Now, that's entertainment!
I think Jerry Springer might be able to resurrect his career in Iraq!
I think Jerry Springer might be able to resurrect his career in Iraq!
(h/t John Podhoretz - and Ian)
The immense value of moonbat art
Palestine News Network has an article about a mural painted in a Gaza camp:
More interesting, though, was part of an interview where she asks the Director of the Public Relations Department at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program a very good question:
How concretely do you think this and similar projects can help people in Gaza in rebuilding their communities?
Indeed - how do these art projects really help Gazans who are supposedly suffering so much? Why is a giant mural in a camp a wonderful thing for people who are under "siege"?
The answer:
It doesn't really help Gazans, you see. It helps the world hate Israel, which makes the Gazans feel good and their mental health will therefore improve because they know other people hate Israel as much as they do. Then more Westerners can tattoo "Resistance" on their biceps and really make a difference!
It is the circle of death wrapped up in pseudo-art. Very progressive!
The Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project is an initiative co-produced by The Rachel Corrie Foundation and Breaking the Silence Mural Project, along with co-sponsors The Middle East Children’s Alliance, the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and the International Trauma Treatment Program.The anti-Israel activist who wrote this story for PNN, Alessandra Bajec, is now claiming that every single Arab killed in Cast Lead was a civilian. They love to deny that Gaza is run by a well-armed, Iranian trained terror group, and that more than half of those killed in Cast Lead were in fact terrorists. Nope - to these moonbats, they are all "civilians."
The mural is a community building memorial honouring all those who have lost their lives in struggle and those who are resisting oppression. Inspired by the killing of Rachel Corrie, the mural tells a tale of two cities linked through tragedy, Olympia, Washington and Rafah, Palestine. The overall purpose of the project is to increase the strength and visibility of the global solidarity movement for social justice across the world through the use of art, culture and technology.
‘Freedom Tree', the first of A Tale of Two Cities- Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project in Gaza, was inaugurated last January 16th. Located in the Afaq Jadeeda (New Horizons) Association of Nuseirat Refugee Camp, the mural was painted by the staff of New Horizons and facilitated by Susan Greene.
Facing the deaths of more than 1400 civilians, destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure after Israel’s large-scale military offensive (December 2008- January 2009), Palestinians in Gaza are finding ways of continuing to cope with trauma and rebuilding their communities.
More interesting, though, was part of an interview where she asks the Director of the Public Relations Department at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program a very good question:
How concretely do you think this and similar projects can help people in Gaza in rebuilding their communities?
Indeed - how do these art projects really help Gazans who are supposedly suffering so much? Why is a giant mural in a camp a wonderful thing for people who are under "siege"?
The answer:
Such projects are very important, as I said, to show solidarity with Palestinians, to make people aware and expose the human rights violations that Palestinians endure. Once people in the world get to know about the Palestinian people, see what their life looks like…that will encourage more solidarity and advocacy, will help build our community and fundraise for our projects. So this is a really important project, definitely valuable in this respect.So this project helps make people aware of supposed Israeli crimes (like killing over 1400 mythical civilians) so those people can hate Israel and give money for more similar projects, so more people can become aware of Israeli crimes and hate Israel!
It doesn't really help Gazans, you see. It helps the world hate Israel, which makes the Gazans feel good and their mental health will therefore improve because they know other people hate Israel as much as they do. Then more Westerners can tattoo "Resistance" on their biceps and really make a difference!
It is the circle of death wrapped up in pseudo-art. Very progressive!
Interview with IDF ethicist
The Jerusalem Post has a very long, but worthwhile, interview with the man who helped draft the IDF's ethical codes, Asa Kasher. Excerpts:
Once again, it is illuminating to compare an interview like this to the facile condemnations that come from the media and "human rights" organizations who automatically assume that civilians die because of IDF mendacity. This shows that Israel is light years ahead of the pontificating accusers, both in knowledge of what has to be done and, yes, in morality.
Our responsibility is to maintain our moral standards. That’s a very important starting point because in matters of war it can sometimes get blurred. People are always talking about factors like international law, public opinion, the Western world – that is, outside factors that we’re supposed to match up to. No, I say we have to uphold our own standards.It is amazing how much a country under constant threat worries about how to minimize harm to those who support its destruction. And as Kasher said, it is not to impress the BBC or HRW, but to uphold Israeli society's own moral standards.
What are those standards?
We take decisions that reflect our acceptance of some aspects of international law; other parts, we have not accepted. The prime question, in these fields of morals and ethics, is what I see when I look in the mirror – not when I watch the BBC.
When the enemy becomes more ruthless and harsher than it was in the past, then we have to protect ourselves in smarter and different ways, but still according to the standards that we have set for ourselves.
You can use the analogy of a police officer at a bank robbery. If he sees that the robber is holding a toy gun, he won’t shoot him. He’ll simply catch him. But if it’s a real gun, and the robber has already killed hostages and he’s about to kill more, and the only way to stop him and save the hostages is to shoot him, the policeman will shoot him.
That robber’s actions have required me to protect myself from him via harsher measures. It’s not a case of: he’ll shoot so I’ll shoot, or he’ll do terrible things so I’ll also do terrible things, or he doesn’t care about killing hostages so I won’t care about killing robbers. That’s absolutely not the point at all. He doesn’t care about killing hostages, but I do care: I don’t want to kill him unless there’s truly no alternative.
This robber is threatening people’s lives, so we will shoot him if there is no other alternative. If we can catch him without firing on him at all, excellent. If we can catch him by injuring him, without killing him, excellent. If there’s no alternative, it’s a tragedy to hit him, but that’s what has to be done.
And that broadly is what is happening with our enemies today. If our enemy would fight on the battlefield, on open ground, in uniform, carrying his weapons openly, then it would be a case of an army facing off against a force that behaved like an army, and children and other non-dangerous people would not get hurt. But the enemy has changed the way it fights. So we have no choice. We have to protect ourselves as necessary.
Now there’s a basis to what we have to do: We are a democratic state. And that means two things. One, we are obligated to effectively protect our citizens from all danger. So we have a police force, to protect against crime. A Health Ministry, to protect against medical dangers. A Transportation Ministry, against the dangers on the roads. And we have a Defense Ministry, to protect us against the dangers our enemies represent.
The state cannot evade this obligation. It can’t say, “I am busy, I have more important things to do.” There is nothing more important than protecting citizens’ lives. Nothing.
A democratic state wants to deal with all kinds of other things, all kinds of agreements, citizens’ rights, elections, free media and so on. Okay, fine. But to enjoy all or any of that, you have to be alive. Before you get to any of that, to protect any of that, you have to protect my life. A state is obligated to ensure effective protection of its citizens’ lives. In fact, it’s more than just life. It is an obligation to ensure the citizens’ well-being and their capacity to go about their lives. A citizen of a state must be able to live normally. To send the kids to school in the morning. To go shopping. To go to work. To go out in the evening. A routine way of life. Nothing extraordinary. The state is obliged to protect that.
At the same time, the moral foundation of a democratic state is respect for human dignity. Human dignity must be respected in all circumstances. And to respect human dignity in all circumstances means, among other things, to be sensitive to human life in all circumstances. Not just the lives of the citizens of your state. Everybody.
This applies even in our interactions with terrorists. I am respecting the terrorist’s dignity when I ask myself, “Do I have to kill him or can I stop him without killing him?”
And I certainly have to respect the human dignity of the terrorists’ nondangerous neighbors – who are not a threat. We always talk about “innocents,” but “innocence” is not the issue here. The issue here is whether they are dangerous. So the correct translation is “non-dangerous.”
As in, non-threatening?
Yes, that’s the significance. If they are “not dangerous,” that means I don’t have even the beginning of a moral right to harm them deliberately.
Okay, so that’s some of the theory. Now relate that to Operation Cast Lead.
Fine. We have to protect our citizens and we have to respect human dignity. But when it comes to a war like Operation Cast Lead, those two imperatives are likely to clash. I am obligated to protect my citizens, but I have no way to protect them without the non-dangerous neighbors of the terrorists becoming caught up in the conflict. What am I to do?
Two things: First, you decide what is more important in the given situation. And second, you do whatever you can so that the damage to the other side is as small as possible: Maximizing effective defense of the citizens; minimizing collateral damage.
How do I decide which of the conflicting imperatives is more important? People don’t like this idea, because they don’t understand it: They think it is immoral to give priority to the defense of the citizens of your state over the protection of the lives of the neighbors of the terrorists. They don’t understand that the world is built in such a way that responsibility is divided.
Please elaborate.
We are responsible for the residents of the State of Israel. Canada is responsible for the residents of Canada. Australia, for Australia. And that’s just fine. We are not responsible for the lives of Canadians in the same way as we are for the lives of Israelis and vice versa. This is completely accepted and completely moral and no one questions this. We don’t have one world government that is responsible for everything. We have states with their own responsibilities.
Now from this stems the fact that when you have clash of imperatives, this responsibility for one’s own citizens takes precedence over the other responsibility to the non-dangerous neighbors. This isn’t anything to do with us being Israel, or Jews. The same applies to the United States or to Canada or to any other country.
I cannot evade my prime responsibility to protect the well-being of the citizens of my country. Now, among all the means I could use to protect them, I will choose those that are better morally – better from the point of view of the effectiveness of the protection and the minimalization of the damage to the neighbors of the terrorists.
And what do we do to minimize the harm done to the neighbors of the terrorists?
We can’t separate the terrorist from his neighbors. We can’t force the terrorists to move away, because they don’t want to move away. That’s their whole strategy: To be there. The Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, they want to work from within. The terrorists have erased the difference between combatants and non-combatants.
They live in residential areas. They operate from within residential areas. They attack civilians. And they won’t leave when I tell them to leave. No one has the power to move them from where they are without conquering the entire area, which requires special justifications.
But if we can’t force the terrorist out, we can make the effort to move his neighbors. He won’t move away from his neighbors, but maybe his neighbors will move away from him. And experience shows that this kind of effort succeeds. That is, very many non-dangerous neighbors do move away from terrorists if they are warned.
