An Ancient Spoon stirs Mischief against Israel

Video Of The Week - 2022 the Deadliest Year for Palestinians? https://tinyurl.com/4hnu5mcu

For the full article by Melanie Philips go to - https://tinyurl.com/yh4j7fdf

An ostensibly minor incident a few days ago has provided devastating evidence of the brainwashed malevolence within the Biden administration towards not just Israel but the Jewish people.  In a ceremony at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Bethlehem, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm delivered to the Palestinian Authority a 2,700-year-old spoon dating from the Assyrian empire.

The Assyrians, an ancient people that first emerged around 2000 BCE in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), developed a vast empire that included much of the Middle East, including Egypt, Babylonia, Israel and Cyprus. It finally collapsed around 600 BCE. The spoon, which is thought to have been used to load incense onto fires during rites dedicated to the Assyrian gods and the dead, was seized from the Jewish-American billionaire Michael Steinhardt as part of a criminal probe in New York. In a deal he struck to avoid prosecution, Steinhardt agreed in 2021 to turn over $70 million worth of stolen antiquities that the authorities claim were illegally acquired in Israel.

Ivan J. Arvelo, a special agent in charge of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations in New York, described the transfer of the spoon to the PA as “the historic repatriation” of the artefact. In a similar effusive vein, George Noll, head of the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, called the spoon “an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony”.  Another DHS official, Jeff Brannigan, declared, “This repatriation is representative of HSI’s commitment to ensuring the storied heritages of peoples around the world through the preservation and protection of cultural artefacts.”

This is all utter garbage. It was not an act of repatriation, because the spoon never belonged to the “cultural patrimony” or “storied heritage” of a Palestinian people. There was no “Palestinian people” in antiquity.  The “Palestinian people” didn’t exist at all until it was invented in the 1960s in a strategy to destroy Israel cooked up by Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian-born head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in cahoots with the Soviet Union.

During the 1920s and 1930s, many of the Arabs who were the 20th-century ancestors of today’s “Palestinians” poured into what is now Israel and the disputed territories from neighbouring Arab states in pursuit of the prosperity they believed would result from the return of the Jews to their ancestral Jewish homeland.  Despite this, the “Palestinians” have gone to laughable lengths to assert that they were the original inhabitants of the land. For example, they have claimed to be descended from the Philistines — who were in fact ancient Greeks.

So why is the US, which claims to be Israel’s staunch ally, giving credence to a false Palestinian identity created to write the Jews out of their own history?  The Biden administration’s sympathy with the Palestinians is well documented. It has persistently refused to call them to account for their murderous aggression and incitement. It continues to fund them regardless of their “pay-for-slay” rewards to terrorists’ families. It forces Israel to undermine its own security in pursuit of a “two-state solution” that the Palestinian Arabs have refused for almost a century.

But what the Assyrian spoon transfer reveals is that the Palestinian Big Lie is being promoted as truth by none other than the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after 9/11 to protect America against terrorist attacks. Far from being a key link in the chain of western security, the DHS has internalised the fiction about Palestinian identity that is promoted as a principal weapon in the war of extermination against Israel — and is in turn the flag behind which march the Islamist foes of the west.

Noll said of the spoon transfer, “This is a historic moment between the American and Palestinian people and a demonstration of our belief in the power of cultural exchanges in building mutual understanding, respect and partnership.”  It was certainly a historic moment. What it demonstrated, however, was that the Biden administration is a far more profound foe of Israel and the Jews than most people have yet realised.

VIEW OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRITISHISRAELGROUP.WEEBLY.COM

What is the Temple Mount ‘Status Quo’?

Video Of The Week - "Temple Mount UNtruth" -https://tinyurl.com/mruz59xh

For the full article “Israel Today” by Lt. Col. (Res) Maurice Hirsch- https://tinyurl.com/58d4pby8

Secret documents released by the Israeli archives expose the real “status quo” instituted in 1967.

The current status quo on the Temple Mount was the decision of one man, and largely contradicts what the Muslims themselves acknowledged just 100 years ago regarding the Jewish connection to the holy site. 

