The claims of hypocrisy against international critics of Israel are as old as Israel itself. They’ve become one of those boring tropes of debate that people write off simply because it’s been heard before.

To our great surprise, one of the most boring of the Jewish advocacy groups, the American Jewish Committee, has published a spirited rant about anti-Israel hypocrisy that almost gives the argument new life.

It begins:

Dear Ms. Trine Lilleng,

You were an unknown Norwegian diplomat till this month.

No longer.

As first secretary in the Norwegian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, you recently sent out an email on your office account in which you declared: “The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany.”

Accompanying your text were photos, with an emphasis on children, seeking to juxtapose the Holocaust with the recent Israeli military operation in Gaza.

Clearly, you are miscast in your role as a diplomat, all the more so of a nation that has sought to play a mediating role in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In fact, you’re desperately in need of some education.

Well written, to the point. It gets better:

Let’s begin with your current posting. You’ve been in Riyadh since 2007.

If you’re so anguished by human rights violations, perhaps you could have begun by devoting some of your attention – and email blasts – to what surrounds you.

Or were your eyes diplomatically shut?

Have you failed to notice the many legal executions, including beheadings, going on in your assigned country?

Have you ignored the often abysmal treatment of foreign workers, many from Asia, who also happen to be disproportionately counted among the victims of Saudi capital punishment?

Have you neglected the gender apartheid that surrounds you? Did you ever look out of your car to notice that Saudi women are proscribed from driving, and that’s hardly the worst of it?

Have you checked the skyline of Riyadh or Jeddah lately to count the number of church spires or other non-Muslim houses of worship?

Have you bothered to inquire about the fate of homosexuals?

Pretty damning. These letters usually focus on the most horrendous crimes, accusing them of lacking an interest in the fate of Congolese refugees or some other far-away group. Here the focus is on the city where Lilleng herself is posted. Kinda changes the dynamic, don’t you think?

We don’t really go for rap, but this one is clever, and not too patriotic. Sometimes, Eretz Nehederet really gets it.

An earth-shattering revolution in physics, explained for the rest of us:

Some thoughts of former Netanyahu official Lenny Ben-David bear repeating:

Gaza is the “most overpopulated few square miles in the whole world,” wrote veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk in a recent dispatch in the British Independent. Both Israel’s Army Radio station and Al-Jazeera’s English television reported that “Gaza is the densest populated area in the world.” But the claim is simply not true.

About 9,713 Gazans are crowded into each square mile of the strip’s total 147 square miles, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But there are denser areas in the world such as Singapore (18,645 people per square mile on 241 sq. mi. of territory) and Hong Kong (18,176 per sq. mi. on 382 sq. mi.).

Population density need not translate to abject poverty and political unrest. Singapore and Hong Kong are situated along maritime trade routes and their per capita GDP surpasses $42,000. Gaza, however, despite its Mediterranean shoreline and an estimated $4 billion in offshore natural gas reserves, tallies only $1,100 per capita. Surely, Israel’s siege of the hostile Hamasland chokes Gaza and is a major factor in its astronomical unemployment. But, Gaza is not necessarily destined to remain a “rubbish dump of destitute people,” to use Fisk’s words.

In what is becoming an annual ritual, we poor nations of the Middle East are about to be subjected to another glitzy round of optimistic photo-ops collectively but inaccurately known outside the world as a “peace process.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy apparently came up with the latest idea:

Sarkozy seeks to capitalize on the momentum created by the participation of European leaders at a summit Sunday in Sharm al-Sheikh summit on the recent hostilities in Gaza, according to Le Figaro.

The paper also states that Sarkozy convinced German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who had feared the cease-fire would not be kept, to attend the summit in Egypt.

The goal of the conference, the paper reported, is to reach a peace accord within a year, and it will be held a few weeks after a meeting of European foreign ministers in Egypt due to take place in February.

The form of the summit will reportedly be similar to that of the one the United States hosted in Annapolis in late 2007.

Here’s our problem with this “peace with a year” idea. According to our sources, Israeli intelligence believes Hamas would win election in every single Palestinian city were they held right now. Hamas rejects every arrangement with the Zionist entity that does not somehow lead to its destruction. The organization even took pains not to “accept” – but only “acknowledge” – the ceasefire announced yesterday.

If peace with Hamas itself is impossible, and peace with Fatah is meaningless because it doesn’t solve Gaza and may not hold traction in the Palestinian street, what could a French diplomat’s cajoling possibly change here?

