Haifa is on the "front line" in any action in the north but this blog looks at life in the shadow of danger to all of Israel
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Gullible Students Indoctrinated to Hate Jews
Friday, May 3, 2024
Iran Is Not so Secretly Infiltrating Europe
Robert Williams • For full article see https://tinyurl.com/4kvn7fkf
"Hamas sees Western countries such as Germany as a
refuge in which the organization can concentrate on collecting donations,
recruiting new supporters, and spreading its propaganda." — Germany's
domestic intelligence service, apnews.com, November 23, 2023.
- In February, Belgium's justice minister
confirmed that Hamas operates in Brussels... through a network of front
companies raising funds for the terrorist organization... Belgian
authorities nevertheless continue to allow Hamas to operate there.
- "Hamas has been in Europe for about
30 years. It's an open secret. Of course, they don't call themselves
Hamas... They will have names like Conference of Palestinians Abroad,
Palestinians in (country name), Palestinian Students Abroad, and so on. But
when you dig a bit, you find out who the people are behind these
associations, and what their connections are back home. It's always the
same cluster of 20-25 people. Their propaganda, their social media
patterns, everything is Hamas." — Lorenzo Vidino, director of the
program on extremism at George Washington University, April 12, 2024.
- "This is a typical Muslim Brotherhood
tactic. They come up with a million different names for their
organizations, for two reasons: Firstly, they want to give the impression
that it's a broad movement, so that when they organize a public event,
there will be 50 participating organizations, or if they publish a public
letter, there will be 50 signatory groups. Secondly, if one of these
groups is taken down by law enforcement, well, there's all the other
ones." — Lorenzo Vidino, April 12, 2024.
- In all of this, Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a central actor. As stated by the US
Congress, the IRGC "trains, funds, arms, and shares intelligence with
dangerous proxy forces throughout the Middle East and abroad" and has
targeted both European and American civilians.
- The US Congress, Israel and
thousands of Iranians have urged the European Union to designate the IRGC
as a terrorist organization. Nevertheless, the EU refuses to designate the
IRGC as a terrorist organization.
Friday, April 26, 2024
IDF SUPPORTS U.S. INITIATIVE TO ENHANCE HUMANITARIAN AID TO GAZA
The IDF spokesperson confirmed: The IDF, through the coordination of COGAT,(Coordinator of Govt Activities in the Territories) has approved collaborative efforts for the new Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) initiative led by the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). The initiative will create an enhanced ship to shore distribution system to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The
IDF will operate to provide security and logistics support for the JLOTS
initiative, which includes the establishment of a temporary floating pier to
deliver humanitarian aid from the sea into Gaza.
The
IDF's involvement in the JLOTS initiative is one of many humanitarian aid
efforts, further demonstrating the IDF's commitment to working with the
international community to ensure the continuous entry of humanitarian aid to
the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
The
IDF is assigning an entire reserve brigade to secure the work on the pier, and
later also to allow the introduction of humanitarian aid through it. (( There is already an excess of aid arriving
by truck, but sure - forcing Israel to secure a pier in the middle of Gaza that
can easily be attacked by Hamas is a good plan, and certainly won’t cost any
Israeli or American lives (that is quite a sarcastic statement). Appeasing American idiocy is getting
our soldiers killed. ))
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Know the Truth, Let's Attack the Jews
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Friday, April 19, 2024
Israel Retaliates
For full article see https://tinyurl.com/muh4p7mr
Israel retaliated overnight against Iran’s massive drone and missile attack on its territory, people familiar with the matter said—with what appeared to be a limited strike aimed at avoiding an escalatory cycle that could push the countries closer toward war.
The strike targeted the area around Isfahan in central Iran, one of the people said. Iranian media and social media reported explosions near the city, where Iran has nuclear facilities and a drone factory, and the activation of air-defense systems in provinces across the country after suspicious flying objects were detected.
Iranian state television repeatedly played down the episode in its broadcasts, saying three small flying objects had been downed by air-defense systems and suggesting they had been launched from within the country.
The attack appeared to be similar to earlier drone strikes attributed to Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, said Ronen Solomon, an independent intelligence analyst in Israel.
He said the attack signaled to Iran that Israel’s Mossad could covertly hit a nuclear or military site without overtly using the Israeli military or its aircraft. Israel likely wanted to avoid an attack on nuclear sites, or a broader assault, because Israeli officials were concerned Iran would use strikes as an excuse to move ahead with its nuclear program, he said.
