Timline of terror: From abduction to murder

After 18 days of feverishly searching for kidnapped teens, operation Brother's Keeper comes to tragic conclusion.

Ynet

Published:  07.01.14, 01:04 / Israel News

For the past 18 days, IDF soldiers have searched under every rock in the Hebron area for the three missing Israeli teenagers. On Monday, that search came to an end, but all hope was lost. The bodies of the teenagers who've been kidnapped over two weeks ago were found a day after tens of thousands of people attended a support rally in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square and demanded: "Bring Back Our Boys." The boys, Gil-Ad, Naftali and Eyal, who just wanted to get home, won't return.
The finding of the bodies also brings to an end one of the goals of Operation Brother's Keeper, an operation that was launched following the abduction at a hitchhiking stop in Hebron. From going into the abductors' car, to the call to police in which one of the teens whispered "we've been kidnapped" and through the ceaseless search that ended in great tragedy - these are the 18 days that haunted the Shaer, Frenkel and Yifrach families and, in effect, the entire nation.

Thursday, June 12
9:40 pm - Eyal Yifrach from Elad called one of his friends and told him he was looking for a ride in the Gush Etzion

area. 10 pm - Naftali Frenkel from Nof Ayalon and Gil-Ad Shaer from Talmon left the Makor Chaim yeshiva for the weekend.
10:15 pm - The three hitched a ride at the western exit of Alon Shvut.
10:25 pm - One of the abductees called the police and whispered "we've been kidnapped." The police didn't take the call seriously enough, even though it lasted over two minutes. Commissioner Yohanan Danino called this "a very grave failure."

Friday, June 13
3 am - The father of one of the boys reported to the police that his son never made it home. It was only then that the information about the missing boys was communicated to the IDF and Shin Bet.
12:30 pm - Security forces found a burnt car in one of the Palestinian villages. It is believed this is the car used to kidnap the three.
2 pm - The media was still not allowed to report the news, but many already knew three teenagers had been kidnapped. A message spread like wildfire on WhatsApp saying two of the boys have been rescued, unharmed, in a military operation. According to the false message, five terrorists had been killed in the rescue mission.
5:05 pm - Rumors ended when the IDF spokesman made a statement to the press and said what many had already known - there's a grave fear that the three teenagers had been kidnapped.

Homes of Kidnappers Demolished

IDF demolishes the homes of the two main suspects in the kidnapping and killing of three teenagers, according to eyewitnesses.

By Arutz Sheva Staff

First Publish: 7/1/2014

Marwan Kawasmeh (L), Amar Abu-Eisha

Israel Security Agency

The IDF demolished overnight Monday the homes of the two main suspects in the kidnapping and killing of three young Israelis, witnesses told AFP.
The witnesses said the houses of Marwan Kawasmeh and Amar Abu-Eisha in Hevron were blown up, in what a human rights group said was the first punitive demolition since Israel halted the practice in 2005.
Kawasmeh and Abu-Eisha were identified by Israel last week as the two terrorists who kidnapped Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Sha’ar and Naftali Frenkel, whose bodies were discovered earlier on Monday.
Both Kawasmeh and Abu-Eisha have been arrested numerous times and are well known Hamas terrorists in the Hevron area.

There is no “cycle of violence”

Gerald M. Steinberg 

Three Israeli teenagers – Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach — were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood on their way home from school, only because they were Israeli Jews. Their Palestinian Arab murderers, as identified by Israel, did not know their victims and they did not care – the objective was to attack some hated Israelis, and perhaps exchange them or their bodies for jailed murderers. Any random Jews would do.

So it has been for some 100 years in this long war against Jewish national sovereignty and equality among the nations. Long before the 1967 war and the “occupation” provided an excuse for hate and murder, such acts of inhuman violence were common. In 1929, when the Jewish community of Hebron was massacred (ethnically cleansed in modern parlance), there was no cycle of violence — this was an entirely unilateral act.

Netanyahu on murders: 'Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay.'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem April 27, 2014. Photo by Reuters

Calls killers 'beasts'; Peres says Israel's retribution will be harsh.

By Barak Ravid, Jonathan Lis and Haaretz | Jun. 30, 2014

 

Calling the murderers of the three kidnapped teenagers "beasts," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday evening that "Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay."

Netanyahu said in a statement: "In great agony, we found three dead bodies  this evening, and all signs are that these are the dead bodies of our three kidnapped youths – Eyal, Gilad and Naftali.

"They were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by beasts," he continued. "In the name of the entire people of Israel, I wish to say to the dear families – the mothers, the fathers, the grandmothers and grandfathers, the sisters and brothers – that our hearts bleed, the whole nation cries with you. We will bring the boys for burial in Israel. Blood vengeance on a little boy is beyond Satan's imagination, as is blood vengeance on young, innocent boys on their way home to see their parents – who will not see them again. Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay. May the memories of the three boys be blessed."

President Shimon Peres said Israel's retribution would be harsh.

"The whole nation blows its head this evening with a grief too heavy to bear," Peres said in a statement. "These 18 days the nation has prayed in one voice that our wonderful boys would be found alive and well. Now, upon receiving the bitter news, the people of Israel mourn the untimely deaths of the best of our young. Alongside this heavy sorrow, we are determined to punish the wicked terrorists with a strong hand. Our war against terror will get stronger, it will not weaken, so that this murderous terror will not dare raise its head."

‘Dialoguing’ with the Muslim Brotherhood and the KGB

Fjordman On June 30, 2014

You can tell a lot about a society by watching what kind of people it puts into positions of power and influence.

