The source of violence in the world

How many times have you heard the claim that Israel is one of the most violent places on Earth? The source of violence in the world, in fact? The root cause of global Islamic terrorism? How many world polls have put Israel among the biggest threats to world peace [1, 2, 3, 4]? This claim is repeated way too often and absolutely matter-of-factly, as if it was some common knowledge, an undisputed axiom. It is repeated by highly influential individuals; statesmen, scholars [1, 2], media [1, 2, 3]. Many of those individuals are otherwise perfectly sane and quite intelligent.

So how can they be so ignorant in this matter?

Let's try to put emotions aside and look at the facts. Just some cold numbers.

In the entire (entire!) 154 (one hundred and fifty four) years of the Israeli-Arab conflict a total (total!) of 121,879 people (Arabs AND Jews) were killed. During that period of time we had all-encompassing wars, military operations, Intifadas and also many years of relative quiet. Still that's a lot of people. That's a lot of wasted lives. That's something we all wish to put an end to already.

But let's compare that to some of the other current conflicts. Just a few from the top of my head.

In 2006 the then Mexican President Felipe Calderón proclaimed a war on the drug cartels. Since then, according to a leading Mexican newspaper 'La Jornada', and up to 2012 (6 years) more then 136,000 people were killed as a result of this drug war. That's approximately 11.6% more than the casualties of our entire conflict, except they were slaughtered some 29 times faster. Since the drug war isn't over, it's safe to assume these numbers are much higher today.

Mass protests in Mexico City, demanding justice for the 43 missing students,

recently identified dead, as the violence in Mexico continues. 

Since 2011 (4 years) more then 200,000 people were killed in the ongoing Syrian civil war. That's approximately 40% more, 38.5 times as fast.

Homs, a destroyed Syrian city.

Numbers vary significantly, but the most modest of estimations talk of 2.7 million (million!) dead in the many civil wars in Congo since 1998. These conflicts still continue to this day and the country is in a state of constant crisis. I won't even do the math on Congo.

When was the last time you even heard of Congo?

A fragment of the two million Congolese refugees.

Too bad they don't have a private, unique refugee agency all for them.

Now, don't get me wrong, dear Anti-Semites; I'm not saying that the Israeli-Arab conflict is okay, because in many other places in the world the carnage is much worse. I, just like any other Zionist, am not proud of a single dead. I, just like any other Zionist, wish for the violence to stop. But with that said, a certain sense of proportionality must be implied. My point is - Israel is not "the root cause of violence in the world". It's a tiny insignificant speck in the vast oceans of global violence.

The claim Israel is the reason for the rise of Islamic terrorism is equally absurd. The Syrians are not slaughtering each other because of the "Israeli occupation" of 1967. Nigerian Sunnis don't murder hundreds of other Sunnis because of Israel. The Islamic State is not slaughtering Kurds and Yazidis because Jews go up on The Temple Mount. They can't even show it on a map.

And you'll tell me: "But Israel is a democracy! We hold Israel to a higher standard!"

The moment you hold the Israelis to a "higher standard", you automatically hold the Congolese, the Syrian and the Mexican (who, are democratic as well, by the way) to a lower standard.

Not to speak of the supremacist patronizing of the Palestinians that phrase implies.

Besides, it'll be interesting for you to know, that Jerusalem as the capital of, not only Israel, but also the entire Israeli-Arab conflict, with all its religious and national tensions is much safer right now than such "perfectly peaceful" and "fully democratic" cities like: Edinburgh, Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Toronto, Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna, Helsinki, Madrid, Sydney, Oslo, London, New York, Los Angeles, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Rome and Dublin - just to name a few. Speaking in violence rates, Jerusalem is not even on the same planet as Baltimore, New Orleans and Detroit.

So, you see, wether you "hold it to it" or not, Israel is on a higher standard than the absolute majority of countries.

Former AP correspondent Matti Friedman explains CNN the media bias over Israel.

