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1. Netanyahu 'Ready to Go to Ramallah'
by Chana Ya'ar
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is “ready to go to Ramallah” to meet with Palestinian Authority / PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and open negotiations, according to an interview published Monday night by the PA-linked Ma'an news agency.
In Arabic-language comments typed live through the chat function on his official Facebook page, Netanyahu told Arab journalists, “We are completely serious about talks with the Palestinians, but unfortunately the Palestinian side refuses."
The PLO called a halt to dialogue after the fifth and final meeting in a series of exploratory negotiations between Israeli envoy Yitzchak Molcho and PLO representative Saeb Erekat ended last Wednesday.
"Advancing negotiations is the only way towards peace,” he pointed out. "I want to talk with the Palestinians in order to open channels at all levels. This is in the Palestinians' and the Arabs' interest,” he continued.
"Israel can help develop the region economically, and wants to see a prosperous future for all countries in the region. I feel disappointed because peace treaties have not led to an economic boom for all. Economy is the outcome of relationships, and economic peace isn't an alternative to political peace, but it helps,” he pointed out.
The prime minister added in response to a question about what he thinks Palestinians should do, “The Palestinian president should have continued with talks. This is what the international community wants both sides to do.”
In response to a question about the Arab Spring, Netanyahu commented that Israel was supportive of the democratic process. "There are misconceptions about Israel, and many Arabs do not know that the Arabs living in Israel serve in the government, in the parliament, and enjoy complete rights.
"The impression that Israel does not want peace is incorrect. We know the value of peace, and one of the obstacles is the misconception about Israel's attitude toward peace.
Asked about Iran, Netanyahu pulled no punches:
"Iran is a threat to peace, to Israel, to the Arab countries, to the Middle East and to the whole world,” he wrote.
“They are arming terrorist organizations while they develop their nuclear power seeking to control the Middle East and the whole world.”
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by Chana Ya'ar
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is “ready to go to Ramallah” to meet with Palestinian Authority / PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and open negotiations, according to an interview published Monday night by the PA-linked Ma'an news agency.
In Arabic-language comments typed live through the chat function on his official Facebook page, Netanyahu told Arab journalists, “We are completely serious about talks with the Palestinians, but unfortunately the Palestinian side refuses."
The PLO called a halt to dialogue after the fifth and final meeting in a series of exploratory negotiations between Israeli envoy Yitzchak Molcho and PLO representative Saeb Erekat ended last Wednesday.
"Advancing negotiations is the only way towards peace,” he pointed out. "I want to talk with the Palestinians in order to open channels at all levels. This is in the Palestinians' and the Arabs' interest,” he continued.
"Israel can help develop the region economically, and wants to see a prosperous future for all countries in the region. I feel disappointed because peace treaties have not led to an economic boom for all. Economy is the outcome of relationships, and economic peace isn't an alternative to political peace, but it helps,” he pointed out.
The prime minister added in response to a question about what he thinks Palestinians should do, “The Palestinian president should have continued with talks. This is what the international community wants both sides to do.”
In response to a question about the Arab Spring, Netanyahu commented that Israel was supportive of the democratic process. "There are misconceptions about Israel, and many Arabs do not know that the Arabs living in Israel serve in the government, in the parliament, and enjoy complete rights.
"The impression that Israel does not want peace is incorrect. We know the value of peace, and one of the obstacles is the misconception about Israel's attitude toward peace.
Asked about Iran, Netanyahu pulled no punches:
"Iran is a threat to peace, to Israel, to the Arab countries, to the Middle East and to the whole world,” he wrote.
“They are arming terrorist organizations while they develop their nuclear power seeking to control the Middle East and the whole world.”
Tags: Binyamin Netanyahu ,PA ,PLO ,peace talks ,Peace Process
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2. PM Confirms: Israel to Remain in Jordan Valley
by Chana Ya'ar
A spokesman for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says Israel will not leave the Jordan Valley, regardless of whatever final status agreement is made with the Palestinian Authority.