The Israeli action was a response to an unprecedented direct attack by Iran that involved more than 300 drones and missiles aimed at Israeli territory. That attack itself was retribution for a strike attributed to Israel that killed top Iranian officers in Damascus.
Israel has remained officially silent about the strike.
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Palestinian Christians grateful for Israel’s missile defense system
For full article see https://tinyurl.com/yzpweap7
In the aftermath of Saturday
night’s Iranian missile attack, Palestinian Christians living in the Bethlehem
area expressed gratitude for Israel’s air defense system.
“I said, ‘Thank God for the
presence of the Iron Dome system.’ It absolutely saved lives here. We don’t
have any safe rooms to guard us, so if a rocket would fall here, there would be
a great number of casualties,” an eyewitness from the Christian community of
Beit Jala, near Bethlehem.
The resident, a middle-aged man who
is married with children, spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears his
family and business will be targeted by Palestinian Muslims.
“In the beginning, we thought it would be like
usual, Iran just talks,” he recalled. “Then in the middle of the night, I went
to the balcony and saw the rockets of Iron Dome were coming out. I live in the
area near some Jewish residences on one side and on the other are all Arab
residences, and the rockets were coming right towards them. That’s when I
witnessed the interception.”
The missile defense he saw was not
the well-known Iron Dome system, but the Arrow-3, which is designed to
intercept ballistic missiles at high altitudes, even outside the earth’s
atmosphere.
“As a Christian, we are a minority
group here, and one loss equals thousands because of the statistics and the
ratio against the Muslims in the area, so the damage I imagine could have been
even greater,” he insisted.
Elias Zarina, a Jerusalem-based
Christian activist, said he looked at the high-tech protection through the lens
of coexistence. “David’s Sling guards
the City of David,” Zarina remarked, referring to the name of Bethlehem from
the Christian Bible.
Palestinian Christians
in Judea and Samaria have been facing discrimination and harassment for years,
forcing members of the community to leave the Middle East.
The population has been dwindling
ever since the Oslo accords brought the Palestinian Authority into power. Using
Bethlehem as an example, in 1993, when the accords were signed, Christians made
up 88 percent of the city’s population. Three decades later, Christians now
make up just 12 percent of Bethlehem’s population of roughly 29,000. Most
Christians have emigrated in the face of Muslim extortion
Monday, April 15, 2024
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Thursday, April 11, 2024
WCK Aid Workers Killed
The IDF has revealed that Hamas PURPOSELY drew fire to the World Central Kitchen (WCK) vehicles. At around 10 pm, the IDF noticed suspicious activity as the WCK vehicle was joined by a convoy of several other Hamas vehicles.
Hamas terrorists then climbed ONTO and
INTO the WCK truck and FIRED several times indiscriminately into the air to
ensure the IDF would see them.
The convoy then split up and entered a
hanger, where it became difficult to distinguish between the Hamas vehicles and
the WCK vehicle.
IDF attempted to call both the WCK
workers and WCK HQ on TWO separate occasions to confirm whether they were with
the Hamas convoy but their calls remained unanswered.
When the vehicles left the hangar OVER
AN HOUR LATER the IDF drone unit misidentified the WCK vehicle for a vehicle
from the Hamas convoy and mistakenly struck.
The result, a great propaganda victory for Hamas at the cost of civilian lives yet again.
Full
IDF report can be seen here https://t.co/rBLG4KmwdZ
Sunday, April 7, 2024
NGO: Red Cross facilitating Palestinian terror payouts
(With thanks the Palestinian Media Watch)
Since Oct. 7, the International Red Cross has been helping imprisoned Palestinian terrorists receive controversial stipends from the Palestinian Authority, according to Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch.
According to PMW,
incarcerated Palestinians fill out forms to receive the stipends, and the Red
Cross delivers the paperwork to Ramallah.
“The role of the
International Red Cross in this process is central,” explained PMW director
Itamar Marcus. “The international health organization is involved in this
because as they visit prisoners, they’re able to bring in forms. Israeli
security is not looking at the forms or preventing the terrorist prisoner
access to the forms they need to sign.”
The prisoners’ paperwork
needs to be completed by the end of 2023 in order to receive stipends in 2024.
Terrorists imprisoned before Oct. 7 are also sending renewal forms via the Red
Cross to Ramallah, according to PMW.