Despite what the media and the academia tell you, the Israeli-Arab conflict is not one of the main, most significant, highly crucial conflicts in the world. While solving it, is obviously an utmost priority to its direct participants, it bares practically zero impact on the planet. Solving it won't solve the world's problems, won't stop Islamic terrorism and won't prevent a third World War.

So next time you hear your local media pumping "Israel this, Israel that" in your local news, switch to something more relevant to you, something closer to home or, perhaps, something truly crucial to the world's security.

Or just try using your brains. It's simple and pleasant.

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What makes a 'right wing activist'?

What does it take to be labeled a 'right wing activist'? Radical ideas? Hardliner beliefs? Violence? 

In the case of Rabbi Yehuda Glick, it seems a long beard and a yarmulke were enough.

On Wednesday last week Rabbi Yehuda was shot four times by an Arab terrorist at close range in Jerusalem. He was badly wounded. As I was writing these lines, he was operated four times, and now, it seems, he's recovering. The media, reporting on the (political) assassination attempt was quick to label Glick 'a right wing activist', as if explaining to the readers: "this is all his fault, the poor Arab terrorist had no choice". But is it fair to label Glick thus? Let's look at the facts, and examine his actual activity.

Photo from Yehuda Glick's official Facebook page.

Yehuda Glick advocates for the right of Jews to visit and pray on the holiest place for Jews - The Temple Mount. As it currently stands  Jews are allowed to visit the sacred site only a number of hours a day, excluding Fridays. Saturdays and Muslim Holidays. They, much like the tourists, can enter the Mount from one specific entrance alone, but unlike the tourists they are subjugated to meticulous security checks to make sure they're not carrying any Judaic items. They are also strictly forbidden from praying, and are usually accompanied by a Jordanian Waqf member, who makes sure they don't even mutter anything or appear to be praying at heart.

Let me repeat that: Jews are not allowed to pray in the holiest place for Jews in the Jewish state. Most of the time they're not even allowed in. Furthermore, the single entrance allowed to Jews is often closed depending solely on the mood of the Arabs (1, 2, 3, 4).

Apartheid, anyone?

The Arabs, who also claim The Mount to be a (third most) holy place to them, on the other hand are free to enter the Mount from any entrance at any time. Entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, that are located there, is barred from all non-Muslims. This discriminatory status-quo is kept in order to "keep the peace" and to "avoid provocation". Many believe in all seriousness that this is "the most inflammable / explosive / tense place in the Middle East / the entire world" and that "it would start for sure The Third Intifada / World War III" (!). The moronic notion the Second Intifada started because of then PM Ariel Sharon's visit to The Temple Mount (!) still prevails in the Israeli mainstream.

These absurd claims are, of course, overblown beyond belief. No serious comparative, academic study can actually compare or connect The Temple Mount, and the violence it might have "ignited", to the rivers of blood being spilled right now in the Middle East, let alone the world. No sane person would ever buy into the "it's all Sharon's visit's fault". Still, if IQ isn't your top feature, there is now a multitude of evidence revealing Yasser Arafat's careful pre-planning of the Intifada (1, 2). And yet, Israeli governments tiptoe around the Temple Mount issues, perpetuating both the racist and the religious discrimination against its own people. Status Quos seem to be an addiction.

By the way, if you support these Status Quos, you're either: A. An Anti-Semite - believing a "Judenrein" policy is the best way for peace. B. A racist - "understanding" and thus - enabling and encouraging senseless and violent Arab behavior, the likes of which you wouldn't tolerate from anyone else on the planet. C. Both.

Congrats!

In the meantime Arabs destroy archaeological relics in their "holy site", pile garbage at their "holy site", allow kids to play soccer at their "holy site", stockpile rocks and fireworks to riot violently and attack Jews with inside their "holy site".

The sad state of things at the Muslim administered "holy site".

