Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: terrorist attack

Showing posts with label terrorist attack. Show all posts

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Good news! According to Bowman and Sanders, there is no such thing as Palestinian terror!

From the extreme Leftist Jewish Currents:

REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN AND SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS are leading an effort to urge President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to investigate whether Israel is using US weapons to commit human rights abuses against Palestinians, in violation of United States law, according to a letter and e-mail sent to other members of Congress obtained by Jewish Currents. The letter was written by Bowman, while Sanders is spearheading efforts to garner support from other senators, according to Bowman’s office. The letter has so far been signed by eight additional lawmakers: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Summer Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, Betty McCollum, André Carson, and Ayanna Pressley. “At this inflection point, we ask your administration to undertake a shift in US policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights,” the lawmakers wrote. The lawmakers end the letter by calling on the Biden administration to “ensure US taxpayer funds do not support projects in illegal settlements” and to “determine whether US-origin defense articles have been used in violation of existing US laws.” The letter criticizes the new Israeli government’s “alarming actions” and its cabinet of “far-right, anti-Palestinian individuals and parties,” asserting that the Israeli coalition in power is “pushing repressive, anti-democratic policies and escalating violence towards the Palestinian population.”

As usual, Israel haters are using any excuse they can to sever the ties between the US and Israel. Here, they are even using the protests against judicial reform to help promote their accusation of Israel using US weapons against innocent Palestinians.

The letter itself is a mishmash of anti-Israel rhetoric. It describes Israel's raids of Palestinian terrorists as nothing more than killing Palestinians for no reason.

Here is its summary of the events in the West Bank this year:

Shocking violence in late February encapsulated the bloody reality in the occupied West Bank. On February 22, a daytime raid by the Israeli army into the crowded Palestinian city of Nablus killed 11 Palestinians, among them a 72 year-old-man and a 16-year-old child. On February 26, a Palestinian gunman shot dead two Israeli settlers outside of Nablus. Subsequently, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara. The settlers, accompanied by the Israeli army, set fire to homes, schools, vehicles, and businesses, killing one Palestinian and injuring over 300 Palestinians. The local Israeli military commander called the attack a “pogrom." The attack was not an isolated incident, with the State Department reporting that Israeli settler attacks have expanded in severity and scale. The day after the Huwara attack, an Israeli-American citizen Elan Ganeles was killed by a Palestinian gunman on a highway in the occupied West Bank.

This comes amid an already violent year. Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 85 Palestinians in 2023, including 16 children. At least 14 Israelis have been killed, including two children. The previous year was the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2004 and included the Israeli military’s killings of two American citizens, Shireen Abu Akleh and Omar Assad.

At no point does it mention that the vast majority of those killed by Israel - including nearly all of the "children - were members of terror groups or actively engaged in fighting. Israel's record in avoiding civilian casualties in urban warfare is far better than that of the US itself.

In fact, the word "terror" is missing from the letter (except for a footnote.) One would have no idea that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are active in the West Bank, nor that the Palestinian Authority has not been doing nearly enough to stop those groups. The letter certainly doesn't mention the number of Al Aqsa Brigades members who have been involved in these clashes, because mentioning Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah would be embarrassing. The fact that cities like Jenin have been essentially taken over by masked gunmen who terrorize the residents as well is simply ignored. Reading the letter, one would think that Israel kills scores of Palestinians for no reason whatsoever, and occasionally some individual gunmen kill a Jewish "settler" who barely counts as human anyway.

It mentions an American citizen killed by Palestinians, but unlike the public insistence on investigations and accountability for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, this letter says nothing about holding the terror group behind the murder of Elan Ganeles accountable.

Previous investigations of whether the IDF had run afoul of US policy in using military aid have not found any issues (since 2006.) But Israel haters don't care abut facts, and keep making the accusations anew every year.

Meanwhile, no one calls for investigation into how US equipment is used by Egyptian and Jordanian armed forces who are accused of torture and unlawful killings by the US State Department.

