Gaza City, September 27 - A new fighter for the militant Islamist group that governs this coastal territory confessed today that given the prominence of jumping through flaming hoops that had characterized his training, his duties in resisting Israel since entering active duty has featured a surprising absence of any such displays.
Muhammad Nur, 17, of the city's Suja'iyya neighborhood, now serves in a unit dedicated to excavating and maintaining a network of tunnels snaking under residential buildings in the city and connecting various Hamas positions with ammunition storage dumps and other military resources. In the recruitment materials that attracted him to the Izzedin al-Kassam Brigades, he encountered video clips and still photographs of athletic recruits making acrobatic dives through rings that had been set alight, to cheers and applause from onlookers. However, Nur's responsibilities have yet to include jumping through a single flaming hoop, let alone being applauded for it.
"Most of what I do involves schlepping," he lamented. "Sometimes I get to do some training and we crawl along the ground and shoot at cardboard silhouettes of Israelis, but most of the time I'm checking on ventilation systems and carrying replacement parts for pumps and lighting, and looking for cracks in the concrete of the tunnels. I doubt there would even be enough room down there to jump properly through a hoop. That's a shame. I was really looking forward to it being part of my job."
In his spare time, Nur still practices his flaming-hoop jumping, to keep his capabilities sharp in case the Zionists suspend burning rings larger than a man's hips between him and where he intends to reach. "You know you can't be too prepared for this. I'll be ready when the time comes."
A Hamas commander who declined to be identified by name acknowledged the discrepancy between the exciting clips of young Palestinians leaping through fiery hoops and the grim drudgery of using the Gazan civilian population as human shields above the tunnels. "Listen, everyone indulges in a bit of embellishment for marketing purposes," he explained. "You think every fighter is going to march triumphantly on Jerusalem? I'm under no illusion any such thing will happen anytime soon, no matter what our propaganda screams. But you have to make things look compelling or exciting, or the young people just won't want to be a part of it."
"I mean, what are we supposed to do - stop trying to kill Jews? Don't be ridiculous," he added.
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Former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson repeated the well-worn narrative that Jewish neoconservatives promoted the invasion of Iraq - and are beating the drum for a conflict with Iran. Of course, most Jews are not neoconservatives, and most neoconservatives are not Jewish. In any case, it was two influential non-Jews, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who played the central role with President Bush in deciding to invade Iraq in 2003.
When I began working in the Pentagon during President Jimmy Carter's administration, there was an unspoken but unmistakable assumption: If you were Jewish, you could not work on the Middle East because you would be biased. However, if you knew about the Middle East because you came from a missionary family or from the oil industry, you were an expert. People with these backgrounds were perceived to be unbiased, while Jews could not be objective.
Secretary of State George Shultz tried to change the culture of the State Department during the Reagan administration. Shultz was more interested in your knowledge than your identity. He made me and Daniel Kurtzer members of the small team working with him on Arab-Israeli diplomacy.
Tweeting that Jews are pushing for a new war is the definition of prejudice. How can it not be when you label a whole group and ascribe to all those who are a part of it a particular negative trait or threatening behavior? And once you have singled out groups, the leap is small to imposing limits on them, quarantining them and rationalizing violence against them.
Israel handed a replica of a frieze from the Arch of Titus to the head of UNESCO, using the monument commemorating Rome’s victory over Jerusalem for a not-so-subtle critique of the organization’s resolutions that ignore Jewish links to the holy city.
The idea originally came from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization passed a resolution last year that used only Muslim names for the Jerusalem Old City holy sites.
The replica will be exhibited in UNESCO’s Paris headquarters as a “greeting from the historical truth about the existence of two Temples on the Temple Mount,” said Carmel Shama-Hacohen, Israel’s ambassador to the agency.
Shama-Hacohen handed the replica to UNESCO’s outgoing director-general Irina Bokova, who, in her speech, offered a more subtle critique of one-sided anti-Israel resolutions passed routinely by her organization’s member states.
“2,000 years ago the Romans destroyed the Temple and removed it from the Jewish people. And today, UNESCO is trying to destroy and remove the history of Jerusalem from the Jewish people,” Shama-Hacohen said at the event.
“When the executive board of UNESCO adopts every six months a resolution that denies the connection between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount, they are not only adopting a political resolution, they are adopting a resolution that negates the right of the State of Israel to exist and the Jewish people’s right of self-determination,” he said.
Furthermore, such resolutions “pave the way for spreading anti-Semitism and terrorism,” Shama-Hacohen went on.
I call on the Arab countries to cooperate with the Palestinians and with us to advance an economic peace. An economic peace is not a substitute for a political peace, but an important element to achieving it. Together, we can undertake projects to overcome the scarcities of our region, like water desalination or to maximize its advantages, like developing solar energy, or laying gas and petroleum lines, and transportation links between Asia, Africa and Europe. Address by PM Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan University, 14 Jun 2009
“It is no secret that our approach to these discussions departs from some of the usual orthodoxy – for after years of well-meaning attempts to negotiate an end to this conflict, we have all learned some valuable lessons,” he said.