In the meantime that infamous, much feared "Third Intifada" is already raging for months in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. No matter how silent will the media be, or what euphemisms will it come up with to describe the situation, forgetting that "Intifada" is in itself a euphemism for "terror war".

As Churchill is commonly paraphrased:
"You were given the choice between war and dishonor.
You chose dishonor and you will have war."

So coming back to my original question and to Rabbi Yehuda Glick. What was he doing to deserve 4 bullets? Was he indeed a "right wing radical"? Was he indeed "provoking" the Muslims? Was he "inflaming" the entire Middle East, as all the radical Muslim Facebook pages shout, and the "liberal" media cheerfully repeats? Was he, perhaps, calling to destroy the Muslim holy sites and replace them with Jewish ones? Was he indeed "the most dangerous man in the Middle East"(!) ?

A photo taken from a radical Islamic Facebook page.
Tagline says in broken Hebrew: "Death to you soon".

Not at all. Not even close. His message is a message of peace, coexistence and unity. Just check the videos below. This has always been his message both in Hebrew and in English. Even those videos on YouTube with incitement in Arabic over them prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Yehuda is a man of peace. A Human Rights activist advocating for freedom of religion, not a "right wing activist".

He, on the other hand, was often a victim on The Temple Mount of verbal and often physical abuse.

Rabbi Yehuda Glick. Judge for yourselves.

Furthermore, Rabbi Yehuda is as apolitical a person as one could get. He never goes into any of the issues I described above. He always makes it his point not to pass judgement on any politicians or any government decisions. In one of the Temple Mount conventions he arranged, that I visited (a convention much like the one after which he was shot), some of the speakers were, for example, quick to call for the resignation of the Internal Security Minister, in light of the growing and violent unrest in the capital. Not so Yehuda. He publicly pronounced in the very beginning of the conference he has no criticism to pass on any politician, nor on the work of the police. Just a deep belief that All is One and a dream of a Prayer House for All Nations, a center for all monotheistic religions.

Rabbi Glick's ideology put to practice on The Temple Mount.
Sharing a prayer with the Muslims in Arabic and later in Hebrew in good spirits.

And this is, of course, the reason he was targeted by the radical Islamists. Not because he's a radical, but because he's a moderate. Because he's the epitome of moderation. And that's scary to the Arab extremist. That is much more dangerous to the radical, militant Islam than any far-right oponent, because The Temple Mount must remain a "scary" place for the Jews. Rabbi Yehuda is bringing the Temple Mount to the mainstream consciousness of the Jewish people, where it belongs, and he does it without violence or extremism. And if that happens, if The Temple Mount will return to the mainstream of the Jewish people, the entire "indigenous Palestinian" narrative will collapse as the fallacy that it is.

Glick's humorous reaction to a shoe, thrown at him by a Muslim woman on The Temple Mount.

And that's what it's all about. This is why the enemy positions The Temple Mount as the heart of the conflict and gives it so much weight in their propaganda. We, the "enlightened" and the "civilised" in Israel and in the West, can fool ouserves that it's about the "67 borders", or "the occupation", or "the two state solution", or whatever. It's not. It's time for all to realize, The Temple Mount is not a sideline issue for the fanatic and religious, but the very heart of our national conflict.

As a Western, liberal, atheist, I'd like to add that I would expect my country, as a free, democratic country that it is, to equate this religious site to all other religious site, of which our tiny land has an abundance of. No reason whatsoever to treat The Temple Mount with "special needs". Visiting hours should be, if not the same then, similar to the visiting hours of the Jewish Western Wall or the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Access should be opened to all without exception, like it is on the Jewish Western Wall or the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Finally, a site so obviously filled with history, should have archaeological works on it 24/7. 

Those of you who pray, pray for Rabbi Yehuda Glick's speedy and full recovery.

Those of you who don't, keep using your brains.

Yours truly at The Temple Mount earlier this year. 

