Israeli ambassador to Jordan in minor car crash, residents "terrified" by security

From Ammon News:

Citizens told Ammon News on Sunday that an Israeli ambassador's car collided with a Jordanian car in Jordan Valley. No injuries has been reported.

The incident occurred last week when a diplomat car collided with another vehicle in Kafrain district, nearby Jordan valley.The locals approached the scene to help when security men began to surround the car, pulling their weapons out in front of the residents, terrifying them.

It was later discovered that the car belonged to, Daniel Nevo, an Israeli ambassador in Amman, who was transferred from his vehicle immediately to the security car.

The security guards acted appropriately, of course, since car crashes are a standard way to kidnap people.

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Terrorist prisoner with leukemia dies; Arabs try to whip up riots (updates)

We've seen many times that it only takes a small event to capture the imagination of the so-called "Arab street." We've also seen that Arab leaders will try to manipulate the people to act in ways that are politically expedient for them.

Such a confluence may be happening now:

Palestinian prisoner Hasan Turabi, 22, from a Nablus-area village died Tuesday morning at Afula Medical Center in northern Israel, according to local Palestinian sources.

Sources from the village of Sarra in the northern West Bank told Ma'an that the Israeli prison service officially notified Turabi’s family of his death.

Turabi, according to lawyer Hiba Masalha of the Palestinian Authority ministry of prisoners affairs, was suffering from leukemia. She warned recently that he was in real danger after a blood vessel burst.

She added that Turabi was vomiting blood and was moved to the intensive care unit where medics found that he had blood clots in the neck, the chest and the abdomen.

Israeli forces had transferred Turabi from Megiddo prison to Afula Medical Center for medical treatment.

Palestinian Authority minister of prisoners' affairs Issa Qaraqe responded to the report saying that Israeli prison service is responsible for the death of Turabi and accusing them of "negligence."

Qaraqe said that the negligence had started at Megiddo prison, point out that ten days before Turabi was transferred to Afula hospital, he had severe bleeding and started to vomit blood.

"Prison medics treated the case recklessly and did not give him any medicine until he collapsed and lost consciousness on March 16, 2013."

At that point, added Qaraqe, the Israeli prison service released Turabi and transferred him to Afula Medical Center where he fell as a "martyr."

Qaraqe described the case as a new "war crime" committed against Palestinian prisoners.

So the official PA position is that a prisoner who died after his blood vessels burst is a victim of a "war crime."

But Islamic Jihad, the group that Turabi was a member of, has no less than nine articles about Turabi on the front page of its Palestine Today newspaper. They are also calling him a "martyr" due to "medical negligence." They say that there was a riot at Megiddo Prison when the prisoners there heard about his death, and that many prisoners were injured. They report that Hamas is demanding that negotiations between Israel and the PA be stopped because of this. Prisoners declared a hunger strike. Doctors who never saw Turabi are being interviewed so they can assure the Arab world that he died from "medical negligence."  The last video of Turabi in the hospital was released. The Department of Prisoners Affairs announced that their lawyers will boycott all court cases today in protest.

One article actually quotes Turabi's [Israeli] doctor as saying that they have no idea why his body is shutting down - they took biopsies of his liver, spleen and esophagus; he wasn't sure if the blood vessel ruptures were a leftover side effect of his leukemia or of the medicines he took to treat it or something else. That article shows that the hospital was trying very hard to cure him!

This is all only a few hours after Turabi died. Clearly some Arab leaders want this to snowball into an international incident, and so far none of them are calling for calm.

His funeral might be the spark that some people have been hoping for to start a new terror war.

UPDATE: Turabi had thrown a Molotov cocktail at an IDF patrol a year ago.

Ma'an Arabic is referring to him as a "martyr." His body was handed over to his family.

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"The Jewish revolution vs. the Arab revolution"

Al Wafd (Egypt) has an op-ed that compares Jewish accomplishments against Arab backwardness. Excerpts:

Jews have revolutions in science, while Arabs have revolutions in tragedy - this is a painful truth...

The Israeli Foreign Ministry on its front page on Facebook reveals three alarming news items.

First, students at a secondary school in Netanya have succeeded in the development of unmanned aircraft, which uses a mathematical equation to determine how much fuel is left in the plane....

Not only this but this Israeli school has 31 scientific projects in the implementation phase, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The second news item is that Tel Aviv is celebrating with technical pioneers all around the world and the opportunity will be made ​​available for the winners of a competition of the founders of start-up companies from around the world to meet with companies and technology experts and founders of start-up companies, designers, artists, scientists, investors and promoters of culture from Israel and abroad...innovators from Britain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Latvia, India, China, Korea, Mexico and Colombia will be guests in Israel to gain experience of the [start-up] eco-system in Tel Aviv

The third news item celebrated by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, is that while the Arabs are mired in the cycle of violence and infighting, is that the owners of this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry are all Jews and two of them are of Israeli national origin, and in physics the Belgian winner was also Jewish! Meaning that four out of five chemistry and physics Nobel winners are Jews who Muslim clerics every Friday call them the descendants of apes and pigs!

They chose progress and we chose underdevelopment, they chose creativity in chemistry equations and theories of physics, we chose creativity in the fatwas of "jihad marriage."

