Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Khaled Abu Toameh: How the Donors Saved Hamas
Rebuilding or repairing infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is the best thing that could have happened to Hamas. Hamas knows that every dollar invested in the Gaza Strip will serve the interests of the Islamist movement. The promised funds absolve Hamas of all responsibility for the catastrophe it brought upon the Palestinians during the confrontation with Israel.Caroline Glick: Benny Gantz’s troubling assessments
Hamas will now use its own resources to smuggle in additional weapons and prepare for the next war with Israel. Hamas can now go back to digging new tunnels and obtaining new weapons instead of assisting the Palestinians whose homes were destroyed as a result of its actions.
The biggest mistake the donor states made was failing to demand the disarmament of Hamas as a precondition for funneling aid to the Gaza Strip. Hopes that the catastrophic results of the confrontation would increase pressure on Hamas, or perhaps trigger a revolt against it, have faded.
The Left has followed Gantz’s lead and attacked the government for not opening Gaza’s borders and even participating in the Cairo conference.JPost Editorial: The Temple Mount
But again, reality tells a different tale.
Israel has nothing to gain from participating in a Hamas funding drive.
It does however have an interest in influencing the international agenda. To do so, the most basic requirement for the government is to reject the lie that Israel is to blame for Hamas’s aggression. Israel’s leaders – elected and appointed – need to internalize the fact that the war this summer, like all previous acts of Hamas aggression against Israel stemmed not from privation and hopelessness, but from empowerment and hopefulness.
Hamas doesn’t attack Israel because it needs money. It attacks Israel because doing so empowers it and weakens Israel – as we saw in Cairo on Sunday.
Unfortunately, for as long as our unelected professional class is led by men who have internalized our enemies’ narratives, there is no way that Israel can act on these basic strategic truths regardless of whom voters elect. And as a result, we shall continue to witness our soldiers’ hard won victories being squandered by our leaders – in and out of uniform.
Instead of enforcing the law and protecting the rights of Jews and non-Jews to have access to the Temple Mount, the police caved in to the extremists.Melanie Phillips: Recognising Palestine won’t promote peace
The implication is that Jews who demand to exercise their right to visit the Temple Mount are to be held accountable for the violence committed by Muslim rioters. This line of thinking relieves rioters of responsibility for their actions and places the blame for their crimes on others.
But the fact remains that when someone instigates something, he or she intends for it to happen. If it is a riot, that person has fomented it. If it is murder, that person has colluded in it. People with free will orchestrated the rioting on the Temple Mount. No one forced them to behave the way they did.
By accepting the reasoning that Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount cause unrest and riots, police are essentially blaming the victim. It is similar to the argument Muslim extremists sometimes make that when women will not wear the veil, they provoke those who rape or disfigure them.
Backing down to religious fanatics leads to a number of bad, and potentially destructive, outcomes. Perhaps the most insidious is the abandonment of Western values in the face of threats from extremists who, if we let them, will send us all back to a medieval society based not on freedom but on religious fundamentalism.
In a way, religious extremists perform an important function. They challenge our core Western values and force us to stand up for what we too often take for granted.
We forget that much blood was spilled in the fight for these rights.
Palestine has become the progressive cause of causes through an effective, decades-long campaign to twist western minds. It was Yassir Arafat who, in the 1970s, started to reframe the Palestinian Arabs as freedom fighters on the historically illiterate claim that they were the original inhabitants of the land.
Yet the Jews are the only people for whom Israel was ever their national kingdom, centuries before Islam invaded. Contrary to general assumption, the occupation and the settlements are legal, upheld both by the international law of defence against persistent belligerents and the unabrogated treaty obligations of the British Mandate for Palestine.
That will surprise many. For no other conflict has ever been so misreported and misrepresented; no other victims of a century of annihilatory aggression have been so demonised and delegitimised.
Last summer’s media coverage of the Gaza war, which caused a huge outbreak of anti-Jewish hatred, uncritically transmitted the Hamas falsehood that the vast majority of casualties were civilians. Analysis by Israel’s Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre shows that 49 per cent of fatalities were terrorists and 51 per cent civilians, a far lower civilian toll than in other wars.
