The target seemed to be a Syrian version of Iran’s Fatah-110 missile, capable of traveling 300 kilometers with a half-ton warhead.
Most important of all, however, is the message that is sent to both Syria and Iran. By standing by its warnings that it would not tolerate the transfer of gamechanging weapons to Hezbollah, Israel has made it clear – this time at least – that when it uses the rhetoric of “unacceptable” and “intolerable” it is not just being “so hectoring and schoolmarish,” as Foreign Policy’s Rosa Brooks recently put it in an article titled “Would Machiavelli have drawn a red line?” While statesmen of other countries seem to make declarations without having any intention of standing behind their words, Israel will not tolerate Syria’s crossing its red lines. And that is an important message for the mullahs of the Islamic Republic, too.
On April 30, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that imposing a no-fly zone on the Syrian government through U.S. Airforce sorties over Syria would be a daunting but feasible prospect, but he said he doubted the value of the likely outcome.
“The U.S. military has the capability to defeat that system, but it would be a greater challenge, and would take longer and require more resources” than in Libya, Dempsey told reporters.
“The Israeli strikes over the last 48 hours have indicated that those Russian air-defense systems are not as robust as is sometimes reported,” he said. “We can stop Bashar Assad from killing his own people.”
“We have to arm the opposition. We also need toward imposing a no-fly zone so that Bashar Assad cannot continue to use helicopter gunships against civilians and so the refugees he's creating aren't destabilizing our allies like Jordan.”
After two years of empty U.S. rhetoric and threats for crossing imaginary red lines, Assad had no fear of U.S. intervention. He was right. Even using the horrendous Sarin gas had done nothing to get Obama off his fence. Instead, under heavy criticism for his reluctance to accept the evidence that Sarin gas was used, Obama is now trying to redefine either “red,” or “line,” or both.
US strategy, and that of the West and international organizations, has been based on two ideas that have proven to be wishful thinking.
Given the recent military gains of the Syrian regime, obituaries of dictator Bashar Assad have proven exaggerated, and that puts the Obama administration in a bind.
There is “no context,” Huff-Watcher wrote ”Why is Israel ‘striking’ Syria? Every responsible ‘newspaper’ in the world is saying something about the reason.”
Huff-Watcher contends that the headline lacking context is not new for the Huffington Post when it comes to reporting on Israel. “This is nothing new. It is part of HuffPost’s continuing pattern of whipping up hatred against Israel and Jews, through egregiously decontextualized headlines and headline imagery, ignoring the preceding attacks that made Israel’s military response necessary, then falsely depicting Israel as the aggressor,” the blogger writes.
There are two main components to the Iran-centered Shi’ite terror network: The first is the Quds Force – the elite overseas arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, tasked with carrying out attacks, subterfuge, and arms smuggling around the world – and the second is Tehran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hizballah.
Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi were arrested in June 2012 and led officials to a 15-kilogram (33-pound) stash of the explosive RDX. Officials in Kenya say the two suspects may have been planning attacks on Israeli, American, British or Saudi Arabian interests in Kenya.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban did not go far enough in condemning the anti-Semitism that has reared its head in Hungary, the World Jewish Congress said Sunday, hours after Orban called for zero-tolerance of anti-Jewish activity at the opening address of the group’s annual meeting in Budapest.
Even for those acutely aware of the rise of anti-Semitism worldwide, viewing “Jew Bashing: The New Anti-Semitism,” a new, investigative documentary, is a profoundly disturbing experience. It is also a must-see.
The impressive feature, written and produced by award-winning Canadian-Israeli filmmaker and former war correspondent Martin Himel, is divided into four segments: the Middle East, Europe, the US and Canada. Each is approximately 45 minutes long, and the viewer remains spellbound throughout. Canadian media visionary Moses Znaimer is the executive producer and a different section of the series will be screened on Canada’s VisionTV on Monday evenings throughout the month of May.
Lost in the glare of the media attention on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood party are the smaller, completely insane Islamist parties to its right. (You know, the ones that make the MB appear "moderate" by
comparison.)
The Egyptian Islamic party, headed by Mohamed Abu Samra and Kamal Habib, is just one of these powderkegs that are off the radar of most Western analysts.
Muhammad Abu Samra, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Party said: “We will soon take revenge against Israel for what it did in Syria. It will begin with convoys of jihadis on the Egyptian-Palestinian borders, on May 15.
Abu Samra said, in an interview yesterday, Sunday, with Rula Kharsa, the media personality in the “Al-Balad Al-Youm” program on the Sada Al-Balad channel, that there is another aim for marking this day: it is embarrassing President Mursi, who protects the Jews under the pretext of respecting the American treaties and who didn’t do a thing when Gaza was hit – which was a test conducted by America to check how committed he is to his treaty with Israel.
Only last week, Samra said something even more outrageous, according to the Christian Post:
Mohamed Abu Samra, secretary-general of the Islamic Jihad Party, made the claim that "it is permissible to kill some Christians today," then gave his argument defending such a position.
He justified this announcement by saying: "Those who came out with weapons, their blood is allowed for us [to spill], as a fighter is not considered dhimmi."
