Monday, January 19, 2015
Ben-Dror Yemini: Doing the Islamic terrorists' job
The master of history deceives us. There was a time when Jews had to be protected from Christians. Today the Christians are the ones protecting the Jews from the Muslims. Not all Muslims. Not even the majority of them. Far from that. But the threat is there. Sometimes it materializes.Report: Six Iranians killed in Israeli strike in Syria, including Revolutionary Guards general
In the past few decades, after the Holocaust, Europe was kind to the Jews. They integrated. They prospered. But the old anti-Semitism was in the background, joined by the new anti-Semitism – the new anti-Semitism of some of the anti-Zionist elites and the new anti-Semitism of some of the Muslims. The former turn Israel into a monster. The latter want to crush the monster's head. According to them, Europe's Jews are also part of the monster.
While the international community is forced to defend itself, and the Jews, against Islamic terror with one hand, its other hand is busy pointing an accusing finger at Israel through the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Hamas welcomes this situation. It's the same Hamas which calls for the annihilation of Jews, which carries out attacks against Jews and which welcomes every terror attack against Jews.
When Jews need protection, when the international community points an accusing finger at Israel, and when Hamas welcomes it – the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly can smile from their graves. They won. The enlightened Europe is doing their job for them, intentionally and unintentionally.
The air strike attributed in foreign media reports to Israel which killed six Hezbollah agents in Syria on Sunday also killed six Iranian soldiers, including commanders, AFP quoted a source close to Hezbollah as saying on Monday.Footage released allegedly showing aftermath of Israeli attack in Syria
"The Israeli strike killed six Iranian soldiers, including commanders, as well as the six members of Hezbollah. They were all in a convoy of three cars," the source said.
An Iranian semi-official news site reported that an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general was among those killed in the strike.
"Following the Zionist aggressions against the resistance in Syria, General Mohammad Allahdadi, a former commander of the Sarollah Brigade of the Revolutionary Guard, was martyred along with Jihad Mughniyeh and three others in the same car," the Dana news website said, referring to the son of Hezbollah's late military leader Imad Mughniyeh.
Syrian rebels release video of Quneitra area after IAF helicopters reportedly fired missiles at two armed vehicles
Opposition groups in Syria released video footage on Monday purporting to show the moments immediately following a reported Israeli air strike in Syria that killed six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranian soldiers.
The footage appears to show a large cloud of smoke allegedly caused by the two missiles fired from IAF helicopters at two armed vehicles.
A man is later seen fleeing from the scene of the alleged Israeli attack.
Hezbollah threatens retaliation over alleged IDF strike
The Lebanese daily As-Safir, which is identified with Hezbollah, cited sources close to the Shiite terror group as saying that it would choose a time and place to hit back, but would do so in a manner that wouldn’t cause an escalation in the conflict.War unlikely, but some Hezbollah response certain, experts say after strike
At least six Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, were killed in an Israeli helicopter strike in the Syrian Golan Heights on Sunday, according to sources close to the terror group.
Among the dead was Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah commander killed in Damascus in 2008, allegedly by Israel. Jihad Mughniyeh had been serving as the Shi’ite terrorist group’s Golan District commander, Western sources said.
The attack would “draw a painful and unexpected response, but we can assume that it will be controlled and beneath the level that could escalate into all-out war,” the Hezbollah sources told As-Safir, and recalled a roadside bomb attack in October 2014 that injured two IDF soldiers.
On February 16, 1992 an Israeli Apache helicopter tracked the car of Hezbollah leader Abbas Moussawi and released a missile, killing him, his wife, his son, and four other people. It was reportedly Israel’s first assassination by helicopter.Nasrallah may talk tough, but Iran has reasons for caution
The operation was not fully planned. It had begun as intelligence work and had morphed, hastily, into a targeted killing.
It is still unclear whether this is what happened in the town of Mazrat Amal near Quneitra Sunday, when an Israeli helicopter was said to have attacked a convoy of senior Iranian and Hezbollah leaders, killing the son of Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s slain commander of military operations; Mohammed Issa, a Hezbollah commander responsible for the organization’s operations in Syria and Iraq; and Ali Reza al-Tabatabai, an Iranian adviser to Hezbollah, among others, according to reports.