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11/04 Links Pt2: BDSer admits he's racist, How anti-Semitic is Germany? GM's Self-Driving Cars

From Ian:

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£1bn haul of art treasures seized by Nazis found in squalid Munich flat

The 1,500 works by such masters as Picasso, Renoir, Matisse and Chagall were said to have been lost to the flames when Allied aircraft bombed Dresden in 1945.
They had been taken from their owners, many of them Jewish, by the Nazis, who regarded the Impressionist, Cubist and Modernist pieces as ‘degenerate’, and never seen again.
Their astonishing rediscovery nearly 70 years on in a rundown apartment in Munich came about because of a chance customs inspection of a man returning to Germany by train from Switzerland.
The man turned out to be Cornelius Gurlitt – the reclusive son of Hildebrandt Gurlitt, the art dealer who in the run-up to the Second World War had been in charge of gathering up the so-called degenerate art for the Nazis. (h/t Bob Knot)

UN Watch: What's wrong with U.N.'s human rights council by Hillel Neuer

Supporters of a credible and effective Human Rights Council – be they member states, U.N. officials, or human rights NGOs – must act now to prevent the council from meeting the same fate as its discredited and now-defunct predecessor. They need to honestly address the council’s strengths and weaknesses; call out abusive regimes by submitting resolutions even if they will be defeated; and expose and confront council appointees who bring the good name of the United Nations into disrepute.
The election next month of so many repressive regimes will only serve to escalate the council’s credibility crisis, while complacency will only lead it down the same ignominious path as the old commission. Only if we act now, with conviction and alacrity, will the world’s highest human rights body have any chance of improving on the fortunes of its predecessor – and, more importantly, helping those who for too long have had their voices stifled.

Im Tirtzu: University of Haifa legal clinics are politicized

The Im Tirtzu organization has published a new report concerning what it describes as the "severe politicization" of legal clinics at the University of Haifa.
The report focuses on three clinics in particular, the Clinic for Prisoners' Rights, the Clinic for Human Rights in Society and the Clinic for the Rights of the Arab-Palestinian Minority.
The report says that these clinics have become anti-Zionist, radical organizations that "cooperate with organizations that oppose the existence of the State of Israel as a democratic state." (h/t Yenta Press)

Almagor to Haifa U: What About Helping Victims of Terror?

Indor was reacting to a report by the Im Tirtzu organization, which found that the legal clinics at Haifa University devote most of their resources to helping non-Jews, with a special preference for Muslim-Arab terrorists.
One of the cases handled by the clinics reportedly involved the demand by a man convicted of cruel acts of rape to receive festive meals on the Muslim holidays, and not just the sweet dessert that prison authorities hand out.

Holocaust Remembrance: New Tool for Anti-Semitism?

The Anne Frank Museum, writes Meotti, has "sanitized Anne Frank's story of almost all its Jewish references ... The result is that the public is now completely desensitized to the unique catastrophe that was the destruction of European Jewry. The Museum has also turned into a powerful source of criticism of Israel in Europe." "Israel," the Anne Frank Foundation wrote in a report, "pushes Palestinians economically into a corner and humiliates them psychologically."
In 2004, an exhibition in the Anne Frank Museum compared former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolf Hitler. The former Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, then a Israeli government minister, reacted indignantly , saying the museum was "showing contempt for the memory of the six million who were murdered in the Holocaust."

Israel boycotter admits protest is against Jews, not just Israelis

The video, recorded by Simon Cobb of the Sussex Friends of Israel group, shows two men interviewing a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigner who says that he doesn’t not believe in the two-state solution (i.e. wants the destruction of the State of Israel) and who falsely claims that Palestinians employed by Israeli companies are paid at a lesser rate than those who are not.
But the crucial part of the video [1 minute 25 seconds] comes when Cobb and his fellow interviewer ask the man why he is boycotting Ecostream in Brighton, a shop which is Jewish and Israeli-owned, and if the man would boycott a Muslim, or Arab-Israeli owned shop.

Anti-Israel activists refuse to wear poppy to honour war dead

Self-styled “pro-Palestinian” activists outside the Ecostream store were repeatedly quizzed as to whether or not they would wear a Royal British Legion poppy, which serves each November to commemorate the lives of those lost fighting in World War I, and against the Nazis in World War II.
Unfortunately, as you can see below, no BDS activists would wear a red poppy, claiming they opposed war, and therefore the poppy was not for them.

German TV: How anti-Semitic is Germany?

The German public television station ARD broadcasted last week a documentary film about modern anti-Semitism at the heart of German society.
Close observers of contemporary anti-Semitism showered praise on the film for not shying away from showing anti-Semitism in all walks of life in Germany.
The 50 minute film – titled Anti-Semitism Today: How hostile is Germany toward Jews? – was created by Ahmad Mansour, an Israeli Arab, and two other Germans, Kirsten Esch and Jo Goll. Mansour is a policy advisor to the Brussels-based European Foundation for Democracy. He has lived in Berlin since 2004 and studied Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology at Tel-Aviv University. VIDEO no subtitles

Hungarian demonstrators protest statue of Hitler ally

On Sunday, protesters wore yellow Stars of David and chanted “Nazis go home” at supporters of Miklos Horthy, who was regent of Hungary from 1920 to 1944.
The unveiling was organized by a pastor with far-right ties, the French news agency AFP reported.

S. Africa would be wise to ponder its Israel stance

The South African government has resisted domestic pressures to cut diplomatic relations and Nkoana-Mashabane made clear this is not being planned. Instead, as she said, South Africa will "slow down and curtail senior leadership contact with [Israel] until things begin to look better."
The direct effect on Israel is likely to be minimal. South Africa will suffer far more. It is struggling with deep seated problems and by reducing contact is depriving itself of opportunities to gain access to invaluable Israeli expertise in areas such as agriculture, use of water, health and education.

South African Jews slam campaign to free Palestinian prisoners

Launched late last month by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 of his 27 years’ imprisonment by the apartheid government, the Free Marwan Barghouti campaign’s support committee includes five Nobel Peace laureates, among them Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
The South African Zionist Federation, or SAZF, said in a statement that Barghouti had been jailed for terrorism and the murder of Israeli civilians and it was an insult to struggle leaders such as Mandela to compare him with them, the daily Cape Times reported.

