Friday, February 19, 2016
Writer Houellebecq: Palestinians have lost legitimacy
Famed French writer Michel Houellebecq defended Israel in an interview he gave to the popular magazine Le Point, which devoted a journalistic project to the Jews of France.Caroline Glick: Israel’s dangerous consensus
According to news site Walla, Houellebecq – who is not Jewish – has identified as pro-Israeli for several years. He reconfirmed this position in the interview, and explained: "Israel is more moral than the Palestinians. At first I was neutral, but the Palestinian suicide bombings shocked me. Unlike the Israelis, who strike at pre-marked targets, the Palestinian attacks are blind, and that is much less moral. The end does not justify the means, and that is why the Palestinians have lost legitimacy in my eyes."
Houellebecq blamed the French Left for turning Israel into an enemy and inciting French Muslims against it. Intellectuals, journalists and radical leftist politicians, he said, are the ones responsible for the tension between the Muslim and Jewish communities in France.
"What connection is there between Muslims in France and the Palestinians?" he asked. "Why do the Muslims in France not raise a hue and cry about what is happening to their brothers in Africa and Asia, but only (do so) about their Palestinian brothers? It is only the fault of the radical Left's anti-Israeliness and its connection to Islam."
Recently I found myself in a chance conversation with a former head of the Mossad’s Directorate of Operations. The former master spy, whom I had never met before, knew that I am a journalist.21-Year-Old Israeli Killed in Palestinian Stabbing Spree in West Bank Supermarket
He was aware of my political views.
Directing his remarks at a friend of mine, he declared that 99 percent of Mossad and Shin Bet officers are leftists. He then added triumphantly that according to a former commander of the air force whose name he cited, 99% of the air force’s pilots are similarly leftists.
Initially, I dismissed his comments as obnoxious chest-beating by a man who felt like irritating a group of right-wingers.
But given the source, it is impossible to simply brush off what he said. And to be clear, far more troubling than the prospect that Israel’s security establishment is uniformly leftist is the notion that there is any intellectual or ideological uniformity of any kind in the ranks of our defense community.
But given our defense community’s record in recent years, there is ample reason to believe that there is more than a grain of salt in the spy chief’s boast.
Consider Israel’s handling of Gaza.
Two Palestinian teenage terrorists on Thursday stabbed two Israelis at a supermarket north of Jerusalem.
The Israeli victims, ages 21 and 35, were evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital. The 21-year-old later died from his wounds. The attackers, Bassem Subach and Omar Salim, both 14, were also taken to the hospital after being shot by armed civilians at the scene of the attack—the Rami Levy supermarket in the Sha’ar Binyamin area.
The civilians who stopped the attackers, Ben Hamo and Hanamel Even Chen, recounted the attack in interviews with Israel National News.
“I came to shop at Rami Levy, I was in the aisle of aluminum foil and the like, Shabbat candles, and suddenly I heard shouts and immediately I understood that an attack was happening,” Hamo said.
“I ran in the direction of the shouts, I saw a terrorist in front of me with a knife in hand approaching me,” he said. “I told him, ‘Stop, throw away the knife.’ He took another step, I shot him with a precise bullet to bring him down.”
Off-duty soldier killed Thursday in supermarket terror attack laid to rest
The funeral of an off-duty IDF soldier who was killed in a terror attack near Ramallah Thursday was held Friday at the Mount Herzl military cemetery. A thousand people gathered to pay their respects to a young husband and father who was eulogized as a natural leader.Terror victim's wife at funeral: 'You didn’t have a gun but you ran toward the attackers'
Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Mikhmas, died of wounds sustained during a stabbing terror attack at a supermarket in the Sha’ar Binyamin Industrial Zone, located southeast of Ramallah in the West Bank. He was stabbed and critically injured while shopping with his wife and four-month-old daughter.
