Low-Intensity Conflict Report #26

Low-Intensity Conflict Report June 25, 2012

Yehudit Tayar  issues these reports which are translated and publicized by Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron with the clearance and confirmation of the IDF.  Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron is a voluntary emergency medical organization with over 500 volunteer doctors, paramedics, medics who are on call 24/7 and work along with the IDF, 669 IAF Airborne Rescue, the security officers and personal throughout Yesha and the Jordan Valley, and with MDA.


In the past week as a result of terror attacks 1 casualty and 36 Israelis injured. Over 150 rocket attacks. 124 rockets landed inside of Israel.

June 25, 2012

June 24, 2012

Rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel.

4 Mortar Attacks from Gaza into Israel.

IDF reports Molotov cocktail attack against IDF patrol near El hader on the Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway.

In the region of Begin Park Israeli police chased a van filled with illegal Arabs, the van turned over and Israeli medics treated about 20 of the illegals who were moderately injured.

June 23, 2012

5 rockets shot from Gaza towards Ashkelon hit by "Kipat Barzel, Iron Helmet".

June 22, 2012

2 Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel landed near Moshav Yesha.

IAF attacked terror bases in Gaza. The terrorist who was eliminated in the air attack was Baasa Abdallah Achmed from the "GLG –Lt Terror organization which is associated with the International Jihad Organization.

Border policeman moderately injured in his face from Arab rioters in Kedum west of Shechem was evacuated to Bellinson Hospital with a cut on his lip.

IDF soldier moderately injured in his hand in Na'alin from rocks thrown by rioting anarchists and Arabs.


June 21, 2012

Rocket fire from Gaza toward Ashkelon hit by an "Iron Dome"

Rock attacks on Israeli vehicles between Azun and Karnei Shomron causing damage to vehicles.

Rock attacks El Fuar Junction in the Southern Hebron Hills.

Rock attacks against Israeli vehicles near Chavat Gilad in the Shomron


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I Was Noticed, Hard-Core That I Am

From Alllison Kaplan Sommer's report on Tomorrow 2012's session with Peter Beinart:

Luckily, for those of us looking for some action, the PR end of the conference organized a session between Beinart and the bloggers covering the conference. That was where the real fun began.

With no fancy organizations or publications to represent or professional reputations to protect, debate flowed freely. With many kippot and headscarves in the audience, many of the bloggers held right-wing views directly opposed to Beinart, and some lived over the Green Line. In the crowd were hard-core critics like Yisrael Medad who wrote a piece on Beinart once called “Peter’s Pernicious Paradox.” One blogger, posing a question about Beinart's book, stressed that he had borrowed the book- he would never buy it.

Photo credit: Batya Medad 

Beinart had to defend his opinion that American Jews should boycott goods and services coming from what he has called "non-democratic Israel" to a woman blogger whose business has been hurt by the BDS campaign - which she feels has been legitimized by his views

He was asked what liberal American Jews will say if there is a two-state solution, and like Gaza, the West Bank is ruled by Hamas that will tolerate terror even when not directly involved in terror against Israel.

And of course, he was asked - probably for the nine millionth time this year - how he, as a Diaspora Jew, can so strongly advocate surrender of all of the territory over the Green Line when neither he nor his children will bear the physical consequences of such a move.

Beinart, to his credit, had an answer for everything. He seemed far more animated with this crowd, and it became clear why he’s such a hit on the speaker’s circuit - there hasn't been anyone with his level of charisma engaged in Jewish issues for a long time. He managed to carve out common ground with right-wing Jews with his genuine concern, he was genuinely worried about the level of education and commitment of American Jews, confessing that he was not optimistic about its future. He won points for honesty by admitting that his kids' day school education is making them far more right-wing than he is and that his Egyptian grandmother chided him for his left-wingness, telling him he was naive about the Arabs.

But what really won over the initially hostile bloggers happened when he was asked by a blogger who lives within the Green Line whether he should travel to his parents' house in the West Bank to give a Torah lesson on the yarhtzeit of his grandfather’s death.

In such a situation, he asked, what would Peter Beinart do? Would he go or would he boycott?

Beinart paused only briefly, then said that he would go to the family event. Politics are politics, he said, but the obligation to honor your mother and father trumps ideology.

One blogger at the meeting said that this was the moment Beinart won over the crowd, and confessed he was among Beinart's new fans. “The answer was so quintessentially Jewish, that I think many of the bloggers were forced to change their mind about Beinart. I doubt anyone there changed their political views. However, leaving the meeting I felt that though I may disagree with him on many things, I had no doubt that he was a Zionist and a truly concerned Jew.”

