Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

The murderous Qawasameh tribe

The Qawasameh family, which includes suspected kidnapper Marwan Qawasameh, has a long tradition of terror:

Notable Qawasameh Hamas members:

Mahmud Amaran Qawasameh (suicide bomber in Haifa bus 37, dead)
Hazem Qawasameh (committed shooting attack in Kiryat Arba, dead)
Fuad Qawasameh (suicide bomber in Gross square in Hebron, dead)
Hamza Qawasameh (killed Netanel Uzari, dead)[1]
Muhasan Qawasameh (committed attack on Negohot settlement, dead)
Raad Misk Qawasameh (suicide bomber of Jerusalem bus 2 massacre, dead)
Abbedallah Qawasameh (leader, dead)
Bassal Qawasameh (leader, dead)
Ahmed Abed Qawasameh (suicide bomber in Beersheba, dead)
Imad Qawasameh (leader, arrested October 13, 2004)

The Hamas in Hebron is led by a family from the Qawasameh tribe. Two of its prominent leaders, Abbedalla Qawasameh and Bassal Qawasameh were suspected of/involved in many terrorist attacks, including the Jerusalem bus 14A massacre and Jerusalem bus 2 massacre, which claimed the lives of 40 Israelis.[citation needed] They were later killed by Yamam and IDF forces.

Shlomi Eldar writes a well-researched article in Al Monitor where he argues that the Qawasameh clan has a long tradition of ignoring Hamas leadership attempts at ceasefires with Israel, calling them a "rogue Hamas branch":

Though the clan is known for identifying with Hamas, it also has a well-earned reputation as troublemakers. Not only does it tend to ignore the movement’s leaders. It even acts counter to the policies being advocated by the movement.

That is why officials in the Palestinian Authority (PA) were shocked by the timing of the three boys’ abduction, just two weeks after the establishment of a Palestinian unity government. After all, the very creation of this new coalition came with the assumption that the Hamas leadership had come to terms with reality and moderated their positions.

Enter the Qawasmeh clan. The total number of people belonging to the clan is estimated at about 10,000, making it one of the three largest clans in the Mount Hebron region. At least 15 members of the family were killed during the second intifada, nine of them while committing suicide attacks against Israel. All of the terrorists lived in the Abu Qatila neighborhood, within a radius of less than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) from one another. Whenever the head of the terrorist organization within the clan was assassinated or arrested by Israel, one of his brothers or cousins was selected to replace him.

Marwan Qawasmeh, the man behind the abduction, emerged as a dominant figure in the clan after Israel arrested Imad Qawasmeh and sentenced him to life in prison.

Each time Hamas had reached an understanding with Israel about a cease-fire or tahadiyeh (period of calm), at least one member of the family has been responsible for planning or initiating a suicide attack, and any understandings with Israel, achieved after considerable effort, were suddenly laid waste. If there is a single family throughout the PA territories whose actions can be blamed for Israel’s assassination of the political leadership of Hamas, it is the Qawasmeh family of Hebron.

On Aug. 19, 2003, after a tahadiyeh was reached between Israel and all of the Palestinian factions, with the support of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, two suicide bombers blew themselves up on the No. 2 bus in Jerusalem. Some 23 Israelis were killed in the attack, including seven children. All of the passengers on the bus were on their way back from prayers at the Western Wall to mark the end of the Sabbath. Most of them were yeshiva students. The attack put an abrupt end to the tahadiyeh just 52 days after it was announced. The bombing was intended to avenge Israel’s assassination of Abdullah Qawasmeh three days before the tahadiyeh came into force. The Qawasmeh family planned and implemented the attack during a cease-fire, which was supposed to have ended the second intifada, a cease-fire that had the support of Yasser Arafat, then-PA chairman, his Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and, of course, Yassin, the leader of Hamas.

But Hamas refuses to distance itself from the clan.

Indeed, Hamas tries to have it both ways. They might claim (privately) that the Qawasamehs are not part of the movement, but they are quick to take credit for actions by the family.

The Al Qassam website mentioned the Qawasamehs hundreds of times (before a recent revamping of the site. ) Here, for example, is a loving Hamas tribute to the family and to their track record of terror attacks.

Hamas cannot take gleeful credit for the many atrocities performed by the Qawasamehs and then claim ignorance when there are going to be consequences for their actions. If Hamas really wants a ceasefire, they need to denounce the clan. Otherwise, their distancing themselves now after celebrating and taking credit for the family's many terror attacks over 20 years rings more than hollow.

(h/t Oren Kessler)

How NGO's make up lies about Israel

We've looked before at the Euro-Mid Observer, a Geneva-based organization that has no compunction about lying about Israel in order to push its agenda.

We've seen that one of its members openly celebrated a Hamas murderer.
We've seen them write a report blaming Israel for Gaza men beating their wives.
In the same report, they falsely claim that Israel limits medical equipment to Gaza.
We've seen them count Gaza terrorists as "children" who were killed in Gaza.

Clearly, Euro-Mid Observer is not too interested in truthful reporting.

