Friday, July 01, 2016
Yeshiva head killed, 3 family members injured in drive-by shooting near Hebron
A rabbi who heads a West Bank yeshiva was killed Friday afternoon and his wife and children were injured when their family car came under gunfire from a passing vehicle and overturned, south of the West Bank city of Hebron.
The victim of the terror attack was named as 48-year-old Miki Mark, director of the yeshiva in nearby Otniel. Mark, a father of nine and the cousin of Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, had lived in the settlement with his family for years.
Mark’s wife was seriously injured in the attack near Beit Hagai on Route 60. Their 14-year-old daughter was in moderate-to-serious condition and their 15-year-old son was lightly injured. Earlier reports of an infant in the vehicle were apparently mistaken.
An initial investigation indicated the terrorists passed the family’s car with their vehicle, then opened fire at them. Officials said over 20 bullet holes were found in the victims’ car.
The victims were taken Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem for treatment. The wounded woman sustained serious head injuries from the gunfire. She was unconscious and respirated as she was hospitalized, Magen David Adom said.
It was not immediately clear how many were injured from the initial gunfire and how many were hurt in the ensuing accident.
Hamas praised the attack, with an announcer on its TV channel saying it was a response to “crimes against the Palestinian people,” according to Army Radio. The group did not claim responsibility for the shooting.
Netanyahu: ‘You don’t murder a sleeping child for peace’
Full text of a video message by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the killing of Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, by a Palestinian terrorist on June 30, 2016:
“This morning a terrorist sneaked into the bedroom of a 13-year-old girl, Hallel-Yaffa Ariel. He murdered young Hallel in cold blood. A picture of her blood stained room is almost too hard to see. There’s a teddy bear still on her bed, a red beanbag chair, some pictures on the wall, shoes tightly packed in a bin next to her bunk bed.
“Why would any person do this?
“You don’t murder a sleeping child for peace. You don’t slit a little girl’s throat to protest a policy you don’t like.
“You do this because you’ve been brainwashed. You’ve been brainwashed by a warped ideology that teaches you that this child isn’t human.
“We will not let barbarism defeat humanity.
“There’s no middle ground between beautiful Hallel and her unspeakably evil murderer.
PMW: Terrorist who butchered female hikers is PA TV’s “heroic prisoner”
Last week, official Palestinian Authority TV decided to honor Palestinian terrorist murderer Kifah Ghneimat. On Dec. 18, 2010, Ghneimat and his accomplice Iyad Fataftah attacked and stabbed two women, Kristine Luken - an American citizen and member of the Church's Ministry among Jewish People (CMJ), and British Israeli Kay Wilson, as they were hiking in a forest near Beit Shemesh. Luken was brutally stabbed to death and Wilson was critically injured and left for dead. After the terrorists fled the scene, Wilson forced herself to get up and walk for help. Wilson has described the attack, the cruelty of the terrorists and her will to survive:
“He stabs me in the back so hard that I fall to the ground...
and he is repeatedly plunging his machete into me.
He's doing it with such force that I can hear my bones crunch
and as he tugs out that serrated blade I hear my flesh rip”
‘How can you say farewell to a child of 13?’ cries mother at funeral of terror victim Hallel Ariel
Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral on Thursday afternoon of 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel, hours after she was stabbed to death in her bed in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba by a teenage Palestinian terrorist.Netanyahu visits family of slain teen terror victim: 'It's shocking to see her bloodstains'
Her mother, Rina, eulogized her as “a flower” and a “pure soul,” and asked how it could be that a child of her age had been taken from them. “How can you say farewell to a child of thirteen-and-a-half?… What words can one use to eulogize a flower, a pure soul?” she asked plaintively.
As the tearful ceremonies got under way, her father, Amichai, recited the Kaddish (Jewish mourners’ prayer) in the family’s front yard, while her mother cried over her body. After the prayers, the initial group of several dozen mourners walked to a local school for a funeral ceremony, before the burial at the Old Hebron Cemetery.
The procession stopped at the courtyard of the school, where family and members of the community spoke. Hundreds of mourners were present, among them Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel and Education Minister Naftali Bennett.
The premier was also accompanied by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Agricultural Minister Uri Ariel.Relative of Kiryat Arba killer tries to stab cop in Hebron, is shot dead
During the meeting, Netanyahu commended the family's strength during such a difficult time, and promised to discuss with Liberman ways to help prevent similar attacks in the future.
"We will stregthen together here," Netanyahu told the family. "I will sit with the defense minister and we will decide how to strengthen this community," he added.
