Thursday, March 08, 2018
Turkish Newspaper Close To President Erdogan Calls To Form Joint Islamic Army To Fight Israel
On December 12, 2017, ahead of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, the Turkish daily Yeni Şafak, which is close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AKP party, published an article titled "A Call for Urgent Action," which also appeared on the paper's website under the title “What If an Army of Islam Was Formed against Israel?" The article called on the 57 member states of the OIC to form a joint "Army of Islam" to besiege and attack the state of Israel. It notes that such a joint army will greatly exceed the Israeli army in manpower, equipment and budget, and presents statistics to prove this. It also advocates establishing joint bases for the army's ground, air and naval forces that will arrive from all over the Muslim world to besiege Israel, while noting that Pakistan, as the only nuclear country, has "a special status" among the OIC countries. An interactive map provides information on military forces stationed in various locations and the role they can play in the potential joint Muslim attack on Israel.
The Source Of The Yeni Şafak Article: The SADAT Company Website
The main points of the article are taken from the website of the Turkish SADAT International Defense and Consulting Company, which provides consultancy on defense and warfare, both conventional and unconventional, and on military organization, training and gear. The company has an agenda of promoting pan-Islamic military cooperation. According to its mission statement, it seeks "to establish defense collaboration and defense industry cooperation among Islamic countries, to help the Islamic world take its rightful place among the superpowers by providing... strategic consultancy and training services to the militaries and homeland security forces of Islamic countries."
According to Israeli security sources, the SADAT company is involved in aiding Hamas, and seeks to assist – with funds and military gear – the creation of a "Palestine Army" to fight Israel.
SADAT Founder Adnan Tanrıverdi
The SADAT company was founded by Erdoğan’s senior advisor on military affairs, retired general Adnan Tanrıverdi, and is chaired by his son, Melih Tanrıverdi. Adnan Tanrıverdi (b. 1944) served in the Turkish army's Artillery Corps and headed the Home Front Command in northern Cyprus. He is an expert on assymetric warfare, and was dismissed from the Turkish military in 1996 for his Islamists leadnings. A former Turkish army officer, Ahmet Yavuz, described him as "an enemy of Atatürk" and stated that his dismissal from the army was not surprising.
To Understand Zionism, Read Herzl Not Mahmoud Abbas
We can see the toxic results of this in countless news reports on the conflict with the Palestinians. Israel’s perceived flaws and mistakes are highlighted, but not those of the Palestinians. Settlement building is headline news, but not Palestinian incitement to terror. The Palestinians are helpless victims, an oppressed people not responsible for their actions; infantilised and coddled at every turn, no matter what violence they commit – and no matter that their poverty and despair is as much a result of the corruption and criminality of the Palestinian Authority as it is of Israeli policies.Pal-Arabs are counterfeit
That’s the narrative, here’s the reality. From the very beginning, the Zionist movement envisaged a democratic Israel. Israel was established as a democracy in 1948, at a time when there were no more than twenty or so democracies on the planet. And unlike almost every other new country that emerged during that epoch of state creation after the collapse of the European empires, it has remained a democracy from day one to the present.
Israel has become a military super-power, but this is nothing to with some inherent Zionist militaristic impulse. Israel has fought multiple wars against states and, more recently, terror organisations, expressly committed to its annihilation. Israel today has Hamas on one border, Hezbollah on another, and the Iran-dominated ruins of what used to be Syria on a third. Each one of these troublesome neighbours sees the destruction of Israel as a religious imperative. When the only way to appease an enemy is to commit suicide, the situation requires sticks not carrots; military might and the willingness to exert it.
I’ll conclude with another recent news story, one that attracted far less coverage than the Abbas speech. This was the revelation that the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence had helped foil an ISIS terror attack on an Australian passenger plane last summer. European countries that so frequently wag the diplomatic finger at Israel have intelligence services grateful beyond measure for the assistance they receive from the Mossad and the IDF in thwarting terrorist plots. In today’s global conflict between free and open societies, and Islamist terrorists and the states that sponsor them, Israel is not just on the right side of the fight, it is leading the way. Meanwhile, our ‘peace-seeking’ friend Mahmoud Abbas has just increased the annual payment to the families of Palestinian terrorists to $403 million, seven percent of the Palestinian Authority budget.
