BBC News ignores latest Temple Mount rioting

Hadar Sela June 29th

https://bbcwatch.org/2016/06/29/bbc-news-ignores-latest-temple-mount-rioting/ 

Those getting their news from the BBC News website will not be aware of the fact that Palestinians recently engaged in pre-planned rioting on Temple Mount over a period of three consecutive days.

The violence began on the morning of June 26th.

“Mayhem ensued on the Temple Mount Sunday morning, when a group of masked Arab assailants threw rocks, shoes, metal objects, and chairs at a group of Jewish visitors at the contested compound during the first of the last 10 days of Ramadan.

According to police, who provided video of the disturbance, the group of 11 observant Jews were targeted shortly after entering the compound at approximately 9 a.m. in what appeared to be a premeditated attack.”

The rioting continued the next day.

“Police had deployed additional forces there as a precaution after learning, it said, that “Arab youths, some of them masked, barricaded themselves during the night in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount with the aim of confronting police, and to disrupt the regular visits and visitors in the Temple Mount area during the Ramadan holiday.”

Of the 263 visitors to the Temple Mount on Monday, 33 of them were Jews, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.

According to police, the rioters stockpiled stones and other objects, including firecrackers, inside the Al-Aqsa mosque, “all of which was intended as a confrontation with police and security forces, to prevent them closing the doors and to disrupt the regular visits to the Temple Mount.””

On June 28th a woman was injured at the Western Wall.

“Palestinians threw rocks at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall on Tuesday, striking a woman of 73 in the head, on a third day of confrontations involving the adjacent Temple Mount.

Paramedics said they treated the woman at the scene for a light head injury.”

The background to this latest round of organised rioting lies in the fact that this year – in contrast with the two previous years – the police decided to keep Temple Mount open to all visitors throughout Ramadan.

“Although non-Muslim visitation to the compound was banned for the last 10 days of Ramadan for the previous two years due to threats of violence, [police spokesman] Rosenfeld said that morning tours will resume for the remainder of the holiday.

“Of course we will make security assessments this evening for the next few days of Ramadan,” he said.”

However, the thugs eventually got their way.  

“Following three consecutive days of rioting by Arab youths on the Temple Mount, police announced Tuesday morning that the contested holy site will be temporarily closed to non-Muslim visitors, at least through Thursday.

In a statement, police said the decision was made after security assessments indicated it was not safe for Jewish visitors, who have been the target of numerous attacks there since Sunday, when the final 10 days of Ramadan commenced.”

Notably, the BBC has not found it necessary to report on this latest round of organised violence intended to prevent non-Muslims from visiting a site of importance to three religions.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to facilitate Ramadan visits to the site by Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and PA controlled areas.  

Syrian Refugees vs. Palestinian "Refugees"

Of approx 500,000 Arabs who were ordered out of Israel prior by the Arab armys' invasion in 1948, very few indeed are alive today.

The rest are not refugees as defined by the UNHCR– in the entire rest of the world, no-one can pass on refugee status to their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

It's time UNRWA was wound up. It has been the greatest fraud in human history.

Surprise? The EU Rewards PA Hate

Evelyn Gordon.  Commentary Magazine. 24 June '16.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/europe/european-parliament-rewards-hate/   

   

Hats off to the British. Aside from all the other reasons of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union (i.e. democracy, national sovereignty), it has voted to secede from an enabler of Palestinian terror and hate education. And if that accusation sounds harsh, consider what transpired in the EU Parliament on the very day of the Brexit referendum.

While the British were voting, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was addressing the EU Parliament in Brussels. By any objective standard, the visit didn’t start off well: Upon arriving, Abbas immediately rejected a personal plea by the parliament’s president, Martin Schulz, to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who happened to be in Brussels at the same time. But things quickly got worse when Abbas started speaking.

Abbas’s speeches are always full of anti-Israel slander, and this one was no exception. 

- He accused Israel of “massacring” Palestinians’ “history, heritage, identity and geopolitical entity.” 

- He termed the Israeli “occupation” the longest in history and deemed it uniquely evil, “unlike anything that has happened to any other people anywhere in the world,” to quote one reporter’s live tweeting of the speech (I haven’t managed to find a transcript); in reality, of course, not only have there been many longer occupations, but few conflicts have ever entailed so little bloodshed. 