Report: Turkey’s Zorlu Enerji in Talks to Build Gas Pipeline to Israel

Turkey’s Zorlu Group, which holds an indirect stake in an Israeli power plant, has begun talks with Israeli companies to finance a pipeline that could export gas from the Jewish state’s Leviathan and Tamar offshore fields to Turkey, Reuters and Turkey’s Hurriyet daily reported on Friday, citing industry and diplomatic sources.
The report also cited Ömer Yüngül, chief executive of Zorlu Holding, the owner of Zorlu Enerji, as saying, “Turkey is a very suitable route for Israeli gas. I can even say it is the most suitable,” although he would not confirm the talks.

Israel is the go-to address for cyber-security

As the global threat of cyber-attacks grows exponentially, so do companies that develop software to fight them off. Some of the world’s oldest and best-trusted players are headquartered in Israel (beginning with Check Point Technologies, founded in 1993), or have R&D operations here.
“Everybody understands that you buy Swiss watches from Switzerland and information security from Israel,” says Udi Mokady, CEO of CyberArk Software, Israel’s largest private cyber-security company since IBM’s recent acquisition of Israeli financial data security firm Trusteer. IBM now plans to open a cyber-security software lab in Israel.

GM Using Israeli Technology to Create Self-Driving Cars

Israel is home to a significant amount of the technology General Motors (GM) is using to create the cars of the future, which will include features such as self-driving capability.
“The technologies that will power autonomous vehicles include smart sensing, vision imaging, human machine interface, wifi and 4G/LTE communications, and much of that is being done at our Herzliya facility, in conjunction with GM’s other R&D facility in Silicon Valley,” said Gil Golan, director of GM’s Advanced Technical Center in Israel, the Times of Israel reported.

Hebrew University Professor wins German Literary Prize

Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Otto Dov Kulka, professor emeritus at the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, is the winner of the Geschwister Scholl Prize for 2013.
Kulka’s book, Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death. Auschwitz and the Limits of Memory and Imagination, was chosen as the winner of the annual 10,000-euro prize.

Paula Abdul On Visit to Israel: ‘Most Magnificent Trip I’ve Ever Taken’

“I’ve traveled the world touring and things like that but I don’t get the chance to see much of wherever I’m at,” she said. Abdul described the visit as “the most magnificent trip I’ve ever taken … magical and emotional.”
An official guest of Israel’s ministry of tourism, Abdul has been touring the country on a 10-day visit, which has included a meeting with President Shimon Peres, a trip to the Western Wall—where she reportedly celebrated her bat mitzvah—and other sites throughout the country.

IDF Blog: Meet 4 Pro Athletes Who Double as IDF Soldiers

Young Israeli athletes who reach the age of enlistment in the IDF have a difficult decision. Remaining a world-class athlete means maintaining a strict training regimen and competition schedule — not so easy to do as a soldier. And yet, the IDF has many young professional athletes who, though hungry for success, report for basic training nevertheless.

Shaare Zedek Medical Center-Jerusalem: It's All in Our Hands (finally with English subtitles)

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How an American woman escaped her Gaza husband

From USA Today:

Gunfire cracked all around Sara Rogers as she climbed to the roof of her high-rise home in Gaza. The year was 2005, and Israeli soldiers were fighting Palestinian gunmen to stop rocket attacks and destroy smuggling tunnels.

Rogers closed her eyes. "Just let one hit me in the head," she begged. "And make it quick."

It was not the months of violence of the Second Intifada that made the Italian-American college graduate ache for death. It was her virtual enslavement by one of the most feared families in the Middle East.

Days later, Rogers was in a taxi with her five children, praying her husband wouldn't catch her and their five children before she reached the Israeli border.

Rogers is not the first Western woman to marry an Arab man and find out how few rights she had once removed to a Middle East country that abides by sharia, or Islamic law. But some are working to make her among the last.
...

When such kidnappings do occur, it often appears as a surprise to women as it was to Rogers, a bright multicultural studies student from upstate New York.

Rogers was living with her mother in Las Cruces, a city on the Rio Grande in New Mexico, when she became enchanted by a soft-spoken Arab man working at the Middle Eastern cafe where she'd often study.

"I was the feminist, the rebel, everything you could imagine," she said. Hatem Abu Taha proposed to her three days after they met. They were married soon after.

"The morning after we wed, my husband got up to meet his friends," she recalled. "I was like, 'What? We're newlyweds.'"

"He just told me he was doing guy things and I could do woman things," she said in an interview at her home outside Boston.

Rogers worked as a nurse assistant but hoped for better. She completed a master's degree and was preparing to write a book. Her husband rarely worked. He spoke often of his native land.

The couple had three children and were expecting a fourth when Taha said it was time they traveled to the Middle East to visit his Palestinian relatives. It was 2001.

Taha's family lived in Rafah, a city on the border with Egypt from which Palestinian militants launched Qassam rockets into Israel.

Rogers was surprised to see that Taha's family appeared to be well off. They owned, he told her, Gaza's only cigarette patent. She was also not ready for what happened to her husband.

Taha was ultra-patriotic, she said, and passive to the will of his family who were hostile to the American in their home. After two weeks, Rogers said her kids were "breaking down." Her eldest son was suffering anxiety attacks. Her 2-year-old daughter had contracted dysentery.

When they arrived two weeks before, carpenters were building a third-floor addition to the family home. Taha told Rogers it was for his brother and his wife. But when the work was done, Taha told her the unit was where she would live.

Rogers was distressed and said she wanted the family to return home to the United States.

"He just laughed: 'You have no embassy here. You have no family. No one.' I was in shock," she said.

Her mother-in-law was the cruelest, she said, patrolling the downstairs so Rogers didn't escape. The children were called "Yehudi"(Jews) and bullied constantly at school. Her husband told her the children were his and that she was nothing but "a vessel."