"In the recent funeral, the Christians brought the Qur'an and urinated on it. The Sheikh of Al-Azhar did not deny it. They also came out in demonstrations to destroy Muslim places, chanting 'We'll bring Islam down by any means possible,'" Samra said during an interview with Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan on Wednesday.
One of the major problems with the Islamist government in Egypt isn't with the Muslim Brotherhood itself - but its very existence as the new "mainstream" has moved the center far to the right - and as a result, it has legitimized racist, hateful Islamist rhetoric that was considered taboo before the revolution.
The deadly nerve agent sarin has been used by Syrian opposition fighters during the war-torn country’s conflict, U.N. human rights investigator Carla del Ponte said late Sunday.
“According to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas,” del Ponte, a former war crimes prosecutor, said in an interview with Swiss radio late on Sunday, according to AFP news agency.
“We still have to deepen our investigation, verify and confirm (the findings) through new witness testimony, but according to what we have established so far, it is at the moment opponents of the regime who are using sarin gas,” she added.
She stressed that the U.N. commission of inquiry on Syria, which she is a part of, had far from finished its investigation.
The commission, which is set to present its latest findings to the UN Human Rights Council during its next session in June, might still find proof that the Syrian regime was also using this type of chemical weapons, del Ponte said.
Apparently, there is no direct evidence, so it is a little irresponsible to make that claim based only on witness testimony.
If true, the question is - where did they get it from? Is Al Qaeda or other groups developing sarin themselves, or did they steal it?
Just when you thought things couldn't get messier in Syria...
A rebel spokesman, who spoke from a “liberated area” held by the opposition in Damascus, told NBC News there were huge explosions just before 2 a.m. Sunday local time (7 p.m. Saturday ET) in the Qaysoun mountains on the edge of Damascus.
“Around 10 locations were hit," the spokesman said. "It was difficult to tell what was hit in the raid and what exploded afterwards. Some of the targets were weapons and weapons depots.
"Secondary explosions continued for about four hours. They shook all of Damascus. There was still smoke in the air as the sun came up.”
From its Damascus media office, the Free Syrian Army listed nine apparent targets, including the Syrian Revolutionary Guard, the 104th brigade headquarters, a weapons depot in Qasyoun and a military research center at Jamraya.
The NYT notes that there were reported casualties (reported by YNet):
The attack struck several critical military facilities in some of Syria's most tightly secured and strategic areas, killing dozens of elite troops stationed near the presidential palace, a high-ranking Syrian military official told the newspaper.
Rebels, opposition activists and residents said the strikes hit bases of the elite Republican Guard and storehouses of long-range missiles, in addition to a military research center that American officials have called the country’s main chemical weapons facility, the report said.
A doctor at the military’s Tishreen Hospital said Monday that there were at least 100 dead soldiers and many dozens more wounded, according to the New York Times.
It is still unclear if this was an air-raid - or if it was a series of missiles shot from Syrian airspace. JE Dyer notes:
A Russia Today news item stated that the IAF launched 12 missiles into Syria from Lebanese air space; if valid, that report indicates the IAF used Israeli Popeye air-to-surface missiles to conduct the attack. The Popeye has a range of about 50 statute miles (78km), allowing standoff attacks. An ordnance package of this size, and a pattern of multiple, sequential strikes, fit the profile of an attack intended to badly cripple one or more facilities of industrial character, including weapons storage sites.
The explosive weight capacity of the Popeye is also consistent with the character of the explosions seen in the videos. I do note that the explosions in the videos appear to indicate strikes on above-ground, non-hardened targets. These are only a few of the explosions; there were presumably more.
One paragraph in this NYT analysis shows a bit of unintended bias on the part of "experts" quoted:
The increased frequency and intensity of the attacks also demonstrates Israel’s desire to take advantage of the chaotic situation, security experts say, as well as its calculation that Syria, Hezbollah and Iran are too preoccupied and weakened by the raging conflict in Syria to retaliate strongly against even a brazen escalation.
But several warned there was a risk of Israeli overreach, particularly given the fiery rhetoric with which Damascus, Tehran and Hezbollah responded, a stark contrast to the silence that greeted some earlier attacks.
Isn't it possible that Hezbollah and Iran, fearful of Syria's fall which would destroy Hezbollah's main artery for weapons supplies, are using the civil war in Syria as a smokescreen to accelerate arms transfers - and Israel is ensuring that its long-held "red lines" are not being compromised?
Here is Al Arabiya's coverage:
Finally, Zvi has a roundup of reactions to the raids:
Turkey
* The Turkish regime is saying little about any of this. Most attention is on the terrorist massacres of hundreds of Sunnis in Bayda and Banias, about which Erdogan said today:
"Hear me, Bashar al-Assad. You will give an account for this. You will pay a very, very heavy price for [only] showing the courage you cannot show others to the babies in the cradle with soothers in their mouths. God willing, the lamentations of these children will fall upon you as blessed revenge,” he said during a gathering of his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) consultation gathering in Kızılcahamam, near Ankara. "Erdoğan’s harsh words came a day after a new massacre was reported by activists in a Sunni town near Banias in Syria’s western Alawite enclave.
While the reference to "others" is no doubt a veiled reference to Israel, priorities are clearly priorities.
* Turkey's armed forces began a 10-day miniature "mobilization exercise" in Adana province today.
