Sunday, November 30, 2014
Ron Prosor: The UN's theater of the absurd
On Nov. 29, 1947, a Saturday night, the entire Yishuv (the Jewish community of pre-state Israel) held its breath. The tiny voice of Brazilian U.N. General Assembly President Osvaldo Aranha blared from the radios in every home. The agenda for the day: Resolution 181 on the end of the British Mandate and the partition plan of Palestine. Holocaust survivors, Jews who were kicked out of Arab lands, the many waves of immigrants to Israel, the pioneers and those who immigrated illegally all cast their lot with the promising institution that would be a magnificent monument to the triumph of good over evil in World War II.Douglas Murray: Baroness Warsi's Obsession
Sixty-seven years after that historical vote -- the U.N.'s shattered dream lies before us. Over the years, it has gone from a monument of victory to a memorial, a remnant of the hope that has vanished. Although it was designed to prevent the reoccurrence of Nazi crimes, the U.N. has become an international arena for Arab criminal bullying. The Arab world attacked the Yishuv only hours after rejecting the outcome of the vote, and it did not stop even after the thunder of the Napoleon cannons subsided at the end of the War of Independence. The unification of Arab and Muslim countries at the U.N. has created the foundation for a 120-state-strong anti-Israel diplomatic cartel.
What seems odd is this obsession with Israel, with which she has no ties. Yet this Baroness, who claims to be motivated only by moral outrage, is considerably silent on the far worse moral outrages that go on day in and day out in a country with which she does have ties — of which she made a virtue while in office. Yet Baroness Warsi ignores entirely the horrific and continual human rights abuses in her own family's homeland of Pakistan. Whether it is Christians being burned alive or the practice of "bonded labor" (slavery), Warsi appears utterly unconcerned. At present, a Christian mother of four is due to be hanged for blasphemy.Elliott Abrams: Business as usual with UNRWA
What is far more important is that the obsessions and blind spots of Baroness Warsi are the obsessions and blind spots being taught to a generation.
The Framework concludes this way:The West Supports Terrorism Against Israel Through UNRWA
"The United States expects to remain an active participant in UNRWA's Advisory Commission, which meets twice per year, and should endeavor to provide advice and guidance to UNRWA through its engagement at meetings of the Advisory Commission. In 2015, the United States is expected to serve as Vice Chair of the Subcommittee to the Advisory Commission and endeavors to provide leadership and support to the Subcommittee in its capacity as a technical advisory group to the Advisory Commission. The United States and UNRWA should regularly consult bilaterally on policy and program issues identified in this Framework."
Here are some ideas for those regular bilateral consultations in 2015: No more business as usual. Thorough, independent investigations of each rocket incident. An investigation of the health clinic incident. An investigation of the influence of Hamas on UNRWA staff, and through that staff and its union on UNRWA schools and other facilities.
There is no possible claim of ignorance. Last summer's war exposed the UNRWA-Hamas ties yet again. In that context it is shocking that the State Department has signed a Framework that mentions none of this, none at all, and says nothing about curing it and preventing recurrence. Shocking -- but, one has to admit, not particularly surprising.
In the past several months, the corruption of the UNRWA has become more evident than ever, though most of the mainstream media has kept it under wraps. Over the summer, for example, during Operation Protective Edge when Israel fought back against Hamas in Gaza after the terrorism against Jews had reached a boiling point, it was revealed that Hamas rockets were being stored in UNRWA schools. In one case, the rockets had “mysteriously” gone missing after discovery and in another, the UN returned the rockets to Hamas despite publicly condemning the terror group for using the school as an arsenal.
The schools served another purpose for Hamas as rocket launching sites. At one point during the war, when a UNRWA school was bombed and Israel was blamed, it turned out that Hamas had misfired a rocket, which exploded on its own school. The initial media outrage was aimed at Israel, but the subsequent findings against Hamas were not quite so newsworthy.
More recently, UNRWA educators have been caught supporting terror, but this news, uncovered by the “Elder of Ziyon” blogger, has not made it to the mainstream media. More specifically, the contents of the social media accounts of UNRWA school principals demonstrate blatant anti-Semitism and full support of terror against Israel. As “Elder of Ziyon” writes, “Is it a UN principle for principals to support terror?”
