Showing posts sorted by relevance for query egypt explosives. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query egypt explosives. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, January 31, 2019

From Ian:

Palestinian Support for Two-State Solution Seen Declining
Among the Palestinians in recent years there has been growing interest in the idea of a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is in part linked to the growing connection between Palestinians in the West Bank and the Arab sector in Israel.

It is also related to the collective sense that the Palestinian national movement is currently at an all-time low, with growing alienation between the public and the Palestinian leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza, the lack of public belief in their ability to achieve the goal of independence, and the sidelining of the Palestinian issue from the focus of the regional and international agenda.

Consequently, there is a growing argument in the Palestinian discourse that all other strategies for realizing national objectives have been tried and failed.

Moreover, the growing support for the idea of one state is fed by internal trends. Above all, there is the collective desire to retain a relatively stable standard of living in the West Bank, together with a widespread trend toward de-ideologization and depoliticization, reflecting exhaustion after many years of violent conflict driven by revolutionary fighting slogans, which ultimately failed to achieve any Palestinian national objectives.

The lessons from the severe decline that engulfed Arab societies in the region following the Arab Spring revolutions has led to increased fear of sharing this fate.

In addition, most of the younger Palestinian generation are concerned with personal fulfillment and development, and harbor suspicion and even alienation toward the sources of authority around them, including the Palestinian leadership.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the “Strongmen”: Another Myth in the Making
In the past few months, numerous articles have appeared in the Western press about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s diplomatic outreach to “strongmen” and proponents of “illiberal nationalism.” Some have even accused him of abetting some of these leaders’ alleged anti-Semitism. Lahav Harkov explains how this narrative migrated from left-leaning Israeli publications to the diaspora press and from there to mainstream publications like the New York Times, and notes that it has been used to justify not just criticism of Netanyahu but forthright anti-Zionism. As she observes, such analyses recognize no distinctions among very different sorts of leaders, and pay little attention to diplomatic realities:

There are two elements at play in the claims of a nefarious new direction in Israel’s foreign policy: one is a pearl-clutching disgust at Netanyahu’s supposed embrace of illiberal regimes; the other concerns relations with leaders whose policies specifically impact Jews and . . . distort the memory of the Holocaust. . . . The new talk of Netanyahu and strongmen . . . conflates these two categories, [lumping] the necessary compromises of conducting international relations . . . with troubling assaults on the legacy of the Holocaust [by such figures as Hungary’s Viktor Orban].

Moreover, many analysts who lament Israel’s cozying up to strongmen ignore research showing that East European Jews feel safer from anti-Semitism than do those in the West, which may be because they perceive the greatest threat to their lives coming from Islamist violence rather than the populist right. . . . In general, it appears that East European Jews may not view their situation in the dire terms used by some of their self-appointed advocates in Israel and the West. . . .

It is, [furthermore], no defense of human-rights violators to say that Israel must sometimes hold its nose and keep up ties with [them]. As the Knesset member Avi Dichter—a Likudnik and former Shin Bet chief who could never be accused of being a bleeding heart—said before [the Philippines’ President Rodrigo] Duterte visited: “We may have to take a pill against nausea to receive him.”

But there are some too pure for such distasteful compromises. The leader of [the hard-left] Meretz party, Tamar Zandberg, wrote a letter to Netanyahu telling him not to strengthen relations with Brazil, one of the largest economies in the world, because it elected a president from the far right, months before Jair Bolsonaro even began his term. Yet Zandberg has also been photographed visiting the grave of Yasir Arafat, not a leader known for his exemplary human-rights record. And neither she, nor anyone else on the left, has called on Israel to cut ties with the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas, who wrote his dissertation denying the Holocaust, and whose regime jails people for criticizing him online or, God forbid, selling land to Jews.

Friday, January 25, 2019

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Is Israel’s Inevitable War With Iran Already Underway?
Meanwhile, the Iranian regime — weakened by restored US sanctions and the massive unrest of its subjugated populace — is boasting about its military prowess. This is par for the course in Tehran, particularly as the ruling mullahs are marking the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, which ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi and ushered in Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s reign of terror.

In an interview with Iranian state TV on Tuesday, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, went as far as to flaunt the regime’s nuclear achievements, thanks in large measure to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the nuclear deal signed with world powers in 2015 — which, he said, “marinated” Iran’s right to enrich uranium.

The only drawback he mentioned was the fact that “for Europeans, a centrifuge takes eight years from designing to become operational, while the process takes us 10 years.”

Salehi then announced that he would be traveling at the end of the month to Ardakan “to oversee the transport of 30 tons of yellowcake produced … there to [the Uranium Conversion Facility at] Isfahan, [which] means that the Ardakan site has become operational.”

It would be a grave mistake to dismiss Salehi’s words as mere saber-rattling, given the Iranian regime’s stated intention and increasingly overt attempts to annihilate Israel, even at its own potential peril. Rather than looking the other way, at best — or, worse, condemning Israel at international forums — the world should be thanking the Jewish state for doing its dirty work. The inevitable war against Iran should have been fought by America decades ago. Today, it is up to the IDF.

When the snow melts on Mount Hermon, we Israelis will be back in shorts and sandals, heading for the polls this spring to elect the next Knesset. The only question at this point is whether we will be doing so in bomb shelters.
House Majority Leader Calls for US Recognition of Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has called for the United States to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the congressman’s office told Jewish Insider.

The Golan spans about 700 square miles and directly abuts what is now a civil-war-torn Syria.

This development comes as members of Congress have called for the Trump administration to formally acknowledge Israeli control of the Golan Heights, a geographical security barrier for Israel in the fight against terrorism from Hezbollah, with its growing arsenal of missiles and rockets, and other Iranian-backed groups.

Earlier this week, Iranian fighter jets fired a surface-to-surface missile at the Golan Heights, prompting Israel to launch a massive attack on numerous Iranian targets in Syria.

Last week, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) sent a letter to US President Donald Trump calling for the official recognition.

Gottheimer followed Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who introduced a resolution last month that stated, “Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights is critical to Israel’s national security,” and that “Israel’s security from attack from Syria and Lebanon cannot be assured without Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”
Jonathan S. Tobin: Israel’s Foes Finally Admit That Rocks Can Kill
As far as the mainstream media is usually concerned, when rocks are thrown in the Middle East, it’s nothing to get too worked up about. When Palestinian mobs throw rocks at Israeli soldiers at the Gaza border fence as part of their effort to cross into the Jewish state and commit mayhem, such actions are generally depicted as a non-lethal form of protest.

Ever since the Palestinians launched an intifada — a “national uprising” — in December of 1987, rock-throwing has been treated as a popular form of protest against Israel. Indeed, the act of throwing rocks at Jews has long since become an iconic symbol of the “resistance” to Israel, glorified in Palestinian culture, poems, and songs. Throwing rocks at soldiers and settlers — or their cars and buses — has become something like a national sport, as well as a rite of passage for Arab youth.

Incidents of stone-throwing at Jewish targets are a daily occurrence, and so numerous that Israel barely bothers to keep statistics on them. But we do know that at least 14 Israelis have been killed as a result of car crashes caused by rock-throwing or direct blows. When Palestinians are arrested in connection with such crimes, they are either depicted sympathetically as legitimate combatants using the only weapons available to them, or as children who are unjustly harassed or even tortured by the Israeli army and police for what is, at worst, nothing more than so-called teenage mischief-making.

But after more than 30 years of such stories in the media, the international press has finally decided to treat this “harmless” activity in the West Bank as a crime.

A Palestinian women was killed in October when she was struck in the head by a stone thrown by what police believe was a group of Israeli teenagers. Aisha Rabi, a mother of nine, was with her husband and two of their children driving in a car when the crime occurred. The suspects are students at a West Bank yeshiva high school — one of whom remains in custody since being arrested in December due to the fact that, according to Israeli authorities, traces of his DNA was found on the stone that killed Rabi.

The case raises a lot of uncomfortable questions for both Arabs and Jews.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: The 'Political Detainees' No One Talks About
Palestinians say that Shaheen and Fattash are among dozens of "political detainees" who are being held in Palestinian Authority (PA) prisons and detention centers in various parts of the West Bank. According to some human rights organizations, the Palestinians held in PA prisons are often subjected to various forms of torture.

In a letter to Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a number of Palestinian human rights organizations recently demanded that the international agency speak out against the politically motivated arrests by the PA in the West Bank. It is highly unlikely, however, that the human rights organizations will receive any reply from the UN, whose various agencies continue to be obsessed only with Israel.

