Thursday, October 22, 2015
Bernard-Henri Lévy: Things We Need to Stop Hearing About the ‘Stabbing Intifada’
Intolerable and inapplicable, too, is the cliché of the “cycle” or “spiral” of violence, which, by putting the kamikaze killers and their victims on the same footing, sows confusion and amounts to an incitement to further action.PMW: Fatah: Stab the Israelis! PA: Stone the Israelis!
Intolerable, for the same reason, are the rhetorical appeals “for restraint” and disingenuous pleas “not to inflame the street,” which, as with the “spiral of violence,” reverse the order of causality by implying that a soldier, police officer or civilian acting in self-defense has committed a wrong equal to that of someone who chooses to die after spreading as much terror as he possibly can.
Strange indeed, how tepid are the condemnations of the stabbings of innocent passers-by and rammings of bus stops — condemnations that I have to think would be less half-hearted if the acts had occurred on the streets of Washington, Paris or London.
More than strange — disturbing — is the difference in tone between the equivocal reaction to the recent killings and the unanimous and unambiguous international outpouring of emotion and solidarity elicited by the fatal hatchet attack on a soldier on a London street on May 22, 2013, a scenario that was not very different from those unfolding today in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Intolerable, again, that most of the major media have paid the grieving Israeli families only a fraction of the attention they have paid the families of the perpetrators.
Intolerable, finally, the minor mythology growing up around this story of daggers: The weapon of the poor? Really? The weapon one uses because it is within reach and one has no other? When I see those blades, I think of the one used to execute Daniel Pearl; I think of the beheadings of Hervé Gourdel, James Foley and David Haines; I think that the Islamic State’s videos have clearly gained a following, and that we stand on the threshold of a form of barbarity that must be unconditionally denounced if we do not want to see its methods exported everywhere. And I mean everywhere.
While Mahmoud Abbas assures the world in English that he advocates only "peaceful resistance," both his government and members of his political party, Fatah, openly promote terror and murder of Jews, as Palestinian Media Watch has shown. The following cartoons are examples of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah promoting stabbings and encouraging rock throwing. The cartoons were published in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, on Fatah's official Facebook page and in the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam.Indyk & Axelrod Support Organization Encouraging Stabbing of Israelis
The above image of a Jew screaming in pain with a knife stuck in his shoulder was posted on Fatah's Facebook page. The Palestinian flag is on the blade of the knife and in the background is Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock.
The text in Arabic and in Hebrew on top of the image says:
"Here is Jerusalem, you crazies, beware!"
[Official Facebook page of the Fatah Movement, Oct. 4, 2015]
A few days after this cartoon appeared, and following the murder of 4 Israelis in shooting and stabbing attacks, and several other instances of Palestinians attacking Israelis with knives, Abbas Zaki, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, referred to stabbings and rock throwing as Palestinian "defense":
"We are defending ourselves today, and will continue to defend ourselves. We are not in favor of escalation. However, the occupation is the one that kills, destroys, and attacks our cities and villages. Of course the defense differs from Palestinian to Palestinian, and there are some among us who defend with a rock, and those who defend with a knife."
[Anadolu Agency, a Turkish news agency, Oct. 9, 2015,
Fatah's European Information and Culture Commission website, Oct. 9, 2015]
Martin Indyk, Vice President and Director for Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution & former U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli–Palestinian Negotiations from 2013 to 2014 under the Obama Administration, is the head of the International Council of an organization which is blaming the Israeli government, the police and even Israeli citizens for the current round of violence in the Middle East.Tapper Corrects PLO Rep: If I Run At A Cop With A Knife, I’m Going To Get Shot
The New Israel Fund (NIF) has a long-documented history of bigotry towards Israel, and among their followers are numerous close Obama & Hillary Clinton advisors, including David Axelrod (pictured above), who every year from 1991 to 2002 was a donor to the New Israel Fund. Karen R. Adler, a former Hillary Clinton chief aide who remains close to Hillary is a NIF donor and President of the Jewish Communal Fund.
NIF’s rhetoric and incitement is apparent during this most recent wave of the conflict. The +972 Blog, for example – an anti-Israel blog which NIF funds – has encouraged and justified violence and stabbings:
Here: “Yesterday I learned a nice quote attributed to Edward Said…’The underlying dimension in the Palestinian struggle throughout its history is the desire to be seen’… Jabbing a potato peeler into the stomach of an Israeli is not going to end the Occupation, but it guarantees a breakaway moment… So grab a potato peeler! I think that anyone who is not a complete introvert should be able to identify with this.”
And here: “…a controllable level of violence in Jerusalem is actually good for the right. The goal is to collect blood – blood that can be sold to the public as an appropriate national response, and this can certainly be achieved by shooting children.”
Jake Tapper corrected chief PLO representative Maen Rashid Areikat Wednesday after Areikat condemned Israeli police for shooting a camouflaged Palestinian who charged Israeli police with a knife.Tapper Corrects PLO Rep: If I Run At A Cop With A Knife, I'm Going To Get Shot
Tapper questioned Areikat’s statement that a “very large” amount of Palestinians are “executed on the field after they were wounded,” pointing out that many of those who are “executed” are killed because they are committing acts of terror.
