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Friday, August 09, 2019

08/09 Links Pt1: Thousands attend funeral for teen terror victim, as father vows to ‘choose life’; French spies promised no harm to Palestinian terrorists who killed Jews in Paris

From Ian:
Thousands attend funeral for teen terror victim, as father vows to ‘choose life’
Thousands of Israelis on Thursday evening attended the funeral for a yeshiva student killed in a West Bank terror attack, with mourners remembering him for his “light and love.”

The body of Dvir Sorek was found early Thursday with stab wounds outside the Migdal Oz settlement, where he studied at a seminary as part of a program combining religious study and military service. He was last seen Wednesday leaving Migdal Oz for Jerusalem to buy a book for a teacher.

“Dear precious, beloved Dvir, in a few days we were supposed to celebrate your 19th birthday,” Yoav Sorek, Dvir’s father, said at the funeral in the Ofra settlement. “I think of these 19 years and I can’t avoid smiling because your memory reminds me of a bright face, positive thought, innocence and love for humanity.

Yoav Sorek described his son as a “gift” that his family was privileged to enjoy for nearly 19 years and said his murder in no way tainted his “innocence.”

“A gift that spread light and goodness inside the family and outside of it. Without pretension and without cynicism. For this gift I have said and I will say again: God giveth and God taketh away,” he said.

“Evil lovers of death took your life, my Dvir, but they did not harm your innocence, light and love. You left us pure, and we will try to bring about light and goodness, to strengthen our family despite the pain and to choose life,” Yoav Sorek added.

As the funeral began, those in attendance sang songs in Sorek’s honor.



Father of slain teen hopes his son died before seeing ‘face of evil’
The father of Dvir Sorek, the yeshiva student found stabbed to death in a terror attack in the West Bank on Thursday, said he hopes that his son died quickly and without a prolonged struggle with his killers.

“I very much hope that it happened the way that I’m imagining it: That he was attacked from behind and wasn’t face to face with evil when he left this world,” Yoav Sorek told reporters outside his home on Friday.

“I [hope] he left the world purely,” he said. “I hope that he didn’t leave this world after an unsuccessful struggle with those that ambushed him.”

Yoav Sorek said the family was waiting to hear the conclusions of the initial investigation into his son’s killing.

“There’s nothing new about Jews being the targets of Arab terrorism,” said Sorek, who is the editor of the influential Tikvah Fund’s Shiloach Journal. “This is something that has accompanied us a long time.”

The body of Dvir Sorek was found early Thursday riddled with stab wounds outside the Migdal Oz settlement, where he studied at a seminary as part of a program combining religious study and military service.




Envoy urges UN action after terrorists murder Israeli soldier
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon urged the world body to condemn the murder of an Israeli teen in an apparent terrorist attack in Judea and Samaria on Thursday.

In a letter addressed to Poland's UN Ambassador Joanna Wronecka, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, Danon pushed the UN to condemn the stabbing to death of Dvir Sorek, 19, a yeshiva student and Israel Defense Forces' recruit, and stop the payment of salaries to Palestinian terrorists.

"The attack and its glorification are the direct results of the Palestinian leadership's ongoing policy of educating and incentivizing its youth to kill Jews throughout Israel," Danon wrote in the letter. "I call upon the Security Council to condemn this sickening act of terror immediately, unequivocally and in the strongest terms possible. It is the duty of the Council to put an urgent stop to all Palestinian incitement efforts."

Meanwhile, American Jewish groups condemned the murder of Sorek and urged the international community to take action against the Palestinian Authority's "pay to slay" policy.

"We join the people of Israel in mourning the loss of 19-year-old student Dvir Sorek, from the community of Ofra, who was studying at Yeshivat Migdal Oz. This was a dastardly act of terror and cold-blooded murder of a student who was found still clutching the books he had just bought in Jerusalem. We extend our deepest condolences to Dvir's family, which has already suffered grievously from previous terror attacks," said Arthur Stark, chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman and CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

"The international community must join in condemning this attack and those who incited, abetted and supported it," they continued, "especially the continuing ‘pay to slay' grants of the Palestinian Authority."
UN, Western diplomats denounce murder of teenage Israeli student
Diplomats from the United Nations, European Union, United States and Britain condemned the killing of yeshiva student Dvir Sorek on Thursday, and offered condolences to the family.