- He accused Israel of being “fascist” and “racist,” of committing extrajudicial killings, and of turning “our country into an open-air prison.” All this is pretty standard, as was the conclusion, in which he paid lip service to his willingness to make peace with the monstrously evil country he just described.

But even by Abbas’s standards, this speech was exceptionally vile in two respects. 

- First, he accused Israel of responsibility for all terrorism worldwide, ludicrously asserting that “Once the occupation ends, terrorism will disappear, there will be no more terrorism in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world.” After all, Israel is clearly the reason why Muslims are killing fellow Muslims by bombing mosques, schools, and hospitals in Muslim countries like Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan, right?

- Then, he resurrected a medieval blood libel, accusing Israel of poisoning Palestinian wells. Granted, he was speaking in Arabic, and this accusation wasn’t in his prepared English translation; but the simultaneous translator rendered it into English, and Israeli reporters had no trouble hearing it; thus one has to assume it was audible to EU parliamentarians, as well.

So how did those parliamentarians respond? By giving him a standing ovation. In other words, they told him that hurling blood libels at Israel and refusing to meet with its president and would not be penalized, but rewarded.

This, of course, is not particularly surprising, the PA has been promulgating hatred of Israel through its schools and media for over 20 years now, and throughout this time, the EU and its member states have been the PA’s largest donors; thus the EU has been directly subsidizing Palestinian hate education for over two decades. The EU and its member states are also the main financiers of anti-Israel NGOs, so in that way, too, they’ve been funding anti-Israel propaganda for decades. 

And it’s no accident that the EU has devoted so much money to this purpose; it’s obsessed with Israel to the virtual exclusion of other foreign policy concerns, as evidenced by a 2010 study of what EU foreign ministers spend their time discussing. That study found the ministers had held exactly one meeting on China, a rising power, over the previous four years – but they discussed “the Middle East peace process” 12 separate times in 2009 and the first part of 2010 alone.

After Abbas refused to meet with him, Rivlin naively said he found this refusal “surprising.” But it’s not surprising at all when Abbas can be rewarded for it with a standing ovation from the very body whose president personally requested him to hold the meeting. Just as it’s not surprising that Abbas similarly rejected a personal request by France’s then-foreign minister Laurent Fabius to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris in October 2015. Why should he agree when Fabius promptly rewarded his refusal by announcing plans to convene an international conference to force Israel to accede to Palestinian demands and pledged that France would unilaterally recognize Palestine as a state if Israel declined to capitulate? Nor is it surprising that the PA continues to spew anti-Israel hatred, given that doing so earns it lavish EU funding and standing ovations from the EU parliament.

By granting financial and diplomatic rewards to Palestinian rejectionism and hate education, the EU has encouraged Palestinian terror and distanced peace. No self-respecting country should want to be associated with such sorry behavior. Britain is well out of it.

Israel Sends Bugs to Russia

No, not the computer kind !! Some 500 million little critters from Israel’s Bio-bee company will head to Russia, it was announced on this week.
 

Aiming to cut dependence on foreign agriculture imports as much as possible, Russia has been investing heavily in providing farmers with financial incentives for building greenhouses as well as using chemical-free pest prevention methods.
 

The country has banned the import of many European Union fruits, vegetables and even flowers, ever since violent conflict broke out between Russia and Ukraine, garnering sanctions from the EU. 
 

Bio-bee stepped in when the Russian government called with its $1 million order. 

This particular order of Bio-bee insects from Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, near Beit She’an, included several types of predatory mites. Among them is the Phytoseiulus persimilis mite and the Amblyseius swirskii mite, which are intended to be a “natural pesticide” for crops of tomatoes, cucumbers and roses.
 

In addition, an order of Bombus terrestris – commonly known as bumblebees – will be sent to improve crop yields.
 

The bumblebees will also be part of a cherry pollination experiment taking place in Crimean orchards. If it proves successful, the company said it could pave the way for better cherry growing in Israel.
 

Though the company already has a 35 percent market share in Russia, according to Ran Gan-El, vice president of sales and marketing, this is the first time the firm’s products have been sent to the Crimean Peninsula.

Ambassadors Online Haifa University

Last weekthe  "Ambassadors Online" programme at Haifa University completed its 5th  of activity with the graduation ceremony of this years students.

During the ceremony students presented their projects on which they had worked during the year and academic reports they had written. Following this a panel experts in the various sectors; education, Tourism, diplomacy, and communication had a discussion about the challenges we have faced in the public diplomacy field.
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Thank you to everyone for outstanding work in this programme and those devoted to those who support us  improving the image of the state of Israel.

