WarSclerotic

Source: WATCH: Dozens of firefighters battling major new blaze in Jerusalem hills | The Times of Israe

At least 20 planes in operation over Ma’ale Hahamisha, as flames head toward Nataf; homes being evacuated

A major forest fire broke out in the Jerusalem hills on Friday afternoon, hours after a massive overnight blaze nearby devastated at least 10 homes and threatened to destroy a small village west of the capital.

Multiple teams of firefighters were battling the blaze at Ma’ale Hahamisha on Friday afternoon, and more were being deployed. At least 20 planes were said to be operating in the area, dousing the flames from the skies.

Authorities said the fire was expanding and progressing toward the nearby community of Nataf, which has already been hit by a blaze that started Tuesday. None of the homes in Ma’ale Hahamisha or Nataf were in danger, police said initially, but in late afternoon they ordered the evacuation of Nataf.

Channel 2 reported that initial suspicions were that the blaze was started by a petrol bomb thrown from a nearby Arab village. This report was not confirmed.

The blaze was part of a wave of forest and brush fires that have cut a swath of destruction across several of Israel’s forests since Tuesday, and in several places entered residential areas. No one has been killed in the blazes, but hundreds have been injured, dozens of homes burned and, in Haifa, tens of thousands were evacuated.

An Israeli firefighter inspects the damage at Beit Meir in the Jerusalem hills, on November 25, 2016. (AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI)

Dozens of firefighters spent the night trying to save Beit Meir, near Abu Ghosh, but were unable stop the flames reaching a “great many” homes, police said. There were no reports of injuries as the village’s residents had already been evacuated.

Jerusalem police chief Yoram Halevy said one suspected arsonist was in custody Friday morning. “We believe there are arsonists out there, but also weather conditions that allow this to spark [without human aid],” Halevy told Army Radio.

“We spotted two suspects [near Beit Meir], at least one was arrested. He’s being taken for questioning, but it’s still too early to say he started the fire.”

The man was among more than a dozen suspects arrested on suspicion of sparking at least some of the hundreds of fires that have threatened Israeli towns and forests. He was identified by the Ynet news site as a Palestinian.

Among the suspects are several whom the Shin Bet domestic security service and police believe are responsible for starting some of the devastating fires that ripped through Haifa on Thursday, causing the evacuation of more than 60,000 people and damage to hundreds of homes.

Israeli firefighters help extinguish a fire in the northern city of Haifa on November 24, 2016. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Citing the hundreds of separate fires reported since Tuesday, political leaders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan to Education Minister Naftali Bennett have charged that Arab arsonists are behind part of the scourge. All three Israeli leaders called the alleged arson “terrorism” on Thursday.

In one instance a car was found near a fire outside Oranit in the West Bank that had fake license plates. Rags soaked in gasoline were found in the car.

Meanwhile, many Arabic-speaking social media users in Israel and abroad have cheered on the fires, causing the Arabic-language hashtag label “Israel is burning” to reach the third-most trending tag on Twitter in several nearby Arab countries.

But some Israeli security officials have warned against jumping to conclusions about the cause of the wave of fires, saying the evidence for a widespread campaign of arson remains ambiguous.

Investigators have said a large portion of the blazes, as many as half by some accounts, have clearly been caused by accidents and/or the exceptionally dry and windy weather of the last few days, while some indicate arson, and still others are under investigation.

Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich established a special investigative unit on Thursday to determine the cause of the fires and help locate arsonists. Earlier Thursday, he acknowledged arson “in some cases… presumably out of nationalistic motives.”

Israel was expected to receive further help in fighting the fires on Friday after several nations answered Israel’s call. Three firefighting planes from Greece and one from Cyprus are already in action, while overnight one plane from Turkey, two from Croatia, two from Italy and two from Russia arrived and will join the fight Friday, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

A firefighting plane from Greece fights a wildfire over Haifa, Israel, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Also, the massive US-based supertanker, a converted Boeing 747 that can operate at night, was expected by midnight Friday, the Foreign Ministry said.

In Beit Meir, at least 10 buildings had been burned by 6 a.m. Friday, and small fires remained in public spaces in the village.

Also early Friday, the village of Kaabiya in the Galilee saw flames from a nearby forest reach the edges of the community. Police evacuated five families, but said the move was a precaution, as firefighters expected to contain the blaze.