* (Mavi M talks are underway in Tel Aviv)
Saudi Arabia
* Asharq alawsat (former editor):
This air raid serves as a message to Hezbollah that Israel is not bothered by Hassan Nasrallah’s threats... Of course, this further complicates the crisis in Syria, but who said that it was not complicated in the first place?... This second message is for the international community. Even if Israeli aircraft were outside of Syrian airspace when they delivered their payloads, as was announced, this means that the US and the international community have the ability to constrain Assad within hours. This is the opposite of what is currently being said about Assad’s defense systems.
Misc. Media
Headlines and first paragraphs largely seem to explain what happened.
* WaPo, headline: "Israel enforces "red line" with Syria airstrike on weapons bound for Hezbollah"
* USA's NPR, first sentence: "Israel has conducted an airstrike against a target in Syria, in an apparent attempt to keep a shipment of missiles from reaching Hezbollah"
* AP, first sentence: "Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah group, officials and activists said."
* Aljazeera ran the AP piece.
* Reuters, first sentence: "Israeli jets devastated Syrian targets near Damascus on Sunday in a heavy overnight air raid that Western and Israeli officials called a new strike on Iranian missiles bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah."
* Reuters (Jeffrey Heller), first sentences: Iran was squarely in Israel's sights when it sent its planes to hit targets in Syria, waging a war-within-a-war that showed a readiness to strike out alone if its red lines were crossed. Allegations of Syrian government forces using chemical weapons have grabbed headlines and driven new calls for U.S. President Barack Obama to intervene in Syria's civil war. But when it took military action over the weekend while Washington stayed on the sidelines, Israel was homing in on targets with strategic significance for its own possible war with Iran rather than for Syria's internal fighting.
* Fox, headline: "Israel launches airstrike on Syria targeting weapons, official says"
* Guardian, subtitle: "Unnamed western intelligence sources reportedly claim attack was attempt to stop missiles reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon"
* LATimes, first sentence: "Huge explosions were reported in Damascus early Sunday, just two days after a reported Israeli airstrike in Syria targeting surface-to-air missiles possibly destined for neighboring Lebanon and the militant group Hezbollah."
* Politico, first sentences: "The Syrian state news agency SANA, citing initial reports, said early Sunday that Israeli missiles struck a military research center near the capital Damascus." After calling this a "sharp escalation", the piece explains about the targeting of weapons bound for Hezbollah.
* Financial Times waits until paragraph 4 to explain that "In both attacks, Israel hit Fateh-110 long-range missiles that were in transit from Iran through Syria to Islamic militants Hizbollah , in Lebanon."
* Guardian (UK) headline: "Syria regime accuses Israel of declaring war", subtitle: "Isreal's night raid on 'missiles destined for Hezbollah' deepens fears of conflict spreading beyond Syria"
* CNN web site: The 2nd worst piece that I saw. You have to read for more than 20 paragraphs before there is any mention of weapons bound for Hezbollah.
* Telegraph (UK), headline: "Syria accuses Israel of supporting 'terrorists' in the wake of air strikes". First sentences: "Syria accused Israel of supporting "terrorists" including al-Qaeda, threatening retaliation for Israeli air strikes on military bases that have drawn the Jewish state deep into the civil war raging across the border. The strikes north of Damascus, in the early hours of Sunday morning, lit up the night sky and felt "like an earthquake", according to residents. Continuing explosions suggested weapons and ammunition facilities were hit, in line with Israel's policy of preventing heavy arms transfers to Hizbollah, Syria's ally in neighbouring Lebanon."
* Guardian (UK), first sentences: Syria's crisis always attracts intense international attention when outsiders get involved – especially Israel. Damascus called the latest raid "a declaration of war" but it was probably intended as something more limited – to maintain Israel's own security "red lines", irrespective of the wider picture. Pre-emptive attacks are an Israeli speciality – from the 1967 assault on Egypt and Syria through the 1981 bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor to last year's strike on an Iranian-built factory in Sudan supplying weapons to Gaza. By all accounts, the raids near Damascus at the weekend were intended to stop advanced missiles being delivered to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is allied to Syria and backed by Iran. It was only last week that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, pledged publicly to stand by Bashar al-Assad, along with the president's other "real friends" in Tehran and Moscow.
* WSJ, first sentence: "Israeli warplanes bombed a target in Syria in an overnight strike Thursday, U.S. officials said, the second such attack this year in a sign of growing Israeli concern that advanced Syrian weapons could fall into terrorists' hands."
* Aftenposten (Norway), the most distorted reporting of all: "United States was not informed in advance about the Israeli air attacks on targets in Syria, according to a U.S. intelligence source." The 4-paragraph story never mentions Hezbollah, saying only that Israel "bombed an arms cargo in Syria." The judgment of the Aftenposten editors is extremely suspect.
* BBC (UK), summary: "Israel's air strikes on military targets in Syria show co-ordination between Israel and "terrorist groups", the Syrian foreign ministry says." showing the spin that the BBC wants to put on this event, because using the Syrian statement to characterize the event shows an absolute lack of interest in the truth. The report itself hammers out the Assad regime's propaganda points, mixes in the daily dose of hypocritical condemnations from Arab officials who are secretly pleased or could not care less, and throws in terms like "significant escalation". The sidebar analysis by Jerusalem-based Yolanda Knell is less twisted, and references to "our correspondent" (Knell) suggest that the piece was authored not by Knell herself but by the BBC's middle east desk, which has persistently displayed some of the most extreme anti-Israel biases among global news organizations.
