Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, stunned the Palestinian delegation to the UN Human Rights Council when he called out the PA's human rights abuses of their own people.
The PA delegation reacts with shock as Hassan Yousef calls the PA the “greatest enemy of the Palestinian people,” in a video posted by UNWatch.
“If Israel did not exist, you would have no one to blame,” he declared.
AMBUSHED: U.N. Heads Turn in Stunned Disbelief as PLO Lies Exposed by Palestinian Hero
Fatah does not cease to promote terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi as a role model for Palestinian youth. During a visit by Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki to Fatah's Al-Asifa Pioneers Summer Camp in Hebron this August, girls paraded with two flags: one, the official Palestinian flag, and the other had the image of terrorist Mughrabi. Mughrabi led the bus hijacking and murder of 37 civilians, 12 of them children, during what is known as the Coastal Road massacre, in 1978.
The picture of Mughrabi on the flag holding an automatic rifle is a well-known photo, often used by Fatah when praising her as a "role model" and "Martyr." For example, when members of Fatah's Central Committee celebrated the attack and praised the female terrorist on the anniversary of her attack, the photo was displayed on stage at the event.
Palestinian Media Watch reported last month on another Fatah summer camp which was named after Dalal Mughrabi earlier this year.
While visiting the Al-Asifa Pioneers, Zaki "reviewed the significance of the role of the male and female youth in the Palestinian revolution, since its outbreak." [Facebook page of Fatah Spokesman in the Southern Hebron District Maher Namoura, Aug. 8, 2017]
The prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand will visit Israel next month to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
The 1917 attack on the Ottoman forces in the city, which was led by British general Edmund Allenby, enabled the British Empire to take control of southern Palestine after months of inconclusive fighting in Gaza and continue its advance towards Jerusalem.
Mounted units of soldiers from both Australia and New Zealand played key roles in the fight for the city.
The ceremony will be held on October 31 at the Beersheba Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, where more than 1,000 commonwealth soldiers are buried, including the over 100 troops who died during the Battle of Beersheba. The Foreign Ministry said Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will arrive in the country on October 28, while New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English will land in Israel a day later.
It did not say whether the two will hold meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or any other Israeli officials while in the country.
Netanyahu last met with Turnbull in February during his trip down under.
At 8:20 on 15 September 2017, a bomb detonated in a rear carriage of a tube train at Parsons Green station in London. The passengers on the packed, rush-hour train described a flash “fireball” that travelled down the train. Thirty people were injured, some horribly burned, but there were no fatalities and the main explosive clearly did not detonate.
The creation of a bomb is a more sophisticated operation than a stabbing or vehicle-ramming attack, but it is important to maintain perspective: the device used in this case was primitive. On examination, the crude device—a bucket containing the mixed chemicals and nails, left in a Lidl bag—proved to contain triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and to have been on a timer. For reasons unclear, it is likely that “only the initiator or a fraction of the main charge had exploded”, leaving the bucket intact.
TATP is sometimes said to be a “signature” of the Islamic State (IS), which is not quite right. TATP has shown up in a number of IS attacks in Europe and it is evidently a competency of theirs to handle this notoriously-volatile substance. Still, similar devices have been seen before.
The 21 July 2005 attempted follow-on attack to the 7 July massacre on the London transport system by al-Qaeda saw four TATP-based devices not unlike the Parsons Green one detonated on three tube trains and a bus with results akin to what happened yesterday. The wiring used to create the timer on the bomb appeared to include fairy lights, of the kind used on Christmas trees, and this was seen in the Boston bombing on 15 April 2013.
British counterterror specialists said the bomb detonated on the London Underground on Friday could have been more deadly than the explosives used in the 7/7 attack if it had detonated properly.
Despite the crude appearance of the bomb, which was placed in a bucket inside a shopping bag, a former counterterror investigator with the Metropolitan Police Service said the explosive device was in fact quite sophisticated.
“Whoever built this was not an amateur – it has many of the hallmarks of devices used by terror groups, but the use of the timer to set off the initial part of the device is something we have not seen before in the UK,” David Videcette said, adding, “Had it gone off successfully it would have caused a huge loss of life.”
In an opinion piece for The Independent, Videcette said the bomb’s failure to detonate was likely due to a lack of testing to ensure all the parts work and not a lack of expertise on the bomb maker’s part.
“This person has researched what they’re doing and possibly been taught by someone else. They have also been able to collect all the component parts of an explosive device, assemble it, and deliver it to its target without detection by police and Security services,” he said.
He also said the placement of the bomb in a shopping bag showed those behind the bomb had a clear understanding of how to handle explosives and that the use of the bag should not be viewed as primitive.
British police arrested an 18-year-old man in the southern port of Dover on Saturday in a "significant" development in the hunt for the people behind a London commuter train bombing that injured 30 people a day earlier.
Prime Minister Theresa May put Britain on the highest security level of "critical" late on Friday, meaning an attack may be imminent, and soldiers and armed police deployed to secure strategic sites and hunt down the perpetrators.
The home-made bomb shot flames through a packed commuter train during the Friday morning rush hour in west London but apparently failed to detonate fully.
"We have made a significant arrest in our investigation this morning," said Neil Basu, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing.
"Although we are pleased with the progress made, this investigation continues and the threat level remains at critical."
The arrest was made in the port area of Dover, where passenger ferries sail to France.
The blast on the London tube train at the Parsons Green underground station was the fifth major terrorism attack in Britain this year and was claimed by Islamic State.
Today is Battle of Britain day. With another terrorist attack in London today and the standard mainstream media and political response it is worth considering this ......
Israel and North Korea are on opposite sides of the Asian landmass, separated by 5,000 miles. But Israelis feels close to the nuclear standoff between Washington and Pyongyang. They have faced this sort of crisis before, and may again.
In the mid-1970s, it became clear to Israel that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was working on acquiring nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. Saddam had already demonstrated an uninhibited brutality in dealing with his internal enemies and his neighbours. He aspired to be the leader of the Arab world. Defeating Israel was at the top of his to-do list. After coming to office in 1977, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin tried to convince the U.S. and Europe that Saddam was a clear and present danger to the Jewish state, and that action had to be taken. Begin was not taken seriously. But Begin was serious, and in 1981 he decided that Israel would have to stop the Iraqi dictator all by itself. His political opponents, led by the estimable Shimon Peres, considered this to be dangerous folly. Foreign minister Moshe Dayan, the legendary former military chief of staff, voted against unilateral action on the grounds that it would hurt Israel’s international standing. Defense minister Ezer Weizmann, the former head of the air force (and Dayan’s brother-in-law) was also against a military option. He thought the mission would be unacceptably risky. Begin had no military expertise. But his family had been wiped out in the Holocaust. He looked at Saddam, who was openly threatening Israel, and saw Hitler. To Begin, sitting around hoping for the best was not a strategy; it was an invitation to aggression. If there was going to be a cost—political, diplomatic, military—better to pay before, not after, the Iraqis had the bomb.
