The guards of Al-Aqsa Mosque confronted today, Thursday, a settler who stormed Al-Aqsa, along with a candlestick and biblical artifacts.
The settler was among a group of tourists who stormed the mosque through the Mughrabi Gate, and the guards were able to seize him and prevent him from taking pictures in Al-Aqsa.
Here the guard shows off the contraband:
Good to know that the Waqf is protecting Muslims from these terrible weapons.
A reminder: In 2017, two Israeli guards in the Old City were murdered with guns that had been stored on the Temple Mount. So Muslims can bring guns but Jews (or, more likely, Christians) cannot bring a Kabbalistic "sh'viti" diagram meant for meditation.
(h/t Eliyahu who pointed out that Christian tourists buy seven branched menorahs)
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European policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears increasingly out of tune with the reality on the ground. A better approach would entail Europe abandoning its permissive approach vis-a-vis the PA leadership and taking steps to check the Palestinian Authority's authoritarian drift, while pushing for conditions that would allow for Palestinian democratic political renewal.
In April 2021, PA President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled what would have been the first Palestinian general elections in 15 years, thus ending any immediate hope of rejuvenating Palestinian leadership.
Europe could hold the PA accountable for its repression, conditioning budget support for the justice and interior ministries, for example, on benchmarks. It could redirect some funds earmarked for the interior ministry to Palestinian civil society, especially human rights watchdogs. It could more decisively put its weight behind Palestinian legislative elections.
Behind closed doors, many European officials admit that the hope for Palestinian statehood is an illusion. While continuing humanitarian and development aid to Palestinians at a level that has declined steadily since 2015, Europe has moved from efforts to build a Palestinian state to attempts at managing an ever-worsening "status quo."
Some European diplomats on the ground want a change of approach involving greater pressure on Israel. However, European leaders balk at the price of revising their bilateral relationship with Israel, especially at a time when the U.S. itself is barely engaged and influential Arab capitals are normalizing ties with Israel.
For powerful EU states like France and Germany, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict's importance pales in comparison to the war in Ukraine and the larger standoff with Russia, which they and others view as existential questions for the continent's security. They see the situation with the Palestinians as contained and not a priority.
In all areas of Palestinian control, whether under Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, free speech does not exist. Journalists, officials, teachers, doctors, academics, and farmers are all forced to give the same narrative. A Palestinian who dared to speak against their leadership would be threatened, jailed, or tortured. This is the sad reality for millions of Palestinians.
This greatly affects the quality of news that British readers and viewers get from their media regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For many British journalists, a misfire by a terror organization which killed Palestinian children is not a story for them. A few explained to me that their fixers in Gaza would face dangerous consequences if they reported these facts. I can understand their fear of putting a colleague in danger of losing his livelihood or even his life.
British readers who are not exposed to Israeli media know nothing about how their news is being made, or about the terror of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, or the system of intimidation and violent silencing of journalists. This blindspot over coverage of Palestinian violence is not only denying people from knowing the truth, but it also contributes to blocking any path forward to improving the lives of Israelis and Palestinians and bringing this conflict to an end.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claimed in his doctorate that the Holocaust was nothing more than a "fantastic lie." The textbooks distributed to over a million students in the West Bank are rife with antisemitism, including Holocaust denial. Under Abbas' directive, the Palestinian Education Ministry implemented a comprehensive curriculum reform, with the content in school textbooks becoming significantly more radical compared to previous years.
The reworked educational material now includes calls to Jihad, violence, and incitement against Israel and Jews. Additionally, previous attempts to reach peace with Israel, such as the Oslo Accords, have been deliberately omitted from the new textbooks. The Holocaust was completely omitted from the history books that teach about World War II.
The 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists is presented as an example of a legitimate Palestinian struggle. Dalal Mughrabi, who led the attack on an Israeli bus in 1978 that ended with the murder of 38 Israelis - including 13 children - is idolized as a role model in a 5th grade textbook.
Palestinian students also learn that Jews are racists who control the world's money, media and politics. The Jews are characterized as liars and corrupt, and as "enemies of Islam." Some textbooks speak openly of the genocide that is waiting for Jews at the end of days.
The Islamic Republic of Iran did not take responsibility for the August 12 murder attempt on author Salman Rushdie in New York. But Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against him remains in effect. In 2007, Rushdie reported that every Feb. 14 he receives a "sort of Valentine's card" from Iran recalling its promise to kill him.
On Aug. 10, the Justice Department unveiled criminal charges against Shahram Poursafi, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, for trying to orchestrate an assassination attempt against former national security adviser John Bolton. It was reported the same day that Iran had put out a $1 million bounty for the murder of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The Islamic Republic has been carrying out a campaign of assassination, kidnapping and intimidation of its critics from its earliest days. Those who argue that Iran was merely responding for wrongs done to it - the 2020 assassination of Maj.-Gen. Qassim Suleimani of the Revolutionary Guards, for instance - have cause and effect backward. Suleimani was targeted after a career spent killing hundreds of Americans, according to the Pentagon.
What signal does it send to Tehran that we will do nothing to punish it, and will continue to negotiate with it, even as it seeks to murder Americans on our own soil, including former senior officials?
Moreover, what do Iran's murderous tentacles reveal about the character of the regime? Advocates of a deal can tell themselves that it will have safeguards to verify compliance. But Iran has found ways to cheat, and the lifting of sanctions will provide it with a financial bonanza that it will immediately put to destructive use.
