who needed it.”

“Avraham worked at the Jewish Agency for years and upon his retirement, went to volunteer at the cultural center until last year.. He didn’t want to sit at home, poor soul.

“Only words of kindness can be said about this person. It is simply unfortunate that he is gone and it is unfortunate that he went in such a way,” added the neighbor.

May G-d avenge his blood.

Here’s what went down:

A young Arab man murdered a civilian and injured a police officer in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood on Thursday morning.

The 86-year-old citizen was critically injured and evacuated to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital, where he died of his wounds. The police officer, 32, sustained light to moderate wounds and was evacuated to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

The terrorist sustained moderate to serious wounds in his stomach after being shot by the injured policeman. He was also taken to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

According to an initial report, the incident began when two police officers detained the young Arab man for a security check, but he pulled out a knife and stabbed one of them. The injured policeman pulled out his gun, shot and injured the terrorist, who fled the scene with the knife in his hand.

The assailant went on to stab the civilian, before being captured by another citizen and a municpal inspector.

Yoav Mizrahi, the citizen who captured the terrorist, recounted the incident. “I arrived with my car and saw an Arab man on the street fighting with the policeman. I stopped the car, when suddenly the guy pulled out a knife and began stabbing the policeman, who tried to defend himself. I ran and called out to him…

“The officer fell down, got up and fired at the fleeing terrorist before collapsing on the ground. While escaping, the Arab stabbed an elderly man walking across from him and that man collapsed.

“The terrorist continued running, and I ran after him and yelled at him to stop in Arabic. About 150 meters later I caught him from behind, dropped him to the ground and held on to him together with an inspector until the security forces arrived.”

The palestinians are predictably reporting this attack in their “unique” way.

• IMEMC reports today’s victim as the terrorist, who they say was killed after “allegedly” killing an “Israeli settler.” They also fabricate the words of an Israeli witness, who they claim said he saw the palestinian “accidently hit an elderly man causing him to fall on the ground.”
• Ma’an News also tries to turn the palestinians into the victims with their report under the headline Israeli forces invade Tuqu, threaten to demolish house of man involved in fatal Gilo stabbing. They are also reporting the victim as being only 60 years of age.
• Palestine News Network does the same thing, focusing on the IDF reprisals. They also make no mention of the elderly man being killed, claiming instead that “an Israeli settler and police officer..were moderately injured.”
• Ramattan makes it sound like a quarrel gone wrong, reporting “the Arab citizen quarreled with the guards of the settlements then they fought.” They also make it sound like the victim was somehow wounded as he passed by, rather than deliberately stabbed.

Updates to follow.

Updates (Israel time)

6:08PM: Honest Reporting have some examples of media bias in the reports of the attack from the usual suspects BBC, Reuters and AFP.

6:25PM: The victim has been identified as 86-year-old Jerusalem resident Abraham Ozeri.

As usual, taking facts out of context is very convenient to the bigots who want to rid Jerusalem of Jews.

In fact, a synagogue is being re-dedicated today in the Old City. The Ohel Yitzchak synagogue was built in 1917 on land purchased by Hungarian Jews in 1867.

Those multi-cultural Arabs who are so concerned about the sanctity of world religions drove the Jew of Jerusalem to abandon the structure in the 1936 riots, and they destroyed the synagogue altogether in 1948. The restoration has taken 15 years.

And the ancient steam bath? Well, the Israel Antiquities Authority found that Mameluke steam bath during the synagogue restoration, and preserved it, so this rebuilding of the synagogue didn’t destroy this historic bath – it discovered it!

This is another object lesson in half-truths peddled by the Palestinian Arab media, the outright lies of the Al Aqsa Foundation and the complete hypocrisy of Muslims who want Jerusalem to be Judenrein today.