Irwin Cotler: It’s time to remember the Jewish refugees
Israel is observing the first annual National Day of Commemoration to mark the “exile and expulsion of Jews from Arab states and Iran.” The law establishing this commemorative day – adopted by the Knesset on June 23, 2014 – in part requires the Minister of Foreign Affairs to instruct Israel’s embassies abroad to “increase international awareness and recognition of the Jewish refugees from Arab states and Iran and their right to compensation…”Justice for Jews from Arab lands: support grows in UK
This commemorative day could not have been more timely and more necessary. For while it is a long-standing need – indeed imperative – to serve as reminder and remembrance of the pain and plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries and Iran – it also dovetails with – and must serve as a reminder for – the UN and the international community.
It is sometimes forgotten – and often not even known – that the UN partition resolution was the first-ever blueprint for a “two states for two peoples” solution. Regrettably, while Jewish leaders accepted the resolution, Arab and Palestinian leaders did not, and by their own acknowledgment, launched a war of aggression against the nascent Jewish state as well as a war against the Jewish nationals living in their respective countries.
"Jews from Arab lands suffered - their story should be told. They weren't just uprooted; their history was uprooted.""It starts with the Jews. It never ends with the Jews."
So says Florette Hyman, who was born Florette Menir in Cairo, and who came to the UK in 1957 after her family was forced to leave Egypt.
"Everyone is talking about the Palestinian refugees. I feel that no one has asked the question: What about the Jews from Arab lands?" she said.
Until now, there has been no official date to mark the mass exodus of Jews who abandoned their homes and businesses in the face of increasing persecution in Arab countries after the state of Israel was established in 1948.
JUST the other day, my Christian Lebanese colleague, whom I haven’t seen in two years, sat down across from me at the lobby of a Washington DC hotel and said, “We miss you”. As much as we are friends, he didn’t mean "me" personally.The ghosts of ethnic cleansing are still with us
He elaborated, “We, the Arabs of the Middle East, miss you – the Jews.” I smiled at the irony.
He went on to explain that while it has been more than sixty years since nearly a million Jews of the Arab Middle East have been expelled and forced out of their home countries, it is now becoming evident that this merely foreshadowed things to come.
He recounted his horror by the rising tide of Islamic brutality, genocide, and ethnic cleansing of Christian communities that is taking place everywhere the Islamic State is gaining ground. Just like the Jewish communities, those Christian communities – gone overnight - have been there before the birth of Islam and the Arab conquest of the region.
He said that he is terrified to think of an Arab Middle East without minorities. He expressed fear that the intolerance demonstrated towards the Jews decades ago is now being turned towards almost all other minorities from Christian to Allewaites to Shiites to the Sunni Muslims who fail to uphold the demented standards for Muslim piety set by the Islamic State.
What is shocking is that 856, 000 Jews were driven from their homes by Nuremberg-style laws just three years after after the full horror of the Nazi Holocaust of six million European Jews had come to light. Nazism had a great following in the Arab world and influenced reactionary movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928. Arab collaborators with the Nazis, such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, were never tried for war crimes in 1945. Instead, antisemitism in Arab states, much of it using Nazi tropes and memes, has soared to stratospheric heights.SPECIAL REPORT: The evils of post-’48 exodus from Arab lands
The ghosts of Nazi-inspired genocide and ethnic cleansing are still with us. The victims are still the same victims: the Jews and their state, heretical Muslims, Kurds, non-Muslim minorities. We can begin to exorcise these ghosts by learning about past wrongs – beginning on 30 November.
Other countries have already said the issue of Jewish refugees should be included in any final agreement. The Canadian government recently said it would recognise Jewish refugees, while in 2008, the US Congress declared it “inappropriate and unjust to recognise rights for Palestinian refugees without recognising equal rights for former Jewish, Christian, and other refugees from Arab countries”.NGO Monitor: Findings, but few facts
It added that “any resolutions relating to the issue of Middle East refugees… must also include a similarly explicit reference to the resolution of the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries”. The struggle for equal recognition will be greatly aided by Sunday’s commemoration, but is that all Jewish refugees (and their descendants) want? “In an ideal world they’d like both recognition and redress, which includes compensation,” says Julius. “But the latter is difficult. Arab states are in denial over their role. They also can’t afford it. Some can’t even feed their own people, while others are fighting to survive.”
For Shuker, this is not about money. “I’m not looking for thousands of dollars for my home in Baghdad,” he says. “Handled confrontationally, it can be a deal-breaker, but it can also be a bridge-builder.