Hotels will be closed if staff are found to have sexually harassed tourists, Egyptian Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou has said.
“Foreign travel agents have complained about the inappropriate behavior of some hotel staff towards tourists,” Zaazou told Al-Hayat 2 private satellite channel on Saturday. “They threaten to remove Egypt from their list of tourist destinations.”
Zaazou told Ahram Online on Sunday that he would meet with members of the Egyptian Hotels Association to discuss the move.
“I am determined to close hotels where sexual harassment has taken place because this behavior has an impact on the country's reputation,” Zaazou asserted.
The tourism ministry has recorded 150 cases of sexual harassment against tourists over the last two years. There have also been three recorded rapes in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
Iraqi media is reporting that Israel, the US and Qatar have agreed to allow Israel to expand to take over all Arab lands from the Nile to the Euphrates.
Qatar has been under much criticism in the Arab world for trying to position itself as a player in negotiations between Israel and Palestinian Arabs. It has also been criticized for helping send fuel and construction material to Gaza, which has been making Egyptians nervous and jealous.
An Egyptian "human rights" official this week described Qatari as the "Jews of the Gulf," apparently because of the interest it is charging Egypt for a loan.
Following are excerpts from an interview with Swedish-Algerian TV host Yahya Abu Zakariya, which aired on Syrian TV on April 28, 2013:
Interviewer: Today, an Israeli newspaper leaked the news that the Emir of Qatar would be visiting Israel in the near future, in order to strengthen trade relations between the two countries. Will we have to get used to ties between Israel and some Arab countries?
Yahya Abu Zakariya: Let me say – and this is not propaganda - that the Qataris are Jews. The Thani clan is the clan of Ben-Gurion. The Qataris have Jewish roots, because in the Arab national fabric, no Arab, unless he is Jewish, can harbor such vicious hatred toward another Arab. We know this from our Arab history, and we see it in the present. Hamad Bin-Gurion Al-Thani is a Jew.
[…]
The person in charge of building Solomon’s Temple in occupied Palestine, to replace the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is on the verge of collapse, said that Qatar is the country financing the temple. He said, in plain English, that Qatar is helping to finance the building of Solomon’s Temple. The secret ties between Qatar and the Hebrew entity are as warm and as strong as can be. From this we understand the role that Qatar has been given in the systematic destruction of Syria.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that the Zionists mobilized their kinfolk in the Arab world. Hamad Bin-Gurion dreams of being Lord of the Arabs – according to the Arab-Jewish legends, a Jewish king will rule the Arabs, and he believes that he is the one… By Allah, his moustache will be shaved off before he is allowed to be mayor of Jaffa or Haifa.
[…]
If the Gulf States were deprived of oil, perhaps they would put their minds, their culture, and their poetry to good use. They have nothing but sword dances – and even their sword they gave to George Bush. They have sold even their Arabian horses to America.
Did you know that all the Arabian horses were purchased from the Gulf emirs? Only two or three thoroughbred Arabian horses are left in the Arab world. They have even sold our horses.
We cannot rule out the possibility that these Arabian horses will be crossbred with Jewish horses, and will become, I’m said to say, Hebrew – so that one day, it will be said that the Arabs did not breed horses or have swords, and that they do nothing but fornicate, act with treachery, and collude against their fellow Arabs.
[…]
Believe me, the ears of every Gulf emir are red from being pulled by the Americans, who say to them: “Come here, you empty vessel, you lackey, give me your money and buy a hundred million…”
The [emirs] buy airplanes from them, without knowing how to use them. They ride up to the airplane on a camel’s back. They have an F-25 here and a camel race there. What is this?
[…]
I would like to say to Saudi Arabia: Beware of the Emir of Qatar. By Allah, he will pulverize Saudi Arabia and turn it into mini-states. No reactionary can be safe from another. You will end up fighting one another. The Saudis must realize and reveal to the people that the American intelligence assassinated Prince Naif with special rays. Let them have the courage to tell the people that the American intelligence killed Prince Naif.
They know full well that Abdallah is the last king of Saudi Arabia. [I say to the Saudis]: Re-embrace Arab nationalism. Re-embrace the Arab realm that protects your lands. Do not place your trust in America, for it is a bastard state. You cannot rely upon it for anything.
[…]
One day, a friend of mine, Robert Fisk, wrote an article about the establishment of Palestine [sic]. He wrote that Europe was afraid of Zionist treachery, and so it quickly helped to establish a Jewish homeland, in order to rid itself of the Jews, because the [Jews] were behind many conspiracies, and behind economic speculation and bankruptcy in Europe. Therefore, they drove the [Jews] to occupied Palestine.
Today, Europe is afraid of terrorism, and facilitates the departure of those terrorists. By the way, they were all under security surveillance. Some of them did not have passports, because they came from Peshawar, Pakistan, and when they reached Europe, they were allowed to remain as European citizens, but their passports were taken away. When the crisis in Syria began, they were given back their passports, along with financial aid. The Western intelligence agencies knew that they were heading for Syria.
