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Wednesday, November 05, 2014

11/05 Links Pt1: Bibi: Terror attack due to Abbas & Hamas partners' incitement; Latma Returns!

From Ian:

Caroline Glick’s Latma Returns
It only took three years, but the popular Internet satire program, Latma, has signed a contract with Israel Channel 1, and will be going on the air in February, as first reported in Kipa.
Latma, created by Caroline Glick, was a right-wing satirical response to Israeli political and social current events.
The show was privately funded, and ran for 4 years, until the fundraising work involved became too time consuming for Glick to maintain.
In the interim, Glick negotiated for years with Channel 1 to get the show onto Israeli TV, but Channel 1 always pulled the plug at the last minute.
Until now, political satire programming on Israeli TV has pretty much only been left-wing satire targeting the right and the religious.
It only took a major reform in Israeli broadcasting by Communications Minister Gilad Erdan, the closing of the Israel Broadcasting Agency (IBA), and Knesset Sports and Culture subcommittee discussions to finally get a non-left-wing satire show on the air.
We look forward to seeing it again.
Netanyahu: Jerusalem terror attack the result of Abbas and his Hamas partners' incitement

Speaking at the annual state remembrance ceremony honoring the slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the premier condemned the vehicular terrorist attack which killed a Border Police officer and injured over a dozen others.
“In recent days we have witnessed the growing incitement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who sent a condolence letter to the family of [Yehuda] Glick’s [shooter] and who has tried to prevent Jews from going up to the Temple Mount,” Netanyahu said.
This kind of incitement impacts results on the ground, Netanyahu said.
“The vehicular terror attack today in Jerusalem, is the direct result of incitement by Abu Mazen [Abbas] and his partner Hamas. We are in a prolonged battle for Jerusalem and I have no doubt that we will win it. We are employing all the necessary powers to restore quiet and security to the city,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu points finger at Abbas for terror attack
A Jerusalem terror attack that left one person dead and several more injured was the direct result of incitement from Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged Wednesday.
A Border Police officer — Jedan Assad, 38, from the Druze village of Beit Jann — was killed and 14 more people were injured after an Arab man plowed his van into pedestrians on the seam line between East and West Jerusalem just after noon Wednesday, the latest in a string of terrorist vehicular assaults in the capital.
The attack was the “direct consequence of Abu Mazen’s [Abbas's] incitement and that of his Hamas partners,” Netanyahu declared, speaking at a memorial ceremony marking 19 years since prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. “We are engaged in an ongoing battle in Jerusalem. I have no doubt that we will prevail,” he added.



Bennett: Jerusalem terror driver is Abbas's emissary of death
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas encourages terrorism, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said after the vehicular attack in Jerusalem Wednesday.
"[Abbas] is the driver in the car of death in Jerusalem and the terrorists are his emissaries," Bennett declared. "The State of Israel must say clearly that the Fatah-Hamas government is a terrorist authority and we must treat it as such."
The Bayit Yehudi leader pointed out that there is no Iron Dome defense system against drivers.
"Israeli citizens cannot live without deterrence and sovereignty in their capital. Our security is not a luxury," he stated.
Bennett on CNN: "Palestinians need to stop incitement. Words kill."


Watch: Terror attack in Jerusalem caught on tape
Security cameras at the Shimon Hatzadik light rail station in Jerusalem recorded the footage of the initial stages of the terrorist attack on Wednesday which left one Border Police officer dead and at least 14 others hurt.
In the video, the driver is seen ramming his car through the station, with one person left lying on the railway track. The car is then seen speeding off to another nearby junction in which he ran over other pedestrians.
WATCH: Video of police neutralizing Jerusalem terrorist
Security camera footage of Border Police shooting and killing the terrorist who killed one person and injured 14 others was released on Wednesday.
The terrorist, who slammed his car into people near the Jerusalem light rail at two different locations, is seen after he has gotten out of his vehicle and is attacking passersby and police cars with an iron rod.
Border Police officers are seen shooting the terrorist and neutralizing him.
 Hamas takes responsibility for Jerusalem van attack
Hamas claimed responsibility for a car ramming terror attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday in which a Palestinian man drove his car into pedestrians, killing a border policeman and injuring more than a dozen other people.
The Islamist terror organization, which rules the Gaza Strip, also called for a third intifada in Jerusalem.
Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri tweeted a message of support for the attack.
“We join hands with those who avenge the blood of those injured in al-Aqsa,” he wrote, referring to the Temple Mount enclosure.
