Tuesday, October 15, 2013
NGO Monitor: Terror Tunnels Undermine NGO Gaza Campaigns
Since the discovery of these tunnels, however, no NGOs issued condemnations of Hamas or called for them to stop their attacks on Israeli civilians. Instead, they resumed the false claims of collective punishment. Gisha, for instance, alleged that Israel’s “decision to stop the transfer of construction materials was a response to the discovery of a tunnel…raises the specter of a punitive act.” HRW’s Ken Roth re-tweeted a tweet by Juan Cole, “Israelis again impose Collective punishment on Palestinians of Gaza.”IDF conducts controlled explosion of Hamas tunnel from Gaza to Israel
The NGOs responses continue to demonstrate their immoral advocacy. Instead of focusing on Israel, these NGOs should denounce Palestinian terrorism and the diversion of supplies for vital civilian projects to terrorist objectives.
The tunnel was found by the IDF before Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, and does not represent a new finding, a senior army source stressed.BBC not sure cross-border tunnel intended for terror?
"The tunnel was blown up to destroy an additional Hamas terrorist infrastructure," the IDF said in a statement. "The IDF will continue to operate as is necessary to protect the residents of Israel," it added.
On countless occasions BBC audiences have repeatedly read or heard permutations of the following message, with the implication being that Israeli concerns regarding the misuse of construction materials entering Gaza are in fact much ado about nothing.Palestinians pay dearly for Hamas ‘resistance tunnels’
Further, per the post by Akus, you can conclude from the enormous resources (in time, money and manpower) that went into the Gaza terror tunnels that the rosy scenarios for peace and prosperity in another independent Palestinian polity are, at best, quite questionable.PM: No accord without Palestinians recognizing Jewish Israel
When pro-Israel commentators criticize the Palestinian culture of incitement and terror, they aren’t engaging in ‘Zionist talking points’ but, rather, are expressing sincere concerns that the greatest peace treaty ever written can’t engender a Palestinian culture of peace, education and self-sufficiency. Though most Israelis support in principle ‘two states for two peoples’, Israelis accurately extrapolate from the consequences of recent territorial concessions that withdrawing from land alone won’t necessarily bring peace if Palestinian leaders don’t cease in inculcating their citizenry with the values of belligerence, hate and violence.
In a bitter passage of a lengthy address at the opening of the 19th Knesset’s winter session, Netanyahu said Israel did not need that recognition from the Palestinians. Rather, he said, the Palestinians had to come to terms with Israel’s Jewish legitimacy and abandon their “nationalistic demands” on Israel.The Hatred that the New York Times Dares Not Report
Specifically, he said, the Palestinians would have to “abandon the demand for what is called ‘the right of return’” for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel, otherwise there could be no “end of conflict” accord. Without this shift, and without the abandoning of “other nationalistic demands on the land and sovereignty of Israel,” he said, there simply could be no genuine peace.
The New York Times on Sunday featured an article, Behind Flurry of Killing, Potency of Hate, which focuses on how dehumanizing an enemy makes it easier to kill. The article focuses on a convicted, jailed and released IRA terrorist and how he could be conditioned to kill.Guardian misleads in tale of ‘heroic’ Palestinian sperm smuggling
The article also mentions how Nazis could be brought to slaughter Jews (and describes the murderers in oddly sympathetic terms!). But it left out the most systematic delegitimization campaign going on now: the one by Palestinians that targets Israel.
It not only took Sherwood eight paragraphs before briefly noting (in roughly ten words out of an 875 word story) that Tamer al-Za’anin is a convicted terrorist, but she characteristically downplayed his terrorist record.PA TV: Murderer of two is “the great female fighter, who shines”
According to Israeli court records (Hebrew), al-Za’anin not only belonged to a terror organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but volunteered for their military wing (Al-Quds Brigades), a group which has carried out numerous attacks against Israelis, including deadly suicide bombings. Further, court records show that he was imprisoned after pleading guilty to four counts of being an accessory to attempted murder, a plea bargain in which he admitted his active participation within terror cells that on one occasion laid an explosive (IED) and fired two missiles at an IDF vehicle, and on three other occasions fired rockets at civilians in Sderot.
Official Palestinian Authority TV interviewed and honored a female terrorist who killed two Israelis, calling her "the great female fighter, who shines" and "a giant of the struggle."
The terrorist, Aisha Odeh, murdered two Israelis in 1969, by placing two bombs in a supermarket in Jerusalem. She was sentenced to two life sentences but was released in a prisoner exchange in 1979.
Song misrepresents Israel as "Palestine" - PA show about Palestinians in Denmark
No new findings over Arafat's death: official
Tawfi Al-Tirawi, head of a Palestinian committee investigating Arafat's death, told Xinhua that the journal "brought nothing new," noting it based its study on a 2012 investigative report by the pan-Arab news network Al-Jazeera.Netanyahu makes a case for a preemptive strike
"There are no leaks from the results and we are still waiting for the official test findings," said Al-Tirawi, adding there is no official time set for receiving the results.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a thinly veiled defense of a possible Israeli preemptive strike on Iran during a Knesset commemoration Tuesday of the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.Israeli PM Netanyahu Says Relaxing Pressure on Iran Now Would be ‘Historic Mistake’
In a speech to MKs about the war, in which Israel was surprised by a coordinated Arab invasion on the northern and southern fronts, Netanyahu explained that IDF soldiers who fought in the bitter battles of that war “saved us from paying the price of complacency.”
