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Thursday, March 31, 2016

From Ian:

Evelyn Gordon: ISIS Makes the EU More Anti-Israel
Like every major Islamist attack in Europe, last week’s terror attacks in Brussels left many Israelis wondering whether Europeans will finally understand what Israel faces. Unfortunately, such attacks are more likely to intensify anti-Israel activity in Europe. To understand why, it’s worth reading an article from the Islamic State magazine Al-Naba that propounds a surprising thesis: Jihad against Israel doesn’t take precedence over jihad anywhere else.
The article, translated by MEMRI, argued that the “Palestine first” slogan, which has reigned supreme for almost seven decades, has led good Muslims to ignore all the other places where jihad is no less necessary, or even more so. Indeed, it said, Muslims’ top priority should be purifying lands already under Islamic control, for both religious and practical reasons. Religiously speaking, “The apostate [tyrants] who rule the lands of Islam are graver infidels than [the Jews].” And practically speaking, defeating Israel won’t be possible without first destroying neighboring Arab regimes that are its “first line of defense.” Consequently, “Waging jihad with the aim of replacing the rule of the Jews with a regime like that of those who currently rule Gaza and the West Bank is jihad that is null and void,” because it would just replace infidel Jews with infidel Muslims.
But fighting Jews also doesn’t take precedence over “fighting the Crusaders and all the polytheists in the world,” the article stressed. In fact, “Muslims everywhere should fight the infidels nearest to them,” since that’s where they have the best chance of succeeding.
That last sentence sums up why Islamic State’s approach is Europe’s worst nightmare. For decades, Europe had a cushy arrangement: All the world’s jihadists were so fixated on Israel that they were willing to overlook longstanding hatreds against “Crusader” Europe, as long as Europe would help them wage war on Israel. As Manfred Gerstenfeld pointed out this week, many European countries — including Switzerland, Germany, France and Italy — tried to take advantage of this offer: They sought deals under which Palestinian terrorists could operate freely in their countries – usually without fear of arrest, but with swift release guaranteed if arrests were necessitated by American pressure – and in exchange, the terrorists wouldn’t attack those countries.
UN Watch exposes bias of proposed Palestine investigators, incurs wrath of Palestinian delegation



Monday, March 28, 2016

From Ian:

Vic Rosenthal: Western morality and Islamic jihad
In order to survive, we must adopt a different world-view, one that – just as a small example – embraces the Talmudic principle that “when they rise up to kill you, come and kill them first” and rejects the idea that “terrorists are people too.”
Survival will require a more particularistic world-view in which our culture is considered more worthy of continuing than theirs. In this view, enemies are enemies, people to fight, not empathize with. If they try to kill our civilian populations, we must kill theirs too. Deterrence comes from fear, and fear is created by disproportionate responses, not offers to surrender territory. Honor – a concept that has been all but forgotten by the West – is of supreme importance to the jihadists, and we must maintain ours. A man or a nation without honor becomes a target. Killing terrorists who have tried to murder our people, whether on the spot (preferable) or with a sure and speedy death penalty, is a way of preserving our honor.
This kind of moral system is not barbarism. It was commonly accepted several decades ago, and would have been recognized by Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Thatcher. The ‘evolution’ of what we call morality since their day, which has brought us multiculturalism, post-colonialism, the insane political correctness in our universities, the UN Human Rights Commission, B’Tselem and Peace Now, has failed to stand against the assault of the Islamic jihad. It will not protect our culture, but rather will lead to its destruction at the hands of the true barbarians at our gates.
It’s time for a massive rethinking. Is it even possible that the West can turn itself around, can re-embrace the values that defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? And can it change attitudes and behavior in time to save itself? I have no idea.
But I suggest we start here in Israel by dropping the charges against the soldier who simply did the job of every soldier from the beginning of warfare: he killed the enemy.
Noor Dahri: The difference between Palestinian resistance and terrorism: Hamas aren’t freedom fighters
I am heeding to the baseless statement of every Muslim organisation and individual that advocates that the Palestinians are resisting for their rights, their freedom and their stolen land. I asked them many questions regarding the difference between terrorism and resistance, but they could not satisfy me. We cannot label any individual as a terrorist or a freedom fighter but have to examine them through a clear definition of terrorism and Guerrilla warfare.
No doubt, there are 109 definitions of terrorism in the universe but the basic elucidation of terrorism is that mostly civilians have been targeted to attain a political goal. The majority of Muslims experts understand that terrorism and killing of innocent people is prohibited in Islam. Therefore, they do not support any type of terrorism but when the matter of Israel-Palestine raises, they change their posture and support Palestinian terrorism and justify it by stating that Israel is committing atrocities against the Palestinians. Why do they have a double standard when the situation comes to the Israel?
This is the ideology of anti-Semitism. I call it an ideology because hatred towards Jews is their religious obligation to perform whatever the social condition of the person, s/he gives birth to hate Israel and its Jewish citizens.
Killing an injured terrorist may be wrong, but it isn't murder either
Well, it wasn't. In fact, after half a year of daily attacks (and decades of brutal terrorism before that), that one soldier may have lost his calm and shot a would-be murderer in the head is far less worthy of outrage than the daily acts of Arab terror we have sadly become inured to. If anything, we should give pause for thought to just how few such incidents have occurred in spite of the huge pressure and constant dangers faced by IDF soldiers.
To those who answer with the predictable "we should be better than them," I would say that - apart from being a fundamentally racist sentiment (why are "we" better than "them"?) - I personally have no desire to be held to a "higher standard" than anyone else. "Higher standards," too, are a form of racism, particularly when - as is the case with Israel in the kangaroo court of international opinion - they magically apply only to our obligations, but afford us no greater rights or legitimacy.
So, as Israel navigates the difficult yet crucial task of enforcing the rule of law even on the complex and morally challenging battlefield, we must resist the urge to leap to uninformed conclusions, as well as the groupthink which pushes us to sympathize with the terrorist as a victim, and to view the soldier as a cold-blooded killer.
What happens subsequently is up to the military court to decide, and we should be proud of the State of Israel for that.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: A terrorist attack has happened in Europe. Let the standard response begin…
Well at least we all know the form by now. This morning Islamist suicide-bombers struck one of the few European capitals they haven’t previously hit in a mass-casualty terrorist attack.
The standard response now goes as follows. First the body parts of innocent people are flung across airport check-ins or underground trains. Briefly there is some shock. On social media the sentimentalists await the arrival of this atrocity’s cutesy hashtag or motif and hope it will tide them over until the piano man arrives at the scene of the attack to sing ‘Imagine there’s no countries’. Meantime someone will hopefully have said something which a lot of people can condemn as ‘inappropriate’. I see that the Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson was this morning’s Twitter miscreant, foolish enough to say in the wake of the Brussels attack that the EU might not make us very safe. One may agree or disagree with this sentiment, but Ms Pearson should have known that the only acceptable thing to do after a suicide bomber detonates beside the European Commission is to acclaim the Commission as one of the few entities able to keep us safe.
We will shortly move to the next phase, which is to find a good news story amid the rubble. Anything will do, but best of all is a Muslim good news story. After Paris it was swiftly reported that one of the suicide bombers at Stade de France had been turned away by a brave Muslim security guard. The story whizzed around the world before anyone could check whether it was true. It wasn’t. But people needed it to be. Not because Muslims don’t do good deeds, but because in the wake of any Islamist terrorist attack people need people opposed to the bombers to be Muslim and the bombers themselves not to be Muslim. Then the good Muslim can represent Islam while the bad Muslims can be said to have nothing to do with it.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Europe must confront its reality
Belgium schools teach their students the Holocaust. One textbook includes a caricature of a Jew on a barbed wire fence with the inscription "never again." Just beside him, there is a Palestinian on the same fence with the inscription "once again!" The text book includes an explanation of the caricature, making clear its message: "The interpretation for 'never again' is what happened under Hitler will never happen again. The interpretation of 'once again' is what is happening today is exactly what happened under Hitler. Concentration camps were fenced off by barbed wire and today the border between Israel and Palestine is barbed wire and a wall."
When polls in Europe indicate that Europeans think what the Jewish state does to Palestinians is what the Nazis did to Jews, one should recall public education. This poison has not been injected only into the older generation of Belgians, but also the hundreds of thousands of Muslim youth studying in Belgium's education system. Combined with incitement in mosques, frustration with discrimination and claims of discrimination, propaganda from Arab TV networks, it becomes clear dangerous weeds are growing in the backyard.
The Belgians like many others in Europe believe that their enmity towards Israel grants them immunity from attacks. They do not understand that exactly the opposite is true: As long as incitement against Israel rises to new heights, hatred for Europe will rise to new heights. Europe will have to explain why its relations with Israel are flourishing, if Jews behave like Nazis. How can Europeans cooperate with Nazis? Not only Jews deserve to be punished, but also young Belgian collaborators as well.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