(JNS) On June 17, 1967, 55 years ago last Friday, then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan made one of the most fateful decisions in the history of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Just days after the end of the Six-Day War, Dayan agreed to establish a new “status quo” for the Temple Mount. Fearing open discussion of the decision, Dayan’s agreement was not positively ratified by the government of the day—or by any government since.

The Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site. It is the biblical Mount Moriah, where Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac. It is the site at which King Solomon built the first Jewish Temple, destroyed in 586 BCE. It is the site at which the Jews, 70 years later, built the Second Temple. As a pamphlet for tourists published in 1924 by the Supreme Muslim Council openly declares:

“This site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest (perhaps from pre-historic) times. Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute”.

The Temple Mount is also holy to Muslims, who refer to it as Al-Haram Al-Sharif (“The Noble Sanctuary”). The Muslims added two dominant structures to the site: The Dome of the Rock, built in 691 CE, that stands in the middle of the mount, directly over the ruins of the inner sanctuaries of the two temples; and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built in 693 CE, in the southwestern corner of the mount.

In the 1990s, the Waqf excavated the area known as “Solomon’s Stables,” turning it into a new mosque, referred to as the El-Marwani Mosque. It is located 12 meters (40 feet) below the current courtyard; the Supreme Muslim Council pamphlet notes that the area of the Stables “dates probably as far back as the construction of Solomon’s Temple. According to Josephus, it was in existence and was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 AD” It was Titus who destroyed the Second Temple.

COMPELLING TESTIMONY: The Supreme Muslim Council admits that the Temple Mount is deeply connected to Jewish history.

After Israel liberated Jerusalem and the Temple Mount from Jordan, which had illegally occupied it from 1948 to 1967, a decision needed to be made regarding access to the site.

Seeking to placate the Muslims after their unequivocal defeat, Dayan offered the Jordanian Waqf control of activities within the walls of the mount itself, while Israel would be responsible for external security and public order. Dayan further conceded that Muslims would be granted free access to the site, and that while there would be no limitations on the number of Jews entering the mount, they would not be allowed to pray there.

The argument has been made that in ceding the internal activities on the mount to the Waqf, Dayan sought to neutralize the religious ingredient of the Israeli-Arab conflict. However, secret documents released by the Israeli archives and reviewed by Palestinian Media Watch expose the authentic and official “status quo” instituted in 1967.

For certain periods, the Temple Mount was entirely closed to Jews, predominantly during and after bouts of Arab violence and terror. In contrast, the site is almost never closed to Muslims, except in exceptional circumstances, such as in July 2017, when the mount was closed for a few days after terrorists murdered two Israeli policemen there.

While no Israeli government ever ratified Dayan’s agreement, to this day, the “status quo” on the Temple Mount is that the internal part of the site is run by the Waqf and Israel is responsible for the external security and maintaining public order. Muslims are allowed to freely visit the site, in unlimited numbers, subject to fine-tuning to take into account safety and security precautions. Jews are only permitted to enter the site for limited hours of the day, and in limited numbers, and are mostly not allowed to conduct individual or communal prayers.

Since its creation, the Palestinian Authority has continuously and consistently used the Temple Mount as a means to inflame religious fervor and as a rallying call for violence and terror. Repeatedly claiming that Israel is planning to destroy the “Al-Aqsa Mosque,” which it deceptively defines as being 144 dunams (36 acres) in area—ie. the entire area of the Temple Mount—the PA misleads the Palestinians, and indeed the entire Muslim world, into falsely believing that “Al-Aqsa is in danger.”

While documents and 55 years of reality clearly demonstrate that Israel has no intention to even undermine, let alone destroy, any part of the site, the PA still claims, as shown by PMW, that “Since the June War (ie., the Six-Day War in 1967)—we are talking about its 55th anniversary—there are [Israeli] intentions to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged Temple” (Official PA TV, June 6, 2022).

For the PA, which has no say whatsoever regarding the manner in which the site is run, allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount would be tantamount to declaring World War III. Similar empty rantings were also made by the PA before the United States moved its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.

