Friday, January 02, 2015
Young Israeli Firebombing Victim’s Condition Improving
Doctors treating 11-year-old Ayala Shapira, severely burned in a Palestinian firebombing attack last week, have brought her back to partial consciousness, Israel’s NRG News reported Thursday.Israeli security center publishes names of 50 killed terrorists 'concealed by Hamas'
Ayala and her father, Avner, were driving home from enrichment lessons at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv to their community of El Matan in northern Samaria late Thursday night, when two Palestinians ambushed the vehicle, with one hurling a firebomb through her open window.
Shapira suffered third-degree burns to 30-40 percent of her body, including her face and chest, despite her father managing to get her out of the burning vehicle and carry her into their community, several hundred meters away.
On Thursday, her doctors decided to lower the dosage of anesthetic she was being given intravenously to numb the pain of her burns. As a result, Ayala entered a partially alert state, and can respond to her environment but has yet to speak, and is still on a respirator.
Doctors at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv said she has a “long, complicated,” rehabilitation ahead due to her life-threatening injuries. (h/t Jewess)
An Israeli defense analysis center on Thursday released the names of 50 Gazan terrorists killed in combat with Israel this summer, whose identities were kept by Hamas from Palestinian casualty lists.From a Hamas leader, unusual introspection
The Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said all of the combatant casualties were members of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades.
“The names did not show up on other casualty lists publicized by organizations affiliated with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority,” said the center, which is a part of the Israeli Intelligence and Heritage Commemoration Center, founded by leading members of the Israeli intelligence community.
According to the study, 52% of Palestinian casualties from the conflict were terrorists and 48% civilians.
A report released on Thursday said the newly identified combatant casualties belonged one of the following categories: some were terrorists left behind in Israel after being killed in fire fights with IDF units during the summer war; others were terrorists buried in tunnels or the ruins of buildings bombed by the IDF; and others were terrorists who died of their wounds in hospital and were not identified during hostilities.
Breaking ranks with his Islamist political movement, Hamas’s deputy foreign minister Ghazi Hamad has penned a rare op-ed of self-criticism, blaming both Hamas and Fatah’s shortsightedness for “losing Palestine.”
It is not often that a senior Hamas leader, a former chairman of the movement’s border crossings authority, bitterly accuses his group of “clapping with one hand at its festivals, singing of its heroism, listening to itself and describing the other as faltering.” It is even rarer for such a leader to allow his words, published in recent days in Arab media, to be translated for a wider, non-Palestinian audience.
Hamad’s op-ed, “Now I understand how and why the Palestinians lost Palestine,” published here [Times of Israel], is iconoclastic in two meaningful ways. Firstly, it tears the mask off the political deal reached last June between Fatah and Hamas in the form of a unity technocrat government, exposing it as no more than a charade for public consumption.
“Rather than focusing the struggle against the occupation, the struggle has become exclusively intra-Palestinian. It is a struggle in which each of the sides tries to prove that his option is best and the other’s has failed. How long has this battle lasted, undecided? Is it really necessary for us to do this?” he writes.
Secondly, the op-ed points to the shortcomings of Hamas’s policy of “armed resistance and nothing else,” arguing instead that military struggle and smart diplomacy are two essential aspects of a sound Palestinian strategy.
Nonetheless, what he does not do is suggest that “armed resistance” in the Palestinian cause is either morally or practically wrong, and neither does he explicitly suggest any acceptance of Israel.
JCPA: Evidence of Tension between the Military and Political Wings of Hamas
In recent weeks several reports in the Arab media have indicated that Hamas is holding the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in Operation Protective Edge.Israel Should Counterattack at the UNSC
On December 14, 2014 the al-Arabi al-Jadeed newspaper, presumably citing Egyptian sources, reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contacted Egyptian President al-Sissi with a request to open communications with Hamas for the return of the bodies of the Israeli soldiers, Capt. Hadar Goldin and Sgt. Oron Shaul.
According to the report, it was Netanyahu’s intention to make the rehabilitation of Gaza and a relaxation of the siege on the Strip conditional upon the return of the bodies of the IDF soldiers. However, President al-Sissi asked Netanyahu to wait so that this subject could be used to exert pressure on Hamas. It is unclear whether Netanyahu complied with the President’s request. The same newspaper also reported that the Egyptian President is trying to foil any external contact with Hamas, with the intention of causing damage to the organization by “preventing any victories.”
