Deafening Silence
Instead of recognizing the profound unrest and rise of Palestinian terrorism, many have implicated Israel. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently condemned the killings by Israeli forces of four Palestinians—three of whom carried out terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians and were killed during, or subsequent to the attacks. Ki-moon made no mention of the Israelis murdered by these terrorists. He called on Israel to investigate the incidents and “force” they used.Fatah’s official social media promotes and glorifies Martyrdom and murder
Force? Last time I checked, killing people as they attempt to stab you to death is not an instance of excessive force.
The world must not only condemn the horrific acts of terror; we must also condemn those responsible for inciting the violence. The Palestinian Authority is one group that we must demand be held accountable. In a recent speech on Palestinian TV, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated: “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem. With the help of Allah, every shaheed (martyr) will be in heaven.” He called on Palestinians to prevent Jews from entering the Temple Mount “by any means possible” and declared that Jews "have no right to defile [Al Aqsa Mosque] with their filthy feet." Days later, he declared the Oslo Accords void in a speech at the United Nations. Throughout the recent wave of terror, Fatah, Abbas’s party, has delivered leaflets in Palestinian towns praising the terrorists, and Fatah Twitter accounts have glorified the attacks. This week, a knife-wielding Gaza cleric called upon his congregants to stab Jews and “cut them into body parts.” He urged some to “restrain the victim, while others attack him with axes and butcher knives.”
The picture in Israel is grim: The country is facing mounting attacks and some Palestinian leaders are calling for a Third Intifada. Life in Israel has drastically changed over the past few weeks: Citizens stay indoors, commuters spend hours longer in their cars to take safer routes, and shops and restaurants are eerily deserted. As time goes on, more and more people know those personally affected by the violence. Nowhere is safe.
Israel is under attack and it is outrageous that the world has remained silent throughout these recent atrocities. It is time for the world to speak up.
The silence is deafening.
While world media is focusing on terror promotion in private social media, the official Palestinian Authority and Fatah social media cannot be ignored. Just as the PA and Fatah leadership started this terror campaign, so too Abbas' party, Fatah, in its official social media, continues to pour fuel on the fire by glorifying terror attacks, murderers, and those seeking Martyrdom-death for Allah (Shahada).Netanyahu: Palestinian incitement is 'Osama Bin Laden meets Mark Zuckerberg'
One Fatah tweet showed the image of four terrorists who between them killed 2 and stabbed 7 Israelis, with the following praise:
"Our Martyrs [come] in droves
Our determination is [like] mountains,
it does not bow down before the despicable
and does not fear arrest"
[Fatah Twitter account, Oct. 13, 2015]
The terrorists pictured are Muhannad Halabi, who killed two in the Old City of Jerusalem, Fadi Alloun, who stabbed one, Amjad Al-Jundi, who stabbed one, and Thaer Abu Ghazaleh, who stabbed five. (More details about the attacks below)
Fatah urges Palestinians to seek Martyrdom-death, as often documented by Palestinian Media Watch, presenting it as sweet and desirable.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Likud faction Monday that the current wave of Palestinian violence is the result of social media web sites, singling out Facebook.Deputy Foreign Minister Blames Abbas for 'Culture of Death'
Netanyahu said Israeli security officials were aware of the significant impact of incitement garnered from social media, because of what terrorists who attacked Jews over the past few weeks have written on their private Facebook pages.
"What has been going on is due to the combination of the Internet and Islamic extremism," Netanyahu said. "It has been Osama Bin Laden meets [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg."
Netanyahu said Israel was in "a lengthy struggle" and expressed full confidence that the Jewish state would win. He urged citizens to respect the law and not take it into their own hands, as happened Sunday night when Israelis attacked an Eritrean who was thought to have been a suicide bomber.
Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett criticized Netanyahu for enabling the construction of security barriers between the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Armon Hanatziv and Jabel Mukaber. At a meeting of his faction, he slammed the international community for not showing Israel enough support as it fights terror.
"Part of the world is morally confused and unsure who is the aggressor," Bennett said, purposely speaking in English. "I call upon our friends around the world to support us. Those around the world who gives us grades and advice: Wake up. We might be on the front lines now, but this war is also in your country. Don't find yourselves on the wrong side of history."
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) laid the blame for the current terror wave in Israel on Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal Monday.
The latest surge of Arab terror attacks against Jews, she said, immediately followed a "well-orchestrated campaign of violence" and "explicit calls by the Palestinian leadership to 'spill blood.'”
She quoted Abbas, who said on PA television on September 16: “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”
Two weeks later, she noted, terrorists murdered a Jewish couple, Eitam and Naama Henkin, in front of their four children.
