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Palestinians: We Are the New Nazis

September 26, 2015

Palestinians: We Are the New Nazis, Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, September 26, 2015

  • These are people behaving in a way that does not deserve being rewarded with anything, let alone a state. They far more resemble all tyrannical thugs throughout history who spend their lives telling other people how to live, and using violence, or threats of violence, to coerce anyone who does not agree. Sadly, we already have too much of that kind of muscling in our Arab and Muslim world, as Egypt’s forward-looking President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as well as many others, regularly point out.
  • We have now reached the same stage as Germany’s Nazis — the same thing, ironically, we falsely accuse the Jews of being — where the appearance of a Jew on a Palestinian television show is considered as an act of “treason” and a “crime.” In reality, it is we who are the New Nazis.

A Palestinian TV talk show host is facing strong condemnations and threats for hosting an Israeli Jewish singer who is extremely popular among Palestinian youths.

The condemnations expose the ugly face of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), whose followers are vehemently opposed to any form of “normalization” between Palestinians and Israelis.

The BDS activists are demanding that those who brought the singer, Zvi Yehezkel, to the TV show in Ramallah be punished. The activists do not even seem to care that the singer supports peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

They are more bothered by the fact that a Palestinian TV station in Ramallah dared to invite a Jew to an interview. The BDS activists are also not ashamed to expose their anti-Semitism by expressing their outrage over the fact that Yehezkel is an observant Jew wearing a skullcap.

Judging from the angry reactions to the Yehezkel interview, one can only deduce that members of the BDS movement are a deeply antisemitic racists who hate Jews just because of their faith and appearance.

Dozens of Palestinians took to social media to hurl abuse at the Palestinian TV show and its presenters, calling them “traitors,” “spies,” “dogs” and “pigs.”

Palestinian artist Faten Kabha wrote that she decided to cancel an interview with the TV show “after it hosted a Jewish Zionist in the heart of Ramallah.”

The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, a body dominated by Fatah activists in the West Bank, and several political groups also joined the bandwagon of denunciations over the Jewish singer’s appearance on a Palestinian TV show; and the “anti-normalization” activists are also targeting the five-star Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah for hosting the Jewish singer.

One of the leaders of the “anti-normalization” campaign, Fadi Arouri, demanded that the hotel distance itself from the TV show, which was recorded in one of its halls, or face being labeled advocates of “normalization” with Israel. It would seem he has more to worry about by being labeled a racist.

Arouri, on his Facebook page, lashed out at the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation and the hotel for bringing the Jewish singer to Ramallah. He threatened to add the hotel to the list of advocates of “normalization” with Israel, saying: “You will be fought against the same way we fight the occupation and its institutions.”

Arouri and his friends are also angry with the TV show for using Hebrew names of Israeli cities during the interview with Yehezkel, who lives in Ashkelon, and argued that the presenter should have used the Arabic name of Majdal instead of Ashkelon.

The Jewish singer is fortunate that Arouri and his friends did not know about his presence in Ramallah in real time, otherwise they would have attacked the TV studio and forced him to flee Ramallah, as these BDS activists have been doing for the past few years: violently breaking up meetings between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and intimidating the participants like jackbooted thugs. These are people behaving in a way that does not deserve being rewarded with anything, let alone a state. They far more resemble all tyrannical thugs throughout history who spend their lives telling other people how to live, and using violence, or threats of violence, to coerce anyone who does not agree. Sadly, there already seems to be too much of that kind of muscling in our Arab and Muslim world, as Egypt’s forward-looking President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as well as many others, regularly point out.

1069Palestinian “anti-normalization” activists disrupt an unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace conference last year, in Jerusalem’s Ambassador Hotel.

The public outcry over a Jewish singer’s appearance on a Palestinian TV talk show is yet another reminder of how we Palestinians have made ourselves intolerable to Israelis, even to those who are sympathetic to our cause and believe in peace and coexistence.

The campaign on social media against the singer and the TV show also provides proof of increasingly racist sentiments among our people. We automatically dismiss anyone wearing a kippah because we assume he is a “settler” who hates Arabs and Muslims. It is embarrassing to read many of the comments posted by Palestinian activists concerning the singer’s religion and kippah.

With such attitudes, how can we ever make peace with Israel? If hosting a Jewish singer on a Palestinian TV talk show has drawn such fierce opposition and denunciations, what will happen the day any Palestinian leader signs a peace treaty with our Jewish neighbors?

How many times have Palestinians appeared in the Israeli media during the past few decades? Has anyone ever heard of such protests by Israeli Jews? Israeli media outlets have even been conducting interviews with some of Israel’s worst enemies, including Palestinians who mercilessly killed innocent Jews. Still, we never saw disgusting and racist reactions like the ones posted on social media after the interview with the Jewish singer.

Over the years, we have taught our people to hate not only Israel, but Jews as well — as is already cemented in the Hamas charter. We have done this through incitement in mosques, media outlets and public rhetoric. We have now reached the same stage as Germany’s Nazis — the same thing, ironically, we falsely accuse the Jews of being — where our people consider the appearance of a Jew on a Palestinian TV show an act of “treason” and a “crime.” In reality, it is we who are the New Nazis.

The case of the Jewish singer shows that the BDS and “anti-normalization” folks are nothing but a group of racist brown-shirts working to destroy any chance of peace and coexistence between Palestinians and Israel. Their hysterical reaction to the TV interview with Yehezkel proves that our people are continuing to march backward, toward more extremism, racism and Nazism.

Categories: Israel, Jerusalem, Nazis, Palestinians, Two state solution
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Two-State Solutions and Double Standards

September 22, 2015

Two-State Solutions and Double Standards Why is it only the Jewish state, and not Iraq or Syria, that is pressured to split into parts?

September 22, 2015

Joseph Puder

Source: Two-State Solutions and Double Standards | Frontpage Mag

The Assads in Syria and the Sunni-Muslim Saddam Hussein (now deceased) are examples of minorities ruling over majority populations not of their own ethnic or religious branch. The fall of Saddam’s Iraq was like Humpty Dumpty: once broken, it cannot be put together again.  In the Syrian civil-war, the Sunni-Muslim majority is determined to end the Assad dictatorial rule through unprecedented violence and mayhem. Atrocities are perpetrated by both the Assad regime and the Islamic State. It has resulted in fracturing Syria. Millions of Iraqis and Syrians are now displaced, streaming toward European shores. It is fair to ask why the U.S. and the West in general are not openly supporting the new realities in the Levant.