Abbas and other propagandists will continue to spread lies and disinformation, and far too much of the world will continue to swallow it whole. Israel, approaching its 70th birthday, will continue to do what it must to survive and to thrive as the Jewish and democratic state that Theodore Herzl could only dream of.
Recently, the Holocaust-denying head of Terror, Inc, known as the Palestinian Authority, one Mahmoud Abbas, upped his erstwhile mentor and arch terrorist, Yasser Arafat, by spewing yet another Arabian Nights hallucinatory diatribe at the United Nations Security Council. It went as follows:
“We are the descendants of the Canaanites that lived in the land of Palestine 5,000 years ago and continuously remained there to this day.”
We should remember that the grisly, blood soaked Arafat had claimed that those Arabs who call themselves Palestinians, were descended from the Philistines. But then the followers of the ‘religion of peace’ will tell you that even Adam was a Muslim. Loony tunes for loony people!
But let’s come back to reality and deconstruct the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians.
There is no such thing as a Palestinian people; no such thing as a Palestinian history; and no Palestinian language exists.
The present-day so-called ‘Palestinians’ are an Arab people sharing an overwhelmingly Muslim Arab culture, ethnicity and language identical to their fellow Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, with few if any distinctions. They are primarily the descendants of those itinerant Arabs who illegally flooded British Mandatory Palestine from Arab territories as far away as Sudan, Egypt, Syria and what was Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). They were attracted during the early decades of the 20th century by new employment opportunities provided by the Jewish pioneers, whose heroic efforts were turning the desert green again and restoring centuries of neglect that the land had endured under a succession of alien occupations.
PMW: Jer. Post: PMW and bereaved families submit complaint to police against Palestinian leader Jibril Rajoub
Several bereaved families and Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli NGO, plan to report senior Palestinian Authority official Jibril Rajoub to the police on Thursday for alleged incitement to murder Israelis.PMW: Why PMW submitted complaint to police against Palestinian leader Jibril Rajoub
The Jerusalem Post obtained a copy of the seven-page complaint, which Palestinian Media Watch plans to send to Israel Police Commissioner Insp.- Gen. Roni Alsheich and several senior ministers, in addition to submitting the report to the Jerusalem police.
It was also signed by Natan Meir, husband of Daphna Meir, whom a Palestinian teen stabbed to death in 2016, while three of her children were at home; Doron Mizrahi, father of Ziv Mizrahi, a soldier stabbed to death in 2015; and Avraham Weissman, father of Yanai Weissman, an off-duty soldier who was stabbed to death in 2016, while shopping with his wife and four-month-old daughter.
Rajoub spent 15 years in an Israeli prison for throwing a grenade at an army bus in 1970. He holds several positions in the PA and in Fatah, its ruling party, including being secretary of Fatah's Central Committee and chairman of the High Commission for Youth and Sport. He chairs the Palestinians' Olympic committee and soccer association, positions he has used to try to bring boycotts on Israel.
The media watchdog organization first announced its intention to report Rajoub at a meeting of the Knesset Israel Victory Caucus on Tuesday, unveiling what it said was new evidence.
Yesterday, Palestinian Media Watch and members of three families whose loved ones were murdered following Jibril Rajoub's incitement to murder in 2015 and 2016, submitted a formal complaint to the Israeli police against Rajoub.'If Israel's airspace stops at Ben Gurion - we're dead'
PMW is taking this unusual step because we believe this is an urgent time for the Israeli government to take action. Neither Rajoub nor the other Palestinian leaders who incited hate and terror which drove the 2015 - 2016 terror wave in which 44 people were murdered, have been arrested or imprisoned for their crimes. As a result, many of the same PA and Fatah leaders are now inciting hate and violence in response to both the original decision of President of the United States to move the American embassy to Jerusalem and the subsequent American announcement that it is opening on May 14. [See numerous examples reported by PMW.]
There is a real danger that Israel's inaction against Palestinian leaders' previous incitement to murder will lead them to conclude that they can again incite murder with impunity, this time over the Jerusalem Embassy opening on May 14, 2018, which could lead to another terror wave.
Palestinian leaders must understand that if they incite violence, terror and murder they will be arrested and imprisoned. This step is fundamental to ensure the deterrence that could very well save lives.
Prime Minister Netanyahu declined to say whether he now believes in a two-state solution, saying it was up to the PA to prove that a sovereign state would not threaten Israel.AIPAC rekindles old debate: Does Israel seek a two-state solution?
