What was teenager doing on rooftop in Jenin?

 The death of 16-year-old Jana Zakarneh is Ramallah’s latest excuse to enlist the international community in its effort to demonize Israel by accusing it of targeting children.

For the powers-that-be in the Palestinian Authority, the death on Sunday night of 16-year-old Jana Zakarneh couldn’t have come at a better time, mere hours before the arrival in the region of UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba.

Gamba kicked off her visit, a fact-finding mission to garner fodder for her annual report on harm to kids in the Israeli-Palestinian “conflict,” in Ramallah.

According to the Wafa news agency, her first meeting was with PA Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Minister, who presented her with detailed documentation of “Israel’s systematic and deliberate crimes against Palestinian children,” including “killing and maiming, targeting of schools and hospitals, sexual assaults, kidnapping and denying access to humanitarian and medical aid.”

It must have been music to Gamba’s ears. In the guise of neutrality, however, she will convene with and hear Jerusalem’s version of events (in other words, the truth): that Israel is in a defensive war against terrorists and goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties, often to the point of imperiling its own troops.

Zakarneh’s presence next to an armed terrorist during a firefight with the Israeli military raises serious questions about her degree of involvement. Initial investigations indicate, for instance, that she regularly served as a photographer for gunmen in her neighborhood. And cellphone footage from her camera isn’t the only evidence.

Her grieving uncle’s contradictory accounts of the night in question were just as big a giveaway, albeit unintentional. He told one outlet that his niece had been at home minding her own business when the sound of gunshots overhead spurred her to race to the roof. He was quoted on Twitter as claiming that she had gone to the roof to find her missing cat.

Both stories are revealing; most young girls would have responded to the noise of gunfire, all-too-familiar in Jenin, by cowering under their beds, not rushing to get in on the action. 

Had the young woman not been next to the targeted terrorist, filming the exchange to post on social media for propaganda purposes, she would still be alive and well.

But, then, mobs of hate-filled Palestinians would have been robbed of the ritual of carrying her flag-draped body through the streets of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) city that has become a key base for arms-hoarding and terrorist activity against the “Zionists.” It’s par for the making of a martyr, whose family will be rewarded with a generous monthly stipend from the PA.

 

Israel the fifth safest country in the world for tourists

 Israel has been identified as the fifth safest country in the world for tourists, according to “The Swiftest,” an American insurance comparison website.

 The website based its travel safety index by comparing the number of deaths resulting from situations such as homicide, road accidents, natural disasters, poor hygiene and other factors in the 50 most-visited countries.

Singapore was ranked the world’s safest country for tourists, followed by Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and then Israel.

 That was higher than the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Australia, which also made the top 20.

 The Swiftest’s list of deadliest countries for tourists was topped by South Africa. Other countries making this list included Mexico, Brazil, China, Iran, and the United States which came in 20th place.

The study called on tourists to never travel without doing some research about the potential dangers of their destinations, to take safety precautions while abroad, and not to travel alone.

According to Tourism Ministry figures, more than 2 million tourists visited Israel in 2022 in January-October.

Israel is the fifth-most educated country in the world

 About half of people in Israel have completed tertiary education, according to the report.

Israel is the fifth most educated country in the world, with half (50.12%) of people having completed tertiary education, according to an Erudera report. 

The rest of the top 10 are Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, South Korea, the US, Ireland, UK, Australia and Finland.

Erudera, an education search platform, also found some joint characteristics of those countries, saying that they all have relatively high per capita GDP, high spending on education and low unemployment rates. 

Among highly educated young Israelis (25-34), women are a clear majority with 62.6%, according to the OECD report "Education at a Glance 2022".

Why is tertiary education important?

Tertiary education, according the World Bank, "refers to all formal post-secondary education, including public and private universities, colleges, technical training institutes, and vocational schools."

According to the report, during the COVID-19 pandemic, "unemployment increased much more for those with below upper secondary attainment than for those with tertiary attainment."