The PA made clear that it approved of the murder.
Steinitz: Abbas’ anti-Jewish incitement reaches Hitler’s level
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ incitement against Israel is on the same level as Adolf Hitler’s anti-Jewish propaganda, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said.PreOccupiedTerritory: Abbas Shocked His Peaceful Efforts Not Rewarded With Nobel (satire)
“The level and intensity of the incitement and the level of anti-Semitism is the same level as Hitler,” Steinitz said Sunday, speaking with reporters in Washington, where he was addressing the annual conference of the Israeli American Council.
“I see Abu Mazen as principally responsible for the wave of terrorism,” Steinitz said, using Abbas’ by-name and referring to the recent spate of Palestinian stabbing attacks on Israelis.
Steinitz said Abbas’ Palestinian Authority peddles propaganda to children that champions Israel’s removal and dehumanizes Jews. He said also that Abbas’ accusations that Israel plans to alter the Temple Mount, the Jerusalem site holy to Muslims and Jews, are lies and have spurred the recent deadly violence.
“Abu Mazen is not a partner for peace as long as he does not stop, completely, the incitement toward destroying Israel,” he said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is still sore that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee spurned him as a recipient of the award, sources in the Palestinian Authority reported today.Too Much Balance Leads to Violence
Despite years of educating his people toward peace with Israel through such means as incitement to kill, deligitimize, and paying generous lifetime pensions to terrorists and their families, this year’s Nobel Prize for Peace went instead to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, which worked to ease sectarian tensions in post-Arab-Spring Tunisia. According to aides, Abbas has reportedly spent the weeks since the award announcement alternately brooding and lashing out at staff, and could be heard mumbling about injustice and possible revenge.
“It turns out the Raïs’s address to the UN General Assembly, in which he talked about the Palestinian ‘culture of peace,’ was aimed at the Nobel Committee,” said Palestinian official Nabil Shaath, referring to Abbas by his formal title. “It was a bit of last-minute lobbying for his own case. Maybe the Committee wasn’t swayed, or maybe he sabotaged his chances by being so up-front about it.” Shaath noted that it would hardly be the first time a Palestinian leader has adopted an international strategy that backfired.
On Friday, President Obama once again demonstrated his tone-deaf approach to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. At a press conference, he spoke of the solution to the current tensions would come only when the leaders of both sides “tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding.” But, of course, the incitement to violence isn’t coming from both sides. It’s coming solely from a Palestinian leadership and official media that continues to spread lies about Israelis seeking to harm the mosques on the Temple Mount and treating those who seek to murder Jews as “our boys” that are being “executed” by Israeli forces. This was a week in which the administration had to dance around comments by Secretary of State John Kerry about settlements causing the violence and State Department spokesman John Kirby echoed Palestinian canards about Israel using “excessive force” against terrorists. But while Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spent the same week repeating that Israel had no intention of altering the status quo on the Temple Mount and insisting that he would meet Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas anywhere and anytime to resume peace negotiations, the Palestinians were doubling down on hate.Breathing down Abbas’s neck, Fatah leaders want Israeli blood
Here are a few, brief examples of the Palestinian answer to America’s even-handed diplomacy:
In an address to the Palestinian people that many hoped Abbas would use to try to ease tensions, he did the opposite. Abbas repeated false charges about Israel’s intentions on the Temple Mount geared to incite a new holy war and treated terrorists as martyrs.
Hamas, the group that runs the independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza, reacted to the violence by expressing disappointment at the low total of Jews killed during the recent terror surge. They urged that Palestinians resort to methods of murder that might produce more Jewish corpses such as using cars to plow into people standing in crowded intersections or bus stops.
While Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas calls for “peaceful resistance” to Israel and has — publicly, at least — supported the idea of a return to the negotiating table amid a wave of Palestinian terror, senior members of his Fatah movement are openly praising lone-wolf attacks, arguing that the era of dialogue with Israel is over.PM halts placement of barriers between Jewish, Arab areas of Jerusalem
In an interview on Palestinian TV Saturday, Jibril Rajoub, former chief of the powerful Preventative Security Force in the West Bank and currently deputy secretary-general of Fatah’s Central Committee, praised individual attacks against Israelis as acts of noble self-sacrifice.
“Clearly, these are individual attacks, but they are heroic, characterized by self-control and a value system,” Rajoub said, citing “the will for the martyr” posted on Facebook by Jabel Mukaber terrorist Bahaa Allyan — who killed two Israelis and injured others in an attack on a Jerusalem city bus last week — in which Allyan asked that no Palestinian faction claim responsibility for his act.