Bipartisan legislation is making its way through Congress that would bar Americans from joining in boycotts by international organizations against companies doing business in Israel. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act has attracted criticism from free-speech advocates. These concerns are unfounded. In 1977, the Carter administration supported and Congress passed legislation that prohibited American companies from complying with boycotts imposed by foreign governments against nations friendly to the U.S. The measure aimed squarely at the Arab League's secondary boycott of Israel. Over 40 years, the law helped to break the back of the Arab boycott.
The Israel Anti-Boycott Act would extend the 1977 law to international organizations. It couldn't come at a better time. Already, the UN Human Rights Council is creating a database of companies that operate in or have business relationships in the West Bank beyond Israel's 1949 Armistice lines, which includes all of Jerusalem, Israel's capital. Under this legislation, companies and individuals would not be able to boycott Israel at the behest of international governmental organizations, just as they are now prohibited from doing at the behest of Arab nations. Congress has wide constitutional authority to limit such discriminatory international commercial conduct that lawmakers find contrary to U.S. national interests. Jonathan A. Greenblatt is chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. Stuart Eizenstat helped negotiate anti-boycott laws in 1977 as President Jimmy Carter's chief White House domestic policy adviser.
A United Nations blacklist of companies operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights includes some of the biggest firms in Israeli industry as well as some household names in the US.
Among those on the UN Human Rights Council list are Coca-Cola, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, and Caterpillar, Channel 2 reported on Tuesday.
The US has threatened to withdraw from the international forum if the list is published.
Israeli companies on list reportedly include pharmaceutical giant Teva, the national phone company Bezeq, bus company Egged, the national water company Mekorot and the country’s two largest banks, Hapoalim and Leumi.
Some of the international companies — namely Airbnb, Caterpillar, and TripAdvisor, as well as Priceline — were previously reported by The Washington Post to be on the list.
The list was recently delivered to the Foreign Ministry, the report said. Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, on a working visit to US, said in a statement that “the UN is playing with fire.”
"Has Israel finally won the war and defeated the
Palestinian dream? Read our cover story," said the tweet with a gif of an
Arab child in an empty doorframe looking like Jesus on the cross, whom, after
all, the Arabs claim as a native son.
I looked to see who dared to intimate that Israel's entire
reason for being is to quash Arab dreams. I thought some alt right or neo Nazi group
perhaps. Someone who thinks the Rothchilds sit at some never-ending mahogany table,
smoking cigars and directing the world to implode.
But no. It was Newsweek. The magazine that used to be our
window on the world as we sat in the dentist's office, waiting our turn for the
drill. It's the magazine a high school adviser told my sister to read with a
dictionary by her side. "Look up every word you don't know. You'll ace the
verbal half of the SATs," she said.
Back then, it was a reputable magazine. Now, apparently, it's
dreck.
The article
was long. Too long to unpack and keep you with me. But brevity is impossible
when faced with so much bias and so many lies.
Let's begin with who "won the war."
All of the Mandate
for Palestine was promised to the Jews to be their national home. This
promise was made by both the British and the League
of Nations, as set forth in the Balfour Declaration and as agreed upon
during the San
Remo Conference. The Arabs, however, complained bitterly. And so the
British took 78% of the Mandate for Palestine, land they'd already promised the
Jews, and gave it to the Arabs. That became the Arab national home in the
Mandate for Palestine, Transjordan, or Jordan, for short.
So who won that war?
The Arabs.
They won that war by cajoling the Brits into giving them 78%
of the land formerly promised to the Jews. Unless my math fails me, that leaves
the Jews with only 22% of the land they'd originally been promised. Land they
can prove is their indigenous
territory.
So the Jews lost that war. And then lost another when the UN
put forward the Partition Plan, which would leave the Jews even less territory—territory
now indefensible—to give the Arabs yet more of the territory promised to the
Jews. Land that is indigenous Jewish territory. Land we shouldn't have to beg
to have. Because it's ours by inheritance, by right.
Partition
But we gave in, being graceful losers, and acceded to
Partition. The Arabs, of course, knew they could get more by never giving in,
so they attacked Israel. With 7 armies. (It wasn't enough to get 78% of the
land. It wasn't enough to get more Jewish land from the Partition Plan. They
wanted the Jews OUT. They wanted them gone.)
Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria during the fighting, in
contravention of international law, vis a vis the UN
vote on Partition. So who won that war? The Jews who share the name of their
people with the name of the Jordanian-occupied territory known as "Judea?"
Six-Day War
Israel won some of its land back in the miraculous Six-Day War
in 1967. Quashing Arab dreams was the last thing on Israel's collective mind,
at the time. It was an existential battle, a fight to live, to exist.
And let us be clear: Israel has always wanted to live in
peace with its Arab neighbor. Always. If you walk through an Israeli hospital
you know this, by seeing Arab patients treated with equality and kindness. If
you go shopping, you see Arabs examining clothing items alongside Jews. Arabs
sit beside Jews on buses and Israeli trains. It is everywhere in Israel this
way.
Not so in any Arab country. They don't let Jews put a toe
inside their countries.
Who won this war?
Equality
The Arabs. They have equality in Israel. Israeli Arabs can
travel in every part of Jerusalem.
What about the Arabs of Judea and Samaria? Aren't they under
"occupation?"
Not at all. They have autonomy: their own government, their
own elected officials. And their villages are completely Judenrein.
So who won that war?
The Arabs, of course.
Disengagement
In Gaza? Israel expelled 11,000 Jews to make Disengagement
happen. Israel gave the Arabs yet another Arab state (in addition to Jordan and
Area A of Judea and Samaria). Israel left them greenhouses worth a whole lot of
money. The Arabs destroyed them.
The Arabs won big time. Quashing dreams? That would be the
dreams of Israeli settlers who were expelled from their beautiful homes, who
lost access to their businesses, and who were utterly betrayed by their own
people. For what? Missiles raining down like Hurricane Harvey.
So much for the premise of the Newsweek piece. Jews winning?
Ha! Jews wanting to quash Arab dreams? Sure. That's why we agreed to Partition.
It's why we expelled 11,000 of our own people from their homes. Pshaw.
But let's look at the article itself which begins with a
clip that is supposed to summarize the recent violence that erupted over the
Temple Mount, but fails to note the event that was the catalyst for the added
security measures and subsequent protests. Those measures that included
installing metal detectors at entrances to the Temple Mount compound. As the
clip begins we see Arabs rioting. There's a caption:
"Clashes erupted in
Jerusalem as Palestinians protested new Israeli security measures."
Nothing about the terror attack in which Arabs shot and murdered
two Israeli policemen.
But we are told how Israeli policemen shot stun grenades
into the crowd of rioting Arabs. This is supposed to sound really inhumane.
Still nothing about the terrorists who shot and killed policemen, though.
The viewer is informed that metal detectors were placed at
the entrance to the Al Aqsa Mosque, which is not true. The metal detectors were
placed at the entrances to the Temple Mount compound, a large area which
includes the mosque. The viewer is not told that the terrorists stashed weapons
in the mosque, having smuggled them into the compound. This is why the metal
detectors were deemed necessary: to prevent further loss of life after Arab
terrorists murdered two policemen.
Next we are told how awful it is in Gaza, with no
electricity.