A "right wing provocation", isn't it?

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A barrage of rockets; A barrage of clichés

There's a heavy feeling in the air. The heaviest in a long, long time. The Arab population in Jerusalem has turned their neighborhoods into a war zone. Entire areas in the capital of Israel are now not safe for Jews. Massive violent riots and clashes with the police take place as I was typing these lines. To the best of my understanding, now with the Ramadan month in order, the Arab streets are quiet during the day and violent during the night (with them being observant believers, after all). Damage to the Light Rail infrastructure is estimated in tens of millions of shekels (while it already took the "evil Zionist occupiers" tens of millions of shekels to put the rails through, and connect the Arab neighborhoods to the heart of the Jerusalem downtown in the first place). The rail now makes only half of its usual route. Civil Israeli cars are attacked with nightfall (Ramadan, remember?) by Arabs with heavy rocks on the highways leading to the surrounded with Arab villages neigborhoods of Gilo, Har Homa, Armon Hanatziv, Pisgat Ze'ev and Neveh Ya'akov. Augmented presence of police is strongly noticed all over the city.

"Death to Israel! Death to Jews!" - Destroyed Light Rail station in East Jerusalem.

While this post was in process, the situation escalated all over the country. To stop the barrage of rockets fired at civilian population from Gaza, Israel opened Operation Protective Edge. The 300-and-something rockets fired at Israel since the beginning of 2014, are now quickly multiplied with more than a hundred daily.

If it looks like an Intifada and it smells like an intifada - it's an intifada.

Intifada, in case anyone's in the dark, though generally translated as "uprising", in reality is a war of terror. The target is civil population. The old, the women, the children - anything goes. The battleground is buses, restaurants, shopping malls - any daily environment. The goal is to disrupt everyday life, to put fear in the lives of all Jews all over Israel. Not exactly what you might hear from your local media.

This most recent "unrest on the Arab street" is generally credited to the heinous nationalistic murder of the Arab teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir (even though he stands in a long line of recent nationalistic murders of teens - Jewish teens; Shelley Dadon, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach come to mind from the last 2 months alone). Mohammed has been brutally murdered by a gang of revolting, fanatic, racist Jewish teenage scum. The discovery of their guilt deeply shocked Israeli public. Their names (when they'll be known) will forever become a pariah in Israeli society. They don't represent neither the Israeli right, nor the settlement movement. No one, but their tiny, sick circle on the outskirts of the outskirts of society. 

Victims of nationalism Shelley Dadon and Mohammed Abu Khdeir. 

Who did you hear about in your news?

And yet, you can always trust the bleeding-hearts of our society and their unholy, unspoken union with the global fascist Anti-Semitism to dance on the blood of poor Mohammed, and use his tragic death as reason to lift a self righteous finger in the air, and utter a variety of tattered, irrelevant clichés with a sophisticated, all-knowing look.

Now, we've dealt already with the nonsense of "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter", but your average brain-dead liberal knows no rest, so I must commit yet another post to stating the obvious.

"It's the fault of extremists on both side!" / "We are all equally to blame!" / "See, there's no difference between us!"

The truth is societies are not measured by their sickoes and extremists, but rather by their mainstream. Not by what's considered by the society to be some of the most terrible crimes committed by a tiniest of minorities, but by what's considered by a society to be perfectly mainstream, by what a society embraces. Let's make a swift comparison:

1.a. President Mahmoud Abbas pays Arab terrorists, convicted of murder, monthly salaries. The more murdered - the bigger. He celebrates the release of mass murderers as the homecoming of heroes.

1.b. PM Benjamin Netanyahu strongly and immediately condemned the murder of  Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Minister of Economy, Head of the right wing Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett declared that Jewish terrorists must be treated the same way Arab terrorists are.

Abbas embraces freed terrorist. December, 2013. Photo: Flash 90.

