Tuesday, November 29, 2022
From Ian:
The Palestinians had a great Thanksgiving; Israel not so much
The Palestinians had a great Thanksgiving; Israel not so much
Over Thanksgiving week, the administration announced the creation of a special representative post focused solely on the Palestinians. This will be an enormous upgrade in relations. A State Department official said, "As the president reiterated in Israel and the West Bank, we remain committed to reopening our Consulate General in Jerusalem and to the vision of a two-state solution."A Book of Psalms saved a victim's life in Jerusalem terror attack
While the Palestinians are cosseted and rewarded for intransigence and violence, the Biden administration is attacking Israel by upgrading Israel's enemies, undermining its ability to defend itself and calling its democratic bona fides into question.
First, the administration called the Abraham Accords "normalization agreements," rather than the historic peace accords they are. But that was a minor slap compared to the gifts Israel's chief nemesis Iran received. The administration lifted sanctions on Iran's proxy terror organization, the Houthis. It pressured South Korea to free up more than a billion dollars in frozen Iranian funds. It provided sanctions waivers that allowed Iran to sell more oil to China – a boon for both countries.
And the administration did all of this while the US sat outside the room in Vienna where talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear accord are underway. The US, in other words, acted like the pariah Iran should be, and allowed Russia, China and the EU to offer Iran "inducements" to rejoin an agreement Iran has been violating for years. There has been no penalty for stealing US technology, putting it in Iranian drones and exporting the drones to Russia in violation of U.N. sanctions.
In addition, Iran's proxy Hezbollah was gifted with a maritime gas agreement between Israel and Lebanon brokered by the US The Biden administration put heavy pressure on Israel's outgoing government to reach a deal before the Israeli elections. Worst of all was that Israel received unspecified American "security assurances" should Hezbollah attack. This undermined Israel's decades-long policy that it would "defend itself by itself" and not ask the US to provide American soldiers for its security.
The administration also undermined Israel's position as a democratic ally by announcing the opening of an FBI investigation into the battlefield death of an Al Jazeera journalist, having previously accepted the findings of Israeli and Palestinian investigations and declaring the case closed. The announcement brought cheers from the PA, which demanded that the case go to the International Criminal Court.
The only saving grace was that US Ambassador Thomas Nides and President Joe Biden later said they had no idea such an investigation had been ordered by the attorney general. Really? President Biden didn't know? The US has a rogue attorney general?
The Palestinians had a very good Thanksgiving week. The Israelis much less so. Most Americans were too busy to notice.
A man who was seriously injured in Tuesday’s Jerusalem bombing was spared from what could have been a fatal fate by none other than his book of Psalms – or Tehillim in Hebrew – which blocked a shard of debris from piercing his body, said Shaare Zedek Medical Center.The IDF’s Judea and Samaria challenge: A spike in attacks and anti-terror raids
The victim, a 62-year-old man, arrived to Shaare Zedek hospital in serious condition and underwent a series of operations to remove shrapnel from his body.
While the man was recovering, visitors were stunned to discover that he had a book of psalms in his possession that was pierced almost entirely through by a shard of debris resulting from the explosion. The shard hit the back cover of the book and penetrated nearly all the way through – though stopping just short and potentially saving the man’s life.
Coincidence or divine intervention?
The shard penetrated the book up to the 124th chapter of the Psalms before stopping at the line: "Our soul is like a bird that escaped from a box of hardships."
The psalm that the shrapnel stopped is obviously very notable, as the message in the psalm is about being saved from hardship. The bus station bombing in Jerusalem on Tuesday killed two, including a 16-year-old boy, and wounded 18 others – including the fortunate man who had this book of psalms with him.
‘A synergy of explosive factors can produce a new intifada’
According to Col. (res.) David Hacham, a senior research associate at the MirYam Institute and a former adviser on Arab affairs to seven Israeli defense ministers, the dramatic rise in terrorist incidents is linked to a number of factors.
He detailed the first two as follows: “A rise in violent clashes between the IDF, as well as Israelis in Judea and Samaria, and Palestinians, often leading to casualties. A rise in tensions surrounding the Temple Mount and ongoing Palestinian incitement encouraging violent passions around this issue based on claims that Israel is changing the status quo. This can form a big potential for escalation because it plays on very sensitive strings.”
Terror factions led by Hamas have been promoting murderous incitement on social media using the Temple Mount issue as a key theme to call for attacks on Israelis.
A third factor, said Hacham, is the ongoing and escalating succession battle within Fatah over who will succeed Abbas. “The combination of these elements leads to an atmosphere filled with gasoline fumes, and can lead to an explosion and a new intifada, he warned.
“Other factors include the sense among Palestinians of a lack of any progress in the diplomatic process with Israel and the sense that the PA is unable to make Israel budge here. The Palestinians fear the formation of a new right-wing Israeli coalition that will promote the building of settlements, legalize outposts, build new bypass roads, and create an obstacle to the establishment of a future Palestinian state,” said Hacham.
“They fear the next government will not take the Palestinians into account at all. On the Palestinian side, Abbas, 87, is tired and sick. He is trying to prepare the ground for his chosen successor, Hussein al-Sheikh, whom he appointed as PLO Executive Committee secretary-general in May 2022,” he continued.
Israel has to keep its finger “closely on the pulse of every event in Judea and Samaria, which is at the gates, inside our home. It has to be able to detect and move to prevent negative events such as a Hamas takeover,” Hacham stressed.
Al-Sheikh, unpopular on the Palestinian street, would only acquire legitimacy if he won elections like Abbas did in 2005 to become PA president. “Here, there is an Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian interest to prevent a civil war between Palestinians and to avoid a scenario in which the militias of the candidates fight each other, which could be dangerous for us,” Hacham added.
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