Rabbi Shmuel Natanzon, head of the premilitary academy Weissman attended at the Kfar Eldad settlement southeast of Jerusalem, eulogized Weissman as a natural leader with a “giant, contagious smile.”
“How much light you gave! You were considering going to a commander’s course or staying in your combat deployment. You knew you had it in you to be an example and a symbol. You couldn’t stand on the sidelines,” the rabbi said.
Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, was killed trying to stop two Palestinian teenage terrorists from stabbing shoppers at a Rami Levy supermarket in the Binyamin region of the West Bank on Thursday.Off-duty soldier killed in Thursday terror attack was American citizen
At his funeral in Jerusalem early Friday morning, his wife Yael, described how they had been in another part of the store with their infant daughter Netta when the teenagers pulled out knives.
“You are a true hero. You didn’t have a gun, but still you ran [toward the attackers] without thinking twice,” said Yael in a tear filled voice, as she stood by her husband’s freshly filled grave in the Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery.
“I always knew that if something happened you would be the first person to respond,” Yael said.
Her husband of almost two years, who she called by his middle name of “Yanai” had been a combat sergeant in the IDF’s Nahal Brigade. He was only able to be with his family on weekends.
The United States said Friday that Tuvya Weissman, an off-duty Israeli solder who was stabbed to death in a Palestinian terror attack on Thursday, was an American citizen.Police say security flaws enabled fatal supermarket attack
Weissman, 21, who was married with a 4-month-old daughter, was laid to rest in Jerusalem on Friday morning.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that Weissman was also a US citizen. Toner condemned the attack and said terrorism has no justification.
He said the attack underscores the need for Israelis and Palestinians to reject violence, reduce tensions and restore calm.
Weissman, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Mikhmas, died of wounds sustained during a stabbing terror attack at a supermarket in the Sha’ar Binyamin Industrial Zone, located southeast of Ramallah in the West Bank. He was stabbed and critically injured while shopping with wife Yael and their baby girl.
Weissman was on a week-long leave from the army when he was attacked, and so was without a firearm.
Police said lax security was partly to blame for a terror attack in a West Bank supermarket Thursday, and appeared intent to make an example of the store in order to pressure other businesses to increase their vigilance.Three hurt in Damascus Gate stabbing attack
Investigators found that the two Palestinian teens who stabbed off-duty Israeli soldier Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, to death and seriously wounded another man earlier in the day were able to bring knives into the store without being inspected by the security guard at the entrance.
Officials said the store — a branch of the Rami Levy chain — would be shuttered until serious security flaws were remedied. The chain may also face a forced closure of all its West Bank stores unless security is boosted across the board.
A senior police official told Channel 2 news the move was mainly a deterrent to other businesses.
“Security guards are not posted at the entrance for decoration,” the unnamed official was quoted as saying. “Their job is just that — to prevent an attack.”
Two Border Police officers and a bystander were injured in a stabbing attack at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate Friday morning.Watch: Damascus Gate stabbing - raw footage Border Police shooting Arab terrorist
One officer was stabbed in the upper body and moderately hurt. The other was stabbed in the arm and was in light condition.
According to the Magen David Adom ambulance service, the bystander, identified as a 50-year-old Palestinian woman from East Jerusalem, was hit in the leg by fragments or ricochets from the shots fired at the assailant by security forces. She was very lightly hurt. After being treated on the scene by medics, she was taken to an East Jerusalem hospital.
Both officers are in their early 20s, according to police, and were taken to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
MDA medics who treated the victims said, “We saw two young men in their 20s. They were fully conscious and walking around. One of them suffered an arm wound. His friends had bandaged him on the scene. The second suffered from multiple stab wounds to the upper body.”
In the attack one officer was lightly wounded and another lightly to moderately wounded, after the terrorist snuck up on them from behind and launched his attack.Palestinian shot dead after aborted car-ramming attack in West Bank
A 50-year-old Arab woman was also lightly wounded as shrapnel sent flying by the gunfire hit her leg.