The body of Sorek, who was in a program combining religious study and military service and would have turned 19 next week, was found near the settlement of Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion early Thursday with stab wounds. He was last seen on Wednesday traveling to Jerusalem to buy a gift for one of his teachers.

While reports initially suggested Sorek may have been killed during a kidnapping attempt, defense officials investigating the murder assessed that there was no effort to kidnap him before he was stabbed to death.

Instead, investigators believe that the terrorists noticed Sorek on the road leading to Migdal Oz, murdered him and dumped his body on the side of the road.

United Nations peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov called the West Bank murder of Sorek “cowardly and dangerous,” condemned terrorism and said the act “undermines trust” between Israelis and Palestinians.

“It serves those who want escalation,” he added.
Palestinians: In Need of a Mirror?
The Palestinian Authority's silence over the murder of the Jewish teenager sends one clear message to the Palestinian public: It is fine to kill a Jew.

Abbas's silence, in fact, encouraged many Palestinians to express joy over the terrorist attack.

It was hard to find even one Palestinian who was willing to express his or her revulsion over the terrorist attack. But this makes sense. Why should any Palestinian come out against terrorism when their leaders are either silent or joyously celebrating the murder of a Jewish teenager?

This is the hate that has been embedded in the hearts and minds of Palestinians toward Israel and Jews. When Palestinians run to link the Palestinian slaughter of a Jewish teen to a Muslim feast and the tradition of sacrificing sheep, it is clear that the time has come for Palestinians to take a hard look at themselves – and if they are nonetheless unwilling to do so, perhaps the international community might finally bring a mirror to them.
Hamas Has Held Hostage the Bodies of 2 Israeli Soldiers for 5 Years. Enough Is Enough.
On Aug. 1, 2014, hours after a humanitarian cease-fire went into effect, Hamas terrorists emerged from a tunnel in Gaza, ambushed an Israel Defense Forces unit, and killed Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23. Hamas took his body and has been holding it hostage in Gaza, treating it as a bargaining chip. Hamas is also keeping the remains of another Israeli soldier killed in the 2014 Gaza war, Oron Shaul, 20. To this day, Hamas refuses to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross access to their remains.

Holding the bodies of soldiers killed in action and refusing their return to their next of kin for burial is a flagrant and indisputable violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. The bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul must be returned to Israel for proper burial immediately, unconditionally and without reservation.

Last week, the parents of Hadar Goldin met in Berlin with the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, who called for the immediate repatriation of Goldin's body while urging those who fund UN Palestinian programs to "demand action." In April 2018, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Hamas to return to Israel the remains of Goldin and Shaul (as well as the civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed).
Ha'aretz: Applying Israeli Law on Jewish Communities in the West Bank Does Not Mean Annexation
Israel and the U.S. maintain that there won't be any significant progress in the peace negotiations unless we make a major effort to change the Palestinian narrative, since it is the main obstacle to a final status agreement.

According to this narrative, there is no Jewish nation and there was no Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, and therefore there is no justification for the existence of a Jewish nation-state in the region where the only native people are the Palestinians.

Absent the possibility of advancing a peace process, moves may be expected to apply Israeli law on the Jewish communities in the West Bank. (The Americans are not making any effort to counter the impression that they would accept such a move.)

While some have called such a move "annexation," this is misleading. There is a significant legal difference between applying laws and annexation. Applying Israeli law won't change the situation on the ground and will grant the Jewish communities the status enjoyed by Israeli communities within the 1967 lines and in Jerusalem. It does not change the basic idea embodied in the Oslo Accords that this is disputed territory awaiting negotiations to determine its final status.