Mick Jagger turned out to be a nice Jewish boy after all.

My reflection is here.


And as for his "Zionist" boycott call, Judah Magnes beat him to it on May 4, 1948.  He met George Marshall, US Secretary of State and told him, according to the official memo:

Dr. Magnes said that the first of the points he desired to make was that great pressure could be brought to bear on both Arabs and Jews if the United States would impose even partial financial sanctions. He pointed out that the Jewish community in Palestine is an artificial development and that, although the work of the Jews had resulted in many beautiful accomplishments such as farms, universities, and hospitals, which resulted from contributions from the United States, the money now contributed to the Jewish community was being used solely for war "which eats up everything." Dr. Magnes said that the Hagannah costs $4 million a month to run. He was certain that, if contributions from the United States were cut off, the Jewish war machine in Palestine would come to a halt for lack of financial fuel.

He was willingly to endanger Jewish lives and achievements to realize an illogical impossible political dream.

Here's what is looks like in the FRUS volume:

Beinart's behavior is worse because he knows the six-decades experience since then.

Not a nice Jewish boy, not a smart one.


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Item of Bias

Let's hear from Jonathan Tobin:-

If one reads the Israeli press, you know that a synagogue on a moshav in central Israel was vandalized with Muslim graffiti this week, but you missed it if all you see is the New York Times. Nor was that the first such attack on a synagogue. Similarly, tucked into some but by no means all of the stories about the dismantling of Ulpana is the fact that the houses were built there as a response to the murder 12 years ago of a Jewish mother and child by Arab terrorists.

Mentioning this does not rationalize settler violence, let alone excuse it. But doing so does spoil the prevailing narrative of the West Bank morality play that Israel’s critics promote which portrays the settlers as evil and the Palestinians the innocents. The situation in the West Bank is complex. The Arabs who live there have a right to have their property rights respected and to go about their lives without fear of violence. But the same should apply to the Jews who live nearby. But unfortunately, not only do the Palestinians not respect the right of Jews to live on this land, they also do not respect their right to do so in safety. This position is granted legitimacy of a sort by a foreign press that implicitly accepts the frame of reference that regards all Jews in the West Bank as usurpers or thieves, even if the land they live on is indisputably owned by Jews.

Those who believe Jews have no right to live anywhere in the West Bank or in the parts of Jerusalem that were illegally occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 can only do so by effectively negating the historic and legal rights of the Jewish people. But even those who hold this position must acknowledge that a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict cannot be built on the sort of anti-Jewish violence that is so routine it barely rates any coverage in the West.

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Liberation from Aaron Barak's Belligerent Occupation

In an April interview, Talia Sasson said in an interview with TOI's David Horwitz that

if Edmund Levy’s committee decides to tell the government that the territory of Migron can be taken despite the Supreme Court’s decision and they decide to do it, who knows? They can do anything. It’s 11 o’clock in the morning now? They can say it’s 11 at night. What can I tell you? I have no words.

Well, Makor Rishon this past Friday has reported that the special experts' committee of the outpost/satellite communities is adopting the legal position which I, and others, have been promoting for years.

On its front page, we can read that the committee members, former Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy, District Court Judge Techiya Shapira and former Ambassador and Foreign Ministry Legal Advisor Allan Baker will be recommending to the Prime Minister that the opinion of former Supreme Court President Justice Aaron Barak be rejected.

That opinion, which accepted the clearly wrong concept that Judea, Samaria and Gaza were to be considered as "belligerently occupied", (see: "...such also is the law of belligerent occupation, in the framework of which Israel acts in the occupied territories" and in 2002's HCJ 7015 & 7019/02: Judaea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip are effectively one territory subject to one belligerent occupation by one occupying power, and they are regarded as one entity by all concerned, as can be seen, inter alia, from the Israeli-Palestinian interim agreements" although revpages 615-616 here but see Howard Grief here) may finally be overruled and the correct, just and correct legal standing of those areas will be established.


Those areas of the former Mandate for Palestine were illegally occupied by Jordan. They cannot have been "occupied" by Israel as they were a part of the territory to become the Jewish National Home. The state and waste lands in those regions were to be used, if not privately owned, to facilitate "close Jewish settlement". And as I have been championing, all property that was a gratis gift of the rulers of Jordan and upon which no building was built, no house was constructed, no field was planted and harvested nor any taxes paid should be returned to its previous legal status as state land and we have solved the articially created problem of "illegal construction".