"A terrorist attacked a squad of officers from behind, stabbed and wounded them lightly, the squad responded with fire and neutralized the terrorist," police said in a statement, identifying the dead terrorist as a 20-year-old from Kafr Aqab, located to the north of Jerusalem.
Reportedly the terrorist held a blue teudat zehut ID card, indicating permanent Israeli residency. The wounded officers were evacuated to Shaare Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem.
Damascus Gate has become a central hot spot for attacks during the current wave of Arab terror that began last September, with Friday's attack marking at least the fourth attack or attack attempt at the site this week alone.
A Palestinian assailant was shot and killed after he allegedly tried to ram a car into Israeli security forces during rioting in the West Bank village of Silwad on Friday.Arabs arrested carrying explosives on bus
No Israelis were injured in the incident, according to the army.
Earlier on Friday, two Border Police officers were wounded in a stabbing attack at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday morning.
According to initial reports, a Palestinian woman at the scene was wounded by shrapnel from gunshots fired in an attempt to neutralize the terrorist.
The suspected terrorist was shot dead. Security forces identified the assailant as a 20-year-old Arab Israeli.
Police reported on Thursday evening that two Arab suspects were arrested during a routine security check of a bus driving through a checkpoint, after it was discovered they were carrying explosives.Police furious at army chief's 'excessive force' statement
The arrest came as Border Police officers were checking a bus passing through Al-Zaim Checkpoint near Ma'ale Adumim to the east of Jerusalem, as it headed towards the capital.
The officers stationed at the checkpoint had their suspicions aroused by two Arab passengers, who they proceeded to check more thoroughly.
During the inspection, the officers found two suspected pipe bombs among their personal belongings.
Both of the suspects were arrested, and a bomb-squad member was dispatched to the scene to deactivate the explosives.
Al-Zaim Checkpoint was the scene on Saturday evening of an attempted smuggling attempt in which two Arabs from Judea and Samaria breached the security fence and were picked up by an Israeli Arab waiting for them in a car.
"Senior Jerusalem police officers" are angry over IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot's remarks today (Wednesday), Channel 10 reports.Abbas condemns terrorism...in Turkey
While talking to high school students in Bat Yam, General Eizenkot casually dismissed concerns that the army's new rules of engagement endanger the lives of security forces.
In particular, the officers who were involved in the attack by Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market took Eizenkot's claim that terrorists using scissors to attack don't need to be killed as a personal rebuke. One officer has been widely accused of using excessive force on the terrorists after they stabbed a 70-year-old Arab man.
Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday issued an official statement strongly condemning Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Ankara.BBC World Service erases Israeli victims from news report on terror attacks
The car bomb explosion in the Turkish capital killed at least 28 people and wounded 61 others.
In his statement, Abbas called the attack "a terrorist attack" and stressed that the “Palestinian people” stand beside the Turkish people and the families of the victims of the terrorist attack.
While Abbas was quick to condemn the Ankara attack, he has consistently refused to condemn the terrorist attacks carried out by his own people against Israelis.
Not only has Abbas refused to condemn the Palestinian attacks, he has justified them by saying the murder of dozens of Israelis and the wounding of hundreds others is part of a "peaceful uprising."
Not only does that portrayal fail to clarify to listeners around the world that the so-called “sharp increase in recent violence” has been going on for more than four months and that its cause is hundreds of violent attacks perpetrated by Palestinians, it also refrains from telling audiences that the vast majority of the Palestinians who have been killed were in the process of carrying out terror attacks or engaged in violent rioting. Significantly too, that portrayal completely erases from audience view the victims – both Israelis and foreign nationals – of those attacks by Palestinians.IDF preps demolition for Weissman's murderers
The BBC World Service’s 23:00 GMT news bulletin on the same day – also read by Nunes and also later repeated – included coverage of the attack at Damascus Gate which took place on the evening of February 14th. Listeners were told (from 04:07 here) that: [emphasis added]
“Five Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli security forces after allegedly attempting to carry out a series of attacks on them. A police spokesman said two Palestinians were killed after opening fire in Jerusalem. Earlier in the city, police shot dead a youth they said had tried to stab them. The other two deaths occurred at Jenin in the West Bank where the Israeli army said it killed two fifteen year-old boys who were shooting at troops.”