The vast majority of the Israeli public does not support annexation and Israel has no intention of annexing areas densely populated by Palestinians or applying Israeli law on them.
Israel accused of pushing ‘effective annexation’ after settlement homes okayed
Israel faced harsh international criticism Wednesday after it advanced plans for the construction of thousands of housing units in the West Bank a day earlier, with representatives of the United Nations and Britain joining the European Union in calling on Jerusalem to curb its activities in the disputed territories.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urged Israel to halt the planned construction, saying that further settlement expansion promoted “the effective annexation of the West Bank.” He added that while the Israelis should curtail their own expansion, they ought to “develop improved mechanisms that allow Palestinians to build within Area C.”

Under the Oslo Accords of the mid-1990s, Area C, which constitutes more than 60 percent of the West Bank, is under Israeli administration.

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov sounded a similar note, saying in a statement that “the expansion of settlements has no legal effect and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law.”

He said that by “advancing the effective annexation of the West Bank, it undermines the chances for establishing a Palestinian state based on relevant UN resolutions, as part of a negotiated two-state solution. It must cease immediately and completely.”
Abbas tells Congress members on AIPAC-linked trip he won’t accept US ‘dictates’
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a delegation of Democratic members of the US Congress that he will not accept American “dictates,” the official PA news site Wafa reported.

The 41 lawmakers, including Democratic House majority leader Steny Hoyer, arrived in Israel on Tuesday as part of a trip organized by the American Israel Education Foundation, a group connected to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a Washington-based, non-governmental organization that works to strengthen ties between the US and Israel.

Abbas stressed “his rejection of American dictates and decisions related to Jerusalem, refugees, borders and security,” the Wafa report said of the meeting.

Since late 2017, US President Donald Trump’s administration has angered the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the US Embassy to the city, cutting aid to the United Nations agency that supports Palestinian refugees and their descendants, and closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative office in Washington.

Abbas also affirmed his support for the two-state solution “according to resolutions of international legitimacy,” the Wafa report added.
Israel's Strategic Goal in Syria
Long before the U.S. began its policy of maximum economic pressure on Iran, Israel had been applying its own policy of maximum prevention in Syria. Media reports describe a widespread wave of Israeli strikes on Iranian axis targets across Syria, hitting Iranian and Hizbullah weapons sites as well as development, storage, and transfer facilities, some embedded in Syrian regime military bases. Using advanced intelligence coupled with precision firepower, Israel has prioritized the objective of disrupting the construction of an Iranian war machine in Syria.

Israel has also acted to prevent Iran from using Syria as a transit and production zone for advanced weapons, such as guided missiles, for the benefit of Hizbullah in Lebanon. This effort involves tracking flights, weapons factories, suspicious ground convoys, and an array of Iranian weapons production and smuggling activities throughout the Middle East.

The reports of Israeli strikes represent the tip of a very large iceberg. For every reported preventive action by Israel, there are many more that go unreported. Israel is determined not to allow Iran to build offensive drone bases, missile factories, and proxy terror networks in Syria.
US slaps Hezbollah financier with 5-year prison sentence, $50m. fine
A Lebanese businessman designated by US authorities as an important financial supporter of Hezbollah was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to forfeit $50 million, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Kassim Tajideen, 63, pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiracy to launder money as part of a scheme to evade US sanctions.

He was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in May 2009 by the Treasury Department based on tens of millions of dollars in financial support given to Hezbollah, a Shiite political party and Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon.

In a plea, Tajideen admitted to conspiring with at least five other people to conduct more than $50 million in transactions with US businesses, in violation of prohibitions barring his involvement with US persons or companies.

“His sentencing and the $50 million forfeiture in this case are just the latest public examples of the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to disrupt and dismantle Hezbollah and its support networks,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski.
Greenblatt hits back at Germany: UN resolutions are not way to make peace
After coming under fire from Germany last month, the White House’s Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt shot back on Thursday, blasting the UN while claiming that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be solved through “these ambiguously-worded, highly controversial resolutions [which] serves as a cloak to avoid substantive debate about the realities on the ground and the complexity of the conflict.”

Greenblatt appeared in July before the UN’s Security Council and, at the time, criticized the institution’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks until now, taking aim, he said, at “the constant drumbeat of tired rhetoric that is designed to prevent progress and bypass direct negotiations. It is time to retire that rhetoric.”