On his departure, Netanyahu said that "to see Hallel's room, to see the bloodstains there at the side her bed and on books and clothes of this little girl, it's shocking."
"And it reminds us once again who we are and what we are facing," Netanyahu continued. "They want to uproot us, but will deepen our roots. They will not force us out of here."
Netanyahu concluded by stating that acts of terror will not succeed in breaking the soul of the Jewish people and will not force Jews to abandon their homes.
"I was very impressed with this wonderful family, they will not break their spirits and they will not succeed in breaking our spirit."
Security forces on Friday morning thwarted an attempted attack next to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron. According to Palestinian sources, the attack was carried out by a relative of the teenage terrorist who on Thursday murdered 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel as she slept in her own bed.Watch: Civilians tackle Netanya knife terrorist
Palestinian sources named Friday’s assailant as Saara Hagog, 27, a member of the Tarayrah family from the village of Bani Naim, adjacent to Kiryat Arba. Ariel was killed by 17-year-old Muhammad Nasser Tarayrah, also from Bani Naim.
Police said that the woman approached Border Police officers at the entrance to the Tomb armed with a knife, and tried to stab one of them. No Israelis were hurt in the incident.
The officers shot the woman, police said. She was treated for her wounds by the security forces, but was later pronounced dead.
“A female terrorist armed with a knife approached a Border Police post at one of the entrances to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and suddenly drew a knife and tried to stab one of the policemen,” a police statement said.
“He responded and shot the terrorist.”
A CCTV camera captured the chaotic moments an Arab terrorist went on a stabbing spree at Netanya market.
The footage shows pedestrians going about their daily business before suddenly, just off-camera, the terrorist strikes.
After initially fleeing to safety, dozens of passersby then turn to face the terrorist, chasing him until he was finally shot dead by security forces.
A 30-year-old woman was seriously wounded in the attack, and a man in his 40s was left moderately injured.
BBC reports on Kiryat Arba attack without using the word terror
Not for the first time, the BBC News website’s reporting on the June 30th terror attack in Kiryat Arba in which thirteen year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel was murdered as she was sleeping made sure that audiences were aware of the BBC’s preferred political designation of the location of the incident.A Soldier’s Mother: The ‘Times of Israel’
“A teenage Israeli girl has been stabbed to death in an attack at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.”
As ever, the BBC itself did not employ the word terror anywhere in this report with the incident described as “an attack” and the perpetrator as “the attacker” or “the assailant”. The only mention of that word came in a quote from the Israeli prime minister inserted into the fourth version of the article some three hours after its initial appearance.
In contrast, earlier this week when the BBC covered commemoration of the terror attack in Tunisia a year ago, audiences were given a clear and accurate description of that incident.
After the meeting, I drove to do a quick shopping and there my friend told me about the obscene headlines in the Times of Israel. Why was I surprised by their f*****g apathy to a young Jewish child who was murdered in cold blood in her bedroom?Analysis: JTA Officially Joins Palestinian Propaganda Machine, Naming Cave of the Patriarch ‘Ibrahimi Mosque’
Ah, her bedroom. You see, according to the Times of Israel, it’s really important to tell you where that bedroom is because, naturally, you can calm down. It only happened in a West Bank bedroom.
And she died. Did you know that? Apparently writing that she was murdered took up too much space. Or worse, it might get you to feel the tragedy more. She died. And anyway, she was in a West Bank bedroom, so really, she probably deserved it, right David Horovitz? Right, Sarah Tuttle-Singer? Right, Miriam Hershlag?
In one stinking article, to make sure you really understand where this terror attack took place…no, I’m sorry, it wasn’t a terror attack, it was a “stabbing attack”. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
In a story headlined “Palestinian woman shot after reportedly trying to stab officer in Hebron,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (because the telegraph means progress) picked up the Palestinian Ma’an news agency practically verbatim, including the astonishing reference to an ancient building dating back to early Biblical times. So, brace yourselves, here goes:Stop Subsidizing Terror Murder
“The woman, identified on Ynet as Sara Hajaj, 27, on Friday tried to carry out a stabbing attack near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Old City of Hebron, Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said. Border Police shot her after she had tried to stab an officer at a checkpoint with a knife, Israeli police said.”
Never mind all the “reportedly” stuff, which is JTA for the Palestinian Ma’an news agency’s despicable “allegedly,” an absurd term used to downgrade the veracity of the reports on crimes routinely carried out by Arab murderers. Never mind that JTA opted to quote a Ma’an story that quotes a perfectly acceptable Israeli website. The fact that the Jewish telegraph operators over on Seventh Avenue are not aware of the fact that Jews refer to the site in Hebron as Ma’arat Ha’Makhpela, or the cave of the Patriarch, and they use the Arab name for the mosque on the site should put in question this agency’s entire body of report on Israeli topics.