But Jews and Palestinians have claims. We need a peace fund, to safeguard synagogues in the Arab world and educate Arab children fairly. It’s about justice, about creating a bridge. We need to work together to solve the problem.”
‘Fact finding” in armed conflict has become an industry.Does Israel need the nation state law? Yes
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issue splashy, full-color publications, accompanied by videos and interactive multimedia. They push their narratives using highly sophisticated and expensive efforts led by media and fundraising professionals; the inevitable harrowing and emotional results of the “investigations” can be leveraged to generate millions in donations.
The PR campaigns also achieve visibility in the biggest news outlets, including The New York Times, the BBC, and Le Monde. The NGOs’ well-circulated conclusions are then adopted by the UN and policy makers.
Despite the nearly ubiquitous presence of NGO fact-finding in armed conflict situations, few responsible consumers of NGO products have actually examined the methodologies and factual bases underlying NGO claims. Surprisingly, no agreed standards exist for NGO fact-finding, and NGOs have largely rejected efforts to regulate it.
Like many other aspects of Israeli politics, public debate on the proposed law - which has different forms - to re-emphasise the Jewish dimension of the country's democratic framework is often highly distorted, and stripped of both complexity and context.5 Myths About the Basic Law Proposal: “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People”
This initiative cannot be understood without considering the ongoing campaigns to erode and eventually erase the essential Jewish framework of Zionism. For a number of years, anti-Zionist political groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have sought to reverse the definition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and replace it by a state "of all of its citizens".
Many of these NGOs receive major foreign government funding, both directly and through church aid agencies, to promote this objective under the facade of human rights and democracy.
For example, Adalah, an Arab-Israeli NGO funded by the EU, Germany, Sweden, Christian Aid, as well as the New Israel Fund, promotes this agenda through statements and appearances before United Nations committees, and sends numerous "reports" to journalists and diplomats.
The Basic Law proposal: “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People” was actually first proposed by Tzipi Livni’s Kadima party.PA leader who promotes religious war to speak about religious tolerance at BGU
The bill was initially proposed in 2011 by Kadima MK Avi Dichter.
The majority of the MKs in Tzipi Livni’s left-wing party supported the bill, as did MKs in the left-wing Labor party.
The bill was likely to pass by a wide nonpartisan majority in the Knesset, but Tzipi Livni did not support it, and killed the bill before it came to vote.
Mahmoud Abbas' Advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash has been invited to speak tomorrow, Dec. 1, 2014, at Ben Gurion University on “Religious Aspects of the Israeli - Palestine conflict and the need for religious tolerance.” This is striking since for years, Al-Habbash has been promoting conflict and war with Israel in the name of Islam, as reported by Palestinian Media Watch.Jordan To Propose Date for “Palestinian” State
Al-Habbash recently taught that Islam prohibits accepting Israel's existence because the “entire land of Palestine” is Islamic waqf. As such, he forbids making peace with Israel because he believes Islamic law prohibits “facilitat[ing] the occupation of even a millimeter of it”, i.e., “the entire land of Palestine”:
Jordan is planning to present a timeline to the UN Security Council for the creation of a “Palestinian” state, according to Arab League General Secretary Nabil Al-Arabi, following an Arab League meeting held in Cairo.Abbas Presents 'Plan of Attack' for Palestinian State
Israel of course has quite a few options it can respond with.
Jordan is currently negotiating with Israel to double the water supply it receives from the Kinneret, Israel could put an end to those discussions.
But sometimes turnabout is fair play.
Israel could agree with the timeline, and say they are prepared to recognize that Jordan is Palestine on that date.
Abbas is indeed moving forward with plans to turn to the Security Council with a resolution setting a deadline for Israel to “end the occupation”, a unilateral move that is in violation of the Oslo Accords. The move has been accompanied by public threats, with Abbas having recently threatened to cut ties with Israel if his latest unilateral move at the UN fails.Abbas: Only Hamas is responsible for the Gaza Strip
However, this may be the first time that Abbas has revealed the full extent of his scheme to play the political system in the PA's favor and flaunt his ability to do so regardless of the Oslo Accords and other tenets of international law.
Abbas justified this in Cairo Saturday by noting at the end of his speech that, in his opinion, Israel "is no longer a peace partner" and that he intends to internationalize the Palestinian "cause" in accordance with his political action plan.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said that Hamas is completely responsible for Gaza, and not the joint Fatah-Hamas unity government, in a report on Sunday.Bloody Battle for Israel at Oxford University
"The Palestinian Authority does not exist in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is responsible for the Gaza Strip," he said.