After his talk, Greenblatt faced fierce criticism from German’s Ambassador to the UN Christoph Heusgen who said, at the time, that “it is the U.S. that has left the international consensus.”

“For us, international law is not an a la carte menu,” Heusgen said, adding that Germany does not “believe in the force of the strongest.”

On Thursday, Greenblatt published an oped in the German newspaper Die Welt in which he took a diplomatic tone, but came out strongly against Heugsen.

“With respect, Ambassador, neither does the United States,” Greenblatt wrote. “In our intervention, we clearly stated that a solution cannot be forced upon the parties, and the only way ahead is direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Our point was that collectively, UN Security Council resolutions passed with the intent of providing a framework for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed to create progress.”

Greenblatt wrote that there is no disagreement between the US and Germany about the utility of Security Council resolutions that are clear and effective. “However, in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he wrote, “competing interpretations of these resolutions have sparked more disagreement than consensus.


German amb. set to run EU-Iran trade resigns, linked to Holocaust denier
Germany’s former ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Bernd Erbel, will not oversee the European Union’s mechanism to conduct trade with Tehran because he appeared on a radio show with a virulently antisemitic radio host who allegedly denied the Holocaust.

Germany’s top-selling paper, Bild, reported on Thursday about the latest antisemitism scandal that is consuming Germany’s Foreign Ministry.

The US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, tweeted that "Bild reports that the German official tapped to run Instex, the outfit designed to bypass US sanctions on Iran, has been forced to resign because of antisemitic comments and poor judgment.”

INSTEX is an abbreviation for the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges payment system between the EU and Iran designed to circumvent US sanctions. Erbel pulled out of the position for "personal reasons."

Erbel appeared twice on an Internet radio show with Ken Jebsen in which he praised the terrorist entity Hezbollah and defended Iran's missile program as legal.

The former ambassador to Iran and Iraq lashed out at the Jewish state in crude terms, stating that Israel was also founded "at the expense of another people" and the “people has lost their home.” As a result, Erbel said, "The Palestinians are the victims of our victims. Quite simple. For example, if one had said that a Jewish state was founded in East Prussia, then the Palestinian problem would not have existed."

Erbel said the Jewish state is “more than a foreign body in the region.”

Erbel heaped praise on Hezbollah’s 2006 war against the Jewish state.


Switzerland’s universal jurisdiction
On July 25, The Jerusalem Post reported that former prime minister Ehud Olmert suddenly decided to cancel a scheduled visit to Switzerland. The reason for this decision was not a scheduling conflict, or a health emergency, or any of the many other reasons that routinely compel people to change travel plans. Instead, the “Foreign Ministry had received a statement from the Swiss authorities saying he will be taken in for questioning on suspicion of war crimes during IDF operations in Gaza while he was prime minister.”

The Swiss government’s notice to Israel is essentially an assertion that during the 2008 Operation Cast Lead, the IDF under Olmert’s command as prime minister not only committed serious war crimes, but they did so with a level of impunity necessitating Swiss action. It also suggests the Swiss government might believe such crimes are attributable to Olmert. Such assumptions are dubious at best, if not outright invalid.

Switzerland enacted legislation since 2011 allowing its courts to exercise what is known as “universal jurisdiction” over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, regardless where they were committed or who was involved. Any questioning would likely be related to consideration of invoking this law to prosecute Olmert or other Israeli military or civilian officials. And while there is no way to know the end results of such questioning, Olmert’s decision to cancel his trip suggests that both he and the Israeli government perceived the Swiss action as representing a genuine risk that Swiss prosecutors will in fact pursue such cases.

It may seem surprising that a state like Switzerland would have either an interest or a right to prosecute officials – civilian or military – for alleged violations of international law committed in the midst of a war in which it was no way involved. But the animating idea behind universal jurisdiction is that some violations of international law are so egregious they offend all members of the international community equally, thereby allowing any state to bring alleged wrongdoers to justice.
French spies promised no harm to Palestinian terrorists who killed Jews in Paris
France agreed not to target Palestinian terrorists who killed French Jews in Paris in 1982 if they refrained from carrying out further attacks on French soil, a former top spy revealed.

