Wednesday, February 08, 2023

02/08 Links Pt1: Netanyahu hails ‘highest order’ aid mission in quake-struck Turkey; What drives the left to incite civil war?; There Is No Such Thing As Palestinian Refugee Camps. It's a SCAM!

From Ian:

Netanyahu hails ‘highest order’ aid mission in quake-struck Turkey
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday commended the work of the IDF search and rescue delegation in earthquake-stricken Turkey, which has saved four people from collapsed buildings since starting its work the previous day.

“You are representing the mission with the most experience on the international level. You have much experience, which has proven itself. You are carrying out a humanitarian mission of the highest order and are bringing much honor to us and the State of Israel and are showing Israel’s true face to the world,” Netanyahu told Col. (res.) Golan Vach of the IDF Home Front Command, the head of the delegation, in a phone call.

“Please convey my greetings to all members of the mission. Do what you can to save lives and be careful,” he added.

Vach said that the emergency response team was currently engaged in efforts to save two additional people from the rubble.

“We are trying to make every effort to save lives. Time-wise, this has been the most successful day that our missions have ever had thanks to the fact that you succeeded in getting us here very quickly,” he told the prime minister.

A separate Israel Defense Forces delegation arrived in Turkey on Wednesday morning to set up a field hospital in the wake of the massive earthquakes this week that have so far claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people there and in neighboring Syria.
How did a seismologist predict the Turkey earthquake 3 days earlier?
A Dutch expert published a tweet on his Twitter account three days before the earthquake in Turkey on Monday, predicting that a powerful earthquake would happen imminently in Turkey.

He even attached an aerial photograph and marked the area where the disaster would happen.

Dutch seismologist Frank Hoogerbeets, who works for the Solar System Geometry Survey (SSGS) in the Netherlands, predicted the earthquake in Turkey on February 3.

The prediction
On his Twitter account, the Dutch researcher wrote: "Sooner or later there will be a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in this region (South-Central Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon)."

The SSGS describes itself on Twitter as a research institute for monitoring geometry between celestial bodies related to seismic activity.

After Hooogerbeets' prediction went viral, he reacted to the earthquake and said: "As I stated earlier, sooner or later this would happen in this region, similar to the years 115 and 526. These earthquakes are always preceded by critical planetary geometry, as we had on 4-5 February."

After multiple aftershocks in the days after the earthquake were felt throughout the larger region, Hoogerbeets gave his explanation for the aftershocks: "The large earthquakes in Central Turkey have caused a significant change in stress distribution throughout the region, with seismic activity down to Palestine as a result. Clearly, the region is resettling."
Second minor earthquake in less than a day rattles Israel; no injuries or damage
A second minor temblor in less than a day rattled Israel on Wednesday amid fears the country could face a major earthquake like the deadly quakes that have killed more than 11,000 people in nearby Turkey and Syria.

The IDF Home Front Command said the quake measured 3.3 on the Richter scale and was centered in central Israel. No injuries or damage were immediately reported, but residents across the country reported feeling tremors.

It followed a 3.5-magnitude tremor on Tuesday night that was centered around 15 kilometers (9 miles) southeast of the settlement city of Ariel in the West Bank.

The Home Front Command said that warning sirens were not sounded for either quake because the tremors posed no danger to residents.

The warning system put in place last year in cooperation with the Geological Survey of Israel can issue an alert to citizens with sirens, similar to those used in rocket attacks, within seven seconds of a quake that measures more than 4.5 on the Richter scale.

The effectiveness of the system was captured on live TV with the Kan public broadcaster interviewing the head of the Geological Survey of Israel when sirens blared in the institute’s headquarters signaling an incoming earthquake.


Israel to Set Up Field Hospital in Earthquake-Ravaged Southern Turkey
An Israeli medical aid delegation will depart for southern Turkey on Wednesday morning, as efforts continue to locate, rescue, and treat survivors of the devastating earthquake that struck the country on Monday.

The 230-member delegation will include doctors, nurses, and paramedics, as well as troops from the IDF Medical Corps and search and rescue personnel, the military said. They will establish a field hospital fitted with advanced equipment in order to provide medical assistance in the areas impacted by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which has left more than 7,000 people in Turkey and neighboring Syria dead, and many others injured and homeless.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that the country was mobilizing search and rescue and medical teams to Turkey and Syria, following requests for aid. The first team, led by the IDF Home Front Command, flew to Turkey on Monday evening, followed by a larger 150-person humanitarian delegation that departed Tuesday morning.