“I don’t think this was a targeted killing,” said Prof. Shlomo Shpiro, the head of the political studies department at Bar-Ilan University and a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
Instead, he said, it appeared to be a preventative move, meant to thwart a developing attack. “The Golan Heights is flammable enough without this sort of thing,” he said.
If Ali Khamenei and the Iranian leadership want an escalation, then an escalation there will be. If Tehran isn’t looking for one, then it simply won’t happen.'Hezbollah will find it hard to show restraint after Golan attack,' top Israeli ex-general says
In contrast to earlier incidents, the midday attack near Mazrat Amal in in the Quneitra district didn’t end with only Lebanese casualties. Yes, initial reports gave the name of Jihad Mughniyeh, thought of as a symbol because of his father Imad Mughniyeh, as the most senior official killed in the attack. But Colonel Ali Reza al-Tabatabai, commander of the Radwan force of the Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon, was also killed. This force, seen as a special operations unit, is responsible for planning attacks against Israel. These operations range from kidnappings and tunnel attacks to capturing territory.
It’s not likely Muhgniyeh and Tabatabai were on their way to a picnic when they were struck from the air, and it is very possible they were examining various ways to carry out attacks against Israel from the Syrian Golan Heights.
Still, it’s not clear how urgent this attack was for Israel. Iran’s and Hezbollah’s activities in the sector are not exactly secrets, and neither was the presence of the younger Muhgniyeh, the Hezbollah commander responsible for the sector.
In an interview with Army Radio, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, the former head of Military Intelligence, said that the Shi’ite group “will have difficulty absorbing an incident like this [without responding].”Intense Coverage in Arab Media of Golan Airstrike on Hezbollah
“I don’t think this was an attack aimed at harming Hezbollah,” said Yadlin, who currently heads the Institute for National Security Studies. “I think this was a preemptive operation specifically targeting Hezbollah’s activities on the Golan Heights.”
Yadlin told Army Radio that in his estimation, Hezbollah has no desire to launch attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon. Instead, it wishes to exploit the vacuum that has emerged on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights since the escalation of the civil war there.
“Hezbollah has built an organization on the Golan Heights, and it seems that it is easier for it to operate from there against Israel,” he said. “Hezbollah is very active in Syria with its support for the Assad government and its war against Islamic elements like the Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State.”
“Hezbollah and [its secretary-general, Hassan] Nasrallah will have to consult with their Iranian masters and take into consideration whether a fierce response will drag the region into war,” Yadlin said.
Arab media reports indicate that the attack in Syria left the Iranian-armed and -funded Hezbollah frustrated because the terror group has been suffering heavy casualties recently in Syria as part of its fight alongside the forces of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.Prosecutor in Argentina Jewish center bombing found shot dead
However, Lebanese commentators and politicians believe that Hezbollah and Iran do not want a new war that would shake all of Lebanon. According to the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, Hezbollah promises to take revenge, “but not in a hurry,” in order not to be drawn into a new war and a new front.
Officials close to Hezbollah are painting the airstrike as an attack against Syria and Lebanon in general, thus trying to rally support for their position and put all the people of Lebanon in the same boat with Hezbollah.
Ibrahim al-Amin, a publicist close to Hezbollah, wrote an article in which he presented scenarios of a possible war between Hezbollah and Israel:
Hezbollah has human power of tens of thousands of fighters who train in a special and high-quality way… [Those] forces are prepared to carry out two types of missions: defensive mission aims to prevent the advance of the enemy offensive in Lebanon; and offensive mission, which is based on narrow or wide operations inside the occupied Palestine [Israel]… [In the next war, the group] will lunch about 4,000 or 5,000 rockets to Israel and destroy hundreds of targets in one day.
The Argentinean prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires was found dead in his apartment on Sunday night with a gunshot wound to the head, hours before he was set to testify before lawmakers on his accusations of a cover-up by his country’s president in the case.David Horovitz: Who will obtain justice for Alberto Nisman?
Argentinian media reported early Monday that Alberto Nisman, 51, was found in a pool of blood in the bathroom of his home in the capital’s Puerto Madero district. Police were investigating and Argentinian media reported that they had initially ruled the death a likely suicide.