Israel is the West’s one ally in the Middle East and is essential to British intelligence and military security. Passing today’s motion won’t itself change anything. But as a propaganda stunt, its capacity to do harm is immense. It will turn parliament into a human shield for Palestinian rejectionism, help to weaken and endanger Israel and incentivise yet more Palestinian hatred, mass murder and war.
In security terms, passing this motion would be an act of national self-harm. It would also be a moral stain on parliament and place Britain on the wrong side in the great battle for civilisation.
Douglas Murray: Recognising a Palestinian ‘state’ in Parliament is not only pointless, it’s dangerous
Recognition of a Palestinian state will inevitably be seen, by the peoples of the region, as an endorsement of these aspirations. Middle Easterners are quick to internalise signs of Western inconsistency, and will draw their own conclusions about Western resolve over Isis.Israel simply is not equally at fault
All of which may sound like so much naysaying, so let me point out a positive: There is a solution to the Israel-Palestinian situation. It relies on both sides being confident enough in each other that they are able to come to a solution. Absent such bilateral agreement, no meaningful peace or peace deal could possibly come about. What Westminster is doing today may sound like a positive move, but it is in fact simply a group of outsiders claiming to know the security situation of Israeli and Palestinian people better than those people and their governments can know it for themselves.
One reason why the Israelis cannot currently agree a solution with the PA is because the PA are in a unity deal with a terrorist group that seeks a local version of what Isis is trying to do in Syria. If British MPs wish to support the creation of another state that we and our allies will have to fight, then they should vote ‘yes’. But they should know what they are voting for, and they should know how history will judge the naivety and the presumption of their stance.
Unfortunately President Barack Obama and the State Department also place inordinate emphasis on building in Israeli communities as a barrier to peace. Most construction occurs in areas that would be part of Israel under any two-state solution.So The Aye's Have It: Another British Betrayal
The actual obstacle to peace remains the hostility to Israel of the Arab world, including from the Palestinians. Hamas remains committed to unending war against the Jewish state and still has an arsenal of thousands of rockets and mortars in Gaza. Getting those weapons out of the strip and imposing measures to prevent future rearming would be the best guarantee against another Gaza conflict. Again, no Palestinian attacks, no Israeli reprisal.
A couple of recent episodes show it’s not Israel blocking a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After Israel killed the two Hamas operatives who murdered the three Israeli teens, the murderers were idolized by Palestinian Authority media as martyrs, according to the monitoring organization Palestinian Media Watch. The authority’s official TV said the two were killed “at 2 a.m., according to Zionist hatred time.”
Even more illuminating was the report by journalist Khaled Abu Toamed of the Gatestone Institute about a Saudi MBC-TV telecast of a Mideast map that included Israel. Protests broke out across the Arab world and MBC apologized for not labeling the area Palestine. Toamed calls this “yet another reminder that many Arabs still have not come to terms with Israel’s existence — and apparently are not interested in coming to terms with it.”
The full motion stated: “That this House believes that the Government should recognize the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel as a contribution to securing a negotiated two state solution."British MPs vote an overwhelming ‘Yes’ to Palestine
The motion was sponsored by a Palestinian lobby group called the Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group, co-chaired by the Conservative Arabist Crispin Blunt, a former chairman of the council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding.
Other sponsors of the motion included Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Teather, a supporter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and an advocate of a European trade embargo against Israel. Graham Morris, Labour MP for Easington and chairman of the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, also sponsored the bill. (This is a man who compares Zionism to Nazism.)
The Hamas-supporting thugs in Britain who boycott Jewish businesses and shout “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea” now have the tacit backing of the UK parliament.
British lawmakers voted resoundingly Monday in favor of a Palestinian state, in a debate unlikely to change government policy but laden with political symbolism.UK MPs’ ‘Yes’ to Palestine – no earthquake, but certainly a tremor
The ayes carried the vote with 274 votes, against only 12 nays. Opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, who is Jewish, voted in support of the motion.
Prime Minister David Cameron and other government leaders abstained, and more than half of the 650 Commons members did not participate in the vote.
