Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 22, 2013

Hamas official says Egypt wants to take back Gaza

Felesteen, a Hamas newspaper, reports that the deputy head of the "political bureau" of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzouk, is accusing Egypt of wanting to exercise sovereignty over the Gaza Strip as it had before 1967.

Reports from Gaza indicate that this morning, for the third time this month, Egyptian helicopters hovered over the sector, apparently during Egyptian army operations to destroy smuggling tunnels.

Israel has not interfered with Egyptian aircraft over Gaza.

Marzouk says that the helicopters show that Egypt wants to re-assert its rule over Gaza. This is, of course, nonsense - no one wants Gaza. Gazans would leave en masse if a single Arab country would welcome them as equal citizens. But that vaunted Arab hospitality and support for their Palestinian brethren only goes so far. (Even when Egypt controlled Gaza, they kept it as a sort of prison for all Palestinians who ended up in Egypt.)

Marzouk also reiterated that Hamas has no desire to attack Egypt, and that all the news reports about Hamas members being arrested or killed along with Sinai jihadists are lies.

7/22 Links Part 1: Great Expectations, PA Spokesmen Deny Talks, EU Finally Labels Hezbollah Terrorists

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Great expectations

Why should Israelis who have already paid the ultimate price be forced to undergo such an indignity? Has Abbas done anything constructive, such as prepare his people for painful concessions necessary to reach an agreement with Israel, to deserve such a gesture? Previous prisoner releases have failed to soften Palestinian stands. Most likely they have achieved the opposite, since Palestinians have learned it is possible to exact concessions from Israel without reciprocating.
Despite the dangers ahead, a comprehensive agreement between the sides is the only way to prevent the creation of a bi-national state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, and ensure that Israel remains both Jewish and democratic. It is also the only way for the Palestinians to achieve their national aspirations - one reached through dialogue, mutual concessions and goodwill, and not aggression and threats.
We offer full support to Kerry’s initiative and hope that a just agreement with the Palestinians will result in peace and security for both sides.

Both Abbas’s spokesmen say no deal yet to restart talks

Contradicting Secretary of State John Kerry, spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement late Sunday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to send a delegate to Washington merely to continue lower-level preliminary talks with an Israeli counterpart about the terms for negotiations.
A second Abbas spokesman, Yasser Abed Rabbo, had made similar comments earlier Sunday. Abu Rudeineh and Abed Rabbo are the only Palestinian officials authorized to speak on the matter.

Israel, PA Accept Martin Indyk as Mediator in Negotiations

Indyk criticized President Barack Obama's Middle East policy in 2009. He said that Obama and U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell have failed in the Middle East.
“It’s clear that things are not going as he planned,” Indyk said at an Omaha, Nebraska forum. He explained that President Obama counted on the support of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who rebuffed the overtures for even a minor compromise regarding the 2002 Saudi initiative.
Indyk also failed the president and Mitchell for focusing on trying to freeze building for Jews in Judea and Samaria. The former ambassador said that they violated a basic rule in negotiations in the Middle East: don’t get bogged down in details.
“George Mitchell didn’t hear that sucking sound,” Indyk added.

Analysis: ‘Wanting it more than the parties themselves’
What if the type of Palestinian state that Netanyahu is willing to give is not the type of state Abbas can accept?

At 78-years-old, is he going to want to be the one to go down in Palestinian history as the leader to have closed the door on all the maximalist Palestinian aspirations, including the right of refugees and their descendants to return to pre-1967 Israel? And do his people – and Hamas is a big part of his people – want him to do so? Kerry is forcing the issue, dragging the sides back to the table kicking and screaming. For this he has already won many plaudits. But is what is good for Kerry and America’s standing in the region, necessarily good for Israel and the Palestinians?

Analysis: Arab world pessimistic on renewed peace talks

The Arab world – which is divided on almost any element including Shi’ites and Sunnis, radical and conservative Muslims, various states and tribes – appear to unite in their pessimistic outlook of the planned, US-moderated peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet some Arab newspapers, instead of focusing on this issue, have focused their commentary on other conflicts in the region.

