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Wednesday, August 17, 2022

08/17 Links Pt1: Mahmoud Abbas’s lifelong falsification of Jewish history; Experts warn emerging nuclear deal puts world 'five minutes from disaster'

From Ian:

Mahmoud Abbas’s lifelong falsification of Jewish history
First came Yasser Arafat, who repeatedly and clear-headedly chose to forgo the opportunity of winning statehood for the Palestinian people on much of the territory they sought — notably during the Clinton administration, in negotiations with prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. Ultimately, he could not bring himself to abandon terrorism against the Jewish state, to transition from terror chief to national leader.

And then came Mahmoud Abbas, who did not so much as respond to departing prime minister Ehud Olmert’s hurriedly scribbled offer of a state that met almost all of the Palestinians’ ostensible demands, including control of much of East Jerusalem and shared sovereignty in the Old City. While not directly orchestrating the killings of Israelis, Arafat-style, Abbas evidently shared and continued to promulgate Arafat’s murderously incendiary narrative that the Jewish people have no legitimacy in their ancient homeland.

Abbas’s remarks in Berlin on Tuesday, accusing Israel of carrying out “50 holocausts” against the Palestinians, are the pernicious, logical culmination of the false narrative he set out in his 1982 People’s Friendship University of Russia doctoral thesis, which in turn shaped his failed leadership.

As published in book form in 1984, he sought to minimize the scale of the Holocaust, writing, according to a translation by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, “It is possible that the number of Jewish victims reached six million, but at the same time it is possible that the figure is much smaller – below one million.” And he blamed the Zionists for such murders as did take place, claiming that Zionist leaders gave “permission to every racist in the world, led by Hitler and the Nazis, to treat Jews as they wish, so long as it guarantees immigration to Palestine… More victims meant greater rights and stronger privilege [for Zionist leaders] to join the negotiation table for dividing the spoils of war once it was over.”

Four years ago, in a speech in Ramallah, Abbas amended and expanded his inflammatory falsification of history, to allege that the Holocaust was caused by the Jews’ “social behavior, [charging] interest, and financial matters.” As for Zionists, Israelis and Israel itself, the Palestinian leader pronounced, “Their narrative about coming to this country because of their longing for Zion, or whatever — we’re tired of hearing this. The truth is that this is a colonialist enterprise, aimed at planting a foreign body in this region.”

“It’s classic antisemitism,” and “classic blame the victim,” Deborah Lipstadt, the scholar who in 2000 had triumphed in a libel suit brought against her by British Holocaust denier David Irving, told The Times of Israel after that May 2018 Abbas speech. “This brings one back directly to his dissertation, to his distortion of history.”

Added Lipstadt, “Here’s a man who started his career denying the Holocaust and now, at the latter stages of his career, seems to be engaging in rewriting the history of the Holocaust.”
Palestinian President Abbas' holocaust comment is not new - analysis
It is foul because it is a vile falsification of history. It is foul because it obscenely trivializes the Holocaust. It is foul because it is an antisemitic libel aimed at demonizing the Jewish state.

It is foul because it plays into the narrative that still holds sway in much of the Mideast that the West created Israel as a form of “compensation” for the Holocaust. However, if the Jews themselves perpetrated “50 Holocausts,” as Abbas believes, then there is no justification in the world for the creation of the State of Israel as compensation for “just one.”

Abbas has in the past already denied that there were any Jewish temples in Jerusalem, thereby denying any historical or religious justification for a Jewish state in this part of the world. Now he is undermining any moral justification.

It is also foul because it pollutes any chance of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. CNN, the BBC, The New York Times and Fox News will report his statement and Abbas’s “clarification,” and then move on. It will be forgotten by the next news cycle.

Israelis, however, will remember it, maybe not the exact words, but the overriding sentiment.

And, wouldn’t you know it, it is with those Israelis – not Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, two organizations that will surely give Abbas a pass for these comments – with whom Abbas needs to make peace. These comments don’t build a whole lot of confidence among Israelis that there is anyone on the other side right now with whom they are able to make peace.

This is especially true this week. Just two days before Abbas’s comments in Munich, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad labeled “heroic” the act of a Palestinian terrorist who opened fire in Jerusalem and wounded eight people, including critically wounding a 26-year old pregnant woman whom he shot in the stomach.