The UN does not seem to care about human rights violations committed by the PA against its own people. These are the type of stories that evidently do not interest either the UN or the international media because they lack an anti-Israel angle. The only "abuses" they see are those that can be blamed on Israel.

What is happening in the PA-controlled territories and prisons in the West Bank is a tiny taste of what life for the Palestinians would be like under a totalitarian regime that does not tolerate any form of criticism. In both the PA-controlled territories and Gaza, Palestinians must resort to the desperate measure of closing their mouths to food because they cannot open their mouths to demand decent treatment.
David Singer: “State of Palestine” set to confront Trump at United Nations
The bizarre Handover ceremony of Egypt’s Chairmanship of the Group of 77 to the “State of Palestine”for 2019 will enable this non-existent and non-member State of the United Nations to play a leading role in the 74 years old farce – “TheQuestion of Palestine and the United Nations” (PUN).

“The State of Palestine” does not meet the criteria for statehood required under the 1933 Montevideo Convention.

The Group of 77 (“the Bloc”) contains 133 of the 193 member states of the United Nations – ensuring the automatic passage of all United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions they propose.

UNGA ResolutionA/RES/73/5 – adopted on 16 October 2018 – put this illusory “State of Palestine” centre stage for PUN’s 2019 New York season – recognising it as the Bloc’s public face in all matters brought before UNGA and at meetings of representatives of other major groups.

146 countries voted for this Resolution whilst only three – Israel, the U.S. and Australia – voted against, 15 countries abstained and the remaining 29 states did not vote.

US Deputy UN Ambassador Jonathan Cohen called out the hypocrisy of the vote:
"We cannot support efforts by the Palestinians to enhance their status outside of directnegotiations. The United States does not recognize that there is a Palestinian

state.... Only U.N. member states should be entitled to speak and act on behalf of major groups of states at the United Nations."


Australia’s UN Ambassador Gillian Bird asserted:
"Australia's decision to vote no on this resolution reflects our long-standing position that Palestinian attempts to seek recognition as a state in international fora are deeply unhelpful to efforts towards a two-state solution."

The Deal of the Century Has No Buyers in the Arab World
For Jordan, the main problem is finding the solution to the refugee issue at its expense. Jordan would have to come to terms with the fact that millions of Palestinians would finally get full citizenship and participate in domestic politics – and what might be worse – would have to settle within Jordan’s territory refugees from Lebanon to help Lebanon restore its ethnic balance. While the issue remains open, an option may remain for them to return to “Palestine,” whether inside the West Bank or inside Israel itself.

Meanwhile, the Bedouin sector, which is the mainstay of the Jordanian army and administration, refuses to surrender any power to Palestinians and is currently relatively calm.

Jordan is not prepared for such an agreement, not even for the hefty funds that would be offered as part of the deal. It is concerned that if it refuses, Saudi Arabia will pressure it with regard to Jordan’s traditional tie to Jerusalem, but there are no signs that Saudi Arabia is interested in Jerusalem. However, from Jordan’s point of view, happy is the person who is always worried.

Egypt has two reservations: It does not want to take responsibility for Gaza, and it seeks to limit its connections with Hamas to security issues in Sinai only. However, its main reservation is the issue of the Arab version of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

Wednesday, January 09, 2019

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: Abbas Celebrates 14th Anniversary of His Four-Year Term
On January 9, 2005—exactly 14 years ago today—Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority. For a four-year term.

Today Abbas begins serving the fifteenth year of his four-year term.

That 2005 election was actually a milestone for Palestinians. Yasser Arafat had died the previous November, and this election was to choose his successor as head of the PA. It was a good election—free and fair in the sense that the votes were counted accurately and people could campaign against Abbas. There were loads of international observers, including a U.S. team led by former President Jimmy Carter and then-Senators Joseph Biden and John E. Sununu. According to The New York Times, Javier Solana, who was then the European Union's foreign minister, said "It has been a very good day. The moment is historic."

Abbas won only about 62 percent of the vote (compare Egyptian president Sisi’s ludicrous claim to have won 97 percent of the vote in the 2018 election there) and one challenger won 20 percent. Hamas boycotted the election, but was not forced to do so—as we saw when it competed in the elections for the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) in 2006.

That 2006 parliamentary election was the last parliamentary election held in the Palestinian territories, and there has similarly been no presidential election since 2005. Abbas just holds on and on and governs by decree. He has now undertaken machinations that will in fact eliminate the PLC entirely, replacing it with an unelected PLO organ. The PLC has been dissolved by the Palestinian constitutional court--whose own term of office expired over a decade ago.
Dissolved Palestinian Legislative Council removes PA president Abbas from power
In the latest development in the rift between Palestinian factions, the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza voted to remove Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas from power on Wednesday.

In a text submitted by prominent Hamas political committee member and spokesperson Salah al-Bardawil, the assembly called the president an "enemy of the state" for committing "a number of constitutional, legal, security and humanitarian violations, which seriously and seriously affected the Palestinian national project."

The resolution then asked the politician to immediately step down, or face constitutional proceedings aimed at his destitution. It also appealed to national, regional and international institutions to "stop dealing" with the president or any of his delegations.

The PLC, which has largely had a symbolic function since the last elections in 2007 due mainly to the impossibility of assembling in one location. It was dissolved by Abbas at the end of 2018.

The Fatah leader dissolved the institution, in which Hamas has a majority, in order to put pressure on the Gaza-based movement as reconciliation talks between the two factions degenerate into an open conflict.

Last week, Hamas called dozens of Fatah members in the coastal enclave for questioning, and de facto prevented a rally that was meant to commemorate the movement's 54th anniversary.


PMW: Abbas’ deputy participates in burning “coffin” with photos of US Pres. Trump and PM Netanyahu
Celebrating the 54th anniversary of the Fatah Movement, which is commemorated on the day of its first attempted terror attack against Israel, Abbas' deputy chairman of Fatah, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, participated in a ceremony at which a black "coffin" decorated with photos of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Trump was burned in front of a large crowd.

A red "X" is painted over the faces of Netanyahu and Trump. [Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 3, 2019]

Text on coffin: "The deal of the century (i.e., Trump's as yet unpublished Middle East peace plan) will not pass, to hell with it and good riddance"

At the event, Al-Aloul praised the terror attacks and the Palestinian waves of violence and terror against Israel (the intifadas) as "accomplishments" of Fatah's "self-sacrificing fighters," and "battles of honor," which have "brought glory to the nation":
"The Palestinian revolution... depended on our people's will and was characterized by suffering, sacrifice, and pain. However, it was also full of victories and achievements that Fatah's self-sacrificing fighters (Fedayeen) accomplished on the ground; and they returned the spirit to the nation. Starting from Eilabun (i.e., attempted bombing of Israel's National Water Carrier) ... the intifadas (i.e., Palestinian wave of violence and terror against Israel killing approximately 200 Israelis from 1987-1993, and PA terror campaign killing approximately 1200 from 2000-2005), and the rest of the battles of honor and heroism with which the Fatah Movement has brought glory to the nation."

He pointed out that Fatah "is loyal to the team of Martyrs (Shahids)" and that the movement's identity is one of a "national liberation movement that is fighting for our people's freedom and independence":
"We in Fatah are not being lured away by anything - neither power nor government - and we again emphasize our identity as a national liberation movement that is fighting for our people's freedom and independence. We will complete the path, without any shadow of a doubt, and we still see that our most important priority is to fight our primary enemy - the occupation - and those who assist it."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 4, 2019]

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

From Ian:

Col Kemp: Submission to the inquiry on Gaza border violence
Submission by Colonel Richard Kemp on behalf of the High Level Military Group to The UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 violence at the Gaza border. December 2018 Full Report PDF

Haley: Arabs must prove Palestinians are a priority, support Trump's plan
The Arab nations must prove that the Palestinians are a priority by supporting Trump’s peace plan when it is unveiled, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley told the United Nations Security Council on Monday.

She spoke at the UN’s monthly meeting on the Middle East, which often focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Throughout her two years as ambassador, Haley attempted to divert the conversation onto other regional issues such as Syria and Iran.

Tuesday’s monthly meeting was her last, before she leaves office at the end of December. Haley took the opportunity to speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Trump Peace plan and the UN’s “biased obsession” with Israel.

Israel has always wanted peace with its neighbors and demonstrated that it wants peace, “but it does not want to make peace at any price and it shouldn’t.”

The Palestinians also do not need to accept a peace deal at any price, she said.

