Wednesday, March 30, 2022

03/30 Links Pt1: Five killed in Bnei Brak shooting as Israel enters 'new wave of terror'; Palestinian social media celebrates murder of Ukrainians in terror attack

From Ian:

Five killed in Bnei Brak shooting as Israel enters 'new wave of terror'
Five people were killed by a Palestinian terrorist in a shooting attack in the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) city of Bnei Brak on Tuesday night.

The shooting was first reported around 8:00 p.m. on HaShnaim Street. One person was found lifeless in a car and two other people were shot dead on a nearby sidewalk. A video later circulating on social media showed the attacker yelling in Arabic, shooting bystanders with an assault rifle on a residential street.

Another Israeli was found dead on Herzl street, perpendicular to HaShnaim Street. Yaakov Shalom, a Bnei Brak resident and father of five, and rabbi Avishai Yehezkeli, a yeshiva teacher and father of two, were identified as two of the five people killed in the attack. Victor Sorokopot, 38, and Dimitri Mitrik, 23, two workers from Ukraine, were also identified as victims of the attack.

The shooter was later shot dead by a police officer who arrived at the scene on a motorcycle. The officer, 32-year-old Arab Christian Amir Khouri, was evacuated to Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in critical condition and died from his wounds soon after, making him the fifth victim.

The shooter was identified as Dia Hamarsha, 27, from the village of Ya'bad in the northern West Bank near Jenin. He was jailed for six months in 2015 for dealing in illegal firearms and affiliation with a terrorist group, and had worked illegally at a Bnei Brak construction site.

Another person was arrested at the scene and investigated on suspicion of assisting the shooter, and a third person was arrested later on Tuesday night further east on Jabotinsky Street.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi, Israel Police chief Kobi Shabtai and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar to discuss the attack and rule on Israel's response.

In the meantime, Israel Police was put on its highest alert level for the first time since Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021. Shabtai decided that the police will focus on visible public security and will put more officers on the streets and in crowded areas. The IDF also announced that it was also sending reinforcements to the West Bank.
Victims of Bnei Brak terror attack: 2 local fathers, Christian Arab cop, 2 Ukranians
Authorities early Wednesday identified three of the five victims of a deadly terror shooting spree in Bnei Brak the previous night, including two young fathers and a police officer who helped kill the gunman.

The victims were named as officer Amir Khoury, 32, a Christian Arab; and local residents Yaakov Shalom, 36, and Avishai Yehezkel, 29.

The two other victims were foreign workers from Ukraine who had not been identified by Wednesday afternoon.

Khoury, an Arab Israeli from the northern town of Nof Hagalil, served on the Bnei Brak police station’s motorcyclist responders team.

Khoury was part of a team of two motorcycle officers who caught up with the gunman and killed him, ending the deadly shooting spree.

Khoury was hit in the exchange of fire and later died after being rushed to the Beilinson Medical Center, officials said.

Israel Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai spoke later with Khoury’s father, Jarris. The father told Shabtai that they are a police family and that he was a veteran of the Tel Aviv police department.

Shabtai said his son’s death, confronting the attacker, was “a great tragedy for the police.”

“Alongside the tragedy, it is important for me to tell you that your son saved the lives of many civilians,” Shabtai says. “His actions will become a legacy and memory of heroism for the whole country.”

Khoury leaves behind his parents and two sisters.


'Israel is dealing with a new wave of terrorism' - Bennett
In a video statement released after the Bnei Brack attack, Bennett said that Israel is "currently facing a new wave of terrorism.”

"After a period of quiet, there is a violent eruption by those who want to destroy us, those who want to hurt us at any price, whose hatred of Jews, of the State of Israel, drives them crazy," Bennett said in a short video address Wednesday morning.

"They are prepared to die – so that we will not live in peace," he added.

Israel has already pushed to thwart what it feared would be outbreaks of Palestinian violence, similar to what sparked a Gaza war last May and a wave of ethnic Jewish-Arab riots within sovereign Israel.

"What we witnessed less than a year ago in Operation Guardians of the Walls, the terrorism and the violence, from within Israel and inside Israel, was the first sign," Bennett said.

"This is a great and complex challenge for the IDF, the ISA and the Israel Police that requires the security establishment to be creative and for us to adapt ourselves to the new threat and read the tell-tale signs of lone individuals, sometimes without organizational affiliation, and to be in control on the ground in order to thwart terrorism even before it happens," he explained.