Today, the PFLP announced it joins the Palestinian Authority in opposition to the Israeli plan to allow Palestinians to travel internationally through the Ramon Airport.
One of its reasons it gave:
The passage of Palestinian citizens through this airport is aimed at striking the communicative and emotional depth with our brotherly people in Jordan, and its goal is also to provide support for the Zionist economy, and to confirm the apartheid policy practiced by the enemy against our people.
You see? Giving Palestinians more options in how to travel, and allowing them to travel from an Israeli airport sitting next to Israeli passengers, is apartheid!
Palestinians on social media have been showing intense interest in using Ramon Airport. They are not at all convinced by the arguments against it given by the Palestinian Authority and other leaders.
One online poll shows 66% were looking forward to traveling via Ramon, while only 29% said that they were against it because of "normalization."
Ramallah Live compared the cost for West Bankers to travel through Jordan with Ramon, and found that the Jordanian fees were triple the cost of Ramon - 180 shekels to 60. This did not include the fees on returning, paying VIP fees the Allenby Bridge to reduce the number of hours of waiting.
On August 16, the Palestinian minister of transportation said, "We will consider imposing procedures and sanctions against travelers through Ramon Airport, and we urge all Palestinians not to use this airport because it does not represent a Palestinian sovereignty."
The Palestinian response on Facebook has been withering, with many pointing out that he personally has a VIP pass to travel through Ben Gurion Airport - why is that not violate Palestinian sovereignty?
There are nearly 10,000 comments like these:
Yes, I swear to God, we hate you
We wish to hear a statement that will benefit the people!!!
With the honor of your sister, shut up and beat yourself up
Spit on you and your authority
You are all illegitimate and your origin is not known, bastards
I swear to God that penalties and procedures must be against the officials who left the people to humiliate on the crossings. I am with the citizen who travels from anywhere to preserve his dignity.
Others point out the awful conditions and humiliation at the Jordanian crossings, asking how travel through Jordan helps "Palestinian sovereignty."
And there is another group of Palestinians who demand to be able to use Ramon Airport: Gazans!
The current plan is to only open it for West Bank Palestinians, but it is closer to Gaza and Gazans would jump at the chance to use that airport rather than try to make it to Cairo, which is very difficult. Some are demanding the right to use Ramon, and given that Israel already vets many of them to work in Israel, this would seem to be a possibility. Commenters there point out the humiliation they go through to even have a chance to travel to Egypt, the ability to fly out of Ramon would be a dream for Gazans. If for no other reason than PR, Israel should consider allowing those who pass security checks to use that airport as well.
Ramon Airport continues to expose the pure hypocrisy of Palestinian and Arab leaders who, for decades, have made decisions for Palestinians and pretend that these decisions are for their own good. In the end, they are only for the good of the self-appointed leaders, and Palestinians suffer.
Israel is treating Palestinians with more respect than their own leaders do, and despite all the anti-Israel propaganda, the people know this very well.
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Islamic Jihad is holding a large rally today to celebrate its great victory in the Gaza fighting earlier this month. Here's a video featuring victory music and children with the same kinds of rockets that killed many of their friends:
There's only one problem: Islamic Jihad lost. Badly.
Their military leaders were killed. They didn't convince Hamas to join the fighting. Most Gazans didn't support the fighting, which they understood correctly to be risking Gaza lives only for Islamic Jihad's glory. The prisoners that they claimed Israel would release are still in custody.
Islamic Jihad cannot credibly point to a single accomplishment.
But they don't have to. They just declare victory! And the worse you lose, the louder you claim to have won.
We see a similar dynamic with the recent examples of Arabs withdrawing from sports competitions, or even purposefully losing matches, when they would otherwise be competing with Israelis.
Forfeiting a match is about as far from victory as possible. Quitting instead of competing is the most cowardly thing imaginable. But look how this columnist in Al-Binaa spins it:
There are resistance heroes who did not carry a rifle, did not fire a bullet, and did not undergo military courses, who were able to defeat the arrogant Zionist entity with all its techniques, tools, military arsenals...Youths in sport defeated the Zionist enemy by refusing to confront its representatives, so they became lions and resistance heroes. They may have lost medals , but they won the medal of the nation that crowned them fighters and liberators. With their blows, they brought down the legitimacy of the occupying Zionist entity of Palestine.
No, they just lost.
There is a simple reason for this bizarre twisting of total defeat into massive victory: the Arab honor/shame culture.
Losing is shameful. Losing to weak, dhimmi Jews is unforgivable. Living with this shame is unbearable. Better to fool yourself and claim you won, and try to confidently convince everyone else of your "victory."
There is a secondary benefit of declaring victory after a loss. It is difficult to recruit people to your cause when you are viewed as a loser, but Gaza terror groups never admit defeat. On the contrary, their media is filled with stories about how inevitable and total their ultimate victory over the Jews will be.
As long as Palestinians and their supporters twist reality, and refuse to learn from their mistakes that they deny ever making, Israel has little to worry about.
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Hamas-affiliated website Al Resalah features this video.
It shows a very sad Gaza child. He is crying. He is inconsolable. The music is dramatic. What happened to this poor child?
Was his brother killed by the Israelis? Was his father jailed? Is he starving?
Then, the camera pans to what he is crying about....
