Notes for a Friday in Summer

Honor Roll: Voting against the UN General Assembly anti-Israeli measure this week were Australia, Micronesia, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Palau and the U.S. Abstaining were Cameroon, Canada, El Salvador, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Uganda, Uruguay and Vanuatu.

Honor Roll: Voting against the UN General Assembly anti-Israeli measure this week were Australia, Micronesia, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Palau and the U.S. Abstaining were Cameroon, Canada, El Salvador, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Uganda, Uruguay and Vanuatu.

Special kudos to Australia, a stalwart ally in Iraq and friend of Israel. And note that on 8 July Australia signed an agreement with the U.S. to work together to develop, test and possibly operate a ballistic missile defense system designed in the first instance to shoot down inbound North Korean missiles. Australian officials said they want to find ways to protect themselves, even though Australia faces no current threat from ballistic missiles. “We have a responsibility to address not only the threats of today, but the threats that we might face in the future,” said Defense Minister Robert Hill.

Dishonor Roll: The rest of the countries. The first real fallout from the International Court decision and the UN vote that may have displaced “Zionism is Racism” as the nadir of UN activities is an increase in Palestinian attempts at terrorism against Israel. Israeli officials note a sharp increase in the number of terror threats – 57 daily warnings, compared with 30-35 last month.

The respite from terrorism that Israel had been enjoying was NOT due to any change in Palestinian desire to kill Jews. It resulted largely from the combination of better tactics and intelligence; the fence making it harder for terrorists to reach their targets; and the decimation of Hamas leadership through “focused attacks” (formerly “targeted killings”). Palestinian terrorist leadership appears to have taken the UN rejection of Israel’s right to self-defense as an invitation to try harder.

Focused attack: Hazam Rahim, a senior Islamic Jihad leader, well known to Israeli intelligence, met his well-deserved demise yesterday in Gaza. While his name may not be instantly familiar to Americans, Rahim became a symbol of depravity in May when he desecrated the body of an Israeli soldier and showed the body parts on television. Israeli authorities permitted Rahim’s family to collect his body parts for burial.

Progress of a sort: Thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza against corruption in the Palestinian Authority. But because progress doesn’t occur in a straight line, an Israeli newspaper reported a 15-year-old boy killed and members of his family wounded by Palestinians in northern Gaza after the family refused to let terrorists launch rockets into Israel from beside their house.

And: Some months ago, JINSA reported that the Saudis had moved U.S.-supplied planes to Tabuk airbase in violation of a pledge to the U.S. Senate by then-Secretary of Defense Brown. Our concern was NOT that the Saudi government would attack Israel, but that terrorists could use the planes as missiles. The 9-11 Commission report describes such a plot hatched by al-Qaeda, but not carried out.