Tag: Jerusalem

Posted on

PACKER’S CORNER: Gaza is Deteriorating

Despite the Passover holiday being in full effect, there has been tons of drama this week in Israel!

Let’s start at the border with Gaza (not that I recommend camping there at the moment, I don’t). For a few days before last Friday, Hamas instructed arabs in Gaza to build tents near the border with Israel in preparation for a large protest/incursion planned for that Friday – Passover Eve. When Friday came, attempts were made by some arabs to damage/cross the fence into Israel. No one was successful and 18 arabs died from IDF gunfire. Many others were injured. That’s what happened. That’s it. There are those trying to make this out like this was a first amendment type protest thing. Those people are anti-semites, no one is that stupid.

The situation is ongoing and with Friday coming up, my money is on more attempted incursions and more dead arabs You can place individual bets on my facebook wall. Btw, B’Tzelem has called on soldiers to disobey orders and not shoot the terrorists. I’ll be shocked if a single soldier does what these morons say. The epitome of irrelevant.

The Infiltrators. So Israel, like America, has been trying to figure out a way to get rid of tens of thousands of illegal infiltrators, but instead of Mexico, ours are from Africa. Secret agreements have been made in the past with certain African countries for them to receive the deported folk. However, now a deal was made with the United Nations to send half the infiltrators to Western countries and for Israel to keep the other half. This deal lasted for about 4 hours and then Prime Minister Netanyahu, after severe pressure from others in his Government, cancelled the deal. Politics aside, that’s amazing. Announce a major deal with the world and cancelling it a few hours later. Bravo Bibi Bravo. This one ain’t close to over.

Another element to this fight is the role that the “new israel fund (nif)” has played in it. Prime Minister Netanyahu has publicly blamed them for sabotaging the supposed-to-be-secret deals with the African nations that had agreed to accept the infiltrators. Now its time for Bibi’s revenge. This “new israel fund” is a very active, incredibly subversive actor in Israel and has no shortage of patriotic enemies. Seems like now is the time to strike. Nif will need all the help they can get from their self-hating jewish friends in the Israeli legal community and their anti-semitic international friends. Might not be enough this time. The Israeli “Deplorables” might deliver a hefty smack down.

Alot of people are probably being killed throughout the Middle East – Syria, Iraq, Yemen, but no one cares. No Jews involved – no interest for the anti-semites. Sorry folks. President Trump is hinting that he will pull out American forces soon. This has got tons of nervous folks peeing their pants – just like Trump likes it.

Government Minister Miri Regev announced today that Israel would authorize 500 more houses in the Samarian Jewish Community of Har Bracha sometime after Pesach. This would more than double the size of the very strategic community. Quite frankly, if this happens, then anything is possible (in terms of “settlement construction”).

While I’m in the mood to make predictions, my bet is that a major announcement is coming on building in Jerusalem in the near future – after the US Embassy is moved to Jerusalem. No evidence, just a feeling. Might be all the matzah.

Posted on

JERUSALEM TERROR: Adiel Kolman, Father of Four Was Murdered Last Night in Jerusalem’s Old City

Adiel Kolman, 32 year old father of four from Kochav Hashachar was murdered last night by 28 year old Abed al-Rahman Bani Fa’adal, a resident of the Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Aqraba, near Shechem in the Shomron.  Fa’adal succeeded in using his entry permit to evade security checkpoints into Jerusalem and even into the Old City. He was shot by the police at the site of the murder.

Kolman was on his way home for the evening.  He was a security guard in the Old City of Jerusalem and as well as contributing greatly to the City of David’s archeological excavations.

The victim spent hours at Shaare Tzedek hospital only to succumb to his wounds.

President Reuven Rivlin said the following about the murder: ““Four more children lost their father last night. For the bereaved the pain is unbearable. Thirty-two year old Adiel Kolman, who worked with dedication in the City of David excavations, was murdered yesterday in the Old City, in a brutal and abhorrent stabbing terror attack. The terror on the streets of Jerusalem, our capital, where Jews and Arabs have lived together for hundreds of years, is a great disaster for all its inhabitants, and we will not allow it to become an existing reality. We will fight against terror and we will overcome.”