"This summer’s power crisis is merely the latest in a long
list of shortages of everything from drinking water and cooking gas to cement
and cars. But this time, one thing is different: The problem has been created
by other Palestinians."
Um, no. Actually, all of these shortages and difficulties
are due to their own Arab people. The world is just POURING money into Gaza,
into Hamas and PA coffers, and the people see no benefit. Except for terrorists
and their families, who get nice salaries. And government people with their
hands in the till. NONE of this is on Israel. All this Arab woe is 100%
Arab-made.
In spite of this, Newsweek obtains a juicy quote from a Gaza
resident: "I never thought the one making my life difficult would be
another Palestinian."
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
I read the caption of a photo:
"Though Israel’s status
as a Jewish and democratic state in the very long term is still imperiled, five
decades after the occupation began, the Palestinian national movement has been
largely defeated."
Oh, yeah. Someone is always threatening us that if we don't
"end the occupation" Israel will cease to be a democratic state. But
the only occupation is the Arab occupation of Jewish land. I mean, they don't
like it here, let them leave. We absorbed all the 850,000 Jews they expelled
from their 22 Arab states, couldn't they absorb their own, too?
This is all a self-created problem. Democracy is not at all
threatened by Arabs refusing to leave Israel, trust me. It is also not
threatened by them wanting more territory and not getting it.
"The Palestinians, living under occupation or scattered
across the diaspora, have long been the weaker party in the conflict with
Israel."
Sure. Because when little Israel is attacked by 7 invading
Arab armies, the Arabs are weaker than Israel?
When Hamas is shooting tens of thousands of missiles into
Israel and Israelis are told by Obama to hold back and depend on Iron Dome, the
Arabs are weaker than Israel?
When Abbas demands and Obama puts it to Israel to freeze
building for ten months, the Arabs are weaker than Israel?
*shakes head*
Crock of bull pucky.
"The climax came in the late 1980s, with the start of
the first intifada, a homegrown movement of mass protests. Israel responded
with brute force, killing and wounding thousands of demonstrators—what
then–Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin called its 'broken bones' policy."
Mass protests? Is that what you call the more than 3,600
Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or
explosives by Arabs against Israelis that made zero distinction between civilians
and soldiers? Is that what you call the Arabs stabbed, hacked with axes, shot,
clubbed and burned with acid during this time by Yasser Arafat's
henchmen? (Their crime? Sometimes they were employees of the Israeli Civil
Administration of Judea and Samaria. Or maybe a guy talked to a Jew and
someone saw.)
"Optimism soon collided with the second intifada, a
grisly campaign of suicide bombings that silenced the peace camp in Israel.
From there, the Palestinian strategy diverged. Hamas fought three wars. Young
Palestinians carried out hundreds of lone wolf attacks in the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and Israel. The PA, meanwhile, waged a diplomatic battle against
Israel, joining the International Criminal Court and winning recognition from
the United Nations and a number of European states.
"Yet none of these moves forced Israel to make
concessions."
·The Jews agreed to Lord
Peel's proposal to divide the Mandate into a Jewish and an Arab state
·The Jews agreed to
Partition, leaving them with less than 20% of the land promised to them
·In 1948, the Jews agreed to
take in 100,000 Arab refugees in exchange for a peace agreement
·After winning the Six-Day
War, Israel agreed to return most of the land it won in exchange for a peace
agreement
·In 1979, Israel dismantled
settlements and gave Sinai to Egypt, and offered autonomy to its local Arab
populace
·In 1993 and 1995, Israel
signed the Oslo Accords, agreeing to withdraw from most of Gaza and Judea and
Samaria in exchange for peace. Israel withdrew from some 80% of Judea and
Samaria, and from 40% of Gaza, and turned over most of the civil administration
and authority in these areas to the Arabs
·In 1998, Israel agreed to
withdraw from another 13% of Judea and Samaria in exchange for a promise from
the Arabs to deal with terrorists, weapons smuggling, and incitement to
violence
·In 2000, Ehud Barak offered
to withdraw from 97 percent of Judea and Samaria and all of Gaza. He also agreed
to dismantle 63 isolated settlements. Barak agreed that Arab neighborhoods in
Jerusalem would serve as the capital of a new state. The Arabs were also guaranteed
the right of return to this new Arab state and a $30 billion international fund
would be established to serve as reparations.
·In 2005, 11,000 Jews were
expelled from their homes in Gaza and Northern Samaria in order to cede Gaza to
the Arabs unilaterally. In other words, for absolutely nothing in return.
·Ehud Olmert offered to
withdraw from 94% of Judea and Samaria
·Israel has given up all of
Gaza and half of Judea and Samaria. Israel has ceded 94% of the land it
acquired during the Six-Day War
·Israel took in 200,000 Arab
refugees and has offered to take more
"Over the past decade, Palestinians have killed about
200 Israelis, less than half the number they killed in a single year, 2002, at
the height of the second intifada. Lawmakers treat the violence as inevitable.
Even at the peak of the last Gaza war, the largest pro-peace rally in Tel Aviv
attracted a scant 5,000 protesters. Nearly half a million Israelis, by
contrast, turned out in the summer of 2011 to protest the high cost of living.
Meanwhile, Abbas's diplomatic efforts haven’t amounted to much: Joining the
International Convention Against Doping in Sport has not, it seems, placed any
meaningful pressure on Israel."
Oh, so they killed fewer of us. But that's because we're
FARTHER away from Oslo. Every time Israel tries to negotiate for peace, the
Arabs blow up our buses, shoot missiles into our city centers, ram us with
cars, and stab us in the supposed sanctity and privacy of our homes. THAT is
what peace means to us. It means Arabs murdering Jews.
We have had enough of that. And not negotiating with them is
what drives down the number of our dead. Theirs, too.
Next we see a photo of the pathetic sad dad of the Halamish
murderer. The caption tells us only that his son stabbed "three
Israelis" in a "settlement." The caption doesn't say this
occurred during what was a happy family Sabbath gathering to celebrate the
birth of a new baby. The caption doesn't say the terrorist slaughtered a grandfather
and two of his children, and stabbed a grandmother, too. It doesn't say how
children huddled upstairs in a room with their mother while the terrorist
stabbed their father over 30 times.
The article also does not mention the Fogel massacre.
Next, the article goes on to describe the hunger strike in
the prisons, because jailed Arab terrorists wanted to be able to see their
families more
often. "At one point, the Israeli Prison Service even set up a sting,
planting cookies and candy bars inside Barghouti's cell, then filming as he
noshed in the bathroom."
Um, no. There was no sting. There was security footage.
Barghouti got the treats all by his lonesome, and got caught on film eating the
stuff. Idiot. A lokh in kop.
Of the achievements of the hunger strike, Newsweek writes:
"Even this victory was a defeat for the PA. Until the
summer of 2016, prisoners were entitled to two family visits. It wasn't Israel
that reduced the number. It was the Red Cross, which coordinates the trips and
wanted to cut costs, mostly related to busing. The money to pay for the extra
visit will come from the Palestinian Authority, which is already struggling to
close an $800 million gap in its annual budget."
This is a defeat? They want something and they're paying for
it. How they manage with their extensive budget is all on them, Habibi.