This letter isn't a sober listing of legitimate concerns. It is a hit piece meant to incite hatred of Israel. And it can be seen in how it talks about Huwara.

The Huwara attack by settlers was reprehensible - and it is utterly irrelevant to the alleged point of the letter, to investigate Israel's use of American weapons. The letter implies that the IDF colluded with the attackers, which the authors know is a lie. But since the real point of the letter is to incite hatred for Israel and Israeli Jews, and in that context it all makes sense.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Palestinians brag about all their terror attacks of 2022

Yesterday I mentioned the Palestinian organization Maata that keeps track of - and brags about - Palestinian terror attacks.

They just issued their report bragging about "resistance activities" for 2022:

The year 2022 witnessed a remarkable and qualitative escalation in the forms of popular and armed resistance, especially in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, as the Palestinians united on the option of all kinds of resistance.

The popular and armed resistance, represented by the Jenin Brigade and the “Black Den” in Nablus, embodied a model of resistance and an icon of challenge in the West Bank for the year 2022, where hundreds of resistance and armed clashes were carried out, and the occupation soldiers and settlers were killed.

The Palestine Information Center - Maata - monitored the killing of (31) Israelis, most of them soldiers, and the injury of more than (525) others, during the year 2022, as a result of carrying out more than (12188) resistance actions, including (848) shooting operations, and (37) attacks. (18) a stabbing or attempted stabbing operation, and (18) a run-over or attempted run-over attack, in addition to one double explosion.

It is interesting that they claim that most of the dead Israelis were "soldiers." They weren't, but there is a slight hesitation to take credit for murdering civilians.

Anti-Israel groups keep track of, and issue reports, about how many Palestinians were killed during the year (without mentioning that 90% of them were militants.) But the Palestinians that they pretend to support are proud about the attacks they take responsibility for.

It is also notable that Maata counts Israeli Arab attackers as "Palestinians" but Arab victims (like one border policeman killed in Hadera in March) are "Israeli soldiers."

Also note that while Palestinians pretend to oppose ISIS, when the attacks are done by Arab Israeli supporters of ISIS (as the two March attacks were) they happily adopt them as their own.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Why has the media give Yair Lapid a pass when he was more aggressive against Palestinians than Bennett or Netanyahu?

For the past two months, the media has been churning out article after article on how the incoming Netanyahu government will be extremist, a disaster for Palestinians and Israelis alike. In an unprecedented move, US President Joe Biden gave a public warning to the incoming government that he will oppose policies that the US feels are against the two state solution.

For a six months, Israel has been led by a centrist politician, Yair Lapid. By nearly all measures, Lapid was more aggressive against Palestinians than his two predecessors, Naftali Bennett and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The six months of Bennett and of Lapid this year makes it fairly easy to compare the two.

According to the UN's OCHA, when Lapid entered office, Israel had killed 60 Palestinians in operations in the West Bank in 2022 under Bennett. Since then, 86 more were killed. Compare with all of 2020, under Netanyahu, when the number killed was 24.

Under Bennett, about 340 Palestinian structures were destroyed this year. Under Lapid, about it was about 550. Combined, this is a modest increase over the total in 2020.

Under Bennett, there were about 1620 search and arrest operations in the West Bank this year. Under Lapid, the number was over 1800. (The total number is roughly the same as under Netanyahu in 2020.)

Lapid the centrist has been clearly more aggressive than the "settler" Bennett and the "fascist" Netanyahu.

While there may be good reasons for Israeli actions under Lapid, and it is entirely possible that under Bennett or Netanyahu the numbers for past six months would have been similar, with the data we have, Lapid has been given an enormous pass by the media, which has chosen to ignore his decision-making role in Israel's moves to root out terrorists.

Which is the point. The media does not report on objective reality: they report on the things that fit their preconceived narratives, and downplay or ignore those that do not. Netanyahu has been considered personally responsible for IDF actions under his leadership, while Lapid was not. Netanyahu is regarded as an aggressive warmonger, Lapid is not. The reporting follows the bias, not the reality.

The media and NGOs will publish and trumpet the statistics that fit the story they want to tell - and bury those that contradict it.