With tensions still high after the murder of two soldiers just before Shabbat, Daniel Luria, Executive Director of Ateret Cohanim offered a different approach. “Ateret Cohanim calls on the Israeli Government to act like a true supporting Governemnt and stop sitting on the fence, by pretending to be moral or ethical. We are at war. And so there is one way to treat an enemy during wartime. Destroying one petty small  bedroom in a building hasn’t and wont stop these terrorists,” Luria said.

Luria continued: “Destroying the family home (all rooms) will have more of a chance of being a deterrant. Evicting the whole immediate family and banishing them out of Israel to say Gaza  is a possible deterrant. Cutting any and all social security payments will also help if relevant. Lets stop playing games. Lets remember that the family and many friends of the terrorist knows about and  supports his actions. They are not innocent bystanders.”
“So I call upon  the Israeli Government to act like the head of the family, whose own child has been murdered and act like the true owner of the Land of Israel.”
Our answer. Our response. Our revenge – is to buy, build, redeem, reclaim, add Jewish life and secure Jerusalem.”
Posted on

Israeli Security Forces Uncover an Arms Smuggling Cell Connected to French National

(Communicated by the ISA)

The following has been cleared for publication:

The Israel Security Agency (ISA), in conjunction with the Israel Police, has uncovered a cell of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem that – in recent months – smuggled weapons from the Gaza Strip to Judea and Samaria via a French national, Romain Franck, who worked at the French Consulate in Jerusalem.

Roman Franck (ISA)

Franck smuggled weapons five times in recent months in a vehicle belonging to the French Consulate, which received lighter treatment at the border crossing security check, as is customary for such vehicles. Franck thus smuggled approximately 70 pistols and two assault rifles.

Franck received the weapons from a Palestinian resident of the Gaza Strip who was employed by the French Cultural Center in the Strip. The smuggled weapons were delivered to a Palestinian in Judea and Samaria who sold them to arms dealers.

Among those arrested for their involvement in the smuggling are a resident of eastern Jerusalem who works as a security guard at the French Consulate in Jerusalem and Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who were present in Judea and Samaria without permits. Nine suspects have been arrested so far, six of whom have been indicted by the State Attorney’s Office (Southern District).

The investigation clearly shows that Franck acted for financial gain, of his own accord and unbeknownst to his superiors. It was also learned that several of the suspects were involved in smuggling funds from the Gaza Strip to Judea and Samaria.

A senior ISA officer states, “This is a very grave incident in which the immunity and privileges granted to foreign missions in Israel was cynically exploited in order to smuggle dozens of weapons which could have been used in terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and members of the security forces.”

The foregoing investigation was conducted in coordination with the Foreign Ministry; the French authorities were updated regularly.

Posted on

Turkey is the Enemy to Watch Out For

As the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) have now unofficially invaded, occupied, and essentially stolen Afrin City from its indigenous inhabitants, the Syrian Kurds, it is important to understand the implications of this for the Middle East and specifically Israel.  The Israeli government has spent more than a decade convincing the world and most importantly the United States that Iran is the most dangerous threat to Israel. In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came back from his meetings with Trump explaining that their meeting centered on Iran.

While it is true Iran poses an existential threat to Israel by way of its ballistic missile program and sponsorship of Hezbollah, its armed forces are still considered very inadequate as compared to Israel’s. Once again, this is not to say Iran should be ignored, especially since they are run by the Ayatollahs.

With all of Iran’s nastiness and genocidal aspirations, they have yet to accomplish what Erdogan has done in Afrin.  Not only has he destroyed ethnically cleansed its Kurdish occupants, but Erdogan seems to actually revel in the complete destruction of the Kurdish city.  This is why Turkey is dangerous.  Erdogan wants and desires to restore the Ottoman Empire to its full glory and will stop at nothing to do so, including mass ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Unlike Iran, Turkey is a NATO member and hosts the US airforce that is needed in the region to finish off ISIS and face off against Russian and Iranian expansion.  Erdogan knows the US won’t be able to move it’s airbase in the short run and so has a free hand to murder civilians and occupy the territory of others.