“Instead of working to impose a solution from the outside, we are giving the parties space to make their own decisions about their future.
Instead of laying blame for the conflict at the feet of one party or the other, we are focused on implementing existing agreements and unlocking new areas of cooperation which benefit both Palestinians and Israelis.”
President Donald Trump. Source: Wikipedia
This follows on the heels of Greenblatt's visit in July, when he praised 2 Israeli-Palestinian agreements, increasing the water supply to the Palestinian Authority and the power supply to Jenin, as examples proving “cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians that will lead to economic improvement in the lives of the Palestinians.”
i24News news anchor Eylon A. Levy explained this "radical new" approach to peace:
But if this new approach to Israeli-Palestinian peace sounds familiar -- it should.
The International Monetary Fund had concluded that the West Bank’s economy improved dramatically in the last year
Israel's US ambassador Michael Oren pointed out in a Wall Street Journal editorial that six thousand new jobs had been created since 2008, trade with Israel increased 82%, tourism to Bethlehem increased 94%, and agricultural exports were up 200%
According to Foreign Affairs, as opposed to "armed struggle" and peace negotiations, the Palestinian Prime Minister had come up with a third path:
Fayyad's strategy is one of self-reliance and self-empowerment; his focus is on providing good government, economic opportunity, and law and order for the Palestinians -- and security for Israel by extension -- and so removing whatever pretexts may exist for Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian territories. Fayyad's aim is to make the process of institution building transformative for Palestinians, thereby instilling a sense that statehood is inevitable.
Some gave Fayyad credit for the approach and called this strategy and its implementation "Fayyadism."
former Prime Minister Salem Fayyad. Credit: Wikipedia
Not only was there debate over who deserved credit for the plan, there was disagreement over whether the plan had even begun to make a difference:
Prior to the elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented his program for "economic peace," which he said would improved the quality of life for Palestinians in the West Bank. However, 100 days after having formed his coalition government, there is no practical progress on economic projects.
The main reason for this is the refusal of senior Palestinian Authority officials to cooperate with Netanyahu and Vice Premier Silvan Shalom, who has been assigned the task of promoting the "economic peace" initiative.
For the first time since the second Palestinian uprising broke out in late 2000, leading to terrorist bombings and fierce Israeli countermeasures, a sense of personal security and economic potential is spreading across the West Bank as the Palestinian Authority’s security forces enter their second year of consolidating order.
The International Monetary Fund is about to issue its first upbeat report in years for the West Bank, forecasting a 7 percent growth rate for 2009. Car sales in 2008 were double those of 2007. Construction on the first new Palestinian town in decades, for 40,000, will begin early next year north of Ramallah. In Jenin, a seven-story store called Herbawi Home Furnishings has opened, containing the latest espresso machines. Two weeks ago, the Israeli military shut its obtrusive nine-year-old checkpoint at the entrance to this city, part of a series of reductions in security measures.
Whether all this can last and lead to the consolidation of political power for the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, as the Obama administration hopes, remains unclear. But a recent opinion poll in the West Bank and Gaza by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, a Palestinian news agency, found that Fatah was seen as far more trustworthy than Hamas — 35 percent versus 19 percent — a significant shift from the organization’s poll in January, when Hamas appeared to be at least as trustworthy.
...The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says it shares the goal of helping Mr. Abbas, which is why it is seeking to improve West Bank economic conditions as a platform for moving to a political discussion.
Read that entire article and you'll notice that Fayyad is not mentioned even once.
But the fact remains that in the US, Fayyad was given credit for the economic peace plan.
At the moment, the most promising idea comes from Mr. Abbas's prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who has vowed to build the institutions of a Palestinian state within the next two years, with or without peace talks. Negotiations between the current Israeli and Palestinian leaders could provide indirect support for that initiative, even if there is little progress. But the administration would do well to refocus its efforts on supporting Mr. Fayyad.
Just as credit for the resurrection of the plan will go to Trump.
But in the end, whether it was called Netanyahu's economic peace plan or Fayyadism, the fact remains that the plan fell apart, leaving the question of whether it will work now.
Government circumventing democracy. The unaccountable governing process that Fayyad has had to invent is not just postponing a democratic system—it is actively denying it.
Isolated successes do not create rule of law. The increasing number of cases seen and submitted to the courts indicates growing efficiency and confidence, but security services continue to act outside the law under the guise of cracking down on Hamas.
Lack of institution building. While Fayyad’s cabinet has managed to make a few existing institutions more effective and less corrupt, there has been regression in other governing bodies. Palestinian civil society is showing signs of decay as well. Ironically, there was more institution building and civil society development under Yasser Arafat than there has been since the West Bank-Gaza split in 2007.
Disillusionment increasing among Palestinians. Popular support for Fayyad is growing but he still has no organized base. And Palestinians are increasingly cynical about the prospects for long-term development.
Fatah is in disarray. The party remains bitterly divided. Party leaders recently forced Fayyad’s cabinet to cancel local elections when Fatah could not organize itself on time.
Have the Palestinian Authority and Fatah made any progress since then?