A confession of a left-wing Zionist

For full article go to :-

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/A-confession-of-a-left-wing-Zionist-457122

SIMON KOVAR 06/18/2016 

There was a time when being a “Leftist Zionist” was no contradiction.

In 1944, the British Labour Party resolved not only to support Jewish settlement of Palestine but, “on human grounds and to promote a stable settlement,” the transfer of the Arab population. “The Arabs have many wide territories of their own,” it resolved; “they must not claim to exclude the Jews from this small area of Palestine [excluding Transjordan], less than the size of Wales.” Theodor Herzl was far from being a right-wing ethnic nationalist. He dreamed of a Jewish state where Arabs would live as equals and no army would be necessary.

In short, there was a time when you could be a liberal or Socialist and still be a hard-nosed realist on questions of power. Today’s Left prefers its heroes to be powerless. Israel commits the sin of being able and willing to defend itself. The Palestinians are absolved by dint of being less powerful.

When I entered university in the 1990s, the Left-inclined student’s default position was anti-Zionism. I was one of them. From 2000-2005, I worked for Britain’s Center-Left Liberal Democrats. In 2014, according to insider accounts, the party nearly blew up its coalition with the Conservatives over Gaza. Not tuition fees, healthcare, Europe, or trade with China and Saudi Arabia. Gaza.

There came a point where I had to ask whether some of my “comrades,” when speaking about Israel, were talking about the same thing I was. They slipped easily from humanitarianism into dark fantasies of hidden “Zionist” forces pulling the strings, medieval blood libels and rationalizations of terrorism

I visited Israel for the first time shortly after I left the party. Needless to say, it conformed to none of my leftist preconceptions. More than this, I no longer felt ashamed.

I understood that my anti-Zionism was composed largely of embarrassment and apology, impulses that were suddenly missing in Israel. “I am Jewish but not a Zionist” was like saying “I am Jewish but not one of them.” Why should there ever be a “but” after a statement of one’s identity? Another part of my anti-Zionism turned out to be based on a highly ideological brand of leftist historiography  which I began to pick apart and question as a postgraduate.

Here are some of my questions.

- Why is Jewish nationalism considered an “invention,” a “project,” an “ideology,” an “enterprise,” a “Western” imposition? Not to understand it, but to delegitimize it.

- Palestinian nationalism is treated as a fact of nature but was itself invented out of a whole compost of ingredients, including European Nazism and Fascism.

- Why is 1948 labeled a Zionist war to ethnically cleanse Palestine. The secretary general of the Arab League promised “a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

- If Palestinian leaders are true nationalists, then surely they are primarily concerned with securing a state? Apparently not.

Zionism was concerned with Jewish immigration above all. This was because it was fundamentally an ideology of rescue, not religion or land. So much so that in 1946 it offered to forgo statehood and give up its claim to Jerusalem in return for open immigration.

Palestinian “nationalism” was never intrinsically defined by a claim to statehood. It was quite happy to be part of Greater Syria or Jordan. Instead, it was defined by opposition to any Jewish immigration. That is why it said “no” even to the tiny Jewish state proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937, opposed the British White Paper in 1939 and bargained with Adolf Hitler to prevent Jewish refugees from reaching Palestine.

Put another way, the Palestinian leadership was quite happy to be part of a Pan-Arab empire or monarchy, even a Nazi-dominated world empire, provided it could get the one thing that mattered the most to them: a Judenfrei Middle East.

Why is Palestinian refugee status perpetual and saintly but Jewish refugees thought interlopers and a thing of the past? My grandparents were refugees from the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, but I do not go around calling myself a refugee. I have heard Norman Finkelstein repeatedly claim that 80 percent of Gazans are refugees. This is true only if you claim the label in perpetuity from generation to generation. On the same basis, Israel is close to 100% refugee, but nobody on the Left seems to think this grants the country any moral license or sanctity.

Those who claim that Palestine was “ethnically cleansed” are not really bothered by refugees at all. They are bothered by Israel existing. Otherwise, Pakistan would be a far more obvious target of concern. 14 million people were “transferred” in that partition, which happened only the year before the pivotal year in Israel’s independence struggle. Unlike in Palestine, hundreds of thousands were butchered. No one says Pakistan – which engaged in two subsequent brutal and bloody occupations, in Kashmir and what became Bangladesh – has no right to exist.