“Isn’t Abbas out there saying that two innocent Palestinian teenagers were murdered by Israel, when there is actually videotape showing one of the Palestinian teens charging at Israeli police with a knife before being shot? And the other teen is alive — isn’t Abbas out there saying that?” Tapper asked.
Areikat did not bend to Tapper’s question.
“Does this change the fact that one of them was shot and killed by the Israeli police?” he asked back.
“But there’s tape of them with a knife,” Tapper said and proceeded to play the tape on air.
“This is–this is–this is the problem–OK, well,” Areikat said.
Ancient Temple Mount ‘warning’ stone is ‘closest thing we have to the Temple’
The unassuming slab of limestone doesn’t look like much. It’s crudely fractured and chipped on the sides, pockmarked with age, and is perched not too prominently on a shelf at the Israel Museum. But its smoothly hewn face and crisply etched Greek letters still bearing faint traces of red paint belie monumental significance.IDF places barrier near Rachel’s Tomb in West Bank
“If we talk about the closest thing to the Temple we have,” said David Mevorach, senior curator of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Archaeology, “on the Temple Mount, this was closest.”
Two millennia ago, the block served as one of several Do Not Enter signs in the Second Temple in Jerusalem, delineating a section of the 37-acre complex which was off-limits for the ritually impure — Jews and non-Jews alike. Written in Greek (no Latin versions have survived), they warned: “No foreigner may enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.”
There are actually two extant copies of the warning notices — a partial one here in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum, and a second, complete, one in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum — and they are among a small handful of artifacts conclusively belonging to the shrine built by Herod toward the end of the first century CE. Contemporary accounts mentioned their existence, and 1,800 years after the Temple’s destruction, a French archaeologist found a complete copy that had been incorporated into the wall of a Muslim school in Jerusalem’s Old City.
“It is remarkable that this stone that… comes from the ancient Jewish Temple hasn’t been carried away far from from its original location,” Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau wrote about his 1871 discovery. “Indeed, the place where I found it is only 50 meters away from the Haram al Sharif, the sanctuary of the Jews.”
Israeli soldiers on Thursday placed a concrete barrier near a Jewish holy site in the West Bank, ahead of a religious pilgrimage there this weekend.IsraellyCool: Where’s Our Status Quo?
A crane lowered the concrete blocks onto a street in the city of Bethlehem outside Rachel’s Tomb. Israel’s security barrier stands between Bethlehem and the holy site.
Thousands are expected to visit the tomb on Saturday night, when the yahrzeit (the anniversary of a death) of the biblical-era matriarch Rachel is traditionally marked. Police say hundreds of officers will be deployed around the area for the event.
According to an Israeli report, private cars will not be able to enter the site on Saturday and Sunday, during the pilgrimage.
Let’s talk about “Status Quo”.Report: Jordanian King, Palestinian President Reject Israeli Offer to Reduce Number of Non-Muslim Visitors to Temple Mount
In 1967, Israel took back its holiest city from Jordan’s illegal occupation ending a 19 year gap in which Jews could not even visit the most sacred site in Judaism.
…Even though we took it back in a completely legal manner resulting from a defensive war.
…Even though the 19 years it was in Jordanian hands was universally considered illegal.
…Even though we’re talking about 19 out of the 3,000 years of Jerusalem’s existence.
We accepted a deal with the Jordanians that let them control our most holiest site. Why? Because we can’t have people running around killing Jews at random. It doesn’t mean the Arabs were right. It was the only thing that made them calm down. It was the only way we could achieve peace with Jordan. We prefered to say “OK fine, take it” than have more murdered Israelis.
Now the exact same rumours that ignited the Hebron massacre in 1929 are being spread in 2015. Even though Israel has always taken extreme measures to preserve the sanctity, the antiquity and the respect of every holy site in this country and wishes to allow freedom of worship for all.
Now, let’s see how the “status quo” of Judaism’s most important and holy sites has been doing in the LAST WEEK ALONE.
In an effort to reduce tensions and restore calm, Israel presented an offer to Jordan and the Palestinian Authority to reduce the number of Jewish and other non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount, Israeli website Walla reported on Wednesday, basing its information on Arab sources.PA demands full Muslim oversight over Jewish visitors to Temple Mount
According to these sources, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the offer, however, on the grounds that it was insufficient. Indeed, said the sources, the Jordanians and Palestinians are demanding not only a reduction in non-Muslim visitors to the site, but also a return to the status quo, as it existed before September 28, 2000. At that time, visits by non-Muslims to the Temple Mount were handled and monitored solely by the trust, the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. Since 2003, however, the Israel Police has been responsible for managing non-Muslim visits to the Temple Mount.
The Arab sources also told Walla that there was great anger towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Jordanian King’s court, and that until the Israeli government returns to the pre-2000 status quo, King Abdullah will refuse to meet with Netanyahu, and there will be no real easing of tensions.
According to Walla, Netanyahu’s coalition partners were enraged by the Israeli proposal to Jordan and the P.A., with Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (of the right-wing Jewish Home party) threatening to resign from the government if it agreed to a reversal of the current status quo.