United Hatzalah, an Israeli first response organization, also dispatched a 25-person team of volunteer doctors, paramedics, and EMTs, as well as psycho-trauma response and search and rescue personnel, to the epicenter zone in Turkey on Tuesday afternoon. The group said it sent some 20,000 pounds of medical equipment and humanitarian supplies to the disaster area.

Footage shared by one Israeli diplomat on Tuesday showed IDF personnel beginning a search and rescue operation. Crews are facing difficult weather conditions, including freezing nighttime temperatures, and extensive infrastructure damage in the race to locate and rescue survivors under the rubble.
Israeli rescue team assists with earthquakes relief efforts



Jonathan Tobin: The anti-Bibi resistance wants Americans to thwart Israeli democracy
From the first day of Israel’s existence as an independent state, its political life has been a vicious, zero-sum game, with its major players consistently seeking to delegitimize one another. When you consider that the great rivalry between two of the country’s iconic founding fathers, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, included incidents of attempted murder (such as in the Altalena affair) and a mob to attack on the Knesset (surrounding the debate over accepting reparations from Germany), the current efforts by the left-wing opposition to topple the government of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu through any means possible don’t seem that awful.

Future historians will likely engage in debates about Netanyahu’s policies and his personal foibles. But sensible people should hope that eventually the hysterical partisan attacks on him, as those in the past against Begin, will give way to a sober recognition, across the political spectrum, of his enormous accomplishments.

Right now, that day seems a long way off. As historian Gil Troy pointed out last week in Tablet Magazine, the extremist tone and tactics of contemporary politics is an attack on Israel’s democratic culture that may render such consensus impossible.

Troy’s point was that while a superpower like the United States may be able to afford the kind of bifurcated society in which the right and left act like warring tribes, Israel has no such luxury. For all of its current status as a regional military superpower with a First World economy, Israel is still a small country with powerful enemies in the region and the international community.

While strong disagreements about how to govern the Jewish state are unavoidable, the emulation by Netanyahu’s opponents of the anti-Trump resistance, as I wrote in December, may have consequences to which many of those turning out for anti-Bibi rallies are oblivious.
Caroline Glick: What drives the left to incite civil war?
Dr. David Wurmser, Caroline Glick’s colleague at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, joins her on this week’s episode of the “Caroline Glick Show.”

Glick opens by discussing the chasm between how nations throughout the world perceive Israel and how Israel perceives itself.

In the immediate aftermath of the massive earthquakes in Turkey and Syria Monday, Turkish President Erdoğan immediately asked for Israel to send rescue teams to help save people buried under the rubble and to care for survivors. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intimated that a similar request had been communicated through Russia in relation to Syria.

Last week, Chad’s president traveled to Israel to open an embassy, and Sudan took a giant leap towards fully normalizing its relations with Israel.

Glick explains why they seek to get closer to Israel and what Israel has that superpowers such as China and Russia, and Iran, lack.


Israeli Diplomacy Must Improve to Counter Palestinian Misinformation
The State of Israel has suffered several recent propaganda defeats that continue to reverberate in the international arena. They concern targeted counter-terrorism operations at the northern West Bank refugee camp in Jenin, where Israeli forces encountered furious fire from armed Palestinian elements.

There is no disputing that when Israeli security forces operate in an area saturated with Palestinian militia members who are firing against them without an orderly battle procedure, there may be operational failures, including civilian casualties.

Two such incidents were the killing in Jenin of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, 2022, and the death on December 12, 2022, of a local 16-year-old girl, Jana Zakharna, on the roof of a building in the Jenin refugee camp. This camp, which is outside the scope of control of the Palestinian Authority, is essentially a safe haven for non-organized Palestinian terrorist elements or militias. It is a veritable no-man’s land.

In wartime, collateral damage accidentally caused during military activity in which the circumstances are clear and proven generally results in an expression of sorrow and apology from the responsible party, a response usually deemed sufficient in view of uncertain battlefield conditions. Events of this kind are well documented involving US forces fighting in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm and the Second Gulf War, as well as in Afghanistan.

The IDF, too, has found itself apologizing for operational failures, whether in Lebanon or during military operations in the Gaza Strip. On some occasions, unfortunate events of this type have hastened the end of military operations before their goals were achieved.

Given that the IDF’s activities in the West Bank are under a global magnifying glass, and every incident, however limited, receives a disproportionate response, the army does its best to avoid unnecessary embarrassments.


Burns’ CIA resumes war on Israel
When it comes to a history of failure, bad intentions and antisemitism, it is difficult to top the U.S. State Department, but the CIA’s record is as bad or worse, just not as well-known. The current CIA director, Bill Burns, a longtime employee of State, brought his ill-informed and destructive views to the agency.