"I did not exist as a person," she said.

There was worse to come. Rogers said Taha struck her and broke her jaw for not cleaning the refrigerator properly. And she was suspicious that her in-laws weren't just involved in cigarette trading.

They would have lengthy conversations with members of Hamas, the Palestinian terror group whose urban warfare tactics Rogers witnessed firsthand.

"The Palestinians would get inside a local school and start shooting from the windows," she said. "And the Israelis would just fire back. Then you'd see people holding up dead Palestinian kids."

When Rogers pleaded to move away from the perilous border with Israel, her father-in-law refused, claiming it would be an honor for them to be "martyred." It was soon clear the family was active in terror networks. Israeli aerial attacks were common.

"We could hear the helicopter coming a mile away: tick, tick, tick, tick," Rogers said. "Then it would drop the bomb."

Rogers' eldest son was injured by an Israeli tank shell. Her newborn son chewed holes in his feet because of the stress. One night, Taha and his nephew Yahya didn't return from a trip.

"On the BBC was a report that two Palestinians from Islamic Jihad had claimed an attack and a young man and his wife were dead," said Rogers. "My sister-in-law came up the stairs crying happily, saying that Yahya was now a martyr and in heaven. I had to get out."

On a trip to Gaza City to meet a family friend, Rogers slipped away while the men were at afternoon prayers. In her burka, she had heard that illegal taxis brought people from Gaza to Israel and pleaded with a local store owner to call her one.

"I asked the cab driver how long it took to Erez and he said half an hour. I said, 'If you can make it in 15 minutes, you can have every bit of gold I have.' He got me to the border."

Rogers said that speaking about her life in Palestine helps ease the pain. But it will be a long time until she recovers. "I try to take the positives from everything," she said. "I meet good people and everything makes me grateful."

"My kids are smart, funny, you'd never have guessed what they went through," she added. "I tell them that it was a bad thing but that it was given to them for a reason. They can make their lives count."

This is not such an unusual story.

There are organizations in Israel that try to help Jewish women who were similarly seduced and then abused by their Muslim husbands, and to warn girls about the dangers before they fall in the trap.. There are unfortunately scores of cases of girls who fall for their charming Arab paramours, who then turn into monsters as soon as they marry them.

And wouldn't you know it - the Israel haters regard the people who try to save these women as "racists."

Human rights of women are far less important to these hypocrites than being able to label Israeli Jews as evil.

(h/t MtTB)

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In the 19th century, the third holiest mosque in Islam was....The Mosque of Quba.

According to A Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopædia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs, Together with the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan Religion by Thomas Patrick Hughes (1885):

MASJIDU 'T-TAQWA. Lit. "The Mosque of Piety." The mosque at Quba', a place about three miles south-east of al-Madinah. It was here that it is said that the Prophet's camel, alQaswa rested on its way from Makkah to alMadinah, on the occasion of the Flight. And when Muhammad desired the Companions to mount the camel, Abu Bakr and • Umar did so, but she still remained on the ground; but when 'Ali obeyed the order, she arose. Here the Prophet decided to erect a place for prayer. It was the first mosque erected in Islam. Muhammad laid the first brick, and with an iron javelin marked out the direction for prayer. The Prophet, during his residence at al-Madinah, used to visit it once a week on foot, and he always made a point of praying there the morning prayer on the 17th of Ramazan. A prayer in the mosque of Quba' is said to be equal in merit to a Lesser Pilgrimage to Makkah, and the place itself bears rank after the mosques of Makkah and alMadinah and before that of Jerusalem. It was originally a square building of very small size, but the Khalifah 'Usman enlarged it. Sultan 'Abdu '1-Hamid rebuilt the place, but it has no pretensions to grandeur. (See Burton's Pilgrimage, vol. i. p. 890;)

The encyclopedia dedicates the following amount of space to these important mosques:

Mosque L' Haram (Mecca) - 21 columns
Mosque N' Nabi (Medina) - 5 columns
Mosque T-Taqwa (Quba) - 1/2 column
Mosque Al Aqsa (Jerusalem) - 1/3 column

It appears that the Al Aqsa Mosque was not considered the third holiest spot in Islam until the 20th century.

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11/04 Links Pt1: Fatah- Murderer is Palestinian "nation's symbol", Morsi- Egypt Crisis ‘serves Israel’

From Ian:

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Fatah: Murderer of two is Palestinian "nation's symbol"

Until he was released by Israel last week, murderer Issa Abd Rabbo was serving two life sentences for murdering two Israeli university students. Ron Levi and Revital Seri were hiking south of Jerusalem on Oct. 22, 1984, when Issa Abd Rabbo attacked them, tied them up at gun point and put bags over their heads. He then shot and murdered them both. He was released in October 2013 as one of 104 prisoners to be released by Israel, which was the PA's precondition for renewing negotiations.
The Fatah movement, headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas, sees this murderer as:

"One of our nation's symbols and one of our greatest leaders"

Guardian columnist compares Israel to an autistic child

So, to conclude, Fraser posits that Israel is not unlike a child – with arrested cognitive development – who doesn’t play well with others!
Of course, only someone suffering from the most pronounced political myopia could fail to acknowledge that it has been Israel’s neighbors – through 65 years of war, terrorism, antisemitic indoctrination, boycotts, and other forms of racist violence and exclusion – who have been guilty of “not playing nicely with others”.
Perhaps Fraser can write a follow-up post, psychoanalyzing Arabs (and Palestinian Arabs) who clearly prefer wallowing in their malign obsession with Israel (and their own sense of victimhood) than learning to accept (and benefit from) a normal relationship with the Jewish state.