“I want a solution where they have all the power they need to govern themselves but none of the powers to threaten,” Netanyahu said Wednesday, addressing The Economic Club of Washington. “Does that comport with full sovereignty? I don’t know, but it’s what we need to live.”
Netanyahu’s conditions for a final status deal have not changed: He said as he has in the past that it is critical that Israel retain “overriding security” control in Judea and Samaria, and that it control airspace.
“If you say Israel’s airspace stops at Ben Gurion Airport, well, we’re dead,” Netanyahu said, noting how close Israel’s international airport is to Judea and Samaria.
However, in his remarks Wednesday — echoing a similar conversation he had Monday with Israeli journalists following his meeting with President Donald Trump and a conversation with American journalists on Tuesday — Netanyahu retreated from forecasting a two-state solution, language he had previously embraced.
“Most people would agree to an arrangement of the kind you’re talking about if the Palestinians wanted a state next to Israel,” Netanyahu told his host, David Rubenstein, the president of The Economic Club, which brings together the Washington, D.C., business community with diplomats. Rubenstein, a financial consultant and philanthropist, had asked about a two-state solution.
"The Palestinians want a state instead of Israel," Netanyahu said.
In recent interviews, Netanyahu has sought to explain his position, indicating that the best the Palestinian can hope for is some sort of “state-minus.” This entity would not fully meet the criteria of statehood but would allow the Palestinians some measure of autonomy.'It's about Jewish rights, not a Palestinian state'
“I think it’s time that we reassess whether the model that we have of sovereignty and unfettered sovereignty is applicable everywhere around the earth, the globe,” he said last November at the Chatham House, a London think tank.
“I don’t want to govern the Arabs in the West Bank. I don’t want to govern the Arabs in Gaza either, but I want to make sure that that territory is not used against Israel, and therefore, for us, the critical thing is to have the overriding security responsibility,” he added. “When we talk about demilitarizing the West Bank, it will be demilitarized by us.”
On Monday evening, hours after talks with US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu told reporters that “the Palestinians should have the power of government, except the power to threaten us.”
Asked by The Times of Israel if he told Trump that he supported, at least in principle, the establishment of a Palestinian state, Netanyahu merely said he told the president that Israel did not want to rule over Palestinians.
“I said that we have no desire to govern the Palestinians, but we have every desire to protect ourselves,” he said. “The main thing is that the security control west of the Jordan River remains in our hands, and we cannot see anyone else assuming that responsibility.”
Efrat Mayor and YESHA Council foreign envoy spoke to Arutz Sheva about the statement by AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state.Yisrael Medad: Beinart Is Right While Being Wrong
"We have to remember that at the end of the day there is absolutely no alternative to AIPAC," Revivi said. "AIPAC has proven that it doesn't matter who lives in the White House, who lives on Balfour street. They are always standing there to support and help the State of Israel. They have proven it in the past, and I have no doubt that they will prove it in the future.
He said that "different Jews have different opinions. We are allowed to disagree."
Revivi said that advocates of the two-state solution were misguided about the cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict. "People who suggest, as a solution, having two states, fail to remember that in the past there were two states. There was maybe not even one state and there was no peace in the region. It's not about drawing the line as to where there will be the Palestinians and where there will be the Jews. It's about recognizing the right of the Jewish people to live in the State of Israel, and once that is off the table I am sure that we can [achieve] peace with everybody around."
His reasoning about the 'weakness' inherent in the younger Jewish generation is factually correct.
But what he ignores is that the activity of J Street, IfNotNow (see their reaction), Jewish Voices for Peace and OpenHillel, among other groups, is pushed by...Peter Beinart.
He encourages them, leads them, instructs them and provides platforms for their views and in doing so basically hides or belittles or minimizes all those historical truths, truths (and others) which continue to exist. They may be events of 80, 70, 60 and 50 years ago - the rise of Hitlarian anti-Semitism and the failure of the democracies to counter it, the rampant terrorism of the Yishuv's Arab population as well as its support for Nazism, the Holocaust, the White Paper policy both prior to the world war and immediately after, the resistance to Mandate British oppression, the birth of Israel, the 19 years of Arab terror of the fedayeen and Fatah, and, the ideological and practical aspects of Jewish national identity.
His is a major contribution to the younger generation's inability as well as unwillingness to understand, comprehend and be willing to assume that for the most part, Israel is not only a country to be defended, with the faults that are, but must be defended for their own good.
