I'm a Muslim Zionist. Here's why.

Noor Dahri was raised to hate Israel and Jews. Now he believes there is no contradiction in being a practicing Muslim and Zionist. Find out why..

Wounded Israeli & British vets join for sports & healing

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The 100+ vets ranging from their 20s to 50s, gathered in Israel with their families for friendly competitions in swimming, X-Fit, rifle shooting, and met with post-trauma and rehabilitation experts.

By Abigail Klein Leichman

More than 100 Israeli and British injured veterans joined in Israel for the inaugural Veteran Games and Conference, a five-day event hosted by Zahal Disabled Veterans’ Organization at the Beit Halochem rehab, rec and sports centers in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for disabled vets and their families.

Participants ranging from their 20s to 50s, and accompanying family members, gathered for friendly competitions in sports such as swimming, X-Fit and rifle shooting, and met with international experts on post-trauma and rehabilitation.

“Looking around this room, I see true heroes who answered their country’s call and went to war to preserve our values and protect us all. I salute you,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said to the veterans during a visit to his official residence in Jerusalem on May 30.

The Veteran Games – under the motto “Uniting extraordinary people” — was organized by Beit Halochem UK and the Embassy of Israel in London following on a successful Israeli-British conference on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mental health in combat veterans, which featured a visit to Beit Halochem in Tel Aviv.

Warrant Officer Matt Tomlinson of the Royal Marines told Rivlin: “The Veteran Games are a rare opportunity to visit your wonderful country and at the same time challenge, compete and find common ground with Israeli veterans. … During the competition, we shared sweat, pain and more pain, neither side giving up but both sides encouraging and supporting the other. Thank you for allowing us to come to your country, to compete and to share common ground with your veterans. We will never forget this truly amazing experience.”

SodaStream Hosts Thousands for Ramadan Feast

SodaStream is hosting nearly 3,000 Israelis and Palestinians for a Ramadan fast-ending meal at its factory in the southern Israel town of Rahat.

Bedouins and Jewish Israelis and some Palestinians attended the feast on Monday along with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

Friedman writes on Twitter that he had “the pure joy” to attend, and touts SodaStream as a paragon of peace.

“Muslims, Druze, Christians and Jews working together, each making the other better, happier and more prosperous,” says Friedman.

SodaStream, manufacturer of fizzy drink-machines and other bubbly products, shut its Dead Sea factory in 2015 amid boycott calls and opened a new facility in the predominantly Bedouin town of Rahat.

SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum, who sealed a $3.2 billion agreement with beverage giant PepsiCo last summer, hailed the deal as a victory over the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which advocates for the destruction of the Jewish State.

“I think they have learned not to meddle with us. Look at what happened to SodaStream that they targeted, and what has happened to them,” Birnbaum said of BDS.

A Twist of Fate

https://www.prweb.com/releases/in_twist_of_fate_and_friendship_israeli_doctor_and_palestinian_family_help_save_each_other/prweb16181700.htm

A Palestinian woman’s life has been saved thanks to the expert care of Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer. And in an amazing turn of fate and friendship, the Israeli doctor who helped save her was once rescued by her family when he was attacked by a vicious crowd in a Palestinian village.

Four years ago, Dr. Eitan was traveling with his son and made a wrong turn into a Palestinian village near Ramallah. An angry mob formed around the car, throwing stones and breaking the car windows. The lives of Dr. Eitan and his son were clearly in danger when two bystanders who lived in the village, Imad and his cousin Ayoub, rescued them.

Imad and Ayoub ushered the Israelis into their home, calling for a rescue team and protecting them from the threatening crowd that closed in around the house. Without question, Imad and Ayoub saved their lives.

As a result, a deep friendship was born between the three men, and now it has come full circle.

When Imad’s sister-in-law was severely injured in a vehicle accident, Imad knew just who to call – Dr. Eitan. The doctor helped facilitate the sister-in-law’s transfer to Sheba Medical Center for lifesaving treatment and continues to oversee her care. Her condition is improving, and she will soon be transferred to Sheba’s Rehabilitation Hospital.

This story is the latest example of Sheba Medical Center’s long history of spreading peace through medicine. This hospital without borders has a firm belief in providing the highest quality of medical care available, regardless of nationality or religion.

Arson the Cause of Fires in Israel Last Week

Following the disastrous fires last week that left hundreds of people with only their clothes on their backs, it has now been revealed that arson was a cause. In one location, the fires had been started in several places.

