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The ‘Jerusalem Awakening’

October 19, 2015

The ‘Jerusalem Awakening’ Front Page Magazine, Richard L. Cravatts, October 19, 2015

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The carnage in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel continued this week with an increased ferocity and barbarity, with stabbings, shooting, bombings, car ramming, rocket attacks, and other assaults on Israeli citizens claiming the lives of five Israelis and twenty-five Palestinians in the past two weeks alone. While the violence intensifies and seems to be spiraling out of control, not only touching Jerusalem but also the West Bank, Gaza, and other Israeli towns, officials are intent on identifying the inspiration for the latest escalation of jihad against Jews.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was quick to assign blame, not to the perpetrators of the deadly attacks—psychotic young men acting in the name of Allah to purge the land of Jews—but to the victims themselves, Israelis. Speaking at the Belfer Center at Harvard University, Kerry disingenuously observed in a question and answer session after his talk that, “There’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years and there’s an increase in the violence because there’s this frustration that’s growing.” Blaming the settlements for being an obstacle to peace is a favorite refrain for this administration, of course, and it puts the responsibility for the outbreak of violence squarely on Israel, and Netanyahu, instead of where it more justifiably belongs: namely, with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority, and a culture of death where “resistance” and martyrdom are promoted as virtuous rather than inhumanly counterproductive.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more accurate in identifying the inspiration of the current uprising, this so-called “Jerusalem Awakening,” that has increased the tension of everyday life for Israelis and Arabs alike. At a weekly cabinet meeting Netanyahu correctly observed that Israel is “. . . in the midst of a wave of terrorism originating from systematic and mendacious incitement regarding the Temple Mount – incitement by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and the Islamic Movement in Israel.”

Secretary Kerry may well wish that it is the dreaded settlements that have motivated young Arab men to begin indiscriminately slashing and shooting Jews, but the prime minister’s view is clearly more accurate, and more believable, given PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s own words of warning when he spoke at the UN at the end of September. He was, he said before the morally-challenged audience, “. . . compelled to sound the alarm about the grave dangers of what is happening in Jerusalem, where extremist Israeli groups are committing repeated, systematic incursions upon Al-Aqsa Mosque . . , while preventing Muslim worshipers from accessing and entering the Mosque at those times and freely exercising their religious rights.”

These actions, Abbas claimed, are “in direct violation of the status quo since before 1967 and thereafter, [and are] aggravating the sensitivities of Palestinians and Muslims everywhere. I call on the Israeli government, before it is too late, to cease its use of brutal force to impose its plans to undermine the Islamic and Christian sanctuaries in Jerusalem, particularly its actions at Al-Aqsa Mosque, for such actions will convert the conflict from a political to religious one[emphasis added], creating an explosive in Jerusalem and in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory.”

Putting aside the laughable contention that Muslims care even the slightest bit about the sanctity and protection of Christian holy places, the claim that Israel is trying to destroy or undermine mosques on the Temple Mount is an oft-repeated charge, used by Arabs against Israel as a way of inciting hatred toward Jews for their alleged perfidiousness and guile. Israeli columnist Nadav Shragrai has referred to this tactic as the “Protect the Al Aqsa Mosque” blood libel—a propaganda tool that has been employed since the 1920s to cause mistrust of Jews when the then-Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, Hitler’s Middle East ally, exhorted Muslims everywhere to defend Islamic holy places in Jerusalem from the pernicious Jews, causing riots, bloodshed, and 133 Jewish deaths.

Abbas was surprisingly candid in admitting that the incursion onto the Temple Mount, where Jews and Christians have traditionally been barred from worshiping, changed the nature of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis from a political debate to a religious war. Of course, a holy war against Israelis specifically, and Jews in general, has been a core tenet of Islam since Jews rejected Mohammed in the seventh century, and animates the foundational charters of the PA and Hamas as part of a theological responsibility devout Muslims feel to purify the world through the extirpation of the rapacious, thieving Jews.

The perceived assault by Israel on the Al Aqsa Mosque, and the Temple Mount in general, then, is yet another affirmation to the Muslim world that the scheming Jews seek to weaken and eventually destroy the House of Islam—here in Jerusalem at Islam’s third holiest spot—and replace it with a Third Temple. What seem like random, “lone wolf” attacks on Israeli civilians at bus stops and on streets are actually thought of as part of a religiously-inspired war in the defense of Islam, a holy war in the form of jihad.

The Hamas Charter, for instance, proclaims that the circumstances through which the “Zionist regime” was established through the perfidy of the Jews is, in the honor/shame culture of the Middle East, an open wound on the Islamic world, a situation which demands jihad to restore the sanctity of Islamic land and rid the world of the festering sore that is Israel. “[T]he land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Islamic religious endowment] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day,” the Charter states. “The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem,” stipulating that jihad is not only a tactical choice for ridding Palestine of the Zionist interloper, it is seen as a religious duty; in fact, it is demanded of true believers.

The Charter’s Article 7 also contains the oft-cited hadith which exhorts Muslims to seek out and murder Jews specifically as a sacred obligation. Islamic teaching depicts Jews as the descendants of “monkeys and pigs,” treacherous deceivers, manipulative barbarians and thieves who attempted to murder the prophets, and who are satanic, murderous, unlawful occupiers of holy Muslim land whose elimination is sacralized in Koranic and hadithic precepts.  “. . . The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes,” Article 7 reads. “The Prophet, Allah’s prayer and peace be upon him, says: ‘The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: “Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,” except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.’”

It is no surprise that in a culture marinated in Jew-hatred, where Jews are debased, portrayed as a subhuman species, bacteria, a disease, fomenters of wars and strife—in fact, are portrayed as the enemies of Allah and mankind—the extermination of Jews, especially in defense of Islam and its holy places, would therefore become not only a reasonable goal but a desired outcome. Who would not murder Jews if they pose such threats to mankind and Islam specifically? Who would ever make peace with the eternal enemies of Allah, let alone negotiate a peace and borders for a new Arab state with them? And would not those jihadis who willingly sacrifice themselves to murder Jews in the name of Allah be celebrated as shahids, martyrs, and have town squares and summer camps named for them and their bravery, exactly as they are by Palestinian leadership now?

If Jews are the most wretched of humans, and the “liberation” of all of Palestine—including the Temple Mount, including Jerusalem, including all of Israel—is considered a sacred duty and religious obligation, then the murder of Jews must, and will, continue in this millennial apocalyptic struggle in which devote Muslims see themselves playing a central role.