Peace begins in the hearts and the minds. These comments from both ends of the Palestinian leadership spectrum, Hamas on one end and Fatah on the other, are not exactly winning over the hearts and minds of Israelis who will have to agree to any concessions for peace.


Lapid slams as ‘monstrous lie’ Abbas’s claim that Israel perpetrated ‘50 Holocausts’ against Palestinians
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid early on Wednesday slammed as a “monstrous lie” comments made the day before by Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, who claimed following a meeting with Germany’s chancellor in Berlin that Israel had perpetrated “50 Holocausts” against the Palestinians.

“Mahmoud Abbas accusing Israel of having committed ’50 Holocausts’ while standing on German soil is not only a moral disgrace, but a monstrous lie. Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, including one and a half million Jewish children. History will never forgive him,” Lapid tweeted.

Abbas made the remarks after having been asked whether he intended to apologize to Israel and Germany in advance of next month’s 50th anniversary of the massacre by Palestinian terrorists of 11 Israeli coaches and athletes during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

“If we want to go over the past, go ahead. I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed…. 50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts,” Abbas told reporters on Tuesday during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The mention of the word “Holocausts” drew a grimace from Scholz but no immediate denunciation, according to the Associated Press. Prior to that, Scholz disagreed with Abbas’s assertion that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constituted “apartheid.”

On Wednesday, Scholz took to Twitter to outline his position, writing: “I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud #Abbas. For us Germans in particular, any relativization of the singularity of the Holocaust is intolerable and unacceptable. I condemn any attempt to deny the crimes of the Holocaust.”


Outrage after PA President Abbas says Israel committed '50 Holocausts'

'He is a Holocaust denier': Palestinian president sparks outrage
After saying Israel has committed '50 Holocausts' while visiting Germany, former ambassador Avi Pazner says Israel and the US should take firm action against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.


Has President Abbas caused more damage to the Palestinians with his Holocaust denial?
During his visit to Germany, President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of committing '50 Holocausts' against the Palestinians.

We hear from Samer Sinijlawi, a Fatah activist from Jerusalem and chairman of the Jerusalem Development Fund, and Hen Mazzig, senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute.


PMW: Mahmoud Abbas’ “Israel committed 50 holocausts” – is fundamental to PA ideology
Israelis are “carrying out the Hitleresque Holocaust” - The official PA daily

“Today this fascist [Israeli] government, which is the new Nazis, is the living and recognizable model of the fascist and Nazi thinking of the desire for expansion” - Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub

Israeli prisons for Palestinian terrorists are “Nazi occupation’s bastilles” - Shari'ah Judge Nasser Al-Qirem

“You filled the world with screams about how you are the victims of Nazism… I see you committing against the Palestinians acts of cruelty that are worse than the cruelty of the Nazis” - Palestinian journalist Ziyad Abd Al-Fattah

“This Nazi state, the Nazi occupation state, this oppressive state… this Nazi entity” - PA Director of the Jordan Valley Settlement Portfolio Mutaz Bisharat

“The racist colonialist occupation system’s detention camps have become most similar to the Nazi crematoriums” - The official PA daily

“This is barbarity, this is wildness, this is the new Nazism that we learned about in books on Hitler” - Fatah Revolutionary Council member Omar Al-Haroub

“Israel has repeated Kristallnacht” - The official PA daily

Israel is a “Nazi” state, shares goals with “Nazi Germany and its allies” - The official PA daily
Palestinians defend Abbas’s holocaust remarks, denounce Israeli ‘incitement’
Several influential Palestinians on Wednesday expressed support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been facing widespread criticism after he accused Israel of perpetrating “50 holocausts” and practicing “apartheid,” during his visit to Germany.

The ruling Fatah faction posted a photo of a smiling Abbas on social media with a caption reading, “Mr. President, you are strong. Continue with God’s blessing and rest assured. We are proud of you and we are all behind you.”

Monir al-Jaghoub, a senior Fatah official, dismissed demands to Abbas to apologize for his statements. “No apology for our struggle for freedom,” said al-Jaghoub, who heads Fatah’s recruitment and organization department in the West Bank.

“President Abbas’s statements are not self-invention. Palestinians should not remain silent towards the war against President Abbas, whose words represent every Palestinian inside and outside the homeland.”

Hassan Asfour, a former PLO negotiator with Israel
Munther al-Hayek, another senior Fatah official, said Abbas’s remarks in Germany were designed to “remind the world of the suffering of the Palestinian people, who deserve an apology for the crimes committed against them.”