Arab League Blames Israel Before Talks Even Start

Sabih added that the Arab League was monitoring Israel's stance so the talks were not simply "negotiations for the sake of negotiations, going round in a vicious circle".
"This could be the last chance to revive the stalled peace process," he noted.

Keeping BBC audience’s eyes on the ‘settlements’ ball

Some might say that “further complicated” is a bit of an understatement. The fact that the PA is not in control of part of the territory it will be negotiating about, and upon which it hopes to establish a state, is clearly a huge issue, as is the fact that the PA president’s legitimate mandate to sign anything on behalf of the Palestinian people expired years ago. Another glaring problem is that the PA clearly cannot claim to be able to give security guarantees on behalf of the range of terrorist organisations including Hamas, the PFLP, the DFLP and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad which are openly hostile to negotiations.

Indy’s political editor misrepresents David Ward’s vile Holocaust remarks

As the quote clearly indicates, Ward was castigating Jews as Jews for, a mere few years after liberation from the death camps in 1945, evidently not learning the correct moral lessons and thus beginning immediately to inflict atrocities on Palestinians.
Jews, ‘of all people’, an exasperated Ward was in effect exclaiming, had visited upon the Palestinians a level of cruelty and violence which arguably evoke the crimes committed against their co-religionists in the death camps throughout Europe – a “they of all people” argument which Howard Jacobson aptly characterized as leaving the Jewish people doubly damned: to the Holocaust itself and to elevated moral scrutiny as a result of it.

EU agrees to place Hezbollah military wing on terror list

Britain has sought to persuade the EU to put the Shiite Muslim group's military wing on the bloc's terrorism list since May, citing evidence that it was behind a bus bombing in Bulgaria last year which killed five Israelis and their driver.
Israel's Justice Minister welcomed the decision, saying "after years of deliberations and going back and forth on the matter, the argument that Hezbollah was a political movement and their attempt to whitewash their terrorist activity has failed."

PA Children Call for 'Liberation' of Palestine'

The video, which was recently recorded at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is a good example of the radical Islamic education given to children in the PA.
The video shows a boy about 12 years of age, standing next to two children aged 8-9. The 12-year-old received the honor of giving the sermon to the thousands of Muslim worshipers who were in attendance that day. He is seen wearing a Hizb ut-Tahrir scarf, and huge banners praising the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate can be viewed in the background.
The PA child attacks in his sermon the idea of a democratic regime, calls on Islamic nations to stand up to their values, and urges Muslim armies not to be negligent in their duty to free the Al-Aqsa Mosque while ignoring the positions of the United States.

Netanyahu: Morsi ouster shows weakness of Islamist movements

In rare remarks on Egypt's government crisis, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has suggested that the fall of the president, Mohamed Morsi, demonstrates the weaknesses of political Islamist movements.
"I believe that over the long haul these radical Islamic regimes are going to fail because they don't offer the adequate enfranchisement that you need to develop a country economically, politically and culturally," Netanyahu told the German weekly Welt am Sonntag.
He said he thought radical Islamism was wholly unsuited to dealing with a global economic and information revolution, and "goes right back to medievalism against the whole thrust of modernity, so over time it's bound to fail."

Syria accused of gassing Palestinian refugee camp

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces said Sunday that the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus had been gassed by regime forces amid heavy fighting.
According to Israel Radio, at least 22 people were killed in the Sunday attack, the majority from inhalation of toxic gases, according to Palestinian sources cited in the report.

Red Crescent to make ‘halal’ drugs with Turkish blood

Akar told daily Hurriyet that the move could both eliminate dependence on drugs imports, as well as providing Muslim Turks with assurances that their medicine complies with their religious codes.
"For instance, if we are buying medicine from Britain, it is made out of the blood and plasma of the blood of the people of that country. We have different dietary habits from those countries. Being a Muslim nation, we do not eat pork. We don’t eat some of problematic foods, but these exist in the medicine that we import,” he said.

