Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Why Palestinians Cannot Make Peace with Israel

 

by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  October 20, 2021 

  • The Palestinian Authority, which is largely funded by American and European taxpayers' money, is imprisoning Palestinians for even trying to engage in real estate deals with Jews.
  • The Palestinian public seems generally supportive of the death sentences and extrajudicial killings of suspected "land dealers" and informants. Even Palestinian human rights organizations appear to be extremely careful when they mention such issues.
  • As far as Hamas and many Palestinians are concerned, peace with Israel or any form of "collaboration" with the "Zionist enemy" is an act of treason punishable by death.
  • Mahmoud Abbas is already facing accusations of being a traitor because of the security coordination between the PA security forces and the Israeli authorities in the West Bank.
  • As long as the PA and Hamas punish Palestinians who work with Israel or are willing to sell real estate to Israeli Jews -- frequently by issuing sentences of hard labor or death -- the hope of reviving the "peace process" is, unfortunately, a pitiful waste of time and effort.
  • The verdicts passed against the "land dealers" in the West Bank and the suspected "collaborators" in the Gaza Strip show that Palestinians remain as far as ever from accepting Israel, let alone making peace with it.
The verdicts are yet more proof of how Palestinian leaders continue to radicalize their people against Israel -- to the point that no Palestinian who wishes to stay alive would ever claim that he or she seeks to make peace with Israel or recognize all of the land as anything other than totally Palestinian in every way.

Hamas to Israel: $8 million by tomorrow or else

"Do it or else", the latest threats from Gaza

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Gaza-based terror group Hamas is demanding that Israel fulfill a number of conditions, including transferring some $8 million in aid money, by Tuesday, or face actions that could dismantle the current Israeli government, Palestinian daily Al-Ayan reported.

Hamas is also demanding the full release of Qatari funding for Gaza, an end to the restrictions which prevent Gazans from approaching the border fence with Israel, easier movement for Gazans that wish to travel to Jordan, and family reunification permits for some 19,000 Gazans married to Israeli citizens, which would normalize their status in the Jewish State.

 If Israel does not fulfill these demands, the relative quiet along Israel’s southern border since May 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls clash will come to an end, the group threatened.

The warning that Hamas has the power to create a conflict with the potential to upend Israel’s current ruling coalition appears to be a reference to the unstable nature of the government, which is comprised of parties spanning from the left to right ends of the political spectrum.

News agency JDN suggested that Hamas is happy with the Bennett government, which has allowed the entry of building materials into the Strip along with other concessions, and does not actually want the current government to fall.


Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Iron Dome - Where is the USA Heading?


 An earth-shattering event happened in Congress:
House Democrats removed $1 billion for
Israel’s Iron Dome defense system from an
emergency funding bill and later put it back in a different bill.

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

‘Settler Violence’ – The Other Side of the Story

 News reports in Hebrew and English, in Israel and abroad, have been reporting on the “vicious Israeli settler violence” against the Palestinian village al-Mufaqara in the South Hebron Hills recently during the Jewish festival of Simchat Torah. Among the wounded was a three-year-old Palestinian boy who was hit by a rock that went through his bedroom window. His is in moderate condition at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.

The news reports are typically inconsistent with one another, but what seems to be agreed on by the media is that Jews and Arabs threw rocks at each other, with Israeli settlers from the nearby Jewish communities of Avigayil and Havat Maon having instigated the attack.

While video and photographic evidence accompanies these articles, there is one video that none of them include — showing dozen of Palestinian Arabs moving up the hills toward Havat Maon. A few were launching large rocks using slingshots.

The video is credited to a group of activists, headed by Ari Kaniel.

“There were two parts to the incident on Simchat Torah, the first occurring when a group of residents of Avigayil were on a hike between their outpost and Havat Maon. A large group of Arab men came out from al-Mufaqara, attacking them with rocks and sticks. Instead of scampering away in fear, these unarmed Jews picked up rocks and drove the Arabs back into their village.”

Kaniel claims that the Jews were able to drive them back because the Arabs are not used to Jews defending themselves. The settlers kept up the fighting in the village itself until the IDF came.” he said.

“About an hour after this first incident, a few dozen Arabs amassed in the hills preparing to storm Havat Maon. At the sound of their approach,[Jewish] volunteers went out with their cameras to document it.”

Kaniel said that the IDF arrived quickly at this point, before the Arabs could enter the village. None of the Arabs in the video were arrested despite the fact that their faces are clearly seen, however Jews were arrested for their part in the first incident.

“There is no film of the first incident since, as Orthodox Jews, they did not take cameras out with them on the hike — on holidays and Shabbat they only bring out the cameras when something has already started to happen.”

Given that Israel is still living under conditions of war, with cameras having become a weapon of war, and given that pikuach nefesh (saving lives) is of utmost importance in Judaism, rabbis have given permission to the Jews of Judea and Samaria to use cameras on Shabbat and holidays (otherwise forbidden) in order to provide the IDF with faces of the Arabs attacking them and to counteract accusations spread about a Jewish instigation of hostilities,Yosef Hartuv told United with Israel,.

Similarly, throwing rocks is permitted on holy days only in self-defence.

“The Arab narrative of the events of the day were immediately adopted by the media,” Kaniel said. “Why does nobody ask what made Orthodox Jews throw rocks on a holy day, something that is forbidden unless in self-defence?”