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Netanyahu: Time to Complete Security Barrier in Jerusalem Area

March 10, 2016

Netanyahu: Time to Complete Security Barrier in Jerusalem Area

by Aaron Klein

9 Mar 2016

Source: Netanyahu: Time to Complete Security Barrier in Jerusalem Area

TEL AVIV – With U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visiting Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced on Wednesday that the Jewish state will complete construction of the country’s security barrier in Jerusalem and the southern West Bank.

Haaretz reports:

During security consultations held by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s Office said it was immediately decided to close gaps in the separation barrier in the Jerusalem area, and to complete construction of the barrier in the Tarkumiya area in the South Hebron Hills.

Gaps in the separation barrier are used by Palestinians to enter Israel illegally without the proper permits. The assailant behind the Jaffa attack entered Israel illegally from a West Bank village near Qalqilya. In recent months, opposition chair MK Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) called on Netanyahu to close the gaps and complete construction of the barrier.

Netanyahu’s decision comes in the wake of a series of Palestinian terrorist attacks here in the past 24 hours.

On Tuesday, an American tourist was killed and at least ten others wounded, four seriously, in terrorist stabbing attacks perpetrated by the same individual at two locations in Jaffa, the port city located just south of Tel Aviv.

The attacks took place while Biden was in Jaffa speaking at the Peres Center for Peace, Breitbart Jerusalem reported.

The Jaffa stabbing was just one of three attacks that took place within about two hours of each other. One Israeli was moderately wounded in a terrorist attack in Petah Tikva, located about nine miles south of Tel Aviv. Before that, two Israelis were wounded in a shooting attack near Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances to the Old City and the scene of scores of attacks and attempted attacks in recent months.

On Wednesday, two terrorists from Kafr Aqab in eastern Jerusalem carried out a combined vehicular and stabbing attack near the Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances to Jerusalem’s Old City. A Palestinian civilian was seriously wounded in the attack.

Last month, Netanyahu said he is working to surround the entire country with fences and barriers “to defend ourselves against wild beasts” that surround the Jewish state.

Netanyahu made the comments during a tour of a barrier being erected on the country’s eastern border with Jordan.

“We are preparing a multi-year project to encircle Israel with a security fence to defend ourselves in the Middle East as it is now, and as it is expected to be,” Netanyahu stated.

“In the end, in the State of Israel, as I see it, there will be a fence that spans it all,” said Netanyahu. “I’ll be told, ‘This is what you want, to protect the villa?’ The answer is yes. Will we surround all of the State of Israel with fences and barriers? The answer is yes. In the area that we live in, we must defend ourselves against the wild beasts.”

He said the plan would take several years to complete and that besides the fence around the country his government will work to close breaches in the security barrier that straddles the West Bank.

“This thing costs many billions, and we’re working on a multi-year plan of prioritization so it will be spread out over years in order to gradually … complete it to defend the State of Israel,” Netanyahu added.

Israel began construction of the security barrier in 2002 at the height of the second Palestinian intifada, a terrorist war of shootings and suicide bombings that targeted Israeli civilians. It was launched after PLO leader Yasser Arafat rejected an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state during U.S.-mediated negotiations in the summer of 2000.

Upon the completion of a significant continuous section of the security fence in 2003, Israel saw a marked decrease in the number of suicide bombers able to penetrate Israeli cities.

About 95% of the barrier consists of a chain-link fence backed up by high-tech surveillance systems and not the concrete barrier routinely shown by the news media.

The concrete barriers are usually only located in areas where the wall intersects with Israeli communities and roads, including areas of previous Palestinian shooting attacks.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

 

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Broad support in Knesset for bill to deport terrorists’ families to Gaza

March 9, 2016

Broad support in Knesset for bill to deport terrorists’ families to Gaza

By LAHAV HARKOV \

03/09/2016 21:29

Source: Broad support in Knesset for bill to deport terrorists’ families to Gaza – Israel News – Jerusalem Post

LET IT BE WRITTEN, LET IT BE DONE !

Transportation and intel minister says bill is “a first-rate act of deterrence,” and called on the Attorney-General’s Office to cooperate and allow it to be passed into law quickly.