By the time this news bulletin was broadcast the circumstances of all the incidents were perfectly clear, meaning that the BBC World Service was able to report them without the insertion of qualifying terminology. The fact that it elected not to do so, together with the fact that its portrayal of the wave of terrorism of which these specific attacks are part is so gravely lacking, once again prompts concerns about the corporation’s impartiality.
IDF forces on late Thursday night mapped out the homes of the two 14-year-old Arab terrorists who murdered 21-year-old Staff Sergeant Tuvia Yanai Weissman earlier in the day at a Rami Levy supermarket in Sha'ar Binyamin.Template BBC News report on Sha’ar Binyamin terror attack
Weissman, who was shopping with his wife and four-month-old baby daughter at the time, was stabbed as he tried to stop the terrorists from attacking others. Another victim, 36-year-old Avi Avital, was moderately wounded but is to be released from the hospital on Friday after making a miraculously rapid recovery.
In the IDF operation together with the Civil Administration just hours after the stabbing, the homes of Omar Samir Rimawi and Iyab Bassam Ibrahim Tzabah in Bitunia near Ramallah in Samaria were mapped out by the soldiers.
Avital, who was moderately wounded in the attack, is a resident of Tel Tzion in the Binyamin region of Samaria.
He is to be released on Friday in a surprisingly quick turnaround, after being evacuated to Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem the day before.
In the first version of the report the location of the attack was described as follows:JCPA: The Arab Attitude toward Israel’s 2005 Unilateral Disengagement: A First-Hand Account from an Israeli Insider
“An Israeli man has been stabbed to death by two Palestinian teenagers in the occupied West Bank, officials say. […]
The attack happened at a supermarket at an Israeli-controlled industrial zone near Ramallah frequented by settlers.”
In fact the Rami Levy supermarket is also frequented by Palestinian shoppers and – like many other businesses in the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial zone and additional similar locations in Area C – has a mixed Palestinian and Israeli work force. Whilst BBC audiences were not provided with any insight into the daily coexistence which is the rule at the location of the attack, the later version of the report was amended to acknowledge the fact that not only “settlers” shop there.
“It happened at an Israeli-controlled industrial zone market near Ramallah used by settlers and Palestinians.”
Over the last five months the BBC News website has settled into a method of reporting terror attacks against Israelis which is now entirely predictable. Articles invariably include the template inserts noted above and descriptions of the locations of attacks frequently include politicised terminology. Some reports – though by no means all – include the names of the Israeli victims but the absence of personalising and humanising details is glaringly apparent – especially when compared to BBC reporting on the victims of terror in other locations around the world.
Lessons from the DisengagementUN special envoy admits to 'Post': Israel not always treated fairly
From the perspective of a decade, we may learn six lessons from the disengagement, as follows:
First, the Palestinian Authority is not capable of controlling a territory on its own. It cannot overcome radical groups that challenge its authority because of its corruption and because of the conflict between its seemingly pragmatic approach and its commitment to an extremist ideology that claims that there is no such thing as the Jewish people and there is no history of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Therefore, there is no justification for the existence of the Jewish nation-state in the land. In fact, the land really is Palestine and, hence, Israel’s disappearance is inevitable. Furthermore, it is incumbent upon the Palestinians to expedite the process of Israel’s disappearance. All means justify the ends, and the choice between approaches must be based upon their effectiveness at a particular time. The Jews are dreadful and appalling creatures that the Europeans removed from their midst. There is no reason for the Palestinians to tolerate them. The Palestinians are victims of the West and of Israel and cannot be held accountable or expected to accept responsibility for their actions. The weakness of the PA, however, makes it dependent on Israel in order to prevent its collapse.