"The security forces of the State of Israel are the best in the world. They are up to the task and, as in the previous waves, we will prevail this time as well," he added.

He sent his condolences to the families of the victims, wished a speedy recovery to the wounded and thanked the civilians and police officers who helped end the attacks for their heroism.

"I stand by the civilians and police officers who shot the terrorists in the various locations. I have spoken with some of them and thanked them on behalf of all of us. These are heroes of Israel who, thanks to their courage, have saved lives," he said.

"We face a challenging period. We have experience in dealing with terrorism, from the very beginning of Zionism. They did not break us then and they will not break us now," Bennett said.

"The secret of our existence is the mutual responsibility among us and our determination to maintain the home that we have built – at any price," he explained, adding that "citizens of Israel, we will prevail this time as well."
No, it's not the Third Intifada - analysis
A generation of both Israelis and Palestinians who grew up in the midst of suicide bombings do not want to see a repeat of such a scenario. Both sides understand the catastrophe that they lived through during those violent years.

Because of that, Israel’s defense establishment only last week increased the number of work permits for Gazans to 20,000, in an attempt to reduce the tensions that have been bubbling under the surface.

Officials from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar are also working to reduce the flames-holding an unprecedented number of meetings in public. Those meetings came as Israel tried to differentiate between terrorism from the West Bank and Gaza and terrorism carried out by Arab-Israelis.

Nonetheless, despite the rush of diplomatic meetings and doubling of troops in flashpoint areas, 27-year-old Dia Hamarsheh was still able to illegally cross into Israel through a hole in the security fence and open fire on unarmed civilians with a military-grade assault rifle, just mere minutes from Tel Aviv.

In order to prevent future attacks, including copycat attacks, security forces and Bennett’s government have a lot of work to do.

One issue that should top their list is to fix the holes in the security fence through which thousands of Palestinians cross to Israel daily – including the mornings after each deadly attack this past week.

Security forces must also ramp up their operations in combating the trend of illegal weapons that have flooded into Arab communities and continue to be smuggled in from Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.

Combating the ideologies of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a struggle that will continue for years, and will be harder to deal with as long as Palestinians and Arab-Israelis feel they have nothing to lose.

Israel’s military does not want Defensive Shield 2.0 2022. But in order to prevent that, the IDF, Shin Bet and Israel Police must get the situation under control.

They can no longer afford to play catch-up.


Hundreds attend funerals for two fathers shot dead in Bnei Brak terror attack
Large crowds thronged the streets of Bnei Brak on Wednesday for the funerals of two men killed in a terror attack a day earlier.

Five people were killed on Tuesday evening when terrorist Diaa Hamarsheh, 26, went on a deadly rampage through the ultra-Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv.

Three of victims were named as police officer Amir Khoury, 32, Ya’akov Shalom, 36, and Avishai Yehezkel, 30.

Police said that the two unnamed victims were foreign nationals from Ukraine. The two, aged 23 and 32, were killed as they sat outside a grocery store on the city’s Bialik Street.

The two were not formally identified and it was unclear how long they had been in the country, but the Walla news site said they had worked in construction in Israel for a number of years.

Hundreds of people gathered for the funeral of Rabbi Yehezkel, a yeshiva student who was taking his 2-year-old son for an evening walk in his stroller when he was shot.

He is survived by his wife, who is eight months pregnant, and his son.

According to reports, Yehezkel had taken the young child down to the street in his stroller in an attempt to get the boy to sleep.

The victim’s brother Ovadia Yehezkel eulogized him at the funeral, saying that Avishai called to warn him that there was a gunman, and then used his body to shield his son, saving the child, who was left alone in the street after his father was killed.
'He was our backbone:' Relatives eulogize police officer killed in Bnei Brak attack
Relatives and friends of Amir Houry, the police officer killed in the terrorist attack in Bnei Brak on Tuesday, eulogized him on Wednesday.

Houry, 32, an Arab-Israeli from Nof HaGalil, served in Israel Police's motorcycle unit. He was killed while attempting to neutralize the terrorist. He leaves behind his parents and two sisters.

Jiris, Houry's father, told Army Radio that Houry wanted to learn medicine, but after a year of studies he changed his mind and decided to be a police officer, like his father. "He was a good person and an outstanding police officer, they promoted him faster than usual."