Earlier, Abbas issued a statement in which he “reaffirmed that the Holocaust is the most heinous crime in modern human history.”

According to the statement, Abbas did not intend to “deny the singularity of the Holocaust,” and was only referring to “crimes and massacres committed against the Palestinian people since the Nakba [catastrophe – the term Palestinians use to describe the establishment of Israel in 1948] at the hands of the Israeli forces. These crimes have not stopped to this day.”
MEMRI: Fatah Official: Palestinian President 'Abbas Was Right In Saying That Israel Has Perpetrated '50 Holocausts'
On August 16, 2022, Palestinian Authority (PA) President and Fatah head Mahmoud 'Abbas met in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as part of an official visit to Germany. At the close of the two leaders' joint press conference, 'Abbas was asked if he would to apologize to Israel for the terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics, in which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic delegation were murdered by Fatah's Black September terror organization.[1] 'Abbas refrained from condemning this attack, and said that, since 1947, Israel has committed "50 massacres" and "50 holocausts" against the Palestinian people,[2] a statement that sparked outrage in Germany, Israel and around the world.[3]

'Abbas has previously denied the scope of the Holocaust. In the introduction to his 1984 book The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, which is based on his doctoral dissertation, he wrote that "the number of Jewish [Holocaust] victims could be six million but could [also] be far smaller, even less than a million." Citing Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, he also questioned whether gas chambers were used to kill Jews, writing: "Regarding the gas chambers, which were supposedly designed for murdering living Jews: A scientific study published by Professor Robert Faurisson of France denies that the gas chambers were for murdering people, and claims that they were only for incinerating bodies, out of concern for the spread of disease and infection in the region."[4]

In a 2018 speech to the Palestinian National Council in Ramallah, 'Abbas said that the massacres to which European Jews had been subjected from the 11th century until the Holocaust were not because they were Jews, but "because of their function in society, which had to do with usury, banks, and so on."[5] Moreover, 'Abbas has awarded medals of honor to individuals who published articles containing antisemitism and Holocaust denial.[6]

Following the outrage over 'Abbas's statements in Germany, Bakr Abu Bakr, a former member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council and former columnist for the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, published an article in the online daily alwatanvoice.com and on his personal Facebook page in which he justified 'Abbas's remarks. He wrote that the Nakba was indeed the Palestinian holocaust and that, since then, Israel has perpetrated additional massacres that can be called "holocausts." The criticism against 'Abbas, he added, was nothing but propaganda by Zionist and pro-Zionist forces which exploit the suffering of the Holocaust victims and want the world to ignore the Palestinian holocaust.


Wire Services MIA During Palestinian Authority President Abbas’ Holocaust Distortion Press Conference
In 2018, Abbas also claimed Jews were targeted by Nazis not for their “religion but against their social function which relates to usury [unscrupulous money-lending] and banking and such.”

Yet Abbas’ Holocaust distortion was not what global wire agencies chose to lead on in their reports of the Berlin press conference.

Reuters, for example, produced a two-paragraph article on Tuesday evening, headlined Germany’s Scholz rejects word ‘apartheid’ to describe Middle East conflict, which omits Abbas’ ’50 holocausts’ comments altogether.

Only on Wednesday morning did the global news service reprint his words in full in a piece that focused on the response to Abbas: Germany and Israel condemn Palestinian president’s Holocaust remarks.

The Associated Press on Wednesday summarized the incident thus: Palestinian President Abbas skirts apology for Munich attack.

While AP’s headline is technically correct, the piece that follows fails to note Abbas has previously honored the Black September terrorists who took part. In 2020, he described the assassination of three of the perpetrators in Lebanon in 1973 as the “deaths of martyrs” and, as such, his refusal to apologize for the atrocity is hardly surprising.

Equally troublesome has been the silence from international media outlets; the majority of whom have either reprinted the wire agency articles or neglected to cover the press conference at all (at the time of this piece’s publication).

Mahmoud Abbas has frequently billed himself as Israel’s best chance of a “partner for peace” (see here, for example) — the leader who can finally help end the decades-long Israel-Palestinian conflict.