Yves Bonnet, who headed the now-defunct DST service in the 1980s, said this in January to a judge investigating the 1982 attack in which six people were murdered and 22 injured at a kosher restaurant on Rosiers Street in Paris, Le Parisien reported Thursday.

Friday marked the 37th anniversary of the attack, then the deadliest anti-Semitic attack on French soil since World War II, in which the terrorists threw grenades into the packed restaurant.

The suspects in the attack on the Jo Goldbenberg deli are wanted for questioning as per a 2015 French arrest warrant. One of the suspects lives in Jordan, another near Ramallah in the West Bank and a third in Norway, according to the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities.

None of the relevant governments have agreed to extradite the suspects, whom French investigators believe belonged to the Abu Nidal terrorist group affiliated with Fatah.

“We entered a sort of verbal deal which tells them: I want no more attacks on French soil, but I will allow you to come to France and guarantee nothing will happen to you,” Bonnet said.


Waqf calls on Muslims to pray in Al Aqsa on Tisha Be’Av
The Waqf called up to Muslims to pray in the Mosques on the Temple Mount during the Jewish holiday of Tisha Be' Av on Sunday, to prevent Jews from going up there to pray, the Army Radio reported on Friday.

The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, a branch of the Jordanian Ministry of Sacred Properties, is the Muslim authority managing the Islamic holy sites on the Temple Mount, including the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

According to the Army Radio, a Waqf document circulating in Arab media invited all Muslims living in the Jerusalem area to go pray in the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock instead of in their local mosque, to prevent Jews from going up during the holiday.

The site, referred to in Hebrew as Har Habayt and in Arabic as Haram esh-Sharif, is considered holy by both religions. However, an agreement was reached after Israel conquered the Old City in 1967, allowing Jordan to maintain civil administration over the area and restricting Jewish access to it: Jews and non-Muslims are allowed to visit the Temple Mount in limited hours and days, but they are not allowed to pray.

In the past years, a movement calling for the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount has become more vocal and attempts to pray there in spite of the prohibition have been more frequent.
Sbarro terrorists have received $910,823 in pay-for-slay funds in 18 years
Eighteen years ago, on August 9, female terrorist Ahlam Tamimi smuggled a bomb in a guitar case into Jerusalem and led a suicide bomber to the crowded Sbarro pizza shop in Jerusalem’s city center.

Suicide terrorist Izz Al-Din Al-Masri ate a slice of pizza and then blew himself up, murdering 15 people, seven of them children, and wounding close to 130 others.

“I have no regrets,” Tamimi told Channel 1 TV in an interview that was recently rebroadcast on Palestinian Authority TV. “No Palestinian prisoner regrets what he or she has done.”

Since that fateful day, in which two Americans – Malki Roth and Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum – were among the murdered, the PA has paid the seven terrorists who helped orchestrate the attack as well as Al-Masri’s family $910,823 (3.2 million shekels), according to a report released Thursday by Palestinian Media Watch.

These payments include monthly salaries paid to the terrorists in prison; payments to the family of the dead terrorist; and payments to the terrorists, like Tamimi, who were released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal, brokered between the Israeli government and Hamas.

Today, the PA pays $7,321 (NIS 25,800) per month to the Sbarro terrorists and their families, according to PMW.

Al-Masri’s family has received a total of $53,689, PMW reported. The bomb maker, Abdullah Barghouti, has received $213,848 and Tamimi received $51,836 until she was released and fled to Jordan.




Nearly $1 Million to the Jerusalem Sbarro Terrorists
Eighteen years after the deadly 2001 suicide bombing of the Jerusalem Sbarro bombing, which killed 15 people, Palestinian Media Watch reported that the perpetrators and their families collectively received almost $1 million in compensation for their imprisonment in Israel. Our Sandra Guzelbahar has the story.