The timing of Nisman’s death raised eyebrows, as the prosecutor had been set to speak before a congressional panel about his assertions, made public last week, that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman had covered up Iran’s involvement in the attack.
Late Sunday, federal police agents in charge of Nisman’s protection alerted their superiors that he wasn’t answering phone calls, according to a statement from the Health Ministry. When he also didn’t answer the door, they decided to alert family members, according to the statement.
When Nisman’s mother wasn’t able to open the door because a key was in the lock on the other side, a locksmith was called to open it, the ministry said. A .22 caliber handgun and a shell casing were found next to Nisman’s body.
On August 14, 1993, in Mashad, Iran’s second-largest city, the Iranian leadership’s “Committee for Special Operations” or “Omure Vijeh Committee,” convened to discuss its ongoing problems with Argentina — and specifically the flamboyant president, Carlos Menem.Israel urges Argentina to pursue Iran terror case after prosecutor's untimely death
Reorienting Argentina’s policy, moving his country closer to the West and to Israel, the Syrian-born Menem had severed the hitherto fruitful partnership between Buenos Aires and Tehran on all matters nuclear, first suspending and then terminating the training of Iranian nuclear technicians in Argentina and the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran.
Iran had brutally shown its fury at Menem’s betrayal in 1992, when it organized the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, in which 29 people were killed. The August 1993 meeting determined that a further terrorist assault on Menem’s country was necessary. A Buenos Aires-based Iranian “diplomat,” Mohsen Rabbani, had flown in for the meeting with a list of three potential targets. AMIA, the multi-story Jewish community center office building, was the first of the three to be discussed, and it was approved.
A 2006 indictment in the case names Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the head of the council, and says the final decision to attack the AMIA center was made by Khamenei and then-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah terror chief routinely charged with planning such atrocities, was subsequently flown from Lebanon to Iran and given instructions to coordinate the bombing. A Hezbollah activist named Ibrahim Berro — the fourth of five siblings of a Lebanese family with a long involvement in violence against Israel — was selected as the suicide bomber. And on July 18, 1994, Berro drove a white Renault Trafic van filled with explosives into the AMIA building, destroying it. The entire seven-story structure collapsed, 85 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded. Mughniyeh, who had directly overseen the preparations, was in Buenos Aires until days before the bombing.
We know all of this because of the indefatigable investigative work of one man, Alberto Nisman, who 10 years ago took over the investigation of the bombing. It was Nisman who traced the evidence, in what remains the worst-ever terrorist attack in Argentina, all the way back to that meeting of the Iranian leadership in Mashad.
Israel urged Argentine authorities on Monday to carry on with the work of a prosecutor who was found dead after having alleged a cover-up in the investigation of Iran over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center.The Schabas Commission – Hear our voices
Alberto Nisman had accused President Cristina Fernandez of having opened a secret back channel to a group of Iranians suspected of planting the bomb, with a view to clearing them so Argentina might trade grains for much-need oil from Iran.
Argentina's cabinet chief rejected the charge as "absurd".
Nisman's body was discovered in his apartment, a handgun nearby, hours before he was due to explain his allegations at the Argentine parliament on Monday, authorities said. A formal ruling on the cause of his death is pending.
Israel's Foreign Ministry mourned Nisman's death "in tragic circumstances", a Hebrew term that sometimes alludes to suicide.
Nisman, the ministry said in a statement on Monday, was a "brave and prominent jurist who fought ceaselessly for justice (and) worked with great resolve to expose the identities of those who carried out the terrorist attack and those who sent them.
"The State of Israel voices hope that Argentine authorities will continue with Nisman's activities and make every effort to exact justice on those responsible for the terrorist attacks in Argentina."
One suspects that a commission led by Professor Schabas – who has slandered Israel as being an “apartheid state” – might simply be oblivious to the true diversity of the populations here adversely impacted by Hamas’s rockets and other violence fomented via Palestinian incitement this past summer.Politician breaks down during testimony to Gaza UN panel
The commission should not be handed a “pass” on its lopsided solicitation and consideration of victim testimony.
Some Israelis have discovered the solicitation and – with the help of organizations like the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists – succeeded in submitting testimony to the commission.