PA minister admits any agreement with Israel would be a scam

From Palestinian Media Watch:

PA Minister of Religious Affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash::
"We hate war. We don't want war. We don't want bloodshed, not for ourselves, nor for others. We want peace. We say this because our culture is founded on this, and because our religion is based on this. Yes, we want peace, but not any peace. We want a peace based on justice, therefore the Palestinian leadership and the PLO have not missed any opportunity for peace...

The Palestinian leadership's sense of responsibility towards its nation made it take political steps about 20 years ago (i.e., signing the Oslo Accords). Despite the controversy, despite much criticism and much opposition by some, it brought us to where we are today: We have a [Palestinian] Authority and the world recognizes the [Palestinian] state.

All this never would have happened through Hamas' impulsive adventure, but only through the wisdom of the leadership, conscious action, consideration, and walking the right path, which leads to achievement, exactly like the Prophet [Muhammad] did in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, even though some opposed it...

The hearts of the Prophet's companions burned with anger and fury. The Prophet said: 'I'm the Messenger of Allah and I will not disobey Him.' This is not disobedience, it is politics. This is crisis management, situation management, conflict management...

Allah called this treaty a clear victory...

Omar ibn Al-Khattab said: 'Messenger of Allah, is this a victory? Is this logical? Is this victory? We are giving up and going back, and not entering Mecca. Is that a victory?' The Prophet said: 'Yes, it is a victory.'

In less than two years, the Prophet returned and based on this treaty, he conquered Mecca. This is the example, this is the model."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, July 19, 2013]

As PMW notes:

The Hudaybiyyah peace treaty was a 10-year truce that Muhammad, Islam's Prophet, made with the Quraish Tribe of Mecca. However, two years into the truce, Muhammad attacked and conquered Mecca. The PA Minister of Religious Affairs stressed in his Friday sermon that Muhammad’s agreeing to the Hudaybiyyah treaty was not "disobedience" to Allah, but was "politics" and "crisis management." The minister emphasized that in spite of the peace treaty, two years later Muhammad "conquered Mecca." He ended his comparison by expressing the view that the Hudaybiyyah agreement is not just past history, but that "this is the example and this is the model."

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, there have been senior PA officials who have presented the peace process with Israel as a deceptive tactic that both facilitated the PA's five-year terror campaign against Israel (the Intifada), and which will weaken Israel through territorial compromise that will eventually lead to Israel's destruction.

Abbas threatens: "If we don't get what we want, all options are open"

Imagine the outcry that would follow if Bibi Netanyahu said that if the planned peace talks don't go well, "all options are on the table." It would be perceived as a threat - perhaps to annex the territories, perhaps to unilaterally annex parts, perhaps to occupy Area A. Either way, it would make headlines, confirming the idea of Israeli belligerency and intransigence.

Netanyahu never said that. But Mahmoud Abbas did.

Palestine Press Agency quotes Abbas as saying that if there is no progress in the peace talks, "all options are open."

A violent intifada?

Whatever he is threatening, it is clear that Abbas isn't serious about an agreement, because he also said that any agreement would be subject to a popular referendum before the PLO would move forward. given that the PA hasn't been able to hold real elections for about a decade now, this pretty much means that Abbas can hold out for whatever he demands because he knows that he can always blame the "people" he rules for any deals he doesn't want to sign.

ABC-Australia parrots a lie: "There are no birds in Gaza"

On Australian TV, there was an interview with Moira Kelly, a woman who is building a garden in Gaza, who makes the incredible claim that there are no birds in the sector (4:08):

Kelly: "And there are no birds in Gaza."
Hostess: "No birds at all."
Kelly: "There's no birds. This is a phenomenal little statistic in Gaza you don't realize."
Hostess: "Will the plants bring birds?"
Landscape designer Andrew Laidlaw: "Well, we hope they will...hopefully it will be a beginning."

The interview, when posted on the ABC website, is headlined "Peace garden to bring birds back to Gaza."