The Palestinian Authority has warned Israel that it will soon halt security coordination with the IDF in the West Bank unless the Muslim authorities on the Temple Mount are given full administrative control over Jewish groups visiting the holy site, PA officials told The Times of Israel on Thursday. The PA is also demanding that Israel take action to stop what it claims is escalated violence against Palestinians by settlers in the West Bank.Why the Temple Mount Proves Palestinians Don’t Want Peace
The PA’s demands came amid a wave of Palestinian terror and violence which has seen 10 Israelis killed in the past month and a half, and more than 40 Palestinians killed — almost half of them attackers, and most of the rest in clashes in the West Bank and at the Gaza border.
“Israel must restore control of the Temple Mount to the Waqf (Muslim trust),” said one official close to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. “This is one of the only measures that can help calm the current situation.”
Until 2000, the entry of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount — the holiest place in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam — was coordinated with the Waqf. The area was then closed to Jews for three years until 2003 as the Second Intifada raged. Since it was reopened to Jewish visitors, Israel Police has overseen the visits by Jewish groups. Under Israel’s regulations, imposed after the Old City was captured in the 1967 war, Jews are allowed to visit but not to pray on the Temple Mount.
If this still comes as a shock to anyone, the Huffington Post recently published an impassioned defense of the current Palestinian terror spree in Israel. David Palumbo-Liu, a professor of comparative literature at Stanford, blames Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policy of allowing more Jewish visitation at the Temple Mount — or the “brutal theft of their [Palestinian] religion and culture” as Palumbo-Liu describes it — for the recent escalation of violence in Israel.NPR: As Attacks Mount, Israelis Describe Lives Lost And Families Shattered
Aside from the terrorism apologetics, curiously absent from the essay is any mention of the significance that the site holds for Jews, namely that it is considered the holiest place on Earth. The site housed the first and second Jewish temples, and has been considered the capital of Jewish worship since before Islam existed. Furthermore, Mr. Netanyahu’s policy allows Jews and Christians the right to visit the site as tourists for a few hours a day, but not the right to pray, sing, or make any religious displays. But since when did the truth stop those who want to bash Israel?
Also dubiously omitted from Palumbo-Liu’s essay is the fact that Palestinian clerics have been using Temple Mount hysteria to incite violence against Jews for many years. In the early 20th century, Arab leaders provoked mass riots and attacks on Jews claiming that Jewish prayers at the Western Wall were an attempt to seize the Temple Mount from Muslim control. This paranoia culminated in the 1929 massacre of 69 Jews in Hebron after false rumors circulated that Jews had defiled the al-Aqsa Mosque.
On Saturday evening, October 3, Odel Bennett and her husband Aharon walked through a main passageway in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.UN spokesman grilled over UNRWA incitement, says investigations underway
They had taken their two young children to the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism for prayer. Then they were heading to Odel Bennett's parents' home in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim.
It wasn't not far, just a few blocks outside the Old City walls. But they didn't make it home that night. A Palestinian man attacked the couple with knives.
Odel Bennett was stabbed 17 times, but survived. Her husband and a rabbi who came to help were killed. Bennett is now out of the hospital but still far from healed. The 22-year-old remembers running for help, with a knife still stuck in her shoulder.
She said as she ran, she saw many Palestinians. She was looking for someone who would help her. But no one did.
"The opposite," she said. "They yelled at me, they spat at me, they cursed me to die."
Her husband and the rabbi were among at least nine Israelis who have been killed in a spate of attacks by Palestinians in recent weeks. More than 40 Palestinians have also been killed, some as they carried out the attacks, others in clashes with Israeli security forces.
Children's Show on Palestinian TV Praises Palestinian Attackers as "Young Heroes"
In a recent children's show on a Palestinian TV channel, the child host praised the Palestinians who stabbed Israelis as heroes. "We revere the young heroes who have sacrificed their lives for Jerusalem and who carried out all those great heroic acts," she said. The program, titled "Grownup Kids," aired on Al-Kitab TV on October 16, 2015.
Gaza Uni. Dean of Quranic Studies Approves Killing Jewish Women and Children
Dr. Subhi Al-Yaziji, Dean of Quranic Studies at the Islamic University of Gaza, recently said: "All Jews in Palestine today are fair game - even the women." "Every single Jew in Palestine is a combatant, even the children," he said. In the Hamas Al-Aqsa TV interview, aired on October 16, 2015, Al-Yaziji further said that terror attacks "should be carried out in the very heart of the enemy - in Haifa, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and Hadera."
Mashaal: Hamas opposed to ideological extremism, has chosen path of moderation (not satire)
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was quoted on Thursday as saying that it was the responsibility of all to “liberate the Aksa Mosque and Palestine.”Palestinian Terrorists Release Video Showing Lethal Stabbing Methods
Mashaal, who is currently on a visit to South Africa, said in a speech at a mosque in Pretoria, that Hamas was “opposed to ideological extremism.” Hamas, he claimed, has chosen the path of “moderation” and is not hostile towards anyone because of his belief.
“Hamas believes in a struggle against the oppressors,” he said.
Mashaal claimed that Israel was seeking to “divide in time and space” the Aksa Mosque so as to allow Jews to pray at the site. He also claimed that Israel’s actions were designed to “change the history and identity of Jerusalem by turning it into a Jewish city.”
