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Friday, May 20, 2022

05/20 Links Pt1: Israel is losing sovereignty over east Jerusalem; Jordan fully determined to end Jewish prayer on Temple Mount; Now is a bad time for Biden to visit Israel

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Israel is losing sovereignty over east Jerusalem
The reality of Israel today is that there are large swaths of its capital city that are too dangerous to step foot in if you’re Jewish. Even the police and municipal civil servants avoid going near them.

One might argue that there are plenty of high-profile cities around the world – from Chicago to Paris – that have neighborhoods and areas with huge crime and murder rates that many people would go out of their way to avoid.

But Israel prides itself on its “unified” capital, with every government and prime minister over the 55 years since the Six Day War vowing that Jerusalem will never be divided.

That unblinking belief that the eastern part of Jerusalem will never be up for negotiation might have something to do with Wednesday’s decision by the police to allow this year’s Jerusalem Day Flag March to enter the Old City through the Damascus Gate, after the route was blocked last year due to threats from Hamas that turned into Operation Guardian of the Walls.

The march, which should be a national, non-political event celebrating Israel’s victory in 1967 and the reunification of Jerusalem, has long since turned into a right-wing-fueled show of strength, aimed at boasting ownership over the city, even the Arab sections inside and outside the Old City.

Although the final decision on the march’s route will be made by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in consultation with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), organizers of the march welcomed the police decision, saying, “There is nothing more suitable than a happy and unifying march, from the west of the city to the east, through the places that the IDF liberated 55 years ago, on the holiday of the capital of Israel.”

Statements like that don’t jibe with the images of riots, clashes and violence that have been plaguing that capital almost every day in recent weeks. Marches like those the organizers want to hold are nice ideas but they can’t exist in a vacuum. Israel has long ago forfeited sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem. A march through Damascus Gate won’t restore it.
Jordan fully determined to end Jewish prayer on Temple Mount
Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have reached a new understanding with regard to the Temple Mount status quo. At the White House on Saturday, King Abdullah presented the conditions of this new understanding. The king accused Israel of gradually encroaching on the status quo, outlined several demands, and asked President Joe Biden for support.

Amman, which holds custodianship over Muslim and Christian sites around the Temple Mount, demands that Jerusalem cease Jewish prayer at the site, which began about five years ago. This is also the demand of the Ra'am Islamist party, or as its leader, Mansour Abbas put it: what is acceptable to Jordan is acceptable to us.

Abdullah had previously made the same demand from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who rejected it. The Prime Minister's Office adamantly denied this even happened, but sources involved in the matter confirm so.

Israel makes a point of not addressing these silent prayers formally, although the matter is a well-known secret that takes place on the eastern side of the Temple Mount, albeit without traditional Jewish prayer items such as tallit, tefillin, or siddur.

And yet, Israel is determined to safeguard this achievement – a sole one – in the face of a series of fundamental changes the Muslims have made to the status quo on the mountain over the years – having built several new mosques, limited the times and areas Jews are allowed to visit, at times denied Jews access to the site altogether, damaged archeological sites located there, and last but not least, held protests and fired rockets at Israel under the false pretext of "Al-Aqsa being under attack."

Bennett has a short, but tumultuous history when it comes to Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. The silent prayers began with the quiet consent of then-Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also approved it, although he would never admit it. He too was asked by Abdullah to stop Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount and rejected the Jordanian monarch.

When Bennet became prime minister, he had to face this reality, which he was unfamiliar with before, so he decided to go with the flow. He also studied the Temple Mount clause in Trump's "deal of the century," which was designed to ensure future freedom of prayer at the site, for both Jews and Muslims.

Unlike his predecessor, who kept quiet on the matter of Jewish prayer at the flashpoint site, Bennett announced shortly after taking office that freedom of worship would be maintained on the Temple Mount for all religions, including Jews. Jordan – unsurprisingly – was furious, and the US sided with the Hashemite Kingdom.
Ruthie Blum: Now is a bad time for Biden to visit Israel
AS OF YET, Biden hasn’t commented on this travesty. Perhaps the press is too fearful of a gaffe on his part to request a reaction. In any case, Biden has been nervous from the get-go about the disproportionate power of and pressure from the loud-mouthed “progressives” in his party.

