The Frenetic Fabrication of False Facts

The Guardian, Independent, and Telegraph in the UK have all frentically fabricated a story, which has been framed as an attempt by Israeli authorities to kick hundreds of Palestinians off ‘their land’ in this “Palestinian village”.

The claim that the area is “Palestinian” and owned by local “villagers” is – according to courts who examined claims by the petitioners (the Nawajah family) – fictitious.

Based on historical and geographical accounts, aerial photography, mandatory-era maps, travelogues, and the population registry, Israeli courts (HC 7530/01, 430/12, 1556/12, 1420/14) established that no such Palestinian village ever existed. According to the NGO Regavim and the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), only a handful of families resided there since the 1980s, and it only ever served as temporary (seasonal) grazing land by Palestinian shepherds.

Further, claims by the Nawajah family that they owned the land was also disproven, and the court found that the family owned a permanent residence in Yatta, in Palestinian-controlled Area A.

Additionally, the 20 illegal structures in the encampment built adjacent to an ancient Jewish archeological site represents part of a broader attempt by the EU, the PA, and pro-Palestinian NGOs to establish ‘facts on the ground’ in Area C.

Jack Wallis Simons wrote this in his fascinating Daily Mail expose earlier in the year:

More than 400 EU-funded Palestinian homes have been erected in Area C of the West Bank, which was placed under Israeli jurisdiction during the Oslo Accords – a part of international law to which the EU is a signatory.

The Palestinian buildings, which have no permits, come at a cost of tens of millions of Euros in public money, a proportion of which comes from the British taxpayer.

This has raised concerns that the EU is using valuable resources to take sides in a foreign territorial dispute.

Finally, the charge that, if the Palestinian petitioners lose the case, they will be rendered homeless is also not true, according to the MFA:

[They] have been offered plots of similar, or even better, quality in a nearby area that already conforms to planning and zoning laws. Building houses there will also improve the petitioners’ quality of life, giving them access to infrastructure and educational facilities that are not available in their current illegal locations. Additionally, they will be allowed to continue the same agricultural activities on the lands they currently claim.

Susya is neither “Palestinian” nor a “village.” It can more accurately be described – to use the parlance of foreign journalists when reporting on Jews in similar situations in the West Bank – as an illegal Palestinian settlement.

See original article at http://tinyurl.com/ov4zgu6  

Hamas must hand over Gaza Strip

http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766664

Hamas must hand over rule of the Gaza Strip as a condition to forming a unity government, Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad said Sunday.

Hamas has to "lift their hands" from the Gaza Strip and allow the unity government to work according to agreements signed by the Palestinian factions, al-Ahmad told Ma'an.

Al-Ahmad, who heads reconciliation talks for Fatah,added that his Hamas counterpart, Moussa Abu Marzouq is "unqualified" to call for a unity government after their work was "foiled" by Hamas.

The unity government formed in June 2014 has repeatedly failed to overcome divisive issues between political factions Fatah and Hamas, and last month it was announced at a Fatah council meeting that the entire government would soon be dissolved.

Negotiations on the new Palestinian government were set to restart after the Eid celebrations marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah criticized Hamas for creating a shadow government in the Gaza Strip and blocking efforts to reach political unity.

Hamas has in turn accused the PA of executing a plan to "eradicate" the movement from the West Bank, saying that an arrest campaign of over 200 members was carried out by the PA to target reconciliation efforts between the two factions.

So just who is there for Israel to negotiate with? The media and the world leaders seem to be oblivious of the situation on the ground. as long as the present control of the Palestinians is not clear cut, how can the Eu or France or anyone consider "negotiations" can bear fruit. 

Susiya - the Town That Never Was

[Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu]

Summary ... The Palestinian Authority is a master at inventing history. Arabs claim they have been there long before Jews although evidence proves the contrary. The tactic is conquering the southern Hevron Hills.

The Palestinian Authority, with direct financing of the European Union and blind acceptance of lies as facts by media, is swallowing up the southern Hevron Hills, a huge area between Kiryat Arba-Hevron and Arad-Be'er Sheva.

The latest chapter in the Palestinian Authority's re-invention of history is taking place in Susiya (pronounced "Soos-eeya") located two miles from the armistice line, on the western edge of the Judean Desert that leads to the Dead Sea, and less than half an hour from Be'er Sheva, the capital of the Negev.

The Arab strategy: An Arab family erects a tent, illegally, near the archaeological site of the ancient town of Susiya. As time passes, the tent becomes a makeshift structure, which expands into several structures. With the support of extreme left-wing activists, the 'ancient' town of 'Palestinian Susiya' is invented.

This makes for a great human interest story, but for one setback — the 'ancient Palestinian Susiya' never existed. It does not show up on any records.