There were several goals, which I shall clarify. I have an important European document, which says that by 2050, half the European population will be Muslim. Therefore, the Muslims who settled in the West will become the decision makers, and there will be a change in the balance of power between Europe and the Zionist entity, which uses Europe as a Trojan horse, when it comes to financing and armaments. In order to stop the advance of islamization, they must create an extremist Islam that will scare the Westerners, and threaten their very existence.
The creation of the extremist Islamic organizations was, in my opinion, the smartest and most creative Mossad bomb today.
Sanity is not a prominent feature of Arabic media, leaders or spokespeople.
Today, though, the PA is in a box of its own making. It cannot win militarily against Israel, nor will it engage in serious diplomacy with Israel. During a recent public relations’ meeting in Washington, supposedly to show Arab state support for a two-state solution, the PA’s representatives glowered in making clear they weren’t interested in serious negotiations with Israel.
President Shimon Peres on Sunday denounced the reports of the Geneva headquartered United Nations Council on Human Rights which invariably depict Israel as the evil doer rather than the victim, while never condemning the human rights abuses of those who attack Israel.
The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities said Friday that the paper is “an outrage to everything that interfaith dialogue stands for” and “reads like an Inquisition-era polemic against Jews and Judaism.”
"The arrogance of telling the Jewish people how to interpret Jewish texts and Jewish theology is breathtaking,” the Jewish council said.
The council further declared that the paper “closes the door on meaningful dialogue” and called on the church to withdraw it ahead of its forthcoming General Assembly.
There are two main reasons that many leftists who are viscerally supportive of Israel have difficulty understanding and defending the Jewish state today. First, the storyline about Israel is deeply distorted.
Israel has been working toward a cooperative agreement in compliance with Turkey and three Arab states to implement an allied system of detection technologies to defend against Iranian ballistic projectiles, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported.
So, one of the U.S. officials who apparently flubbed American intelligence on Iraq warrants front-page coverage for his outlandish allegations about alleged Israeli weaponry in Syria? And Wilkerson's record on Israel is no more reassuring. For instance, he has endorsed the discredited Walt-Measheimer study on "The Israel Lobby" as containing "blinding flashes of the obvious."
The Simon Wiesenthal Center called on the organizers of the Buenos Aires Book Fair to publicly condemn the “House of Islam” stand for its promotion of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Several hundred supporters took part, despite attempts by the government to prevent it going ahead.
Jobbik said the rally was a protest against what it said was a Jewish attempt to buy up Hungary.
The Western world is increasingly realizing that the terrorist threat it faces is the same threat that Israel has faced for decades, says Avi Posnick of the StandWithUs Israel advocacy group.
For CEOs of start-ups, spreading the word on a new idea or technology is a bit like being a missionary. In order to get people to believe in what you’re doing, you need to be a super-believer yourself, preparing your presentation to perfection, anticipating any questions or objections in advance, and anticipating opportunities waiting to be seized before they slip away.
“There seems to be art and creativity everywhere, whether it was in the galleries of Jaffa or along the streets of Jerusalem … the creativity blows my mind because you can see that people want to live their lives to the fullest,” said Diaz.
America’s Voices in Israel, a division of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, brought over the potpourri of stars to give them a view of the country from beyond the headlines.
They don't even bother to identify the source of the scare quotes in the headline, making it appear from a glance like they are quoting a reputable source.
In fact, practically the entire article only quotes Arab sources and anger at Israel.
Only at the very, very end - in paragraph 26! -does it grudgingly mention
After the latest attack, unnamed Western intelligence sources said the target was a weapons cache heading for Lebanon.
Israel has repeatedly said it would act if it felt advanced weapons were being transferred to militant groups in the region, especially Hezbollah.
This is not even journalism - it is the BBC acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for the most extreme haters of the Jewish state.
Indeed, it is the BBC who is writing headlines coordinated with terrorists.
Born to a religious Christian family and a firm believer in the Bible, Orde Wingate passionately embraced the prophetic vision of Jewish redemption and the Jews' ultimate return to Eretz Yisrael. During his service in Eretz Yisrael, he worked to help realize that ideal.
The son of a British officer, Wingate was born in India, received a military education, and was commissioned in 1923. He served in India and then in the Sudan, where he studied Arabic and Semitics, and acquired a familiarity with the Middle East. Wingate was recognized as a talented officer, and by 1936 he had earned the rank of captain. That same year he was transferred to Eretz Yisrael, and served there for the next three years.
Wingate arrived in Eretz Yisrael as an intelligence officer at a time when small bands of Arab rioters were regularly attacking both the British and the Jews. To counter this offensive, Wingate organized and trained “Special Night Squads,” comprised primarily of Haganah fighters, which were successfully employed throughout the Yishuv. Their tactics were based on the strategic principles of surprise, mobility, and night attacks, and they served effectively both as defensive and offensive units, successfully pre-empting and resisting Arab attacks.
Wingate maintained good contacts with the heads of the Yishuv and the Haganah. He learned Hebrew, and he demonstrated his ardent belief that the Jews were entitled to their homeland in Eretz Yisrael. He also recognized the need for a working military force, and he dreamed of heading the army of the future Jewish state. Because of his efforts and support, he was called in the Yishuv “ha-yedid,” the friend.