But as AIJAC shows, the claim that there are no birds at all in Gaza, this "phenomenal little statistic," is a ridiculousand easily disproven lie:

It is hard to imagine how ABC news staff could have not caught Kelly's blatant exaggeration and even felt free to put the ABC's imprimatur on the claim by including it in the story summary. Yet even the most cursory investigation would have confirmed that the Gaza Strip, like its neighbour Israel, is literally teeming with avian life.

Type "birds in Gaza Strip" into Google and the very second response you get, in terms of relevance (the first being a Wikipedia article) is a bird checklist by the World Bird Database which lists 171 species of birds in the Gaza Strip.

The third most relevant response is a scholarly paper from 2011 by Dr. Abdel Fattah N. Abd Rabou from the Department of Biology at the Islamic University of Gaza.

The paper, "Notes on Some Palestinian Bird Fauna Existing in the Zoological Gardens of the Gaza Strip" focuses mainly on birds in captivity in the Strip. However, the paper also includes a survey of the natural bird life in the area.

Writes Dr. Abd Rabou:

The Gaza Strip, which is located at the southern portion of the Palestine coast along the Mediterranean Sea, is blessed with a considerable number of bird fauna including terrestrial and aquatic forms. Dense concentration of birds occurs over the Gaza Strip during spring and autumn migration seasons [5, 6]. It is worth mentioning that wetlands, including the wetland ecosystem of Wadi Gaza, are considered as very productive ecosystems, having rich bird fauna. They provide bird fauna with all necessary requirements such as shelter, protection, food and breeding, resting and roosting places ... etc [7-13].

Here is a photo of Gaza birds taken last year:

Somehow this photographer managed to find several of the nonexistent birds.

AIJAC continues:

ABC goofed by giving Kelly a license to exaggerate claims about conditions in Gaza as a fundraising and propaganda tool. Even before the construction of this park, Gaza most certainly did, and continues to have, trees, bird life as well as green spaces (even some lavish ones, like the Dolphin Water Park and Resort which opened in April, compensating for another one which Hamas destroyed in 2010).

Kelly and the ABC effectively conspired to distort the reality on the ground in the interests of manufacturing sympathy for a doubtlessly worthwhile project. But when Australia's public broadcaster uncritically promotes such storytelling, it is acting counter to the principles of ethical journalism, and its own charter.

While this incident is, of course, peripheral to the more substantive issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for ABC's journalists and editors to "parrot" the bizarre notion that Gaza is devoid of birdlife without anyone along the way bothering to exercise the most basic level of fact-checking is indeed troubling.

It raises the question of what other fact-checking, if any, is employed by the ABC regarding news items originating in Palestinian controlled areas on more important subjects.

By the way, in Moira Kelly's website, we can read:

The delegation had also been invited to meet with Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader and Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and his team in his compound. Moira was one of the last Australians to have met with him before his death and found him to be a misunderstood man of great faith and great compassion, and above all, passionate about his people.

In other words, some people will believe anything as long as they really, really want to.

Nasrallah makes his case against EU blacklisting Hezbollah; insists Israel wants to invade Lebanon (update)

Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a little-noticed speech Friday night in which he not only asserted that Hezbollah is protecting Lebanon against Israel's unending expansionism, but also that the EU cannot separate Hizballah's "military wing" from the good people of Lebanon itself. This was a clear attempt to counter the possibility that the EU might declare Hezballah's military wing ("resistance") to be a terror organization today.

Sayyed Nasrallah wondered if someone believed that Lebanon was no longer exposed to Israel threats, stressing that if someone believed so, this would be a "misfortune", as Israel's greediness has no end.

His eminence reassured that whoever tried to break or isolate the resistance has failed in achieving that, because this resistance is not an organization or a party, but a public determination which is ready for sacrifices.

"The noble people in this country have invested in the resistance with their most precious and loved ones, with their children and blood, hence, this resistance is not a faction that you can siege or isolate," he added.

Hezbollah Secretary General stated that the resistance is capable of overcoming all the difficulties, as the enemy is reviewing all its plans and calculations after what happened in the last couple of months.

He indicated that "in any coming war, the enemy's eye will be on Galilee before Beirut… and from now on, no one can assault Lebanon without paying a price."