His large, wall mounted color TV is showing that Manchester United defeated his favorite Liverpool team, and its star Mohamed Salah, 2-1.
Life is so cruel for Gaza kids.
Notice how easy it is to create Pallywood-style propaganda with nothing more than a mobile phone. This is no less absurd than hundreds of similar videos and photos of Gaza children who are prompted to act for the cameras to tug at Western heartstrings.
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Even when the Arab boycott stronghold was breached in the 1990s, the tools continued to be used by our enemies – now by left-wing organizations and Western countries – which were enthusiastic about embracing the anti-Zionist vision and isolating Israel with fervor that would have put the Nazi campaigns to shame.
For the Left, the outline was clear: to bring an anti-Israel atmosphere into every sphere of life, to ostracize the Jewish state and prepare the ground for the expansion of sanctions against it, all the way to government and international institutions.
Israel was targeted from all directions, and yet, it did nothing. The peak of the wave occurred around the turn of the century, which is no coincidence. The Oslo Accords and the disengagement policies only reinforced the boycott movement. A little bit more effort, the activists believed, and Israel will break.
And they spared no effort: Israeli scientists were excluded from international conferences and projects, international companies cut ties with Israeli tenders, and talks of boycotting corporations and banks that dared invest in Israel became common knowledge.
The trend began to change when Israel and its allies – Jewish communities in the Diaspora, first and foremost – stopped turning the other cheek and began to retaliate against our enemies.
We are beginning to see the fruits of their efforts with the Ben & Jerry affair, a victory that would have been impossible without continuous efforts to spread the truth: that boycotting Israel is antisemitic, and as such, is intolerable and unacceptable.
And yet, the fight is not over. There are still battles against the boycott movement to be fought, but the ice cream precedent is sweeter than ever. Our bravery brought us a victory.
PragerU: Is Israel An Apartheid State?
Does Israel discriminate against Arabs? Is it today's version of apartheid South Africa? Olga Meshoe, herself a South African whose family experienced apartheid, settles the question once and for all.
Life is a supreme Jewish value. So much so that it’s
customary to make charitable donations or monetary gifts in multiples of 18:
the numerical value of the Hebrew word for life: chai. When we drink in celebration we say, “L’Chaim,” as
popularized by the song from Fiddler on the Roof.
We Jews place life on a pedestal not only in times of celebration
but in times of mourning too. Anglo-Jews from Britain and communities in the
former Commonwealth, for example, are likely to conclude a condolence call with
“I wish you long life.”
In Islam, on the other hand, life appears to take a
backseat to death. The goriest murders, butchery, death, and suicide seem not to
faze Muslims at all. Whereas Jews are preoccupied with life, the Muslim thinks
more about death. In a 2004 op-ed, Aspiration
not Desperation, Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook detailed the final words
of a suicide bomber, describing her joy at the prospect of blowing herself to
smithereens.
“I always wanted to
be the first woman who sacrifices her life for Allah. My joy will be complete
when my body parts fly in all directions.”
These are the words of female suicide terrorist Reem
Reyashi, videotaped just before she killed four Israelis and herself two weeks
ago in Gaza. What is surprising about this horrific statement is that she put a
positive value on her dismemberment and death, distinct from her goal to kill
others. She was driven by her aspiration to achieve what the Palestinians call
“shahada,” death for Allah. She had two distinct goals: To kill and to be
killed. These independent objectives, both positive in her mind, were goals
greater than her obligations and emotional ties to her two children. This
aspiration to die, which contradicts the basic human instinct for survival, is
at the core of the suicide terrorism fervor.
Contrast this with the Jewish concept of dying “al Kidush Hashem,” in sanctification of
God’s name. Every Holocaust victim, every Jewish terror victim, is considered
to be a holy martyr. But Jews don’t strive for that holy eventuality—we don’t court
death for the sake of martyrdom. Which is what all too many Muslims seem to do.
Most people can't stand the sight of blood, but blood doesn't seem to generate the same revulsion in Muslims. Take the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates
what we Jews still call the Akedat
Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac. The Muslim version, which of course
postdates Jewish scripture substitutes “Ibrahim” for Abraham, and “Ismail” for
Isaac. Jews remember the Akedah by reciting
the story from the Torah before the congregation on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.
Muslims, on the other hand, celebrate their version of the story with mass
slaughter of livestock. So many animals are killed on this holiday, that in
2016, the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh ran red with blood.
Judaism is possibly the only religion that prohibits all
forms of castration. This taboo creates grave challenges to pet owners, modern
animal farming and scientific research. However, when one becomes aware of the ubiquity
of sterilization in the utilization of animals, one may also appreciate the
subtle protest Judaism articulates against the mechanical exploitation of
animals. The prohibition on sterilization of animals and humans underscores
further the special regard in Judaism to the capacity to generate life.
According to Sefer Ha’hinnukh, castration articulates a nihilistic attitude
towards life. Contemporary scholarship on Judaism and human rights also
interpret God’s admonition “Choose life!” as a call for hope and engagement in
worldly life, not as a strict refusal to recognize situations in which loss of
life is the more dignified and just course of action.
In regard to shedding blood, Barilan writes,
Ironically, the first prohibition on bloodshed is
articulated in terms of the death penalty. “Whoso sheds man’s blood, by man
shall his blood be shed, for in the Image of God made he man.”