"He was our backbone," said Habib Zinati, Houry's uncle, to Army Radio. "He focused on the good of his family. He wanted to build a home but it didn't happen."

Israel Police chief Kobi Shabtai expressed his condolences to Jiris on Tuesday night, saying "this is a difficult event and a great disaster for the police."

"Along with the great disaster it is important for me to tell you that your son saved the lives of many civilians tonight," said Shabtai. "Your son tonight became a legacy and memory of heroism for an entire country. Israel Police will accompany you forever and with everything you need."


Seth Frantzman: Pro-Palestinian social media celebrates murder of Ukrainians in terror attack
The fact that Palestinians on social media celebrate even when they know the victims are not Israeli, is an example of how low and depraved this populist hate trend has become. The shifting of the term “martyr” from someone who targeted a military target, to a person blowing up a bus, to a person stabbing people, to a person shooting random foreigners, is part of the process.

It’s a process not just of dehumanization, in which the other is called “settlers,” but also a privilege afforded the hate criminal who is told from a young age that if he decides to kill random people he will be a hero. He can see growing up that other men whose posters hang around the neighborhood or outside schools are “martyrs” even if their “martyrdom” was stabbing an unnamed woman. There’s no shame in killing a foreign tourist; no one will protest or preach against it.

We can read the reactions on social media. When it became known that two Ukrainians were victims of the hate crime attack, one woman posted the photos of the victim and called it a “heroic operation.” A man replied that “no one is safe in Palestine, they will have to go back where they came from.”

They post smiley faces as comments. They even laugh at their deaths. They post emojis of clapping and write “wherever you are, death will catch you.” And this isn’t ignorance; some of the comments in Arabic about the murdered Ukrainians even reference Zelensky and praise Putin.

This praise of murder is a cult of genocidal hatred. It is no different from that of the KKK or Nazis in which a supremacist ideology has accorded itself a right to murder all whom it considers other. One reaction to the murder of the Ukrainians announced in Arabic Palestinian media was “they think that by publishing this, it will... warn people the occupation by Israel is worse than the ‘occupation’ of Ukraine [by Russia].”

This is an informed comment by an educated person. Other media called the Ukrainians “immigrants.” Still, others made sure to claim that the two Ukrainians were “Jews.” One claimed they were Jewish immigrants who came to “occupied Palestine.”

But a social media account that claims to cover Gaza noted the men were foreign workers. One man celebrated the deaths of the two by posting smiley faces laughing and a heart with the word “Putin.” He has 1,700 followers.

The murders in Bnei Barak even have an Arabic hashtag: Operation Bnei Barak. In the hashtag, they post videos of the killing and decorate the images of the perpetrator with flowers. “Brave fighter,” “hero” and “it will be better for the Zionists to leave” are some of the comments.

These celebrants write without shame in their own names with images of the victims. No one challenges their accounts on social media.
Ukrainian nationals killed in Bnei Brak named as Victor Sorokopot, Dimitri Mitrik
Victor Sorokopot, 38, and Dimitri Mitrik, 23, were named as the two Ukrainian nationals who were killed in Tuesday’s shooting attack in Bnei Brak.

The two were killed as they sat outside a grocery store on the city’s Bialik Street when terrorist Diaa Hamarsheh, 26, opened fire.

“He was a really good person. We were married for almost six years,” Victor’s wife Kristina, who lived with him in Bnei Brak, told Channel 12 news. “We don’t have kids… I don’t know what to do because there are a lot of problems in Ukraine.”

The two men were foreign workers, employed in construction, who both lived in the city.

Vasily, Mitrik’s cousin, told Channel 12 he heard about Mitrik’s death from a friend who witnessed the attack.

“Yesterday I also wanted to go to the store there. We are in this store all day,” he said.

“We could not believe such a thing would happen in Bnei Brak. A friend of ours was there and saw them being shot. He called and told us 10 minutes after the incident.”


Police arrest 5 in connection with Bnei Brak terrorist attack
Security forces arrested overnight Wednesday five Palestinians suspected of involvement in the terror attack that occurred in Bnei Brak the evening before. Among the arrested is the brother of the perpetrator.

On Tuesday, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed five residents shortly before being neutralized. He was later identified as 27-year-old Diaa Hamarsheh, from the Arab village of Yaba.