Moving right along.
"[Hamas] seized power in Gaza in
2007, after a lengthy period of infighting that followed its victory in
legislative elections the previous year. Since then, it has fought three wars
against Israel. The most recent one, in the summer of 2014, dragged
on for 51 days, far longer than anyone expected. It was devastating for the
Palestinians: Israeli bombs killed more than 2,200 people, left 100,000
homeless and destroyed the strip’s infrastructure."
Well, maybe if they had not shot tens of thousands of
missiles and mortars into Israel, Israel would not have had to respond.
"But Hamas kept firing rockets until moments before the
August 26 cease-fire. It counts the war as a victory, not because it achieved
any of its strategic goals, but simply because it survived."
Our HERO. Brave Little Hamas with its tens of thousands of
missiles. With its rocket launchers in mosques, hospitals, schools, and daycare
centers.
"Despite all of the hardships, though, Hamas claims it
liberated Gaza from the occupation’s daily indignities, and the group is loath
to give up control."
Um, no. There is no occupation of Gaza. Israel is GONE,
gone, gone from the territory. Yes, there's a maritime blockade. But again,
that is the fault of a people who keep using whatever Israel gives them to wield
terror against Israelis.
Next we're shown a photo of Israeli "activists" in
Ofra. We're told that Israel's High Court ruled the house in the photo had been
built on private (Arab) land, though there is absolutely no proof that this is
so. Someone made a claim to the land. The claim cannot be proven. We're told
"Many Americans now support sanctioning Israel over illegal
settlements."
That caption is meant to be suasion. It's supposed to make
us want to support that too. But what is an "illegal" settlement,
anyway? These settlements are on land we won fair and square in a defensive
war. That makes it legally ours. Not to mention the indigenous thing.
Next we're shown a photo of the Meir family at the funeral
of their wife and mother, Dafna. The caption states:
"A Jewish Israeli
father with his children at the funeral for his wife, who was murdered by a
Palestinian attacker. Neither violence nor diplomacy has forced Israel to make
concessions."
We again fail to receive the backstory. That Dafna was
cooking dinner in her home, that her daughter saw her mother struggle with the
Arab intruder and watched him stab her mother to death. We're told once again
that no matter how many of us they slay, Israel won't make concessions, though
clearly, based on the bulleted list above, this is a huge lie. HUGE.
There is so much more to unpack in this article. But I'm at
3000 words. Not as long as the Newsweek article, alas. But hopefully long
enough to show the duplicity and ugly bias of Newsweek and the author of this
piece, Gregg Carlstrom.
Defeating the "Palestinian" dream? More likely
Israel, by its continued existence, defeating Newsweek's dream of a Jew-free
Middle East. And this apparently really gets their goat.
How else can we understand this dishonest and disreputable
excuse for journalism?
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
With Palestinian-Israeli tensions over Jerusalem's Old City and the Temple Mount still simmering, the Palestinian Authority has chosen to intensify Palestinian anger and hate by repeating one of its most dangerous libels - that "senior Jews of high position" planned the arson of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969. In a documentary broadcast on PA TV, it was presented as fact that not only did Jews plan the arson of the Mosque but also that after the fire started Israel shut off the water supply, preventing fire fighters from efficiently putting out the fire.
The following is some of the narration from the documentary: "From investigations conducted by the Islamic Council it became clear that there was more than one perpetrator [of the Al-Aqsa Mosque arson in 1969] and that the fire was planned by senior Jews of high position, especially since the roof can only be reached from a wooden spiral staircase located outside the Al-Aqsa building. This proves that careful, premeditated measures were taken to completely destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The proof is that the occupation authorities were slow to extinguish [the fire] and that the water supply to the Sanctuary (i.e., the Temple Mount) had been cut off during those hours." [Official PA TV, Aug. 21, 2017] The 1969 fire in the Mosque was started by a Christian Australian man, who was arrested immediately afterward and found to be mentally unstable.
PA TV's decision to broadcast this Al-Aqsa libel now, follows its ongoing attempts to keep Palestinian hatred of Israel simmering over the Temple Mount issue. Last month the Palestinian Authority Minister of Religious Affairs told Palestinian viewers on television that Israel was planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque:
US President Donald Trump’s administration is urging the United Nations not to publish what it calls a “blacklist” of international firms that do business in Israeli settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state, diplomats and others said, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
The UN Human Rights Council voted to approve the database of companies last year, over objections from the United States and Israel, which describe the list as a prelude to anti-Israel boycotts. American companies on the list drawn up by the Geneva-based council include Caterpillar, TripAdvisor, Priceline.com, Airbnb and others, according to people familiar with it. It is not clear whether the list has been finalized.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, has told US officials he plans to publish the list by the end of the year and has asked for comments by Sept. 1 from countries where affected firms are headquartered, diplomats said. “The United States has been adamantly opposed to this … from the start” and has fought against it before several UN bodies, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. “These types of resolutions are counterproductive and do nothing to advance Israeli-Palestinian issues.”
The United States joined Israel in unsuccessfully opposing UN funding for work related to the database, Nauert said.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, reacted harshly to reports on the names of companies on a ‘blacklist’ of businesses being complied by the UN Human Rights Council. The full list of companies operating in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights is set to be published at the end of the year.
The UN General Assembly voted to fund the compilation of the blacklist in December, 2016. “This shameful step is an expression of modern anti-Semitism and reminds us of dark periods in history. Instead of focusing on the terrible humanitarian problems plaguing the globe, the Human Rights Commissioner is seeking to harm Israel, and in doing so has become the world’s most senior BDS activist. I call on the UN, and the international community as a whole, to halt this dangerous policy and put an end to this anti-Israel initiative," Danon said.
The emergence of ISIS-inspired groups in the Gaza Strip has long been an open known secret. This is the inconvenient truth that Hamas has been working hard to conceal for the past few years.
Obstinately holding on to an imaginary dream, some political analysts and journalists have misinterpreted the Hamas document as a sign of "moderation" and "pragmatism," and argued falsely that the Islamist movement is ready to join a peace process with Israel. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar could not be clearer on this point. Hamas, as we all know, is hardly opposed to suicide bombings. Yet when the boomerang returns, suddenly the attacks become "cowardly terror" actions perpetrated by "outlaws" and "intellectually and religiously and morally deviant" terrorists. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and ISIS may disagree on many issues, but targeting Jews and "infidels" is not one of them. On that point, they are in savage agreement.
In Israel, you will find there is heavy presence of security, both uniformed and not, at major sites, as well as concrete reinforced barriers at key landmarks and bus stops, to prevent vehicular rammings.
As unpalatable as it may be to European sensitivities, they must begin to apply profiling risk assessment as a measure of precaution and prevention. The stark reality is that a Caucasian mother does not fit your profile of a typical terrorist in this scenario, with all terrorists in the car rammings so far being male Islamic jihadists between roughly the ages of 20 and 40. However, for profiling to be successful, Europe would do well to again follow the lead of Israel in this case, which does not apply a blanket profiling of entire ethnic groups; instead, security personnel are trained to observe body language, physical signs and other clues to erratic behavior. The curtailing of some personal freedoms will be a small price to pay for the lives of many.