The initial motion that was debated declared: “This House urges the government to recognize the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel.” It was subsequently amended to add the phrase “as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution.”
Foreign Ministry blasts British vote on Palestinian statehood, PLO lauds motion
The House of Common’s vote — urging David Cameron’s government to “recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel, as a contribution to securing a negotiated two state solution” — will not change official British policy vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The issue will likely be discussed in the press for a few days, pro-Palestinian activists will celebrate their victory as an important affirmation of an idea whose time has come, and Israeli officials will condemn the move as premature and unhelpful. But there will be little if any immediate concrete diplomatic fall-out.
Prime Minister Cameron didn’t show up at the vote, and sought to shrug it off as pretty inconsequential. “I’ve been pretty clear about the government’s position [on Palestinian statehood] and it won’t be changing,” his spokesperson said before the discussion had started Monday.
And staunch friends of Israel in the Conservative Party are adamant that nothing has changed. “The [British] government supports a return to negotiations by Israel and the Palestinians and is not in favor of Palestinian unilateral moves at the UN or elsewhere,” said Stuart Polak, director of the Conservative Friends of Israel. “That a few, extremely partisan Labour MPs, with the help of [party chairman and opposition leader] Ed Miliband and the hapless Labour front bench, can engineer a win in a vote like this, does not change anything in British foreign policy. This is a backbench debate and vote and will not change government policy.”
A communique published late Monday by the Israeli Embassy in London criticized the vote carried out by MPs in Britain's lower house of parliament, stressing that, "The route to Palestinian statehood runs through the negotiating room."UK envoy says London not recognizing Palestine yet
The mission slammed what it said was a unilateral measure that could undermine the potential for Israelis and Palestinians to attaining peace through bilateral talks, which if resulted successfully could lead to the establishment of a recognized, independent Palestinian state.
"Premature international recognition sends a troubling message to the Palestinian leadership that they can evade the tough choices that both sides have to make, and actually undermines the chances to reach a real peace," read the statement. "Recognition of a Palestinian state should be the result of a successful conclusion of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority."
Meanwhile, a leading association of Jewish Americans expressed disappointment in Britain's Parliament late Monday for overwhelmingly the motion on the recognition of a Palestinian alongside Israel.
“This vote was an empty public stunt that will have no impact other than to reduce the United Kingdom’s standing as an honest broker in international affairs," American Council for World Jewry Chairman Jack Rosen said in a statement following the vote that passed 274-12 in favor of the motion.
Earlier, the PLO welcomed the lawmakers' vote, and called for the British government to officially amend its state policy and classify "Palestine" as a state.
“Our right to self-determination has never been up to negotiations. The recognition of Palestine is not contingent upon on the outcome of negotiations with Israel and certainly not something we will trade for; this claim is not only unfair, but immoral,” said senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi.
Ashrawi lauded the vote, saying it "sends the right message to the British government and the rest of Europe."
In an interview with Israel Radio, Gould said: “We’ve long said that we will recognize this Palestinian state at the time that is most helpful for the peace process,” an apparent indication that the British government was not set to adopt the nonbinding resolution anytime in the near future.Which Palestine Do Euros Recognize?
Gould emphasized that the vote was an internal debate by non-ministerial MPs, and that ministers and Prime Minister David Cameron were not in attendance. Yet he acknowledged that the ruling was nonetheless “significant.”
“Although this vote won’t affect government policy, I think it is right to be concerned about what it signifies in terms of the direction of public opinion,” he said. “I think last night’s vote was a sign of the tide in public opinion in the absence of progress towards peace.”
Were Europe’s governments or its pro-Palestinian demonstrators truly interested in peace, they would understand that unilateral recognition of independence is a way for the PA to avoid having to talk with Israel. Whatever they may think of Israel or the Netanyahu government, it has stated its willingness to negotiate a two-state solution. But that outcome can only happen when the Palestinians stop waiting for their foreign friends to hand Israeli concessions—or Israel itself, as Hamas is frank about demanding—to them on a silver platter. If they wanted to support peace, they would tell Abbas to go back to the table with Netanyahu and to be prepared to recognize a Jewish state. They might also encourage him to get rid of Hamas, not become its partner.UK Parliament favors recognition of Palestine
Seen in that light talk about recognition of Palestine without first requiring it to make peace with Israel must seen as not merely moral preening at Israel’s expense but a political manifestation of the same anti-Semitic invective that was so common during the “Free Gaza” demonstrations.