Wingate's intense support for the Zionist viewpoint, however, was controversial, and in 1939
the British succumbed to Arab pressure and transferred Wingate from Eretz Yisrael. His passport was stamped with the restriction that he not be allowed to re-enter the country. His personal involvement with the Zionist cause was thus curtailed, but many of those he trained became heads of the Palmach and, later, the Israel Defense Forces
Wingate returned briefly to Great Britain, but, recognized for his military talent, he was transferred to further active duty. In 1941 he led the force in Ethiopia against the Italians and was a major figure in liberating the country. He then worked in Burma, organizing and training the Chindits, a special jungle unit that operated behind Japanese lines. Wingate was killed in an airplane crash in Burma in 1944, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Wingate's friendship for the Yishuv and his contributions to its defense have been recognized through the several places in Israel named for him, including the College of Physical Education near Netanya.
CIPAC (Christians’ Israel Public Action Campaign)is pleased to cosponsor again this year, with the Jewish War Veterans, the Orde Wingate Memorial Service at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) this Sunday, May 5 at 2:30.
You are specially invited, with no need for tickets, to check in at the ANC visitors center, near the Arlington National Cemetery Metro stop, for directions to the grave site, or if weather’s inclement, to the “Women in Military Service for America Memorial” auditorium.
Wingate, in the British Army and a Christian, served in pre-State Israel under the British League of Nations mandate in the late 1930′s as an intelligence officer to defeat Arab terrorists attacking Jewish kibbutzim and the Iraq-Haifa oil pipeline in the North. His creation of British-Israeli joint Special Night Squads (“Plugot Lila”) embodied a biblically inspired, preemptive offense centered, lead from the front, style of combat doctrine that still typifies the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) today.
Though Wingate would go on to create Special Forces to defeat vastly more numerous Axis troops, restore Haili Selassie to the Ethiopian throne and convince the Japanese in Burma to drop plans to conquer India, he never lost a burning desire to create and lead the first Israeli Army in 2000 years. He died in a US bomber crash in Burma, a 42 year old major general and father of a newborn son he’d never see, likely with Israel in his heart and on his lips. His remains are buried, with those of all aboard the ill-fated flight, in Arlington – fittingly, I feel, since the US has been Israel’s best backer on Earth.
Last Thursday TV personality Avri Gilad went on a trip to the northern Negev with Regavim – an independent, professional research institute and policy planning think tank involved in protecting Israel’s national lands. So disturbed was he by what he saw on that trip that upon his return he immediately penned the following post on Facebook:
“I came back from a tour of the Negev conducted by Regavim. I’m appalled by what I’ve seen. There’s no more Negev.
The Beduin have taken it over completely by force....
By shameless criminal activity, with insolence met only by fear and submission, the Beduin have taken over the entire Negev.”
He noted that though he had visited Beersheva and Arad, he had never entered Beduin towns like Laqia, Hura or the others he saw on this trip. Gilad also wrote that the government of Israel has virtually agreed to give Beduin clans in the Negev over 60 percent of the state land they have illegally settled on. On top of this, former MK Benny Begin sweetened the deal recently, offering them more land and additional monetary compensation. Avri Gilad, in his post, called on the government “to stop the Begin plan immediately,” and said, “We have to re-conquer the Negev.”
He concluded by saying “we must have one law for everyone – both for a Jew who encloses his balcony [without authorization] and for a Beduin who uses a fence he stole from Omer to enclose five dunams [0.5 hectares] of land as his.”
Gilad’s post went viral, and when interviewed later on Army Radio, he stated over 450,000 people had seen it.
However, it didn’t take long for the many defenders of the Beduin’s supposed right to take whatever land they want to jump into action. These foreign-funded, radical left-wing NGOs have done a great job training the various Beduin tribes to always refuse the Israeli government’s every offer of compromise and hold out for 100 percent of their claims.
The author of this piece continued with what she called “facts”: “What is known as the Beduin diaspora are 35 unrecognized villages in the Northern Negev on an area between Beersheva, Yeruham, Arad and Dimona.” This, however, is the “big lie” – that only 35 “unrecognized villages” exist.
The author appears to have forgotten that nowadays programs like Google Earth exist (although a tour of the facts on the ground with Regavim is preferable) allowing all and sundry a close-up look at what is really happening to the area between Beersheva, Arad and Dimona. Fact: There are not 35 illegally built villages on state-owned land, but over 2,000 illegal settlements, spread out over 80,000 hectares (800,000 dunams). How do these NGOs imagine they can continue to hide the facts when the means of independent verification are so accessible? ...
But as much as these NGOs try to frame and fudge the public debate around the illegal villages of those 20% of Beduin who have grabbed state land and claim to have ancestral title to it, Regavim hopes for an equitable solution to the problem. Because of growing public awareness, the government program to overcome the lawlessness in the south is scheduled for renewed discussion.
The Negev problem is quite real, as I documented in February during my own trip with Regavim:
Regavim is hardly a racist organization - they stress that the Bedouin were treated unfairly for decades and want to solve the problem fairly. But as long as anti-Israel NGOs reflexively attack the Jewish state no matter what, calling anyone who shows both sides of the story "racist," the problem will only grow.
