From Aish.com’s “Heroes of Israel” series, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is the voice of the victims of terrorism:

by Daniel Pipes*

“The stupidest program the U.S. government has ever undertaken” — last year that’s what I called American efforts to improve the Palestinian Authority (PA) military force. Slightly hyperbolic, yes, but the description fits because those efforts enhance the fighting power of enemies of the United States and its Israeli ally.

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By Barry Rubin

For more than four months the U.S. government has been celebrating Israel agreeing to stop construction on settlements in the West Bank while continuing building in east Jerusalem as a great step forward and Israeli concession deserving a reward. Suddenly, all of this is forgotten to say that Israel building in east Jerusalem is some kind of terrible deed which deserves punishment.

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From the Middle East Quarterly*

Following a lengthy period during which Hamas bombarded southern Israel unopposed, Israel finally attacked Gaza in an attempt to cripple Hamas’s fighting capabilities. The ensuing conflict in December 2008 and January 2009 led to a high casualty count on the Palestinian side. Even before the war ended, the U.N. Human Rights Council, a body thought biased against Israel, met at the behest of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in a special session to condemn the Israeli assault and to call for a mandate to carry out a fact-finding mission designed to investigate the conflict.

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by Daniel Pipes*

Joe Biden’s trip to Israel fits neatly into the context of the Obama administration’s internal struggle over Israel policy.

The far left prevailed initially, as evidenced by Hilary Clinton’s May 2009 declaration that Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions.” But this approach bombed, permitting the center left to take over in about September 2009.

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By Fern Sidman

Chants of “Free, Free Palestine” and “Israel Is Here To Stay” resounded along New York City’s Park Avenue, as both anti-Israel forces and pro-Israel supporters squared off in front of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Tuesday evening, March 9th, while inside the hotel the organization known as The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces gathered for their annual gala fund-raising dinner. The guest of honor and keynote speaker for this year’s dinner was Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi, Chief of Staff of the IDF.

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The International Solidarity Movement expressed motives for wanting peace activist Rachel Corrie dead.

by Bill Levinson

We use the word “murder” only because the International Solidarity Movement has accused Israel of murdering peace activist Rachel Corrie, who died after she knelt in front of an IDF bulldozer. When an accusation of murder is on the table, it is very poor judgment to express motives for wanting the decedent dead, but two members of the International Solidarity Movement and a Hamas terrorist have done exactly that. Let’s begin with Joseph Smith, one of the witnesses who contends that Rachel Corrie was “murdered.”

The spirit that she died for is worth a life. This idea of resistance, this spirit of resisting this brutal occupying force, is worth anything. And many, many, many Palestinians give their lives for it all the time. So the life of one international, I feel, is more than worth the spirit of resisting oppression.

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From the ADL:

Right now, Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is taking place in more than a dozen cities and on many college campuses. In past years, IAW has been marked by extreme anti-Israel rhetoric, including accusations of Israeli racism and apartheid, and calls for boycott and divestment campaigns against Israel. We anticipate similar efforts to delegitimize Israel at this year’s events.

Your college student may encounter demonstrations or hear extreme anti-Israel protests in conjunction with IAW. To help students, parents and grandparents respond to these demonstrations in strategic yet powerful ways, ADL experts have developed and distributed resources on dealing with anti-Israel rallies on campuses.

We are closely monitoring the events and ADL Regional Office staff are available if your student needs help creating a response or is not receiving appropriate support from college administration officials.

Find your ADL regional office.

ADVICE TO STUDENTS

• While anti-Israel protests are protected by free speech rights, protestors can’t obstruct access to school buildings or physically intimidate or threaten students. When protests violate these standards, students should ask administrators to act.
• Students should be vigilant in responding to anti-Israel articles, op-eds and letters-to-the-editor in campus papers. ADL Regional Offices can help create an appropriate response.
• If anti-Semitic materials appear on campus, students should publicly condemn the materials and ask the administration to combat the atmosphere of hate on campus.
• Students should use social networking tools like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and campus blogs to post positive messages about Israel.

Visit our site to download “Fighting Back,” a comprehensive handbook for strategically responding to demonstrations on campuses. You will also find a range of resources on how people can support Israel.

IAW is scheduled to continue until March 14 and ADL will closely monitor events. You can stay up to date on IAW activity by visiting our Web site.

ADL regional staff are also here to help students respond to anti-Israel rallies on campuses. This is an example of the expertise and “on-the-ground” work of the Anti-Defamation League.

At ADL, we monitor, we advocate and we work to protect the Jewish people, but we cannot do so without your help.

Please consider donating to the Anti-Defamation League to help us always be ready to respond.

Contact

by Phyllis Chesler

For years now, newly arrived refugees have been contacting me. They write to tell me that they’ve lost nearly everybody they once knew. Their whole world is gone now. Some whisper over the phone. Others write long letters. They ask me how I’ve managed.

