Monday, December 12, 2016
PMW: Fatah TV broadcasts terror promoting song 72 times
Fatah's official TV station, Awdah, broadcast a terror promoting music video 72 times in the month of November, the same month Fatah held its Seventh Fatah Conference.Fatah TV broadcasts terror-song 72 times in a month: “No force... can remove the weapon”
The theme of the song is:
“My weapon has emerged. There is no force in the world that can remove the weapon from my hand."
[Fatah-run Awdah TV, 72 times in November 2016]
The visuals are from old black-and-white films of Fatah terrorists in training. Former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat is shown handing out rifles and making a declaration supporting armed terror:
“For our movement, ‘armed struggle’ means taking part in an armed revolutionary war of the masses.”
In November, a longer version of the video was broadcast four times that included an additional stanza that celebrated death while fighting Israel:
"He who offers his blood doesn't care
if his blood flows upon the ground.
As the weapon of the revolution is in my hand,
so my presence will be forced [upon Israel].”
This music video was first aired on Fatah-run Awdah TV on Feb. 22, 2015. Since then it has been rebroadcast hundreds of times.
NGO Monitor: [Opinion] Nothing to Celebrate: International Human Rights Day 2016
…Human Rights Day — which marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Conventions on December 10 1948 — highlights the failures of the organizations that ostensibly protect and defend these values. Ignoring the pleas of victims around the world, the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is controlled by some of the worst violators, including and Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela and China. In turning away from the real suffering, officials of the UNHRC routinely exploit the rhetoric of international law to obsessively target Israel.
In addition, hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) claiming to promote human rights, including superpowers such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the French– FIDH (Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’Homme), have become accomplices in promoting this immorality.
In 2016, the NGO network expanded the campaigns that exploit human rights and international law as ideological platforms used to attack Western democracies and open societies. The New York-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) has joined the fray, providing generous financial support to radical groups. These grantees systematically erase terrorism — the primary threat to human rights – and demonize security measures designed to prevent such attacks, in order to promote a consistently anti-western and anti-democratic agenda.
In Europe, human rights organizations and policies are similarly distorted. In a number of cases, taxpayer funds are doled out without due diligence, resulting in millions of euros, pounds, and krona going to groups that mix the language of moral principles with links to terrorist groups.
Even a New York Times Movie Review Is a Slam-Dunk Case of Anti-Israel Bias
How ridiculously biased against Israel is the New York Times?
How about this for an answer: The newspaper manages to sneak some Israel-bashing into even a 250-word review of a movie about a 1977 Israeli basketball team.
The Times faults the movie, “On the Map,” for being too pro-Israel: “This is an almost relentlessly partisan portrait: Not one player or coach from a team that opposed the Maccabi is interviewed.”
If anyone is relentlessly partisan here, it is the New York Times, which can’t even manage to review a movie about an Israeli sports team without complaining that the other side doesn’t get a voice.
The review complains: “The movie makes no attempt to engage any current situation, basking instead in a one-dimensional nostalgia.”
That’s a silly complaint. It’s not a movie about the current situation; it’s a movie about the 1977 basketball team. And again, if anyone is being one-dimensional here, it is the New York Times, which seems to want to view nearly every piece of art that ever comes out of Israel through the New York Times obsession of the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Other publications had a different view of it. The Wall Street Journal published a friendly feature about the film, without attacking it as one-sided and without any complaining that it failed to dwell sufficiently on Palestinian grievances against Israeli settlers. The Hollywood Reporter ran a review that called the movie “inspiring” and “compelling,” as well as “moving and amusing.” The Algemeiner had a friendly interview with the movie’s screenwriter and with an executive producer.
Leftist critic 'disappointed, concerned, but still believes'
In a Channel 2 interview at the Saban Forum, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who is known as a fierce critic of Israel, spoke to journalist Dana Weiss regarding President-elect Donald Trump's presidential victory.Article 80 of the UN Charter
Have you gotten used to the idea of President Donald Trump?