And similarly, even though it is not a fair comparison, the number of Israelis killed this year in attacks under the Bennett/Lapid governments is 24. In 2020, under Netanyahu, the number was 3. There are many factors in statistics like that, but Netanyahu is rarely credited in the media with reducing terror attacks in Israel which steadily decreased from 2015 to 2020.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

12/29 Links Pt1: Why Does the EU Disproportionately Fixate on Israel?; The forgotten speech of Yasser Arafat; Why Israel Cannot Send Its Iron Dome to Ukraine

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: Why Does the EU Disproportionately Fixate on Israel?

As part of its "Joint Strategy in support of Palestine," the European Union recently circulated a confidential document that proposes various measures to finance and advance monitoring, undercutting and undermining Israel's policies in Area C of the West Bank, including providing support and legal assistance to Palestinian residents prosecuting land claims in Israeli courts.

Under the 1993-1995 Oslo Accords, signed and witnessed by the EU, Israel and the Palestinian leadership (PLO) agreed to divide the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria into three distinct areas of control and administration, pending the completion of negotiation on the permanent status of the territories. It was agreed that Area C would remain under Israel's full control, jurisdiction and administration.

In attempting to undermine and to intervene in Israel's legitimate and agreed-upon jurisdiction and governance in Area C, and in supporting Palestinian attempts to violate the Oslo Accords, the EU is in fact violating the terms of the very agreement to which it attached its signature as witness.

The EU claim that Area C is "to be preserved as part of a future Palestinian state in line with the Oslo Accords" is simply a mistaken and misleading interpretation of the Oslo Accords. They made no reference whatsoever to any "future Palestinian state" or "two-state solution." On the contrary, the Palestinian leadership and Israel agreed that the ultimate fate of the territories will be agreed upon in permanent status negotiations. No determination was made as to the outcome of such negotiations.

The EU document notes the EU's commitment to "contribute to building a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders." However, the Oslo Accords made no mention whatsoever of the 1967 borders. On the contrary, there has never been any 1967 border but an Armistice Demarcation Line established in the 1949 Armistice Agreements. These agreements stated specifically that the Armistice Demarcation line was not intended to constitute a border but rather a temporary line separating the forces pending negotiation of peace agreements.

It is high time that Israel's government take a far more assertive role in clarifying to the EU and its member states that the anti-Israel fixation of its staff and its actions in undermining Israel's legitimate authority and jurisdiction in Area C will no longer be tolerated.

Face it, the United Nations Is Antisemitic

The UN General Assembly passed 15 resolutions critical of Israel in 2022, compared to 13 resolutions for all other countries. Since 2015, the UN General Assembly has passed 136 resolutions critical of Israel, compared to 58 against all other nations combined. Selectively holding Israel to a higher moral standard than all other nations is classic antisemitism because its real purpose is to delegitimize the world's only Jewish state.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said, "The UN's automatic majority has no interest in truly helping the Palestinians, nor in protecting anyone's human rights. The goal of these ritual, one-sided resolutions is to scapegoat Israel."

How the EU Is Undermining International Law in the West Bank

The 1995 agreement known as Oslo II divided the West Bank into three parts: Area A, to be administered directly by the Palestinian Authority (PA); Area B, to be administered jointly by the PA and Israel; and Area C, to be controlled directly by Israel pending further negotiations. In July, the European Union’s mission in eastern Jerusalem produced a document, recently leaked to the press, stating the EU’s commitment “to contribute to building a Palestinian State within 1967 borders,” and outlining a program to build Palestinian settlements in Area C even where not authorized to do so by Israeli law. Jenny Aharon writes:

The EU . . . insists that its positions are based on meticulous compliance with international law, its own laws and charter, and also the Oslo Accords. This claim is surely [belied] by the leaked document in which we can see an activist EU striving to help the Palestinians take over Area C, the very area that is designated to Israel’s control per the Oslo Accords preliminary agreement which the EU claims to uphold.