The George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama administrations have displayed double standards toward Israel with respect to the “two-state solution.” One can legitimately ask why not apply the three-state solution to Iraq and the five-state solution to Syria? Why is it that, according to Obama, the Jewish state can be split into parts (two states), while the artificial colonial creations of Iraq and Syria must remain unitary states? In the case of Israel, the territory it occupies from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean was recognized by the League of Nations as the historical homeland of the Jews.

British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill wrote in June, 1922 that the Jews are “in Palestine as of Right and not on Sufferance.” The text of the League of Nations mandate (July 24, 1922) entrusting the Mandate to Britain reads: “Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country; and whereas the Principal Allied Powers have selected His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory for Palestine…”

Charles Krauthammer summarized in the National Post (March 20, 2015) the reasons why a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is impossible at this time. “The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership – from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas – has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish State. And without that, no [Israeli] government of any kind will agree to a Palestinian state.”

Israel is being surrounded by jihadist forces in Gaza (Hamas) and in Lebanon (Hezbollah). In the Sinai Islamic state affiliates are attempting to destabilize the government of President al-Sisi of Egypt, and King Abdullah’s Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In Syria, both the Islamic State and the Assad regime with its Iranian allies threaten Israel. Should Israel vacate the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) to satisfy the Two-State solution, it will likely fall into Hamas’ hands. Israel’s population centers and industrial infrastructure will then be within range of Hamas’ rockets. Moreover, the Palestinian Authority ruled by Mahmoud Abbas is tottering and with little legitimacy. The two-state solution can only work if the Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state, take off the table Palestinian “right of return,” and only when the Middle East finds a modicum of regional stability that might allow Israel to take risks.

It is a different story in Iraq and Syria. Following the bloodbath in Syria that killed 250,000, few, if any, would want to live under the Assad dictatorial regime or the murderous and intolerant Caliphate of the Islamic State. The Kurds, after Kobane, want independence and perhaps a merger with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil (Northern Iraq). The Alawis (10-15% of the population of Syria) whose base is in northwestern Syria, expect the Sunni majority to exact revenge for the deadly attacks the Bashar Assad’s regime perpetrated against them. They too, would like an independent state or some form of loose federalism. The Sunni-Arab majority wants to rule Syria again, but that Syria would have to be without approximately 1.8 million Christians, or 10% of the population who would rather join their co-religionists in an expanded Christian Lebanon. The Kurds, Alawis, and Druze (the smallest group) would likewise not want to live in a fundamentalist Sunni-Arab dominated state.

One can easily envision five states (or statelets) in Syria: a large Sunni-Arab state in central-eastern Syria, bordering Iraq’s Anbar province (which contains some of the same tribes); a Kurdish state in the Northeastern corner of Syria bordering the KRG in northeastern Iraq; an Alawi state in northwestern Syria along the Mediterranean Sea; a new Christian state that would bring together the diminished Christians of Lebanon (who at one time led Lebanon and for whom the state was created in 1943 by the French) and the suffering Syrian Christians, in a territorially expanded region that would stretch from Beirut northeastward, including the Mount Lebanon area. Also, the Druze would prefer a small independent state around Jabal Druze in southwestern Syria.

Salman Shaikh, Director of the Brookings Doha Center, had this to say about Syria (January 6, 2015): “We have to recognize that Syria is now a broken, fragmented, divided state.” A regime change in Damascus and the demise of the Assad regime will inevitably bring an end to a unitary Syria.

Jeffrey Goldberg (January/February 2008) writing in The Atlantic pointed out that

[i]t was Winston Churchill who, in the aftermath of World War I, roped together three provinces of the defeated and dissolved Ottoman Empire, adopted the name Iraq, and bequeathed it to the luckless branch of the Hashemite tribe of West Arabia. Churchill would eventually call the forced inclusion of the Kurds in Iraq one of his worst mistakes ­­- but by then, there was nothing he could do about it. The British, together with the French, gave the world the modern Middle East. In addition to manufacturing the country now called Iraq, the grand Middle East settlement shrank Turkey by the middle of the 1920’s to the size of the Anatolian peninsula; granted what are now Syria and Lebanon to the French; and kept Egypt under British control.

The situation in Iraq has been clear since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Only a brutal dictator could keep Iraq together. Appearing on PBS News Hour, David Brooks of the New York Times (May 30, 2015) opined, “I give Joe Biden credit. He’ll renounce it, but years and years ago, probably 2006, 2007, he had an idea for a loose federal Iraq. And that, in retrospect – that looks to me like a smarter and smarter idea. We have tried to keep this country together, but the Shias are not really sharing power with the Sunnis. They’re not willing to give the Sunni forces the weapons and other things they need to defeat ISIS. The political system is still fractured. The soldiers clearly do not believe in that country[.]”

Recent U.S. administrations have pressured Israel to negotiate for an impractical two-state solution. They have, at the same time, insisted on maintaining Iraq and Syria as unitary states when it is clear that these artificial states created by the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement are collapsing and are ungovernable. The time has come for the U.S. to support the hopes of the Kurds and others for independence, while supporting Israel’s historical rights to Judea and Samaria and its genuine security needs.

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Israel security forces may use live fire for Palestinian rocks, firebombs, and “popular terror”

September 20, 2015

Israel security forces may use live fire for Palestinian rocks, firebombs, and “popular terror”, DEBKAfile, September 20, 2015

Ruger_RifleThe Ruger rifle

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has approved tougher rules of engagement for security forces grappling with the latest surge of Palestinian terror, ready for the security cabinet’s endorsement Sunday, Sept. 20.

First cleared with the State Attorney Yehuda Weinstein was the use of the Ruger rifle by Jerusalem police.

This weapon fires light 0.22 (5.59mm) bullets packed with a small amount of explosive which can cause injury within a 100m radius. It was used against Palestinian terrorists during their Second Intifada in 2000-2007.