MKs from all coalition parties and some in the opposition signed a bill to deport terrorists’ family members, which Knesset House Committee David Bitan (Likud) submitted Wednesday.

The idea for the bill came from Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz, after Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit said last week that expelling Palestinian terrorists’ families from the West Bank to Gaza violates Israeli and international law and could play into the hands of those seeking to have Israel tried for war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

Katz said the bill is “a first-rate act of deterrence,” and called on the Attorney-General’s Office to cooperate and allow it to be passed into law quickly.

“Everyone must understand that we are at the height of a war against ISIS-style terrorist attacks by radical Islam,” Katz stated. “This is terrorism by individuals, about which we do not have additional intelligence, and therefore, we need to take additional deterrent and preventative steps.”

According to Katz, support from coalition parties as well as Yesh Atid, including party leader MK Yair Lapid, and Yisrael Beytenu, shows how necessary the bill is and that it has broad public support, giving it a good chance of passing.

Bitan pointed out that two former Shin Bet chiefs – MK Avi Dichter (Likud) and MK Ya’acov Peri (Yesh Atid) – support the bill, indicating its great potential, and said it could be the factor that brings the wave of terror to an end.

The bill states that family members of a terrorist who helped commit the act of terror or knew about it in advance could lose their permanent residence status, if they are residents of sovereign Israel, including east Jerusalem, or be deported from the West Bank, if that is where they live.

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Palestinians: Have The Donors Finally Woken Up?

March 8, 2016

Palestinians: Have The Donors Finally Woken Up?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

March 8, 2016 at 5:00 am

Source: Palestinians: Have The Donors Finally Woken Up?

  • The striking teachers are exposing the Palestinian Authority (PA) as playing Western donors for suckers.
  • No one, in fact, knows how many Palestinians are on the Palestinian payroll.
  • Donors might not be aware, for instance, that they are paying over 50,000 employees from the Gaza Strip to not work. This has been the case since 20007, when Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip. In response, the PA ordered all its employees to boycott Hamas and promised to pay them full salaries for sitting at home.
  • The Palestinian committee has been tasked to avoid scandal and ensure that donors do not get to the bottom of the case.

Western donors want to see a list of the names of Palestinians who are on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the PA is not happy about it.

What is driving this demand? Thousands of Palestinian school teachers in the West Bank are striking for better conditions. The Palestinian leadership, in response, has ordered a security crackdown on the strikers.

To justify the crackdown, PA officials have claimed that the strike was organized by Hamas as part of a conspiracy to embarrass and undermine the regime of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

What is really happening is that the teachers are blowing the whistle on PA corruption. They have accused the PA Ministry of Education of wasting donors’ funds and deceiving them by inflating the number of teachers. They claim that the list of employees (about 56,000) ostensibly hired by the ministry contains many fictitious names. These include teachers and administrative workers of the ministry.

The teachers also accuse the PA of lying to the donors about their salaries. The information provided by the PA to donors claimed that the PA pays higher salaries to the teachers than the teachers actually receive.

In other words, the striking teachers are exposing the PA as playing Western donors for suckers.

The PA’s Finance Ministry has yet to publish the general budget for the years 2015 and 2016. The last time the budget appeared on the ministry’s official website was in 2014. The striking teachers and other Palestinians say there is something fishy about the Finance Ministry’s failure to make public the annual budget for 2015 and 2016. They call this a lack of transparency.

According to various sources, the donors’ request took PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah by surprise. He has referred the request to the office of Mahmoud Abbas and is now awaiting the president’s personal intervention in the developing scandal.

One report revealed that the PA leadership has formed a secret legal committee, headed by Palestinian official Karim Shehadeh, to prepare a reply to the donors about the discrepancy in the salaries. The committee has been tasked to avoid scandal and ensure that donors do not get to the bottom of the case.

The donors’ request explains the hysterical response of the PA leadership to the ongoing teachers’ strike in the West Bank. In the past few weeks, PA security forces have rounded up dozens of striking teachers and imposed a reign of intimidation against others. When the teachers planned to hold a protest rally in Ramallah last week, the PA deployed hundreds of policemen and set up checkpoints in various parts of the West Bank in a bid to foil the protest and terrify the teachers.