They just released a new report with this graphical summary:

Let's look first at the cartoon. Notice that the word "Israel" on the soldier's jacket is backwards. The original cartoon was a mirror image. Why did they flip the cartoon?

The cartoon is one of Latuff's most famous antisemitic cartoons, which is meant to evoke the famous photo of a Jewish child being arrested by Nazis (although edited to take out the dish and fork):

Euro-Mid is using an antisemitic cartoon to illustrate their anti-Israel report! But since the original cartoon is so obviously a product of a sick Jew-hating mind, they were considerate enough to flip it so as to not be so explicitly antisemitic.

Let's look at one of the statistics, that 75% of Palestinian Arab children detained by Israeli forces are supposedly tortured. Going through the report, they do not give a source for this statistic: they merely say that "International humanitarian agencies have documented that 75 percent of Palestinian children
detained by Israeli forces are subjected to treatment that meets the definition of torture."

What agencies might these be?

It turns out that the main source for this statistic is another rabidly anti-Israel NGO, called DCI-Palestine. We have looked at them before, too - they lied about the number of children killed in Operation Cast Lead, and they consistently report kids killed by Palestinian Arab rockets as being killed by Israel. DCI-Palestine openly admits that it "develops its programs and acts according to Palestinian children's needs and Palestinian priorities."

In other words, its objectivity is zero.

DCI-Palestine describes its methodology here:

Initial identification of potential human rights violations

Al Mezan and DCI-Palestine identify potential violations through two main avenues: victims’ reports and field monitoring. Al Mezan is a well-known Gaza-based human rights organisation in operation since 1999 and victims of human rights violations regularly contact one of Al Mezan’s three offices located across the Gaza Strip for assistance; in addition, Al Mezan’s five experienced fieldworkers based throughout the Gaza Strip use their strong community links to identify potential cases of human rights violations. Similarly, DCI-Palestine receives reports from children and parents in any of its four West Bank offices and through Gaza-based fieldworkers; however, most investigations are initiated following ongoing and proactive field monitoring from nine fieldworkers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This means that the way DCI (and Al-Mezan) work is that every case of "torture" that they document is either self-reported or they go out of their way to find them. And if there are inconsistencies, what do they do?

Fieldworkers frequently go back to the source in order to verify details and correct any data inconsistency.

An organization that admits up front that it is biased says that rather than discard any inconsistent testimony as being unreliable, they go back and massage the reports until they fit together better with the other facts!

This is a fancy way of admitting that they coax the "witnesses" to lie, or at the very least to shade the truth until they fit the agendas of the Israel-hating NGOs.

The 75% statistic (actually, in 2013 the number increased to 76.5%) comes from "affidavits" that DCI-Palestine coaxes "victims" to give, and then coaxes "eyewitnesses" to corroborate in turn. They pretty much say this explicitly. There is nothing scientific about their methods, the "victims" are all but handpicked for their fanciful stories, not chosen according to any objective criteria of children detained. A real statistician would cringe at this methodology.

So DCI-Palestine coaxed about 100 Palestinian Arab kids to say what they wanted them to say. Then they published a statistic saying that about 75% of the kids they interviewed - not all the kids, but the ones they handpicked - claim that they are tortured.

Euro-Mid Observer runs with that statistic as if it has any validity, and expands it to the (unverified) number of Palestinian Arab kids who are supposedly detained, to claim that Israel physically tortures thousands of Palestinian Arab kids a year.

It is a lie built on top of previous lies, but they are lies that no journalist bother to follow back to the source. I fully expect there to be articles today about this report without the slightest bit of skepticism.

Now that we know the methods that these NGOs use, how valid is the statistic that "95% of children are forced to admit to charges they did not commit"? Or any of the other bogus statistics mentioned?

Given the published methodology and the knowledge that Palestinian Arabs often lie to NGOs, and knowing that DCI-Palestine and Euro-Mid are anything but unbiased, the only conclusion is that every single statistic in this paper is not only suspect but can be assumed to be knowingly false.

The idea that Euro-Mid Observer, or DCI-Palestine, or Al Mezan, or PCHR, any of dozens of other biased anti-Israel NGOs can produce verifiable facts, is a joke.

IDF wishes Muslims worldwide a happy Ramadan

The IDF Arabic spokesperson, Avichai Adraee, has posted a YouTube message wishing Muslims a happy and blessed Ramadan, saying that true religion rejects terrorism.

Nearly 10,000 people watched it in one day.

Adraee has nearly 100,000 followers on Twitter and his Facebook page has over 430,000 "Likes."

(Sorry, not translated)

One Arabic newspaper marveled at the message, and while saying it is clearly propaganda it asked if there are any Muslim nations that are trying to communicate directly with Israeli Jews?

Why Hamas denies the kidnappings

Hamas continues to deny that they were behind the kidnappings and murders of Eyal, Gil-ad and Naftali:

A Hamas spokesman denied responsibility Monday evening for the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers, threatening to “open the gates of hell” against Israel if it launched an attack against the Gaza Strip.