Second, a territory that Israel completely evacuates without retaining a capacity to operate in it, or at least to implement containment of it, undergoes a change. It is impossible to return it to the previous status quo. Just as Hamas exploited the disengagement in order to strengthen its forces and improve its military capabilities in Gaza, as Hizbullah did in southern Lebanon, there will be a similar result in Judea and Samaria, if they are transferred to the Palestinians, particularly if Israel does not retain control of the Jordan Valley.
Third, unilateral concessions are perceived in the region as signs of weakness, and hence invite additional pressure. Conversely, demonstrating resolve discourages pressure. The unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon encouraged the Palestinians to choose confrontation and launch the Second Intifada. The Disengagement convinced the extremist elements among the Palestinians, along with Hizbullah, to continue the armed struggle, including a focus on kidnappings.
Anybody who thinks it is possible to get Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in a room to negotiate a comprehensive deal is “daydreaming,” Nickolay Mladenov, the UN’s special envoy to the Middle East, said Thursday.UN envoy: Israeli 'settlements' are an impediment to peace
As a result, Mladenov said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, the goal now is much more narrow: to create the conditions that will enable negotiations in the future.
To this end the Middle East Quartet, of which the UN is a member, along with the US, Russia and the EU, is working on an “extensive report on the situation on the ground.”
Mladenov, who carries the title of special coordinator for the Middle East peace process and personal representative of the UN secretary-general to the PLO and the PA, said this document will spell out the impediments to two-state solution and how to move forward.
The goal, he said, is “trying to rebuild some trust between the two sides so that they can inevitably come back to a full process, and also to keep the international community engaged in a constructive way on how we can support such a process when the parties come together.”
The UN envoy for the Middle East peace process on Thursday blasted Israeli “settlements” as being an obstacle to peace.UN Official Says Law Doesn't Apply to Palestinians Building Illegal Homes
The envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, made the comments in an address to the Security Council today in which he urged both Israel and the PA to end the long-standing conflict.
According to a UN statement, Mladenov painted a troubling picture of the situation in the region and said that the conflict has now arrived at “a pivotal point.”
Israelis and Palestinians must now actively shape their future – with the dedicated support of the international community – “before the opponents of peace decide their fate for them,” he said.
Mladenov called on leaders on both sides to “show a political will to their people and stand up to incitement and the radicals among their own constituents.”
“Only genuine progress towards just peace that allows the people of Israel and the people of Palestine to live side by side in safe and secure borders will end the bloodshed and counter the rise of extremism,” he said.
In a press release issued on February 17, 2016, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator for "Occupied Palestinian Territory," Robert Piper, criticized Israel for demolishing Palestinian homes constructed without legal building permits and claimed that Palestinians did not have to follow Israel's housing laws. In the words of the press release:A New Geopolitical Bloc is Born in the Eastern Mediterranean: Israel, Greece and Cyprus
"Most of the demolitions in the West Bank take place on the spurious legal grounds that Palestinians do not possess building permits," said Mr. Piper, "but, in Area C, official Israeli figures indicate only 1.5 per cent of Palestinian permit applications are approved in any case. So what legal options are left for a law-abiding Palestinian?"
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: From an Israeli perspective, the recent strengthening of alliance ties with Greece and Cyprus constitutes a win-win situation. A new geopolitical bloc is emerging that has military and political significance, and stands as a counterweight to Turkish ambitions. Stronger Israeli relations with Greece and Cyprus may also serve to encourage Turkey to show more flexibility in negotiations regarding normalization of ties between Ankara and Jerusalem.Greek defense minister: Turkey won’t be Israel’s friend
The past month has been characterized by an unprecedented and noteworthy flurry of diplomatic activity between Jerusalem, Athens and Nicosia that suggests the emergence of a new geopolitical bloc in the region.