“Both sides would benefit greatly from a peace agreement, but the Palestinians would benefit more and the Israelis would risk more.”

It is with this backdrop in mind, that the Trump Administration has crafted its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, she said.

Haley explained that she had read the peace plan, which brings new elements to the discussion. It takes advantage of new technology and recognizes that realities on the ground have changed, she said.
Dore Gold: Video: Mahmoud Abbas Contradicts the Palestinian Narrative on Refugees
It has been axiomatic for the Palestinian narrative that as a result of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, the Palestinian Arab refugees were forcibly expelled by Israeli forces from their towns and villages.

Despite the fact that the 1948 war was caused by the invasion by five Arab armies into the nascent State of Israel, the emerging Palestinian narrative put the blame squarely upon the Israeli side.

That is why the recent words of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, at the PLO Consultative Council on December 9, 2018, are so significant.

Looking back historically, Abbas declared: "Everyone started to speak in our name, in our absence. Therefore we could do nothing. And you recall, if you remember, that in 1948, when the 'Nakba,' or catastrophe, took place, we weren't a party to it. We were taken out, and we were told, 'after a week we will return you.'"

Moreover, in March 1976, Abbas told Falastin El-Thawra, published in Beirut, that the Arab armies forced the Palestinians to emigrate and to leave their homeland.

Of course there were cases in which Palestinians left as a by-product of the war. But as Israel historian Benny Morris argued in Ha'aretz on July 29, 2017, Israel had no "expulsion policy" in 1948.


Friday, November 30, 2018

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The lethal error in appeasing Iran
The Europeans’ eagerness to continue to trade with Iran is disgusting. The United States lists Iran as the world’s principal state sponsor of terrorism. The regime has been in a state of self-declared war against the West since it took power in 1979. It regularly denies the Holocaust and re-states its intention to wipe Israel off the map.

It is funding, arming and training Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, where more than 120,000 Iranian rockets are pointing at Israel; it supports the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, where there are now Iranian troops on Israel’s border; it is supporting the Houthis in the civil war in Yemen in order to attain unrivalled dominance in the region.

So it should simply be unconscionable to trade with Iran. Yet the Europeans are bending every sinew to continue to do so.

The behavior of France and Germany in spearheading the subversion of U.S. sanctions is particularly odious. France’s President Emmanuel Macron, the E.U. fanatic who by his own account is a cross between Napoleon and Jupiter and has taken to lecturing the world about the supposed evils of nationalism, runs a country in which Jews are being regularly attacked and murdered by Muslims.

His foreign ministry has said there is no doubt that Iran’s intelligence ministry was behind a foiled attack last June on an Iranian opposition group in Paris. Yet Macron opposes U.S. sanctions on the grounds that this would not improve regional stability. Instead, he is busy trying to enable the continued flow of money to prop up the Iranian regime. Is this what he means by improving regional stability?

Germany’s hypocrisy is stomach-turning. In 2008, its chancellor, Angela Merkel, came to Israel to say: “The Shoah fills us Germans with shame. I bow before the victims. I bow before the survivors and before all those who helped them survive.” Germany, she said, would always stand by Israel’s side; and she singled out Iran as the greatest threat to its security.

Yet although her foreign office condemned Rouhani’s remarks “in the strongest possible terms,” Merkel is now Europe’s principal champion of his regime.

In the words of Dr. Josef Schuster, president of the country’s Central Council of Jews: “It seems paradoxical that Germany—as a country that is said to have learned from its horrendous past and which has a strong commitment to fight anti-Semitism—is one of the strongest economic partners of a regime that is blatantly denying the Holocaust and abusing human rights on a daily basis. Any trade with Iran means a benefit for radical and terrorist forces, and a hazard and destabilization for the region.”

As Benjamin Weinthal recently wrote in Tablet magazine, the explanation may not lie merely in Germany’s huge export trade with Iran, worth $3.42 billion last year. It may also be a pathological refusal to forgive Israel for the Holocaust, as demonstrated by its preoccupation with turning Israel into a punching bag.

Germany’s pious memorializing of the Holocaust, he suggested, “can be a way for German politicians to inoculate themselves against criticism for their unwillingness to confront the lethal anti-Semitic Islamic regime in Tehran.”

Syrian regime and allies downplay 'airstrikes' after wild night in Damascus
On Thursday night social media accounts that follow Syria lit up with reports of airstrikes south of Damascus. SANA, the Damascus state media, claimed that “air defenses of the Syrian Arab Army responded to an aggression on the southern region” and had prevented the attack from achieving objectives. However Syrian state media and allies of the Syrian regime have downplayed the incident in the twelve hours after it happened. From wild claims that the air defenses had down rockets and even a plane, Syria’s allies now appear to want to sweep the incident under the carpet. This may be to protect the regime from embarrassment.

A variety of social media accounts that support the Syrian government were active Thursday night, but many now seem disinterested in the aftermath. This is also true of Iranian media, which supports Syria, and media that tends to be pro-Hezbollah. On Thursday night some of these outlets, such as Al Mayadeen, showed images purportedly of air defenses over Damascus. Reports began around ten in the evening and continued for more than an hour. By midnight it was all over and what appeared to be a serious incident had gone quiet. Most of these reports followed the message from Damascus. “Our air defenses met hostile targets over the area of Al-Kiswah” and had intercepted the attack.

What’s particularly interesting is that none of the media sought to point fingers at who the aggressor was. In the past the Syrian regime has blamed Israel and the US. One of the only major accounts that have kept on the story is Sputnik News in Arabic, a Russian channel. Russia supports the Syrian regime. On Friday Sputnik claimed that shrapnel from Syrian air defenses was found on the Golan Heights. It based its report on an announcement from Israel. Sputnik also noted that Syrian air defense had used the S-200, not the more advanced S-300 system that Russia supplied to Syria in October and which the Syrians are still being trained to use. Sputnik also reported that Syrian officials told them the S-300 was not used.

This was a major climb-down from Thursday night when the same news channel had tweeted reports that Syrian air defense intercepted four cruise missiles and a jet that was involved in the attack. By Friday morning, all those reports had stopped. Iranian media also did not report heavily on the incident. Tasnim entirely ignored it. Fars News did the same. PressTV claimed Syria had downed targets over Damascus. However PressTV also made sure to emphasize that it was unclear if the S-300 had been used and noted that a “military source [in Syria] did not specify the targets but dismissed reports that an Israeli plane had been downed.”
Army finds pieces of Syrian missile in Golan field after alleged Israeli strikes
Israeli troops on the Golan Heights on Friday found a number of fragments of a Syrian surface-to-air missile that was fired during an alleged Israeli airstrike on Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria the night before.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, the remnants of the missile were found in an open field on the Golan heights. The pieces have been taken in for further examination by the military and the police, the army said.

Also on Friday, the Syria Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said it identified several of the sites hit in what it said was an Israeli bombardment that lasted “for an hour.”

The Israeli military refused to comment on the raid, but denied a report in Russian media that an Israeli plane had been shot down. The Syrian military claimed its air defenses shot down all incoming “hostile targets” late Thursday. However, many security analysts believe Syria often falsely claims to have intercepted missiles that successfully penetrated its air defenses.

According to the director of the Syria Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, the Israeli bombardment hit two positions in the south of Damascus province, including an area believed to be an Iranian weapons depot near the capital.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: ICC Takes Anti-Israel Bias to New Heights
On November 15, the pretrial chamber of judges ordered the court’s prosecutor—for the second time—to reconsider her refusal to investigate Israel’s 2010 raid on a flotilla to Gaza. Demanding one reconsideration is rare. Demanding two is unheard of. No such option even exists in the ICC’s rulebook.

Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda appealed this ruling last week. But regardless of what the Appeals Chamber decides, it’s already too late to salvage the pretense that the court is an unbiased judicial institution and not a cesspool of anti-Israel prejudice.

To understand why, a review of the case is in order. In May 2010, a flotilla tried to break Israel’s legal blockade of Gaza. Israel intercepted most of the ships peacefully. But on one, according to the same UN inquiry that upheld the blockade’s legality, passengers attacked the soldiers with “fists, knives, chains, wooden clubs, iron rods, and slingshots,” seriously wounding nine. To protect themselves, the soldiers opened fire, killing ten people.

Comoros, whose flag that ship flew, filed a complaint against Israel over the incident in May 2013. In November 2014, Bensouda dismissed it. Despite concluding (wrongly) that the soldiers used excessive force, she said the fact that they opened fire only after being attacked and the low number of deaths made the incident insufficiently grave to warrant attention from a court created to prosecute major atrocities. But in July 2015, the pretrial chamber ordered her to reconsider—the first time it had ever overturned a prosecutor’s decision.