There are other steps European leaders ought to consider as part of their overall strategy to prevent lone-wolf attacks, including refusing re-entry to those who have gone to Syria, Iraq and elsewhere to fight for Isis and stripping citizenship of dual nationals caught committing acts of terror on European soil.
As difficult as it may be to accept, the dream of Schengen open borders cannot continue in its current form, with unfettered borders and lax security checks, where terrorists can freely move from one country to the other without so much as a glance from authorities.
Europe also cannot be serious about fighting terror on the one hand and embracing Iran on the other. Iran continues to be the foremost global state sponsor of terror. Their support of Assad regime is a primary cause of the Syrian refugee crisis and the spread of Isis, as well as of Hezbollah operatives roaming freely across Europe. Tehran is not a partner in the war on terror, it is one of the primary instigators of global terror. Preventing ‘lone wolf’ attacks 100 per cent of the time is simply not feasible, but greater steps can be taken to minimise the threat. This will require bold leadership and a recognition that whether it is in Barcelona, Nice, London, Berlin, Stockholm or Jerusalem, terror is terror and the West must stand united, in unwavering solidarity and commitment, if we are to defeat this global evil.
Intelligence is the first level at which terror must be fought. But the war is now also on the streets. Urban centres are the new battleground. As an Israeli counter-terrorism official (who cannot be named due to the sensitivity of his work) told me: ‘simple things, like placing bollards and barriers at strategic points in major centres can almost eliminate the possibility of vehicle rammings’. But the most important changes must come at the level of education. A principle problem with terror is that it forces us into ever more intrusive legislation. An educated public can relieve the burden. As the counterterrorism official explains: ‘In the 21st century we have witnessed the new phenomenon of the lone wolf: Someone not part of a cell, someone who doesn’t buy guns or explosives and is therefore much harder to track.’
If someone can now be radicalised just by going on the internet, what can be done? Well, for a start, in Israel, the police have a dedicated Facebook page where people can report terrorist content they find posted on social media, and, critically, all of which is checked. It has saved lives.
Combating the threat of the lone wolf – and avoiding more draconian anti-terror legislation – comes with greater public awareness.
‘If, for example, you see your neighbour going out at 3am every night or see him or her buying a lot of knives, or carrying a suspicious backpack. Look at Anders Breivik,’ the counterterrorism official concludes, ‘all the red flags were there before and no one did anything. People need the courage to speak up. Every tip can lead the authorities to something much bigger.’
As a liberal democracy, Israel has an interest, indeed a duty, to ensure that the holy site is open to all religions and that everyone has the right to freely worship on the Temple Mount. Given the fact that the Temple Mount is the holiest place in the world for Jews, Israel has a vital interest in securing its sovereign control over the area. To secure its sovereignty and advance its clear interest in facilitating religious freedom for all, Israel’s policy goal is straightforward. The government should enable all faiths to worship freely at the site.
To secure this end, the government should announce its goal and make a good-faith effort to involve all relevant groups and governments, including the Palestinian Authority, Christian authorities, Jewish authorities, the Jordanian regime and others in achieving it. The government should also state outright that if the Palestinians opt instead to incite and commit acts of violence and terrorism from the Temple Mount, Israel will secure its goal and enable Jews and Christians to worship at the holy site unilaterally.
To date, the Temple Mount has been the Palestinians’ ace in the hole. They recycle the blood libel that Jews are endangering al-Aksa every time they feel they are losing ground in their never-ending war against Israel. And Israel inevitably capitulates. But if Israel announces its policy is to secure religious freedom for all on the Temple Mount and makes a good-faith effort to advance it in conjunction with the Palestinians and all other relevant groups, it will set the conditions for taking that ace away.
If after it begins good-faith efforts to collectively advance the liberal, democratic goal of ensuring religious freedom for all at the holy site, the Palestinians again turn to violence, then the Islamic world, or parts of it, will be in a position to blame them when Israel unilaterally enables Jews and Christians to pray on the Temple Mount parallel to Muslim worshipers.
If Netanyahu and his ministers make this their goal then the IDF and the Shin Bet won’t be able to intimidate them into capitulation next time around. Instead, the leaders of the IDF, the Shin Bet and the Foreign Ministry will all know their jobs and know that if they fail to perform they will be replaced. Israel ceded the Temple Mount to terrorists last week. But with a clear goal, we can get it back in short order and keep it perpetually for the good of all humanity.
On Wednesday, American-born Israeli journalist Caroline Glick detailed explosive allegations concerning McMaster’s views on Israel. Glick is a well-known pro-Israel columnist and has established connections with the Trump administration. Many of the details in this story emerged from questions asked about Glick’s allegations. The list of pro-Israel voices in the administration that were removed from McMaster’s National Security Council now includes: Steve Bannon, K.T. McFarland, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Derek Harvey, Rich Higgins, Adam Lovinger, and Tera Dahl.
McMaster not only shuns Israel, he is also historically challenged on Arab-Israeli affairs, according to the sources. “McMaster constantly refers to the existence of a Palestinian state before 1947,” a senior West Wing official tells CR (there was never an independent Palestinian state), adding that McMaster describes Israel as an “illegitimate,” “occupying power.”
The NSC chief expressed great reluctance to work with Israel on counterterror efforts, as he shut down a joint U.S.-Israel project to counter the terrorist group Hezbollah’s efforts to expand Iran’s worldwide influence. The project was led by the now-former NSC Middle East director Derek Harvey.
In July, Palestinian terrorists armed with rifles left the al-Aqsa mosque compound and assassinated two Israeli police officers. Afterward, Israeli security forces installed metal detectors outside the Jerusalem mosque for protection. McMaster, however, didn’t see it that way. He viewed the security measures as “just another excuse by the Israelis to repress the Arabs,” a senior defense official tells CR.
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster has taken it upon himself to eliminate the pro-Israel voices at the National Security Council, according to three West Wing and defense officials who spoke to Conservative Review (CR). On Wednesday, Israeli journalist Caroline Glick, a staunch defender of Israel, born in America, detailed explosive allegations vis-Ã -vis McMaster and Israel: Many of you will remember that a few days before Trump's visit to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his advisers were blindsided when the Americans suddenly told them that no Israeli official was allowed to accompany Trump to the Western Wall. What hasn't been reported is that it was McMaster who pressured Trump to agree not to let Netanyahu accompany him to the Western Wall. At the time, I and other reporters were led to believe that this was the decision of rogue anti-Israel officers at the US consulate in Jerusalem. But it wasn't. It was McMaster.
And even that, it works out, wasn't sufficient for McMaster. He pressured Trump to cancel his visit to the Wall and only visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial — a la the Islamists who insist that the only reason Israel exists is European guilt over the Holocaust.
Since McMaster took over the NSC, seven members who were staunchly pro-Israel have been purged: Steve Bannon, K.T. McFarland, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Derek Harvey, Rich Higgins, Adam Lovinger, and Tera Dahl.