So Israel, the IDF, carries out very intensive warning operations. Unprecedented. There are those who don’t like the term, “the most moral army in the world.” I think it’s a very complex phrase, and one has to make all kinds of professional diagnoses. You can’t just blithely invoke it. But let’s look at that claim in this particular context.
Who tries harder than we do to warn the neighbors [to leave a conflict zone]? Who does it better than we do? I don’t know if the public realizes this, but we recently carried out precisely such an act of warning – by publishing a map of Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon. Israel released details of hundreds of villages where Hezbollah has a position deep inside the village. From there, they’ll fire on us if and when they want to, and we will have to protect ourselves. That means we’ll have to fire into the village.
The publication of this map is a warning: We know, it says, that Hezbollah is intertwining its terrorists with non-dangerous neighbors. Understand that to protect ourselves in this situation will mean endangering the populace. The populace has to know that it is in a dangerous situation.
What to do in this dangerous situation? We don’t know. We’re telling those non-dangerous neighbors to give it some thought. Try to kick out Hezbollah? That is apparently very difficult. Move away from the Hezbollah position? Perhaps that is possible. Get away when the time comes? That may sound theoretical at present, but when the time comes, who knows? The fact is, this is an advance warning.
Now let’s come to Operation Cast Lead in this context. We distributed leaflets [to Gaza civilians, telling them that they should leave a potential conflict zone]. It may be that we can do that better – distribute better leaflets, more detailed, with more precise guidance on how to get away. We broke into their radio and TV broadcasts to give them announcements, to warn them. That can be done still more effectively.
We made phone calls to 160,000 phone numbers. No one in the world has ever done anything like that, ever. And it’s clear why that is effective. It’s not a piece of paper that was dropped in my neighborhood. The phone rang in my own pocket! Yes, it was a recorded message, because it’s impossible to make personal calls on that scale. But still, this was my number they dialed. It was a warning directed personally to me, not some kind of general warning.
And finally, we had the “tap on the roof” approach. The IDF used nonlethal weaponry, fired onto the roofs [of buildings being used by terrorists]. That weaponry makes a lot of noise. It constituted a very strong, noisy hint: We’re close, but you still have the chance to get out.
What we don’t use is nohal shachen (the “neighbor protocol”). I recently read comments by a British general, a commander in Afghanistan...
Gen. Richard Kemp?
No, this was someone else, saying at a press conference, how moral his forces are. And then he described their policy, which was nohal shachen, as the symbol of the morality of British soldiers.
What did he say, specifically, that they do?
He said that when they are facing a terrorist hiding out in a building with non-dangerous neighbors, they make one of the neighbors telephone or speak through a loudspeaker to the Taliban terrorist who is in this building, and say that rather than killing him and the neighbors and destroying the house, he should surrender and that he’ll be taken away with various guarantees. This British commander was very proud of this ostensibly humane procedure – a procedure that the courts here forbid us to do. We don’t do it.
We issue warnings in an unprecedented way – not one warning, but many. We make enormous efforts to get the neighbors away from the terrorists.
Now there’s one more thing that maybe we could do, and there’s an argument surrounding it: send soldiers into the building. Send in soldiers to check that maybe someone has stayed. I am against this. Very against this.
So there’s a difference between what we did in Jenin [during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, where 13 soldiers were killed in an ambush] and what we did in Gaza?
Yes, we changed our approach. The approach is more appropriate now. I think what we did in Jenin was a mistake. There was a primitive conception that “it’s all right to endanger soldiers.” Every time there was a dilemma like this – soldiers here and non-soldiers on the other side – the soldiers were endangered.
Why was that wrong?
You need, to a certain limit, to warn the people to get out. At a certain point, the warnings are over and there are two possibilities. That people have stayed because they don’t want to leave or because they can’t leave. If they can’t leave, despite all the warnings, despite the possibilities to get them out, even to send ambulances to get them out, that’s interesting to me, and we’ll come back to that.
But if a neighbor doesn’t want to leave, he turns himself into the human shield of the terrorist. He has become part of the war. And I’m sorry, but I may have to harm him when I try to stop the terrorist. I’ll do my best not to. But it may be that in the absence of all other alternatives, I may hurt him. I certainly don’t see a good reason to endanger the lives of soldiers in a case like that.
Sometimes people don’t understand this. They think of soldiers as, well, instruments. They think that soldiers are there to be put into danger, that soldiers are there to take risks, that this is their world, this is their profession. But that is so far from the reality in Israel, where most of the soldiers are in the IDF because service is mandatory and reserve service is mandatory. Even with a standing army, you have to take moral considerations into account. But that is obviously the case when service is compulsory: I, the state, sent them into battle. I, the state, took them out of their homes. Instead of him going to university or going to work, I put a uniform on him, I trained him, and I dispatched him. If I am going to endanger him, I owe him a very, very good answer as to why. After all, as I said, this is a democratic state that is obligated to protect its citizens. How dare I endanger him?
Once again, it is illuminating to compare an interview like this to the facile condemnations that come from the media and "human rights" organizations who automatically assume that civilians die because of IDF mendacity. This shows that Israel is light years ahead of the pontificating accusers, both in knowledge of what has to be done and, yes, in morality.
38 reported killed in Syria protests today (UPDATE: 68)
Ha'aretz writes:
Al-Arabiya in Arabic says that the number of deaths is at 38. AFP echoes that number.
Before today, some 228 people had been killed in the anti-regime protests in Syria.
UPDATE: Al Arabiya says 68.
Security forces shot dead at least 25 pro-democracy protesters in Syria on Friday, human rights campaigners said, as protesters flooded into the streets after prayers in at least five major areas across the country.
The protesters were killed in suburbs and towns surrounding Damascus, in the central city of Homs and in the southern town of Izra'a, two established Syrian human rights organisations keeping a tally of civilian deaths told Reuters.
Syrian security forces fired live bullets and tear gas at the tens of thousands of people shouting for freedom and democracy.
"The people want the downfall of the regime!" shouted protesters in Douma, a Damascus suburb where some 40,000 people took to the streets, witnesses said.
It is the same rallying cry that was heard during the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
Al-Arabiya in Arabic says that the number of deaths is at 38. AFP echoes that number.
Before today, some 228 people had been killed in the anti-regime protests in Syria.
UPDATE: Al Arabiya says 68.
The Muslim basketball star and the chief rabbi
From YNet:
(h/t JB)
American basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will visit Israel in July and meet with Rabbi Israel Meir Lau to discuss a film that he is making about World War II, the rabbi said recently.Rabbi Lau was the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1993-2003.
The film is based on the book "Brothers in Arms", which Abdul-Jabbar co-authored and deals with the American troops who liberated Nazi concentration camps in the end of World War II. Abdul-Jabbar's own father served on the 761st Tank Battalion, which liberated the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany.
Among the Jews rescued from the camp were two children: Rabbi Lau and his brother, Naftali Lavie. Abdul-Jabbar and Lau met for the first time 14 years ago, during the former's first visit to Israel.
"The fact that such a famous basketball player, and a Muslim, is about to attach himself to the Holocaust issue is very exciting," he said. "I will certainly give my blessing to this initiative."
The retired athlete will arrive early in July as a guest of the Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Consulate in New York, and will participate in the Jerusalem Film Festival, where he will present the basketball documentary that he produced, "On the Shoulders of Giants."
Lau said that Abdul-Jabbar's father, Ferdinand L. Alcindor, had a dying wish: "That his son visit Israel, and meet the little boy that he rescued from Buchenwald and turned into a prominent rabbi."
Lau said he clearly remembers how an African American solider came up to him during the liberation, picked him up, and told the residents of the German city of Weimer: "Look at this sweet kid, he isn't even eight yet. This was your enemy, he threatened the Third Reich. He is the one against whom you waged war, and murdered millions like him."
Decades later, Lau said, his rescuer's son found him.
(h/t JB)
Fogel family murderers arrested. They don't look Thai to me.
From JPost:
So there were two fences between 'Awarta and Itamar; they cut one and climbed the second.
None of them will retract their lies, of course.
Ha'aretz adds more details, slightly at odds with JPost's:The IDF Spokesperson on Sunday confirmed the arrest of two Palestinians, one a minor, from Awarta, in the March murder of five Fogel family members in their home in the Itamar settlement. The arrest was a joint IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) operation.
The suspects committed the crime for nationalistic reasons, and according to Army Radio, admitted to the crime without expressing remorse. Six others have been remanded on suspicion of involvement in the murders.
According to Shin Bet findings, the two teens, 18-year-old Hakem Awwad and 19-year-old Amjad Awwad, carried out the crime based on their own convictions and without direction by any specific political or terrorist organization.
On the Friday of the murders, the two reportedly met at 3:00 p.m. and planned to carry out the murder. At 9:00 p.m. they met again, equipped with knives, and broke into the Itamar settlement. The two broke into one home, which was empty, and stole an M16 rifle. Afterward, they went to the Fogel family home.
The teenage suspects proceeded to murder two of the children by stabbing, and then entered the parents' bedroom. Udi and Ruti Fogel awoke to the murderers' presence, and began to struggle with them. In the end, the suspects gained control and murdered them as well.
The two then left the house. One of the suspects returned and murdered the three-month-old baby Hadas, taking an M16 from the house.
According to Israel Radio, Amjad said that he was unaware that there were two other children in the house, and that if he knew, he would have stabbed them as well.
Following the incident, the two suspects involved five others, mostly relatives, to help cover up their crime. Hakem's uncle, Saleh, reportedly hid the knives, burned their clothing from the night of the murders, and brought the stolen weapons to Ramallah resident Jad Obeid.
The two suspects, who are unrelated to one another, were identified as members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine along with several members of their family.
Shin Bet investigators have at this point not identified the murder as being carried out under the auspices of the Popular Front organization. According to what is currently known, the murders were carried out independently by the two suspects.
According to the investigation, it took the suspects about ten minutes to cut the fence which separates the settlement of Itamar from the Palestinian village of Awarta. They climbed the security barrier at the settlement unnoticed and walked about 400 meters into the settlement. Once inside the settlement, they broke into an empty home and stole an M-16 rifle, a weapons cartridge, a vest and a helmet before proceeding to the Fogel family's home.