Abbas’s disingenuous and lethal tactics in inciting rage against Jewish “interlopers” and “defilers” of Muslim holy ground on the Temple Mount are not new. Scholars and archeologists remember, for instance, the howls of outrage that arose from the Arab world in February 2007, when Israeli authorities initiated a project to rebuild a ramp to the Mugrabi Gate, an entrance to the Temple Mount plaza and the Al Aqsa Mosque platform that had been damaged in an earlier storm.  Riots and protests began immediately, with accusations against Israel coming from throughout the Arab world for its “scheme” and treachery in digging under and threatening to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque itself. The committee of Muslim scholars in Jordan’s Islamic Action Front, for one, “urge[d] … jihad to liberate Al Aqsa and save it from destruction and sabotage from Jewish usurpers”—a spurious claim, since construction was taking place well outside the Mount platform, some 100 meters from the mosque, and clearly posed no possible threat.

But false irredentist claims, Islamic supremacism which compels Jews and Christians to live in dhimmitude under Muslim control, and an evident cultural and theological disregard for other faiths— while troubling in the battle over sovereignty in Jerusalem—are not, according to Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, the most dangerous aspects of a diplomatic capitulation which would allow the Palestinians control holy places and to claim a shared Jerusalem. In his engaging book, The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City, Gold pointed to a far more troubling aspect: in their desire to accede to Arab requests for a presence and religious sovereignty in Jerusalem, the State Department, EU, UN member states, and Islamic apologists in the Middle East and worldwide may actually ignite jihadist impulses they seek to dampen with their well-intentioned, but defective, diplomacy.

Why? Because, as Gold explained, “In the world of apocalyptic speculation, Jerusalem has many other associations—it is the place where the messianic Mahdi [the redeemer of Islam] is to establish his capital. For that reason, some argue that it also should become the seat of the new caliphate that most Islamic groups—from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaeda—seek to establish.”

In September, Abbas announced in Ramallah that “We will not forsake our country and we will keep every inch of our land,” reaffirming his belief that all of Jerusalem would, and should, be retained by the Palestinians as the capital of their new state. “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every shahid [martyr] will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God.” In facgt, the establishment of the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem is the first important step in the long-term strategy to rid the Levant of Jews and reestablish the House of Islam in all of historic Palestine. “Jerusalem’s recapture is seen by some as one of the signs that ‘the Hour’ and the end of times are about to occur,” Gold suggested. “And most importantly, because of these associations, it is the launching pad for a new global jihad powered by the conviction that this time the war will unfold according to a pre-planned religious script, and hence must succeed.”

So far from creating a political situation in which both parties—Israelis and the Palestinians—feel they have sought and received equal benefits, such negotiations and final agreements would have precisely the opposite effect: destabilizing the region and creating, not the oft-hoped for Israel and Palestine “living side by side in peace,” but an incendiary cauldron about to explode into an annihilatory, jihadist rage. Those in the West who are urging Israel “to redivide Jerusalem by relinquishing its holy sites,” Dore cautioned, “may well believe that they are lowering the flames of radical Islamic rage, but in fact they will only be turning up those flames to heights that have not been seen before.” If Kerry’s State Department and other Western diplomats are intent on mollifying the Arab street by pressuring Israel to divide Jerusalem as a peace offering to the Palestinians, it may well be setting into motion the exact opposite result—a jihadist, apocalyptic movement invigorated by the misguided diplomacy of the West that, once more, asks Israel to sacrifice its security and nationhood so that Islamists can realize their own imperial and theological ambitions at the Jewish state’s expense.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Death to Israel, Fatah, Foreign policy, Hamas, Islam's war on Jews, Israel, Jerusalem, Kerry, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Temple Mount
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CNN: Jewish holy site somehow “catches fire” After Muslim attack

October 16, 2015

CNN: Jewish holy site somehow “catches fire” After Muslim attack, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 16, 2015

josephs_tomb

Setting Joseph’s Tomb on fire is some sort of national Muslim sport. It happens so often that I don’t think anyone has even collected all the incidents together.

If Jews were constantly setting a Muslim holy site on fire, there would be so many UN resolutions they would provide toilet paper for UN HQ for a year. But Jewish holy sites don’t matter. Jewish lives don’t matter.

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The media is really doubling down on passive voice Muslim terrorism. Israel “actively” does things all the time. But terror attacks on Jews just seem to “happen”. Jewish holy sites just “catch on fire.”

Ask CNN. “Joseph’s Tomb site catches fire in wave of Palestinian-Israeli violence”

It caught fire from the wave of violence? The wave of violence was just sweeping around the place and ignited Joseph’s Tomb?

Even the New York Times headlined its story as, “Palestinians Set Fire to Joseph’s Tomb in West Bank”. The Washington Post called it, “Palestinian protesters set fire to a Jewish holy shrine in West Bank”.

The technical term for people who set things on fire is arsonist, not protester, but at least the Washington Post got “Jewish holy site” in the headline which no one else seems to have managed to do.

(But don’t give the Post too many bonus points yet. Here’s their headline describing a Muslim terrorist who stabbed an Israeli soldier and was shot. “Palestinian with ‘press’ logo on shirt shot dead in stabbing”.)

Let’s do a little thought experiment here.

Suppose a bunch of angry Jews stormed onto the Temple Mount and set the Islamic Al Aqsa Victory Mosque, planted by the Muslim invaders on the holiest site in Judaism, on fire. Would the headline read, “Al Aqsa Mosque catches fire in wave of Palestinian-Israeli violence.”

Or would it read, “Jewish Extremist Mob Torches Muslim Holy Site”?

Here’s a CNN headline from 2009. “Jewish Settlers Blamed over Mosque Attack”. Note how the mosque didn’t spontaneously “catch on fire”. It was attacked. The first words name Jews as the perpetrators because CNN believes it’s a priority to communicate blame in that instance to readers. Here its a priority for CNN to whitewash what happened. There’s no mysterious wave of violence that somehow relates to buildings catching on fire.

This isn’t just a headline issue. Ben Brumfield’s disgusting piece starts off, “Fire broke out overnight at the compound housing Joseph’s Tomb”.

The fire didn’t “break out”. There was no spontaneous combustion. It was set. But Ben Brumfield somehow takes 5 paragraphs to tell you that and to hint at who set it.

Some Palestinians had started a barricade to prevent Israeli troops from entering Nablus to destroy Palestinian homes when a smaller group tried to set fire to the tomb, a Palestinian official told CNN under condition of anonymity. Part of the compound burned, but the tomb remained intact, the official said.

So to summarize, Ben Brumfield’s warped spin here.

The Muslims were trying to protect themselves from Israeli soldiers… so naturally they set a Jewish holy site on fire. Or, as he puts it, they “tried to set fire to the tomb”. All those flames suggest that they succeeded insofar as there was a fire. Even if the tomb wasn’t destroyed.