The claim [made by the EU] is that the construction is meant for humanitarian ends and is not politically motivated. Yet the EU construction takes place in locations that are highly sensitive, precisely for the purpose of creating new facts on the ground and preparing the area for a Palestinian takeover without any final peace agreement.

Oftentimes the political motivation [of EU-funded construction projects] is obvious, as it is conducted without permits and in such places where Israel has no choice but to demolish it—for example, a school adjacent to a dangerous highway or in places where there are no facilities and thus are not considered habitable environments. The political motivation becomes even more obvious as the document explicitly states the EU’s plan to curb Israel’s archeological activities in order to minimize the Jewish connection to the land.

Moreover, the EU does not seem to consider building in Area A and Area B where all they would need is a permit from the Palestinian Authority. Apparently, in those areas, there is no need for humanitarian aid at all.

Palestinian Authority Paved Illegal Highway in Gush Etzion with Foreign Funding

The Gush Etzion Regional Council and local residents recently discovered the construction of a highway starting at Za’atara village, 11 km southeast of Bethlehem in Gush Etzion, north of the Herodion site, and reaching into the Judean Desert. At the start of the new road stands a sign in Arabic saying it was paved with foreign funding and assistance from the Palestinian Authority.

Mind you, the new highway is built in an agreed upon safeguarded reserve area, where roads and buildings are not allowed to be constructed per the Oslo Accords.

According to the Gush Etzion Regional Council, the road is another part of the ongoing effort to damage the contiguous Jewish territory in Gush Etzion. It provides access to new, illegal Arab neighborhoods in the Gush Etzion area, facilitating faster development.

Back in 2009, Salam Fayyad, then prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and its finance minister, issued the “Fayyad Plan,” aimed at creating facts on the ground, especially in Area C, with major international support, to transform international recognition of a de facto Palestinian state into a de jure state should Israel fail to deliver on its Oslo promises. Over the past 13 years, with increasing speed, the PA has been pursuing Fayyad’s policy, often with the tacit approval of the IDF civil administration and most defense ministers in Netanyahu’s and Lapid’s governments.

The Gush Etzion Regional Council says the paved road was built on preserved territories which the Palestinian Authority undertook in the Oslo Accords not to build homes or roads. Naturally, they had no intention of keeping their commitment, and Area C, especially near the robust Gush Etzion Jewish community, is flooded with illegally built PA homes and roads.

Palestinian Muslims are violating the Oslo Accords paving a road with foreign funding that cuts off the heart of the Judean desert from the Jewish continuum. There is no justification for this act of colonialism and land grab. pic.twitter.com/B2ZnIUUTOM
— Brooke Goldstein (@GoldsteinBrooke) December 29, 2022

Abbas didn't condemn Jerusalem attacks; Palestinian newspaper upset at UAE and Turkey for condemning them

It used to be that Mahmoud Abbas, like Yasir Arafat before him, would issue a pro forma condemnation of deadly terror attacks against Israel.

As of this writing, he hasn't said a word against the twin Jerusalem attacks, nor the Ariel terrorist attacks.

He doesn't even pretend anymore to be against terror. Earlier this year he only reluctantly condemned some attacks when under pressure from Israeli and US officials.

Meanwhile, this article in Al Quds News is upset that the UAE and Turkey did condemn the Jerusalem blasts, calling it "normalization:"

The UAE and Turkey were not content with drowning in normalization with the "Israeli" enemy, in all fields, at the expense of the cause and the Palestinian people. Rather, they were quick and brazen to condemn the two heroic Jerusalem operations, which were carried out by the revolutionary Palestinian youth, in response to the crimes of the Zionist enemy against the Palestinian people and its desecration of the holy places.
...
Observers believe that these irresponsible positions come in the context of the state of submission in the positions of the current Palestinian leadership and some Arab and regional leaders, which come within the framework of the destructive settlement and normalization approach, describing the role of Turkey, which condemned the heroic operation, as "hypocritical."

They considered that the resolutions of international legitimacy affirmed the right of peoples suffering from occupation and aggression to resist it in all forms, especially armed resistance. Therefore, the response of our people and its rebellious youth to the occupation is a natural and legitimate response to the crimes of the occupation and its continuation.