The brutal terror attack in which a teenaged Palestinian murdered a 13-year-old Israeli in her own bed early this morning—an Israeli who was also an American citizen—is a perfect example of why a piece of legislation now moving through Congress is essential. The bill won’t end the Palestinian Authority’s abhorrent practice of paying generous salaries to the perpetrators of such murders. But it will at least stop it from doing so on the U.S. taxpayer’s dime.Caroline Glick: Israel’s diplomatic spring
A brief recap: The PA has for years paid above-market salaries to the perpetrators of anti-Israel terror attacks. The salaries range from 2,400 to 12,000 shekels a month and are paid for the duration of the perpetrator’s jail sentence in Israel (people killed while committing attacks get other benefits). The lower figure is roughly equivalent to the average–not minimum–wage for people who actually hold jobs in the West Bank, and about 40 percent higher than the average wage in Gaza; figures at the higher end of the range are the kind of salaries most Palestinians can’t even dream of. In short, the PA has made terror far more lucrative than productive work.
No less repulsive is the fact that the size of the monthly salary is tied to the length of the jail sentence. The highest payments go to those serving life sentences, meaning those who managed to murder at least one Israeli, while the lowest go to those serving the shortest sentences–i.e. failed terrorists who didn’t manage to kill or wound anyone. Thus, not only does the PA incentivize committing terror over getting a job, but it also incentivizes mass murder over minor offenses.
After discovering this in 2011, the organization Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) began hounding the PA’s Western donors over whether they really wanted to be spending taxpayers’ money to pay salaries to suicide bombers. The answer, it turned out, was yes: Virtually without exception, Western governments refused to cut donations to the PA over this issue. But under pressure from a few lawmakers and journalists who found this reprehensible, they eventually decided they needed a face-saving way to pretend their aid wasn’t being used to pay killers. So the PA obligingly provided one. In 2014, it announced that it would no longer pay these salaries; instead, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) would do it. And since Western donors give money to the PA, not the PLO, they would no longer be involved.Earlier this week, the Senate Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs approved a change in next year’s State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. The change requires aid to the PA to be cut “by an amount the secretary [of state] determines is equivalent to the amount expended by the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization and any successor or affiliated organizations, as payments for acts of terrorism by individuals who are imprisoned after being fairly tried and convicted for acts of terrorism, and by individuals who died committing acts of terrorism during the previous calendar year.”
We are living at a time when preconceived notions are crashing down one on top of the other.'Quartet' draft report: Israeli settlements eroding viability of 2 state solution
We thought that nothing would ever change in the Arab world. But the Arab world hasn’t merely changed, large portions of it have collapsed. And regimes that have so far survived are beating a path to Israel’s door.
We thought that American dominance in the Middle East would last forever. And today the US is withdrawing. Its withdrawal may be short-lived, or it may stay out for the foreseeable future. Whatever the case, Russia is already picking up the pieces.
That would be shocking enough. But even worse, as it has withdrawn, the US has turned a cold shoulder to Israel and its Sunni allies in a bid to build an alliance with Iran.
We thought that the European Union was the rising world power. We thought the euro was the currency of tomorrow.
Instead, Britain decided to bolt the EU and the euro zone is a disaster zone. European economic growth is sclerotic. European societies are coming apart at the seams under the crushing weight of failed monetary policies, over-regulation and mass emigration from the ruins of the Arab world.
Now we are witnessing the collapse of yet another preconceived notion.
For more than 20 years – indeed, since the initiation of the phony peace process with the PLO in 1993 – the who’s who of Israel’s chattering classes have told us that our growing diplomatic isolation is the result of our failure to make peace with the PLO. Everything will change for the better, immediately, they tell us, the minute we give up Jerusalem, expel hundreds of thousands of Israelis from their homes in Judea and Samaria, and hand security control of the Jordan Valley over to someone else.
But amazingly, despite the fact that there is no peace process, rather than suffering from diplomatic collapse, it is springtime for Israeli diplomacy as governments around the world seek out closer ties with the Jewish state.
Israel should stop building settlements, denying Palestinian development and designating land for exclusive Israeli use that Palestinians seek for a future state, the Middle East peace "Quartet" recommended in a draft of an eagerly awaited report seen by Reuters.Official: Water Crisis in Samaria Caused by Arabs Stealing 400 Billion Gallons a Year
The draft report by the Quartet countries sponsoring the stalled Middle East peace process - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - said the Israeli policy "is steadily eroding the viability of the two state solution."