The Torah does not tell us directly, “do not kill” the way
God proscribed eating from the tree of knowledge. From the story on Cain and
Abel we learn that this knowledge is self-evident; every person must recognize
it naturally.
Many Muslims, apparently do not. There is ample evidence of the
Muslim thirst for bloodshed.
As Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook documented in their
aforementioned op-ed, “Palestinian society actively promotes the religious
belief that their deity craves their deaths. Note the words of a popular music
video directed at children, broadcast hundreds of times on PA TV, which depicts
the earth thirsting for the blood of children: ‘How sweet is the fragrance of
the shahids, how sweet is the scent of the earth, its thirst quenched by the
gush of blood, flowing from the youthful body.’”
Life is so important to Jews that we are allowed to break
just about any religious commandment in order to save the life of a human
being. Look at that last sentence carefully. There is rabbinical
consensus that we are commanded to breach Torah laws not only in order to
save Jewish lives, but in order to
save the life of any human being in
peril.
In Jewish law, human life comes first. We understand how
important a man’s life is—any man’s life—by the early mention of the concept in
Scripture:
“And God created man in His image, in the image of God He
created him.” (Genesis 1:27)
Judaism is life-affirming. Islam, on the other hand, cares
little for life, and instead embraces death with a whole heart. More from
Marcus and Crook:
PA ideology rejects the value of ‘life’ that other societies
hold supreme. As expressed by a senior historian, Professor Issam Sissalem, in
a lecture on PA TV: “We are not afraid to die, and do not love life.”
This attitude was echoed by Nidal Malik Hasan in wrapping up
a presentation he created for his fellow doctors, two years before he killed
thirteen and wounded 29 at Fort Hood: “We love death more than you love life!”
According to the National
Post, the sentence originates with “a 7th-century Muslim commander who
threatened his enemies with the prospect of ‘an army of men that love death as
you love life.’”
The Post then
references a 2004 interview with Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah. Professor
Richard Landes quotes the same interview in Lessons
from Kafr Qana:
“We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the
most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from
them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”
Landes, describing Muslim awareness of their own obsession
with death, writes:
“Why do expressions of tolerance, moderation, rationalism,
compromise, and negotiation horrify us [Muslims], but [when we hear] fervent
cries for vengeance, we all dance the war dance?… Why do other people love
life, while we love death and violence, slaughter and suicide, and [even] call
it heroism and martyrdom?”
Hatred towards death and love of the world is the outcome of
an ignorant person's mind, who thinks that the happiness of this world is his
prosperity and good fortune. The world beset with numerous troubles and
anxieties is about to end in misery and does not enjoy eternity, perpetuity and
sincerity. A poet has referred to this in the following words - “Do not give
your heart to this world, for its example is of an unfaithful bride who has never
loved you, even for a night.”
Unknown also writes:
[Hazrat Qasim], the son of [Imam Hasan Al-Mujtaba], when
asked concerning death at Karbala, answered: “death to me is sweeter than
honey.”
He continues (emphasis added):
Usually, most of the people are alarmed and fearful upon hearing the word
`death', and to them, death appears dreadful and terrifying, whereas, according
to the Islamic ideology, this terminology or this subject has a different
appearance and can be perceived in a different way. Basically it can be said
that those who fear death, consider it to be a negative entity.
According to this insight, death is an end of life and a
moment of everlasting separation of man with his life. They believe that with
death, the compounded substances of the body suffer a breakdown and return to
nature and man too, is nothing except this very broken-down body. Hence, with
death, everything ends with no hope remaining!
Indeed, with this view and insight, death is darker and more
dreadful than every other thing and perhaps, no calamity, pain, sorrow and
tragedy can be greater and more painful than the tragedy of death, because
death would mean the burial of all the desires, hopes, longings and in short,
the termination of all things for man - that man who loved life and eternity
very dearly.
Anyway, Islam does
not possess such a dark and fear-instilling view of death because according to
the Islamic view, death is a positive entity.
The idea of death as a “positive entity” is informative, here--perhaps more than anything else. Jews and incalculable numbers of Muslims stand in diametric opposition to each other when it comes to our most essential and sacred beliefs.
But it is more than that, of course. It’s more than our differing views on life and death, but the gruesomeness of the Muslim culture of death, the horrifying bloodlust that accompanies those beliefs; the nature of the killings; and the lack of even the tiniest drop of the milk of human compassion when choosing their victims.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
A Spanish Christian tourist's Instagram photo is causing an uproar among some Palestinian factions.
Ana Ramos Gutiérrez visited the Temple Mount earlier this month, and posted this photo:
It was noticed today, and Palestinian media are freaking out about this "naked" picture.
But that isn't enough to whip up the anger that political and terror groups need in order to survive. So the media, Hamas and Palestinian officials have been falling over each other to issue condemnations that are more and more insane - and of course, they claim that Gutiérrez is a "Zionist settler."
There is a hashtag on the topic: "#Jewish_prostitute_desecrates_Al-Aqsa," with dozens of angry people upset at her and one other photo of a woman showing her knees.
Incidentally, on her Instagram, you can see that she - along with her family - visited the Kotel and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as well, along with the Dead Sea.
Hamas newspaper Felesteen writes, "An Israeli settler provoked the feelings of the Almoravids in Al-Aqsa Mosque, after she took pictures semi-naked on the stairs leading to the Dome of the Rock."
A Hamas spokesman said the photo "constitutes an unprecedented provocation to the feelings of our Palestinian people and the entire Arab and Islamic nation."