One senior West Wing official told CR, “McMaster constantly refers to the existence of a Palestinian state before 1947,” and that McMaster describes Israel as an “illegitimate,” “occupying power.” There was never a Palestinian state; the name “Palestine” comes from the Hebrew word “peleshet” that was used to refer to the ancient enemies of the Jews, the Philistines, an Aegean people closely related to the Greeks and with no connection ethnically, linguistically or historically with Arabia. In the second century A.D., the Romans defeated the Jews, and named the land Palaestina in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. Until 1948, when people used the term “Palestinian,” it referred to Jews in the land.
Writing in Al Jazeera, Stanley Cohen called on Israel to “accept that as an occupied people, Palestinians have a right to resist—in every way possible.” He begins by telling his readers: “long ago, it was settled that resistance and even armed struggle against a colonial occupation force is not just recognized under international law but specifically endorsed.” His entire article is predicated on a false premise in that it demands the characterization of Israel as a “colonial occupation force”— a characterization that is categorically incoherent.
Cohen cites a 1982 UN Resolution which “reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.” He does not mention which countries voted for and against this resolution.
Among the countries that voted for it: Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Qatar, Niger, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq.
Among the countries who voted against it: Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States.
On college campuses, the call for armed struggle has become the Cri de Coeur of leftist students who are otherwise hypersensitive to the impact that intangible words can have on corporeal beings. On Columbia’s campus, students who form the backbone of the BDS movement have successfully blurred the line between incitement and impassioned—albeit severely misguided—opinion. In 2016, the Columbia/ Barnard Socialists concluded one social media post by declaring: “long live the intifada.” As recently as Sunday—after the Halamish attack— the Students for Justice in Palestine shared the Al Jazeera article calling for armed resistance. Where are the outraged professors, administrators, and students concerned for the safety of the student body? Where are the charges of bigotry and racism, the calls to silence this speech, to stop this violence?
Nowhere does the idea that speech can constitute violence find more support than on elite liberal arts colleges. But regardless of whether they have intellectual or moral merit on their own, calls for safe spaces, trigger warnings, and micro-aggression-free environments that come from groups or individuals who not only condone, but use their words to quite literally call for violence, must be ignored, and the hypocrisy highlighted.
From the safe confines of an ivory-covered campus–or from the relative safety of this country, for that matter–it’s easy to preach justice and retribution, to portray armed struggle as the necessary means that will find justification through a righteous end. But especially those who are sensitive to the power of language should understand: euphemistic terminology does nothing to mitigate the violent nature inherent in this rhetoric. There must be no confusion. The left’s glorification of armed struggle is nothing short of approval for those Palestinians who target and kill innocent men, women, and children. Those who proclaim to speak for social justice have been damningly silent.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN strongly criticized the Palestinian Authority's to the recent terrorist attacks in Israel ahead of a Security Council meeting on the recent violence over the Temple Mount.
Ambassador Danon presented a photograph from the scene of Friday’s terror attack in which the Salomon family was murdered.
“The Salomon family had gathered for the most joyous occasion, the birth of a new grandson. Instead, the night ended in a massacre. They sat down to eat the Sabbath meal when the terrorist entered their home. He stabbed his victims to death, murdering Yosef, the seventy-year-old grandfather, his daughter Haya, and his son Elad, all while the children were hidden in a room,” said Ambassador Danon.
“Instead of condemning this act of terror and calming the situation, the Palestinians are trying to spread the lie that this unspeakable act of violence is Israel’s fault. Do not believe these lies. The terrorist who murdered this family did so knowing that the PA will pay him thousands of dollars a month,” the Ambassador continued.
In our little game of scoring, that makes the score 3-0. But this isn’t a game, is it? People are dying because the Palestinians refuse to look forward or backwards. Backwards tells them that we are the legitimate heirs to our homeland and though we have made it clear that we are prepared to live with them, despite very clear historical evidence that if you dig in the ground, it is our history you will find, not theirs (except for old Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottles circa 2010 left to rot).
The Palestinian narrative dating back anything more than 100 years is, without question fabricated. Even in the last 100 years, much of it is established by using other people’s images. That they live here now is something we all have to accept. When the Jews first moved into the land of Canaan, there were others who lived here. Those that were prepared to live with us nearly 4,000 years ago, remained. Those who were not, were defeated. It was the way of the world then and not something we have to answer for now. We were exiled 2,000 years ago and we have come home. The land offers its testimony on a regular basis that this land is our home.
Stealing images of the Holocaust just makes you look pathetic. Borrowing images from war-torn Syria, as they often do, just makes them look desperate. In days filled with violence, it is clear that the Palestinians have yet to learn that the way to a peaceful solution will not be found through violence or forgery.
We grow tired of your violence and your childish attempts to maintain the status quo when it suits you and demand it change when it doesn’t.
No, you will never rule this land – but then again, history shows that you never did. You rule in something like 40 other lands in this world. It won’t happen here. Accept it…or leave. Deal with it…or lose.
Israel Police made a number of arrests in the wake of the deadly terror attack at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Friday morning, which claimed the lives of two Israeli police officers, and officers were on the hunt for additional suspects who may have helped the three Israeli-Arab perpetrators, police said.
Raids were also conducted on the homes of the terrorists, all from the northern Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm, and a mourners’ tent for the terrorists was broken up.
Channel 10 reported Friday that among those detained were at least one official from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, the Jordan-based organization that administers the Temple Mount, on suspicion that the shooters received help from inside.
The channel said the official was seen on security footage behaving suspiciously.
Police also said they arrested one person, a 22-year-old from the northern city on suspicion he was directly involved in the attack.
Police have not indicated what kind of assistance they believe the Waqf official provided, though Channel 10 said he may have helped the shooters stash the weapons used in the attack. A gag order was imposed on further aspects of the investigation relating to the Waqf.
Thousands of family members, friends, political dignitaries and others gathered Friday to mourn Border Police officers Haiel Stawi and Kamil Shnaan, who were killed in a terrorist attack near the Old City’s Lions’ Gate.
Stawi, 30, the father of a three-week-old boy, was buried in the northern Druse village of Maghar. Shnaan, 22, the son of former MK Shakib Shnaan, was buried in the nearby Druse village of Hurfeish.
According to police, Stawi enlisted in the Border Police in 2012 and served in the Temple Mount Unit. Shnaan, who reportedly was to wed in a week, joined the Temple Mount Unit seven months ago to become a career officer.
Both men, who were buried within hours of each other, were posthumously promoted to the rank of advanced-staff-sergeant-major.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich, Jerusalem District Police commander Yoram Halevy, senior police officers, ministers, members of Knesset and dignitaries from the Druse community attended the funerals.
Israeli police have released a video showing the moments just as the two Israeli Druze policemen are shot just outside the Temple Mount. The most horrifying aspect is that the two policemen were taken completely by surprise because they are facing AWAY FROM THE MOSQUE! They are supposed to be guarding the Temple Mount compound (against what I don’t know). Certainly not against hordes of armed Jews “storming” it!
The murdering terrorists run down from the so-called “Third Holiest Site in Islam” to murder and run back there in a, thankfully futile, attempt to escape justice.