"This raises legitimate questions about Israel's long term intentions which are compounded by the statements of some Israeli ministers that there should never be a Palestinian state," according to the draft report.
The day before Israeli elections in March 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there would never be a Palestinian state on his watch, only to reverse himself days later and recommit to the objective of a two-state solution.
UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov briefed the UN Security Council on Thursday on the Quartet report, which he told reporters had been submitted to the Quartet members for final approval and was likely to be released on Friday.
On Thursday, during an emergency meeting on water shortages in Samaria in the office of Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan (Habayit Hayehudi), it was revealed that systematic water theft by Arabs, as well as dereliction of duty on the part of the Israeli water authorities, are to blame for the current crisis.Iran is as belligerent as ever
Over the past two weeks or so, the Jewish communities of eastern Samaria—Karney Shomron, Ariel, Kdumim—have been under emergency water procedure. These communities, with roughly 60,000 residents, experience interruption of their water service every few days, and it has been presumed that the shortages are due to the failure of the water authority to expand its infrastructure to match the Jewish and Arab population growth in Samaria.
On Monday, MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi) ordered Knesset Finance Committee management to freeze debates over budgets intended for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), including freezing its budget of about $20 million until the water crisis in Samaria is resolved.
Also on Monday, Yesha Council heads met with Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) and presented alarming data on the absence of long-term infrastructure planning by the various government ministries throughout Judea and Samaria. Steinitz promised to take over the coordination of the different entities, including the Water Authority and the national water utility Mekorot.
Rouhani himself is a walking contradiction. Last year, he spoke hopefully of ongoing talks between Iran and U.S. diplomats while marching in Quds Day demonstrations alongside signs declaring "Death to Zionism" and "Death to America." Days later, Iran finalized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with the "Great Satan," America.Former IAEA Official: Iran Must Fully Account For Past Nuclear Activity
Fortunately, nearly one year after the nuclear agreement was signed, there remains considerable wariness and aversion from countries, businesses and financial institutions to broker deals with Tehran. Why? Because, they are not blind to the authoritarian and extremist essence of the ayatollah and his regime. They cannot ignore his bellicose statements, and his regime's vociferous support for such appalling activities as the Holocaust cartoon contest, which his office deemed "excellent" and "appreciated" just weeks ago. And they should not conclude that there is no more risk to doing business in Iran.
Younger Iranians may dream of reform, but the power remains in the hands of an extremist clerical establishment with hegemonic ambitions in the Middle East. Consider that in 2009 the new chairman of Iran's Assembly of Experts, the body tasked with selecting the next supreme leader, called for the assassination of then-Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni.
Quds Day began in 1979. It is clear 37 years later that Iran has not changed. The global community would be wise to keep its distance from this radical government until such time that it does truly change.
Iran must declare all of its past and current nuclear activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order for the agency to credibly conclude that the country’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, former IAEA deputy director-general Olli Heinonen wrote in a research paper for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Monday.The New York Times Still Falls for Ben Rhodes' Iran Lies
The IAEA’s knowledge of the full scope of Iran’s nuclear program contains many significant gaps, Heinonen warned. Iran has only sporadically cooperated in helping the agency outline the history of the nuclear program. Iran provisionally adopted the IAEA’s Additional Protocol in 2003, allowing the agency to map the history of Iran’s production of nuclear materials. But the country stopped abiding by the protocol two years later, Heinonen wrote, meaning that the IAEA could not effectively monitor Iran’s history of uranium mining, centrifuge research and development, or manufacturing.
This means that the IAEA is unable to uncover the full scope of the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear research. In its final report on the topic last December, the IAEA acknowledged that it did not have a full understanding of Iran’s nuclear program, but closed the country’s file anyway.
In order to work around that lack of knowledge, Heinonen wrote, Iran must give the IAEA “direct access to all weaponization-relevant people and sites – including military sites – in order to verify the correctness and completeness of Iran’s declarations.” This includes access to the Parchin military base, where the IAEA found two uranium molecules of unknown origin that could point to past weaponization work. (Earlier this month, White House officials acknowledged that the uranium was likely part of a weaponization program.)
"I want to believe," the slogan from The X-Files, seems to also be the operating principle for the New York Times regarding its coverage of Iran. The Times continues to report on events in Iran as a series of meaningful confrontations between "moderates" and "hard-liners" that will shape Iran's behavior toward the U.S. -- even after the Times was directly told that the White House had lied about it.Rouhani: Israel behind Mideast’s woes, to distract from occupation
Central to the Obama administration's case for the Iran nuclear deal was the narrative that the election of Hassan Rouhani and other Iranian "moderates" made the deal possible. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes admitted, in a New York Times article no less, that such a story was "the center of the arc" of a narrative that was "largely manufactured" for the purpose of selling the deal.