Left: Striking Palestinian teachers protest in Ramallah last week. Right: Palestinian Authority policemen deploy in the street to intimidate the teachers.

In a typical game of smoke and mirrors, the Palestinian government this week denied that the donor countries demanded to inspect the payroll records. Yet Palestinian sources in Ramallah insisted that the reports were true. According to the sources, this marks a watershed in donors’ demand for accountability from the PA leadership.

Striking teachers is only one of the PA headaches. The donors’ demand for a full report on the names of PA public employees is bad news for Abbas. No one, in fact, knows how many Palestinians are on the PA payroll. Some figures estimate the number of employees at over 160,000, while others have put the figure at 250,000.

According to one study, the Palestinians have one policeman for every 52 people, compared to one teacher for each 72. Since its founding more than two decades ago, the PA has established ten different security services that employ more than 70,000 people.

Some Palestinians have charged that these numbers have been vastly inflated by using names of the deceased, those who live abroad and some who do not even exist. In the main, these salaries are covered by donor governments such as the US and EU, who for years have failed to check the lists of the public employees or verify the sums.

Moreover, donors might not be aware that they are paying over 50,000 employees from the Gaza Strip to not work. This has been the case since 20007, when Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip. In response, the Palestinian Authority ordered all its employees to boycott Hamas and promised to pay them full salaries for sitting at home.

If the donors are indeed demanding the report, it could mark the dawn of a new era — one in which the PA leadership is called on the carpet for its financial shenanigans. Of course, President Abbas and his friends might still find a way to blame Israel. This tactic has worked wonders in the past.

Thus, the jury is still out on whether the donors will show themselves to be the suckers the PA is hoping for, or if the Palestinians will finally begin to be held accountable for their behavior.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

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Again, PA warns it’ll end security coordination

March 4, 2016

Again, PA warns it’ll end security coordination For the umpteenth time, Ramallah threatens to end its security coordination with Israel. This time, ‘officially.’

By Gil Ronen First Publish: 3/3/2016, 10:07 PM

Source: Again, PA warns it’ll end security coordination – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva

A delegation from the Palestinian Authority (PA) “officially warned Israeli authorities” several days ago that the Palestinian government would end its security coordination with Israel if the state did not “commit to past agreements,” a member of the PLO executive committee told the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency Thursday.

Wassel Abu Youssef said the head of PA Intelligence, Majed Faraj, as well as the Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussein al-Sheikh, and the head of PA preventive security, Ziyad Hab al-Reeh, met with an Israeli security delegation to deliver the warning.

The PA delegation informed their Israeli counterparts that the PLO Central Council came to an official decision to work towards ending security coordination with Israel if the “current situation” were to continue, Abu Youssef said.

Abu Youssef reportedly added that the PA leadership does not fear the consequences of ending security coordination, as Israel is already “carrying out an open war against Palestinians.”

He added that the decision to end security coordination has the support of other Arab countries.

Abu Youssef told Ma’an that the PA leadership expects that Israeli authorities will try to pressure the PA to reconsider its stance.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas threatened to end security coordination in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on October 30, and similar threats have been issued countless times by PA officials.

The unwritten agreement between Israel and the PA appears to allow the PA to carry out rampant murderous incitement against Israel, as long as it cooperates with Israel on other levels. As a result of the PA’s incitement, Arabs have been waging a cruel campaign of shootings and stabbings, which are all supposedly carried out by “lone wolves” or groups of two or three terrorists, without a central command.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from September 13, 2015 to February 26, 2016 (last Friday), 33 people were murdered, and 359 people were injured by Palestinian terrorists. The attacks included 192 stabbings, 75 shootings and 39 vehicular attacks.

There have been additional attacks since last Friday, including an infiltration into the community of Eli Wednesday.