“This [will] should become a document taught in schools about the meaning of martyrdom and patriotism, rather than factionalism,” said Rajoub in the interview.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday ordered a halt to the placement of any more portable concrete slabs between the predominantly Jewish area of Armon Hanatziv and the adjacent southeastern Arab neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, after several MKs criticized the construction of a temporary wall as a de facto division of the unified city.Chief Rabbi visits desecrated Joseph's Tomb
Netanyahu’s decision came after authorities already erected parts of a planned 300-meter long wall between the neighborhoods, in a bid to stem a series of terrorist and Molotov cocktail attacks carried out in the area over the past weeks. Six slabs of concrete were placed in the neighborhood Sunday. The move followed the placing of concrete blocks in roads leading out of many Arab East Jerusalem neighborhoods.
At a cabinet meeting Monday, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz lashed out at the initial decision to place the concrete slabs in the capital, calling the move a “prize for terrorists.” He said the wall would not provide residents of Jerusalem with any extra security, and demanded its immediate removal.
“We must protect homes by initiating offensive operations against terrorist infrastructure and incitement in Jabel Mukaber, not through fortification,” Katz added.
Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and a delegation from the Shomron Regional Council visited Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus late Sunday night to inspect the compound after it was severely damaged by Palestinian rioters who set fire to the site on Friday.Terrorist opens fire at Beersheba bus station, kills one, wounds 11
“‘The nations came and desecrated your sanctuary’,” said Yosef, citing a verse from the Book Psalms.
“What was done here was quite simply the work of ISIS,” he continued. “The heart cannot grasp the evil. What kind of people destroy a holy site in this way? Us, the Jewish people, protect their holy sites, their mosques, and they, without shame, treat this holy site [Joseph’s Tomb] in this manner.”
Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, the municipal chief rabbi of the Shomron district in the West Bank, called on the state to establish Israeli sovereignty over the site.
“There is no reason we should rely on the Palestinian police force to protect this place,” said Levanon, a hardline leader of the conservative sector of the national-religious community.
“It is the responsibility of the Jewish people to protect this holy place and it is in the hands of the Israeli government.”
An IDF soldier was killed and 11 more people were injured in a terror attack at the Central Bus Station in the southern city of Beersheba Sunday night.IDF names soldier killed in Beersheba terror attack as Sgt. Omri Levi
Among the injured was an Eritrean man shot and seriously wounded by responding security forces, who initially mistook him for a terrorist.
According to the police, following an initial investigation, the attacker stabbed a soldier and stole his weapon, opening fire on the crowded bus terminal.
The soldier later died of his wounds after being rushed to a hospital in the area.
Rescue officials said 11 people were injured in the attack, which occurred at about 7:30 p.m.
Two of the victims were reported to be seriously wounded. At least four of those hurt in the attack were cops, police said.
The terrorist, who was not initially identified, was shot and killed by responding forces after holing up in a bathroom.
The IDF named the soldier murdered in Sunday night's terror attack in Beersheba as Sgt. Omri Levi.Murdered IDF Soldier to be Laid to Rest in Sdei Hemed
Levi will be laid to rest in a cemetery located in his home village of Sdei Hemed, in central Israel, on Monday.
He was 19 years old, and served in the Golani infantry brigade. Levi was on his way to base when a Beduin-Israeli terrorist shot and killed him at Beersheba central bus station.
Levi resided in Sdei Hemed, and had completed his military training. He served Golani's Battalion 12. The IDF posthumously promoted him from the rank of corporal to sergeant.
Four IDF soldiers were wounded in the attack; one seriously and three lightly. Several civilians and police officers were also injured in the terrorist attack, which ended when police shot the attacker, Muhand Al-Okabi, from the Beduin, Negev town of Hura, dead.
Eritrean man mistaken for terror accomplice dies after being shot, attacked by mob
Sergeant Levi was murdered when Muhaned al-Okabi, a resident of the nearby Negev Bedouin town of Hura, entered the bus station armed with a pistol, ammunition and a knife. Police have arrested a family member who is suspected of having aided and abetted al-Okabi in planning and carrying out the attack.
The terrorist shot and killed the young soldier, grabbed his M-16 rifle and began spraying the waiting passengers. His mother was raised in Gaza before marrying a man who is an Arab citizen of Israel — allowing her to remain on this side of the border. Other details remain under gag order.
IDF Corporal Omri Levi, posthumously promoted to the rank of Sergeant, will be laid to rest Monday afternoon at 4 pm in the cemetery of Sdei Hemed, an agricultural community near Kfar Saba.