A Fatah directive dated
Dec. 4 and translated by PMW instructs Palestinians to “please produce a [Red]
Cross document for those who have no sentence whose names appear below; a [Red]
Cross document accompanied by a new administrative [detention] order for the
administrative detainees; and a [Red] Cross document accompanied by a verdict
for the sentenced prisoners.
Lists of prisoners from
Bethlehem and Hebron districts were circulated on social media to encourage
prisoners and their families to claim the payouts. Other Palestinian
organizations, such as the PLO’s Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, joined the
publicity campaign.
Since Oct. 7, around
2,400 Palestinian terror suspects have been arrested throughout Judea and
Samaria, of whom about half are associated with Hamas.
Israel argues that these
stipends are nothing more than economic incentive to commit murder, and refers
to them as “pay for slay.”
The International Red
Cross did not respond to a request for comment.
Saturday, April 6, 2024
The global onslaught against Israel
Israel
made a major and tragic error. It killed seven aid workers when it fired
three precision missiles in succession at a three-car convoy belonging to the
humanitarian agency World Central Kitchen (WCK) that was on its way to
deliver supplies to Gaza civilians. Although
an IDF inquiry has yet to explain what happened, the Israelis have
acknowledged a terrible mistake caused by “misidentification”. Bad things
happen in war and this was a dreadful tragedy. But
the malice of the response is astonishing. Israel is being accused of having
deliberately targeted the aid convoy, which allegedly proves that Israel has
no concerns about civilian deaths, no heart and no conscience. WCK’s
response has gone far beyond justifiable anger and horror, defaming Israel
with baseless and incendiary charges. The organisation’s chief executive,
Erin Gore, accused Israel of a “targeted attack” designed to deter aid
agencies working in Gaza and of using food “as a weapon of war”. WCK’s
founder, José Andrés, accused Israel of targeting his workers “systematically,
car by car”. But
that wasn’t because the IDF wanted to kill humanitarian workers with whom it
had previously worked closely to deliver aid to Gaza. It was because the
three cars were all “misidentified” in the same awful error. In
the fog of war, “friendly fire” fiascos are unfortunately all too common. Yet
this was not acknowledged in the world’s response. Pentagon
spokesman John Kirby said America was “outraged”. President Joe Biden said he
was “heartbroken” and that Israel “has not done enough” to protect civilians. Britain’s
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “far too many aid workers and ordinary
civilians have lost their lives in Gaza, and the situation is increasingly
intolerable”. The UK Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, said the aid workers’
deaths were “completely unacceptable”. This
is hypocrisy and selective amnesia. Both the US and the UK have caused
similar tragic errors in wartime in which many more than seven lives were
lost. In
an incident in 2011, during the NATO intervention in Libya about which
then-Prime Minister Cameron was extremely gung-ho, 13 civilians including
ambulance workers were wiped out. In
2006, US troops in Iraq mistakenly killed aid workers in Mosul. In 2008, they
killed dozens at an Afghan wedding party, including the bride. Both
the Biden administration and the British government have seized on the aid
convoy tragedy to buttress their claims that Israel is killing “too many
civilians” in Gaza and thwarting supplies of aid. These are lies. Even if
Hamas’s implausible casualty figures are to be believed, Israel is killing
around 1.3 civilians for every combatant — a vastly smaller proportion of
civilians killed in warfare than has been achieved by any other army in the
world. |
Thursday, April 4, 2024
A Maths Lesson
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Mafia crime wave in Israel drives Christians from Nazareth
The centuries-old Christian population in the holy city of Nazareth is slowly disappearing because of a mafia crime wave sweeping northern Israel. Like Bethlehem where there was a Christian majority, of nearly 80%, similarly Nazareth is facing the same fate.
Mafia gang members reportedly harass Christian store
owners in the northern Israeli city and demand the equivalent of thousands of
pounds in protection money.
Their numbers are reported to have grown since the
outbreak of the Gaza war despite
the deployment of Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security agency, last year and
extra police patrols.
“In Nazareth, the mafia will shoot at the stores, then
tell them they need ‘chawa’ [protection]. It’s like the Wild West,” said Peter
Roshrash, a senior police inspector who has covered Nazareth for decades.
The gangs, which are predominantly Muslim, charge
around 50,000 shekels (£10,750) per month as part of a protection racket, he
said.
He also claimed they hide guns in Christian residents’
houses that – if discovered by the police – would lead to a further charge of
200,000 shekels at pain of death.
“The mafia harasses them with thefts, car thefts,
puncturing tyres, they can’t live in peace,” he added. “It is a tense time for
the Christians, who are as much a historic part of Israel’s fabric as the Jews
and Muslims.”