Erdogan has made it clear. Afrin is only the beginning.  After he has finished killing as many Kurds as he can he will move on and wipe out more and then head south to conquer Damascus and then the ultimate prize, Jerusalem.

Last summer the Turkish Foreign Ministry invoked the Ottoman Empire in connection to Jerusalem: “At the Ottoman era, communities belonging to different religions and sects lived in peaceful coexistence and enjoyed freedom of worship for centuries. In this context, Jews would be expected to know best and appreciate the unique tolerance during the Ottoman era.”

Of course Turkey failed to mention the oppressive policies against Jews in Jerusalem by the Turkish authorities as well as the purposeful flooding of the Land of Israel of hundreds of thousands of non-indigenous peoples by the Ottomans to offset the growing Jewish population.  In fact, one can say that the British learned from the Turks on effective measures on one hand to utiize the Jewish influx of economic know-how and on the other how to rile up the Arab street against the Jewish population.

If the world does not stop Erdogan, what is going on in Afrin will only the beginning.  This is why it is important to take a stand.  Israel needs to lead the way on this.  First, the Kurds have always been pro-Israel and friendly to the Jews.  Furthermore, the Kurds are an open society that makes a point of cherishing personal freedom.  What Erdogan is doing is wiping out an entire culture and if that is allowed nothing will stop him coming after Israel when he is done.

Israel can pressure the US to finally pick a side in this fight and stop back stabbing the Kurds.  It is true Iran is dangerous and may even be true that switching gears at this moment may muddy the ater, but the alternative is far worse.

 

Posted on

Firing Rex Tillerson Removed an Obstacle to Middle East Peace

As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was being fired on Tuesday, his central assumptions about the Palestinian conflict with Israel, which are shared by the entire Washington foreign policy establishment, literally blew up in Gaza.

On Tuesday morning, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s convoy was attacked by a roadside bomb during an official visit in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Hamdallah was in Gaza to inaugurate a wastewater treatment facility sponsored by the World Bank. The facility was approved 14 years ago, but infighting between Hamas, which runs Gaza, and Fatah, the PLO ruling faction which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), blocked its operation time after time.

The shuttered water treatment facility in northern Gaza has long been a monument to the Palestinian leadership’s incompetence and indifference to the plight of the people it is supposed to be serving. As the plant gathered dust, Gaza plunged deeper and deeper into a water crisis.

As the Times of Israel reported, Gaza has two water problems: insufficient ground water, and massive pollution of the existing supply due to the absence of sufficient sewage treatment facilities.

Untreated sewage is dumped directly into the Mediterranean Sea, and then seeps back into Gaza’s groundwater.

Gaza’s polluted acquifiers only produce a quarter of its water needs, and due to insufficient water treatment facilities, 97 percent of Gaza’s natural water sources are unsafe for human consumption.

Hamdallah’s visit to Hamas-controlled Gaza was supposed to show that the Fatah-Hamas unity deal Egypt brokered between the two terror groups last year was finally enabling them to solve Gaza’s humanitarian needs.




And then Hamdallah’s convoy was bombed, and the whole charade of Palestinian governing competence and responsibility was put to rest.

Later in the day, the White House held a Middle East summit that demonstrated Tillerson’s basic assumptions have the problems of the Middle East precisely backwards.

Under the leadership of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, along with Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s senior negotiator, Israeli officials sat in the White House for the first time with Arab officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar. Representatives from Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel enjoys open diplomatic relations, were also in attendance. Canadian and European officials participated as well.

Although they were invited, the Palestinians chose to boycott the conference. Their boycott was telling. The PA claimed it was boycotting the conference in retaliation for America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and President Trump’s plan to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Israel’s 70th Independence Day in May.