An Eritrean refugee who was shot by a security guard, then beaten by an angry mob who mistook him to be an accomplice in a gruesome terror attack Sunday, died of his wounds Monday morning, according to Soroka University Medical Center.Police searching for civilians seen beating Eritrean man mistaken for terrorist
Habtom Zerhom, 26, succumbed to his wounds after a terrorist armed with a pistol and a knife stormed the Beersheba central bus station on Sunday night, killing IDF soldier Sergeant Omri Levy, then snatching his rifle and shooting and wounding at least 10 Israelis before being shot dead by police.
During the attack, armed security personnel mistook Zerhom for a second terrorist and opened fire, wounding him in the lower body. The man was then set upon by a mob that mistook him for a terrorist, beating him severely and leaving him in serious condition.
The Negev police on Monday instructed detectives to find the civilians who took part in the brutal beating of a wounded Eritrean asylum seeker who was mistaken for a terrorist during a terror attack in Beersheba the night before.Netanyahu Warns Against Vigilante Justice After Lynching
Habtom Zerhom, 26, was ruled dead at Soroka Hospital on Monday, the morning after he was shot and incapacitated by a security guard at the station who mistook him for a second attacker. While lying on the floor he was beaten by a number of assailants, who kicked him in the head and tried to crush him with a bench.
Negev subdistrict police said in a statement on Monday that Dep.-Ch. Amnon Alkalai had instructed the subdistrict’s special investigative unit to find the assailants “who brutally beat a foreigner after he had already been subdued and was lying on the floor and did not pose a danger at all.”
They added that “the police view the incident with the utmost severity and will not allow civilians to take the law into their own hands.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called on Israelis nationwide to remain calm and refrain from vigilante justice Monday, referring to the lynching of Eritrean national Haftom Zarhum, who died after witnesses to a terror attack in the Be'er Sheva Central Bus station on Sunday mistook him for a terrorist.Bedouin leaders condemn ‘despicable’ Beersheba attack
"No one should take the law into their own hands," Netanyahu warned, during the opening remarks to the Likud weekly faction meeting. "A person who is at the scene should evacuate the area and turn over [the situation] to security forces."
A criminal investigation has already been launched by police into the incident.
Israeli Bedouin leaders on Monday expressed shock, surprise and outrage at news that the perpetrator of Sunday’s deadly terrorist attack at the Beersheba central bus station was an Israeli Arab from a Bedouin village east of the city, in the country’s Negev region.Report: Be'er Sheva Shooter Was an ISIS Supporter
Muhanad Alukabi, 21, a resident of an unrecognized village near the Bedouin town of Hura, was shot dead at the scene after shooting and killing IDF soldier Omri Levi and wounding 11 other people. An Eritrean asylum seeker was shot during the incident, when security forces apparently mistook him for a second terrorist. The man, who later died in the hospital, was named as 29-year-old Haftom Zarhum.
“Following [Sunday’s] terrorist attack at the Beersheba central bus station in which two innocent people lost their lives, we utterly and unreservedly condemn this despicable act and reject violence of any sort,” Hura Mayor Mohammed Alnabari said in a statement as community leaders gathered for an urgent meeting.
“Although, contrary to reports in the media, the terrorist is not a resident of Hura, we condemn this act on behalf of the entire Bedouin society and wish to make clear that you cannot be both a terrorist and a citizen of the country; the two are inherently contradictory,” he continued.
There were a few warning signs Israeli Arab and Be'er Sheva attack terrorist Muhaned Al-Okabi was planning a terror attack, a former co-worker revealed Monday.Hamas Welcomes Be'er Sheva Attack as 'Heroic Act'
"He said that ISIS would one day come and I would see them here," Yoni, who worked with Al-Okabi for six months at a major logistics company in central Israel, stated to Channel 2. "He supported the religious ideology of ISIS but he never said 'I'll kill'. He never used such words."
"God interested him, he was a great believer and prayed a lot," he added. "I think he was a religious extremist."
"I read there was a call by ISIS's representative in East Jerusalem, perhaps that touched him."
Hamas on Sunday night welcomed the terrorist attack at the Central Bus Station in Be’er Sheva, in which an IDF soldier was murdered and nine other people were injured.Gazans, Lebanese Palestinians Celebrate Be’er Sheva Central Bus Station Terror Attack
In a statement, Hamas spokesman Husam Badran said the attack is “another heroic action against the occupation, which is on high alert. Our people will not be afraid of anything.”
Badran added that the attack was a response to the "cold-blooded executions of the military of the occupation."
One terrorist carried out the attack. He was armed with a handgun and knife.
The terrorist shot a soldier and killed him, and then took his M-16 semiautomatic assault rifle and began firing it at a group of policemen, four of whom were injured.