Is there more democracy?
Is the government less corrupt?
Are the Palestinian Arabs lets disillusioned or cynical?
Is Fatah, especially with Abbas aging with no clear successor, any less in disarray?
...However, there are several features to the Israel-Palestinian conflict that seriously hamper the applicability of the economic peace theory to this particular conflict. First, the theory asserts that economic integration reduces the probability of states to start a violent conflict, but does not necessarily apply to protracted conflicts. Second, the theory considers economic interdependence between states, and not a situation of asymmetric relations and dependence of one party on the other, such as exists in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [emphasis added]
Again, both reasons still apply today.
Whenever there is talk of renewing peace talks, there is criticism of trying again what has failed so many times before. Yet, regardless of the similarities to the previous "economic peace" plan, the concept itself is fairly new and for that reason alone -- and because automatically restarting peace talks is being rejected -- there is reason for patience, if not a bit of hope, that some progress can be made.
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One of the most stunning and perplexing things about Monday's non-binding referendum on Kurdish independence was the opposition to it - from the US, EU and UK, on the same side as Turkey and Iran.
The official reason given, in the words of the UK Foreign Office, is "The referendum may increase instability in the region, at a time when the main attention should be paid to the victory over ISIS."
But there will always be risks with doing anything productive. And there will always be strong opposition to any national movement.
The UN Charter speaks about the importance of “equal rights and self-determination of peoples” and later declarations elaborated on it:
By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right freely to determine, without external interference, their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and every State has the duty to respect this right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter.
Every State has the duty to promote, through joint and separate action, realization of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter, and to render assistance to the United Nations in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Charter regarding the implementation of the principle, in order:
To promote friendly relations and co-operation among States; and
To bring a speedy end to colonialism, having due regard to the freely expressed will of the peoples concerned;
and bearing in mind that subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a violation of the principle, as well as a denial of fundamental human rights, and is contrary to the Charter.
Every State has the duty to promote through joint and separate action universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Charter.
The establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people.
The UN doesn't say that people's right to self-determination should be pushed off indefinitely if it might upset other people.
The supposedly enlightened and liberal world suddenly thinks that these words no longer apply - when it comes to Kurds.
Why?
The real reason is that the world regards the Kurds the way it regards Israeli Jews. It knows that those who oppose both Kurdish and Jewish nationalists are irrational, terror supporting states who can threaten the West with terrorism. And the Kurdish and Jewish nationalists (except for the PKK in Turkey) are not going to start setting off bombs in Western cities.
That's really it. Terror has become the most successful political tool on the planet, because it causes Western nations with supposedly liberal values to suddenly throw out all their principles - and justify that hypocrisy after the fact. An irrational, violent actor gets its way while the rational ones who seek peace but true justice are asked, sometimes nicely and sometimes not so nicely, to stop being so demanding.
We've seen this hypocrisy many times before.
Maybe it is time to repeal the UN Charter, or to modify it to say "all of these principles only apply when it doesn't inconvenience anyone too much."
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Three things you should know about the terror attack in Har Adar
1. It happened
Those who follow the news about Israel closely will probably have read about the terror attack in Har Adar yesterday morning (Tuesday Sept 26th). It’s not likely you will hear about it on your news.
While CNN and BBC can go on and on for days about an attack in London that kills no one, Jewish lives, especially if they happen to be Israeli Jews, are less “media worthy”. Why is that?
The facts are as follows:
Har Adar is a small Jewish community (aprox 4,000 residents) located near Jerusalem.
The neighboring Arab village, Beit Surik,is under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority and yet many of the residents have work permits that enable them to be legally employed in Israeli territory. A number of them, including the terrorist work in the Har Adar community.
The guards at the gate of Har Adar recognized that something was not right about the terrorist and, instead of letting him enter the community like he does almost every day, they ordered him to stop for inspection. That is when he pulled out a gun and shot them at close range.
The terrorist murdered three Israelis and wounded a fourth. Border Policeman Solomon Gaviriya, from Be’er Yaacov was just 20 years old. The two additional murdered Israelis were private guards for the community and identified as Or Arish of Har Adar, 25, and Youssef Ottman (an Israeli Arab) from Abu Ghosh. The doctors declared that the community’s security coordinator who had been wounded from the gun shots will be able to regain full health following the surgery done to repair his wounds.
2. That sick feeling
Israelis tend to be loud and boisterous. Visitors from abroad usually don’t notice that when there is a news update, the Israelis around them go dead silent. While our visitors blithely continue talking, we are listening. Has anything terrible happened since the last news update?
I don’t want you to be able to understand what that sick feeling is like. I hope you never have that experience...
That sick feeling, I had this morning when I reached for the phone and read the news updates about the terror attack: “Three Israelis murdered in Har Adar”
That sick feeling, I had when I realized that Har Adar is where someone I love is staying right now.
That sick feeling when I turned on the t.v. and heard the details of the attack, of knowing that three people died today. Had they not have stood between the terrorist and the community, had they not been alert, it would be other families mourning today. Maybe it would have been me.