The Islamic Jihad terror group described the attack as “heroic” and said it was the response of the Palestinian people to continued attacks on the al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel Radio reported.
Palestinian Ma’an news agency identified the terrorist as 48-year-old Ibrahim al-Akary, from Shuafat in East Jerusalem. (h/t Jewess)
Palestinian Media Calls Terror Attack 'Car Accident'
The Palestinian Arab media is calling Wednesday's horrific terror attack in Jerusalem a "car accident," Elder of Ziyon reports, and is also claiming that all of the victims were "soldiers and settlers."
The blog translated the following excerpt from Palestinian news agency Wafa from Arabic:
"A young Jerusalem man, Ibrahim Akkari, of Shuafat in central Jerusalem, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of downtown Jerusalem, when his car went out of control and collided with a number of soldiers and settlers; the condition of three soldiers is described as serious.
For its part, the Israeli police and some Hebrew media were quick to claim that the incident was a terrorist action before it was clear what the incident was."
Protest at Jerusalem Attack Site: 'Death to Terrorists'
Just hours after Hamas terrorist Ibrahim al-Akri of Jerusalem's Shuafat neighborhood killed a Border Patrol officer with his car and wounded 13 others - two of them critically - dozens of nationalist activists and residents protested at the Shimon Hatzadik light rail station where the attack occurred.
The protesters, led by Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir and nationalist activist Bentzi Gopshtain, shouted out "death to terrorists," and called for Interior Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich (Yisrael Beytenu) to step down over the collapse in security in Jerusalem.
"Aharonovich go home, Jewish blood is not cheap," chanted the protesters, who included hareidim living in the area of the attack.
Just earlier at the same site Aharonovich delivered a statement in which he admitted there would likely be further attacks.
Glick's Family 'Shocked' at US Silence over Shooting
A message from Yitz Glick, the brother of Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick who was shot four times last Wednesday by an Arab terrorist in Jerusalem, reveals shocking differences in the US administration's reaction to events in Israel.
The message was sent to journalist and editor Caroline Glick of Makor Rishon and the Jerusalem Post, who on Tuesday shared it on her Facebook page with the words "I wonder what (US) Amb. (to Israel) Dan Shapiro sees when he looks in the mirror."
Yitz wrote to Glick (who is not related to the family), saying "I just wanted to tell you that our family is shocked that we haven't heard a single word from the US State Dept., the US Ambassador or any representative of the US government regarding the shooting of our brother a US citizen Yehuda Glick."
"My father Prof. Shimon Glick served as a captain in the US Army. He was a federal employee both in the NIH (National Institutes of Health - ed.) and the VA (US Department of Veterans Affairs - ed.) taking part in a leading hormone research projects. The chief investigator, Rose (Rosalyn) Yalow was awarded a Nobel prize," continued Glick.
When will Israel tackle online incitement in Arabic?
The Yehudah Glick case is a concrete example. Glick is the star of the social networks in Arabic among those engaged with the Temple Mount. Religious Muslims hate him; nationalists targeted him.
This could have been easily detected – a Google search brings up the threats – but there is no one to look for them. The Justice Ministry's keyboards have no Arabic on them, the telephone receptionists speak no Arabic, the mind lacks Arabic.
I am concerned about the incitement and radicalization just as much as the readers of editorials in Haaretz. On the week in which we mark the anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's murder, there is no need for proof of dangerousness, but incitement does not depend on religion and ideology. This applies to any time, any religion, any social network. It creates results and numbers. (h/t Bob Knot)
Zoabi at Temple Mount: Racist Israelis didn't learn from the Holocaust
Arab MKs confronted police who temporarily sealed off the Temple Mount to visitors on Wednesday morning after dozens of Palestinian rioters hurled stones and shot fireworks at security forces in the vicinity.
"You say we are terrorists and that we want to fight you," MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad) shouted to Border Police blocking her from accessing the area. "We want to live, to pray, to enter our schools, our home, our land. This is terrorism? To live is terrorism? To fight for our right to live is terrorism?"
Zoabi compared the police's behavior toward her to the Holocaust: "Someone did this to you, decades ago. Remember that? Somebody did rule over you and screwed you over decades ago. You did not learn the lesson.
"What is the lesson of the Holocaust? Don't yell and don't be racist, right?" she said. "They killed six million of you, why?"
Other MKs, including Balad leader Jamal Zahalke and Taleb Abu-Arrar of UAL-Ta'al, were blocked from entering the Temple Mount and al-Aksa mosque when they arrived at the site as part of a High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel protest, but were allowed in later, along with the general public.