In late January, the Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe (Bogie) Yaalon paid an official visit to Athens, hosted by his Greek counterpart, Panos Kammenos. (This was the second official visit of an Israeli Minister of Defense to Greece. In late 2012, Ehud Barak visited Athens.)
The same week, a government-to-government conference was held in Jerusalem between the cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Greek government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Tsipras arrived with a large delegation of ten ministers. This was the second government-to-government meeting of the two countries (the first was held in October 2013 with conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras), and the second visit of Tsipras to Israel within two months.
The following day, a trilateral summit was held in Nicosia with Netanyahu, Tsipras, and President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades. The summit was followed by a significant joint declaration.
This sharp uptick of diplomatic activity is not taking place in a vacuum. Each participant has his own aims and calculations in mind, and in the background loom their countries' respective relationships with Turkey.
There is little chance that Israel will be able to rehabilitate its ties with Turkey, Greece’s defense minister told Israeli journalists on Thursday.Pope Says Those Who Build Walls 'Aren't Christian,' Lives Behind Massive Wall
“The fact the Turkey trades with Daesh [Islamic State], as Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has described, funds Daesh, and allows its fighters to enter and leave Syria raises questions in both Israel and Greece,” Panos Kammenos told Israel Radio in an interview while on a visit to Israel.
“A state that behaves this way,” he added, “I don’t believe you have much chance to rehabilitate your ties with Turkey. Turkey’s isolation is growing, and its stance toward Israel remains as hostile as in the past.”
Kammenos noted that Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last year said he longed to see the Palestinian flag flying over Jerusalem.
“Turkey’s behavior as an Islamist state that seeks to lead the Muslim world doesn’t fit its alleged desire to restore relations with Israel,” he added.
Pope Francis made an indirect but biting criticism at Donald Trump Thursday, suggesting those who build walls “aren’t Christian.” Ironically, the pope’s home of Vatican City is surrounded by enormous medieval walls.Catholic Church in Israel blames Jewish state for current Palestinian violence
“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis told reporters while flying home from his six-day visit to Mexico, which included mass at the U.S. border.
Those hypothetical non-Christians may include many of Francis’s papal predecessors, though. Vatican City, the microstate where the popes reside, is surrounded by a big medieval wall.
A group of the most senior Catholic clerics in Israel, headed by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Fouad Twal, accused Israel on Thursday of responsibility for the recent wave of Palestinian violence, saying Israeli policy has created despair and frustration among Palestinians, leading them to carry out acts of terrorism.Canadian Government Says Terrorists Can Receive Aid Funds
The Catholic clergy spelled out their position in a statement of the “Commission for Justice and Peace” of the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries, a panel of archbishops and other senior clerics of the various Catholic rites in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Cyprus.
Twal is the president of the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries and is the most senior Catholic cleric in Israel.
Thursday’s statement asserted that the current situation for Palestinians was “inhuman,” and said that settlements, the “siege of Gaza,” the “siege of the rest of Palestine,” military checkpoints, house demolitions “and the arbitrary behavior of Israeli soldiers humiliating the Palestinians” have led to the last five months of Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians and security personnel.
Members of Canada’s government have acknowledged that the country’s humanitarian aid can end up in the hands of terrorists, including the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and Hamas.Justin Trudeau wants to help Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Say NO!
According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), Canada’s International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said the country’s aid goes to “whoever needs help” and could help both sides in a conflict, potentially including terrorists.
Minister Bibeau’s parliamentary secretary, Karina Gould, said that the policy of dispersing aid in a “neutral, impartial fashion” is in line with the Geneva Convention and previous Canadian policy.
IPT reports that on Feb. 16, 2016, the ruling Canadian government was asked about plans to give $15 million in new funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Rona Ambrose, the interim Conservative party leader, asserted that Hamas, designated a terrorist group by Canada, the United States, European Union and Israel, among others, has ties with UNRWA.