Israel carried out a pre-dawn air strike near Damascus on Sunday, targeting Iranian missiles destined for Lebanon's Hezbollah in the second such raid on Syrian soil in three days, a senior Israeli source said.
"The target was Iranian missiles which were destined for Hezbollah," he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The attack targeted a facility just northwest of the Syrian capital, very close to the site of a similar attack late January which was implicitly confirmed by Israel, the source said.
He also confirmed Israel was behind an earlier strike on a target very close to Damascus airport which took place early on Friday, which also struck Iranian arms destined for the Lebanese Shiite movement.
"Any time Israel learns about the transfer of weapons from Syria to Lebanon, it will attack," he warned.
According to Syria's official SANA news agency, Sunday morning's attack targeted the Jamraya military research center near Damascus, in the Eastern Ghouta region.
Following the strike, the Israeli air force went on high alert, although the Jewish state was not anticipating a significant response from Damascus, the source said.
"The air force is now on high alert, the highest in recent years," he said.
Tonight’s air strikes in Syria targeted sensitive military facilities, including ones staffed by Iran Revolutionary Guard personnel, according to Western government sources who focus on the Middle East and who spoke to The Tower.
What I have said in the past and I continue to believe is that the Israelis justifiably have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. We coordinate closely with the Israelis recognizing they are very close to Syria, they are very close to Lebanon.
There have also been reports that the airstrikes targeted the 104th and 105th brigades of the Syrian Republican Guards, a source told RT Arabic.
Mount Qasioun and Damascus Airport are located in different parts of the city, so if both were targets of airstrikes, this would likely require a more complex coordinated attack.
....While no official casualty number has been made public, rumors on Syrian social media say that at least 300 soldiers stationed at Mount Qasioun have been killed and hundreds of others injured, Mawazini said. Many Syrians are calling for retaliation as the possibility of a full-scale war with Israel is speculated upon.
During the attack, one Israeli jet was reportedly shot down by Syria's Air Force, according to Hezbollah's Manar TV channel, citing security sources in Damascus. Two Israeli pilots of the downed IDF jet have been taken to a military area in Damascus under Assad’s control, according to reports in Lebanese and Syrian media.
Hours after the first reports of an Israeli strike in Syria, details about the mysterious attack continue to emerge.
The New York Times reported Saturday that the airstrike was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, according to American officials.
The missiles, known as Fateh-110s, had been sent to Syria by Iran and were being stored at an airport in Damascus when they were struck in the attack, one American official said.
According to the paper, Syrians with knowledge of security and military matters confirmed the strike, saying that Iran had sent arms and rockets to Damascus International Airport intending to resend them to Hezbollah.
Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have used Fateh-110 missiles against the Syrian opposition, and some American officials are unsure whether the new shipment was intended for use by Hezbollah or by the Assad government, which is believed to be running low on missiles.
One American official, said the warehouse that was struck in the Israeli attack was believed to be under the control of operatives from Hezbollah and Iran’s paramilitary Quds force.
Also Saturday, a source at a rebel intelligence unit in Damascus said that F-16 jets carried out three strikes on the road connecting Damascus and Beirut.
One of the strikes, he said, hit a site near the Syrian army's fourth armored division in the city of al-Saboura. According to foreign sources, the jets carried out the attacks from Lebanese airspace.
The rebel source said that the attack targeted a Hezbollah-bound anti-aircraft missile convoy but according to recent estimates they were surface-to-surface missiles.
Earlier on Saturday, an Israeli official told the Associated Press that the shipment was not of chemical arms, but of "game changing" weapons bound for Hezbollah.
Everything is speculation, of course, although the idea that the targets are advanced weapons intended for Hezbollah makes sense.
Israeli warplanes bombed the outskirts of Damascus early Sunday for the second time in two days, according to Syrian state media and reports from activists, signaling a sharp escalation in tensions between the neighboring countries that had already been exacerbated by the conflict raging in Syria.
Videos posted on the Internet by activists showed a huge fireball erupting on Mount Qassioun, a landmark hill overlooking the capital on which the Syrian government has concentrated much of the firepower it is using against rebel-controlled areas surrounding the city.
The official Syrian Arab News Agency said that a scientific research facility had been struck by an Israeli missile, and a banner displayed on state television said the attack was intended to relieve pressure on rebel forces in the embattled eastern suburbs. The banner was accompanied by martial music and footage of Syrian soldiers marching, descending from helicopters and firing rockets, indicating that Syria may not shrug off the assault, as it has with some Israeli strikes in the past.
A subsequent video suggested further strikes were taking place in the same location, though the number was unclear.
There was no immediate confirmation that the strikes were carried out by Israeli warplanes. Reuters news service reported that an Israeli military spokeswoman said, “We don’t respond to this kind of report.”
This sounds, and looks, like attacks on a weapons depot, not on weapons in transit.
And the explosion shown here is spectacular:
We don't even know that these are Israeli airstrikes - Syria TV is hardly a trustworthy source. But until now, Israel seemed to be targeting Hezbollah assets (or assets-to-be) while this last apparent attack looks a lot more like it is going after Syrian assets.