For example, if CNN headquarters were set on fire by “Palestinian protesters” looking to defend themselves, the news network would still report that it had been set on fire, even if the building remained standing.

CNN follows that up with a lot of “context” and anti-Israel spin, none of which mentions how often Muslims attack Joseph’s Tomb. There was a Muslim arson attempt on the Tomb just this August. Then a Muslim terror cell plotted a bombing and shooting attack on the Tomb… also in August.

The plan of the four arrested terrorists was to set off explosives at Joseph’s Tomb and machine-gun the Jewish worshippers there.

Or, as Ben Brumfield might have reported it, “Explosives Were Set Off in a Wave of Palestinian-Israeli Violence.”

Setting Joseph’s Tomb on fire is some sort of national Muslim sport. It happens so often that I don’t think anyone has even collected all the incidents together.

Muslims vandals have defaced Joseph’s Tomb in yet another instance of Muslims attacking Jewish holy sites. The Muslims  hooligans destroyed furniture, desecrated holy Jewish books, sprayed anti-semitic graffiti throughout the tomb’s grounds. There was also evidence that they had attempted to destroy Joseph’s Tomb by fire.

According to Samaria Council Chairman Gershon Mesika, “Only barbarians are capable of doing terrible things like this, destroying a holy place. The State of Israel must reclaim the Tomb of Yosef, as described in the Oslo Accords.”

That one was two years ago. But destroying other people’s holy places is how Muslim holy places are created.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time that Muslims have attacked Joseph’s Tomb. In 2011, a nephew of Science and Culture Minister Limor Livnat, Ben-Joseph Livnat, was murdered by Palestinian Authority security forces while visiting Joseph’s Tomb and four other Israelis were wounded. At his funeral, Limor Livnat stated, “He was murdered simply because he was Jewish.”

Muslims then proceeded to set Joseph’s Tomb on fire and they also attacked the funeral procession of Ben Joseph Livnat with rocks.

Let’s give these lovely people a state.

Furthermore, in 2008, 16 burning tires were thrown at Joseph’s Tomb and in other instances Joseph’s Tomb has been vandalized with swastikas and other anti-semitic graffiti. In 2000, the Palestinian Authority stormed Joseph’s Tomb, killed an IDF soldier, demolished Joseph’s Tomb, and desecrated Jewish holy books at the Jewish holy site. A Palestinian flag was raised over the Jewish holy site. Afterwards, the Palestinians attempted to transform Joseph’s Tomb into a mosque. Indeed, Palestinians to date claim that Joseph was a Muslim, yet this supposed claim holds no validity; otherwise, the Palestinians would treat Joseph’s Tomb more respectfully than they historically have.

Here’s a brief Wiki summary of the incredibly respectful treatment Joseph’s Tomb has received from Muslims over the last decade or so.

In the early days of the al-Aqsa Intifada, on the morning of October 7, 2000, Israel withdrew the small contingent of IDF border policemen who had been guarding the site of the Tomb of the Patriarch Joseph and its Yeshiva. The holy site was located in Shechem in Samaria, the town the Arabs call “Nablus”. Over the preceeding days, the Tomb had been attacked with gunfire, stones, and firebombs. The IDF defenders in the compound withstood the attacks and stopped several attempts by armed Palestinians to break in. An IDF border policemen was wounded, and the heavy rioting prevented his evacuation for treatment in time to save his life.

The PA also pledged to prevent any vandalism and to return the Tomb to its original state after the violence settled down.

The PA pledge was brazenly violated about two hours after the Israeli evacuation, when a Palestinian Arab mob entered the Tomb compound and began to systematically destroy everything in sight, including all remnants of the Yeshiva. The furniture and books that were left behind were burned by the mob. The Palestinian police stood by, failing to prevent any of these violent activities, despite their commitment to guard the Tomb. Within hours, Joseph’s Tomb was reduced to a smoldering heap of rubble. Within two days, as an Associated Press dispatch reported, “the dome of the tomb was painted green and bulldozers were seen clearing the surrounding area,” as the Palestinian Arabs sought to transform the biblical Joseph’s resting place into a Moslem holy site.

Minister Natan Sharansky wanted the foreign ministry to publicize photos of the desecrated site, which is in the Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Nablus, the biblical Shechem.

“If we would have razed the gravesite of one of the founders of Islam, billions of Muslims would have taken to the streets,” Sharansky said. “It’s inconceivable that the world should not know about this travesty.”

Nablus mayor Ghassan Shakaa promised to repair the site to its pre-1967 state, and repairs were carried out; however, workers painted the exterior of the shrine’s dome green (the color of Islam), fuelling speculation that the Palestinians intended to build a mosque on the site. After some world outcry, the dome was repainted a neutral colour.

On February 23, 2003 the carved stone covering the grave was destroyed.

In February 2003 it was reported in the Jerusalem Post that the grave had been pounded with hammers and that the tree at its entrance had been broken; car parts and trash littered the tomb which had a “huge hole in its dome.”

In 2007, it was discovered that the tomb had been vandalised, and filled with burning garbage.

In early 2008, a group of MKs wrote a letter to the Prime Minister asking that the tomb be renovated: “The tombstone is completely shattered, and the holy site is desecrated in an appalling manner, the likes of which we have not seen in Israel or anywhere else in the world.”

In February, it was reported that Israel would officially ask the Palestinian Authority to carry out repairs at the tomb, but in response, vandals set tires on fire inside the tomb.

In December 2008, Jewish workers funded by anonymous donors painted the blackened walls and re-built the shattered stone marker covering the grave.

In late April 2009, a group of Jewish worshipers found the headstone smashed and swastikas painted on the walls, as well as boot prints on the grave itself

If Jews were constantly setting a Muslim holy site on fire, there would be so many UN resolutions they would provide toilet paper for UN HQ for a year. But Jewish holy sites don’t matter. Jewish lives don’t matter.

Categories: Intifada, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Temple Mount, Western media
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Can the New York Times discuss whether Mohammed’s flying horse really visited the Temple Mount?

October 15, 2015

Can the New York Times discuss whether Mohammed’s flying horse really visited the Temple Mount? Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 15, 2015

al-buraf_hafifa

The Temple Mount is holy to Jews because of the Temples. So the New York Times chose to discuss whether the Temples really existed. It’s holy to Muslims because Mohammed supposedly flew there on a flying horse (with a woman’s head).

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So the New York Times lapsed into what has been called Temple Trutherism by trying to deny the existence of the Jewish temples on the Temple Mount. Their work was taken down by Liel Leibowitz at The Tablet and others. The Times offered a limited correction.