That sick feeling when I heard more about the terrorist. He worked in Har Adar. He went there almost every day. The people there knew him and he entered their homes. They talked to him about life in Israel and even about his personal problems. They tried to support him and even gave him their own clothes and food to take home, to make his life easier. It is sickening to know that, despite all of this, these are the people he decided to murder.
Sickening but not surprising.
Why?
3. Blood money
Why would a man decide to murder people who employed him, who helped him, who showed him care and compassion, who treated him like a member of their own family?
Jew hate is one explanation. The Arab media, from schoolbooks to songs on the radio to television programs, the way their news is reported etc. is packed with incitement against Jews and Israel. It is no surprise that people told from childhood that those who kill Jews are “martyrs”, heroes, grow up believing that killing Jews is a good thing. Some become “martyrs” themselves, others celebrate and honor these martyrs.
But even this is not enough of an explanation for today’s terror attack. Often it is hot-headed teenagers and twenty-somethings who, believing the incitement, decide to kill Jews for “glory”.
Today’s terrorist, a 37 year old father of four has a different profile. It’s possible that he was a successful actor, so talented that he convinced the good people of Har Adar that it was ok to let him in to their homes, that they didn’t feel his hate when they spoke with him, when they reached out to him with support and compassion. It’s possible but not likely.
Blood money is the driving incentive.
Today’s investigation revealed that the terrorist beat his wife so severely that her family smuggled her away from him, to Jordan. He was left with their four children and his solution was to go kill Jews. This would provide his children with ample financial support for life. Much more than he could provide, even with the good job he had in Har Adar.
Money. The Palestinian Authority pays terrorists (or the family of the terrorist) an impressive monthly salary for killing Jews. ‘Palestinians’ who work for Israeli businesses get a much higher salary and all the social benefits according to Israeli law. This is much more than they can ever hope to receive working in PA territory. Even so, this cannot compete with the salaries the PA provides for terrorists, prisoners and ‘martyrs’.
They get money for Jewish blood. Blood money.
This money comes from the budget of the Palestinian Authority. That money comes from foreign aid sent by EU countries, the United States etc.
You need to know that if your country is sending foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, your money, your taxes are blood money. You are funding our murder.
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There are over twenty Arab states throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but the world demands, in a chorus of barely disguised animosity towards Israel, that yet another Arab state be created within the mere forty miles separating the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan.
Remember, there has never existed in all recorded history an independent sovereign nation called Palestine - and certainly not an Arab one. The name ‘Palestine’ has always been that of a geographical territory, such as Siberia or Patagonia. It has never been a state.
But there is a people who, like the Jews, truly can trace their ancestry back thousands of years and deserve a sovereign, independent state within their ancient homeland. They are the Kurds, and it is highly instructive to review their remarkable history in conjunction with that of the Jews. It is also necessary to review the historical injustice imposed upon them over the centuries by hostile neighbors and empires.
Let us go back to the captivity of the Ten Tribes of Israel, who were taken from their land by the Assyrians in 721-715 BCE. Biblical Israel was de-populated, its Jewish inhabitants deported to an area in the region of ancient Media and Assyria - coincidentally a territory that roughlyincluded that of modern-day Kurdistan. Assyria was, in turn, conquered by Babylonia, which led to the eventual destruction of the southern Jewish kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE. The remaining two Jewish tribes were sent again to the same area as that of their brethren from the northern kingdom.
The Persian conqueror of Babylon, Cyrus the Great, allowed the Jews to return to their ancestral lands, many Jews nevertheless remained (and continued to live) with their neighbors in Babylon - an area which included modern-day Kurdistan. The Babylonian Talmud refers in one section to the Jewish deportees from Judah receiving rabbinical permission to offer Judaism to the local population.
A large segment of the general population, accepted the Jewish faith. Indeed, when the Jews in Judea rose-up against Roman occupation in the 1st century AD, the Kurdish queen reportedlysent troops and provisions to support the embattled Jews. By the beginning of the 2nd century CE, Judaism was firmly established in Kurdistan, and Kurdish Jews in Israel today speak an ancient form of Aramaic in their homes and synagogues. Kurdish and Jewish life became interwoven to such a remarkable degree that many Kurdish folk tales connect with Jews.
Iraqi Kurds voted Monday in a landmark referendum on supporting independence, with initial results confirming predictions of overwhelming support for breaking away from Baghdad, in a move billed by the Kurdish leadership as an exercise in self-determination, but viewed as a hostile act by Iraq’s central government.
Neighboring Turkey even threatened a military response.
To Baghdad, the vote threatens a redrawing Iraq’s borders, taking a sizable chunk of the country’s oil wealth. In Turkey and Iran, leaders feared the move would embolden their own Kurdish populations.
Polls closed just after 7 p.m. in the Kurdish region of Iraq, with some 72 percent of 4.5 million eligible voters casting ballots, according to the Kurdish Rudaw news website. With just under 300,000 votes counted, 93.4% of Kurds backed independence, according to a tally published by the site.
The vote — likely to be a resounding “yes” when results are made official later this week — is not binding and will not immediately bring independence to the autonomous region. Nevertheless, it has raised tensions and fears of instability in Iraq and beyond.