BBC suggests failure to convene Syria peace conference will be Israel’s fault

Confusingly for readers, the BBC does not seem to be able to decide how many previous air strikes it wishes to attribute to Israel. Whilst in the body of the latest version of this article it is stated that “[t]his is believed to be sixth Israeli attack in Syria this year”, the side box by Kevin Connolly states that “[t]his is thought to be the fifth or sixth such attack this year”. Another side box cites four “[a]lleged Israeli strikes on Syria” whilst earlier versions of the article used the number three, which was also the number the BBC was citing two months ago.
That confusion is of course a symptom of the fact that the BBC has no concrete information to offer its audiences on this subject and so its reports are based entirely on hearsay and conjecture. Whatever the actual facts behind this incident, it is difficult to understand how such speculative reports can be claimed to conform to editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.

Netanyahu: Refusal to Recognize Israel as Jewish State ‘at the Root of the Conflict’

Marking the 96th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which recognized the right of the Jewish People to a homeland in then-British Mandate Palestine, Netanyahu reiterated the demand of his government that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as the Jewish state in any final status agreement between the two sides.
“In order for there to be peace between us and our Palestinian neighbors, they must recognize the right of the Jewish People to a state of its own in its homeland. This means that in a permanent agreement they will drop their national demands, including the right of return and any other national demand on the State of Israel,” he said.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has continually stated that the PA will not recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

Netanyahu: PA Creating Artificial Crisis'

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected the Palestinian Authority (PA) contention, that recent decisions on construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria contravene agreements reached at the outset of negotiations between Israel and the PA, three months ago.
He said that the Palestinians knew full well when the talks began that Israel acepts no limitations on construction beyond the “Green Line,” which demarcates Israel's 1949 armistice borders.

US 'Will Force' Israel-PA Deal

MK Zehava Galon (Meretz) was quoted as saying Monday that senior US officials told her the US offer would be presented in January of 2014. PA sources also cited January as the month in which the US intends to propose, or impose, its plan.
The US moves comes after three months of talks between the sides which have reportedly made very little headway.
The US plan reportedly is similar to the Clinton outline, offered by President Bill Clinton in late 2000, which is based on an Israeli retreat to 1949 Armistice lines, and some swaps of territory.

Hamas Gives No Credit to Abu Mazen for Prisoner Release

While Hamas is resolutely opposed to the ongoing talks with Israel, the movement has also advocated stridently on behalf of Palestinian prisoners and made their release a priority. It would therefore be expected that it would welcome the prisoners returning to Gaza, at the very least. This is especially true considering that each of those prisoners had been sentenced to decades in prison for terrorist attacks against Israelis. In other words, their deeds align well with the Hamas worldview.
But the returning prisoners were not welcomed with a festive ceremony. Instead, Hamas chose to ignore their return, and even worse, to hide it. Hamas TV, which broadcasts from Gaza, did not report on the prisoner release, Palestinian journalists were forbidden from going to the Erez crossing point to document the newly released prisoners’ return, and those same prisoners’ families were asked to “celebrate quietly and discreetly.” Once again, Hamas gave a very public sign of the enormous crisis it is facing as a movement.

Obama Should Free Pollard Immediately

In 1985, the U.S. government discovered Pollard’s actions. At the request of both the Israeli and American governments, Pollard entered into a plea bargain agreement. He cooperated fully with the prosecution and was never convicted of harming the United States, compromising American agents or committing treason (which is legally defined as spying for an enemy state). Pollard was merely charged with passing on classified information to an allied country on one occasion.
Even though the average sentence for spying for an allied country is merely several years, Pollard was given life imprisonment. For example, Abdul Khader Helmy, who spied for Egypt, served only four years in prison after passing on information that assisted Iraq with improving the accuracy of their ballistic missiles. Michael Schwartz, who spied for Saudi Arabia, never served a day in prison out of consideration for Saudi sensitivities. He was merely reprimanded and given a dishonorable discharge. There are many such examples.

IDF officer injured in tunnel blast regains consciousness

An engineering corps officer who was seriously wounded Thursday night in an encounter with gunmen in the Gaza Strip regained consciousness Sunday after intense efforts by doctors to save his life and his eyesight. Second Lieutenant Ahiyah Klein was taken off a respirator and was able to interact with his surroundings.
Klein was seriously injured when soldiers operating to destroy part of a tunnel east of Khan Younis, just inside the Gaza Strip, were targeted by Hamas. Five soldiers were wounded when an explosive device planted by Hamas detonated, the IDF said in a statement.

On Iran, a decisive two months

And they reason that if, at the end of those two months, the US and the other P5+1 countries have sealed or are closing in on the only deal that Iran would conceivably take — one that leaves the regime with enrichment capabilities, however constrained, and thus the capacity to attain nuclear weapons; precisely the type of “bad deal” that the US has promised it will not approve – any subsequent Israeli military intervention would constitute an act of open, all but untenable defiance of the entire, US-led international community.
In contrast to the United States approach, Jerusalem does consider that there is a military solution — a last-resort military solution, it must be stressed — to Iran’s nuclear weapons drive. No, Israel does not believe that it can destroy the rogue Iranian nuclear program once and for all. Rather, it is confident that it could, if all else failed, thwart the Iranians for now. And if and when the Iranians started up the program again, they could be thwarted, again. And again. And again.

Obama just paying ‘lip service’ on Iran military option, says top MK

When Netanyahu threatens the use of force if all else fails to stop Iran, said Hanegbi, “he’s not making empty threats.” By contrast, “When the speaker is [Secretary of State] Kerry or the White House spokesperson, or even the president and other people, you see that they’re just paying lip service.”
The Americans are full of “good intentions,” they have military systems prepared and deployed for tackling the Iranian nuclear program, and it’s clear that Obama understands that the way Iran’s rogue nuclear program is handled will be central to his legacy, Hanegbi told The Times of Israel. Nonetheless, he said, that did not guarantee that the US would show the necessary decisiveness in negotiations with the Iranians.

