8/15 Links Part 1: Justice for None, PA Honored the Murderers of 238 Israelis during Ramadan

From Ian:

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JPost Editorial: Justice for none

In effect, we are giving power to a foreign ruler – PA President Mahmoud Abbas – to determine how long the murderers of Israelis would serve. In these circumstances, we might as well close our courts and leave everything up to Abbas.
If the murderers of entire families are arbitrarily set free by his say-so, it is not inconceivable that he would eventually demand the liberation of Amjad Mahmad Awad and Hakim Mazen Awad of Awarta, who in 2011 butchered five members of the Fogel family in Itamar – mother, father and their three children.
The Awads, who decapitated a three-month-old girl, are already celebrated as heroes and role models in the PA-controlled media, schools and mosques.
Those whom Abbas now demands released, to buy his entry into the talks, were guilty of no less bloodcurdling slaughters, even if these took place years earlier.

American Support for Convict Release Betrays Ulterior Motive

Abbas has no public mandate for peace talks because he has consistently told the population that lives under his rule that violence is the path to victory. The popular Arab icons and leaders that are immortalized on murals and billboards across Ramallah and Jenin are not men of peace, they are men of war. They are not idols of reconciliation but of death and destruction.
By insisting on the release of 104 popular symbols of Palestinian terror the United States has strengthened the segments of Arab society that see war with Israel as the only option.

PA honored the killers of 238 Israelis during Ramadan

As a major focus of its Ramadan activities, the Palestinian Authority chose to honor and glorify terrorist murderers.
In all, 22 terrorist murderers who killed 238 Israelis were glorified, along with numerous other terrorists who caused injuries. Those honored included suicide bombers, bomb makers, hijackers, snipers, stabbers, and planners of terror attacks. Palestinian Media Watch has reported that many of them have been honored numerous times in the past for their terror attacks.

Cantor: Only Palestinian ‘mind-shift’ will bring peace

Peace will only emerge when the Palestinians and the Arab world go through a “cultural mind-shift” and accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, US House Majority leader Eric Cantor said on Wednesday.
“Until that point comes, I don’t think that there will be much progress,” the Virginia Republican added during a Jerusalem press conference.

Jewish Home Knesset Chair to Kerry: You Are a Hypocrite

You have forced us into peace talks during a period of time that the entire Middle-East is in chaos, without realizing that by doing so, you have foolishly put us in an impossible situation, in which we cannot and will not make any concessions. By your own hand you have raised expectations to a dangerous level – one that might cause the whole region to spin out of control once those expectations are proven unrealistic, like so many times before.
The past four years in Israel have been as quiet and peaceful as ever. Therefore, I suggest to you that you perform your job in a much more effective and relevant fashion by focusing your attention on Syria and Egypt, where people are actually getting slaughtered.

Royal slams US, EU for excluding Jordan from talks

Prince Hassan, uncle to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, said the Americans and Europeans were treating the issue as a two-sided problem, according to a Channel 10 report. Jordan should be a full partner in negotiations between the sides, said the prince, since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a regional problem, partly because the majority of Palestinians live in Jordan.

Iran: We Are 'Hostile' to Israel-PA Talks

Iran once again blasted the latest round of talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, saying it was "hostile" to the negotiations brokered by the United States, AFP reported.
"Iran is hostile to these negotiations and several Palestinian groups are hostile to them," foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi was quoted as having told the ISNA news agency.

BBC’s Knell reports on prisoner release without mentioning their crimes

Quite what Knell and her colleagues ‘consider’ people who have engaged in the premeditated murder of women and pensioners (and who most definitely do have blood on their hands, as proven in a court of law) to be besides terrorists is not a moot question. But critically Knell’s use of language – which is clearly intended to promote the idea of moral equivalence between the perception of these prisoners as “heroes of the Palestinian cause” and the all too obvious fact that they engaged in violent acts of terrorism – is particularly disingenuous – and downright ridiculous – when her words are broadcast against a background of images of masked gunmen and flags of terrorist organisations such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the DFLP.