So there were two fences between 'Awarta and Itamar; they cut one and climbed the second.
Before entering the house, the suspects noticed Yoav and Elad Fogel in the home's window. Yoav and Elad were the first to be stabbed after the suspect entered the home. The suspects then entered the parents' room. Ehud and Ruth tried to fight off the attackers, but were eventually overcome and stabbed to death. Ruth was also shot, but due to the weather at the time of the murder, the gunshots were not heard. The suspects fled the home, fearing that the gunshots had been heard.There have been many articles since the murders by anti-Israel writers saying that Jews had killed the Fogels, or foreign workers in the settlements (there were none,) or that the IDF was unfairly searching the village of 'Awarta without any evidence.
Outside of the home, the suspects realized that their gunshots had gone unnoticed and they had not yet been discovered. Amjad Awad subsequently reentered the home in order to steal an additional M-16 rifle that was there. Back inside the parents' room, Awad noticed three-month-old Hadas and stabbed her to death. While leaving the home once more, the suspect noticed that there were more children but apparently figured that he was running out of time. The lives of Roi Fogel, 8, and Yishai Fogel, 2, were spared.
None of them will retract their lies, of course.
05/10 Links: NGOs, Antisemitism, and Government Funding; Nepal expresses 'deep gratitude' to Israel
From Ian:
NGO Monitor: NGOs, Antisemitism, and Government Funding: NGO Monitor’s Report to the 2015 Global Forum on Antisemitism
Fighting Anti-Israel Bigotry - UN Watch in 2014-2015
Netanyahu: Israel foiled Iran's efforts to open new front on Golan
Germany sees rise in anti-Semitic, anti-foreigner crime
Are you a dangerous driver? A new app lets you know
NGO Monitor: NGOs, Antisemitism, and Government Funding: NGO Monitor’s Report to the 2015 Global Forum on Antisemitism
Antisemitism is a very virulent and enduring form of racism that has unfortunately been reemerging to levels not seen since the 1930s, in the period leading up to the Holocaust. Throughout Europe, Jews have been deliberately targeted, violently attacked and murdered at synagogues, schools, kosher markets, and museums. Jews wearing yarmulkes (skull caps) or other religious markings are subject to harassment and violence. Crowds at soccer matches chant “Jews to the gas” and other genocidal taunts. Mass demonstrations in European capitals, ostensibly to protest Israeli actions towards the Palestinians, are rife with antisemitic and Nazi sloganeering and imagery. University campuses have seen extreme targeting and singling out of Jews. In Iran, state-sponsored Holocaust denial and calls to “wipe Israel off the map” are entrenched. Arab media is filled with vitriolic antisemitism and blood libels.Richard Millett: Galloway gone! Ward ousted! Liberal Democrats demolished! Labour decimated! SNP in.
As antisemitism rises and reaches crisis levels in Europe, NGOs that claim to promote human rights and humanitarian agendas in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict and executing the Durban Strategy have fueled and exacerbated hatred of and discrimination against Jews, promoting antisemitic themes and imagery, as at the Durban Conference. These groups, which include international, Palestinian, and Israeli NGOs, also fail to report on or condemn antisemitism and incitement against Jews.
Despite the extensive evidence of NGO antisemitism – egregious examples are provided below – governments, in particular in Europe, continue to fund these groups with hundreds of millions of dollars, pounds, euros, and kroner, and enable the problematic activities and rhetoric.
Click here for PDF version
For five years Labour has been isolationist on the foreign policy front. It voted not to assist the Syrian people being slaughtered by Assad.UN Watch: Fighting Dictatorships, Defending Human Rights
There was, however, one country on which Labour was not isolationist: Israel. Precious parliamentary time was wasted by Labour MPs these last five years smearing Israel as evil and debating, and voting for, a future Palestinian state.
But despite the election results there is no room for complacency for British Jews. The Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) have virtually swept away Labour in Scotland. They grew from six to an astonishing 56 MPs!
The SNP like to paint themselves as supportive of multiculturalism but there is, again, one country they are not too accepting of: Israel.
These are SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s words to the ‘Ending Scottish Arms Trade with Israel’ conference only yesterday:
“As you may be aware, during the recent conflict in Gaza the Scottish Government wrote to the UK Government urging an embargo on arms sales to Israel. The Scottish Government is a firm friend of Palestine and we will continue to press this issue after the election.”
An SNP council also once voted to ban Israeli books in its libraries.
No doubt the SNP will soon be joining forces with Labour, what’s left of the Liberal Democrats and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party to attack Israel.
In the meantime the average hard-working grassroots pro-Israel activist can enjoy some well-earned schadenfreude at the demise of Galloway and Ward.
May 2015 update on UN Watch's latest battles to confront dictatorships at the UN with the truth of their human rights abuses.
Fighting Anti-Israel Bigotry - UN Watch in 2014-2015
Screened at UN Watch Gala in Geneva on May 7, 2015. How Schabas was fired -- and more on incredible work of UN Watch to expose and combat the anti-Israel selectivity of the U.N. and its grossly biased Human Rights Council.
Netanyahu: Israel foiled Iran's efforts to open new front on Golan
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the start of a cabinet meeting Sunday morning, mentioned that since the outgoing government's first cabinet meeting two years ago, the region has been in constant tumult.PreOccupied Territory: We Must Disregard Elections In Favor Of Opinion Poll Results by Ed Miliband and Isaac Herzog (satire)
“Despite the many attempts to challenge us from our borders, we fended off all these efforts without exception,” he said.
Netanyahu mentioned Hezbollah in south Lebanon, the efforts by Iran to open up a new front against Israel on the Golan Heights, attempts to transfer advanced weaponry from Syria to Lebanon, and efforts by Hamas to carry out a “strategic attack” against Israel in the south.
“During Operation Protective Edge, we delivered Hamas the most powerful blow it has received since its creation,” he said. “We are prepared for all developments from that front.”
More than anything, he said, the previous government acted to prevent Iran from getting nuclear arms. “These efforts are continuing, and we will not stop,” he said. “We will preserve Israel's right to defend itself by itself under any conditions and in any situation.”
Both of our countries witnessed hard-fought national elections this year, elections that featured a striking similarity: in both cases, opinion polls leading up to the voting indicated the results were too close to call, with Labour holding perhaps a slight edge – only to discover on Election Day that the electorate had chosen decisively to elect our chief rivals. The discrepancy between the two sets of figures can mean only one thing: we must do away with voting and use only opinion poll results as our guide.Suspects linked to hit-and-run incident against officer arrested
Our respective parties have already engaged in much of the post-mortem analysis, examining where our campaigns may have gone wrong, and why exactly the people voted against us. Such analysis has its place, but what we and our fellow left-wing politicians must focus on is working to reform the system to reflect what the polls so clearly demonstrated. Aside from some acquaintances across the parliamentary aisle, neither of us personally knows anyone who would not vote Labour. Small wonder, then, that the election outcomes came as a shock – and a suspicious one, at that. What thinking person could not see the manifest righteousness of our platform and policies when contrasted with the fear-mongering of our opponents? What rational citizen would knowingly choose a party with policies so flagrantly at odds with all that is good and right?
We unfortunately have been given our answer: too many such people exist, and can vote. The only proper response, then, is to reform the system so such travesties of democracy are no longer possible.
Two men, suspects in Saturday's hit and run attack against a police officer near Hebron, were arrested on Sunday during a raid by security forces, according to an official police statement.Melbourne, Australia: Bright, ambitious, kind, gentle teen and a Mother's Day terror plot
Saturday's incident occurred during a police inspection of vehicles near Hebron during which a Palestinian vehicle was signaled to pull over. The driver accelerated, hit an officer, and then sped in the direction of a nearby village.
The Hebron residents, aged 23 and 26, who were arrested in their home and taken for further interrogation, were found in possession of the keys to the vehicle used in the attack. The vehicle itself, bearing marks from the incident, was found nearby.
The officer who was struck in the attack suffered light injuries and was released from Beersheva's Soroka hospital.
In Melbourne, Australia, a fresh round of police raids on Friday and a 17 year old is at the heart of the action.State-Funded University Promoting Alliances with Hamas-dominated Palestinian Universities?
People are asking themselves - yet again - how the suspicion of the security authorities could possibly have fallen on a teenage boy "from a successful migrant family", a "bright teen" with "ambitions to follow his father into medicine and one day work together".
As the news channels are reporting now, it's another instance of a terrorist bombing attack foiled before anyone was hurt. And with live explosives being detonated (by police) in the streets of a leafy Melbourne suburb.
The outline below, and the collection of quoted passages in the opening para, comes from "Mother’s Day bomb plot: Teen allegedly blocked family and friends from Facebook posts",
Rabab Abdulhadi, director of San Francisco State University (SFSU)’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative (AMED) and a committed anti-Israel activist, has long sought an alliance between SFSU and two Palestinian universities, An-Najah and Bir Zeit. The April 22 victory of Hamas, or the Islamic Bloc, in Bir Zeit’s student council elections demonstrates the perversity of this endeavor.Suede to do encore show in Israel, Primus cancels due to 'logistical constraints'
Bir Zeit University, located in the West Bank about a dozen miles north of Jerusalem, was already a seat of Islamist activity. The Hamas-supporters’ win assures that an imprisoned terrorist will hold the title of “honorary chairman” of the student council.
According to Arab-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh:
Hamas supporters on campus won 26 seats, compared to 16 for their rivals in the Fatah faction, headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas.
The results of the election mean that Bilal Barghouti, who is serving 16 life terms in prison for his role in a series of suicide attacks against Israel, has become the “Honorary Chairman of the Bir Zeit University Student Council.”