I dissected the judges’ egregious errors of both fact and law at the time, including their failure even to mention the passengers’ attack on the soldiers, which was central to Bensouda’s decision, and their astounding argument that the gravity of the case should be determined not by what happened, but by how much international “attention and concern” it attracted. Bensouda evidently found their ruling equally unpersuasive, since she appealed it. But after losing that appeal, she duly reconsidered.

In November 2017, she announced, unsurprisingly, that her opinion remained unchanged. That should have ended the story. After all, the same appellate judges who upheld the pretrial chamber’s demand for reconsideration also unequivocally authorized her to stick with her original conclusion if she still deemed it correct. Moreover, section 108(3) of the ICC’s own rules explicitly defines the prosecutor’s decision after reconsideration as a “final decision.”

But Comoros appealed again, and astoundingly, the pretrial judges once again ordered her to reconsider, saying her initial reconsideration hadn’t satisfied their requirements. The clear implication was that they would keep demanding reconsiderations until Bensouda produced the decision they wanted.

There are several glaring problems with this. First, of course, it ignores the plain meaning of section 108(3). Instead, the majority essentially argued that a “final decision” only becomes final once they approve the outcome.
CNN commentator calls for elimination of Israel, endorses violent Palestinian ‘resistance’
CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill, in a Wednesday speech to the United Nations, called for violent resistance against Israel and advocated expanding Palestine “from the river to the sea,” a phrase used by those who believe that Israel should be eliminated.

Hill, who has a long history of anti-Semitism, made the remarks at a U.N. event commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. He said the international community should boycott Israel and allow Palestinians more space to engage in violence against the Jewish state, arguing that violence was also employed in the struggles of African Americans.

“Contrary to western mythology, black resistance to American apartheid did not come purely through Ghandi and nonviolence," Hill said (see video below.) "Rather, slave revolts and self-defense and tactics otherwise divergent from Dr. King or Mahatma Gandhi were equally important to preserving safety and attaining freedom. If we are to operate in true solidarity with the Palestinian people, we must allow the Palestinian people the same range of opportunity and political possibility. If we are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, we must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend itself. We must prioritize peace, but we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must advocate and promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing."

He urged grassroots, local, and international action to "Give us what justice requires -- and that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea."

The phrase “from the river to the sea” has been a rallying cry for Hamas and other terrorist groups seeking the elimination of Israel, as a Palestinian state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea would mean that Israel would be wiped off the map.

Hill’s remarks are the latest example of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic statements.
Marc Lamont Hill at UN calls for "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea" to chorus of applause



Friday, November 16, 2018

From Ian:

Dr. Martin Sherman: Israel’s stark option: Arabs in Gaza or Jews in Negev
If the Israel leadership persists with its perception of the Palestinian-Arabs in general, and the Gazan's in particular, as potential partners in some future peace arrangement rather than perceiving them as they perceive themselves – as implacable enemies, whose enmity towards the Jewish state is not rooted in what it does but what it is—it will never be able to formulate a policy capable of effectively dealing [with]... the continuing, and continually intensifying, threat emanating from the Gaza Strip.

Fatal failure of conventional wisdom

The dramatic escalation in violence on Monday—the very day after Israel permitted the transfer of millions of Qatari dollars into the Hamas- ruled- enclave, allegedly to alleviate the worsening humanitarian crisis there—underscored the futility of adhering to the dictates of conventional wisdom—i.e. that increasing humanitarian aid will work to quell the violence along and across the border with Israel, or to significantly reduce it. Indeed, recent events have only highlighted just how baseless prevailing dogmas that dominate the discourse have proved to be.

Time and again over the course of the conflict, it has been shown, clearly and convincingly, that the penury and privation are not the reason for Arab enmity toward Israel. Quite the reverse! It is Arab enmity towards Israel that is reason for the prevailing penury and privation.

Almost inevitably, the dismaying recurrence of violence along Israel’s source border brings to mind the pithy dictum attributed to Albert Einstein, who reportedly observed: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

After all, the problems of Gaza are the undeniable outcome of the ill-conceived attempt to foist self-governance on Gaza and the Gazans. As such it is aproblem that cannot be resolved by persevering with the same mode of thinking that created it. Accordingly, the failed formula of self-rule for Gaza must be set aside—since any obstinate insistence on it will only continue to exacerbate the current situation and extend the misery it precipitates—for Arab and Jew alike.

Elite officer who died heroically in Gaza may receive army's top medal
Days after a covert IDF operation inside Gaza went awry, and Lt. Col. M. was killed under heroic circumstances, officials say there are grounds to grant him and another officer the military's highest honor, the Medal of Valor, for their actions in battle.

Due to the sensitive nature of their work in the military, the names of the two officers have not been released for publication. According to information approved by the military censor, the covert squad entered Gaza in disguise on an intelligence-gathering mission and was discovered at a checkpoint near Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, where the soldiers engaged in a firefight with Hamas operatives.

Lt. Col. M. was reportedly killed while drawing fire away from his comrades and allowing them to escape.

The other officer made a charge toward M.'s position to try to save him, and after managing to kill three terrorists, reached M.'s vehicle but was badly wounded in the process.

According to various reports and statements from senior officials, Lt. Col. M. sacrificed his life to save his comrades.

Israel's highest decoration, the Medal of Valor, was last given 43 years ago. Only 40 soldiers have received the honor for "performing a supreme act of valor while facing the enemy and risking their life."
David Horovitz: The path of a piece of shrapnel: A minor story that made no headlines
Late on Monday evening, at the height of the latest round of indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel by Hamas and other Islamist terror groups in neighboring Gaza, one rocket got through Israel’s remarkable Iron Dome missile defense system and landed directly on a house in the southern working-class town of Netivot.

As documented by reporter Moshe Nussbaum and his camera crew from Hadashot TV news, the rocket caused astounding damage.

It brought down the ceiling in one of the bedrooms, it smashed a large hole in an outside wall, it devastated the living room, it destroyed furniture, it injured the family dog, whose blood was still on the floor when the TV crew entered.

The story played prominently on Israeli TV news late Monday (Hebrew video below), though it made little international impact, unsurprisingly, since mercifully nobody was killed.

Though Netivot is barely 15 miles from central Gaza, and thus a prime target for Hamas rocket fire, this neighborhood in the town, Nussbaum reported, does not have municipal bomb shelters. And these particular homes were constructed before it became mandatory to include a reinforced “sealed room” in residential buildings, where Israelis rush in the seconds after the sirens wail, to take refuge from rocket attacks.

For the Netivot family whose home was destroyed in this strike, and many more like them, therefore, the only option when the sirens ring out is to “lie down on the floor, put their hands over their heads, and pray and hope for a miracle,” Nussbaum reported. “That’s what happened here today: A miracle.” Their home was destroyed, but the family, apart from their dog, emerged unscathed.

Monday, November 12, 2018

From Ian:

Israeli special forces officer killed, another injured in Gaza raid
An Israeli special forces officer was killed and another was moderately wounded during a night-time operation in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the army said. The incident sparked intense clashes between the Israeli military and the Hamas terror group.

At least seven Palestinian terrorists were killed in the firefight and airstrikes that followed the Israeli raid, including a senior Hamas commander, according to Palestinian officials. Six of the Palestinian fatalities were said by Hamas to be its members. The seventh was a member of the Nasser Salahdin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, Hamas said in a statement.

Israeli officials later indicated that the incident was an operation that went awry but not an assassination attempt.

The military censor barred news of the IDF officer’s death and the second officer’s injuries from being published for several hours until their families could be notified. The names of the soldiers were not immediately released.

The fighting set off a massive round of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, and by morning 17 rockets or mortar shells were fired at southern Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late Sunday he would cut short an official state visit to Paris and return to Israel immediately.

Israeli Fire Kills Seven During Undercover Raid in Gaza, IDF Officer Killed
Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in air strikes and an undercover raid that Hamas said targeted one of its commanders and the Israeli military said left one of its officers dead.

The Israeli incursion and air attacks drew rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled enclave, with sirens sounding in Israeli communities along the border. The military said its defenses intercepted two of the launches. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage on the Israeli side of the frontier.

The violence prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cut short a visit to Paris, where he had been gathering with world leaders for a World War One commemoration.

Hamas said the incident began when assailants in a passing car opened fire on a group of its armed men, killing one of its commanders. Hamas gunmen gave chase as the car sped back towards the border with Israel, Hamas said in a statement.