From Ian:

Settlements Equal Security
One of the most intriguing findings in the sweeping Pew survey of Israel released last week was a sharp rise in the proportion of Israeli Jews who said settlements are beneficial to Israeli security. As recently as 2013, the survey noted, a plurality of Israeli Jews (35 percent) accepted the global consensus that settlements harm Israel’s security. But in the new poll, an even larger plurality deemed settlements beneficial to Israel’s security – 42 percent, up from 31 percent in 2013. Only 30 percent deemed settlements detrimental, while 25 percent said they make no difference to Israeli security. This shift in public opinion reflects both a growing conviction that Israel’s security requires the Israel Defense Forces to remain in at least part of the West Bank, and a growing recognition that settlements are the anchor keeping the IDF from leaving.
Three significant events occurred between the earlier poll, conducted in March-April 2013, and the latest one, conducted from October 2014 to May 2015: the Gaza war of summer 2014, the virtual collapse of UN peacekeeping forces on the Golan Heights, and the failed Israeli-Palestinian talks led by Secretary of State John Kerry. All had a major impact on how Israelis understood their own security.
The war solidified an Israeli consensus that the unilateral pullout from Gaza was disastrous, with even opposition leader Isaac Herzog admitting that “from a security perspective, the disengagement was a mistake.” There were two reasons for this. First, despite two previous wars with Hamas since the 2005 disengagement, Israeli casualties in both were low enough that on balance, the pullout seemed to have saved soldiers’ lives. This time, military casualties were so high (66 soldiers killed) that, as I explained in detail here, keeping the IDF in Gaza would actually have cost fewer lives than leaving did. Second, while Hamas had bombarded Israel with thousands of rockets and mortars ever since the pullout, it had previously mainly targeted the south. During the 2014 war, sustained rocket fire for the first time hit the center of the country, where most Israelis live.
MEMRI: Incitement To Terrorism By Palestinian Civil Society Organizations That Receive Foreign Funding
Some Palestinian civil society organizations operating in the West Bank that receive funding from Western countries, institutions, and foundations are openly expressing support for terrorism. They express this support with ceremonies exalting terrorists, with public displays of support for attacks and their perpetrators, by lionizing terrorists, and by posting inciting content on social media.
The following are several examples of such organizations:
The Palestinian Bar Association Awards Honorary Attorney's Certificate To Muhammad Al-Halabi, Who Killed Two In Jerusalem; Encourages Participation In Stabbers' Funerals
The Palestinian Bar Association is the official body for Palestinian attorneys in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[1] It receives regular funding from the EU, and has received aid from the EU Police Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EUPOL COPPS), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and UN Women.[2] It also maintains cooperation ties with the International Legal Foundation (ILF).[3]
On October 10, 2015, the bar association announced that it would be posthumously awarding an honorary attorney's certificate to Muhannad Al-Halabi, who was killed after stabbing two people to death in the Old City of Jerusalem on October 3, 2015 and wounding a woman and a two-year-old baby.
Increasing Signs that Hamas, Not Frustration, Is Behind the New Intifada
The latest wave of terror in Israel may not be conducted by “lone wolves,” as is commonly believed, but guided by the hidden hand of Hamas, a leader terror researcher has reported.
Shaul Bartal of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies wrote that obscuring the genesis and motivations of such attacks is a common Hamas tactic. The Iran-backed terror organization is “aware of the many advantages and the protection that deception and obscuration provides its operatives, their families and the organization’s institutions,” he wrote. “The Sunni organization uses the concept of concealment (‘taqiyyah’) which is more common in Shiite Islam, in order to make political and propaganda gains, mostly in order to change its image as a terror organization and present itself to the world as a legitimate organization.”
While Bartal acknowledged that “lone wolf” terrorists carry out their attacks “without any proven connection or direct order from the organization they belong to,” he found connections to Hamas in many cases.

Sunday, March 06, 2016

From Ian:

PMW YouTube account "terminated" for exposing PA hate speech
Dear PMW subscribers,
Following Palestinian Media Watch's release of a video on Thursday in which a Palestinian girl read a poem on official PA TV calling for "war that will smash the oppressor and destroy the Zionist's soul," YouTube "terminated" PMW's account for violating their "terms of service," which includes hate speech. The terminated account, https://www.youtube.com/user/palwatch/, contains nearly all of PMW's videos.
We urge anyone with contacts at Google or YouTube to contact them and request that PMW's account be reinstated. Others can send a message to YouTube by clicking the "Send feedback" link at the bottom of YouTube's homepage.
It is outrageous that YouTube closed PMW's account, which is a blow to the war on terror. This is particularly dangerous now while Israel is fighting a war against Palestinian terror. PMW documentation on PMW's YouTube account shows the PA and Fatah leaders' support and promotion of the terror.
PMW's exposure of Palestinian incitement and hate speech is recognized and used by parliaments and governments around the world. On Friday, a 25-minute debate took place in Swedish Parliament in which the PA's support for the current terror was discussed, and the proof was based entirely on PMW documentation - most of which is no longer accessible on PMW's YouTube account.
PMW is urging YouTube to immediately reinstate PMW's account and all PMW videos, and is calling to our subscribers to help put pressure on Google.
Confronting Bassem Tamimi at UC Berkeley
Some Jews, apparently are tired of being a "model minority".
Bassem Tamini, an anti-Israel activist from Nabi Saleh may be best known as the man who takes his young children to anti-Israel riots, in hopes of creating a viral photo op. He's the dad of the notorious pre-pubescent "Shirley Temper", budding star of ubiquitous Pallywood productions.
Tamimi took his dog and pony show on the road last autumn, promoted widely by the usual suspects. He had several Bay area appearances, soliciting donations. (only cash- no checks)
On Oct 2 Tamimi spoke in small classroom in UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall, sparsely attended by several dozen people.
Showing astonishing bravery, a young man entered the classroom and confronted Tamini about his history of terror, antisemitism and even murder. It was a move straight from the playbook of the Israel haters. (h/t Bob Knot)


How Israel will win the public diplomacy war
It is rare for a newspaper column to read as a “how to” manual. But in this case, I have no choice – frustration has reached an all-time high.
We know that if Israel laid down its arms it would be destroyed, while if Hamas would drop its arms, and the Palestinian Authority would stop the incitement, there would be peace in Israel. We know that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East, and the only country in the region that provides equal rights for all people regardless of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation.
And yet, despite this, data presented to me at a recent meeting with one of the top polling companies in the United States shows that we are failing to convey this reality.
In the poll conducted just two weeks ago, only 39 percent of US college students said that they believe that Israel is a civilized, Western country; only 31% of them believe Israel is a democratic country; and as a result of not telling our story properly, a mere 28% of college students believe that the United States should side with Israel in the current conflict.
This is an all-time low.
But it gets worse: 21% believe that the US should side with the Palestinians! Furthermore, among a category of people labeled as “opinion elite” in the US, 38% believe that Israel is a racist country, 48% say that Israel is responsible for human rights abuses, and 45% believe Israel is practicing apartheid on Palestinian land.
Only 67% of those “opinion elite” in the US believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors. (In Canada that number drops to 43% and in the United Kingdom it’s 36%); 46% believe that Israeli “occupation” results in more terrorism in the US; and 19% believe that boycotts against Israel are justified.
And finally, given all of the above, it is not surprising to learn that 17% of Jewish college students refuse to advocate for Israel.