As the Jewish Press has it, too:

The 90-page report, including addenda, discusses at length the issue of the outposts. Levy, Baker and Shapira fundamentally reject the legal line used by Attorney Talia Sasson in her report on the outposts. To their understanding, the vast majority of outposts can be defined as legal, since they are within the master planned areas of legal settlements whose establishment was approved by the government. The committee further recommends that the Nature and Parks Authority [headed by former Yesha Council senior member and Gush Etzion Regional Council Chairman Shaul Goldstein - YM] declare thousands of acres in the Judea and Samaria as national parks, to facilitate the preservation of their environmental resources. With the conclusion of the committee’s work the ball returns to the court of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Justice Minister Ne’eman, who ordered the report.

Could it be that we are on the brink of a major legal revolution, or, actually, a restoration?

A restoration of national sovereignty, of national standing, of national pride?

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That's The Way The Pals. Are

From an interview with novelist Eyal Megged, illustrating the political bias of the interviewer, Maya Sela, and the self-obnubilation thinking of a representative of Israel's cultural elite:

Apropos Palestinians, what is going to become of us?

"I see a binational beach. That is what will be. I welcome it. I am completely binational."

How will we be binational? We are totally racist.

"So the time has come for us to be taught a lesson. We are going to be punished for that. We have become so inured and merciless and void of compassion, and do what we do not want done to us, that we deserve a harsh punishment. This scene restores my spirit. This is Hebraism, it's Levantine, and I am not afraid of either."

Your pal Bibi doesn't think that.

"I am not responsible for him."

You were in agreement with him for a while.

"I was in agreement with him during the period of the folly of evacuating Gush Katif [the Israeli settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip], for which I could see no point or purpose. Now, finally, I have found an organization, which I have joined, called the Israeli Peace Initiative [Hebrew: Yisrael Yozemet]. Even at the height of my rightward deviation, when I heard about the Arab peace initiative [of 2002], I thought we had to accept it, that it was a historic proposal. People from my generation know how much we knocked on those doors. It can't be ignored, and now suddenly there is an organization that is going for the Arab initiative. Not with the Palestinians - I don't trust them. You can't achieve anything with them." 

Why is that? 

"Because that is how they are. Neither they nor we get anywhere, for all kinds of reasons, maybe of mentality. We had a conference within the framework of the Parallel States Project, which I think is a marvelous invention that at core proposed two parallel states in the whole area from the sea to the Jordan River. It was a Swedish initiative of meetings between Israelis and Palestinians. In the last conference, the initiative was presented in Sweden. Then the Palestinians took the stage and started to cry again about what was being done to them, and I, in a polite and restrained state, lost it. I said, 'When are you going to be done with this propaganda? Everyone is fed up with it. I too could say things and make people here shed tears. Wasn't my wife's knee smashed in a terrorist act? We have to put that behind us. We came to propose something. Why are you out to win points?'"

And the Arabs are perhaps thinking that's the way the Jews are.

Altalena NOT Yet Found

There's a YNET story with this headline:

Report: Altalena wreckage located 

But:-

a) it has NOT been found;

b) what is needed is more sophisticated - and expensive - equipment;

c) if you read it carefully it is a double doubt. "suggests", "probability" -

"The acoustic signatures suggests that there is high probability that the wreckage is the Altalena, but more advanced equipment must be employed for a definite answer."

d) it is more Yariv Levin's pitch for press coverage.

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Low-Intensity Conflict Report #24

Tayar Security Report June 21, 2012
Yehudit Tayar

These reports are translated and publicized by Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron with the clearance and confirmation of the IDF.  Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron is a voluntary emergency medical organization with over 500 volunteer doctors, paramedics, medics who are on call 24/7 and work along with the IDF, 669 IAF Airborn Rescue, the security officers and personal throughout Yesha and the Jordan Valley, and with MDA.<br />

June 21, 2012
Shechem: During the night hours the IDF and security gave permission to enter the Tomb of Joseph.  A happy group of over 1200 Jews entered the Tomb.  The Arabs attacked with rocks near Balata resulting in the injury of an IDF soldier who was evacuated in a military vehicle to a hospital.  Gunfire was directed also from a distance but no injuries.