“The story of the disappearance and killing of the three settlers is based on the Israeli narrative only,” Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP. “The Israeli occupation is trying to refer to this narrative in order to justify its wide-scale war against our people, against the resistance and against Hamas.”

It looks like Hamas is taking its talking points from Mondoweiss and Ali Abunimah, who sickeningly claimed a week after the kidnapping that it was equally likely that Jews had abducted the boys:

Abunimah writes that the Israelis have an obligation to satisfy the public mind before making such accusations:

Reminder that the occupiers vandalizing Palestinian communities have still produced no evidence Palestinians “kidnapped” the settlers.
Abunimah also asked a very logical question: Why aren’t Israeli soldiers raiding the Israeli colonies on the West Bank? Are Jews really immune from suspicion of foul play in connection with missing teenagers?

But now we know that Hamas was behind it. The two missing kidnappers and their families are Hamas associates, and even Hamas doesn't deny that.

Normally, Hamas is proud of their terror attacks. This time they are denying it. The question is, why?

This can now be answered, based on the background information now being revealed:

Eyal Yifrach, 19, Naftali Fraenkel, 16, and Gil-ad Shaar, 16, the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers whose bodies were found on Monday, realized very quickly that they had been abducted on the night of June 12.

The three teens were waiting at Geva’ot Intersection, west of the settlement of Alon Shvut in the Etzion Bloc south of Jerusalem, soon after 10:15 p.m, looking to catch a ride heading west on Route 367 toward Beit Shemesh and from there to locations in central Israel where each of them lived.

The prevailing assessment within the defense establishment is that the kidnappers, at least at first, only saw one of the hitchikers, perhaps Yifrach, who did not know Shaar and Fraenkel. Only once the kidnappers’ Hyundai i35 came to a stop did the kidnappers realize that they would be outnumbered by their hostages within the small confines of the car. This may be what changed the nature of the crime from kidnapping to murder, security sources suggested.

Inside the Hyundai, Israel alleges, were Hamas terrorists Amer Abu Aysha and Marwan Kawasme.

Recognizing, too late, that the car was not an innocent Israeli vehicle, one of the teens called the police at 10:25 p.m. and whispered, “We’ve been kidnapped.” The call was transferred immediately to a senior female officer, who continued to ask questions but received no reply. The call lasted for 2:09 minutes and was then cut off. The officer called the number eight more times, but received three busy signals and reached voicemail five times.

The kidnappers, apparently realizing that a call had been made, shot the three teens dead soon afterwards in the backseat of the car, military sources said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday night that they were murdered “in cold blood.”

Early assessments by some regarding the professionalism of the terrorists appear to have been misplaced: the killers seem to have panicked. The three teens did not fulfill the role Hamas sought for them, security officials indicated, to serve as bargaining chips that would free thousands of Palestinians prisoners and promote the Hamas brand throughout the West Bank.

The killers then drove a further 10 minutes or so before switching vehicles. They abandoned the Hyundai i35, a relatively new vehicle, and set it on fire.

They transferred the bodies to the second vehicle, and drove close to the field in the Halhul area where the three corpses were ultimately discovered, bound, partially buried, and in what eyewitnesses said was “in not good condition,” on Monday afternoon. The land where the bodies were found belongs to the Kawasme family, Channel 2 news reported.

Unbeknownst to the killers, the emergency call had not prompted an alert by Israel’s security forces. The senior officer did not pass on the information to her superiors or listen to the recording for further evidence, concluding that it was a prank call. The security forces realized there had been a kidnapping, and began what became an 18-day search operation, only some seven hours later.

Assuming that they were being hunted down right away, the kidnappers quickly abandoned the three bodies, and made their escape.

Hamas is denying the murders because it was a botched operation.

The goal was to kidnap a soldier or a "settler" to bargain for the release of prisoners. Hamas has made no secret of that desire, and even published handbooks on how to best accomplish a kidnapping.

The appearance of two more teens, the panicking over the phone call, and the murders in the backseat (from where it would have been nearly impossible for them to escape or fight back) were not planned. I'm not sure that the torching of the stolen car was planned either.

The named kidnappers are associated with Hamas, as are their families. It is clear that they felt they were being pursued, they got rid of the bodies as quickly as they could - in lands belonging to one of their families - and they hightailed it out of the area as fast as possible, no doubt at the behest of their Hamas handlers. They could have waded to Jordan by the time the Israeli police recovered from their serious errors of judgment regarding the phone call.

The discovery afterwards that two of the victims were children and even some Arabs might object to murdering minors ensures that Hamas will not take credit for this attack, even though it was clearly planned by them. Hamas is already on thin ice with Egypt accusing it of being a terror group and the unity government not working out very well.

If they had successfully kidnapped a soldier, or a Jewish adult, Hamas would have unlimited prestige and it would gain the protection of the PLO and Fatah, which have made the exchange of prisoners a major platform. Two dead children would not engender the amount of sympathy Hamas required from its erstwhile partners in "unity." Right now, with the outrages by Islamists in in Syria and Iraq, Hamas does not want to be associated in anyone's minds as another version of ISIS.