2.a. Arabs celebrated in the streets the kidnapping (and subsequent murder) of Eyal, Gilad and Naftali. Candies were given out to the celebrating crowd. A social media campaign cheering the kidnapping of three Jews was launched.

2.b. None of the above, not even close, happened in Israeli society as the news of the murder of Mohammed came out.

3.a. Arabs in Gaza and Judea and Samaria glorify violence, murderers and terrorists. Streets, squares and schools are named after suicide bombers. They are revered as heroes by the public, looked up upon as role models.

3.b. None of the above, not even close, exists in Israeli society.

4.a. Terrorist and extremist organizations of all sorts run openly for elections in the "Palestinian" societies, and win by a landslide. The mainstream "Palestinian" public votes to see these people as their leadership.

4.b. Israeli current Knesset presents a wide variety of political and ideological difference, from left to center to right, but extremists are not welcomed. The farthest right wing party currently existing Otzma LeYisrael (who's leaders, Dr. Michael Ben-Ari and Lawyer Itamar Ben Gvir, were among the organizers of some of the more violent Jewish protests of recent time), which is generally regarded as the ideological heirs of Meir Kahane, didn't pass the electoral threshold needed to enter the Knesset. The extreme does not represent the views of the Israeli public.

Got the difference yet?

"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind!"

A lovely cliché if you have kids of kindergarten age, and you want to teach them morals, or if you're of kindergarten age yourself. In the real world, of course, this sentence works in a completely different way. "An eye for an eye" is mainly a waste of time, because if someone takes your eye out, you must take their head off, if you want to survive. Now, before you jump to blame me with racism / extremism / support of ethnic cleansing, or any other idiotic label, leftists use to help their narrow minds cope with reality, think again! Name any war from any geographical or historical point, and tell me when that wasn't the case. Good luck!

Not to mention, the entire basic premise of this statement is simply wrong, as the brilliant writer/director Martin McDonagh explained in his excellent film "Seven Psychopaths"! :)

"I'm ashamed today!"

I'm horrified today. I'm devastated today. I'm in mourning today. But why on earth should I be ashamed? How on earth is any of this my fault? The existence of crazy, extremist scum in any society is deeply regrettable. Any society must pursue and excommunicate its extremes. But why should the entire society be personally ashamed of them? Should all Americans be personally ashamed of Ted Bundy? Should all Ukrainians be personally ashamed of Andrei Chikatilo? Should all Norwegians be personally ashamed of Anders Breivik? Of course not. Because all Americans, Ukrainians or Norwegians bear no responsibility for the actions of sick individuals.

Shame could be appropriate when the mainstream is sick. Now, I'm not a huge fan of collective guilt in any form, but when Germans tell me they're ashamed of the crimes of the Nazis in WWII (which I don't think is right, because no one is responsible for the actions of his grandfather), then that statement has some internal logic, for Nazism was mainstream in 30s' Germany. When former Muslims tell me they're ashamed of the atrocities comitted in the Muslim world (which I don't think is right, because they, as individuals, chose a different path), then that statement bares some internal sense, for an extremist Islamic regime is prevalent in a significant number of countries. Yet, when an Israeli says he's ashamed over the acts of some Israeli degenerates, then that statement bares to internal logic whatsoever. As carefully examined above, the Israeli society has no reason for shame over the acts of its degenerates. If anything, Israelis have every reason for pride.

"The occupation is to blame!"

Ah, yes, of course! "The occupation"! How can we forget "the occupation"?!

Let's all hope that this current operation will finally put an end to terrorism once and for all, and stop the endless loss of life. Yes, on both sides.

In the meantime try to avoid meaningless clichés, and don't forget to use your brains even at times of war!

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Jerusalem Day - Who's the real occupier?