As for the statements of condemnation by the normalizers with the entity of the Zionist enemy, (the UAE, Turkey and others), they are a sign and evidence of the level of weakness, humiliation, submission and shame of these countries in front of the Zionist enemy, and the total alienation from the issues of the nation and its center is the Palestinian cause, including the sanctities, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is exposed by the daily desecration by settlers who do not hide their project to build the alleged Temple on the ruins of Al-Aqsa Mosque, which enemy governments are working to demolish, God forbid.

This is a mainstream Palestinian position.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Today's car ramming terrorist was 54 years old. Is this something to worry about?

This morning, at a checkpoint near Beit Horon, a Palestinian rammed an IDF soldier with a van, seriously injuring him. The terrorist then exited the vehicle with an axe and attempted to kill the soldier who was lying on the ground.The officer managed to shoot the terrorist, killing him.

Here is security camera footage of the incident:

The terrorist in this case was Habis Abdel Hafeez Youssef Rayan, who is 54 years old.

It is unusual for a man of that age to be directly involved in a terrorist attack. What could be his motivation, and will this be the start of a new wave of older male terrorists?

According to the Palestinian Shams news agency, two of Rayan's sons are members of Islamic Jihad from the town of Beit Dukko. One is Qusay Rayan, who is in Israeli prison, and Assem Rayan, who was released from prison.

I assume this is Assem with Habis.

Abu Ali Express notes that someone named Ra’ed Yosef Rayan, of Beit Dukko, has been on a hunger strike for administrative detention and that detention was just extended yesterday. It seems likely that Ra'ed is another relative of Habis, but it seems unlikely that he would go on a suicide attack for a nephew's detention extension when his own son has been in prison for longer.

When young Arab women attack soldiers at checkpoints, it is often discovered afterwards that they had faced some sort of humiliation - often caught in an illicit relationship - and their "martyrdom" is an attempt to end their shame. We will not learn it from Palestinian media, but it is possible that Habis Rayan was facing serious business problems or bankruptcy, and this is a surefire method to ensure a salary for his family for as long as the Palestinian Authority exists.

One person isn't a trend, but we need to see if other older Palestinian men decide to follow Habis - especially since he is getting widely praised in Palestinian media as a heroic martyr.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Palestinians in Hebron celebrate the murder of a Jew

There was a heinous terror attack on Saturday night, as a Jewish man and his son went to go shopping at an Arab-owned convenience store. A terrorist shot at them, killing the father and injuring others, and he then shot and seriously injured the medic who came to help the injured.

Here the terrorist is seen being mowed down by an Israeli security guard and then shot dead by another.

A dead Jew is cause for celebration for the Arabs of Hebron. Sweets were handed out, fireworks were shot in the air and cars went out for an impromptu parade.

Terror apologists love to say that Palestinians aren't antisemitic - they are merely exercising the right to "defend themselves. "

Killing civilians isn't "defense." Celebrating the death of Jewish civilians is pure hate.

And no one can credibly deny that these celebrations are antisemitism - a hate that the world tolerates from Palestinians.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

NPR and the poor, misunderstood terrorists

NPR has a segment pretending to analyze the very valid reasons why Palestinian terrorists from Jenin try to kill Jews in Tel Aviv cafes by interviewing his gracious host, one uncle of the terrorist who murdered three in a Tel Aviv cafe in April.

NPR justifies terror and humanizes terrorists.

What compelled a young Palestinian man to open fire at a bar in Tel Aviv last month? It was one of several deadly attacks in Israel that has sparked a military crackdown in the occupied West Bank, where a prominent journalist was recently killed covering an Israeli raid. NPR's Daniel Estrin visited the Jenin refugee camp to trace one early spark that ignited the latest flames.

DANIEL ESTRIN: Amin Khazem invites us to his rooftop porch in the Jenin refugee camp.

From your rooftop, you can see the whole camp.

AMIN KHAZEM: Yes.

