The European Union’s Subversion of Israel

 Video of The Week - IDF Officers Slam EU Plan for "Area C" https://tinyurl.com/2rabtu45

 For the full Article by melanie phillips go to https://tinyurl.com/3p25w7tr

Liberal Jews in both the diaspora and Israel have been hyperventilating over the “extremist” ministers in the incoming government headed by Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.  These are the rabble-rouser Itamar Ben-Gvir, the theocrat Bezalel Smotrich and the ultra-socially conservative Avi Maoz.

With Netanyahu insisting that he will keep these three on a short leash, the rational position is to judge this government on what it actually does rather than wildly denouncing these men on the basis of their previous behaviour.

But are liberal Jews capable of anything other than hysteria when it comes to people they have damned as beyond the pale of humanity itself? Are they able to judge these individuals in accordance with demonstrable evidence?  Take, for example, Smotrich. He opposes a Palestinian state, maintains that only Israel is entitled to settle in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria and claims that the Palestinian Arab agenda is to drive the Jews from the land. He has accordingly been accused of supporting an illegal land grab and anathematised as a Nazi.  Yet now information has surfaced that shows Smotrich is all too correct about the Arab strategy in the disputed territories — and that this strategy is being promoted by the very sort of people who denounce him as an extremist.

Earlier this week, Israel’s Channel 13 revealed that a document drafted by the European Commission in eastern Jerusalem proposed helping the Palestinian Authority secretly take control of land in Area C — which is supposed to be under full Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords — and suggested using left-wing NGOs in Israel for this purpose.  The document, probably drafted in June, said the EU should map the land to “prove” Palestinian Arab rights in the disputed territories, as well as violate local land-planning law, without leaving any trace of its activities.  The document also called for “following and monitoring Israeli archaeological activity in the area,” claiming that this was being used as a pretext for settlement building in Judea and Samaria.

What this really means is that the EU wants to stop these excavations because they are consistently uncovering indisputable archaeological proof that the Jews are the indigenous people of the land.  By saying it wants to “prove” Palestinian rights to the land, the EU revealed its true intention: to fabricate an entitlement that doesn’t exist. The only people with a legal, historical and moral claim to the land are the Jews. But the most important thing the EU document revealed is the sustained attempt by the Palestinian Authority and the EU to erase that unique Jewish claim via illegal construction.

As the Gush Etzion Council Head and Chairman of the Yesha Council Shlomo Ne’eman said: “Every week the State of Israel loses large areas, every day dozens of illegal homes are erected, roads are broken up and paved at significant points as part of an organised strategic plan. European governments are actively working to revise the borders of our country. In years past, this would be grounds for wars between nations.”  For his part, Smotrich said: “The blatant involvement of the European Union in the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to establish facts on the ground and unilaterally establish a de facto Arab terrorist state in the heart of the Land of Israel is unacceptable, contrary to international law and incompatible with basic rules of diplomacy in relations between states.”

Who could argue with that? He is correct.

The EU has been caught bang to rights. While liberals scream that Smotrich is intent upon illegal “annexation,” it’s actually the EU and the Palestinian Arabs who are stealing land to which the Arabs have no entitlement.

As the international lawyer Professor Eugene Kontorovich has observed, the Palestinian Authority and the EU are rapidly annexing areas surrounding Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria. “The proposed policies of the [prospective Benjamin Netanyahu-led] coalition in Area C are not about changing the status quo — they are the bare minimum to preserve it,” he said.

Yet none of this is news to those who have been paying attention. The NGO Regavim has been raising the alarm over this for years. It has also been warning of similar activity in the Negev, with the spread of illegal Bedouin settlement and associated lawlessness, including the systematic theft of IDF weapons and ammunition. This too is being funded and encouraged by the EU. Last February, Alan Baker, a former legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, wrote for the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs that an EU directive to mobilise and activate “national and international stakeholders through ad-hoc influencing actions on land rights to challenge the Israeli planning and permit regime in Area C” was deliberately encouraging the Palestinians to defy and undermine Israel’s authority there, which runs counter to the Oslo Accords.  “The EU cannot maintain the status of ‘witness’ to the Oslo Accords while at the same time systematically undermining those Accords and encouraging the Palestinians to violate them,” Baker wrote.