Responding to rumors claiming that he was prepared to compromise on an Israeli presence in the region, Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting Monday evening, “I will sign a final status agreement only if Israel remains in the Jordan Valley. I believe that we are thus acting sensibly, and looking out for the welfare and security of Israel,” he told party MKs.
An earlier, unconfirmed report published in the Hebrew-language Ma'ariv newspaper Monday morning claimed that Netanyahu had agreed to relinquish sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.
In a speech to the Knesset plenum last year at its special Herzl Day session, the Prime Minister laid down five conditions for a peace treaty with the Palestinian Authority – but the Jordan Valley was not listed among the items.
On June 14, 2009, Netanyahu laid out in a speech delivered at Bar Ilan University the conditions by which Israel would agree to the establishment of a PA state alongside the Jewish State. In that speech, he invited “all Arab leaders” to cooperate in building together with Israel an economic peace in any areas – including the Jordan Valley. “An economic peace is not a substitute for a political peace,” he noted at the time, “but an important element to achieving it.... Together we can develop industrial areas that will generate thousands of jobs and create tourist sites that will attract millions of visitors eager to walk in the footsteps of history,” he said, listing “the baptismal site of the Jordan” among them, but not once intimating that Israel would ever withdraw from the site.
Spokesman Mark Regev added in a subsequent interview with Arutz Sheva Monday night, “The Prime Minister has said many times that an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley is a necessity. That has not changed."
When asked whether Netanyahu's position might not change, however, if an agreement were to pivot on that one item alone, Regev reiterated, "The Prime Minister has said an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley is a security issue.
“Security is not negotiable," he emphasized.
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by Chana Ya'ar
A spokesman for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says Israel will not leave the Jordan Valley, regardless of whatever final status agreement is made with the Palestinian Authority.
Responding to rumors claiming that he was prepared to compromise on an Israeli presence in the region, Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting Monday evening, “I will sign a final status agreement only if Israel remains in the Jordan Valley. I believe that we are thus acting sensibly, and looking out for the welfare and security of Israel,” he told party MKs.
An earlier, unconfirmed report published in the Hebrew-language Ma'ariv newspaper Monday morning claimed that Netanyahu had agreed to relinquish sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.
In a speech to the Knesset plenum last year at its special Herzl Day session, the Prime Minister laid down five conditions for a peace treaty with the Palestinian Authority – but the Jordan Valley was not listed among the items.
On June 14, 2009, Netanyahu laid out in a speech delivered at Bar Ilan University the conditions by which Israel would agree to the establishment of a PA state alongside the Jewish State. In that speech, he invited “all Arab leaders” to cooperate in building together with Israel an economic peace in any areas – including the Jordan Valley. “An economic peace is not a substitute for a political peace,” he noted at the time, “but an important element to achieving it.... Together we can develop industrial areas that will generate thousands of jobs and create tourist sites that will attract millions of visitors eager to walk in the footsteps of history,” he said, listing “the baptismal site of the Jordan” among them, but not once intimating that Israel would ever withdraw from the site.
Spokesman Mark Regev added in a subsequent interview with Arutz Sheva Monday night, “The Prime Minister has said many times that an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley is a necessity. That has not changed."
When asked whether Netanyahu's position might not change, however, if an agreement were to pivot on that one item alone, Regev reiterated, "The Prime Minister has said an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley is a security issue.
“Security is not negotiable," he emphasized.
Tags: Jordan Valley ,Bar Ilan speech ,Binyamin Netanyahu ,Likud Knesset faction ,Mark Regev ,final status agreement ,Herzl Day speech
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3. Opinion: The Era of the Itamar Pogromists
by Giulio Meotti
The writer is an Italian journalist with Il Foglio who also writes for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in many publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.
During a program aired on Palestinian television, the aunt of one of the Palestinians who took part in the brutal murder of five members of the Fogel family in Itamar referred to him as a “hero” and “legend”.
In response to the aunt’s comments, the show’s host said: “We also wish them [the murderers] well”.
The aunt went on to read a poem she had written in the murderers’ honor, while Hakim Awad’s mother sent her regards to her son and proudly mentioned that he was the perpetrator of the Itamar massacre.