Private citizens have recently put up a website, hearourvoices.org (currently in English, Hebrew and Russian) to provide more information about submitting testimony. Unless the commission is presented with a representative volume of gripping first-hand testimony by those in Israel who were impacted by the Palestinian violations of international law this summer, there is nary a chance that the Commission can be true to its ostensible mission – much less held accountable to it.
Even if, like the initial Goldstone Report, the conclusions of this “Commission of Inquiry” are a foregone conclusion, all Israelis should be able to have their voices be heard.
The Eshkol Region was one of the hardest hit during the war, absorbing hundreds of shells and rockets as well as underground infiltration attempts by Hamas-led fighters in the Strip.PA Documents Detail Payments to Terrorists
Jelin broke down crying while describing the death of Daniel Tragerman, a 4-year-old boy killed by a mortar shell on August 22. “Every day between 100 and 120 mortar shells explode in our communities, with almost no IDF response, and on Friday Daniel Tragerman, a child 4.5 years of age, who understands that when he hears the Color Red siren he needs to reach shelter… but he doesn’t make it. This is his photograph: a child 4.5 years old. What is he to blame for? He’s to blame for not making it in 15 seconds to the safe room.”
“I am sorry for being so emotional, but they say testimony is part of therapy, and I did not have a chance to cry since then,” he continued.
Gila Tragerman, mother of Daniel, testified earlier before the UN commission via Skype.
“I told them that Hamas fired from inside [Gazan] population centers with the clear knowledge that the IDF would not bomb them. And they were not wrong. The IDF really did not bomb them. Why? Because we don’t hurt innocent civilians,” she said in an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth daily Thursday. “I told them that we were also refugees during the war.”
Official Palestinian Authority policy provides monthly payments for convicted terrorists held in Israeli jails. The longer the sentence, the more the terrorist’s family receives.JPost Editorial: ICC injustice
A jury saw the document outlining that policy Thursday during testimony in a $1 billion civil trial brought by American victims of terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004. The attacks were carried out by branches of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Palestinian Authority (PA), their employees or others who received assistance from the groups.
Alon Eviatar, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces, told jurors that the PA, PLO, Fatah and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade are all part of the same hierarchy. Fatah members dominate PA employee rosters, he said.
That information goes to the heart of the case.
When the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade committed terrorist attacks, or when PA employees participated directly in other attacks, they were advancing the defendants’ policy of supporting “the struggle against the occupation.”
The International Criminal Court could have been a transformative body.Palestinian move at International Criminal Court signals a volatile new stage
Imagine autocrats such as Bashar Assad, who has used chemical weapons to kill hundreds – if not thousands – of Syrians, being hauled before a court of law and sentenced for war crimes. Imagine Iranian mullahs, Saudi theocrats, Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan charged with crimes against humanity for the persecution of homosexuals, Christians, political dissidents, and women. Imagine genocidal leaders like Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir not just indicted by the ICC for attempting to wipe out the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa tribes, but also thrown in the dock at The Hague and sentenced to an interminable prison sentence.
Such an ICC would not just inspire hope that no gross injustice – genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity – goes unpunished. By providing an objective international forum for adjudicating injustices, a functioning ICC would also mitigate the horrible sectarian scars resulting from extra-judicial executions such as that of Muammar Qaddafi or of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the sons of Saddam.
More importantly, orderly court proceedings enable the prosecution to articulate the criminal charges and empower the victims, while the defendant is forced to confront his crimes publicly. The 1961 trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, which included hundreds of testimonies by survivors that were broadcast on radio, led to a national catharsis in Israel.
Unfortunately, none of this has happened. There are a number of problems with the ICC, but its most fundamental is its inability to differentiate between good and bad.
Following a decision by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court on Friday to launch an inquiry into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories, the longest-running conflict in the Middle East enters a volatile new stage.'War crimes in Palestine': Who will investigate, and what?
No one — not the Americans, Israelis or Palestinians — can predict with any certainty what will happen next, though they warn that the already crumbling relationship between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is likely to get worse.
If civil and security cooperation between Israel and the West Bank ends because of rancor over the ICC probe, Israeli soldiers could return to the streets of Ramallah as the Palestinian administration collapses.
Nor does anyone know exactly what ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will examine in the coming months. The high number of civilian deaths in Gaza during the summer war? Indiscriminate Hamas rocket fire at Israeli towns? Her announcement of a preliminary examination refers only to “the situation in Palestine.” The inquiry will focus on the nature of possible crimes, the admissability of evidence and whether the court has jurisdiction.