This is why Hamas must lie about its involvement in this hideous murder of children, to maintain a tiny bit of deniability as it attempts to raise its profile in the Arab world as a major political player and not as a terror group.

06/30 Links Pt2: International leaders condemn murder of kidnapped teens

From Ian:

International leaders condemn murder of kidnapped teens

Politicians and leaders throughout the world fiercely condemned Monday the murder of three Israeli teenagers, Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel and Gil-ad Shaar, whose bodies were found several hours earlier near the Palestinian village of Halhul, north of Hebron. The three had been abducted on June 12 while they were hitchhiking from a bus stop in the Etzion Bloc in the West Bank.
“We obviously condemn in the strongest possible terms violence that takes the lives of innocent civilians,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
French President Francois Hollande condemned the “cowardly murder” as well, and went on to offer his sincere condolences to the slain teenagers’ families and to Israeli authorities, AFP reported.
Prime Minister David Cameron stated that the killing was “an appalling and inexcusable act of terror perpetrated against young teenagers,” according to AFP.

Daphne Anson: Isi Leibler's Insights Into European Antisemitism, Jewish Leadership Reactions, & Other Critical Current Issues (video)

Here's the highly articulate and characteristically forthright veteran international Jewish leader and Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler in conversation with Rabbi Mark Golub on Shalom TV. The topics range from the kidnapping of the three teenage Israelis in the West Bank, to the New York Metropolitan Opera's planned restaging of the despicable opera "The Death of Klinghoffer", to the crisis of European antisemitism and the head-in-the-sand attitude of what passes for the Anglo-Jewish leadership.

BDS Activist Admits: Boycott Call Limited

A senior official in the BDS movement has admitted that the “boycott” of Israel is limited to areas that don’t hurt the boycotters too much.
In a series of emails obtained by The Jewish Press, a leader of the BoycottIsrael.info website confirmed that “the BDS campaign, supports a boycott of Israeli institutions, not a blanket boycott of all Israeli individuals.”
The emails were prompted by a news article about Israeli doctors from Haifa who volunteered their time in May to treat hundreds of patients in northern Ethiopia. BDS activists were asked whether Ethiopians would have correctly boycotted the Israeli doctors, in order to show their disgust with the Zionist enterprise and support for the “Palestinians”.

Famed Rock Star Bashes BDS 'Real Racists'

Famed rock musician Phil Soussan, a bass guitarist songwriter and producer who has worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol and other popular singers, spoke out against the BDS boycott movement targeting Israel.
On his Facebook page last Friday, Soussan compared several recent events, noting the crackdown on Donald Sterling, owner of the NBA team Los Angeles Clippers over his racist remarks that were revealed in a recording, and the recent outrage over the name of the NFL football team Washington Redskins over its perceived negative portrayal of Native Americans.
"Sterling - a racist? …shock, horror, disgust, public outcry, fines. The Washington Redskins ? …NOT in our country!" wrote Soussan.
"But, here in Los Angeles, in an attempt to target, harass and intimidate Jewish students at UCLA, Students for 'Justice' in Palestine (SJP) have just demanded that candidates for student government positions sign a statement pledging they will not go on any trip to Israel sponsored by Jewish organizations," continued the rock musician.

Will the US react to the murder of an American by Hamas? Oh, please!

I see some tweets wondering whether the White House will react strongly to the murder of an American citizen by Hamas.

You gotta be kidding.

The US treated a case where three Americans were killed in a diplomatic convoy in Gaza with kid gloves!

Back in 2003:

A powerful remote-controlled bomb detonated beneath an American diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing three American security specialists assigned to the American Embassy by a private military contractor and wounding an American diplomat. The bombing was the first fatal attack on an official American target since the current Palestinian uprising began three years ago.

The explosion shortly after 10 a.m. hit one of three armored Chevrolet Suburbans carrying American diplomats and a security detail to Gaza City for meetings with Palestinian candidates seeking Fulbright scholarships for graduate studies in the United States.

Did the US push hard to find the murderers?

Not at all:

After Parsons' body was brought back to Wayne for a funeral at his Roman Catholic parish and burial in a Franklin Lakes cemetery, his family figured the killers would eventually be tracked down.

"We believed that as time went by the perpetrators would be caught," John Parsons said.

But nothing happened.

"It just fell off the radar screen," he said.

Or perhaps it was blocked by Palestinian authorities.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism show that the FBI and State Department officials tried to respond quickly. A team of seven FBI agents arrived a day after the bombing.

But Palestinian authorities had not secured the crime scene, the documents say. As the agents tried to collect evidence, they were pelted with rocks by Palestinian youths. Fearing they might be harmed, the agents quickly scooped up as much material as they could and left.

The Associated Press reported that the Palestinian crowd chanted "Allahu Akbar" - God is great - as the U.S. agents retreated to their cars surrounded by rifle-toting Palestinian police.

The FBI documents offer no clues about possible suspects. But investigators are quite sure of one critical element of the story: The bomb, containing 150 to 200 pounds of TNT, was set off by a remote control device. In other words, the bombers targeted the convoy.