We got here through the mistakes of many sides, including the Israelis, the Americans and the Europeans. But most importantly, we got here because the Palestinians have not yet decided as a nation to take their fate into their own hands. The leadership robbed its own people and the international community of an entire national economy. They refuse to begin even the most basic processes of sovereignty until all issues are resolved, things like currency, customs, diplomatic representation.

There is only one path to peace we can see. The US and a significant Arab party – Saudi Arabia? Egypt? – must begin a serious nation-building project in the West Bank, recreating an economy, an education system, the trappings of statehood (recall that both a US president and an Israeli PM have publicly declared the goal of negotiations to be a Palestinian state). Create a Palestine that will allow Israelis to believe that a pullout of settlements from the West Bank won’t bring a second Hamastan and rockets on Tel Aviv.

Is Sarkozy planning to do that? Does Obama, weighed down by the US financial implosion and blood on the line in Afghanistan and Iraq, have the bureaucratic bandwidth to engage in such a project? Can Egypt or Saudi Arabia participate in something like this without ruining it by trying to control it?

We don’t know. But we do know this: this conflict has not continued for lack of French cocktail parties.

We met with some paratroopers today, men who just walked out of Gaza this morning and had come face-to-face with Hamas fighters. Their story was one of frustration.

They did not mind the booby traps or use of civilians in the battlezone by Hamas troops. Those were the expected battle conditions. But they were surprised and disappointed by the enemy’s cowardice, the automatic retreat by nearly every enemy fighter.

It’s hard to blame Hamas for rejecting the certain martyrdom of directly engaging IDF Paratroopers – as it is, Hamas lost hundreds to every IDF casualty – but the Paratroopers had high hopes of decisive battle after Hamas leaders threatened to turn Gaza into a graveyard of IDF troops.

Interestingly, Musa Abu Marzouk in Damascus claimed victory on Sunday because, as he put it in an interview on Syrian television, Israel had failed to “dictate terms” for the ceasefire.

The Paratroopers may feel cheated out of a victory, but surely they didn’t do too badly if the enemy is reduced to claiming victory by virtue of petulant stubborness.

With a fresh ceasefire upon us, it’s time to seriously examine the sustainability factor. Is Hamas sufficiently hurt, it’s powers sufficiently curtailed, that Israel’s leadership can responsibly return to what it would much rather be doing with the next three weeks: campaigning for Knesset seats?

Short answer: It all depends on finding a solution to the weapons smuggling. And that means shutting down Hamas’ rabbit-warrens of tunnels criss-crossing the Gaza-Egypt border.

The best collated discussion of what this would involve comes from an unlikely source: Slate.

The “radical peace camp,” for lack of a better term, continues to baffle us. It seems utterly committed to remaining in the ridiculed sidelines of a complicated conflict. Its latest anti-Israel act comes in the form of a statement calling for IDF troops to refuse to fight in Gaza.

Nothing surprising in the text:

We refuse to remain silent while Israeli leaders force Israeli soldiers to commit war crimes: crimes against humanity for which they will one day be called to account. Israeli soldiers of conscience can, and must, stop this dangerous, illegal, and immoral war.

Etc., etc., etc.

A member of one of the sponsoring organizations brought this petition to our notice, noting with pride that it has nearly 700 signatures from 37 countries. We agreed with her that 700 names was remarkable, but in the other direction: the vast majority of Jews are not against the Gaza operation.

But the question of popularity aside, what about the sheer inanity of the text? It’s hard to see as a serious part of the discussion someone who comes out for peace and quiet only now when Israel is shooting back.

Also, isn’t it just a bit intellectually lazy to label Israeli actions “war crimes?” International agreements clearly stipulate that the party that drags the civilians into the battlefield, or takes the battle to the civilian population, is the criminal. A statement that fails to deal with that is both misleading as to the meaning of “war crime” and irrelevant to any conversation about the realities on the ground.

How do they countenance a statement that calls only Israel to account? We fancy ourselves peace-loving liberals yearning for Palestinian statehood, but we still marvel at the glaring lacuna in the peace statement: where is the recognition that the opponent here is Hamas, not Mohandas Gandhi?

In an article unabashedly titled “Jewish lobbies make US support Israel,” Iran’s English-language Press TV website explained to its readers the following diabolical conspiracy:

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has given an approving nod to a Senate bid, which sides with Tel Aviv and “conveys America’s unequivocal and steadfast support for Israel’s right to self-defense.”