The report also suggests that better-educated adults find it easier to adopt new technologies. 71% of 55–74-year-olds with tertiary attainment managed to use online or video calls during the pandemic, while only 34% of similarly aged adults with below upper secondary attainment did.

There is an almost constant rise in the number of tertiary students, and therefore they are becoming more diverse with time. As more people gain access to tertiary education, the tertiary education systems have to adapt to students coming from less privileged backgrounds.

Tags education university oecd israel israel education

One Day’s Headlines Reveal The Entire Israeli-Arab Conflict

 With thanks to Stephen M. Flatow 

Sometimes, you just have to glance at a single day’s news headlines to learn everything you need to know about the Israeli-Arab conflict. Take last Friday, for example.

In the Palestinian Authority-ruled town of Hawara, Israeli security personnel attempted to arrest a fugitive terrorist. Other Palestinian Arabs jumped in, “trying to pull him free,” as the Israeli media reported. Funny thing—critics of Israel are always claiming that the masses of Palestinian Arabs are moderate and want peace. If that’s the case, they should be delighted when terrorists are arrested. Yet in Hawara on Friday, and in many other instances, they have violently interfered with attempts to capture terrorists.

The Hawara suspect stabbed and wounded two of the Israelis before being subdued. You won’t hear any protests from J Street over the stabbing or see any angry columns in The New York Times by Thomas Friedman. It seems trying to stab Israeli police officers to death is an acceptable mode of behavior if you’re a Palestinian Arab.

 Meanwhile, there were Palestinian Arab shooting attacks on Israelis in Yabed and Jenin. Once again, Israeli soldiers were carrying out routine, peaceful arrests of terrorists—something the P.A. is obligated to do, but never does—and once again, the Arabs responded with gunfire. Fortunately, the terrorists were killed and the Israelis weren’t. Of course, the headlines in the international news media will read “Palestinians Killed by Israel” rather than “Palestinians Killed While Trying to Murder Israelis.”

In Shechem (Nablus) the same day, Israeli security forces tried to arrest a fugitive terrorist. According to Israeli news reports, Arabs in the city responded by shooting at them, “hurling explosives” and trying to stone the Israelis to death. All in one morning! As usual, the P.A. security forces were nowhere to be found.

That’s not all. Near the Jewish community of Ofra, north of Jerusalem, Palestinian Arab terrorists opened fire with automatic weapons on a group of Jews committing a terrible crime—driving. It was an ordinary civilian bus, traveling its regular route, providing a service that is open to Arabs and Jews alike—yet the Arabs decided that the Jews deserved to be slaughtered for doing so.

Another shooting at a civilian vehicle was in the news on Friday. A Palestinian Arab terrorist was convicted of participating in a shooting attack on an Israeli automobile in 2015, murdering a young man named Malachi Rosenfeld and wounding three other passengers.

According to Israeli media reports, the terrorist, Maad Hamed, was actually detained by the P.A., but then somehow “escaped.” That is, escaped through the P.A.’s notorious revolving-door justice system.

The media described Hamed’s home town, Silwad, as “a Hamas stronghold.” That’s another blatant violation of the Oslo Accords—there aren’t supposed to be any Hamas strongholds anywhere in P.A. territory. The reason the United States helped build the P.A.’s security force into one of the largest per-capita security forces in the world is to prevent terrorist groups from developing strongholds in the territory the P.A. governs.

Yet the P.A. has never outlawed Hamas, disarmed its cells or arrested its members. The P.A. treats Hamas like brothers, not enemies.

Now let’s see what Friday’s headlines tell us about how the Biden administration is responding to this ongoing Palestinian war against Israel. This week, the U.S. established a new “Office of Palestinian Affairs” within the American embassy in Jerusalem, appointed Palestinian-American Hady Amr as its “Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs” and reaffirmed its intention to open a U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, which Israel opposes because it would function as a de-facto embassy to the P.A. So, the Palestinians wage war—and the U.S. leans in, on their side.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is known to be close to President Joe Biden, announced that “the Biden administration is in the process of doing everything they can to try to limit the potential for damage of the inclusion of these extremist elements within [Benjamin Netanyahu’s] governing coalition.” Strange—I don’t recall the administration pressing the last Israeli government to exclude the extremist, Islamist Arab party Ra’am. I wonder why there should be such a double standard.