It should also be noted that the amended resolution doesn’t make any sense. If the action is intended to contribute to a two-state solution, then that implies that a Palestinian state doesn’t yet exist to recognize.Tory MP Andrew Bridgen Launches Anti-Semitic Attack at 'Jewish Lobby'
Of course it doesn’t make sense even without the amendment, because ‘Palestine’ has no borders or economy short of the international dole, and its unity government is a sham which does not control much of its population.
The practical significance is that a huge majority in Parliament thinks that the creation of an Arab state in the territories would be a good thing. This seems to be the conventional wisdom everywhere in Europe, despite the clearly horrendous security consequences for Israel.
In fact, as the debate shows, many of the MPs think that supporting a Palestinian state is the moral position to take, even going so far as to cite the Balfour declaration! The irony in this is that Britain acted consistently during the Mandate period and afterwards to subvert the intent of the declaration and the Mandate to provide for a national home for the Jewish people.
A Conservative Member of Parliament has launched a scathing, anti-Semitic attack on pro-Israel groups in the United States during a Backbench Business Debate in Britain's House of Commons this evening.Why I'm Disgusted About What Sir Richard Ottaway and Andrew Bridgen MP Said About Israel Tonight
Andrew Bridgen, who was accused of sexual assault in 2011, made the statement as he indicated that he was set to support a motion proposed by notorious anti-Israel MPs recognising the State of Palestine. The vote passed by 274 in favour to 12 against, and Mr Bridgen's comments were picked up by commentators online as being deeply anti-Semitic in their tone.
He said, in one intervention in the chamber:
"Does my hon. Friend agree that, given that the political system of the world’s superpower and our great ally the United States is very susceptible to well-funded powerful lobbying groups and the power of the Jewish lobby in America, it falls to this country and to this House to be the good but critical friend that Israel needs, and this motion tonight just might lift that logjam on this very troubled area?"
Mr Bridgen's comments give fuel to the anti-Israel lobby in the UK, and echo statements made by a number of anti-Semites.
According to the European Monitoring Centre's definition on Anti-Semitism, equating the actions of the State of Israel with Jewish people as a race is classed as anti-Semitism.
During tonight's UK parliamentary debate on Palestinian statehood, Sir Richard Ottaway MP abandoned his long-standing commitment to the State of Israel, and claimed that due to a few months of frustration in amongst years of support for the country, he wouldn't be voting against the recognition of a Palestinian state.Now is the Time for Israel to Recognize the “State of Freedonia”
We know tonight's vote is non-binding, and has no impact on British foreign policy, and perhaps that's why people like Sir Richard feel that they are able to vent frustrations.
But we know the man doesn't believe in the motion, proposing the establishment of a Palestinian state before the Palestinians even have secure border, a unified government, an administration or judicial function... or, well... anything else needed to be a state.
So why did he abandon Israel tonight? Why has he proved himself to be a fairweather friend?
In light of the vote in Britain to recognize (recognise?) the State of Palestine, the time is finally ripe for Israel to make its own bold move. In 1933, this tiny little country emerged from obscurity as a force to be reckoned with. At that time, Freedonia was suffering from severe domestic financial problems, and its government leaders requested a loan from a wealthy woman, a Mrs. Teasdale, to help keep things afloat. She agreed to loan the country the money on the condition that the country be run by Rufus T. Firefly, otherwise known as Groucho Marx. In his moving speech when he agrees to run the country, he states (sings):In meeting with UN chief, Netanyahu slams organization
"The last man nearly ruined this place, he didn’t know what to do with it
If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait ’til I get through with it.”