I am talking about ideological refugees from feminism, leftism, gay liberation, socialism, and progressivism.

Yesterday, I received a letter from someone in Berkeley. She tells me that, earlier this week, she was “overjoyed to see the feisty Tikvah students on the steps of Sproul Plaza giving out Israeli flags and t-shirts and dancing in circles,” and how afterwards, some “went to confront the theatre of the absurd, enacting the checkpoints.” Referring to the feminist movement in Berkeley, she asks: “Could you ever have believed it? From anti-patriarchy to pro-Hamas in a few decades?” Her letter continues: Continue reading…

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By Barry Rubin

International relations isn’t a popularity contest. But public opinion polls can be useful in countering myths and examining the impact of policymaker, elite, and media campaigns on the masses.

Which brings us to Gallup’s latest poll measuring how Americans feel about different countries. The more one examines the results, the more amazing they are. Americans two favorites are, not surprisingly, fellow English-speakers Canada and the United Kingdom. Then come–Americans are very forgiving–two former enemies, Germany and Japan.

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By Fern Sidman

Hip Hop artists and graffiti virtuosos from New York painting their way throughout Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Sderot? Who’d a thunk it, but it appears that a new organization called Artists 4 Israel will be doing just that. Founded about a year ago following Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, young artists in the New York area had just about enough of the incessant anti-Israel propaganda being spewed forth by the “politically correct” denizens of the radically left-wing enclaves that figure so prominently in the eclectic world of the New York artist and decided to do something about it.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Everywhere I turn — or so it seems — attacks on Israel and Israelis are in process. The other day, after a long day of writing, I idly, instinctively channel surfed — and there was the infamous Christiane Amanpour grilling Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak. Oh, how this half-British, half-Iranian journalist relished this task. All her questions were hostile and were meant to embarrass or castigate both him personally and Israeli policies in general. CNN’s poor excuse for Oriana Fallaci never paused to take a breath; she gave Minister Barak absolutely no quarter. Except once. That’s when Amanpour told Barak that he was still saying the same things about peace that he’d said ten years ago when she’d interviewed him, at which moment, she flashed back to that very interview. Continue reading…

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

All you Jew-haters and Israel-haters (same thing) think you know what’s best for the rest of us, just like Hitler and Stalin did. The problem is that you’re completely out of step with the collective intelligence of the greatest nation in the world, the U.S.:

… The findings of the February 19, 2010 Gallup poll put President Barack Obama at odds with the US public, when it comes to attitudes toward the Jewish state, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Arabs, Muslims and Islamic terrorism.

For example, Israel maintains its traditional spot among the five most favored nations by 67 percent of the US public, despite Obama’s “even-handed” approach toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, in spite of his attempts to force Israel into sweeping concessions, and in defiance of the US “elite” media and academia.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority is ranked — along with Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan — at the bottom of the list, favored by only 20% of the US public.

According to an August 10, 2009 Rasmussen poll, Israel is ranked as the third most favorable ally (70%), preceded only by Canada and Britain. The low regard toward Egypt (39%) and Saudi Arabia (23%) demonstrates that Americans remain skeptical — at least since 9/11 — of Arabs and Muslims, even as these countries are portrayed by the media and the administration as supposedly moderate and pro-American.

Moreover, only 21% of adult Americans expect that the US relationship with the Muslim world will improve in a year, while 25% expect that it will get worse. …

By Jonathan Spyer

The war of words is continuing. The latest salvos were fired last week by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, and his Lebanese ally and client Hassan Nasrallah. Ahmedinejad reportedly told Nasrallah that if Israel attacks Hizballah, the response should be sufficient to lead to the closure, once and for all, of the Israeli ‘case.’ In the same week, Nasrallah promised attendees at a ‘Resistance Martyrs Day’ celebration that his movement would target Israel’s infrastructure in the event of further hostilities. The Hizballah leader mentioned airports, factories and refineries as possible targets.

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by Reza Molavi and K. Luisa Gandolfo*

In the 30-year reign of Iran’s Islamic Republic, there have been few controversies as serious as the one surrounding the 2009 elections. The votes that brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power for a second term have been challenged, not just on paper, but by citizens taking to the streets in angry protests that have only been quelled by brute force on the part of the establishment. Less well known is the upset that followed Ahmadinejad’s nepotistic appointment of Esfandiar Rahim Masha’i, the father of his daughter-in-law, to the post of first vice president. Not long after this, Iran’s supreme leader, ‘Ali Khamenei, demonstrated his personal authority over the entire political system by forcing Ahmadinejad to reconsider his appointee, leading to Masha’i’s dismissal. Masha’i had become controversial for his impolitic references to Israel and America. In a speech at a tourism convention in July 2008, for example, he had observed: “Not only we have no enemy, but we are friends with the American people, with the Israeli people, and we are proud that we are friendly with all the nations in the world.”[1]

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