Chanting ‘death to America,’ Iran protesters rally against US

Such protests occur every year outside the former embassy compound to mark the anniversary of its 1979 takeover following the Islamic Revolution. A total of 52 US hostages were held for 444 days by a group of Iranian students who took control of the compound.
But Monday’s rally was the largest in years after calls by groups such as the Revolutionary Guard for a major showing, including chants of “death to America” that some of Rouhani’s backers have urged halted.

Iran Talks Move Ahead Despite N. Korea Cooperation

However, reports from the day before (Saturday) reveal that Iran has pledged to continue cooperation with North Korea on its nuclear missile program, bringing the validity of nuclear talks into question as anything more than a mechanism to buy time.
Sherman, the State Department's third-ranking official, said in an interview with Israeli television's Channel 10, that there is a "great deal of mistrust on both sides," reaffirming that President Barak Obama's position is to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Syrian opposition sets preconditions for Geneva talks

The US and Russia have been trying to bring the Damascus government and Syria’s divided opposition to the negotiating table for months, but the meeting has been repeatedly delayed.
The Western-backed Syrian National Coalition said Sunday that it will attend only if there was a clear time frame for Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power, adding that Iran’s presence at the conference was unacceptable.

Palestinians lose more than most in Syrian exodus

Palestinians Mahmoud and Ahmed fled Syria last month for Egypt, where they paid smugglers to bring them to Europe. Once at sea, they were robbed at knifepoint and herded onto an overloaded boat that sank, pitching over 100 into the sea.
The brothers made it back to shore while others drowned, then to be deported in days from a volatile Egypt where anti-Palestinian sentiment runs high. Now at the Lebanese camp of Ain al-Helweh, they face as Palestinians restrictions on their lives far more severe than any other refugees from Syria.

Russia Sends Most Powerful Ships to Mediterranean

On Saturday, Russian news agency RT reported that the "Varyag," flagship of Russia's Pacific Fleet, and "Pyotr Veliky" ("Peter the Great"), the nation's most powerful nuclear-powered battleship, were moved into the Mediterranean Sea.
The Varyag, which has been dubbed the "aircraft carrier killer," will perform a number of maneuvers, some in coordination with the Russian naval forces currently stationed on the Mediterranean.

Turkish president: Syria may become ‘Afghanistan on the Mediterranean’

Speaking to the British daily The Guardian, the Turkish president warned that the Syrian crisis posed a serious security threat to Turkey as well as to Europe, and lamented the disappointing response of the international community to the civil war taking place in the country.
“I don’t think anybody would tolerate the presence of something like Afghanistan on the shores of the Mediterranean. For that reason, the international community must have a very solid position with respect to Syria,” Gul told The Guardian.

Judge halts Morsi trial after protests by defiant ex-president

The trial will resume January 8, giving defense lawyers time to review documents.
Morsi told the court trying him for inciting violence and murder that he remains the “legitimate president” of the country.

Morsi says situation in Egypt ‘serves Israel’

“[Israel] does not have our best interests at heart at all,” Morsi said, according to transcripts of conversations published by the daily al-Watan Sunday, a day before his trial was set to begin. ”It’s possible that in time it may prove that they are behind the predicament we are in now. It’s possible, and I have no certain information to accuse anyone, that the situation serves Israel.”
In a separate excerpt, Morsi stated that “your children will pay the price” and later clarified that this statement was directed at “your children in the conflict between us and Israel,” in light of the strained relations between the two countries.

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Is Jordan the next victim of the "Arab Spring?"

From Ammon News:

Bordering the media headline-grabbing countries of Israel, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Jordan is sometimes overlooked because of its peace with Israel, its close alliance with the US and its relatively liberal socio-economic system.

However, the Hashemite kingdom is plagued by a number of economic and social problems that threaten to plunge Jordan into its own Arab Spring.

At its heart, the Arab Spring was about economics, being sparked by poor and desperate people unable to make ends meet. Many are wondering which country will be affected next.

In Jordan, over 70 per cent of the population is less than 30 years old.

The unofficial unemployment rate stands at one in three, and growing.

Jordan Employment Agency spokesperson Haithan Alkhasawni said: “It’s known that Jordan’s debt is getting higher when we compare it to people’s income. Also, we have the unemployment problem, it is very high.”

Unlike its attention-grabbing neighbours of Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Jordan has remained relatively peaceful, until now.

Its royal family is an absolute monarchy and many people are afraid to speak out against the kingdom.

Israeli political analyst Ron Pundak said: "Jordan is more democratic than many others and the freedom of speech is… relatively not so bad, but it is still not an open liberal Western society.”

At the moment, Jordan is at peace with Israel.

It also enjoys a close alliance with the US and has a relatively liberal socio-economic system which explains why the country is so often overlooked by the media.

However, that doesn't mean Jordan has been left untouched.

Two and a half years ago, Jordanians went to the streets to protest.

They were concerned about rising prices and inflation and wanted limits placed on King Abdullah's powers.

However, things are reaching a head, with the unrest in Syria creating a humanitarian disaster for the kingdom of six million people.

More than half a million Syrian refugees now live in Jordan -- accounting for about 10 per cent of the population.

The Za'atri refugee camp in northern Jordan -- which houses Syrian refugees -- is now Jordan's fourth largest city.

As things heat up on its other borders, Jordan needs all the friends it can get and its western neighbour, Israel, is only more than happy to oblige. However, Amman's friendship with Tel Aviv makes Jordan unpopular with many in the Arab world.

Jordanians are hoping that in a region that has seen its own fair share of drama, their country does not join the circus.

They hope that it would not have to take an Arab Spring to get their government to sit up and listen.