Palestinian Ahrar Movement spokesman Yasser Khalaf said, "This step is the result of the continued encouragement of the Zionist governments that oversee and strive to impose their Judaization and settlement plans for the Holy City and Al-Aqsa Mosque. This intrusion is a major and dangerous provocation to the feelings of our people, Muslims and all Arabs, and disregard for the entire nation , and it is the result of the continuation of Arab-Zionist normalization that encourages the Zionists to persist in their aggression and crimes against our people ...These scenes are a dangerous transgression of all red lines."
The preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Ikrima Sabri, said that this was a desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the violation of its sanctity by storming it in indecent dress in defiance of the feelings of Muslims.
I have yet to see a Palestinian say that Muslims playing soccer, volleyball or parkour in front of the Dome of the Rock is considered "desecration."
(h/t YMedad, Yoel)
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad realize that the IDF has no intention of defeating them.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad also understood that if the patience of Israel's security and political echelons runs out, as indeed occurred during Operation Breaking Dawn, at most there will be Air Force planes shooting at infrastructure targets in Gaza, ending like the previous rounds without defeating the enemy.
After every round, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad can return and threaten again to launch rockets at Israel, and after a short period of time hold another round and thus freeze the economic and social activity in the cities and communities surrounding Gaza, a situation that the State of Israel cannot afford.
The situation is worse even than that and goes beyond the boundaries of the Gaza Strip. The army fears that the continuation of the rounds against Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza could lead to a regional explosion and a multi-arena war for which the IDF is also unprepared, which greatly increases the fear in the army to take offensive action.
The IDF is looking for every possible way to maintain peace even at very heavy costs of the complete loss of deterrence. The security and political echelons are looking for mediators like the Egyptians, who will help Israel ameliorate the murderous intentions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are sitting in their holes pleased with themselves that the State of Israel is doing everything it can to ask them to be good children. They see this as a major weakness in the fighting spirit and in the motivation of the IDF commanders to fight.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad well understands that there is a huge difference between the empty declarations of the Israeli political and security establishment about the power of the IDF to hit them, and the bitter truth. The IDF therefore entered a mode of maintaining silence at all costs so as to let sleeping dogs lie.
Thus, over the years, the army dealt with ongoing security, and not with its preparation for the next multi-arena war, and therefore the conduct of the army led to the loss of the value of victory and complete deterrence.
The new Chief of Staff must lead the IDF on a new path and make a 180 degree turn in order to return the value of victory to the IDF, along with a fighting spirit, motivation, determination, adherence to the mission, taking back the initiative - and thus restore deterrence.
The IDF's readiness must be rebuilt for the next multi-arena war so that it can face very difficult challenges in the near and more distant future.
Israel's Foreign Ministry rejected a request from Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt to meet the Israeli premier Yair Lapid during her visit to the Jewish state next month.
A few days ago, the Deputy Director General of Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry, Aliza Bin-Noun, met with Norway's Ambassador to Israel, Kåre Reidar Aas, who conveyed to her the Norwegian minister's request to meet with the Israeli prime minister and foreign minister.
In response, Bin-Noun reminded the ambassador of Norway's negative moves toward the State of Israel and made her understand that also due to the elections, a meeting with Lapid would be impossible.
In June, Israel declared itself outraged after the Norwegian government's decision to mark food products from West Bank settlements.
Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, justified its decision with a 2019 European Court of Justice ruling that food products from "Israeli-occupied areas" had to be labeled so as not to mislead the consumer about the origin of the product.
A report published about a year ago by the Israel advocacy group and research institute NGO Monitor found that Norway, the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority, also funds anti-Israel organizations including the BDS boycott movement.
That same year, Norway's largest pension fund further announced that it withdrew its investments from 16 companies linked to West Bank settlements.
Terrorism and human rights are simply irreconcilable. Despite purporting to champion human rights, the United Nations has nevertheless been at the center of numerous terrorism-related controversies. These include the Taliban’s ongoing candidacy for a seat in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and widespread concerns that the UNHRC’s open-ended Commission of Inquiry targeting Israel is whitewashing and enabling the crimes of Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza.
It has now come to light that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – the main UN agency responsible for assisting refugees worldwide – has partnered with and accepted nearly $50 million (NIS165 m.) from member charities of a US-designated terrorist organization: the Union of Good. The relevant member charities are the Qatar Charity and Eid Charity, both of which are already individually designated as terrorist organizations by five Middle Eastern governments.
The Union of Good is an umbrella fundraising organization of charities and was designated as a terrorist organization by the US Treasury, in 2008. This is because it is an organization created by Hamas leadership to transfer funds to the terrorist organization. As noted by the Counter Extremism Project, the Union of Good includes the Qatar Charity and the Eid Charity.
Since 2012, the UNHCR has accepted approximately $49 million (NIS161 m.) from the Qatar Charity. It also received approximately $4.75 million (NIS15.6 m.) in cash assistance from the Eid Charity in 2020 and 2021. While such money has seemingly been used to help refugees, a humanitarian institution accepting funds from groups tied to terrorism is deeply disturbing. The UN and the UNHCR are exposing themselves to dangerous influences and potentially legitimizing an internationally-recognized terrorist organization.