Ruth Fogel was in the bathroom when Awad killed her husband Udi and their three-month-old daughter Hadas, slitting their throats as they lay asleep in bed. Awad slaughtered Ruth as she came out of the bathroom.
Then he moved into a bedroom where Ruth and Udi’s sons Yoav (11) and Elad (4) were sleeping. He then slit their throats.
In court, Awad smiled at the camera, he said he has “no regrets” and flashed the “V” sign for victory while he was leaving the courthouse. “I am a person like you, I have no mental condition, I never had a serious illness", Awad said to the judges.
His smile was sincere. The slaughterer of Itamar’s babies was unabashed, as very few, other than the Nazis and Khmer Rouge, ever were.
The Itamar killers' ideology characterizes Jews as “satanic”. Generations of Arab children, like Awad, are taught to hate Israeli “freedom-haters”, “monsters”, “sadists”, “madmen”, “gangsters” and “devils”.
Killing a demon or the children of demons (like the little Fogels) is not like taking the life of a fellow human being.
Itamar’s killers remind us that genocidal anti-Semitism wasn’t buried in the ashes of Auschwitz.
Awad’s smile and his aunt’s praise convey unleashed hatred and the desire to expel, to destroy, to eliminate the Jews.
It's the same smile on the face of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief in southeastern France from 1942 to 1944, who laughed all the time as his Jewish victims described the torture Nazis put them through, testifying at court in 1997.
It's the same hatred that filled Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s “best man” during the "final solution". Brunner was interviewed in the Austrian news magazine Bunte. He said he did not suffer from a bad conscience for, in his own words, “getting rid of that garbage” (the Jews). His one regret was that he hadn’t murdered more Jews.
In 1987, in a telephone interview, Brunner told the Chicago Sun Times: “The Jews deserved to die. I have no regrets. If I had the chance I would do it again…”.
Like Alois Brunner’s Aryanism, Itamar’s perpetrators see themselves as messengers of Allah sent to wipe out Jewish born and unborn babies. They are bent on total confrontation, on pursuing an either-or politics of victory or death.
The "aktion" in Itamar action has been publicly proclaimed in the name of Allah, his Prophet and the Koran. No rational argument can be used against an ideology maniacally dedicated to Jewish destruction, and that says so in every language, at every opportunity.
The authoritarian regime that rules the Arabs in the PA wants to eradicate Jewish life everywhere, in Itamar as well as in Zichron Yaakov.
After anti-Semitism which barred Jews from public office in the waning days of the Roman Empire; after the 1096 Crusaders’ mass murder of Jewish communities in Germany; after the 1215 Vatican Council’s yellow-badge decree, which made the Jew carry his own discrimination wherever he went; after the late Medieval expulsions, which made the threat of displacement a hallmark of the Jewish psyche; after the 1648 massacres in East Europe; after Nazi anti-Semitism, which depicted the Jews as nearly anyone’s demon; after the Stalinists’ “rootless Jewish cosmopolitans” - it’s now the era of the Itamar pogromists.
Jews have sustained the longest living liberation movement in human history. Itamar’s pogromists now want to deliver them to the final “liberation".
Comment on this story
by Giulio Meotti
The writer is an Italian journalist with Il Foglio who also writes for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in many publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.
During a program aired on Palestinian television, the aunt of one of the Palestinians who took part in the brutal murder of five members of the Fogel family in Itamar referred to him as a “hero” and “legend”.
In response to the aunt’s comments, the show’s host said: “We also wish them [the murderers] well”.
The aunt went on to read a poem she had written in the murderers’ honor, while Hakim Awad’s mother sent her regards to her son and proudly mentioned that he was the perpetrator of the Itamar massacre.
Ruth Fogel was in the bathroom when Awad killed her husband Udi and their three-month-old daughter Hadas, slitting their throats as they lay asleep in bed. Awad slaughtered Ruth as she came out of the bathroom.