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Palestinians: We Want Our Own Knesset

March 1, 2016

Palestinians: We Want Our Own Knesset

by Khaled Abu Toameh March 1, 2016 at 5:00 am

Source: Palestinians: We Want Our Own Knesset

 

  • Apparently Najat Abu Bakr forgot that she is a member of the Palestinian parliament and not the Israeli one. She and her colleagues have no right to criticize President Abbas or any senior official in Ramallah. Such criticism is considered an “insult” to top officials and even an act of treason.
  • And so we have two legislators. One is forced to seek shelter within her own parliament for fear of being arrested by the Palestinian security forces. The other receives all the rights and privileges enjoyed by her fellow Arabs inside Israel — in spite of her immensely provocative behavior.
  • That is the difference between a law-abiding country and the Palestinian Authority, which has been functioning for many years as a mafia.
  • Najat Abu Bakr and many Palestinians dream of the day they too will have a Knesset, a true parliament, where leaders are held accountable.

What do Haneen Zoabi and Najat Abu Bakr have in common?

Both women are outspoken members of parliament — Zoabi in Israel and Abu Bakr in the Palestinian territories.

Zoabi, who hails from Nazareth, is a citizen of Israel. Abu Bakr, from the West Bank city of Nablus, is an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the parliament that has been effectively paralyzed since 2007, when Hamas expelled the Palestinian Authority (Abbas ) from the Gaza Strip.

Haneen Zoabi (left) and Najat Abu Bakr (right) are outspoken members of parliament — Zoabi in Israel and Abu Bakr in the Palestinian territories. That is pretty much where the similarities end.

But outspoken participation in parliaments is pretty much where the similarities end.

Zoabi, who resides inside Israel, lives a rather different life from her colleague, Abu Bakr, who is a Palestinian citizen.

Zoabi, the Israeli member of parliament, is a provocateur of long standing who regularly enrages the Jewish-Israeli public. She joined a flotilla “aid” convoy to the Gaza Strip — a move that left many Israelis furious.

On other occasions, her statements have also been interpreted as a show of solidarity with Israel’s enemies. More recently, she received a light sentence after signing a plea-bargain admitting she had insulted an Arab working for the Israel Police.

Zoabi was back in the headlines again last month — along with two other Arab members of Israel’s Knesset, Jamal Zahalka and Basel Ghattas — for meeting with families of Palestinians who had carried out terror attacks against Israelis.

By all accounts, for that performance she and the other two Knesset members received a mere “slap on the wrist:” they were suspended from attending parliamentary committee meetings for a few months.

Even though Zoabi’s behavior and rhetoric are thoroughly abhorrent to many Israelis, including some of Israel’s Arab citizens, Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, along with other Israelis, came out against expelling her and some other Joint Arab List colleagues from the Knesset.

“We cannot allow the Knesset, whose representatives are chosen by the public, to independently overturn the public’s choice,” Rivlin said, referring to proposed legislation that would allow Knesset members to vote out their colleagues who express support for terrorism.

But let us return to the question: how are Haneen Zoabi and Najat Abu Bakr, our two female parliamentarians, each doing?

While Zoabi, an Arab Muslim citizen of Israel, carries out her duties — and lives her life — freely, Abu Bakr has been forced to seek refuge within the Palestinian Legislative Council building in Ramallah.

In short, the two women are living in different worlds.

Since last week, when President Mahmoud Abbas ordered her arrest, Abu Bakr has been holed up inside the Palestinian Authority parliament building. Her crime: blowing the whistle on the financial corruption of a cabinet minister who is closely associated with President Abbas.

Her claim is that the minister has been privately selling water to Palestinians and has illegally taken more than $200,000 from the Palestinian budget.

But that is not her only alleged crime. A further one concerns her public support for a teacher’s strike in the West Bank. The strike has seriously embarrassed President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership. Abbas has ordered scores of striking teachers arrested and has deployed hundreds of policemen at checkpoints to foil a protest organized by the teachers, who are demanding higher salaries and better conditions.

Apparently, Abu Bakr forgot that she is a member of the Palestinian parliament and not the Israeli one. She and her colleagues have no right to criticize President Abbas or any senior official in Ramallah. Such criticism is considered an “insult” to top officials and even an act of treason.

Members of the Palestinian Authority’s Parliament enjoy none of the rights enjoyed by Arab members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

Parliamentary immunity, for instance, means that Zoabi and her colleagues cannot be detained or summoned for interrogation by the authorities.

In truth, there is no life in the Palestinian parliament. It has been paralyzed, thanks to the PA and strife with Hamas, and mostly functions as the butt of Palestinian jokes.