In a statement, the military said the suspects were being questioned. A group that represents Palestinian prisoners said all those arrested are Hamarsheh's relatives.

Israel has ramped up its security presence across the country in a bid to snuff out any further violence. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was set to hold a meeting of his Security Cabinet later on Wednesday, after convening his top security officials shortly after the attack in Bnei Brak.

"We are dealing with a new wave of terror," Bennett said in a statement. "As in other waves, we will prevail."

Tuesday's shootings occurred at two locations in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox city just east of Tel Aviv. Police said a preliminary investigation found the gunman was armed with an assault rifle and opened fire on passersby before he was shot by officers at the scene.
Land Day passes with no clashes, defense establishment on high alert
Thousands of Palestinians participated in events commemorating Land Day on Wednesday, in the Galilee, West Bank and Gaza Strip. There were no clashes with IDF troops despite concerns that violent riots may erupt following a spate of deadly terror attacks in Israel.

Earlier on Wednesday, the IDF said that it had beefed up troops along the Gaza border and in the West Bank ahead of Land Day. The military sent reinforcements to the Gaza Division including additional infantry troops and special forces and advanced technological means in case of violent protests along the fence.

The IDF said that the troops were deployed to the southern front as plans that had been outlined ahead of the month of Ramadan.

Land Day commemorates the Israeli government’s expropriation of Arab-owned land in Galilee on March 30th, 1976. Six unarmed Arab citizens were killed and hundreds wounded and arrested in the ensuing riots and confrontations with the IDF and police.

While Gazans have regularly held violent demonstrations along the border fence, according to reports, this year Land Day was commemorated in the Gaza Port in an attempt to reduce the possibility of riots near the fence.

Nevertheless, there had been concern that Gazans may approach the fence and clash with troops.
Israel facing wave of terror



International community condemns Bnei Brak shooting, other recent terror attacks
The international community offered swift condemnation of a terror attack in Israel that killed five people on Tuesday evening, with top diplomats expressing their support for the country as it faces a recent spate of deadly assaults.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a condemnation within hours of the terror shooting in Bnei Brak, a suburb of Tel Aviv. The Palestinian gunman killed a police officer, two fathers, and two Ukrainian nationals.

“We strongly condemn today’s terrorist attack in Bnei Brak, Israel, that killed five innocent victims,” Blinken said in a statement.

“This comes after two other recent horrific terrorist attacks in Hadera and Be’er Sheva, Israel. This violence is unacceptable,” he said.

“Israelis — like all people around the world — should be able to live in peace and without fear. Our hearts go out to the families of those killed in the attacks,” Blinken added.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a condemnation of the recent terror wave in Israel, which has taken the lives of 11 citizens over the past week.

“Such acts of violence can never be justified and must be condemned by all,” Guterres’s office said in a statement.


Jordan and Israel Leaders Urge Calm After Historic Meeting Following Terror Attacks
Jordan’s King Abdullah called for calm following a historic summit with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday after the sharpest spike in violence in years stoked fears of a wider escalation ahead of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

Abdullah told Herzog after receiving him in the Husseiniya Palace in the first official visit by an Israeli head of state that peace was more pressing now to end a conflict that he said had “lasted too long.”

A palace statement said the king condemned “violence in all its forms” including the latest attack on Tuesday in which an Arab gunman killed at least five people in a Tel Aviv suburb.

“This conflict has lasted for very long and the violence it is has resulted in continues to cause much pain and creates a fertile soil for extremism,” the monarch was quoted as saying in the statement.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long weighed on relations between Israel and Jordan, who have been peace partners since 1994.

An Israeli statement said Abdullah offered Herzog his condolences to the victims’ families amid fears in both countries of a surge in assaults in the run-up in April to the holy month of Ramadan.

“I always say, the fact that Muslim leaders are meeting together Jewish leaders and Israeli leaders is an alternative to the abyss of hatred and bloodshed,” Herzog was quoted as saying in a statement.