The article ignores the role that Islamists play in Arab turmoil. Jordan has an active Muslim Brotherhood which is itching to ignite protests that it can parlay into political leadership.

It also ignores the fact that peace with Israel - even though it does benefit Jordan both directly and indirectly - is unpopular among the antisemitic Jordanians (only 2% of Jordanians had a favorable impression of Jews in 2011.)

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Questions no one is asking about Hamas' textbooks

The NYT reports:

When a class of Palestinian ninth graders in Gaza recently discussed the deadly 1929 riots over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, it was guided by a new textbook, introduced this fall by the Islamist Hamas movement.

Asked the lesson of the uprising, one of the 40 boys in class promptly answered, “Al Buraq Wall is an Islamic property,” using the Muslim name for the site, one of the holiest in Judaism. Pleased, the teacher then inquired whether the students would boycott Israeli products, as Arabs had boycotted Jewish businesses in 1929. A resounding chorus of “Yes!” came back from the class.

For the first time since taking control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the Hamas movement is deviating from the approved Palestinian Authority curriculum, using the new texts as part of a broader push to infuse the next generation with its militant ideology.

Among other points, the books, used by 55,000 children in the eighth, ninth and 10th grades as part of a required “national education” course of study in government schools, do not recognize modern Israel, or even mention the Oslo Peace Accords the country signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1990s.

...What Gaza teenagers are reading in their 50-page hardcover texts this fall includes references to the Jewish Torah and Talmud as “fabricated,” and a description of Zionism as a racist movement whose goals include driving Arabs out of all of the area between the Nile in Africa and the Euphrates in Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

“Palestine,” in turn, is defined as a state for Muslims stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. A list of Palestinian cities includes Haifa, Beersheba and Acre — all within Israel’s 1948 borders. And the books rebut Jewish historical claims to the territory by saying, “The Jews and the Zionist movement are not related to Israel, because the sons of Israel are a nation which had been annihilated.”

People are acting shocked. Jeffrey Goldberg tweeted "It seems as if Hamas's "anti-Zionism" is actually plain old anti-Semitism. Not that we didn't know that already." and "Children in Gaza are being taught that the Western Wall is Muslim and that the Torah is 'fabricated.'"

Yet the moderate, peace-loving PA has officially stated that the Western Wall is Islamic and has no holiness to Jews as well.

Official PA media  refers to Israeli cities as "Palestinian" all the time, as do PA textbooks.

And it isn't Hamas saying that the Torah is "fabricated" - it is a mainstream  Islamic opinion. That is how, for example, Islam can celebrate Abraham's sacrifice of Ishmael instead of Isaac - they claim, as doctrine, that the Torah text was corrupted. If Goldberg is honest, he would notice that Islam is antisemitic, not just Hamas.

So what's the difference between what Hamas is saying in textbooks now and what the PA and indeed all Muslim countries tell their people all the time?

It's easy to marginalize Hamas for its opinions of Jews and Israel, but when the PA's viewpoints are virtually identical, isn't that a bigger story?

Finally, the question I asked in May when I first reported this story - since UNRWA policy is to use the textbooks of its host country, will it start using Hamas textbooks in its schools? UNWRA schools in Gaza already teach jihad, so it is hardly a stretch.

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"Turkey and Iran cooperate well on intelligence"

From Hurriyet Daily News:

The intelligence cooperation between Turkey and Iran is in a “very, very good state,” according to the Iranian Ambassador Alireza Bigdeli.

Speaking to the daily Hürriyet, Bigdeli said the intelligence cooperation between the two countries were at a level that should be between strong neighbors and brothers, which bothered Western powers, as well as Israeli authorities.

“Why do they not like it when Turkish and Iranian intelligence agencies cooperate? They expect Turkey to have good cooperation with MOSSAD or CIA. There is that side to it. Turkish and Iranian agencies always have cooperation, and they should have so, and they will have so. It is normal between neighbors to have that, but they treat it with doubt,” Bigdeli said.

When asked about the recent claims of Turkey handing over Israeli spies to Iranian authorities, Bigdeli did not go into details, and just said, “I’ve been here for only seven months. The claims in that story go back a year. I have no information regarding them.”

Bigdeli said Iranian-Turkish relations contained many levels and dimensions, and to assume a rift on Syria’s policies would cause a rift between the countries would be wrong.

“Unlike what is assumed by others, the relations between the two countries are so deep that an issue like Syria cannot have that great of an impact. If it had been two other countries that experienced the last few months, they could have gone through serious crises. But the warmth between us has never gone away,” Bigdeli said.

Clearly the interview was meant to tweak Israel over the reports that Turkey exposed 10 spies for Israel in Iran.

This interview could boomerang on Turkey though and give the West even less reason to trust that country.

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Three Palestinian Arabs killed planting explosive devices. In Egypt.

DPA reports (according to Al Ayam) that an Egyptian security source said three Palestinians were shot dead by the Egyptian army on the road to Rafah, in Sheikh Zuaid.

The source said troops spotted three Palestinians planting explosive devices and tried to arrest them but they fled, Egyptian security fired at them and killed them.

Now, late last week Israel killed several Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and it made worldwide headlines. This story, as of this writing, has not even been reported in English yet. No one is complaining about "disproportionate force" or speaking of the Palestinian Arab "right of resistance" against the country that is besieging them.

Keep in mind that Egypt has a complete blockade of the media in the Sinai, so any stories of clashes such as these and especially of civilian casualties and home demolitions are sparse and hard to verify. And, let's face it - "human rights" organizations find it is much easier to file reports from Israel than from Egypt, which is actually dangerous and where they can lose their NGO accreditation in an instant if Egyptian authorities dislike what they say.

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Work accident!

Hamas Al Qassam Brigades member Mohammed Telbani was killed Sunday on a "jihadist mission."