On some level, the narrative worked: it fooled much of the public, the press, and well over 100 members of Congress. The New York Times certainly swallowed this narrative, hook, line, and sinker, and the Times hardly stands alone -- but the paper has indeed been the most prominent, slavishly devoted dupe.
The notion of an Iranian "moderate" controlling the regime was always spurious on its face. Elections don't significantly affect major policy decisions in Iran. People who stand for "election" for president and Parliament must first be approved by an unelected body beholden to the Supreme Leader. Iran is functionally a theocratic dictatorship.
And Rouhani is simply not a moderate, as Rhodes essentially admitted. Instead, he is a master deceiver.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blamed Israel on Wednesday for conflicts between Muslim nations and groups throughout the Middle East, saying these were orchestrated by “Zionists” to distract from their crimes against Palestinians.Liberation of Palestine is ‘far away,’ laments Rouhani at al-Quds day rally
Speaking to his cabinet ahead of Al-Quds Day, the Iranian-led day of solidarity against Israel, Rouhani said “Zionists are trying to make others forget their crimes and make the Muslims, the regional people and the world forget the oppressed Palestine and the savagery of the Zionists,” according to Iran’s Fars news agency.
They were doing this, he said, through “behind-the-scenes attempts, terror, and creating conflicts among the regional and Muslim world countries and Muslim against Muslim and Muslim against Christian wars in recent years.”
Iranians staged anti-Israel rallies across the country for annual al-Quds Day events on the last Friday of Ramadan established by the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.Douglas Murray: The Political Blame Game: Pulling Tricks to Deny the Obvious
Tens of thousands joined the annual pro-Palestinian rally in Tehran, where the usual threats against Israel combined with newer concerns about a region mired in bitter disputes and war.
Israel and its perceived supporters in the United States and Britain were still the main bogeymen of the Quds (Jerusalem) Day protests, which saw huge crowds rally across Iranian towns and in allied countries.
Some protesters trampled the Israeli flag, and also chanted “down with the USA.”
President Hassan Rouhani, attending the rally, said regional conflicts were making it increasingly difficult to address the Palestinian issue.
Immediately after the massacre in Orlando, the gay press was full of articles that adamantly refused to admit the reality of Islamic homophobia.Stonewalling Muslim Homophobia
The same organisations that obsess over which bakeries in the U.S. and Europe will or will not bake wedding cakes for gay couples, and rightly have no trouble berating homophobic Christian pastors, seemed wholly uninterested in the motivations of the Pulse nightclub killer. Instead, these papers and websites were filled with articles, petitions and joint letters, enjoining people not to notice the Islamic element.
These gay activists have a vision of the world where only "patriarchal" white males of Jewish or Christian heritage can cause the world's problems.
A small minority of very vocal "far-left" activists are now using their LGBT status as a smokescreen not to advance gay rights but to advance "far-left" politics.
Omar Mateen’s mother-in-law was quite fond of Hamas, an Islamic group whose co-founder has said, “You in the West do not live like human beings. You do not even live like animals. You accept homosexuality”. Currently, the penalty runs to about ten years. Did this have anything to do with the reluctance of Omar’s wife to turn in her husband before he murdered 49 people at Pulse?Wikipedia Removes Orlando Shooting From ‘Islamist Terror Attack’ List
Of course this is a conversation that we can’t and won’t have.
The media tells us incessantly that Omar Mateen’s massacre had nothing to do with Islam even though he announced that he was an “Islamic Soldier” and declared, “In the name of Allah, the merciful, praise be to Allah, and prayers as well as peace upon the prophet of Allah. I let you know, I'm in Orlando and I did the shootings.”
The various news organizations have circulated more conspiracy theories about Omar’s killing spree than they have about the JFK assassination. But the inconvenient truth is that Omar was an Islamic terrorist. He had as much to do with Republicans as the marchers at the LGBT Pride parade.
But this inconvenient truth is too inconvenient for an activist culture that is far more invested in leveraging the Pulse terrorist attack for political gain than preventing it from happening again.
In activist culture, Muslims are political allies and Republicans are political enemies. Even though Trump’s proposal for a Muslim travel ban would actually prevent future Islamic terror attacks on gay nightspots while their Muslim political allies would wind up seeing to it that more attacks take place.