Abbas continued, saying that he will not negotiate over land with Israel, and accused Israel of holding secret negotiations with Hamas.
"I won't give up one inch of [land past the]1967 [borders]; I have evidence that Hamas and Israel are conducting negotiations," Abbas said.
Dennis [Prager], like me, is a veteran of debates on Israel. But I informed him that nothing could prepare him for the ferocity of the attacks on Israel that we were likely to endure.Being pro-Israel on campus – fight or flight? (spoiler alert: Fight)
Indeed, as the debate began before a capacity audience, Dennis seemed stunned at what was being said. Israel is an apartheid regime. Israel is slaughtering the Palestinians and is guilty of genocide. Israel is doing to the Palestinians exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews. What the Jews experienced in the Holocaust is exactly what the Palestinians are enduring at Israel’s hand. Israel in its six-decade history has had one goal: the theft of Palestinian land and the eradication of the Palestinian people. America is like ISIS. ISIS beheads only a few prisoners, but America annihilates innocents in Pakistan each and every day with drone strikes. There is no real difference. Israel is guilty of war crimes. Israel’s security fence is an apartheid wall that is built mostly through the gardens and property of innocent Palestinians. Hamas does some bad things. But it’s all Israel’s fault. Hamas is a bonafide resistance movement to Israel’s occupation. Terrorism directed at Israelis is an organic response to Israeli colonial rule
Many of the arguments came from world-renowned Israeli academic Avi Shlaim, with whom I always had a warm relationship in the eleven years I served as Rabbi to the students at Oxford. The other arguments came from a highly intelligent female Oxford doctoral candidate, with whom I interacted warmly at the pre-debate dinner, and from a Berkeley-Oxford female Professor who was likewise pleasant. The rest of the attacks came from Oxford students in the floor debate segment of the program.
I had heard all these things before. But never from some of the most highly educated people in Europe. And never with such ferocity and vehemence.
We have covered the thinly veiled and sometimes not veiled threatening and violent behavior of anti-Israeli activists on campus so many times, it’s hardly possible to sum them up in one post anymore. Just scroll through our BDS Tag."Fight or Flight" - What Should the pro-Israel students choose?
If you read our recent posts about Cornell, you’d know that it can happen anywhere, even on campuses that are not as a whole anti-Israel.
Non-student agitators and faculty often are the catalyst for what now euphemistically is called “direct action,” the new rallying cry for groups like Students for Justice in Palestine.
This video sums up some of what is happening
They Don't Like It Up 'Em! British BDSers "steal" Jill the pro-Israel poster girl
Like its counterpart across the Irish Sea, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign exhibits an especially virulent strain of the antisemitic anti-Zionism virus.'Zionists: Only Death Awaits You Here'
This weekend, like the anti-Israel movement in English cities (take a look here) as well as here (some familiar as-a-Jews and others in this Alex Seymour/Seymour Alezander video, where the "apartheid" slur is freely made, and in which the London constabulary breaks up the party in the end) it's been staging anti-Israel marches in s number of Scottish localities, as seen, for instance, in these sample photographs:
On November 29 - a day loaded with the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Sallah a-Din Nazzal, a Palestinian youth posted a video to Youtube, sending a message to all Jews in Israel.Mubarak verdict leads to widespread unrest in Egypt
In 1947, November 29 was the day the General Assembly voted to adopt the United Nations Partition Plan recommending the creation of independent Jewish and Arab states in Palestine.
The resolution was accepted by the majority of the Jewish public, but Arab leaders and governments outright rejected the partition plan and civil war broke out, followed several months later with the outbreak of the War of Independence, when Israel declared itself a state on May 14, 1948.
In the video, the Palestinian boy stands in front of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) armored guard stand, wearing a traditional keffiyeh around his neck. He stresses his and the entire Palestinian population's determination to fight against the "occupation."
Protests erupted at universities across Egypt on Sunday, condemning a court decision to drop criminal charges against Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in the 2011 uprising.Mubarak Case Collapses, Killing 1 (satire)
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Cairo University, waving pictures of Mubarak behind bars and demanding the "fall of the regime", the rallying cry of the Arab Spring uprisings that shook governments from Tunisia to the Gulf in 2011.
Police stood ready at the gates to bar students that sought to take their demonstration into the streets.