Therefore, if Britain, with all of its wisdom and brilliance can recognize a non-existent country with no borders, no language, no history, no currency, etc, then it is high time that Freedonia gets its due as well! Sadly, Freedonia has not had the benefit of having billions of dollars flooding in from all over the world since it has not been involved in terrorism (perhaps the Minister of Financial Hoodwinking could get right on that). Freedonia has not had the benefit of a seat at the UN table since there is no oil in Freedonia.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the root cause of this summer’s 50-day conflict between Israel and Gaza-based terror groups was Hamas’s incessant rocket fire on Israeli civilians and its rejection of Israel’s very existence.Funding the next Hamas war
At a meeting Monday with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who met earlier in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, Netanyahu leveled some veiled and not-so-veiled criticism at UN actions in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in July and August.
“[Hamas's] rocket attacks often exploited UN neutrality, using UN facilities and UN schools as part of the Hamas machine of terror,” the prime minister said.
“And when rockets were discovered inside UN schools, some UN officials handed them back to Hamas – that very same Hamas that was rocketing Israeli cities and Israeli civilians,” Netanyahu stressed.
He also seemed to dismiss Ban’s earlier calls for the renewal of peace talks between Israel and the Hamas-backed Palestinian unity government.
Western countries, which for many years have funded the U.N. Relief and Works Agency and other aid organizations, along with the Palestinian Authority, have played into the hands of a failed leadership that instead of solving the refugee problem preferred to institutionalize it, turning hundreds of thousands of people into political victims of a sham.Pro-Israel lawmakers call for stricter review of UNRWA funding
The countries that recently took part in the donor conference in Cairo repeated this original sin. They would rather cleanse their consciences, ease some of the geopolitical tensions and throw over five billion dollars into the tunnel that leads to more violence. The donor countries, through their actions, reveal a negligent indifference over how the money will be used after the Palestinian leadership first lines its fat pockets. The billions of dollars will undoubtedly be used to rehabilitate the infrastructure that will spark the next military clash. Israel, lacking any other choice, will again have to cope with the threat from Gaza, more Israelis and Palestinians will be killed, buildings and homes will be destroyed and the donor conference will reconvene for the sake of the homeless in Gaza who voted for Hamas. To prevent this waste of money and offer a glimmer of hope, the donor countries must demand the demilitarization of Gaza as a primary and uncompromising condition for receiving the funds.
Parliamentarians from 21 countries called for increased oversight of funds transferred to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and supported forming an investigative community to look into the group's activities during Operation Protective Edge.The Jewish Press Forces Change in Ban Ki-Moon’s Announced Agenda
The 27 legislators from 21 countries, came to Israel on Sunday for the annual Israel Allies Foundation conference in Jerusalem.
Speaking before 5,000 Israel supporters from the around the world, President Reuven Rivlin, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder and Israel Allies Foundation Chairman Rabbi Benny Elon called for strengthening the ties between Israel and Jewish and Christian communities around the world.
The parliamentarians called for forming a U.N. investigative committee to look into the discovery of weapons in UNRWA facilities during Operation Protective Edge.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press secretary hastily called The Jewish Press Monday night to announce that Ban will visit rocket-battered communities in southern Israel as well as devastated areas of Gaza.UN's Ban in Gaza: Destruction here is beyond description
The phone call would not be news if it weren’t for the fact that that the visit to the Negev was not previously announced by U.N. officials nor by Ban, who made special mention to journalists in Cairo Sunday that “I am announcing today that I will visit Gaza on Tuesday to listen directly to the people of Gaza, survey the situation for myself.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon lamented the vast destruction in Gaza as he visited the area on Tuesday for the first time since the war, calling the situation "beyond description" and urging a speedy reconstruction effort.Netanyahu to Ban: Gaza is not 'occupied'
He also announced that Israel was permitting a first truckload of construction materials to enter the enclave.
In a short visit under tight security, Ban toured areas that were heavily bombarded by Israel during the 50-day war.
"I am here with a heavy heart," Ban told a news conference. "The destruction which I have seen coming here is beyond description," he added, calling it much worse than what he had witnessed after the last war in 2008-9.