It’s easier to stonewall any conversation about Islamic violence toward gays than to deal with the new changed threat environment after the Pulse attack. But that just makes another attack inevitable.
Wikipedia editors seem unable to agree upon whether or not the Orlando Pulse Nightclub Shooting was in fact an Islamist terrorist attack.Trump to anti-Israel man: We support Israel '100 percent'
The discussion began following the removal of the Orlando shooting from the terrorist attack list by the Wikipedia editor known as MrX.
In explanation for this sudden removal MrX had this to say: “I have removed the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting from this list. It does not meet the stated inclusion criteria for the list. The fact that ISIL has, via their media agency, made such a claim does not make it true.”
One editor in particular, Jujutsuan, took issue with the removal of the attack, providing a comprehensive list of the criteria which the attack met which grants it a place on the terrorist attack list, the list is below
Other editors chimed in, claiming there is a “lack of reliable sources” proving that the Orlando shooting was carried out by an Islamic extremist. CBS reported that Mateen had posted “You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state vengeance” on Facebook, while CNN reported that the shooter had “pledged allegiance to ISIS.” Yet according to some editors, these do not constitute “reliable sources” on Wikipedia.
- Terror attacks… check.
- by Islamist extremists… check.
- to further a perceived Islamic religious or political cause… check.
- have occurred globally… Orlando is on earth: check.
- The attackers have used such tactics as arson, vehicle rampage attacks, bomb threats, suicide attacks, bombings, spree shooting, stabbings, hijackings, kidnappings and beheadings… check.
- The following is a list of Islamist terrorist attacks that have received significant press coverage since 1980… check.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his support for Israel and said that, as President, he would “protect Israel 100 percent”.
Trump's comments, quoted by The Washington Free Beacon, came in response to a question by an anti-Israel man who attended his New Hampshire rally.
The man took the microphone during the question-and-answer section of the event and told Trump he had two points to make.
“Number one, I’m opposed to the murder of unborn babies being legal,” he said. “Number two, I’m opposed to our wasting our military in the Middle East on behalf of Zionist Israel. Thank you.”
In response, Trump said, “Well, let me just tell you Israel is a very, very important ally of the United States, and we are going to protect them 100 percent. 100 percent.”
Israel, added Trump, has “been our most reliable—it’s our true friend over there, and we’re going to protect Israel 100 percent. As to number one, we’re with you.”
Stephen Pollard: After comparing Israel to Isil, we've got to stop pretending that Jeremy Corbyn is an amiable buffoon
Think about what happened for a moment. At an event to launch a report into Labour’s attitude to anti-Semitism, the leader of the Labour Party – in a prepared script – thought the most appropriate thing he could say was: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu Government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations."Jeremy Corbyn reported to his own party over his 'conduct' at anti-Semitism report launch
One might say that the irony that he was launching a report condemning inappropriate comparisons with Israel was lost on him. But, as I will explain, it wasn’t lost at all; it was deliberate. Some have tried to argue that his words do not compare Israel with Isil. You have to wonder if they can read. His point is that both Israel and Isil are extremists, terrorists, call them what you will. And while Muslims are decent because they do not support Isil’s actions, so too Jews are decent when they do not support Israel. And, of course, only when they do not support Israel.
You could describe this as cloth-eared, or even stupid – and since he became Labour leader, the narrative has usually been that Mr Corbyn isn’t up to the job, doesn’t get it, isn’t really to be taken seriously. But that is to give him credit he does not deserve.
The truth is far more unsavoury. It’s clear from his speech that for Jeremy Corbyn, anti-Semitism is something to be weaponised. This was not some off-the-cuff remark, some slip. These were his – or probably Seumas Milne’s – considered words. At a meeting on anti-Semitism, he thought the most appropriate thing that he could say was to compare Israel with Isil. This is hard-Left dog whistle politics. With "anti-Zionism" a defining feature of the hard-Left, this is using anti-Semitism as a tool.
If you doubt me, consider what else happened this morning. A Labour MP, who has spent her entire political career fighting racism, who worked at Hope Not Hate and has fought Islamaphobia and, as Mr Corbyn would put it, “all forms of racism”, was singled out for attack by a Momentum activist. Singled out and abused directly in front of Corbyn.
It came as it emerged that Jeremy Corbyn has been reported to his own party over his "conduct" at the launch of the report yesterday.Antisemitism Watchdog: Labour Inquiry ‘Vague, Meaningless Whitewash’ of Party’s Racism
The party leader, who was also pictured laughing with the man who accused Labour MP Ruth Smeeth of colluding with the media, is facing criticism for appearing to compare Israel to Islamic State terror groups.