On December 23, 2014 Mahmoud Nazal, a member of the Hamas political bureau, claimed on the Hamas-linked Al-Aqsa TV channel that the movement is holding live Israeli prisoners. His appearance was followed by senior Hamas representatives on various other media talking of a “new [Gilad] Shalit exchange.”
According to Hamas sources, these statements by Hamas political leaders angered prominent military leaders of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
Right now, the Palestinians are trying to get what they want from Israel, free of charge – a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories without in any way weakening the demand for the Right of Return. Israel needs to work in the opposite direction: go to the UN to force the Palestinians to give up the Right of Return and dismantle UNRWA. Obviously, Israel will not be able to get a majority in either the UN General Assembly or the Security Council for such a proposal. But such a move would be very important psychologically and symbolically: instead of only Israel sitting in the international dock for its "refusal" to withdraw from the territories, the Palestinians will be exposed to the world as refusing to remove the major stumbling block to the two-national state solution.Palestine at the ICC: A headache Israel might be able to live with
Change the narrative
It's true that the US will likely veto the next time the PA submits a proposal for unilateral withdrawal after the Israeli elections. But Israel has a chance now to show the international community, committed to a two-national state solution, that if it wants to force Israel to withdraw from territories (or even all the territories) as per 242, then it must also revoke the Right of Return by the same token. Otherwise, they will be destroying the very result to which they are committed in word and deed.
Much like the "occupation" slogan, the refugee card is Israel's strongest weapon in the diplomatic arsenal vis-à-vis the Palestinians. It's time that we used it. We've played defense long enough.
Jerusalem reacted angrily Wednesday to the Palestinians’ decision to join the International Criminal Court, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of “steps in response.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had long threatened to make this move, which many considered his doomsday device against Israel.Khaled Abu Toameh: Netanyahu: Palestinian Authority is an entity allied with terror group, not a state
But those who are familiar with the workings of the Hague-based court know that the route to convicting Israelis for war crimes or crimes against humanity is long and complicated.
According to some experts, it is unlikely that the ICC would even launch criminal proceedings against prominent Israelis for actions and policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Even if it did, and eventually issued indictments, it would take many years before any convictions were handed down.
In the best-case scenario for Israel, the Palestinians’ intended complaints against Israeli officials will be little more than a nuisance, causing some bad press.
And will the ICC advance the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestine, presumably Abbas’s prime goal? Not a bit.
The Palestinian Authority is not a country, but rather a group allied with a terrorist organization, and for that reason its appeal to the International Criminal Court should be rejected out of hand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.Abbas files war crimes complaint against Israel at ICC
Netanyahu’s comment came at the end of an inter-ministerial meeting he convened in Tel Aviv to discuss ways to combat the Palestinian Authority’s signing of the Rome Statute and its intention of bringing Israelis to the court on war crimes charges.
“We expect the International Criminal Court to completely reject the hypocritical act by the Palestinian Authority, because the Palestinian Authority is not a state. It is an entity in an alliance with a terrorist organization, Hamas, that commits war crimes,” he said.
Israel, Netanyahu said, is by contrast a “law abiding state with a moral army that upholds international law.”
Israel, he promised, would defend the IDF’s soldiers, “just as they defend us.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for war crimes allegedly committed during the 50-day war with Hamas and other Gaza terror groups last summer.Hamas: Abbas Has No Authority to Join ICC
In the request filed with the Dutch Embassy Thursday morning, Abbas asked the court in The Hague to investigate Israel retroactively for alleged war crimes starting from June 13, 2014 — a day after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered by a Hamas cell in the West Bank, an unnamed NGO worker told Haaretz.
The petition to the court was submitted after Abbas signed the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, on Wednesday evening, and filed a request to become a member state. That request will be processed over the coming weeks.
Ahmed Bahar, acting speaker of the Palestinian parliament, on Thursday poured cold water on Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s application to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and several other international conventions and treaties.With Israel ‘war crimes’ gambit, PA risks loss of US funding
In a statement, Bahar said that Abbas bears responsibility for the applications which, he claimed, do not serve the interests of the “Palestinian people.”
Bahar stressed that any signing of a treaty or an international agreement requires national responsibility and the entire Palestinian parliament must approve it.
Thursday’s statement stands in sharp contrast to Hamas’s statement from Wednesday, in which it praised Abbas's move as a "step in the right direction."