However, his comments in Berlin expose who he truly is: a Jew-hating fanatic.
Jew-Hatred in Sports: Mahmoud Abbas Negates Munich Massacre With ’50 Holocausts’ Comments
What Happens Online Doesn’t Stay There: Time to Define Antisemitism
Sports have the unique power to foster hope. This week, Israel took gold in the men’s team marathon event at the European Athletics Championships in Munich, an extraordinary success coming 50 years after the massacre of Israeli athletes in the same city.

But the camaraderie and fair play typified by sports are under attack. And while star athletes have spoken out against prejudice, the lack of massive indignation in response to recent online incidents is alarming.

Because the danger of not acknowledging the growth of online antisemitism is that it often doesn’t stay online. That’s why it’s crucial to develop a clear definition of what constitutes anti-Jewish hatred and intolerance.

To fill this void, the IHRA has been adopted or endorsed by 865 entities worldwide, including 37 countries, and the US Departments of Education and State.

Guided by the IHRA, journalists would make better-informed decisions in choosing how to cover stories. This is all the more important given that antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories continue to be spread online.
Mahmoud Abbas Israel remark part of Holocaust trivialization trend - CAM
“Abbas’s comments are an outrageous attempt to downplay the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust, and are part of a long-standing position by a man whose doctorate deals with denying central parts of the Holocaust,” CAM CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa said. “While Abbas’s comments are particularly egregious, they are unfortunately part of a growing global trend to trivialize and appropriate Nazi Germany’s crimes against the Jewish people.”

“Allowing Holocaust trivialization to flourish unchecked has regrettably created sanctuaries for antisemitic conspiracies, outright Holocaust denial and other extremist ideologies to spread,” he said. "these trends have created a perfect storm by minimizing Holocaust remembrance and Jewish concerns for safety during an already-resurgent wave of global antisemitism.”

Holocaust trivialization: COVID-19 regulations and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Holocaust trivialization incidents occurred most frequently when having to do with COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine regulations. Some 125 incidents are categorized as relating to COVID-19 pandemic-related health measures implemented by governments around the world, 58.4% of the 214 total number. Some 29 incidents are related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or 13.6% of the total number. These comparisons are employed by anti-Israel activists to distort the history of the Holocaust by falsely linking it to the Jewish state’s treatment of the Palestinians today.

“We call on global leaders and public officials around the world to put an end to the growing trivialization of the Holocaust by condemning and denouncing any and all manifestations, thereby creating a firewall against outright Holocaust denial and rapidly rising antisemitism,” Roytman Dratwa concluded.
Palestinian Authority to seek full UN membership
The Palestinian Authority is again seeking full membership in the United Nations, although the effort is liable to fail just as Ramallah’s previous attempt did in 2011 when the Obama administration essentially kiboshed the initiative in the Security Council.

P.A. envoy to the U.N. Riyad Mansour confirmed the prospective move, albeit at an undefined date, in an interview with The Times of Israel published on Wednesday in which he argued that the initiative would “save the two-state solution” and even perhaps “help Israel by waking up its leaders to hold negotiations.”

The Israeli government in early 2020 accepted as a basis for talks a comprehensive peace roadmap presented by the United States under then-President Donald Trump, whereas the P.A. rejected the proposal out of hand.

Mansour acknowledged in the interview that the P.A.’s gambit will almost certainly be unsuccessful without support from Washington, which has laws on the books aimed at preventing such an eventuality.

Specifically, the Times cited The Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1990 that bars U.S. funding “for the United Nations or any specialized agencies thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states.”
UN Reprimands and Reassigns Official Who Criticized Palestinian Terror Attacks on Israel
By punishing Muscroft, the United Nations is giving the Palestinians an "unwritten veto" over the international organization's statements, which "stands in clear contradiction with the basic principles of objectivity and neutrality that the U.N. claims to hold," Erdan wrote. "In the best case, this is a recipe for misguided self-censorship by U.N. officials. In the worst case, it is a prescription for U.N. officials to exclusively emphasize the Palestinian narrative, even if this falls in contradiction with facts on the ground."

A similar situation unfolded last year when U.N. official Matthew Schmale said in an interview that Israel undertook serious efforts to avoid civilian casualties during its May 2021 operation in the Gaza Strip that targeted Hamas. Palestinian activists attacked Schmale for his comments, and the United Nations recalled him from his post.

"Somehow," Erdan wrote in his letter, "it's always open season to criticize Israel, with no repercussions; but if a U.N. staffer dares to speak against Palestinian terrorism, there is immediate backlash in fear of reprisal."