Then he moved into a bedroom where Ruth and Udi’s sons Yoav (11) and Elad (4) were sleeping. He then slit their throats.
In court, Awad smiled at the camera, he said he has “no regrets” and flashed the “V” sign for victory while he was leaving the courthouse. “I am a person like you, I have no mental condition, I never had a serious illness", Awad said to the judges.
His smile was sincere. The slaughterer of Itamar’s babies was unabashed, as very few, other than the Nazis and Khmer Rouge, ever were.
The Itamar killers' ideology characterizes Jews as “satanic”. Generations of Arab children, like Awad, are taught to hate Israeli “freedom-haters”, “monsters”, “sadists”, “madmen”, “gangsters” and “devils”.
Killing a demon or the children of demons (like the little Fogels) is not like taking the life of a fellow human being.
Itamar’s killers remind us that genocidal anti-Semitism wasn’t buried in the ashes of Auschwitz.
Awad’s smile and his aunt’s praise convey unleashed hatred and the desire to expel, to destroy, to eliminate the Jews.
It's the same smile on the face of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief in southeastern France from 1942 to 1944, who laughed all the time as his Jewish victims described the torture Nazis put them through, testifying at court in 1997.
It's the same hatred that filled Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s “best man” during the "final solution". Brunner was interviewed in the Austrian news magazine Bunte. He said he did not suffer from a bad conscience for, in his own words, “getting rid of that garbage” (the Jews). His one regret was that he hadn’t murdered more Jews.
In 1987, in a telephone interview, Brunner told the Chicago Sun Times: “The Jews deserved to die. I have no regrets. If I had the chance I would do it again…”.
Like Alois Brunner’s Aryanism, Itamar’s perpetrators see themselves as messengers of Allah sent to wipe out Jewish born and unborn babies. They are bent on total confrontation, on pursuing an either-or politics of victory or death.
The "aktion" in Itamar action has been publicly proclaimed in the name of Allah, his Prophet and the Koran. No rational argument can be used against an ideology maniacally dedicated to Jewish destruction, and that says so in every language, at every opportunity.
The authoritarian regime that rules the Arabs in the PA wants to eradicate Jewish life everywhere, in Itamar as well as in Zichron Yaakov.
After anti-Semitism which barred Jews from public office in the waning days of the Roman Empire; after the 1096 Crusaders’ mass murder of Jewish communities in Germany; after the 1215 Vatican Council’s yellow-badge decree, which made the Jew carry his own discrimination wherever he went; after the late Medieval expulsions, which made the threat of displacement a hallmark of the Jewish psyche; after the 1648 massacres in East Europe; after Nazi anti-Semitism, which depicted the Jews as nearly anyone’s demon; after the Stalinists’ “rootless Jewish cosmopolitans” - it’s now the era of the Itamar pogromists.
Jews have sustained the longest living liberation movement in human history. Itamar’s pogromists now want to deliver them to the final “liberation".
Tags: Fogel Massacre ,Nazi
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4. Feiglin Hoping for a Pyrrhic Victory for Netanyahu
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will unquestionably win the Likud leadership contest Tuesday, but a strong showing for Jewish Leadership faction leader Moshe Feiglin could change the party’s future.
Approximately 125,000 Likud members are eligible to cast ballots from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (5 p.m. to 5 a.m. EST) at 55 polling stations
A low turnout – rain is expected later in the day – could help Feiglin win more than 25 percent of the vote, which could turn into an ideological victory, if not a personal one. A strong showing for the challenger will influence the Likud primaries that determine the ranking of Likud candidates for the Knesset.
Feiglin’s support has grown from 3 percent to 24 percent in three previous leadership votes. Behind today’s voting is the issue of a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.
Senior Likud members already are running to show they are more nationalist than others. Silvan Shalom, a perennial candidate for a senior Cabinet post as well as a successor to Netanyahu, recently visited Migron, a community in Samaria that the High Court has ordered to be destroyed in two months.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has buried efforts by nationalists to present a bill that would legalize dozens of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, primarily Migron. The community of more than 40 families has become the symbol in a political and judicial struggle between nationalists and those who favor diminishing a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria as a concession to international pressure and to the Palestinian Authority.
Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested to the Cabinet last week that Migron be destroyed and be rebuilt approximately a mile away as a legally authorized community. Nationalists have protested the proposal, arguing that there is no proof that Migron is situated on Arab-owned land.
The Prime Minister also has reportedly told the Palestinian Authority he is prepared to agree to the expulsion of tens of thousands of Jews in dozens of communities while declaring Israeli sovereignty over areas with a larger Jewish population. The Palestinian Authiority previously has rejected any compromise and insists on Israel's surrendering all of Judea and Samaria as well as large parts of Jerusalem.
Comment on this story
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will unquestionably win the Likud leadership contest Tuesday, but a strong showing for Jewish Leadership faction leader Moshe Feiglin could change the party’s future.
Approximately 125,000 Likud members are eligible to cast ballots from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (5 p.m. to 5 a.m. EST) at 55 polling stations
A low turnout – rain is expected later in the day – could help Feiglin win more than 25 percent of the vote, which could turn into an ideological victory, if not a personal one. A strong showing for the challenger will influence the Likud primaries that determine the ranking of Likud candidates for the Knesset.
Feiglin’s support has grown from 3 percent to 24 percent in three previous leadership votes. Behind today’s voting is the issue of a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.
Senior Likud members already are running to show they are more nationalist than others. Silvan Shalom, a perennial candidate for a senior Cabinet post as well as a successor to Netanyahu, recently visited Migron, a community in Samaria that the High Court has ordered to be destroyed in two months.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has buried efforts by nationalists to present a bill that would legalize dozens of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, primarily Migron. The community of more than 40 families has become the symbol in a political and judicial struggle between nationalists and those who favor diminishing a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria as a concession to international pressure and to the Palestinian Authority.
Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested to the Cabinet last week that Migron be destroyed and be rebuilt approximately a mile away as a legally authorized community. Nationalists have protested the proposal, arguing that there is no proof that Migron is situated on Arab-owned land.
The Prime Minister also has reportedly told the Palestinian Authority he is prepared to agree to the expulsion of tens of thousands of Jews in dozens of communities while declaring Israeli sovereignty over areas with a larger Jewish population. The Palestinian Authiority previously has rejected any compromise and insists on Israel's surrendering all of Judea and Samaria as well as large parts of Jerusalem.
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5. Return of the Intifada: Rock-Throwing Terrorists Wound Woman
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A woman in Samaria was wounded by a rock-throwing terrorist Tuesday in another repeat of the First Intifada tactic to kill Jews.
The woman was treated at the scene for light injuries, and her vehicle and two others sustained damage in the attack on the highway from Yitzhar, on Highway 60 in northern Samaria.
Last week, Palestinian Authority Arabs wounded one person after they erected a roadblock of rocks on a highway, a tactic used in the First Intifada in the early 1990s when motorists were forced to stop their cars to tear down the blockades, which often were booby-trapped.
The victim of the attack last week was an local Arab resident.
Yitzhar residents confirmed to Arutz Sheva other reports that the number of rock-throwing attacks has increased dramatically in the past several weeks, with public buses often being targeted.
Drivers on the southern part of Highway 60 in the southern Hevron Hills, between Jerusalem and Kiryat Arba-Hevron, have been exposed to almost daily attacks, which are designed at causing fatal accidents.
A father and his baby boy were murdered several months ago when a rock-throwing terrorist smashed the driver’s windshield, causing him to ram into a guardrail.
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by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A woman in Samaria was wounded by a rock-throwing terrorist Tuesday in another repeat of the First Intifada tactic to kill Jews.
The woman was treated at the scene for light injuries, and her vehicle and two others sustained damage in the attack on the highway from Yitzhar, on Highway 60 in northern Samaria.
Last week, Palestinian Authority Arabs wounded one person after they erected a roadblock of rocks on a highway, a tactic used in the First Intifada in the early 1990s when motorists were forced to stop their cars to tear down the blockades, which often were booby-trapped.