Just hours after polls closed Monday night across the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, the Defense Ministry announced the launch of “large-scale” joint military exercises with Turkey.
Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said on Tuesday that Kurds had voted “yes” to independence in a referendum held in defiance of the government in Baghdad and which had angered their neighbors and their U.S. allies.
The Kurds, who have ruled over an autonomous region within Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, consider Monday’s referendum to be an historic step in a generations-old quest for a state of their own.
Iraq considers the vote unconstitutional, especially as it was held not only within the Kurdish region itself but also on disputed territory held by Kurds elsewhere in northern Iraq.
The United States, major European countries and neighbors Turkey and Iran strongly opposed the decision to hold the referendum, which they described as destabilizing at a time when all sides are still fighting against Islamic State militants.
In a televised address, Barzani said the “yes” vote had won and he called on Iraq’s central government in Baghdad to engage in “serious dialogue” instead of threatening the Kurdish Regional Government with sanctions.
The Iraqi government earlier ruled out talks on Kurdish independence and Turkey threatened to impose a blockade.
In the past two weeks, Human Rights Watch suddenly discovered that Saudi Arabia officially supports bigotry against Jews, Christians, Shiites and others - something that was patently obvious for years.
First it issued a statement about Saudi textbooks:
The report shows that HRW didn't even do its own research on the textbooks, instead relying on previous State Department and Freedom House reports from many years past.
So why is HRW suddenly concerned with Saudi hate speech now, while essentially ignoring it since 9/11?
And why is this report only about hate speech in Saudi Arabia and not the equally if not more virulent hate speech throughout the Arab world?
The cynic in me thinks it is because Saudi Arabia is now cozying up to Israel, which to HRW is the biggest crime imaginable.
Because, seriously - this information was public and available for well over a decade. The amount of original research for this report is fairly small. Why else would HRW suddenly care about Saudi hate speech specifically, and why only now? And why has it ignored the far worse hate speech from others?
Interestingly, HRW takes pains to say that this is not Islam but only an extremist interpretation of Islam.
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The three Israelis killed in a terror attack at the Har Adar settlement Tuesday were named as border policeman Solomon Gavriyah, 20, and civilian security guards Youssef Ottman, 25, from Abu Ghosh and Or Arish, 25, a resident of Har Adar.
A third civilian — the head security officer of Har Adar — was seriously injured in the attack. He underwent surgery at the Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem after suffering two bullet wounds and his condition was later described as stable and moderate.
According to police, the assailant arrived at the rear entrance of the settlement northwest of Jerusalem and opened fire on a group of security personnel, including Border Police officers and the community’s private guards, who were opening the entrance to Palestinian workers.
Gavriyah was from the central Israeli community of Be’er Yaakov. He was posthumously promoted to staff sergeant. Police said in a statement that he had joined the Border Police for his mandatory national service and had recently been serving as a policeman in the Jerusalem seam area along the boundary with the West Bank.
He will be buried at 5 p.m. in the Be’er Yaakov military cemetery. He is survived by his parents, two sisters and a brother.
Ottman was a resident of the Arab Israeli community of Abu Ghosh, close to Har Adar. He was expected to be buried later in the day in his hometown.
Arish’s funeral was scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem.
Thousands of mourners gathered on Tuesday afternoon to pay their final respects to the three Israelis who were killed by a Palestinian terrorist in the Jerusalem-area settlement of Har Adar earlier in the day.
Border policeman Solomon Gavriyah, 20, civilian security guards Youssef Ottman, 25, from Abu Ghosh and Or Arish, 25, a resident of Har Adar were laid to rest in separate funerals on Tuesday afternoon.
Gavriyah was buried in his central Israel hometown of Beer Yaakov, in an emotional ceremony that saw several family members collapse from grief. In Jerusalem, Arish was buried in the city’s Givat Shaul Cemetery, with the funeral closed to the press.
In the nearby Arab Israeli town of Abu Ghosh, hundreds attended the funeral for Ottman. The burial was held in both English and Arabic, and was attended by police officials, Knesset members, and town mayor Issa Jaber.
Friends of Border Policeman Staff Sergeant Solomon Gaviria described him as an "outstanding pupil with a big heart who loved the country and wanted to protect it."
Dozens of family members, neighbours and acquaintances descended on the Gaviria house in Beer Yaakov. Gaviria joined the Border Police a year and a half ago and served in the Jerusalem corridor. A year ago he was lightly wounded in an attack near the site of today's attack. The incident occurred on a Shabbat during a patrol on the fence of Har Adar. A terrorist jumped out of the bushes and stabbed him in the hand.
One of Gaviria's officers related that despite his wounds Solomon fought back and succeeded in fending the terrorist off. Friends added that after he recovered from his wounds he insisted on returning to service.
Gaviria is survived by two sisters and a brother.
The leader of the Ethiopian community in Beer Yaakov, Baruch Boglah, said that "for many years I have known this heroic boy. A year ago he was injured in the war with terrorists, recovered and returned to serve. Unfortunately today we heard the worst possible news. He grew up here, learnt and excelled."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to condemn the Har Adar terror attack Tuesday morning that killed two security guards and one border police officer, and not to justify it.