But let’s have some equal time here.

The Temple Mount is holy to Jews because of the Temples. So the New York Times chose to discuss whether the Temples really existed. It’s holy to Muslims because Mohammed supposedly flew there on a flying horse (with a woman’s head).

Can we get a discussion of whether that really happened? Or does the New York Times only find it acceptable to mock Judaism, not Islam?

Let’s interview some of the same scholars and archeologists as to whether the entire Muslim basis for laying claim to the area has any basis in reality. The New York Times discusses the need for “independent scientific verification” of the Temples. How about “independent scientific verification” of this?

Here are some things for the New York Times to verify…

1. Buraq was a flying horse with a woman’s head. Can we get any verification that such a creature ever existed.

2. Buraq flew from Mecca to Jerusalem and back in one night. “The distance between Mecca and Jerusalem is 755.1 miles. To complete this feat in one night would have meant that Buraq must have been jet propelled in the 7th Century.” Please provide independent scientific verification of the existence of a flying horse with a woman’s head that can travel faster than the speed of sound.

Oddly the New York Times doesn’t appear to be interested in independent scientific verification of Islamic Supremacist myths.

Categories: Islamic myths, Temple Mount
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Concerning Israel, Don’t Trust Proportional Journalism

October 11, 2015

Concerning Israel, Don’t Trust Proportional Journalism, Israel Today, Tsvi Sadan, October 11, 2015

The foreign media dealing with Israel has transformed from news reporting to malice.

Known for his crisp Facebook posts, Israeli Lev Solodkin is wondering how British people would have reacted if during WWII, newspapers had reported that “a 21-year-old German peace-loving pilot was killed by British security forces over British skies”?

This, however, is exactly the type of reports about Israel emerging from many respected media outlets.

UK newspaper The Independent is involved in such distorted journalism when it portrays the present stoning and knifing of Jews as legitimate “riots” and “clashes” carried out by peace-loving Palestinians. A Saturday issue of this newspaper reported that five Palestinians were killed and five Jews were stabbed. The headline and content of the report was every bit like that of an innocent Luftwaffe pilot flying aimlessly over Britain.

Though disguised as news, the Independent piece is a political manifest carefully crafted to create the impression of defenseless Palestinians killed during legitimate “protests” against murderous Israel. The paper’s reporter spared no effort to make sure this point was not missed. The fact that armies around the world recruit 18-year-old men for active military service doesn’t matter much to theIndependent, which described the Palestinians involved as “boys.”

“A 19-year-old Palestinian boy stabbed three police officers” creates the desired impression of criminal Israel killing defenseless, under-aged youths. In the same manner, to legitimatize the Palestinian violence allegedly sparked by the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, the Independent chose to replace the Jewish Temple Mount with the Muslim “Noble Sanctuary” (Haram al-Sharif) to create the desired impression of who the real perpetrator is.

RT America (Russian Television) has done much the same in the way it chose to report on the “day of rage” that took place last Wednesday in New York City. The anchor gave American Palestinian activist Lamis Deek an undisturbed time to spew her venom. Deek did a fine job lying through her teeth about the reasons leading to the present Palestinian stabbing frenzy. Among her lies was blaming the Israeli government for allowing para-military settlers to rain terror on innocent Palestinians. Deek’s rant went unchallenged.

The New York Times didn’t fare much better. A headline from Tuesday inserts doubts about news coming from Israeli officials, thus conditioning readers to trust reports coming from the NYT’s “proportional journalism.”

For example, a headline concerning the killing of Eitam and Naama Henkin announces that “Israel says 5 from Hamas confess in Israeli couple’s killing.” What “Israel says” is contrasted with what the NYT says, which is, “Israeli forces fatally shooting two Palestinian teenagers — one 13” who was “innocent and was shot in cold blood.” The report goes on to give the names of innocent dead Palestinian “kids,” while omitting names of Israelis killed by such innocent “kids.”

The “peace-loving German pilot” type of journalism, euphemized as “proportional,” has become so prevalent that it is no longer possible to escape, let alone justify it. Considering the means of news proliferation 70 years ago, Germans could barely hide behind the excuse of “I didn’t know.” Today, however, none but a villain could say the aforementioned reports are even worth the ink used for their printing.

Categories: Al-Aqsa Mosque, Fatah, Gaza, Hamas, Islamism, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Progressives, Temple Mount, Western media
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Column One: Abbas must be stopped

October 9, 2015

Column One: Abbas must be stopped, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, October 8, 2015

ShowImage (12)PA President Mahmoud Abbas.. (photo credit:AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)

All the Palestinian terrorist attacks that have been carried out in recent weeks share one common feature. All the terrorists believe that by attacking Jews they are protecting the Temple Mount from destruction.

And why shouldn’t they believe this obscenity? Everywhere they go, every time they turn on their televisions, read the paper, go to school or the mosque they are told that the Jews are destroying al-Aksa Mosque. Al-Aksa, they are told, is in danger. They must take up arms to defend it from the Jews, whatever the cost.

One man stands at the center of this blood libel. The man who propagates this murderous lie and orchestrates the death and mayhem that is its bloody harvest is none other than the West’s favorite Palestinian moderate: PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

On September 16 Abbas gave a speech. It was broadcast on PA television and posted on his Facebook page. In it, he incited the Palestinians to kill Jews. In his words, “Al-Aksa Mosque is ours.

They [the Jews] have no right to desecrate it with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do everything in our power to defend Jerusalem.”

Abbas added, “We bless every drop of blood spilled for Jerusalem. This is clean and pure blood, blood that was spilled for God. It is Allah’s will that every martyr will go to heaven and every wounded [terrorist] will receive God’s reward.”

Two weeks later, Abbas opened his address before the UN General Assembly with the same lies, threats, and incitement.

Almost exactly a year ago, Abbas spewed the same bile in a speech, with the same murderous consequences. In a speech before Fatah’s executive committee last October, Abbas said, “We must prevent them [the Jews] from entering the holy site in every possible way. This is our holy site, this is our al-Aksa and our church [the Church of the Holy Sepulchre]. They have no right to enter them. They have no right to desecrate them. We must prevent them from entering. We must block them with our bodies to defend our holy sites.”

In subsequent weeks, Abbas’s words were rebroadcast 19 times on Palestinian television.

During that period, Arab terrorists massacred rabbis in prayer at a Jerusalem synagogue, attempted to assassinate human rights activist Yehudah Glick, and murdered Jews standing at light rail stops in the capital.

Eleven Israelis were butchered in that terrorist onslaught.