Palestinian Arabs both south and north of Israel celebrated the flow of blood from Jewish bodies in a terror attack on a central bus station on Sunday night.Afula stabber indicted by state for attempted murder
The Hamas terrorist organization issued a statement saying it “praises and welcomes today’s fatal shooting attack in Be’er Sheva.”
The terror group called for more attacks but stopped short of claiming responsibility for the deadly shooting spree which claimed the life of at least one Israeli and wounded seven others.
Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon also celebrated the attack with “heavy celebratory gunfire,” according to a Lebanese Internet site.
Lebanon’s MTV site reported Sunday night that celebrations “erupted in the al-Beddawi and Ain el-Hilweh camps” after news of the terrorist attack on Be’er Sheva’s Central Bus Station reached the area.
The Northern District Attorney's Office on Monday filed an indictment against Tarak Yahya, 20 of Araka Village in the West Bank for attempted murder in a stabbing attack on October 8 in Afula.'My cousin made me do it,' 13-year-old Palestinian stabber tells police
Yahya was also charged with illegal possession of a knife and illegally entering Israel on multiple instances.
The attack occurred on Arlozorov Street in Afula and a 21-year-old IDF soldier and another person were wounded, Magen David Adom stated.
Paramedics provided medical treatment at the scene before taking the two people to Emek Medical Center in Afula.
Following the attack, civilians pinned the terrorist, who spoke Arabic, to the ground until police could arrive. A group of bystanders in the area tried to attack the suspect, as well as officers. More police were called to the scene to disperse them with tear gas.
Ahmed Manasra, the 13-year-old Palestinian boy who along with his cousin was arrested for allegedly taking part in a stabbing attack that wounded two Israelis in the Pisgat Ze'ev section of Jerusalem last week, changed his story when questioned by authorities about his part in the assault.Teen Terrorist Abbas Said Was 'Executed' Released from Hospital
According to the Palestinian teen, it was his 15-year-old cousin, Hassan, who perpetrated the stabbings.
Investigators interrogated Manasra from his hospital bed at Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem.
"I was with my cousin, but I didn't stab anyone," he told authorities. "I even pleaded with him not to stab anyone. I didn't want to go through with it even though at first we left the house with the intention of stabbing Jews. This was after my cousin persuaded me to come with him. I was just afraid."
Ahmed Mansara, the 13-year-old terrorist who carried out a stabbing attack in Pisgat Ze’ev last week, was on Sunday released from the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, where he had been hospitalized after being injured while carrying out the knife attack.13-Year-Old Terrorist Could Serve No Jail Time Under Israeli Penal Code
From the hospital, Mansara was transferred to police custody and was placed under arrest. Earlier on Sunday, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court extended his arrest for eight days.
Mansara, who carried out the attack with his cousin, admitted to police investigators that his intentions were to attack Jews.
The 13-year-old terrorist who Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas claimed had been murdered by Israel is now at the center of a different controversy, Israel’s Walla news reported on Sunday.Aspiring Jihadist Disappointed that Paradise is Full of Jews, Smells like a Jerusalem Hospital (satire)
Ahmed Manasra, the pubescent Palestinian who, together with his 15-year-old cousin, Hassan Manasra, went on a stabbing rampage in the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev on Oct. 13, is back in the headlines, this time surrounding the issue of his arrest, indictment and sentencing.
According to Israeli law, anyone under 13 years of age cannot do jail time. Because Ahmed turns 14 in January, his lawyer is trying to speed up the legal process, to keep his client out of prison. According to Walla, attorney Muhammed Mahmoud’s strategy is for Ahmed to confess to the crimes of which he is accused on the same day that he is indicted, and to request that his sentence be meted out as soon as possible.
A criminal lawyer in Jerusalem, who requested anonymity, told The Algemeiner on Sunday that, according to the Israeli penal code, minors under the age of 14 who commit serious crimes cannot serve time in prison. Rather, he said, they are sent to a treatment facility. Once they are 14, however, they can be sentenced to juvenile prison.
Ahmed Manasrah is pretty upset. Last week when he and his cousin stabbed two Jews, including a 13 year old kid on a bicycle, he was pretty sure he was on a one way ticket to a paradise full of hot chicks with large eyes and firm breasts just for him. But now he’s woken up in what looks for all intents and purposes like an Israeli hospital. And worse, it’s crawling with Jews. “This it total bullshit.” fumed an annoyed Ahmed. “According to my timeline, I should have gotten at least to second base by now with one of those chicks they promised me. But no. I mean, one of the nurses is kinda pretty, but she’s really bossy and always tells me what to do. ‘Go to bed, time to eat, time to go to the bathroom.’ This just sucks.”Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Authority demands end to Israel's 'terrorism, incitement and summary executions'
When asked by the Daily Freier if maybe he is in fact still alive and staying in a Jerusalem hospital, Ahmed was emphatic. “Nonsense! President Abbas says that I am dead. And he never lies about anything!”