Speaking before the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that the attack is the result – among other things – of “systematic incitement by the Palestinian Authority and other elements.”
"The security forces will continue to take action against incitement and terrorism as they have been doing night and day and we, of course, will finish the investigation of the incident and will discuss together the next steps," Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu said that the home of the terrorist, 37-year-old Nimer Jamal from Beit Surik, will be destroyed, and that the IDF has secured a closure around the village. Additionally, all work permits for the members of Jamal's extended family will be revoked.
President Reuven Rivlin responded to the attack, saying the nation's hearts are with the families of the victims. "The brutal terror attack exposes once again the daily reality that Israeli security forces, who are on the front lines, have to deal with," said Rivlin. "We will continue to confront terror and put our hands on the attackers and their backers."
This article in Felesteen describes exactly what is so horrible with "normalization" - and is a great example of how the West fails miserably when we assume that everyone has the same hopes, aspirations and thought processes.
We don't.
It is true that the scene of rabbis dancing with Arab businessmen in the Bahraini capital Manama several months ago was shocking and calls for many questions and explanations, but today after the leaks that showed the King of Bahrain's intention to open the door of normalization with the Zionist entity it became understandable, We learned that relations between Bahrain and the Entity started since 1999.
We can not talk about "normalization" with the Zionist occupation without invoking the Camp David agreement in 1978 with Egypt and the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement in 1979. It is also impossible to isolate the great Jordanian normalization with the occupation in the Wadi Araba agreement in 1994 after the signing of the Oslo agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993, where the door was opened to a commercial representation office with the Zionist enemy in the Omani capital Muscat in 1995 and another in Doha in 1996.
Normalization can not be limited to the Zionist enemy only in the political or economic form , but normalization, which means "restoring the relationship between the two parties so that the relationship between them is natural" goes beyond the normalization of media and cultural and even academic and religious. [Some claim] that normalization is a recognition of reality and an objective response to the existence of the State of Israel! Indeed, the Sudanese Minister of Investment in August said that "the Palestinian cause has delayed the Arab world," expressing a state of distortion of thought and superficial thinking.
What is strange is that while the Europeans are active in the boycott of the occupying power, we see Arabs chasing normalization in a scene that can not be described as less a crime against their history and the sanctities of their nation, as if they are unaware that they will not get beyond normalization.
Perhaps the statements of Israeli officials, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he has repeatedly stated that his country enjoys qualitative relations with many countries in the Arab region, are considered an application of his great project, which he calls "regional peace." Here, it is important to establish an explicit definition of normalization that gives us the clarity of vision and purpose. Normalization in our Palestinian, Arab and Islamic concept is "every relationship that arises with the Zionist occupation and its existence on the land of Palestine."
The pretext of the Arabs that normalization is in support of the Palestinian cause fall in the face of the vulnerability suffered by all the countries that made agreements with the Zionist entity, Egypt has lost its security authority on the Sinai Today and today is reaping the scourge of Israeli economic hegemony, and Jordan has lost its right to water in the Jordan Valley, but does not dare to talk about it, while the weapons of repression of Israeli demonstrators failed to stop the" Arab Spring "in Tunisia! Which was carrying the words "Made in Israel"!
Yes, the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo agreement and made an agreement between the Arabs with the Zionist enemy...
Normalization with the Zionist occupation is a psychological reflection of the state of defeat before the enemy. We are strengthened when we weaken and disappear when we rise, but normalization is the beginning of the break and the end of national sense of self. It is known that normalization will necessarily negate our right to liberation and freedom.
[Opposition to normalization is] still an important bulwark in the face of all attempts to erase the Arab consciousness of the nature of the enemy based on denial of the other, and draw him to economic dependence and political slavery, under the pressure of the media and international institutions with him.
But most important is that the Arabs are looking at BDS and similar efforts as a lost cause, and see the train of Israeli-Arab peace is nearly unstoppable,
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Two security officers and a border policeman were murdered Tuesday morning in a suspected terror attack in the town of Har Adar outside Jerusalem. Another Israeli was badly wounded. According to the Border Police, the Palestinian assailant approached the town's gate posing as a laborer. When the officers manning the gate grew suspicious of him because of his unusual clothing, he pulled out his weapon and opened fire. After an exchange of gunfire, the assailant was shot dead, but not before fatally injuring three people and severely wounding one more. Israeli media identified the attacker as 37-year-old Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal a father of four from the Palestinian village of Beit Surik. The man is said to have a valid work permit allowing him to enter Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health immediately tweeted and placed on Facebook this announcement (autotranslated):
Yes, he is a "martyr."
The supposedly independent and Western-funded Ma'an also referred to the murderer as a "martyr".
How can one make peace with a culture that celebrates death and murderers?
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Over 50 Christian and Muslim sites have been vandalized in Israel and the West Bank since 2009, but only nine indictments have been filed and only seven convictions handed down, according to Public Security Ministry data. Moreover, only eight of the 53 cases are still under investigation, with the other 45 all closed.
