From Ian:
US envoy Friedman tears into Haaretz for op-ed disparaging him
Video: The Assault on the Jewish Connection to Jerusalem - Dore Gold (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
Like water for Gaza
US envoy Friedman tears into Haaretz for op-ed disparaging him
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman tore into the Haaretz daily Friday after the left-wing outlet ran an op-ed criticizing his financial support for the settlement enterprise.
“What has become of .@Haaretz ? Four young children are sitting shiva for their murdered father and this publication calls their community a ‘mountain of curses.’ Have they no decency?” he tweeted.
The “mountain of curses” remark with which Friedman took particular issue was a play on words by columnist Gidon Levy referring to the Har Bracha, or “Mount of blessing,” settlement.
The northern West Bank community was home to Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, a 29-year-old father of four who was stabbed to death by an Israeli Arab terrorist outside the Ariel settlement on Monday.
A day after the murder, Friedman recalled having donated an ambulance to Har Bracha years ago “hoping it would be used to deliver healthy babies.”
“Instead, a man from Har Bracha was just murdered by a terrorist, leaving behind a wife and four children. Palestinian ‘leaders’ [sic] have praised the killer. Praying for the BenGal family,” his Tuesday tweet concluded.
In his Haaretz column, Levy addressed the ambassador’s tweet, taking issue with his donation’s beneficiaries.
“With Friedman’s ambulance or without it, Har Bracha is a mountain of curses. It was a settlement established, like all the others, to poke a stick in the Palestinian eye and drive a stake into any chance of an agreement,” Levy wrote, highlighting the settlement’s location deep inside the northern West Bank.
Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken replied to Friedman’s tweet Friday, posting to the social media network that “Gideon Levy is right. As long as the policy of Israel that your Government and yourself support is obstructing peace process, practical annexation of the territories, perpetuating apartheid, fighting terror but willing to pay its price, there will be more Shivas.”
Video: The Assault on the Jewish Connection to Jerusalem - Dore Gold (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
At a meeting of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation last December, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, said that Jews are really excellent at faking and counterfeiting history and religion. I was struck by that because I refuse to assault the principles of their faith. They can say whatever they want about their faith as long as they don't try and assault my faith. Part of the tragedy of the current period is this overall assault on the connections between Israel, the Jewish people, and Jerusalem.
In October 2016, UNESCO asserted that the Temple Mount was connected to Islam, but it refused to acknowledge any Jewish connection whatsoever - or for that matter any Christian connection - to the Temple Mount. In the resolution adopted in Paris, it used only the Islamic term for the Temple Mount - Haram al-Sharif, but the actual terminology "Temple Mount," which had been used by international organizations for years, suddenly vanished. A few months later in December 2016, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334 which called the Old City of Jerusalem, the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount "occupied Palestinian territory."
The entire international community met together after World War I and said the Jews have a right to reconstitute their ancient homeland. That ought to be worth something. Israel is the only country in the international system whose historical rights were confirmed by both the League of Nations and the United Nations. To completely dismiss the rights of Israel is to dismiss how our rights have been understood by the international community for more than a century.
The cardinal question is who is going to protect Jerusalem in the future. Will it be national movements that doubt the legitimacy of various faiths' connections to Jerusalem, or will it be national movements that understand that there are other national groups that have connections to Jerusalem. If Jerusalem is important to people, if freedom of religious expression is important to people, then only a free and democratic Israel will protect Jerusalem for all the great faiths.
Like water for Gaza
According to a 2016 Haaretz interview with Adnan Ghosheh, a senior water and sanitation specialist at the World Bank, the Gaza Strip will become uninhabitable for human beings by 2020.
This grim forecast is supported by the Institute for National Security Studies in a report titled "Water and Energy Crisis in Gaza: Snapshot 2017."
According to the report, the "lack of clean water for domestic use and unsafe sanitary conditions pose a serious public health threat to the two million people living in the Gaza Strip. By now, large amounts of untreated wastewater have already crossed Gaza's borders and created additional repercussions for several neighboring communities in Egypt and Israel, with Israel at one point forced to close two of its beaches."
When unlimited drinking water flows from the taps in Ashkelon, just north of Gaza, it is too easy to accuse Israel of unjustly dividing this precious resource, as self-righteous Israelis, and Europeans, sometimes do. These voices continue to condescend, absolving the local leadership of any responsibility. But it is the Palestinian leaders who actually bear the blame for this disgraceful situation.
The fact is that the deterioration of Gaza's water aquifers is a perfect reflection of the deterioration of the Oslo Accords. It is not a military or diplomatic issue, but rather a refusal to take any responsibility for providing basic infrastructure that is essential for maintaining the most fundamental aspects of life – preventing disease and death. If only they dug sewer tunnels for the betterment of Gaza rather than terror tunnels to the detriment of Israel.

























