01/09 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: Israel thwarted 'major' terror attacks in Europe involving planes; Palestinian Authority paid terrorists nearly $350 million in 2017

From Ian:

---

Netanyahu: Israel thwarted 'major' terror attacks in Europe involving planes

Israeli intelligence has thwarted mass terrorist attacks in Europe that “involve civil aviation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, in a possible reference to September 11-type attacks planned against European targets using hijacked aircraft.

Netanyahu, speaking in Jerusalem to ambassadors of NATO countries, said that the world is threatened by radical Sunni groups, initially led by al-Qaeda, but now by Islamic State, and radical Shi'ites led by Iran.

“When we talk about ISIS, it's important to understand that Israel helps Europe in two fundamental ways,” Netanyahu said.

“The first is that we have, through our intelligence services, provided information that has stopped several dozen major terrorist attacks, many of them in European countries. Some of these could have been mass attacks, of the worst kind that you have experienced on the soil of Europe and even worse, because they involve civil aviation. Israel has prevented that, and thereby helped save many European lives.”

He did not elaborate. Netanyahu has said numerous times in the past that Israeli intelligence has helped thwart numerous terrorist attacks in Europe.

JPost Editorial: Shut down UNRWA

The US under the leadership of President Donald Trump is rightly reconsidering the logic of funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine – at least as it operates presently.

Some $125 million, which makes up about a third of the United States’ annual support for the organization, has already been frozen.

Judging from a tweet by Trump that preceded the decision to freeze aid, it seems the US president wants to make funding conditional upon Palestinian cooperation in helping to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump’s concern is legitimate. UNRWA, which has been around since 1949, was supposed to be a temporary solution, until the “Palestinian refugee problem” was sorted out. But with the Palestinian Authority refusing to cooperate with the US in solving the problem, there is little reason for the US to continue footing the bill for the agency indefinitely.

We can think of a few additional reasons why UNRWA – which employs 11,500 employees in Gaza alone – should be radically revamped, if not disbanded altogether.

The first problem is that UNRWA perpetuates the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. While the original Palestinian refugees from 1948 – both those who left their homes willingly and those who were forced – might legitimately have deserved refugee status, why should their grandchildren or great-grandchildren share that status? Most other refugees are cared for by the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, and their status is not passed on to grandchildren or great-grandchildren. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have their own agency.

This leaves millions of Palestinians in a state of limbo. Instead of getting on with their lives, the Palestinians in places like Gaza continue to grasp a false dream of one day returning to Jaffa, Haifa or Jerusalem. This also allows the kind of apartheid that takes place in Lebanon, where more than one million Palestinians live without official status. They do not have Lebanese citizenship and are confined to dismal refugee camps where terrorism and crime thrive. But because they are refugees, the Lebanese government can wash its hands of having to integrate them into society.

All this can change if UNRWA is reformed or shut down. While UNRWA is an organization that nominally is dedicated to transforming refugees into fully self-sufficient individuals, it has allowed the myth of the “right of return” to persist. Within UNRWA it is heretical to say that repatriation to Israel is unrealistic.

Palestinian Authority paid terrorists nearly $350 million in 2017

The Palestinian Authority paid terrorists and their families over $347 million last year, according to its own records, the Defense Ministry reported to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday.

The average income of a Palestinian is $580 per month, which is what the PA pays terrorists who are sentenced to three to five years in prison.

The PA pays terrorists who are sentenced to 20 years or more in prison – in other words, those who committed more severe crimes, and likely were involved in killing Israelis – five times that each month for the rest of their lives.

Terrorists who are Israeli citizens receive a $145 bonus, which, when added to the amount PA pays for the most severe crimes, comes to over $2,900, more than the average Israeli income of around $2,700 per month. There are also increases in pay for being married and for each child a terrorist has.

Palestinian terrorists' income per month. (JPOST STAFF)Palestinian terrorists' income per month. (JPOST STAFF)

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said, “The PA pays over a billion shekels a year to terrorists and their families, thus encouraging and perpetuating terror.”

“The minute the amount of the payment is decided according to the severity of the crime and the length of the sentence – in other words, whoever murders and is sentenced to life in prison gets much more – that is funding terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. There is nothing that better illustrates the PA’s support for terror. We must stop this,” Liberman said.

Defense Ministry drafts bill to cut PA funds over terrorist stipends

The Defense Ministry on Tuesday publicized a draft bill that would deduct welfare payments paid out by the Palestinian Authority to Palestinian prisoners and their families from the tax revenues Israel transfers annually to the PA.

“The Palestinian Authority pays over a billion shekels a year to terrorists and their relatives, thereby encouraging and perpetuating terrorism,” Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said in a statement. “The moment the payments are set based on the severity of the crime and the prison sentence, namely that those who murder and are sentenced to life receive a lot more, this is [tantamount to] funding terror attacks against Israelis.”

The bill, which targets cash payments by the PA to jailed or injured terrorists and their relatives, will also apply to Palestinians who committed other crimes for which they are being compensated by the PA, the ministry said in a statement.

The Palestine Liberation Organization gives monthly payments to all Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel, no matter the reason for their incarceration, and also to families of so-called “martyrs” — a term used by the PLO to refer to anyone killed by an Israeli, whether the person was killed attacking Israelis or an innocent bystander.