But the absence of an effective parliament suits President Abbas and his government just fine. No parliament means no one to hold them accountable.

Meanwhile Abu Bakr, the MP who dares to open her mouth against the president or a top-echelon Palestinian Authority official, is grabbed by the long arm of the Palestinian security forces.

Abu Bakr is now a fugitive. Monday was the sixth day she has been huddling in the parliament building. She has refused to leave the building or report for interrogation, and is demanding that Abbas cancel the arrest warrant issued against her.

Where is comrade Zoabi now? The Joint Arab List in Israel has been conspicuously silent about the harassment of their fellow member of parliament in Ramallah.

What a different picture we would have seen had Abu Bakr been delayed at an IDF checkpoint for fifteen minutes. In less time than that, Zoabi would have strung Israel up for violating the rights of a parliament member in the Palestinian territories.

And so we have two legislators. One is forced to seek shelter within her own parliament for fear of being arrested by the Palestinian security forces. The other receives all the rights and privileges enjoyed by her fellow Arabs inside Israel – in spite of her immensely provocative behavior.

That is the difference between a law-abiding country and the Palestinian Authority, which has been functioning for many years as a mafia.

Najat Abu Bakr and many Palestinians dream of the day they too will have a Knesset, a true parliament, where leaders are held accountable. For now – and for the foreseeable future – that day is just a pipedream.

Zoabi and her fellow Arab citizens of Israel will not be packing their bags and heading for Ramallah anytime soon, however. It seems that another Arab dictatorship is not their idea of prime real estate.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

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Israel Transferring $128 Million to PA to Prevent Collapse

February 26, 2016

Israel Transferring $128 Million to PA to Prevent Collapse

By: David Israel Published: February 26th, 2016

Source: The Jewish Press » » Israel Transferring $128 Million to PA to Prevent Collapse

Israeli Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon
Photo Credit: Emil Salman/POOL

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu) on Thursday decided to transfer to the Palestinian Authority half a billion shekels (roughly $128 million) in tax and customs Israel has collected for the PA and delayed its transfer for a variety of reasons, including a staggering debt the PA has accumulated for utilities, which are being paid by the Israeli taxpayer. But, apparently, the situation in the PA controlled parts of Judea and Samaria has grown near-catastrophic, and Kahlon decided to apply the kind of generosity for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas no Israeli citizen ever receives. Israel will also reduce the commission it charges the PA for serving as its tax collector and lender.

In addition, Kahlon and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon have decided to issue thousands of new work permits to workers who reside in the PA. So, cover up well, Israeli civilians, the folks with the knives and scissors are coming in Sunday.

“Peace hasn’t broken out,” Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon told Yediot Aharonot Thursday night, adding, “It’s only a drop in the bucket — but it’s a crucial drop.”

Both Kahlon and Ya’alon are convinced, ostensibly based on Israeli intelligence, that the only way to calm the recent wave of terror is by improving the economic malaise over at the PA and introducing hope — supposedly because fully employed Arabs won’t go out with knives to kill Jews. The problem with this notion is that several Arab surveys have shown that the kids with the knives usually come from middle class homes, and they often leave their suicide notes on their brand new laptops and iPads.

Palestinian Finance and Planning Minister Shukri Bishara met with Kahlon a week ago Thursday and warned him that the PA is on the brink of economic collapse, with a deficit of NIS 1.5 billion ($380 million). The amount transferred by Israel should be enough to cover about a thirst of the deficit and pay teachers—who have been striking, as well as suppliers.

Apparently, Prime Minister Netanyahu does not object to the emergency aid to the PA, but has opted not to endorse it publicly, so it’s on Kahlon’s and Ya’alon’s record if it fails but Netanyahu could later claim it as his own should it succeed. For his part, Kahlon reiterated that this does not constitute a political move but merely a stopgap measure. He also emphasized that the money actually belongs to the PA, and that he expects the other side to express its gratitude by ceasing those incitement broadcasts, and that Abbas condemn the terror and “change the atmosphere.”

Good luck waiting for that one, bring a comfortable chair.