Then as now, Abbas and his lieutenants not only incited attacks, they incentivized would be perpetrators to kill Jews.

Every year, the same PA that claims perpetual poverty pays more than $100 million to terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails. Their salaries range between four to seven times the average PA salary, depending on the lethality of the attacks they carried out.

Popular awareness of the financial benefits of terrorist activities has played a critical role in motivating Palestinians to attack Jews. This is made clear by the actions in recent weeks of several of the supposedly “lone wolf” attackers in the hours before they struck. Several of them – like their predecessors in last year’s onslaught – announced their intention to become martyrs to protect al-Aksa from the Jews on their Facebook pages immediately before they carried out their attacks.

Money may be the greatest incentive Abbas and his PA provide for potential terrorists. But it isn’t the only one. There is also the social status they confer on terrorists and their families. Every would-be terrorist knows that if he succeeds in killing Jews, he will be glorified by the Palestinian media and his family will be embraced by the PA establishment – first and foremost by Abbas himself, who has made a habit of meeting with terrorists and their families.

Presently, Israel’s security brass is embroiled in a bitter dispute with our elected leaders regarding the nature of the current terrorist offensive. The dispute bubbled to the surface Wednesday night when the generals used military reporters to criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for blaming Abbas for the violence.

The generals insist that Abbas is a good guy.

He’s trying to calm the situation, they argue, and Israel needs to support him.

From the looks of things, the IDF seems to have the upper hand in this fight. This is the only way to read Netanyahu’s announcement Wednesday night that he is barring government ministers and members of Knesset from visiting the Temple Mount until further notice. Netanyahu’s move is nothing less than a signal that he accepts Abbas’s premise that there is something wrong with Jews exercising their right to visit Judaism’s holiest site.

The generals’ rationale for defending Abbas is fairly straightforward. Throughout the current Palestinian terror onslaught they have continued to cooperate with Abbas-controlled Palestinian security forces in Judea and Samaria.

These forces cooperate with the IDF in seeking out and arresting terrorists from Hamas and other groups that are not subordinate to Abbas. The fact that Abbas has ordered his men to work with the IDF has convinced the generals that he is a positive actor. So as they see it, he must be protected.

In their view, Israel must limit its counterterrorism operations to tactical operations against trigger pullers and their immediate commanders and ignore the overarching cause of the violence.

In behaving in this manner, our security brass is being willfully blind to the fact that Abbas is playing a double game. On the one hand, he orders his forces to be nice to IDF officers in Central Command when they fight terrorist cells from Hamas and other groups not loyal to Abbas, and so wins their appreciation.

But on the other hand, Abbas works with those same terrorist forces, incites them to attack, and rewards them for doing so.

Perhaps the most outrageous aspect of the IDF’s insistence that Abbas is critical to its counterterrorism efforts is that the IDF’s own data demonstrate that Abbas has played an insignificant role in quelling terrorist attacks against Israel.

As Jerusalem Post columnist Evelyn Gordon showed in an article in Commentary this week, according to official data, from 2002 when Palestinian terrorist activities in the areas were at their peak until 2007, when Israel began transferring security control over some Palestinian cities to Abbas’s forces, levels of terrorism went down 97 percent. Even after Israel began permitting Abbas to deploy his security forces to Nablus and Jenin, the IDF has continued to operate at will in these areas, often on a nightly basis.

As Gordon noted, the only place Abbas has exercised sole security control was in Gaza. From September 2005, when Israel removed its military forces from Gaza until Hamas expelled Fatah forces from the areas in June 2007, Abbas’s forces had full control over Gaza. During this time, his forces did nothing to prevent Hamas – and Fatah forces – from attacking Israel with thousands of mortars and rockets. His forces did nothing to prevent the massive transfer of advanced weaponry to Gaza from Egypt and Iran.

True, since his forces were routed in Gaza, Abbas has ordered them to work with the IDF in Judea and Samaria to prevent Hamas from overthrowing him. But at the same time, he continuously seeks to form a unity government with Hamas.

He funds Hamas. He glorifies its terrorists. And he refuses to condemn their attacks against Israel.

Moreover, while ordering his men to help the IDF to protect him from Hamas, he leads the diplomatic war against Israel internationally. The goals of that war are to harm Israel’s economy and deny Israel the right to self-defense.

Our political leadership’s reluctance to stand up to the army is understandable. It is nearly impossible to order the IDF to take action it opposes.

At some point though, the government is going to rein in our insubordinate generals. Fortunately, the government doesn’t need the IDF to deal with Abbas and destroy his capacity to foment and direct attacks against Israel.

Our elected officials have the authority to go after the twin foundations Abbas’s terrorist offensive on their own. Those foundations are the incitement and the financial incentives he uses to motivate Palestinians to attack Jews.

On the financial end, the Knesset should pass two laws to dry up the wells of terrorism financing.

First, the Knesset should pass a law stipulating that all property belonging to terrorists, and all property used by terrorists to plan and carry out attacks, will be seized by the government and transferred to the victims of their attacks.

Moreover, all compensation paid to terrorists and their relatives pursuant to their attacks will be seized by the government and transferred to their victims.

The second law would relate to Israel’s practice – anchored in the Oslo Accords that Abbas revoked last month at the UN – of transferring tax revenues to the PA. The Knesset should pass a law prohibiting those transfers unless the Defense Minister certifies that the PA has ceased all terrorism- related activities including incitement, organization, financing, directing and glorifying terrorist attacks and terrorists.

Until he so certifies, all revenues collected should be used to pay PA debts to Israeli institutions and to compensate victims of Palestinian terrorism.

As for the incitement, the government needs to go to the source of the problem – Abbas’s blood libel regarding Jewish rights to the Temple Mount.

As things stand, Abbas is exacting a price in human lives for his obscene anti-Jewish propaganda about our “filthy feet defiling” the most sacred site in Judaism. By barring elected officials from visiting the Temple Mount, not only is the government failing to exact a price for Abbas’ obscene propaganda. It is rewarding him and so inviting Abbas to expand his rhetorical offensive.

To remedy the situation an opposite approach is required. Rather than bar elected officials from visiting the Temple Mount, Netanyahu should encourage them to do so. Just as he sent a letter to Jordan’s King Abdullah telling him that Israel is preserving the status quo on the Temple Mount, so he should write a similar letter to our lawmakers.

In his letter, Netanyahu should say that in keeping with the status quo, which protects the rights of members of all religions to freely enter the Temple Mount, so he commits the government to protect the rights of all believers of all religions to ascend the Mount.