“As we enter these holy days… we must move towards enabling everyone to practice their beliefs in safety, in security, in calm circumstances. This is what we need to work towards,” Herzog added.
PMW: PMW unmasks Abbas’ lame “condemnation”
After the PA’s repeated calls for terror and the PA’s repeated support for terror, Arabs murder 11 people in 3 terror attacks in one week:
Sequence of events:
February: The PA, including Abbas, repeatedly calls for terror
March 1- 21: PA glorifies terrorists who died in terror attacks
March 22: Terrorist murders 4 in Be’er Sheva, PA openly praises him as “Martyr”
March 27: Terrorist murders 2 in Hadera, PA is silent
March 29: Terrorist murders 5 in Bnei Brak, Abbas forced to issue lame condemnation

After 2 months of intensified PA promoting terror and support for terror attacks, 3 terror attacks by Arabs in one week leave 11 people in Israel murdered. PA Chairman Abbas was the leader of the calls to Palestinians to murder Israelis. For example, at the PLO Central Council meeting in February: “President [Abbas called] in all his speeches to initiate popular resistance.” [Official PA TV, Feb. 8, 2022] PMW has documented that “popular resistance” is the PA call for civilians to carry out terror attacks.

Having promoted terror for 2 months, the PA glorified the first terror attack in which 4 Israelis were murdered. After criticism from Israel, the PA was silent about the second attack in which 2 were murdered. And then only when Israel's defense minister and the United States pressured Abbas he issued a lame condemnation.
PMW: Abbas’ Fatah praises yesterday's terror attack: “We bow before you in honor and admiration”
While PA Chairman Abbas was compelled to condemn the murder of 5 last night in Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv because of US and Israeli pressure, his Fatah Movement obviously doesn’t feel any pressure to do so. On the contrary. The Fatah branches in Jenin (where the murderer came from) and Nablus were quick to celebrate the attack and honor the shooter as “the heroic Martyr” who “bravely defended our people.” The Movement promised allegiance to the murderer, vowing to continue “until victory or Martyrdom.”

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, has encouraged terror the last few months. When 3 Fatah terrorists were killed in confrontations with Israel, Abbas himself openly called on Palestinians to murder Israelis - “dish out to them twice as much as we’ve received.” The fact that Fatah’s Jenin branch repeated Abbas’ exact term in the post glorifying yesterday’s murderer, makes it clear that the movement sees the murderous terror as an answer to Abbas’ call:
“This is a clear Palestinian message to the world that the Palestinian people adheres to the right to defend its land and its historical right, which has no statute of limitations and is inalienable. This is also a message to the oppressive occupation that the Palestinian response to the occupation’s crimes will dish out twice as much as it’s received.”

[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement – Jenin Branch, March 29, 2022]

This followed Fatah’s praise of the murderer as a “heroic Martyr” and the description of his funeral as a wedding –i.e., to the 72 Virgins in Paradise in Islam. Fatah also portrayed the attack as the “defense” of the Palestinian people:
“The Palestinian National Liberation Movement Fatah’s Jenin branch… in the presence of our glorious people, accompanies [in his wedding]heroic Martyr Diya Ahmed Hassan Hamarsheh. He was shot by the treacherous Israeli occupation and ascended to Heaven on the land of occupied Palestinian Tal Al-Rabia (i.e., “Tel Aviv”), while bravely defending our people and the Palestinian right that was stolen.”
Palestinian Terror Groups Celebrate Attack in Central Israel, Calling It a ‘Harbinger’
Palestinian terror groups celebrated the latest Arab terror attack on Israelis that killed four people in Bnei Brak and one in Ramat Gan in postings on social media.

“The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) blesses the heroic operation against the Zionist occupation soldiers in the so-called ‘Tel Aviv’ area, which led to the killing and wounding of a number of Zionist occupiers, and stresses that all the heroic operations carried out by our Palestinian people, in every inch of our occupied land, comes in the context of the natural and legitimate response to the terrorism of the occupation and its escalating crimes against our land, our people and our sanctities,” Hamas, the terror group that rules the Gaza Strip, wrote on its website.

“Responding to the crimes and terrorism of the occupation is a legitimate right for all our people until the occupation is removed from our land,” it said.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad also praised the attack, saying, “this is the harbinger of our people’s operations to come deep inside the [Zionist] entity.”

Meanwhile, photos on social media showed men in the Gaza Strip handing out sweets to passersby in celebration of the attack in central Israel.