Thorbjørn Jagland is a former Prime Minister of Norway from the Norwegian Labour Party. Since 2009, he has been the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE). He was reelected to this position for a second term, with the support of parliamentarians from across Europe, on June 24 2014.

The CoE was established in 1949. It is distinct from and less powerful than the European Union. However, it has a formalized cooperation with the EU on a range of issues, for instance those related to immigration. This cooperation has been strengthened under Jagland’s lead. The CoE further enjoys friendly relations with many Islamic organizations and has made combating so-called “Islamophobia” in Europe one of its stated priorities. 

Saba Ahmed Unveiled

Deborah Weiss On June 30, 2014

During a recent Heritage Foundation event on Benghazi’s unanswered questions, Brigitte Gabriel, President of Act! for America, proclaimed that the peaceful majority have been irrelevant to history’s outcome when tyrannists have had the power and motivation to destroy freedom. But a Muslim audience member whose question prompted Brigitte’s comments, insists she’s not irrelevant.
On June 16, 2014, The Benghazi Accountability Coalition, spearheaded by Ginni Thomas, held a half-day seminar with a series of speakers to raise issues regarding unanswered questions about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of four American patriots at Benghazi.
Brigitte Gabriel was one of three speakers on the first panel. During Q&A, a hijabbed Muslim woman standing in back of a packed audience complained, “Salam Alechim, peace to you all. We portray Islam and all Muslims as bad, but there are 1.8 billion followers of Islam. We have 8 million plus Muslim Americans in this country and I don’t see them represented here.” She asked how the jihadist ideology can be fought with weapons and stressed the need to bring Muslims to the table in order to solve the problem.

Jordan's King: Iraq Crisis Could Affect the Entire Region

Jordan’s King Abdullah II meets American delegation, warns of effects of Iraq crisis.

By Elad Benari

First Publish: 6/30/2014

Jordan's King Abdullah II

AFP/File

Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Sunday warned that the crisis in Iraq could affect the entire region, reports the Jordan Times.
Speaking with a delegation of lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives, the King renewed Jordan’s keenness on the territorial integrity of Iraq and its call for a comprehensive political solution to the ongoing Iraqi crisis, according to the report.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has started moving towards Baghdad, after conquering the second-largest Iraqi city of Mosul and several other northern cities this week in a lightning offensive.
King Abdullah recently requested urgent military aid from the U.S. and other Western countries, so as to hold off ISIS if it tries to move in on Jordan.
Last week, Jordan placed tanks, army vehicles, missile launchers and soldiers along its border with Iraq.

Another cover-up of genocide

Thane Rosenbaum & Rafael Medoff

Twenty years ago this week, machete-wielding militias of the Hutu tribe in Rwanda were carrying out nationwide massacres of members of the country’s ethnic minority, the Tutsis. Detailed information about the genocide began reaching the West almost as soon as it started.

This has always been an uncomfortable truth for those in the Clinton administration who were responsible for matters of state, global affairs and human rights. To his great credit, president Bill Clinton has acknowledged that America’s silence during the genocide in Rwanda was one of the failures of his presidency. Others in his administration, however, have been neither as honorable nor as forthcoming.

Newly released cables about the 1994 genocide flatly contradict previous accounts by some of those officials, and the refusal of the Obama White House to declassify additional documents hasn’t helped clear up this moral morass. The fact that some of the Clinton-era figures involved in this episode now work in the Obama administration adds yet another troubling layer to this unfolding story.

What Made a Legally Established Settlement Illegal?

By J.P. Golbert, AMERICAN THINKER

When the mothers of the Israeli boys kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists in the area of Gush Etzion, in “Israeli occupied” Judea, spoke before international bodies, many of the diplomats referred to them in their comments and questions as “settlers.” One is given to understand that, in their eyes, inclusion in that category means that they have no human rights and the world’s indifference to their fate is justified. In fact, the boys are not “settlers” but attend schools in Jewish towns in Judea, two of them in kibbutz Kfar Etzion and one in Kiriyat Arba.  

But let’s leave that aside and cut straight to the core of the issue of the legality of Jewish settlements outside the 1949 Armistice Lines.

There is only one International law concerning Israeli settlement that is binding and has never been superseded. The League of Nations, on July 24th, 1922, established the Mandate for Palestine, by unanimous vote, which included two Islamic states, Persia and Albania.

Moment of truth

Dr. Haim Shine

The fabric of relations between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens is still fragile. Over the years, it has been customary to hope that there was a wide fundamental gap between Israeli Arab leaders, who exhibited clear extremism, and the Israeli Arab public, which appeared more moderate. But Friday's violent demonstrations in Umm al-Fahm, along with the malicious and belligerent comments made recently by Balad MKs Hanin Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka, have cast a sad light on the prospects for true coexistence in Israel. Before dealing with two states for two peoples, it is vital that we first clarify the definitions of the peoples.

The demonstrators in Umm al-Fahm on Friday showed unequivocally that they identified with the actions of Hamas, rather than Israel's efforts to find the kidnapped teens and defend its citizens, including Arabs. Keep in mind that, more than once, Israeli Arabs have fallen victim to terror attacks carried out by their Palestinian brothers.

No Peace In The End or, Yes?

Yisrael Medad

6/27/2014, 9:06 AM

Yisrael Medad

I am a resident of Shiloh, with my wife and children, and now grandchildren,...

Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha, “Hamas activists,” as per the NYTimes, are being hunted.
As reported here:

Marwan Kawasmeh (29) and Amar Abu-Eisha (33), both of whom have been arrested numerous times and are well known Hamas terrorists in the Hevron area

Yesterday, I was touring with The Forward's Jane Eisner

• Credit: EliePieprz

and one of the points Dani Dayan brought up in response to the question for how long his normailzation plan will last before peace kicks in was that it would take a generation.  I have a different frame.
You notice the ages of the suspects?  Twenty-nine and thirty-three.  How old were they when the Oslo Process began in 1993?  My math says less than nine and less than 13.  In other words, their formative years of 'growing-up' were as schoolchildren.
Did they have any peace-oriented programs in school?  Well, there was this one:
PEACE Programme: Palestinian European Academic Co-operation in Education, established in 1992.  It's details:

Fields/Disciplines
Institutional and staff development, quality of academic programmes in all fields and disciplines.
Objectives
Promoting international cooperation with Palestinian Universities through: exchange of staff and students; grants for Palestinian students and young academics to complete graduate studies abroad; academic projects aimed at enhancing teaching and research at Palestinian higher education institutions
Its areas of action include:
scholarships to Palestinian students and young academics allowing for them to pursue post-graduate studies abroad;
exchange of teachers and researchers as a means for staff development at Palestinian universities;
academic programs at Palestinian universities through bilateral and multilateral agreements and through consortia of member universities,

The ambassadorial Passover dinner that turned into a state secret‏

Israel's envoy to the U.S. Ron Dermer claims that revealing the guest list, which included Secretary of State John Kerry, could undermine Israel's foreign relations. So why were U.S. journalists invited?

By Barak Ravid | Jun. 29, 2014 

 

The Foreign Ministry has refused to reveal the guest list for the second Passover seder meal held at the house of Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, roughly two months ago - an event attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The ministry’s explanation was that revealing the list would cause damage to Israel. The decision, as well as the explanation, are curious, due to the fact that Haaretz has learned that American journalists were present at the event.
The decision was stated in an official letter sent by the Foreign Ministry last Thursday, June 26, in response to a request made by Haaretz under the Freedom of Information Law on April 29.

The Terrorist Groups' Interpretation Of The Koranic Verses Regarding Jihad

Tufail Ahmad*

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here. A page from the Koran Table of Contents I) Introduction II) Jaish-e-Muhammad's Teaching Of Jihadist Verses In Pakistani Towns III) Pakistani Militant Maulana Masood Azhar's Interpretation Of Verses On Jihad IV) The Interpretation Of The Koranic Verses Regarding Battle V) The References To Koranic Verses On Suicide BombingsVI) The Justifications For Bombings Of Churches, Synagogues, And Mosques VII) The Verses Regarding Moderation/Compulsion In ReligionVIII)  The Targeted Killings Of Shi'ite Muslims In The Name Of Islam IX) The Interpretation Of Verses On Media Jihad X) The Interpretation Of Verses Regarding Financial Jihad I) Introduction This paper examines how jihadi organizations are using verses from the Koran to advance the cause of jihad and influence Muslim youth. In doing so, it sheds light on how liberal arguments regarding Islam, jihad, and Prophet Muhammad's historical role are being countered by the jihadi organizations, which cite verses from the Koran and early Islamic traditions in their support. In an editorial published in July 2013, Daily Outlook Afghanistan, a Kabul-based newspaper, warned that the Taliban are using Koranic verses to influence and prepare child suicide bombers. It observed: "Over the last decade, children, who are as innocent as angels, have increasingly been used for executing terror attacks in Afghanistan, mainly for suicide attacks. The trend, which was actually initiated by Al-Qaeda, has gained greater focus of the Taliban in the recent years. The Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan are bribing starving children as young as eight-years-old to plant deadly roadside booby traps, be decoys in ambushes, and even act as suicide bombers… "There are 224 children in prisons in just Helmand and Ghazni who were arrested by government forces for planning or carrying out attacks. Here is another example of how the Taliban brainwash the children to use them in launching suicide attacks: they are given amulets containing verses from the Koran by Taliban commanders, who tell them they will be protected from the explosion."[1] In April 2013, the Al-Saadiqeen Production Center of the Toora Bora Front, a constituent of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban umbrella organization led by Mullah Mohammad Omar), released a video of jihadi commander Ustad Khwaja Maqsood Mukhlis, who urged Muslims to take part in "jihad against Jews and Christians."[2] He stated: "Allah Almighty has ordered us [in the Koran], as for prayers, fasting, and Hajj, to be ready to fight against enemies of Islam, and get knowledge of every technique [in fighting] more than the infidels, because the war between Islam and kufr [unbelief] will continue until doomsday…"[3]

06/27 Links Pt2: Pollard’s release is a matter of justice; Obama seeks $500M to arm Syrian rebels

Elder of Ziyon

Ian:

---

Alan Dershowitz, Irwin Cotler: Pollard’s release is a matter of justice

US President Barack Obama’s response to President Shimon Peres’s request for executive clemency for Jonathan Pollard was to refer the matter to US Attorney-General Eric Holder.
Indeed, as it happens, a group of American constitutional and criminal law scholars and practitioners, including six Harvard law school professors, Obama’s alma mater, have written to the president (full disclosure – we are two of the signatories and organizers of the letter) requesting the commutation of Pollard’s sentence to time served. In our letter we argue that “such commutation is more than warranted if the ends of justice are to be served, the rules of law respected and simple humanity secured.”