The situation with Muscroft comes just weeks after a U.N. official who leads what critics say is a one-sided probe into alleged Israeli war crimes said that social media platforms are controlled by a "Jewish lobby"—comments that were widely condemned as anti-Semitic. That official, Miloon Kothari, did not face disciplinary repercussions for the comment and was defended by his superiors, who said pro-Israel forces were trying to discredit the investigation into Israel.

Arsen Ostrovsky, a human rights attorney and the CEO of the International Legal Forum, said the episode with Muscroft is "a shameful act of cowardice and hypocrisy from the U.N."

"Instead of supporting Muscroft, the U.N. effectively threw her under the bus, by capitulating to the terrorists and the anti-Israel activists, by forcing her to make an apology and then reassigning her to a new role," Ostrovsky told the Free Beacon. "The U.N., who are supposed to be impartial, never call out or reprimand their people when they criticize and attack Israel, yet they only do so when an official has the basic courage and decency to speak the truth and challenge the lies of Islamic Jihad and Hamas."
Ukraine Ambassador Says Country Cannot Protect Rosh Hashanah Visitors to Uman
Jews who travel to Uman, Ukraine, on Rosh Hashanah to pray at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov risk their lives, according to Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk.

“Rosh Hashanah is coming, and no matter what we say, Orthodox Jews will try to get to Uman again. We understand your willingness to go to Uman and favor your support for Ukraine, but this is not the right time. We cannot guarantee your security,” he told The Jerusalem Post.

Korniychuk called on Israel to sanction Moscow, and “follow the United States and the rest of the West that you rely on and work with in order to be strong and to defend your own interests.”

He was also reported to have contacted Israeli companies, requesting that they stop doing business in Russia.
Report: 12% of Russian Jews Have Left Since Start of Ukraine War in March
The BBC on Wednesday cited the Jewish Agency as saying that 20,500 of Russia’s estimated 165,000 Jews have made Aliyah since March, the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is an astonishing figure, indicating that more than 12% of Russian Jews were fearful enough of the changes overtaking their country to leave everything behind and take advantage of Israel’s offer of a new home.

Anna Shternshis, Professor of Yiddish studies at Toronto University and a specialist in Russian Jewish history, told the BBC this time the Jews are rushing to leave Russia without there being a rise in antisemitism, as was the case in the 1970s and ‘80s. She explained that “every time something happens in Russia, some upheaval, some change, Jews are always in danger.” This was the case, she said, during the economic crisis of the late 19th Century under Czar Nikolai, the 1917 revolution, and World War Two. “Not everyone acts on it, but every Jew in Russia today is thinking about this,” she said.

In late July, Israel Hayom cited similar figures that were offered by the Jewish Agency regarding Russian Aliyah: since the beginning of 2022 no less than 19,168 Jews immigrated to Israel from Russia, compared to 7,824 in all of 2021. Meanwhile, only 12,358 Jews have made Aliyah from Ukraine this year, even though they are under more direct physical danger than their Russian brethren.

One of the reasons cited by Israeli Aliyah officials is the very real fear that President Putin would ban flights with Olim to Israel. Many view the legal assault on the activities of the Jewish Agency by Moscow as the result of Russian reluctance to see highly educated Jews, especially IT experts, all of whom have been schooled in Russia, fleeing the country. This reluctance has become particularly acute under the constant cyber-attacks on Russia.

Some Russian Jews have suggested that Putin et al are especially angry at the pro-Aliyah campaign run by the Jewish Agency which drummed up the fears of a coming wave of antisemitism as a result of the war. One Rabbi living in Russia told Israel Hayom: “It’s not something terrible and far-fetched for a state to act to stop an organization that encourages its citizens to flee from it in the middle of an emergency.”
Turkey, Israel to Re-Appoint Ambassadors After Four-Year Chill
Turkey and Israel said on Wednesday they will re-appoint respective ambassadors more than four years after they were called back, marking another milestone after months of steady improvement in relations.

The two regional powers had expelled ambassadors in 2018 over the killing of 60 Palestinians by Israeli forces during protests on the Gaza border against the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.

But they have been working to mend long-strained ties with energy emerging as a key area for potential cooperation.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s office said on Wednesday the two countries decided to restore full diplomatic ties.