This is why he sucked up to Tlaib exactly a year ago, in the midst of Operation Guardian of the Walls, Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Intercepting him as he landed in Michigan to deliver a speech at the Ford Motor Co. truck plant in Dearborn, she dressed him down for expressing to then-Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks, [and] welcomed efforts to address intercommunal violence and to bring calm to Jerusalem.”

He could have reminded her, however sheepishly, that his conversation with Netanyahu included a call for a ceasefire. Instead, he paid tribute to her during his talk at the Ford plant.

Flubbing her first name by referring to her three times has “Rashid,” he announced: “I want to say to you that I admire your intellect; I admire your passion; and I admire your concern for so many other people. And from my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family [in the Palestinian Authority] are well, and I promise I’m going to do everything to see that they are on the West Bank. You’re a fighter, and God thank you for being a fighter.”

THE IRONY is inescapable. Despite Biden’s many moves to reverse his predecessor’s policy of holding the Palestinian Authority accountable for its intransigence and “pay for slay” mechanism, as long as he so much as mentions that Israel is a US ally, he cannot appease the likes of Tlaib.

Nor will he be able to satisfy her quest for the “liberation of Palestine, from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea” – the wiping of the Jewish state off the map – by admonishing the Israeli government for plans to build some 4,000 housing units in the communities of Judea and Samaria.

If Biden thinks, for example, that she was happy with his State Department’s warning against settlement expansion, on the grounds that it “exacerbates tensions, undermines trust between the parties and deeply damages the prospects for a two-state solution,” he’s kidding himself.

Ditto for Bennett and Lapid. If they imagine that their approval of the construction of at least 1,000 additional Palestinian homes will be sufficient to allay White House concerns, they’re living in la-la land.

The rest of us grasp that it would be preferable for Israel if Biden canceled his trip.


Mark Regev: Hate speech encourages terrorism
Israelis had just finished celebrating their 74th Independence Day when ax-wielding terrorists from the West Bank struck in Elad.

The attack inverted the normal Israeli calendar. Usually, we go from the bereavement of Remembrance Day to the celebration of Independence Day. This year, we went from solemnity to festivities, and then right back to solemnity, with three new names immediately added to the list of terror victims for next year’s commemorations: Oren Ben Yiftah, Boaz Gol, and Yonatan Havakuk.

The security services have been challenged by the recent wave of deadly attacks. In the past, terrorists were generally linked to an organized cell, often penetrable by Israel’s counterterrorism professionals, who could attain actionable intelligence to thwart future attacks. But today’s lone-wolf terrorists, like those of the 2015-2016 Knife Intifada, are not necessarily connected to any organizational structure.

Neither armed with live weapons nor handed a specific attack plan from above, this new generation of terrorists is aroused by incitement. The recent inflammatory speech by Hamas leader Yayha Sinwar is a case in point. Sinwar’s call for knife and ax attacks motivated the Elad murderers to do exactly that, the terrorists choosing a location with which they were familiar (both having worked in Elad).

Since the 1990s, Israeli governments have repeatedly stressed before international interlocutors the dangers of incitement, with examples not confined just to the extreme propaganda disseminated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Vile, vociferous and violent anti-Jewish hate speech, together with the glorification of terrorism and martyrdom, are common across the Palestinian Authority, finding expression in the pronouncements of the leadership, school curricula and sermons in mosques, all amplified through traditional and social media.

But for the most, Israel received only a pro forma acknowledgment of these concerns, with too many foreign governments seemingly ready to tolerate incitement.
Why Do Media Report Mahmoud Abbas Condemnations of Violence But Ignore Palestinian Authority Incitment to Kill Israelis?
And despite Abbas’ ostensible condemnations of the attacks that have roiled Israel over the last few months, his Fatah faction as recently as this week came out with a video openly supporting the terrorists.

Footage from May 18, discovered by Palestinian Media Watch, includes a clip of the Fatah Jenin Branch Secretary stating:
As a sign of support for the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the pure Martyrs and heroic Martyrs Ra’ad [Hazem], Diya [Hamarsheh] and all the Martyrs, today we light the torch of freedom and the torch of the prisoners.”

Ra’ad Hazem was the terrorist who carried out the attack on April 7 that killed two people and wounded several others when he opened fire on a Tel Aviv bar.