Lib Dem Friends of Palestine promote Atzmon

Even though Gilad Atzmon’s vile views have been widely condemned by anti-racists, including many pro-Palestinian activists, Lib Dem Friends of Palestine have promoted his racist attack on Ed Miliband’s speech to the LFI on their Facebook page.

"As the Brits were expressing their disapproval of ‘Red Ed’ and his clumsy politics, the Labour leader found the time to socialise with the Jewish Lobby. The following is Ed Miliband’s speech to LFI (Labour Friends Of Israel), the same Zionist Lobby group that funded Blair’s government as it drove Britain into a criminal war in Iraq.
In his speech, Ed Miliband affirms his deep Zionist affiliation. The verdict on his reign is clear, Miliband should never have been the leader of a major British political party. He would have been better suited for a position as a local Rabbi or a part time job as an Israeli consular.

Israel Finds Allies in the Balkans

C. Hart

Recently, Albania received good news that it will soon begin succession talks towards EU integration. Albania is a close friend of the U.S. and has always been a good friend to the Jewish People. It is now establishing friendship ties with Israel. A successful visit to the Jewish State this week by an Albanian delegation, including Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati, helped in solidifying this new relationship.
Since the U.S. has started coordinating its foreign policy with the EU, it means that countries accepted for succession talks, which also happen to be friendly with Israel, could become future advocates. For example, eventual integration into the EU by Albania suggests that when Israel needs Albania in critical moments of diplomacy, especially within international forums… that’s what friends are for.
Bushati elaborated in an interview with this writer: “Nowadays, there is not a conflict looming on the horizon, and all Balkan countries are sitting at the same table…. So, if there is one spot in the world that someone can measure the success of US and EU policy, this would undoubtedly be the Balkans.”
Since the breakdown of the peace process, and the development of the Fatah-Hamas unity government, the Palestinians are racing towards greater international recognition for Palestinian statehood. At the same time, Israeli leaders are stepping up their approach, as a counteroffensive, extending a hand of friendship to any interested country -- large or small -- that wants to do business with the Jewish State. Israeli diplomats know this could be one more vote in favor of Israel within the EU or the UN, which is one less vote of hostility.
Since the Pope’s visit in May 2014, Israel has received a stream of high-level delegations on official visits from Holland, Slovakia, Italy, Romania, Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, and other nations.

50,000 Christians flee Iraqi city as ISIL approaches

Robert Spencer 
 
The world will little note nor long remember the suffering of Christians in Iraq or other Muslim countries. As long as no “Islamophobia” is being committed, all is well.
“50,000 Assyrians Flee Fighting in North Iraq,” AINA, June 16, 2014 (thanks to The Religion of Peace)

(AINA) — Nearly all of the population of Qaraqosh, 50,000 Assyrians, has fled the city amid fighting between ISIS and Kurds. Syrian Catholic Archbishop Mar Youhana Boutros Moshe attempted to negotiate with ISIS and the Kurds to convince them to leave the city, but the negotiations failed. ISIS and the ‘Revolutionary Tribes’ (Sunnis) are set to storm the city.
According to Bishop Yousif Habash of the Syriac Orthodox Church in New Jersey, Qaraqosh (also known as Baghdede) is now almost completely abandoned. A source reporting from Qaraqosh told AINA the population has fled to Arbel, Dohuk, Alqosh, Tel Kepe, Telsqop and Ankawa. Monasteries and churches are filled with displaced Christian refugees from Baghdede. There is an urgent need for food, water, medical aid and blankets.

US military personnel forced to submit to the sharia during Ramadan

• Posted by Admin Ralph E WallSr

Our troops must adhere to the sharia during the Islamic month of Ramadan in Bahrain and other Muslim countries. Subjected to dawah (proselytizing) by an a base Islamic cultural adviser at the Naval Support Activity, soldiers are forced to sit through lessons on Islam. No eating, drinking, alcohol, smoking during the month of Ramadan.

This is what the Obama administration and the US military are obsessed with as armies of jihad tear through the Middle East.
Military newspaper Stars and Stripes report:

“It actually made me want to do a lot more research into the religion,” said Petty Officer 1st Class James Ramirez.

Really? How about equal time for the Jewish faith? The Christian faith? The Hindu faith?

US military are encouraged “to experience Iftar in a Ramadan tent.”

Jordan’s borders with Iraq secure despite ISIS advance—senior official

Majid Al-Amir 

Jordanian military forces on high alert as Amman bans men of military age from travelling

File photo of Jordanian Border Guards at Karama Border Crossing on the Jordanian–Iraqi border. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Karama border crossing, Jordan, Asharq Al-Awsat—The rising Islamist insurgency in Iraq and Syria has sent Jordanian authorities scrambling to boost border defenses in order to contain looming security threats.
Earlier this week, Amman took the decision to unilaterally close its borders with Iraq and mobilize military forces after Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) advanced to within a few kilometers of Jordan’s eastern border.

Connecting the dots of the boiling Arab Street

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, "Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative"
"Israel Hayom", June 27, 2014, http://bit.ly/1nOZQnO
 

According to the Saudi Arabian-based newspaper, Arab News, "the Arab Spring is not about seeking democracy, it is about Arabs killing Arabs… about hate and sectarian violence…. The Arab Spring is an accumulation of years of political corruption, human rights violations, sectarianism and poor education systems. It showed that the Arabs were never united and are now divided beyond anybody's imagination. We hate each other more than we hate the outside enemy.  Syrians are hurting Syrians and the Israelis are the ones who treat the Syrian wounds [in an Israeli field hospital built on the Golan Height]." 