On Sunday in Cairo, at a donor conference that raised $5.4 billion for the Palestinians, Ban charged that the root causes of the Gaza conflict were “a restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century, the continued denial of Palestinian rights and the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations.”ADL Decries UN Chief's 'Stunning' Bias
Netanyahu on Monday rejected that characterization.
“The root cause of the violence that burst from Gaza is not Israel’s occupation in Gaza, for a simple reason: Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza,” Netanyahu said.
He explained that Israel had withdrawn its military and civilians from Gaza in 2005. “So there is no Israeli occupation of Gaza.”
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) National Director Abe Foxman expressed on Tuesday the League’s deep dismay at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s “stunning” bias in his recent remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Abbas Threatens, Again, to Cut Ties With Israel
“The Secretary-General showed a stunning lack of objectivity on the issues surrounding the reasons for the recent violence in Gaza and inexplicable silence when it came to the Palestinian policies and actions which brought us to this point in the first place,” Foxman said.
He added: “Mr. Ban’s failure to publicly call on Palestinians to reject violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and avoid actions which might undermine the hope for reconciliation sends precisely the wrong message. It encourages Palestinian unilateral steps and conveys to Hamas there are no consequences for its murderous terrorism.”
Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has once again threatened to cut ties with Israel if his latest unilateral move at the United Nations (UN) fails.Who Disturbs the Peace of Jerusalem?
Speaking on Monday to reporters in Cairo, on the sidelines of the international donors’ conference on rebuilding Gaza, Abbas declared that his talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry did not bear fruit and that the PA intends move forward with its plan to turn to the UN Security Council to set a deadline for Israel to “end the occupation”.
"If all efforts fail, we will end relations with Israel and I will tell Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, ‘Come and take over’. However, I will not dismantle the Palestinian Authority and I will submit a request to join all the organizations belonging to the UN," he declared.
The draft resolution that Abbas plans to submit to the Security Council will reportedly call for Israel to “end the occupation” by November of 2016.
Though the international community and the UN pay lip service to the idea of a two-state solution that would end the conflict, any such resolution must involve sharing the holy city and places. But that is precisely what Palestinians refuse to do in Jerusalem. They treat Jewish worship and Jewish life as inherently illegitimate anywhere Palestinians reside.Jerusalem Light Rail Cuts Route on Holiday Week to Dodge Arab Terror
Lest this be put down as merely heightened sensitivity about a particular spot, it is very much of a piece with the positions of Hamas, which remains more popular than Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party in the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip they already rule. Hamas still demands the eradication of Israel and the expulsion/slaughter of its Jewish population. So why should we be surprised that the PA and its official media dismiss any Jewish claims to the city or its holy spots and seek to gin up more religiously inspired violence over the fact that some Israelis took a walk on the Temple Mount?
It would be one thing if only Hamas or those Palestinians that can be dismissed as “extremists” sought to inflame passions over the Temple Mount. But when Abbas’s PLO does this, it illustrates the way all Palestinian factions—moderate as well as extreme—routinely attempt to hype blood libels about the mosques in order to keep the political temperature at fever pitch.
We don’t know yet whether this latest incident is a repeat of the PA’s exploitation of Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount that was the excuse for setting off the second intifada violence that Yasir Arafat had already planned to incite. But whether the harbinger of a third intifada or just routine violence, the real provocations on the Mount are not about Jews with nationalist views taking walks but rather about Arabs that seek a Jew-free Jerusalem.
The CityPass company which operates the Jerusalem Light Rail has decided to cut its losses to the local Arab intifada and shorten the line’s route through the city – even though it’s a holiday week.Arabs Caught on Film in Another 'Tree Libel'
Specifically, about half of the trains will no longer pass through the city’s northern Arab neighborhoods.
The decision came following daily Arab terror attacks targeting the train in Shuafat and often in nearby Beit Hanina as well.
Approximately half a million shekels’ worth of damage has been wreaked upon the passenger cars alone over the past two months by Arabs hurling rocks, firebombs (Molotov cocktails) and fireworks at the Light Rail. Each attack results in numerous delays for passengers waiting at the next stop, and traumatic experiences for those who are unlucky enough to have been in the cars that are attacked.