Ambrose stated that UNRWA hospitals and schools in the Gaza Strip have been used by Hamas as shields to launch indiscriminate missile attacks at Israelis. Such attacks are war crimes under international law.
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency is a UN body created in 1948 to deal with Palestinian refugees.Brian Lilley calls on Trudeau to "Stop Helping Hamas"
UNRWA may have done good work in the past, but over the past decades they have unfortunately become very close to, and some even say controlled by, the Islamist Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Hamas is the fascist Islamist terrorist organization that rules Gaza. They are the Palestinian version of ISIS.
In 2010, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives stopped funding UNRWA and directed Canada's aid money elsewhere.
The Conservatives didn't stop funding projects in Gaza or the West Bank -- they funded other projects that were not linked to Hamas, projects that actually helped Palestinians.
SodaStream CEO threatens to close plant if Palestinian work permits rescinded
The CEO of SodaStream is threatening to shut down its main plant in Lehavim at the end of the month if the government does not renew entry permits for 74 longtime Jerusalem- area Palestinian employees.Hamas says it found sensors, cameras in Gaza terror tunnels
The 74 employees, ranging from assembly line workers to shift managers, received the permits to make the three-hour daily round trip to the new factory near Beersheba last fall when the company closed its main plant in the West Bank industrial zone of Mishor Adumim near Ma’aleh Adumim. Another 500 Palestinian employees of SodaStream lost their jobs due to the plant’s closing. The work permits were restricted to those Palestinian employees who are married with children. The current permits expire at the end of the month.
“Most of these employees have been with us for six years, and I’ve been begging the government to let me keep them,” said SodaStream’s CEO Daniel Birnbaum on Wednesday inside one of the company’s four factories on its expansive campus at the Idan Hanegev industrial area, a joint work zone for the Beduin town of Rahat, the Jewish community of Lehavim and the Bnei Shimon region. “These are ambassadors of peace, whom we bus in every day, and it’s been a long, terrible fight with the government to get them to keep their work permits, even though there are more than 100,000 Palestinians working inside Israel every day. But they won’t let my 74 continue to work. It’s just unbelievable.”
A top Hamas official said on Friday that the Islamist movement’s military wing discovered sensors, cameras, and other surveillance equipment in one of its tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip.PreOccupiedTerritory: Hamas Stockpiling Syria Atrocities To Label ‘Gaza’ In Next War (satire)
Ismail Haniyeh, the former head of the Hamas-run government in Gaza and the current deputy political bureau chief, said that the gadgets found by the Izzadin al-Kassam brigades were planted there in an effort to discover more tunnels.
Earlier this month, a Hamas operative was killed in a tunnel collapse in southern Gaza's Khan Younis region, according to Palestinian sources.
A Gaza health ministry spokesman confirmed the reports, saying Marwan Marouf, 27, a fighter in Hamas' Izzadin al-Kassam Brigades, was killed in the tunnel collapse.
There were no immediate reports of additional casualties in the collapse.
While the militant Islamist organization that runs this coastal territory has not engaged in large-scale hostilities with Israel since the summer of 2014, it remains busy repairing its tunnels, replenishing its arsenal of rockets, and building up its inventory of images of the carnage in Syria to be relabeled as Gaza in case open conflict erupts again.Egypt Sentences 3 Year Old To Life In Prison For Rampage When He Was 1
Hamas’s cyber division has recruited or drafted hundreds of people to sift through video clips, photographs, and other files coming from the five-year-old Syrian Civil War and other hotbeds of unrest around the world to find especially heartbreaking or brutal specimens. That bank of images and clips will then undergo individual recaptioning to remove each one’s Syrian, Libyan, Iraqi, Yemeni, or other pedigree to be reattributed to Israeli strikes on Gaza over the course of the next war.
Such repurposing of images has occurred in previous rounds of Hamas-Israel warfare, whether in 2014 or the two previous iterations in 2012 and 2009. It augments the efforts of Hamas and its allies elsewhere to doctor images for the same purpose. Experts note that the conduct of the image-gathering in an organized, prepared fashion represents a significant enhancement in the organization’s combat readiness.