According to Yediot, there has been one change this week in the tone of the conversation between official Israel and the official PA: last Sunday Minister Bishara sent Kahlon an unusually friendly letter, especially these days, on official PA paper, saying (text translated from Hebrew), “I wish to express my deep appreciation following our meeting last Thursday. I hope that in our talks I was able to explain to you the seriousness of the financial challenges we must deal with, and as a result the need to find satisfactory solutions to the issues with which we dealt.”

Bishara continued: “I came out of our meeting with a feeling that thanks to your leadership and understanding we have reached a positive turning point and prepared the path for new beginnings in trade relations between Israel and ourselves. Even though the arrangements to which you consented are still far from what is needed for a global solution, I believe that they constitute a positive and welcome step forward.”

Bishara ended his letter with a request to pass his gratitude to Gen. Yoav (Poly) Mordechai, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

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Erdan: IDF plan for peace talks is ‘infuriating’

February 23, 2016

Erdan: IDF plan to beat terror with peace talks is ‘infuriating’ Internal Security Minister discusses IDF Intelligence head’s call for ‘diplomatic process,’ noting periods of peace talks more lethal.

By Ido Ben-Porat

First Publish: 2/23/2016, 3:28 PM

Source: Erdan: IDF plan for peace talks is ‘infuriating’ – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva

Minister Gilad Erdan
Flash 90

Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) on Tuesday denied that IDF Intelligence Corps head Maj. Gen. Herzl (Herzi) Halevi told the Security Cabinet the Arab terror wave will expand if peace talks aren’t launched with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Halevi appeared at the Security Cabinet on January 24 together with other senior Intelligence Corps officials to deliver the annual intelligence appraisal for 2016, before delivering it again Tuesday to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to Channel 10 reports on Monday night.

The report alleged that Halevi told the Cabinet a “diplomatic process” with the PA is the only way to stop the terror wave, as he claims the military has largely done all it can. If peace talks are not advanced, he stated additional forces will join the terror wave, including the Tanzim terror group, which is the “armed wing” of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

“I sat in many meetings that he (Halevi) took part in. I never heard him say something like that,” Erdan told Army Radio on Tuesday, denying the reports.

“If something like that was said in a briefing for military correspondents, I think that’s an infuriating statement because we remember the days of a diplomatic process, in which the attacks and the terror were much stronger.”

Erdan’s statement would appear to be a reference to the 1994 Oslo Accords, in which Israel supplied the newly created PA and its Security Forces with weapons. The Accords led to the 2000 Second Intifada or Oslo War, in which over 1,000 Israelis were murdered; PA officials later bragged that 70% of the attacks were conducted by PA Security Force members.

In the current wave as well a number of the terrorist attackers have been identified as PA policemen.

Erdan also spoke about returning the bodies of terrorists, a move he has generally opposed as a deterrence factor so as to avoid massive funerals encouraging more attacks.

“Since our last talk I think one or two bodies were returned. The reason no one heard about it is because the families agreed to cooperate with the police and hold a respectable funeral…not one with incitement or support for the act of terror that the terrorist conducted,” he said.

“We have no interest in holding these bodies, rather (we do it) simply because we are in a wave of terror in which the glorification of the ‘martyr’ and the imitation by his friends is an integral part. We are not prepared for things like this to happen in funerals and possibly even bring about additional attacks.”

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 Former PA Minster: We No Longer Abide by Oslo Accords

February 11, 2016

 Former PA Minster: We No Longer Abide by Oslo Accords

By: David Israel

Published: February 11th, 2016

Source: The Jewish Press » » Former PA Minster: We No Longer Abide by Oslo Accords

Dr.Mohammad Shtayyeh
Photo Credit: Wikipedia commons

Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh, who served as the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Public Works And Housing and Minister of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development announced on Thursday that the PA is going to inform Israel during Thursday’s security coordination meeting with Israeli officials that it no longer abides by its Oslo agreements with Israel as long as Israel is not keeping them, Israel Radio reported.

“Israel is not a partner — it’s an enemy state that occupies our land,” he said. He revealed that the current Palestinian leadership’s strategy is to internationalize the conflict through various means.

In a conference in Beirut, Lebanon, Shtayyeh said it’s the end of negotiations with Israel under an American monopoly. He supported the “Awakening,” as he called it, by Arab youth on the ground these days, and said that it is at the heart of the PLO’s strategy of its struggle.