Sayyed Nasrallah considered that what the resistance has been exposed to was the result of its victories against the Zionist entity.

"The resistance, which triumphed in 1982, 2000, and 2006, was able to destroy the 'New Middle East' project. Hence, it was natural to be targeted. In addition to the military confrontation with the enemy, we were being targeted on the military, security, cultural, and social levels," he added, pointing out that "when the resistance does not get targeted, this means it is ineffective and the enemy does not fear it."

The Lebanese are increasingly sick of Hizballah in light of its dragging the nation into the Syrian mess, and this speech exposes far more about Nasrallahs' fears than about Israel's, by not even addressing Syria and acting like just another Arab despot - by blaming Israel for all problems.

One consequence of the recent upheavals in the Arab world is that the people are no longer buying it. Nasrallah won't be taken down by Israel, but by the Lebanese people he is pretending are on his side.

UPDATE: Despite these efforts, the EU is declaring Hizballah's "military wing" to be a terrorist group.

"Now or never" - for 40 years

The Telegraph's headline says "Now or never for a two-state solution."

Now, where have I heard that before?

1970: Rogers plan for 90 day truce between Israel and Egypt "the realization by the Soviet Union, the Arabs and the Israelis that the moment is very much one of 'now or never.'"
1978: "Mideast peace could be now or never"
1995: "If both sides really want a breakthrough - it's now or never . . " (Warren Christopher heading to Mideast)
1998: "Peace provess: It's now or never" (Thomas Friedman, NYT)
2000: Mubarak says Mideast peace must come "now or never"
2002: "Arafat needs to know: 'It's now or never'"
2007: "For them it's now or never. If they fail in Annapolis they will not find another break through in the Middle Eastern peace process."
2010: "Palestinian says it's now or never for two states"
2011: "Peace Now, or Never" (Ehud Olmert op-ed in NYT)

And some wisdom from Menachem Begin in 1979:

"I do not adopt the theory of 'now or never,'", Begin said. "we shall have to negotiate again, and I don't see any tragedy in it."

OIC head says Israel is the only beneficiary from Muslim problems

The always entertaining Iranian FARS news reports:

Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu underlined that continued instability and bloodshed in the region, particularly in the Muslim states, only serves the interests of the Zionists.

“The situation of Islamic world is highly worrying and no Muslim country in the region benefits from it. It is only the Zionist regime of Israel that benefits from it,” Ihsanoglu stressed in a meeting with Iran's Ambassador to the OIC Hamid Reza Dehqani on Saturday.

He stopped short of saying that Israel instigates all Muslim problems, but FARS fills in the blanks:

In relevant remarks in August 2012, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in a meeting with Indonesian Vice-President Boediono in Tehran warned of the plots hatched by certain powers to stir religious and sectarian strife in Muslim nations.

During the meeting held on the sidelines of the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) here in Tehran at the time, the Supreme Leader cautioned against the dangerous attempts made to sow discord and stir clashes between different religious sects in the Muslim nations, specially between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and said, "These actions are carried out through the support of certain powers and by means of their hirelings, whose instances can be seen in Afghanistan and Pakistan now."

I notice that in a number of official EU documents regarding the Middle East, the phrase "1967 borders" or "pre-1967 borders" is used repeatedly. I am very surprised by this, since you undoubtedly know that there were no agreed borders for Israel before 1967, and they were only armistice lines from the 1948 war. Borders were always meant to be defined in the context of peace agreements between Israel and her neighbors, as indeed they eventually were with Egypt and Jordan.

Could you explain your use of a clearly incorrect term, and will you be correcting this error - both in the future and retroactively?

Thanks

This was sent through their website form. They say they respond to most queries within three working days.

7/21 Links: A Tour with J Street, PA Honors Dalal Mughrabi, UN Honors Che, Hezbollah Defends Pot

From Ian:

To Ramallah and back

A US college student’s perspective on Israeli security: The actions Israel has taken to keep citizens, tourists protected are invaluable.
This past month I went on a trip to Ramallah with J Street. I signed up for the trip with very little in terms of expectations – I was merely looking forward to a tour of Ramallah. Of course, I hoped the trip would be an educational experience. I expected to hear insight from Palestinians, activists and UN officials that I would disagree with. However, the most alarming encounters I was confronted with were from the American Jewish college students with whom I traveled.