A few months after Parsons' death, Palestinian authorities charged three members of the Palestinian Revolutionary Council with manslaughter for possessing explosive devices connected to the bombing. A Palestinian judge ordered that three suspects be released for lack of evidence, but Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat kept them in jail.

The three were later freed by a mob, reportedly led by the PRC, and have never been caught. Several months later, the head of Palestinian military intelligence announced that he knew the names of the killers. But he declined to arrest them, claiming that Palestinian police "cannot act against the factions while the fighting with Israel continues."

As the years went by, a litany of U.S. officials called on the Palestinians to solve the case - or allow American investigators back into Gaza to track down suspects and witnesses.

So the PA protected the murderers, and the US backed off....because the idea of publicly upsetting the idea that the Palestinian Authority is anything but peaceful is not to be considered.

Real peace cannot ever happen while the world allows itself to be taken hostage by lies. And the ideas that Fatah is "moderate," that the PA wants peace, that Abbas accepts Israel's existence in any real way, that Hamas is "pragmatic"...all of them are lies.

Bodies of teens found (updates)

From NYT:

Israeli military searchers found three bodies believed to be those of the missing Israeli teenagers who disappeared more than two weeks ago in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, senior government officials said Monday. The Israeli government called an emergency Cabinet meeting.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the official announcement, said the Army had found the three bodies buried “in a field near Hebron” and were waiting to inform the families before releasing information.

“They know it’s the three, they will know for sure after they do the autopsy."The official said the three appeared to have been shot to death, likely “very close to the kidnap” time, and that the prime suspects had still not been caught.

Times of Israel confirms.

The bodies were found in an area between Halhul and Karmei Tzur on Monday afternoon. Israeli security forces, which had been conducting extensive searches in the area, closed it off and declared it a closed military zone.

There are no words.

UPDATE: Apparently investigators pretty much knew that the news would be bad, according to Sheera Frankel at Buzzfeed (although she is not always the most reliable reporter):

Israeli officials have imposed a gag order on many details of the search for the teens. That gag order initially included a phone call made from one of the teens to police, as well as evidence found in a burnt-out car in the Hebron area.

BuzzFeed spoke to an Israeli official involved in the case, who confirmed that during the police call a gunshot can clearly be heard. The car, he added, had clear evidence of foul play. Over the last week. Israeli soldiers could be seen digging through rocks and dredging wells in Hebron in the search for the teens.

“We have been operating, for some time now, with evidence that these boys were killed,” he said. “It is with a heavy heart that we realized we were looking for bodies.”

And the police dispatcher didn't report it???

UPDATE 1.5: TOI contradicts this account, which is why I don't usually trust Frankel.

Recognizing, too late, that the car was not an innocent Israeli vehicle, one of the teens called the police at 10:25 p.m. and whispered, “We’ve been kidnapped.” The call was transferred immediately to a senior female officer, who continued to ask questions but received no reply. The call lasted for 2:09 minutes and was then cut off. The officer called the number eight more times, but received three busy signals and reached voicemail five times.

The kidnappers, apparently realizing that a call had been made, shot the three teens dead soon afterwards in the backseat of the car, military sources said.

UPDATE 2: The Muqata reports:

8:44pm IDF Ambulance humvee transporting the bodies of the boys attacked by arabs....windows smashed

Imagine anyone at +972 will condemn attacking an ambulance? No, they are too busy predicting that Israel will react to the coldblooded murders of three boys.

06/30 Links Pt1: EU, U.S., Funding Incentives to Kill Jews; Netanyahu calls for Kurdish independence

From Ian:

EU, U.S., Funding Incentives to Kill Jews

Children living in territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority, funded by Europe and the U.S., are encouraged to kill Jews and destroy Israel.
There can be no peace so long as financial incentives to kill Jews and destroy Israel continue to be dangled in front of Palestinian populations. It is this aggression, and not humanitarian relief, that much of the well-intended international funding -- with no conditions whatsoever attached -- is used for.
The only conclusion one can draw is the EU and the U.S. are actually on the side of terrorism.
So long as the EU and the U.S continue to fund entities which openly promote acts of terror, they should be held criminally liable as accessories to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The New York Times's Pro-Terrorist Op-Ed

On Saturday, The New York Times featured a piece by jailed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood member Khaled Al-Qazzaz titled "Why Is the World Silent? Khaled al-Qazzaz: Disappeared by Egypt's Military."
The imprisoned Qazzaz, whose op-ed was "smuggled" out of prison and obtained by The New York Times, posits himself as an innocent “engineer” and “educator” who had just recently become “interested in politics” and was now being unfairly locked up by the newly elected Sisi regime.

'New reality requires security fence on Jordan border'

In light of recent changes in the Middle East, Israel is going to have to construct a security fence along the length of its border with Jordan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.
Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said that in any future peace deal with the Palestinians, the Israel Defense Forces would be the entity protecting Israel in Judea and Samaria, including the Jordan Valley.
Israel "must stabilize the region west of the security line in Jordan," Netanyahu said, adding that the territory of a future Palestinian state, up to the Jordan River, would have to remain under full Israeli security control for many years.