But anger over Jerusalem doesn’t justify the snub. The purpose of the summit wasn’t to reach “the ultimate deal.” The summit was called to to formulate the means to contend with the humanitarian crises emanating from Hamas-controlled Gaza. The Palestinians boycotted a summit whose sole purpose was to help them.

As Palestinian commentator Bassam Tawil noted, the PA’s boycott while appalling, was unsurprising.

The White House summit was a threat to both rival Palestinian factions. It showed that the Trump administration, which both Fatah and Hamas hate passionately, cares more about the Palestinians than they do.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is entirely the product of Hamas and Fatah actions. In an op-ed in the Washington Post last week, Greenblatt laid the blame on Hamas. “Hamas’s utter failure to fulfill any of the most basic functions of governance has brought Gaza to the brink of collapse, which has necessitated the response of the international community.”

Fatah, Tawil noted, is just as responsible. The Fatah-controlled PA has used the Palestinians of Gaza as a pawn in its power struggle against Hamas. Rather than work to decontaminate Gaza’s water supply and provide for the basic needs of the population, for the past year the PA has imposed economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip.

Ostensibly imposed to induce the population of Gaza to rise up against Hamas, they have simply served to increase the misery of the residents of Gaza. Hamas’s power remains unchallenged as Qatar, Turkey, and Iran shower the terror group with cash and arms.

As Tawil noted, Hamas and Fatah are willing to fight one another until the last Palestinian in Gaza.

The conference showed that the attack on Hamdallah’s convoy was not a freak episode. The bombing was emblematic of the Fatah-Hamas leadership’s obsession with their own power, to the detriment of the people they claim to represent.

The events in Gaza and the White House on Tuesday tell us two important things.

First, they reveal that the primary obstacle to both peace and regional stability in the Middle East is the Palestinian leadership – both from Fatah and Hamas.

Not only did the PA refuse to participate in a summit dedicated solely to helping the Palestinians, but also the very day the summit took place, PA-controlled Voice of Palestine Radio reported that the PA intends to file a complaint against President Trump at the International Criminal Court. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem, the PA insists, “violated all international laws and resolutions.”

The report also said the PA intends to sue Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman for “crimes against the Palestinian people.”

Tuesday’s second lesson is that while the PA is the primary obstacle to peace and regional stability, it is easily surmountable.

Tuesday’s conference was a diplomatic triumph for the Trump administration. For the first time, official representatives of five Arab states that have no diplomatic relations with Israel sat publically in the White House with Israeli officials. They were brought together due to their common concern for the Palestinians in Gaza, and for the instability that the plight of the Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza might encourage.

Although it is still unknown whether anything discussed at the conference will turn into concrete improvements on the ground, the summit itself was a concrete achievement. It showed that the Arabs are willing publicly to bypass the Palestinians to work with Israel. The fact that the conference was devoted to helping the Palestinians served to transform the PA from the critical partner in any peace deal to an irritating irrelevance.

And that brings us to Tillerson, and the foreign policy establishment whose positions he channeled.

During his 14 months in office, Tillerson insisted on maintaining the establishment’s view that the Fatah-controlled PA is the be-all-and-end-all of Middle East peace efforts. The view that there can be no Arab-Israeli peace without the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLOP compelled successive U.S. administrations to continue to embrace it despite its support for terrorism, and despite its refusal to accept or even respond to any offer of peace by either Israel or the U.S.

The belief that there can be no peace without Fatah convinced successive American administrations to pour billions of dollars in aid money down the black hole of PA treasury accounts. Since the Israeli-PLO peace process began in 1993, the Palestinians have received more international aid per capita than any nation on earth has received in world history. And all they produced are an impoverished, sewage-filled terror state in Gaza, and a jihadist hub in Judea and Samaria that would explode in violence if Israel did not control security.

The view that the U.S. needs the PLO and its PA to achieve peace gave the Palestinian leadership an effective veto over every U.S. policy towards Israel and towards the peace process.

Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy to Jerusalem was the first time any American leader since Bill Clinton had dared to reject the Palestinian veto on US Middle East policy.