The implications are astounding. The EU is in effect helping the Palestinians build a state in Judea and Samaria. It is also helping the Bedouin illegally carve up the Negev in a further dire threat to Israel’s security.  Yet few have paid this any attention. Israeli governments have ignored it because they have chosen not to open up yet another front against the western diplomatic consensus. And that consensus dismisses as a “right-wing extremist” anyone who has the audacity to suggest — entirely correctly — that the Arabs have no legal rights to any of this land.

Indeed, a principal reason Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have gained power is that so many Israelis are utterly appalled at the way successive governments — including those led by Netanyahu — have ignored this growing threat to Israel.

Now this is out in the open. The EU can no longer pretend it is merely contributing to Palestinian “civil society”. Yet even now, there is no mention of any of this by the western mainstream media. In Britain, the BBC has instead been busily fomenting yet more anti-Israel feeling by telling its audience that Netanyahu has finalised “the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history”.

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“Chanukah Comes Early This Year”

Video Of The Week - Coins Found from Time of Maccabean Revolt - https://tinyurl.com/ftzw7ayx

For the full article By JOTAM CONFINO IN ISRAEL go to https://tinyurl.com/yckhj9rw

 Israeli researchers have made a remarkable and timely discovery in the Judean Desert. Just days before the festival of Chanukah, they have unearthed a wooden box containing 15 silver coins, dating to the time of the Maccabean revolt.

 The precious items, found in a crack in the Muraba‘at Cave in the Darageh Stream Nature Reserve, were buried some 2,200 years ago. The upper part of the box was full of packed earth and small stones and underneath was a piece of purple woolen cloth covering the 15 silver coins arranged with pieces of sheep’s wool.

According to Dr. Eitan Klein, who studied the coins, it’s likely that people hid their possessions in the Judean desert until a certain danger was gone, such as those detailed in the Books of the Maccabees.

 Among the dangers for Jews at the time was the plundering of the Jerusalem Temple treasures by Antiochos Epiphanes IV (“The Wicked”) who reigned the Seleucid Kingdom, including Judea.

 Other threatening incidents to Jews that could have led to the coins being hidden were the destruction of the Jerusalem city wall in the years that led up to the Hasmonean Revolt, or the religious decrees imposed on the Jews in 167 BCE.

 Antiochos IV, who was the uncle of Ptolemy VI reigned who reigned over Egypt, launched a campaign of repression against Jews, which led to the Maccabean Revolt.

 The coin hoard has since been researched, and it will be exhibited to the public over Hannukah in the Hasmonean Museum in Modi‘in, in the context of Israel Heritage Week that takes place on Hannukah.

 “It is interesting to try to visualise the person who fled to the cave and hid his personal property here intending to return to collect it. The person was probably killed in the battles, and he did not return to collect his possessions that awaited almost 2,200 years until we retrieved it. This is an absolutely unique find, presented the first clear archaeological evidence that the Judean Desert caves played an active role as the stage of the activities of the Jewish rebels or the fugitives in the early days of the Maccabean Revolt, or the events that led up to them,” Dr. Klein said.

 Amir Ganor, Director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority said that the excavations carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Judean Desert over the past six years has “proved itself, in that thousands of archaeological artifacts have been saved from destruction and plundering, including parts of biblical scrolls, arrowheads from the Bar Kochba Revolt, a 10,500-year-old basket, and more.”

 The silver coins were excavated in May, and have been researched since. They will be exhibited to the public over Hannukah in the Hasmonean Museum in Modi‘in, in the context of Israel Heritage Week.