"This step needs to be part of a general policy and a joint national program," Hamas said in a statement. (h/t Jewess)
In initiating a war crimes probe against Israel with the International Criminal Court, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas may fall afoul of US legislation that would mandate defunding the PA. The US funds the PA to the tune of some $400 million per year.'I want Israel to know: Congress has your back'
An unidentified Palestinian source claimed that Abbas signed a request Thursday asking the ICC to investigate war crimes allegedly “committed in Palestine” since the summer. This action may tip the scales in Washington, where there is already bipartisan frustration with Abbas’s decision to put a Palestinian statehood resolution before the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, and, after the resolution was defeated, to sign on to the ICC on Wednesday.
Even if Abbas’s ICC investigation gambit does not play out — and Palestine’s route ahead at the ICC is strewn with legal obstacles — it is viewed by many leaders of the incoming Republican-controlled Congress as the latest justification to reexamine the PA’s American funding.
Aaron David Miller, a former presidential advisor and a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, believes that PA funding will be increasingly at risk in the Republican-controlled Congress that will be sworn in later this month.
In an interview with Israel Hayom, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vows to make sure that the Iranian nuclear talks are "handled properly" • The U.S. should embargo anyone who boycotts Israel, and never give up on the peace process, he says.Does Abbas signing Rome Statute doom IDF to ICC war crimes trials?
If you ask U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) whether the average Israeli citizen should believe the mainstream media's assertion that relations between Israel and the U.S. are in decline and that the decades-long friendship between them is unraveling, the answer would be a definitive no. If not stopped, he may even launch into a detailed monologue on how committed the entire U.S. Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, is to the Israeli cause.
"There's been some friction between the administration and the Israeli government but I would say that the friction that has reared its head at times is not the strongest indicator of the relationship," Graham, 59, says. "I think the U.S.-Israel relationship's anchor tenant is the Congress."
Further, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute or the ICC and, like some other countries that have directly or indirectly ignored the ICC, could choose to give neither its citizens nor evidence over for trials.France: We backed Palestinian bid to spur resumption of talks
Another important limitation is that the Palestinians cannot file complaints relating to any date before November 29, 2012, when the UN General Assembly recognized Palestine, and Israel, if it joined the ICC could not file complaints relating to any date earlier than July 1, 2002, the effective start date of the ICC.
This may be most relevant with trying to accuse Israelis of war crimes relating to the settlements as it means that most settlements are “grandfathered” into being exempt from ICC involvement.
Academic Sigall Horovitz pointed out that if Israel does sign the Rome Statute, under Article 124, it could prevent the ICC from investigating settlements-related issues for seven years, and permanently block such investigations if it reached agreed upon borders with the Palestinians by the end of that time frame.
Absent that, 2013-2014 settlement actions could be a problem for Israelis since Israel does not investigate them or view them as the ICC might.
In short, Israelis are far closer to a perilous legal situation than ever before, but the legal war is just beginning.
France’s ambassador to Israel Patrick Maisonnave said Friday that Paris backed a UN Security Council resolution that aimed to establish a timetable for a full Israeli pullout from the West Bank and East Jerusalem in order to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace negotiations.After UN Defeat, Palestinian Unilateralism Seen as ‘Losing Its Luster’
Maisonnave made the remarks during a meeting at the Foreign Ministry with deputy-director for Western Europe, Aviv Shir-On. The envoy was summoned by the Foreign Ministry for “clarifications” following the Tuesday night vote.
During the meeting Friday, Shir-On expressed Israel’s deep disappointment with France’s yes vote and emphasized that the only way forward with the Palestinians is through negotiations and not unilateral maneuvers .
The resolution would have set a 12-month deadline for Israel to reach a final peace deal with the Palestinians and called for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops by the end of 2017.
Abbas has long promised to join the ICC as a way to put pressure on Israel, opening up the possibility that Israel could be tried for war crimes in the disputed territories. But by joining the ICC, the Palestinians also open themselves up to war crimes probes as well as possible repercussions such as sanctions by the U.S., which opposes Palestinian unilateralism.Fatah Official Vows 'Retaliation' Against USA
In response to the moves by Abbas, Netanyahu said that the Palestinians have more to fear from the ICC than Israel does due to the actions of the Hamas terrorist group.
“We will adopt steps in response [to the Palestinians joining the ICC] and we will protect the soldiers of the IDF—the most moral army in the world,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
For Abbas, who faces declining popularity among the Palestinians and has failed to forge a lasting unity agreement with Hamas, the recent developments may signal a growing sense of desperation.