Minister Zeev Elkin (Likud) said in response that the PA’s plan to inform Israel it no longer abides by the agreements between the two sides is yet another nail in the PA’s coffin. Elkin noted that the PA has been slowly vanishing from the map for all kinds of reasons. He emphasized that the PA’s existence completely depends on the Oslo Accords, and that security cooperation is a central part of those accords. Should it announce that it no longer keeps them, there will no longer be a basis for said existence and it would “evaporate,” as he put it.

In Elkin’s view, such a move would not cause Israel any damage in the world arena.

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Report: Kerry May Have Exposed Israeli Collaborator on Erekat’s Team

January 18, 2016

Report: Kerry May Have Exposed Israeli Collaborator on Erekat’s Team

By: David Israel Published: January 18th, 2016

Source: The Jewish Press » » Report: Kerry May Have Exposed Israeli Collaborator on Erekat’s Team

Palestinian Authority official Seab Erekat meets John Kerry Wednesday under photo of the golden-domed mosque on the Temple Mount.

Palestinian Authority official Seab Erekat meets John Kerry Wednesday under photo of the golden-domed mosque on the Temple Mount.
Photo Credit: Flash 90

Following reports that an employee of the PLO negotiation affairs department who worked for 20 year as an aide to Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in Ramallah was arrested for “collaborating with Israel,” on Monday the London-based Arabic daily Rai Al-Youm revealed that the order to search for an Israeli spy on the negotiations team came two weeks ago from PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who realized private conversations of PA seniors regarding their political position were known to the US based on Israeli information.

According to Rai Al-Youm, the protocols from secret high level meetings in Ramallah had been leaked to Israel for many years, and the Israelis regularly passed them on to Washington. As State Department officials were turning on the pressure on Abbas to reach a political compromise in the peace negotiations, they revealed their knowledge of intricate details of the Palestinian position, which raised Abbas’s suspicions about a leak. The chairman began questioning European officials, who confirmed to him that the US was receiving a regular flow of information about PA internal meetings from Israel.

Apparently, part of the reason why the arrest of the PLO Israeli collaborator has only taken place this week had to do with the attempt to keep the internal investigation away from Saeb Erekat himself, who only learned about the arrest a week ago. Erekat has been the PLO chief negotiator for years and was renowned for his uncompromising position.

The final round in the negotiations opened in July 2013, with Tzipi Livni heading the Israeli team, vs. Erekatr at the head of the Palestinian team. The talks came to a halt April 2014, when Israel balked on releasing the fourth group of security prisoners, and in response the PA applied unilaterally to join 15 UN institutions, in violation of the peace accords. The anxious negotiator at that part of the encounter was Secretary of State John Kerry, who was desperately trying to push both sides to continue the negotiations.

At some point there, in April 2014, Kerry apparently cited raw information the US was not supposed to have, thus exposing a 20-year operation Israel maintained inside the PLO top command.

About the Author: David writes news at JewishPress.com.

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When Will Obama and the West Listen to Hamas?

November 11, 2015

When Will Obama and the West Listen to Hamas?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

November 10, 2015 at 5:00 am

Source: When Will Obama and the West Listen to Hamas?

  • What senior Hamas figure Musa Abu Marzouk and other Hamas leaders are saying is very clear: Even if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, Hamas and other Palestinians will continue to fight until Israel is completely destroyed.
  • Hamas is openly stating that it will use any future Palestinian state as a launching pad to attack and eliminate Israel.
  • Hamas is not a small opposition party in the Palestinian territories that can be dismissed as a minor player. Hamas is a large Islamist movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls the entire Gaza Strip with its population of 1.8 million Palestinians. Hamas, not much different from Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, has its own security forces, militias, weapons and government institutions.
  • The Obama Administration and Western governments can talk as much as they like about the two-state solution. Even if President Abbas agrees to a Palestinian state, he will never be able to persuade Hamas, Islamic Jihad and many other Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
  • Under the current circumstances, where Hamas and other Palestinians continue to dream about the destruction of Israel, any talk about a two-state solution is nothing but a joke.