I fully recognize he won, he won fair and square, he won more electoral votes. I have no problem saying "President Donald Trump." I'm hoping for the best. But I'll never forget we did something reckless. It may turn out that this reckless thing, this shake of the dice, will have more good impacts than bad, and it may not. But one thing is indisputable to me, we've done something more reckless than we've ever done as a nation in my lifetime. But there you have it - he's our president, and I'm ready now to be open-minded and give him a chance.
Minister Bennett said Trump's election is an historical change for Israel. Many share his view. Should they open champagne bottles or should they wait?
I had a chance to talk a little with Minister Bennett about it. Israel has never been "more home alone" in my lifetime. In terms of not being abandoned, America's friendship is stronger than ever. But in terms of its freedom of action it can do whatever it wants. Israel is home alone. What it chooses to do or not do, more will be on you than ever before. I hope it chooses wisely....I don't see him [Trump] coming out with a speech and demanding Israel freeze settlements.
The Jewish Agency that was named in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine had a good grasp of the history of that Mandate and its purpose. It wrote it down for the UN Charter drafting Committee and submitted it in April 1945. The UN Charter is dated June 24, 1945. The document it submitted was entitled MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED TO THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION , SAN FRANCISCO , CALIFORNIA , BY THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR PALESTINE APRIL, 1945.John Kerry Searches for a Sign on Palestine at the Saban Forum
It is part of the legislative history for Article 80 of the UN Charter. Chaim Weizmann signed it.
The Agency is named in the Mandate as the official advisor to those administering the Mandate. The Agency describes the intent of this legal instrument as follows:
"The underlying intent and purpose of this international covenant is clear and was authoritatively reaffirmed by the British Royal Commission on Palestine (1937). The declarations, as quoted by the Commission, of leading statesmen responsible for the undertaking leave no doubt that what was intended was to afford the Jewish
people the right and opportunity by immigration and settlement to transform Palestine into a Jewish State. Mr. Lloyd George, Prime Minister at the time of the Declaration, was explicit to this effect and other members of the British Government at that time, including Lord Robert Cecil in 1917, Sir Herbert Samuel in 1919, and Mr. Winston Churchill in 1920, "spoke or wrote in terms that could mean only that they contemplated the eventual establishment of a Jewish State." General Smuts too, who had been a member of the Imperial War Cabinet when the Balfour Declaration was published, speaking in November, 1919 foretold an increasing stream of Jewish immigration into Palestine and "in generations to come a great Jewish State rising there once more."
Watching Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum earlier this month, it occurred to me that he and other administration officials have basically been re-enacting that scene for the past year.PA ministers secretly hope there won’t be Palestinian state, deputy minister claims
The Saban Forum, named for its benefactor, Democratic Party mega-donor Haim Saban, is the annual D.C. confab for Israeli and American politicians and policy wonks to rub elbows and discuss the past, present, and future of the U.S.-Israel relationship. In the past years, it’s also been a key venue for top U.S. administration officials to articulate their intentions and concerns about that relationship.
After sidestepping moderator Jeffrey Goldberg’s opening prompt to comment on the Trump transition, Kerry moved to his main subject, the state of affairs in Israel and Palestine. “Can I begin, though, by saying to you that I do feel really passionate, genuinely passionate, about Israel?” Kerry asked. “The land of milk and honey.”
After several paragraphs describing his and President Barack Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security, including the recently signed $38 billion military-aid package—“more than 50 percent of the total that we give to the entire world has gone to Israel”—Kerry moved to precisely what you’d think such throat-clearing portends: a set of criticisms and questions about Israeli policy in the occupied territories.
Kerry premiered this detailed critique at last year’s Saban Forum, and he and other administration officials have repeated it over the past 12 months. It goes like this: Israeli policies in the occupied territories—among them settlement expansion, denial of permits for Palestinian development, demolitions of Palestinian homes—“raise honest questions” about Israel’s commitment to the two-state solution. Therefore, Israel needs to clarify its intentions. As I wrote in Tablet magazine in January, after U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro issued the same critique and received a sharp Israeli government rebuke, having made these criticisms, what was the administration going to do about it?