June 21, 2012
IAF attacked several terrorist Hamas positions in Gaza following the ceaseless rocket attacks aimed at Be'er Sheva, Netivot, Ashkelon, the Ashkelon region and the Jewish communities in the area.
Over 160 missiles rockets, and mortars have been launched against Israel in the last three days.  Thousands of men, women and children have been forced to take cover and stop their normal lives in order to try and remain safe.
Remember almost 7 years ago Israel made a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip abandoning and destroying all of the successful productive Jewish communities there and turning thousands of Israelis into refugees.
Since the destruction of Gush Katif the entire south of Israel is under rocket fire and terrorist attacks. 

June 20, 2012
Over 130 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel.  In Kibbutz Sufa as a result of a mortar landing there, a fire broke out and the security coordinator succeeded in putting the fire out with no injuries.

June 19, 2012
IAF  attacked terrorist positions in Gaza following the endless missile attacks on Israel.

June 19, 2012
Near the Kalkilia check post and Arab was apprehended by IDF carrying 3 pipe bombs.  Bomb squad detonated the bombs.

June 18, 2012
Summary of events in the south of Israel:
4 terrorists penetrated into the work area of the security fence that is being built to separate Israel and Egypt north of Kadesh-Barnea.  The terrorists shot and murdered an Israeli Arab working on the fence.  During the confrontation 2  grenades were thrown.  IDF eliminated one of the terrorists and continued operation to track others. The terrorists had activated an explosive device against 2 vehicles belonging to contractors working on the security fence.  One of the vehicles fell into a ditch after which the terrorists shot and murdered the worker.  Shots were fired on the second vehicle but missed.  IDF eliminated 1 of the terrorists and 1 terrorist was blown up by explosive device he carried on him.
Bet Hanun Gaza Strip: IDF hit terror cell that was preparing to launch missile attack against Israel. 2 terrorists eliminated and 3 injured.
Missile launched from Gaza landed west of Sderot in open area.
IDF attacked terror cell who were placing explosive device near the security fence in the Kissufim area.  Verified hit on cell.
Along the security fence near Kibbutz Be'eri an unarmed Arab was caught after he penetrated from Gaza.
Molotov cocktails thrown on Israeli vehicles near Betar Illit.
Rock attacks on Israeli vehicles on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Highway near Bet Umar causing damage.
Near Bet Hanun in the Gaza Strip IDF eliminated 2 terrorists who were involved in the sniper shooting into Israel.
2 IDF Special Police Force soldiers injured moderately from rock attacks in the village Katna, they were evacuated to Ein Karem Hospital in Jerusalem for treatment.
Rock attacks against IDF patrol near Borin.
During the night Border policeman injured moderately from rock attacks near Nebe Zalach.
2 Molotov Cocktails thrown on IDF patrol in Abu Dis, Jerusalem region.

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More Arab Anti-Semitism

When the Arabs claim they are not ant-Semitic and that they have nothing against Jew but Zionism mis the problem, tell them about this little item:


Hundreds of settlers break into Yussef’s Tomb performing Talmudic rituals

NABLUS Shchem, (PIC)– Hundreds of Jewish settlers broke into Yussef’s Tomb to the east of Nablus in West bank last night to perform Talmudic rituals under IOF protection.

Eyewitnesses said that 15 military vehicles stormed the eastern part of Nablus, and headed towards Yussef’s tomb to secure the entry of buses and cars carrying hundreds of Jewish settlers who came to perform religious Talmudic rituals.

The sources affirmed that the occupation forces fired stun grenades and tear gas against Palestinian houses in the area. They continued in their rituals till the morning hours, using loudspeakers and loud music during their prayers, caused great nuisance to the residents who threw stones and empty bottles as a response to their provocation.

It should be noted that the Israeli settlers have repeatedly stormed the Tomb which was an Islamic mosque built over a tomb of an Islamic Sheikh named Youssef Dweikat from the town of Balata. It was seized by Israeli settlers just after the occupation of the West Bank in 1967 under the pretext that it contains Tomb of Prophet Youssef.

Remember,

a) "Talmudic rituals" is an anti-Semitic buzz phrase.  Jewish ritual practices stem from the Bible.

b) that Joseph's tomb is in Shchem predates Arab arrival in the country.

c) the Oslo Accords recognized Jewish holy site status of the building in detailing arrangements regarding the Tomb in Article V(2b) of Annex I, which were designed “to ensure free, unimpeded and secure access” to the site.