ESTRIN: What are you growing here? All these rooftop plants, what are these?

KHAZEM: Small oranges.

ESTRIN: Amin is also raising two parrots ...And looking after his 5-year-old grandson, whose T-shirt, shorts and shoes feature the silhouette of an M-16.
Here, the culture in the refugee camp is a culture of jihad and martyrdom," Amin says. They carry the memories of their families' old villages, destroyed when Israel was created.

KHAZEM: (Speaking Arabic).

ESTRIN: Wow. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine - can't even count how many bullet holes are - oh, on that wall, too.

KHAZEM: From the Israeli army.

In his Twitter thread on the story, Estrin says that the IDF took over Khazem's rooftop in 2002 in Jenin - meaning that the bullet holes are likely from Palestinians shooting at the Israelis, not from the IDF. But he doesn't bother to clarify that in the NPR story.

ESTRIN: Scars from a major battle with Palestinian militia 20 years ago. It was the Palestinian uprising. Young men from this camp were going to Israel to carry out deadly attacks. Israel stormed the camp and destroyed hundreds of homes. Amin's 29-year-old nephew Raad watched all of this when he was this little boy's age. One night last month, Raad wasn't home in the camp.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: A Palestinian assailant opened fire inside a crowded Tel Aviv bar, killing three Israelis.

ESTRIN: Hundreds of Israeli officers and armed civilians launched a manhunt through the streets of Tel Aviv. Officers say they found Raad at dawn and killed him in a firefight.

KHAZEM: (Speaking Arabic).

ESTRIN: Amin says the family was shocked. Raad was a techie. He invested in Bitcoin and was financially stable. But his uncle says neighbors shot Raad in the legs several months ago in a dispute over a loan. He says Raad wanted to shoot them back, but the family convinced him to reconcile. He did, and a week later, he was in Tel Aviv. Did this personal anguish drive him to kill Israelis, knowing he likely wouldn't come back alive?

KHAZEM: (Speaking Arabic).

ESTRIN: Amin denies any connection. He says Israel links Palestinian attacks to personal hardship to undermine the fight for Palestinian rights. Raad's father was a senior commander in the Palestinian security forces, trained by the U.S. to round up gunmen, bring order and prepare the ground for an independent Palestine. But here, Palestinians are fed up with their own security forces who brought no security and no independence.

KHAZEM: (Speaking Arabic).

ESTRIN: He says, "we fell in love with the United Nations Security Council and the International Criminal Court in the Arab states and ended up with delusions. People have reached a dead end. There's no horizon that we we will be liberated without us liberating ourselves." He says the camp is full of guns.

It doesn't take much to realize that Ra'ad was humiliated at not being able to take revenge on being shot by his neighbors, but once his family convinced him not to, he had to regain his honor somehow - and killing Jews is always a reliable method to do that.

In fact, this was alluded to in a video from another of Ra'ad's uncles, who praised the murderer for shooting Israelis instead of his fellow Palestinians - which is what he wanted to do!

Khazem can be seen is in the background of this video of the other raving uncle.

Estrin simply accepted the words of the terrorist's uncle - which is the Palestinian narrative that justifies all murders of Jews as a natural response to Israeli actions.

Notice that they aren't featuring any interviews with the victims' families. Only the terrorists must be understood and sympathized with.

(h/t Daniel)

UPDATE: The first picture above has what looks like notone but two swastikas on Khazem's wall. (h/t Ian)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Monster Ahlam Tamimi celebrates Interpol's removal of her "red" status

The architect of the Sbarro pizza shop bombing, Ahlam Tamimi, is celebrating her name being removed from Interpol's list of people wanted for arrest.

This photo seems to have been taken at a party for Tamimi's legal victory.

The photo has been circulated only in the past few days, so it seems to be a reaction to the Interpol news.

Interpol's letter itself is sickening:

This means that this murderous and proud child killer can now travel to other countries besides Jordan without fear of being arrested by local police.

Tamimi's supporters say that this was the result of one and a half years of legal pressure to Interpol.