The Palestinian terrorist onslaught now raging against us is not spontaneous. Abbas has incited it and is directing it. To stop this assault, Israel must finally take action against Abbas and his machinery of war. Anything less can bring us nothing more than a temporary respite in the carnage that Abbas will be free to end whenever he wishes.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Defense of Israel, Fatah, Filthy Jews, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Oslo Accords, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Temple Mount, Terrorists, Two state solution
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Abbas Calls for Murder, Palestinians Attack

October 7, 2015

Abbas Calls for Murder, Palestinians Attack, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, October 7, 2015

  • The terrorists did not need permission from Hamas leaders to murder the first Jews they ran into. The inflammatory rhetoric of Abbas and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and media outlets was sufficient to drive any Palestinian to go out and murder Jews.
  • Instead of condemning the murder of the Jews, the PA denounced Israel for killing the two Palestinians who carried out the Jerusalem attacks.
  • The Palestinian Authority and its leaders are in no position today to condemn the murder of any Jews, simply because the PA itself has been encouraging such terrorist attacks through its ceaseless campaign of incitement against Israel.
  • The PA is playing a double game: it tells the world that it wants peace and coexistence with Israel; meanwhile it incites Palestinians against Israel, driving some to set out with guns and knives to murder Jews.
  • Although Abbas has repeatedly stated during the past few years that he does not want another intifada against Israel, his statements and actions show that he is doing his utmost to spark another wave of violence, in order to invite international pressure on Israel.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) and its leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, cannot evade responsibility for the latest wave of terror attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

True, in the end it turned out that Hamas was behind the murder of Eitam and Naama Henkin in front of their four children, but there is no ignoring the fact that the anti-Israel incitement of Abbas and other Palestinian leaders in Ramallah paved the way for the terrorists to carry out this and other attacks.

The incitement, which has been around for many years, intensified after the arson attack that killed three members of the Dawabsha family in the West Bank village of Duma in July.

Since then, Abbas and his senior officials have been waging an unprecedented campaign of incitement against Israel in general and Jewish settlers in particular, although the perpetrators of the Duma attack still have not been identified or caught. Palestinian Authority leaders have since accused the Israeli government of committing “war crimes,” and have told their people that the arson attack was actually part of an Israeli conspiracy against all Palestinians.

Abbas has even gone as far as accusing Israel of promoting a “culture of terror and apartheid.” That claim came in addition to threats by senior Palestinian officials to launch retaliatory “operations” against Israel in response to the arson attack.

The West Bank’s Palestinian media, which are controlled by the PA, have also played a role in the massive campaign of incitement against Israel and settlers. Jewish settlers are depicted in Palestinian media outlets as “gangsters” and “terrorists” and the Israeli government is dubbed the “Occupation Government.”

1279Official Palestinian Authority media outlets incite Palestinians, from a young age, to murder Jews. (Image source: Palestinian Media Watch)

The recent tensions at the Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem have also been exploited by Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership to delegitimize Israel and demonize “Jewish extremists and settlers.” For several months now, Abbas and his senior officials and media outlets have been accusing Jewish visitors to the holy site of “contaminating” and “desecrating” one of Islam’s holiest shrines. Palestinian officials and journalists have been telling their people that the Jews are plotting to demolish the Aqsa Mosque. Moreover, they have been urging and encouraging Palestinians to converge on the Aqsa Mosque compound to “defend” it against purported Jewish schemes.

The campaign of incitement reached its peak recently when Abbas was quoted as accusing Jews of “defiling the Aqsa Mosque with their filthy feet.” Abbas also announced that, “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood.”

The Hamas terrorists who murdered the Henkins live in the West Bank, and were undoubtedly exposed to the incitement by Abbas and the PA. The terrorists did not need permission from the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip or Turkey to go out and murder the first Jews they ran into. The inflammatory rhetoric of Abbas and Palestinian Authority officials and media outlets was sufficient to drive any Palestinian to murder Jews.

The two Palestinian assailants who carried out last week’s stabbing attacks in Jerusalem wanted to kill Jews because they were led to believe that this was the only means to stop them from “contaminating” the Aqsa Mosque. After all, this is precisely what Abbas and other PA officials have been telling them for the past few months. Again, while the two stabbers were not Abbas loyalists (one of them, Muhannad Halabi, was affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad), there is no doubt that the incitement of the Palestinian Authority played a major role in increasing their motivation to murder Jews.

Halabi, who stabbed and shot four Israelis in the Old City of Jerusalem, killing Rabbi Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Banita, and wounding Adele Banita and her baby, wrote on his Facebook page hours before the attack: “What is happening to al-Aqsa Mosque is what is happening to our holy sites, and what is happening to the women of al-Aqsa is what is happening to our mothers and women. I don’t believe that our people will succumb to humiliation. The people will indeed rise up.” Halabi’s statements are not much different from those made by several senior PA officials in recent weeks and months.

The Palestinian Authority also bears responsibility for the wave of terror attacks: its leaders never condemned the murder of the four Jews near Nablus and in the Old City of Jerusalem. By refusing to denounce the attacks, Abbas and the PA leadership are sending a message to Palestinians that it is fine to murder Jewish parents in front of their children, or Jews on their way to pray at the Western Wall. Instead of condemning the murder of the Jews, the Palestinian Authority chose to denounce Israel for killing the two Palestinians who carried out the Jerusalem attacks. By doing so, the PA is actually inciting Palestinians to seek revenge for the “cold-blooded execution” of the two assailants.

The Palestinian Authority and its leaders are in no position today to condemn the killing of any Jews, simply because it is the PA itself that has been encouraging such terrorist attacks through its ceaseless campaign of incitement against Israel.

In this regard, the PA is playing a double game: on the one hand, it is telling the world that it wants peace and coexistence with Israel; on the other hand, it is continuing to incite Palestinians against Israel, and driving some to take guns and knives and set out to murder Jews.

The Palestinian Authority’s fiery anti-Israel rhetoric has led to a wave of terrorist attacks that could easily deteriorate into a third intifada. Although Abbas has repeatedly stated during the past few years that he does not want another intifada against Israel, his statements and actions show that he is doing his utmost to spark another wave of violence in order to draw the world’s attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and invite international pressure on Israel.

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Fatah, Filthy Jews, Hamas, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Jews, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Temple Mount, West Bank
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Mahmoud Abbas: Jews “Have No Right to Defile the Al-Aqsa Mosque with Their Filthy Feet”

September 21, 2015

Mahmoud Abbas: Jews “Have No Right to Defile the Al-Aqsa Mosque with Their Filthy Feet,” MEMRI-TV via You Tube, September 20, 2015

(This is the video, released with an English translation today, noted in an article titled Abbas: “Filthy” Jews’ Feet Not Allowed on Temple Mount. — DM)

 

Categories: Abbas, Al-Aqsa Mosque, Filthy Jews, Islam's war on Jews, Islamic supremacy, Israel, Jerusalem, Muslims, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Religion of Peace, Temple Mount, 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.”