In short, Zionism injected controversy into Middle Eastern politics not because there were competing nationalist claims for the same land, or because it entailed the creation of a Palestinian refugee issue. Rather, the issue was any significant Jewish presence in Palestine and the question of Jewish refugees.

I like to see myself as the sort of leftist you read about in textbooks. A democrat, an egalitarian, an anti-Fascist, a feminist and a peacenik. How can I be these things and not support Israel? How can I be these things and have any time for Israel’s enemies? How?

4, 000th child saved by Save a Child's Heart!

Sanusey and his family live in the small city of Brikama, Gambia, just south of the country's capital. At just three months old, Sanusey was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. The surgery needed to repair his heart is not available in Gambia. After over three years of traveling back and forth to the local hospital for testing every other week, his doctor began looking for a way to get Sanusey the surgery he desperately needed. Thankfully, the Chairman of the Zionist Foundation UK, Paul Charney, stepped in and made the connection between Gambia and Save a Child's Heart. With his help contacting Ambassador Paul Hirschson at the Israeli Embassy, Save a Child's Heart was able to bring Sanusey and three other Gambian children to Israel for surgery.

Sanusey arrived to Israel on Sunday, May 15, together with 12 other children from both Gambia and Tanzania. He was accompanied by his older sister, Penda, and stayed very close to her during the many hours of travel from West Africa. The next morning, Sanusey, along with the rest of the children, was taken to the Wolfson Medical Center for initial examinations. He waited his turn, walking hand in hand with a Save a Child’s Heart team member who had accompanied the group to the hospital, while making sure that his sister was never too far away from him. At the hospital, Sanusey became anxious, collapsed and stopped breathing. In a matter of moments, the whole medical team rushed to his aid in the examination room and began resuscitating him.

It took over an hour and, fortunately, the medical team finally managed to stabilize Sanusey and he was taken immediately to the Operating Theater for emergency heart surgery to save his life.

Dr. Lior Sasson and his medical team operated on Sanusey for hours. Penda sat in the waiting room, crying and hoping for the best. Thankfully, the surgery was successful! Only three days after his operation, Sanusey was sitting up in bed and smiling. He is currently recovering at the Save a Child’s Heart Children's Home in Holon. His contagious laughter bellows through the house as he plays with volunteers and the array of toy trucks and arts and crafts activities. He radiates confidence and it is a pleasure to see him play with the other children from all over the world, smiling, happy, and finally healthy.

Bringing Sanusey to Israel for life-saving heart surgery would not have been possible without the help and support of SACH UK and SACH Switzerland, who connected Save a Child's Heart to the Sherman Trust who co-sponsored Sanusey's surgery, and Brussels Airlines, who helped sponsor Sanusey's flight. Thank you!

The Other Side of the West Bank Palestinian Story

There is more to this story, a side often overlooked. In communities throughout the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, a surprising degree of luxury exists alongside the poverty. After receiving billions of dollars in Western aid over many decades, major improvements are visible in the standard of living in the West Bank, as seen in newly-constructed buildings, late-model cars, and luxury items.

This study offers an often overlooked window into life in the Palestinian Authority. The empirical data provides a more complete picture of living standards in the West Bank.  The truth is that alongside the slums of the old refugee camps, which the Palestinian government has done little to rehabilitate, a parallel Palestinian society is emerging.

Marwan Asmar, a Jordan-based journalist with a PhD in political science from Leeds University in the UK, described this phenomenon upon returning to the West Bank after 30 years:

“There has been a total transformation since I was last in Howara in the West Bank in 1985. One can see a buzz of activity at the shops, restaurants, offices and cafes. This wasn’t the sleepy village I saw long ago. Buildings, villas, mosques and rest areas have been constructed everywhere. There is even a swimming pool.

This was certainly not the picture I had in mind. This was not the picture the media presents – of Palestinians surviving on daily wages of $2 as pointed out by the World Bank, of high unemployment and pockets of poverty. The people I spoke to here said many worked as laborers in Israel and were paid high daily wages. This is how they could build their houses, they told me.¹⁶

As speculation continues about renewing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, it is important to understand how the quality of life in the West Bank has improved and how a new Palestinian society is emerging – one that requires a changed perception of the reality of Palestinian life.