Before addressing Burns’ latest inaccurate analysis and harmful activities, let’s briefly review a few lowlights of the CIA’s history in the Middle East.

In October 1947, the CIA was concerned with the “political, economic and social stability” of the region “to counter Soviet infiltration” and ensure U.S. access to Middle East oil, which “depends on friendly U.S. relations with the Arab people as well as with their governments.”

On the eve of the partition vote, the CIA incorrectly predicted the Arab states would not declare war or send their armies to fight the Jews. It believed the Arab leaders feared their position at the U.N. would be jeopardized if they defied a U.N. decision. The CIA’s assessment that the Jews could mobilize around 200,000 well-equipped and trained fighters and that the economy would collapse was also wrong. The agency also inaccurately predicted the Jews could not hold out longer than two years.

After failing to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, the CIA sought to sabotage it and prevent America from developing a close relationship with Israel. In 1951, King Saud asked U.S. diplomats to finance a pro-Arab lobby to counter what later became the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). That organization, the American Friends of the Middle East (AFME), was funded by the CIA until 1967.
The Biden Administration’s Moral Confusion about Confronting Foreign Threats
As required by law, the White House released a document last fall outlining its national security strategy. Douglas Feith finds much that the report gets correct, but also some serious deficiencies:
This strategy is 48 pages long. It uses the word “must” 39 times. To drive home that President Biden is not his predecessor, the strategy constantly emphasizes allies and partners. It uses the word “allies” 38 times and “partner” or “partnership” an astounding 167 times. Meanwhile, it does not use “enemy” even once. Two of the three times it uses the word “adversary” it is referring to “potential” rather than actual adversaries. The third time, it says only that America’s network of allies and partners is “the envy of our adversaries.”

There are references to pragmatic problem-solving “based on shared interests” with countries like China and Iran. The strategy does not explain, however, what U.S. officials should do if such cooperation is inconsistent with other U.S interests. Should they work with China at the expense of opposition to genocide against the Uighurs? Should they work with Iran at the expense of that country’s pro-democracy resistance movement?

Iran and North Korea are called “autocratic powers,” but being autocratic is not the key to their hostility and danger. Rather, it is that they are ideologically hostile to the United States and the West.

A strategy paper should establish priorities, but this one simply says we have to do this and that, when the actions are inconsistent with each other. . . . We should pursue the nuclear deal with Iran even when Iran is threatening its neighbors and aiding Russia in Ukraine (and, as noted, crushing its domestic critics). We should insist on a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict while the Palestinian Authority remains unreasonable, corrupt, inflexible, and hostile.
Joel Pollak: Biden Ignores Iran Deal, Israel Entirely in State of the Union
President Joe Biden completely ignored the Middle East — including the failing Iran nuclear deal, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — in his remarks to Congress in the State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

In the past, and particularly under President Barack Obama, it was almost routine to hear the president talk about prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran, and about efforts to pursue an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Under President Donald Trump, the focus shifted to fighting Iran’s malign activity in the region, and support for Israel — a stance that eventually fostered Israeli-Arab peace deals in the region under the Abraham Accords.

But Biden has downplayed the Middle East, and rarely mentioned Iran, even as his administration has pursued a renewed nuclear deal. And he has not mentioned Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in any of his three addresses.

That is probably good news to supporters of Israel, who worry the Biden administration is eager to shift U.S. policy back to the hostility of the Obama years, and to salvage the defunct Iran deal with another weak deal. It may be bad news for Israel’s critics and opponents, and for a vocal anti-Israel caucus in the Democratic Party.

But it also suggests that the administration is keeping some of its more controversial foreign policies out of view, perhaps in deference to an electorate focused on domestic issues — or to shield its policies from scrutiny.

The Biden administration has been widely reported to be putting pressure on the new Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu to moderate its judicial reforms, and to act with restraint against Palestinian terrorism.

But Israel was not mentioned once in the entire speech — either in a positive way or in a negative fashion.
$50 million in new US funding for UNRWA an obstacle to peace: legal analysts
In September 2021, Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, admitted UNRWA-run schools taught hatred and glorification of terrorism. The U.N. agency has been criticized for its failure to dismiss teachers involved in anti-Jewish incitement.

Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, told JNS that UNRWA is “one of the single greatest impediments to peace.”

“Created to resolve the purported issue of Palestinian refugees, its sole mission has become to instead perpetuate [their status] indefinitely, providing a false hope that one day millions of Palestinians can flood Israel under a ‘right of return’ to dismantle the Jewish state,” he said.