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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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Is Netanyahu finally getting serious about tackling Palestinian terrorism?

September 16, 2015

Is Netanyahu finally getting serious about tackling Palestinian terrorism? | Anne’s Opinions, September 16th 2015

(The Palestinians’ “low-level violence” is anything but. Israelis have been killed and Israeli sovereignty is being undermined in Jerusalem and in the holiest of Jewish sites: on the Temple Mount and the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. The Israeli government’s response has so far been limp to say the least – unless it is harassing Jewish Israelis. But maybe the tide has turned. — anneinpt))

The low-level Palestinian terrorism that has been plaguing Israelis for years, particularly firebombings, shootings and stonings have been documented on this blog and elsewhere innumerable times; similarly the ongoing destruction – under the guise of “youthful vandalism” – of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, as well as attacking Jewish visitors to the cemetery. This terrorism has been gradually ramping up, and it was obvious to all that the longer no serious Israeli response was forthcoming, the more serious the situation was set to be.

Alexander Levlovitz Hy’d

On Rosh Hashana eve, another Israeli fell victim to Palestinian rock throwing: Alexander Levlovitz of Mevasseret was killed as he drove in East Talpiot, Jerusalem:

Police identified the Israeli man killed late Sunday night in a rock-throwing attack in Jerusalem as Alexander Levlovitz, 64.

Levlovitz died of his injuries in the early hours of Monday morning after he lost control of his car when it came under attack by assailants hurling stones; he drove into a ditch and hit a pole, initially sustaining serious wounds. Police were investigating whether Levlovitz suffered cardiac arrest when his car crashed.

Two other people travelling in the car were lightly injured in the incident in the East Talpiot neighborhood of southeast Jerusalem. The three were returning from an event celebrating the Jewish New Year.

…

Unknown assailants believed to be Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem reportedly attacked the car with stones. The assailants, allegedly from the nearby Palestinian village of Sur Bacher, also attacked other cars on East Talpiot’s Asher Winer street, Channel 2 reported.

“The driver who was involved in an accident, apparently as a result of stone-throwing… died at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.

This attack might have been prevented if the police – at the government’s behest – would have taken a firmer hand against the perpetrators. Finally, much too late, the politicians appear to be waking up to the threat. President Rivlin called for firm action against terror following this stoning attack plus several days of rioting on the Temple Mount (more on that to follow), and he was joined in his call by politicians from both Left and Right.

Netanyahu too finally sprang into action, summoning an emergency meeting at his office at the close of Rosh Hashana to discuss ways to combat the growing terror threat:

At an emergency meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office late Tuesday to discuss measures to curb an increasing trend of Palestinians using homemade weapons against Israelis, Netanyahu said that stone-throwers would face harsher penalties in the future.

“I take the throwing of stones or firebombs against Israelis very seriously, and I intend to fight this phenomenon by any means necessary, including the use of implementing stricter sentences and enforcement,” he said.

The meeting was attended by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and senior security officials.

The committee would submit its recommendations within a week, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Netanyahu also ordered the Israel Police and state prosecution to form a separate committee to examine ways to deter such attacks by increasing the severity of penalties and sentences.

The committee was specifically tasked by the prime minister with determining the efficacy of measures such as imposing high minimum sentences, and instituting steep fines on minors and their parents who participate in rock-throwing attacks.

Ahead of the meeting, Netanyahu vowed to use “any means necessary” to curb stoning-throwing attacks against Israelis and ongoing violence on the Temple Mount, which on Tuesday saw Palestinians clashing with Israeli police for a third consecutive day.

The emergency meeting came after three days of violent clashes on the Temple Mount and a rock-throwing attack that led to a fatal car crash in Jerusalem Sunday night, killing the driver, Alexander Levlovitz.

May the family of Alexander Levlovitz Hy’d be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem and may his memory be for a blessing.

In recent weeks we have seen how the uncontested Arab “vandalism” – in actual fact antisemitic acts of the basest sort – in the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives has reached heights never seen since its partial destruction by the Jordanians in 1948. Graves were smashed and trees set on fire in the latest bout.

Smashed Jewish gravestones on the Mt. of Olives cemetery

Returning to the recent violence on the Temple Mount, Palestinian anti-Jewish violence in the Old City of Jerusalem and its environs has also been growing apace, partly because of a limp police response to the Palestinians’ violence combined with an unfairly firm hand against the Jewish victims.

Temple Mount screamers – Muslim harassers of Jewish visitors

One of the worst manifestations of Muslim supremacy has been the “Temple Mount screamers” who have been hired and are paid by radical Muslim organizations specifically to hound and harass Jews and others who wish to visit and pray at their holiest site. Up till this week they have been aided and abetted appeased by the Israeli police who simply want a quiet life and find it easier to chase the Jews away rather than confront the Muslim stalkers.

But finally the Israeli government has woken up, maybe after being embarrassed by a visiting US Congressman being harassed by these “screamers” – or maybe just by mounting furious domestic public opinion. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has now outlawed the Murabitun’ and ‘Murabitat:

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon signed an order Wednesday declaring the groups of Islamists who regularly harass Jews on the Temple Mount – the male “Murabitun” and female “Murabitat” – as illegal organizations.

The activists regularly riot on the Mount, curse, shout, and throw various objects at the Jews who ascend the Mount, and sometimes attack police as well.

Yaalon signed the order upon the recommendation of the Israel Security Agency and the Israel Police, after he became convinced that it was necessary for preserving the public peace and security of the nation.

“The activity of the Murabitun and Murabitat is a central element in creating the tension and violence on the Temple Mount in particular and in Jerusalem in general,” said a statement issued by Yaalon’s bureau. “This is dangerous and inciting activity against tourists, visitors and worshipers at the site, that leads to violence and could cause loss of life.”

Boker tov Eliyahu. Where has Yaalon been hiding up until now?!

The declaration was signed after it received the approval of the Attorney General, and it means that anyone participating in Murabitun/Murabitat activities, organizing or funding it, is carrying out a crime and is likely to face prosecution.

I’d like to see that happen in real life. In practice I’m willing to bet we’ll never see a prosecution but I would be delighted to be proven wrong. I’ll be happy to see one or two of them arrested. (Not holding my breath).

Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan (Likud) sent Ya’alon letter last month, asking him to urgently declare the Arab organizations that create mayhem on the Temple Mount as illegal, so that security forces will have a freer hand against the rioters.