“It was decided to once again upgrade the level of the relations between the two countries to that of full diplomatic ties and to return ambassadors and consuls general,” Lapid’s office said in a statement following a conversation between the prime minister and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

“Upgrading relations will contribute to deepening ties between the two peoples, expanding economic, trade, and cultural ties, and strengthening regional stability,” it added.
Israel and Turkey announce they will fully normalize ties
Turkey and Israel are turning over a new page in their diplomatic relations with the exchange of ambassadors and will deepen cooperation in the economic, trade and tourism sectors.

Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a Turkey expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy & Security and Dr. Murat Aslan, a researcher at the SETA Foundation in Ankara, discuss what led up to the renewal of ties.




Sign Our Petition: Help End UN-Backed Hate Campaign Against Israel and the Jewish People
On July 25, a UN expert tasked with investigating the Jewish state told an anti-Israel website that the "Jewish lobby" controls social media.

Miloon Kothari is one of three members of the controversial 'UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel' (COI), which is currently carrying out an unprecedented open-ended probe into Israel's treatment of Palestinians, set up following 2021's 11-day Hamas-initiated conflict.

As HonestReporting has said from the start, antisemitic, pro-Palestinian "experts" like Miloon Kothari, Navi Pillay, and Chris Sidoti cannot be trusted to approach the Arab-Israeli conflict without bias.Their crusade against the world's only Jewish state cannot be allowed to continue.

Please join us by signing our petition demanding the resignation of Pillay, Kothari, and Sidoti as members of the UN Commission of Inquiry.




"Israel Thwarts Smuggling of 13 Tons of Fish and Seafood from Gaza"
Inspectors of the Central Enforcement and Investigation Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development last weekend thwarted an attempt to smuggle 13 tons of fish and seafood from Gaza. The fish were transferred to be destroyed, and legal proceedings were initiated against those involved in the smuggling attempt.

The event began with suspicion raised by the inspectors of the Ministry of Agriculture regarding a truck that transported fish and seafood from Gaza to Judea and Samaria. The inspectors monitored the truck, which left the Kerem Shalom crossing and made its way to the Beitunia Crossing near Qalandiya to transfer the goods to Judea and Samaria Arab customers.

During the trip, the truck stopped at Moshav Yad Rambam near Ramla, where the ministry’s inspectors waited for the goods to be unloaded. When a vehicle belonging to a fish marketing company from Acco arrived at the scene, the inspectors raided it and detained both drivers and their vehicles.

According to the investigation, the marketing company planned to sell the smuggled goods within Israel in violation of the law. Legal proceedings were opened against the two drivers involved and the chief food physician at the veterinary unit of the Health Ministry issued an order for the destruction of the booty.
PA security forces arrest two Islamic Jihad recruits in possession of 17 kg of explosives
Palestinian Authority security forces last week arrested two Nablus residents who had been recruited by Palestinian Islamic Jihad and were in posession of 17 kilograms of explosives, Channel 2 reported Tuesday night.

The report said that while the explosives were rudimentary, their sheer volume was evidence of PIJ’s growing presence and power in Judea and Samaria. Jenin had already become a hotbed for PIJ, which has made inroads along with other terrorist outfits in places like Tulkarem, Qalqilya and Nablus, according to the report.

The P.A.’s reported confiscation of the explosives comes on the heels of the IDF’s “Operation Breaking Dawn” against PIJ in the Gaza Strip. The three-day conflict, during which some 1,100 projectiles were fired from Gaza towards Israel, was partially precipitated by the arrest on Aug. 1 in Jenin of Bassem al-Sa’adi, PIJ’s leader in Judea and Samaria.

PIJ demanded that international forces work towards his release as part of the ceasefire agreement that ended the recent round of fighting on Aug. 7. United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland last Wednesday tweeted that he had dispatched a team to Israel’s Ofer prison to meet with al-Sa’adi, while reiterating that the truce between Israel and PIJ remained “fragile.”
Father of dead terrorist, Don’t lay down your weapons

PLO commission vows to continue terrorist salaries

PFLP vows to destroy Israel



PreOccupiedTerritory: Arab Gulf State Spokesman Already Yawning Before You Finish Question About Gaza (satire)
A diplomatic official from one of several Persian Gulf countries to establish formal ties with Israel began to express lack of interest in the subject of Palestinian violence while you had only gotten halfway through your question this morning.