Monday, March 25, 2024
The challenge of Avoiding Civilian Casualties
Friday, March 22, 2024
Blinken's Fantasized Diplomacy
Thanks to Ruthie Blum full article at https://tinyurl.com/5n8bndke
In a press conference on Thursday
in Cairo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated his opposition to
an Israeli ground operation in Rafah, saying that such a move would be a
“mistake.”
An
invasion into the southern Gaza city, he stated, was “unnecessary” to achieving
the goal of defeating Hamas. This attitude, which the Biden administration has
been expressing with increasing fervor, runs counter to Israeli assessments.
It
has become the key bone of contention between Washington and Jerusalem since
the start of the Oct. 7 war, spurred by a massacre of Jews that hadn’t been
seen since the Holocaust.
Other
disagreements—surrounding the use of Israeli force, civilian Palestinian
casualties and plans for “the day after”—have been mild in comparison. Or at
least they’ve been treated by Israel as arguments that can be addressed through
a presentation of the facts.
This
hasn’t been simply a tactical ploy to avert discord. On the contrary, the
justice of destroying the genocidal terrorist organization that controls
territory along Israel’s southern border and vows to repeat the atrocities of
Oct. 7 “again and again and again” is irrefutable.
Anyone
disputing Israel’s duty to eradicate Hamas—for the survival of the Jewish
state, as well as for the benefit of the region and the world—is on the wrong
side of history. Period.
Furthermore,
Israel has the data to support the extreme measures it employs to avoid
non-combatant deaths in Gaza. It has proof of the huge quantities of
humanitarian aid entering the Strip. It also has evidence of its efforts to
prevent Hamas from stealing the goods.
Blinken
is fully aware of the above. He is equally cognizant that the war would end in
an instant if Hamas surrendered unconditionally and released the remaining 134
hostages, among them U.S. citizens, held in its sadistic, sexually abusive
captivity.
But
since the only pressure Hamas understands is that exerted by Israel Defense
Forces bombs and troops, America’s top diplomat has no recourse but to powwow
with Qatar and Egypt. The former has close ties with Iran and provides refuge
for “exiled” Hamas bigwigs.
The
latter shares a border with Gaza. Though porous enough to have enabled the flow
of materials for the construction of hundreds of miles of Hamas terror tunnels,
it has been totally impenetrable for Gaza residents who wish to leave.
Has
Blinken raised these issues during his shuttle diplomacy excursions to the
Middle East to “mediate” a deal for the release of the hostages that involves a
halt in the fighting? Of course not.
No,
“as a Jew,” he’s been too busy warning Israel about the “humanitarian crisis”
in Gaza and pushing for a “sustained” ceasefire. Apparently the White House believes
think that it’s possible to win this war without killing any more terrorists or
the human shields behind whom they hide. Talk about music to Hamas chief Yahya
Sinwar’s ears. No wonder his ultimate demand is for a full IDF withdrawal from
Gaza and continued Hamas reign in the enclave. He doesn’t want to agree to a
temporary ceasefire in exchange for hostages.
His
having done so in November was due to two factors. One was IDF might. The other
was the assumption that Israel wouldn’t have the wherewithal or legitimacy to
resume fighting. He was right about the first and wrong about the second.
Today, however, thanks to U.S. admonitions about Rafah, Sinwar has cause to up
any ante on offer.
It’s
not clear, then, what Blinken meant by announcing in Saudi Arabia on
Wednesday and in Egypt the following day that the “gaps are narrowing” in the
negotiations. Perhaps he can explain how he reached that baseless conclusion
when he meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday in Israel.
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
EU Claim That ‘Starvation Is Being Used as Weapon of War’
Israeli officials reacted with outrage on Monday in the
face of a claim by the EU’s foreign policy chief that Jerusalem is imposing a
famine on Palestinian civilians in Gaza as the war in the beleaguered territory
continues to rage.
The accusation comes from Josep Borrell — a Spanish
official who serves as the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy “In Gaza we are in a state of famine, affecting thousands of
people,” — said at the opening of a conference in Brussels on humanitarian aid
for Gaza. “This is unacceptable. Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel
is provoking famine,” Borrell continued.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded
: “Despite Hamas violently disrupting aid convoys and UNRWA’s
collaboration with them, we persist.” “Israel allows extensive humanitarian aid
into Gaza by land, air, and sea for anyone willing to
help,” In a blunt posting on the same platform,
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy noted that on Sunday, “8 million
lbs. of food entered Gaza by land. That’s ~4LBS.