Yigal Dilmoni, deputy director-general of the Yesha Council, states, "Fifteen-year-old aerial photos clearly show that there was no Arab village at this site ... The Arabs have come from the village of Yatta, and ... repeatedly disseminate lies."

[Back in June 2013], the Civil Lands Authority issued approximately 40 stop-work orders against projects funded by the European Union and intended to firm up Palestinian Authority claims to land where they never lived until Jews came to the area in 1983.

In that year, for the first time in 1,500 years, Jews began living in the southern Hevron Hills, setting up a community in nearby Beit Yatir, two miles to the south, and in Susiya, where the old Jewish town that existed until approximately the 6th century.

Until 1983, the area experienced zero growth. Hot summers, cold winters, with occasional snow, and the lack of roads and water resources kept people away. Any land that was farmed by Arabs was done during the spring and summer and abandoned after harvest time, until the following year.

None of the land was ever registered as owned by anyone. During the Ottoman Empire, and under the British Mandate, the rulers of Hevron would sit in their living rooms and parcel out lands arbitrarily. That was the extent of "ownership."

When Jews came to Beit Yatir, the Arabs followed. Three families from Yatta, a city adjacent to Hevron, fled because of family crimes, such as rape, and set up camp on a hill adjacent to Yatir, Their village quickly became known as the "Thieves' Village," for obvious reasons. They claim, of course, that they have been living there from time immemorial.

As a resident of Beit Yatir, and a security officer at the time, I and my colleague reported theft after theft to the police — laundry on the clothes lines, tricycles, shoes left outside and anything else that was not nailed to the ground. Further down the road, our moshav's tractors often were stolen and tracks always led to the Thieves' Village.

Susiya was established in the same year. No Arab lived there. Nor did they live in the ruins of the old city of Susiya.

But when the Civil Lands Authority issued the stop-work orders, the first step towards demolition orders, the left-wing movements and the Palestinian Authority reinvented history. "The Palestinian village of Khirbet [ruins of] Susiya has existed in the South Hebron Hills at least since the 1830."

The International Solidarity Movement [ISM] wrote, "The residents of Susiya include more than 30 families, who were all evacuated from their homes in the old Susiya village and forced to relocate 200 meters to the southeast, in 1986,"

This is a lie. They never lived there, not in 1830 and not in 1986 and not in 1996. A handful of Arabs sowed the land in the spring, harvest the crop in the late summer and went back to Yatta.

"Susiya has been the site of creative non-violent resistance for years, resistance that is continually met with brutality," according to the ISM.

Part of the "non-violent resistance was the cold-blooded murder of Yair Har Sinai in 2001. He was shot dead in the head and the back by terrorists while, unarmed, he was tending his flock of sheep. Even though his murderers were known, they were never apprehended.

Losing control of the southern Hevron Hills is a free pass to terrorists who use the back trails to smuggle weapons from Bedouins in the Negev, as far away as the Dead Sea and south of Arab. Terrorists also take explosives from the area and use the same route to travel freely and wait for the right moment to blow up Jews in urban centers, from Be'er Sheva to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.

The gradual erosion of Israel control over what is supposed to be Israeli-controlled "Area C" has endangered the entire area. Thousands of Arabs have moved in, set up tents and built homes with the funding of hundreds of millions of dollars by the European Union.

Lacking any history of the area, most media swallow up the Arab story, hook, line and sinker.

Gaza: from Bad to Worse

The world is quick to blame Israel for the ills of Gaza and yet Bassam Eid a Palestinian human rights activists, states that :-

One year has passed since Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and we have seen many articles by analysts this past week who fail to report the Palestinian perspective. The burning question in the minds of the Gazan people is why has there been a one-year delay of the reconstruction?

The answer is simple – both Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas want hold the purse strings of the reconstruction funds, which donor nations pledged at $5.5 billion. 

Donor nations may be skeptical of the shaky unity government. Hamas’ priority is how to reconstruct its military capabilities and tunnels, since the Egyptians created a two-kilometer buffer zone, destroying the smuggling tunnels that made Hamas leaders rich.

Now that the external funds have dried up, Hamas has issued a new tax upon the Gazan people.

A recent report by the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) states: 

-  taxes, which are imposed on different commodities and services in the Gaza Strip, aggravate the suffering of the people. 

- citizens who wish to import goods are bound to pay taxes to receive ‘import permission.’ “This implies that the competent authorities have started to implement the Solidarity Tax Act. In fact, prior to the import, the authorities identify the quantity of the goods and then decide on what tax to enforce. These taxes that are imposed under the pretext of ‘normal rise of prices’ have a negative economic impact on the consumers.

Furthermore, the taxes are imposed on governmental services.”

Also, a new tax has been imposed by Hamas during the month of Ramadan: each person who wishes to stay in a mosque for services must pay NIS 20 from the 19th to the 29th of Ramadan.