Her lawyer, Mustafa Nasrallah, claims that the US attempt at extradition is illegal because she has already been tried and convicted in Israeli courts and this is therefore "double jeopardy." That is simply not true, the US has every right to try her for her role in the murder of two Americans killed in the Sbarro attack.

Meanwhile , Tamimi is celebrating her new freedom in a country that treats her like a celebrity while pretending to be against terror.

31 Israelis killed in terror attacks in the past year

From JPUpdates:

Terror has become a tragic reality in Israel’s fight for existence. Just last week, Shalom Yohai Sherki was killed and Shira Klein critically injured in a car terror attack in French Hil Jerusalem. To honor Yom Hazikaron, the day on which Israel honors its fallen soldiers and victims of terror, the National Insurance Institute has published a report documenting the number of Israeli civilians killed in hostilities since the War of Independence, focusing especially on those killed in the past year.

The past year has seen a sharp rise in terror attacks, with 31 Israelis murdered since last Remembrance Day, as compared to the same period last year in which only 2 Israelis were killed. This can be attributed to the horrific murders in the Har Nof Synagogue, in which four Jews worshippers and a heroic Druze policeman were killed, as well as the murder of 3 young men in Gush Etzion which preceded the War in Gaza. There were also a string of car attacks, one of which killed a small infant.

2,538 Israeli civilians have been murdered in terror attacks since the birth of the Jewish state in 1948. This figure also includes the 122 foreign tourists and workers killed in attacks. This number increases by more than 900 if you include acts of terror before Israel became a state.

Since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000 until the present, some 1,017 civilians have been killed in acts of terrorism. During the first intifada, 200 Israelis were murdered. Since the beginning of the first intifada which began at the end of 1987, over 1630 Jews have been killed in Israel.

This includes 18 Israelis killed abroad in terror attacks directed specifically against Israeli targets, and 3 American diplomatic personnel killed in Gaza. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs lists the names of those killed since the year 2000.

The report states that terrorist attacks have left 2,997 children with one parent, and 101 children complete orphans. A total of 850 widows and widowers lost their spouses to attacks, as well as 943 parents who lost their children.

Tuesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

"Pro-Palestinian" lobby hijacks Boston mourners for political point scoring

An image being circulation of "young Palestinian children" expressing sympathy with the victims of Boston appears to be from Iraq, rather than the Palestinian territories
That so called "pro-peace" activists can hijack such images for their own political ends speaks to the lengths to which many will go to in order to either demonise their opposition, propogate lies on behalf of corrupt and violent regimes, or indeed simply try to naiveily paper over the cracks.
The attempts are not thought to be directly related to the latest Pew poll statistics showing that 40 percent of Palestinians polled belive that suicide bombings are justified, the highest of any Muslim country in which the poll occured.

Keeping prejudice under control

The pro-divestment movement wants you to believe that its cause is a struggle between the ethnic minority Palestinians and the “white” and “privileged” Jews and Israelis. By pretending that Jews are white Europeans, they argue that Israelis are foreign occupiers. But Jews are not a homogenous group of white people; we are an ethnically Middle Eastern people, comprising many unique communities from across the globe. After centuries of persecution, we have found security in this country and in our nation’s first home, Israel. And although we have achieved the privilege of statehood, our personal histories are defined by our recent struggles.

Richard Millett: From the Warsaw Ghetto to John Lewis for Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s Ewa Jaciewicz.

But what Jaciewicz, a member of the Polish Campaign of Solidarity with Palestine, never wrote about for The Guardian was her trip a few years ago to the Warsaw Ghetto.
Now, what would a reasonable human being do if they visited a site where some 400,000 Jewish people (or people of any religion for that matter) lost their lives? Say a prayer, lay a flower, place a simple stone in remembrance?
Jaciewicz helped daub the words “Free Gaza and Palestine” on one of the nearby walls. What did any of those 400,000 innocent lost souls ever do to her?