Like others in the past century and a half - first, the Reform movement, then the Bundists, then the Brit Shalom intellectuals on to the American Council for Judaism and then Breira - who have tried to distance themselves from Zionism and Israel, they have failed but in doing so have caused so much damage and laid foundations for future weakness and unnecessary embarrassment. Not to mention being wrong on facts and figures on specific issues of security, demography and democracy.
As right as he is, he is so wrong.
Important sorry, w/ a quote at end from me. But it’s an odd lede - wherever US Embassy to Israel is is in Israel according to the US. That’s why Embassy move couldn’t happen when US didn’t recognize city as being in Israel. https://t.co/NGMEITmFqe— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) March 8, 2018
NYTs: New U.S. Embassy May Be in Jerusalem, but Not in Israel
After 1949, the Israelis set about fencing and farming land on their side of the territory. A Jordanian road to Bethlehem meandered through.A Little Nation Does the Right Thing
Both sides stationed troops in the zone. There were also instances of cooperation, such as when Jordan agreed to work with Israeli experts to eradicate a moth-borne blight infesting pine trees in the area.
But when an Israeli entrepreneur began constructing a hotel on a slope in the zone in 1963, the Jordanians lodged a complaint and the work was stopped.
The hotel, named the Diplomat, was opened after the Israeli victory in 1967. Located on the grounds of the consular compound, it is now owned by the United States and leased out as housing for elderly Russian-speaking immigrants.
Before moving to Arnona in 2010, the American consular section that served Arabs and Jews was in East Jerusalem. The United States Consulate General that deals with the Palestinian Authority is in West Jerusalem.
Eugene Kontorovich, the director of international law at the conservative Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, contends that by moving the embassy to the Arnona site the United States is recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over areas it captured in the 1967 war.
“Much more important than what the State Department says, it is what their actions say,” Mr. Kontorovich said. “You don’t build an embassy in territory that is not sovereign to Israel.”
U.S. officials have said the move to Jerusalem will happen officially on May 14, the seventieth anniversary of Israeli independence. Two days later, the little central American nation of Guatemala will also move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “It is important to be among the first,” Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said on Monday at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, “but it is more important to do what’s right.”Arab FMs insist on Jerusalem as future Palestinian capital
Guatemala was one of only nine nations that backed the U.S. embassy move when the U.N. passed a resolution condemning it. The other countries were similarly small players on the global stage: Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and of course Israel.
We hear the guffaws of the foreign policy elites in Washington and London and Paris. Guatemala? Honduras? Togo? The alignment of these few little nations with U.S. policy is itself, the elites suggested, an indication of just how outlandish the American policy is.
Well, okay. But 35 nations merely abstained in the U.N. vote, and many of them are both sizeable and influential: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, to name a few. We wonder what would happen if some of these nations also decided to move their embassies to Jerusalem? Perhaps not much, or perhaps some halfhearted protests in middle eastern capitals and some formulaic denunciations from the usual suspects in Turtle Bay. Perhaps not even that.
In any case, there must be few substantive reasons for these nations to keep their embassies 40 miles from what everybody knows full well is the center and capital of the Israeli state. So far from jeopardizing the at-present nonexistent peace process, moving those embassies would help to rid future negotiations of the pernicious delusion that the Palestinians may one day control all of Jerusalem. The only basis on which to negotiate is the truth, and so far the U.S. and Guatemala are the first openly to acknowledge that truth. Others are welcome to follow.
Arab foreign ministers insisted on Wednesday that Jerusalem must be the capital of a future Palestinian state, even as the U.S. prepares to move its embassy to the contentious city as an act of recognizing it as Israel's capital, a step that has angered the Arab world.PA minister: Arab inaction has encouraged U.S. to hold onto Jerusalem moves
A ministerial meeting held in the Egyptian capital of Cairo brought together foreign ministers from Arab League member-states amid a wave of anger at U.S. President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 declaration officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. At the time, the declaration sparked protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In their closing statement, the ministers endorsed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' call at the United Nations Security Council last month for the recognition of a Palestinian state, an international peace conference to be held by mid-2018 and a timetable for a two-state solution.
Abbas called for mutual recognition by the states of Israel and Palestine based on 1967 borders and formation of "an international multilateral mechanism" to assist the two parties in resolving all final status issues and implementing them within a set time frame.