During the pursuit, Israeli aircraft fired more than 40 missiles in the area, according to witnesses.

Medics and Hamas officials said at least seven people were killed, four of them militants, including Hamas commander Nour Baraka. It was unclear if the other fatalities included gunmen.


Sunday, October 21, 2018

From Ian:

Farrakhan’s termite problem
How long, we wonder, did it take for Farrakhan to come up with that quip, about his not being an anti-Semite, but rather “anti-termite.”

Words to choke on, you would think.

Lucky for him, had he indeed choked, the Heimlich Maneuver would have saved him, as it has already saved millions around the world, thanks to Jewish scientist Henry Heimlich.

But no thanks from Farrakhan and the multitudes who think like Farrakhan…and who know not the debt they owe to such “termites” for their longevity.

Or maybe we can chalk it up to willful ignorance. They know, but would rather ignore the laboratory work that keeps them ticking.

Asking them to appreciate the enormous Jewish contribution to medical science, why that would be asking for an end to the disease of anti-Semitism.

As we can see, for that, even our finest minds have yet to find a cure.

Doctors for mind and body, Freud and Salk, never asked for gratitude. Jewish scientists just get back to work.

It is the kind of work that surely keeps Farrakhan going. He is 85 years-old, this leader of the Nation of Islam, and he seems healthy enough. Quite vigorous, in fact.

We wonder what ailments and diseases would have cut him short, if not for medicines that were developed by Jewish doctors against syphilis, polio, cholera, diphtheria and smallpox.
PMW: PA TV: Israel stole the Palestinian falafel and hummus along with the rest of the Palestinian heritage
One of the more flavorful accusations against Israel by the Palestinian Authority is that Israel has "stolen the falafel and the hummus." This "theft," according to official PA TV, is part of a "brutal attack" against the entire "Palestinian heritage":
Official PA TV reporter: "We are talking about a brutal attack against the Palestinian heritage in general, including Palestinian foods. There has been theft of the Palestinian falafel, the Palestinian hummus, and some popular foods by the occupation. Holding [food] festivals like these is essential in order to preserve the heritage and also the Palestinian foods." [Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, Oct. 3, 2018]

This particular accusation is part of the overall PA lie that there is no Jewish history anywhere in the Land of Israel in general and in Jerusalem in particular. The PA falsely claims that everything in the land testifies to a "Palestinian history," and to justify this goes to great lengths to falsify such a Palestinian history. The accusation that Israel has "stolen" the falafel and the hummus, which is Middle Eastern in its origin, is part of the PA's denial of the existence of anything that can be associated with Jewish or Israeli history, and at the same time presenting everything as part of "Palestinian history."


Hamas rejects Egyptian demand to stop Gaza border protests
Hamas has rejected an Egyptian request to halt the weekly demonstrations along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, Palestinian sources said on Saturday.

The sources said the Egyptian intelligence officials who met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City last Thursday also demanded that the protesters stay at least 500 meters away from the border. However, Hamas also rejected this demand, the sources told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper.

But it did appear to have called for restrained action at Friday’s weekly demonstration, which left the IDF and Hamas in a tense standoff, but failed to ignite a major escalation.

The weekend events were expected to have a significant impact on whether Israel would launch a military operation in Gaza. But the low level of activity kept the situation’s status quo.

On Friday, 10,000 Palestinians again demonstrated near the border, burning tires and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at IDF troops. There were three attempted infiltrations, in which Palestinians crossed into Israel and then went back to Gaza, the IDF said.

Sources in the Gaza Strip said approximately 130 Palestinians were injured by gunfire and tear-gas inhalation.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

From Ian:

Rocket fired from Gaza hits house in Beersheba; causes heavy damage, no injuries
Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket at the southern city of Beersheba early Wednesday that landed and exploded in the courtyard of a house, causing serious damage, but no injuries.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had identified two launches from Gaza. One targeted Beersheba located some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Strip. A second rocket was fired out to sea and landed off the coast of a major city in the Tel Aviv area.

Rocket attacks on Beersheba are rare and considered a major escalation. The attack came after Israel’s defense minister warned the military was gearing up for a major strike on Gaza to stop ongoing violence.

Rocket warning sirens blared at 3:40 a.m. and residents reported hearing a loud blast. The rocket landed in the courtyard of a private house. No one was hurt in the explosion but five people were being treated for anxiety.

A Magen David Adom medic said among those treated were a mother and her three children. The woman had lightly hurt her head when she fell running to the bomb shelter when the siren went off, he said, adding that they were taken to a hospital.

It was only the second rocket fired at Beersheba since the 2014 Gaza war. The previous rocket struck a field north of Beersheba on August 9 and came as Palestinians fired dozens of projectiles at Israeli communities along the Gaza border.


Netanyahu: Israel will act with 'great strength' against Hamas
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held an emergency cabinet meeting in light of the rocket attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip Wednesday, according to a statement released by the prime minister's office.

"Israel views very seriously the attacks against it along the fence, in the Gaza border region and in Beersheba, everywhere. I said at the opening of the cabinet meeting this week that if these attacks do not stop, we will stop them.

"I want to say today: Israel will act with great strength," the prime minister said.

Netanyahu met with the snipers who identified the unit of Palestinian balloon launchers who were killed this morning in an IDF strike.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli Air Force struck 20 Hamas terror targets across the Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning after long range rockets struck a home in the southern city of Beersheba while another fell in the sea next to a central Israeli city.

IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis held Hamas responsible for the attack.

Hamas "creates an atmosphere of terror in the demonstrations near the border fence, where grenades have been thrown in recent weeks," Manelis said.
ICC issues harsh warning to Israel of possible war crimes in Gaza
With Israeli-Gaza fighting heating up, the International Criminal Court Prosecution on Wednesday gave its sternest warning yet to Israel on Hamas and the Khan al-Ahmar dispute.

"I am...alarmed by the continued violence, perpetrated by actors on both sides, at the Gaza border with Israel," Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement.

Continuing, she said, "As Prosecutor seized of the situation in Palestine, I therefore feel compelled to remind all parties that the situation remains under preliminary examination by my Office. I continue to keep a close eye on the developments on the ground and will not hesitate to take any appropriate action, within the confines of the independent and impartial exercise of my mandate under the Rome Statute, with full respect for the principle of complementarity."

While the statement had several qualifications to it which could still allow the ICC Prosecution to decide to stay out of criminally investigating Israel and Hamas for alleged war crimes relating to the ongoing border conflict, the timing and the threat were unmistakable.

Following rocket fire from the Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning, which destroyed a home in the city of Beersheba, and an IDF strike on the Palestinian coastal enclave in response, IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis held Palestinian faction Hamas responsible for the attack.

Rocket sirens were heard in Gaza border communities on Wednesday morning at 8:32 a.m. In response, the Israeli Air Force hit several terror targets across the Gaza Strip. According to Palestinian reports, at least ten Gazans were injured and one was killed in the strikes which occurred across the coastal enclave.

Her unprecedented statement also seemed to tip its hand toward considering demolitions of Beduin housing as war crimes.

Sunday, October 14, 2018

From Ian:

Corbyn: EU supports Israel because of the Holocaust
A 2012 Interview with Russia Today surfaced on Saturday through the British newspaper The Sun outraged Labour members when Jeremy Corbyn told his interviewer that the European Union's unconditional support for Israel is just a reaction to the holocaust.

When asked what is stopping governments from showing support for a recognized Palestinian state despite a poll showing a majority of British voters being in favor, Corbyn said: "What's stopping them is a traditional recognition and support of Israel ever since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 on the basis that the Jewish people were disgustingly and disgracefully and appallingly treated by the Nazi regime, by the holocaust."

Corbyn added : "It's a sort of sense of saying that the state of Israel was set up in order to provide a safe haven for Jewish people and that is still quite an important narrative in European politics."

The Sun reported fellow Labour members blasted Corbyn for the comments and demanded an explanation.

Richard Angell, the director of the group Progress said: "these latest deeply offensive comments by Corbyn show once again his disregard for the Jewish community."
Labour facing fresh anti-Semitism row as report is set to lay bare the scale of hate crimes against Jewish people for the first time
Bitter divisions over anti-Semitism in the Labour Party will be reopened by Ministers this week with official figures expected to show a rise in hate crimes against Jewish people.

In what Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters will perceive as a deliberate attempt to stoke rows within his party over the ‘racist’ behaviour of his supporters, the Government is planning to release stand-alone figures for anti-Semitic offences for the first time.