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Azerbaijan Seeks Closer Ties With Israel

 Video Of The Week -Azerbaijan’s Unique Position between Israel & Iran - https://tinyurl.com/yc7ebtnp

For the full article by Calev Ben-David go to https://tinyurl.com/yy3k3awd

'It's the next logical step. For centuries a relationship existed between Jewish and Azeri people'

The next Muslim nation to open an embassy in Israel isn’t one connected to the landmark Abraham Accords, which saw the Jewish state normalize ties with a handful of Arab states – it will be the central Asian country of Azerbaijan.

Jerusalem already has an embassy in the Azeri capital of Baku, but despite having ties with Israel for three decades, Azerbaijan, a Shiite-Muslim majority nation that borders Iran, has not reciprocated – until now. Last month, its government announced that it would soon open an embassy in Israel’s coastal city of Tel Aviv, and last week its President Ilham Aliyev signed an order to make that happen.

But why now? 

“First of all, it's the logical next step in our bilateral relations," said Dr. Farid Shafiyev, chairman of the Center of Analysis of International Relations. "We have quite wide economic and military ties, and we have a Jewish diaspora – for centuries a relationship existed between Jewish and Azeri people. So there is a certain agenda between the two countries," the Azeri expert told i24NEWS.

a trade office in Tel Aviv in 2021 and a tourism office earlier this year, and last month, Israel's outgoing Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Aliyev in the central Asian country. The embassy in Tel Aviv will be the first embassy in Israel of a nation with a Shiite majority population and a Shiite government.

“Right now, we have to look at the geopolitical situation," Shafiyev continued. "Azerbaijan was thinking of opening an embassy in Israel to reciprocate the diplomatic relationship, but it’s also related to the Israel-Arab relationship as the Abraham Accords are developing.”

“Another important factor is that Azerbaijan managed to liberate its territories from Armenian occupation. Before that, it was difficult to do this step. And the relationship between Iran and Azerbaijan is at its lowest point. All these factors contributed to this decision.”

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Commemorating The Jewish Nakba

Video Of The Week “75 years Self-Inflicted Arab Tragedy” https://tinyurl.com/yc233mjj

 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?

 

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“Arab Bombings Return to Jerusalem Streets”

 Video Of The Week - UN's Continuing Campaign against Israel over Judea and Samaria - https://tinyurl.com/5n96fxuv                 

For the full article from JNS, by Yaakov Lappin - https://tinyurl.com/yvbsxndv

Wednesday’s double terror bombing in Jerusalem sent shock waves throughout the State of Israel because it was a different style of attack than the one Israelis have, sadly, grown accustomed to seeing since March this year, when the latest escalation began.

Unlike the individual or small groups of terrorists who, acting on radical ideology and incitement to violence, picked up a gun, a knife, or embarked on a car-ramming attack, this time a better organized terrorist cell detonated two bombs—apparently by remote control—at bus stops in the capital.

Police and the Shin Bet have exhausted their immediate physical searches, and the hunt for the perpetrators will now move to the intelligence front.

Meanwhile, security personnel will be working around the clock to prevent the next bombing, scanning buses and bus stops in the city and trying to figure out how terrorists were able to make their way to western Jerusalem.

It is too soon to know who or which organization conducted the attack, but it is possible to note that in recent years, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has taken a lead in remote-control bombing terrorism.

Col. (res.). Michael Milshtein, a former adviser on Palestinian affairs to the Israeli Defence Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit and a former head of the Department for Palestinians Affairs in the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, said during a call organized by Media Central that despite the fact that the Second Intifada (2000-2005) saw many more attacks and casualties, “this time we and the Palestinians are much more concerned about the results of this wave of escalation—this is a result of the fact that this wave of escalation reflects deeper developments in the Palestinian arena and in the relations between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Milstein pointed to the “rise of the Z generation in the Palestinian arena, the young generation,” which he noted has been behind “most of the terrorism in the Samaria area, in Nablus and Jenin. Groups of younger Palestinians, most of them born around the year 2000. Most of them have no relations with the P.A. [Palestinian Authority] or even Fatah. Most feel deep alienation towards the P.A.,” he said.