"The Arab League has already decided to stand against the negative consequences of the American dangerous and illegal decision of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing the occupied city as a capital of Israel," said Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit in a televised press conference.
The failure of Arab states to implement Arab League decisions has encouraged the United States to hold on to its “baseless” decision regarding Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on Thursday.Sheikh of Al Azhar Ahmed Al Tayeb: If Not for Israel, There Would Be No Problem
Maliki made the statement following a meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.
“Our failure, as Arab states, to implement our decisions throughout the past many years has encouraged the United States to continue with its errant program and baseless decision regarding Jerusalem,” Maliki told the official PA news site Wafa.
In early December, President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and initiated the relocation of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to the city, breaking with decades of American policy and infuriating many Palestinians.
Maliki specifically said the failure of Arab states to enforce a 1980 Arab League summit decision about Jerusalem has given the US confidence to continue standing behind its new policies on Jerusalem.
At the 1980 meeting in Amman, Arab states declared they would “sever all ties with states that transfer their embassies to Jerusalem or recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
While Arab states have condemned the Trump administration for its Jerusalem moves, none of them has implemented the 1980 Arab League summit decision.
In fact, a number of Arab leaders have continued to meet and arrange meetings with Trump administration officials.
Sheikh of Al-Azhar Ahmed Al-Tayeb in a recent TV interview said that "a most devious and malicious plot was hatched to plunge this dagger [i.e., Israel] into the body of the Arab world." Sheikh Al-Tayeb said that we have recently "had to swallow a dose of poison" manifest in Arab and Muslim infighting, ultimately "[serving] the interests of the well-known [Zionist] entity." He warned that it would not end with the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but that "they will march on the Kaaba and on the Prophet's Mosque [in Medina]." The interview with the Sheikh of Al-Azhar aired on Egypt's Channel 1 on January 26.
Top Azerbaijani Diplomat in US Praises Growing Ties Between Israel and Muslim World
Until recently, the close ties between Israel and Azerbaijan were something that flew under the radar, even for people who attend gatherings such as the annual AIPAC convention.Saudi Prince Says Turkey Part of ‘Triangle of Evil’
But that is no longer the case, Azerbaijan’s US envoy told The Algemeiner on the sidelines of this year’s Policy Conference.
“Now it’s not a surprise to them,” Ambassador Elin Suleymanov said on Monday. “They’ve already heard about this. It’s a known entity. That’s good. It’s not a totally new frontier.”
Monday’s sit-down was a follow-up to a wide-ranging interview Suleymanov gave to The Algemeiner last year at the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, DC.
Azerbaijan — led by President Ilham Aliyev — prides itself on being one of Israel’s closest allies in the Muslim world. Diplomatic ties were established in 1992, after Azerbaijan regained independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the two countries now enjoy an extensive partnership, particularly in the economic and military realms.
A secular, Shiite Muslim-majority nation, Azerbaijan is strategically sandwiched in the Caucasus region between Russia, Iran, Georgia and Armenia, with the Caspian Sea to the east.
Suleymanov called Azerbaijan a “pioneer” regarding its relationship with Israel.
“We do openly what some other countries don’t do openly,” he said.
Saudi Arabia‘s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has described Turkey as part of a “triangle of evil” along with Iran and hardline Islamist groups, Egypt’s Al-Shorouk newspaper reported on Wednesday.Rights groups want Israel put on UN blacklist for ‘violence against children’
The Saudi prince also accused Turkey of trying to reinstate the Islamic Caliphate, abolished nearly a century ago when the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
His reported comments reflect Saudi Arabia‘s deep suspicion of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose ruling AK Party has its roots in Islamist politics and who has allied his country with Qatar in its dispute with Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states.
Turkey has also worked with Iran, Saudi Arabia‘s arch-rival in the Middle East, to try to reduce fighting in northern Syria in recent months, and Iranian and Turkish military chiefs exchanged visits last year.
Al-Shorouk quoted Prince Mohammed as saying “the contemporary triangle of evil comprises Iran, Turkey and extremist religious groups.”
The prince spoke to Egyptian newspaper editors during a visit to Cairo, on his first foreign trip since becoming heir to the oil exporting giant last year.