Ex-PA minister: Abbas cowed by threat of US aid loss

“Abbas feels American pressure, and Arab [League] pressure,” said Abuzayyad, a former Palestinian legislator, cabinet minister and negotiator. “The Arab League is telling him, ‘You can’t be seen as responsible for Kerry’s failure.’”
Asked about reports that Abbas faced US threats to withdraw aid if he didn’t enter talks, Abuzayyad told Army Radio, “Of course there was a threat of economic sanctions, as much as $500 million per year. There was pressure related to the end of aid.”

1967 lines not the basis for new talks, report says

Contrary to Palestinian claims, the terms for restarting long-dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks do not include a reference to the pre-1967 lines, according to a Western official quoted by The New York Times late Saturday.

Hamas spokesman accuses US of deluding Palestinians

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Ma’an news agency Saturday that the negotiations are just a cover for the Israeli “agenda of Judaization” and that they threatened Palestinian reconciliation.
“Stopping political reconciliation [between Fatah and Hamas] for negotiations between the PA and Israel is very dangerous,” Barhoum said. “For Hamas, reconciliation is a strategy that must be implemented instantly in light of the current Arab and global situation and US and European collusion with Israel.”

PMW: PA TV: Terrorist Dalal Mughrabi is "a Palestinian and Arab symbol"

UN Watch: UNESCO honors executioner Che Guevara

Cuba held a ceremony on Friday to celebrate UNESCO’s despicable decision to include “The Life and Works of Ernesto Che Guevara” among 54 new additions to the Memory of the World Register, approved on June 18 by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.

CiF Watch prompts correction to Guardian claim on Gaza construction material

We noted that Sherwood’s claim that ‘Israel only allows construction materials into Gaza which is destined for UN projects’ was not true – citing widely reported news in Dec. 2012 that Israel had expanded the legal passage of construction materials (which had previously only allowed materials for UN projects) to include such materials for private contractors, as well.
Shortly after contacting Guardian editors, the passage in question was revised to more accurately reflect Israeli policy vis-a-vis the import of construction material into Gaza.

European Sanctions on Israel Destroy Two-State Delusion

In a report that was recently presented to and ignored by members of the European Parliament, the reputable NGO Monitor details the damaging impact of highly secretive European Union funding for radical political advocacy Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). There is overwhelming evidence that these shadowy groups are involved in anti-Israel boycotts and violent demonstrations that undermine the EU’s stated efforts to secure peace in the Middle East.
Yet, it would be a mistake to interpret the European Union’s latest foray into Palestinian state building as a betrayal of high minded ideals. Rarely in the history of nations does such a clarifying, unifying event take place. The vast majority of the Israeli public has reacted with outrage to the EU’s heavy-handed attempt to placate their Islamist masters.
Like free men and women everywhere, Israelis will not accept external ultimatums related to matters inside their country’s borders. This Israeli-Palestinian conflict can and will only be resolved via direct negotiations between the parties.

Germany backs away from EU settlement directives

In a statement issued by MP Philipp Missfedler, the Bundestag spokesman for German chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party and its coalition partner the Bavarian Christian Social Union, he stated the guidelines are “pure ideology and symbolic politics” and will not contribute to finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

EU should stand up to Hezbollah

On July 16, France 24 held a roundtable discussion on the topic “Has the West forgotten about Syria?” Around 5,000 people are dying each month in Syria in a conflict that has claimed more than 80,000 lives. The death tolls have only risen since Hezbollah decided to intervene fully in the conflict by committing large numbers of terrorists to fight in the Battle of Qusair on June 5. Now is the time, with Hezbollah increasingly involved in human rights abuses, for the EU to label the organization a terrorist group, thus cutting off its funding sources and ensuring that fewer Syrians die at its hands.
EU terrorism experts have been meeting in the past month Lebanon but also the region through its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brutal policies.