Diya Hamarsheh shot five people dead on March 29 during an attack that started in the ultra-orthodox city of Bnei Brak, just east of Tel Aviv.

Both Hazem and Hamarsheh were from the Jenin area.

Not to be outdone, Abbas called the Zubeidi family on May 15 to offer condolences over the death of terrorist Daoud Zubeidi, who died of wounds sustained in clashes with Israeli security forces in Jenin.

Abbas praised the family as one that has brought forth “heroic wounded prisoners and commanders.”

Zubeidi was the brother of Zakaria Zubeidi, the former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Fatah’s “armed wing” that is widely designated as a terrorist organization and has committed numerous deadly attacks on Israeli civilians.

If news organizations believe it noteworthy that Mahmoud Abbas has condemned terrorist attacks against civilians, why do they not think it is equally significant that these terrorists were indoctrinated and incentivized by his PA to hate, dehumanize and target Israelis?
Time for Israel to use its leverage
For years, Israel has been taken advantage of on the issue of exchanges of prisoners and fallen soldiers. When it has managed to strike an agreement, it had to pay an high price in exchange. When it put its foot down and resisted, it got a much more sensible deal.

The death of Jenin terrorist Daoud Zubeidi is an opportunity to change the rules of the game and turn the blackmailers into blackmailees.

True, a funeral has been held for Lt. Hadar Goldin, who fell in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge, although his remains are held by Hamas. True, Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, who fell in the same battle, has been declared an IDF casualty whose burial place is unknown, although the presumption is that his remains are also held by the terror group, along with two captive Israeli citizens.

In Protective Edge, the IDF tried to learn from the mistakes it made after the abduction of Sgt. Eldad Regev and Sgt. Ehud Goldwasser by Hezbollah in 2006. The IDF declared Goldin and Shaul casualties, in hopes that it would aid Israel in negotiations. But Israel released detainees and the bodies of terrorists too early, and thus gave up the leverage it could have used against Hamas.

The redemption of captives is not a modern issue for the Jewish people, and it was discussed, for example, in the Mishnah, which says, “We do not ransom captives for more than they are worth.” This means that the conditions for the release of a captive must be reasonable.

Here is where it gets complicated. What is considered “reasonable”? Does it make a difference whether the soldier is dead or alive? The equation is complicated not only due to a halakhic aspect, but also by social and state responsibility. At what point can the state say that the price for the exchange is too high?
Taylor Force Martyr Payment Prevention Act introduced, aimed at foreign banks
A new bipartisan Taylor Force Martyr Payment Prevention Act was introduced on Wednesday, seeking to build on the original Taylor Force Act by strengthening the Treasury Department’s existing anti-terrorism financing authorities.

The bill will give the Treasury “the additional authority to designate foreign banks as institutions of primary money-laundering concern, and to forbid them from holding or using correspondent accounts in the United States if the banks are used to facilitate or promote martyr payments to terrorists or if the banks knowingly provide financial services to Hamas.”

The legislation would also establish the sense of Congress urging the Treasury “to find foreign financial institutions that flout anti-terrorism financial regulations to be of primary money-laundering concern, and to prohibit them from holding or using correspondent accounts in the United States.”

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado), who led the bill, held a news conference on Capitol Hill together with the parents of army veteran Taylor Force, who was murdered in Tel Aviv on March 2016 by a Hamas terrorist.

Force’s murder led to the passing of the act titled in his name in both houses of Congress. The act cuts non-humanitarian US aid to the Palestinian Authority until it stops paying terrorists and their families.

“In the years since our son Taylor was killed in 2016, we have been dedicated to making certain that at least some good emerges from our loss,” said Force’s father, Stuart Force. “Our first mission was the enactment of the Taylor Force Act in 2018, which limits the US aid to the Palestinian Authority while it continues its reprehensible ‘pay-for-slay’ program of compensating terrorists and their families. We’ve recently come to the realization that the job is half done, and the truth is the payments have continued and those responsible have not been held accountable. The Taylor Force Martyr Payment Prevention Act seeks to finish the job by providing the US government with an important new tool to disincentivize banks from being part of the martyr-payment program and deny them access to the US financial system until they stop doing it.