An international coalition advocating for children in conflict zones on Tuesday asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to add the Israeli army to a blacklist of government forces and rebel groups that have committed “grave violations” against children.Landmark report on IDF Gaza war crimes allegations due out on Wednesday
In its March 2018 Policy Note, released Tuesday, Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict proposed the Israel Defense Forces be added to the upcoming 2018 Annual Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict.
They were seeking to include the Israeli military alongside security forces in Myanmar who are reported to have killed, burned, and beaten to death Rohingya Muslim children in an ethnic cleansing campaign; Afghan security forces who have killed and raped children and attacked schools and hospitals; several rebel groups in the Central African Republic; Congo’s national police force; a rebel group in Mali; and the main opposition force in South Sudan.
Watchlist said its recommendations were drawn up after a “desk review” of all publicly available reports related to violations against children in 25 countries in 2017. Sources included the UN secretary-general’s 2017 annual report on children and armed conflict, as well as reports by UN agencies, member state governments, and international NGOs.
State Comptroller Joseph Shapira announced on Thursday that his landmark report judging to what extent the IDF complied with international law during the 2014 Gaza war will finally be issued on Wednesday of next week.Knesset passes law allowing police to hold terrorists’ bodies
The report is more than three years in the making and many parties globally, including the International Criminal Court, which is itself examining the same issues, have been awaiting its results.
The report is expected to address a wide range of issues, including the Hannibal Protocol incident - the incident in which the largest number of Palestinian civilians were killed - regarding which the IDF still has not issued its own legal conclusions.
The three leading experts who worked on the report with the comptroller's office are Prof. Michael Newton, Prof. Moshe Halbertal and Prof. Miguel Deutsch.
Bringing in experts from outside the State comptroller’s office conformed to the international law principle of proper oversight of a country’s war crimes investigations, the comptroller said in 2015 when the experts were appointed.
Newton is a professor at Vanderbilt University, edits a top Oxford international law publication and has been involved in international court proceedings on war. Halbertal is a professor at New York University and an author of the IDF’s code of ethics. Deutsch was a member of the Turkel Commission that, among other things, published a report in February 2013 about the compliance with international law of Israel’s apparatus for investigating alleged war crimes.
Shapira announced on August 13, 2014, even before the Gaza war was over and days after the UN announced their own inquiry into alleged war crimes, that he would investigate the same issues – though his inquiry is also broader in some senses.
The Knesset passed a law on Wednesday allowing police to withhold the bodies of Palestinian assailants who were killed while carrying out terror attacks from burial.PA TV: Palestinian female terrorist who led killing of 37 shows women are leaders
The law, which passed 48-10, came after the High Court of Justice in December ruled Israel could not longer use terrorists’ bodies as bargaining chips without legislation explicitly permitting the practice. The court gave the government six months to pass such a law.
Under the law, district police commanders can determine whether to release the terrorists’ bodies for burial. If there is a fear the terrorist’s funeral could be used to carry out an attack or provide a platform for praising terrorism, police may keep the bodies in custody until further notice, it says.
The law says terrorists’ funerals in recent years have featured praise of terrorism and incitement for further attacks.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, whose ministry oversees police, said the practice of holding on terrorists’ bodies was disagreeable but necessary.
Dana Al-Ruweidi, first female head of the student council at the Palestine University in Bethlehem: "My message to all the Sisters of Dalal (i.e., Fatah student organization for women) in all the universities is that you can make decisions. The woman Dalal Mughrabi led 11 men on a Martyrdom-seeking operation (i.e., terror attack, 37 murdered). She waved the flag of Palestine, and succeeded in liberating the land of Jaffa - even if just for a few hours - and established the Dalal Mughrabi Republic. Likewise, we are capable of leading a student council, capable of leading professional unions, and capable of making decisions." [Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, May 6, 2016]
'Palestinian parliament to convene for rare session next month'
The Palestinian parliament will convene next month for a rare session and discuss U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, a U.S. policy change that outraged Palestinians, an official said on Wednesday.
The 700-member body last met in 2009, in what was termed an emergency session, to replace six of the 18 members of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the largest party in the parliament.
"The Palestinian National Council will convene on April 30th to discuss challenges to the Palestinian cause, especially after the U.S. decision against Jerusalem," PLO official Wassel Abu Yousef said, using the parliament's formal name.