Has there been even one recent incident of Jews attacking Muslims at the Temple Mount?
Further, despite the UK media’s pattern of obfuscating the cause of such violence at Jerusalem’s holy sites, it is not accurate to claim – as they often do – that ‘clashes’ between Muslim worshippers and police simply ‘break out’ or ‘erupt’, or that there is “fighting between the two sides”.
Israeli police never initiate the violence, but merely respond to, and try to control, the violence and mayhem.
Honest, objective media headlines and accompanying stories would make it clear that Muslim worshippers are the ones who (almost exclusively) engage in unprovoked acts of violence against police and Jewish worshippers at the Mount, often incited by extremists (and even ‘moderate’ Palestinian leaders) – a stubborn fact about one of the ‘root causes’ of conflict in Jerusalem that the media seems incapable of acknowledging.
BBC WS ‘Newshour’ gives platform to PA falsehoods and incitement on Temple Mount
After Marshall’s introduction (which included a description of Yehuda Glick as “an outspoken Jewish activist”), listeners heard brief contributions from Israeli spokesman Mark Regev and Minister Naftali Bennett. Marshall then introduced “the representative in the UK of the Palestinian Authority” – Manuel Hassassian.
During the next four minutes Hassassian was given free rein to promote a series of inaccurate, defamatory and often contradictory claims with no meaningful intervention from Marshall as listeners were misled by his falsehoods time after time. Manuel Hassassian responded to Marshall’s first question concerning the reason for Mahmoud Abbas’ description of the temporary closure of Temple Mount as “a declaration of war” by saying:
PLO warns international reporters not to use the term "Temple Mount"
PLO MEDIA ADVISORY: Concern over the use of the inaccurate term “Temple Mount” to refer to Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound in Jerusalem
Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, sometimes referred to as the Noble Sanctuary (“Haram al-Sharif” in Arabic), is the compound that contains Al Aqsa building itself, ablution fountains, open spaces for prayer, monuments and the Dome of the Rock building. This entire area enclosed by the walls which spans 144 dunums (almost 36 acres), forms the Mosque.
Sacred to approximately 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, and a symbol for all Palestinians, the Mosque has been under exclusive Muslim sovereignty and control since the construction of the Dome of the Rock in 692 CE. As such, any entrance to the Al Aqsa Mosque must be agreed and coordinated by the Muslim Waqf.
Jordan recalls envoy from Israel over 'unprecedented escalation in Jerusalem'
The Jordanian government has instructed its ambassador in Tel Aviv to return home due to what Amman says is "unprecedented Israeli escalation in Jerusalem."
The move comes just hours after a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem rammed his vehicle into two light rail stations in the capital, killing a Border Police officer and injuring over a dozen others.
Earlier on Wednesday, police temporarily sealed off the Temple Mount to worshipers after clashes erupted with Palestinian stone-throwers who barricaded themselves with stockpiles of stones and firecrackers in al-Aksa Mosque.
Jordan will also lodge a formal complaint with the UN Security Council over Israeli actions in Jerusalem and its holy sites, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.
Al Aqsa Mosque Turned into Terror 'War Room'
Israeli police came under assault by rock-throwing Arab protesters on the Temple Mount compound on Wednesday, as clashes were highlighted by pro-Hamas Arab MK Hanin Zoabi's (Balad) presence at the site.
"Dozens of masked protesters threw rocks and firecrackers at security forces who then entered the Temple Mount and pushed the demonstrators back inside the mosque," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.
Police had collected intelligence overnight about Muslim youths who were holing up in the mosque, which has effectively been turned into a combat facility by the Muslims.
The youths collected rocks, fireworks and prepared firebombs inside the Al Aqsa structure, and set up barricades to prevent police from closing the doors of Al Aqsa and shutting them inside, as police usually do in confrontations with them.
Palestinians ready to go to Security Council over Temple Mount
Meanwhile, the Palestinian leadership plans to turn to the UN Security Council following renewed rioting at the Temple Mount Wednesday, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said.
“We warned that this is a red line that we cannot keep quiet on,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, according to Israel Radio, adding that Israel was trying to escalate the situation at the holy site with the aim of isolating the al-Aqsa Mosque.
'Druze are inseparable part of Israel,' housing minister says
Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel (Habayit Hayehudi) met with Druze leaders on Tuesday to mark the decision to lease the Nabi Shuayb holy site, commonly known as Jethro's Tomb, to the Nabi Shuayb nonprofit association.
Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, is known as Shuayb in Islam and is a major figure in the Druze religion. He is believed to have been buried near Tiberias in northern Israel.
Three months ago, the Israel Land Authority, which Ariel heads, decided to lease Jethro's Tomb to the Druze. Under the terms of the deal, the state will lease the site and an additional 49 dunams (12 acres) of land to the Druze for a symbolic sum of 18 shekels ($4.74).
The decision is expected to end a years-long dispute over use of the site and respond to the religious needs of the Druze, as well as acknowledge the location as a heritage site.
Ariel said during the meeting that "the Druze community is an inseparable part of Israeli society and in recent years has made a real effort to integrate its children into the public sector."
Terrorists Gunning for Egypt, Hamas Aims at West Bank
Hamas also has a hand in unrest around the Temple Mount site in Jerusalem, according to Israeli assessments.
The dynamics that led to the long conflict this summer between Israel and Hamas have not disappeared, and neither has the jihadi terrorism that still seeps out of the Gaza Strip in all directions.
Understanding this triangle of "Egypt - Gaza - Israel" is key to unlocking the significance of current regional events. The more that Gaza-linked terror groups threaten Egypt, the more the Egyptian government will seek to isolate and punish Hamas. A distressed Hamas, struggling to initiate reconstruction efforts, is more likely to try to break its isolation through a terrorist provocation against Israel, even if this attempt takes an indirect form, through a proxy terror group.
Hamas's dark influence continues to cast a shadow on the region, raising tensions from Sinai to the West Bank, and starting a new countdown to the next showdown.
Sinai-Based Terror Group Denies Pledging Loyalty to Islamic State
The Sinai-based terrorist group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which has been locked in an ongoing battle with the Egyptian military, in a Twitter message on Tuesday denied reports that it has pledged loyalty to the Islamic State.
“The statement that has been circulated in the media and is sourced to us, regarding the group’s declaration of allegiance to the Caliphate of the Muslims, [has] nothing to do with us,” said a tweet from a page that claims to be the official account of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Reuters reported.
Minister: If Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel, Lebanon will be razed
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz warned Tuesday that Israel was prepared to completely eviscerate Lebanon in response to any cross-border missile attack by Hezbollah.
Katz (Likud) was responding to a fiery speech by the Shiite group’s head Hassan Nasrallah earlier in the day in which the extremist leader claimed that his organization’s rockets can hit anywhere in Israel and threatened to target the country’s sea ports and main airport in the next conflict.
“In order to avoid any doubt on the matter, Nasrallah the cowardly braggart should know this: that option does not exist for us!,” Katz wrote on his official Facebook page (Hebrew).
“If such a scenario does materialize, we will raze Lebanon to the ground! We will return it to the Stone Age and bury [Nasrallah] under the rocks.”
Hezbollah Threats to Israel ‘Emboldened’ by Improved American-Iranian Ties, Expert Says
A leading Middle East analyst in Washington, DC told The Algemeiner that Nasrallah’s brazenness was partly triggered by the improvement in relations between the US and Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor.
“Clearly, the new regional environment created by an American detente with Tehran has not tamed Hezbollah’s worst instincts, but is emboldening them,” said Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and an expert on Iran and Hezbollah.
Asked if Nasrallah’s threat should be taken seriously in military terms, Ottolenghi observed that Hezbollah has “long range missiles, and has been getting better and better over the years in terms of military capability.” Ottolenghi pointed out that the failure of the United Nations to disarm Hezbollah in accordance with successive Security Council resolutions is another worrying factor.
“But the real problem is political – we are in a situation where the US is acquiescing to Hezbollah’s defense of the Assad regime in Syria,” Ottolenghi continued. “Rather than countering Iran and its proxies, the US is giving them free rein, which is why they are so bold in their statements.”
Will $3 Billion Saudi Deal Arm Hezbollah with French Weapons?
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced on Tuesday that his country and Saudi Arabia have signed an arms deal, by which France will receive $3 billion to send weapons to the Lebanese army - weapons that some fear may fall into Hezbollah hands.
"This agreement, financed by a Saudi grant, will contribute to strengthen the Lebanese army, which guarantees the unity and stability of Lebanon," said Fabius, giving no further details as to what weapons would be included in the package. Reuters reports those details are to be given by the French Defense Ministry on Wednesday.
The US has already spent over $1 billion since 2006 to train and provide equipment for Lebanon's army of 65,000, in a bid to bolster its standing vis-a-vis the Iran-proxy terror group Hezbollah.