While the Arab world is in the throes of a major melt-down – with widespread violence and destruction in Syria and Iraq, together with serious instability in Lebanon and Egypt – daily life for Arabs in the West Bank offers a stark contrast to those scenes of violence and decline.

Foreign Aid

Since the establishment of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza in the mid-1990s, the U.S. government has committed approximately $5 billion in bilateral assistance to the Palestinians, who are among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid.¹⁷ Overall, Palestinians receive approximately $2 billion in aid each year.¹⁸ Palestinian economic analysts estimate that the PA has received a total of $25 billion in financial aid during the past two decades.¹⁹

Poverty

The CIA World Factbook reported the poverty rate in the West Bank as 18% in 2011,²⁰ in contrast to Israel’s poverty rate in 2012 of 21%.²¹

Life Expectancy

In 2015, life expectancy in the West Bank was 76 years.²²  This was notably higher than the life expectancy in Arab states of 71 years (in 2012), and the average life expectancy around the world of 70 years.²³

Infant Mortality

In 2015, the infant mortality rate in the West Bank and Gaza was 13 per 1,000 live births,²⁴ compared with 27 per 1,000 live births in the Arab states in 2013 and 36.58 per 1,000 live births in the world in 2014.²⁵

Literacy

In 2015 the literacy rate for people aged 15 and above in the West Bank and Gaza was 96.5%.²⁶

Education

In 2011, when Palestinians were asked “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the education system?” 63.5% answered “satisfied”, a higher percentage than the U.S. (62.8), Netherlands (60.3), Sweden (61.6) or Japan (54.6).²⁷  The overall percentage in Arab states was 50.0%.²⁸

Water Resources²⁹

Palestinians insist that they suffer from water shortages due to Israeli policies. However, data shows that Israel has fulfilled all of its obligations according to the signed water agreements with the PA. The development of water supply systems for Palestinian communities has been carried out on an extensive scale, much larger than that called for in the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement.

From 1967-1995 the number of towns and villages connected to running water through modern supply systems increased from four to 309 communities. In March 2010, 641 of 708 Palestinian communities, which include more than 96 percent of the Palestinian population, were found to be connected to a running water network. Water supply networks for an additional 16 villages (encompassing an additional 2.5 percent of the population) were under construction.

Palestinians claim that the water consumption of the average Israeli is four times greater than that of the average Palestinian. However, this claim is not factually supported. In 1967, there was indeed a large gap in the per capita consumption of water. This gap, however, was reduced during the Israeli administration period and the difference is now negligible. The per capita consumption of natural, fresh water in Israel is 150 m³/c/y and in the PA 140 m³/c/y.

According to the PA, roughly 33.6 percent of their water leaks from internal pipelines, compared with 11 percent in Israel. Moreover, the Palestinians have violated their part of the water agreements by refusing to build sewage treatment plants (despite available international financing). Thus, raw sewage discharged from Palestinian communities flows freely in many streams in the West Bank.

Palestinian Employment in Israel ³⁰

In 2014, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, published an article lauding Israeli employers for their treatment of Palestinian workers in Israel. The article stated, “Whenever Palestinian workers have the opportunity to work for Israeli employers, they are quick to quit their jobs with their Palestinian employers – for reasons having to do with salaries and other rights….The salaries of workers employed by Palestinians amount to less than half the salaries of those who work for Israeli employers.”

“The [Israeli] work conditions are very good, and include transportation, medical insurance and pensions. These things do not exist with Palestinian employers….”

According to Bassem Eid, founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, 92,000 Arabs from the West Bank work in Israel each day.³¹

16. Marwan Asmar, “A Trip into the Heart of Palestine,” Gulf News (Dubai), June 17, 2015, http://gulfnews.com/culture/people/a-trip-into-the-heart-of-palestine-1.1536536 .

17. Jim Zanotti, “U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians,” Congressional Research Service, July 3, 2014 ,https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22967.pdf..