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Temple Mount Tourism, 19th to 21st Century

Sarah Belzoni has left an

...account of a visit to the Holy Land, as she explains “It was that idea only that had brought me first into Egypt,,,” She left Cairo in January of 1818, stayed two months in Damietta, and arrived in Jaffa in March and then to Jerusalem just in time to witness the ceremonies of Holy Week. In May she began a journey on mule back, accompanied by only a driver, that took her to the Jordan and to the valley of Jericho...[and then] she went to Mount Zion and to Bethlehem. She returned to Jerusalem in preparation for the trip to “that sink of vice and wickedness, Grand Cairo” but, for a Christian foreigner traveling alone, she had the almost unparalleled opportunity for another dangerous adventure. In her disguise as a Turkish youth she climbed the Temple Mount but she only managed to look into the Dome of the Rock.

On a third try, she was more successful, dressing up as a Muslim female and renting the services of a 9-year old boy in order to facilitate entry:

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem attracted other interested experts as related:

Built by the Ummayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik, this holy shrine surrounds the rock from which Mohammed ascended to heaven on his horse, Buraq, and is one of Islam’s most holy buildings. The rock is also revered in Jewish tradition as the site where Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice.

Until 1833 the Dome of the Rock had not been measured or drawn; according to Victor von Hagen,

‘no architect had ever sketched its architecture, no antiquarian had traced its interior design…unbelievers took their lives in their own hands when they entered those sacred portals’.

On 13 November in that year, however, Frederick Catherwood dressed up as an Egyptian officer and accompanied by an Egyptian servant ‘of great courage and assurance’, entered the buildings of the mosque with his drawing materials feeling ‘irresistibly urged to make an attempt to explore them’. In a letter quoted by W.H. Bartlett, Catherwood explained what happened next:

‘It was a proceeding certain to attract attention and expose me to dangerous consequences. I quickly sat down to work, not without nervousness, as I perceived the Mussulmen, form time to time, mark me with doubtful looks; however most of them passed on, deceived by my dress and the quiet indifference with which I regarded them. At length, some more fanatic than the rest, began to think all could not be right; they gathered at a distance in groups, suspiciously eyeing me, and comparing notes with one another; a storm was evidently gathering. They approached, broke into sudden clamour and surrounding us, uttered loud curses. Escape was hopeless; I was completely surrounded by a mob of two hundred people.'
   
'Few moments would have past ere we had been torn to pieces, when an incident occurred that converted our danger and discomfiture into positive triumph. This was the sudden appearance of the Governor on the steps of the platform, accompanied by his usual train. The crowd rushed tumultuously up to him, demanding the punishment of the infidel who was profaning the holy precincts. At this the Governor drew near, and as we had often smoked together, and were well acquainted, he saluted me politely. He at once applied himself to cool the rage of the mob. ‘You see, my friends’, he said, ‘that our holy mosque is in a dilapidated state, and no doubt our lord and master Mehemet Ali has sent this Effendi to survey it, in order to complete repair’. Turning to me, in hearing of hem all, he said that if anyone had the hardihood to disturb me in the future, he would deal in a summary way with them. Gravely thanking the Governor, I proceeded with my drawing. All went on quietly after this. During six weeks, I continued to investigate every part of the mosque and its precincts.’

Thus, Catherwood made the first complete survey of the Dome of the Rock, and paved the way for many other artists in subsequent years, such as Harvey, Richmond and Werner.

Added info:

In 1833, the English architect and graphic artist Frederick Catherwood, dressed as an Egyptian officer and armed with a document from the governor of Jerusalem describing him as an engineer in the service of Mehmet Ali, succeeded in spending six weeks on the Temple Mount with two companions. Under this cover, they managed to study the Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa mosque and other monuments on the Mount, and also to produce the most accurate plan of the Haram al-Sharif until that time. Their descriptions and drawings had a strong impact on the European public...In the 1850s, an Italian military engineer named Ermete Pierotti, who had been ignominiously discharged from the Piedmontese army for embezzlement, was engaged as architect and engineer to the Ottoman authorities in Jerusalem. This role gave him unrestricted freedom to study the Temple Mount. In 1864 Pierotti published a book, entitled Jerusalem Explored, that included descriptions of the structures, underground cisterns and conduits on the Mount.

In 1855, there was a breakthrough.  The Sultan removed the prohibition on entry for non-Muslims.

In March 1855, the Duke of Brabant, the future King Leopold II of Belgium, exploiter of the Congo, was the first European allowed to visit the Temple Mount: its guards – club-wielding Sudanese from Darfur – had to be locked in their quarters for fear they would attack the infidel. In June, Archduke Maximilian, the heir to the Habsburg empire – and ill-fated future Emperor of Mexico – arrived with the officers of his flagship.