Erdan had been carrying out behind-the-scenes staff work, together with police, the Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet), the State Attorney’s Office and even the Attorney General, who agreed to help advance the declaration.

In the discussions of the problem, Erdan was shown evidence that the Murabitun and Murabitat are directed by the northern arm of the Islamic Movement in Israel.

The purpose of their activity is to destabilize the status quo on the Temple Mount, and they have succeeded in creating escalation on the Mount, and in making the security situation there untenable.

Kol hakavod to Gilad Erdan, one of the few effective Israeli politicians in office today.

Miriam Elman at Legal Insurrection has produced an admirably thorough backgrounder to the “Screamers” – their financing and backing, their provocations and harassments, and their aim of denying the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jews. It’s outrageous and depressing reading. Read it all at the link.

As to what triggered the violence over Rosh Hashana, it all started when Israel hit back. Or rather, when the Israeli police discovered a stash of pipe bombs hidden by Palestinians on the Temple Mount, ready to be used against Jewish worshippers on Rosh Hashana:

Israeli police on Sunday discovered pipe bombs during what they said was a preemptive operation at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Temple Mount, prompting one senior minister to warn that Israel would review measures at the site, which is holy to both Jew and Muslims.

The Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Egypt condemned the Israeli government for the incident.

Yes, of course, because it’s always the police’s fault for discovering a crime, rather than the fault of the criminal.

Police said it approached the compound to prevent an attempt to disrupt Jewish visits to the site.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan warned that the discovery of the pipe bombs “forces us to reconsider the arrangements for the Temple Mount.

“It is unacceptable that Muslim rioters who barricaded themselves during the night on the Temple Mount can, at will, turn this holy site into a battlefield, including throwing stones, shooting firecrackers directly at security forces, and even bringing explosive devices into the area of the mount,” he said.

…

According to police, the intention of the demonstrators was to upset the movements of Jewish visitors in the compound ahead of the Rosh Hashanah holiday, which began Sunday evening and marks the Jewish new year.

“Masked protesters who were inside the mosque threw stones and fireworks at police,” a police statement said. “Suspicious pipes that could be filled with homemade explosives were also found at the entry to the mosque.”

Police later confirmed that the objects were pipe bombs.

Once again, I don’t understand why it has taken the police or the political echelon so long to react. These Palestinian attacks with pipe bombs, stones and other weapons against Jews have been taking place for years.

In another recent anti-Jewish attack in Jerusalem, a Jewish worshipper was chased through the alleyways of the Old City:

Here is what the Muslims’ “third-holiest site” looks like from the inside:

The humour in the Sussex Friends of Israel’s cheeky comment disguises what is an important point: the Muslims lost all right to any claim to “holiness” just by the way they treat the Temple Mount as anything BUT a place of worship. To them it is simply yet another place from which to uproot Israel and its Jewish historical connection to the site.

The chutzpah of the EU, the UN and (incredibly) the US in urging “restraint” is once again beyond belief. Let them address their calls for restraint to the Muslims – to their Iranian backers, the Muslim Brotherhood financiers, and their Palestinian perpetrators.

Meanwhile let us hope that with the start of the New Year, the Israeli government will mark a new beginning and show us that it is finally getting serious about confronting this growing menace of Palestinian terrorism in Jerusalem, which threatens not only lives but our very sovereignty in our capital city.

Categories: Al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Netanyahu, Palestinians, Temple Mount, Terrorism
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State Department Report Minimizes Palestinian Incitement to Violence

June 19, 2015

State Department Report Minimizes Palestinian Incitement to Violence, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, Jume 19, 2015

These blatant omissions from the report leave create a sense that examples of Palestinian incitement to violence and glorification of terrorists are sporadic occurrences. In reality, the Palestinian Authority institutionalizes a systematic campaign of violent incitement and continues to praise terrorists for killing Jews and Israelis, while encouraging other Palestinians to follow in their footsteps.

****************

The U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2014 issued Friday minimizes official Palestinian incitement to violence against Israel and completely overlooks Palestinian glorification of terrorists.

The annual report lists major terrorist incidents worldwide and outlines each country’s counterterrorism efforts and legislation. Terrorism attacks and their resulting deaths spiked last year, the report found, an increase largely driven by attacks by the Islamic State and Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorist groups.

With respect to the Palestinian Authority (PA), the report praises the PA for taking “significant steps to ensure that official institutions in the West Bank that fall under its control do not create content that leads to incitement to violence.” The report acknowledges that “some instances of inciting taking place via official media” still occur, listing only three examples. However, the report diminishes the fact that incitement to violence is a systematic and institutionalized PA phenomenon.

Click here for an Investigative Project on Terrorism comprehensive outline of Palestinian violent incitement focused only on incidents last fall.

The State Department assessment also ignores the direct participation of senior PA officials in praising terrorists and inciting violence against Israelis and Jews.

For example, the report does not mention PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ call last October for Palestinians to prevent Jews from going to the Temple Mount compound “in any way.” The video clip of Abbas’ Oct. 17 speech was shown 19 on PA television times in three days, implicitly calling for Palestinians to use violence against Israelis.

Instead, the report described PA efforts “to ensure” Friday sermons in more than 1,800 mosques controlled by the PA “do not endorse incitement to violence … the guidance is that no sermon can discuss political or lead to incitement to violence.”

In February, however, the PA Minister of Religious Affairs and other prominent religious officials resorted to an age-old blood libel accusing Jews of attacking Muslims sites and that Israel is trying to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reports. Such accusations are baseless and encourage Palestinians to conduct terrorist attacks against Israel.

The State Department report also omits any reference to official Palestinian glorification of terrorists.

For example, after the October shooting of Rabbi Yehuda Glick, Abbas sent a condolence letter to the family of terrorist Mutaz Hijazi who was killed by Israeli authorities in a firefight during a raid for his capture. In the letter, Abbas called the terrorist a “Shahid,” a martyr, who “rose to Heaven while defending our people’s rights and holy places,” PMW reported.

Moreover, a senior Fatah official claimed that Hijazi was a Fatah operative and expressed pride in his actions, a PMW translation shows.

These blatant omissions from the report leave create a sense that examples of Palestinian incitement to violence and glorification of terrorists are sporadic occurrences. In reality, the Palestinian Authority institutionalizes a systematic campaign of violent incitement and continues to praise terrorists for killing Jews and Israelis, while encouraging other Palestinians to follow in their footsteps.

Categories: Abbas, Antisemitism, Fatah, Foreign policy, Israel, Jerusalem, Obama, Obama administration, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace process, Temple Mount, Terrorism, Terrorists, Two state solution, West Bank
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