18. Global Humanitarian Assistance, “Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2015,” June 2015 ,http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/GHA-Report-2015_-Interactive_Online.pdf p – 141

19. Khaled Abu Toameh, “What Are Palestinians Doing with U.S. Money?,” Gatestone Institute, August 19, 2015 ,http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6353/palestinians-us-aid

20. CIA, “The World Factbook: West Bank,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 6, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html

21. CIA, “The World Factbook: Israel,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 10, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html

22. CIA, “The World Factbook: West Bank,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 6, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html

23. UNDP, “Human Development Report 2013,” UNDP, 2013, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/14/hdr2013_en_complete.pdf p – 25

24. CIA, “The World Factbook: West Bank,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 6, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html

25. CIA, “The World Factbook: World,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 6, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html The World Bank, “Arab World,” Word Bank Group, Date Unknown, http://data.worldbank.org/region/ARB

26. CIA, “The World Factbook: West Bank,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 6, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html

27. UNDP, “Human Development Report 2013,” UNDP, 2013, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/14/hdr2013_en_complete.pdf p – 171

28. UNDP, “Human Development Report 2013,” UNDP, 2013, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/14/hdr2013_en_complete.pdf p – 40

29. Haim Gvirtzman, “The Israeli-Palestinian Water Conflict: An Israeli Perspective,” Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, January 2012, http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/MSPS94.pdf. The writer is a professor of hydrology at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the Israel Water Authority Council.

30. Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik. “Official PA Daily Lauds Israel’s Treatment of Palestinian Workers – PMW Bulletins,”www.palwatch.org. Palestinian Media Watch, September 23, 2014. http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=12696, See also “Palestinian Workers Treated Better in Israel,” I24news.tv. September 24, 2014 http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/middle-east/44941-140924-palestinian-workers-treated-better-in-israel

31. “Palestinian Human Rights Campaigner Excoriates Palestinian Leadership,” J-Wire, August 27, 2015, http://www.jwire.com.au/palestinian-human-rights-campaigner-excoriates-palestinian-leadership/

Oxfam promoting Terror

Oxfam has recently produced a video, see below, that totally ignores the terrorist actions of the Palestinians. Although Israel is constantly trying to make life easier for the Palestinians, the relaxing of controls are being abused. Increased fishing rights has resulted in terrorists posing as fishermen smuggling weapons into the Gaza strip.

An easing of restrictions on movements of Palestinians during Ramadan has been met with yet another terror attack with 4 dead and 16 wounded.  

Consequently, in response to last night’s attack in Tel Aviv's Sarona market that left four people dead and 16 wounded, security forces carried out a number of arrests during raids in the West Bank village of Yata overnight..

The IDF has blockaded the village and only humanitarian movements in and out of the village will be permitted, the IDF Spokesman Unit said on Thursday morning.

Additionally, IDF units together with the Border Police and Civil Administration mapped out a home of one of the terrorist gunmen in the village of Yata, near Hebron overnight between Wednesday and Thursday.

In response to the attack, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, cancelled the easing of some security restrictions that were in place for the Muslim month of Ramadan.

After an evaluation held by the Prime Minister, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, and IDF Chief of Staff an order was issued the freezing of 204 entrance permits for relatives of the attackers. 

Additionally, 83,000 permits for Palestinians in the West Bank to visit family members in Gaza have been revoked, and all easing of security measures for Gaza Strip residents during Ramadan, particularly access to Temple Mount prayers, have been cancelled.

In this video there are many factual errors. Watch the video and then read the comments

Facts counter to this odious video:-

- Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel as a sovereign entity. It’s in their charter and they publicly announce it at every opportunity.

- More aid per capita is given to Gaza than any other group. A look at eight countries in the top 10—Sudan, South Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo—is even more alarming. CIA Factbook data show that these countries have a combined population of 284 million and an average per capita GDP of $2,376. Yet they received an average of $15.30 per capita in development assistance in 2013. The Palestinians, by comparison, with a population of 4.5 million, have a per capita GDP of $4,900.

- A large percentage of the aid is taken from the citizens to advance the war preparations of Hamas which is one factor why some donors are not honouring their pledges

- Re the water issue, the Israeli Water Commission increased the amount of water supplied to Gaza according to the Oslo accords by 100% from 5 mcm (mill cubic metres) to 10 mcm

- Hamas is not repairing damaged water infrastructure

- The World bank has offered finance for a desalination plant but are suspicious of how the money they offer will be used.

- Hamas has not stopped illegal drilling of wells which has damaged the salinity of water table.

- The border restrictions are in place in Israel AND Egypt because of the constant attempts by Hamas to import terror related materials.