MEMRI: Hamas Political Bureau: Recent Terror Attacks Constitute New Level in Our Confrontation with Israel
Saleh Al-Arouri, the Deputy Chairman of Hamas' Political Bureau, said in a March 28, 2022 interview on Mayadeen TV (Lebanon) that the recent terror attacks in the Israeli cities of Beersheba and Hadera constitute a "new expression" of the Palestinians' confrontation with Israel. Al-Arouri did not mention that the attacks were carried out by ISIS supporters. He then criticized the Negev Summit in Sde Boker, Israel and said that any meeting, normalization, coordination, or cooperation with Israel constitutes aggression against the Palestinian people. He accused the Arab countries of serving their personal interests and said that the situation in Palestine should resemble that in Ukraine, with Arabs arming and supporting the Palestinians like the West arms and supports the Ukrainians.




BBC reporting on Hadera terror attack follows the usual template
Late on March 27th the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page published a report about a terror attack that had taken place several hours earlier under the headline “Israel attack: Two shot dead in Hadera”.

Some eight hours later the report was amended to include additional information and its headline was changed to “Israel attack: Two police officers shot dead in Hadera”.

Around three hours later – i.e some fourteen and a half hours after the attack had taken place – it was amended for a second time and the headline was changed to read “Israel: Two police killed by Israeli Arab gunmen in Hadera”.

Although the information was available by the time the second version of the report was published, the names of the two people killed in the attack – Corporal Yazan Falah from Kisra-Sumei and Corporal Shirel Abukarat from Netanya, both aged 19 – only appeared in its third version.

As was the case in a report on another terror attack several days earlier, neither in the headline nor in any versions of the report itself did the BBC clarify in its own words that what took place was a terror attack. In line with the selectively applied BBC editorial guidelines – “We should not use the term ‘terrorist’ without attribution” – the sole mention of the word terrorist in the report’s second version came in a quote from an Israeli official:
“”Our officers managed to neutralise the assailants and prevent a bigger terrorist attack,” national police spokesman Eli Levy told Israeli TV.”

In the third version the only mention of the word terrorist appeared in an embedded tweet from the US Secretary of State.
After AP Story, Bnei Brak Slaughter Kills Palestine-Ukraine Analogy
Buried deep the article’s 25th paragraph, Krauss finally suggested there may be holes in the Palestinian-Ukranian comparison. Persistent readers are told:
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back more than a century — long before the 1967 war in which Israel seized east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Most of the world considers those areas to be occupied Palestinian territory and Israel’s ongoing settlement construction to be a violation of international law. Israel portrays the conflict as a territorial dispute, accusing the Palestinians of refusing to accept its right to exist as a Jewish state.

“Only the severely context-challenged could compare Israel’s wars of defense to Russia’s invasion of its neighbor,” the Jerusalem Post said in a March 1 editorial on the topic.

About most of that context, Krauss is largely mum, a striking contrast next to the extensive airing of the arguments of those in favor of the tortured comparison. Here’s some of the essential context, ignored by Krauss, and detailed in that Jerusalem Post editorial (“The Palestinians are not like the Ukrainians“):
As to [MSNBC journalist Mehdi] Hasan’s “illegal occupation” reference, it is worth noting that Israel has been trying for the last half-century to figure out a way to end the “occupation” – one forced on it during a war it did not choose – and stay alive. Because of unrealistic Palestinian demands, as well as a greater Palestinian interest in dismantling the Jewish state than in actually building a Palestinian one, that formula has remained painfully elusive.

All those trying to paint Israel as imperialist Russia and the Palestinians as the freedom-seeking Ukrainians should keep a couple of truths in mind:

First, the Ukrainians never tried to throw the Russians into the Black Sea, nor does the Ukrainian constitution include a clause stating that Russia has no right to exist.

Second, the Ukrainians did not arm their people with explosive vests and encourage them to ride buses in Moscow and blow themselves up along with as many innocent passengers as possible.

Third, the residents of Kharkiv in northern Ukraine have not been firing rockets for nearly two decades at apartment blocks in Belograd just across the border.

Fourth, this writer adds, is the fact that not one inch of the disputed land which Krauss claims “[m]ost of the world considers … to be occupied Palestinian territory” was ever under Palestinian governance prior to the bilateral Oslo Accords in the late 1990s, a fact acknowledged in multiple media corrections, including at the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post, among others.
NYT, WaPo, CNN Cite Abbas' Terror Condemnation, but Omit Attacker's Links to Palestinian 'Prez'






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