Over the past year, we found out: They’re going to keep “raising questions about Israel’s long term objectives.” Over and over and over again—as Kerry did yet again on Sunday. And what has occurred in the intervening year? In the months immediately after Kerry first posed these questions last December, settlement starts shot up by 40 percent. Demolition of Palestinian homes reached a record high in 2016. And last week, the Knesset gave preliminary approval to a law that would retroactively legalize thousands of settler homes, many of them built on private Palestinian land. The Jerusalem Post called it a “revolutionary moment” that “could be the first step toward annexation of Area C of the West Bank, and which would overturn almost 40 years of judicial rulings on private Palestinian property rights.”
If this isn’t a spinning portrait, I don’t know what is.
There are ministers in the Palestinian Authority secretly hoping that a Palestinian state won’t be established, Deputy Minister of Regional Cooperation Ayoub Kara said on Sunday night.The High Price of Palestinian Rejectionism
“I sit with ministers in the Palestinian Authority, and they are pleading that there won’t be a Palestinian state,” Kara, who leads Israel’s diplomatic efforts to strengthen relations with its regional neighbors, claimed. He did not specify which ministers he spoke with.
There are currently no Palestinian Authority ministers on record who oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The deputy minister’s statements came during the annual “Zionist Conference for Human Rights,” organized by the right-wing organization, Im Tirtzu, which battles what it sees as delegitimization of Israel.
True, the Palestinian Authority (PA), created in 1994, is widely regarded—including in Israel—as a stepping stone on the path to negotiated statehood. But successive Israeli prime ministers, among them Ehud Barak of Labor and Ehud Olmert of Likud, have offered serious concessions to the Palestinian leadership—in essence, a state in more than 90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, with land swaps also part of the bargain—only to have these rebuffed for one simple reason: neither the late Yasser Arafat nor his successor Mahmoud Abbas, never mind the Islamists of Hamas, have been willing to make peace, philosophically or politically, with the legitimacy of Israel’s presence in the region as a Jewish and democratic state.Berlin’s New Secretary of State is Pro-Sharia Law Conservative Muslim
In some ways, this persistent pattern suggests that my Israeli interlocutor all those years ago was wrong: even if you don’t have an independent state, you absolutely can get screwed over by your own leaders, when those same leaders decide to blame someone else’s leaders for your ongoing misfortune.
I’m not, of course, overlooking the polling data which shows that large numbers of Palestinians regard Israel’s leaders as their greatest enemies and remain opposed to any compromise with Israel, even tactically. The two-state solution, which has been the foundation of international efforts to bring a solution to this particular corner of the Middle East, has been obstructed by many factors, most of all Palestinian discomfort with the very idea of a Jewish state in what Hamas and others consider the “Dar al Islam”—the domain of Islam. That viewpoint, and not the promise of peace based on economic cooperation as envisaged by politicians as varied as former Israeli President Shimon Peres and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has counted for far more.
But the most tangible result of this rejectionism has been to freeze negotiations on Palestinian independence. The result is that two other solutions, both of them fraught with risk, are now in the mix.
The daughter of Palestinian immigrants is to be the Berlin senate’s secretary of state for coordinating federal and state affairs, but attention has focused on her recent remarks in support of Sharia law.Trump Invites Palestinian President and Israeli PM to Compete on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ (satire)
Berlin state senate member, former deputy speaker for foreign affairs and Muslim rising star of German politics Sawsan Chebli is to get a new cabinet post. The appointment by the Red-Red-Green coalition government has caused concern after a recent interview in which she expressed her view that Sharia law was perfectly compatable with secular German society.
Speaking back in August alongside Berlin Social Democrat party Mayor Michael Muller, she not only defended Sharia law against suspicion by many Germans who she accused of not understanding what it meant, but she also went on the attack too. Criticising members of anti-mass migration party Alternative for German (AfD), she said their views towards foreigners made them fundementally un-German.