Palestinian terrorists have released an instructional video depicting a masked man who teaches viewers how to stab a person, according to a copy of that film provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
The video shows a masked man in military fatigues standing before a Palestinian flag sharpening a knife. A rifle can be seen leaning against the wall in the background.
The video was posted to a YouTube account called Free Pal.
The individual, who does not speak during the video, picks up several knives to show the viewer which type is most effective when committing murder. Flimsy knives that can be knocked from one’s hand will not do, according to the instructional video.
The man then grinds the knife to sharpen the edges and inflict greater damage. Several other methods of sharpening the knife also are depicted.
He then tests the knife on his arm to show how sharp it is.
Israeli wounded in Beit Shemesh stabbing attack
An Israeli teenager was wounded in a stabbing attack by two Palestinians in Beit Shemesh on Thursday morning.4 Israelis Wounded in Gush Etzion Car-Ramming Attack
The victim, 18, incorrectly described as a policeman in initial reports, sustained light to moderate injuries. He was evacuated to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem.
The two terrorists, identified by police as Palestinians from the Hebron area, were shot in the attack, which took place shortly before 8 a.m. on Havakuk Street. One was reportedly in critical condition while another was said to be dead on arrival at hospital.
The assailants were later named as 20-year-olds Maqdad Alhih from Halhul and Mahmoud Ghanimat from Surif.
The Shin Bet security service said that one of the two was a member of Hamas and the second had been jailed for two years after he was caught carrying a knife at the Cave of Patriarchs holy site in Hebron.
Both were wearing t-shirts reading “Izz ad-Din al-Qassam,” the name of Hamas’ armed wing.
Yinon Chen, an eyewitness to the events, told Channel 2 that the attackers were standing at a bus stop alongside children waiting for their morning ride to school. “I saw these two suspicious-looking people. They tried to board a school bus,” Chen said, “but the driver closed the door in order to keep them out.”
Four Israelis were wounded Wednesday evening — one critically and the others moderately-to-lightly — in a Palestinian car-ramming attack between Gush Etzion and Hebron in the West Bank.2 Palestinians try to stab soldier in Hebron; none hurt
According to Israel’s Channel 1, the attack took place along Highway 60, the site of many of the recent rock-throwing and other attacks perpetrated by rioting Palestinians.
Initial reports say the terrorist, who was driving a stolen Hyundai Accent with Israeli license plates and was shot and wounded, purposely crashed into the Israelis, right after they exited their own vehicles, which had just been pelted with rocks, near an IDF post.
After being treated on the scene by paramedics, they were evacuated to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Karem.
‘I am Islamic State,’ yelled Jerusalem man before soldiers shot himAn IDF soldier thwarted two Palestinians who tried to stab him at an intersection in the Hebron neighborhood of Tel Rumeida on Thursday.According to IDF sources, the Palestinians approached a soldier guarding the nearby Jewish neighborhood in Hebron. They tried to lunge at him with knives, but he successfully pushed them back and fired his weapon into the air.The attackers fled back into the Palestinian city, chased by IDF forces.No one was hurt in the attack.
A Jewish man who was shot to death in Jerusalem Wednesday night by soldiers who thought he was a terrorist yelled “I am Daesh,” the Arabic acronym for Islamic State, before he was shot, some witnesses said.Israeli Soldiers Search for Hamas Tunnels
However, according to another account, when soldiers asked him to identify himself, he asked, “What am I? Daesh?”
Military police investigators on Thursday joined the investigation into the shooting, which took place on a bus near the western entrance to the capital. The soldiers fired on the man during a physical altercation, apparently brought about by his suspicion that the soldiers were themselves terrorists.
According to an initial investigation, the victim, a 28-year-old immigrant from Dagestan, was a student in a yeshiva in Jerusalem. He had previously served as a soldier in an ultra-Orthodox IDF combat unit and after his discharge worked as a security guard in a kindergarten.
One of his friends in the yeshiva said that he was introverted and hot-tempered, in addition to not being fluent in Hebrew. “He was a bit lacking in judgment; I don’t know how capable he was of carrying a gun,” the friend said.
Israeli military forces are searching the area along the border with Gaza for any sign of tunneling activity by Hamas terrorists, according the Middle East News Line.Rocket Strikes Sha'ar HaNegev; No Injuries
The IDF Engineering Corps has deployed with special detection equipment to search for tunnels believed to be under the Gaza border, according to sources quoted by MENL.
“It’s a real threat, although the army has not found anything significant,” the source said.
During Operation Protective Edge, numerous terror attack tunnels were found by the IDF, including several that led directly to Jewish communities located close to the Gaza border.
Terrorists used those tunnels to sneak up to the communities in attempts to carry out attacks.
Rocket alarms sounded shortly before 7:00 pm near Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Sa'ad, near the border with Gaza.4 arrested over lynch of Eritrean migrant mistaken for terrorist
One rocket apparently struck an open field in the Sha'ar HaNegev region - but the warhead did not explode, Walla! News reports. Sappers are at the site.
No injuries or damage were reported.
IDF forces are currently scanning the area.
MK Haim Yelin (Yesh Atid) accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of not keeping his promises to secure Israel's borders shortly after the rocket fire.