Under the amended rules, police officers and soldiers may use the Ruger for live fire in life-threatening circumstances, such as the throwing of rocks and fire bombs which have plagued East Jerusalem in recent months.

This rule goes into force in all parts of Israel, since one of the primary inciters of the unrest on Temple Mount is the Northern Wing of the Israeli Muslim Movement, which represents Israeli Arab Muslim extremists.

A delegation of Israeli Arabs, including members of parliament, has embarked on a tour of Arab-Muslim capitals to push their claim that Israel is violating the status quo at the shrine. They plan to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah, Turkish President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi.

The Netanyahu government has circulated a counter-statement to world governments demonstrating that Israel is adhering strictly to the status quo on Temple Mount, which is sacred to three world faiths, and acting only in the interests of preserving the peace against violent distrubances [sic].

The new rules of engagement distinguish between legitimate demonstrations and “popular terrorism.” The disturbances and clashes of the past week between Palestinian stone- and firebomb throwers and security forces in Jerusalem come under the heading of “popular terrorism.”

The prime minister and security chiefs have also acted to bring special operations units of the police force to Jerusalem to help quell the unrest, as well as posting a police presence for maintaining order in the Palestinian districts of the capital. The police and Shin Bet internal security service have set up a joint task force for gathering intelligence and investigations.

Attached to the new measure which goes into effect later today is a draft law permitting courts to impose fines on the parents of minors found guilty of stoning attacks, as well as higher minimum jail sentences for stone and firebomb attackers.

Saturday, Sept. 19, DEBKAfile carried this report:

Following the clashes on Friday, Sept. 18 in the Jabal Mukabar neighborhood, a question has arisen on whether the Palestinians opened fire on undercover units and Border Police forces in the area.

Such shooting by Palestinians in the capital is not new, and it occasionally happens in the northern part of the city, emanating usually from the Shoafat refugee camp and the village of Issawiya. These are isolated incidents, occasional volleys at adjacent Jewish neighborhoods, such as Pisgat Zeev.

But the situation in Jabal Mukabar was completely different, with shoot-to-kill gunfire aimed at members of the Border Police.

On that day, the news reports of the Voice of Israel radio station at 17:00 and 18:00 opened with a story that was impossible to ignore: four border policemen were wounded from gunfire on their armored vehicle in Jabal Mukabar, with one of them wounded seriously. However, the item vanished from the 19:00 broadcast, with Molotov cocktail attacks and rock-throwing incidents reported instead.

There are several conflicting points to consider regarding this matter: the armored vehicle clearly had bullet holes, but no signs of firebomb attacks. Then too press photographers on the scene reported specifically that border policemen were wounded by gunfire; residents of Jerusalem’s Meir Nakar street, next to Jabal Mukabar, said in interviews to various news organizations that there were exchanges of fire between the border police and Palestinians; and police officers said late Friday night that undercover units had arrived and opened fire in order to save themselves, and that several border policemen were injured by a Molotov cocktail.

The suggestion was that the officers had been injured by friendly fire – not Palestinian gunshots.

Several hours after the clashes at Jabal Mukabar, there was another incident south of Jerusalem in which Palestinians who threw firebombs at an IDF post near the Tomb of Rachel were shot and seriously wounded.

That was not the only attack on an IDF position in the Jerusalem area during that 24-hour period. On Thursday, Sept. 17, a Home Front Command base on the Mount of Olives was attacked with firebombs and a section caught on fire.

In addition to these incidents, on several occasions last week, Palestinians who had barricaded themselves in the Al-Aqsa mosque threw stones and stone blocks at police and shot firecrackers directly at them, which might have caused serious injury and even permanent blindness, but luckily none of the policemen were injured.

In other words, the latest developments show a surge in clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli security forces.

Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat said on Friday, following incident at Jabal Mukabar, that he welcomed the increase of offensive police’s anti-terror operations which entered the city’s flashpoint neighborhoods.

His comment aimed at raising the morale of the police forces fighting the new wave of Palestinian terror for the past two weeks.  It also drew attention to the ongoing debate within the Israeli government over the choice of next police commissioner, who is the official in charge of the country’s strategy for fighting terrorism. While this appointment hangs fire, it is not clear who is in charge of this war, in the interim, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or Public Security Minister Gilead Erdan?

Gil Hirsch, Erdan’s choice for commisioner [sic], is out of the running.  We have learned that the prime minister is opting for an army general to shed his uniform and take charge of the police – against the wishes of the Public Security Minister.

Palestinian terror tacticians are no doubt exploiting the fact that the war on terror is bouncing between them, with no sign that the violence is about to be brought under control in the immediate future.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reported on September 15 that the latest rioting is the face of the third intifada, At least for now, the unrest is not in the form of suicide attacks of the last uprising but more like “localized armed clashes.”

Our military and counter-terrorism sources point out that armed Palestinian groups, including Israeli Arabs from the extremist Islamic movement, have made an ad-hoc agreement to carry out attacks. In light of such a development, gunfire at Israeli security forces is very likely to grow.

Categories: Defense of Israel, Israel, Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Two state solution
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Abbas: “Filthy” Jews’ Feet Not Allowed on Temple Mount

September 17, 2015

Abbas: “Filthy” Jews’ Feet Not Allowed on Temple Mount, Investigative Project on Terrorism, September 17, 2015

The International Union of Muslim Scholars is calling on Palestinians to “Rescue al-Aqsa” and rise up against Israel, according to several Twitter posts translated by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).

One of the tweets features a picture of Israeli police about to enter Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque. In reality, the Israeli authorities are pursuing Palestinian rioters who took refuge in the mosque and terrorists who were plotting to conduct attacks against Jewish worshippers. The picture – which is clearly intended to provoke Palestinians to continue stirring up trouble for Israeli citizens – includes the following quote:

“The International Union of Muslim Scholars requests the Ulema [Muslim community] and preachers of the Muslims to begin the campaign ‘Rescue al Aqsa’ and proclaim a state of general alarm among the sons of the Muslims in the world to defend al Aqsa mosque, and divulge the plans of the Zionists, and also to summon the Islamic Umma to hold protests, and to devote this Friday’s sermons to discuss Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa and Palestine.”