Honest Reporting Canada: CBC Airs Unsubstantiated Allegation Claiming Israel used Chemical Weapons on Palestinian Children

Ms. Glynn’s statement was tantamount to accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity on vulnerable Palestinian children. These were incredibly serious unfounded charges that came from a pre-recorded comment. CBC journalists heard this comment before it went to air and chose to broadcast it over CBC airwaves. As such, CBC must take responsibility for this inflammatory and unfounded allegation it gave a platform to.

What the West Should Learn from the Fayyad-Cohen Spat

For a Palestinian, it’s always safest to accuse Israel of brutality and abuse, even if the accusations are completely false, because Israeli soldiers won’t kill him for such libels–whereas Palestinian gunmen very well might murder him as a “collaborator” if he went on record as saying, for instance, that Israeli soldiers treated him decently.
So perhaps next time, Westerners should stop and think before uncritically accepting Palestinian atrocity tales as truth. For if Fayyad could so brazenly lie about Cohen, then other Palestinians could just as easily be lying about Israel.

Michael Totten: Israel Bombs Syria, Syrians Blame Each Other

Assad is especially adept at this game. Everyone, especially journalists who quote people for a living, needs to understand that. Yet they don’t. The BBC let Assad write their headline. Israeli strikes on Syria 'co-ordinated with terrorists' it says. That’s the actual headline. It was literally written by Assad’s foreign ministry.
Of course the words “co-ordinated with terrorists” are inside quotation marks, and the article makes it clear that this accusation comes from the Syrian government, but most people who see the headline won’t read the article. Casual readers of the BBC Web site won’t even notice the quote marks. Israel is coordinating with Al Qaeda in Syria? Really, BBC? You’re broadcasting that ludicrous accusation with a straight face? (h/t Zvi)

CIF Watch: Robert Fisk convinces himself that Israel has ‘dragged the West into Syrian war’

It seems that the ethically challenged British ‘journalist’ Robert Fisk wanted desperately to impute the worst motives to Israel in analyzing reports of up to a dozen IAF strikes over the last few days on advanced Syrian weapons to prevent their transfer to Hezbollah. However, the weakness of his latest essay suggests that he may have found the case against Israel’s sober decision not to allow Iranian made Fateh-110 missiles to fall into the hands of the Shiite terror movement allied with Bashar al-Assad was simply too difficult.

Syria vows to retaliate for any future Israeli attack

The Syrian government extended the authority of the army to respond to “Israeli aggression” immediately and without prior governmental authorization, and granted Palestinian factions leave to carry out attacks against Israel on the Golan Heights, a Syrian government daily reported on Tuesday.
According to Al-Watan, the Syrian army has compiled a “target bank” inside Israel that will be showered by missiles immediately in case of another Israeli strike on Syria. The daily also quoted “high-ranking sources” who said that Syria was willing to provide the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah with “all types of weapons, including new and quality weapons not previously provided.”

Israel strikes a blow to conventional Arab thinking

‘Israel is still my enemy, but when my enemy does a neat job — I admit it,’ writes one Syrian commentator
As the quintessential enemy of the Arab and Islamic world, Israel must be aligned with Assad, went the logic of many domestic Assad opponents. Now, though, Israel’s apparently brazen confrontation with the Assad regime — while many Arab leaders have spent the last two years merely verbally endorsing (or secretly dreaming) of such a move — has created something of a cognitive dissonance for these oppositionists.

Third Syrian Shell in 24 Hours Hits Golan

A stray mortar shell causes no casualties or damage. Two rockets were fired from Syria Monday.

Dayan: Israel Has a Choice Between Bad and Worse

Former IDF general says Israelis should give thanks each day for the Golan.
Israel has two choices regarding the ongoing civil war in Syria: bad and worse, said former IDF general Uzi Dayan, speaking to Arutz Sheva.
The Assad regime is anti-Israel, but several of the groups fighting him are affiliated with Al-Qaeda. “Obviously we shouldn’t support Assad’s ouster, because a weak plague is better than a terror virus that is growing stronger,” he said.
Israel must prepare for any scenario, and prevent unconventional weapons from reaching terrorist groups, he said.