Four suspects, two of whom are Israel Prison Service officers, have been arrested for the beating of an Eritrean man who had been shot after being mistaken for a terrorist during Sunday's attack at the central bus station in Beersheba.New website tells you how long 'Israel has been terror free'
More arrests in the case are expected.
On Sunday evening, an Arab terrorist armed with a gun and a knife killed one Israeli and wounded 10 others in an attack at Beersheba's central bus station. The terrorist was shot dead at the scene by security forces.
An Eritrean national, 29-year-old Habtom Zarhum, was also killed in the incident. Zarhum was shot by security forces after they mistook him for a terrorist. As he lay on the ground after he was shot, Zarhum was beaten by passersby, who thought he had perpetrated the attack. Zarhum later died at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.
An autopsy conducted at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv determined that the gunshot wounds, rather than the injuries suffered from the beating, were the cause of Zarhum's death.
A new website has been launched which vividly illustrates the relentless nature of the ongoing Arab terrorist campaign against Jews in Israel, by charting in real time the amount of time since the last terrorist attack.House appropriators warn Abbas on funding in wake of terrorism wave
The site, IsraelHasBeenTerrorAttackFreeFor, went live yesterday (Wednesday). Its creator says his aim is to "demonstrate the impossibility of maintaining a normal life in Israel these days, where terror attacks take place in every city and town, and where Palestinian hatred and incitement are aimed towards Israeli civilians - men, women and children."
Inspiration for the site was based on the IsraelHasBeenRocketFreeFor site, which similarly charts rockets fired against Israeli civilians from Gaza.
The new site's creator, Ofer Zelig, a Melbourne-based software developer, grimly noted just how often he has reset the timer in the short period since its launch.
"I've created this web site hoping that I will never need to update it with new terror attack reports," he said. "Woefully, since putting it online it has already been updated with new terror attacks several times.
"I'd like to note that I only update it with terror attacks that end with Israeli casualties. Other attempts, that don't incur casualties, are usually not even mentioned in the media - there are dozens of them every single day."
Two top congressional appropriators, a Republican and a Democrat, warned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that US funds are contingent on tamping down incitement during the current wave of violence.Senator Ted Cruz to 'Post': US should stop lecturing the Israelis
Reps. Kay Granger, R-Texas, the chairwoman of the Foreign Operations subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the committee and subcommittee’s top Democrat, in a letter Wednesday urged Abbas to resume direct negotiations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We implore you to refrain from highly-inflammatory language and to redouble your efforts to uphold nonviolence,” the letter said. “As you are well aware, any US assistance generously provided by the American people to the Palestinian Authority is predicated on the P.A.’s adherence to the precepts of the Oslo Accords as well as countering terrorism and the incitement of violence.”
The United States currently funnels about $500 million annually to the Palestinian Authority. Like all foreign funding, the money is authorized by the Foreign Operations subcommittee.
US Senator and Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz told The Jerusalem Post this week that the Palestinians are the true barrier to peace.Jeb Bush: Don't compare Israeli self-defense, Palestinian terror
Below are highlights of the telephone interview. The full interview will be published in Friday’s Magazine.
Senator Cruz, how would you characterize the Obama administration’s stewardship of US relations with the Palestinians?
This past week I publicly called for John Kerry’s resignation as secretary of state. This is the second time I’ve done so. A number of months ago I called for Kerry’s resignation when he wrongfully suggested that Israel could become an apartheid state, which is a slander.
It is one often repeated by the terrorists and it should not be coming out of the mouth of a United States secretary of state.
This past week John Kerry and the State Department accused the nation of Israel of terrorism. That is a blatant lie. There is a qualitative difference between antics of Palestinian terrorists murdering innocent women and children in response to the relentless incitement from the Hamas, from the PA. There’s a qualitative difference between that and the IDF defending the safety and security of the nation of Israel. And John Kerry’s suggestion that they are morally equivalent is wrong, harmful and deeply offensive.
Bush claimed that the recent spate of terrorist attacks against Israelis stemmed from the sense of impunity Washington was sending to Iran and other enemies of the Jewish state in the region, and criticized Secretary of State John Kerry for comments last week in which he seemed to compare terrorist attacks against Israelis to Israeli counter-terrorism efforts.Andrew Bolt: How dare Jews defend themselves?
"Well first they go hand-in-glove because legitimizing the Iranian regime to now empower them to continue to be the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world, which is what we've done, in an unverifiable agreement is only sending fear throughout the region and Israel correctly views this as an existential threat," he told Fox News's Sean Hannity.
"I don't believe it's necessarily a coincidence that the Palestinian Authority is inciting violence against innocence innocent Israelis.
"We have some say in as it relates to the Palestinian Authority, given the fact that we provide aid - and we should be very clear that there is no moral equivalence that inciting terror inside of Israel is not the equivalency of what Israel does in self-defense."
"They do this in their schools to incite a feeling of hatred towards Israel," he added of Palestinian incitement. "Israel is responding as any sovereign nation would, we should be completely on their side on this and frankly the next president of the United States ought to be getting Israel's back."