1232

The hashtag #RescueAlAqsa is also included in a subsequent tweet featuring a picture of flames engulfing the al-Aqsa with a sniper’s target fixated on the dome of the mosque.

“Al-Aqsa is burning Oh Umma of a billion and a half Muslims!!!,” reads the slogan on the provocative tweet.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas glorified Palestinians fighting Israelis in Jerusalem and called for Palestinians to prevent Jews from entering Al-Aqsa with “everything in our power,” Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reports.

“The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours… and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem… We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah,” Abbas said in a speech, segments of which were aired on official PA TV and posted on his website.

“Today the world is divided between those trying to undermine religious coexistence and those trying to protect it,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold said in a statement Thursday. “By saying that the ‘filthy feet’ of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount desecrate it, Mahmoud Abbas has now clarified on which side he stands.”

Relative quiet returned to the Temple Mount on Wednesday, after three days of violent confrontations between Muslims and Israeli authorities during the Jewish New Year.

Acting Police Commissioner Bentzi Sau ordered hundreds of Israeli security personnel to Jerusalem to restore calm in light of “an upsurge” in attacks, such as firebombs and stone-throwing targeting Israeli police and civilians.

On Sunday, Palestinians throwing stones killed an Israeli civilian – 64-year-old Alexander Levlovitz – after he lost control of his car and crashed into a lamppost in Jerusalem’s East Talpiot neighborhood.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Fatah, Islam's war on Jews, Israel, Jerusalem, Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Temple Mount, Terrorists, Two state solution
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Watch: Children on Hamas TV Say they Want to ‘Blow Up the Jews’

September 17, 2015

Watch: Children on Hamas TV Say they Want to ‘Blow Up the Jews,’ Elad Benari, September 17, 2015

Hamas is continuing to use its media to educate young children to carry out “jihad” against Jews.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has exposed a clip from a children’s show on the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV channel which shows young children, dressed in military fatigues, asked what they want to be when they grow up.

One of the children said that he wanted to be an engineer, “so that I can blow up the Jews.” Another recited a poem, “I shall liberate [Jerusalem] from the Jews by means of the Al-Qassam Brigades.”

 

 

MEMRI has in the past published several clips which show Arab youths vowing to fight “the occupation”.

A clip released by MEMRI earlier this year showed footage from a youth camp organized by Hamas’s so-called “military wing”, in which young cadets learn how to use weapons and simulate the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.

A previous clip shows a televised graduation ceremony for a similar Hamas youth camp in Gaza. At the ceremony, suicide terror attacks against the “Zionist enemy” were glorified by Hamas officials.

Hamas has also in the past released a cartoon honoring its “military wing”.

 

 

Categories: Child soldiers, Death to Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Jews, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Two state solution
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Palestinians launch new confrontation tactic of “localized” terror against Israel

September 15, 2015

Palestinians launch new confrontation tactic of “localized” terror against Israel, DEBKAfile, September 15, 2015

Pipes_explosive_Jerusalem_13.9.15Palestinian pipe bombs in Jerusalem

Three dates have emerged as the landmarks of a new outbreak of armed Palestinian violence against Israel: On Aug. 30, an army-police squad, on a routine operation for rounding up terrorist suspects, was waylaid in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank by fierce gangs armed with rocks, iron bars and firebombs. Then, on Sept. 13,an Israeli car was stoned in Jerusalem, killing the driver Alexander Levlovitch, 64. He was driving home on New Year’s Eve.

Palestinian rocks against Israeli cars are part of the regular landscape on roads in and outside Jerusalem, but this time it ended in murder.

The next day, the 14th, gangs of rampaging Palestinian youths fought Israeli police guards on Temple Mount for control of the Al Aqsa Mosque doors with rocks, blocks of concrete and iron bars, which had been hoarded inside the mosque.

DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism analysts diagnose these and allied events as the opening shots of a Palestinian uprising against Israel under a different guise. Security forces are beginning to talk about “armed localized terror.”

Its most prominent features are the collaboration for ad hoc operations betwen two or more Palestinian rival groups, and their localized nature. They tend to be planned in advance for a specific arnea [Sic].

The collaborators in the Jenin outbreak were Hamas and Islamic Jihad. For the New Year attacks, Fatah (whose leader is Mahmoud Abbas) and Hamas joined hands.

They shared five objectives:

1. To sabotage Jewish celebration of the New Year festival in Jerusalem.

2.  To ratchet up the level of Palestinian clashes with Israeli security forces by the use of firebombs and other explosive devices.

3.  To establish a dominant presence on Temple Mount, divided it among the various Palestinian factions.

4.  To bar Jewish access to the Temple Mount compound, revered as the site of the Jewish Temples.

5.  To protest Israel’s decision to outlaw the Muribitun and Muribitath gangs, established by radical Muslim groups to keep Jews out of the Temple Mount compound – if necessary by force.

Over the festival, two Jewish youths were chased and attacked at the site and alleys leading to it.

6.  To warn Jordan’s King Abdullah that the Palestinians are united against his claim to restore Hashemite Muslim custodianship over Temple Mount and Al Aqsa. They viewed the king’s plan to double the number of sentries posted at the site by the Muslim Waqf religious administration, which acts in Jordan’s name on Temple Mount, as part of the king’s takeover effort.

These Palestinian extremists are satisfied with having chalked up several gains from their new aggressive strategy against Israel:

a)  Fatah and Hamas worked well together in their first operation after years of fighting each other. Their collaboration defied and further undermined the waning influence of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

b)  One Israeli was killed.

Israel’s security services can claim a major success. A solid tip-off reaching the Shin Bet internal security service exposed the address of an apartment in the Old City of Jerusalem where pipe bombs were being assembled. A timely raid on Sept. 13, and the seizure of these improvised though deadly weapons averted a major disaster and mass casualties – possibly even at the Western Wall.

But in intelligence work, no single success can promise that every terror plot is foiled in the future too.

Israeli strategists, like their opposite numbers in Amman, are wracking their brains for effective penalties and deterrents to stem the rising spiral of Palestinian violence.

DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources discern in the new escalation certain characteristics common to the clashes seen in Arab countries in recent years between opposing populations and religious groups.