Even worse, the UNHCR has openly celebrated its relationships with these groups, spotlighting them on its official web page. The current High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has praised the Qatar Charity for its collaboration with the UNHCR. What makes this matter especially concerning is that the UNHCR began to partner with the Qatar Charity in 2012 under the watch of António Guterres, who was then the High Commissioner for Refugees. Guterres is now the secretary-general of the United Nations, a testament to the influence commanded by the high commissioner for refugees.
Lebanese and other Arab media this week are celebrating the decision by a junior chess player to refuse to compete against an Israeli in a tournament in Abu Dhabi.
The Lebanese chess champion, Nadia Fawaz, withdrew from the 4th round of the 28th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival to avoid facing the Israeli player, Elia Grozman.
Her refusal to play against Grozman came as a statement of refusal to recognize the Israeli state, a stance always taken by Lebanese players and athletes in international competitions.
Some articles list other recent examples of Arab refusal to compete against Israelis in recent international tournaments:
Charbel Abou Daher recently withdrew from the 2022 Youth MMA World Championships in Abu Dhabi, even though some believed he could have won, to avoid playing an Israeli opponent. The Lebanese MMA Federation shared on Instagram an explanation that his decision was made for “patriotic reasons.
Aquilina Al Chayeb is a judo athlete who, during the Athens Junior European Cup 2022, allegedly lost on purpose to avoid facing an Israeli in the next round. The Lebanese Judo Federation allegedly asked their player to lose her current tie to avoid competing with an Israeli in the next round, as to do so would have been considered recognition of Israel. Al Chayeb did not have the option to simply withdraw lest the International Judo Federation (IJF) penalize her and thwart her career, so she went on to deliberately lose.
Earlier this month, Iraqi tennis stars Nasr Mahdi and Mohammad al-Mahdi withdrew from the 2022 Bucharest Wheelchair Open in Romania to avoid playing against their Israeli rivals.
Majid al-Ugaili, president of the Iraqi Tennis Federation, announced in a statement on Aug. 11 that the draw put them on a mathematical path to pairing them with a pair of Israelis. The Iraqi seed team then decided to withdraw from the competition.
As early as July 31, the Palestinian Information Center reported that Jordanian taekwondo player Maysir al-Dahamsheh avoided a confrontation with his Israeli opponent at the 2022 World Taekwondo Cadet and Junior Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria.
A Jordanian national table tennis player did the same last summer at the World Para Table Tennis Championships in Slovenia by withdrawing from the competition to avoid playing against an Israeli opponent.
[In July], Algerian footballer Ahmed Touba refused to accompany his team, İstanbul Basaksehir to a match against Israel's Maccabi Netanya in the second leg of the preliminary round of the Europa Conference League matches. Touba also refused to participate in the first leg of the match in Istanbul on July 21.
A Sudanese judoka Mohamed Abdalrasool pulled out of his match against Tohar Butbul in the 73-kilogram men's division in the Tokyo Olympics last year.
Isn't it time that sports federations get their acts together and ban any country from competition that acts like this? As it is, the athletes are celebrated in their home countries for their "bravery" and they gain more than they lose. It is up to sports federations to ensure that the pain for boycotting matches against Israel (or any country) is greater than the accolades.
And Israel can do its own part. Since much of the Arab psyche is driven by "honor," Israel should put out the message that the Arabs who withdraw from competition are really frightened of losing to an Israeli. Over time, this can turn the refusal from looking honorable to looking cowardly - and athletes would not want to be viewed that way.
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Here's yet another way to know that the biggest self-described supporters of Palestinians really don't give a damn about them.
As we've been reporting, Israel is setting up a plan for Palestinians to be able to travel through Ramon Airport in the southern Negev.
This will make it easier for most Palestinians to travel internationally.
Assuming that the passengers are vetted for security, no one should oppose this. Human rights advocates should be celebrating. For years, they have been complaining about Palestinian "freedom of movement" - and here, Palestinians are about to be given an easier, heaper and more convenient option to escape their supposed prison.
Yet not one of the groups that claim to support Palestinians are happy. And because this makes no sense whatsoever, each one is making up their own reasons to oppose it (or to ignore it altogether.)
The Palestinian Authority is against the plan, threatening any Palestinian who takes advantage of Ramon Airport. Their stated reason? Because they insist they should have their own airports. Apparently, their people must suffer because they want something that is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. (And for some reason, traveling through Jordan or Egypt to get to airports is fine, but traveling though Israel is a crime.)
The head of the Palestinian transportation ministry added that they feared that Palestinian criminals would be able to escape justice through Israel. That reason makes as little sense as the other one.
And the head of Human Rights Watch used an unfounded - and clearly false - rumor as an excuse for his opposition to the plan. Which shows that HRW doesn't care about Palestinian rights - instead, they subscribe to the old Arab idea that anything that benefits Israel in any way must be inherently bad.
Jordanians are also decrying the plan - and they are pretending that they are opposing it for the Palestinians' own good. A group called the National Forum to Support the Resistance and Protect the Homeland urged Palestinians to boycott Ramon Airport - because using it would be considered "normalization" with Israel!
They went on to say:
The National Forum affirms the popular position that normalization is treason that constitutes the greatest service for the Zionist entity to market itself as providing humanitarian facilities by facilitating movement and travel for Palestinians who suffer the scourge of the continuous Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people and their sanctities. ...The occupation wants to cover up its crimes and whitewash its ugly image in front of the world...