The international court has never handled a case as legally complex and as politically loaded as the one that could arise from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What are the implications of the decision by the International Criminal Court at The Hague to launch a preliminary investigation into the possibility of "war crimes in Palestine", following Operation Protective Edge, and how should Israel respond?Put the ball in ICC's court
Legal experts say this is the start of a very long process, which includes gathering documents and testimonies, and even if an international investigation is launched – it is a long way off.
Nonetheless, says Colonel (ret.) Pnina Sharvit Baruch, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and former head of Israel Defense Forces international law division, that precisely now it is worthwhile for the Military Advocate General to investigate, for example, the events of "Black Friday" in Rafah.
"When the state itself examines allegations of war crimes and performs a comprehensive professional examination, it prevents the International Criminal Court from investigating the allegations itself," she explains.
Suppose, for once, Israel were to take a different tack, one based on the principles used by judo experts--namely, to use the opponent's own strengths and moves against him. In this case, Israel, instead of simply denouncing the ICC decision, could have said, "Okay, sure, let's have an investigation. We will cooperate fully with such an investigation and indeed welcome it. However, we will do so only under the following conditions:Israel launches campaign to discredit ICC probe
1. A series of war crimes allegations by us against Hamas must also be investigated. After all, this is only fair and just, right?
2. The investigation must be identified clearly as examining reciprocal war crimes allegations between a state and a non-state organization. We have no problem with that, it simply must be clearly recognized.
Such a reaction would have many benefits. It would not be entirely negative and angry. It would be eminently reasonable, and based on fundamental principles of justice and fairness.
Finally, it would place the ball firmly in the ICC's court. This is another basic principle of good public relations in general and public diplomacy in particular. Make sure the other side is in a position of having to defend itself and its decisions and actions, not you.
Would there be any downside to such a reaction? I think not. Let's try it.
The International Criminal Court's decision to launch an inquiry against Israel is "the height of hypocrisy and the opposite of justice," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, two days after the court declared it would examine alleged crimes committed "in the occupied Palestinian territory."Gerald M. Steinberg: Legal battles are nothing new
"During my years of public service, both as U.N. ambassador and as prime minister, I encountered these kinds of events, but this decision by the [ICC] prosecutor is in a league of its own," Netanyahu said. "It gives international legitimacy to international terrorism."
The prime minister vowed that Israel would fight this decision with every available means and that it would also enlist the help of its allies. "We will not allow IDF soldiers to face international tribunals," he declared.
"I would also like to say that these steps will not deter us from doing whatever is necessary to defend the State of Israel and its citizens," he said.
This network of NGOs has worked ceaselessly to bring this strategy to fruition. Its leaders include Palestinian human rights groups as well as Israeli NGOs, together with many extremist European groups. These organizations have "bombed" the ICC prosecutor, the media, diplomats and policymakers with press releases, reports and legal memos accusing Israel of war crimes and international law violations. The Palestinian Authority lay down the formal foundations for using the ICC against Israel, and the NGO network provided the supportive political infrastructure. The hundreds of thousands of euros that these organizations receive allow them to advance this campaign all over the world.Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians seeking ICC investigation of Arafat's death
The current ICC effort against Israel has everything to do with the ongoing war crimes investigation into Israel's actions in Gaza, headed by William Schabas, who is well known for his ties to anti-Israel organizations. Following the failure of the 2009 Goldstone commission (which investigated Operation Cast Lead in Gaza), the Schabas report, which will be presented at the U.N. in Geneva on March 23, will serve the NGOs in advancing their efforts against Israel at the ICC. Unlike Richard Goldstone, who showed integrity and retracted (better late than never), Schabas is not showing any signs of remorse.
The Israeli establishment has largely ignored the role of NGOs in the ongoing legal war against Israel. Even now, after the Palestinian appeal to the ICC, official Israeli responses and the media debate on the issue seems to focus solely on the court. The many factors fueling the legal warfare are still largely unexposed. But as the process advances, the European funding will become more apparent. It is safe to assume that the clash between Israel and the European supporters of the legal warfare against it will be no less dramatic than the battle inside the court.