Therefore, the Palestinian terror in and around Jerusalem, spilling over from last weekend, is likely to spread to other parts of the country, also encompassing Judea and Samaria, or even igniting parts of the Israeli Arab communities in solidarity with their Palestinian kin. We may be on the brink of a full-blown intifada (uprising.),

Conscious of the peril, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting for Tuesday night, Sept. 15, to be attended by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Public Security Minister Gilead Erdan, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Transportation Minister, Israel Katz, the Attorney General and security services chiefs.

Our sources are skeptical about this meeting producing measures for stemming the rising tide of Palestinian terror. Netanyahu’s plan to apply conventional law and order measures, such new legislation for raising the minimal jail sentence for stone-throwers, comes too late. The stone-throwers have already turned to bombs.

Long jail sentences were taken out of the government’s hands as an effective deterrent for terror when, on June 29, a Palestinian suspect won his release from administrative detention by staging a long hunger strike. The Israeli government folded under the pressure, exposing the weakness of its legal and judicial systems as tools against terrorism.

Then, on Aug. 11, Netanyahu and Ya’alon told Israeli soldiers facing Palestinian aggression that henceforth they were only allowed to fire in the air, unless they faced imminent threat to their lives.

This order was issued to cut down on the number of dead terrorists and the negative statistics in world media. But in the arenas of confrontation, the Palestinians, no longer afraid of death or injury, were encouraged to escalate their assaults and reach the current new threshold of confrontation.

Categories: Defense of Israel, Israel, Netanyahu, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Terrorism
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Israel unfazed by PA threat to end Oslo accords, declare Palestine occupied state

September 7, 2015

Israel unfazed by PA threat to end Oslo accords, declare Palestine occupied state Palestinian Authority always warning it will ‘jump off a cliff,’ says official, accusing Abbas of engaging in ‘brinkmanship’ while refusing to negotiate By Raphael Ahren September 7, 2015, 3:48 pm

Source: Israel unfazed by PA threat to end Oslo accords, declare Palestine occupied state | The Times of Israel

Mahmoud Abbas, right, meeting with French politician Bruno Lemaire in Ramallah on September 5, 2015. (AFP/ABBAS MOMANI)

Mahmoud Abbas, right, meeting with French politician Bruno Lemaire in Ramallah on September 5, 2015. (AFP/ABBAS MOMANI)

Israel is unimpressed by reports about the Palestinians reportedly threatening radical unilateral moves at the United Nations, a senior Israeli official said Monday, accusing the Palestinian Authority of “brinkmanship” while reiterating Jerusalem’s willingness to immediately resume bilateral peace negotiations.

“We view these threats with a certain amount of skepticism,” the official told The Times of Israel, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the press. “The Palestinians routinely negotiate through brinkmanship. If they don’t get what they demand, they threaten to jump off the cliff.”

The Palestinian leadership has threatened to resign, to dismantle the PA and even to dissolve the Oslo Accords several times over the last few months, the official added.

New reports indicate that PA President Mahmoud Abbas is planning to make a drastic announcement at the United Nations General Assembly this month, declaring Palestine a state under occupation and dissolving the Oslo Accords and other bilateral agreements with Israel. While it remains unclear what implications such a move would entail, some warn that it could spell the end to Israeli-PA security coordination and place all responsibility for the governance of the West Bank in the hands of Israel as the occupying power.

“The prime minister is ready for the immediate resumption of peace talks without any preconditions, but the Palestinians refuse to engage,” the Israeli official said. “By placing unnecessary preconditions on the talks, they make the resumption of talks impossible. Then, after preventing talks from happening, they run to international community and say no negotiations, crisis, drastic action is required. But it’s a charade.”

The only reason for the absence of meaningful negotiations is the Palestinians’ refusal to negotiate, the official added. “It’s time the international community refused to accept this charade and told the Palestinians that it’s time to return to talks with Israel. It’s the only way to move forward.”

Israeli officials on Monday refused to comment on the record about the Palestinians’ possible démarche at the UN. In private conversations, they deemed it a toothless “provocation,” but acknowledged that they were nevertheless concerned, because no one really knows what exactly Ramallah is up to and how Jerusalem will react.

While generally considered an unlikely scenario, the Palestinians’ annulment of the Oslo Accords could have serious implications, as they regulate security and economic cooperation between Israel and the PA.

On the other hand, the threat to declare Palestine “a state under occupation” appears less threatening, as it might have no concrete implications.

“It’s an empty statement,” said Alan Baker, a retired Israeli diplomat and former legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry. “I don’t think it has any significance whatsoever. Nothing Abbas says, no declaration he makes at the UN, will change anything on the ground.”

The only thing it would achieve, Baker said, is to invalidate his status as president of the PA, as well as the legitimacy of the Palestinian parliament and courts. “It would also open up the opportunity for Israel to do whatever it deems necessary to protect its security and political interest, and could even cause possible termination of security and economic cooperation and other measures that are intended for the benefit of the Palestinian people.”

Is it even possible for Palestine to become a “state under occupation”? In his speech in New York later this month, Abbas will point to the General Assembly’s 2012 decision to accept “Palestine” as a non-member observer state and argue that Israel refuses to end the occupation of his state.

However, some argue that only existing states can be considered occupied, such as France during World War II or, more recently, Ukraine’s Crimea, which was occupied by Russia. But “Palestine” seeks to achieve statehood while under occupation, a situation without historical precedent. A state can only become “occupied” if parts or all of the territory it controlled is in effective control of another power, some legal scholars argue. That would not be the case here.

The Palestinians, however, are likely to argue that a sovereign “Palestine” existed before the 1967 Six Day War, when Israeli captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even though that appears to be a difficult position to defend among international law scholars.