Speaking to the Franzfurter Allgeimeine Zeitung, she said: “My father is a pious Muslim, hardly speaks German, can neither read nor write, but he is more integrated than many functionaries of the AfD who question our constitution”.
Germany’s newspaper of record and the nation’s most widely-read broadsheet Welt reported Sunday that while the politician attempted to portray the image of the perfect “successful migrant” who despite being born to illiterate, stateless parents was able to succeed in education and enter politics, there are “cracks” displayed by her support of Sharia.
After revealing that he’ll be staying on as executive producer of his reality TV show, Celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump released a statement this morning disclosing a possible motive for the decision: he plans to use the game show as a political platform.Israeli Druze Diplomat Nizar Amir Rips Syria At UN General Assembly
Trump has invited Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to compete on the show’s upcoming season, with each playing on behalf of his country’s right to exist.
“This is the best way to solve their conflict”, the president-elect explained. “It’s actually tremendously ingenious, and I’ll tell you why. They just compete, and whoever wins the game wins the conflict, too. Simple. And I know simple.”
Mr. Netanyahu agreed to the offer immediately, citing it as an opportunity to improve his favor in the eyes of the American public. Abbas, on the other hand, expressed qualms about the need to only speak in English on the show. He suggested bringing a simultaneous translator on-set, but Trump says he “refuses to have Arabic spoken on national television”. As of press time, Abbas’s participation is still in question.
Nizar Amer, Israel’s Counselor for Economic & Social Affairs, responded to the Syrian representative’s attack on Israel, in which he accused us of violating human rights.
He managed to rip the Syrians a new one – in Arabic!
As an aside, Nizar used to be part of our embassy in Ankara – where he was very popular with the Turks!
Former Italian MP: Incoming Prime Minister Gentiloni Aroused Ire of Current Leader Renzi by Abstaining in Virulently Anti-Israel UNESCO Vote
Italy’s top diplomat, who was just appointed by outgoing Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to replace him as head of the government, is “friendly to Israel like a European; he opposes BDS, for example, but won’t go against the politically correct grain,” a former member of the Italian Parliament told The Algemeiner on Sunday.Despicable: UN Honors Dictator Fidel Castro in Minute of Silence
Italian-Israeli author and journalist Fiamma Nirenstein — former Vice President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies, among other roles, and current fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank — gave two recent international votes as examples of what she described as Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s attempts not to rock any boats — and his boasting of his close relationship with his counterparts, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The first was the UNESCO resolution, adopted in October, rejecting Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem; the second was a series of anti-Israel UN General Assembly resolutions a few weeks later.
Nirenstein, who was the first journalist in Italy to break the front-page story in Il Giornale that Gentiloni had abstained in the UNESCO vote, rather than opposing it, said that it was a great shock to the public, the press and the prime minister himself.
JCPA: Trump’s Big Decision on Iran
The Worse Deal the United States Ever NegotiatedTaking up post, Turkish envoy hails new start with ‘friend Israel’
What will Trump do? Seemingly the best option from his standpoint is to demand a renegotiation of the agreement, which he called – in my opinion, with much justification – “the worst deal ever negotiated” which could lead “to a nuclear holocaust.” Such a choice would probably dovetail with other aspects of his approach to foreign policy in general and to the Middle East in particular. Obama, for his part, in the negotiations with Iran, did not translate U.S. power into leverage. Instead, he treated realistic Islamic extremists as favored partners. In that category are Rouhani and his camp in the Shiite world and the Muslim Brotherhood among the Sunnis. These actors do not seek a direct conflict with the West at this stage. They aspire, instead, to change the world order once it becomes possible for them to do so (for example, after they have nuclear weapons); for the time being they want to avoid a confrontation at any price.