Jamal Muheissen, member of the Fatah Central Committee, claimed that Israel was responsible for the death of Arafat, who died in November 2004.Video Shows Arab Stabbing Jew with Screwdriver in Jerusalem
“This file will be presented to the International Criminal Court,” Muheissen told the Palestinian Shms News Agency. “We want to bring the Israeli occupation to trial for every crime it committed against our people.”
The Fatah official said that Israel was continuing to issue threats against the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas following the ICC’s decision to launch a preliminary examination into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories.
“President Abbas is receiving threats from Israel because of his decision to join the International Criminal Court,” Muheissen added. “It’s important for all Palestinians to be united in this political battle against the Israeli occupation.”
Police have released security camera footage of the incident in which a 15-year-old Arab stabbed a 21-year-old Jewish man in Jerusalem two weeks ago.
A prosecutor's statement against the suspect will be filed later Monday, and will be followed by a charge sheet. The suspect, a resident of the Beit Hanina neighborhood, will also be charged with an earlier stabbing attack that took place in November.
The grainy footage shows the youth walking in one of the alleys of the Old City near Shaar Shechem (Nablus Gate). He is marked by a red circle in the video. He can later be seen following the Jewish man and stabbing him. The Jewish man appears to make a half turn and keep on walking.
The suspect was located on the morning that followed the attack by police who watch the Old City with security cameras. They directed Border Police to his location, and they arrested him.
Canada 'Stands Shoulder to Shoulder with Israel'
John Baird, Canada's foreign minister, who is considered a staunch ally of Israel, met early Monday afternoon with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.Canadian Foreign Minister Welcome in Jerusalem
Netanyahu welcomed Baird and lauded him as “a great fighter for peace and security, and a great warrior for truth.”
"You have always showed a willingness to fight for what is right, and oppose what is wrong,” Netanyahu lauded his guest. "We are all waging a difficult struggle against the terrorists of radical Islam,” he added. “Israel has been under continuous attack by this evil, and so has Canada, lately. In fact, large parts of the world are suffering from this violent onslaught.”
The Canadians, said Netanyahu, “know who the aggressor is and who is defending himself. You know that Israel is defending itself in a legitimate way against the war crimes of Hamas and other terror organizations.”
Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird had very different welcomes to the Middle East today.Arabs Burned the French Flag, Threw Eggs at The Canadian Foreign Minister! Has The Teflon Worn Off Yet?
After his car was pelted with eggs and shoes in Ramallah in the morning, Baird arrived in Jerusalem, Israel, in the afternoon.
Israeli President Rivlin went to the end of long red carpet to greet Baird at his car and walk Baird into the official residence.
As with all official state visitors, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada was asked to sign the state guest book.
"A real pleasure to be among friends."“A real pleasure to be among friends,” he wrote.
And no surprise, the official car was pristine clean in his welcome to Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.
For whatever incomprehensible reasons, the Israeli government is still allowing Muslims free access to the Temple Mount. The Arabs don't really go there to pray. They use it to riot. One of their latest riots included the burning of the French Flag!EU to appeal ruling that Hamas should be removed from terror list
Today there were reports that the Arabs threw eggs at the Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, while the P.A. Police stood by and watched.
Now, when will the world admit that not only can't we (Israel) negotiate peace with them, but the rest of the world is also in danger?
Jerusalem applauded the European Union's decision Monday to appeal a decision by the EU's Court of Justice to take Hamas off its list of terror organizations, saying this reflects the position that Hamas was and remains a terrorist organization.John Bolton: Egypt’s Leader Battles Islamic Extremists
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini issued a statement saying that the decision by the court taking Hamas off the terrorist list and freeing up its frozen funds in Europe “was clearly based on procedural grounds and did not imply any assessment by the Court of the merits of designating the Hamas as a terrorist organization.”
Mogherini said that the the decision will be appealed on procedural grounds. “As a result of the appeal, the effects of the Judgment are suspended until a final judgment is rendered by the Court of Justice,” she said.
Diplomatic officials said that the EU did not need any prodding or urging by Israel to appeal the decision. Israel is believed to have provided the Europeans with material to better make their case to the court.