There were many blazes in other parts of the country Thursday and throughout the night. In the evening, a fire broke out near Shuafat in East Jerusalem and two houses were evacuated. One firefighter was lightly injured near Shaar Hagai, close to the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Route 1 highway.

Another fire was reported early Friday between the Galilee Arab towns of Kabul and Tamra. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Source: Column One: The ADL’s new bedfellows – Opinion – Jerusalem Post

( I urge all my Jewish readers to act on this article and help change the leadership at the ADL. We need that org… – JW )

Caroline Glick

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi was among the first Arab leaders to welcome Trump’s victory.

Like his counterparts in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Abdullah effectively ruled out the possibility that President Barack Obama will take any constructive steps to defeat the forces of global jihad in his last months in power. Speaking of the humanitarian disaster in Aleppo for instance, Abdullah said, “I don’t think there’s much we can do until the new administration is in place and a strategy is formulated.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi was among the first Arab leaders to welcome Trump’s victory.

Sisi has been largely shunned by the Obama administration.

President Barack Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood regime that Sisi and the Egyptian military overthrew in 2013.

Sisi was the first foreign leader to speak to Trump after his victory was announced. He released a statement to the media saying that he “looks forward to the presidency of president Donald Trump to inject a new spirit into the trajectory of Egyptian-American relations.”

The support that the incoming Trump administration is garnering in the Arab world stands in stark contrast to the near wall-to-wall opposition to Trump expressed by the American Muslim community.

According to a survey of Muslim American opinion taken in October by the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), 72% of American Muslims supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump was supported by a mere 4% of the Muslim community.

Muslim American activists played key roles in the Clinton campaign. They were particularly active in swing states like Ohio and Michigan where Trump won by narrow margins.

As The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday, since the election, Muslim American leaders have expressed concern and hostility toward the incoming Trump administration. Muslim Democrat activist James Zogby, who also heads the Arab American Institute, published an op-ed in The Jordan Times to this effect after the election. Zogby expressed concern that the Trump administration would harm the civil rights of Arab Americans.

The gap between the Arab world’s support for Trump and the Muslim American community’s opposition to him is particularly notable because it reverberates strongly the growing cleavage between the Israeli government and public and large swaths of the American Jewish community.

Led most prominently by the Anti-Defamation League and its executive director Jonathan Greenblatt, in the wake of the election, American Jews are at the forefront of efforts to delegitimize Trump and his senior advisers. Unlike their Muslim American counterparts, who are keeping their criticism of Arab regimes to themselves, Greenblatt, the ADL and their allies on the Left have linked their opposition to Trump to legitimizing opponents of Israel.

Before assuming his role at the ADL, Greenblatt worked in Valerie Jarrett’s political influence shop in the Obama White House. As ADL chief, Greenblatt has used his position as the head of a major Jewish organization to support the Obama administration’s policies. To this end, since the election, the ADL has worked to tar the incoming Trump administration as antisemitic, focusing its fire on Trump’s senior strategist, former Breitbart News CEO Stephen Bannon.

The ADL spearheaded the campaign to label Bannon an antisemite. When its claims were shown to be entirely spurious, this week the ADL quietly acknowledged that Bannon has actually never made any antisemitic statements. But its quiet admission of spreading lies didn’t stop the ADL from continuing to traffic in them. Even after it admitted that “we are not aware of any antisemitic statements from Bannon,” the ADL continued to insist that Breitbart has been a home for antisemites because some Jew-haters wrote antisemitic responses to Breitbart articles.

The ADL’s smear campaign against Bannon is a hard-sell because Breitbart is among the most pro-Israel websites in the US. But this brings us to the second aspect of the ADL-led campaign against President-elect Donald Trump and his team.

With each passing day, it becomes increasingly clear that the ADL and its allies are using the Trump victory as a means to draw a distinction between pro-Israel and Jew-friendly while arguing that antisemites support Israel and that people who hate Israel are not antisemites. This was the clear goal at the ADL’s summit on antisemitism last week.

As Daniel Greenfield reported Thursday in Front- Page Magazine, the ADL used the conference to legitimize the so-called BDS campaign to boycott Jewish Israeli products and divest from businesses that do business with Jewish-owned Israeli businesses.