“In the end we won a great victory, but the lessons of the war have stayed with us these 40 years,” Netanyahu said.
“There can be no giving in at this time and the pressure must be continued. It must be remembered that it is international pressure which has led to internal change in Iran, which has led the Iranians to any concessions at all and to the negotiating table, and which can bring them to make tangible concessions on their military nuclear program,” Netanyahu said. “I will tell you something that goes against the accepted view – easing the pressure will not strengthen moderate trends in Iran. On the contrary, it will strengthen the uncompromising views of the real ruler of Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and will be seen as a significant victory by him.”Report: US mulls letting Iran keep uranium enrichment facilities in nuclear deal
The Wall Street Journal quoted a senior US official as saying that Washington was willing to talk to Iran "about what President Obama said in his address at the UN General Assembly, and that is that he respects the rights of the Iranian people to access a peaceful nuclear program." The official stated that what this entails is exactly the matter that is up for discussion.UN Watch: UN hide carving of naked man ahead of Iran nuclear talks, “kowtowing to fundamentalist regime”
Israel's security cabinet released a statement prior to the start of talks on Tuesday, saying that Jerusalem "does not oppose Iran having a peaceful nuclear energy program. But as has been demonstrated in many countries, from Canada to Indonesia, peaceful programs do not require uranium enrichment or plutonium production. Iran's nuclear weapons program does."
“This is a very dangerous and slippery slope,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based watchdog group. Today the UN is covering up the artistic heritage of its most famous building, Geneva’s historic Palais des Nations, to appease the intolerance of a fundamentalist regime that subjugates women, executes gays, and persecutes Bahais; what will the UN hide tomorrow?”,Assad: Nobel Peace Prize ‘should have been mine’
The Syrian president had local reporters in stitches on Monday, after one asked a question about the recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). “The prize should have been mine,” Assad “quipped,” according to the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper.Assad: Hamas Has Betrayed Us Repeatedly, But…
The ironic wisecrack shows Assad is careful to maintain a sense of perspective, and not take the deaths of at least 115,000 fellow Syrians too seriously. Other knee-slappers by the president include his claim that “we don’t kill our own people.”
Estrangement between Hamas and the Syrian regime ensued. Assad holds that Hamas ultimately decided to abandon resistance and to fully merge with the Muslim Brotherhood. He adds, “This was not the first time they had betrayed us. It happened before in 2007 and 2009. Their history is one of treachery and betrayal.” Assad then wished “someone would persuade them to return to being a resistance movement,” but says that he doubts this will happen. “Hamas has sided against Syria from day one. They have made their choice,” he adds.Islamist militants destroy Sufi shrine in eastern Syria: activists
A Sufi Muslim shrine was blown up in eastern Syria on Sunday, opposition activists said, blaming al Qaeda-affiliated militants who have joined in the increasingly sectarian civil war.Bomb found in Lebanon's Hezbollah stronghold on eve of Muslim holiday
Militants placed explosives at the shrine of Sheikh Eissa Abdelqader al-Rifaiy in the rebel-held town of Busaira, 45 km (30 miles) east of the provincial capital of Deir al-Zor, and detonated them on Sunday morning, they said.
Lebanese security forces defused a car bomb on Monday in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of the Shi'ite Muslim militia group Hezbollah.Amnesty International: Egyptian Christians Not Protected by Authorities
The discovery of a bomb happened on the first night of the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha and two months after a car bomb killed 20 people in the area, and looked like the latest sign of growing sectarian tensions in Lebanon exacerbated by the war in neighboring Syria.
“It is deeply disturbing that the Christian community across Egypt was singled out for revenge attacks over the events in Cairo by some supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa said in a statement.Egypt Closes Rafah Crossing for Muslim Festival
The report details how Egyptian security forces failed to prevent angry mobs from attacking Christian churches, schools, homes and charities in the days following the August 14 raid. At least four Christians were also killed in the sectarian violence.
Egypt has announced that its border crossing with the Gaza Strip will be closed for the week because of the Muslim festival of Eid Al-Adha, but gave no specific reason for the measure, state news agency MENA reported.Egypt’s Al Ahram Group Displays Hate Literature at Frankfurt Book Fair
Egypt’s Al Ahram Publishing Center was the highest profile purveyor of hate literature at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest, which has been inspected annually by Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
In a statement, SWC said its dubious “Worst Offender 2013” prize was awarded to Egypt, led by Al Ahram (Hall 5.0 D132), which also publishes the widely-read Egyptian daily, and The Arab Publishers Association (Hall 50 E109.)