OF FOOD PER CAPITA. That’s not famine,
starvation, or catastrophic food insecurity.”
Levy added tartly: “I’m sorry if the facts are
awkward for your efforts to help Hamas rapists survive 10/7 and live to
fight another day.”
Separately, in a statement on Friday, COGAT — the
Israeli agency that assists with humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza — noted that since the beginning of March, “an average of 126
food trucks entered Gaza daily. This is 80 percent more food trucks entering
compared to before Oct. 7. 500 trucks entered Gaza daily before Oct. 7,
carrying building, agriculture, and industrial supplies; only an average of 70
carried food.”
Monday, March 18, 2024
Gaza Market with Abundance of Food
Bedouin Family Member Who Rejects Hamas, Urges Palestinian Peace with Israel
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Tunnels and The Philadelphi Corridor
(With thanks to IDSF, Habitchonistim )
A smuggling industry with a turnover in the billions:
In recent years, smuggling from Egypt into Gaza has become central to the
Gazan economy and key to the strengthening of Hamas. Even today the city of
Rafah is full of smugglers, who bribe the Egyptian police and run a business
sector with a turnover in the billions.
The smuggling still continues during wartime, as war materiel and other goods flow from Sinai into Gaza every day. And there is fear that such smuggling is, or will be, accompanied by smuggling in the other direction. Senior Hamas figures are likely to try to escape into Egyptian territory, with hostages, and from there to Iran.
Control of food
distribution is to control Gaza.
Besides the problem of smuggling, absence of Israeli control at the
Philadelphi Corridor also causes a severe problem of supervision over the
humanitarian aid to Gaza. Since the start of the war, thousands of trucks have
entered Gaza with humanitarian supplies and food. The distribution of aid is
managed officially by UNRWA and by “charitable organizations,” but in practice,
behind all that management, Hamas is pulling the strings. It is important to
understand that as long as Hamas wields control over the supplies, they are
channeled first and foremost to its own purposes, and in that way Hamas
succeeds in operating more forcefully while also gaining the population’s
acknowledgement of its authority.
Israel Must Defeat Hamas in Rafah
Both the history of Rafah and its current situation show
that if Hamas is to be defeated as a governing body, the IDF must control the
Philadelphi Corridor, Israel must have full authority over the entry of all
goods into Gazan territory, and there must be a ground operation in Rafah.
Such a ground operation is indispensable, because Rafah is the last
stronghold of the Hamas leadership and the only place where its battalions
still are active as organized military units. Currently the Israeli public is
concerned that the IDF, despite attaining many, many successes, has not laid
its hands on the senior Hamas figures and has not located the hostages. The
entry into Rafah will be the decisive battle, leading us to the top Hamas
commanders and to their last military stronghold, and to the hostages.
Therefore we must enter the city, and as promptly as possible. Contrary to the
widespread conception, Rafah is not a difficult military objective. Tougher
places have already been taken, so this task is certainly doable.
Sunday, March 10, 2024
10 IDF Couples Wed Simultaneously
In a unique ceremony, ten IDF soldiers married their partners at a mass wedding in the Tel Aviv Port. It was part of Chabad of Savyon’s “Marrying the Warriors” initiative and included 10 wedding canopies. Each couple invited 100 guests. 10 glasses were simultaneously smashed.
A delegation of visitors from Canada raised over $1 million in support .
See also https://tinyurl.com/3vsy7sru
Thursday, March 7, 2024
UN Official Refuses to Disclose Sources Accusing IDF of Sexual Abuse
In its inimitable way, the UN continues to invert the truth on anything to do with Israel. Based on the concept of attack being the best form of defense, a Jordanian national and U.N. special rapporteur manages to avoid condemning Hamas for the atrocities committed on Oct 7th.
This report without any credible sources attributed to the claims gives food to the anti-Semitic activists
The following analysis is by Mike Wagenheim, JNS
Another United Nations special rapporteur is using her platform to deny
terrorist attacks against Israel.
Reem Alsalem, a Jordanian national and U.N. special rapporteur on
violence against women and girls, is an author of a Feb. 19 report listing
alleged abuses by Israel against Palestinian women and girls, including reports
of “multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched
by male Israeli army officers.”
It adds that “at least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly
raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence.”
The report also alleges that the Israel Defense Forces kidnapped
Palestinian babies.