Palestine Today says that he died inside a "resistance tunnel" in the central Gaza Strip.

Hamas, of course, is calling him a "martyr."

I haven't yet seen any UN report blaming Israel for the many people who manage to off themselves in so-called "work accidents," but I'm sure that Richard Falk is working on it right now.

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Iranian business selling US, Israeli flags to be burned and trampled

An Iranian holiday is coming up; the anniversary of the hostage-taking at the US embassy, known as the national Day Against Global Arrogance. On this day, traditionally, Iranians go into the streets and burn US and Israeli flags.

This shop in Tehran is selling Israeli and US flags for the occasion, with a sign saying they are meant for "setting on fire and trampling."

As this classic, and hilarious, video shows, the idea is not original.




(h/t Golnaz)

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Tunisia banned from Davis Cup tennis next year over refusal to play Israel

From BBC:

Tunisia has been suspended from the Davis Cup tennis tournament after Tunisian player Malek Jaziri was ordered not to compete against an Israeli opponent last month.

The International Tennis Federation said there was no room for prejudice in sport and the one-year ban was a "fitting penalty".

Jaziri withdrew from the Tashkent Challenger last month ahead of a match against Amir Weintraub.

He was cleared of wrongdoing.

Officials found Jaziri - who had claimed to be suffering from a knee injury - had been ordered to pull out of the match.

The ITF board voted unanimously to suspend the Tunisian Tennis Federation for one year from the Davis Cup, one of the most important tournaments in men's tennis.

"There is no room for prejudice of any kind in sport or in society. The ITF Board decided to send a strong message to the Tunisian Tennis Federation that this kind of action will not be tolerated by any of our members," said ITF president Francesco Ricci Bitti.

Jaziri himself seems to have been against dropping out of the match:

The brother and manager of Tunisian tennis star Malek Jaziri on Monday slammed as ‘shocking’ the political pressure to boycott a match with Israel’s Amir Weintraub from the authorities back home. This decision is “shocking, because it brings politics into sport ... We are totally against that. And Malek is the first victim, because tennis is his career, his bread-winner,” Amir Jaziri told AFP. “To be clear, Malek pulled out for sporting reasons, because he was injured. He did his warm up, something was wrong and the doctor found that his knee was swollen,” he said.

When Jaziri withdrew from Friday’s match against Weintraub, in the quarterfinal of the Challenger tournament in Tashkent, he also cited knee problems. “‘After the meeting at the ministry of youth and sports with Riadh Azaiez, I regret to inform you that you cannot play,’” Amir, said quoting the email, and referring to the director of the country’s sporting elite at the ministry.

Both Jaziri, who is currently ranked world number 169, and Weintraub are members of the same top-flight tennis club in France – Sarcelles Tennis – north of Paris and have known each other for years through their sport. Contacted by AFP, the club’s president Jonathan Chaouat said Jaziri was in fact the reason for Weintraub’s recruitment by the club. The 29-year-old Tunisian, who has declined to talk to the press since withdrawing from the tournament in Tashkent, could have risen to 135th had he won.

The ministry insisted that it had nothing to do with the order instructing him not to play, stressing that the decision came from the tennis federation. Amir said he didn’t know whether his brother would have played the match if he hadn’t been suffering from a knee injury. But he said he failed to understand how such an order could be given after Malek had already played Weintraub and “Tunisia has played Israel in the 2009 Fed Cup.”

Last April, the sports ministry recalled the national Taekwondo team after it met Israeli sportsmen at a competition in Belgium. “The ministry ordered an immediate inquiry because of the encounter between members of the national Taekwondo team and the Israeli team in an international competition abroad, without consulting the relevant authorities,” the ministry said at the time. But it never announced the result of the inquiry. The Tunisian authorities have never officially banned sporting encounters with Israeli nationals, and since Jaziri’s decision to withdraw from the tennis tournament in Uzbekistan no such directive has been made public.

Jaziri's Facebook page has many comments of "bravo" although the context is not clear.

It is nice to see a sports federation do the right thing.

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Birthwashing

To Israel-haters, this is worse than Birthright.

From Ha'aretz:

For the first time since casualties of the civil war in Syria began receiving treatment in Israel, a Syrian woman gave birth to a baby in an Israeli hospital.

The baby was born on Sunday morning at the Ziv Medical Center in Safed to a 20-year-old first-time-mother. The woman was taken to the hospital by Israel Defense Forces soldiers during the night while she was in labor.

According to the hospital, this is the first time an Israeli hospital delivered a Syrian baby. Until now, Israeli hospitals have only treated Syrians wounded in the fighting. The staff said the mother told them that she lives in the Quneitra region, which is under closure, and that she didn't have access to the local hospital located nearby.

"There are no midwifes in the village and there was no one to deliver my baby," she said. "I'm a nurse by profession and I knew that wounded Syrians were treated in Israel, so when I felt that the labor was starting I asked to be quickly taken to the border in hope that the Israeli army will let me get help with the birth. Happily, the Israeli military drove by and saw that I was in great pain, they picked me up and took me to a hospital in Israel."

"I was wary of going to Israel, but I was more concerned for the wellbeing of the child in case there were complications while giving birth at home. The staff of midwives and doctors treated me with respect and sensitivity, and the birth went smoothly. I really don't feel like I'm in an enemy country, everyone is helping me and caring for me."

YNet adds:

"We've been eating mainly rice for a while, as a result of the blockade. It's the first time in a long time that I've been eating meat and vegetables. I feel better and I'm relieved; I'm eating and growing stronger and my sweet baby is getting great care."

OK, haters, breathe deeply and repeat to yourselves, "They're only doing this to distract the world from occupation. They're only doing this to distract the world from occupation. They're only doing this to distract the world from occupation."

After a few hours, you will believe it enough to start writing that on message boards.

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