With the Palestinian Authority losing its grip in parts of Samaria to armed terror gangs, and the image of the P.A. at an all-time low among Palestinians, in no small part due to corruption, nepotism and its violation of human rights, Milstein said, the current situation does not look promising.

Israel has a broad set of military measures it can call upon to confront terrorism, but one tool that it has also relied upon for the past 15 years to boost stability—economic easements for Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria, commonly known in the West Bank, seems to be losing its effectiveness.

All this amounts to a continued deterioration of the security situation. Although the resilience of the Israeli people and the great capabilities of the Israeli security forces will continue to provide a resolute response to terrorism, challenging times could lie ahead.

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FBI Has a Double Standard

Video Of The Week - Iran Stirs Violence in Samaria - the Heart of Israel - https://tinyurl.com/mwc54b

 For the full article by Lahav Harkov from the JP go to - https://tinyurl.com/bdhm429k

 Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” poster, which can be viewed on the FBI website, describes her as “charged with participating in an August 9, 2001 suicide bomb attack at a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including two United States nationals. Four other United States nationals were among approximately 122 others injured in the attack,” the site reads. “Should be considered armed and dangerous.”

 The FBI poster asks for tips and offers a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Tamimi’s arrest.  Here’s a tip: She’s in Jordan, hosting a talk show on Hamas TV. Tamimi’s whereabouts have been long known – she’s on TV, not exactly hiding – but Jordan refuses to extradite her. Despite an ongoing campaign by the family of one of the Sbarro attack victims, Malki Roth, which has received significant attention in Jewish media and Israeli media in English, Washington has not done much to press Jordan on the matter. There’s no indication the Biden administration has done anything at all.

Which brings us to the extraordinary lengths to which Washington seems willing to go for Palestinian Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, a US citizen who was killed in an exchange of fire between Israel and Palestinian terrorists in May.

Israel was initially unable to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident because the Palestinian Authority, which insisted along with Abu Akleh’s family that the IDF assassinated her, refused to hand over any evidence from the scene. Eventually, and following US pressure, the PA handed over the bullet. The Israeli examination of the bullet was conducted together with US investigators and Israel was fully transparent with the US about all elements of the probe. In September, the IDF said it found that Abu Akleh was likely unintentionally shot by an Israeli soldier in an exchange of fire with Palestinian terrorists, but that there was no conclusive evidence.  At the time, the US continued to say it expects transparency, but didn’t announce next steps. Dissatisfied with the result, the Abu Akleh family began lobbying sympathetic politicians, along with the State Department.

 This week, the US Department of Justice notified its Israeli counterpart that the FBI would be conducting its own investigation. This seems to be an unprecedented situation, in which the US officially considers a democratic ally to have an independent judiciary capable of investigating and prosecuting its own soldiers when need be – after all, it supports that argument when it’s made against International Criminal Court involvement – and is proceeding with an FBI investigation against that ally’s wishes after the ally’s probe reached its own conclusions.

This apparently accidental, but still tragic, death of a US citizen seems to warrant special attention that an intentional terrorist bombing with several American victims does not. And, of course, the Sbarro attack is just one example – chosen because of the Roth family’s extensive lobbying efforts that arguably go beyond that of the Abu Aklehs – but there are 49 US citizens, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, that have been murdered by Palestinians since then. The FBI doesn’t seem to have done much to get justice for them, either.

Since Washington has not given an explanation, what’s left is to speculate.  What is behind Washington's double standard?

Some have talked about it being a shot across the bow to prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu as he’s expected to form a far-right government, though Washington is expressing dissatisfaction at events that occurred under a government to the left of Netanyahu.