Two people were killed and nine were wounded on Saturday evening, when security forces fired tear gas and birdshot to disperse about 1,000 protesters who attempted to enter Tahrir Square - the symbolic heart of the revolt that ousted Mubarak.
Mr. Mubarak’s fate remains murky. He has already been held for more than the three years mandated under an earlier corruption conviction, a fact that continues to cloud Egypt, impairing vision and leading to numerous fatalities. In one such recent incident, 31 Egyptian soldiers were killed when the checkpoint they were manning came under assault by militants whose source of funding remains shrouded. President Sisi has blamed mysterious “foreign” elements of a conspiracy to undermine Egyptian stability, a charge that further muddies matters, adding fuel to the escalating mudslinging competition between the current government and the Muslim Brotherhood.Lawrence of Arabia museum set to open amid Islamic State fighting
The mudslinging has injured and killed dozens, and soiled the government’s reputation as representing a break from the previous regime. More than 150 people were treated at various Egyptian hospitals for mud in their eyes last week alone, mostly former officials with the Brotherhood.
Prosecutors had initially considered the trial against Mubarak an open-and-shut case, but their own missteps brought about the case’s closure prematurely, snagging their fingers in the process. With their digits thus ensnared, prosecutors have been unable to engage in the customary finger-pointing that usually follows a mistake in officialdom. They concede that if they continue to pursue the case against the former leader, whose supporters are now once again firmly ensconced in power, they may find their hands tied.
The Muslim Brotherhood lashed out at the judge and his decision, causing lacerations to several passers by.
According to media reports, the museum site is slated to have a four-meter-high anti-sniper wall to protect visitors.Report: ISIS kidnaps Canadian-Israeli, former IDF soldier who went to fight with the Kurds
“We don’t expect any danger for now,” Yusuf Osman Diktas, the Turkish regional governor, told The Telegraph.
Lawrence, though widely considered an Arabophile, wrote, “The sooner the Jews farm it the better: Their colonies are bright spots in a desert.”
He encouraged Zionist immigration to then Palestine as part of his mediation efforts between Prince Feisal and Chaim Weizmann, who later became Israel’s first president.
Uncertainty abounds concerning the fate of Israeli-Canadian Gill Rosenberg, who was apparently captured by ISIS.Daniel Pipes: Thoughts on the P5+1 negotiations with Tehran
Islamist websites – some of them known to be close, or even serving as a front for ISIS – reported Sunday that the 31-year-old was captured by their warriors during fierce battles with Kurdish fighters in unspecified areas.
According to the websites, Rosenberg was taken hostage following three suicide attacks on sites where Kurdish fighters had barricaded themselves. The websites gave no further details regarding the circumstances of the capture, nor did they provide any proof of it.
The Nov. 24 deadline came and went for an agreement between Western powers and the Islamic Republic of Iran; on that date, they managed only to extend the existing interim deal for another seven months. The ayatollah crowed and U.S. senators stewed. Looking beyond these responses, the current situation spurs several thoughts: Erdoganistan Sentences Physics Professor to 12-Years-in-Jail for Opposing Hijab
- If one assumes, as I do, that the apocalyptically minded Iranian leadership will do everything it can to acquire the bomb, then economic sanctions only serve to slow its course, not to stop it. Put more forcefully, the debate over sanctions is peripheral and even diversionary. The arcane financial and scientific minutiae of the negotiations tend to bury the only discussion that really matters -- whether or not some government will use force to reverse the nuclear program.
A prominent Turkish professor on Thursday began a jail sentence after being convicted of preventing a female student wearing a Muslim headscarf from entering the university where he worked, his lawyer said.Nazi Alois Brunner 'Taught Assad How to Torture'
Rennan Pekunlu, a former professor of astrophysics at Ege University, was sentenced to two years in prison in 2012 for violating a headscarf-wearing student’s “constitutional right to education” by barring her from entering the faculty.
Pekunlu began his sentence in a prison in the western city of Izmir, becoming the first individual in Turkey to be jailed for such an offence, his lawyer Murat Fatih Ulku told AFP.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff of The Simon Wiesenthal Center says that the center has received reliable information according to which Alois Brunner, a top Nazi fugitive whom Final Solution architect Adolf Eichmann called his “best man,” is dead and buried in Damascus. Brunner advised former Syrian dictator Hafez Asssad on torture techniques and repression, said Zuroff.Outbrain finally ready for billion dollar IPO, report says
British news site Sunday Express quoted Zuroff, who directs the Wiesenthal Center's Israel office, as saying: "We have received information from a former German secret service agent who had served in the Middle East who said that Brunner was dead and buried in Damascus.