Britpop veterans Suede will be making their second appearance in Israel, following a successful show four years ago at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds. This time, they'll be performing at the Mivtachim Menorah Arena in Tel Aviv on July 30.The Belgians aren’t coming
Labeled the 'best new band in Britain' by Melody Maker when they broke out in the early 1990s, the group made good on the hype with albums highlighting the shimmering guitar work of Bernard Butler and the striking lead vocals of Brett Anderson. Their 1994 album Dog
Man Star is considered a classic, but marked the end of the Anderson-Butler partnership with the guitarist being replaced by Richard Oakes. The band called it quits in 2003 but regrouped in 2010 and have been active since, releasing a 2013 album Bloodsports and another album expected this summer. Two days before the announcement of the Suede show, the producers of Rock in the Park taking place on June 9-11 at the Ra'anana Amphitheater announced that one of the featured acts – Primus – was cancelling their show due to "logistical constraints."
Buckling under a relentless onslaught of cultural and academic pressure, Belgian artist Miet Warlop and her Campo Arts Center have canceled their presentation of Mystery Magnet at the Israel Festival.Tonge In Place & "Nasty" Nick Cotton's Noxious Noise
“We tried to explain our position,” Ms. Warlop wrote, “but it seems there’s no longer any place for decisions based on art…and the pressure to conform with [society’s] demands was simply too great.”
Israel Festival general director Eyal Sher, deploring what he termed the company’s surrender to cultural terror, invited Ms. Warlop to reconsider “and above all to stand firm against the forces of intolerance and extremism.”
One cannot help wondering whether some of the pressure was fiscal, as in “go, and you’ll lose your funding.”
The inevitable set of Mendacious Maps prominently displayed, the Richmond branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been making merry with all the fun of the fair.Guardian fauxtography in article on deportation of migrants from Israel
Among the Israel-haters saying their bit to camera in the following footage by branch honcho Alex Seymour (aka Seymour Alexander) is the incorrigible Jenny Tonge, looking and sounding as sour as always.
But the "star" of Seymour's video is a bloke with a Jewish name. He's actor John Altman, best known for playing Dot Cotton's jailbird son "Nasty"Nick Cotton in the BBC TV soap "EastEnders".
The script that Altman spews is full of spite and venom, and woeful, disgusting ignorance. Shame on him.
In the face of the deaths of hundreds by drowning as they try to reach Europe from war-torn Africa, relentlessly anti-Israeli Australian as-a-Jew blogger Anthony Loewenstein focuses on the story of a migrant flown back to Africa from Israel.ISIS Terror Cells Threaten Gaza, Sinai and Saudi Arabia
The European solution to the problem is to destroy the boats the migrants use to make their dangerous way to Europe, thus stranding them in Libya or Morocco and leaving them to their fate.
Israel found itself awash with some 60,000 migrants emerging out of Egypt’s Sinai Desert and making their illegal home in Israel. It is seeking a humane way to remove them from the country. Note that Eritrean migrants had to travel hundreds or thousands of miles though Sudan and Egypt to reach Israel. Under international law (so diligently cited when used to condemn Israel) these were the countries that actually had to offer them refuge as the first countries they came to. Yet there is no mention of their responsibility for this problem in Loewenstein’s article. As usual at the Guardian, it is all about Israel’s purported misdeeds.
In case Loewenstein’s story of the dangers faced by returned migrants like Robel Tesfahannes, whose story he chose to showcase, does not sufficiently inflame the passions of the usual crowd of Israel bashers that flock to CiF, the Guardian illustrated the story with this photograph at the head of the article:
Now, this is a shocking, but curious picture to use. Yes, this boat is undoubtedly full of Africans. They are clearly desperate to get somewhere. But aren’t we told that Israel is flying them back to Africa, not sending them back on boats? Furthermore, isn’t Rwanda a land-locked country in the middle of Africa, bordered by Congo, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania? Didn’t Tesfahannes travel by air with 10 other Eritreans – not a boatload of men, women and children? How did Eritrean and Sudanese migrants find themselves on a boat in the middle of Africa, apparently put there by Israel?
Well, as usual a few seconds spent with a search engine (something seemingly beyond the skills of the Guardian’s editorial staff) reveals that this is actually a photograph of migrants hoping to disembark in Salerno after being rescued by the Italian naval ship “Chimera”, according to the caption in the Irish Times, which used the same exact image:
The Palestinian Authority has warned that “hundreds” of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists are setting up bases in Gaza for attacks on the Sinai Peninsula, and at least one of four recent attacks in Saudi Arabia has been linked the fanatic Islamic group.Egypt's army has killed '725 terrorists' over 6 months in Sinai campaign
The Palestinian Authority said that eight Salafist groups have set up bases in Gaza, and that many of its recruits are former Hamas members, Reshet Bet (Voice of Israel) radio reported Sunday morning. Hamas denies that the ISIS poses a threat to stability of its regime and said “only” a few dozen Salafists, supporting the ISIS, are in Gaza.
Hamas arrested a senior Salafist terrorist last month as well as dozens of the group’s terrorists in recent weeks.
A group that itself as the ISIS stated on Friday it launched mortar shells are a Hamas base in central Gaza.
Each radical Muslim group is competing to be more monstrous than the other, and Hamas last week even destroyed a tent that was turned into a mosque that ISIS supporters used.
Egypt's offensive against violent militants in the Sinai Peninsula has resulted in the deaths of 725 terrorists, a new report by the Egyptian army claims.Senior Hezbollah commander said killed in Syria
According to al-Ahram, the report, which was released on Saturday, details operations spanning the period between October 25 to April 30 of last year. It specifically details February as being the most lethal month, during which 173 terrorists were killed, and January as the calmest, with 44 on the radicals reported dead.
Apart from the body count, 1,873 suspects connected to militant groups were reported detained, with most arrests, some 575 taking place in November, and the least, 158, in January.
November also saw the discovery and destruction of the most militant hideouts by security forces, with 1,023 such cases occuring in that month alone. An additional 800 havens were also reported destroyed in the period in question.
Marwan Mughniyeh, a senior commander in Hezbollah whose cousin Imad Mughniyeh was allegedly assassinated by Israel, was killed in fierce battles in Syria on Friday, Syrian opposition sources said.A Turkish-Saudi Military Offensive on Syria?
Mughniyeh was killed in a battle with rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, in the Qalamoun region, northeast of Damascus, the sources said.
He was reported to have been the commander of special operations for the Lebanese Shiite militia, which has been fighting alongside regime forces in the Syrian civil war.
Hezbollah announced Saturday on its Al-Manar television channel that, together with regime forces, it had taken the Al-Nusra Front’s largest base in the region, at Sahlet al-Maaysra.
Worse, any Turkish air raid to bomb Damascus would expose Turkish aircraft to the risk of being hit by the powerful air defenses in Syria. Turkish warplanes are not outfitted with the critical stand-off jammer systems that would blind enemy radars. Half of the squadrons of Turkish fighters that would fly over Syrian skies may not be able to return home safely.Bi-partisan report blasts Iran for human rights violations as US continues negotiations
Then there is the bigger risk of Syrian missiles. The Scud that hit Turkish territory on March 25 proved that the US/NATO Patriot missiles stationed in southern and eastern Turkey could only protect the areas in their immediate vicinity. But Assad not only has Scuds he can fire from a range of 180-200 kilometers; he has in his arsenal unknown numbers of Scud-C ballistic missiles, which have a range of 500 kilometers, putting several big Turkish cities "within range."
Turkey simply does not have a long-range anti-missile defense architecture to counter Syrian (and/or Iranian) missiles. Being a member of the alliance, it can rely on naval NATO assets to counter such threats, but that would be too risky a gamble.
It is true that the Erdogan administration has been weighing military options against Assad for the past couple of years. It is also true that Erdogan has an obsession about getting rid of Assad and is not the most peaceful leader in the region. All the same, the Turkish president is not a suicidal man. The odds are slim for a Turkish-Saudi military offensive against Assad's Syria.
Iran insists it doesn't punish people for their beliefs, but its prison population - and a scathing new report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom - say otherwise.PreOccupied Territory: Activists Jailed In Iran Touched By Khamenei’s Concern For US Blacks (satire)
The bipartisan commission's 2015 report on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s incarceration and persecution of Christians, Baha’is, Jews and minority Sunni Muslims prompted key lawmakers to call for new human rights sanctions targeting Iran’s clerical regime, and urged President Obama, whose administration is currently in nuclear negotiations with Tehran, to lead the way.
"If the Obama Administration wants to be serious about holding Iran accountable, it should be working with Congress to reinforce and expand sanctions that target Iran’s ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom and human rights," Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told FoxNews.com. "But it’s not.”
Kirk, a leading legislative architect of Iranian human rights and nuclear sanctions, added “Iran’s systematic violations of religious freedom ... have gotten worse under the supposedly more ‘moderate’ presidency of Hassan Rouhani.”
The climate of persecution is in spite of Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s recent insistence that “we don’t jail people for their opinions.”
Imprisoned Iranians being held for trying to defend human and civil rights in their country are moved by the Supreme Leader’s sudden interest in the welfare of African-Americans, say the activists’ representatives.Saudi Islamist Preacher: The Jews Poison Muslim Hearts and Minds with WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook
Amid the riots and continuing racial tensions in Baltimore, a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to Twitter with messages scolding the US for its treatment of colored people. As a result, the hundreds of activists jailed for working to secure various freedoms the West takes for granted said they were genuinely touched by the leader’s remarks.
“It’s ridiculous that even though US President is black, still such crimes against US blacks continue to occur,” tweeted the Supreme Leader, whose government and police routinely arrest and torture people for expressing dissent. Many of those arrested said they had no idea Khamenei was such a sensitive, empathetic person.
“I’ve been held for eight months without trial, ostensibly for insulting the regime,” said Ali Jafavidi. “I’ve been subjected to physical torture, threats to my family, baseless accusations of sedition, and inhumane psychological pressure, all in the name of silencing those who dare to imply the current leadership is not Allah’s gift to Iran. But you know, I’m just touched that the man behind all this abuse might actually have a caring heart after all.”
In an address posted on the Internet on May 3, 2015, Saudi Islamist preacher Abdulla Ba Neema (sometimes spelled Baneameh) said that the Jews "put poison into things that the Muslims like." According to him, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook are tools used by the Jews to poison and hearts and minds of the Muslims. "Our women's honor has been violated as a result of social networks," he said, adding that WhatsApp "is the sewage that flows in your heart." Despite his criticism of social networks, Ba Neema runs very active Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. Ba Neema was paralyzed in a swimming pool accident.
