Monday, June 23, 2014
Khaled Abu Toameh: New Palestinian Intifada - Against Abbas
Hamas and other Palestinian groups are now talking about preparations for a third intifada against Israel. "We are headed toward a third intifada and a direct confrontation with the Israeli occupation," said Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran.Expert: Abbas is Only Paying Lip Service
But the truth is that in the West Bank there already is an intifada against Israel. Palestinians call it a popular intifada, which they have been waging since long before the abduction of the three teenagers. This is an intifada that consists of daily confrontations between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, who have also been targeting Jewish settlers in several parts of the West Bank.
The incident in Ramallah and increased criticism of Abbas and the PA leadership show that the Palestinians are also close to declaring another intifada, this time against their president and his "treacherous" security forces.
To avoid such an uprising against his regime, Abbas will most likely try to divert the anger on the Palestinian street toward Israel, thus paving the way for a further escalation of the anti-Israeli intifada.
This explains the strong condemnations in recent days, from Abbas and his senior officials, of the ongoing Israeli security crackdown in the West Bank. The rhetorical attacks on Israel embolden Hamas and Palestinian extremists and drive more Palestinians into their open arms.
Middle East expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar dismissed on Sunday the comments by Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas condemning the kidnapping of three Israeli yeshiva students.Peres: Abbas ‘risking his life’ in stance against terrorism
Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Kedar said that Abbas was simply paying lip service, similar to that of former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, who would often make the right statements at the right time in order to appease the United States or Israel.
"He says what is expected of him to say," noted Kedar, adding that Abbas’s remarks were nothing more than a meaningless word game. "The question is what does he do with [Hamas]. Whether they continue to be in the same coalition and the same government."
He further predicted that Hamas and Fatah, despite the unity agreement, will continue to separate from one another and would have done so regardless of Abbas’s condemnation of the kidnapping which resulted in a condemnation of him by Hamas.
President Shimon Peres on Sunday hailed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a great leader, calling him the best peace partner Israel has ever had, and saying he was “risking his life” to take a principled position against terrorism.Mother of kidnapped teen to address UN
Peres’s comments in praise of Abbas contrasted starkly with a far more wary assessment delivered earlier in the day by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The mother of kidnapped teenager Naftali Fraenkel is to address the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday and call for the immediate release of the three Israeli boys.
Rachel Sprecher Fraenkel may be accompanied by Iris Yifrach and Bat-Galim Shaar, parents of Eyal Yifrach and Gil-ad Shaar, but the two are not slated to speak at the summit.
Fraenkel is expected to appeal for international condemnation of the abduction and call for pressure to urge the kidnappers to free the yeshiva students.
Mother of Abducted Israeli Teen: It’s Hard to Eat, Sleep
“It’s been a very hard time; it’s hard to breathe – but we’re doing it,” says Racheli Frankel, the mother of Naftali, 16, who was abducted, along with Eyal Yifrach 19, and Gilad Shaar, 16, by Palestinian terrorists 10 days ago.Abducted teens likely still alive, IDF officer says
“We try not to think of the details of what Naftali might be going through, but to hope and are very, very optimistic that we’ll see him soon,” Frankel told the Associated Press.
Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Brig. Gen. Motti Almoz said information collected by the army pointed to Naftali Fraenkel, 16, Gil-ad Shaar, 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, still being held alive by Hamas kidnappers.Close Up: IDF Soldiers Search for Kidnapped Teens #EyalGiladNaftali
“The working assumption is that the hostages are still alive and the information that we have allows us to make that assessment,” Almoz said. “We will continue to turn over every stone to get to them — I can’t go into every detail about the operation — but of course the searches are continuing at the moment and we are reviewing how to continue based on conditions on the ground.”
IDF Blog: Hamas Indoctrinates Palestinian Youth after Kidnapping
A short time after its attack against three Israelis, Hamas encouraged Palestinian youth to embrace its ideology of hatred and terrorism.Danon: Hypocritical EU Condemns Israel, Not Kidnappers
Pro-Hamas students glorified the kidnapping of three teenagers last week during two graduation ceremonies in Judea and Samaria. Just days later, the terrorist organization showcased a Hamas summer camp that provides military training to Palestinian children in Gaza.
Last week’s events highlight Hamas’ extensive efforts to involve Palestinian youth in its terrorist activities. The organization uses Palestinian universities, summer camps and schools to spread its ideology of terror. The educational institutions are part of the ‘Dawa’ network, a social-welfare system that fuels support for Hamas violence.
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud Beiteinu) on Sunday evening visited the family of kidnapped teen Naftali Frankel in the town of Nof Ayalon. Danon was accompanied by former Republican presidential primary candidate Mike Huckabee. Frankel is an American citizen, the family told Danon and Huckabee.Former Arkansas governor visits missing teen's family
Few in the international community have outright condemned the kidnapping of Eyal Yifrah (19), Naftali Frenkel (16), and Gilad Sha'ar (16), said Danon – who added that this is an extremely hypocritical way to deal with the situation. “All the hypocrites who condemn Israel day and night for all sorts of reasons have apparently forgotten to condemn the kidnapping of the Israeli youths by Hamas terrorists.