The resolution – which was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell – justifies Israel’s raids on the coastal silver, which has so far killed 783 and wounded 3,050.

Note that (1) the article itself only accuses AIPAC of “approving” the resolution, not forcing the US Senate to pass it, as the headline suggest, and (2) you only discover in the second paragraph that, in fact, the leaders of both sides in the Senate actually sponsored the bill. Very diabolical, n’est-ce pas?

In a radio address on January 3, George W. Bush refused to offer any criticism of the saturation bombing of Gaza and refrained from commenting on whether he considers Israel’s response as proportionate to the scope of rockets attacks on Israel.

This paragraph contained a lie. Not that we’re too excited about this, but just for the record: saturation bombing is a term that actually means something, and it is not even close to what is happening in Gaza, as evidenced by the lack of 200,000 dead.

This news report pleased us. We figure if Iran is upset, the IDF must be doing something right.

The New York Times offers an unusually candid report from Gaza dated yesterday in which an Islamic Jihad fighter expresses the supreme joy of terror.

The relevant quote is in the last paragraph, but the short article, by Taghreed El-Khodary, is worth quoting in full:

GAZA CITY — The emergency room in Shifa Hospital is often a place of gore and despair. On Thursday, it was also a lesson in the way ordinary people are squeezed between suicidal fighters and a military behemoth.

Dr. Awni al-Jaru, 37, a surgeon at the hospital, rushed in from his home here, dressed in his scrubs. But he came not to work. His head was bleeding, and his daughter’s jaw was broken.

He said Hamas militants next to his apartment building had fired mortar and rocket rounds. Israel fired back with force, and his apartment was hit. His wife, Albina, originally from Ukraine, and his 1-year-old son were killed.

“My son has been turned into pieces,” he cried. “My wife was cut in half. I had to leave her body at home.” Because Albina was a foreigner, she could have left Gaza with her children. But, Dr. Jaru lamented, she would not leave him behind.

A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.

“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.

He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.

“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”

A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.

“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.

“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”

That’s the only side in this fight that seems to be enjoying itself. They are hard at work inflicting their pain — much of it on the Palestinians themselves, of course.

Gilad Schalit

We’ll try to update further as this war continues.

Ahmad Qurei, "Abu Ala"

“My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic State of Israel is to have two nation-states with certain concessions and with clear red lines,” Livni told a group of students at a Tel Aviv high school. “And among other things, I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Israeli Arabs, and tell them, ‘your national solution lies elsewhere.’”

Abu Ala over the weekend:

There will be no room for Jews or settlements in the West Bank because their presence there will always be an obstacle to peace with Israel, Ahmed Qurei, head of the Palestinian Authority negotiating team, said at the weekend.

“All these attacks prove that the settlers are dangerous and that it’s impossible to live with them. If these settlers are allowed to stay, that would mean more friction and confrontation. Peace can be achieved only if Israel withdraws to the last centimeter of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967,” Qurei said.

In a perfect world, nations would coexist and borders would be merely electoral districts. This is not a perfect world, and Palestinians and Jews in this land have bled in a zero-sum battle over land and the right to a national identity.

Those still calling for a polite democratic coexistence are dangerously disconnected from the sentiments of the people living in this land.

First, we split apart. Only then “reconciliation” – that is, accepting the other’s legitimate national identity – can begin. We’re not holding our breath here. It will take a lot of time for the Palestinians to recognize there is justice in Zionism.

At least the leadership on each side is talking sensibly about separation, not peace or love or some other unstable, doomed fantasy.

Binyamin Netanyahu

After Moshe Feiglin’s election to the 20th slot on the party list, the media narrative had it that Feiglin had successfully taken over the party.

“Likud eschews centrist candidates,” declared JTA, a news organization syndicated by over 100 Jewish newspapers worldwide.

The Jerusalem Post reported in similar vein:

Netanyahu’s associates expressed concern that the party would take a big hit in the polls after far-Right activist Moshe Feiglin won the realistic 20th spot on the list and Feiglin-endorsed candidates won 19 of the top 36 slots, defeating candidates supported by Netanyahu.

Feiglin-endorsed? You mean, for example, faction chairman and new #2 man Gideon Sa’ar, whose credentials include extremely popular legislation expanding women’s rights in the workplace? Yes, JPost means him. Or #3 Gilad Erdan, the man who used the Knesset as a bully pulpit to improve infrastructure and traffic enforcement nationwide, bringing the death toll on Israel’s roads down by double-digit percentages? Yes, Feiglin seems to have endorsed him as well. Of course, #4 Reuven Rivlin, the grizzled old lion of Likud politics who has already been speaker of the Knesset, was also on Feiglin’s list.