He said the decision to hold what he called a "regular session" of parliament in Ramallah was made at a PLO Executive Committee meeting chaired by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Former Top PA Security Chief Mohammed Dahlan Criticizes "Corrupt" Palestinian Authority: The PA Is Punishing Its Own People https://t.co/oNW4U6s8av— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 8, 2018
Palestinians in Gaza plan tent city protest along Israeli border
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are planning a six-week-long tent city protest near the Israeli border starting on March 30 to demand Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to what is now Israel, organizers said on Wednesday.Why Won’t Israel Launch a Preemptive Strike on Hezbollah?
Such a demonstration, envisaging families camped out in the sensitive border area, could present a dilemma for the Israeli military that enforces a “no go” zone for Palestinians on land adjacent to Israel’s frontier fence.
Israeli soldiers are confronted by frequent violent Palestinian protests along the Gaza border and have used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition against demonstrators whom the military said hurled rocks or petrol bombs at them.
Ahmed Abu Ayesh, a spokesman for a coordinating committee, said plans were for hundreds or thousands of people, including entire families, to live in tents erected “at the nearest, safe point from the border”. The United Nations, Abu Ayesh said, would be notified of the rally.
A statement issued by the committee urged Palestinians in Gaza to take part in this “national project that endorses peaceful resistance as a new way to win our rights, foremost the right of return” of refugees to what is now Israel.
The protest is set to begin on March 30, the annual “Land Day” commemorating the six Arab citizens of Israel who were killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations in 1976 over government land confiscations in northern Israel.
It will end, the organizers said, on May 15, the day Palestinians call the “Nakba” or “catastrophe”, marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the conflict surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948.
Senior IDF officers have publicly warned in the past few days, that the chances of war on Israel’s northern border in 2018 are growing significantly. And the specter of renewed fighting presents Israel with a daunting dilemma.Report: Hezbollah in Lebanon fears Israeli attack, declares state of emergency
Since the end of the 2006 Lebanon War that was poorly conducted by the Olmert government, the arsenal of the Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah has grown exponentially — in both the quantity and quality of its weaponry. Hezbollah’s arsenal is now reportedly over ten times its pre-war size, and vastly enhanced in terms of its precision and destructive capacity.
Indeed, no one even vaguely familiar with the brutal nature of the organization — its gory past and chilling proclamations of future intent –could even remotely entertain the hopelessly naïve belief that Hezbollah is stockpiling over 100,000 missiles just for show.
Accordingly then, the working assumption underlying Israel’s strategic planning must be that, at some stage, the rockets will in fact be used against Israel and its civilian population centers. Certainly, any policy discounting such a possibility would be wildly irresponsible.
As Israeli military sources point out, the likelihood of such a grim scenario has been increased by several other factors, over which Israel has little to no control.
Hezbollah in Lebanon has declared a state of emergency for fear of an Israeli attack approved by the United States.Former Syrian general: Hezbollah is in possession of chemical weapons
"Hezbollah declared its ranks in readiness for the past two days, for fear of Israeli aggression on Lebanon," the Rai Al-Youm newspaper published in London reported Thursday.
"High alert was declared in light of information received that the Israeli army is conducting secret military maneuvers jointly with the United States, which are currently taking place in the country and in the Mediterranean," journalist Kamal Halaf, who is close with Hezbollah, said.
Citing sources in Hezbollah, Halaf added that US military leaders gave the IDF a green light to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon. The only thing preventing Israel from launching a surprise attack is fear of retalition from the Iranian-backed group, the sources said.
Also according to the Hezbollah sources, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu persuaded the Americans to make a "quick surprise attack" on Lebanese soil, but there is concern that such an attack could lead to all-out war in the region, since Hezbollah's response would be "tough and very strong," Halaf wrote.
Iran is building and testing short- to medium-range missiles armed with chemical warheads in Syria, former Syrian general Zuhair al-Saqit told [The Jerusalem Post's sister publication] Maariv. Al-Saqit, who heads the Center for the Detection and Monitoring of the Use of Chemical Weapons in Belgium, also said that Iran's Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah is in possession of chemical weapons, mostly handed to it by the Assad regime in order to hide their existence from international monitors.Iran’s Russian Anti-Aircraft Missile Now Operational, U.S. Says
In an interview in Paris, al-Saqit said that a large part of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, which were hidden from international inspection bodies, were transferred to Hezbollah.