Further, Arab terrorists have adopted arson as a weapon against Israel, taking advantage of the dry and hot weather to ignite fires.

Arab terrorists on Sunday night threw several firebombs at the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood in Jerusalem and attempted to set it on fire.

Firefighters fought back the flames and prevented the fire from causing any damage.

Pisgat Ze’ev is situated adjacent to Arab neighborhoods. 

Several terrorists have been arrested

Why Have Economic Prosperity When One Can Blame Israel For Misery?

by  Bassam Tawil   May 21, 2019 

Originally posted to the Gatestone Institute website

Photo Credit: 

In most normal societies, a businessman who seeks to improve the living conditions of his people by boosting the economy and creating job opportunities for the unemployed — including a host of jobless university graduates — is treated with respect. The Palestinians, however, do not seem to belong to those societies.

Ashraf Jabari is a 45-year-old businessman from the West Bank city of Hebron. A member of a large Palestinian clan in the city, Jabari believes in economic cooperation and peaceful coexistence with his Jewish neighbors, including settlers living in the West Bank.

Earlier this year, Jabari and some of his Jewish friends launched a new economic initiative to advance joint entrepreneurship between Israelis and Palestinians there.

“We are working on taking down borders, and both Israelis and Palestinians need to take part in this,” Jabari explained. “We need to breach this wall. We must first create good links and good relationships not just in the West Bank, but all over Israel so we can achieve our desired goal.”

To advance his goal, Jabari recently announced the establishment of a new party that calls for focusing on economic prosperity for Palestinians:

The Reform and Development Party, he said, seeks to solve the economic problems of the Palestinians, including high unemployment. “We have an army of university graduates who are unemployed,” he said. “We’ve reached a situation where a young [Palestinian] man holding a Master’s degree in law has to work as a street vendor because he can’t find work.”

One would expect a message like that to be welcomed by Palestinians. Here is a man who is talking about helping his people put food on their tables. Here is a man who is saying: “Let’s put aside our political differences and focus on ways of achieving economic stability for our people.”

Instead of giving Jabari a chance to carry out his initiative, Palestinians have waged a massive smear campaign against him, with many denouncing him as a “traitor” and “collaborator” with Israel and Jews. Some Palestinians have even gone as far as callingfor his arrest or execution.

The campaign against the Palestinian businessman reached its peak on May 13, after he hosted at his home several Jews for the Ramadan break-the-fast meal, Iftar. It is not unusual for Muslims to host non-Muslims for the Iftar meal. In this instance, however, Jabari seems to have invited the “wrong” guests: Jews.

As soon as photos of the Ramadan meal appeared in various media outlets, many angry Palestinians took to social media to voice their strong condemnation of Jabari.

In the face of the widespread protests and resentment, Jabari’s clan was forced publicly to denounce and disown him. “Ashraf Jabari is a criminal, and he doesn’t enter the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories,” said Arif Rubin Jabari, a leader of the clan. “Our family already disowned this fraud back in 2002. He doesn’t represent anyone from our clan or Hebron.”

The clan leader further claimed that Israel was “using Jabari to carry out its suspicious schemes against Palestinians.” He called on Palestinian Authority officials to “study Israel’s attempt to give prominence to Jabari by presenting him as an alternative to the current Palestinian leadership.”

The clan’s public denunciation of Jabari, however, has failed to placate many Palestinians, who are now calling for severely punishing the him for his words and deeds.

The Palestinian news website Wattan, based in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians, called for bringing Jabari to trial for treason. “The [Palestinian] security services must act immediately to arrest him,” Wattan said in an article published on its website.

“According to Article 135 of the Revolutionary Penal Code of the PLO (1979), the punishment for treason is prison with hard labor. The law states that anyone who offers accommodation, food or clothes to an enemy soldier or a spy or helps him escape, should be punished. Dozens of spies have already been punished in accordance with this law. Article 140 of the same law stipulates the death sentence for anyone who serves as an informant for the enemy. Indeed, many spies have been executed.

Judging from the reactions of the Palestinians, they are angry with Jabari mainly for two reasons: engaging in “normalization” with Israelis and promoting the idea of “economic peace.” The Palestinians’ “anti-normalization” movement is strongly opposed to any form of relations with Israel — including sports and cultural events. Now, it seems that they are even opposed to seeing Palestinians and Jews eating together.