“The visit here by Governor Huckabee is very important, not the least because he represents a large group of Americans for whom support and friendship for Israel is sincere and honest, as opposed to the hypcrisy of many in the European Union who prefer to ignore the kidnapping of the three youths," Danon said.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee visited the family of kidnapped Israeli teen Naftali Frenkel on Sunday immediately after landing in Israel.Palestinians mock kidnapping in video
"I came here to show solidarity with the Frenkel family. This is a young man who is also an American citizen and I am here not just as an American, but as a father," Huckabee said.
"I think Israelis have every right, and America should be with Israel in saying: You touch that boy, who's an American citizen, and you will have hell to pay for it. That should be the only message we are sending right now," Huckabee said.
Top hats, a dwarf, a Jew-fro wig and a fictional terror organization called “Abu Saqer el Khalili Brigades, the Kick Ass Branch” — all feature in a campy Palestinian parody of the kidnapping of three Israeli teens.Greta Berlin’s Callous Post About The Kidnapped Boys
The first act begins with three men hatching the plot. One is a heavyset Arab man wearing a flannel shirt and holding a machine gun; the two others appear to be posing as a father-son duo of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
As they approach the road, they spot the three teens, played by Palestinian men wearing wigs (including one with an unmistakable Jew-fro), waiting at a bus stop. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
I guess it shouldn’t surprise us that this antisemite would hold such views.Are These Muslim Kids Making That Disgusting “Three Shalits” Gesture On The Temple Mount?
But it is still jolting to read the words and realize here is a person who can look at the photos of three teenage boys kidnapped by terrorists, and feel nothing but hatred for them.
The boys that is.
It is bad enough that Jews are not allowed to pray on Har Habayit, the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.Knell to BBC TV audiences: Israel ‘provoked’ Palestinians with search for kidnapped teens
It is even worse that Muslims can go up there and do as they please, including making a gesture celebrating the terrorist kidnapping of three Jewish teenagers.
In fact, there have been three claims of responsibility: one the day after the kidnapping from a Salafist Jihadist organization called Dawat al Islam, one the following day from a group calling itself the Liberators’ Battalion of Hebron and one two days after that by Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Whilst all these claims are unverified, it is not accurate on the BBC’s part to state that no claims have been made.BBC’s ‘Echo Chambers’ blog promotes inaccurate information on kidnapped teens
As has been the case in all six previous reports on this topic, this article too makes no mention of Palestinian celebrations of the kidnappings or of the vast amounts of explosives and weapons discovered during the IDF’s searches. Concurrent missile attacks on Israeli civilians near the Gaza Strip are also not reported to BBC audiences in either of these reports.
As we see, however, the BBC has chosen to describe all three of the kidnapped youths as “settlers” even though that description is both inaccurate and – quite frankly – irrelevant. Unless the BBC is trying to press a political point to readers of this blog post (and if it is, that is another topic altogether which goes far beyond mere inaccuracy), then the politically motivated epithet allocated according to the location (mistaken or not) of the family homes of the three missing boys is of no consequence to the story itself.Rescue The Abducted Boys? You’re Not Allowed To Do That! Help! UN! By Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (satire)
The second selected quote promoted in this post comes from ‘Filastin Online’ and there the three abducted youths are inaccurately described as “soldiers”.
Look, I’m sorry. You guys caught a tough break when Hamas kidnapped those three teenagers, but you can’t come barging in here to try to find them. You have to let them slowly rot as we pay lip service to getting them released, all the while leveraging the situation for political advantage. If you keep sending your soldiers over here to rescue them, we’re going to tell the UN, and everyone knows how awkward that can get. So just leave this to us, or we’ll make noise. Nobody wants that.Police recommend criminal investigation of MK Zoabi
The fact that all evidence points to the boys’ being held somewhere in areas ostensibly under Palestinian Authority control doesn’t mean you can just bypass our carefully arrayed obstructionism and come get them. You have to go through proper channels. The fact that those channels lead nowhere is beside the point. The point is that anything you Israelis do, we’re going to complain about, because that’s what we do.
So if you want us not to go crying to the Security Council, do nothing while we pretend to be helpful.
The police decided Sunday to recommend that a criminal investigation be opened against Balad MK Hanin Zoabi over remarks she made about the kidnapping of three Israeli teens.Kurds Deny Report of Oil Trade with Israel
Zoabi said last Tuesday on Tel Aviv Radio that the kidnappers “are not terrorists; they are people who do not see any way of changing their situation and they have to resort to these measures until Israel sobers up a bit, until the citizens of Israel and the public sober up and relate to the suffering of others.”
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) lost no time denying Reuters reports last Friday, which stated that oil from a disputed independent Kurdish pipeline running through Turkey was set to be delivered to the Israeli port of Ashkelon.No Mourning for “Palestinian” Israeli
An official from the Kurdish Ministry of Natural Resources told the Kurdish news sources Rudaw last Friday that the report was "baseless and without evidence."