Ha'aretz :Hamas Seeks to Orchestrate West Bank Terror Attacks, But Palestinians Are No Longer Standing in Line to Volunteer
Arik Brabbing, formerly head of the Jerusalem and West Bank district and also head of cyber operations in the Israel Security Agency, told Ha'aretz that the "traditional threat of organized terror remains. A large number of these attacks are planned and funded from Gaza, mostly by people who were deported in the Shalit deal, who are acting there through a body called the West Bank Command."

"The West Bank Command people have integrated in recent years into the military wing of Hamas in Gaza and have learned from its people new, more military methods of action....Iran is also involved in inculcating professional knowledge."

However, "the activists in Gaza have difficulty recruiting many people in the West Bank who are willing to endanger themselves by planning major terror attacks or committing suicide attacks themselves. A change has taken place on the ground since the end of the intifada. People are no longer standing in line to volunteer."

The only time in recent years in which a Hamas terror attack plan was relatively successful was in April 2016 when the operative who was riding the number 14 bus in Jerusalem with a bomb was killed, and a number of Israeli civilians were wounded. In retrospect, it turns out that the operative was fiddling with the detonator and had not intended to commit suicide.
Indirect Security Coordination between Israel and Hamas
The Hamas unit dubbed the Restraining Force numbers several hundred armed men who serve as a type of border patrol. The unit is tasked with thwarting rocket attacks or terror attacks against Israeli targets by rogue organizations in Gaza that could embroil Hamas in a war it does not want.

On Aug. 1, a Restraining Force member, Hani Abu-Salah, attacked IDF troops after infiltrating the border fence near the Kissufim crossing armed with a Kalashnikov and hand grenades. He wounded three Israeli soldiers before the troops shot him dead. The IDF issued a statement saying, "This was an independent action by a terrorist acting on his own" and it did not involve Hamas.

An Israeli security source said Hamas told the Egyptians it would carry out an internal inspection of the Restraining Force to root out members with hidden agendas against Israel. Hamas has also conducted lectures for members of the Restraining Force to hone their instructions so that IDF snipers could not misidentify them as armed terrorists. Hamas also promised Egypt it would expand the unit to strengthen its capacity to ensure that the Gaza border protests do not veer out of control.
Ha'aretz: How a Top Palestinian Lawyer Became a Terrorist
Tarek Barghout, 44, was one of the best known lawyers who represent Palestinians on trial in Israel. Judges knew him, military prosecutors joked with him. But what his colleagues and acquaintances didn't know is that for the past two years Barghout has perpetrated terrorist acts in the West Bank. At one point he found himself representing Palestinians who were charged with carrying out an act of terrorism that he himself had perpetrated.

Lt.-Col. (res.) Morris Hirsch, former chief military prosecutor in the West Bank, who knows Barghout well, said, "The feeling was that Tarek was not only defending his clients but that he identified totally with their acts of terrorism. I saw in him passion and genuine support for terrorism. It was expressed in conversations in the corridor, in meetings we held, in the hearings. He absolutely gave backing to actions against Israel."

According to his indictment, in October 2016 he received an M-16 rifle with a tripod and scopes. A month later, after scouting two checkpoints, he set out at 2 a.m. with the rifle and fired 13 shots at two police jeeps. Subsequently, he carried out three more attacks on his own, two of which the security authorities didn't know about until his confession.
Wall Street Journal reports Bahrain targeted by Iranian cyber attacks
According to a Wall Street Journal report, critical Bahraini government infrastructural sites were allegedly hacked by Iranian government officials in recent weeks - becoming the latest State victim of international cyber attacks amid growing tensions in the Persian Gulf.

The Wall Street Journal reported that "suspected Iranian cyber offensives" and intrusions have "rose above the normal level of Iranian cyber activity in the region," and is causing concern "that Tehran is stepping up its cyber attacks amid growing tensions."

"On Monday, hackers broke into the systems of Bahrain’s National Security Agency—the country’s main criminal investigative authority—as well as the Ministry of Interior and the first deputy prime minister’s office, according to one of the people familiar with the matter," said the report.

Although there is no proof the alleged attack was carried out by Tehran, United states intelligence officials have named the Iranian government as the suspected culprit, however Bahraini have not definitely implicated the attack to the Islamic republic.