When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat traveled to Jerusalem in 1977, he shattered decades of isolation and war with Israel to search for peace. No single act in the former general’s remarkable career showed more courage. In 1981, Muslim Brotherhood assassins made Sadat pay with his life for standing against the pan-Arabist conventional wisdom of his era.Bucking Obama, Congress will introduce Iran sanctions bill within days
This New Year’s Day, Egypt’s current president (also a former general), Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi, followed directly in Sadat’s footsteps. At Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, he spoke forcefully against today’s Western conventional wisdom regarding Islam and terrorism.
Just days later, on Jan. 6, Christmas Eve for Coptic Christians, Al-Sisi spoke at Egypt’s principal Coptic church, an unprecedented appearance by an Egyptian president.
Whether the Muslim Brotherhood or other radicals will make Al-Sisi pay the same price as Sadat remains to be seen. But Al-Sisi’s gestures, for audacity and surprise, are historic. And they demand the West’s recognition and support.
They also present us with a stark contrast. In 2009, Al-Azhar, a noted center of Islamic teachings, co-hosted President Obama’s famous speech to the Muslim world. There, and in countless other speeches, Obama demonstrated an unwillingness to frontally criticize Islamicist terror — and connect it to a significant thread of radical religions faith — perhaps for fear of being seen as attacking Islam itself.
Leadership in Congress will introduce a bill within days that would trigger sanctions against Iran if talks over its nuclear program fail to reach an agreement, despite strong warnings from US President Barack Obama last week not to do so.Iran athletes warned over female fans
The bill will be "marked up" in committee on Thursday and introduced in the days before with "balanced co-sponsorship" from Democrats and Republicans, sources tell The Jerusalem Post. Obama delivers his annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.
Authors of the bill, formally titled the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015, seek full enactment and will settle for nothing short. That suggests Republicans will attempt to whip a strong, bipartisan initial vote tally and, should passed legislation receive the president's veto, seek a second vote to override him.
Iran’s footballers have been warned they could face punishment if they take “selfie” pictures with female fans who have turned out in large numbers at the Asian Cup.Running battles in Yemeni capital described by official as 'attempted coup'
The head of the Iranian Football Federation’s moral committee said players risked being used as a “political tool” if snapped with women fans.
Women are banned from attending men’s sports events in the Islamic republic but they have flocked to see Iran’s games at the Asian Cup in Australia.
Ali Akbar Mohamedzade, head of the moral committee of the Iranian Football Federation, issued the warning last week as photos of players with women fans circulated on social media.
“National team players should be aware that they won’t be used as a political tool so that those who take pictures with them don’t use these photos against the players,” Iran’s Shahrvand newspaper quoted him as saying.
The Yemeni army has engaged Houthi militants in deadly combat near the presidential palace in the capital of Sanaa, Reuters reported on Monday.Saudi Arabia arrests man for filming public beheading
In what appears to be the most intense fighting since the Iran funded Shiite rebels took control of the troubled Arab country's seat of power in September, small arms and artillery has erupted hours after a ceasefire between the Houthis and government representatives was supposedly reached.
The Houthis had warned that they would take action if they were not given a greater share of power in the country's new constitution, whose initial purpose when it was passed last year was to quell internal upheaval by addressing sectarian division.
The Houthis apparent cause is to win more rights for the country's Zaydi Shia sect who they say are repressed. After their September capture of the capital, which is situated in what is considered Sunni territory, an agreement was reached to draw up the now imperiled constitution.
Saudi authorities have arrested a man who filmed the public execution of a woman on the street, with officials saying that filming the video, which was posted online and spawned many reports in Western media, likely constituted a cyber-crime.
The video, uploaded on Saturday, showed the beheading of a Myanmar woman found guilty of killing her husband’s young daughter, as she screamed that she was innocent.
The official Saudi Press Agency said Layla bint Abdul Mutaleb Bassim was executed in the Muslim holy city of Mecca for killing the six-year-old girl.
Many Twitter users protested the video being circulated on the Internet because it could be seen by the woman’s family, but did not object to the beheading itself.
Saudi authorities said a man was arrested for filming the incident. They did not say what the arrest was for, but an interior ministry official told The New York Times such an act would fall under cyber-crime laws.
Several other videos purportedly showing beheadings in Saudi Arabia have circulated online over the past three years.