Flyers have been distributed in Gaza’s mosques about the “Ramadan tax.”

The damage caused by Protective Edge is as follows:

• 2.5 million tons of rubble remain in Gaza to this day.

• 200,000 workers lost their means of employment.

• 80 percent of the Gazan people are surviving on welfare.

• 40% of Gazans are living below the poverty line.

• 22,000 Gazans are homeless. Only 600 caravans have been provided to the Gaza Strip since the end of the war.

• 29 Palestinians were executed by Hamas during the war.

• Several terrorist bombings by Salafist groups occurred in the Gaza Strip.

The destruction of the economic, moral and psychological status of the Gazan people is still felt today.

A few days ago, I held Skype calls with friends in Gaza asking them about their feelings since the war. Ahmad, from Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza, said “the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip is like throwing us into a pit. If Hamas will continue their policies, they will bring more death and destruction to their own people.”

Muhana, from Khan Younis City, said, “We are living under a dictatorship regime. Hamas kills any opposition.

Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, there is an absence of any Palestinian political factions and the Gaza Strip today looks as if the next upcoming war bells are ringing.”

Azmi, from Shejaiya, said, “The situation in Gaza right now is that hunger, poverty and unemployment have reached the highest percentage since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip.”

Several reports have been published by the UN, UNHRC and other international organizations discussing the reconstruction, the economic situation and the mental health of the Gazan people, but there is no benefit from these discussions one year after Protective Edge.

According to the UN secretary general, there are no schools – no hospitals – no electricity and no proper drinking water and this is the reality for the Gazan people these days.

Today's @Amnesty Deceptions and Lies

This  posting has been cross posted from Elder of Ziyon  http://tinyurl.com/no3xc2y 

======================

As Amnesty continues to add to the anti-Israel rhetoric accompanying its "50 Days for Gaza" campaign, we will continue to expose their deceptions and lies.

Amnesty tweeted this:

Here's the event that they are linking to:

At approximately 23:00 on 9 July 2014, 9 Palestinian civilians were killed while they were in a beach coffee shop watching a match of the Football World Cup as Israeli warplanes bombarded the coffee shop. The victims were identified as: Ibrahim and Mohammed Kahlil Qannan, 24 and 26; Suleiman and Ahmed Saleem Mousa al-Astal, 17 and 18; Mousa Mohammed Taher al-Astal, 15; Mohammed Ihsan Farawana, 18; and Hamdi, Ibrahim and Saleem Sawali, 20, 28 and 23.

This is a lie. There were not 9 civilians. The cafe was hosting a gathering of the Fatah Abu Rish Brigades. Two brothers, Mohammed and Ibrahim Qanan, as I documented here.

Three other brothers from the same group listed in this "martyr's" poster, Hamdi, Ibrahim and Saleem Sawali:

And Mohammed Ihsan Farawana has another Fatah martyr's poster:

Civilians?

Amnesty lied again.

Amnesty silently changed the blood libel video first reported. They changed the video of a "roof knocking" to a different one, that can be seen here in full from YNet:

While the video does indeed show less than a minute between a small explosion and the one that destroys the house, what Amnesty doesn't tell you is that the target was Hamas rocket unit head Ayman Siam. And Amnesty's own Gaza Platform tells us that there was a much earlier warning that allowed all five families who lived in that house to escape well before either of these explosions. They number this as Incident 1475:

At approximately 10:22 pm on Friday, 11 July 2014, an Israeli warplane fired three missiles at a house belonging to Mohammed Mohammed Abdul Hadi Siyam (70 year old), located next to UNRWA clinic in Al-Shate’ refugee camp, west of Gaza. The attack has completely destroyed the 4 storey house, which was inhabited by 5 families (30 individual), including 15 children. IDF soldiers informed the owner of the house before they attacked targeted the house.[sic]

SOURCE: Al Mezan

Um Schmum

This says it all. No words are necessary!!

Tunisia to Build Border Wall & Trenches !!

The Tunisian government has announced that it will begin building a wall and a trench along its border with Libya as part of an effort to stop militants from crossing over from the war-torn country.

The wall will be 168 kilometers (105 miles) long and will be finished by the end of 2015

And why not? Of course it should be allowed to protect its citizens.

Is the UN taking note? Is it only in Israel it is "illegal" ?

When Palestinians Die in Palestinian Jails

by Khaled Abu Toameh July 6, 2015

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6110/palestinian-prisoners-death

• Like the mainstream media in the West, the UN chooses to look the other way when Palestinians torture or kill fellow Palestinians.
• The Palestinian Authority and Hamas claim that the three men committed suicide.
• When three detainees die in less than a week, this should sound an alarm. But pro-Palestinian groups and human rights activists do not care about the human rights of Palestinians if Israel cannot be held responsible. Their obsession with Israel has made them blind to the plight of Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority.