The move – part of a new drive to crack down on soaring hate crime – follows a summer in which a future Labour government was said to pose an ‘existential threat’ to British Jews, while Mr Corbyn himself was branded a ‘racist and anti-Semite’ by one of his own MPs.

Jewish safety group the Community Security Trust recorded 727 anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2018, including 34 that made specific reference to Labour.

However, the figures to be published this week are expected to provide more detail on the scale of the problem. The Mail on Sunday can also reveal that a Corbyn supporter is facing arrest after failing to appear in court to answer allegations that he branded a senior Labour figure a ‘Jewish pig’ and a ‘bloodsucker’.
High Court freezes deportation of alleged BDS supporter Lara Alqasem
Uzi Vogelman of the High Court of Justice, froze the deportation of alleged BDS activist Lara Alqasem less than one hour before a lower court deadline.

Vogelman gave the state 24 hours to respond in writing to Alqasem's appeal of her deportation. The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Alqasem's initial appeal to the Tel Aviv District Court was rejected on Friday with the court saying she was still a potential BDS risk.

Throughout the controversy, Alqasem has maintained that she left the BDS movement in April 2017, and that her intention to attend Hebrew University makes it clear that she no longer supports BDS.

Hebrew University has slammed the state both for the allegedly sloppy and superficial evidence presented versus testimony from Alqasem's University of Florida professors who know her.

It has also said that deporting Alqasem instead of letting her attend classes at Hebrew University is a huge win for the BDS movement.

Thursday, October 11, 2018

From Ian:

David Singer: Trump Rejects UN and UNESCO’s Fictitious Palestinian State
Bolton was unequivocal in his statement:
“Palestine” is not a state… It’s not a state now. It does not meet the customary international law test of statehood. It doesn’t control defined boundaries. It doesn’t fulfill the normal functions of government. There are a whole host of reasons why it’s not a state.”

Article 1 of the 1934 Montevideo Convention completely substantiates Bolton’s claim.
Holding out the carrot after administering the stick – Bolton continued:
“It could become a state, as the president said, but that requires diplomatic negotiations with Israel and others… We have consistently, across Democratic and Republican administrations, opposed the admission of ‘Palestine’ to the UN as a state, because it’s not a state.”

Bolton’s tempting offer may have been made to try and get the PLO to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s soon to–be-released peace plan. It seems certain to fall on deaf ears as the PLO wants nothing to do with Trump’s plan.

The PLO will only be more infuriated at this latest Trump effort to engender some reality into the Arab-Jewish conflict – as happened when Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

UNESCO’s decision to admit “Palestine” as a member in 2011 in clear breach of UNESCO’s own Constitution has come back to bite UNESCO with a vengeance – with America and Israel quitting

UNESCO on 31 December 2018.

UNESCO anti-Israel decisions made since “Palestine” was admitted to UNESCO membership have included:
  • January 2014 – cancelling an exhibition at its Paris headquarters on the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel
  • October 2016 – disregarding Jewish ties to the Temple Mount – only referring to it by its Muslim names – then several weeks later – passing a softer version of the resolution that referred to the Western Wall by its Jewish name – though still ignoring Judaism’s ties to the site.
  • July 2017 – designating Hebron and the two adjoined shrines at its heart — the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque — as a “Palestinian World Heritage Site in Danger”.

  • On 29 November 2012, the UN General Assembly granted Palestine“non-member observer state” status.
Pure fiction.

Israel envoy to UNESCO: Do what you want, we’re leaving anyway
Israel’s top UN envoy blasted UNESCO’s attempt to water down its controversial bi-annual Jerusalem resolution, reaffirming that Israel planned to leave the organization at the end of the year.

Danny Danon spoke after the 58 members of UNESCO’s executive board in Paris hid language disavowing Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem in the lengthy annex to an otherwise short benign text called Resolution 28.

The statements in the resolution’s annexes are “further evidence, for anyone who did not understand why the United States and Israel withdrew from UNESCO," Danon said.

The board gave its preliminary approval to that text on Wednesday, with a final vote likely to be held on Monday.

UNESCO’s director-general Audrey Azoulay lauded the use of an annex text to bypass some of the controversy caused by the Jerusalem resolutions in past years.

“I wish to thank those who have worked to achieve this, especially the representatives of the Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian delegations, and all members of the Executive Board who supported this agreement, as well as the European Union,” Azoulay said.

A similar compromise had been reached at the April Executive Board meeting. At the time, the Israeli and the Palestinian delegations accepted the annex compromise, with Jerusalem welcoming Azoulay’s efforts to downgrade the anti-Israeli tone of the agency.
How Palestinians Lie to Europeans
In the eyes of Hamas and its supporters, it is fine for Palestinians to throw explosive devices and firebombs at soldiers, but it is completely unacceptable for the soldiers to defend themselves. According to the twisted logic of the Palestinian leaders, it all started when Israel fired back.

Those who sent the Palestinians to clash with the Israeli soldiers along the border with the Gaza Strip are the only ones who bear responsibility for killing more than 150 Palestinians and injuring thousands of others.

The goal the Palestinians have in mind is to see Israel gone. All of it. Mahmoud Abbas believes he can achieve this goal by waging a diplomatic war against Israel in the international community -- one aimed at delegitimizing and demonizing Israel and Jews.

The question, again, remains whether the international community will ever wake up to realize that Palestinian leaders are playing them for fools. The European Parliament delegation that visited Ramallah is a good test case: What message will its members convey back at home: the truth about the ruthless and repressive Palestinian Authority, or the lies that were spoon-fed to them by Abbas and his friends?

Tuesday, October 09, 2018

From Ian:

'UNRWA teaches children to blow themselves up'
In Jerusalem, Mayor Nir Barkat presented a plan to remove all UNRWA operations from the capital and begin providing full municipal services to the residents of Shuafat, where UNRWA operates schools and clinics without Israeli permission.

The Jerusalem move follows a decision by the US to cut aid to UNRWA because it is an organization that perpetuates the refugee problem instead of acting to solve the issue.

Arutz Sheva spoke to Bassam Eid, a human rights activist who has been studying UNRWA's schools and institutions for years, bringing the paralyzed Palestinian Arab voices that have been struggling for years under UNRWA, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

"I have been saying for years that UNRWA has become part of the problem and not part of the solution," said Eid, "For 70 years, UNRWA has been managing the affairs of the Palestinian refugees and has not managed to reduce the problem or resolve the refugee problem within seventy years. "I am interested in continuing to manage the issue of the Palestinian refugees."

"I support Trump's decision to stop UNRWA funds," Bassem Eid said, adding that "65 percent of UNRWA funds go to salaries and the renting of buildings and offices, salaries of $25,000 a month and luxury vehicles. I want to close this organization so that its employees will be unemployed and become refugees themselves."

Eid also criticized the education provided in UNRWA schools. "I worked in several UNRWA schools in the territories and in Jordan, and children aged 9-10 want to be killed and kill Jews and to release their people. "Who taught you that?" I asked. They said that was what they were learning in schools, and I asked teachers at UNRWA schools in Jordan if children were taught to blow themselves up and be killed. They said "of course. How else will they liberate the land from the Israeli occupation? " UNRWA is aware of this, and the international community knows that all UNRWA studies are full of hate and incitement. The international community continues to inject funds because it is against Israel."

Top UNRWA official says he champions both Israel and Palestinian refugees
Just a few years ago, Peter Mulrean was defending Israel in what is arguably one of the most hostile diplomatic environments for the Jewish state.

In 2013, as the US deputy ambassador to the United Nations Humans Rights Council in Geneva, he hailed Jerusalem for its “strong commitment and track record in upholding human rights, political freedoms and civil liberties.”

Today, Mulrean is a senior official at UNRWA, the UN agency dealing with Palestinian refugees, arguably the most hated organization in Israel and one the US government recently called “irredeemably flawed.”

From his office just across from UN headquarters in Manhattan’s Turtle Bay, Mulrean promotes the agency on the world’s largest international stage.

The director of UNRWA’s Representative Office in New York decries the recent budget cuts by the US administration and passionately rejects the often-made argument that the agency perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem and stands in the way of a realistic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Human Rights Council Elections Set to Deliver Another Record-High Number of Rights-Abusing Members
The U.N. holds annual “elections” for its Human Rights Council this week and, once again, none of the five regional groups are offering any competition for the vacant seats. Instead all five are putting up “closed slates” of candidates – a practice seen as one of the main reasons rights-abusing regimes are able to secure seats.