Watch: ISIS fighter says they will 'break all borders to reach Jerusalem'

A video purportedly shot by Islamist militants at a captured Iraqi border post on the Syrian border shows captured Iraqi soldiers and vehicles, while an English-speaking fighter reaffirms the declaration of an Islamic "caliphate."
The fighter, Abu Safiyya from Chile, claims to be standing on the Iraq border with Syria.
In the clip, titled The End of Sykes-Picot, Safiyya says that the ISIS will eventually break all of the Middle East borders to make way to Jerusalem.

ISIS makes public appearance in Gaza

ISIL/ISIS flags were seen at the funeral of two terrorists killed by the IDF last Friday, according to NRG.

Not only that, but one of the terrorists - claimed by the PRC - was wrapped in an ISIL flag.

In February, Al Monitor reported that the major Salafist group in Gaza had declared allegiance to ISIS.

It seems Ayman al-Zawahri’s statement on Jan. 22 disavowing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) had very little impact on the Salafist jihadist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip. The most prominent among those organizations, the Mujahedeen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, quickly issued a statement on Feb. 2, asserting that they were “committed to helping ISIS and bolstering its ranks.” The statement added that the infighting taking place in Syria was due to “an unfair view toward ISIS and its emir, the Prince of Believers Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

Not long after, a video spread on social networking sites and local news agencies showing purported Salafist jihadists affiliated with al-Qaeda, meeting in the Gaza Strip on Feb. 11, to offer support and pledge allegiance to ISIS.

In the video, dozens of armed black-clad men were seen carrying various types of weapons, their bodies arrayed with explosive belts as they stood in front of a backdrop of palm trees, with an al-Qaeda flag by their side. The video started with a written phrase that read, “Jerusalem champions the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,” with no further evidence indicating the location of where the clip was shot.

Yet there are a lot of people who are emotionally invested in the idea that Israel's enemies are somehow different than those who are dedicated to destroying the Western world.

(h/t Yoel)

AFP reports:

The Israeli government Sunday authorized 1,500 more Jordanians to come and work in its Red Sea resort of Eilat to combat a labor shortage, the tourism ministry said

It said the decision was taken because of the “serious crisis” caused by not enough hotel workers.

The Jordanians would enter Israel to work and go back across the border to Jordan at night once their shift was finished, the ministry said in a statement.

“I am persuaded that this decision will reinforce peace between Israel and Jordan, and help reduce high unemployment in southern Jordan,” it quoted Tourism Minister Uzi Landau as saying.

Ministry figures show that some 300 Jordanians currently work in and around the resort, which has about 12,000 hotel rooms.

Jordan's Ammon News says that Jordan's Labor Ministry knows nothing about this.

The secretary-general of the ministry Hamada Abu Negmet said the ministry "does not have relationships with Israel, nor any program or cooperation of any kind," pointing out that there may be other parties to cooperate with Israel in this endeavor but certainly not the ministry.

That seems unlikely.

“We are under severe pressure by the shortage of manpower in Eilat – especially in the summer season,” said Eilat Hotel Association CEO Shabtai Shay. Being able to employ Jordanians “will make our lives much easier,” he said.

The Jordanians will work only during the day – crossing the border in the morning and returning to Jordan in the evening.

“I’ve done everything in my power to employ Israelis,” Shay said. “We offer special benefits; we offer higher salaries…but we were unable to employ Israelis.”

I imagine that there are plenty of Western college students who would love to work in Eilat all summer for free in exchange for transportation, room and board.

NYT again implies moral equivalence between terror victims and active fighters

More lazy moral equivalence from Jodi Rudoren in The New York Times, in a story headlined "After West Bank Kidnapping, 2 Mothers Embody a Divide" (originally the headline seems to have been "2 Mothers Cope With Loss of Sons:")

It was about 4 a.m. on a Friday when the police banged on Rachel Fraenkel’s door in this Jerusalem suburb looking for her 16-year-old son, Naftali, and a friend he studies with at a yeshiva in the West Bank. The night before, Naftali had texted his parents saying he was going to hitchhike back home. They had no idea he had never arrived.

“I was praying maybe he did something stupid and irresponsible,” Ms. Fraenkel recalled, “but I know my boy isn’t stupid, and he isn’t irresponsible.”

It was almost exactly a week later, just past 5 a.m., that Aida Abdel Aziz Dudeen was startled awake by a gunshot, then banging on her own door in the West Bank town of Dura. Her family had locked the door the night before to keep her 15-year-old son, Mohammed, from confronting the Israeli Army after days of house-to-house searches and arrest raids. The key was still under Ms. Dudeen’s pillow.

“I didn’t imagine he would jump out the window,” she said. “I saw a cousin at the door shouting, ‘Mohammed is a martyr!’ I said, ‘Mohammed who?’ He said, ‘Your son.’ He showed me a shirt with blood. I wanted to know who died because I still believed my son was inside the house.”