Connecting the dots of the increasingly boiling Arab Street highlights the 1,400 year reality of intense intra-Arab violent intolerance, hate education, transient (one-bullet) regimes, tenuous policies, non-compliance with intra-Arab agreements which are usually signed on ice and not carved in stone, explosive unpredictability, lack of intra-Arab peaceful coexistence and a savage violation of civil liberties. In 14 centuries, the Arab street has never experienced freedom of religion, speech, press, association or movement, which constitutes a prerequisite for free elections and peaceful coexistence.

Wake Up to Reality: Palestinian Authority a Terrorist Organization

While some argue that freedom of speech is sacred, it seems the only freedom of speech the PA allows is the one that incites terrorism.

By Mudar Zahran

While Israel prays for the safe return of three Israel teenagers kidnapped by terrorists last week, although Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas tepidly defended the search for the teens -- comments for which many Palestinians attacked him -- the official PA daily wrote that "Israel itself is behind the 'kidnapping'," alleging that the three boys were soldiers when in fact they were students, two in high school, and the kidnappings were celebrated by people, glorifying the kidnappers and passing out sweets.
The Fatah Facebook page then published a cartoon showing the three kidnapped teenagers as rats bearing the star of David with the caption "The Master Stroke".
Keep in mind that the PA exerts extreme monitoring and control over social media used by Palestinians in the West Bank. A Palestinian man was jailed for six months for "liking" an anti-PA post on Facebook. The PA, therefore, is fully responsible for encouraging the celebrations of the kidnappings over Palestinian social media.

Pollard’s release is a matter of justice

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, IRWIN COTLER

We trust that President Obama, in concert with Attorney-General Holder, will exercise this power in the pursuit of justice, the rule of law and simple humanity.

US President Barack Obama Photo: REUTERS

US President Barack Obama’s response to President Shimon Peres’s request for executive clemency for Jonathan Pollard was to refer the matter to US Attorney-General Eric Holder.

Indeed, as it happens, a group of American constitutional and criminal law scholars and practitioners, including six Harvard law school professors, Obama’s alma mater, have written to the president (full disclosure – we are two of the signatories and organizers of the letter) requesting the commutation of Pollard’s sentence to time served. In our letter we argue that “such commutation is more than warranted if the ends of justice are to be served, the rules of law respected and simple humanity secured.”

Our letter sets forth 10 compelling legal considerations for the exercise of executive clemency by Obama – and which should commend themselves to Attorney-General Holder – including: First, Pollard was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, one count of conveying classified information to a foreign government, in this instance, Israel, an ally of the US.

The usual sentence for this offense is no more than six or eight years, with actual jail time before release averaging two to four years. Pollard is now serving his 29th year of an unprecedented life sentence – an excessive, grossly disproportionate, unfair and unjust sentence.

Majority of Palestinians now oppose two-state solution, new poll finds

MICHAEL WILNER

Sixty percent of those polled, including 55 percent in West Bank and 68 percent in Gaza, reject permanent acceptance of Israel's existence.

A JEWISH man walks on a hilltop overlooking a suburb of Ramallah. Photo: reuters

WASHINGTON – A clear majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip oppose a two-state solution to end their struggle with Israel, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

Sixty percent of those polled, including 55% in the West Bank and 68% in Gaza, reject permanently accepting Israel’s existence and instead suggest their leaders “work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

Two-thirds of those polled support continued “resistance” against the Jewish state. Consequentially, those who say they support a two-state solution view such a move as “part of a ‘program of stages’ to liberate all of historic Palestine later.”

First, understand the war and the grief

Arnold Roth Arnold Roth, an attorney and technology business manager, serves as honorary chair of the Malki Foundation which he and his … [More]

 

Robi Damelin of Parents Circle, a terror victim organization, cries out for sanity and the curbing of what she refers to as “the repeated call for vengeance” (“Break the cycle, we beg of you”, Times of Israel, June 24, 2014). She asks for more reconciliation, more dignity, more respect, less hatred and greater understanding of what prisoners mean to the Palestinians. She calls for human rights, a life of dignity and safety for all, and freedom from violence. 

 

Her passion is tangible as she begs for support of an organization bringing together the families of terror victims from among Palestinians and Israelis who “have chosen a path to reconciliation”.

Can you be a caring person and still oppose what Parents Circle represents?

It Took Three Mothers to Strengthen the Government’s Spine

Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Published: June 26th, 2014

The mothers of the three kidnapped boys, Iris Yifrach (R), Bat Galim Shaar (C), Rachel Frenkel (L), seen at the Knesset during a meeting with Knesset members, on the 13th day of ongoing searches for them in the Disputed Territories on June 25, 2014.
Photo Credit: Hadas Parush/Flash90

In a stunning slap of the face reversal of what had been the all-out rooting through the rats nests for the kidnapped Israeli teenagers, the Israeli government sent out smoke signals yesterday that it was scaling back its efforts to recover the kidnapped boys. Thank goodness the firm, courageous and principled statements of the mothers of those boys apparently moved the hearts and minds of the decision makers back to where they should have been.

But the initial decision had been made and was already being acted upon.

Why?

Not because all the terrorists have been caught and punished. And certainly not because the boys are home, safe and sound, or at least found. No. Two reasons were given, the second one more likely the real one.