Gideon Sa'ar

It wasn’t Feiglin’s list that brought Erdan and Sa’ar to the top. It was their names who lent the list what small credence it had in the media’s imagination. In the end, the Likud chose the most productive and visible candidates for senior posts. After all, avowed centrist and Likud outsider Dan Meridor came in three spots ahead of Feiglin himself. Silvan Shalom, who supported the disengagement, did even better at #7. Ze’ev Elkin even took #21 against Feiglin’s candidate Asa Antov, despite coming in from Kadima 10 days before the primary.

The truth is that Feiglin lost rather badly. From legends that he controlled a disciplined army of 8,000 voting Likud members (about 49,000 voted in the primaries out of 99,000 members), making him the king-maker of Likud politics, we are left with the results of a relatively unpopular politician who won’t sit in the cabinet, won’t chair a committee, and likely won’t influence decision-making in the slightest. He is, if you like, what Yael Dayan was in the Labor Party shortly before leaving it for Meretz, and then leaving national politics altogether.

Rarely does the media notice its own bubbles, its gratuitous assumptions that lead it to consistently misreport even relatively simple realities.

Moshe Feiglin

Previous polls ordered by Netanyahu showed that the list’s inclusion of Moshe Feiglin, the leader of a right-wing faction within Likud, was liable to cost the party four or five seats. But the Haaretz-Dialog poll does not back that up. Instead, it appears that what has come to be known as the Feiglin effect has yet to make its way into the voters’ consciousness, though that could change over the coming days.

Later in the article:

Tuesday night’s news broadcasts made it seem like Feiglin had been chosen to fill the No. 2 spot rather than No. 20 and that he would be replacing Netanyahu as chairman any minute. That’s not the situation, of course, but in the world of Israeli politics, it’s the image that counts.

And who, pray tell, sets the image?

In a memorial service yesterday for Golda Meir on Mt. Herzl, Olmert opined on the fates of misunderstood prime ministers:

“Today Golda is remembered by the public – unjustifiably – almost exclusively in the context of the Yom Kippur War. As she was prime minister at the time, she is perceived as carrying on her shoulders the responsibility for the tragic surprise that shook Israel…. [But] without any military experience, she decided wisely for the most part, with common sense and with a sense of perspective in the face of contradicting suggestions and recommendations by the security experts who surrounded her, including an authoritative Chief of Staff and a well-respected Minister of Defense.

As a rule hindsight is twenty-twenty. Only those who find themselves in charge of decision-making at the highest level in times of war, surrounded by suggestions, advisers and experts, know that there is really no one to ask. At the end of the day you find yourself alone with nothing but your judgment and your conscience.”

In other words, it’s unfair to criticize a sitting prime minister unless you yourself have been prime minister, or were in fact that prime minister you’re criticizing.

What makes this defense even more galling, and over the grave of poor Golda, is that Golda stepped down in response to public disapproval, even though a special state commission, Agranat, found that she had performed admirably during the war. Olmert, of course, did not step down despite much worse public excoriation and the finding by a state commission, Winograd, that he was among those personally responsible for many of the war’s failures.

What sort of narcissism allows a man to ignore that gargantuan difference and place himself alongside Golda in the pantheon of Israeli leadership?

Mumbai victim coming to Israel

Dr. Gajanan Chawan, who saw the bodies, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday he did not believe the wounds he observed suggested the hostages had been tortured prior to their deaths.

Asked if he saw any evidence of torture on the bodies, Chawan replied, “No, I don’t think so.” He added that the majority of the wounds he could identify had been caused by firearms.

On Monday, a morgue employee at the JJ hospital who had also seen the bodies told the Post by telephone that the bodies of the Jewish victims had a higher number of gunshot wounds than the bodies of other victims.

“On the Jewish bodies, there were more injuries in numbers, they were firearms injuries,” the morgue official said.

A strange sort of comfort, but comforting nonetheless.

Back in Tel Aviv, however, the incredible police mobilization earlier in the week produced results. According to a close friend in the Tel Aviv District Police, three terrorists were captured with explosives in a small apartment on Levinsky Street. Almost nothing was said on the news, so it may be the beginning of something big – a terror network we’ll hear about again when it is rolled up for good.