The Guardian faces stiff competition for most sympathetic depiction of murderers

Question: Can you quickly tell us what all of these photos and captions share in common?
Answer: None of these photos – featuring the perpetrators, their families and supporters – included even a word about the often barbaric crimes committed, nor anything about the victims or their surviving family members.

Nasrallah: Hezbollah deliberately ambushed IDF soldiers on border

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday that militants from his group were behind last week's bombing, which wounded four Israeli soldiers, threatening to "cut off the legs" of any Israeli forces that cross the border into Lebanon.
In a live interview with Lebanese television station Al-Mayadeen this week, Nasrallah said that two remote-control bombs detonated inside Lebanon when the Israeli force crossed the border. He said Hezbollah members knew in advance the Israelis were coming and planted the bombs in a deliberate plan to target them.

Report: Iran, Hamas Trying to Smuggle Syrian Arms into West Bank

While there’s obvious concern about radical Islamists smuggling weapons into Syria as part of the fight against dictator Bashar al-Assad, an intelligence analysis agency says Iran may be funneling dangerous arms in the opposite direction.
A recent analysis from Stratfor cites the arrest of five Syrian arms and drug smugglers in Jordan last Tuesday. They carried anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles and assault rifles. Jordan has been used as a supply route for arms meant for Syrian rebels. But Stratfor notes that the suspects were picked up heading south, away from Syria.

Report: Western Security Officials Confirm Israel, Egypt Armies Battling Terrorists Together in Sinai

The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed Western security officials, confirmed media speculation that this weekend’s onslaught against terrorists in the Sinai came through coordination between Egyptian and Israeli security forces, although neither side would confirm that they work with the other.
“Israel’s intervention in the Sinai Peninsula—which Egyptian officials denied, and which Israeli officials neither confirmed nor denied—would be the clearest manifestation of the high-level interaction between Israeli and Egyptian military and intelligence chiefs, according to the Western officials. Such cooperation between the U.S. allies has increased since last month’s ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, these officials say,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

US weighs canceling military exercise with Egypt

The yearly exercise, called Bright Star, was suspended after the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, but US officials were hopeful that it would resume this year. But a violent crackdown on protesters Wednesday left the US reconsidering its relationship with the interim Egyptian government, though not announcing any policy shift.

Brotherhood vows to continue protests as death toll breaks 500

Egypt faced a new phase of uncertainty on Thursday after the bloodiest day since its Arab Spring began, with 525 people reported killed and thousands injured as police smashed two protest camps of supporters of the deposed Islamist president.
Wednesday’s raids touched off day-long street violence that prompted the military-backed interim leaders to impose a state of emergency and curfew, and drew widespread condemnation from the Muslim world and the West, including the United States.

Bloodied Egypt at a dead end

The Muslim Brotherhood is hoping that the public will raise its voice and pressure the army to compromise, perhaps even to fire el-Sissi. But given the widespread disappointment with the movement over the last year, and Egyptians’ weariness from revolution and upheaval, it is possible that the Islamists may have to prepare patiently to better exploit another opportune moment down the road, and, at least temporarily, lower the profile of their protest.

'We Won't Stop Until Morsi Reinstated'

In one video, seen by Arutz Sheva, the body of a man - apparently a member of the security forces - is dragged through through a baying mob as supporters of Morsi hurl insults and physically attacks the body. At the end of the clip, someone off camera points a rifle at the body and opens fire to "confirm the kill."
Islamist supporters of the ousted president are also accused of upping their campaign of violence against the country's indigenous Coptic Christian population.
Since yesterday at least 17 churches and a number of Christian-owned homes and businesses were torched by Muslim mobs. Coptic Christians have been a target for violence - sometimes deadly - since Morsi's ouster, amid fears that they are being scapegoated by frustrated Islamists.

Egyptian Law Professor: U.S. Trying to Instigate Civil War, Chaos in Egypt

Egyptian Association for Change Spokesman: Muslim Brotherhood Implements the Methods of the Jews