In an interview on an Israeli news program, Alsalem refused to detail even the most basic of
information about the accusations, including the identity of the accuser
or accusers, that she called “reasonably credible.”
Israeli diplomatic officials vigorously dispute the accusations and
believe the information in Alsalem’s report originated with Euro-Med Monitor, a
virulently anti-Israel NGO operating under the human rights banner and headed
by Richard Falk.
Falk is a noted conspiracy theorist and former U.N. special rapporteur,
who was deported from Israel in 2008 after arriving to purportedly investigate
Israeli crimes.
Euro-Med Monitor published its
own similar report in late February.
Falk’s appointment to the U.N.
position was controversial, given his extensive history of anti-Israel
rhetoric.
Alsalem refused to admit that
Hamas carried out sexual violence on Oct. 7, saying that she had not received
the information necessary to carry out her work. She made that claim despite an
extensive fact-finding mission and report released this week by Pramila Patten,
the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence in
conflict.
The report found “clear and convincing information” of sexual violence
carried out against hostages in Gaza and “reasonable grounds” to believe
Israeli women were raped at three separate locations on Oct. 7.
“We cannot rely only on digital material or material produced online or
by the media,” said Alsalem when asked if she watched Hamas’s extensive video
documentation of its Oct. 7 terrorist acts, which are widely available for
viewing.
“I’m not a technical expert on videos, so I on my own will not be able to
assess those videos. I will also need to seek technical expertise,” Alsalem
said.
She intimated that she either calls into question the authenticity of
footage of Hamas’s Oct. 7 crimes—much of it taken from the GoPro cameras by
Hamas terrorists themselves—or that she is incapable of locating and playing
videos online without expert assistance.
Pressed as to whether she believes Israeli women had been raped on Oct.
7, Alsalem would only allow: “It may have happened, indeed.”
She also initially denied that
Hamas and Hezbollah have launched regular missile attacks during the current
war. The United Nations has documented those attacks.
“At this point, I have not seen that, no,” Alsalem said.
She then conceded, when pressed, “I have seen missile attacks.”
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Aid Driver Killed by Gazans
Monday, March 4, 2024
Douglas Murray Calls a Spade a Bl....dy Shovel
Douglas Murray discusses the Israel-Gaza war and the cowardice
of the West in confronting Islamist terror. Is it too late for the West?
Sunday, March 3, 2024
Ramadan is Approaching Again
Ramadan is approaching again as Israel is at war in Gaza and in Lebanon.
Israel is wisely seeking a ceasefire that will coincide
with Ramadan, knowing the unfortunate history of attacks on Israel during the
Muslim holy month.
The dangerous lies that resurface every year, claiming
that Jews are planning to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and replace it with a Third
Temple, are bound to resurface in incitement from Palestinian leaders and
religious figures.
This antisemitic libel was originally manufactured and
disseminated in 1921 by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, and
has continued to be spread over the past century. It has been used as an excuse
for violence too often
In August 1929, Palestinian Muslims, incited by rumors of an imminent
Jewish plot to destroy al-Aqsa, rampaged throughout the land. In total, 133
Jews were killed over six days, including 67 members of the ancient Jewish
community of Hebron.
In 1990, the “Al-Aqsa is in danger” libel inspired 3,000
Muslims to gather on the Temple Mount after a rumor was spread that a Jews were
planning to march on the site. This devolved into the October riots, which led
to the deaths of 17 Muslims and many wounded on both sides.
In 1996, following the opening of an exit for the Western Wall
Tunnels in the Christian Quarter of the Old City. Arafat and the PA accused
Israel of purposely endangering the Aqsa Mosque. This led to three days of
rioting and 17 IDF soldiers and about 100 Palestinians were killed.
In September 2000 a visit to the Mount by Ariel Sharon,
just a few months before he was elected to be prime minister, was used as an
excuse to launch the Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
Aware of this history, Israeli and Palestinian
Authority security officials have been meeting to prepare and cooperate on how
to prevent violence.
But there are figures on both sides who have other
interests. And Iran, the patron of Hamas and Hezbollah, could try even harder
to inflame a multi-front regional war. The police will once again do their best
to avoid conflict and maintain calm.
But when false accusations are inevitably made against
Israel during Ramadan this year, how will the international media handle it?
Will they repeat the mistakes that they made last year?
Will they again promote the libel, fan flames, and increase tension that in the
current climate could possibly spark WW III?
We await with bated breath.