Back from Gulf visit, J'lem rabbi says Saudi-Israeli normalization 'matter of time'
Back from a recent visit with Jewish business leaders in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Rabbi Steven Burg, CEO of Jerusalem-based religious Zionist group Aish Global, called the Saudi kingdom "amazing" in an interview with i24NEWS on Thursday.

He said that in Saudi Arabia, he saw a place that was moving forward and that the business community there wanted to move away from oil and toward a better economic situation.

While Riyadh has yet to sign on to the Abraham Accords, Burg said the people he spoke to in Saudi Arabia said that normalizing ties with Israel was "only a matter of time."

"It may take a couple of years. It is a conservative society, and they need to move the country forward, but the bottom line is that Iran is everyone's common issue. They are looking around and saying, 'Israel really is a place where we can get an economic benefit.'"

He noted that being openly Jewish and pro-Israel in the kingdom was not a problem for the group.

"They are very fascinated by what is happening here [in Israel], and they are kind of waiting for us to move forward," Burg said.


Israel is an 'evil state that must be destroyed' - South Africa's EFF
Israel is an "evil state which must be destroyed as a matter of urgency," South Africa's radical left-wing communist party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said in a statement released after the violent clashes during the funeral of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh last week.

The EFF, the third-largest party in the South African parliament, is a pan-Africanist faction that "draws inspiration from the broad Marxist–Leninist tradition," according to its constitution. The party and its leader, Julius Malema, have been criticized for encouraging racist sentiments against whites and Indians and Malema himself was twice convicted of hate speech.

In the statement, the EFF said it condemns the "sadistic, cruel and genocidal Israeli apartheid state" for Israel Police's actions taken against Palestinian rioters at the funeral of the Al Jazeera reporter.

According to the radical left-wing faction, Israel is a "sick, fascist and inhumane regime whose actions eclipse those of an apartheid state."

The EFF also called on the South African government and President Cyril Ramaphosa to expel the Israeli ambassador from the country, saying the world's patience has led "Zionist maniacs to believe they are untouchable."

The party also lamented the lack of sanctions imposed on Israel that are "so easily imposed" on socialist states.


The Israel Guys: Is THIS the Third Intifada?
Sgt. Maj. Noam Raz, a hero in Israel, was badly wounded during anti-terrorism operations in Jenin last Friday, and died shortly thereafter.

The current trend for funerals here in Israel is rioting and violence. Defense Minister Benny Gantz is warning that if Israel doesn’t do anything, Jews will only be able to live in the central coast region of the country very soon due to the takeover of Arabs.

In the meantime, the sale of t-shirts with an M-16 printed on them has gone viral in honor of the terrorist who shot and killed five Israelis in Bnei Brak several months ago. Violence and terrorism continues in Israel, but now is not the time to back down. Israel needs our support more than ever.


Palestinians at Al Jazeera Funeral: ‘How Sweet It Is to Kill Jews’
As the Palestinian Authority (PA) falsely accuses Israel of deliberately having “assassinated” Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinians at one of the funeral processions held for the journalist openly expressed their ideology: “How sweet it is to kill Jews.”

Chanting at the funeral procession in Jenin, the participants called for more terror attacks, and expressed their desire to die a “sweet Martyrdom-death” and take “revenge:”


Since the death of Abu Akleh by a still unknown shooter, the PA has been actively disseminating the libel that Israel killed her in what they term “a deliberate assassination operation.” And not just that, Palestinian journalists have stated that Israel has a policy of deliberately “targeting all the Palestinian journalists” so they will not “convey the truth.”

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented that the PA’s own pathologist has stated that he could not yet determine whether an Israeli or Palestinian bullet killed Abu Akleh. Furthermore, PMW has exposed numerous examples of how the PA incited riots, violence, and terror during Ramadan — which led to the exchange of fire in which journalist Abu Akleh died.
AOC: Israeli forces killed Shireen Abu Akleh with US funding
The Israeli military killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh with US funding, US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an early Friday morning Instagram video.

"I think it's really important for us to have eyes on what happened with Shireen Abu Akleh in Palestine, she was killed by Israeli forces — A venerated journalist, a US citizen," said Ocasio-Cortez. "We can't allow this stuff to be happening with our resources."

"Our tax dollars are a part of this...we can't even get healthcare in the US, and we're funding this," she continued. "There has to be some sort of line that we draw."