The victim of the attack last week was an local Arab resident.
Yitzhar residents confirmed to Arutz Sheva other reports that the number of rock-throwing attacks has increased dramatically in the past several weeks, with public buses often being targeted.
Drivers on the southern part of Highway 60 in the southern Hevron Hills, between Jerusalem and Kiryat Arba-Hevron, have been exposed to almost daily attacks, which are designed at causing fatal accidents.
A father and his baby boy were murdered several months ago when a rock-throwing terrorist smashed the driver’s windshield, causing him to ram into a guardrail.
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6. Is Civil Administration Building Illegally?
by Gil Ronen
The IDF Civil Administration's inspectors are quick to tear down every Jewish outpost established in Judea and Samaria, but it now turns out the Administration itself may have engaged in illegal construction.
David Lahiani, Bik'at HaYarden [Jordan Valley] local authority head, told IDF Radio that the Civil Administration has built an illegal structure at Kasr Al Yahud, a site on the Jordan River. Jewish tradition holds that the site is where the Israelites under Joshua's leadership crossed the Jordan into Canaan, while Christians believe it is where Jesus was baptized.
Lahiani said that the structure was built by Civil Administration officials without the required approvals. He castigated them for not standing up to the standards they themselves enforce regarding others.
The Administration reportedly has given instructions to freeze the construction, and an internal investigation has been launched in order to examine the matter. The Civil Administration has yet to offer its version of the events.
Regavim, an NGO that deals with Jewish land rights, called the matter "a serious affair that lights a red warning light over the entire law enforcement array in Judea and Samaria."
MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union) called on the Head of the Administration to resign. "The same chairman who is such a stickler for detail with the settlers, destroys homes and evicts children in the dead of night, flouts the very laws that he is responsible for enforcing," he said.
Comment on this story
by Gil Ronen
The IDF Civil Administration's inspectors are quick to tear down every Jewish outpost established in Judea and Samaria, but it now turns out the Administration itself may have engaged in illegal construction.
David Lahiani, Bik'at HaYarden [Jordan Valley] local authority head, told IDF Radio that the Civil Administration has built an illegal structure at Kasr Al Yahud, a site on the Jordan River. Jewish tradition holds that the site is where the Israelites under Joshua's leadership crossed the Jordan into Canaan, while Christians believe it is where Jesus was baptized.
Lahiani said that the structure was built by Civil Administration officials without the required approvals. He castigated them for not standing up to the standards they themselves enforce regarding others.
The Administration reportedly has given instructions to freeze the construction, and an internal investigation has been launched in order to examine the matter. The Civil Administration has yet to offer its version of the events.
Regavim, an NGO that deals with Jewish land rights, called the matter "a serious affair that lights a red warning light over the entire law enforcement array in Judea and Samaria."
MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union) called on the Head of the Administration to resign. "The same chairman who is such a stickler for detail with the settlers, destroys homes and evicts children in the dead of night, flouts the very laws that he is responsible for enforcing," he said.
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7. Beware Baby-Faced Politicians
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A fictional Palestinian Authority leader’s peace proposal won more acceptance by Israeli Jews when he was shown with a baby face, according to a new study by Hebrew University Associate Professor Dr. Ifat Moaz.
Prof. Maoz provided Jewish-Israeli respondents with a fictional news item containing a peace proposal and a fictional Palestinian leader's photograph. The photograph was manipulated to appear as either baby-faced or mature by making a 15 percent change in the size of eyes and lips. Respondents were then asked to evaluate the peace offer and rate the trustworthiness of the politician who offered it.
Although both images were based on the same original, the baby-faced politician was judged as more trustworthy and his peace proposal received greater support than the same offer from the mature-faced politician.
"People generally associate a baby face with attributes of honesty, openness and acceptance," explains Prof. Maoz, "and once you trust your adversary, you have a greater willingness to reach a compromise."
The study suggests that in situations of protracted conflict, the face of the enemy matters. Visual information conveying subtle, undetected changes in facial physiognomy were powerful enough to influence perceivers' judgments of the opponent-politician and of the proposal he presented for resolving the conflict.