- The citizens of Gaza are captive by Hamas, they have no freedoms of action or speech

- Every requested movement of the population, for example hospital visits must be checked thoroughly. One Gazan woman who had been treated in Beer Sheva hospital returned for, supposedly, follow up treatment tried to blow herself up in that same hospital 

- Read http://www.cogat.idf.il/894-en/Matpash.aspx?Sad for information on assistance given in the field of health care and to Palestinian importers and exporters

Israel's Dairy Festival

With the approaching festival of Shavuot (Pentecost) this weekend and the tradition of eating diary foods, the festive atmosphere at the President’s residence this week belied the concerns of farmers living and working near the Gaza Strip.

A group of farmers and their children accompanied the executive director of the Israel Dairy Board, to a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin and his wife, to present them with baskets of some of the numerous dairy products that are made from the milk and cream of Israel’s cows, goats and sheep.

The children all wore garlands of flowers in their hair. The men were in white shirts, the women in white blouses and the little girls in modest white dresses.

The executive director proudly presented eve of Shavuot statistics to the president and his wife saying that Israel’s annual milk yield is 1,450 billion liters coming from 810 dairy farms in moshavim and kibbutzim, primarily in the Negev and the Galilee. Some 30,000 people work as farmers, drivers, processors in dairy food production plants and in veterinary capacities. Some 1,500 dairy products are produced in Israel.

Dairy farming represents 20 percent of overall farming in Israel, and Israeli cows give the highest milk yields in the world, but she warned that despite all of Israel’s technological advances in agriculture, there was a danger of Israel losing its dairy prestige, because land originally designated for agriculture is being rezoned for residential and commercial purposes.

Paris ‘peace’ talks, the usual charade

Jeff Robbins Tuesday, May 31, 2016

http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/op_ed/2016/05/jeff_robbins_paris_peace_talks_the_usual_charade

This Friday’s one-day “peace conference” in Paris, convened by the French government to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, has a wearisome, all-too-familiar look to it: same farce, different day.

Representatives of some 20 political entities will be sharing their “thoughts” about the conflict for several hours, sandwiched between photo opportunities and a fine meal. Thankfully, such reliably constructive actors as the Arab League, Turkey, Saudi Arabia
and Indonesia have been invited.

France, which in diplomatic matters famously regards itself as superior to all others, and to the U.S. in particular, has looked a good deal like Abbott and Costello when it comes to the Mideast. Eager to curry favor with its large Muslim population in advance of upcoming elections, it recently backed a Palestinian resolution in UNESCO denying any link between Jews and Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Within days French President Francois Hollande announced that his government’s vote was the result of a “misunderstanding.”

The government that was unable to “understand” what the Palestinians were seeking to do by its UNESCO gambit — and so many others like it — or to “understand” the ceaseless Palestinian con job, will be chairing the peace conference. That should come as excellent news for those hoping for peace.

The French have said that their purpose is “saving the two-state solution” and “bringing the parties back to the negotiating table.” This is a head-scratcher, since the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected the two-state solution and have refused to negotiate with Israel for many years now, rejecting its request for negotiations as recently as last week. It is hard to believe that anyone is fooled at this point by the Palestinians’ song-and-dance, since all they have done since time immemorial is to say “no” to the very independent state they say they want — the independent state that would end the occupation that they declare with a straight face is the cause of the conflict.

“The Palestinians are not able to agree to any resolution that doesn’t involve them getting 100 percent of what they want,” says David Roet, Israel’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations.

The record bears him out. In 2000, 2001 and 2008 they were offered an independent state on virtually all of the West Bank, all of Gaza and a capital in East Jerusalem. All they had to do was say “yes” to peace with Israel. They said “no.” Having demanded that Israel freeze settlement activity for 10 months as a condition for agreeing to negotiate with Israel, they obtained the freeze — and then refused to negotiate. Every time the Israelis have offered to negotiate with them since 2009 they have repeated the word that has come to be associated with them: “No.”

In Boston last week with a group of her fellow members of the Israel Defense Forces, a young officer named Dana (full names are not used for security reasons), talked about what it feels like to have to defend her country against those who are trying to make it disappear.

“I never tell my mother what I’m doing,” Dana confesses. “I don’t want her not to sleep at night. We try to do our best with the fear.”

In Paris this week, the charade proceeds as before. The Palestinian rejection of the very two-state solution they profess to seek will continue. Their rejectionism will be excused, the rejectionists coddled. Israel will be lambasted, as always. The end of conflict that ought to be attainable if it were actually desired will remain unattained. And Dana and the other young Israelis who do their best to defend their country and who are obliged to cope with their fear will go on knowing that, like it or not, they have precious little choice but to keep on doing what they are doing.