Their twisted logic says that Israel only wants to treat Palestinians nicely in order to cover up the fact that Israel treats Palestinians poorly.
The real reason that Jordanians oppose the idea is because right now they have a captive customer base where West Bank Palestinians have no choice but to go through Jordan, which helps Jordan's economy - especially when they are forced to pay "VIP" fees to try to reduce their interminable wait times at the border crossing to Israel. They want to retain their right to treat Palestinians like dirt, and Palestinians know that the Israeli side of the crossing treats them far better than the Jordanian side does.
Closer to the truth is what a PA official said in July: “Israel failed to the turn Ramon Airport into an international terminal. Now, the Israelis are offering us something that didn’t work for them."
Yes, this would benefit Israel. But it would also benefit Palestinians. Why cut off your nose to spite your face?
What about B'Tselem, which has lots of articles on Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement? Shouldn't they support this plan?
They haven't said a word.
What about Gisha, an Israeli NGO whose entire goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians? Surely they must have written something positive about a plan that helps Palestinians travel internationally?
Actually, not only has Gisha ignored this story - they also said nothing about the huge delays at the Jordanian crossings that make travel for Palestinians a giant hassle. Not on their website, not on their Facebook page, and not on Twitter, as far as I can tell.
Palestinians can choose to use Ramon Airport if they want. They can choose to continue to use Jordan's airport if they want. This plan does not and cannot hurt a single Palestinian, and it has potential to help thousands of them save hours of time and hundreds of dollars. There is no rational reason to oppose it - if one really cares about Palestinians.
Which is the entire point.
People and organizations who swear that they support Palestinians really don't. The multiple and disparate reasons they give to oppose making Palestinian lives easier is proof that they have no good reason to oppose this plan.
The only consistent thread through this negative reaction, or non-reaction, to a plan that can only benefit Palestinians is that these groups aren't "pro-Palestinian." They are anti-Israel. And anything that benefits Israel in any way is to be strenuously opposed.
And indeed these groups oppose anything Israel does that helps Palestinians. They have built their quasi-governments and organizations on the falsehood that Israel is unparalleled evil. When Israel does anything to help Palestinians, this threatens their entire business model. Their funders don't want to read reports about how Palestinian lives have improved due to Israeli decisions. These organizations' existence is based on churning out papers and reports and articles and interviews that will be eagerly read and paid for by modern antisemites.
Ramon Airport is proof positive of the hypocrisy of so-called "pro-Palestinian" groups.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The director of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Omar Al-Kiswani, is upset at "the incitement of the Zionist enemy and the settlement groups against the Dome of the Rock which reflects their malicious intentions towards Jerusalem and the blessed mosque."
Religious Jews don't visit the Dome of the Rock, so how did they incite against it?
Because, according to Kiswani, a liquor company placed a picture of the Dome of the Rock on its packaging,
As is often the case, Palestinian rumors resemble a game of telephone. The Dome of the Rock is indeed on a bottle of vodka - but it is made in Ukraine. Apparently, this was just discovered by a Palestinian man in Israel, who (according to some versions) proceeded to destroy most of the bottles.
The photo used in the news stories isn't recent. I've seen it as far back as 2014. I cannot find any current version of the vodka by Soyuz-Victan with that label. So I'm not sure how this idea that Israel is trying to insult Muslims by placing the Dome of the Rock on forbidden alcoholic drinks came from.
However, there is an Israeli wine that shows a scene that includes the Temple Mount, that one can buy today.
Obviously, for this wine company, the artwork is meant to honor Jerusalem, not to insult Muslims. Anyone with two brain cells would know that.
But not Sheikh Omar Al-Kiswani.
UPDATE: DigFind and Moiresmix found posts about Muslims insulted by the vodka bottle - -and blaming Israel - back in 2007!
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Israel and the Jewish people have long borne the burden of envy and hatred for their views about monotheism, morality and law. So, too, Ukraine is now bearing the burden of representing the West in its fight against Eastern (Iranian, Russian, Turkish and Chinese) totalitarianism and aggression. The West is supplying the weapons; Ukraine is providing the human sacrifices.
Iran, which has been designated as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, has a long reach. On Aug. 12, author Salman Rushdie was stabbed 10 times by a 24- year-old Shi’ite Muslim supporter of Iran, Hadi Matar—someone who was not even born when Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or legal death decree, against Rushdie for having insulted Islam.
Iran funds the murders of Israeli Jews through its proxies such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). It has been almost impossible to persuade Westerners, including the media and the professoriate, that Iran’s war is primarily a religious war against non-Muslims, Sunni Muslims, and against Judeo-Christian values and Western secular modernity. Such Islamists do not allow free thought or free speech. Criticizing any part of Islamist culture or religion is an insult; their dishonor can only be cleansed by your death.
As former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss pointed out, Western cancel culture is somewhat similar in that a single word or idea is experienced as a violent act and therefore demands being censored and/or a physically violent response.
This is the political moment in which Fiamma Nirenstein—an Italian-born, Jerusalem-based journalist and former Italian parliamentarian—has published a cri de coeur, an updated version of Zola’s J’Accuse. She has titled it Jewish Lives Matter. An English-language copy can be downloaded here.
Emile Zola was compelled to speak out in 1898 because of the Dreyfus case, in which French-Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason, publicly stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island. He was innocent and had been framed by anti-Semites.