Trump, in contrast to Obama, is looking to strengthen ties with the United States’ natural allies, namely, Israel and the pragmatic Arab states – particularly Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. He indeed wants to avoid unnecessary frictions with Russia. He is prepared, however, to defend vital U.S. interests (preventing Iran’s nuclearization and constraining its actions in the region) and thereby demonstrate that the United States is, in fact, a superpower (which is what the slogan “make America great again” means in this context). His appointments so far to key posts in his administration bolster the impression that he will choose the third option, and certainly not the first one.
The talks between the new administration and Israel, highlighted by the expected meeting between Trump and Netanyahu in February, will focus on analyzing these options and clarifying the Israeli position. Trump’s decision will, however, be made on the basis of American, not Israeli, interests.
Meanwhile, Iran has been working hard to make the most of the last days of Obama’s tenure. It is quickly closing international deals aimed at rehabilitating its oil industry. It is also boosting its aid for the takeover of Aleppo by Assad’s supporters and, apparently, stepping up arms shipments to Hizbullah, meaning Israel must act to thwart them.
Ending a half-decade-long diplomatic freeze, Turkey’s new ambassador to Israel on Monday hailed a “new beginning” in bilateral ties and called the Jewish state Ankara’s “partner and friend.”Israeli Diplomat: South Korea Could Use Iron Dome to Counter Threats From North
Mekin Mustafa Kemal Okem handed his letter of credence to President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem and officially assumed the post of Turkey’s first ambassador to Israel in five years, the fruit of years of intense detente efforts following a deadly 2010 raid that soured relations between Jerusalem and Ankara.
Israel’s new ambassador in Ankara, Eitan Na’eh, handed his credentials to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week.
“This is a new beginning in our bilateral relations and in our joint efforts, in this region in which we have close ties, historical ties,” Okem said in English at the ceremony, held at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem. “Our region offers more than its share of challenges but also of big opportunities. As before, Turkey and Israel will work together to make sure that these opportunities are fully utilized and challenges are met.”
Okem is seen as a close confidant of Erdogan and he said he had been instructed by him and Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım to “explore all opportunities for cooperation in every field to the mutual benefit of our two nations.”
The Jewish state’s Iron Dome aerial defense system could be used by South Korea to mitigate threats posed by North Korea, an Israeli diplomat said this past week, according to the Yonhap news agency.BBC News continues to tout inaccurate portrayal of the ‘Mavi Marmara’
“We are two small states which have very similar strategic situations,” Israeli Ambassador to South Korea Chaim Choshen was quoted as saying at a Korea Institute for Defense Analyses forum in Seoul on Thursday. “[South] Korea is threatened by North Korea and Israel is threatened by Iran. We have good cooperation in defense and security.”
“I am sure this cooperation is still very far from being exhausted and I hope so much this potential will be used in the future…particularly in the defense area,” he continued. “We may suggest some solutions to counter North Korean threats here.”
The Iron Dome, Choshen noted, has “enabled the government of Israel to be more flexible in managing the battlefield. Israel is developing today a broad range of missile defense systems with an aim of protecting the country from any type of missile attacks. We need to always win our wars. We have only one chance. If we lose even one war, this is the end of the State of Israel.”
Last month, it was reported that Azerbaijan was planning to acquire several Iron Dome batteries.
On several occasions in the past the BBC has misrepresented the ‘Mavi Marmara’ – a passenger ship in the 2010 flotilla – as an “aid ship”.OK, Whose Turn Is It To Distract The Masses With Some Outrageous Statement? By Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (satire)
For example in March 2013 BBC audiences were told:
“….nine Turkish activists on a boat called the Mavi Marmara taking aid to Gaza. That boat was boarded by Israeli marines and nine of the activists were killed.”
“Nine people were killed on board the Turkish aid ship, Mavi Marmara, when it was boarded by Israeli commandos while trying to transport aid supplies to Gaza in May 2010 in spite of an Israeli naval blockade.”
And in June 2016:
“It was the Mavi Marmara episode in May 2010, when Israeli naval commandos boarded a Turkish-flagged [actually Comoros] aid vessel which was aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, that caused the rupture.”