Previous studies have shown that people with relatively babyish facial characteristics, such as proportionally large eyes, a round chin, and thick pudgy lips, are perceived as kinder, warmer, more honest and more trustworthy than mature-faced people with small eyes, square jaws, and thin lips. Baby-faced people also produce more agreement with their positions.
The Hebrew University research is the first study that systematically examines the impact of facial features of politicians from the opposing side in a conflict.
The influences of the Internet and visuals have made the research even more relevant in today’s political climate.
The study also gauged the extent to which manipulating facial features can affect populations with different have pre-existing attitudes, overcome hawks' resistance to change and increase their perceptions of opponents as trustworthy. While individuals with hawkish positions held markedly negative initial attitudes towards peace and the opponents in a conflict – attitudes that tend to be rigid and resistant to change – they surprisingly showed a more significant response than dovish respondents to differences in facial maturity.
Maoz adds that there are situations in which a baby-face is not advantageous: "Although features of this type can lend politicians an aura of sincerity, openness and receptiveness, at the same time they can communicate a lack of assertiveness. So people tend to prefer baby-faced politicians as long they represent the opposing side, while on their own side they prefer representatives who look like they know how to stand their ground."
Comment on this story
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A fictional Palestinian Authority leader’s peace proposal won more acceptance by Israeli Jews when he was shown with a baby face, according to a new study by Hebrew University Associate Professor Dr. Ifat Moaz.
Prof. Maoz provided Jewish-Israeli respondents with a fictional news item containing a peace proposal and a fictional Palestinian leader's photograph. The photograph was manipulated to appear as either baby-faced or mature by making a 15 percent change in the size of eyes and lips. Respondents were then asked to evaluate the peace offer and rate the trustworthiness of the politician who offered it.
Although both images were based on the same original, the baby-faced politician was judged as more trustworthy and his peace proposal received greater support than the same offer from the mature-faced politician.
"People generally associate a baby face with attributes of honesty, openness and acceptance," explains Prof. Maoz, "and once you trust your adversary, you have a greater willingness to reach a compromise."
The study suggests that in situations of protracted conflict, the face of the enemy matters. Visual information conveying subtle, undetected changes in facial physiognomy were powerful enough to influence perceivers' judgments of the opponent-politician and of the proposal he presented for resolving the conflict.
Previous studies have shown that people with relatively babyish facial characteristics, such as proportionally large eyes, a round chin, and thick pudgy lips, are perceived as kinder, warmer, more honest and more trustworthy than mature-faced people with small eyes, square jaws, and thin lips. Baby-faced people also produce more agreement with their positions.
The Hebrew University research is the first study that systematically examines the impact of facial features of politicians from the opposing side in a conflict.
The influences of the Internet and visuals have made the research even more relevant in today’s political climate.
The study also gauged the extent to which manipulating facial features can affect populations with different have pre-existing attitudes, overcome hawks' resistance to change and increase their perceptions of opponents as trustworthy. While individuals with hawkish positions held markedly negative initial attitudes towards peace and the opponents in a conflict – attitudes that tend to be rigid and resistant to change – they surprisingly showed a more significant response than dovish respondents to differences in facial maturity.
Maoz adds that there are situations in which a baby-face is not advantageous: "Although features of this type can lend politicians an aura of sincerity, openness and receptiveness, at the same time they can communicate a lack of assertiveness. So people tend to prefer baby-faced politicians as long they represent the opposing side, while on their own side they prefer representatives who look like they know how to stand their ground."
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8. ‘It May Be Too Late to Attack Iran after the Summer’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The constant chatter about a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear site may end by the summer. After that, the military option may fall off the table, according to sources quoted in American media Tuesday, relying on the Associated Press.
Except for the ticking clock, the scenario has not changed. Iran is racing to reach nuclear capability, and the West is applying economic sanctions aimed at punishing the Ahmadinejad regime until it realizes it must cooperate with the United Nations and allows honest inspections of its nuclear facilities.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervisors are currently in Iran, which is tying to convince the world its nuclear facilities are for peaceful purposes and not to wipe our Israel.