Tillerson supported maintaining the PA’s veto. As a result, he all but openly opposedTrump’s decision.

So too, last June, in a bid to protect U.S. funding to the PA — despite the fact that fully 7 percent of its donor-funded budget is used to pay salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons and their families — Tillerson falsely told the Senate Foreign Relations committee that the PA had agreed to end the payments. After the Palestinians themselves denied his statement, he only partially walked it back. The next day, he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. was in “active discussions” with the Palestinians regarding halting the payments.

In the event, the PA raised its payments to terrorists in 2017 to $403 million. In 2016, the PA spent $347 million to pay salaries to terrorist murderers and their families.

In other words, Tillerson is so committed to the view that there can be no peace without the PA, that he willingly misled U.S. lawmakers.

Trump administration officials keep insisting that they are almost ready to present their peace plan for the Palestinians and Israel. But whatever the plan may entail, the steps the White House has already taken – Tuesday’s summit, Trump’s move on Jerusalem, and his determination to sign the Taylor Force Act to end U.S. support for the PA if it maintains its payments to terrorists – have already advanced the cause of peace more than any American peace proposal ever has and likely ever will.

Those moves removed the principle blockage to all peace deals – namely, the Palestinian leadership from Fatah and Hamas alike. By bypassing the PA, the White House has focused its efforts on expanding the already burgeoning bilateral ties between Israel and the Arab states. It has encouraged the expansion of cooperation between these regional actors. That cooperation is the key to diminishing Iranian power in the region; defeating Sunni jihadists from the Muslim Brotherhood and its spinoffs; and to improving the lives and prospects for peace of Palestinians, Israelis and all the nations of the region.

Tillerson opposed all of these actions. Like the foreign policy establishment he represented, Tillerson refused to abandon the false belief that nothing can be done without PLO approval. By removing him from office, President Trump took yet another step towards advancing prospects for peace in the Middle East.

Originally Published in Breitbart Jerusalem

Posted on

[Watch] YEHUDA GLICK: “We are witnessing Biblical Prophecy being fulfilled!”

I had the opportunity today to sit with MK Rabbi Yehuda Glick in the Knesset for a discussion on his views of Redemption, Peace, and Jerusalem.  Glick is perhaps the most recognized leader of the movement to allow freedom of worship on the Temple Mount.  He is both determined and completely optimistic regarding Israel and global peace.

Although a resident of Otniel in the Southern Hebron Hills, he is a peace advocate that supports a One State Solution that will give the Palestinian Arabs full human rights. His initiative Jerusalem of Peace, makes Jerusalem the key to world peace.

Rabbi Glick is a force who sees his unplanned Knesset entry as a a sign from G-D to help bring global redemption through freedom of worship on the Temple Mount and the promotion of the indigenous rights of the Jewish people in their historic homeland of Israel

WATCH BELOW

Yehuda Glick Live in the Knesset: Jerusalem, Redemption, and Peace

Sitting with Yehudah Glick in the The Knesset – הכנסת #Knesst discussing the future of #Israel and #Jerusalem and his project www.jerusalemofpeace.com

Posted by Israel Rising on Tuesday, March 6, 2018

 

Posted on

Bibi Netanyahu: “This will be remembered by our people through the ages”




Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Donald Trump held their first meeting after Trump’s dramatic decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  In opening remarks President Trump spoke about his decision on Jerusalem.

“No one could get past Jerusalem, we’ve taken it off the table,” adding that he believes the Palestinians intend to return to the negotiating table, “and if they don’t, there will be no peace.”

In connection to his potential arrival for the US Embassy opening in Jerusalem, the President said the following: “We’re looking at coming. If I can, I will, but I’ll be there again. Israel is very special to me.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu said the following:

“Thank you. Mr. President, Donald, Melania, Sara and I want to thank you for your extraordinary friendship and hospitality. It’s always a pleasure to see you both.