Germany sees rise in anti-Semitic, anti-foreigner crime
Germany's top security official says new statistics show a sharp rise in anti-Semitic offenses last year, as well as in crimes against foreigners.Thousands attend Mauthausen liberation commemoration
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters Wednesday that anti-Semitic offenses rose 25.2 percent last year to 1,596 after declining in 2013. Crimes against foreigners were up 21.5 percent to 3,945.
De Maiziere says the rise is partially due to new reporting methods that more closely track the motivation of perpetrators, but said nonetheless "this development is worrying and must be stopped."
He says there is no political solution alone, but the "whole of society is needed."
President Heinz Fischer and Chancellor Werner Faymann were among those attending Sunday’s ceremonies. The annual event has particular significance this year as the world marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.Survivor’s rise from the rubble of Warsaw to life in Israel
Hundreds of thousands of people died at the western Austrian camp and its subsidiaries. Many were worked to death. Others were shot, gassed, or died through medical experiments.
The camp was liberated on May 5, 1945 by American troops. Its inmates were the last of all concentration camp prisoners to be set free by the Allies.
On Friday, an Austrian website run by an anti-Holocaust organization was hacked and displayed images of child pornography.
Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner has ordered a criminal investigation and condemned the “sick, criminal attack.”
Moshe Tirosh, born Mieczyslaw Kenigswein, survived the Holocaust by hiding in the basement of the Warsaw zooVeterans march through Jerusalem to mark WWII Victory in Europe Day
The young boy emerged from the rubble of Warsaw, clinging to a woman he knew only as Mrs. Wala. She turned and walked off, and 7-year-old Mieczyslaw Kenigswein was alone, lost in the Holocaust.
He is now 78, an Israeli with a Hebrew name, Moshe Tirosh. During a visit to Warsaw, he recalled surviving the war not knowing if his parents were dead or alive — and how random twists of fate saved his life.
Tirosh’s earliest memories are of hunger and misery in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Called Miecio as a boy, he was nearly 5 when his mother, Regina, gave birth to her third child under floorboards, biting her knuckles to keep from screaming so the Germans would not discover them.
Scores of elderly veterans living in Israel marched on Sunday through Jerusalem's city center in full military uniform to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, drawing cheers and amazed looks from onlookers.Veterans Parade, Haifa, Israel (h/t Bob Knot)
The men, who had fought for various European armies during the war, were smiling and waving as they walked the sunny streets of Jerusalem.
"It's very important that people remember this day. It's very important that people come here, even 10 years from now when not all these veterans will be with us. It's very important that this thing continues as a habit to come and celebrate this day," said Netali Palalo, the grandchild of a veteran who passed away.
Israel usually observes the Nazi defeat on May 8, Victory in Europe day, as do most European countries.
Are you a dangerous driver? A new app lets you know
Are you an anxious, cautious, dangerously irresponsible, angry or hostile driver? And how often do you use your cell phone while driving?Lockheed Martin sings the praises of Israeli cyber-security firm
A new algorithmic system developed at an Israeli university can give drivers important feedback to assess their driving and talking-while-driving habits.
The app relies on smartphone sensors to collect data in real time while the user is driving, stores the data in the cloud and then analyzes it over time. The driver is presented with several outputs: classification of his or her driving style on a continuous scale; classification of the level of smartphone usage (non-user, passive, active) on a continuous scale; and feedback for a specific trip or for an accumulation of trips.
Ben-Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev associate professor Eli Rohn and six of his information systems engineering students developed this sophisticated app with several possible practical uses in mind.
A newly announced $25 million investment by US defense contractor Lockheed Martin along with several partners in Israeli cyber-security start-up Cybereason is the company putting its money where its mouth is. Several months ago, LH checked out Cybereason’s protection system, and liked it enough to recommend it to others, “after they compared our solution against a dozen others from the top industry players,” CEO Lior Div told The Times of Israel. The series B funding round was led by Spark Capital, with participation from existing investor CRV.Israeli aid team reunites with Nepalese woman rescued from rubble
In fact, LH was so impressed with the results they got from Cybereason that they began offering it to their own customers – among them most of the top Fortune 100 companies, and the US federal government. CyberReason is now the security system recommended by LH to its customers for protection from a wide malware and hack attacks.
Now, LH has decided to commit a substantial sum of investment money to Cybereason. “The Cybereason platform is an outstanding complement to the tradecraft and technologies Lockheed Martin uses every day to defend our network and our clients,” said Rich Mahler, director of commercial cyber services at Lockheed Martin, announcing the investment. “Its real-time detection and attack tracing capabilities enable us to effectively leverage threat intelligence and provide our government and commercial customers with a calculated, strategic approach to cyber defense. In addition to deploying Cybereason internally and partnering with it, we also participated in this latest round as a strategic investor.”
An Israeli-led rescue team that pulled a Nepalese woman out of the rubble in the capital Kathmandu five days after a massive earthquake leveled much of the city late last month, was reunited with the woman on Friday, some 10 days after her rescue.IDF hospital in Kathmandu closed in official ceremony
Workers from the Israeli group IsraAID, along with local soldiers and a team of experts from France and Norway, worked into the night for 10 hours to pull Krishna Devi Khadka to safety on April 30.
On Friday, she met with members of the Israeli team.
“Krishna told me she remembered everything and was so grateful to our rescue team led by Eran Magen as well as the Israeli hospital staff,” said IsraAID head of mission in Nepal Yotam Polizer.
Khadka, 24, had been stuck underneath a collapsed hotel alongside three bodies and could only breathe due to an air pocket that formed alongside her, IsraAid said in a statement.
In a joint ceremony with their Nepali counterparts, the Israeli army officially closed its field hospital in Kathmandu on Sunday.Nepal expresses 'deep gratitude' to Israel as emergency teams prepare to return home
As of the weekend, IDF medical personnel had treated 1,427 victims of the devastating earthquake that hit the mountainous Asian nation last month, including 90 life-saving surgeries, six cesarean sections and two natural births.
IDF engineers continue to collaborate with local authorities and have evaluated the stability of 295 public structures damaged in the earthquake, and IDF mental health officers continue to hold seminars for local education staff intended to help the population in their transition following the disaster.
The field hospital established in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, was the largest hospital ever erected by the IDF.
At a small function to mark the closure of the emergency aid facility, Nepal's Urban Development Minister Narayan Khadka expressed the Nepal government's gratitude to Israel for its help.Israel treats 4-year-old Gaza patient
"Let me express our sincere gratitude to the government of Israel and to the people of Israel for helping us in times of very critical hours for Nepal," Khadka said.
The hospital offered operating rooms, imaging facilities, advanced labs and an intensive care section with 150 Israelis taking care of its patients. It also had a synagogue and a kosher kitchen.
Apart from medical serves, Israel's emergency response teams, working under the IDF's Home Front Command, scanned 332 public buildings to check whether they were still stable, and carried out 605 safety courses for local Nepalese members of the public.
Israel's ambassador to Nepal, Yaron Mayer, said he was optimistic about the nation's future.
"I did mention that Nepal is crying and the whole world is crying, but I also said that I am optimistic for the future and looking ahead, things are now starting to rebuild. It will take time I know, but things will be better and Nepal will be stronger and we will be united working for these challenges," Mayer said.
Yara from Gaza was transferred to Israel for medical treatment after she was injured in a car accident in the strip. Three months later she has managed to surprise hospital staff at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon by starting to walk just a few days after she was given a prosthetic leg.
Now released from the hospital, Yara can walk and even learned Hebrew during her time in the Israeli hospital. Back in Gaza, Yara was reunited with her parents for the first time since she left to get treatment in Israel.
The accident happened three months ago, near the young girl's home in the Tuffah district in Gaza City. Yara and 15 other children had been playing near a main road when a truck that passed by did not notice the children and ran into Yara. (h/t Bob Knot)
05/15 Links Pt1: Glick: Israel’s peace fantasists in action; The Vatican channels war against Israel
From Ian:
Caroline Glick: Israel’s peace fantasists in action
ISIS- Two-staters’ excuse du jour
Caroline Glick: Israel’s peace fantasists in action
For more than 20 years, Israel’s policy-making community has been intellectually ensnared by the notion of peace. As a consequence, the concept of joint action based on shared interests has become almost incomprehensible.Guy Bechor: Germany can keep its 'friendly advice' to itself
Many senior officials believe that the only way for Israel to collaborate with its Arab neighbors is by first signing a peace treaty with the Palestinians. So long as such a peace treaty eludes us, no real cooperation is possible.
This is the why Labor head “Buji” Herzog and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid responded to the stunning support Israel received from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE during Operation Protective Edge, not with a simple nod and smile, but with the idea that what we all need to do to follow up with a regional peace conference where the Egyptians, Saudis and the UAE could join the West in condemning Israel for failing to cough up Jerusalem.
The problem is that the security establishment is committed to the notion that Israel’s international position is a function of the state of our relations with the Palestinians. If we appease the Palestinians, then people will develop ties with us. If not, they will blackball us.
And as for security, an independent Arab territory in Judea and Samaria means the end of the Jewish state which Germany is allegedly so concerned for. Does the German foreign minister know that the border is supposed to pass two kilometers away from the Knesset, which will be threatened by snipers? That Abbas plans to bring hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions from Syria, Iraq and Lebanon into that territory? It's "the return," and these are the most dangerous terrorists, and their missiles will reach Ben-Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.Melanie Phillips: The Vatican channels war against Israel
Will Mr. Steinmeier come to save us then? Did he work to save the hundreds of thousands of dead people in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Egypt? Is he working to save Ukraine? Israel's tiny size is the most dangerous of all these cases. Would he agree to divide Berlin with the Islamic State according to the quarters' demography? Jerusalem's unification was the example for Berlin's unification, so why does Berlin want to divide Jerusalem?