It is a sick sign of the decline of Labor that an MP - Melissa Parke [Fremantle] in this case - can urge more sympathy for the terrorists than for their victims, and call unjust the fact that many were shot dead as they attacked:
....violence has intensified in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, as Israel continues to violate international law by building settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and tensions rise over the prevention of Palestinians praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and right-wing Israelis visiting that compound.Seeing that Israel’s enemies - particularly Hamas - actually want Israel destroyed and the Jews driven out, I wonder exactly what political settlement would reduce the extremism we see.
Eight Israelis and at least 37 Palestinians have been killed so far this month, the disproportionate casualty numbers reflecting the power imbalance between the parties. While much of the Western media has focused on the Israeli victims, less attention has been paid to the more numerous Palestinian victims…
It is in the interests of Israelis, Palestinians and the global community, including Australia, that the brutal decades long Israeli military occupation be brought to an end and that Palestinians have their own state at long last. Given the discussions taking place today regarding the issue of radicalisation, I suggest that ending this longstanding injustice would be one way to reduce recruitment to extremist causes.
It is a pity that it took a Jewish Labor MP, Michael Danby, to give the reply that should have been on the lips of every one of his colleagues:
Kerry Urges Israelis to be Less ‘Stabable’ in Light of Recent Attacks (satire)
A recent wave of terror attacks, many involving knives , has brought tension in Israel to a boiling point and caught the attention of US Secretary of State and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner John Kerry. Kerry, who is on a global tour promoting his book “How I Lost Syria to Putin in a Game of Poker”, issued a statement in a press conference:PreOccupiedTerritory: Palestinians To Stop Fighting Once Jews Stop Settling Earth (satire)
“I strongly condemn both sides in this conflict. I guess if you count Palestinians and Israeli Arabs that’s three sides. And if you include the IDF and Jewish settlers and Hamas and Abbas and Bedouins, that’s all eight sides! But the side I condemn the most is Israeli civilians: if you tried being a little less stabable that would really help reduce tension in the region. Have you considered not leaving your house without an armored vest? It’s the hottest fashion trend in Baltimore, America’s fashion capital. Learn some dodging moves when someone comes at you with a knife, it’s like no one in Israel saw a single action movie in their lives. I heard that living in Israel requires you to have thick skin, how about it? Seriously, you guys are making the job Hillary did in 2011 look good in comparison to me. It’s as if no one in Israel cares about my 2020 presidential bid, after all I’ve done for you and the total peace I brought to the entire Middle East.”
“Look, all I’m saying is, don’t be so ready to be stabbed. When you really think about it, as the international community clearly has, if you get stabbed, it really is your fault.”
Palestinian leaders continued to support the popular uprising that has claimed dozens of Israeli and Palestinian lives in recent weeks, saying that the people are only reacting to to Jewish settlements on this planet.Anti-Israel Students Chant: ‘We Support the Intifada’
Despite repeated calls from the international community to restore a semblance of calm, Palestinian Authority leaders have kept up rhetoric inciting people to stab, run over, shoot, or otherwise attempt to kill Jews, under the pretext that Israel plans or is trying to curtail Muslim access to Al Aqsa. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he and his people genuinely seek peace, and are only resisting the Jewish presence in places they do not belong, such as Earth.
Abbas assured various international figures that his people seek only a limited resistance, and would agree unconditionally to peace once Jewish settlements are removed from the areas they occupy on Earth. “We do not desire perpetual war; ours is a culture of peace,” he told the UN. “But the unjust placement of these Jewish homes leaves us no choice other than to resist, by whatever means possible.”
“We will not resort to violent methods,” continued Abbas. “Our way is the peaceful way of the car, the rock, the knife, the gun, the Molotov cocktail, the bomb, and the blunt-force weapon. We do not condone or support violence.” Similarly, he stressed, the Palestinian struggle is limited in time and geography to those places on the third planet from the sun where Jews have settled.
Pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Berkeley caught on video chanting “we support the intifada” and another activist at Brooklyn College calling for the annihilation of Israeli settlers are sparking outrage among defenders of the Jewish state.Moral Dementia at Stanford and Berkeley
The support for violent resistance against Israel on U.S. college campuses comes amid a spike in Palestinian terrorism committed against Israelis that has claimed several lives.
Pro-Israel activists have begun to express concern about these calls, which appear to endorse violence against Jewish people and could exacerbate tensions at the schools.
The pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been led in recent days by campus affiliates of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an anti-Israel organization that has disseminated anti-Semitic propaganda and supports boycotts of the Jewish state.
On U.C. Berkeley’s campus last week, anti-Israel activists were caught on film chanting, “We support the intifada,” a reference to violent episodes in Israel that has led to increased acts of terrorism by the Palestinians.
In a display of moral narcissism that British columnist Melanie Phillips has characterized as a “dialogue of the demented,” Stanford students staged a public protest on October 19th to once again denounce Israel — and, presumably, to honor the slain homicidal Palestinians who have so far claimed 11 Israeli lives in a recent spate of violence in Jerusalem and parts of Judea and Samaria.UC Berkeley Responds to Hate
The protest, organized by the vitriolic Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), followed in style and substance an equally debased display of moral self-righteousness at Berkeley, where a similar gathering on October 13th saw protesters enthusiastically chanting “long live the intifada” and “we support the intifada;” in other words, they were extolling the current homicidal rampage in Israel in which youthful terrorists have used knives, guns, stones and vehicles to randomly murder Jewish civilians.