And in October 2016:
“Bilateral relations went into the deep freeze in May 2010 when Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara aid ship as it tried to breach the blockade of Gaza. Ten Turkish activists on board were killed.”
Thank you for attending this Coalition meeting on such short notice. I know many of you have important legislative and administrative business, and I do not take those commitments lightly. But we have yet to decide on which of us or our associates will make some racist, insensitive, or otherwise unwise remark this week that will be then taken by our political opponents and the press and blown all out of proportion, so that the real, more disturbing news goes more or less unreported.Gay Eritrean granted asylum in Israel
Bitan, you did a fine job at the end of last week with your seemingly off-the-cuff pronouncement that you’d rather not have Arabs voting. It was well executed. That’s the kind of ruckus we need to generate here, the the real business of a governing coalition can get done without all the unwelcome media attention. They seem not to like when we actually do what we’ve been elected to do, so we have to create diversions.
I’d rather not have to go to the IDF again and have some general make a comment about seeing parallels between 1930’s Germany and modern Israeli society. It’s best if we keep the controversy generated here among the people in this room, or at least the purviews of the people in this room. Somehow it fell through the cracks and we need to decide quickly who’s going to say the next boneheaded thing.
Unfortunately we can’t ask anyone from Yesh Atid, because they’re in the Opposition now, but they brought quality to this endeavor. Remember late in 2015 when the Ministry of Education under their minister rejected the novel Borderlife for inclusion in the list of approved books for high school literature? That was a masterpiece, that episode. We were able to get a full couple of weeks of actual work done while the media and “liberal” opposition hopped up and down with rage about censorship and intolerance. That’s the level of trolling we need, people. Time to step up.
The Population and Immigration Authority (PIA) recently granted asylum to a 26-year-old gay Eritrean man on the grounds that his returning to his country would endanger his life due to his sexual orientation.East Jerusalem teens indicted for planning attacks
The Eritrean was born in the capital of Asmara and forced into military service at the age of 17. In 2009, he tried to flee his country through the border into Ethiopia, but he was caught and incarcerated for 16 months. Afterwards, he was returned to his military service.
He hid the fact that he was gay whilst in his home country, where it is illegal and entails a prison sentence of up to three years.
In 2011, he managed to flee to Israel and stayed with a person he knew from Eritrea. After other tenants discovered his sexual orientation, however, he was thrown out of his apartment and began living in Tel Aviv's Levinsky Park. Since then, however, he managed to rehabilitate his life, find a job and rent an apartment by himself.
Jerusalem District prosecutors filed indictments Monday against eight East Jerusalem teenagers accused of conspiracy to commit a crime, rioting, attacking a police officer and other offenses.PreOccupiedTerritory: Ephron In Hiding From Palestinians After Selling Land To Abraham (satire)
According to the indictments, filed at the Jerusalem Youth Magistrate’s Court, the defendants, aged 17-18, began planning attacks on Israelis when they found themselves incarcerated together for other offenses at the Megiddo Prison in 2015.
The group, all of whom come from the Tsur Baher and Issawiya neighborhoods, discussed plans for throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli security forces after their release, and one suggested they obtain guns for shooting attacks.
Some of the gang members were also indicted for rioting — including incidents on the Temple Mount — and inciting to violence in Facebook posts.
Four of the defendants had served time in prison for a 2013 stone-throwing attack that targeted the vehicle in which two-year-old Avigail Ben Zion was traveling with her parents in Armon Hanetziv, a predominantly Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood just over the Green Line.
A Hittite man who struck a lucrative real estate deal with a Hebrew patriarch was forced to conceal his whereabouts after receiving death threats from Palestinians opposed to the sale of any part of Palestine to Jews.Hamas offers missiles for armies willing to fight Israel
Ephron, the previous owner of the Machpelah Cave and the field to which it is attached, went into hiding this week after word got out among Palestinians that he had sold the land to Abraham as a burial plot for his late wife Sarah. Palestinian law bars such transactions on pain of death, and the sentiment that the sellers of land to Jews deserve to be killed is widely accepted in Palestinian society.