A reasonable person asks himself why are the Germans so obsessed with the Palestinians, when the latter are the only ones in our region who are living a good and protected life, under Israel's mercy. There is no occupation here, but rather a rescue, otherwise they would have already grabbed each other in the throat, like what is happening in the entire region around us, which has been destroyed. Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen – they have all been destroyed already, with some 10 million refugees and hundreds of thousands of dead people. And maybe this obsession is not with the Palestinians, but rather with the Jews?
When Germany talks about the Jewish state, it has no right to criticize, reprimand, or offer advice, but only to show some modesty. After all, it was Germany, and no other country, which carried out the cruelest evil in the history of humanity, against the Jewish people.
However many countries proclaim recognition of this spurious state does not alter that fact. The Vatican’s “treaty” is no more than a crude propaganda stunt assisting a war of extermination.
Recognition of a Palestine state is a ploy to bounce it into virtual existence by getting the world to agree it exists. The sole reason it does not in reality exist is that, resting on a wholesale denial of Jewish history in the land, the purpose of such a state is to create the platform for a devastating war on Israel.
By supporting this Potemkin Palestine, the Vatican has lined up behind those who disdain international law. In supporting the recognition gambit which tears up the Palestinians’ own treaty obligations under the Oslo Accords, the pope has now openly made Catholics complicit with reneging on promises and shattering bonds of trust.
And where exactly is this state of Palestine the pope has now recognized? For as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement reiterated on its Facebook page this week (according to Palestinian Media Watch): “Palestine means the entire national land, from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.” For good measure, the PA’s national security forces declared on Facebook that Mount Tabor was in “occupied Nazareth” and the Hippodrome in Caesarea was in “Palestine.” And of course, the PA’s maps of Palestine include all of Israel.
So it would appear that what the pope has actually recognized and endorsed is the open intention to destroy Israel and replace it by Palestine.
Why has he done this? One answer is realpolitik. It is hardly a coincidence that the treaty was finalized shortly before this Sunday’s ceremony in Rome, due to be attended by Mahmoud Abbas, to canonize two Palestinian nuns.
ISIS- Two-staters’ excuse du jour
I am sure you have noticed how it is with “twostaters” – a.k.a. adherents of the dogma of political appeasement and territorial concessions as an effective measure for assuaging despots.In Camp David homage, Obama says Israeli-Palestinian peace 'seems distant now'
For them, the prevailing conditions – no matter what they are – are always favorable for implementing the land-for-peace doctrine and establishing a Palestinian state, and in fact comprise a compelling imperative, indeed, a veritable “historic opportunity” for doing so, which cannot, must not be missed, lest it be regretted for generations to come.
Come rain, come shine – ‘Palestine’...
If it rains, we are told we need a Palestinian state – because it is raining. When it is dry, we must have a Palestinian state – because dry weather is ideal for setting up such a state. When it is freezing cold – only the establishment of a Palestinian state can bring any warmth. When it is sizzling hot, it’s time for a Palestinian state – for only it can bring relief from the wilting heat...
So, whatever the existing conditions, they are seized upon as the irrefutable and urgent rationale for the establishment of a Palestinian state – even if they constitute the utter negation of the previous conditions, which formerly had been invoked as the exigent and incontestable rationale for such a state.
If this sounds flippant, just look back at the history of the last three decades and any misgivings will be dispelled.
A final Israeli-Palestinian accord "seems distant now," Obama said from Camp David, reiterating the US position that an agreement recognizing two states for two peoples is "absolutely vital" for greater Middle East peace.Abbas sets preconditions for new Netanyahu government to return to peace talks
"Since we're up here at Camp David, I think it's important to remind ourselves of the degree to which a very hard peace deal that required incredible vision and courage and tough choices resulted in what’s now been a lasting peace between countries that used to be sworn enemies," Obama said. "And Israel is better off for it. I think the same would be true if we get a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians."
"That prospect seems distant now," he continued. "But I think it's always important for us to keep in mind what’s right and what’s possible."
Israel was only a brief agenda item at the rare summit here at the Maryland camp, where the president hosted leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council for six hours of meetings. The parties focused on a cohesive security plan between the US and the GCC, but both parties "strongly affirmed the necessity of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of a just, lasting, comprehensive peace agreement."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday set out preconditions to restarting the peace talks with Israel.PA Parliament: Jews Have No Right to Even 'One Inch' of Israel
According to Israel Radio on Friday, Abbas called for the halt of all settlement construction in the West Bank and for the immediate release of Palestinians that were imprisoned before the Oslo Accords who were supposed to be released in 2014.
The Palestinian leader demanded that the talks be held for a minimum of a year, during which the two sides will agree on a specific timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank that is to be completed by 2017.
In a speech given Thursday before the new Israeli government was sworn in, Abbas declared that the previous government was not a partner for peace and had purposely hampered the peace efforts of US Secretary of State John Kerry. If the new government will continue on the path of the previous government, the Palestinians will continue to internationalize the conflict, he threatened.
The Palestinian parliament is continuing to reject any Jewish right to the “land of Palestine”, meaning the entire land of Israel, including the sovereign territory of the State of Israel.The NSC: ‘Radical Wing’ of Obama White House
At a special meeting in Gaza on Thursday held on the occasion of Nakba Day, the Palestinian parliament stated that the entire “land of Palestine” is an Islamic endowment, and the Jews have no right to even a single inch of it.
Nakba Day is the day on which Arabs mourn what they view as the “disaster” of the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. It is marked on May 14, the day in 1948 on which Israel became a state.
The parliament also stressed that the “right of return” is a sacred collective and private right and cannot be given up, and added that the Palestinians will never agree to the settlement of the so-called “Palestinian refugees” outside the territory of “Palestine” nor will they ever agree to recognize Israel.
The National Security Council (NSC) is meant to serve as “the President’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. Increasingly, it is a repository for radicals whose ideas are too extreme for public scrutiny, and who would never pass congressional muster. The latest case is the NSC’s hosting last month of a Palestinian-American teenager, Tariq Khdeir, who was beaten by Israeli police in 2014.Hamas: UK Should Pay Us Reparations for Israel's Existence
There is nothing wrong, in principle, with the U.S. government reaching out to American citizens who have been harmed abroad. There is much that is odd, however, about the NSC’s Khdeir event, which happened last month and was apparently hidden from the media until now. There is no reason that the event should have been hosted by the NSC, much less at the White House itself. The apparent intent was to show solidarity with Palestinians and their supporters without offending the pro-Israel community in the midst of the debate about the Iran deal. Yet the NSC has no formal role in public diplomacy.
Under Obama, however, the NSC has become the “radical wing” of the White House, pushing a highly ideological agenda. Consider Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, the NSC Iran director with close ties to a pro-regime lobby group and no other policy qualifications. She works under Susan Rice, whose lies about the Benghazi attack made her confirmation as Secretary of State impossible. And they both work with Ben Rhodes, of Benghazi talking points and one-sided Cuba détente infamy.
The coordinator of the Palestinian Arab world's "Nakba Day" events has blamed Britain for Israel's existence on Friday, charging it with "theft of natural resources and property" and calling for the country to assist in Palestinian terror groups' retaking of Israel and to pay reparations to "avenge" the "injustice."Recognize the Legitimate Rights of Self-Determination Now!! (satire)
Hamas official Essam Adwan stated Friday that Britain "paved the way" for a "Zionist takeover" by preventing Palestinians from establishing an armed resistance against Jews in 1947 and by weakening the local economy and education system.
He also accused the British policy of forced expulsion imposed on the Palestinian Arabs of allowing Jews to "massacre" Arabs by fighting back against those who were launching terror attacks and their own massacres against Jews living in Israel.
Adwan cast responsibility for the situation of Palestinians upon Arab countries also agreed to a cease-fire with Israel and after years signed peace treaties with it - most likely referencing Jordan and Egypt.
The VaticanEdgar Davidson: In shock move Vatican recognizes Islamic State of Luton* (satire)
Friends, Comrades, Zionists!
It is time we acknowledge Alaric I and his descendents as the true and rightful rulers of the Vatican.
As you recall, the good Alaric took control of the Vatican on August 24, 410 CE, and turned it into a city of Visigoths. Ever since then, the rights of the Visigoths to self-determination and freedom in the Vatican have been denied by Church authorities. But these rights to the eternal city are eternal and must at long last be acknowledged.
Indeed, Visigoth rights stem directly from the Nakba that the long-suffering Visigoths suffered at the hands of Theodosius and the Eastern Empire based in Constantinople and also from the Huns. Thousands of Visigoths were brutally murdered in the year 400 in Constantinople. Clearly a two-state solution is called for whereby the Church can retain its control of Roman Ravenna and the Visigoths exercise their legitimate rights in the Vatican!
The Vatican has quickly followed its recognition of theCongress overwhelmingly passes nuclear deal review billterroristState of Palestine today by also formally recognising the Islamic State of Luton. In an historic meeting in Rome today with the moderate leader of Luton, the Emir Anjem Choudary, Pope Francis said:
The illegal occupation of Islamic Luton by the imperialist British government continues to be a barrier to world peace. The aspirations of the Muslims of Luton to have their own independent Sharia State - as Emir Choudary has heroically campaigned for years - can no longer be denied.
By recognising the Islamic State of Luton today the Vatican also brings pressure to bear on the Britsh Government to ensure a peaceful transfer of power to these long down-trodden Muslim people.
Anjum Choudary, in a surprisingly sensitive and conciliatory speech asserted:
The new Islamic State of Luton demands that the rest of Britain must now submit to Sharia law. No non-Muslim will be harmed providing they convert to Islam. We also demand that the Vatican renounce Catholicism and submit to the Sharia.
Congress on Thursday sent President Barack Obama a bill to give lawmakers the power to review and potentially reject a nuclear deal with Iran.Washington Summit Highlights Arab Displeasure With Obama on Iran
The House overwhelmingly passed the measure, 400-25, a reflection of lawmakers’ insistence on having a say in what could be a significant international accord to get Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.
Getting a deal would enhance Obama’s foreign policy record, and while the GOP-led Congress doesn’t want to see a nuclear-armed Iran, they are skeptical about Iranian compliance and have demanded time to review the fine points of any agreement the White House reaches with Tehran.