Jabari offended many Palestinians because he dared to invite his Jewish friends to the Ramadan meal at his home.

Moreover, his talk about “economic prosperity” for Palestinians has turned him into a public enemy. How dare the man discuss seeking ways to improve the living conditions of his people and create jobs for the unemployed?

In the eyes of many Palestinians, the struggle against Israel should be paramount, even if they have to eat and drink that struggle instead of the food they could buy through engaging in economic initiatives such as those proposed by Jabari.

Had Jabari joined Hamas or Islamic Jihad, or one of the anti-Israel organizations in the West Bank, he would have been idolized. Had he called for boycotting Israel rather than working — and eating — with them, he would have been lauded among his people and his clan.

In light of the uproar sparked by the Palestinian businessman’s actions and statements, it is safe to assume that his new party will never succeed in winning the hearts and minds of Palestinians. It’s also hard to see how any of the economic enterprises he’s talking about will ever materialize.

The unprecedented campaign of hate and intimidation against Jabari comes weeks before the US administration rolls out its long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East, also known as the “deal of the century.”

The upcoming peace plan, according to various reports, talks about giving the Palestinians billions of dollars and raising money for them from wealthy Arab countries. Yet, as Jabari’s case makes clear, the Palestinians are less invested in gaining economic stability than they are in hating Israel.

For Palestinians, the financial aid is a cynical attempt to lure them away from their struggle against Israel — and no Palestinian leader has the stomach to face the threats that Jabari is currently confronting. So, far from any “deal of the century,” the Palestinian leaders long ago struck a dirty deal of their own: they put their stock in Israel-hatred rather than in their own people.

A Family's Terror Experiences

(Guest posting from "Grandma's Army")

In Israel, the boundaries between the home-front and the army are very blurred. My son and family, who live in the south, are constantly being bombarded by  missiles from the Gaza Strip - by air and ground. Two weeks ago, 700 missiles were fired from Gaza to the south of Israel! in which several civilians were killed. One rocket even reached Tel-Aviv. 

At the same time, their youngest daughter (Adi) is an army instructor. She belongs to a corps which teaches soldiers, taken from  all the army’s ground forces, how to use the different weapons used to locate and destroy enemies and armament - in order to clear the area. 

It’s hard for me to picture Adi, who is an extremely feminine young woman of 20, instructing soldiers on how to use lethal weapons. These include a particular type of rocket called “Gil”, which was developed in Israel. With the means of a special device the “Gil” can follow any target, even a moving one. The shooter can manoeuvre the rocket all the time while it is in the air, in order to strike the target with maximum precision (just like a computer game), and can reach to a distance of up to 4 kms.

Usually two divisions of a regiment, each consisting of 20 fighters, are sent  to  her corps simultaneously. Adi mostly instructs older civilians from the army Reserves who are called up, usually one month a year,  in order to maintain their fighting skills. Since the Reserves make up 70% of the fighting forces, it is very important that they keep up with their particular task, since it is  never known when hostilities will break out.

It is particularly hard to instruct middle-aged civilians since they are not accompanied by commanders of the corps who – in the case of regular soldiers - can impose disciplinary measures. To keep them focused on the subject at hand is a real challenge, especially when the instructor is a young woman.

Adi spends an entire week of  intensive training with each group, in which they eat together and train together in the field. She says that she finds the work very stimulating since she has to adapt her training methods according to the particular group she is instructing at the time. In this way, she gets to meet interesting and diverse types of soldiers from a wide variety of backgrounds.

At times when no such groups of Reservists are sent, the instructors are taken to frontiers all over the country in which regular soldiers are serving. In this way Adi has the opportunity  to travel to different army bases which is an experience in itself. 

The work can be difficult, especially in times of pressure when they get up very early and get to bed very late - the whole day being spent, either in the field, or giving lessons. This also affects the attention span of the soldiers who have to be motivated enough to concentrate.

In Adi’s words: “The job has taught me how to stand before an audience and to speak without getting nervous and with self-confidence. I have learned to master complicated material and to present it in an interesting way. Also, the ability to conduct a discussion with different types of people. I am grateful to be part of a team of female colleagues with whom I enjoy a warm and very friendly relationship".

The fact that the ability of the fighters to serve their country in the best possible way is dependent to a large extent on their training, gives the trainers a significant role in any future war. The satisfaction they experience as a result is enhanced by the trainees themselves, who show respect and appreciation to their instructors.