More than two weeks after the abduction of Naftali and two other Israeli teenagers, Israel’s security crackdown has raised questions about the asymmetry of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the value of lives on both sides. Mohammed, who witnesses said was among a crowd of youths who hurled stones at Israeli soldiers storming their neighborhood that morning, is one of five Palestinians fatally shot by soldiers in the West Bank; three more have been killed by airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

Most Israelis see the missing teenagers as innocent civilians captured on their way home from school, and the Palestinians who were killed as having provoked soldiers. Palestinians, though, see the very act of attending yeshiva in a West Bank settlement as provocation, and complain that the crackdown is collective punishment against a people under illegal occupation.

Ms. Fraenkel and Ms. Dudeen share little aside from deep religiosity and empty beds where their sons should be. But both have been thrust into conspicuous roles in their side-by-side societies, reflecting the conflict’s human costs.

So who is being compared to a boy who was just trying to get home?

An Arab boy who jumped out his window specifically to fight Israeli soldiers, who participated in a riot where not only stones but Molotov cocktails were being thrown at the soldiers.

The New York Times is comparing a boy who was kidnapped because he was a Jew to a boy who deliberately chose to be a combatant and to engage in acts of war.

Being a Jew in a region that Palestinian Arabs believe should be Jew-free isn't exactly the same level of "provocation" as purposefully going out of your way to join a battle. While Rudoren doesn't explicitly make the equivalence, the style of the article where the mothers of both boys are interviewed leaves little doubt as to what impression she wants to give her readers. (There are six photos accompanying the article, three about the Fraenkels and three about the Dudeens.)

The implication, of course, is that being Jewish on "Palestinian land" is just as reprehensible as hurling firebombs and potentially deadly projectiles.

(h/t Ronald)

Only Muslims are allowed to attack on Ramadan

Some Arabic media are outraged that Israeli jets hit terrorist targets on the first day of Ramadan. Attacking during holy days must be an unconscionable act.

Of course, they weren't too concerned about attacking Israel on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur in1973.

But the irony is that the Arab world calls the Yom Kippur War The Ramadan War.

That year, Ramadan coincided with the Hebrew month Tishrei in which Yom Kippur is marked. They celebrate it as a victory, and they celebrate that they waged war during Ramadan!

Which means that not only did Muslims attack Jews on the Jewish holy day, but they did it during the Muslim holy season as well.

Obviously, the rules of war are completely different for Muslims than for everyone else.

PRC celebrates the 2006 kidnap and murder of a Jewish teen

The Popular Resistance Committees have taken responsibility for the recent rocket attacks from Gaza.

Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, on Sunday claimed responsibility for launching rockets from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel.

The shelling is part of "our retaliation to the Israeli crimes against our Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the ongoing violations against prisoners," according to the statement.

The statement marks the first time a Palestinian faction claims responsibility for the upsurge in rockets launched from Gaza since Israel launched a massive military deployment across the West Bank in mid-June in pursuit of three missing Israeli teenagers.

On their homepage, they are celebrating the 8th anniversary of one of their terror attacks:

Today is the eighth anniversary of the killing of Zionist soldier Eliyahu Asheri who was killed in the West Bank at the hands of mujahedeen heroes under the name "Operation Angry Knights" ...
In light of these jihadist memories we emphasize the following: First, we confirm that the option of kidnapping Zionist soldiers is our choice and our highest priority at the current stage as long as there are Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and we will not give up this right and no obstacle will stand in our way. Secondly, we call on all Palestinian factions to work in the trench of blood and flesh that will bring victory and pride and liberation and liberation of our brave prisoners of the Zionist occupation and appreciate the steadfastness of our prisoners and unite with them behind the walls and the bars. Thirdly, we call on the Arab nation and Islamic countries to pay attention and put all their power to the issue of Palestinian and Arab prisoners in the prisons of the Zionist enemy and work through all political and military means to liberate them all, and that the blood of the Palestinian and Arab-Muslim have a heavy price, and the enemy should know about it and we are willing to strive and penetrate the border in order to obtain the freedom of our prisoners from the prisons and to liberate our people from the great siege and imprisonment.

Eliyahu Asheri was not a soldier.

Eliyahu Pinchas Asheri (February 2, 1988 – June 25, 2006) was an Israeli student from the settlement of Itamar, in the northern West Bank. He was a student at the religious pre-army Mechina (preparatory program) "Elisha" in Neveh Tzuf.

On Sunday, June 25, 2006, Eliyahu was kidnapped while on his way from Beitar Illit to Neveh Tzuf, northwest of Ramallah. Asheri was last seen on 9:00 pm Sunday night, after he left the home of a friend in Betar Illit and was hitchhiking near the French Hill intersection of Jerusalem by one of his classmates.

On Tuesday, the Palestinian militant group Popular Resistance Committees initially announced that the group has kidnapped a Jewish settler in the West Bank. On Wednesday, June 28, Abu Abir, the spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, stated that Asheri would be "butchered in front of TV cameras" if Israel did not suspend its Operation Summer Rains into the Gaza Strip, which took place is in response to the kidnapping of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) corporal Gilad Shalit.Later on that day the Popular Resistance Committees stated that Asheri was slain.