Also remember the terrorists, in this case, do not come from anywhere that can be considered “occupied”. They’re from the Israeli Arab village of Um Al Fahm in northern Israel.
These two brave men were murdered in an act of Islamic terrorism for defending an Islamic holy site. That is what glorifies Allah apparently and furthers the cause of relentless Jihad.
What does the Jewish Israeli public think about convincing the Palestinians that they’ve lost their century-long war with Zionism — that the gig is up? In other words, what do Israelis think about winning?
To find out, the Middle East Forum commissioned the Smith Institute to survey 700 adult Israeli Jews. Carried out on June 27-28, the poll has a margin of error of 3.7 percent.
It reveals a widespread Israeli belief that a Palestinian recognition of defeat will eventually lead to the acceptance of Israel as the Jewish state, thereby ending the conflict. Palestinian defeat: “A peace agreement with the Palestinians will only be possible once the Palestinian leadership recognizes the fact that it has been defeated in its struggle against Israel.” Overall, 58 percent of respondents agreed, with opinion deeply polarized by political outlook: 69 percent on the Right concurred, but only 16 percent on the Left did so. Israeli victory: “The reason that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict still continues is that none of the military operations or diplomatic engagements with the Palestinian leadership have led to Israeli victory.” This resembles the first statement, but reverses it; doing so increases the positive responses to 65 percent of the Israeli public. More surprising, the results show that — across the entire political spectrum from Right to Left — an awareness exists that Israel needs to win. The results also show that a majority of every subgroup of voter — male and female, young and old, adherents of every kind of Judaism, supporters of every Jewish political party represented in the parliament — concur with this sentiment.
Despite pushing efforts to boycott businesses active in Israeli settlements, the UN Human Rights Council is turning a blind eye to more than 40 European companies that operate in four other areas deemed occupied by the UN.
A report issued last month by two pro-Israel advocacy organizations – Kohelet Policy Forum and NGO Monitor – says that “some of the world’s largest industrial, financial services, and other major publicly traded companies,” are operating in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus, Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine.
The UNHRC has been pushing efforts to boycott businesses that are active in Jewish settlements since it adopted Resolution 31/36 on March 24, 2016. A new boycott list is due out by December.
The report, authored by Kohelet legal expert and Northwestern University Prof. Eugene Kontorovich, accuses the UNHRC of formulating a boycott list that “is far too narrow in its scope, and fails to capture the full context and magnitude of business activities that support settlement enterprises in occupied territories.”
Its singular focus “undermines both the legal and practical value of the resulting database, and is likely to produce consequences both unexpected and undesired,” wrote Kontorovich.
Further, the report says that “as a matter of human rights, the council’s focus on Israel is difficult to understand.
Denying Jews' rights in Jerusalem and Hebron has long been a major component of the Palestinians' anti-Israel narrative. In school textbooks and other publications, Jewish religious sites are featured as "Arab, Palestinian and Islamic" religious places. The Western Wall, for example, is only described as "Al-Buraq Wall," while the Tomb of the Patriarchs is referred to as the Ibrahimi Mosque. Generation after generation, Palestinian children are taught that Jewish history is a figment of some twisted Jewish imagination. They are also being taught that only Palestinians and Muslims are entitled to the Holy Land. And they learn this lesson well: many Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims continue to deny Israel's right to exist because they have absorbed this message of hate. This message, moreover, is pervasive -- it is disseminated not only through school textbooks, but also through media outlets and the rhetoric of their leaders, especially mosque preachers and imams.
As of now, Palestinians also have an international agency (UNESCO) to support their anti-Israel narrative and rhetoric. The UNESCO resolutions are being interpreted by many Palestinians as proof that Israel has no right to exist. For many Palestinians, the resolutions are a green light to pursue their "armed struggle" to "liberate Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river." Translation: UNESCO has given the Palestinians yet another incentive to take to the streets and kill the first Jew they meet.
The latest UNESCO resolutions are a catalyst for Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. Yet they are more than that: they also make the prospect of peace even more distant. UNESCO and other international agencies that deny Jewish history are sending a green light for violence and extremism to Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims. These resolutions are seen by Palestinians as supporting their false and invented narrative that they are the true owners of the land and that all the holy sites belong solely to Muslims.
The World Council of Independent Christian Churches (WCICC) is calling on member states of the United Nations to defund the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in the wake of the passage of a resolution to declare the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Old City of Hebron to be World Heritage Sites in Danger, and under the authority of the Palestinian Authority government. “Instead of protecting our shared history and values, UNESCO has become the mouthpiece for global Jew Hatred,” the organization said in its release. “Their latest motion which suggests that Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs are Palestinian Heritage sites is both pathetic and offensive to history and the billions of Jews and Christians worldwide.
“There can be no place for such hatred within a world organization that exists to foster peace and understanding and protect history. It’s time to defund UNESCO once and for all.”
WCICC represents more than 45 million Evangelical Christians around the world, and is represented at the United Nations by special envoy Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN).
Cardoza-Moore said Monday in a statement of her own, “UNESCO has once again proven that they are not interested in protecting historic sites globally, but instead, blatantly disregarding over 3,500 years of documented history, they are more interested in their outrageous attempts at revisionist history.
Even if it might cost him his presidency, Abbas has pledged he won't stop paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists and the families of the so-called "Martyrs." According to his own Fatah Movement, Abbas has made the following statement, vowing to continue honoring terrorists and murderers with monetary rewards no matter what: "'Even if I will have to leave my position, I will not compromise on the salary (rawatib) of a Martyr (Shahid) or a prisoner, as I am the president of the entire Palestinian people, including the prisoners, the Martyrs, the injured, the expelled, and the uprooted.'
[PA] President Mahmoud Abbas." [Official Fatah Facebook page, July 2, 2017]
According to the 2016 PA budget, the PA currently pays 26,800 families of "Martyrs" a total of 660 million shekels ($183 million) per year, and 6,500 terrorist prisoners receive PA salaries amounting to 486 million shekels ($135 million) per year.
A member of Fatah's Central Committee, Jamal Muhaisen, also quoted Abbas' promise, and emphasized that the payment of salaries to terrorist prisoners and "Martyrs" is not an issue of money, but rather is about the "Palestinian historical narrative":
A historic visit to Israel commences today. It will be the first ever of an Indian Prime Minister to Israel. The two of us have met before but this is the first time we do so on Israeli soil.
The natural partnership between India and Israel, formally elevated 25 years ago to full diplomatic relations, has grown stronger from year to year. The deep connection between our peoples reflects our many similarities in spirit, if not in size. Ours are two modern, vibrant democracies that draw on our rich historical traditions while striving to seize the promise of the future for our peoples.
Both our nations are complex. Like yogic asanas grounding down and pulling up at the same time, they face many challenges. By working together we can overcome some of the challenges.
Over the centuries the philosophies and histories of our ancestors inspired one another. Today the entrepreneurial drive of Indians and Israelis brings us closer together. The Jewish community in India was always welcomed with warmth and respect and never faced any persecution. The Jews of Indian origin in Israel are proud of their heritage and have left an indelible imprint on both societies. Both communities serve as a human bridge between our nations. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel this week marks more than the 25th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two nations. It marks as well Israel’s coming of age as a nation.