I'm no expert, but this looked more like a secondary explosion to me than a huge bomb dropped from an airstrike.
An Israeli warplane was shot down by Syrian air-defense units during a raid near Damascus early Sunday, Hezbollah's Manar television station reported, citing security sources in the Syrian capital.
There was no independent confirmation of the claim and Israel did not comment on the raid reports.
Breaking #sana tv crew caught painting an old mig fighter tail with israeli airforce markings near #damascus
— Free Syria Media Hub (@free_syria_news) May 5, 2013
Despite claims by organisers that the UNDP was complicit in the sponsoring of the event, UNDP communications staff today informed The Commentator that, "The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had no role in the tournament, its naming or any other activity related to it. It was not informed about the activity in question."
However, despite the insistence, a UNDP logo was used at the event, which they say was "used without any prior authorization from UNDP".
“Our story is a story of failed leadership, from way early on,” Fayyad told the New York Times. “It is incredible that the fate of the Palestinian people has been in the hands of leaders so entirely casual, so guided by spur-of-the-moment decisions, without seriousness. We don’t strategize, we cut deals in a tactical way and we hold ourselves hostage to our own rhetoric.”
It is disgraceful that many of America’s elite universities are awash with Anti-American and Anti-Israel propaganda, and Princeton University must immediately fire Richard Falk for blaming America for the terrorist attacks in Boston. There are clearly certain lines of acceptability which cannot be passed.
I know that complaining about such statements made by such a pasty-white convert only makes one a racist ‘Islamophobe.’ But oughtn’t one to be troubled by this? Were a Christian man called Timothy to have said such things he would almost certainly have been sacked by Cambridge University by now. Students, LGBT groups, unions – everyone wanting to make a stand against bigotry – would be screaming about this. But Timothy is so lucky. Because he became Abdul I think he’ll be just fine.
Other news outlets like Global News and the Daily Gleaner (article not online) provided a balanced perspective to the issue that acknowledged criticism that the exhibit was “propaganda” and “inauthentic” and that gave voice to concerns of the pro-Israel community.
Following our complaint, CBC Maritimes broadcast a follow up report by Melissa Oakley on April 25 which featured a contrarian point of view by pro-Israel support Israel Unger who criticized the exhibit for featuring fraudulent artwork and for the lack of balance of the exhibit; one that did not acknowledge the suffering of Israelis from thousands of rocket attacks.
Qatar is working to gather votes from 115 countries to relocate the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which determines global rules for airplane transportation, from Montreal to the Middle East by 2016. In addition, Arab UN ambassadors met in New York on April 23 to discuss Palestinian issues, and discussed ways to rally support against the Canadian government among international organizations.
Russia, Iran, its proxy Hezbollah and the Maliki government in Iraq are all playing a central role. The latest indications are that the US and the West still prefer to stay directly out of it, despite the obvious crossing of notional “red lines” regarding the use of chemical weapons.
It is thus likely that the Assad regime will be around for some time to come.
Patterns are not only evident in the Muslim world’s persecution of Christians, but in the Obama administration’s indifference. The U.S. State Department has excluded Abedini from its Iran Prisoners List—commensurate with the fact that it regularly whitewashes the sufferings of Christians under Islam, and even failed to cite Egypt and Pakistan as “nations of particular concern” despite the fact that Christians there are being hounded mercilessly, as documented in the book.
Jews and Armenians are the most popular targets for hate speech in Turkish media with 25 percent of all cases, while Christians follow them at 18 percent, according to a study by the Hrant Dink Foundation.
Lt. Arin Shaabi is a Christian, a Jew, an Arab, an Israeli. And in the military courts of the West Bank, she is fighting a rising tide of Palestinian nationalist crime
A new volunteer group, emphatically not from the usual left of the political spectrum, is monitoring how the IDF operates the Qalandiya checkpoint en route to Jerusalem
From Avengers and Mirages and Spitfires to blind spots and crash landings, the aircraft on display tell the incredible tale of a young nation’s survival
A team from the Israel Trauma Coalition, an association of Israeli agencies specializing in post-trauma resilience, will be arriving in the Boston suburb of Watertown next week to help develop “a recovery process” for the local school system.
The documentary “50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr and Mrs Kraus” may bear many of the same hallmarks as other heroic stories from the Holocaust – with impossible odds and gargantuan reserves of courage – but its message remains as relevant as ever.
It tells the story of an American couple who travelled to Vienna during the war to evacuate Jewish infants at risk of persecution, and then provide them with safe passage to the United States.
The film’s director, Steven Pressman, was determined to illuminate the horrors of war but equally, to show how such extreme situations can also bring out the best in humanity.
The first thing to notice is the title; Western Palestine is the parts that are west of the Jordan River, as opposed to Eastern Palestine, which had its own survey. I have yet to find a single Palestinian Arab willing to say that they claim Jordan as part of their ancestral land of Palestine. (Just as none of them claimed the West Bank or Gaza to be theirs before 1967. Funny how Arab claims always coincide with Jewish control.)
We see that Jews were immigrating in droves:
But - so were Arabs. Here is a description of new building in mostly Arab towns, saying where one group came from explicitly:
This might explain why so many Arab residents of Jaffa decided to flee to Egypt in 1948, as opposed to the east or to the north. They already came from there!
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