US Senator Ted Cruz certainly sees it that way, saying the FBI investigation “underscores how corrupt and blatantly politicized the Justice Department has become, and how entirely beholden to the radical left-wing Squad Democrats really are. These lawmakers, which include Reps. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), pressured the DOJ for months to investigate the Abu Akleh shooting. This administration has spent its time in office weaponizing the DOJ to target their political enemies as a matter of policy, and now they have allowed that tactic to bleed into their obsession with undermining our Israeli allies.”

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UN Commission of Inquiry - Masterpiece of Modern Antisemitism

Video Of The Week - UN- Elephant In The Room -  https://tinyurl.com/f6b425d6

New UN Commission of Inquiry - Masterpiece of Modern Antisemitism

 For the full Article by Prof. Anne Bayefsky  go to  https://tinyurl.com/y87evzu9

Guilty of Nazi-like crimes. That’s the verdict of a United Nations “Commission of Inquiry” on Israel that was created by the UN Human Rights Council to commit the Nazi-like crime of demonizing and destroying the Jewish state. Archetypal moral inversion.

Not one Western democracy voted to create the “inquiry,”. Only 30% of the Human Rights Council members are democracies; Islamic states hold the balance of power, and its members include such human rights luminaries as China, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Venezuela.

All three members of the “inquiry” had already declared Israel guilty of the crimes they were charged to investigate. Member Chris Sidoti dismissed Jewish claims of discrimination with the retort that “accusations of anti-Semitism are thrown around like rice at a wedding.” Member Miloon Kothari claimed that “the Jewish lobby” and its money controlled social media and the inquiry’s bad press. He also suggested kicking Israel out of the UN. The Chair of the “inquiry,” Navi Pillay unleashed a self-serving defense of her colleagues’ appalling behavior. She herself  is a pusher of “the extremist Israel lobby” canard, the “apartheid Israel” slander, and BDS.

UN authorities did not remove them from office ,even though they had violated the UN rules of impartiality, objectivity and personal integrity – but that’s why they were chosen in the first place.

The  “inquiry”“ call for submissions” claimed they wanted specifics about victims of “systematic discrimination and repression” as well as “underlying root causes” of the conflict.

The report is sprinkled with undated, unsigned, anonymous accusations accompanied by no evidence against Jews. In contrast, submissions were made  with carefully documented photos, videos, statements, names and statistical evidence relating to Jewish victims of “systematic discrimination and repression” by Palestinians and other Arab perpetrators. However, these submissions were ignored apparently even before being read. Addressing the submissions at a UN news conference, Pillay declared “I’ve not seen them” and “all of them would be pro-Israel.”

Subsequently, additional submissions were made, specifying 5,875 attacks by Palestinians and their collaborators, six Arab wars against Israel and eight defensive Israeli military operations in response to Arab aggression. In light of the latest “inquiry” report, we now know that those submissions were also trashed, demonstrating that the UN “investigation” is phony. Instead, the report has sixty-five “citations” from eighteen organizations that trash-talks Israel and nothing from a single participating so-called “pro-Israel” NGO or “stakeholder” sees the light of day.

The shameless prejudice of the report - of an inquiry billed as discerning “all underlying root causes” of the conflict – is dramatically illustrated by the statement that it is only about “the human rights implications for Palestinians.” Not any “human rights” of Jewish Israelis.

The report’s declarations of Israeli human rights violations run wild. Among them, Palestinian females are mistreated by Israeli male who  are also at fault for Palestinian women hygienic issues when menstruating. The silence on honor killings, discriminatory laws, and rampant domestic violence by abusive Palestinian men in their own inequitable society, is deafening.

Also missing in action? The word “terrorism” is nowhere to be found. Palestinian perpetrators have vanished. Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad never appear.

The report advocates that Israelis be hunted down, prosecuted and jailed for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court – for the Nazi-like crimes of “persecution” and the “transfer of populations” (knowing full well that the latter meant transfer to the death camps).

On the other hand, they couldn’t name a single Palestinian crime worth prosecuting.