The first reason was that most of what the IDF thought it could find had already been found as far as leads to who the kidnappers are and where the boys are being held. But that means the main objects of the search, in other words, the boys and the actual kidnappers, have not been found. Is that the time to wind down?

Saddam’s WMDs: The Left’s Iraq Lies Exposed

Arnold Ahlert

The recent turmoil in Iraq brought on by the rise of the Sunni extremist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has ironically struck a blow to the American Left’s endlessly repeated narrative that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq prior to the war. The State Department and other U.S. government officials have revealed that ISIS now occupies the Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex. Al Muthanna was Saddam Hussein’s primary chemical weapons facility, and it is located less than 50 miles from Baghdad.

The Obama administration claims that the weapons in that facility, which include sarin, mustard gas, and nerve agent VX, manufactured to prosecute the war against Iran in the 1980s, do not pose a threat because they are old, contaminated and hard to move. “We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible to safely move the materials,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

PA Donors' Money Promised to Hamas

Malcolm Lowe
June 24, 2014 

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4375/pa-donors-hamas

In view of the prospect that US money will soon go to Hamas personnel via the PA, the US Congress has every right to stop that financial aid. We still think, however, that it would be smarter to condition such aid money on a Palestinian commitment to remove all the rockets from Gaza under international supervision. Getting rid of those rockets would revolutionize the prospect of advances in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Imagine the prestige that would accrue to Secretary of State John Kerry if, within his term of office, the US succeeded in removing rockets from Gaza as well as chemical weapons from Syria.

A previous article pointed out that the new Palestinian "unity government," since it rules Gaza as well as the West Bank, has made itself responsible for the existence of thousands of rockets in Gaza that are aimed at Israel. At the very least, the article argued, all aid money going to the Palestinian Authority [PA] should now be made conditional on a commitment of that government to surrender all those rockets to international control. The elimination of Syria's chemical weapons provides an obvious model.
Now it has emerged that the entire personnel of the Hamas regime in Gaza is about to be put on the PA payroll. According to a report in YNet News:

The Early Roots of Anti-Israel Lawfare

Andrew Harrod On June 24, 2014

Anti-Israel lawfare actually has a longer pedigree than usually imagined, dating from a seemingly obscure lawsuit arising from Israel’s 1948 re-birth.  Sreemati Mitter, an Ernest May Fellow at the Belfer Center of Harvard University’s Kennedy School and Harvard history Ph.D. candidate detailed the matter in a May 20 lecture.  About forty mostly middle-aged and older pro-Palestinian individuals at the like-minded Jerusalem Fund think tank heard Mitter.
Mitter recounted the June 12, 1948 freezing by the newly reborn state of Israel of all bank accounts belonging to Arab refugees from Israeli-controlled territory during the country’s independence war.  She focused on the Palestine branches of Barclays and the Ottoman Bank in London, the two of which held deposits from the Arab Bank, a “Palestinian nationalist bank.”

Muslim Terrorists in Iraq Issued A Decree Ordering All Families to Send Their Unmarried Women to Participate in “JIHAD BY SEX”

Shoebat Foundation
 

On June 12, only two day after capturing Mosul and other territories in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria issued a decree ordering the people to send their unmarried women to “jihad by sex.” In the proclamation ISIS threatens to impose Sharia law on all who fail to comply with the decree.
Here’s a translation of the decree, followed by the original in Arabic.

In the Name of Allah the Merciful
Subject: Mandate LOGO The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
The State of Nineveh
In the Name of Allah the Merciful
After liberation of the State of Nineveh, and the welcome shown by the people of the state to their brotherly mujahideen, and after the great conquest, and the defeat of the Safavid [Persian] troops in the State of Nineveh, and its liberation, and Allah willing, it will become the headquarters for the mujahideen. Therefore we request that the people of this state offer their unmarried women so that they can fulfill their duty of jihad by sex to their brotherly mujahideen. Failure to comply with this mandate will result in enforcing the laws of Sharia upon them.
Allah we have notified, Allah bear witness.
Sha’ban 13, 1435
June, 12, 2014
ISIS decree calling on women to report for “jihad by sex” duty.
Translated for by Dr. Samir Johna.

Here is the original proclamation in Arabic:

The word for marriage in Arabic is zawaj. The word Nikah literally means “legal copulation”. Jihad Nikah is simply sending the girls for “legal copulation” in order to have sex with Jihadists.

Has ZOA Awakened to the Ugliness of Political Reality?

Steven Shamrak

The US attitude toward Israel is simple - pressure Jews, in Israel and the US , and provide endless diplomatic and financial support to enemies of the Jewish state.

The Zionist Organization of America issued a harshly worded condemnation of the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel, and slammed the US' policy as "nothing less than a diplomatic Kristallnacht."

In the statement, the group described Hamas, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said is responsible for the kidnapping, as "Nazi-like". Taking cue from the official government position, the group also said it views Abbas as responsible for the kidnapping."

The Zionist Organization of America condemned the kidnapping, as well as Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority (PA) for its obscene and incendiary newspaper cartoon celebrating and trivializing this horrendous, appalling crime," the statement said, referencing a caricature published on the Fatah's paper Facebook page.

AFDI's Truth About CAIR Ad Defaced: Anti-Semitic Vandalism

  Pamela Geller

Our new Truth About CAIR ad campaign is running on Washington DC buses, train dioramas and New York subway platforms.