Jewish Human Rights Watch have sent a legal letter to the Labour party to trigger a formal complaint. A spokesman for the party said they are preparing a response.
But Lord Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi who now sits as a Crossbencher in The House of Lords, said: "Israel is a democratic state with an independent judiciary, a free press and a diverse population of many cultures, religions and creeds.
"ISIS is a terrorist entity whose barbarities have been condemned by all those who value our common humanity. In the current political climate, when hate crimes are rising and political rhetoric is increasingly divisive, this is all the more shocking".
The letter from Jewish Human Rights Watch states: "Mr Corbyn's remarks in which he compared the only Jewish state in the world to a terrorist organisation is demonising and delegitimising Israel..."
The results of the UK Labour Party’s investigation into allegations of antisemitism is a “vague, meaningless whitewash” of racism, a watchdog said on Thursday.Jeremy Corbyn, Glenn Greenwald and “progressive” antisemitism
Jonathan Sacerdoti, director of communications at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, a UK charity which also seeks to expose antisemitism, said in a statement that the Labour inquiry — the results of which were announced Thursday in a special conference — glossed over cases of antisemitism within Labour and has failed to take the party’s leadership to task.
The Labour inquiry — headed by the controversial Shami Chakrabarti — concluded that while there is an “occasionally toxic atmosphere” within the party, it is “not overrun by antisemitism, Islamophobia, or other forms of racism.” The investigation made 20 recommendations, but did not approve lifetime bans for party members who engage in antisemitic or racist behavior.
According to Sacerdoti, “The Chakrabarti Inquiry presented what it set out to present: a narrow set of recommendations on how the Labour Party should change its rules on racism. It did not examine the disgraceful cases of antisemitism in the party, or their even more disgraceful mishandling by party leadership, including [Labour head] Jeremy Corbyn, who presides over a regime of the lightest slaps on wrists for even the most offensive and deliberate antisemites.”
Instead of recommending suspensions for antisemitic Labour members, “inexcusably, the Inquiry proposes making it harder to suspend antisemites and keeping suspensions secret so as not to affect elections,” Sacerdoti said.
Of course, Greenwald’s political extremism extends far beyond antisemitic canards about the dangers of organized Jewry.Eugene Kontorovich: How One of the BDS Movement’s Alleged ‘Victories’ Became One of Its Worst Defeats
He’s claimed that Hamas and Hezbollah are NOT terrorist organizations. He characterized slain Al Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awaki, who reportedly radicalized Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Hassan, as something akin to a Muslim civil rights activist. And, he was an accomplice in the Snowden affair, a monumental leak of classified documents characterized by one top British security official as “the most catastrophic loss suffered by British intelligence” in history.
Though his hostility to the US and Western democracies, and seeming soft spot for jihadists, is disturbing, and certainly reflective of a radical ideology at odds with mainstream progressive thought, it’s his diatribes about Jewish money, power and loyalty which you’d think would render him toxic to genuine anti-racist progressives.
Indeed, his ‘warnings’ about “large and extremely influential Jewish donor groups agitating for war with Iran” is simply indistinguishable from the rhetoric of the extremist right.
Though writers far more perceptive than I have tried to explain modern left antisemitism, and how a movement born of a passion to fight bigotry in all its forms has developed a dangerous blind spot when it comes to Jews, a memory I have about a peculiar white alibi for racist rhetoric seems instructive in understanding both Greenwald and the antisemitism problem in Corbyn’s Labour Party.
The story of the anti-boycott laws and G4S reveals many interesting lessons. Firstly, G4S–one of the BDS movement‘s greatest alleged “victories“–is not only not “boycotting” Israel, it has committed to keeping an operational presence there for decades to come. In short, one of BDS’s biggest successes is a colossal failure. This also shows something about how the BDS campaign works.Palestinian family sues French company for selling to Israel
It is not about convincing companies to change their views about Israel. Rather, it is about pestering and harassing them. G4S obviously saw great value–and no moral problem–in continuing to operate in Israel. However, even such companies face pressure to appease boycott activists: this shows that boycott activity by companies is typically not political, but simply a response to pressure. That is important to keep in mind when boycott activists attack anti-BDS laws for limiting “corporate speech” about Israel.
This story also shows that state anti-boycott laws with teeth have, in the first months of their operation, proven themselves valuable. The laws also provide for a full and fair and thorough process for companies to present evidence about whether they are boycotting Israel.
This also establishes an important precedent for companies going forward. It is not enough to merely claim that one is not boycotting to avoid the operation of the state law. Actual hard evidence is required. G4S, for example, provided the Pension Board with “written submissions, business documents, and live testimony from G4S management.”