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“Karish becomes Olympus”

Video Of The Week -“Lebanon-Israel Maritime Gas Deal”- https://tinyurl.com/ynwh3zp7

 For the full article by Zachy Hennessey, from JP, go to - https://tinyurl.com/4a6msjxm

 Energean PLC has announced a new commercial natural gas discovery of 13 billion cubic meters off the shore of Israel as a result of its exploratory drilling well dubbed Zeus-1. It has also confirmed the presence of an additional 3.75 bcm at its Athena site. 

These discoveries have confirmed the company’s suspicions that the so-called “Olympus area” located between the Karish and Tanin gas fields are both voluminous and commercially viable.

“Following the start of production from our Karish reservoir last week, I am pleased that our drilling program, which has now delivered five successful wells from five, continues to deliver value, ensuring security of supply and energy competition across the region.”

Bounty of Israeli gas in Olympus area

The company is now plotting its next steps toward capitalizing on the area’s bounty and expects to update the market on the total resource volumes within the Olympus area, taking into account the uplifted volumes in both Zeus and Athena, in early 2023.

 “Following the start of production from our Karish reservoir last week, I am pleased that our drilling program, which has now delivered five successful wells from five, continues to deliver value, ensuring security of supply and energy competition across the region,” said Mathios Rigas, CEO of Energean.

“We are evaluating a number of potential commercialization options for the Olympus area that leverage both new and our existing, unique Med-based infrastructure, and we expect to commit to a development concept in 1H 2023,” he said.

Future drilling sites off Israel's coast

In addition, Energean has moved its Stena IceMax drilling rig in order to begin drilling at its Hercules drilling site, the final well in its 2022 drilling campaign.

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Nablus, Hub of The Terror Triangle

Video Of The Week - Into the "Lions’ Den” - https://tinyurl.com/m9c2svhx 

The Terror Triangle: What You Need to Know About the West Bank City of Nablus

Akiva Van Koningsveld, HonestReporting.

 For the full Article go to - https://tinyurl.com/yjket6t9

An elite Israel Defense Forces soldier died on October 12 after being shot near the community of Shavei Shomron in the northern West Bank. Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch, 21, was attacked by gunmen who opened fire from a passing vehicle as his unit was “conducting operational security activity in the area,” the IDF said. 

A relatively unknown Palestinian armed faction operating out of the nearby city of Nablus, the Lion’s Den, soon claimed responsibility for the killing of Baruch, warning Israel that “the volcano of our operations has begun and only God will extinguish it.”  Tuesday’s deadly shooting was the latest in a string of recent attacks carried out by terrorists from Nablus that targeted Israeli security forces and civilians. On October 2, the Lion’s Den in two separate West Bank shootings injured an Israeli taxi driver and a soldier. 

Nablus (identified with the ancient Jewish city of Shechem) is home to about 150,000 people, making it the second-largest locality under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction.  Nablus’ history as a hub for anti-Jewish terrorist activity far predates the founding of the modern State of Israel. In a 1921 report, a British Mandate official already denounced the Nabulsi attitude as “fanatic” and “bigoted,” citing, in particular, the city’s “hostility to the Jews.” Notably, the bloody Arab riots of 1936-39 were in part triggered by the slaying of two Jewish men near Nablus at the hands of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam supporters.

Soon after the attack, on April 20, 1936, the Arab National Committee of Nablus declared a general strike and boycott of Jewish goods, a call heeded by Arabs throughout the Mandate’s territory. During the six-month strike, some eighty Jews were murdered in terror acts, with a total of 415 Jewish deaths recorded during the entire 1936-1939 Arab Revolt period.  Together with Jenin and Tulkarem, Nablus comprised what London at the time dubbed the “Triangle of Terror” or “Triangle of Fear.”