Inside Israel’s Preparation for the Next Hezbollah Conflict

Much has been written about the tunnels in Gaza where goods and weapons are smuggled into the Islamist enclave, but Cohen confirmed that Hezbollah also has a huge amount of tunnels leading from village houses, mosques, and other buildings, and often leading outside the village. Hezbollah fighters try to use these tunnels to emerge behind their attackers. The tunnels are often built with cement reinforcements – sometimes two meters high, allowing the terrorists to dash back and forth, emerging from unexpected angles, and often giving the impression there are more of them than is actually the case. Even the tunnels have been recreated in the mock village.

Hezbollah Defending Cannabis Fields against Rebel Takeover

Hezbollah owns vast areas of thousands of acres of cannabis, both in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon and in the Alawite areas in Syria, and this, according to the Arab news website Almokhtsar.com, is the main reason for their exceptional loyalty to the Assad regime this days, a loyalty that so far has cost them at least 100 casualties. The most important goal for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is to keep those billion dollar assets from falling into rebel hands.

Twitter Data Shows How U.S. and Europe Treat Online Anti-Semitism

Stern believes that it is generally “more effective to have hateful speech marginalized than censored,” particularly by having high-ranking officials or politicians call it out. In 2005, Stern was part of a debate in the U.S. between Jewish groups on the issue of anti-Semitism online. One school of thought was in favor of removing anti-Semitic content, the other side believed such content “is a way to train kids in this new medium,” on how to distinguish hateful speech from benign speech, he said.
The bigger problem, Stern said, is when anti-Semitism, online or otherwise, is expressed as normal, polite dinner conversation. “I’ll be less worried if it’s half a dozen neo-Nazis with tattoos sitting in a bar someplace,” he said.

Facebook Removes Page of Racist Hungarian Website After ADL Complaint, Replacement Page Posted Next Day

APF’s Bodnar said Kuruc is indicative of a greater problem in Hungary: “The quality of Hungarian public speech is deteriorating day by day. The anti-Semitic utterances in Parliament are the representatives of employers and with a proud voice, and you hear their racist, anti-Semitic speeches blight the public thinking, destroying the quality of public discourse.”

TAU Scientists Improve Transplants with a ‘Heart of Gold’

Scientists at Tel Aviv University are integrating cardiac cells with nanofibers made of gold particles to create engineered cardiac tissues for transplants and post-attack therapies.
Heart tissue cells cannot multiply or regenerate, and cardiac muscle contains few stem cells, making it impossible for the tissue to repair itself.

EcoStream beats boycotters

EcoStream, which sells SodaStream recyclable bottles made in the West Bank settlement of Mishor Adumim, is picketed every Saturday afternoon by anti-Israel activists.
But despite the protesters’ efforts, the shop has seen an increase in sales, expanded its product-line and this week launched its website.
EcoStream manager Steve Bannatyne said: “A few of weeks ago, we saw a 38 per cent increase in trade. And it’s stayed steady from there on.” (h/t Rabbi Andrea Zanardo)

Asian-American Congresswoman Meng Chides Asian Studies Organization for Adopting BDS Resolution

Meng told The Algemeiner in an email that she couldn’t sit by idly as the AAAS tried to harm Israel.
“This is an unprecedented action for an academic organization, let alone for an Asian American group, so I chose to voice opposition to it,” she said.
She added she has “always been sympathetic to Zionism,” and that a trip to Israel in 2010 “deepened my understanding of the Jewish state. It also provided context to what I already knew about the unique historical persecution of the Jewish people and the great achievements of the Jewish State.”

IDF Blog: Meet the Bedouin Soldier Who Enlisted in the IDF Against His Father’s Wishes

When Ibrahim graduated high school with honors, his father urged him to forgo on the army draft and direct his potential towards academic studies. When he enlisted regardless, his father banished him from the house. Now, upon completion of his officer’s course, Ibrahim describes the pride he holds for his country, the obligation he felt to enlist in the IDF, and the friends he met on his way to completing his dream of serving in the IDF.