“Hezbollah and Hamas have long relied on doctoring or staging poignant images, or ones that showcase the enemy’s brutality against the backdrop of its own population’s childhood innocence,” explained analyst Foat O’Shop. “And of course as the conflict rages, partisans of those groups look for whatever images they can to slander Israel, regardless of the actual image source. We saw that again and again, with the ruins of a mosque in West Africa labeled as the aftermath of an Israeli strike. What makes the new development different is the level of preparation that goes into that effort. The next Hamas salvo in the arena of public opinion is going to be much more than some ad hoc effort.”
A 3-year-old Egyptian boy was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, for a number of crimes he committed when he was just a year old, including four murders.Saudi halts $3b aid to Lebanon, blames Hezbollah
Ahmed Mansour Karni has been listed as “wanted” by Egyptian authorities for a number of crimes that took place during riots and demonstrations Jan. 3 2014. The court in western Cairo found Karni guilty of four murders, eight attempted murders, vandalization of property and threatening soldiers and police officers. The court claims that Karni managed to do all this, and get away, when he was just one year old.
Karni was part of a group of 115 defendants that were handed life sentences Tuesday. One attorney said Karni ended up on the list by mistake, and that the court refused to look at his birth certificate. The birth certificate showed that Karni was born in September 2012.
Saudi Arabia’s state-run news agency said Friday that the kingdom is halting $3 billion arms deal with Lebanon over the Mediterranean country’s recent diplomatic positions.Did someone cross Israel's red line?
Saudi Arabia said the decision was in protest over Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group allied to Iran that is fighting in support of the Syrian regime.
In light of positions taken by Hezbollah, the kingdom had conducted “a total evaluation of its relations with the Lebanese republic,” an unnamed official told the Saudi Press Agency.
The $3 billion program financed military equipment provided by France.
It added that the remainder of a $1 billion financing package for Lebanese security forces had been suspended, in a separate decision.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reported Wednesday night on an alleged Israeli strike south of Damascus, is usually a reliable source of information on the subject of Syria. Although the organization is based in London, it has people on the ground all over Syria who are skilled at collecting information, and have been reporting on military and humanitarian activities throughout the five years of the civil war. Therefore, there has been a rush in the international media to highlight the attack which the organization attributes to Israel.13-year old Mohammed from Gaza gets a new lease on life
It is well known that Israel has a set policy regarding the northern front, and with it, three red lines.
- Israel will not allow an attack on or within its sovereign territory.
- Israel will not allow the transfer of weapons which will give Hezbollah and Syria a strategic advantage over the IDF.
- Israel will not allow the transfer of chemical weapons to Hezbollah.
Since there was no attack on or within the sovereign territory of Israel, and since Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles have mostly been destroyed, it is safe to assume that if Israel indeed carried out the strike, it was done in order to stop the transfer of advanced strategic weapons systems from Syria to Hezbollah, or from Iran, through Syria, to Hezbollah.
Thanks to voluntary work of Israeli-based organization Save a Child's Heart, doctors at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon implant pulmonary valve that would improve Mohammed Abu Jazer's quality of life and help him avoid open-heart surgeries.
Thirteen-years-old Mohammed Abu Jazer from Gaza got a new lease on life last month thanks the voluntary work of Israeli-based humanitarian organization Save a Child's Heart.
Mohammed, one of seven siblings, goes to the 7th grade, but finds it hard to keep pace with his peers due to his health condition. He is a fan of Real Madrid and would have loved to play soccer himself, but he ties easily. Meanwhile he plays computer games and dreams of going to university like his older siblings.
Last month he took a major step on the way to fulfil his dreams when he underwent a successful pulmonary valve transcatheter implantation at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. The procedure is expected to improve the functioning of his heart and allow him to turn a new leaf in his life.
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