Friday, March 04, 2016

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: How the West undermines Jewish survival
At Jewish Book Week in London a few days ago, I took part in a panel discussion about the most pressing questions facing Jews today.
I raised one that has long been bothering me – whether Western secular values were undermining the ability of the Jewish people to survive.
Across the West, there has been a terrifying rise in anti-Jewish feeling. This is fueled by an unprecedented campaign of lies and libels against Israel aimed at destroying it through delegitimization.
This campaign displays the same signature motifs of classic Jew-hatred that go back through the centuries.
But some of its principal leaders are Jews. So Jew-hatred can’t be the whole story.
The core of this problem is the tremendous cultural shift that has taken place in the West. Centered in the intelligentsia, this ditched the Judeo-Christian moral codes underpinning Western civilization in favor of hyper-individualism.
“What is right” was replaced by “what is right for me.”
Feelings replaced authority. There was no longer any such thing as objective truth. Everything was subjective and relative.
Caroline Glick: Clinton, Libya and Israel
The messages from Washington ahead of Vice President Joe Biden’s arrival in Israel next week show President Barack Obama’s hostile policies toward Israel will maintained until he leaves office.
In recent weeks, the administration has warned various government ministers that any construction of housing for Jews in Jerusalem will be viewed with hostility by the administration. In contrast, the administration is pressuring Israel to permit construction of homes for Arabs in its capital city and harshly opposes all moves by the government to destroy illegal construction in Arab neighborhoods and in Judea and Samaria.
In other words, it is the Obama administration’s policy to deny Jews our civil and property rights while it demands that Israel not assert its sovereignty over non-Jews.
Whether or not Obama’s anti-Israel policies will survive his tenure in office depends on who succeeds him. If Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is elected to serve as the next president, there is no question that they will survive him.
During her four years as Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton was a full partner in Obama’s hostile policies toward Israel. Moreover, as her internal emails have shown, all of Clinton’s close advisers are hostile to Israel. The good news for Israel is that Clinton’s chances of election are not as great as they seem from the polls.
Watchdog Calls on America’s UN Ambassador to ‘End Silence’ on Anti-Israel Incitement by US-Funded UNRWA Staff
United States Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power’s “strict silence over repeated cases of bigotry and hatred from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is deeply troubling,” the head of an international human rights NGO told The Algemeiner on Thursday.
UN Watch executive director Hillel C. Neuer was expounding on the reason his group issued a public call on Power “to end her silence over continued anti-Israeli incitement from UNRWA… At a time when the United States is giving an astonishing $400 million a year to a UN agency that is supposed to be strictly focused on humanitarian relief.”
Neuer was reacting to what he called “only the latest egregious breach of neutrality by UNRWA-associated officials”: the endorsement on social media of “Israeli Apartheid Week” by the UN body’s US Director of Communications Laila Mokhiber.
According to Neuer, Mokhiber deleted her Twitter account, containing anti-Israel content, after being criticized by followers. Meanwhile, pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon reported on Wednesday that Mokhiber’s Facebook page was still up and running, and “shows plenty of other anti-Israel activity and support for terrorists,” among them Rasmea Odeh.

Thursday, March 03, 2016

From Ian:

What a Palestinian State Looks Like
When European nations and even some American Jews proclaim their support for Palestinian statehood, one must always ask which state are they talking about? Is it the demilitarized one that is prepared to live in peace with Israel that everyone fantasizes about? Or will it resemble the only Palestinian Arab state that has ever existed — the one that has transformed Gaza into an Islamist tyranny in which even the leaders of the group can be purged with impunity.
We may not have much sympathy for Mahmoud Ishtiwi, whose secret private life might have been revealed because of charges of embezzlement. But, like others who refused to conform to Hamas theocratic dictates, there was only one fate possible for him in the Palestinian state. The nature of Palestinian society may not justify Israel holding onto territory that might be traded for peace if an end to the conflict was possible, which is unfortunately not the case with either Fatah or Hamas. But so long as Palestinians are oppressed by theocrats whose priority is a terrorist war to destroy Israel, more Israeli withdrawals are out of the question.
Yet far from being tangential to the question of theoretical land-for-peace deals, there is very little chance of the Palestinians ever embracing coexistence and ending their century-long war against Zionism so long as they are lead by the sort of group that would execute a gay man for the crime of being gay.
As a lively and free democratic country, Israel’s reputation doesn’t need to be pinkwashed because of the freedom that gays enjoy there. But those crying for Palestinian freedom should start by campaigning to free the Palestinian people from their gay-killing Hamas tyrants before worrying about Israel’s actions. Until they do, those claiming that human rights are only an issue if the topic can be used against Israel should be labeled as hypocrites and liars.
JCPA: Palestinian Authority Funding to Terrorists and their Families
Blood Money Incitement
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is responsible for one more nefarious form of incitement to attack Jews – paying large bounties to the attackers and their families. An attacker can go out to commit murder assured that if he is arrested he will receive a monthly salary; if he is killed, his family will receive a monthly pension; and if his family home is destroyed, the family will receive a very generous award to rebuild their home.
Rather than being deterred by the harsh consequence of their terrorist attack at Israel’s hand, the perpetrators are actually encouraged and incentivized by the Palestinian leadership. According to one study published by the Gatestone Institute, “Terrorists in prison receive higher average salary than PA civil servants and military personnel.”
An Israeli government 2014 memorandum, citing official PA budgetary reports, noted that $75.5 million had been paid out in stipends to convicted terrorists and their families in 2012.
The instructions for compensation payments come from the highest levels of the Palestinian Authority, according to the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed website in February 2014: “The Jerusalem Martyrs’ families and the National ‎Campaign to Return the Bodies of the ‎Martyrs confirmed that ‎President Mahmoud Abbas promised to ‎compensate the Jerusalem Martyrs’ ‎families for their homes, which the ‎occupation forces demolished or ‎damaged.”
Guy Bechor: Meanwhile in Syria, the pseudo-ceasefire
The Americans are not talking about any violations of the 'cessation of hostilities' in Syria, because to them, there aren't any. Europe pays the price of Washington's failed foreign policies, while Israel stands firm.
The Americans' delusional foreign policy is not just in Syria but also in Iraq. Just recently, Obama was boasting that ISIS was retreating and had weakened. So how come ISIS managed to commit a serious attack 10 kilometers from the international airport in Baghdad, the lifeline of the Shiite Iraqi regime? Not to mention the way ISIS is fooling Iraqi soldiers in Ramadi and other cities, succeefully killing hundreds of people every month in attacks. The Iraqi army hesitates to directly fight ISIS, which continues to grow in strength and draw Sunnis into its fold.
Where were the Americans in the battles on Sunday? According to Iraqi reports (which were also sort of delusional) ISIS retreated, but it is also remains everywhere in the western and northern part of the country. Even the US understands that its bombings don’t really help. Will Obama put American boots on the ground? I doubt it. That is why the Americans are stuck with no way out in Iraq as well, despite their many attempts.
They overthrew Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Qaddafi, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Ali Abdullah Saleh because of their delusions. Took down the leaders and caused a storm.
And they didn't just do this in Syria and Iraq, but also in Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Tunis, and among the Sunnis in the land of Israel (who used to be called "Palestinians"). Was it not John Kerry who tried to reach a peace agreement here two years ago and failed? Then, like today, this was a policy of delusions.
Just like there can be no arrangement with the mass murderer Assad, there can be no arrangement with Abbas' gang, and now it's Europe’s turn to pay the price of this foreign policy. The only country that remains with its feet firmly on the ground and did not capitulate to the imaginary reality produced by the West - was Israel.

  • Thursday, March 03, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ammon News:
Jordan's General Intelligent Department (GID), Wednesday said its personnel foiled a terror plot planned by Daesh affiliates to carry out attacks on civil and military targets in the Kingdom.

During the clashes, Captain Rashed Zyoud was killed and five other security personnel as well two civilians were injured .

A statement by the GID revealed that following thorough intelligence , security personnel were able to identify the location of the terrorists, who were hiding in a residential building in the northern city of Irbid.

After they refused to surrender and opened fire from their automatic weapons, a special force dealt with the incident and killed 7 of the armed terrorists, who were wearing explosives belts, and arrested 13 member of the group, the statement added.
Irbid is not far at all from Israel.

From JPost:
An Egyptian military effort to recruit and arm tribal fighters to take on Islamic State militants in the Sinai is failing, according to security sources, Sinai residents and tribal figures.