That was then. 

Here's the Dome of the Rock in the early 1950s:

And now?

From a story by Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor at Reuters:
 A Palestinian plan to attract Muslims back to Al-Aqsa

...Al-Aqsa, the last of the three sacred sites the Prophet Mohammad urged Muslims to visit, sees only a few thousand foreign worshippers a year.

...Jews call the raised ground at the eastern edge of Jerusalem's Old City the Temple Mount, while Muslims know it as the Noble Sanctuary. Both claim sovereignty over it.

Muslims have kept up an informal boycott of the walled esplanade since Israel seized East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan in a 1967 war, saying visits would amount to recognition of Jewish occupation of Palestinian territory.  Palestinian and Jordanian officials now want to reverse that.


The Dome was built by Jerusalem's Arab conquerors in 691 on the spot where Muslims say the Prophet Mohammad began his Night Journey to heaven. This is also where Judaism's two Bible-era Temples once stood, the first destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and the second leveled by the Romans in 70 AD. The Western Wall, the last remnant of the second structure, is one of the most sacred sites in Judaism.

-   -   -   -

...The mufti answered his critics via Twitter: "Visiting Jerusalem increases one's feelings of rejection of occupation and injustice and helps strengthen the (Palestinian) cause."

...Speaking in his Ramallah office, Habash framed the Al-Aqsa issue in the wider context of Israel's tightening grip on East Jerusalem, which it annexed in 1967, and parts of the occupied territories.  "In Al Aqsa, we don't want to see a repetition of what happened in Hebron," he said, referring to the West Bank town and its Tomb of the Patriarchs, which was controlled by Muslims for centuries and known to them as Ibrahimi (Abraham's) Mosque. "After the 1967 war, Israel began letting settlers pray in the Ibrahimi Mosque. Step by step, day by day, year by year, they occupied more than half the mosque and made that into a synagogue," he said.

"We will not give up," Grand Mufti Husein told Reuters. "Al-Aqsa is important for Muslims because it is important for God."

Several good comments were left there and I added mine:

This bit - " "In Al Aqsa, we don't want to see a repetition of what happened in Hebron...After the 1967 war, Israel began letting settlers pray in the Ibrahimi Mosque. Step by step, day by day, year by year, they occupied more than half the mosque and made that into a synagogue," he said. "

a) well, actually, it was both a synagogue and a church before the Muslims came in 638 CE.
b) the Muslims were the ones to ban entry to non-Muslims, both at Hebron and also the Temple Mount.
c) despites 1949 armistice agreements, Jordan never permitted Jews to visit the Western Wall.
d) Arafat at Camp David II in 2000 denied to Clinton that a Temple had ever exited on the Temple Mount.

So, either the viewpoint these Islamic clerics are promoting is delusional, fanatic or simply a political perversion of history.  And they should not be getting a 'free ride' to pander their inanities as well as their discriminatory attitudes toward other religions.

And today's Jewish visitors:

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Discussing Yesha

From today's panel at President Peres' Facing Tomorrow 2012: conference on "Border Experts from the Right and Left Debate Israel's Future Borders":-

Former Territorial Brigades Commander of Judea & Samaria Gen. (Ret.) Ilan Paz stated that, in his view, “the demographical threat should dictate Israel’s action over geographical concerns.” Citing a population of more than 4 million in the Palestinian Territories, and the current Israeli population of 49% Jewish, 47% Arab, he claimed that, “by 2015 Jews will be the minority in Israel. This is really the existential threat – and this is the gist of the conflict between the left and the right.”

Caroline Glick, Senior Contributing Editor of the Jerusalem Post and Head of the Israel Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Los Angeles, disagreed with Paz, stating that these figures were highly skewed, and claimed that the demographic future belongs to the Jewish people. She argued that the Jews will still maintain a 2:1 ratio over the Arab population, citing the convergence of fertility rates and the potential mass Aliya (immigration) to Israel. Additionally, when referring to Jerusalem, she maintained that no one can argue that a sole sovereign model is the best solution when it comes to the protection of Israel’s citizens.  “We have seen that sole Palestinian sovereignty –in Gaza- has failed. We have also seen that shared sovereignty in Judea and Samaria does not work. We have fulfilled our international obligation to attempt to reach an agreed reconciliation with the Palestinians. They have made it clear that they are unwilling to make peace with Israel and have shown that they are not interested in a Palestinian State. Instead they have focused their efforts on destroying the Jewish State.” In her opinion, Israeli withdrawal is the worst option and that “Israel belongs to the Jews by law and right and should stop hemming and hawing and just say it and rule it.”