Presidential spokesman Josh Earnest said again Thursday that Obama would sign the bill into law.
One recent development that reportedly has further alienated the Arab states is Obama’s rejection of their proposed common defense treaty with the U.S.—a decision, ironically, that will make them more dependent on Israel in the event of any military confrontation with Iran. According to Foreign Policy, key members of the Gulf Cooperation Council had lobbied hard for the U.S. to agree to a defense pact ahead of the summit. Still, the pact was not forthcoming, with one analyst, Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, surmising that the administration didn’t feel compelled to “bend over backwards” to countries that repress basic human liberties. (That might have been a sound argument were it not for the Obama administration’s generally feeble commitment to human rights globally, from Syria to China.)Obama offers Gulf states ‘ironclad’ support on Iran
Moreover, Arab leaders know that their displeasure with Obama is not the only obstacle in the way of a final deal with Iran. Domestically, Obama has to contend with the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which passed the Senate last week in a 98-1 vote. The president can still push a deal through in the face of bitter opposition, but he will do so on the defensive, forced to justify an arrangement that leaves the Iranian nuclear program intact—and without the intrusive, round-the-clock monitoring that an effective inspections regime requires. If, indeed, a final deal is reached by the June 30 deadline, the U.S. State Department will need to make sure that any fact sheets it publishes are cleared with the Iranians first, so as to avoid the radically different interpretations of what was supposedly agreed during the last round of talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
Those divergent interpretations were not concerned with insignificant points. Ultimately, the failure of the administration to make an effective case for its Iran deal rests on its inability to answer the burning questions. Will sanctions be lifted the day an agreement is signed, as the Iranians claim, or will they be phased out in accordance with Iranian cooperation, as Washington would have us believe? Exactly what kind of inspection regime will be acceptable to the Iranians, and will it include unimpeded rights of access to military installations like Fordow, an enrichment facility located in a bunker beneath a mountain? What will be the fate of the stockpile of enriched uranium which the Iranians originally promised would be shipped to a third party, before reneging on that shortly after?
Arab leaders are skeptical that the Obama administration can deliver an acceptable deal, given these stakes. So are the Israelis. And so is an enormous chunk of the U.S. Congress. This isn’t over yet.
US President Barack Obama pledged America’s “ironclad commitment” to anxious Persian Gulf nations Thursday to help protect their security, pointedly mentioning the potential use of military force and offering assurances that a potential nuclear agreement with Iran would not leave them more vulnerable.Iran Threat Behind Israel, AIPAC Silence Amid Arms Sales to Arab States
At the close of a rare summit at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Obama said the US would join the Gulf Cooperation Council nations “to deter and confront an external threat to any GCC state’s territorial integrity.” The US pledged to bolster its security cooperation with the Gulf on counterterrorism, maritime security, cybersecurity and ballistic missile defense.
“Let me underscore, the United States keeps our commitments,” Obama said at a news conference.
According to a Foreign Policy report published on Wednesday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is not attempting to lobby Washington over what will likely be a huge arms transfer from the U.S. to Gulf countries, over fears of an expanding Iran.The Middle East Has Four Minutes To Act If Iran Fires a Missile
“Israelis have been silent [about the arms deals to Gulf countries],” one congressional aide familiar with the issue told Foreign Policy. “Aipac was asking a lot of questions, but I wouldn’t characterize our interaction on this as lobbying.”
In addition, the Egyptian purchase of the advanced s-300 Russian missile defense system was of little concern to Israel because it doesn’t see hostility from its southern neighbor.
“We don’t see Egypt as the enemy,” an Israeli official told Reuters on Thursday, and an official in Cairo said Israel has nothing to fear.
“Israel has seen an opening with the Sunni Gulf states which has been very important, and with Egyptian President [Abdel Fattah] el-Sisi,” who opposes Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” said John Landis, associate professor and director for the Center of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
If Iran launches a ballistic missile at the Middle East, nuclear or not, Arab states would have as little as four minutes to act before impact.Obama: Chlorine Gas Not 'Historically' a Chemical Weapon
Ideally, the launch would be detected, the missile tracked during its flight by radar and its trajectory then passed to an interceptor missile, which would then blast off. If all goes as planned, the interceptor would collide with the Iranian missile as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere.
But which country would shoot down the missile? While the missile’s target may be in Saudi Arabia, it would travel over UAE, Qatar or Kuwait. America’s friends have sophisticated, American-made missile interceptors. But there’s one problem, the equipment in one country does not talk to the equipment in another. So, the United States is renewing its push during this week’s Gulf Cooperation Council summit outside Washington to get Arab states to link-up the missile interceptors and radars into a single Middle East missile shield.
Widespread reports of chlorine gas attacks in Syria have not been prevented - or acted upon - because chlorine is not "historically" considered a chemical weapon, US President Barack Obama stated Thursday.Eugene Kontorovich: Iran shaking down shipping, as predicted
Obama was forced to answer the chlorine question during a press conference from a summit at Camp David with leaders of the Gulf states. Syria and Iran were key issues at the conference.
However, when pressed about chlorine, Obama evaded defining it as a "weapon," noting that it has many other non-threatening uses, as caught in this footage from the Washington Free Beacon.
"Chlorine itself is not listed as a chemical weapon," he insisted, referring to the US's pledge against chemical weapons use in Syria.
In his response, Obama made reference to the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which indeed supervised the liquidation of Syria's sarin gas over a year-long process that ended in late 2014.
Today, Iran’s navy fired upon a Singapore-flagged tanker in the Straits of Hormuz, and attempted to force it into Iranian waters.No one hurt aboard ship fired on by Iranians in Gulf
I predicted as much last week, when the U.S. stood by as Iran seized a Marshall Islands’ vessel and held it for ransom:
The Islamic Republic has no legal authority to seize the ship. Releasing it on payment of money is not piracy, because that can only committed by non-state actors, but it is definitely a shake-down, and an assertion of general sovereign rights over international shipping lanes. It is likely not the last such ransom Iran will demand.
Though I must admit, Tehran is working on more accelerated timetable than I had expected.
No one onboard a Singapore-flagged commercial tanker that was fired on by an Iranian naval patrol in the Persian Gulf was injured and the ship did not sustain serious damage, the companies responsible for it said Friday.Showdown: Iranian Ship Defies US Orders, Sets Course for Yemen
The MT Alpine Eternity “was attacked by a number of small craft,” which first fired warning shots and issued calls ordering the ship to stop on Thursday morning, according to a statement from ship manager Transpetrol and owner South Maritime Pte Ltd.
The crew ignored the order, changed course to head for Emirati territorial waters and called for help, they said.
The tanker had been in international waters on its way from Bahrain to the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. The shooting happened near Abu Musa island, one of three islands near the Strait of Hormuz that are controlled by Iran but also claimed by the Emirates.
Iran has deployed a “humanitarian aid” ship carrying 2,500 tons of unknown supplies to Yemen, setting up a situation where Tehran is attempting to openly defy a U.S. order not to dock its ships in the country’s ports.Palestinian confesses to West Bank car-ramming attack
State media outlet Mehr News reports that the ship left Iran’s Bandar Abbas port on Thursday and will make its way to “one of Yemen’s ports.” The ship will travel at least 1500 miles and should arrive in Yemen, without any delays, sometime on Monday.
Iran has threatened that blocking the ship from reaching its intended destination “will spark a war in the region.” The Pentagon has insisted that the ship dock in a United Nations port in Djibouti, where officials could then confirm whether the vessel was indeed carrying only humanitarian aid.
Iranian officials have claimed that the West has nothing to worry about and that the 2,500 tons of material are strictly for humanitarian purposes. “We have no political objective and our main task is humanitarian relief for civilians, women and children,” Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) Secretary General Ali Asghar Ahmadi told state media.
But many in the West are skeptical of the Tehran regime’s intentions, largely because of its open support for Shiite Houthi militants in Yemen, who are attempting to usurp power in the country through force. In late March, an Iranian cargo ship reportedly dumped 180 tons of weapons and aid into the hands of the Houthi militants, according to reports.
A Palestinian man has confessed to ramming his vehicle into a bus stop in the West Bank, in an apparent terror attack Thursday afternoon that left four young Israelis injured.Terem Medical Center Gets Enraged Arab Letter About Their Israeli Flags
The attack occurred outside the Alon Shvut settlement in the Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem, at the site of a similar fatal attack in November.
The suspect was named by the Shin Bet security service as Muhammed Arfaaya, a 22-year-old resident of Hebron.
The deputy head of the Etzion settlement bloc council Moshe Savil told the Ynet news site that the driver came from the direction of nearby Kfar Etzion. “He crossed the highway and with great force struck a group of students who were waiting for the bus,” he said.
The staff at the Terem Medical Center, a network of private immediate care medical clinics, found by Dr. David Applebaum HY”D, were surprised when the Armon HaNetziv branch in Jerusalem received a letter from an angry Arab woman they apparently treated, according to a mynet report by Moshe Heller.FIFA head: Israel concessions needed to head off Palestinian call for expulsion
The Arab Jerusalemite wrote that she was upset that the Terem Medical Center had Israeli flags hanging for Israel’s Independence Day.
She claimed it hurt her sensitive feelings and the feeling of other Arabs visiting the medical center, including the Arab doctors and medical staff who work in Terem and identify with the “Palestinian-Arab minority”.
In the letter, the wounded Arab wrote, “The clinic serves all people without differentiating between religion, race or nationality, and therefore, it is inappropriate that dozens of the Israeli-Jewish national flags were hung in the clinic.”
FIFA head Sepp Blatter, who runs the world’s largest body of organized soccer, said on Friday that it is incumbent upon Israel to “make some concessions” to the Palestinians in order to defuse the latest attempt by Ramallah to compel Israel’s ouster from the organization.PreOccupied Territory: IAF Now Just Trolling Sudan With Fake Explosions (satire)
AFP reported on Friday that Blatter said he was hopeful that the issue could be resolved following meetings next week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas.