Indeed, the absence of competitive slates makes it possible to predict, three days before the U.N. General Assembly holds the exercise in New York, that next year the 47-member HRC will have 14 members – 29.7 percent – that are graded “not free” by the veteran democracy advocacy group, Freedom House.

That’s a record high for “not free” countries on the 13-year-old council, tied only with the 2018 membership.

Failing unexpected last minute developments, the 2019 HRC membership will comprise 23 “free” countries, 10 “partly free,” and 14 “not free.”

The presence on the U.N.’s top human rights body of regimes with poor human rights records was one of the main reasons cited by the Trump administration for its decision to withdraw over the summer, following what it said were unsuccessful attempts to reform it.

From Ian:

In surprise move, Nikki Haley resigns as US ambassador to UN
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is tendering her resignation, marking the latest shake-up in the turbulent Trump administration just weeks before the midterm election.

US President Donald Trump met with Haley at the Oval Office in front of news cameras shortly after reports of her resignation Tuesday, saying the departure had been planned for several months.

Trump said she would leave at the end of the year.

He called Haley a “very special” person, adding that she told him six months ago that she might want to take some time off. Trump said that together, they had “solved a lot of problems.”

Speaking after Trump, Haley said serving as ambassador to the UN has “been an honor of a lifetime.”

She cited pushing back against the anti-Israel bias at the UN as one of the key accomplishments of her tenure. She praised Trump for moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Haley also pointed to her work with Jared Kushner, Trump’s special adviser and son-in-law, on the Trump administration’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

“Looking at what we’ve done on the Middle East peace plan. It is so unbelievably well done,” she said. “Jared is such a hidden genius that no one understands.”

Haley said she had no plans to run for the White House in 2020.

Danon thanks Haley for 'standing up for truth at the UN'
The Israeli mission to the United Nations responded Tuesday to the decision by US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to step down from her position, lauding her work in the international body since assuming office in January 2017.

"Thank you, Nikki Haley,” Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said in a statement Tuesday.

“Thank you for standing with the truth without fear. Thank you for representing the values common to Israel and the United States.”

Danon praised Haley for her efforts in the UN to challenge anti-Israel bias and work to block resolutions targeting the Jewish state.

“Thank you for your support for the State of Israel, which helped lead to a change in Israel's status in the UN. Thank you for your close friendship and common paths. Wherever you are, you will continue to be a true friend of the State of Israel."


Khaled Abu Toameh: How Iran Plans to Take Gaza
If anyone was hoping that removing Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip would improve the situation there and boost the chances of peace between Palestinians and Israel, they are in for a big disappointment. Hamas, which violently seized control over the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, is not the only terrorist group in the coastal enclave, home to some two million Palestinians.

In addition to Hamas, these are several other Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.

The second-largest group after Hamas is Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which has thousands of supporters and militiamen. If and when Hamas is ever removed from power, PIJ has the strongest chance of stepping in to fill the vacuum.

You remove Hamas from power, you will most likely end up having to deal with PIJ - not a more moderate group. While Hamas could only be considered "good," in some alternate reality, its replacement would not be any better. Islamist fundamentalism is enshrined in the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The two Islamist groups -- Hamas and PIJ -- are like two peas in a pod. The two do not recognize Israel's right to exist and continue to call for an armed struggle to "liberate all Palestine," from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

Like Hamas, the Iranian-funded PIJ also has an armed wing, called Saraya Al-Quds (Jerusalem Brigades). Founded in 1981 by PIJ leaders Fathi Shaqaqi and Abed Al-Aziz Awda in the Gaza Strip, the Jerusalem Brigades is responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks against Israel, including suicide bombings. In recent years, the group has also been launching rockets and mortars at Israel.

Saturday, October 06, 2018

From Ian:

Arab MK Claims Ari Fuld Executed Palestinian Terrorist; Likud MK: ‘She Called Fuld a Murderer’
An Israeli-Arab MK is being referred to the Knesset Ethics Committee after she appeared to claim that the late Israeli-American Ari Fuld killed the Palestinian terrorist who attacked him in an extra-judicial execution.

Fuld, a well known pro-Israel activist, was stabbed to death last month in the Gush Etzion bloc near Jerusalem by a Palestinian teenager. As he bled to death, he pursued and shot his attacker before collapsing. It is believed that his actions prevented further casualties. The terrorist was not killed and underwent treatment at an Israeli hospital.

According to Israel’s Channel Two, at a Knesset committee on women’s rights, Likud MKs Sharon Heskel and Amir Ohana spoke in favor of arming Israeli civilians in order to quickly neutralize terrorists who commit attacks.

Heskel specifically cited Fuld as an example, calling him a “hero” who “with his body and his life prevented the death of additional innocent civilians.”

In response, Joint List MK Aida Tomeh-Suleiman said, “You know how many lives you would save if the settlers got out of there.”

MK Ohana then pointed out the number of attacks prevented or ameliorated by armed civilians, again citing Fuld as an example.

Suleiman hit back even harder, saying in an apparent reference to Fuld, “In other words, you would execute on the spot.”

In a complaint to the Knesset Ethics Committee delivered on Thursday, Heskel wrote of Suleiman, “She called Fuld a murderer who executed the wounded man.”
US Jews help families of terrorists
On January 4, 2017, a Palestinian-Arab terrorist drove a truck into a group of Israeli soldiers, killing four and injuring 17 others. The attack was immediately identified as terrorism, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the scene of the attack and said the perpetrator was “by all indications a supporter of the Islamic State.”

Fast forward to October 2018, Israel decided to expel the terrorist's family from Israel, as they have links to ISIS, are not citizens and present a security concern. Opposing the state in court is Hamoked, an organization supported by the New Israel Fund, which assisted the relatives of the terrorist to petition against their deportation from Israel.

Thankfully, they lost and this family – and their security concerns – have been expelled.

Israeli soldiers are killed, and American Jews who support the New Israel Fund stand with the family members of the terrorists – sickening and despicable.

The parents of one of the soldiers who was killed in the attack said today in court, “We are here to prevent the next attack, God forbid. It is delusional that the governments of Europe and the New Israel Fund provide legal protection to the lowly terrorists who murdered our Shir and many other Israelis. We will fight here to the last drop of our blood against those who make their living by murdering Jews."

Hamoked has received more than $720,000 from New Israel Fund donors, like the Leichtag Foundation, and Oz Benamram of White & Case while claiming to work “for the enforcement of standards and values of international human rights and humanitarian law.”

Hamoked – using American Jewish donor money – defends the families of terrorists.
Swedish prosecutors appeal decision not to deport Gazan who firebombed synagogue
Swedish prosecutors appealed to their country’s Supreme Court against a lower tribunal’s decision not to deport a Palestinian immigrant who firebombed a synagogue.

The unusual appeal announced Thursday by the Public Prosecutor’s Office is of a June court decision not to deport Gaza-born Feras Alnadim, who attacked a synagogue in Gothenburg in December with two accomplices. The appeal follows vocal protests of the trial by Israel and the World Jewish Congress.

Last month, a Swedish appeals court overturned a criminal tribunal’s ruling from June stating that Alnadim would be deported at the end of his two-year prison term. The firebombing, he and his accomplices said, was payback for President Donald Trump’s decision to have the United States recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Since Alnadim committed a crime that “could be perceived as a threat to other Jews,” and Israel “might be interested in the matter,” the appeals court ruled that one “cannot safeguard the man’s fundamental human rights if he is deported to Palestine,” the judge wrote in his opinion.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office decided to appeal the ruling in the Supreme Court because “there is no reason to assume that the man would be subjected to death penalty, torture or other inhuman treatment upon return to Palestine,” the office wrote in a statement Thursday.

Tuesday, October 02, 2018

From Ian:

Col. Kemp: In the name of peace, it is time to accept Israel’s possession of the Golan Heights
This is really the crux of the issue: Western action now could make a concrete contribution to preventing conflict in the future.

Syria is now and will remain for the foreseeable future under the domination of Iran. Through both actions and words, we know the Iranian ayatollahs are intent on aggression against the Jewish State. They are establishing a land corridor from Iranian territory through Iraq and Syria to Israel’s border and plan to link their forces in that area with Hezbollah’s strong offensive forces, including 100,000 rockets, in southern Lebanon. They have positioned their own forces and their proxies where they can threaten Israel and are intent on building these up and maintaining them in position for the long-term.