Bahrain, however, has accused Iran in the past "of conspiring with Qatar to 'subvert national unity and spark chaos in the region" after Iran and Qatar held a strategic maritime meeting within the Islamic Republic's capital.
MEMRI: Jordanian Journalist: The Test Of A Progressive Arab Society Is Whether Women Have Freedoms, Equal Rights
In his July 13, 2019 column in the Jordanian Al-Dustour daily, titled "What Would Happen If a Woman Were Appointed Prime Minister?" Jordanian journalist Fares Al-Habashneh argued that the prevailing views in Jordanian society, and in Arab societies in general, are preventing women from holding key roles. The test of how progressive these societies are, he added, would be to appoint a woman to head the country's government, parliament, or judiciary. He went on to state that unlike women in the West, who are preoccupied with consumerism and pleasures, Arab women's problems concern attaining basic rights and gender equality. He also claimed that most of the women who do hold key positions in government are not working to promote women's rights, "to the extent that it seems that it is a man standing before us, not a woman."

It should be noted that in June 2017, Jordanian lawyer Mohammad Al-Subaihi also wrote an article promoting the idea of appointing a woman to lead the Jordanian government, and appointing women to lead other governments in the Arab world. In it, he stated that Arab society rejects this idea for chauvinistic reasons and for fear that a woman might succeed where many men have failed.[1]

The following are translated excerpts from Al-Habashne's column:
"What [would happen] if a woman were appointed to head the government? This may be the first time that this question has been debated in Jordanian politics. Of course there are no legal obstacles [preventing this]. This question is not discussed in Jordan: Why shouldn't a woman head the government, one of the houses of parliament, or the judiciary council?

"[It is true that] there are voices waving the banner of liberalism and liberation. We hear them – [but] the Jordanian political community is conservative and traditional... Today [in Jordan], there are women members of both houses of parliament. There is a woman minister and a woman director-general. But the basic attitude toward women is still rigid and inflexible, and it dictates that women [only] be given positions based on a fixed quota allocating them.
MEMRI: Houthi Schools, Summer Camps, And Children's Magazine Instill Hatred Of U.S., Israel, And Jews, Glorify Martyrdom And Jihad
Since the Houthi Ansar Allah movement's 2015 takeover of Yemen's capital Sana'a and other parts of the country, the Houthis have adopted extremist curricula glorifying jihad and martyrdom and emphasizing hatred for the U.S., Israel, and the Jews. One method of indoctrination is inculcating the Houthi motto "Death to America, Death to Israel, Cursed be the Jews, Victory to Islam" in children attending schools and summer camps controlled by the Houthis.[1] This motto is also promoted by the Houthi children's magazine Jihad.

Furthermore, children in these frameworks are exposed to anti-U.S. incitement, including in activities involving stepping on the U.S. flag, memorizing texts calling for jihad against the U.S., and more. They are also exposed to cultural activity promoting martyrdom such as Martyrs Week and visits to graves of Houthis killed in the war. These educational programs are aimed at encouraging them to join the Houthi fighters – and it is reported that since 2014 over 15,000 children have done just that.[2]

This report will review Houthi indoctrination of children in Yemen.

Passage For Reading Aloud In Schoolbook For Houthi Summer Camp: When A Nation Loves Martyrdom, Its Enemies Cannot Frighten It

A schoolbook used at summer camps for 2019 includes a passage to be read aloud which has the children repeat phrases praising martyrdom and jihad:

"The martyrs are seekers of justice. They devote themselves to the torments of death for the sake of justice everywhere."
"Jihad is one of the gates to Paradise which Allah has opened for his most beloved."
"Martyrdom is the immense honor granted by Allah to his beloved believers."
"When a nation loves martyrdom, its enemies have nothing which can frighten it."
"The martyrs have promoted an exalted Islam which rejects oppression and does not create men who surrender to tyranny or worship falsehood."
"The motto [i.e. 'Death to America, Death to Israel, Cursed be the Jews, Victory to Islam'] is a declaration of a stand against the enemies of Allah that clarifies that we consider them enemies and arouses rage against America and Israel."

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