Abraham had approached the Hittites after attending to Sarah’s immediate post-mortem needs, to determine whether Ephron would be willing to part with Machpelah. After brief negotiations, the two men arrived at an enormous sum – four hundred silver shekels – and the land transfer was completed in a public ceremony. Ephron, however, had little time to enjoy the proceeds before being forced underground by Palestinians intent on punishing him for such a treacherous act.
“What the hell is their problem?” wondered a relative who insisted on anonymity, given the dangers. “These people should be happy that someone is investing in the land. The buyer is the same one who’s been digging numerous useful wells between here and the Mediterranean. What do these idiots want – for someone to stop up those wells because they were dug by the wrong kind of person? Bunch of bastards is what they are.”
Palestinian terror group Hamas has offered to share its rocket arsenal with any Arab army willing to use them against Israel, Gaza-based Hamas official Fathi Hammad said Sunday to Al-Aqsa TV.We Have a Real Army, Sell our Missiles to Arabs If They Use Them against the Jews
Hamas has been manufacturing rockets on an industrial scale since it took control of the Gaza Strip, and has fired tens of thousands of projectiles during the past decade.
Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon told a conference in late 2014 that the IDF destroyed 80% of Hamas’s mortars and rockets during Operation Protective Edge, however the group has been restocking ever since, in addition to digging new tunnels under the border with Israel.
While there has always been a large difference in military capabilities between Israel and Hamas, highlighted once again by Israel receiving the first F-35 jets outside the US on Monday, any Arab states potentially interested in gearing up with the Palestinian group's weaponry for a battle with the IDF could expect to receive more than mortars and the ubiquitous Soviet-designed Katyusha, the WWII rocket still used in conflicts in the Middle East today.
Hamas has in recent years developed its own range of missiles, including significantly upgrading its Qassam rockets and developing the longer-range M-75, which can reach Tel Aviv.
Israeli man starts 'Good Samaritan' charity to get injured Syrian women and children to Israel for medical help
Mr Kahana had to convince the Israeli authorities to let Amaliah operate despite the safety concerns, coordinating with both the Israeli Defence Forces and the Free Syrian Army rebel alliance to reach people in need.PreOccupiedTerritory: Muhammad Asks Facebook Users To Stop Tagging Him In Photos (satire)
As of September, Amaliah has managed to start a healthcare programme which takes buses of women and children from southern Syria across the border to Israeli medical facilities for check-ups and treatment at day clinics.
“In just one day we can save a kid's life from suffering, infection. Some kids they come in with one eye, they can't see,” Mr Kahana said. "In Syria they cannot take care of it. In hospital [in Israel] one hour later, that's it, the kid can actually see again."
Demand for Amaliah’s services is overwhelming. It is the only aid organisation of its kind operating in south Syria, and thousands of people get in touch through social media every day, the charity says.
Many of the adults and children treated haven’t seen a doctor in years, and those children in need of serious care end up staying.
The founder of the religion of Islam issued a plea today to his social network contacts to stop tagging his image in pictures they post online.
Muhammad the Prophet and Messenger of Allah posted to his approximately 750 million Facebook followers this morning, asking them not to label his visage in the photos they upload or share, citing considerations of possible violence and damage to public safety.
“I ask all my followers, and anyone else who happens to encounter my image on Facebook, to refrain from tagging me in those images,” he wrote. “I realize that the vast majority of users have only good and proper intentions, but our collective experience has shown that associating me with a specific face is an unwise course of action.” He cited the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy as the most recent example of a threat to public order.
“I am sure none of my followers or friends wish to contribute to such a phenomenon, and I therefore request that everyone simply stop tagging me. Praise be to Allah the Merciful, I am in little need of further assistance in bringing my vision and message to humanity,” he added.