The Syrian government, as the civil war dies down and when it reconstitutes its forces with Russian assistance, will itself threaten Israel at Iran’s behest; and Hezbollah and other Iranian proxy militias will also continue to do so. If these — or any other — malignant entities gain possession of the Golan Heights the threats of cross-border indirect fire could well escalate, leading to the deaths of Israeli civilians and forcing Israel into an overwhelming response that would cause significant bloodshed. This would potentially draw southern Lebanon into a conflict that could easily explode into a regional war.

Israel’s possession of the Heights on the other hand is never likely to translate into offensive action against anyone. Israel has only ever fought on the defensive and its government sees neither Syria nor Iran as targets for aggression.

Iran, Syria and other entities proclaim Israel’s occupation of the Golan as an excuse for conflict. Iran and its clients in the region including Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, count on a weak Western response to their aggression, with appeasement and judgments of moral equivalence serving repeatedly to encourage their violence. The other side of the coin is that unequivocal rejection by the West of this excuse would reduce the prospects of conflict.

We understand President Trump is now considering some form of recognition of Israel’s legitimate and necessary possession of the Golan. We strongly support this proposal and encourage all other Western nations that are genuinely interested in the cause of peace to do the same.

Colin Rubenstein: Trump right not to pander to Palestinian leaders
There have been important considerations missing from much discussion of the Trump administration’s recent moves regarding Israel and the Palestinians. For example, there is little comment about whether the behaviour of the Palestinian leadership in any way warrants Trump’s seemingly harder line, whether the moribund peace process needs to be shaken up and, if so, whether Trump’s moves may actually be productive.
Protesters fly Palestinian flags and chant anti Israel slogans.

Protesters fly Palestinian flags and chant anti Israel slogans.
Photo: AP

Palestinians and their supporters worry that Trump’s so-called “ultimate deal” may give the Palestinians less than they have previously been offered. However, offers providing the Palestinian leadership what they claim to want have failed to lead to peace, or even further negotiation, so clearly a new approach is warranted.

We know that Israeli offers of Palestinian statehood are not what has been lacking. Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, working with Bill Clinton in 2000, and early 2001, offered the Palestinians statehood in Gaza and the vast majority of the West Bank. Instead of leading to peace, the terrorist second Intifada broke out.

In 2008, PM Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, almost all of the West Bank, with land from inside Israel making up the balance, a land bridge between the West Bank and Gaza, a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, Palestinian control over Muslim holy sites and a limited return of Palestinian refugees, with a financial settlement for the rest. This was all that the PA had claimed to want, yet, as he admitted in 2015, Abbas rejected the offer “out of hand”.

More recently, since Benjamin Netanyahu became PM in 2008, Abbas has refused to genuinely negotiate despite Israeli confidence-building measures such as freezing building in settlements and releasing Palestinian prisoners who had killed Israelis. US envoy Martin Indyk has said that in 2014, Netanyahu was “sweating bullets” to make peace. Yet Abbas just walked away from those talks. Since then, Abbas has refused to negotiate at all.

Now, the PA has announced it is going to reject Trump’s deal, despite not even knowing what it entails.
Concealed Carry AP Covers Up Arafat’s Gun at the UN
In an article last week about dramatic moments at the United Nations (“Laughter at Trump among a long line of shocking UN moments“), the Associated Press covers up the most dramatic element of Yasser Arafat’s 1974 United Nations address: that he brought a gun to the international body and even delivered the address while openly sporting the holster.

In his Sept. 26 article, Tamer Fakahany obscures that Yasir Arafat actually brought his gun to the United Nations and wore the holster during his address, instead presenting the unprecedented nature of his appearance there as relating only to the statement: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

The entire relevant passage in Fakahany’s piece states:
ARAFAT’S OLIVE BRANCH AND GUN
Yasser Arafat was the embodiment of the Palestinian quest for independence – a road littered with displacement and death. In 1974, he was invited to represent the Palestine Liberation Organization and his people before the world body, where he made it clear he was ready to use any means for statehood. He spoke of oppressed people and liberation the world over. Wearing his trademark Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, he concluded with an enduring quote: “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun.Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”


While the piece explicitly notes that Arafat wore a keffiyeh, it leaves out the much more significant and historic fact that he wore a gun holster. (According to an earlier AP report, he was forced to deposit the gun before mounting the rostrum.)

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

Follow by Email

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

subscribe via email

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Categories

#PayForSlay Abbas liar Academic fraud administrivia al-Qaeda algeria Alice Walker American Jews AmericanZionism Amnesty analysis anti-semitism anti-Zionism antisemitism apartheid Arab antisemitism arab refugees Arafat archaeology Ari Fuld art Ashrawi ASHREI B'tselem bahrain Balfour bbc BDS BDSFail Bedouin Beitunia beoz Bernie Sanders Biden history Birthright book review Brant Rosen breaking the silence Campus antisemitism Cardozo cartoon of the day Chakindas Chanukah Christians circumcision Clark Kent coexistence Community Standards conspiracy theories COVID-19 Cyprus Daled Amos Daphne Anson David Applebaum Davis report DCI-P Divest This double standards Egypt Elder gets results ElderToons Electronic Intifada Embassy EoZ Trump symposium eoz-symposium EoZNews eoztv Erekat Erekat lung transplant EU Euro-Mid Observer European antisemitism Facebook Facebook jail Fake Civilians 2014 Fake Civilians 2019 Farrakhan Fatah featured Features fisking flotilla Forest Rain Forward free gaza freedom of press palestinian style future martyr Gary Spedding gaza Gaza Platform George Galloway George Soros German Jewry Ghassan Daghlas gideon levy gilad shalit gisha Goldstone Report Good news Grapel Guardian guest post gunness Haaretz Hadassah hamas Hamas war crimes Hananya Naftali hasbara Hasby 2014 Hasby 2016 Hasby 2018 hate speech Hebron helen thomas hezbollah history Hizballah Holocaust Holocaust denial honor killing HRW Human Rights Humanitarian crisis humor huor Hypocrisy ICRC IDF IfNotNow Ilan Pappe Ilhan Omar impossible peace incitement indigenous Indonesia international law interview intransigence iran Iraq Islamic Judeophobia Islamism Israel Loves America Israeli culture Israeli high-tech J Street jabalya James Zogby jeremy bowen Jerusalem jewish fiction Jewish Voice for Peace jihad jimmy carter Joe Biden John Kerry jokes jonathan cook Jordan Joseph Massad Juan Cole Judaism Judea-Samaria Judean Rose Judith Butler Kairos Karl Vick Keith Ellison ken roth khalid amayreh Khaybar Know How to Answer Lebanon leftists Linda Sarsour Linkdump lumish mahmoud zahar Mairav Zonszein Malaysia Marc Lamont Hill Marjorie Taylor Greene max blumenthal Mazen Adi McGraw-Hill media bias Methodist Michael Lynk Michael Ross Miftah Missionaries moderate Islam Mohammed Assaf Mondoweiss moonbats Morocco Mudar Zahran music Muslim Brotherhood Naftali Bennett Nakba Nan Greer Nation of Islam Natural gas Nazi Netanyahu News nftp NGO Nick Cannon NIF Noah Phillips norpac NSU Matrix NYT Occupation offbeat olive oil Omar Barghouti Only in Israel Opinion Opinon oxfam PA corruption PalArab lies Palestine Papers pallywood pchr PCUSA Peace Now Peter Beinart Petra MB philosophy poetry Poland poll Poster Preoccupied Prisoners propaganda Proud to be Zionist Puar Purim purimshpiel Putin Qaradawi Qassam calendar Quora Rafah Ray Hanania real liberals RealJerusalemStreets reference Reuters Richard Falk Richard Landes Richard Silverstein Right of return Rivkah Lambert Adler Robert Werdine rogel alpher roger cohen roger waters Rutgers Saeb Erekat Sarah Schulman Saudi Arabia saudi vice self-death self-death palestinians Seth Rogen settlements sex crimes SFSU shechita sheikh tamimi Shelly Yachimovich Shujaiyeh Simchat Torah Simona Sharoni SodaStream South Africa Sovereignty Speech stamps Superman Syria Tarabin Temple Mount Terrorism This is Zionism Thomas Friedman TOI Tomer Ilan Trump Trump Lame Duck Test Tunisia Turkey UAE Accord UCI UK UN UNDP unesco unhrc UNICEF United Arab Emirates Unity unrwa UNRWA hate unrwa reports UNRWA-USA unwra Varda Vic Rosenthal Washington wikileaks work accident X-washing Y. Ben-David Yemen YMikarov zahran Ziesel zionist attack zoo Zionophobia Ziophobia Zvi

Blog Archive