A lot has changed since 1967. Over the past few decades, most western societies have developed and adopted a much more heightened sense of personal freedoms and rights, including freedom of religion. The idea that the decision of one person alone—Moshe Dayan—could prevent all Jews from praying at Judaism’s most holy site would, today, be inconceivable. At the same time, over the years, the desire and willingness of Jews to enter the Temple Mount has increased dramatically.

Since it is unreasonable to believe that Muslims are inherently incapable of recognizing the legitimate rights of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount and expressing the religious tolerance required, maybe the time has come for Israel’s government to finally clarify what exactly the “status quo” on the Temple mount was, is and should be.

VIEW OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRITISHISRAELGROUP.WEEBLY.COM 

Israel to Boost Arab Employment in High-Tech

Video Of The Week - “Iran’s Threats are Escalating - ”https://tinyurl.com/bdh33hwr

 For The full Article By Sharon Wrobel go to - https://tinyurl.com/24ktf7th

Israel will fund a NIS 21.6 million ($6.1 million) program to train and integrate more than 2,000 Arab Israeli women and men into the local high-tech industry over the next two years as part of a continued effort to narrow the employment and income gaps between Jewish and Arab Israelis.

 The Israel Innovation Authority (IAA) together with the labor division of the Economy and Industry Ministry selected 12 programs for the training and placement of 2,239 people from the Arab population. The 12 selected programs will receive an aggregate government grant of NIS 12 million and the remainder is to be financed by private funds.

 Participation rates of the Arab population in the tech employment market remains low despite numerous government initiatives.

 Long touted as the growth engine of the Israeli economy, the tech sector accounts for around 25% of the country’s total income tax revenue and constitutes about 10% of the workforce. Arab Israelis make up some 20% of the population but just 2% of Arab men and 1% of Arab women working in the tech industry, according to government data. That compares with 12% of secular Jewish men and 8% of secular Jewish women.

 At the same time, the tech industry is facing an acute shortage of skilled engineers and programmers. This scarcity could cause the engine to stall, and the country is seeking to tap into new populations sectors to keep it going.

 Low-income populations have largely been left on the sidelines of the nation’s high-tech boom, including the ultra-Orthodox, Arab Israelis, and women, resulting in large income gaps. The ultra-Orthodox and Arab populations, among the poorest in Israel today, are expected to constitute half of the population by 2065, according to the OECD.

“This reflects a lack of the skills needed for them to get high-productivity and well-paid jobs,” according to the OECD report. “Integrating the Arab-Israeli and Haredim into the labour market remains one of the key challenges for the Israeli economy.”

 This year, over 10,000 workers from the Arab population were employed in the tech industry, but half of them were in non-technological positions, according to Tair Ifergan, director general of the labor division at the Economy and Industry Ministry.

 “Although the percentage of Arab citizens employed in the tech industry is still below the national average, in recent years, we have seen an increasingly positive trend of integration of the Arab population and a significant increase in the number of Arab students studying tech-related subjects in academia,” said IIA CEO Dror Bin. “We aim to increase the number of Arab citizens employed in tech and create a significant economic, social and regional change as part of the strengthening and diversification of the Israeli tech sector.”

 “Rapid and proper integration of graduates of these programs will be one of the significant steps toward reducing the shortage of tech personnel in the long term,” Bin noted.

 More than half of the selected programs in the project will train for advanced development positions in the tech sector, such as programming, and include theoretical and practical on-the-job training. Soft skills will also be part of the training to expand the candidates’ skill set and boost their chances of getting a high-quality job in tech.

 One of the funded programs will provide training and help in the job placement in the following four tech areas: robotics and automation, verification, DevOps and data analytics. Another program focuses on career development and promotion to managerial positions for tech workers in Arab society.

VIEW OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRITISHISRAELGROUP.WEEBLY.COM

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”.

VIEW OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRITISHISRAELGROUP.WEEBLY.COM

“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.

 VIEW OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRITISHISRAELGROUP.WEEBLY.COM

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.”

VIEW OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRITISHISRAELGROUP.WEEBLY.COM

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?

 

 VIEW OUR WEBSITE WWW.BRITISHISRAELGROUP.WEEBLY.COM