Ahmed continued his rant; “This place totally blows. It’s like I died and went to Jew Heaven.” While Ahmed holds out hope that things will turn around, the head nurse just stopped by to tell him that the only virgins in the building are the guys in the basement Tech Support/IT office who play World of Warcraft. And there’s only five of them.
The PA Foreign Ministry said that the “summary executions” were a sign of “growing terrorism, racism and extremism” among IDF soldiers and settlers.Hanan Ashrawi’s lies about Temple Mount status quo given multiple BBC platforms
The ministry said that the Palestinians have begun documenting Israeli “summary executions” and “incitement” in order to file a complaint against Israel with the International Criminal Court.
It repeated the call for an international commission of inquiry into Israeli “crimes” against Palestinians.
The ministry claimed that 18-year-old Fadel Qawassmeh, who was killed in Hebron on Saturday after he tried to stab a settler, was an innocent man who had been “executed in cold blood.” It accused IDF soldiers of placing a knife near the body of Qawassmeh after he was shot to make it look as if this “crime” was an “act of self-defense.”
Both the abridged versions appearing on the BBC News website end at that point and so audiences are left with the materially misleading impressions promoted by Ashrawi. Only those who happened to see the full report heard Lyse Doucet’s half-hearted ‘challenge’ to Ashrawi’s falsehoods and her provision of a lead for yet more propaganda.BDS solidarity with murderous hatred
Doucet: “Hanan Ashrawi; you mention the status quo, which is a very sensitive issue. Israeli leaders say they have not changed the status quo – that is, that Palestinians can pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, that Jews can visit the Temple Mount but they’re not allowed to pray there. They say that they haven’t changed it. You’ve seen otherwise?”
Ashrawi: “Of course. I mean we don’t need to listen to Israeli fabrications and fiction because we deal with reality – we look at what’s happening on the ground. Certainly they have changed the status quo. Certainly they have changed even the physical surroundings. They have dug beneath the mosque and el Haram Sharif. They have repeatedly prevented Palestinians from entering the mosque. They have put restrictions on the age of men and women who can enter the mosque. This is supposed to be a place of worship open to everybody. They’ve prevented Palestinians without Jerusalem IDs – which means all West Bankers and Gazans – from entering Jerusalem as a whole. Where is freedom of worship? And they’ve also transformed the Haram Sharif. So let’s talk about illegal annexation, let’s talk about changing the character, the culture, the history, the narrative of the place. And then let’s talk about provocation. This is what is happening.”
Under the hashtag #SolidarityWaveBDS, activists promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel have recently called for an “international wave of action in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle” for this weekend. The call takes for granted that Palestinians have the inalienable right to attack and kill Israeli Jews, whitewashing the current wave of murderous violence as an “ongoing, youth-led Palestinian uprising,” which is presented as “a response” to a long list of unspeakable Israeli atrocities, including “ethnic cleansing … theft of Palestinian land … racist attacks on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound … the siege on Gaza and … new racist measures against Palestinian citizens of Israel.” In addition, “Israel and its fundamentalist settler terror groups” are accused of “savagely attacking Palestinian protests [and] executing Palestinian children and youth in the street.”Israeli Activist Against Facebook: ‘You’ve Got Blood on Your Hands’ (VIDEO)
It is of course entirely expected to hear such rhetoric from activists devoted to demonizing the world’s only Jewish state as the source of some of the world’s most terrible evils. However, it is arguably still somewhat shocking to see a professor from one of America’s most respected universities blithely echoing this demonization of Israel. Prominently displaying his position as the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor at Stanford University, David Palumbo-Liu devoted his recent Huffington Post column to the effort of justifying Palestinian violence as a perfectly understandable response to appalling Israeli brutality. Already the cumbersome title of the post gives a glimpse of Palestinian righteousness and Israeli evil: “What’s Behind the Explosions of Violence in Palestine? — The Destruction of Religious Sites and ‘Extrajudicial Executions’ of Palestinian Teenagers.”
The building that houses Facebook’s Israel headquarters was spray-painted with anti-terror signs late Saturday night, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Sunday.ADL Condemns Known Palestinian Activist Over Blood Libel Post on Facebook
The graffiti – including a red palm with the words “blood on your hands” — was part of a campaign initiated by Rotem Gez, one of many Israelis appalled by the social media giant’s failure to remove pages encouraging the murder of Jews and Israelis.