In fact, the use of the word “intifada” is a grotesque and murderous reference to the Second Intifada that began in 2000, during which Arab terrorists murdered some 1,000 Israelis and wounded more than 14,000 others.
For many students, this was their first encounter with others who do not share their strong love for Israel. What did make me proud was to see so many Jewish students who love Israel out there on Sproul, containing their emotion, holding up Israeli flags and signs, and showing their love and support of Israelis and the Jewish people.Daily Mail: Palestinian Terrorist Shot Dead in “Retaliation” For Stabbing Soldier
Special thanks go out to Bears For Israel and Tikvah: Students for Israel for their leadership in organizing a thoughtful and important counter message. In addition to the students’ leadership, the caring nature of Berkeley Hillel’s Jewish Agency Shlichah, Dror Stein’s leadership and love for Israel helped the student leaders along with so many Jewish students deal with the difficult event. Jewish students that walked by were appreciative of the work they did. Their leadership was a beautiful example for all of us. They conducted themselves with restraint and maturity that would make Am Yisrael proud. When confronted with difficult individuals or conversations, they respectfully engaged with them without escalating the situation. While I felt such pain and sadness when I read SJP’s signs and when I heard their chants, at the same time, I gained such strength and was full of pride to be a Jew and lover of Israel, thanks to the leadership and commitment of the students.
On Wednesday, a female IDF soldier was seriously injured after being stabbed in the neck by a Palestinian terrorist. The attacker was shot dead at the scene.YAIR LAPID ON THE ‘MEDIA INTIFADA': I’m paranoid and they’re after me
This is how the Daily Mail chose to present the story:
Palestinian becomes the 47th to die in recent clashes with Israelis after he stabs a female soldier in the neck and is shot dead in retaliation
Shot dead “in retaliation?!”
The headline places the Palestinian at the center of the story as the victim of “clashes with Israelis.” The assertion that he was shot dead “in retaliation” falsely implies that Israeli forces took revenge in an act of malevolence rather than an act of self-defense.
In addition, the Daily Mail has it wrong regarding the condition of the Israeli victim. Contrary to a “light wound to her neck,” the female soldier was evacuated to hospital in a serious condition having received life-threatening injuries.
“’Just because you‘re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you” wrote Joseph Heller in Catch 22. It isn’t a coincidence that those words were written by a Jewish author. Why? Because they’ve been after us longer than anyone else.Yair Lapid on the recent violence in Israel - BBC HARDtalk
These days, the persecution takes two distinct forms.
The first is clear. In the past two weeks terrorists are chasing Israeli civilians across the country armed with knives, axes and guns. Jihadists are murdering and maiming, stabbing and burning. They no longer pretend this is about foreign policy, or even about settlements. It is religious fanaticism which knows no limits. In their own words – and I see no reason not to believe them – they want to murder Jews because they are Jews.
The second category of persecutors are those in the media covering this wave of violence. In a long series,(too long to be coincidental) of false reports and distortions of the truth they create the impression that the victim is the aggressor, that the ones protecting themselves are the murderers, that Israel has no right to defend itself. Here are a few headlines published in the past two weeks in the English language press on both sides of the Atlantic, stop me when I’m allowed to be paranoid:
BBC headline – “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two”
Fact: The Palestinian who was shot wasn’t a passerby; he was a terrorist who stabbed two Jews who walked past him.
NBC/MSNBC: A Once Venerable News Network Becomes a Propaganda Mill
Not to be outdone by on-air programming, the NBC web site published a piece of unabashed Palestinian propaganda on October 12. Laura Dean, senior correspondent for the Global Post, managed to depict the Palestinian violence in such a distorted manner that the Israelis come off as the guilty party needlessly killing poor innocent Palestinian children, while leaving the Palestinian parents - not the Israeli parents - anxiety-ridden. Dean laments the deaths of several Palestinian youths at the hands of Israeli police, neglecting to inform readers that these youths were killed as they assaulted Israelis with knives or hurled boulders.Tens of Thousands Expected to Hang Israeli Flags in Solidarity With Jewish State
She joins in the officially sanctioned propaganda campaign that came undone when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas falsely accused Israel of murdering an innocent thirteen year old Palestinian child. It turned out that this alleged innocent child had just stabbed a thirteen year old Israeli boy critically injuring him as he rode by on a bike (the incident was caught on video). Subsequently, the Palestinian child was hit by a car and treated at an Israeli hospital, where he is doing fine, better than the Israeli child he tried to murder.
Ripping a page right out of the Palestinian incitement playbook, Dean explained that the Palestinians were stirred to violence over fears that Israel was changing the status of access to the Al Aqsa Mosque, which she described as the “third holiest site” in Islam that is “also revered by Jews.” In fact, the site is the holiest in Judaism.
Dean concealed from her readers that fulminating rhetoric from Palestinian officials incited Palestinian youths to set out on their murderous spree. Just days before the violence exploded, the Palestinian president gave a televised speech invoking Allah as blessing those who “spill blood for Jerusalem.” Abbas urged Palestinians to rise up to stop Jews from defiling the Al Aqsa mosque with “their filthy feet.”