You, a journalist, were interviewing a representative of the United Arab Emirates – or maybe it was Oman, you can’t remember, the point is it was one of the countries that made peace with Israel a couple of years ago – and posed an inquiry to him about the situation in and around the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian terrorist groups have long prioritized their own armaments over Palestinian civilian welfare, and have weaponized Palestinian suffering in the propaganda war against Israel. However, before you got more than four words into the fifteen-word question, the representative let loose a yawn to indicate the profound irrelevance of the issue, as far as he and his country’s political leadership are concerned.

“Regarding Gaza, do you…” represented the limit of the official’s tolerance for the tired subject of a group that pursues its own victimhood as the chief vehicle for revenue, public works, education, and foreign policy, with tens of billions of dollars coming from Gulf countries over the last several decades, and those countries are fed up with the sinkhole that Palestine has become for donor dollars. His brain tuned out the remainder of your question, which witnesses report included the assumption that Israel targets children, that Palestinians have a right to destroy a country they don’t like, and that the world must continue to bankroll Palestinian refusal to take responsibility for the people’s future and invest in something other than incitement and corruption.


Experts warn emerging nuclear deal puts world 'five minutes from disaster'
As the West continues to review Iran's latest response to the new draft nuclear deal, it appears that despite the text being considered final, the talks are essentially still ongoing over the various provisions and that Iran has all but secured major concessions.

Israel Hayom has learned of the various concessions that the US has already been willing to accept as part of a revived nuclear deal. The concessions, some of which have been previously reported, were elaborated upon in a recent article called "Five Minutes from Disaster" by Richard Goldberg in The Dispatch, which also includes what are apparently new demands by Iran.

"Under a new deal, Iran would receive $275 billion of sanctions relief in the first year and $1 trillion by 2030, including the lifting of US terrorism sanctions imposed on the top financiers of a group President Joe Biden recently reaffirmed as a terrorist organization: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)," Goldberg writes on the economic gains Iran has apparently secured through the talks.

The concessions also do away with one of the key elements of the original deal: keeping Iran at least one year away from the bomb should it choose to pursue it. The original deal was made while Iran was still far away from having enough enriched material, but now, if the deal's text remains intact, its starting point would be much farther ahead and would see virtually no restrictions on its nuclear program by 2031, when the main restrictions expire.

"Tehran would face no changes in the old deal's sunset clauses – that is, expiration dates on key restrictions – and would be allowed to keep its newly deployed arsenal of advanced uranium centrifuges in storage, guaranteeing the regime the ability to cross the nuclear threshold at any time of its choosing. As with the 2015 agreement, Iran would face no restrictions on its development of nuclear-capable missiles…"

The deal, if the concessions are finalized into the text, would also allow Russia to win major construction bids worth billions of dollars in Iran to construct new nuclear reactors without facing the Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
‘Take Iranian Terrorism Seriously’ Says Israel Envoy to Azerbaijan After Rushdie Stabbing, Personal Death Threat
Israel’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan George Deek on Tuesday urged the international community to take threats by the Iranian regime on Salman Rushdie “seriously,” weeks after the Christian Israeli-Arab diplomat received a death threat from a Tehran official.

“As someone who only weeks ago, was directly threatened by an Iranian official, I urge you in the strongest possible terms take the threats of this murderous regime seriously,” Deek said in a video posted on Twitter. “Don’t let them intimidate you. Do not dismiss them, even for a single second.”

Deek says that Iran’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Abbas Mousavi, had threatened him personally on Twitter in July.

Mousavi reportedly tweeted that the Israeli ambassador had crossed a “red line” and that he would be “buried” by the people of Iran, Deek said. Mousavi’s Twitter account has since been locked and the Tweet is no longer viewable to the public.

“Iran also said that he [Rushdie] had crossed a red line,” Deek said Tuesday in response. “Iran also threatened him with death and a terrorist just tried to murder him in broad daylight.”

Deek’s comments came after Rushdie, 75, on Friday was stabbed numerous times before he was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.

The Indian-born writer has suffered severe injuries from Friday’s stabbing attack and has recently been disconnected from a ventilator and is understood to be on the path of recovery. Following the publication of his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini a year later issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for his assassination.

“They threaten to kill atheists, activists and anyone who disagrees with them. They threaten to spread terrorism throughout the world. They threaten to destroy Israel,” Deek added. “They mean it, just ask Salman Rushdie, so let’s make sure that this is the last stabbing in the name of mediaeval hatred.”




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