 

AFDI's Truth about CAIR advertisements have been defaced with anti-Semitic vandalism, including hammers and sickles and the phrases "No to Zionism" and "Long live Palestine." Supporters of the Hamas-CAIR terror-aligned organization are flagrant anti-semites. The vandalism demonstrates yet again the desperate insecurity and authoritarian tendencies of the foes of the U.S., Israel and freedom.

 

 

We are rolling out this campaign in as many cities as we can. Please CONTRIBUTE HERE.

 

It is very telling that their vandalism is anti-Semitic. The supporters of Hamas-tied CAIR and the Palestinian jihad cannot answer our arguments or refute our assertions. They cannot debate, so they destroy. All that is left to them is to try to silence us forcibly by vandalizing our printed messages and smearing and defaming the messenger. It is the tactic of thugs and fascists, and should be opposed by all free people.

 

We printed up a stack of these posters, knowing how the destroyers operate. The defaced ads have been replaced, as will any others that are defaced, and we have made an even bigger CAIR-truth buy in other US cities, including San Francisco and Philadelphia.

Hamas TV entertains children with sound of rockets

"to encourage and excite our audience, 

our children friends"

Hamas official: "Hamas will continue to build rockets...

until it defeats the enemy...

We will continue on the path of Jihad and Martyrdom"

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11795

 

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

  

 
In its latest episode, Hamas TV's children's program Tomorrow's Pioneers chose to teach young viewers what a rocket sounds like "when it is launched from us" and "when it reaches them [the Israelis]." [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), June 20, 2014]

As the child host on the program encouraged the program's guest, an adult mimic, to do "a last imitation of the sound of our rockets," the man-sized bee puppet Nahul requested he make "the sound of the explosion." These sounds were "to encourage and excite our audience, our children friends," the child host explained. Upon hearing the mimic make a rocket sound, a child in the studio identified it as "the M-75" rocket. After the mimic explained that this was the sound of a rocket being launched, the child host requested he imitate the sound a rocket makes "when it reaches them [the Israelis]." Nahul the bee then eagerly made the sound of an exploding rocket.

Hamas Indoctrinates Palestinian Youth after Kidnapping

IDF

A short time after its attack against three Israelis, Hamas encouraged Palestinian youth to embrace its ideology of hatred and terrorism.

Pro-Hamas students glorified the kidnapping of three teenagers last week during two graduation ceremonies in Judea and Samaria. Just days later, the terrorist organization showcased a Hamas summer camp that provides military training to Palestinian children in Gaza.

Last week’s events highlight Hamas’ extensive efforts to involve Palestinian youth in its terrorist activities. The organization uses Palestinian universities, summer camps and schools to spread its ideology of terror. The educational institutions are part of the ‘Dawa’ network, a social-welfare system that fuels support for Hamas violence.

Celebrating terror at Palestinian universities

 During a graduation ceremony last Monday at An-Najah National University, thousands of attendees waved green Hamas flags in support of the terrorist organization. Dozens of graduates posed for a picture at the ceremony, holding up three fingers to represent three Israeli teens kidnapped by Hamas. The symbol has spread quickly throughout Palestinian communities as a sign of pride for the recent terror attack.

Massive banners at the ceremony paid tribute to terrorists including Ahmed Jabri, the former Hamas military chief who directed hundreds of terror attacks against Israel. In a second ceremony at Al-Quds university in Abu Dis, engineering graduates marched with signs reading “the Engineering Brigade of Al-Qassam,” a reference to the Hamas military wing. Like students at An-Najah, families of convicted terrorists held up three fingers in support of last week’s kidnapping.

Soldiers Find Network of Underground Tunnels in Hevron Area

Dozens of tunnels were hidden behind furniture, washing machines; IDF looking for volunteers to help search for kidnapped teens.

By Yaakov Levi

First Publish: 6/22/2014

 

The IDF is seeking to expand the number of people searching for three teens kidnapped ten days ago by Hamas terrorists – and is turning to volunteers who are familiar with the Hevron area for help. The army hopes that the volunteers will help in the discovery of clues that could indicate where the teens are.
In the meantime, the army said, the intense searches in the Hevron area have yielded a great deal of information and new discoveries – such as the discovery of a network of tunnels in the Hevron area that the IDF did not know existed.
In an e-mail message sent out to organizations that sponsor hikes and outdoor activities in the Hevron area, officials wrote that “now is the time for action. We need volunteers to help find our missing boys.” The message stresses that those who answer the call are responsible for their own personal safety.

Keeping a crocodile

GILAD SHARON

We live side by side with a vile monster that has malicious intentions and limited abilities.

A relative of Palestinian member of Hamas' armed wing Ibraheem al-Arqan holds a weapon as others mourn during his funeral in Gaza City. Photo: REUTERS

If they were capable of doing to us what we are capable of doing to them, none of us would be here. They would annihilate us all: Left and Right, religious and secular, industrialists and farmers – each and every one of us.

We live side by side with a vile monster that has malicious intentions and limited abilities. We could slay it or chase it out, but we refrain from taking such action because of the human values we uphold. Those values are foreign to the monster next door, and it certainly doesn’t feel obliged to uphold them.

The situation is similar to keeping a baby crocodile in your home. The croc would like nothing better than to eat you, but it can’t because it’s too small. The most it can do is take a little bite here, or draw a little blood there. As the years go by, the reptile grows bigger. It still can’t eat you, but it is already a threat to children.

That’s when you have to understand a basic fact of life: you don’t live with a creature that wants to eat you.