The military launched the program with much fanfare last year and tribal leaders pledged to provide hundreds of fighters. But the number of fighters in the field is no more than 35, security sources say. The scheme has been hampered by the military's reluctance to provide weapons to local fighters and by attacks by Islamic State, which are scaring off would-be tribal troops.
Also from JPost:
The Shin Bet and the Israel Police in a joint operation recently arrested two Arab-Israeli men who allegedly supported the Islamic State and who are suspected in connection with the execution of a terrorist attack.

The two men, Bahaa Aldin Ziad a 19-year-old man from Yafia and Ahmed Nabil Ahmed Ahmed 21-year-old man from Nazareth were arrested in January and February.

The Shin Bet investigation revealed that in the past months the two prayed at the al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem every week. The two decided that on one of their journeys to the mosque they would open fire on Israeli security forces as an act of identification with Islamic State and the desire to carry out jihad in the group's name.
Now, imagine how successful Daesh would be in a Palestinian state that cannot even decide who should run it.


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Wednesday, March 02, 2016

From Ian:

PA TV kids poem: “To war that will… destroy the Zionist's soul”
A poem that directs Palestinian children to seek “war that will smash the oppressor and destroy the Zionist's soul” was chanted recently by a young girl on the PA TV program Children’s Talk. The PA TV host responded with excited applause and praise.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that PA TV has broadcast several children reciting this same poem calling to “destroy the Zionist's soul” in the past:
Minas: “I am a Palestinian, my name is Palestinian
I’ve etched my name on all the town squares...
Saladin (i.e., Muslim conqueror of Jerusalem), calls to me from the depths of my heart
All my Arabness calls me to vengeance and liberation...
Thousands of prisoners and thousands who are jailed
call to this great nation and call to the millions
They say: To Jerusalem, the [first] direction of prayer in the faith [Islam]
To war that will smash the oppressor and destroy the Zionist's soul
and raise the Palestinian banner in the world’s sky
and strengthen my word that goes on: Palestinian, Palestinian, Palestinian."

Official PA TV host: “Superb, superb. Bravo, bravo, bravo. You are very talented.”
[Official PA TV, Feb. 19, 2016]


Edgy campaign seeks ICC war crimes case against Palestinian Authority TV
Oprah Winfrey isn’t giving away a car to her studio audience in the video; rather, she’s making a bold, bizarre call for violence that isn’t suitable for daytime TV, or any TV for that matter.
“America, kill Muslims”, Winfrey says, before she’s replaced by Kevin Spacey’s Congressman Francis Underwood from “House of Cards”, who leans into the camera and says “as soon as I get to the presidency I will kill Muslims and nobody can stop me”.
The dubbing is good enough, but truth be told the statements are part of a new campaign by the Israeli NGO Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center that is meant to highlight the incitement on Palestinian TV as part of a criminal complaint to be filed to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
“Of course American TV would never really call of the murder of Muslims, but Palestinian TV incites for the murder of innocent Jews every single day,” the NGO says in the video accompanying the campaign, before presenting a series of clips from Palestinians TV calling for the murder of Jews.
Shurat Hadin said in a statement on Wednesday that they intend to collect thousands of signatures which can be submitted to the ICC as part of a criminal complaint against the heads of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation Riad al-Hassan and Ahmed Assaf.
“In the recent wave of terror attacks many of the terrorists launched their attacks after they watched programming which called very clearly for the killing of Jews,” Shurat Hadin said in the statement.
The Things American TV Would Never Say About Muslims!


The Peace Process that Matters
I just returned from a few weeks in America, where the only thing from Israel that makes the news is the ongoing Palestinian violence. So it was a pleasant surprise to come home and discover that the peace process is actually progressing quite nicely. I don’t, of course, mean the one the West is fixated on, the consistently fruitless and currently nonexistent “peace process” with the Palestinians. I mean the far more important process of creeping normalization with the rest of the Arab world, which will not only improve Israel’s long-term security, but is probably essential for any progress on the Palestinian track.
As the Jerusalem Post reported last week, Israel is becoming an increasingly important player in the Arab world’s trade with Europe. Until a few years ago, the main overland route for this trade was through Syria. But with the Syrian civil war having made that impossible, a growing proportion now comes by ferry from Turkey to Haifa, then trucks across Israel to Jordan. This route is cheaper than the other main alternative, which involves shipping from Europe to Egypt.
Last year, some 13,000 trucks used the Israel route, up more than 25 percent from the previous year. And next month, a new shipping line between Turkey and Israel is slated to be inaugurated, enabling another 150 trucks per month. Israel’s Sheikh Hussein border crossing with Jordan is being expanded to handle the increase.
All this obviously benefits Israel’s economy, since Israel collects duties on every truckload. More importantly, however, it means that Israel – for virtually the first time since its establishment in 1948 – is playing a useful role in the broader regional economy rather than being largely isolated from it. And the more Israel’s Arab neighbors benefit from Israel’s stability, the more they will have an interest in trying to maintain that stability rather than disrupting it.

Monday, February 29, 2016

From Ian:

PA TV Antisemitism: When fish in the sea fight, "the Jews are behind it"
The Palestinian Authority teaches that Jews are "evil" and the source of all bad in the world. An official PA TV host and preacher of Islam explained in his weekly education program about Islam, that as long as Jews are spreading their corruption "humanity will never live in comfort." He illustrated this with an example: "An old man told me: If a fish in the sea fights with another fish, I am sure the Jews are behind it":
"Humanity will never live in comfort as long as the Jews are causing devastating corruption throughout the land. Humanity will never live in peace or fortune or tranquility as long as they are corrupting the land. An old man told me: If a fish in the sea fights with another fish, I am sure the Jews are behind it. As Allah says: ''Every time they kindled the fire of war [against you], Allah extinguished it. They strive throughout the land [causing] corruption, and Allah does not like corrupters'' (Sura 5:64)." [Official PA TV, Feb. 27, 2016]
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Antisemitism is a fundamental principle of PA ideology. Antisemitic hate speech was recently voiced by PA Chairman Abbas' advisor, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who said that throughout history Jews have represented "evil," "falsehood," "the devils" and "the satans," and accordingly Israel is "Satan's project." Islam and the Palestinians on the other hand constitute "the good" and "Allah's project":
"Jews are causing devastating corruption throughout the land" - Muslim preacher on PA TV


Isi Leibler: Despite World Challenges, Israel Is Stronger Than Ever
The same applies to Israel internationally. The US will in the long run remain Israel’s best friend and most important ally. Hopefully, the next president shall reflect the positive public support for Israel in the US and reverse the recent erosion of Israel’s international standing by restoring the close bonds between both countries.
But after our experience with the Obama administration, it is crucial that we broaden alliances. The European Union is unlikely to become a friend of Israel, but it is becoming a weaker force and we should seek to strengthen ties with individual European countries. The recent realignment with Greece and Cyprus – former adversaries – is an example. There is also the extraordinary – albeit highly delicate – positive relationship with the Russians and other East European countries.
There has also been extraordinary progress with the three major Asian countries – India, China and Japan, all of whom are today deeply engaged in trade with Israel.
Finally, the upheaval in Syria, the threat of Iran and the emergence of ISIS has brought Israel close to unspoken alliances with Egypt and some of the Gulf States including, ironically Saudi Arabia, the source of Wahhabism and the export of much Islamic extremism throughout the world. Their antisemitism remains unchanged but temporary alliances to confront the threats from the Iranians and ISIS has created strange bedfellows.
Despite the mushrooming antisemitism facing Jews in the Diaspora, especially in Europe, and notwithstanding the despicable bias the Jewish state faces at the UN and other international bodies, Israel today is in an objectively stronger position than it has ever been. But Jews and Israel must be prepared to be more flexible with their allies than has been the case hitherto. In order to be an or l’goyim – a light unto the nations – we must first ensure our own security and only then we can concentrate on tikkun ha’olam – repairing the world.
David Singer: End the West Bank Refugee Gravy Train
As of 14 September 2015, 136 of the 193 United Nations member states have been playing the PLO name-game change and recognised the “State of Palestine”.
These 136 States now need to answer two questions:
1. How can any person living in his own country still be classified as a refugee?
2. Shouldn’t the 760,000 registered Palestinian Arab refugees living in the West Bank have their refugee status revoked and be resettled and fully integrated among their fellow Palestinian Arabs?
Claiming the trappings of Statehood – whilst segregating its citizens into two different classes – is a recipe for continuing tension and future conflict.
Change the name – change the game – but be prepared to accept the consequences.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