Gez attributes Facebook’s lack of response to the growing number of complaints about the proliferation of blatantly antisemitic pages and posts, which openly incite Arabs to take to the streets and slaughter Jews, to its satisfaction with the traffic that such buzz generates. “The more noise there is, the longer people remain on the site, and that translates into money,” Gez told Channel 2.
Gez, who defaced the building in the middle of the night with another activist, said, “We decided to do this because you can’t write on Facebook’s [virtual wall – so we transferred out protest to its actual, physical wall” of its offices on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv.
Gez said he intends to police this issue, and expressed hope that his nocturnal operation, which could get him in trouble, will lead to the removal of the incitement pages from Facebook.
The Anti-Defamation League condemned a blood libel accusation against Israeli soldiers on Friday posted on Facebook by a known Palestinian activist who just concluded a 6-week speaking tour of some 29 venues across the U.S.Bassam Tawil: ISIS Fires Up Palestinians
ADL Chief Executive Jonathan Greenblatt called Bassem Tamimi’s post “outrageous and incendiary,” and called on Amnesty International, which Tamimi’s website claimed was supporting his U.S. tour, to ensure it would pull its endorsement of Tamimi if he was indeed receiving the group’s sponsorship.
On October 14, Ramallah businessman-cum-activist Tamimi shared a post from Faisal Hussein, showing an image of the side of a man’s body deeply lacerated and sewed up with several sutures. Below the image, the caption reads: “When Israelis arrest Palestinian CHILDREN, what is the purpose? To STEAL THEIR ORGANS. The same #Zionists doing this control the #media. So don’t expect to be told this by the #BBC.”
The post caused an uproar not only amid fraught tensions between Israelis and Palestinians that largely erupted over claims that Israel was trying to change the status quo at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem revered by Muslims and Jews, but because Tamimi has been on a speaking tour in the United States since early September, visiting, according to his website, grade schools, high schools, universities, churches and other venues.
The current wave of stabbings of Jews in Israel is an attempt to imitate Islamic State terrorists, who have been using knives to behead many Muslims and non-Muslims. In most attacks, the Palestinian terrorists focused on the victims' throats and necks. They are trying to replace Islamic State jihadis as the chief "butchers" of humans in the Middle East.Islamic State praises stabbing attacks against Israelis
How can our leaders in Ramallah accuse Jews of "contaminating" the Aqsa Mosque with their "filthy feet" at a time when our youths burn a religious site such as Joseph's Tomb? Palestinian Authority security forces, which maintain a tight grip on Nablus, did nothing to prevent the arson attack.
The attacks are an attempt to erase history so that Jews will not be able to claim any religious ties to the land. This is exactly what the Islamic State is doing in Syria and Iraq.
Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders are lying. This is not a struggle against "occupation" or a wall or a checkpoint. This is an Islamic State-inspired jihad to slaughter Jews and wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
A series of videos glorifying the wave of deadly stabbing attacks against Israelis was released Sunday by the Islamic State terrorist group, in an unusual step by the extremist organization, which tends to steer clear of commenting on the situation in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.Hamas Orders Suicide Bombings in Jerusalem
The videos, bearing such titles as “Project Behead the Jews” and “Message to the Mujahedin in Jerusalem,” were uploaded from sites under Islamic State control in Syria and northern Iraq. Some of the videos spread on social media and were accompanied by the hashtag #BeheadtheJew.
“I recommend that you take the path of Jihad, which God tells you to follow, I bless this jihad against the Jews. Strike fear in their hearts, they are the enemies of God,” a fighter says in one of the videos, according to a translation by the i24 news site.
“A victory is coming to the mujahedin of the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] from above, you are the ones who start but we will continue it,” another Islamic State member says as he holds an automatic rifle.
Hamas in Gaza has ordered its terrorists in Judea and Samaria to conduct suicide bombings in the region as well as in Jerusalem, in a call that has Israeli security forces preparing against potential bombings that could reach anywhere in the country.Leading Sunni Cleric to Palestinians: Die as Martyrs
The terror group has praised the current wave of attacks that have mostly consisted of stabbings, but the new orders on the ground could see a return of the explosive attacks that were common during the 2000 terror war known as the Second Intifada or Oslo War, according to information received by Yedioth Aharonoth on Monday.
Hamas's new orders, which come amid a call for an escalation by the group, were given to terrorist operatives in the Hevron region of Judea and the Shechem (Nablus) area in Samaria - cells who are situated in a location that could potentially see them launch attacks in the capital.