Read More

10/24 Links: Jerusalem Synagogue Massacre claims sixth victim; BDS activists guilty of discrimination

From Ian:

---

11 months on, rabbi dies of wounds from Jerusalem synagogue massacre

Almost a year after Palestinian terrorists killed four worshipers and a policeman at a synagogue in Jerusalem, Rabbi Haim Yehiel Rotman, who was critically injured in the attack, died from his injuries Saturday evening.
Rotman had been in a coma ever since two East Jerusalem terrorists armed with a gun, axes and meat cleavers stormed the Bnei Torah Synagogue in Har Nof last November and began attacking worshipers.
Rotman, 55, suffered a number of blows to his head from an axe.
Rotman is survived by his wife and their 11 children. He was being laid to rest at 10 p.m. Saturday night at Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul cemetery.
“He was one of the most special people in our community who always had a smile on his face,” a member of the Bnei Torah Synagogue told Israeli daily Yisrael Hayom.
“He was so loved by everyone in the community, and his death represents another blow to the community that was broken almost a year ago.”

Bassem Eid: Barbaric violence and the Palestinian failure of leadership

I am disheartened and worried about the violence being perpetrated in Israel by some of my fellow Palestinians. This latest wave of violence started at the Al Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem. It has extended to the rest of East Jerusalem, then to the West Bank, and then to all of Israel. My biggest worry is that we Palestinians appear to have no responsible leaders, neither in the Palestinian territories nor at the Knesset. These leaders, instead of calming the violence, are fanning its flames.
This wave of violence will not help the Palestinians’ economic situation. It will not help our ability to convince anyone, let alone Israelis, that we deserve a state. And it will not help grow our civil society which we badly need to do if we are to ever be taken seriously as a peace partner. All that this achieves is to push us further back. Yet our leaders are content to preach hate then sit back and enjoy their financial perks while Palestinian society is crashing and burning.
Not surprisingly, Hamas is engaged in inciting violence. The IDF reported that Hassan Yousef, a co-founder of Hamas, is “actively instigating and inciting terrorism and publicly encouraging and praising the execution of attacks against Israelis.” This is expected from Hamas unfortunately, but the problem does not stop at Hamas.
At the start of this wave of violence, Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas said “The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours… and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. […] We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing”. What kind of responsible leader would make such anti-Semitic and violent statements? The only conclusion one can draw from this is that Abbas is out of control and undeserving of the title he holds. Americans have denounced his rhetoric and so has the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who is not exactly known for his pro-Israel bias.

Bassam Tawil: The Palestinian Jihad: Lies, Lies and More Lies

First, we are not seeing anything "popular." We are not seeing, as before, thousands of Palestinians participating in the violence or protests.
It is just another wave of terrorism: targeting Jews for being Jews. The terrorists and their apologists do not distinguish between a Jew living in the city of Beersheba, and a Jew from a West Bank settlement. For the Palestinian leaders and media, these Jews are all "settlers" living in "occupied territories."
The appropriate term for the current wave of terrorism is "jihad". The attacks on Jews in Israel and the West Bank are part of the global jihad that has been waged for many years against Jews in particular, non-Muslims in general, and even against other Muslims who might not agree with a differing version of Islam.
This jihad is not aimed at "ending occupation" or protesting against misery and checkpoints. The terrorists do not see a difference between a "left wing Jew" and a "right wing Jew." They do not ask their victims about their political affiliation before knifing them.
In a grotesque rewrite of history, UNESCO declared that two Jewish holy sites, Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs, were Muslim holy sites.
This is a wave of terrorism based on lies. Palestinian leaders, including Abbas his officials in the Palestinian Authority and his Fatah faction, have been lying to us for months. They told Palestinians that the Jews are "invading" and "desecrating" Islamic holy sites with the purpose of destroying them. Abbas and his officials are urging Muslims to join the jihad against the Jews.
The leaders are now telling us that most of the terrorists were, in fact, innocent civilians who were shot dead by Israelis while on their way to buy food or going to work. Lying has become an integral part of the jihad against Jews. The campaign of lies, distortion and fabrications is not less serious than the terror attacks.
This is yet another phase of the worldwide jihad against all the "infidels" and "enemies of Islam." Those who are murdering Jews today do not hesitate to murder other non-Muslims tomorrow, especially those who are seen as Israel's friends, such as the U.S.

'The mufti planned to build crematorium in Dotan Valley'

The controversy over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks on Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini's role in the extermination of European Jewry has promoted veteran journalist Haviv Kanaan to recall the malicious plan the mufti devised.
Kanaan published an article in Haaretz in 1970 in which he reviewed the senior Muslim clergyman's actions in 1942, when the Jewish community in then-British Mandate Palestine was preparing for the possibility of a Nazi invasion. Kanaan said that in 1968, while researching his article, he met with Faiz Bay Idrisi, a senior Arab officer in the Mandate Police, who spoke of al-Husseini's intention to build a crematorium in the northwest Samarian hills.
"Even today, as I recall what I heard from police officials and mufti supporters, chills go through my body," Idrisi told Kanaan at the time, recalling how in case of a German invasion "Haj Amin Husseini was gearing to enter Jerusalem at the head of the Muslim Arab Legion squadron he'd created for the Third Reich. The mufti's plan was to build a huge Auschwitz-like crematorium in the Dotan Valley, near Nablus, to which Jews from Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and North Africa would be imprisoned and exterminated, just like the Jews in the death camps in Europe."
This should come as no surprise in light of al-Husseini's known views and actions during the Holocaust, and prior to it. (h/t blue sky)

Read More