"These media reports are aimed at increasing tensions between the Kurdistan Region and Iraq’s federal government without relying on any evidence or truth," adding the ministry official.
It has been nearly eight hours since the shooting death of Mohammed Karake, a 13 -year-old Israeli citizen of “Palestinian” descent, but as of this writing no prominent Palestinian “support” organization has condemned the murder.Israeli air raids killed 10 Syrian soldiers, NGO says
For instance, Defence for Children International – Palestine Section (the organization that claimed to have filmed the staged “killing” of two Palestinians during Nakba Day riots last month) features seven news items on its homepage, including stories about the 15-year-old shot killed “as Israeli forces raid West Bank (did we mention the Palestinian was throwing rocks and participating in a violent protest?), and noting that the boy was the sixth Palestinian child to be killed by Israeli forces since the start of the year.
At least 10 Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli overnight air raids on positions near the Israeli-held Golan Heights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Monday.Syria asks UN to ‘take measures’ against Israel for ‘backing terrorists’
“At least 10 Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli raids against military positions next to the occupied part of the Golan. Nine missiles were fired by aircraft and at least two tanks and two artillery batteries were destroyed,” the Observatory said.
At a meeting with Under Secretary-General of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous, Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad said there was “clear indication of [Israel's] collaboration with terrorist groups (the term used by the regime to refer to rebel forces),” the official SANA news agency reported.Terrorist freed in Schalit deal charged with Passover shooting that killed policeman
According SANA, Mikdad praised the UN’s recent report on the activities of the UN force monitoring the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria, United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), saying that Israeli air raids in Syria, notably the one in March in response to a bombing along the demilitarized zone, were proof that “pointed to direct ties with terrorist groups.”
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Monday that it has arrested two Palestinians in a West Bank shooting attack on Passover eve in April which killed police officer Baruch Mizrahi.Israel Arrests Perpetrator of Passover Eve Murder
One of the suspects, Ziad Awad, 42, is a Hamas operative who had previously been imprisoned for terrorist activity but was released in the Gilad Schalit deal.
Mizrahi was killed when driving near Hebron on his way to a Passover seder. His wife and one of their children were also injured in the attack, as was a nine-year-old boy in another vehicle which was hit by the terrorists' fire.
The arrest of Ziad Awad and his son Azzadin Ziad Hassan Awad, 18, from Kfar Idna north of Hebron, was made on May 7.
Israel to renew demolition of terrorists’ homes
Israel will renew its controversial policy – discontinued in 2005 – of destroying the homes of terrorists as a deterrence measure, diplomatic sources said Monday.Israel To Install Revolving Doors On Prisons (satire)
The decision came at a recent security cabinet meeting, and will be implemented – subject to court approval – against the home of Ziad Awad, the terrorist suspect arrested last month with his son Azzadin Ziad Hassan for the Passover eve murder near Kiryat Arba of Baruch Mizrahi, and the injuring of his wife and one of their children.
The sources said that the government intended to increasingly ask the courts to allow the punitive house demolitions, which they said have proven to be successful in the past.
Ofer Prison, North of Jerusalem, June 21 – Jailers at this military facility are preparing to replace the high-security gates and doors under their control with a set of revolving doors, which will better suit the government’s recent policy of arresting, incarcerating, releasing, and eventually rearresting the same terrorism activists.Jordanians call for Abbas to be stripped of citizenship
Door Le Door, a manufacturer of “revolving entry systems,” as their brochure calls them, won a contract from the Ministry of Defense this week to supply and install the doors in military prisons throughout Israel. The installation is expected to take up to one month, but will be complete in time for what experts anticipate will be additional waves of arrests of Hamas figures as the search to find three abducted Israeli teenagers continues.
Jordanian activists have called on their government to revoke the Jordanian citizenship of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on charges he "betrayed the Palestinian cause."Hamas TV entertains children with rocket sounds
A statement issued in Amman by a group calling itself Tayyar 36 [Trend 36] called on the government to also ban Abbas from entering the kingdom, the daily Rai Al Youm online newspaper reported Monday.
The statement called for similar measures against senior members of the Palestinian Authority.
The group, which consists of intellectuals and retired army officers, condemned Abbas's recent statements in favor of security coordination between the PA and Israel. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
In its latest episode, Hamas TV's children's program Tomorrow's Pioneers chose to teach young viewers what a rocket sounds like "when it is launched from us" and "when it reaches them [the Israelis]." [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), June 20, 2014]Hamas TV entertains children with rocket sounds
As the child host on the program encouraged the program's guest, an adult mimic, to do "a last imitation of the sound of our rockets," the man-sized bee puppet Nahul requested he make "the sound of the explosion." These sounds were "to encourage and excite our audience, our children friends," the child host explained. Upon hearing the mimic make a rocket sound, a child in the studio identified it as "the M-75" rocket. After the mimic explained that this was the sound of a rocket being launched, the child host requested he imitate the sound a rocket makes "when it reaches them [the Israelis]." Nahul the bee then eagerly made the sound of an exploding rocket.