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The Fiction of Political Islam

September 2, 2015

The Fiction of Political Islam, The Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, September 2, 2015

  • To this day, the Obama administration mourns the fall of Egypt’s Islamist President Morsi, and turns a cold shoulder to forward-looking President el-Sisi, who is (sometimes) trying to take Egypt into the 21st century and extricate Egypt from its economic and societal crisis.
  • Muslim Brotherhood terrorism against the Egyptian regime is a perfect example of how this “political movement” is in reality a terrorist movement whose objective is the violent overthrow of Egypt’s government. The White House, fully aware of the facts, continues hosting senior Muslim Brotherhood officials and shows them respect during consultations about the American Islamic community and U.S. policy in the Middle East.
  • Events in Sinai prove there is no such thing as “political Islam.” There is a radical Islamist leadership that represents itself to the gullible West as “moderate,” preaches violence from mosques, cloaks itself in ideological-religious tradition, and employs Islamist terrorists to attack civilians and Egyptian government targets.
  • It is hard not to conclude, looking at President Obama’s record (ignoring protesters of 2009 in Iran; “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone”; the dictatorial way the Iran deal is bypassing the democratic process) that in his heart-of-hearts, he is far more committed to supporting extremist Islamist regimes — whether the mullahs of Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood — than to supporting democracy, individual freedoms or human rights.
  • The Europeans are more aware of the situation but woke up too late. As hundreds of thousands of migrants from Muslim lands continue to pour over Europe’s open borders, there is little doubt that radical Islam is poised to take over the West. Islamic communities and terrorist cells continue to mushroom throughout the cities of Europe.
  • The world is beginning to understand that the catastrophes of the Middle East have nothing to do with the resolution of the Palestinian issue but are caused by the innate homicidal tendencies of the Arab rulers and the regional Islamist terrorist organizations.

Hamas is in trouble. Its relations with Egypt are going from bad to worse, and the influx of money, primarily from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the mosques in the Western world — where charity (zakat) was collected to finance anti-Israel terrorism — has dwindled to almost nothing. So has the flow of arms and explosives from Iran, Libya, Sudan and Lebanon. The resulted is the weakening of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, making it ever more difficult for Hamas to continue its ongoing subversion of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and its non-stop attempts to overthrow President Mahmoud Abbas to take over the West Bank and establish there the sort of Islamic emirate it established in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s military buildup was halted when the President Mohamed Morsi’s radical Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt was toppled and General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was elected President. Morsi, it will be recalled, strangely received support from President Obama until he was ousted. The Obama administration supported him despite Morsi enabling for the flow of money and arms to Hamas in Gaza to continue unhampered through the tunnels in the Sinai Peninsula. The weapons were used not only to attack Israel, but also to sabotage peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and, indirectly, to attack the Palestinian Authority.

The Islamist terrorism festivities ended when President el-Sisi clamped down on the Islamists in Egypt, destroyed the tunnels and sealed Egypt’s border with Gaza. Since el-Sisi has been president of Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood rule has ended and the tunnels have been destroyed. It is hard to fathom why, to this day, the Obama administration mourns the fall of the Islamist Morsi administration and turns a cold shoulder to forward-looking el-Sisi, who is (sometimes) trying to take Egypt into the 21st century and extricate Egypt from its economic and societal crisis.

Since el-Sisi has been in power, money and arms no longer flow through the tunnels into the Gaza Strip; instead they began to flow in the opposite direction, from the Gaza Strip into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Since the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated terrorist organizations, Hamas among them, have not accepted defeat, there has been an increase in terrorist attacks targeting the Egyptian regime both inside the country proper and in the Sinai Peninsula. The terrorist campaign receives ongoing support from the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military-terrorist wing, and the ISIS-affiliated Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis. Both continuously attack the Egyptian police and army in the Sinai Peninsula, murder Egyptian officials and target Egyptian institutions.

The endless terrorist campaign in Egypt has proven yet again that the claim of a political Islam, separate from the terrorist organizations, is simply a lie. Muslim Brotherhood terrorism against the Egyptian regime is a perfect example of how the “political movement” tries to represent itself as dealing only with the da’wah [proselytizing], while in reality it is a terrorist movement whose objective is the violent overthrow of el-Sisi’s administration. The White House, fully aware of the facts, continues hosting senior Muslim Brotherhood officials and shows them respect during consultations about the American Islamic community and U.S. policy in the Middle East.

919 (1)While being hosted by the State Department on a visit to Washington in January 2015, Muslim Brotherhood judge Waleed Sharaby (left) flashed the organization’s four-finger “Rabia” sign. At right, ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (from the Muslim Brotherhood) displays the Rabia sign.

The events in the Sinai Peninsula prove there is no such thing as “political Islam.” There is a radical Islamist leadership that represents itself to the gullible West as “moderate,” preaches violence from the mosques, cloaks itself in ideological-religious tradition, and employs a hard core of Islamist terrorists to carry out attacks on civilians and Egyptian administration targets.

In the meantime, the real victims are the Egyptians. The Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorism has paralyzed Egypt’s tourist industry, as foreigners fear to visit Egypt’s antiquities. And now there are terrorist threats to the New Suez Canal, a project initiated and carried out under the leadership of General Sisi to turn both banks of the two canals into an international logistics, commercial and industrial area.

The Islamists’ plans are clear. First, they want to leverage violence, murder and countless Egyptian army casualties into establishing an autonomous terrorist enclave in the Sinai Peninsula. Then they will try to overthrow the Egyptian government and reinstate an Islamist Muslim Brotherhood regime headed by Morsi. That is exactly what their offshoot, Hamas, did in the Gaza Strip when it liquidated Palestinian Authority officials and established an Islamic emirate. The writing on the wall is still illegible as far as the U.S. government is concerned. Or else the Obama administration is still in the thrall of extremist Islam and its Muslim Brotherhood leaders. The two main ones are Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has just called new elections so that he can try again to acquire enough seats in parliament to amend Turkey’s constitution to award himself a one-man Sultanate, an absolute dictatorship-for-life to go along with his new palace. The other is Mohamed Morsi, whom Obama apparently is still backing.

It is hard not to conclude, looking at the U.S. president’s record (ignoring the protesters of 2009 in Iran; “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone” and the dictatorial way the Iran deal has been short-circuited to bypass the democratic process) that in his heart-of-hearts, he is far more committed to supporting extremist Islamist regimes — whether the mullahs of Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood — than to supporting democracy, individual freedoms or human rights.