Indeed, the G4S CEO and General Counsel submitted an affidavit, certifying under penalty of perjury, that they have neither boycotted Israel, nor have they “succumbed to pressure from others to boycott Israel.” Such a statement signed by top executives is no small thing.
A Palestinian family is suing the French company Exxelia Technologies for selling weapons parts to Israel.Decades of design, and founder’s Nazi past, on display at Ikea museum
Ynet reports that the Shuheibar family from Gaza City filed the suit through the Ancile-avocats law firm and with help from the Christian organization ACAT. The lawyers claim that Exxelia is complicit in war crimes and manslaughter.
According to the suit, an Israeli missile hit the family home during 2014's Operation Protective Edge. Five children were on the roof at the time; three were killed and two others wounded. The family insists that there was no military target present and therefore striking the house constituted a violation of international law.
ACAT and Palestinian authorities investigated the incident and say that they found a component made by Exxelia, at the time called Eurofarad, in the debris.
Ingrid Metton, an attorney with Ancile-avocats, said: "The French arms industry can no longer escape its morale and legal responsibility. Selling materials that are used for war crimes must be severely punished."
Swedish furniture giant Ikea on Thursday opened a museum showcasing its history, including the founder’s Nazi-tainted past, attracting enthusiastic visitors but also critics saying it’s just another marketing tool.India successfully tests missile defense system developed with Israel
Before the doors were thrown open, a marching band paraded through Almhult, the small town in south Sweden where the flatpack juggernaut opened the first Ikea store in 1958.
“We have a lot of stories to share,” museum manager Carina Kloek-Malmsten told AFP.
The company wanted the inauguration to be held in “a simple, Ikea way… no fireworks or glitter,” she added.
Around 1,500 people, many of them elderly, gathered outside the museum, where traditional Ikea snacks such as hotdogs and Swedish cinnamon rolls were on sale.
Per Hugner, a marketing manager at a Swedish company, said he had come to learn more about Ikea’s beginnings.
The Indian military on Thursday successfully test fired the Barak 8, a surface-to-air missile defense system it developed jointly with Israel, reports in Indian media said.10 Things You Probably Never Knew About Israel’s Rescue at Entebbe
The system, made up of a radar array and missile launcher, successfully detected and downed an unmanned aerial vehicle, an official from India’s Defense Research and Development Organization said.
“The test launch was a grand success and it met all the targets,” he told the local NDTV News.
Developed jointly by the DRDL and Israel Aerospace Industries, the Barak 8 system can identify and destroy airborne threats like UAVs, jets, missiles and rockets, including projectiles launched simultaneously.
Unlike other defense systems, Barak 8 can be installed on naval ships as well as on the ground, giving it a mobility advantage.
Israel in November also carried out its first successful launch of the new maritime missile defense system, and has already been installed on one of its Sa’ar 5-class warships.
July 4th marks the 40th anniversary of the famed rescue at Entebbe, in which Israeli commandos flew 2,000 miles into the heart of Africa to bring home over 100 Jewish hostages whose Air France flight had been hijacked to Uganda by Palestinian and German terrorists, abetted by Ugandan strongman Idi Amin.
The rescue operation—subsequently renamed Operation Yonatan for its commander Yonatan Netanyahu who was killed during the rescue—captured the imagination of military theorists, filmmakers, and ordinary people, and continues to spark spates of retelling and analysis at every significant anniversary. Just last year, a new exhibit of previously unseen relics of the raid opened at the Rabin Center in Israel. But despite all the movies, books, and exhibits, there are many lesser-known details and subplots of the rescue that still retain the capacity to surprise. Here are some:
What tipped the balance in favor of the military option?
Any way you slice it, committing to such a plan was going to take a leap of faith. Iddo Netanyahu (Entebbe: A Defining Moment in the War on Terrorism, Balfour Books, 2003) describes a decisive moment as the personal assurance given by Yoni to Shimon Peres on Friday of the fateful week: “’My impression was one of exactitude and imagination,’ Peres says, adding that Yoni’s complete self-confidence had a strong influence on him.” Peres’s forty-five minute meeting with Yoni fortified his belief in a military option, which he recommended to the Prime Minister.
Which Entebbe hostage was present at two other moments that made history?
Haaretz records that Akiva Laxer, a 30-year-old lawyer at the time, had previously been at Lod Airport during the terrorist massacre in May of 1972, and then had been present at the Munich Olympics a few months later, when terrorists abducted and murdered Israeli athletes. Before traveling this summer, you may want to check the flight manifest for his name, just to be sure…
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