A Palestinian Authority (PA) Security Force official claimed to the paper that a Hamas cell in Hevron was recently apprehended which had explosive materials and funds in its possession. The cell had no less than six members, who said under investigation that they wanted to die, possibly indicating that they were being instructed to conduct suicide bombings.
Hamas's goal appears to be to keep the wave of attacks in a constant state of escalation, and if the attacks slow down it is estimated the group will try to launch more attacks to spur more terrorists into action.
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and considered to be the leading decisor on Sunni Muslim religious law, called on Saturday for the wave of terror attacks against Israel to escalate.5 Congressmen Visit Israel Despite Tensions
In a message published to his official Facebook account, the sheikh - who is a spiritual guide for the Muslim Brotherhood and its Gazan offshoot Hamas - wrote that support of the Palestinian Arab terror war against Israel is "a religious obligation."
He went on to claim that "Jerusalem is in danger" of "Judaization and a removal of its Arab and Islamic character." His words are an apparent repetition of the false claim according to which Israel is changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, where the Jordanian Waqf continues to enjoy de facto control and ban Jewish prayer.
"Jerusalem does not belong to the Palestinians alone - they have first rights to it, and it doesn't belong to Arabs alone - they have first rights to defend it. Rather, it belongs to all Muslims, everyone according to his ability," wrote al-Qaradawi about the 3,000-year-old capital of the Jewish nation.
A bipartisan group of five United States congressmen spent the last week touring Israel, despite the daily terrorist attacks and deteriorating security situation.Mayors from 40 Cities Converge on Jerusalem
Rep. Alan Lowenthal D-CA, Rep. Jim Jordan R-OH, Rep. Scott Garrett R-NJ, Rep. Raoul Labrador R-ID and Rep. Mark Meadows R-NC traveled across the country to learn the facts behind the headlines and pledge their support to the Jewish state in these challenging times.
The educational trip was sponsored by Proclaiming Justice to the Nations and hosted by Yes! Israel.
Highlights of the jam-packed schedule included briefings with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alom, a strategic helicopter tour with the Israeli Air Force, a visit to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, meetings with Israelis and Palestinians in Gush Etzion to discuss co-existence, a visit to the city of Sderot, as well as tours of ancient Shiloh and Ariel University.
Dozens of mayors from around the world have converged on Israel for the 30th annual Mayors Conference in Jerusalem, and while most of the attention has been focused on Mayor Bill de Blasio – since, of course, he is mayor of one of the world's most influential cities – he is not alone in visiting Israel this week.Watch: Thousands in New York Chant 'We Stand With Israel'
During their visit to Israel, the mayors will meet with senior political and defense figures, as well as meet with counterparts from Israeli cities, especially those that they are “twinned” with.
“For the past 30 years, the International Mayors Conference has fostered an international dialogue on creating smarter cities,” Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Council for World Jewry and president of American Jewish Congress said. “This initiative brings together mayors, because we believe in their power to change and improve people’s lives. The unprecedented number of participating mayors coming this year is a testament to the quality of Israeli leadership in technological advancement and urban development.”
Even as Israel receives condemnation from the US State Department over its defensive actions in the midst of an Arab terror wave, thousands of people in New York took part in a massive pro-Israel rally Sunday night held in iconic Times Square.Thousands Show ‘Zero Tolerance 4 Terror!’ in Times Square
"Am Yisrael chai!" shouted the! demonstrators, saying a classic phrase meaning "the nation of Israel lives." The chant was joined by another: "We stand with Israel."
The demonstrators held signs calling to support Israel at a time when Arab terror plagues the Jewish state, and criticizing the near automatic adoption by the international community of the Palestinian Arab position, as seen in a wave of biased reporting.
Times Square was one of many sites throughout the world where rallies were held on Sunday supporting Israel. Jewish communities and Israeli embassies took advantage of Sunday being part of the weekend outside of Israel to make the message heard precisely on that day.
Rome, Paris and Madrid also witnessed similar rallies, where senior members of the ruling political parties joined in the call of support for the Jewish state.
It is a pure Jewish concept that the best way to overcome evil is with positive energy — and Jews are great at “rocking out” when it comes to combining that punch with pizzazz.
Thousands of young New Yorkers gathered in Times Square late Sunday to show their solidarity with Israel as part of the ‘Zero Tolerance 4 Terrorism’ movement.
“Let’s allow our voice of outrage to be heard loud and clear; Never again! Jewish blood is not cheap,” proclaimed the group’s Facebook page prior to the rally.
In response, demonstrators from all walks of life came to stand together with Israel and celebrate the Jewish State as a panoply of speakers, Jewish entertainment groups, musicians and vocalists took the stage.
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