One last item from Friday’s news: When the Israeli election results ensured that Itamar Ben-Gvir would be part of the new government, the United Arab Emirates—one of the Gulf kingdoms that signed the Abraham Accords—angrily warned Netanyahu against including Ben-Gvir. But this week, the UAE held a reception in Tel Aviv and, lo and behold, Ben-Gvir was one of the guests in attendance.

The incident illustrates how little the Biden administration and others in the West understand about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Arab governments often holler and bluster, but then they adjust to reality. The UAE’s threat about Ben-Gvir was ignored, and the UAE has accepted the new reality. That’s how life works in the Middle East.

US Funds Arabs Who Want to Destroy Israel

By Bassam Tawil  •  December 5, 2022 at 5:00 am

Full article at https://tinyurl.com/ytkf6zft  

• What is disturbing is that a large portion of this incitement is coming from Arabs whose governments signed peace treaties or other agreements with Israel: Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians.
• What is even more disturbing is that the hate against Israel is coming from Arabs who continue to benefit from unconditional US financial aid.
• The Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, continues to spearhead the Arab campaign of incitement and delegitimization against Israel. In addition to the incendiary rhetoric, the Palestinian Authority does not hide its vehement opposition to any kind of peace with Israel.
• In its latest tirade against Israel, Abbas's ruling Fatah faction claimed that the Israeli counter-terrorism measures, designed to save the lives of Jews and Arabs alike, are acts of "terrorism and war crimes." According to the logic of the Palestinian Authority, a terror attack against Israel is legitimate and the perpetrator is a hero and martyr, but an Israeli action to stop terrorism is illegitimate.
• This is the same Palestinian Authority that maintains good relations with the Biden administration, which recently decided to upgrade US relations with Abbas and his associates....
• It is worth noting that since April 2021, the US has provided more than half a billion dollars in assistance for the Palestinians.
• If the US thinks that showering money and concessions on the Palestinian leaders will lessen the tension, you heard it here first: this approach definitely will not work. All that will happen is that the hostilities will increase so that the bribes will increase. Giving hard, concrete gifts in exchange for soft promises is inevitably doomed from the start.
• Egypt has enjoyed the benefit of more than $51 billion in US taxpayer-funded military aid since the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty in 1979.
• Again, it is worth noting that this incitement against Israel is being spread despite the ongoing massive US financial aid to Jordan.
• One way to counter this campaign of hate and to encourage peace is for the US to make its aid conditional on ending (or at least reducing) the rhetoric of hate. So far, however, it is clear that the US has no intention of demanding anything in return for its money.
• For the time being, then, many Arabs will continue to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the US while continuing actively to seek the destruction of Israel and being financially rewarded for it.

Commemorating The Jewish Nakba

A pro-“palestinian” resolution at the UN recently declared Israel’s founding unjust passed 90-30 at the UN.

 The resolution was made to commemorate Nakba day, which means calamity – referring to the founding of the State of Israel.

 The UN resolution calls for a “commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Nakba, including by organizing a high-level event at the General Assembly Hall” in May 2023. It also urges the “dissemination of relevant archives and testimonies.”

So why is there no voting commemorating the Jewish Nakba when almost 1 million Jews were kicked out of Arab lands?

See chart below just how many Jews were kicked out of Arab lands. Is this not the real ethnic cleabsing?

 

 

Hezbollah activity in Lebanon continues

 ( With thanks to Alma Israe https://israel-alma.org)

The search for #Hezbollah activity in #Lebanon continues through eyes on the ground. Here's what was found in the village of Hadath in the #Iranian proxy-controlled Beqaa Valley.