Any honest reporter would not have left out this central precipitating factor of the conflict. But then Dean is not an honest reporter and NBC is not the news organization it once was.
Following the media’s near-radio silence after the most recent spate of terrorist attacks against Jews in Israel by Israeli Arabs-Palestinians, two Florida-based public figures have started a global movement to stand up against antisemitism by donating thousands of Israeli flags to citizens across the United States and Canada to be hung in a show of solidarity with world’s only Jewish State.Jerusalemites rally for ‘Eatifada’
Miami-based custom clothing designer Joseph Waks and Bal Harbour Councilman Gabriel Groisman’s grassroots #Flags4Israel campaign will officially launch this Thursday by donating 10,000 Israeli flags to be flown across the nation. Thousands are expected to turn up for the event. An anonymous donor generously provided 10,000 Israeli flags for the duo’s cause.
Waks and Groisman decided to proceed with the launch following the success of their “1,000 Flags for Israel” just a few days ago. Last Wednesday, Waks and Groisman gave out close to 3,000 flags in Miami Beach.
One of the best-known Jewish jokes explains that Jewish holidays, in all their variety, all boil down to the same theme: “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.”When in Doubt, Take a Selfie
Now, a group of Jerusalemites are taking that ancient wisdom to heart. Using Facebook and Instagram, these residents of the capital have responded to the fear and violence of recent weeks by challenging each other to do something they usually take for granted: go out and have fun.
“The number of customers at [Jerusalem] restaurants and other businesses has dropped tremendously – so we’re heading out, eating, buying and taking a picture (or video) and challenging our friends to do the same,” the group’s Facebook page proclaims.
Calling itself the “Eatifada,” a riff off the now-common suggestion that the wave of Palestinian terror attacks constitutes a “third intifada,” the campaign’s unofficial tagline is explicit: “Fight terror through eating. Go to town, eat some food, challenge friends to do the same.”
This Sunday, Ben-Shabbat took her seat on Bus 836 from Tiberias to Tel Aviv. She sat by the window, as she always did, and looked forward to leaning her head on the cool glass and catching a few more minutes of sleep before reporting for duty. Then, the bus stopped and a young Arab woman got on.American Students Visiting Israel Not Dissuaded by Unrest
Her head was covered. She argued with the driver in an accent that left little doubt about her ethnicity. And even though there were other seats available, she walked right up to Ben-Shabbat and sat besides her.
Given the current state of affairs, the young soldier’s heart was racing. Will the young Arab woman do as several young Arab women had done in the last few weeks and pull out a knife? If so, how would Ben-Shabbat respond? Using pepper spray struck her as uncool; she’d have to respond with her bare hands, and played out kung fu scenarios in her mind. She grew scared.
Which is when she decided to do what felt most natural: she texted her mother. Concerned, the mother advised Ben-Shabbat to quietly get up and move to a different seat. The young soldier considered it for a moment. Then she looked at the young woman sitting next to her. They were about the same age. Ben-Shabbat looked at her seat mate’s pale pink lipstick. She knew exactly what she wanted to do.
Without thinking twice, Ben-Shabbat turned to the young Arab woman and told her that she was freaked out for a moment, that she had texted her mother, that her mother told her to switch seats. Then, she asked the young woman if she’d mind taking a selfie together, just so Ben-Shabbat’s mother sees there was nothing to worry about. The young Arab woman laughed and agreed right away. After the shot was snapped, Ben-Shabbat texted it to her family, together with a humorous caption that read “taken just a few moments before the stabbing attack on board bus number 836.”
Birthright trips will continue as planned, sending 16,000 starting in DecemberWhile Arabs stab Israeli civilians, a Jewish hospital saves Arab babies
Nearby, Jonah Glick-Unterman and a group of Americans bought sandwiches and hung out in Zion Square. Glick-Unterman, who is spending the year in Jerusalem studying Jewish history before he starts college, said his parents are a little worried about the violence, but his program has “really intense security.”“If anything, the situation makes me more proud to be a Jew and more proud to identify with Israel,” Glick-Unterman said, “because it shows how resilient we are in the face of violence.”
The number of young Americans in Israel will spike significantly when the Birthright Israel Foundation’s begins its winter season of free 10-day trips to Israel, which will bring 16,000 young Jews from around the world to the country. Those trips will go forward as planned, said Noa Bauer, vice president for international marketing at Taglit-Birthright Israel, in an email to TIME.In the meantime, Birthright has added an extra security guide to each of the two Birthright trips currently in Israel, in addition to the standard Israeli security escort, trained medic and two staff members who accompany all the trips. No one in the current Birthright groups has expressed interest in leaving the country early, and the participants feel “great, comfortable and safe,” Bauer added.
News of heightened violence coming out of Jerusalem in recent weeks, leaves many skeptical about the possibilities for peace in the region.While Arabs stab Israeli civilians, a Jewish hospital saves Arab babies
Meanwhile, at Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem life goes on because "suffering has no nationality" and the doctors, nurses and patients here, whether Israeli or Palestinian, put the children first.
As one Palestinian doctor notes, "We are participating in the creation of life - we don't think about the politics"
This may not be what we hear in the news but this is a reality that exists and one we need to hear more about.
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