Around 2:30 am on June 29, the IDF recovered the body of Asheri which had been buried in an open field near the village of Beitunia, not far from Ramallah. The forensic investigation revealed that Asheri he was shot to death by a bullet to the head from close range, possibly the same day in which he was abducted. The IDF had been led to the site by the Palestinian militant Wasam Abu Ragila, whom was a prime suspect of the murder of Asheri, whom had been arrested on Wednesday by the Israeli police anti-terror unit and IDF troops and whom confessed in his investigation about his part in the kidnapping and murder of Asheri and gave specific details about the location of Asheri's body.

On the morning hours of 4 July 2006, during a joint operation conducted by the IDF and the Israel Security Authorities, the three Tanzim militants whom murdered Eliyahu Asheri and whom were hiding in the a Palestinian Police headquarters building in Ramallah, were apprehended after a three-hour standoff. The three men were Bassam Shafik Atiya Ahtiya, Khamze Salah Taktuk, and I'iam Fuab Naaef Kamamju. All three were reported to be members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and had been serving in the security forces of the Palestinian Authority.

While the PRC took responsibility, it was Fatah terrorists that kidnapped and murdered Eliyahu, and they were protected by the PA.

Aw, and I was so looking forward to this.

From Al Arabiya:

Egypt’s army on Saturday said it would delay for six months the public use of a device previously announced as being able to treat and cure hepatitis C and AIDS viruses.

The postponement of the device was made two days before a scheduled date set by the army for putting the machine to use at military hospitals, UAE-based daily Gulf News reported on Sunday.

“The delay will continue until the end of the experimental period related to the follow-up of patients being treated by the device... this takes six months,” army medical services chief Maj. Gen. Jamal a-Serafi said, according to the newspaper.

In what had been dubbed earlier this year as a “unprecedented scientific breakthrough,” the device, named C-fast, had also been touted to “eliminate the C virus with a cost tens of times less that its foreign likes, and is 90 percent successful,” an Egyptian army spokesman said in a statement.

The news of the machine triggered satires and parodies on social media an TV programs after an army medical staffer said the equipment draws blood from the patient with HIV or AIDS, destroys the virus and returns it as nutrients “like grilled meatball” to the patient.

Without actually touching the patient!

Maybe they are still training their jinn to treat AIDS.

06/29 Links: After rocket fire, Israeli jets strike 12 locations in Gaza; Israel's War of Words

From Ian:

After rocket fire, Israeli jets strike 12 locations in Gaza

The Israel Air Force struck twelve separate sites in the Gaza Strip early Sunday in an ongoing air offensive against continued rocket fire at Israel’s southern towns.
The strikes targeted a weapons factory in the northern part of the strip, another weapons facility and a “terror center” in central Gaza and six sites in the southern strip, three of them concealed rocket launchers, the IDF said.
Direct hits were confirmed on all sites.

Netanyahu: Israel Ready to 'Expand' Gaza Operations

Israel is "ready" to expand its operations in Gaza, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned Sunday after the air force struck 12 targets overnight following a surge in terrorist rocket fire.
Speaking to ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the almost-nightly military strikes on Gaza could be expanded should the need arise.
His remarks came after a sharp hike in tensions along the border as terrorist groups have stepped up their fire on southern Israel.
"Over the weekend, the IDF attacked multiple targets in response to firing at Israel from the Gaza Strip. We are ready to expand this operation as per need," Netanyahu said, without elaborating.

Hamas Admits Giving Rocket Terror a Free Hand

Abu-Marzouk, deputy to Hamas's political bureau leader Khaled Mashaal and the man tasked with the reconciliation with Fatah, clarified on his Facebook page that Hamas has no security coordination with the IDF, something Hamas has criticized the Palestinian Authority (PA) over.
The Hamas deputy leader clarified that the Hamas ceasefire with Israel, which was brokered by Egypt to end the 2012 counter-terror Operation Pillar of Defense, is different than the PA's security cooperation with the IDF.
That ceasefire, according to Abu-Marzouk, was a strategic achievement for Hamas, given that it canceled the buffer zone on the Gaza side of the security barrier, allowing terrorists to approach the fence to launch attacks. Abu-Marzouk added that it expanded the maritime boundaries for local fishermen, and opened border passages.
Abu-Marzouk announced that the terrorists launching rockets, which on Saturday night directly hit a factory in Sderot burning it down, are not being stopped or arrested by Hamas.

After rocket barrage, Liberman calls to consider retaking Gaza

Over a dozen rockets were fired at southern Israel from Gaza over the weekend, with one destroying a paint factory, and injuring four. Israeli jets responded by hitting 12 sites in the strip, including concealed rocket launchers and “terror sites,” the military said.
“We have to decide if we are heading to a scenario of re-taking full control of the strip,” Liberman said in an interview with Army Radio. “We’ve seen that a limited operation just strengthens Hamas, so the alternative is clear. There is no scenario in between.”