“When the [Palestinian campaign for unilateral statehood recognition] began, it was novel and there was a sense that it could truly change the dynamics,” Schanzer told JNS.org. “But it increasingly looks like Abbas falls back on this strategy when all else fails, but without achieving real results. It also looks like he is deliberately choosing to turn away from diplomacy in favor of this fruitless approach. The end result is the international community and the Palestinian street are growing weary of these diplomatic theatrics.”
In a recent interview with Russian news network RT, Fatah central committee member Abbas Zaki threatened the US following the Palestinian Authority's (PA) failed UN bid demanding recognition and Israeli withdrawals.IDF arrests Palestinian for Jerusalem stabbing of 2 officers
"The whole world should understand that the US is an enemy, pushing Israeli extremists to carry on with their actions, depriving us of our rights, and supporting Israel in everything,"said Zaki, despite the fact that American and Israeli funding keeps the PA afloat.
The RT report went on to say that Zaki was “comparing the US administration with 'the cobra’s head,'” and that “Zaki vowed retaliation if America doesn’t change its current stance.”
Zaki, who is the former representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to Lebanon, was interviewed in the wake of the PA's unsuccessful bid to secure a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution in favor of Palestinian statehood this week.
IDF troops arrested a Palestinian man overnight Thursday-Friday on suspicion that he was behind the stabbing of two Border Police officers last Friday in Jerusalem’s Old City.Islamic Bloc Head to Visit Temple Mount - Good for 'Occupation'?
The army said Mohammed al-Ajlouni, an East Jerusalem resident, was caught during a raid on a house in the West Bank city of Ramallah, to which he had escaped after the attack to evade arrest.
Two soldiers were lightly hurt during the capture, Israel Radio reported.
The Palestinian news agency Shehab published photos it claims were of the house that was raided by the IDF.
After the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) decided last June to name Jerusalem as the "capital of Islamic tourism" for 2016, the OIC on Thursday said its secretary general will visit eastern Jerusalem next Monday and stop at the Temple Mount.PMW: Fatah promotes violence and Martyrdom-death to mark its 50th anniversary
The secretary general, Iyad Madani of Saudi Arabia, is to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Mount after first meeting Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, reports the Associated Press.
When the OIC named Jerusalem as "capital of Islamic tourism" back in June, PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Habbash called it a means of "breaking Israel's siege" of the 3,000-year-old Jewish capital.
The PA and Hamas have been divided over the issue of Muslims visiting Jerusalem. Muslim leaders in Jordan issued a "fatwa" (religious edict) last April 30, ending a ban on visits to Al-Aqsa Mosque despite it being "under Israeli occupation" - it is in fact run by the Jordanian Waqf (Islamic trust).
Hamas rejected the ruling, saying it gives the appearance of recognizing the rule of the "occupation," and constitutes a de facto normalization with Israel. The terrorist organization called on Muslims not to visit Jerusalem.
Madani was appointed to his position last January; his Saudi-based OIC represents 57 Muslim countries, making it the largest such bloc.
On occasion of the 50th anniversary yesterday of "the Launch" of the Fatah movement in 1965 when the organization carried out its first terror attack against Israel by attempting to blow up the National Water Carrier, Fatah is still promoting violence as "legitimate resistance" and Martyrdom-death as an ideal to strive for.Experts clash over Palestinian demographic statistics
During December, Fatah posted several items on its official Facebook page that either promote the use of arms to fight Israel or encourage Palestinians to seek death for Allah. One text compared Mecca with Jerusalem:
Posted text and text on image:
"If the ground of Mecca is for worship, the ground of Jerusalem is for Martyrdom-death (Shahada)."
[Facebook, "Fatah - The Main Page," Dec. 12, 2014]
Another text described Fatah as the movement that "has taught us to love the homeland, and to love to die for it":
Text on image: "We owe much to Fatah. It is looking at us with Yasser Arafat's eyes, and is revealed to us through his black keffiyeh (head dress), so that we may take shelter in its shadow and keep its revolutionary symbolism. O young [Palestinians], Fatah is calling you. It is the mother that bestowed on us all the tenderness, hope, honor, dignity and pride. It has taught us to love the homeland, and to love to die for it. It has taught us that the right can neither be taken [away] nor given."
[Facebook, "Fatah - The Main Page", Dec. 30, 2014]
The Palestinian statistics also claim that there is zero net migration, when in fact “there is no such thing, since it means the total number of migrants equals the number of entries,” he said.Hamas ‘Tax’ Revenue from Israeli Imports: NIS 175,000,000
“My team [at the American-Israel Demographic Research Group] analyzed the data of all international passages in and out of Judea and Samaria since 1997 and compared the Palestinian numbers to other Palestinian ministry numbers, including the number of deaths, as well as those from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics,” he said.