Arabs on Monday were caught red-handed cooking up another “tree libel” against Jewish residents of Samaria. The Arabs were seen cutting down olive trees and demolishing fences in an Arab olive grove near Har Bracha in Samaria, apparently intending to blame the damage on Jews.Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas: No Palestinian faction is entitled to Gaza repair funds
Two volunteers working with the Samaria Residents Council caught the vandals on film. The volunteers were on special patrol, after Council director Benny Katsover urged Jewish residents of the area to watch out for Arab provocations during the olive harvest season. Katzover called on residents to carry video-filming equipment as they traveled the roads, in order to take video of the Arabs who were “setting up” Jews in a modern take on the “blood libels” of the Middle Ages.
Instead of accusing Jews of killing Christian or Muslim children to use their blood to bake matzah for Passover (although Jews are regularly accused of doing so in the Arab media), Jews are accused of destroying olive trees that Arabs farm. Jewish groups have long claimed that the vast majority of these “tree libels” are carried out by Arabs, and the latest incident proves this yet again, said the Council.
The Palestinian Authority on Monday welcomed the Cairo donor states’ decision to allocate $5.4 billion toward the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, saying this was a “message from the world to Israel that the continuation of occupation is unacceptable.”Abbas reportedly preparing for Gaza visit in coming weeks
PA President Mahmoud Abbas told Egyptian journalists on Sunday night that the Palestinian government would be responsible for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, adding that no party or faction would be entitled to receive the funds promised by the donor states.
The Palestinian president met in Cairo with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who also attended the donor conference, and said that their meeting focused on ways of resuming the peace negotiations with Israel.
A Palestinian official close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has told The Media Line that security preparations are underway for the president to visit the Gaza Strip in the next few weeks: the first time since 2006. The visit would seem to mark the victory of his Fatah movement over the Islamist Hamas faction which has controlled Gaza since 2007.Why is Iranian citizens' money buying missiles for Hamas?
“There is a lot of talk about the President going, but the goal of the visit has yet to be worked out,” the official said, saying there had to be more to the visit than just a photo opportunity.
When pressed, he said Abbas is expected to make a major announcement from the Gaza Strip, but failed to say exactly what it would be. “It could be about new Palestinian elections, a unity government (between Fatah and Hamas) or lifting of the siege on Gaza,” the official said.
My name is Ali and I live in Tehran. I want to tell you, Israel's citizens, about Iran and about the lives of the people in Iran these days. I want to take you on a virtual tour of Tehran, so that you will get to know the reality in Iran as it really is – and not as it is presented in the media.No Patience in Egypt: 68 Palestinian Arabs Deported Back to Gaza
Our tour begins on Thursday, July 24, a day before Quds Day, the Iranian Jerusalem Day which marks the protest against Zionism, and in the height of the fighting in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. I leave home for work at an early morning hour, arrive at the bus stop and wait. All the walls around me and all the bulletin boards are filled with posters and pictures from previous years' Quds Day demonstrations, inviting Iran's citizens to participate in this year's protest.
I look at the posters, thinking about all the money which was wasted to print and design them, when a child's voice suddenly interrupts my train of thought. "Sir, would you like to buy a fortune cookie?" I turn around and see a little boy, not even 10 years old, out on the street at such an early hour trying to make a living. I cannot help but think about what would have happened if the great amount of money spent on these posters and protests would have been invested in education and in the studies of this little boy and many others like him.
Egyptian authorities deported 68 Palestinians back to Gaza on Monday, though they were not planning to remain in Egypt, but rather on heading for Europe by sea.Myths and Facts 42: "ISIS and Hamas Are Different"
The would-be migrants from Gaza were found by Egyptian security forces in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, hoping to reach Italy. The Arabs had arrived in Egypt via secret smuggling tunnels from Gaza.
An Egyptian court ruled that all 68 must be deported to Gaza. Last month, 43 Palestinian Arabs were detained in Egypt under similar circumstances. The Egyptian policy contrasts starkly with that of its tiny north-eastern neighbor, Israel. Israel's Supreme Court ruled last month that illegal infiltrators may not be detained for more than 60 days, and that Israel must free about 2,000 of them by the end of the year.