It similarly normalized the general argument that there is nothing inherently antisemitic about opposing the Jewish state.

In a panel with the disturbing title, “Is Delegitimization of Israel Antisemitism?” the ADL featured anti-Israel activists Jill Jacobs and Jane Eisen. Both women argued that BDS is legitimate. At the same time, they denounced fervent supporters of Israel like Bannon and Center for Security President Frank Gaffney.

Greenfield reported that the ADL gave a prominent platform at the conference supposedly dedicated to fighting antisemitism to Ford Foundation CEO Darren Walker. The Ford Foundation is one of the leading contributors to anti-Israel organizations in the US and to anti-Zionist political front groups in Israel.

Other speakers explained that it isn’t that Israel’s foes are antisemitic. It is just that Israelis and their supporters have become “hypersensitive” to criticism.

All in all, Greenfield concluded, “Instead of tackling antisemitism, the ADL was tackling Israel and pro-Israel Jews” and “normalizing anti-Israel rhetoric and organizations.”

A few days after the conference, the ADL took the next step toward normalizing hatred for Israel in America when it announced its support for Rep.

Keith Ellison’s candidacy to serve as the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Ellison became the first Muslim American elected to the House of Representatives in 2006. In the decades that preceded his election, Ellison built a long and documented history of membership in and advocacy and employment for the antisemitic Nation of Islam. In his capacity as a Nation of Islam spokesman, Ellison made antisemitic statements and promoted anti-Jewish and anti-Israel positions and activists.

Since joining the House of Representatives, Ellison has been one of the leading anti-Israel voices in Congress. He has spearheaded multiple anti-Israel initiatives. He openly supports the boycott of Israeli Jewish products and has castigated Israel as an apartheid state.

Together with James Zogby, last August Ellison served as a member of the Democratic Party’s platform committee. The men attempted to purge the platform of language in support of Israel.

Yet Wednesday the ADL released a statement extolling Ellison as “a man of good character.” The ADL praised him as “an ally in the fight against antisemitism and for civil rights.”

It even said that Ellison “has been on record in support of Israel.”

ADL is supporting Ellison – and opposing Trump and his pro-Israel advisers – because Greenblatt and his backers support Obama’s policies in the Middle East and want to make it difficult for Trump to abandon them.

Ellison and the leading American Muslim groups oppose Trump for the same reason. The difference between the two groups is that the ADL and its Jewish backers are acting in this manner because they support the Left, which Obama leads. Ellison and his allies at CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, and the Arab American Institute and other groups oppose Trump because they support the substance of Obama’s policies.

The chief characteristics of Obama’s Middle East policies have been support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran against Israel and the US’s Sunni allies.

Former FBI agent and counterterrorism expert John Guandolo estimates that upward of 80% of Islamic centers and mosques in the US are controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The major American Muslim groups, including CAIR, ISNA and the Islamic Circle of North America are tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood in turn supports Iran.

During his year in power in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi permitted Iranian warships to travel through the Suez Canal, hosted Iranian leaders and Hezbollah commanders in Cairo and took a series of additional steps to embrace Iran.

Trump’s foreign policy adviser Walid Phares gave an interview to Egyptian television after Trump’s election stating that Trump will support a bill introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood in the US as well as its offshoots CAIR, ISNA and others due to their support for jihadist terrorist groups formed by Brotherhood members. Al-Qaida, Hamas and a host of other jihadist groups have all been formed by Muslim Brotherhood followers.

Trump’s national security adviser, Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Mike Flynn; Rep. Mike Pompeo, whom Trump has selected to serve as his CIA director; as well as Marine Gen. James Mattis, the leading contender to serve as Trump’s defense secretary are all outspoken opponents of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Given the stakes, then, it makes perfect sense that the Arab American groups oppose Trump.

It also makes sense that Arab regimes threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran support Trump and eagerly await his inauguration.

And it clearly makes sense for Israel to welcome Trump’s election.

The only thing that makes no sense is the American Jewish campaign to demonize Trump. The ADL’s leadership of the campaign to smear Trump and his advisers while legitimizing BDS and supporting Israel-bashers is antithetical to the interests of the American Jewish community.