At no time does Haaretz investigate how many times arson of Jewish sites results in indictments or convictions.
Haaretz is trying to say that Israeli police do not prioritize hate crimes against Muslims and Christians, but the implication is that this is not the case for Jews.
Haaretz is also trying to say that the 53 incidents over 8 years is a huge number, but it doesn't give a comparable accounting of how many anti-Jewish incidents there were.
I don't know the answer. Perhaps there is bias. Certainly more resources could be used to find the criminals. But without knowing how many Jewish sites were attacked and how many attackers were caught, this story is innuendo - not news.
In 2007, I visited the burial place of Samuel the Prophet - right after it was vandalized by Arabs. Torahs were desecrated, books destroyed, the Ark badly damaged. The story was barely reported in Arutz-7 and ignored by all other Israeli English language media. Haaretz certainly didn't report it. The people at the site described it to me as a "pogrom" and told me this wasn't the only time it happened.
Were the vandals caught? I have no idea. But I doubt it.
There are plenty of arson and vandalism attacks against Jewish sites in Israel, from the desecration of graves on the Mount of Olives by Arabs to attacks by bored teens to attacks by atheists against synagogues and intra-Jewish attacks as well. I don't know how many are done by Arabs and how many by Jews. I don't know how many were only graffiti and how many were actual damage to holy objects on either side.
But this is what is needed to know exactly how bad the problem is.
A real newspaper would compile all these statistics. A newspaper with an anti-Jewish bias, however, would do exactly what Haaretz did.
(Not surprisingly, Arab media is republishing the Haaretz report as gleeful proof that Jews are constantly attacking Muslim holy sites - using this photo as representative of "Jews."While any attack is too many, 53 attacks over 8 years is about one every two months, which is hardly an epidemic.)
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From Ian: Prager U: Does Israel Discriminate Against Arabs?
Is it today's version of apartheid South Africa? Olga Meshoe, herself a South African whose family experienced apartheid, settles the question once and for all.
At a time when smear campaigns against Israel often go unchallenged on college campuses and anti-Israel activists hijack protest movements across the U.S. to attack of the Jewish State, a newly published book tells the story of Israel’s 69-year silent journey to impact the world and serve those in most need. “United Nation: The Humanitarian Spirit of Israel” written by the Israeli entrepreneur David Kramer, is a collection of 40 stories, each illustrating the benevolent and altruistic side of Israel that the mainstream media and the 24-hour news cycle don’t care to show.
“Today, a great disconnect exists in the general perception of Israel throughout the world. Israel is the only country where a global boycott and sanctions movement against it continues unabated on most college and university campuses,” David writes. “However, the reality of life in Israel is totally different. In truth, Israelis embrace a deep appreciation and responsibility for life despite the many challenges they face on a daily basis and this is evident by the thousands of different charitable organizations currently working in Israel and all over the world.”
With 32,000 non-profit organizations based throughout the tiny country, Israel has the highest number of charities per-capita. IsraAID, country’s largest non-profit organization, with expertise in disaster relief and international development, has responded to crises in more than 39 countries, delivering 1000 tons of relief and medical suppliers and reaching over 1.5 million people in need. To date, Israel has sent over 140 official aid missions, to over 50 countries. When major earthquakes strike, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is the first to respond by setting up field hospitals — be it Gujarat (2001), Haiti ( 2010) or Nepal (2015).
“The stories presented in David Kramer’s United Nation embody Israel at its best,” commented Ambassador Danny Danon, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN. “From bringing clean water to the thirsty, to providing aid where it’s needed most, this is the real Israel — working every day to make the world a better place.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman says, "We have to put the emotional issues aside" if we are to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict • His main goal as ambassador is to "manage a very robust, complicated relationship, like two family members."
Among the 233 new immigrants from the U.S. that landed in Israel last month, one stood out in particular. A young woman named Talia Friedman, whose father happens to be the American ambassador to Israel.
Her arrival may have appeared to be coordinated with her father's appointment, but the truth is that Talia, 24, has been planning this momentous move for years, long before anyone in her Orthodox Jewish family even imagined that her father, David Friedman, would be named ambassador.
"Talia's been planning to come here for years," says her mother, Tammy, 54, with a smile. "In fact, when she went on dates, she always said she was planning to move to Israel. She told her friends, don't set me up with anyone who is not Israel-minded. Because that was her plan."
"I remember thinking to myself, when we talked about this a few years ago, how hard it was going to be to have her so far away and how much I'm going to miss her. I never dreamed, in my wildest dreams, that I would be living near her and that my [four other] children [and seven grandchildren] would be living away from me," she says.
In Saudi Arabia's speech to the General Assembly, Adel Ahmed Al-Jubeir the Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister, said that the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" was the most protracted in the region’s history and had led to a great deal of human suffering. He added that nothing could justify the continuation of that conflict, pushing the Saudi peace plan of Israel giving back everything including the holy sites in Jerusalem (and allowing a "right to return") in exchange for full peace with the Arab world.