Iran continues to be a major supplier of chemical weapons to the regime of President Bashar Assad and continues to develop chemical weapons in Syrian territory, he said. Iranian scientists, technicians and military personnel are developing missiles with chemical warheads ranging from five to 35 kilometers that can be carried in vehicles or by small army units within Syria — or across the border, he said.
General al-Saqit came to Paris to warn European governments that, contrary to popular opinion, the problem of chemical weapons is not yet off the table. "The Syrian army and the militias supporting it carry out daily attacks on the population, which uses chlorine gas. Only yesterday there was such an attack," he said.
Al-Saqit deserted the Syrian army in 2013 and left the country after being responsible for the scientific development of chemical warfare weapons during the civil war. He refused to use chemical weapons against civilians and replaced chemical munitions with harmless materials.
The center he heads today receives and records testimonies from the field and examines them. According to him, contrary to the regime's official stance, the videos from Syria showing victims of chemical attacks are not fabricated.
Iran tested and deployed a Russian-made anti-aircraft missile system last year that has long worried U.S. and Israeli military officials because it gives the Islamic Republic a “generational improvement in capabilities,” the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency disclosed.Iran: Mosque's design is a Zionist conspiracy
Russia delivered the SA-20c SAM system in 2016, providing Iran with its most advanced air-defense system. Now, Iran has “the flexibility of a highly mobile, long-range, strategic surface-to-air missile,” Lieutenant General Robert Ashley, the DIA director, said in written testimony submitted Tuesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s visiting Washington this week, is pushing the Trump administration to take stronger action to counter Iran’s role in the war in Syria and its provision of increasingly sophisticated weapons to its allies in the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. While Trump has vowed to stem Iran’s growing power in the region, the U.S. has maintained that America’s combat role in Syria is limited to preventing a revival of Islamic State terrorists.
The fielding of the SA-20 showed that Iran “continues to improve its conventional capabilities to deter adversaries, defend its homeland, and control avenues of approach --including the Strait of Hormuz -- in the event of a military conflict,” Ashley said in his submission to the Senate panel. “We expect Iran’s modernization priorities to remain its ballistic missile, naval, and air defense forces, with new emphasis on the need for more robust combat air capabilities.”
The deployment of the SA-20 underscores the value of Israel’s purchase of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s stealthy F-35 jet. It also caps a decade of objections by the U.S. and Israel against Russia selling Iran the weapons system.
Iranian sources blamed the architect of a recently-built mosque for having a an affinity for "secular Judaism" and participating in a "Zionist plot."IsraellyCool: The Mossad IL: The Other Other Israeli Intelligence Agency
The new mosque, built in Tehran, follows a minimalist design which according to the architects is symbolic of "early Islam's modesty."
However, more conservative voices have criticized the mosque's design for the fact that it differs from traditional mosques around the world.
In their opinion, the design is the result of "secular and Jewish influence."
Mashregh, a local news site, claimed the new mosque looks like a kippah (skullcap or beanie), and that the architects must stand trial for "reason" and aiding the "Zionist plot."
We are The Mossad IL. You may know us from Twitter as “@TheMossadIL“. We have kindly asked Aussie Dave to open a user on his blog. Thank you Dave. Here’s your goldfish back.
We want to use this blog in order to give you a little background on what we do and why we do it.
The Mossad IL was established in 1949 and went through various changes until its current form. Our divisions are:
Collection
Our largest division is purposed to collect information covertly. Our main operatives (who prefer to be called “Warriors”) are The European Bee Eater, The Griffon Vulture, and several cuddly squirrels.
Nobody suspects the squirrel
Political Action and Intelligence Liaison
This division is charged with controlling everything in your life. From the 2016 US elections to that sudden urge to use the bathroom minutes before your bus arrives. Our operatives are every single internet user who thinks Israel has a right to not be destroyed. We pay them to have those views using a special Hasbara crypto-currency called Zionist Shillings. And we give them all mugs.
Psychological Warfare
The Psychological Warfare division is charged with special operations involving trolling the living daylights out of those who wish for our demise.
Our proudest achievements are:
- The successful extraction of Asghar Bukhari’s left shoe
- The box of trans-fat heavy hamantaschen we sent to Talib Kweli. He’s so happy with it he has tweeted a screenshot of that tweet no less than 100 times.
- The periodical reminder the Richard Silverstein is still a douche. His soft-on rages.
- Linda Sarsour and her Zionist iPhone.
- Getting our love on with Beirut.