In adopting these positions, Greenblatt and the ADL along with their allies in J Street, Jewish Voices for Peace, If Not Now, The Forward, other far-left groups and mainstream groups that have lost their way show through their actions that they have conflated their Judaism with their support for the Left.

To the extent that the interests of the Jews of America contradict the positions of the Left, the Jews of America are behaving in an “antisemitic” way.

It is the responsibility of the segment of the community that understands “Jewish” is not a synonym of “leftist” to oppose the ADL and its backers. If they fail to do so, they will contribute to the descent of the community into powerlessness and irrelevance, not only in the era of Trump, but into the future.

http://www.CarolineGlick.com

Source: Egypt and Jordan to send firefighting help | The Times of Israel

Arab neighbors join Palestinian Authority, European nations in sending assistance to battle blazes throughout Jewish state

A firefighting plane from Greece fights a wildfire over Haifa, Israel, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Jordan and Egypt have joined a host of nations sending assistance to Israel as the country struggles with a rash of fires that have burned for four straight days.

Both of Israel’s Arab neighbors offered help and Israel accepted, the Prime Minister’s Office said Friday. Jordan will send fire trucks and Egypt two firefighting helicopters.

They will join an international contingent already assisting Israeli firefighting forces who were stretched to their limit by the hundreds of fires fueled by unusually dry conditions and strong winds.

Israeli crews were even joined Thursday night by eight Palestinian fire trucks and 40 firefighters, who were taking part in the battle to contain the massive blaze in Haifa and at Sha’ar Hagai outside Jerusalem.

Firefighters battle wildfires in Haifa, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

The show of solidarity from Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority was a welcome sign after many Arabic-speaking social media users in Israel and abroad have cheered on the fires, causing the Arabic-language hashtag label “Israel is burning” to reach the third-most trending tag on Twitter in several nearby Arab countries.

Israel was expected to receive further help in fighting the fires. Three firefighting planes from Greece and one from Cyprus are already in action, while overnight one plane from Turkey, two from Croatia, two from Italy and two from Russia arrived and will join the fight Friday, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Also, the massive US-based supertanker, a converted Boeing 747 that can operate at night, is expected by midnight Friday, the Foreign Ministry said

Source: New fires on Friday; investigation into Thursday blaze confirms arson fears – Israel News – Jerusalem Post

On Thursday night the number of fires dealt with over the course of the three days numbered around 200, with upward of 75,000 residents being evacuated from their homes in Haifa.

Bet Meir fires. (photo credit:COURTESY ISRAEL POLICE)

Israel continued to battle fires in different parts of the country on Friday, with outbreaks reported in Beit Meir in the Jerusalem hills, and near Kiryat Gat in the South of the country.

At 6:25 Friday morning Jerusalem Police reported that the Beit Meir fire was a result of arson, and two suspects had been arrested in connection with the incident. A third person escaped the scene and is being sought by Police.

Also on Friday morning, Channel 10 reported that the results of an investigation into Thursday’s fire in Zichron Yaakov, saying that the blaze was caused “indisputably” by arsonists.

On Thursday night the number of fires dealt with over the course of the three days numbered around 200, with upward of 75,000 residents being evacuated from their homes in Haifa and thousands more across the country, until Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan declared the general situation “under control” late at night.

Magen David Adom said it treated more than 90 people for light smoke inhalation, and transferred them to hospitals, which remained on high alert throughout the day. At least one person was treated for moderate injuries.

There were no deaths or critical injuries, police said.

An estimated 750 hectares (1,850 acres) of forests and rural areas have been destroyed in Zichron Ya’acov, Neveh Shalom, Modi’in, Neveh Ilan and Nataf, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund’s fire-fighting services said.

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) confirmed that it is investigating the fires to determine whether they are the result of arson.

“The Shin Bet along with the police have detained several suspects who were taken in for questioning in connection with possible arson fires that affected multiple places areas across the country,” read a statement released by authorities.

The Palestinian Authority’s Civil Defense service said that the Israeli government had asked for assistance in fighting the fires, and that it had agreed to help for humanitarian reasons.

It had done so as well during the massive fire in the Carmel Forest in 2011.

A number of blazes also broke out in the Palestinian territories near Ramallah and Nablus.

Daniel K. Eisenbud, Anna Ahronheim and Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.