Hysteria surrounding repeated rumors and reports of explosions resulting from alleged Israeli air attacks on Sudanese facilities have prompted the Israel Air Force to dispense with actual sorties and rely on fake explosions to achieve the same psychological effect, a senior air force officer reported today.PA to Use Jordanian Electricity and Leave Amman Holding the Debt
Sudan has long served as a conduit for Iran to ship arms to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israeli planes have reportedly bombed convoys or warehouses in Sudan several times over the last few years to prevent weapons from reaching terrorist groups in Gaza. Just last week Sudanese residents reported seeing and hearing explosions, though accounts differed over the location and scale of the explosions. They were quick to point a finger at Israel, but the latter, in keeping with a longstanding policy, declined to comment on the incident. The event sent local forces scrambling and served as yet another embarrassment to President Omar al-Bashir over his regime’s inability to thwart such incursions, or even detect them.
IAF commanders realized the latter goal could be achieved without putting aircraft at risk and without expending fuel or ordnance by simply yanking Sudan’s chain with faux attacks. “Deterrence and actual interdiction of weapons headed for terrorists is of course an important mission, and we will in no way diminish our efforts in that regard,” said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But the other important goal of such missions is to undermine the confidence the people of Sudan have in their leadership and military. By separating the latter function from interdiction operations, we will be able to significantly augment the confidence-busting measures at little or no extra cost without sacrificing operational resources or effectiveness.”
The Palestinian Authority will connect to Jordan’s electric grid, reducing its dependency on Israel, according to Omar Kittanah, the director of the Palestinian Power and Natural Resources Authority.In first, Palestinian official jailed for Facebook posts
He told the Ma’an News Agency, based in Bethlehem, that connecting Jordan to electricity grid in Jericho is part of a project that in three years will tie together eight countries in the system. The other countries are Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Egypt, Jordan.
After a high-tension line from Jordan to Jericho is completed, a separate line will be built to send electricity from Judea and Samaria to the other countries, tying the Palestinian Authority with Israel’s enemy nations of Lebanon and Syria.
The Palestinian Authority now needs approximately $100 million to pay for hooking up its grid to Jordan.
Kittanah said that other countries have special funds to support development projects.
Buying electricity from Jordan instead of Israel may leave Amman holding a bag of debts if the Palestinian Authority continues not to pay for electricity. Israel frequently has frozen taxes that collects for the Palestinian Authority on goods and merchandise flowing into Judea and Samaria. Israel resume the flow of money last month on another agreement that would reduce but not eliminate the debt.
The Jerusalem Magistrate Court on Tuesday sentenced the secretary general of Fatah’s Jerusalem branch to nine months in prison for using his personal Facebook account to incite violence and support terrorism against Israeli civilians.PA uncovers Hamas cell in Hebron planning attacks on Israel
The sentencing of Omar Shalabi, 44, a resident of the West Bank village of Eizaria, marks the first time Israeli courts handed out a prison sentence for incitement on social media, according to the Ynet news website.
Shalabi, who has no prior criminal record, was arrested in December for his online activity.
The indictment against him referenced 10 Facebook statuses written between July and October of last year, at a time of heightened tensions in the capital, in which he hailed terrorists for various attacks.
Last October, following an assassination attempt on Temple Mount activist Yehudah Glick, Shalabi wrote that Glick was in serious condition, and wished him “hell and bad fate.”
A Palestinian Authority security official said Friday that the PA's security services uncovered and arrested a Hamas cell near Hebron in the West Bank.Gaza: Blast in Hamas training camp wounds 50, including children
The official told Israel Radio on Friday that the group was planning attacks meant to take place in Israel.
Palestinian police were first alerted to the cell after a report was received of people preparing explosives inside an apartment. Five members of the cell were then arrested.
The report said that cell members were in the early stages of preparing the necessary materials to make an explosive device and a search of the house did not find any completed explosives.
The official said that Palestinian security forces have arrested other Hamas military cells in Hebron, Kalkilya, Nablus and Jenin since the beginning of the year.
Around 50 people, including children, were wounded after an explosive detonated inside a Hamas training camp in the Gaza Strip, AFP reported Friday.At Upcoming Military Parade, Hamas Will Roll Out Its Tank and Helicopter
Witnesses at the scene said that the blast took place at a training camp of Izzadin Kassam, Hamas's military wing, in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya.
A doctor at Al-Awda Hospital, Baker Abu Safia, said that most of the 30 people who were brought to his hospital were women and children. He added that the hospital was in a "state of emergency" following the incident.
Hamas health ministry spokesman, Ashra al-Qudra, said that among the 50 people hurt, five were were in serious condition.
The reason for the blast is unknown, as well as to why so many children were inside a military-style base.
In an attempt to demonstrate its strength, Hamas is preparing a parade in Gaza in which it will display its sole helicopter and tank, Israel’s NRG news portal reported.Hamas is Allowing ‘Palestinian Hezbollah’ to Operate in Gaza
According to the report, Gaza sources said on Tuesday that Hamas had restored the private helicopter of deceased Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat in order to display it before the Palestinian public. A security source in the Gaza Strip notified reporters that the helicopter is now being held at a secure location in the western part of Gaza, and will be displayed in the march, which will “be held soon.”
Saeb Abu Rakba, a resident of Gaza, told reporters that the helicopter, “had been lying in disrepair for years on the Gazan coast, filled with dirt and dust,” according to NRG. Other residents, like Muhammad Saqer, expressed their joy over Gazans having a helicopter of their own, saying that Hamas should “display the helicopter in a more prominent place, so that the residents of Gaza will be able to see it and be filled with pride.”
Hamas has been allowing a Shia organization in Gaza beholden to Iran, which calls itself “Al-Sabirin,” to carry out its activities in the coastal Strip.Hamas Victory Explains Israel’s Stand
Al-Sabirin reportedly launched its first operation against Israel on May 25, 2014, and is thought to comprise disgruntled or expelled members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The group is led by Hisham Salem – a former senior official in Palestinian Islamic Jihad – who founded the group last June.
Salem has been issuing condemnations of Saudi Arabia’s “Decisive Storm” military operation against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Salem’s condemnations are in line with the position taken by Iran’s other proxies in the Arab world, particularly Hezbollah’s vociferous criticism of the Saudi-led strikes.
It styles itself, “a Palestinian resistance movement that seeks to free all of Palestine and does not believe in any negotiated agreements or even long-term truces with Israel.”
Some will claim that the unpopularity of Fatah and the belief in Hamas’s war strategy is Israel’s fault because it refuses to make peace and give the Palestinians a state. But this ignores the fact that Fatah has repeatedly refused Israeli offers of peace and independence in almost of the West Bank, Gaza and a share of Jerusalem. Even the so-called moderates refuse to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. The dynamic of Palestinian politics has always given an advantage to any group that prioritized violence. Until a sea change in their culture occurs to change that, the peace process will be permanently stalled.Egypt completes expansion of Gaza buffer zone
Israel withdrew every solider, settler and settlement from Gaza in 2005 and got more terror instead of peace. If it were to repeat the experiment in the West Bank as its foreign critics urge, the consequences would be incalculable. Even if Fatah were to remain in power, giving them sovereignty would place Israel’s security in jeopardy. If the West Bank were soon to fall into Hamas’s hands, it would mean a war that would make last summer’s fighting in Gaza look like a picnic.
Rather than an advertisement for Hamas’s appeal or even Fatah’s unpopularity, the Bir Zeit election is a warning to Israel of what might happen in the West Bank should it succumb to pressure and withdraw. Most Israelis may see a two state solution as the best option but not under the current circumstances. President Obama’s wishes notwithstanding, that’s something that no Israeli government will think of doing.
Egyptian authorities yesterday announced that they have completed a kilometre-deep buffer zone the length of the Egypt-Gaza border in order to protect against tunnels enabling the smuggling of arms and weapons, fuelling Islamist violence in the Sinai Peninsula.'I Confess: I Played Katy Perry's Music in Gaza'
The buffer zone expands on an existing 500-metre deep area Egypt had already established spanning a nine-mile stretch along the Gaza border. It is estimated that around 2,000 homes have been destroyed to make way for the buffer zone, which Egypt hopes will halt Hamas’s ability to support terrorist groups in Sinai.
Egypt’s President al-Sisi declared a state of emergency in parts of Sinai in October, after saying that “foreign forces” were responsible for a huge double terror attack in northern Sinai, which killed 33 Egyptian soldiers. He also ordered the closure of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, which has remained almost entirely shut ever since. Yesterday, al-Sisi said that Egypt had destroyed around 80 per cent of the smuggling tunnels and again alluded to Hamas’s influence, blaming “foreign agents” for the violence.
The latest report by ultraleftist NGO “Breaking the Silence” contains the alleged testimony of soldiers who served in Gaza, and who describe what they thought was immoral IDF activity during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last summer. The report was gobbled up by news media abroad for its Israel-bashing value, although it does not describe anything that constitutes a war crime.
While many Israelis reacted to the report with anger and accusations of backstabbing, some decided to vent their frustration through satire. And thus, the Facebook page “1000 Times More 'Breaking the Silence'” was born.
The page displays mock statuses of soldiers who express their remorse over “atrocities” they perpetrated. Here is a sampling:
"Once, at a checkpoint, I let a pregnant Palestinian woman cut past the line. In the end, it turned out she was just fat. She was so insulted.”
"We were lying in ambush when suddenly, a boy approached us, wearing an explosive vest. We convinced him to take it off and promised we'd give him a Messi shirt. We had a different shirt, but we fooled him and he didn't even know.”
"Once, during reserve duty at Etzion, I served black coffee to two Palestinian workers. I now think, with regret, that perhaps they couldn't sleep that night.”
"Once, I had a bottle of Coke and I didn't throw it at the roadside – thus preventing a Palestinian from exercising his right to a fire bomb.”
"When I was at a roadblock in Hevron, I stopped a private car with two small girls. In the car's baggage trunk were two guns and ten cartridges. To this day, I find it hard to get over the damage I caused that family when I scratched their car as I removed the ammunition from the trunk. One of the guns scratched the hood of the trunk.”