When in 1992, India and Israel forged full diplomatic relations, the Indian government was reacting to a transformation in the international arena, rather than to changes that were specifically related to the Jewish state.
In 1991 and 1992, in response to the US victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, a large group of countries restored or inaugurated full diplomatic relations with Israel. These states – including the Russian Federation and China – had by and large been either on the Soviet side of the war, or leaned toward Moscow. Their refusal to forge full ties with Israel, a key US Cold War ally, became a liability in the US-dominated post-Cold War global order. Hence, they abandoned their Cold War rejection of Israel and instead embraced it.
Although ingratiating themselves with Washington loomed large in the considerations of most governments involved, they also took the step due to Israel’s independent power. If Israel had been a strategic basket case facing an uncertain future, then even in the face of the demise of the Soviet Union, Moscow and its allies could well have had second and third thoughts. Why anger the Arab world by recognizing a soon-to-be gone Jewish state? Had Israel recognized and built on the sources of its power and attraction for other governments, it would have spent the rest of the 1990s strengthening itself still further – defeating Hezbollah in Lebanon, weakening the Iranian regime and working with the Americans to end its ballistic weapon program. It would have moved quickly to liberalize its economy to enable the million new Israelis from the former Soviet Union to immediately transform Israel into the global innovator rather than waiting for this to gradually occur over decades.
In a startling revelation on Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the next war with Israel could see thousands of Shi’ite militia fighters join forces with Hezbollah to fight Israel.
“This could open the way for thousands, even hundreds of thousands of fighters from all over the Arab and Islamic world to participate – from Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said in a television speech.
This threat marks a major development and turning point in Hezbollah’s threats against Israel. The following are five reasons that Hezbollah’s latest statement has ramifications for Israel and the region.
1. The threat confirms what security experts and commentators have predicted.
2. Hezbollah’s threat builds on the model used in Syria.
3. Nasrallah wants to drag Israel into a regional war with multiple states and provoke Russia and the US.
4. Nasrallah is engaged in a war of words with Israel.
5. A silver lining? Will the US wake up to the Shi’ite militia threat in Iraq and will Nasrallah’s comments bring Israel closer to Saudi Arabia?
Several projectiles fired from Syria landed in open territory in Israel's Golan Heights on Sunday afternoon, the IDF confirmed. No injuries were reported in the incident.
The military added that the errant projectiles were the result of internal fighting in Syria.
The IDF struck targets belonging to forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime in response to the errant fire that hit northern Israel earlier in the day, the military confirmed on Sunday evening.
Among the targets struck were two canons and one truck loaded with ammunition.
The IDF has also instructed residents of the area as well as farmers working along the border not to remain in the area as long as the fire exchange continues.
The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force was notified by Israel about the hits it suffered from Syria.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran on Sunday that Israel “views gravely” its attempts to set up a military presence in Syria and to arm Hezbollah with advanced weaponry via Syria and Lebanon.
His comments at the weekly cabinet meeting came a day after the IDF responded to mortar fire from Syria by attacking Syrian army targets across the border.
“Our policy is clear,” he said. “We will not accept any kind of 'drizzle, not of mortars, rockets, or spillover fire [from the Syrian Civil War]. We respond with force to every attack on our territory and against our citizens.”
Netanyahu has said repeatedly that Israel will act to prevent game-changing weapons from reaching Hezbollah through Syria, to prevent the establishment of a permanent Iranian military presence on its border, and to keep rockets from being fired from Syria into Israel.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a former Jordanian ambassador and member of the royal family, should apologize for profoundly offensive remarks (see below) in which he compared “Palestinian suffering” with the Holocaust, and Palestinian refugee camps with Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The odious analogy was immediately endorsed by Qatar.
While he disingenuously insisted that the two cases were different, and though he made a point of predicting that he would be criticized by those acting ‘mechanically almost’, the fact remains that Mr. Hussein not only unfairly singled out Israel by dedicating the opening part of a major UN speech to the Palestinian situation but repeatedly juxtaposed the alleged suffering of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis with Jewish suffering at the hands of the Nazis.
Hussein spoke on Tuesday to open the 35th session of the UN Human Rights Council. I took the floor to respond—see below.
While the high commissioner addressed the U.S. Holocaust Museum in 2015, his odious analogy — unless he fully apologizes — renders him unfit to be invited back.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for the closing of UNRWA, the United Nations’ agency dealing with Palestinian refugees, saying he had already urged the US envoy to the world body to consider pushing for it to be shuttered.
On Sunday, two days after the announcement of a tunnel that was discovered June 1 underneath a UNRWA-run school in Gaza, Netanyahu said he told US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley during her visit to Israel last week that it was time to reconsider the agency’s existence.
“Hamas uses schoolchildren as human shields. This is an enemy we have been fighting for many years and committing a double war crime: On the one hand, they deliberately attack innocent civilians, and on the other hand they also hide behind children,” Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu, who is also foreign minister, said he instructed the Foreign Ministry’s director-general, Yuval Rotem, to file an official complaint at the UN Security Council. On Saturday, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon wrote a letter of complaint to the president of the Security Council.
Leaving aside my incredulity that UNRWA did not suspect anything beforehand – terror tunnel construction tends to make a lot of noise and it is not like UNRWA is not aware of their existence in general – the condemnation, like the tunnels themselves, rings hollow.
Look at the wording again. UNRWA is condemning the violation of their supposed neutrality – the fact the tunnels ran under their premises – and not the general existence of these terror tunnels.
This reminds me of their flacid condemnation when rockets were found on their premises. Again, the condemnation was for the “violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law” and not the existence and use of these rockets against Israeli civilians.
Why won’t UNRWA condemn Hamas for siphoning of money earmarked as aid and using it to construct these tunnels and manufacture the rockets? Surely as a so-called relief agency, they should be outraged the money is being wasted in this way.
Unless….they are not.
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Day,]Note 1: I've missed a few days of Dry Bones cartooning because I have "
*Shin...
“Who’s a Jew?” Hits the Headlines, Again
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Israel’s Supreme Court decided a few days ago that conversions to Judaism
by the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel must be recognized by
the stat...
Rosh Chodesh Women's Prayers
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The Jewish Month of Nissan is rapidly approaching. Ladies, please join us
for Rosh Chodesh Prayers at Tel Shiloh.
Rosh Chodesh is traditionally consider...
Coke Goes Woke and Broke
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“Get woke, go broke”, is a conservative meme about the cost of political
correctness that has it the wrong way around. Brands don’t go broke because
they g...
Good News Friday – Purim Same’ach edition
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Purim has started (or is starting) around the Jewish world, and we are
celebrating a “triple Purim” which is quite a rare event. It started
tonight at sund...
‘Test & Trace’ is a mirage
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Lockdown II thoughts: Day 1 Opposition politicians have been banging on
about the need for a ‘working’ Test & Trace system even more loudly than
the govern...
Oped in the Jerusalem Post (with links)
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The Jerusalem Post published an oped of mine on the Al Durah affair. Here
it is, unedited, with links: Al Durah Affair 20 Years On Today is the 20th
annive...