Despite those efforts, the Shi'ite group Hezbollah has wielded great authority over the army of the former French colony, and in fact there is a deep military cooperation between the groups.
France urges coalition to help Syrian rebels fend off regime
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Tuesday for the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group to help rebels in Syria’s second city Aleppo hold out against the Damascus regime.
Fabius said that the coalition should not battle IS to the exclusion of supporting rebels fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime, which he said had deliberately fueled the jihadists’ rise.
“After Kobani, we must save Aleppo,” Fabius said, referring to a Syrian border town where Washington has carried out dozens of air strikes with the support of Arab allies to help Kurdish forces ward off a weeks-long IS assault.
Exclusive: Washington Cuts Funds for Investigating Bashar al-Assad's War Crimes
The U.S. State Department plans to cut its entire $500,000 in annual funding next year to an organization dedicated to sneaking into abandoned Syrian military bases, prisons, and government facilities to collect documents and other evidence linking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and its proxies to war crimes and other mass atrocities during the country's brutal civil war, according to the recipient of the assistance and a senior U.S. official.
The move, which has not previously been reported, comes as the Obama administration is stepping up funding to collect evidence of war crimes in Iraq by the Islamic State, an extremist Islamist organization that has horrified the world with its mass killings, enslavement of women, and beheadings of ethnic minorities, foreign aid workers, and journalists, including two American reporters who were executed in recent months. The funding shift has raised concern among human rights advocates that the United States and its allies are reducing their commitment to holding the Syrian leader accountable for the majority of Syria's atrocities because the interests of Washington and Damascus are converging over the fight against the Islamic State. (h/t MtTB)
US-Trained Syrian Rebels Defect to Al-Qaeda, Surrender Weapons
Syrian rebels who had been trained and armed by the United States defected to the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria over the weekend and surrendered their weapons, according to various reports.
The moderate Syrian rebels who were stormed by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, were members of Harakat Hazzm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front.
“Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push to vanquish the moderate Free Syrian Army, according to rebel commanders, activists and analysts,” reported The Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda mastermind featured for ‘hairs, not terrorism’ in cosmetic ad: Turkish company
A Turkish cosmetics company that ran a controversial online ad for its hair removal product has defended itself, arguing that it featured a notorious al-Qaeda militant “for his hair, not terrorism.”
The ad for the hair removal product reads, in Turkish, “Waiting won’t get rid of that hair!” or, more literally, “The hair will not go away because you keep waiting!”
The slogan is accompanied by a photo of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Pakistani former al-Qaeda leader who is best known as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attack. Mohammed is currently being held in U.S. military custody in Guantánamo Bay and faces the death penalty if convicted.
Saudi Woman Arrested for Questioning Length of Mohammed’s Beard
A Saudi activist was arrested for a statement in which she said that the Islamic saying that men should have beards to distinguish them from non-believers did not make sense.
Ms al Shammari is a co-founder of a Saudi Liberals group who questioned the obligation for Muslim men to wear a beard. “Several atheists, Jews and Communists in the past had, and in the present have, beards, and even Abu Jahl [a polytheist pagan leader] had a beard that was longer than that of Prophet Mohammad,” she reportedly said in the tweet.
Shammari said she was not targeting Islam claiming earlier tweets supported her argument. However, several senior religious figures in the Saudi kingdom condemned her tweet, accusing her of denigrating Islam and targeting the Prophet, and calling for severe action against her, including putting her on trial.
Malaysian official says that MH17 and MH370 were brought down by — ‘serving alcohol and exposing flesh’
A senior lecturer of the National Defence University recognised as Ridhuan Tee, has offered a theological contention as the main reasons behind the tragedies of MH370 and MH17, implying that if the Malaysian airlines had adhered to Islamic behaviours or customs, the accidents would never have happened.
In his column titled “Buka Minda” (Open your mind) written for Malaysian publication, Sinar Harian on Monday, Tee said that Malaysian airlines MH370 went missing and MH17 was shot down earlier in the year simply because Malaysians are increasingly refusing to be more ‘Islamic’.
He latched on the idea that more Islamic culture should be observed on board Malaysian flights, by narrating his own experience while flying a Royal Brunei Airlines fight recently.
“The flight began with a beautiful reciting of prayers and well wishes,” that made him feel that “Allah was with us,” he said in a quote translated by Free Malaysia Today.
“Aren’t the lessons of MH17 and MH370 not enough?” Tee asked adding that these days the in-flight crew do not bother to dress in a more Islamic manner and that they serve alcohol – something that is prohibited in Islam…