She also noted that "an entire media building bombed last year — That can't be happening without our consent," referring to the al-Jalaa building that housed Associated Press, Al Jazeera and Hamas intelligence offices, and that the Israel Air Force bombed during May 2021's Operation Guardian of the Walls.

The congresswoman rejected the common refrains of critics that the discussion of Israel was subject to double standards and undue focus, saying that US funding made such criticism relevant.


Palestinian Islamic Jihad: ‘Military Wing Ready to Fight in Gaza, Jenin, Everywhere’
The US Treasury Department on Thursday issued new Hezbollah-related sanctions, designating Lebanese businessman and the Iran-backed group’s financial facilitator, Ahmad Jalal Reda Abdallah, and his companies.

Abdallah, five of his associates and eight of his companies in Lebanon and Iraq were sanctioned and added to the sanctions list of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the department said.

Abdallah is a Hezbollah official and an active member of its global financial network, according to the Treasury. He has supported Hezbollah for decades, carrying out commercial activities in various countries where the profits are transferred to the Iran-backed group, the department said.

Founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and classified by the United States and other Western countries as a terrorist organization, Hezbollah is a powerful group in Lebanon because of a heavily armed militia that fought several wars with Israel. It grew stronger after joining the war in Syria in 2012 in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

The United States said Abdallah used his senior employees and relatives to establish new businesses throughout the Middle East on behalf of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah on Sunday faced an electoral setback when the group and its allies lost their parliamentary majority in elections in Lebanon.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Our Military Wing Ready to Fight in Gaza, Jenin, Everywhere in Palestine
Palestine Today TV (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) aired a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rally held in Beit Hanoun, in the Gaza Strip. At the rally, PIJ showcased a Kornet anti-tank missile launcher, a giant statue of an armed PIJ fighter was erected. The broadcast also screened video footage of what PIJ claimed was a Kornet attack against an Israeli vehicle on May 10, 2021. In addition, a masked PIJ member said that PIJ's military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, is ready to fight in Gaza, Jenin, and everywhere in Palestine, including where the "stupid enemy" does not expect it. In addition, he threatened that PIJ will use its "Jenin" drone (see MEMRI TV Clip No. 9523). For more about the use of Kornet missiles by Palestinian factions in Gaza and how they were supplied to them by Hizbullah and Qasem Soleimani,


Ex-IRGC head Soleimani's son-in-law smuggles weapons to Hezbollah - IDF
The son-in-law of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani regularly smuggles weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the IDF said on Friday.

Sayyed Reza Hashim Safieddine is the son of Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council. He is believed to be a key member of Hezbollah’s financial activities in Lebanon since his father, who is Hassan Nasrallah’s cousin, oversees Hezbollah’s social and economic activities.

Reza Safieddine is said to be close to Nasrallah’s second oldest son, Jawad. He was placed on the US counter-terrorism blacklist in 2018 for his activities in recruiting people to carry out terror attacks including suicide bombings in Israel and the West Bank.

According to the Israeli military, who has been regularly revealing the identities of senior Hezbollah operatives involved in weapons and drug smuggling in Lebanon, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine uses his senior status in the terror group to help his son smuggle strategic weapons.

Reza flies several times a month to Iran where Soleimani lives and uses his time in the Islamic Republic to coordinate the smuggling of advanced weaponry to the terror group “using the infrastructure, resources and network of activists he heads” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said.
US Sanctions Lebanese Businessman, His Companies Over Hezbollah Links
The US Treasury Department on Thursday issued new Hezbollah-related sanctions, designating Lebanese businessman and the Iran-backed group’s financial facilitator, Ahmad Jalal Reda Abdallah, and his companies.

Abdallah, five of his associates and eight of his companies in Lebanon and Iraq were sanctioned and added to the sanctions list of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the department said.

Abdallah is a Hezbollah official and an active member of its global financial network, according to the Treasury. He has supported Hezbollah for decades, carrying out commercial activities in various countries where the profits are transferred to the Iran-backed group, the department said.

Founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and classified by the United States and other Western countries as a terrorist organization, Hezbollah is a powerful group in Lebanon because of a heavily armed militia that fought several wars with Israel. It grew stronger after joining the war in Syria in 2012 in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

The United States said Abdallah used his senior employees and relatives to establish new businesses throughout the Middle East on behalf of Hezbollah.




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