As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were talking about the two-state solution during their meeting in the White House yesterday, the Palestinian Hamas movement reiterated its intention to destroy Israel.

Hamas’s announcement shows that the two-state solution is not a recipe for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The announcement also shows that all those who have been talking about a change in Hamas’s position towards Israel continue to live in an illusion.

As the Obama-Netanyahu meeting was underway, senior Hamas figure Musa Abu Marzouk issued a statement in which he declared: “We will never negotiate with the Zionist entity and we will never recognize its right to exist. We will continue to resist the Zionist entity until it vanishes, whether they like it or not. The soldiers of the Qassam [Hamas’s armed wing] were founded to liberate Palestine, even if some have recognized Israel. We want a state from the (Jordan) river to the [Mediterranean] sea.”

As U.S. President Barack Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday (left), senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk (at far right, holding rifle) reiterated his organization’s commitment to eliminate Israel.

Abu Marzouk’s remarks came in response to statements made by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting with Egyptian journalists in Cairo on Sunday night.

Abbas was quoted as telling the Egyptian journalists that Hamas and Israel were conducting “direct negotiations” to establish a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and parts of the Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Abbas claimed that ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi had offered to annex 1000 square kilometers of Sinai to the Gaza Strip – an offer he (Abbas) had categorically rejected.

Abu Marzouk’s latest threats to eliminate Israel are not only directed against Abbas, but also towards President Obama and those in the international community who continue to support the idea of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. What he and other Hamas leaders are saying is very clear: Even if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, Hamas and other Palestinians will continue to fight until Israel is completely destroyed.

In other words, Hamas is openly stating that it will use any future Palestinian state as a launching pad to attack and eliminate Israel. But Hamas’s message has obviously not reached the White House and other Western governments, where decision-makers continue to bury their heads in the sand, refusing to see or hear what some Palestinians are saying.

Hamas and many other Palestinians are completely opposed to a two-state solution: they believe that Israel has no right to exist — period — in this part of the world. The only solution they are prepared to accept is one that sees Israel wiped off the face of the earth.

Hamas is not a small opposition party in the Palestinian territories that could be dismissed as a minor player. Hamas is a large Islamist movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls the entire Gaza Strip with its population of 1.8 million Palestinians. Hamas has its own security forces, militias, weapons and government institutions.

Since its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas and its political allies have turned the coastal area into a semi-independent Islamist emirate.

Since then, Hamas has used the Gaza Strip as a launching pad to attack Israel with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. And Hamas leaders have repeatedly stated that their chief goal is to “liberate” not only the West Bank and east Jerusalem, but “all of Palestine.” In short, Hamas wants to replace Israel with an Islamist empire where non-Muslims would be permitted to live as a minority.

Hamas considers all Jews as “settlers” and “colonialists” who live in “settlements” such as Beersheba, Rishon Lezion, Ashdod and Bat Yam. Hamas does not differentiate between a Jew living in Ma’aleh Adumim or Gush Etzion (on the West Bank) and Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ramat Gan. That is why the Hamas media and leaders refer to Beersheba and Ra’anana, well within the “pre-1967 borders,” as “occupied” cities.

The Obama Administration and Western governments can talk as much as they like about the two-state solution. But so long as they refuse to listen to what Hamas and other Palestinians are saying, they will continue to engage in self-deception and hallucination. Even if President Abbas agrees to a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines, he will never be able to persuade Hamas, Islamic Jihad and many other Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Under the current circumstances, where Hamas and other Palestinians continue to dream about the destruction of Israel, any talk about a two-state solution is nothing but a joke.

The Obama Administration and the rest of the international community also need to understand that that the two-state solution has already been realized. In the end, the Palestinians got two states of their own: one in the Gaza Strip and another in the West Bank. The one in the Gaza Strip is run by folks are not much different from Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, while that in the West Bank is controlled by a president who has entered the 11th year of his four-year-term in office and as such is not even seen by his people as a “rightful” leader. This is a reality that the world, including Israel, will have to live with for many years to come.

It is time for the world to stop listening only to President Abbas and Saeb Erekat, and start paying attention to what many other Palestinians such as Hamas are saying, day and night, regarding their commitment to destroy Israel.

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