Naftali Bennet, founder of the Yisraelim Party and former Director General of the Yesha Council suggested that the Palestinian Territory should have autonomy but should not be a State, and thus have no army and not be able to accept the influx of Palestinian refugees from the region. He highlighted the importance of not forcefully expelling any citizens from their homes, explaining that the implications of uprooting more than 120,000 additional people in Judea and Samaria is very worrisome. “I urge everyone to go out, walk the land, meet the people and see the life in Judea and Samaria,” he said.  “If we had a Prime Minister like Begin who would apply sovereignty on Judea and Samaria, we would undoubtedly be condemned by the world for a few days but then life would move on.  The world has bigger things on the agenda than Israel – including Greece and Syria. We need to do what’s right for the Jewish State.”

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Improvement at Egged Central Bus Station

A digital schedule alert at every platform.


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Netanyahu's Revenge on Peres?

Informed:-

Due to the recent injury he suffered to his leg, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not be speaking at the closing session of the 2012 Israeli Presidential Conference. Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr. Avigdor Lieberman,  will be speaking in his place.

Or is he getting back at Peter Beinart?

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Deir Yassin That Quiet, Peaceful Village

April 1946:-

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Coming Soon to Jerusalem's Light Rail?

.

(k/t+RH)

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A Matter of Arithmetic

As we now know:  

Israel Promises 300 Units In Exchange For Relocating 5 Homes

I was wondering, if every community, 150 in all, volunteered to yield up 5 buildings, could we all increase our homes by 300?

That would be, um, 45,000 new homes.

And 45,000 times 4.5 household members would come to 202,500 more Jews in Yesha.

Is that good arithmetic?

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Shiloh in...Metro East

Who knew?

Shiloh also is located in "Metro-East".  That is, in Illinois.  USA.

SHILOH, Ill. (KMOV) – Police say an alarming number of break-ins have hit multiple cities in the Metro East over the past couple weeks. Shiloh resident Jim Karwoski said he’d left his garage open when he went inside his home. Minutes later, he heard a clanging noise. “The second time I heard the clanging I came out and seen him,” Karwoski said of the burglar.  “He had his car backed right in here in the garage and I said, ‘Hey.’  When I said hey he just hopped in. He had the engine running. He took off, trunk was open and everything.” Karwoski’s brand new edger, blower and other equipment were gone.

Metro-East isn't as bad as the "West Bank", though.

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Amrousi on Apartheid Roads

Emily Amrousi on those "apartheid roads".  From her

The real apartheid is Palestinian

A well-known radio broadcaster recently told me that, as a 'settler', I am fine and my arguments may also be convincing. The problem, he said, is the "occupation."...He asked me to consider what I would think if I were a Palestinian and someone told me that I could not drive on certain highways.

One can't even begin to confront this claim without starting with the firm truth that there are no apartheid highways here....There are no highways anywhere in Judea and Samaria which Palestinians are forbidden from driving on, but which Jews are allowed to use...if there is such a thing as an "apartheid highway," it would refer to highways closed only to Jews.

About three years ago, the High Court heard two highway-related petitions in just one week. One of the petitions was submitted by Palestinians requesting permission to use the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, #443. The other petition was submitted by Jewish residents requesting permission to use the highway from Talmon, a community near Ramallah, to Jerusalem. Both petitions rested on the principle of freedom of movement. Now, don't fall out of your chairs just yet. The High Court set that the security establishment must allow Palestinians to use highway 443, even if it could endanger Israelis on the road. Yet at the same time, it forbid the defense establishment from allowing Jewish residents to use the short Talmon-Jerusalem highway. Now you should hold on to your chairs: the latter decision was based on the High Court's concern for settlers' safety.

...20,000 other Israelis and I live in absolutely legal residential locations in the western Binyamin region, established with permission from the proper authorities...through the late 1990s, residents in this area could drive on a highway that reached [Jerusalem] in about 20 minutes. But then, terror struck the roads, and some Jewish residents paid with their lives for the drive. The short highway to Jerusalem was closed for security purposes, and instead cars were diverted to a new 60 kilometer (37 miles) spiral road, heading first west, then east and finally south, requiring drivers to pass through three IDF checkpoints before arriving in Jerusalem.