The results of that investigation showed that, according to the Border Police’s daily computerized documentation of all exits and entries through the international passages, there was a net-emigration of over 20,000 people from Judea and Samaria in 2013, and a 17,000 annual average net-emigration during the preceding five years.
Furthermore, he argued, the Jewish fertility and immigration rate continues to grow, while the Arab fertility rate is slowing.
Some of the factors contributing to the latter, he said, were urbanization, emigration, the use of contraceptives, and expanded education among Arab women.
Asked what might motivate the Palestinians to inflate their numbers, Ettinger said that doing so enables them to receive more foreign aid and a greater water supply from Israel.
Like Michael, he said the Palestinians believe they could frighten Israelis into drastic concessions with a “demographic time bomb.”
However, Ettinger asserted that people no longer believe the Palestinian numbers and that an increasing number of people accepted his team’s data.
Despite was what supposed to have been a complete disengagement from Gaza, and the Gazan’s direct border crossing with Egypt, Israel still remains the preferred, and sometimes the only choice for Gazans who want to import and export goods and merchandise.Hamas Cancels Online Order After Misunderstanding ‘Blow-Up Dolls’ (satire)
And Hamas terrorists are making a tidy sum off that trade, according to a Makor Rishon report.
After Israel completely evacuated all the Jews from Gaza and Gush Katif in 2005, the Palestinian Authority took over. But in 2007, Hamas violently took over the Gaza strip, slaughtering their political opponents.
Since the terrorist organization’s coup Hamas has been the primary terror group in charge of the Gaza Strip.
Despite Hamas, civilian trade with Israel still continued.
In 2014, 61,000 trucks passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza. That crossing is located in southern Gaza near Rafah. There is also trade that goes through the northern Erez crossing.
The Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip urgently sought to undo an order it placed with an online vendor after discovering that the blow-up toys in the order were in fact inflatable, and not explosive.Taped Granville lectures give glimpse inside the crazed mind of Sydney terrorist Man Haron Monis
Izzedine-el-Kassam Brigades purchasing coordinator Ayma Ful purchased hundreds of blow-up dolls via an online business operating via the e-commerce giant Amazon, thinking them the perfect toy to plant in Israeli preschools or playgrounds and wreak havoc. But this morning he saw the order confirmation in his inbox, and realized something was amiss. Instead of innocent-looking dolls of the sort clutched by little girls, the list of items included a case of 200 inflatable, life-size dolls of the sort generally associated with lonely, libidinous men.
Ful returned to the site and reviewed the order in the Kassam Brigades purchasing history, and realized he had misapprehended the description of the dolls. He then set about trying to cancel the order, and spent an agonizing hour and a half tracking down someone on the New Year holiday to confirm that in fact the inflatable sexual partners would not be shipped to the designated location.
“It was a harrowing experience,” confessed the 33-year-old Ful. “The Israeli siege means we have to have everything shipped elsewhere and smuggled in, and I prefer not to imagine what our Sudanese brethren would think when they opened the packages to arrange for smuggling through Egypt and discovered their actual contents.” He shuddered at the thought.
MARTIN Place terrorist Man Haron Monis delivered a chilling lecture decrying religions other than Islam and calling for an “Islamic society” to a packed prayer hall in Western Sydney.Saudi labour ministry denies change in ‘employment visas to Jews’
The spine-tingling revelations came as former friends helped paint a frightening portrait of the Lindt Café gunman.
They said Monis planned to establish a political party called Hezbollah Australia and once converted a large Campsie warehouse into a prayer hall where Muslim leaders issued Fatwas.
“He never said where his money came from, he was mysterious,” said refugee advocate Jamal Daoud.
“He seemed to infiltrate everyone, Sunni and Shia. He knew a lot about everybody, they knew nothing about him.
Saudi Arabia has denied reports that it will be employing Jews within the Kingdom.
Following reports by the local daily Al-Watan, which quoted a Saudi labour ministry source saying they did “not mind issuing employment visas to Jews” the Saudi labour ministry released an official statement denying that there was any change to the official policy, according to the Arabi21 news site.
The ministry said that while new forms for foreign employees provide the option to choose Judaism as a faith, it does not mean that the government has made an official decision to authorise the employment of Jews in the kingdom.
Among the other religious beliefs put forward by the ministry as options on the forms are Zoroastrianism, Communism, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and no religion…