From Ian:

Exclusive: JPost speaks to ICC Prosecutor Bensouda about Israel's fate on war crimes
The 54-year-old Gambian Bensouda came out of the gates in her relationship with Israel mostly under attack by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for recognizing Palestine as a state for the purposes of her office deciding to open a preliminary examination into whether Israel and the Palestinians have committed war crimes.
Since her recognition on January 16, 2015 and her explanation that she felt compelled, in her own decision, to follow the UN General Assembly’s vote upgrading Palestine's status within the UN, Jerusalem has worried that she would follow the UNGA and what is viewed as a general anti-Israel atmosphere in future decisions as well.
On Monday, Ms. Bensouda, who spent almost a decade as deputy chief prosecutor before taking the top job, put those concerns to rest.
In one of the most intense exchanges of the interview that will be music to Israel’s ears, Ms. Bensouda said that “the UN General Assembly do not tell me what to do, that the prosecutor should act in this way or that way, unless of course it is in accordance with the statute.”
Asked if this meant that the UNGA is now out of the picture of her legal conclusions, Bensouda, in one of her rare emotional moments of the interview where she let down her guard, said forcefully, “Completely! I’m not even thinking of why they would tell me why I should take this case and not this case. That would be interfering with my independence.”
The ICC chief prosecutor was clear that Palestine's upgraded status within the UN by the UNGA in 2012 as “a non-member observer State” was relevant to her determination of whether it could accede to the Rome Statue, the Court’s founding treaty. This was for technical reasons, but she emphasized that she will never take directives from them, or any other institution, when deciding the central question of the war crimes debate: whether the IDF’s investigative apparatus for the 2014 Gaza war complies with international standards.
But Palestinians can take comfort in some of her other positions or non-positions (with Bensouda, like many legal officials, observers are sometimes left grasping at non-answers to shed light on issues which the official does not wish to discuss.) Israel tends to lose most battles in the international arena, with the exception being cases in which specific international figures are, from the start, ready to go against the grain and recognize the complex challenges it encounters in fighting its neighbors.
Bensouda is not ready to declare her acceptance of Israeli exceptionalism.
World Council of Churches Demonizes Israel - Again
Usually, in regular Lenten services, solemn memories of divine mercy on the sinners of the world take center stage for Christians. But not in this liturgy. Center stage was instead given to committing a sin of evil speech: launching a lie about an Israeli-made water shortage suffered by Palestinians. The lie is a sin in which all the member churches of the WCC are invited to participate.
Those leaders of Protestant churches, turned into political propagandists, used the pulpit of Jerusalem unjustly to call upon the Protestant faithful worldwide to listen to Palestinian water libels against the State of Israel.
This liturgy abused the biblical readings as a means of invigorating the equally false Kairos Palestine message, that Israel takes the Land of Palestine and has no right to be where it is.
A close look shows no scientific analysis, neither of water distribution nor of water politics for the territories of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The Palestinians certainly are experiencing a water crisis; the question is to what extent are they themselves are responsible for it, and to what extent are their own leaders responsible for keeping them as victims for effective international "marketing."
Honest Reporting: Is Israel an Apartheid State?
As Israeli Apartheid Week organizers prepare a series of public events demonizing Israel, we examine whether anything they say is actually true. Like it or not, they’ll probably be on your (or your children’s) college campus within the month.


Friday, February 19, 2016

From Ian:

Writer Houellebecq: Palestinians have lost legitimacy
Famed French writer Michel Houellebecq defended Israel in an interview he gave to the popular magazine Le Point, which devoted a journalistic project to the Jews of France.
According to news site Walla, Houellebecq – who is not Jewish – has identified as pro-Israeli for several years. He reconfirmed this position in the interview, and explained: "Israel is more moral than the Palestinians. At first I was neutral, but the Palestinian suicide bombings shocked me. Unlike the Israelis, who strike at pre-marked targets, the Palestinian attacks are blind, and that is much less moral. The end does not justify the means, and that is why the Palestinians have lost legitimacy in my eyes."
Houellebecq blamed the French Left for turning Israel into an enemy and inciting French Muslims against it. Intellectuals, journalists and radical leftist politicians, he said, are the ones responsible for the tension between the Muslim and Jewish communities in France.
"What connection is there between Muslims in France and the Palestinians?" he asked. "Why do the Muslims in France not raise a hue and cry about what is happening to their brothers in Africa and Asia, but only (do so) about their Palestinian brothers? It is only the fault of the radical Left's anti-Israeliness and its connection to Islam."
Caroline Glick: Israel’s dangerous consensus
Recently I found myself in a chance conversation with a former head of the Mossad’s Directorate of Operations. The former master spy, whom I had never met before, knew that I am a journalist.
He was aware of my political views.
Directing his remarks at a friend of mine, he declared that 99 percent of Mossad and Shin Bet officers are leftists. He then added triumphantly that according to a former commander of the air force whose name he cited, 99% of the air force’s pilots are similarly leftists.
Initially, I dismissed his comments as obnoxious chest-beating by a man who felt like irritating a group of right-wingers.
But given the source, it is impossible to simply brush off what he said. And to be clear, far more troubling than the prospect that Israel’s security establishment is uniformly leftist is the notion that there is any intellectual or ideological uniformity of any kind in the ranks of our defense community.
But given our defense community’s record in recent years, there is ample reason to believe that there is more than a grain of salt in the spy chief’s boast.
Consider Israel’s handling of Gaza.
21-Year-Old Israeli Killed in Palestinian Stabbing Spree in West Bank Supermarket
Two Palestinian teenage terrorists on Thursday stabbed two Israelis at a supermarket north of Jerusalem.
The Israeli victims, ages 21 and 35, were evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital. The 21-year-old later died from his wounds. The attackers, Bassem Subach and Omar Salim, both 14, were also taken to the hospital after being shot by armed civilians at the scene of the attack—the Rami Levy supermarket in the Sha’ar Binyamin area.
The civilians who stopped the attackers, Ben Hamo and Hanamel Even Chen, recounted the attack in interviews with Israel National News.
“I came to shop at Rami Levy, I was in the aisle of aluminum foil and the like, Shabbat candles, and suddenly I heard shouts and immediately I understood that an attack was happening,” Hamo said.
“I ran in the direction of the shouts, I saw a terrorist in front of me with a knife in hand approaching me,” he said. “I told him, ‘Stop, throw away the knife.’ He took another step, I shot him with a precise bullet to bring him down.”

Saturday, February 13, 2016

From Ian:

CAMERA: Palestinian official takes time off from glorifying terrorists
H.E. Shukry Bishara, a finance minister for the Palestinian Authority (PA), omits much while claiming that “Aid to Palestine promotes peace and prosperity” (February 9)—perhaps omissions and distortions are essential to his fallacious argument.
Bishara claims that “Palestine” is “a dedicated partner for peace.” Yet, the PA has continued to celebrate terrorists who murder Jews. Five days before Bishara’s commentary was published in The Hill, PA President Mahmoud Abbas—currently in the tenth year of a single elected five-year term—hosted 11 families of terrorists in his office. Palestinian leaders rewarding terror is the rule, rather than the exception.
On Oct. 13, 2015, the PA Ministry of Education announced that it would plant olive trees and place signs with the names of Palestinian terrorists killed while attacking Israelis, among them Muhannad Shafeq Halabi, who murdered two Israelis and stabbed a two-year old child in what official PA media celebrated as a “martyrdom operation.” Halabi was also posthumously awarded a law degree and soil from the al-Aqsa mosque was brought to his grave by Abbas.
Besides offering praise, memorial degrees and tributes, the PA has incited terror attacks against Israelis. In a Sep. 16, 2015 speech that preceded the current “stabbing intifada,” Abbas said, “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.” This exhortation, played on official PA TV and featured on the PA’s Web site, can hardly be considered the words of a “partner for peace.”
When not glorifying or inciting terrorists, the PA is paying them.
CAMERA Letter Refutes False Commentary by Hill Contributor
Josh Ruebner offers to give Sen. Tom Cotton a geography lesson because the Arkansas Republican opposes discriminatory labeling of imports from Israeli settlements (“The West Bank and Gaza Strip are not Israel, Sen. Cotton,” February 8). It's Ruebner who needs a vocabulary lesson.
Ruebner, of the “U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation,” refers to “the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank (including East Jerusalem)….” But he also says “the ultimate disposition of these Palestinians lands can only be determined through bilateral negotiations.” If they're “Palestinian lands,” their disposition's already been determined. If their “ultimate disposition … can only be determined through bilateral negotiations,” then the territories in question are disputed, not Palestinian.
Ruebner notes that “in 1967, the United States played a seminal role in getting the United Nations to adopt Security Council Resolution 242, calling on Israel to withdraw ‘from territories occupied' in that year's war, which include the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” Resolution 242 does more than call on Israel to withdraw from some but not necessarily all territories it won in self-defense in 1967. It calls for “secure and recognized boundaries,” which Israel's pre-'67 armistice lines with Jordan on the West Bank and Egypt in the Gaza Strip manifestly were not. Israeli withdrawal, whatever its degree,is envisioned as the result of successful negotiations deciding the disposition of the territories, not something required prior.
Meanwhile, the resolution's co-author, U.S. Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow, noted Jews as well as Arabs have claims in the territories. As for “the illegality of Israeli settlements,” as Ruebner puts it, the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, Article 6, calls for “close Jewish settlement” on the land west of the Jordan River. The mandate, including Article 6, is upheld by the U.N. Charter, Chapter XII, Article 80. The United States long ago endorsed Great Britain's exercise of mandatory powers, including Article 6 (Anglo-American Convention, 1924). Claims to the contrary, whether made by Ruebner, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, or even U.S. administrations may be propagandistic, diplomatic, or political, but not legal.
Ben-Dror Yemini: Perpetuating the conflict
If a member of France's National Assembly had dared visit the Sint-Jans-Molenbeek neighborhood in Brussels, the home of some of the November 13 Paris terror attack perpetrators, and observe a minute of silence with the families of the murderers, he would have had to flee directly to Syria. He'd only be able to return to France in handcuffs. Excuses like "you have to understand the cultural context" would have been rejected out of hand. But MK Ayman Odeh dares complain about Israeli democracy. He's got some nerve.
The outrage at the three Balad MKs was not about their humanitarian mission to return the bodies of the terrorists and comfort bereaved families. The outrage exploded because of their show of solidarity with the families of the murderers, which was also expressed in a minute of silence in their memory. Odeh, by the way, claims there was no minute of silence. Really? Jamal Zahalka told Danny Kushmaro: "There was a minute of silence, as is the Palestinian custom."
MK Haneen Zoabi explained after the visit that the important thing was the struggle against the occupation. Indeed. Like her party members, she is talking about the 1948 occupation, not the 1967 one. She rejects the Jews' right to have a state of their own. She doesn't just support the "resistance," she also encourages it. And she, the so-called secular woman, also called to "put religious ceremonies and religious institutions in the center of the struggle," as well as "to cancel the security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and replace it with resistance."
And to those who insist on not getting it, "the resistance" ("al-Muqawamah") is also, and perhaps mostly, terrorism against Jews. And according to Zoabi, "there is no such thing as Palestinian terrorism." Not even the murder of the three yeshiva students. There's only a "legitimate struggle" and "resistance." It's no wonder Hamas views her as a heroine. Zoabi and her friends insist on perpetuating the conflict and perpetuating terrorism, they've been the Palestinians' catastrophe for the past 100 years of conflict. They're leading them from one disaster to the next, and they insist on carrying on.

Friday, February 12, 2016

  • Friday, February 12, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
Hamas isn't giving up.

Egypt has discovered another arms smuggling tunnel to Gaza, including a cache of arms and explosives.






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Tuesday, February 09, 2016

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Syria and the real demographic threat
Unfortunately, despite the collapse of Syria and Iraq, and despite the rising threats to Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, for the most part, Israeli analysts continue to base their view of Israel’s options moving forward – particularly in relation to the Palestinians – on a regional map that is no longer relevant.
Sunday the Labor Party endorsed party leader Isaac Herzog’s plan to unilaterally withdraw from much of Judea and Samaria. Given the regional population changes, the notion that Israel can transfer more land along its eastern flank to the chronically unstable, and hostile Palestinian Authority today is reckless at best. For all their weaknesses, both the Jordanian and Lebanese regimes are far stronger than the PA. And they have been unable to stop the refugee flows across their borders.
It is impossible to imagine that a Palestinian state on the western side of the Jordan River could block refugee flows from the east, particularly when the Palestinians demand the free immigration of millions of ethnic Palestinians from Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
The demographic transformation of Jordan and Lebanon in recent years shows that the greatest demographic threat to the remaining states in the region is not natural growth, but refugees from states that have collapsed. The integration of Palestinians into Israel is far less dangerous to the long-term survivability of Israel than the influx of millions of refugees from neighboring states into a Palestinian state on the western side of the Jordan River.
In the hopes of keeping the Syrians displaced by the war in their country from turning to Europe for refuge, last week Western countries held a donor conference for Syria in London.
Speaking at the conference King Abdullah warned that Jordan is at a “boiling point,” and told the West to commit to donating $1.6b. over the next three years before the “dam bursts.”
Unfortunately, the dam is already leaking. And if Israel doesn’t want to be flooded as well, the time has come to understand that old thinking about demography – and just about everything else – is no longer relevant.
3 Arab MPs suspended from Knesset following PMW report
3 Arab MPs suspended from Knesset after PMW exposed their meeting families of terrorists and their standing for "a minute of silence for the souls of the "Martyrs"
Two Israeli Parliamentary committees met yesterday in response to Palestinian Media Watch's report on Thursday, which exposed that three Arab MPs from the Balad Party met with families of terrorist murderers and stood for "a minute of silence for the souls of the "Shahids" (Martyrs). A video of the father of Baha Alyan - murderer of three Israelis, was posted by the Balad Party on its Facebook page, where the terrorist was referred to as "The Shahid (Martyr) Baha Alyan."
The Knesset House Committee met first and invited PMW director Itamar Marcus to present the information documenting the meeting of the Arab MPs. The Committee passed on its recommendations to the Knesset Ethics Committee which voted to suspend two of the MPs, Hanin Zoabi and Basel Ghattas, for 4 months each, and the third MP, Jamal Zahalka, for 2 months.
As part of his testimony, Itamar Marcus stressed the severity of the Balad Party's referring to the murderers as Shahids. He first explained the Islamic meaning of the words, citing a sermon from PA TV in which the PA Minister of Religious Affairs explained that: "The Shahid has merit with Allah, a merit that no one else has..."
PMW report triggers political storm in Israel
Palestinian Media Watch sparked a political storm in Israel on Thursday by releasing a report in Hebrew that documented that three Arab members of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, met with families of terrorists who recently attacked and murdered Israelis.
The meeting with the terrorists’ families was condemned all across the political spectrum from Prime Minister Netanyahu who said “those who comfort terrorists’ families don’t deserve to be Members of the Knesset,” and other heads of government, to leaders of the opposition parties (Their statements appear below). PM Netanyahu also asked the Attorney General and the Parliamentary Ethics Committee to investigate the Israeli Arab MPs.
As the political storm continued, PMW Itamar Marcus was invited to speak today in the House Committee of Israeli Parliament, which met to discuss different courses of action to take regarding the Israeli Arab MPs who met with terrorists’ families. Marcus showed committee members the original documentation exposing the meeting and showed additional documentation of Arab MPs defending the meeting.
Israeli TV interviews Itamar Marcus - PMW report sparks political storm in Israel


Monday, February 08, 2016

From Ian:

UN chief heckled at NY synagogue during Holocaust speech
UN Director General Ban Ki-moon was met with jeers and heckling Saturday at the Park East Synagogue in New York, where he delivered an address in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Congregants at the Manhattan synagogue accused the UN chief of justifying terror, with some saying his comments attributing a wave of near-daily Palestinian attacks to “frustration” was like rationalizing the 9/11 attacks, the Walla news site reported.
Two weeks ago, Ban’s comments — that “it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism” — drew a furious response from Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused him of “stoking terror.” The UN has “lost its neutrality and its moral force, and these statements by the secretary-general do nothing to improve its situation,” he said in an angry video statement.
Ban subsequently reiterated his harsh criticism of Israel’s policies in the West Bank, but stressed that his words under no circumstances amounted to a justification for terror attacks.
Ban did not mention Israel in his speech on Saturday.
Israeli envoy Danon: Palestinians citing UN Secretary General to excuse terror
In a speech at the monthly Security Council debate on the Middle East earlier this month, Secretary- General Ban Ki- Moon, addressing the issue of Palestinian terror, said that “as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism.”
Ban made his remarks on the same day that terrorist victim Shlomit Krigman, 23, was buried in Jerusalem. The young woman was fatally stabbed on Monday evening by two Palestinian terrorists.
"Palestinian terrorism is using your words to excuse its actions," Danon wrote in response to the statements made by the Fatah spokesperson.
"Your words have created two categories of terrorism: Terror against Israel, and then the rest of the world," Danon explained.
Danon explained to the Secretary General that an additional terrorist attack had been executed in Israel's capital city of Jerusalem since his statements, and that only the bravery of Hadar Cohen, a 19 year old police officer, prevented a large scale attack by paying the price of her life.
"Since when is it the job of the UN to find justifications for terror?," asked Danon. "Since when does the UN create two categories for terrorism and its victims?"
In closing, Danon wrote, "I urge you to retract your statements and to make it clear that there is no justification for the bloodshed of Israeli victims."
Jewish boy, 11, stabbed and wounded in Ramle
An 11-year-old Jewish boy was stabbed and wounded Monday in an attack in the central Israeli town of Ramle.
The attacker fled the scene, apparently toward the Jawaresh neighborhood of the city.
The boy was hospitalized with moderate injuries, the Magen David Adom emergency service said. The child said that the assailant was an Arab. A 17-year-old Arab youth was arrested a short time later on suspicion of carrying out the attack.
The victim said he was walking down the street when an Arab teen asked him for a lighter, and stabbed him when he answered he did not have one.

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

From Ian:

Border Police officer, 19, dies after Jerusalem terror attack
A Border Police officer succumbed to wounds suffered during a shooting and stabbing attack near Jerusalem’s Old City Wednesday, after efforts to save her life at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus failed.
The woman was identified as Hadar Cohen, 19, from Or Yehuda.
Cohen was rushed to hospital in critical condition after she was wounded in the attack shortly after 2 p.m. local time. Paramedics who treated her at the scene said she was fighting for her life.
Hospital officials said she was shot in the head. “We succeeded in stabilizing her condition for a time, but her head wound was so severe she never had a chance,” a hospital spokeswoman said.
Another policewomen was in serious but stable condition at the hospital, with wounds all over her body, including her head, the spokeswoman said.
After attack, Jerusalem mayor urges residents to ‘engage’ terrorists
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat told residents of the capital not to fear “engaging” with suspected Palestinian attackers, after three Palestinians carried out a shooting and stabbing attack, killing one border policewoman and wounding another outside the city’s Damascus Gate on Wednesday afternoon.
Officials said the quick response of security forces in shooting and killing the terrorists prevented a much larger attack by the three.
“I spoke to the brave fighters who were not afraid to engage,” the mayor said of the team of Border Police officers who shot and killed the three Palestinians attackers within moments of the attack.
“The preparedness of the policemen is what led to the engagement and saved lives. The residents of Jerusalem need to open their eyes, and in a case like this, not to fear engaging [the attackers]. This vigilance is what will thwart attacks.”
A Mosque as Extremist Megaphone
Despite Al Aqsa’s importance to Islam—it is considered the religion’s holiest site outside Saudi Arabia—few Westerners are aware of the content of the sermons, lectures and lessons offered there. Many of these sermons are posted on the mosque’s two official YouTube channels and have been translated from the Arabic by my organization, the Middle East Media Research Institute.
What we have found at Al Aqsa is a steady stream of calls for jihad and martyrdom, venomous attacks on Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims, and praise for al Qaeda, Islamic State, or ISIS, and other jihadist groups.
Calls for the destruction of the U.S. and the West, including promises that Islam will take over the world, are other common themes. On July 24 last year, Sheikh Ahmad Al-Dweik—a frequent lecturer at the mosque and Palestinian cleric, like the other religious leaders quoted here—said: “The caliphate will come to be, and the nuclear bomb will be produced,” adding that this future Islamic caliphate—will “fight the U.S. and will bring it down” and “eliminate the West in its entirety.”
On July 6, 2015, Sheikh Muhammad Abed, known as “ Abu Abdallah,” declared that from “the land of the Prophet’s nocturnal journey”—a reference to Jerusalem—“armies will set out to conquer Rome, to conquer Constantinople,” and then he added to the list “Washington and London.”
In an Oct. 27 address at Al Aqsa, Sheikh Khaled Al-Maghrabi called for the annihilation of the Jews all over the world, providing justification by quoting the well-known hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) of the stone and the tree: “Oh Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” Earlier at the mosque, on May 29, Sheikh Al-Maghrabi explained why Jews were killed in the Holocaust. “On Passover,” he said, the Jews “would knead the dough for these matzos with children’s blood. When this was discovered, the Israelites were expelled across Europe . . . It got to the point where they were burned in Germany.”

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

From Ian:

The emotional post that conquered Israelis' hearts overnight
Dafna Meir's young daughters win second, third place in gymnastics competition - then break down in tears after returning home.
Natan Meir, the husband of terror victim Dafna, published an emotional Facebook post last night, which has already received numerous shares and reached Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Dafna Meir was recently murdered in her Otniel home.
"My sweet daughters, Noa (11.5) and Ahava (10.5) competed in an internal gymnastics competition in Otniel today. They both won medals for second and third place. Two mothers, loving neighbors, escorted them and greatly cheered them up," he wrote.
"When evening came, so did the tears - their mother wasn't able to see this achievement. Where is her hug? Why isn't she here to see? I suggested that I would post a picture of them with their medals so they could receive a warm embrace and love from the entire Jewish People."
Caroline Glick: The IDF's misplaced trust in the PA
In the past, both Abbas and his predecessor Yassir Arafat assessed at various points that they were better off cooperating with Hamas against Israel than with Israel against Hamas. Their decisions in 1996, from 2000 to 2007, and intermittently ever since, have had little to do with Israel's positions. Indeed, their shifts from Israel to Hamas have often occurred at times when Israel did the most to support them.
As for Abbas's control over his forces, this too can change on a dime. For years, Palestinian sources have insisted that these forces feel no intrinsic loyalty to Abbas. They stay with Abbas because he pays them.
Ideologically, these men under arms are free floaters. Nothing they believe is a bar for shifting their loyalties to Hamas. More to the point, all the US financial transfers to the PA security forces won't stop any of the US-trained Palestinian forces from moonlighting as Hamas, Fatah or Hezbollah terrorists. They've done it in the past and they will do it again.
The instrumental, and necessarily temporary nature of Palestinian security cooperation with the IDF tells us three things.
First, the IDF needs to ditch its current counterterror strategy which is based on the wrongheaded assumption that we can rely on the PA security forces. Central Command needs to develop contingency plans for neutralizing these forces. These contingency plans don’t need to be made public. But to the extent that aspects of the plans can be quietly implemented, they should be implemented as quickly as possible.
Second, IDF commanders need to stop praising these hostile forces. At some point in the not so distant future the IDF will be required to fight these forces. When that day comes, the IDF's enthusiastic tributes to their great cooperation with these terror-supporting forces will come back to haunt us. How will we be able to explain why our actions are necessary to allies to whom we have praised these hostile forces? This brings us to the final thing we need to recognize about these Palestinian forces. It was a major strategic blinder for Israel to support the US's decision to train them. By supporting the US training program, Israel has given the US an incentive to deny the hostile nature of these forces.
Even worse than guaranteeing that the US will be unwilling to accept that in training these forces its military built a terror army, is that threat these forces pose. Today seven US-trained Palestinian combat battalions are deployed close to Israel's major urban centers. Their fighting skills far surpass anything Israel has had to deal with in campaigns to date against Palestinian terror onslaughts.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas: The "Merchants of War" Who Seek to Destroy Israel
The myth that Hamas uses tunnels to smuggle food and other necessities to the "besieged" Gaza Strip has been buried under the rubble of the tunnel that collapsed last week east of Gaza City.
The incident, in which seven members of Hamas's armed wing, Ezaddin Al-Qassam, were killed when the tunnel they were working in collapsed, provides further proof that the Islamist movement has stayed true to its charter, which calls for the total destruction of Israel.
The Hamas men who were killed in the tunnel collapse belonged to the movement's elite "Tunnel Unit." According to Ezaddin Al-Qassam, the men were busy repairing one of the tunnels (damaged during the 2014 war with Israel) when it collapsed due to severe weather conditions.
Contrary to popular belief, the tunnel was not being renovated to allow Palestinians to smuggle basic goods from Egypt to the Gaza Strip. This was one of many tunnels that Hamas has dug over the past few years to infiltrate Israel and carry out terror attacks.
Hamas makes no secret of the goal of its renovations. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar readily admits that the tunnels are being rebuilt to target Israel.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: UN fails to learn lessons of Holocaust. It focuses on showmanship
Analogizing Palestinians to the Jewish victims of the Nazis: that’s how the UN is marking this week’s “International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.” The epicenter of modern antisemitism on a global scale is not somewhere over there, but in the middle of Turtle Bay.
For public tour groups, and their busloads of impressionable American students from around the country, the UN ‘s permanent “Palestine” exhibit has now been arranged to be within a few feet of the UN’s permanent Holocaust exhibit.
This week’s activities follow suit.
On January 25, 2016, a temporary exhibit called “Holocaust by Bullets” was opened in the UN visitors’ lobby. The painstaking research of the French organization Yahad-In Unum substantiates how two million Jews were shot to death in the presence of normal folks all over Europe.
But “Holocaust by Bullets” follows the UN’s December exhibition, which is titled “Palestinian Children: Overcoming Tragedies with Hope, Dreams, Resilience and Dignity.” That month-long display in the visitors’ lobby consisted of scenes of Palestinian children suffering from “devastating” wanton, unprovoked Israeli “operations.”
Father Patrick Desbois opened Yahad-In Unum’s exhibit by explaining that his team locates the bodies of Nazi victims and then honors the dead. He is driven to ensure that Europe does not bury “all its values” by building its future on unacknowledged and unvalued human beings in mass graves.
Palestinian UN representative Riyad Mansour opened December’s exhibit with a different set of values – incitement for Palestinian children to kill more Jews. As Mansour explained: “we are so proud that in this popular uprising, the backbone of this uprising are the youth of Palestine.”
Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt: We have gone back to the Middle Ages and face religious war with the fascists of radical Islam
If the 20th century could be characterised as a battle between territories, then I believe the 21st century has seen a return to the religious wars of the Middle Ages. The rise of Isil has followed fifteen years since 9/11 where Islamic religious terrorism has become the premier menace to democracy. In fact, the attacks on 9/11 ended the 20th century, in which secular totalitarian ideologies, such as Nazism and Communism challenged the existing world order and world peace.
One of the many challenges this new war poses is that it goes against the tolerant, inclusive society that has developed in the Western World over the last fifty years. For that reason, the first reaction of many is to divorce terrorism from religion. Many feel that the only way to protect religious freedoms is to deny radical elements. We need to understand the fact that there are radicalised aspects within many faiths, in particular Islam. Its fascist offshoot, Isil, is a strain of Islam and must be treated as such. These interpretations of Islam must be denounced but we must realise that we have now entered a religious war.
Islam, as it is practised today in some parts of the Middle East, is similar to Christianity in the premodern times, it has not yet developed or learnt to integrate into society. Therefore, by definition, it is entirely medieval and contrary to the basic tenets of a liberal state or democracy. But it would be ridiculous to assume that more than one billion Muslims are radical and dangerous. Instead we need to learn to differentiate between those strains that have developed and those strains that are a genuine danger to the developed world.
MEMRI: For International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei Publishes Holocaust Denial Video
Today, January 27, 2016, International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published on his official website a three-minute video clip titled "Are The Dark Ages Over?" In it, he expresses doubt about whether the Holocaust actually happened, rages about Europe's ban on public questioning of the validity of the Holocaust, and hints at a conspiracy on the part of Western Europe and the U.S. – which champion freedom of speech yet at the same time prevent open discussion of whether the Holocaust happened, and rages about Europe's ban on denying the Holocaust.
Khamenei attacks what he calls the hypocrisy of the West that champion the value of freedom of speech yet prevent any discussion of whether the Holocaust actually happened. This silence about the Holocaust that is imposed by the West on their citizens, he hints, is a conspiracy by the Western countries and the Zionist regime, aimed at establishing falsely, justification for Israel's existence, as it expels the Palestinians.
He then calls on the Muslim ummah, in a religious message, to come together to fight Israel and her Western patrons, because it is they who are perpetrating the real "Ignorance" – Jahiliyya – a reference to the era of ignorance that preceded the advent of Islam.
The clip also features images of leading European Holocaust deniers such as Roger Garaudy, Robert Faurisson, and David Irving, and highlighted the alleged persecution of them by Western authorities.
Supreme leader of Iran marks Holocaust Memorial Day by publishing Holocaust denying video
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, has marked Holocaust Memorial Day by publishing a Holocaust denying video on his official website.
While nations around the world remembered the millions of people who were killed in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, Iran’s hardline leader questioned whether the Holocaust “is a reality or not”.
Khamenei's website promotes the video with a banner across its homepage, featuring a montage of images, including one of Adolf Hitler.
Wednesday was also the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland where more than one million people were killed during World War Two. The majority were Jews and the former extermination camp is the world's biggest Jewish cemetery.
Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis attempted to annihilate all of Europe’s Jews. In one of the largest genocides in history, approximately six million Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its collaborators.
Khamenei's message comes as President Hassan Rouhani tours Italy and France, attempting to drum up trade and diplomatic links after his country signed a historic deal to limit its nuclear ambitions.

Monday, January 25, 2016

From Ian:


Palestinian twin sisters accused of making bombs for attacks
Israeli security forces arrested 18-year-old bomb-making twin sisters from Shwaika, outside the Palestinian city of Tulkarem in the West Bank last month, the Shin Bet security service announced Monday.
Israel Defense Forces soldiers and Shin Bet officers discovered pipe bombs and other explosive materials in the home of Diana and Nadia Hawila in late December 2015, officials said.
In addition, they found knives, Hamas headbands and “equipment for riots,” the Shin Bet said in a statement, though it did not claim that the twins were, in fact, Hamas members.
“This investigation again shows the motivation to carry out terror attacks, especially among those who are not a part of terrorist organizations, including women,” the Shin Bet said.
In interrogation, Diana Hawila admitted that she had purchased the fertilizer and other chemicals necessary to create the explosives.
She learned how to create bombs by watching instructional videos online, according to the Shin Bet. Diana also watched Islamic extremist videos that encouraged women to take part in terror attacks against Israelis and Jews, which “strengthened her decision to act,” the Shin Bet said.
Teen stabber had ‘urge’ to act, says relative
A relative of a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, who was shot and killed on Saturday when trying to knife a security guard at a West Bank settlement, said she had an “urge” to act and was influenced by other terrorists.
At the same time, other family members of Roqaya Abu-Eid questioned why she had been killed rather than subdued. Her father said there had been no need to kill her.
Abu-Eid was shot by a civilian security guard at the entrance to Anatot, near Jerusalem, when she rushed at him with a knife, police said. She lived in the nearby Palestinian village of the same name.
Israel Police said after an initial investigation that the girl had fought with her parents and stormed out the family home with the knife, declaring that she wanted to die, a claim rejected by her family.
A teenage relative told Channel 2 on Sunday that she had been inspired to carry out the attack by seeing other incidents.
Israel strikes Hamas terror target in Gaza in response to rocket fire
The Israel Air Force struck a Hamas military compound in the center of the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Monday in retaliation for a Gazan rockets fired on the Southern region of Israel.
The rocket was fired from the Gaza strip at southern Israel on Sunday evening setting off the color red sirens in the Sha'ar Hanegev region, sending local residents fleeing for cover.
The rocket exploded in an open area, failing to cause injuries and there was no damage, the army said.
In the response a few hours later, IAF aircraft struck a Hamas military installation, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said.
On Saturday night, Gazan terrorists fired a rocket towards Israel. The rocket landed inside Gaza in open territory. The color red siren was not sounded.

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