The current weapons in use against Iran are sanctions, which now are harsher than ever, cyber warfare such as last year’s Stuxnet attack, and subversive assassinations from within Iran and which have eliminated dozens of nuclear scientists and Revolutionary Guard officers the past three years.
Israel is worried the latest sanctions came too late to stop Iran, which has buried its nuclear facilities under concrete bunkers and in isolated mountainous areas to make them more immune to an attack. Israel is armed with American-made bunker busting bombs, long-range drones, submarines and long-range warplanes. Iran claims it can easily attack Israel with its missiles.
The question marks are on how much damage Israel can do and how much damage Iran can do to Israel if it stages a counter attack. Another concern is the possibility that Lebanon’s Hizbullah terrorist organization would attack Israel with tens of thousands of missiles.
The clock may have the final say, according to the American media reports based on sources who say that after mid-summer, the military option will be off the table.
“It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last Friday.
He added, "We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear.”
The sanctions are a two-edged sword, As late as they have come, the United States and other Western countries can claim that Israel must give them time to work. The Iranian economy is known to be suffering, the local currency is in shambles and inflation is sky-high.
An Israeli attack on Iran could cause a worldwide economic crisis if Iran blocks the passage of oil and tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and also could cause a diplomatic crisis as well as all-out war – unless a surgical strike is swift and successful.
Yiftakh Shapir, an expert in nuclear arms proliferation at Tel Aviv University, told the Associated Press, “What will tip the scales in favor or against an attack is whether we will really be able to do inflict serious damage.” He said it would take massive assaults lasting nearly a month to destroy Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities.
Until the summer, it may not be surprising if there are more “mysterious” deaths in Iran.
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by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The constant chatter about a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear site may end by the summer. After that, the military option may fall off the table, according to sources quoted in American media Tuesday, relying on the Associated Press.
Except for the ticking clock, the scenario has not changed. Iran is racing to reach nuclear capability, and the West is applying economic sanctions aimed at punishing the Ahmadinejad regime until it realizes it must cooperate with the United Nations and allows honest inspections of its nuclear facilities.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervisors are currently in Iran, which is tying to convince the world its nuclear facilities are for peaceful purposes and not to wipe our Israel.
The current weapons in use against Iran are sanctions, which now are harsher than ever, cyber warfare such as last year’s Stuxnet attack, and subversive assassinations from within Iran and which have eliminated dozens of nuclear scientists and Revolutionary Guard officers the past three years.
Israel is worried the latest sanctions came too late to stop Iran, which has buried its nuclear facilities under concrete bunkers and in isolated mountainous areas to make them more immune to an attack. Israel is armed with American-made bunker busting bombs, long-range drones, submarines and long-range warplanes. Iran claims it can easily attack Israel with its missiles.
The question marks are on how much damage Israel can do and how much damage Iran can do to Israel if it stages a counter attack. Another concern is the possibility that Lebanon’s Hizbullah terrorist organization would attack Israel with tens of thousands of missiles.
The clock may have the final say, according to the American media reports based on sources who say that after mid-summer, the military option will be off the table.
“It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last Friday.
He added, "We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear.”
The sanctions are a two-edged sword, As late as they have come, the United States and other Western countries can claim that Israel must give them time to work. The Iranian economy is known to be suffering, the local currency is in shambles and inflation is sky-high.
An Israeli attack on Iran could cause a worldwide economic crisis if Iran blocks the passage of oil and tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and also could cause a diplomatic crisis as well as all-out war – unless a surgical strike is swift and successful.
Yiftakh Shapir, an expert in nuclear arms proliferation at Tel Aviv University, told the Associated Press, “What will tip the scales in favor or against an attack is whether we will really be able to do inflict serious damage.” He said it would take massive assaults lasting nearly a month to destroy Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities.
Until the summer, it may not be surprising if there are more “mysterious” deaths in Iran.
Tags: Iran ,sanctions ,Ahmadinjad ,Israeli air strike
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