Zuroff added: "Given his age it would not be surprising and the information came from someone who we consider reliable. There is much evidence of what he (Brunner) did and no lack of clarity about his huge guilt in four different countries.
"We are talking about someone who helped send 128,500 Jews to the death camps, the majority were murdered... The victims' families are a very large group and it's fair to say the people who suffered at his hands would have wanted him to be punished and would be disappointed, but he is not the only Nazi war criminal who got away, far too many got away."
After months of rumors, Israeli content delivery platform Outbrain appears ready to move forward with its initial public offering.Remote patrol
A report in The Wall Street Journal said that the company had filed a confidential approval to sell shares on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The report said that the company would seek to raise as much as $250 million in an IPO. According to analysts, that would place the company’s valuation at about $1 billion.
If the company succeeds, it would be the third-largest IPO for an Israeli company: Cellphone service provider Partner in 1999 raised $600 million on a NASDAQ IPO valued at $2.3 billion, and in 2007, Cellcom, also a cellphone service provider, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange with a valuation of $1.95 billion and was able to raise $400 million.
It’s not clear when the actual IPO will be filed; the filing does not list a date, the report said.
In 2009, as part of its altered deployment along the Gaza border after Operation Cast Lead, Israel introduced a unique unmanned ground vehicle that can do the dirty work of patrolling the border. This preprogrammed or remote-controlled car arrives at scheduled times, examines suspicious spots from up close and relays live video, all without putting Israeli lives at risk.David's Sling air defense system to deploy for trial period
The unit that operates the vehicles is set to receive a highly upgraded platform in early 2015, expanding its role beyond surveillance and its domain beyond the southern brigade of the Gaza Strip where it is currently deployed.
It opened its doors recently to describe its current operations and future goals.
Cpt. Avidav Goldstein, a former soldier in the Golani Brigade and the commander of the unit, stood beside a small TOMCAR — designed by G-NIUS Unmanned Ground Systems and equipped with nine cameras, a microphone and a megaphone — and listed the array of threats facing troops on the border: snipers, tunnels, abductions, anti-tank missiles, mines.
As a result, he said, along the southern part of the Israel-Gaza fence the army does not routinely send flesh-and-blood troops, since their patrols would have to adhere to a schedule that, by definition, would render them vulnerable to ambush.
That “vacuum,” Goldstein added, is filled by cameras, sensors, surveillance posts armed with remote-controlled machine guns, and, filling in the blanks in coverage and performing the daily patrols, unmanned ground vehicles.
The David's Sling air defense system will soon be deployed for a trial period, before becoming operational, the IDF said in recent days.Becoming a combat soldier in 90 seconds #IDFStyle
David's Sling can intercept short-range to medium-range rockets and missiles, including Hezbollah's Katyusha rockets. Its range of coverage is three times that of the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system.
The system will be deployed in various areas around Israel for a trial period, the IDF added.
After that, David's Sling will also be set up to intercept hostile aircraft and missiles with longer ranges. Eventually, it should be able to intercept incoming cruise missiles as well.
The lion-killer who became an Israeli hero
The ashes of a swashbuckling hero of the British Empire are to be reburied in Israel after a service attended by the country's prime minister. John Henry Patterson was a soldier, big-game hunter and writer, whose exploits inspired three Hollywood movies. The BBC's Kevin Connolly explains why he is so admired in Israel.
The man who was to become a hero to the British and to the Israelis was neither British nor Jewish. Like many servants of the crown in the days of Empire he was an Irishman born in County Longford in 1867 to a Protestant father and Catholic mother. Ireland was then part of the United Kingdom and military service was a popular option for many young Irishmen - partly from a want of other opportunities and partly from a sense of adventure.
In Patterson's case we can assume it was the sense of adventure. By 1898 he'd been commissioned to oversee the construction of a railway bridge over a ravine at Tsavo, in Kenya, but found work was being held up by two man-eating lions who were terrorising the huge camps housing the Indian and African labourers.
It's hard to be sure, but the two lions between them may have killed more than 100 people in all. Patterson wasn't an expert on lions, although he'd shot tigers on military service in India, but to protect his workers and get his bridge finished he resolved to kill the predators. (h/t MtTB)