Three Palestinian men were found dead in their jail cells in the West Bank and Gaza Strip this past week.

But their stories did not attract the attention of the international media or human rights organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Nor was their case brought to the attention of the United Nations or the International Criminal Court (ICC).

By contrast, the case of 17-year-old Mohamed Kasba, who was shot dead north of Jerusalem by an Israeli army officer as he attacked the officer's car with stones, received widespread coverage in the Western media.

The UN even rushed to condemn the killing of Kasba, and called for an "immediate end" to violence and for everyone to keep calm. "This reaffirms the need for a political process aiming to establish two states living beside each other safely and peacefully," said UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Maldenov.

The UN official, needless to say, made no reference to the deaths that occurred in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas jails. He did not even see a need to express concern over the deaths or call for an investigation. Like the mainstream media in the West, the UN chooses to look the other way when Palestinians torture or kill fellow Palestinians.

The reason the case of the three detainees will not interest anyone in the international community is because the men did not die in an Israeli jail. Instead, the three men died while being held in Palestinian-controlled jails.

Had the three men died in Israeli detention, their names would have most likely appeared on the front pages of most leading Western newspapers. The families of the three men would have also been busy talking to Western journalists about Israeli "atrocities" and "human rights violations."

But no respected Western journalist is going to visit any of the families of the three detainees: they did not die in an Israeli jail.

The same week that the three Palestinian men were found dead in jail, the UN Human Rights Council decided to adopt a resolution condemning Israel over the UN report into last year's Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip. Again, the UN Human Rights Council chose to ignore human rights violations by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, who deny detainees basic rights and proper medical treatment.

Two of them died in PA security installations in Bethlehem, while the third was found dead in a Hamas-controlled jail in the Gaza Strip.The Palestinian Authority and Hamas claim that the three men committed suicide.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a Gaza-based non-profit group dedicated to protecting human rights, promoting the rule of law and upholding democratic principles in the Palestinian territories, called for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the detainees.

"PCHR stresses that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the lives of prisoners and detainees under its control and is thus responsible for treating them with dignity, including offering them medical care," the group said in a statement.

When three detainees die in less than a week in Palestinian detention, this should sound an alarm bell, especially among so-called pro-Palestinian groups and human rights activists in different parts of the world.

But these folks, like the UN and mainstream media, do not care about the human rights of the Palestinians if Israel cannot be held responsible. Their obsession with Israel has made them blind to the plight of Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, as well as to the horrific crimes committed every day by Muslim terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The story of the three men who died in Palestinian jails is yet another example of the double standards that the international community and media employ when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Egypt Destroys 1.5 km Smuggling Tunnel Near Rafah

Ma'an News Agency, July 4, 2015 | 

Egyptian forces on Saturday discovered and destroyed a 1.5 kilometer smuggling tunnel beneath the Gazan border, the Egyptian army said. Egyptian security sources told Ma'an that the tunnel was found by Egyptian border guards in the Dayniya area south of Rafah. They said that eight sacks of explosive TNT material and a half-ton of C-4 -- another explosive material -- had been found inside the tunnel. Both the tunnel and the explosive material were destroyed by the army... [The Ma'an editors seem to have no problem headlining the story as being about a smuggling tunnel, and casually including a reference to colossal quantities of explosives. ]

The following comment is cross posted from bloggist "This Ongoing War" http://tinyurl.com/nzgpoym  

Bottom line: there's no problem securing enough cement in today's Gaza to construct a 1.5 kilometer long, underground cement tube, if you're Hamas. And if ordinary Gazans can't get their hands on cement, it's because that's the way Hamas wants it to be.

And why, looking at the world through Islamist terrorists' eyes, would you want it to be any different?: keep the stuff to yourself to build your own aggressive capabilities, and keep the reporters and photographers busy chronicling the suffering of cement-challenged ordinary folk. Win/win, it's called.

A Bloomberg report last summer ["Gaza's Next Disaster: No Cement for Rebuilding", July 31, 2014] quoted estimates that every one of the scores of Hamas tunnels on Gaza's periphery "required 350 truckloads of building supplies". A previously uncovered Hamas tunnel on the scale of the one just destroyed was estimated by IDF sources quoted in a Washington Post article ["How Hamas uses its tunnels to kill and capture Israeli soldiers"] a year ago to have taken about two years of work, $10 million of capital, and some 800 tons of concrete. In a different world, that could have produced a substantial number of new homes, medical clinics and upward-facing lives.

By the way, did Friday's report of the massive concrete-lined Hamas tunnel found and destroyed along with the explosive materials stored inside it, make it to the news reports in your community?