Given Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s refusal to condemn the recent massacre in Jerusalem and widespread celebrations of the murders by Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, Ostrovsky said the “last thing the Biden administration ought to be doing is rewarding the Palestinians with another influx of cash.”

UNRWA incentivizes redefining “refugee” to create an endless and perpetual number of Palestinian refugees, who seek Israel’s destruction, according to Ostrovsky.

Harvard Law School professor emeritus and prominent litigator and legal commentator Alan Dershowitz agrees.

“UNRWA has long been a barrier to peace,” he told JNS. “By maintaining refugee ‘camps’ instead of settling former refugees and their families in the general population—as Israel did—UNRWA foments grievances, facilitates terrorism and preserves the untenable status quo.”

A supporter of a “modified” two-state solution, Dershowitz called for disbanding UNRWA and ending U.S. funding of it.

“This cannot be done immediately, but a process should begin with the goal of integrating the ‘refugees’ into the general population,” he said.
There Is No Such Thing As Palestinian Refugee Camps. It's a SCAM!
Biggest scam of the century. These cities full of settled Arabs are called refugee camps in order to get YOUR money. Find out how.




Pope’s Moral Equivalence Between the IDF and Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Pope Francis, deploring the “spiral of death,” has refrained from passing any moral judgment on the two parties. Can he really think that there is no difference between Israel, only trying to protect its people, and the Palestinians who wish to destroy the Jewish state? Since 1948, when the armies of five Arab states tried to snuff out the young life of the nascent state of Israel, the Jewish state had to fight two more wars for its very survival, in 1967 and 1973. Furthermore, Israel has had to fight many smaller wars against the Palestinian terror groups – the PLO, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade – that have launched thousands of attacks on the Jews of Israel. Does the Pope fully grasp this history?

In these attacks, which Pope Francis claims are part of a “spiral of violence” which he deplores, but about which he withholds judgment as to which side is more to blame, it has always been the Palestinians who have begun the violence, or more exactly, have never stopped their violence, and Israel strikes back not in every case, but mainly when a series of attacks have been particularly deadly, or when an Israeli attack will, in the opinion of the IDF, prevent a major attack from happening. The IDF’s entry into Jenin was undertaken to arrest those PIJ members plotting an imminent terrorist attack, as the Shin Bet had warned. It had no other purpose than to prevent that attack from taking place. This worry about terror attacks in Israel has recently become especially acute because, since last spring, there has been an upsurge in those attacks, and the IDF has, as a consequence, become more aggressive in raiding terrorist dens in Jenin and Nablus, currently the two centers of terrorist activity. The IDF went into Jenin not to kill, but to arrest the terrorists. But the soldiers were met with gunfire, and a three-hour gun battle ensued. When it was over, eight terrorists lay dead. Was the IDF fighting back in Jenin part of a “spiral of death,” or was it the justified reaction of those who had first been fired on? And wasn’t the mission itself, to prevent a terror attack on civilians, also justified? One would like Pope Francis to answer those questions.

The Pope seems to think that the murders in Jerusalem of seven Israelis by a 21-year-old Palestinian was in response to the gun battle in Jenin. But the Palestinian murderer had been planning for months to become a “martyr,” as his postings on social media make clear. The battle in Jenin did not prompt his violence in Jerusalem. The Pope wants to believe that we must blame this “spiral of death” on Israel, as one side – it doesn’t matter whether it is Israel or the Palestinians, since both in his view are equally culpable – attacks the other; that other side then retaliates with its own attack, and again, the first side then responds, and there is no end to this. There is no room in Pope Francis’ understanding for moral judgements to be made on either side; it’s simply a case of two parties fighting each other for no good reason. The Pope is not about to suggest that the Palestinians’ reason for fighting is to bring about the destruction of the Jewish state, and Israel’s reason for fighting is to make sure that doesn’t happen. As the Pope sees it, every Palestinian who dies is just as much to be mourned as every Israeli; the “two peoples” (the Pope does not know that the “Palestinian people” were invented in the mid-1960s, at the suggestion of the KGB) must be helped by those who, like the Pope himself, will not presume to judge matters of morality, but will only work to end their “cycle of violence.”

In July, Pope Francis spoke of the possibility of retiring. That’s the best idea he’s had in a very long time.


Netanyahu: Israel cannot count on the PA to fight terrorism
Israel is engaged in a battle against extremist Islamic elements led by the Iranian regime and cannot rely on the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

The remarks came during a visit by Netanyahu to IDF Central Command, during which he held a situational assessment with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The prime minister spoke with members of the Duvdevan commando unit, which specializes in undercover operations and urban warfare.

“We are in a confrontation in a region in which there is a continual struggle between those who want to move forward with us and radical Islamist forces that want to take us back to medieval times. It is a major struggle,” said Netanyahu. “Externally, it is—of course—run by Iran, which is our greatest enemy, and we are confronting it. Locally, there are forces that also want to strangle us in various places. Relatively, we are succeeding at the moment, in holding them and in deterring them, whether in [Hamas-rule] Gaza or in [Hezbollah-controlled] Lebanon,” he continued.

“We would be pleased if the Palestinian Authority would do its share, but we see that it is not. In most cases, it is not confronting those who need to be confronted. It is unclear how long this will continue, but we certainly cannot rely on it,” he said.
JCPA: The Significance of the Latest IDF Operation in Jericho
Hamas will try to hijack the city of Jericho and other cities such as Qalqilya and Tulkarm in its effort to provoke a new armed intifada against Israel. Smuggled weapons are flowing into the West Bank at an increasing rate through the border with Jordan and Israel’s security forces are finding it difficult to stop the phenomenon.

Hamas sources see the city of Jericho as of strategic importance because of its proximity to Jerusalem and the border with Jordan. Hamas plans to turn it into the southern terrorist capital of the West Bank, just as Islamic Jihad turned Jenin into the northern West Bank terrorist capital.

Aqbat Jaber has about 10,000 residents. The economic situation is poor, and the Palestinian Authority neglects its care. Armed Fatah activists from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are present there and cooperate with the operatives of the military wing of Hamas.

The battle between the IDF and the terrorist organizations for control of the Jericho area has only just begun. Senior Hamas official Souheil Al-Hindi promised revenge for the death of the five terrorists. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh referred to the IDF operation in Aqbat Jaber and predicted a disaster for the “Israeli occupation.”

He promised that the new terrorist “battalions” would continue their actions against Israel.
Guardian Publishes Op-Ed by Palestinian Who Called Jerusalem Synagogue Terror Attack an ‘Act of Defiance’
A quick look into his background reveals Abukhater holds some incredibly disturbing views and just recently wrote an article in which he appeared to revel in the recent synagogue terror attack in Jerusalem in which seven innocent Jewish civilians were murdered in cold blood.

In an effusive piece published on his personal website, Abukhater gushingly describes the slaughter of seven “Israeli settlers” as an “act of defiance” that was cause for jubilation among Palestinians: Abukhater goes on to claim that he knows “for a fact that not one of us would delight in death” before attempting to “contextualize” Palestinian terrorist Khairy Alqam’s evil actions:
There was no indication that Alqam intended to target any military assets. However, it was clear that the street where Khairy conducted the attack is directly adjacent to this military base.

Khairy Alqam’s attack cannot be separated from this context.”

Alqam deliberately targeted Jews, including a child, outside a synagogue on the Sabbath — he wanted to kill defenseless civilians when they were in an unguarded place.

The only “context” needed is this: Alqam was a terrorist who committed an act of unspeakable savagery.

That The Guardian gave a platform to Jalal Abukhater speaks volumes about the moral compass of its editorial department.


Politicians, activists, locals hail approval of new Hanun village as Zionist response to Gaza terror
Hanun, a village whose establishment was recently approved by the Israeli Cabinet, will provide a solution for 500 families (and eventually more) who want to live near the Gaza Strip without having to join a moshav or kibbutz.

The village in the Western Negev, near the city of Netivot, will be structured as a “community settlement” (yishuv kehilati), meaning its residents will be organized in a cooperative and have the power to approve or veto a sale of a house or a business to any buyer.

The name “Hanun,” chosen due to the site’s proximity to the seasonal stream Nahal Hanun, is only temporary. The community’s official name will be decided upon soon in a regional council meeting, Ram Hachmon, the spokesman of the Sdot Negev Regional Council, told JNS. “There are already a lot of ideas for an official name,” he said.

Hachmon continued, “It was decided that the community should be mixed between religious and nonreligious so that everyone could take part in this new project.” He expects it to ready for use in something like 18 to 24 months.

The establishment of the new town has been in the works for a long time, with the first actions taken back in 2014, he said. Its construction was supported by the Ministry of Construction and Housing, and received further approval from the National Planning and Building Council in January 2022, he added.
AP Adds Palestinian Killed at Checkpoint Reportedly Attacked Soldier
CAMERA’s Israel office this week prompted improvement of a number of Associated Press photo captions about a Palestinian killed at a checkpoint after the texts initially omitted the army’s highly relevant information that Abdullah Qalalweh attempted to attack a soldier and ignored warning shots in the air to retreat.

The incomplete captions had neglected to note the army’s highly relevant information, stating only: “The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces shot and killed Qalalweh on Friday at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, the latest bloodshed in am [sic] Israeli-Palestinian flare-up.”

About this incident, the army reported:
A suspect got out of a vehicle and walked toward a military outpost adjacent to the Shomron Brigade headquarters. IDF soldiers at the outpost shouted and shot live fire into the air. The suspect kept moving and attempted to attack one of the soldiers. Another soldier who was at the spot fired toward the suspect and hit him. No IDF injuries were reported.

In response to communication from CAMERA’s Jerusalem office, AP amended the caption to include the army’s information. The updated captions now note: “The army said it opened fire after he ignored warning shots and tried to attack a soldier.” A large heading alerts AP’s clients to the captions’ change: “ADDITION ISRAEL PALESTINIANS,” and the text opens with the notification: “ADDS STATEMENT FROM THE ISRAELI MILITARY.”

Separately, competing news agency Reuters published a headline about the same incident, harking back to 2015 wave of misinforming headlines and casting Qalalweh as an innocent victim as opposed to an assailant: “Israeli troops shot Palestinian man in West Bank.”

The accompanying article’s opening sentence had rightly noted:
Israeli troops killed a Palestinian man near the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Friday, after the man tried to attack a soldier at a military outpost, the Israeli army said.
The Israel Guys: Reuters BRAZENLY LIED About This Palestinian Boy
When a 13 year old boy sets out to commit murder, most of us would call it tragic - both for his victims, and for the would be murderer himself. What would drive such a young boy to such depths AND at such a young age to cause him to try and murder innocent people. Most people, and media outlets however, would not run a lifestyle story about this boy’s incredible heart, good grades, and ambitions for life. The exception to this, of course however, is when a 13 year old terrorist sets out to kill Jews in Jerusalem.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Area Parent Oddly Not OK With His Kids Getting Killed Despite Being Termed ‘Settler’ (satire)
A local father of five continued to insist his three sons and two daughters have the right to live in peace without Palestinian gunmen, bombers, drivers, stabbers, or other attackers threatening their welfare, witnesses reported today, even after others informed him not one minute beforehand that Palestinians view the presence of Jews exercising sovereignty in their ancestral homeland as illegitimate. The man persisted in the stubborn assumption that his family deserves a life free from terrorist violence, the witnesses further observed, strident Palestinian and pro-Palestinian rhetoric characterizing them as “tumors” or “combatants” notwithstanding.

Asaf Poleg, 44, of this city’s Ramot neighborhood, defied logic and expectations today when told he, his family, and his nation do not belong in the land where the national identity of that nation emerged thousands of years ago, and where the scattered descendants of those ancestors have longed to safely return since exiled in ancient times. Instead of accepting the statement of his and their “settler” status as justification for their violent death, Mr. Poleg doubled down on his assertion that his children deserve no such treatment, and moreover, threatened to protect those children by whatever means necessary.

The witnesses proclaimed themselves at a loss to explain the man’s unreasonable position, which flies in the face of arguments by people ignorant or dismissive of international law, but who form the bulk of pro-Palestine activists and funding contributors. “We activists on behalf of Palestine have always legitimized violence against Zionist settlers, because that is what we feel,” explained Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories. “The fact that no such international law exists, and in fact the human rights of civilian settlers are explicitly protected in international law, should make no difference. He received explanation why he and his children, not to mention everyone part of the society that upholds or tolerates their settler activities, constitute legitimate targets for Palestinian resistance violence. He simply refuses to accept logic.”
Terrorist who sent others to murder 3 gets BA degree in prison
Although Israel has cancelled their access to higher education (see below), imprisoned Palestinian terrorists continue to earn university degrees in prison.

Lately, terrorist Iyad Masalmeh, who is serving 4 life sentences for sending and directing other terrorists to a shooting attack in which they murdered 3 Israelis, including a pregnant woman, has earned a bachelor’s degree in social work:
Official PA TV host: “What characterizes Iyad [Masalmeh]?”

Brother of terrorist Iyad Masalmeh: “Iyad is a man who loves everyone, helps everyone in prison... He is beloved among the prisoners, everyone loves him. He spends his time studying, and praise Allah he has now completed a bachelor’s degreein social work in prison.”

Host: “This [studying] is also defiance carried out by the prisoners [against the occupation].”

[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, Feb. 2, 2023]

Terrorist Bakr Abu Ubeid is serving 2 life sentences for transporting a suicide bomber into Israel where he murdered 2 Israelis, one of them a 15-year-old boy. Abu Ubeid has earned both a BA and an MA in prison:
“Prisoner Bakr Abu Ubeid… began his 21st year in the Israeli occupation’s prisons… While in captivity, Abu Ubeid achieved a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree.”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, Jan. 23, 2023]

The university program for terrorist prisoners is organized and maintained by the PA Ministry of Higher Education and the PLO Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners’ Affairs in cooperation with a number of Palestinian universities, as Palestinian Media Watch has exposed. The two official institutions take great pride in the program and host graduation ceremonies at which relatives of the terrorist prisoner graduates receive their diplomas on their behalf. At one such ceremony, Director of the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr stressed the extent of the program:


Frenemies: US-Israel Spy Strains Emerge Over Iran
It didn’t take long for the United States to distance itself from Israel's Jan. 28 drone attack on an Iranian weapons factory in the city of Isfahan. Just a few hours later, U.S. officials leaked to the New York Times that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency had carried out the strike, making sure to stress the Biden administration had no involvement whatsoever.

By contrast, Israel still hasn’t taken credit for the attack. According to former intelligence officials in both countries, the apparent urgency with which the Americans fingered Israel, plus several other Iran-related developments, points to renewed tensions between the CIA and Mossad over Biden administration efforts to revive the 2015 Iran’s nuclear deal, even as the two countries hold joint military exercises meant to warn Tehran not to develop a nuclear weapon.

The episode sheds fresh light on the close but contradictory ties between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies, one of the most complicated relationships in the shadowy world of international espionage. On one hand, Mossad and CIA officers share intelligence and even coordinate some field operations, reflecting Israel’s status as a close and trusted U.S. ally. At the same time, the two spy services disagree sharply over Iran’s intentions. And despite fervent Israeli denials, former U.S. officials say the Mossad still runs aggressive intelligence-gathering operations in the United States that present thorny political challenges for U.S. officials.

“It can be a very valuable relationship,” a former senior CIA official told SpyTalk on condition of anonymity, citing the extensive network of spies the Mossad maintains across the Middle East and its intelligence-sharing arrangement with the CIA. To illustrate, he recalled a high-level meeting in 2007 with Mossad officials at CIA headquarters in Virginia. There, the U.S. agency’s leadership learned for the first time that Syria had secretly built a nuclear reactor capable of producing the fuel needed for a nuclear weapon.

“They came to the United States with the information and with photographs and laid it all out for us. We sat there with our eyes incredibly wide-open because that was something we knew nothing about until they brought it to our attention,” the former senior official said with an embarrassed laugh. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”


Is NATO's attitude toward Iran an illusion?
"Illusion of distance" was the phrase quipped by Israeli President Isaac Herzog during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels, according to media reports. He was calling for tougher action against Iran at a time when Tehran is supplying Russia with drones used by Moscow in the war in Ukraine, arguing that leaning on the notion of geographic distance between Iran and the alliance countries is a delusion as Iran's missile capacity is on the rise, enabling it to attack the strategic sphere of the alliance and any of its European countries.

According to Herzog, the crisis goes beyond the borders of Ukraine, and the Iranian threat now reaches the doorstep of Europe. He continued, "Iran tightening its hold on European soil, the illusion of distance can no longer hold. NATO must take the strongest possible stance against the Iranian regime, including through economic, legal, and political sanctions, and credible military deterrence." Against this backdrop, the question arises as to the scope of NATO's role in the fight against the Iranian threat.

In this regard, it should be noted that the Iranian dossier does not appear to be the focus of NATO's interest, at least at this point in time, as the alliance faces a serious strategic challenge stemming from what might be called the Russian challenge, in which the alliance found itself after the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis. The alliance's boundaries and effectiveness are being put to a test of confidence not seen since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The signs suggest that NATO is not on the far side of watching Iran intervene in the war in Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has already stated that Iran's plans to supply Russia with weapons and drones are "unacceptable." For its part, Iran has blamed NATO since the beginning of the crisis and believes that NATO's "provocation" against Russia triggered the crisis in Ukraine. The alliance has repeatedly expressed "concern" that Iran may soon possess nuclear weapons and use them with its missile program.

Analyzing the alliance's position, we must first focus on its charter and its strategic vision of the sources of threat.
Iran displays ballistic missile with ‘Death to Israel’ written in Hebrew
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps on Wednesday displayed an apparent ballistic missile with the words “Death to Israel” emblazoned in Hebrew down the side, at an exhibition in the central city of Isfahan.

Pictures posted by the Tasnim news agency show what appears to be a surface-to-surface missile in a launcher with elaborate Hebrew script running down its side.

It was not clear if it was an actual missile or a mockup.

The display comes days after a significant drone attack on a key Iranian defense facility in the same city. The site hit in the strike was reportedly a weapons production facility for Iran’s killer Shahed-136 drones.

The attack was one of a number widely attributed to Israel, which has a policy of not commenting on such operations.

Iran officially blamed Israel for the strike, filing a complaint with the United Nations Security Council about the “terrorist attack” launched by the Jewish state and saying it reserves its “legitimate and inherent right” to retaliate.

Following the publication of the pictures of the missile, a senior Foreign Ministry official told the Ynet news site that “the message is very clear — if anyone had any doubts.”


Iran reveals 'Eagle 44' underground air force base



A group of prominent NGOs have betrayed Iran’s brave dissidents
“Betrayal” is not a word to be used lightly. Yet when it comes to people who are knowingly in bed with an enemy of both the United States and Israel, the word fits like a glove.

The word also comes to mind when reading a recent report in The Washington Free Beacon regarding a clandestine meeting at the family estate of John D. Rockefeller in Westchester County, which was attended by groups seeking to resuscitate the moribund Iran nuclear deal.

Present at the gathering were representatives of J Street, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the Open Society Institute, Human Rights Watch and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. These groups receive support from both political extremes, from George Soros on the far-left to Charles Koch on the far-right.

The following is from a confidential letter by Dylan Williams of J Street that the Free Beacon was able to obtain: “I’m writing to suggest that this group convene virtually next week to brainstorm and hopefully find consensus on the elements of legislation to support the Iranian people that we could propose to diplomacy-oriented lawmakers. Given the usual need to be discrete [sic], the charged nature of the topic and the outrageous threats against several members of this group, please do keep this initiative close-hold.”

Williams’ letter then outlines the groups’ strategy: They “plan to pursue a dual-track legislative agenda, where they would find a way through legislation to give pro-deal Democrats cover by supporting Iranian women and Iranian human rights, without in any way challenging the revival of a nuclear deal, while at the same time building a coalition of members of the House and Senate willing to write a very public letter to the president urging him to keep the door to diplomacy open on the nuclear file.”

This plan is the essence of duplicity. It seeks to promote the interests of a regime that has brutally slaughtered over 500 of its people, including at least 58 children, and arrested approximately 15,000 courageous dissidents. Four of those dissidents have been hanged from cranes in public executions.
The West encourages Iran’s regime to rape, kidnap and kill
In continuing to court Tehran, the Biden administration is not just betraying the Iranian struggle for a democratic future and endangering lives of rights activists, even on US soil. Open kill orders exist on officials of the former Trump administration, including an IRGC offer to pay an assassin $300,000 to kill former National Security Advisor John Bolton and $1 million to assassinate former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The attack on Salman Rushdie on US soil in 2022—the near-fulfillment of a fatwa by Khomeini to kill the acclaimed author—was also barely recognized by the Biden administration, a signal to Tehran that its acts of terror would continue to be overlooked.

Since the start of Iran’s uprising for democracy, the US and other Western governments have responded with a drip-drip of sanctions on regime officials while maintaining an overall posture of continued engagement with the Islamic Republic. Even the regime’s arming of Russia with deadly drones used in attacks on civilians in Ukraine has not spurred a shift in thinking, as seen by the reluctance of many countries to list the IRGC as terrorists. The hesitance to disappoint Khamenei’s cabal only emboldens their naked aggression and is at odds with the national interest of democratic nations and with broader global peace and security.

Recently, over 450 of the world’s most prominent political leaders, authors, intellectuals, celebrities, human rights organizations, and dissidents penned a statement backing the Iranian people’s freedom struggle, recognizing their victory as profound potential for “renew[ing] the global tide of democratization that was so strong in the latter twentieth century but has ebbed in the face of authoritarian counterattack.”

Western policymakers should heed their recommendations, including for the listing of the IRGC as a terror organization and the sanctioning of the Supreme Leader himself. A regime that is actively targeting citizens of Western countries on their soil, aiding in the killing of innocent Ukrainian civilians, and torturing and raping thousands of Iran’s most noble souls cannot be trusted for any diplomacy or deal. It must be defeated.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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