When Palestinian arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat set up Fatah terror cells in the West Bank after the Arab armies’ ’67 defeat, he chose Nablus as the location for his first secret headquarters, before relocating to Ramallah.  Some of the most horrific terror attacks during the Second Intifada (2000-2005) were likewise carried out by Nablus residents, including a December 2, 2001, bombing of a Haifa bus that killed 15 Israelis and injured 40. The day after the attack, thousands of Hamas followers marched through Nablus in support of suicide bomber Maher Habashi.  The explosive belts used in the March 2002 Passover massacre (30 dead) were also produced by Hamas in Nablus.

During Operation Defensive Shield (March-May 2002), IDF troops uncovered hundreds of rifles and improvised firearms in Nablus, in addition to 18 explosives laboratories and a factory producing Qassam rockets.

Fast forward 20 years, the successes of Operation Defensive Shield have apparently been undone, and Nablus’ reputation as an epicenter for Palestinian terror has been firmly re-established.  Nablus initially resurfaced in the international press on February 8, 2022, after IDF forces neutralized three Palestinians during an operation in the al-Makhfiya neighborhood. Israeli officials said the targets belonged to a terror cell that had conducted shooting attacks against Israeli military positions and personnel.

Six months later, following a Palestinian terror wave that left 19 Israelis dead, Israeli troops during a raid killed Ibrahim/ Nabulsi, the fourth member of the cell suspected of being a commander of the terror group’s Nablus brigade. Nabulsi was wanted for numerous attacks in the West Bank, including shooting attacks against Jewish worshippers visiting Joseph’s Tomb just outside of Nablus.  After Nabulsi’s death, a cadre of young Palestinian terrorists took it upon themselves to carry on his violent legacy. This summer, Ibrahim Nabulsi helped found a new coalition of armed groups modeled after the Jenin Battalion; Areen al-Usood (the Lion’s Den). According to Israeli data, the number of drive-by shootings targeting Israeli military positions near Nablus has more than doubled since 2021.

The Lion’s Den has also attacked civilians, for instance by firing at the Jewish community of Har Bracha, located south of the Palestinian city. On September 9, Israeli security forces thwarted a large-scale attack in Tel Aviv, arresting an operative linked to the Nablus group. All in all, the group is estimated to consist of some 100 Palestinians under the age of 30. Although the alliance includes members of Fatah, PIJ, Hamas and the PFLP, it has no clear affiliation with any specific terror organization.

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Lord Levy is Wrong

Video Of The Week -Agricultural Innovations in Israel - https://tinyurl.com/mr3pf8fw                                            

His arguments against moving the UK embassy to Jerusalem will aid Israel's foes 

For the full article by Melanie Phillips go to: https://tinyurl.com/yc7kns9y

Anglo jaws collectively dropped to the floor upon reading an opinion    piece in The  Times of Friday 14th October. Lord Levy  is a British Jewish philanthropist and long-standing member of the Labour party, whose stellar fund-raising efforts earned him a peerage bestowed by Labour’s former leader (and Levy’s former tennis partner) Sir Tony Blair. Every single one of Levy’s arguments  are  misguided, ill-judged or flat-out wrong.

1'’The longstanding principle of Jerusalem’s status needing to be determined in a negotiated settlement”. This is a  wilful error. The principle in question was enshrined in the 1947 UN resolution proposing a division of Palestine between an Arab and a Jewish state, and which designated Jerusalem as a corpus separatum to be administered by the UN. Since the entire Partition Plan was rejected by the Arabs, however, it was never implemented and all its proposals were rendered void.

2 “Pouring fuel on the fire is highly irresponsible”. What fire? Despite global predictions of a Middle East conflagration if Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, not only did this not happen but the historic Abraham Accords were signed between Israel and the Gulf states.

3“How does this benefit Britain in the world?” This is shallow and blinkered. Liz Truss has cemented a solid trading and friendship relationship with Israel. Her unambiguous acceptance of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital marks out her government as defying the poisonous anti-Israel consensus among other western countries. Given the importance to Britain of access to Israeli high-tech know-how, intelligence and security links, the proposed embassy move is patently in Britain’s national interest.