Nirenstein was driven to “cry out” over the extraordinary global cognitive war against Israel and the way in which the “good people,” especially the human rights activists and organizations, have all signed onto modern blood libels in the name of “human rights.” Nirenstein is passionate, angry and exceptionally eloquent. She writes:
“The criminalization of Israel has by now been disseminated worldwide. It is a mindset based on lies that have become part and parcel of the media’s daily fare since the Durban Conference in 2001 … The diabolical confusion between blaming Jews and exalting human rights has created a serious short circuit. The notion of an intersectionality that must identify oppressed and oppressors — espoused today from institutions such as the United Nations or the European Union to movements such as Black Lives Matter and those of the LGBTQ community — has proved to be a breeding ground for anti-Jewish hatred, to the point of spawning absurdities that range from imagining Israel as an apartheid state to asserting that Jews are ‘white supremacists.”
It’s an incongruous sight: a WWII plane marooned among the trees at the Atlit Museum of Clandestine Immigration near Haifa.
But this latest addition to the army camp where illegal immigrants were detained during the British Mandate is no ordinary plane. It took years to be tracked down – and it was finally found in Alaska.
The plane, a Commando C-46, is a replica of that which was used for Operation Michaelberg – a 1947 mission to transport 150 illegal immigrants to British Mandate Palestine from Iraq and Italy.
It was the first time that a civil aircraft was used to transport illegal immigrants from the Muslim world.
Before the establishment of the State of Israel, most clandestine arrivals to Mandatory Palestine came from European countries, yet hundreds of thousands of Jews also risked life and limb to flee Arab and Muslim states.
Illegal immigration before 1948 was known as “Aliyah Bet,” short for “Aliyah Bilti Legalit“, which literally means “illegal immigration”. It was run by Mossad LeAliyah Bet, a section of the Palmach, the elite fighting force of the Haganah, and was funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Aliyah Bet was mainly by sea in defiance of quotas imposed by the British White paper of 1939.
In the post-war years preceding the creation of the State of Israel, some 100,000 immigrants arrived. It is claimed that as many as a third came from Arab or Muslim countries. After Israel was established this task fell to the Mossad, Israel’s secret service.
Once founded, Israel could fling open its gates and accept all Jews who wanted to come. There followed some of the greatest migrations in history by land, sea and air: 650,000 Jews arrived from Arab countries – 90 percent of the communities of Libya, Iraq and Yemen, a third of the Jews of Morocco.
But the window to leave soon closed. Arab countries would not allow their Jews out – they were hostages to the conflict. This was the case for six years in Morocco, until the 1970s in Iraq and Egypt and until the 1990s in Yemen and Syria.
Noor Dahri just published a new book on the Israel Defense Forces. He is a counter-terrorism researcher and a former officer with the London Police. He has studied at Herzliya’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and has lectured in front of Israeli security experts.
Dahri is currently in Israel gathering research for his next book on Israeli security threats, traveling along Israel’s often tense borders with Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. Details of his trip, including visits to the Temple Mount, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and the Western Wall have made waves on social media. What makes Dahri different than other security analysts, is that he is a devout adherent to Islamic doctrine and a self-defined “Muslim Zionist.”
Born in Pakistan, Dahri came to London at the age of 30 as a secular Muslim, disappointed with violent adherents of the Islamic faith. In London, he joined a Marxist organization before meeting his Pakistani-born wife. Today, Darhi is a full-fledged practicing Salafi Muslim, praying five times a day, fasting during Ramadan and has made pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia.
He believes that many of the intolerant sentiments and violent doctrines exhibited by large groups of Muslims are “manipulated by Jihadists” and not Koranic in nature.
He believes in a “more moderate” version of Islam, one that is not inconsistent with having strong ties with Jews and the State of Israel. For his friendship, he was named an “honorary member” of the Zionist Federation.
Dahri is currently the founder and executive director of the Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism (ITCT).
He sat down with JNS for a wide-ranging interview covering theology, security, geopolitics, and his unique journey towards faith and friendships. The interview was often emotional, including many smiles and occasional tears.
Based on the photos, this looks like it is very possibly a "work accident" where some terror group was building bombs and rockets in a residential building.
This sort of thing is not unusual. At least twice, supposed sorcerers beat their clients to death while pretending to remove the demons/jinns from their bodies.
A 2012 article gives case after case of people being injured or killed by these supposed "sorcerers" in Gaza. It says that there are over a thousand of these charlatans in Gaza, who charge exorbitant amounts to exorcise jinn or otherwise pretend to cure maladies. Women have been raped by some of these "sorcerers" while the husbands, hearing the screams outside the door, believes that they are being attacked by demons.
The expose noted that these sorcerers can clear over $1500 a day, triple the average monthly wage in Gaza at the time.
It also mentioned cases of multiple young women being poisoned to death after taking some of the herbs prescribed by the charlatan. In another case, a man with foot problems from injuries during Hamas' takeover of Gaza became paralyzed from the "sorcerer" treatment, and instead of going to the police he hired people to break the holy man's legs.
In another case from 2010, 62-year-old “witch” Jabriya Abu Qinas was killed, presumably from someone she ripped off.
Doctors at Gaza hospitals confirm many deaths from this "magic," from beatings and poisonings.
For such a widespread problem, there are vanishingly few articles about it, and close to none at all in English.
A Pew survey in 2012 found that 67% of Palestinians believe in jinn (demons,) 14% in sorcery and 59% in the "evil eye."
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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