It's time to stop infantilising the Palestinians

Alan Johnson World  

Photo: Getty

The jubilant reaction of many Palestinians to the kidnapping of three Israeli teenage boys has been met in the West with a bit of a shrug. The official daily PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida has published cartoons mocking the three students and celebrating their capture. The Fatah Facebook page featured a cartoon of three rats dangling from a line. Sweets have been handed out on the streets (a traditional gesture of joy and celebration). Many children have been photographed by their parents, holding up three fingers and smiling. An internet campaign gathers pace and “popular support for the abduction has continued to proliferate on Palestinian social media” according to the journalist Elhanan Miller. Hamas, of course, is exultant. Yes, Abu Mazen has condemned the kidnap and there have been some brave Palestinian voices raised in defence of the three youngsters, but their voices are isolated; Palestinians calling for the return of the three students have been threatened.
And yet, despite all this whooping and cheering about the trauma and possible death of Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, the Palestinians will likely pay a very small price in the international community or global public opinion. Why?
In part, because an anti-Zionist mindset that has taken root in the West, and at its heart is unexamined assumption – that Israelis and Palestinians are different kinds of people. Israelis have agency, responsibility and choice, Palestinians do not. In short, the world treats the Palestinians as children – ‘the pathology of paternalism’ it has been called
The unarticulated assumption of anti-Zionism is that Palestinians are a driven people, dominated by circumstances and moved by emotions; qualities associated with the world of nature. Israelis are the opposite; masters of all circumstances, rational and calculating; qualities associated with the world of culture.

Israel Claims $3B in Cyber Exports; 2nd Only to US

Netanyahu: 'We Have a Land Flowing With Milk and Cyber'

   By BARBARA OPALL-ROME

Cyber Champion: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, showing a mobile phone during his opening speech at the CyberTech 2014 international conference Jan. 27 in Tel-Aviv, has made it a personal and national goal to elevate Israel's status as a global cyber power. (JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

HERZLIYA, ISRAEL — Israeli exports of cyber-related products and services last year reached $3 billion, some 5 percent of the global market and more than all other nations combined apart from the United States, according to Israel’s National Cyber Bureau (NCB).
Officials here say the latest data, cited last week at an international conference here and presented in detail at a closed briefing of the Israeli Cabinet in late February, clearly ranks Israel as the second leading cyber exporting nation.
“As far as industry goes, Israel is a superpower indeed,” Tal Steinherz, NCB chief technology officer, told participants at a June 9 session of the annual Herzliya Conference here.
“Our part of the international market equals the entire world apart from the United States... We’re talking 5 percent of all world exports,” he said.

Perry - "Settlements" Legal

My Right Word
Re-post from 2011

On CNN via progressive website:

Republican Presidential hopeful Texas Gov. Rick Perry broke with more than 40 years of bipartisan U.S. policy and issued a statement of blanket support for Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories...

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Perry:

Since ’67, every U.S. president, Democrat and Republican, have called Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories, in the West Bank, illegal under international law. Would you continue that activity?

PERRY: …No I wouldn’t. I consider the Israeli settlements to be legal, from my perspective, and I support them.

BLITZER: Even if they’re in the West Bank?

PERRY: Where there is arrangements that have been made, where the Israeli’s are clearly on Israel’s land that they have hard fought to win and to keep, absolutely.

...Blitzer also asked if Perry would move the U.S. embassy in Israel, which is currently located in Tel Aviv, to Jerusalem. “Absolutely,” replied Perry. “As soon as I could. I would clearly say, if you want to work for the State Department of the United States, you need to be packing your bags and move to Jerusalem as soon as you can.”

As I pointed out, in 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright already stated the Jewish communities are legal in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s "The Today Show" on October 1, 1997, and asked in relation to building in Yesha and said: “I wasn't happy…I felt that going forward with those kinds of buildings was not helpful. Mr. Lauer pressed her and stated: “ It's legal. “, and Albright admitted: “It's legal.”

And following that, let's note this:

WHEN SETTLERS AREN'T SETTLERS

1. State Department, September 17, 1997

Spokesman:
The United States has been in contact with the Israeli government with regard to the Ras al-Amud housing project. The move of settlers into this project [formerly an entirely Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem] is not helpful...We don't think this is a question of law...Remember, this is about property rights, people purchasing property and then trying to build on that property, dealing with local governments, dealing with national governments. It's really an Israeli internal matter; that's precisely why I said we weren't in a position to micromanage it.

Hillary’s Evenhandedness Means Blaming Israel for Failed Peace Talks

In her new memoir, the former Secretary of State is calculating, cautious, and balanced—and that’s what’s wrong

By Noah Pollak

Hillary Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, November 2012. (Baz Ratner-Pool/Getty Images)

The End of the Jewish Left

Political theorist Michael Walzer and others argue about the death of the century-long Jewish-Leftist alliance

By Adam Kirsch

Left For Dead

The Israeli left has collapsed in the last decade. But the right, despite its successes, is dying, too, brought down by Russian-imported maximalism and American-imported political consultants.

By Liel Leibovitz

Why hasn’t the Obama Administration been able to reach a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians? Reading Hillary Clinton’s new memoir,Hard Choices, you’d think the blame should be apportioned about equally between the two parties, with a little falling on the administration as well. It’s nice to be evenhanded—to downplay differences, to be charitable and high-minded, to preserve future options. But it also can be wrong, especially when doing so implicitly casts opprobrium on someone undeserving of blame.

The sections of Clinton’s book that deal with the peace process are full of such blame, and it is not always so implicit.