The mainstream media will tell you a bizarre story about Israel "occupying" places called "The West Bank" and "East Jerusalem" in 1967. It'll tell you this story with a straight face, without blinking once. Not for a second will it touch such "minor" details like, west of what is this "West Bank" to be called thus, or whom did Israel "occupy" these places from? Nor will it naturally, mention the "West Bank's" historic names - Judea and Samaria. If it did, a significant percentage of viewers might have actually risen an eyebrow, because the idea of JEWS "occupying" a place called JUDEA sounds a little bit weird.

The real story, however, is surprisingly simple and quite recent:

1. In 1947 the UN issued the Partition Plan for The British Mandate of Palestine to divide it into two separate states: A Jewish one and an Arab one.

*Notice how it was perfectly clear to all just a few years back, that Jews ARE a people, treated in the same context as the Arabs, unlike what some post-modern "thinkers" will tell you today. 
Notice also there's no mention of a "Palestinian" people, only an Arab people. Instead, Palestine is mentioned simply as a geographical region.

2. The Jews said "Yes!", the Arabs said "No!".

3. The Jews went on to establish an independant state in 1948 in what little was given to them. The Arabs attacked the tiny, newborn Jewish state with overwhelming powers of 5 Arab countries.

4. The Arabs, to their great surprise, lost (bringing upon themselves their infamous "Naqba", but that's a different story altogether). That first war of self-defence ended in 1949, with Israel prevailing and improving its border position.

5. Jordan ended up occupying the "West Bank" in that war of Arab aggression (hence the name, referring to it from Jordan's point of view). That occupation was almost unanimously viewed upon as illegal, even by the Arab League, since Jordan never had any legal, historical or other claim on the territory.

7. Israel was left with an indefensible border, only 9 miles long (!), so it had to go into battle once again in the triumphant Six-Day War of 1967, liberating Judea and Samaria from the illegal Jordanian occupation.

*Notice how the infamous, disputed "67 borders" from today's discourse, should actually be called the "49 borders". Or at least the "pre-67 borders".

And that's pretty much it. Jerusalem was once again, after some 2,000 years, a united capital (no such thing as "East Jerusalem", the city is united) of the Jewish people. This is the holiday of Jerusalem Day. Only the Jews, not the Arabs, were ever historically independent in Jerusalem. Only the Jews, not the Arabs, had Jerusalem for their capital. Only the Jewish Bible, not the Muslim Quran, mentions Jerusalem hundreds of times. Only the Jews prayed for "next year in Jerusalem", not the Muslims.

And yet, this Jerusalem Day, is particularly sad. To appease the Arabs control of the Temple Mount, the holiest Jewish site, was given away to Jordanian Waqf. They limit the access of non-Muslims (that includes tourists) to the site for three to four hours a day, 5 days a week, while Muslims are free to visit whenever they want. They shut the entrance to non-Muslims entirely whenever they feel like rioting, or just have a bad mood. Like today on Jerusalem Day.

And you'll ask me: "But isn't the Temple Mount sacred for the Muslims as well?" "Shouldn't they have control because of it?" "Shouldn't we respect their ancient traditions?"

1. Muslims turn their asses to Jerusalem when they pray. Their true holy city is Mecca.

2. When the latest conflict escalated they shot missiles upon their "holy city" of Jerusalem.

3. The Western Wall is sacred to the Jews, yet access is free to all. The Church of The Holy Sepulchre is sacred to the Christians, yet access is free to all. Why do you want to hold the Muslims to a different standart? Are you some kind of a racist?

This shocking video was taken only a month ago. Not 47 years ago when we didn't have Jerusalem, not 66 years ago when we didn't have a country, not 75 years ago in Europe. Now. Here. In Jerusalem. Only a month ago. A crazed, Arab mob attacks a Jewish family (with little kids). The police could hardly protect them.

Apartheid anyone?

The only way for peace, quiet, full human and religious rights to all is through full Israeli sovereignty.

Until that is realized by all, it's more like "next year in Jerusalem" all over again.

Happy holiday!

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