The Europeans are more aware of the situation but unfortunately woke up too late. As hundreds of thousands of migrants from Muslim lands continue to pour over Europe’s open borders, there is little doubt that radical Islam is poised to take over the West. Islamic communities and terrorist cells continue to mushroom and gather strength throughout the cities of Europe.

From the beginning of the wave of attacks in Egypt, senior Egyptian security officials threatened Hamas. Egypt warned Hamas to stop training, arming and sending its terrorists to collaborate with ISIS operatives in attacks against the Egyptian army. Hamas steadfastly denies any involvement, even as it continues collaborating with ISIS against Egypt.

As far as Hamas is concerned, destroying the Egyptian army is essential, because its continued actions along the Rafah border and in Sheikh Zuweid in the northern Sinai Peninsula prevent Hamas from acquiring money and stockpiling weapons to fight Israel, which weakens its subversion against Mahmoud Abbas and its plans to take over the West Bank.

Despite profuse denials, at the end of August 2015, four operatives from Hamas’s military-terrorist wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, were taken off a bus by armed Egyptians on the way from Rafah through the Sinai Peninsula to Cairo. Hamas immediately accused Israeli intelligence of responsibility and warned the Egyptian authorities that “the abduction of its operatives will not go unpunished.”

In response, Dina Ramez, a co-host on Egypt’s official TV station, called Hamas out on its lies and denials of its terrorist activities in the Sinai Peninsula against the Egyptian regime. She asked Hamas, “If you are not involved in terrorism, what were your senior Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operatives doing in Sinai?” and called them “cockroaches.”

Sources in Hamas called her a “whore,” and called Egypt a loser country defeated by Israel, using a peace treaty to sell Palestine to the enemy. Was that really the way to thank Egypt for everything it has done for the Palestinians, sacrificing its army and soldiers for us? It is a sad situation for the Palestinians and for our leadership.

What have we Palestinians gained from Hamas’s military actions against Egypt? What have we gained from our solidarity with Islamist organizations fighting against Assad in Syria, or joining organizations such as the “Palestinian Liberation Army” fighting for Assad? Why are we killing each other in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp? Why do we refuse everything the Israelis offer us?

Anyone who remembers history remembers the ungrateful path trodden by the Palestinians against the Kingdom of Jordan, when our leaders, headed by Arafat, tried in 1970 to overthrow King Hussein, despite the refuge Jordan offered us during the catastrophes of the Nakba in 1948 and the Naksa in 1967. Then we did the same thing in Lebanon, to where we fled from Jordan. The PLO relocated its headquarters to Beirut, and went on to turn Lebanon into a terrorist country and the lives of the Lebanese into a nightmare. If the Israelis had not invaded Lebanon in 1982, and forced the PLO to relocate to Tunisia (where its behavior was also criminal), the Palestinians definitely would have destroyed Lebanon.

The Middle East is in chaos, and Palestinian factionalism and ingratitude continue to inflame the dissolution of the Arab states and the internal Palestinian division between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

The world is beginning to understand that the catastrophes of the Middle East have nothing to do with the resolution of the Palestinian issue, but are caused by the innate homicidal tendencies of the Arab rulers and the regional Islamist terrorist organizations.

The only person left who believes the Israeli-Palestinian nonsense is President Barack Obama, even though he is witness to the murders, rapes, beheadings and the millions of refugees, next to which the Palestinian issue is an old, irrelevant and very tired joke.

Categories: Defense of Israel, Egypt, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Iranian proxies, Islamic supremacy, Islamism, Morsi, Obama, Obama and Israel, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Political Islam, Reform Islam, Siani, Sisi, Support for terrorism, West Bank
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Palestinians: Turning Refugee Camps into Weapons Warehouses

September 1, 2015

Palestinians: Turning Refugee Camps into Weapons Warehouses, The Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, September 1, 2015

  • Most of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Syria have long served as large weapons warehouses controlled by various militias belonging to different groups. This has been happening while the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is formally in charge of the refugee camps, continues to look the other way.
  • The 120,000 Palestinians living in Ain al-Hilweh are “unfortunate” because they are not being targeted by Israel. Otherwise, there would have been an international outcry and the UN Security Council would have held an emergency session to condemn Israel and call for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Instead, Ain al-Hilweh may soon fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists.
  • The Syrian Army has also been dropping barrel bombs on the camp almost on a weekly basis. But because Israel cannot be blamed, Palestinians killing Palestinians is not something that the international media and community are interested in.
  • Instead of admitting their responsibility for turning the camps into military bases, Palestinian leaders often prefer to blame others, preferably Israel, for the plight of their people.

Palestinians are once again paying a heavy price for allowing terror groups and armed gangs to operate freely inside their communities. But this is not happening in a refugee camp in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. Rather, it is taking place in Lebanon, one of three Arab countries that host hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

This explains why the international media and human rights organizations have shown little interest in what is happening inside the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Ain al-Hilweh.

For the past two weeks, dozens of Palestinian families from Ain al-Hilweh have fled their homes after fierce clashes that erupted between Fatah militiamen and terrorists belonging to a radical Islamist gang affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

The UN Security Council has clearly not heard of the fighting in Ain al-Hilweh. That is why it has not even issued a statement expressing “concern” over the plight of the Palestinians in the camp.

The international media, for its part, has thus far shown little interest in the story. Why? The answer, as usual, is simple: No Israeli involvement.

The 120,000 Palestinians living in n Ain al-Hilweh are “unfortunate” because they are not being targeted by Israel. Otherwise, there would have been an international outcry and the UN Security Council would have held an emergency session to condemn Israel and call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

But, because Israel cannot be blamed, Palestinians killing Palestinians is not something that the international media and community are interested in.

The clashes in Ain al-Hilweh have so far resulted in the killing of four Fatah militiamen. At least 35 people were wounded in the fighting, which has been described as the worst in years. According to eyewitnesses, the rival parties have used various types of weapons to attack each other, including rocket-propelled grenades.

The four dead men have been identified as Fadi Khdeir, Ala Othman, Rabi Mashour and Hussein al-Saleh.

1233Smoke from explosions rises from Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon, Aug. 25, 2015. (Image source: Arab Tomorrow video screenshot)

The latest round of fighting in Ain al-Hilweh began after Islamist terrorists tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Abu Ashraf al-Armoushi, a senior Fatah security commander. Earlier, the terrorists managed to kill another top Fatah official, Talal al-Urduni.

Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon have always been considered “extraterritorial” zones, managed exclusively by various armed groups. The Lebanese police and army have no role in maintaining law and order inside the camps. As in most similar situations, where armed clashes have erupted inside refugee camps, all that is left for the Lebanese Army to do is monitor the situation from a distance.

In 2007, however, the Lebanese Army was forced to intervene to stop armed clashes at another refugee camp, Nahr al-Bared. Dozens of people, many of them soldiers, were killed in the fighting, which also resulted in the near destruction of the camp. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians were displaced, and Nahr al-Bared remains a closed military zone.

Residents of Ain al-Hilweh are worried that they will meet the same fate as Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria. Yarmouk was once home to some 200,000 Palestinians. Today, the number of the residents has dropped to 12,000. Hundreds of Yarmouk residents have been killed and injured in fierce fighting between rival militias during the past four years. The Syrian Army has also been dropping barrel bombs on the camp almost on a weekly basis.

Yarmouk, Nahr al-Bared and Ain al-Hilweh continue to pay an extremely heavy price for agreeing to turn their camps into military bases. Most of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Syria have long served as large weapons warehouses controlled by various militias belonging to different groups. This has been happening while the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is formally in charge of the refugee camps, continues to look the other way.

As the fighting in Ain al-Hilweh shows, the Palestinians have once again fallen victim to what many of them describe as the “chaos of weapons.” It is this type of anarchy that allowed Hamas to expel the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip in 2007. Refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are also full of weapons and gunmen belonging to various groups, including Fatah and Hamas.

Maher al-Shawish, a Palestinian writer and political analyst from Lebanon, says that Ain al-Hilweh is now facing a serious humanitarian crisis due to the ongoing fighting. “If you see the destruction inside the camp, you will realize that it is facing a real catastrophe that needs to be stopped immediately,” al-Shawish said. “The clashes are disgraceful for the Palestinian cause.”

But instead of admitting their responsibility for turning the camps into military bases, Palestinian leaders often prefer to blame others, preferably Israel, for the plight of their people.

Ain al-Hilweh may soon fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists. Yet instead of facing this threat and calling on the international community to assist in foiling the terrorists’ plan, Gen. Subhi Abu Arab, a top Fatah security commander in Lebanon, chose to hold Israel responsible. Needless to say, Israel has nothing to do with the latest round of fighting in Ain al-Hilweh or the “chaos of weapons” inside Palestinian refugee camps.

Still, Palestinian officials such as Gen. Abu Arab never miss an opportunity to lay the blame at Israel’s door. They also continue to lie to their people by claiming that Israel is behind Islamic State. Referring to the clashes in Ain al-Hilweh, Gen. Abu Arab had no problem explaining that, “This is a Zionist scheme to eliminate the right of return, displace the Palestinians and stir trouble inside the camp by using a fifth column.”

As long as Palestinian and Arab leaders continue to believe conspiracy theories and refuse to wake up to the reality of the dangerous situation inside the refugee camps, the Palestinians of Ain al-Hilweh, like those of Yarmouk, sadly will face a bleak future.

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Rocket from Gaza follows IDF-Palestinian clash in West Bank town of Jenin

September 1, 2015

Rocket from Gaza follows IDF-Palestinian clash in West Bank town of Jenin, DEBKAfile, September 1, 2015

Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip put southern Israel on red alert before dawn Tuesday. Sept 1 in the wake of a major clash that erupted in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin Sunday night. The circumstances of that episode are not entirely clear. Israel playing the Jenin encounter down, whereas the Palestinians are presenting it as “the biggest battle of the third initifada.” An Israeli soldier and five Palestinians were injured.

It began, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, when a large combined force of the IDF, Shin Bet and Police Special Operations, riding in dozens of vehicles, entered the Jenin camp Monday night to round up Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorist suspects. In the Al-Hadaf district, they surrounded the homes of Bassam Al-Saeedi, reputed Jihad chief on the West Bank, and Majdi Abu al-Hejja, a local Hamas military arm operative.

At some point, Israeli rocket fire badly damaged Al-Saeedi’s house.

The IDF sources say it was a single small rocket, without explaining why it was fired. The IDF spokesman first reported “a heavy exchange of fire” around the building. Early Monday, the word “heavy” was dropped from the briefing to reporters and finally, there was no reference to any exchange of fire at all.

The Palestinians claim that the Jihad leader was not at home at the time of the raid and so escaped his pursuers.  But there is no word on either side about the fate of any occupants of building and whether any were killed.

Did the IDF decide to knock the building down in response to gunfire coming out of it? Or was it a warning to the Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terrorist groups to halt their latest spate of violence or lose their homes?

Another mystery is how Bassam Al-Saeedi came to be away from home, confounding the information reaching the Shin Bet? Did he get a tip-off of the impending Israeli raid for his arrest?

If armed Palestinian groups on the West Bank have taken to posting spotters outside their areas to forewarn them of approaching Israeli forces, this would ratchet up their operational tactics to the military level observed by fellow Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups in the Gaza Strip.

While Bassam Al-Saheedi escaped arrest, the Hamas operative Majdi Abu al-Hejja and his brother were captured and taken away for interrogation.

In weighing in heavily for a preventive detention operation against suspected terrorist leaders Sunday night, Israeli security chiefs were almost certainly acting on a decision to avert any possible terrorist action for  disrupting the opening of the school year Monday, Sept. 1. The level of Palestinian violence on and from the West Bank and Jerusalem has risen sharply in recent weeks.

Thirteen years ago, at the peak of the Palestinians’ Second intifada, Israel launched a major assault on the Jenin refugee camp. Thirteen Israeli soldiers were lost in this major battle on April 5, 2002. Since then, the refugee camp has claimed to hold the flag of armed Palestinian resistance to Israel and its army. Security forces arriving there to detain suspects routinely come under a hail of rocks and firebombs. However, the current clash of arms represented a sharp escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation on the West Bank.

Categories: Defense of Israel, Hamas, IDF, Iranian proxies, Islamic jihad, Israel, Palestinians, West Bank
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