Iran is not happy about the idea of Arab peace with Israel. Al Alam quotes a Palestinian "analyst" named Shaker Zalloum (who is just a shill for Iran) as saying that the Saudi leaders are the same as the as "Jews of Khyber" who of course are the archetypes of the evil, lying Jew who deserves to be slaughtered in Muslim thought.
So Iran shows yet again that they are not only against any peace than allows Israel to exist, but also that they are antisemitic, comparing their ideological enemies with evil Jews.
Nice to have that in black and white.
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While many Jews were offline for a few days due to Rosh Hashanah, Valerie Plame Wilson – a former CIA operative who became a best-selling author after her cover was blown –got caught sharing a blatantly antisemitic article on Twitter. Even though the article’s title“America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” was a bit of a give-away, Plame Wilson at first doubled down when she was criticized for sharing the piece: she claimed to be “of Jewish decent” and explained that she was simply motivated by her support for the “Iran nuclear treaty” and her opposition to “war with Iran.” She urged her critics to read “the entire article” and to “put aside your biases and think clearly.”
So presumably, Plame Wilson herself had read the entire article and found nothing wrong with it. Among the points offered in the piece she recommended so warmly was the suggestion that some American Jewish commentators should be treated like rat poison in the US media:
“For those American Jews who lack any shred of integrity, the media should be required to label them at the bottom of the television screen whenever they pop up, e.g. Bill Kristol is ‘Jewish and an outspoken supporter of the state of Israel.’ That would be kind-of-like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison – translating roughly as ‘ingest even the tiniest little dosage of the nonsense spewed by Bill Kristol at your own peril.’”
It quickly turned out that this was not the first time Plame Wilson had shared articles from this website and this author – including one that claimed Israelis were celebrating after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and one that was entitled “Why I Still Dislike Israel.”
If you want to catch up on the details of the story and look at some of the tweets, see e.g. this report at The Times of Israel and the comment by Alan Dershowitz in The Algemeiner.
By now, the article Plame Wilson shared is adorned with an update informing readers that the author “was fired over the phone by The American Conservative, where he had been a regular contributor for fourteen years.”
On her Twitter page, Plame Wilson has just pinned a tweet that includes a thread offering a detailed explanation of her regrets:
“On Thursday, I shared a deeply offensive article on Twitter.The anti-Semitic tropes in the piece are vile and I do not, nor ever have, endorsed them.I regret adding to the already chaotic and sometimes hate-filled conversation on social media.In the past, I have also carelessly retweeted articles from this same site, the Unz Review, without closely examining content and authors.Now that I have, I am horrified and ashamed.The white supremacist and anti-Semitic propaganda espoused by this website is disgusting and I strongly condemn it.It is an affront to human dignity and does not reflect my values. I unequivocally oppose anti-Semitism and prejudice in every form.I believe we all have a moral responsibility to speak out when we see injustice and racism.Although I have strong opinions on public policy matters, going forward I will endeavor to avoid resorting to stereotypes to express my positions and ensure my arguments are grounded in facts.While intending to underscore the madness around those fanning flames of war w/ Iran and their efforts to kill the Iran nuclear deal I made a grave mistake and am deeply sorry for perpetuating any conversation that gives credence to anti-Semitism.Actions have consequences, and while I have been honored to serve on the board of the Ploughshares Fund to avoid detracting from their mission, I have resigned.I take full responsibility for my thoughtless and hurtful actions, and there are no excuses for what I did.”
Well, better late than never, I suppose – though it is infinitely depressing to think that a former CIA operative, i.e. someone presumably trained to evaluate information critically, could fall for the Unz Review – which after all advertises itself as “An Alternative Media Selection: A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media.” I would also have thought that for someone who is supposedly interested in news and politics, it should take just a glance at the contributors and offerings of the site to realize that something is fishy.
The Anti-Defamation League has describedUnz cautiously as a “Controversial Writer and Funder of Anti-Israel Activists,” but the entry illustrates well that the sites and people supported by Unz provide a veritable intersectionality study of right- and left-wing antisemitism.
Last but not least, it’s also worthwhile pondering OmriCeren’sview that Plame Wilson simply said “what many advocates of Obama’s realignment with Iran believe”and thatheroriginal tweet linking to the article from Unz’s website was therefore just “an increasingly routine attack on Jews mainstreamed by Obama admin & its echo chamber to sell the Iran deal.”Omri’s thread includes many relevant examples; one could arguably add arecent tweet from the influential Swedish politician and former EU and UN official Carl Bildt, who told his 650K Twitter followers: “Egged on by Netanyahu it seems Trump wants to take the US into a region-wide war with Iran. Europe will suffer. Everyone will lose.”
Maybe Bildt could write an article about it for Unz???
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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 20 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.
Michael Oren: The Altneu Antisemitism: Part II
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Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Elder of Ziyon
Gaza City, September 27 - A new fighter for the militant Islamist group that governs this coastal territory confessed today that given the prominence of jumping through flaming hoops that had characterized his training, his duties in resisting Israel since entering active duty has featured a surprising absence of any such displays.