...in 1998 they decided to build a new paved highway from the Talmon area to Jerusalem...the Jewish residents were ready to use the existing highway, but the High Court forbid them from doing so [and]...the new highway was designated for any licensed driver, regardless of license plate color, either Israeli or Palestinian.

Yet this has still not happened and now it appears that it never will. In response to a more recent petition submitted by Yesh Din, a NGO that advocates for human rights, the Civil Administration announced that it had cancelled plans to build an alternative paved highway.

So here are the options: if you are a Jew, take the long road, which is totally geographically illogical. If you are an Arab, take the efficient short road, the one closed to Jewish traffic since the start of the first Intifada in December of 1987. If you want justice, and you were born to a Jewish mother, don't seek it in the Israeli Supreme Court. This, in essence, is the story of apartheid in Judea and Samaria. 　

 

Think about that.

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There Went A 'War'

Yesterday's news reported today:

The New York Times
My Alerts: Palestine
June 20, 2012 12:38 AM
--------------------------------------
West Bank Mosque Is Set Ablaze and Vandalized
By JODI RUDOREN and KHALED ABU AKER
A West Bank mosque was burned and vandalized early on Tuesday, with graffiti warning in Hebrew of a "war" over the impending evacuation of the Jewish settlement of Ulpana.
Full Story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/world/europe/west-bank-mosque-is-set-ablaze-and-vandalized.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Today's news today:

Ulpana residents agree to voluntary evacuation
By TOVAH LAZAROFF
06/20/2012
Outpost residents say agreement preventing forced evacuation comes after PMO pledges to build 300 homes in Beit El settlement.

and

Ulpana residents consent to eviction
Itamar Fleishman
Residents of contested Beit El neighborhood agree to government plan; settlement to get 300 new housing units

Not quite the paper of record.

Operative conclusion: the 'price tag' people were outside agitators and/or provocateurs.

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Hasbara, Then and Now

I attended the YESHA Council Media & Hasbara Conference Monday.

For the historical record, here is what I brought and presented to the ends of the YESHA Council back in 1983 at a meeting Anglo activists initiated with the Council heads at the time.  I am certain, as much as my memory serves me, that Amiel Unger and Marc Zell were also present.  I have repeated this presentation several times and, after 29 years, progress is being achieved.

The document:-

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Low-Intensity Conflict Report #23

Tayar Security Report June 18, 2012

Yehudit Tayar

These reports are translated and publicized by Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron with the clearance and confirmation of the IDF.  Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron is a voluntary emergency medical organization with over 500 volunteer doctors, paramedics, medics who are on call 24/7 and work along with the IDF, 669 IAF Airborn Rescue, the security officers and personal throughout Yesha and the Jordan Valley, and with MDA.

June 18, 2012

Philadelphia passage in the region of Kadesh Barnea terrorist penetrated the area  and set an explosive device which exploded killing one of the workers who was building the security fence.

June 17, 2012

Israeli Navi identified sailing vessel that departed from Gaza and deviated from the sea area that was permitted to sail.  INF (Israeli Naval Forces) arrested 2 suspects,  one of whom showed distress in breathing and was taken by MDA to treat him.

Highway 443 near Bet Horon 2 Arabs car jacked a Toyota Corola from a 27 year old man who was beaten but uninjured.  Israeli police are investigating.

3 Mortar attacks from Gaza landed near Security Fence.

Attempted kidnapping and truck theft near Libne Junction in the Yatir region of the Southern Hevron Hills.  3 Arabs tried to kidnap the driver and in self-defense the driver opened fire.  The driver was moderately injured in the attack. As a result of the attack 2 of the Arabs were killed and 1 injured.

Former Kadima MK Avi Dichter related to the continuous attacks against Jews and Israeli vehicles on the roads of Judea and Samaria by stating, "It is very easy for such situations to deteriorate into terror attacks even when the first intention is criminal.  For example the horrendous murder of the Fogel family that began as a desire to steal and resulted in the murder of the family.  Both the IDF and Israeli police must respond to these threats and prevent them from happening."

June 16, 2012

During the Shabbat 2 missiles fired from Sinai Peninsula landed near Mitzpeh Rimon and the community of Shacharot.

Rock attacks on Jews in Hevron.

During Arab funerals following road accident mobs of Arabs demonstrated inside of the Jewish community of Hevron causing 1 injury.

June 15, 2012

Arabs robbed Israeli truck near Eshkolot in the southern Hebron Hills.  Fortunately, the driver reached the community of Negohot safely.

June 14, 2012

Molotov Cocktail thrown on Israeli vehicle near El Hader on the Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway.

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