4: “All Arab ambassadors, including those representing states that have normalised relations with Israel, have expressed their opposition.” Exactly  the same happened when Trump moved the US embassy, which ignited furious  opposition across the Arab and Muslim world. Two years afterwards came the Abraham Accords.

5 The most egregiously false and incendiary of Levy’s assertions was his suggestion that, by moving the embassy, the UK would be conniving at Israel’s defiance of  “international legality”, “the UN charter”, the “inadmissibility of territorial acquisition” and “annexation by force”.But Israel is guilty of none of these things, which are all canards promulgated by its enemies.The international lawyer Professor Eugene Kontorovich has written, the key doctrine under international law that determines the borders of a state is uti possidetis juris (“as you possess under law”). According to this principle, Israel’s borders at the moment of independence were the borders of Mandatory Palestine — which included all of Jerusalem as well as Judea and Samaria. Kontorovich wrote “The UN, in its thousands of resolutions to the contrary, flagrantly ignores that principle.”

6 “The heads of the youth movements have strongly denounced the move. They are the future leadership of the Jewish community and should be listened to carefully. “If that is indeed so, then Britain’s Jewish community should be seriously alarmed that its young people are so catastrophically ill-informed about Israel, Jewish history and the Jewish people.

7 “A Trump-style UK relocation would be bad for peace.” But Trump’s relocation of the US embassy was followed by the Abraham Accords, the biggest advance for peace in the Middle East over the past century. Moving the UK embassy would also advance peace by signalling an end to Britain’s shameful century-old capitulation to Palestinian Arab lies and blackmail — a principal source of encouragement for Palestinian Arab rejectionism and violence. By publishing these views in The Times, Levy has in fact spoken for and reinforced Israel’s enemies.

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Why a Two-State Solution Won't Work

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For the full Article by Dore Gold, go to https://tinyurl.com/3bxn6ht4

Prime Minister Yair Lapid's support for the “two-state solution” during his UN General Assembly address re-opened the Israeli debate over the merits of this policy. It was never a part of the key documents that provided the diplomatic basis for the Arab-Israeli peace process in the past.

It sounds fair but however it sounds, the two-state solution is not drawn from binding legal commitments made by Israel in the past.

 

In October 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave his final address to the Knesset weeks before he was assassinated. In the speech, he outlined the components of a final peace settlement with the Palestinians. He did not make any reference 1o the two-state solution. His backing of Palestinian statehood by itself was at best lukewarm. He spoke only about an entity which was “less than a state.”

 

Another problem with the terminology of the two-state solution is the expectation that if the Palestinians' grievances are fully addressed and resolved, the wider Arab-Israel conflict will come to an end. Diplomats embraced the “two-state solution” as a kind of magic key that would solve the Arab-Israel conflict. There is no indication that this was ever true.

 

If the considerations of the Palestinian Arabs were paramount for the Arab world, then why wasn't a Palestinian state established in Judea and Samaria when the Arab world had the chance because it already held those areas?The Palestinian Arabs tried briefly to set up a mini- state in the Gaza Strip, known as the All-Palestine Government, but it never acquired wider backing through international recognition.

 

Israel needs to design an approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that keeps in mind the true dimensions of the wider conflict. The Arab-Israel conflict has resembled an accordion that can expand or contract according to international circumstances.Today there is a risk that if the two- state solution becomes popularized again,Israel will come under rising international pressures to adhere to its terms, even if they do not apply. It risks stripping Israel of its right to secure boundaries which is an integral part of Resolution 242.

 

What recent events demonstrate is that a very different Middle East has arisen. Diplomacy remains vital in this new period, but i1 will only yield results if it addresses the vital interests of the parties. That is the lesson of the Abraham Accords, which produced four normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states.The two-state solution is just a nice-sounding mantra that will lead diplomats off course. This should be the message of the State of Israel the next time an Israeli prime minister addresses the UN General Assembly.

 

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