This is the first time we meet Washington, America’s capital, after you declared, Mr. President, Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. And this was a historic proclamation, followed by your bold decision to move the embassy by our upcoming national Independence Day.

I want to tell you that the Jewish people have a long memory, so we remember the proclamation of the great king, Cyrus the Great, Persian king 2,500 years ago. He proclaimed that the Jewish exiles in Babylon could come back and rebuild our Temple in Jerusalem. We remember a hundred years ago, Lord Balfour, who issued the Balfour Proclamation that recognized the rights of the Jewish people in our ancestral homeland. We remember 70 years ago, President Harry S. Truman was the first leader to recognize the Jewish state. And we remember how a few weeks ago, President Donald J. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Mr. President, this will be remembered by our people through the ages.

And as you just said, others talked about it; you did it. So, I want to thank you on behalf of the people of Israel, and I also look forward to our discussions on both challenges and opportunities.

If I had to say what is our greatest challenge in the Middle East to both our countries, to our Arab neighbors, it’s encapsulated in one word: Iran. Iran has not given up its nuclear ambitions. It came out of this nuclear deal emboldened, enriched. It’s practicing aggression everywhere, including on our own borders. And I think we have to stop this country that chants, “Death to Israel, death to America.” Iran must be stopped. That is our common challenge.

The second is seeking, because of that challenge, to exploit the opportunity for peace, because the Arabs have never been closer to Israel; Israel has never been closer to the Arab states. And we seek also to broaden that peace to the Palestinians.

So I look forward to those discussions, but I want to just reiterate what you just said: Mr. President, I’ve been here for nearly four decades with, talking, seeking to build the American-Israel alliance. Under your leadership, it’s never been stronger. And the people of Israel see your position on Jerusalem. They see your position on Iran. They see your magnificent defense of Israel and the truth in the United Nations. And I as prime minister see something that you as president see, but others can’t see. It’s the extent of our intelligence and other cooperation in matters that are vital for the security of both our peoples.

And Mr. President, I just want to say: Thank you for your leadership and thank you for your tremendous friendship”.

 

Posted on

Bibi Netanyahu to Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales: “Thank You for Recognizing Jerusalem”

Prime Minister Netanyahu, met with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales today (March 8th) as part of his trip to Washington. Netanyahu said began his meeting with the following statement:

“Thank you for everything you’re doing, for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. I hope soon you will move your embassy to Jerusalem; we hope.”

In response Morales said: “It is an honor and it is the right thing to do.”

On December 25th, just after President Donald Trump decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, President Morales did the same with this now famous Facebook post:

“Dear people of Guatemala, today I spoke with the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. We are talking about the excellent relations that we have had as nations since Guatemala supported the creation of the state of Israel.

One of the most important topics was the return of the embassy of Guatemala to Jerusalem.

So I inform you that I have instructed the chancellor to initiate the respective coordination so that it may be.

God bless you.”

During their meeting Prime Minister Netanyahu President Morales discussed deepening bilateral ties and cooperation between Israel and Guatamela. Guatemalan President Morales invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit his country. The Prime Minister thanked him for the invitation and also invited him to visit Israel.

Posted on

Two Congressman Detained While Visiting the Temple Mount

Congressmen David McKinley of Virginia and Scott Tipton of Colorado and their wives were detained along with their wives by Israeli police after a compaint by the Islamic Wakf that they picked up an Olive Branch.

Although Israel has security control over the Temple Mount, the Israeli government has allowed the Jordanian run Islamic Wakf to essentially determine the rules for non Islamic visitors to the site.  The Temple Mount is the holiest site to Jews and is the focus of their prayers.

“The situation on the Temple Mount has reached a new low,” said Im Tirtzu Director of Policy Alon Schvartzer. “This is a disgraceful reality that has long crossed the point of absurdity, and we cannot allow it to continue.” “Israel must remember that it has sovereignty over the Temple Mount, and not the Waqf. The time has come to provide freedom of worship to Jews, Christians and all those who wish to worship peacefully on the Temple Mount.”

Watch a Video of the visit by Avi Abelow below: