Another Terrorist Who Worked For UNRWA

The United Nations is going to have a hard time recruiting workers in the Middle East if Israel keeps killing the ones who work as terrorists in their spare time. On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about the latest terrorist to be killed by Israel.

The article reports:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel Security Agency (ISA) announced Monday that they had killed Fateh Sherif, who led Hamas in Lebanon. He was also a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) employee.

In a joint statement, the IDF and ISA said:

Overnight, during a joint IDF and ISA intelligence-based activity, the IAF struck and eliminated the terrorist Fateh Sherif, Head of the Lebanon Branch in the Hamas terrorist organization.

Sherif was responsible for coordinating Hamas’ terror activities in Lebanon with Hezbollah operatives. He was also responsible for Hamas’ efforts in Lebanon to recruit operatives and acquire weapons.

He led the Hamas terrorist organization’s force build-up efforts in Lebanon and operated to advance Hamas’ interests in Lebanon, both politically and militarily.

The IDF and the ISA will to continue to operate against anyone who poses a threat to the civilians of the State of Israel.

UNRWA acknowledged that Fateh Sherif had been the principal of one of its schools, the Times of Israel reported:

Sherif was killed today in an airstrike on the al-Bass refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, along with his wife and children. Reports indicate he had been the principal of the UNRWA-run Deir Yassin Secondary School in al-Bass.

“Fateh Al Sharif was an UNRWA employee who was put on administrative leave without pay in March, and was undergoing an investigation following allegations that UNRWA received about his political activities,” UNRWA says in response to a Times of Israel query.

The article concludes:

In a statement, the IDF and ISA said they had killed Nidal Abdel-Aal, head of the PFLP’s Lebanon branch, as well as Imad Odeh, the head of the PFLP’s military office in Lebanon. They added that Abdel-Aal had directed terror attacks on Israelis in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), including a bus bombing and a shooting attack, both in 2023.

Israel is make the entire world a safer place while minimizing the number of innocent civilians killed. We should all be celebrating.

I Really Can’t Mourn This Man’s Death

On September 28th, The Washington Free Beacon reported that Israel Defense Forces killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on the Iran-backed terrorist group’s Beirut headquarters.

The article reports:

“Last night, in a precise strike on Hezbollah’s terrorist headquarters in the neighborhood in Beirut, the IDF eliminated the leader of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, Hassan Nasrallah,” IDF international spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters in a briefing. “I can now confirm this to you.”

“Hassan Nasrallah will no longer be able to terrorize the world,” the IDF said on X.

The Israeli airstrike on Friday also eliminated Ali Karaki, Hezbollah’s Southern Front commander, and other leaders of the group, according to the IDF.

“The strike was conducted while Hezbollah’s senior chain of command, what’s left of it, were operating from the headquarters and advancing terrorist activities against the citizens of the State of Israel,” Shoshani said.

Hezbollah confirmed the death of Nasrallah on Saturday.

Shoshani said the Hezbollah headquarters were located underground, beneath a residential building in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, in keeping with the group’s strategy “to hide behind civilians.” He said the IDF always takes precautions to avoid civilian deaths, but he was not prepared to speak to the specifics of Friday’s airstrike, including the types of munitions that were used or the extent of the collateral damage.

If the terrorists are going to hide among civilians, civilians are going to be killed. I am just grateful that the IDF makes very surgical strikes when taking out terrorists.

The article also notes:

The Biden administration, which failed to impose a ceasefire on Israel and Hezbollah on Thursday, distanced itself from the strike against Nasrallah.

“The United States was not involved in this operation, and we had no advanced warning,” a Pentagon spokeswoman said on Friday.

A terrorist is killed and the Biden administration doesn’t even celebrate! They had no advanced warning because they cannot be trusted. There are too many people in the Biden administration who support Iran instead of Israel.

Isn’t This Racist?

On Wednesday, The Jewish News Syndicate reported that the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Israeli presence to be illegal in any area over the 1949 armistice line. That’s interesting. Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East where Jews, Christians, and Muslims have the same rights and are allowed to participate in the government of the nation. Why is the United Nations picking on the a non-racist country in the area rather than the countries where Jews are not allowed? Why–because there are now enough Muslim countries in the United Nations to begin to take over the organization and to align with the non-Muslim tyrants to attempt to make Sharia Law and Muslim dominance a feature of the United Nations.

The article reports:

More than 40 countries sponsored the resolution, which was the first that Palestinians filed after being granted unprecedented privileges, for a non-U.N. member, earlier this year.

The resolution calls on the Israel Defense Forces to withdraw completely from Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip within 12 months, which means evacuating all Jewish communities beyond the armistice line, including Jerusalem’s Old City.

It also bans arms sales to the IDF of any equipment that would be expected reasonably to be used in the territory over the 1949 lines and calls for a boycott of all products produced by Jews in those areas.

The resolution text lacks any mention of Israeli security concerns, historic ties to the lands or Hamas’s terror attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.

Just for the record, this is the land given to Israel by the Balfour Declaration”

These are the borders for the Jewish state set up by the League of Nations:

The Arabs do not have a legitimate claim to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, or the Gaza Strip. Historically, all of these lands are Jewish and play a major role in both Jewish and Christian history.

The article at the Jewish News Syndicate concludes:

Arsen Ostrovsky and Nadav Steinman, CEO and board chair, respectively, of the International Legal Forum, stated that “today, simply put, the United Nations has become the diplomatic arm of Hamas” and that the resolution “is just the latest in a litany of obscenely one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N. since Oct. 7.” 

“All it does is reward the murderers, rapists and abductors of Hamas while pouring further fuel on worldwide antisemitism and eroding whatever remaining credibility of the already problematic and politicized International Court of Justice, upon which this resolution is meant to be based,” they added. “Ultimately, peace will only prevail when Hamas is defeated and the hostages are released, not through tiresome antics and pyrrhic Palestinian ‘victories’ at the U.N.”

Giving land to terrorists has never worked in the past. There is no reason to believe that it will work in the future.

The Link Between Hamas And The United Nations

On Thursday, PJ Media reported the following:

The United Nations frenziedly condemned a new Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike as one of Israel’s “dramatic violations of international humanitarian law.” The problem is that the UN workers killed were also Hamas terrorists.

The UN and many other organizations and governments love to emphasize that the IDF strikes schools and “aid workers.” What they are not telling you is that Hamas jihadis have long used schools and other “civilian” buildings in Gaza as terrorist bases and that the “aid workers” almost always turn out to be active terrorists. That appears to be the case once again with the IDF strike this week, where at least three UNRWA “workers” killed were Hamas jihadis.

UNRWA is absolutely infested with Hamas operatives, according to international human rights lawyer Hillel Neuer. As JihadWatch has noted, terrorists specifically place military targets in humanitarian zones so that, if IDF strikes, they can immediately condemn Israel. So whenever the UN starts wailing that the IDF causelessly killed their humanitarian workers while they were operating a school or shelter, always fact-check that claim. It will almost certainly turn out to be false.

According to the state of Israel, which is a more reliable source on these topics than is the Hamas-loving UN, so far the confirmed casualties in the precision strike are terrorists — including at least three UNRWA “workers.”

As long as Hamas is using human shields, there will be ‘civilian’ casualties. However, a lot of these ‘civilians’ support Hamas. Private homes have tunnel entrances; Hamas members work for so-called humanitarian organizations to bring ‘aid’ into Gaza. It doesn’t seem to matter to those providing the aid that the money and supplies are used to strengthen Hamas and build more tunnels.

The United Nations began with a dream of world peace. Instead of working toward that dream, they have become a hotbed of corruption and and a supporter of terrorists and terrorism. It’s time to kick the United Nations out of New York City and turn their building into luxury apartments!

This Isn’t Really Surprising

Israel is taking a long time to defeat Hamas. Part of that is due to their extreme concern to avoid civilian casualties–to the point of telling Hamas ahead of time where they will attack. Another part of the problem is America slow-walking our promised military equipment and the fact that the corruption in the Middle East is such that supporting terrorism can be lucrative. There is also the fact that Hamas knows that the longer the war goes on, the better their chances of winning the public relations war. And there are also numerous tunnel complexes that make fighting very difficult.

On Sunday, Breitbart reported:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Sunday that soldiers had uncovered a massive smuggling tunnel underneath the border between Gaza and Egypt in the area of Rafah — where the U.S. had cautioned Israel not to go.

How many countries are quietly undermining the Israeli war effort? We know that the Biden administration shares the goal of the Obama administration to increase the role of Iran in the Middle East and lessen the role of Israel.

The article concludes:

Prior to May, the Biden administration had warned Israel not to enter Rafah, even withholding weapons to pressure Israel to stay out of the area. Israel decided to enter Rafah anyway due to its strategic importance to the war against Hamas.

IDF control of the Philadelphi Corridor, which is a road along the border, has been at stake in recent negotiations with Hamas over a hostage-ceasefire deal. Hamas and the U.S. want Israel to cede control of the corridor, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been reluctant to give it up.

Control of the corridor allows the IDF to choke Hamas’s weapons supply; Israel does not trust Egyptian or U.S. guarantees to monitor the border effectively.

Israel is smart not to trust Egypt or the U.S.

 

Why There Are Civilian Casualties In Gaza

On Tuesday, The Jewish News Syndicate reported that fifteen terrorists were killed on Tuesday in an Israeli air strike on a Hamas command center located in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school in Nuseirat in central Gaza. Note that the command center was located in an UNRWA school. Hamas deliberately puts civilians at risk so that they can claim genocide by Israel.

The article reports:

Among those killed in the strike were members of Hamas’s Nukhba force who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The incident was yet another example of Hamas’s cynical use of Gaza’s civilians as human shields, according to the IDF.

“The Hamas terrorist organization systematically exploits international institutions and uses the civilian population as human shields in order to perpetrate terrorist attacks against the State of Israel,” said the military.

Throughout the war against Hamas, which is now in its seventh month, Israeli soldiers have found missiles and military gear hidden among U.N. relief supplies in Gaza.

Hamas’s use of UNRWA as cover has been known for a while.

The article notes:

In February, the IDF announced the discovery of a massive Hamas tunnel complex underneath UNRWA’s central headquarters in Gaza.

That same month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a visiting delegation of U.N. ambassadors that UNRWA had been “totally infiltrated” by the terrorist group.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told journalists in February that the Jewish state had intelligence showing that 30 UNRWA employees took part in the Oct. 7 terror attack.

The article concludes:

Netanyahu called for the U.N. agency to be replaced.

“I think it’s time that the international community and the United Nations itself understand that UNRWA’s mission has to end,” he said.

“It has been in the service of Hamas [in] its schools and in many other things. I say this with great regret because we hoped that there would be an objective and constructive body to offer aid. We need such a body today in Gaza. But UNRWA is not that body. It has to be replaced by some organization or organizations that will do that job,” he added.

I think it is time for the United Nations to be disbanded.

Lest We Forget

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about the five Americans who are still being held hostage by Hamas. These are the names of the five Americans–Keith Siegel, 65, Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35, Omer Neutra, 22, Edan Alexander, 20, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23.

The article includes a brief biography of each:

The last time Goldberg-Polin’s parents saw him, was on October 6, the night before Hamas’ attack on Israel, right before he left to go camping with a friend, Aner Shapira.

His mother, Rachel Goldberg, last heard from her son the next morning, receiving two texts from him. In one, he told his parents that he loved them. The other text message said: “I’m sorry.”

…Keith Siegel and his wife Aviva Siegel, 62, were taken hostage by Palestinian civilians from their home in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza. After being driven to Gaza in their own vehicle, the couple was then sold to Hamas terrorists.

Aviva Siegel was later released during a truce in November 2023 and has since spoken out about her time in captivity.

…The son of Connecticut-born Jonathan Dekel-Chen, Sagui Dekel-Chen lived on the Nir Oz kibbutz with his wife, Avital, and their children. Sagui’s parents also live on the same kibbutz.

In an interview with the Times of Israel, Sagui’s father explained that his son and others had sounded the alarm in their kibbutz after seeing “heavily armed and precisely organized” Hamas terrorists going through their community.

…Edan Alexander was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. After graduating from high school, he went on to join the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion.

At the time of Hamas’ attack, he had been stationed near the Gaza Strip, and a little after 6:30 a.m., he had informed his mom, Yael Alexander that he was safe.

However, around 7:00 a.m., she was not able to reach her son and a week later the family discovered Edan was among those taken hostage by Hamas.

…At the time of Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, Omer Neutra had been serving as a tank commander near Gaza.

After graduating from high school in New York City, Omer went to Israel and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces.

He went there for the right reasons, you know, he felt that he wanted to protect, and he’s not the kind of guy that was looking for a war,” Omer’s mom, Orna Neutra explained.

The last time Omer’s parents heard from him was the day before Hamas’ attack.

Let’s not forget who started the war in Gaza and the barbarism of the attack on Israel.

This Is NOT A Good Thing

On Sunday, Breitbart posted the following headline:

After U.S. Pressure, IDF Leaves Southern Gaza; Hamas Declares Victory

It is not good under any circumstances to encourage terrorists, and unfortunately recent acts and statements by the American government have done just that. This is the equivalent to feeding your friends to the alligator in the hopes that by the time it gets to you it won’t be hungry. News flash–terrorists are always hungry for more terror.

The article reports:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Sunday that it had withdrawn its forces from southern Gaza, following a demand from U.S. President Joe Biden last week for an “immediate ceasefire.” Hamas declared victory on the news.

The decision, coming on the day Israelis marked six months since the October 7 attack, came as a surprise, and as Israeli negotiators flew to Cairo for hostage negotiations. Hamas has demanded a ceasefire before any new deal.

The IDF will leave one brigade in Gaza, whose role will be to allow Israeli troops access to return as necessary. It will also carry out targeted operations, such as the successful raid at Shifa Hospital last month.

Note that the hostages are still being held. There are also questions as to whether or not the hostages have been or will be moved to Iran. I am not optimistic that any hostages that are still alive will ever be free. I also suspect that Hamas has no intention of letting us know how many hostages are alive and can be returned.

The article also notes:

As Breitbart News reported, Biden demanded an “immediate ceasefire” in response to the accidental killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers last Tuesday, when an IDF drone team mistook them for Hamas terrorists.

The incident was Hamas’s greatest success in the war: there is evidence that the terrorists deliberately confused the IDF about the vehicles. Hamas uses human shields and civilian casualties as part of its asymmetric war strategy.

Biden’s demand came after the U.S. had already allowed the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution that separated a ceasefire from a deal to return the remaining 130 or so Israeli hostages, adopting Hamas’s core demand.

Unfortunately, terrorists are not stupid, and some of our government officials are very vulnerable to propaganda coming out of the Middle East.

Israel Lives In A Really Bad Neighborhood

On October 7th, Israel was attacked by Hamas. As a result of that attack, Israel has attempted to eliminate Hamas because it is an organization that foments terrorism against Israel. Israel seems to be doing a pretty good job despite opposition from people who are either unaware of the history and goals of Hamas or choose to ignore them. Unfortunately Hamas is not Israel’s only bad neighbor.

On Monday, The Daily Wire reported the following:

The Israel Defense Forces destroyed what it said were two large weapon depots belonging to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization inside Lebanon.

The strikes reportedly occurred near the coastal city of Sidon, which is roughly thirty miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border.

“IDF fighter jets struck two Hezbollah weapons storage facilities adjacent to the city of Sidon in Lebanon,” the IDF said in a statement. “The strike was carried out in response to the launch of a UAV toward the Lower Galilee in northern Israel.”

“An examination of the incident suggests that the UAV was most likely launched from Lebanon by the Hezbollah terrorist organization earlier today,” the statement continued. “The incident is under review. Furthermore, over the last few hours, IDF fighter jets struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in the areas of Meiss El Jabal and al-Adisa in Lebanon.”

I sincerely believe that we should celebrate the elimination of terrorists regardless of what country they choose to abide in. The article includes video of the IDF blowing up the storage facilities.

The article concludes:

Hezbollah is considered to be the most powerful and well armed terrorist group in the world thanks to receiving roughly $1 billion a year from Iran.

The group has 20,000 to 25,000 full-time fighters with tens of thousands more in reserves, according to the IDF.

How much of that $1 billion comes from American taxpayers?

The Cease-Fire Ended When Hamas Violated It

Israel used to have a policy of not negotiating with terrorists. As much as the hostages pulled at our heartstrings, that was a wise policy and might have been useful here.

On December 1st, CBN News reported the following:

Rockets fired by Hamas triggered the end to a week-long pause in the Gaza fighting in the early hours of Friday morning. The war restarted after Israel accused the terror group of violating the truce agreement.

After Hamas began firing rockets into southern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces resumed bombing in Gaza City. The renewed fighting now puts the release of the remaining hostages on hold. During the halt in the fighting more than 100 hostages were freed.

On Thursday, 10 more Israeli hostages were released. Israel had wanted all the women and children to be set free, yet with the resumption of the fighting and the breakdown in negotiations, the fate of nearly 140 hostages remaining in captivity is unknown.

The article notes:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Blinken Israel’s goals for the war.

“I told him: ‘This is the same Hamas. This is the same Hamas that carried out the terrible massacre on October 7, the same Hamas that tries to murder us everywhere.’ I told him: ‘We swore, and I swore, to eliminate Hamas. Nothing will stop us.’  We will continue this war until we achieve the three goals: to release all our abductees, to eliminate Hamas completely, and to ensure that Gaza will never again face such a threat.”

Blinken repeated the Biden administration’s message that there should be fewer civilian deaths and displacement in operations in southern Gaza than was experienced in northern Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel’s Channel 12 is reporting Blinken gave Israel “weeks” to finish the job of destroying Hamas.

“In my meetings today with the Prime Minister and senior Israeli officials, I made clear that before Israel resumes major military operations, it must put in place humanitarian, civilian protection plans that minimize further casualties of innocent Palestinians,” Blinken stated.

Israel was not the one that started this. The allies in World War II didn’t hesitate to destroy the Nazis, Israel should not hesitate to destroy Hamas.

A Question That Needs To Be Asked

On Monday, The New York Post posted the following headline:

How many aid groups knew Hamas was hiding in a hospital and lied about it?

The article reports:

Hamas used Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital as a base of terror operations. That’s the obvious conclusion following Sunday’s discovery of a large terror tunnel under the hospital along with videos of Hamas bringing Israeli hostages inside.

Now comes an important question for Congress: Which US-funded international organizations knew the truth about al-Shifa and helped Hamas conceal its war crimes?

The Israel Defense Forces this weekend discovered a tunnel beneath al-Shifa Hospital that extends 10 meters down and 55 meters across — leading to what might be a booby-trapped door. Special units that specialize in handling explosives have been summoned to break through to the next section.

Meanwhile, Israel also released security footage showing two hostages brought through al-Shifa by Hamas terrorists following the Oct. 7 massacre as hospital workers looked on — suggesting a widespread conspiracy to conceal both the presence of hostages at al-Shifa and Hamas’ terror infrastructure within the compound.

The article notes:

Within days of the Hamas massacre, Fabrizio Carboni, the Middle East regional director for the International Committee of the Red Cross, began spreading Hamas disinformation — telling international media that Gaza “hospitals risk turning into morgues.”

When Carboni said this, he may have already known that hospitals in Gaza were used as terror bases and hostages were being stashed under those hospitals.

…In its 2022 annual report, the ICRC says it received $689 million from the United States last year — roughly one-third of contributions received from all countries combined. That’s a lot of taxpayer money sent to an organization that may have betrayed its most fundamental duty to uphold the Geneva Conventions by covering up Hamas war crimes and abandoning Israeli hostages.

The article concludes:

The ICRC and WHO have strong lobbies in Washington that will fight to protect their flow of taxpayer money. If, as expected, the State Department does nothing to hold these groups accountable, Congress — which holds their purse strings — should intervene. The first step: Investigate. The next: Put a pause on US funding until leadership changes and reforms guarantee that complicity in terrorist war crimes will never happen again.

How much American taxpayer money paid for Hamas headquarters?

Having The Courage To Tell The Truth

On Wednesday, The Conservative Review posted an article about the screening of a film called “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre.” The screenings will be held in Los Angeles and New York City.

The article reports:

Hollywood superstar Gal Gadot will help host uncensored screenings of footage laying bare the atrocities that Hamas committed in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Screenings of the film, which has been titled “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre,” will be held in Los Angeles and New York City, according to the Wrap. Hollywood celebrities, journalists, and other influential figures are being invited to attend the events.

The Israel Defense Forces are providing 47-minutes of footage for the private screenings. The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee are also helping organize the screenings.

The article notes:

But the backlash against her has been fierce. The Quds News Network, a Palestinian “news” organization with connections to Hamas and Islamic terrorism, posted about the screening on social media, generating more than 50 million views and a ton of reaction.

“When we say these are not harmless opinions or individuals or careers to support, we aren’t exaggerating. Gal Gadot is a former IDF soldier using her access in Hollywood to push propaganda for an ongoing genocide,” said UCLA professor Nour Joudah.

The current spin by the ‘Palestinians’ is that Israel is committing genocide by going into Gaza. Israel is attacking military targets. What was Hamas doing when it went into Israel on October 7?

America’s Actions Are Not Helping End Terrorism

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about Israel’s delay in its attack on the Gaza Strip.

The article reports:

The story about why Israel has yet to make a ground invasion of Gaza is becoming clear, and it is yet another embarrassment for the United States under Joe Biden.

Israel has been prepared to enter Gaza to eliminate Hamas, but the ground invasion keeps getting delayed. The reason why?

The US is unprepared to defend US military installations in the area.

If that is true, then every one of our current military leaders ought to be relieved of command.

On October 23rd, The National Review reported the following:

The IDF is getting antsy that further delaying the ground invasion of Gaza could hinder its goal of destroying Hamas, while the Biden administration is putting pressure on Israel to wait even longer for ongoing hostage negotiations to play out.

A ground invasion of Gaza has been reported as “imminent” for weeks following the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians, leading to swirling speculation about what the hold-up was; but a clearer picture is starting to emerge.

The Times of Israel on Monday reported that

the Israel Defense Forces believes that in order to attain the objectives of the war against Hamas, laid out by government officials, the military must begin its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip sooner rather than later. . . .

After 16 days of airstrikes, the IDF has told the government that it is fully prepared for a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, and believes it can achieve the goals set out for it, even at the risk of heavy casualties to soldiers, and amid repeated attacks by Hezbollah in the north, The Times of Israel learned.

The new excuse by the Biden Administration looks utterly pathetic because it is an admission that despite decades of having troops and assets in the region, our military is not prepared to defend our interests.

That is quite the reality if true, and quite the message to our enemies if either true or false.

Do we want Israel to deal with the terrorists in Gaza or do we want more terrorism around the world?

Please follow the link to read the entire article. We need a new President.

Of Course They Do

Breitbart.com posted an article today citing a Times of Israel report stating that Arab leaders support John Kerry’s proposals for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course they do. The 1967 borders are indefensible. Kerry’s peace plan is the blueprint for the Arab dream of driving the Israelis into the sea.

The article reports:

Saudi Arabia issued a statement Thursday via an official news agency saying that the kingdom “welcomed the proposals” set forth by Kerry and that they were in accordance “with the majority of the resolutions of international legality and most of the elements of the Arab Peace Initiative” adopted by the Arab League in 2002.

Kerry’s proposals represent “an appropriate basis for achieving a final settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” the Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an unnamed source in the Saudi Foreign Ministry.

This is amazing. If you remember, the concept is called ‘land for peace.’ Israel gave the ‘Palestinians‘ the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace. The Palestinians promptly destroyed all the greenhouses that could have provided income for them and then used the land as a staging area to fire rockets at Israeli civilians. The Palestinians also used the Gaza Strip to build underground tunnels to move troops through to attack Israeli civilians. The Palestinians got the land, but Israel did not get the peace. Shouldn’t we learn from history?

Israel is being asked to give up the Wailing Wall and part of the Golan Heights. The Wailing Wall is Jewish–it doesn’t in any way belong to the Arabs. The Golan Heights is strategic–it is a great place to lob rockets at innocent Israeli civilians–it was used for that purpose before the 1967 War. The 1967 boundaries were never actually boundaries–they were cease-fire lines drawn until a solution could be worked out. They were indefensible at the time, and they are indefensible now. Forcing Israel to give up more land for an illusive peace will only create more war. It is truly a shame that the Obama Administration chooses not to understand this. I am sure Israel, along with those who sincerely want peace in the Middle East, is looking forward to the Trump Administration.

Israel Is Still Under Attack

On Friday, CBN News posted an article about a recent Israel Defense Force action in southern Israel.

The article reports:

The Israel Defense Forces, in tandem with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), discovered and neutralized an infiltration tunnel dug under the border with the Gaza Strip into southern Israel.

IDF Col. (res.) Atai Shelach, former commander of Yahalom, an elite combat engineering unit that destroys the attack tunnels, told journalists in a phone interview that Hamas has acquired “more ability and capabilities than in past years.”

“They’ve proven their ability [and are] using more technologies,” he said. “This is one of the main tools the terror organizations have in their hands.”

Shelach said the terrorists “could do almost anything with this technology, from kidnapping citizens and soldiers to penetrating Israel with ammunition, booby traps and so on.”

A IDF statement said it was the first tunnel discovered since Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.

The article comments on where the terrorists obtained the money to build the tunnel:

IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the discovery points to Hamas’ cynical use of funds and material donated to refurbish homes damaged in the IDF’s military response to Hamas rocket fire in the summer of 2014.

“The ugly truth is that Hamas continues to invest millions of dollars to build tunnels of terror and death,” Lerner said in a statement. “The tunnel uncovered in Israel demonstrates once more Hamas’ warped priorities and continued commitment and investment in tools of violence. This tunnel exposes Hamas’ abhorrent intentions to attack men, women and children in southern Israel.”

This is a glaring example of why America and other western countries need to rethink their policies of aid to the Gaza Strip. The money given to the Gaza Strip does not go where America and other countries want it to go–it goes to fund terrorism and build tunnels for terrorists. If we continue funding these activities (knowingly or unknowingly), then we are partially responsible for funding the attacks on Israel. That is not something we want to encourage.

 

We Obviously Need A New Foreign Policy

Jim Geraghty posted an article in The Corner at National Review today about the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the article he reminds us that CNN reported the following:

During a National Security Council meeting held at the Pentagon on Dec. 14, President Barack Obama told top military officials and other officials he wanted to see a better job of having the so-called “narrative” of the war on ISIS communicated to the American people, a senior defense official told CNN.

Communication is not the problem.

The article at The Corner reports:

In Afghanistan, Taliban Controls Most Territory Since 2001; ISIS Preparing ‘Greatest Religious Cleansing in History

The story includes this report from a German journalist:

A German journalist who spent 10 days with Islamic State says that the radical jihadist group that has captured wide swaths of Syria and Iraq is deterred by only one Middle Eastern country – Israel.

In an interview with the British Jewish News, Jurgen Todenhofer recalls his brief time behind enemy lines during which he spoke with ISIS fighters.

“The only country ISIS fears is Israel,” Todenhofer, a former member of the German parliament, told Jewish News. “They told me they know the Israeli army is too strong for them.”

The writer said that ISIS wants to lure British and American forces into Syria and Iraq, areas where it thinks it has an advantage.

“They think they can defeat US and UK ground troops, who they say they have no experience in city guerrilla or terrorist strategies,” he told Jewish News. “But they know the Israelis are very tough as far as fighting against guerrillas and terrorists.

This doesn’t sound as if we are making progress in the War on Terror.

The Pictures Tell The Story

The map below shows the land originally given for the State of Israel in 1920:

The map below shows the changes made to that land in 1922:

As you can see, land was taken away from the land originally promised to Israel and given to the Arabs to form Trans-Jordan. The Jews were left with 23% of the land they were originally promised. They were willing to accept that–the Arabs were not.

The map below appeared on MSNBC this week:

MSNBC maps

This is totally misleading. There never was a country of Palestine–Palestine was the name given by the British to the Jewish land they occupied after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The Washington Free Beacon posted a story yesterday about the MSNBC map.

The article states:

MSNBC has admitted that highly controversial graphics aired on the network that depicted Israel as stealing land from the Palestinians were “factually wrong” and that the broadcast would be corrected on Monday, according to a network spokesperson.

The cable news network has been fighting off criticism after it aired the graphics and analysis, including a map linked to conspiracy groups branded as anti-Semitic, that portrayed Israel as existing on territory expropriated from Palestine.

The graphics garnered criticism from pro-Israel advocates and has now prompted the network to acknowledge that the graphics were highly misleading.

“In an attempt to shed light on the geographic context of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, we aired a map that was factually wrong,” the spokesperson said on Sunday.

Two MSNBC broadcasters, Kate Snow and Martin Fletcher, “will address the map in a segmentMonday about agendas and disinformation on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the spokesperson said.

Fletcher, a Middle East analyst, said on Sunday that the map and analyses were “dead wrong.”

If you don’t understand the history of Israel, it is easy to conclude that Israel is in some way responsible for the current wave of violence against Israel. Nothing is further from the truth. The violence is being agitated from the Gaza Strip and probably rooted in orders from Iran. Right now, Iran is pulling the strings in the Arab world. They are quite capable of causing all sorts of distractions from the nuclear agreement that is in the process of going into effect. The nuclear agreement Iran agreed to is not the same nuclear agreement that was signed in Vienna (rightwinggranny). It is quite possible that what is happening in Israel is being done to create a military response from Israel in order to give the Arab world an excuse to attack Israel. Remember, wars in the Middle East are as much about propaganda as they are about the military. That is what makes the showing of the erroneous map by MSNBC so egregious.

How Things Work In The Middle East

Today The Blaze posted an article about the rocket attacks on Israel during the past two weeks. Somehow the media and the international community  have remained silent on the issue. Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed out that there will be a lot of media coverage as soon as Israel retaliated–the United Nations and most of the media would come out against Israel.

The article gives a possible explanation for the recent attacks:

The Times of Israel noted that following a Palestinian rocket attack last week, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on “all parties to avoid further escalation and prevent incidents that jeopardize the lives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians.”

…The Saturday night launch was the third rocket attack on southern Israeli communities in the past two weeks.

A radical Salafist terrorist group linked to the Islamic State group took responsibility for two of the rocket firings.

The Times of Israel quoted Israeli military sources who said they suspect Omar Brigades, a Salafist group which views the ruling Hamas as a rival, has launched the rockets in order to provoke an Israeli military response against Hamas targets, and thus weaken its rival.

Note that the U.N. statement does not condemn the actions of the group firing the rocket, it just states that things should not escalate. Until the U.N. and the world community begin to condemn the side initiating the rocket attacks, the attacks will continue. Unfortunately, the world community is enabling a bully to continue attacks and condemning the bullied when they defend themselves.

 

Does The Constitution Apply On College Campuses?

Brandeis University was founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian Jewish community-sponsored co-ed university. It is named for Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Justice Brandeis was a champion of free speech and an ardent Zionist. I am sure he would not be pleased with some recent developments at the university that bears his name.

Today’s Wall Street Journal posted a story about Daniel Mael, a senior majoring in business at Brandeis. Mr. Mael is very active on campus–he is a part of Brandeis’s Orthodox Jewish community, and as a student journalist has published articles in national outlets. On October 14, 2013, two pro-Israel campus groups hosted Barak Raz, a former spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Eli Philip, another student, who was the leader of the campus affiliate of J Street, attended the event. A rather unfriendly Facebook exchange followed between Mr. Mael and Mr. Philip. The discussion then moved to articles and petitions.

The story continued:

Mr. Philip interpreted this as harassment, and in a Dec. 9, 2013, complaint to Brandeis administrators, he presented charges under the university code of conduct. Mr. Philip said in his written complaint that at a lunch meeting two days after the IDF event, Mr. Mael “accused me of behavior unfitting a Jewish soul” and of harboring “deep-seated ‘evil inclinations.’ ” Mr. Mael, Mr. Philip went on, “informed me that I damaged the Jewish community, that I should resign from my position as student leader, and that he must take action to restore the Jewish community.”

Mr. Mael says his words were misquoted and taken out of context, but that’s beside the point. Religious-oriented conversations, however passionate, don’t amount to harassment, a principle that the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission has set forth regarding workplaces and one even more relevant on college campuses, where philosophical disputation is supposed to be part of the air students breathe. Nor did the encounter amount to conduct with “the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering” with Mr. Philip’s “education or work performance,” as the Brandeis student code defines harassment. The students, after all, were having lunch.

Mr.Mael was called into the Dean of Students office on December 5, 2013, and instructed to familiarize himself with the Rights and Responsibilities handbook as Mr. Philip was considering certain actions. Mr. Mael was also advised to avoid using social media. Then on October 8, 2014, Mr. Mael was again called to the dean’s office. At that time he was told that there were charges against him of bullying, harassment and religious discrimination. He was given a week to plead guilty or not guilty to the charges. Mr. Mael was not allowed to keep a copy of the complaint.

The story continues:

In a panic after the meeting with Dean Adams, Mr. Mael consulted his friend Noah Pollak, of the Washington-based Emergency Committee for Israel, which retained the Covington & Burling law firm to act on his behalf. Yet when Mr. Mael’s lawyer initially corresponded with university counsel, he was informed that “parties involved in the conduct process are not permitted to engage legal counsel to act or speak on their behalf.”

Covington & Burling paid no heed. With the deadline approaching and still without a copy of the complaint, Mr. Mael opted to plead not guilty and request a full hearing before a jury of his fellow students.

Mr. Mael was provided with a copy of the charges by the end of October.

The article explains:

And Covington & Burling submitted to Brandies two lengthy legal memoranda blasting violations of Mr. Mael’s rights. One letter concluded: “We reserve all rights on behalf of Mr. Mael, including the right to assert claims for the reputational and other harms caused by the baseless allegations at the heart of this proceeding.” In other words: See you in court.

On Oct. 27 Dean Adams informed Mr. Mael via email that the “allegations against you will not be adjudicated through our Student Conduct Board. The accuser has withdrawn from the option to do so and therefore this case should be considered closed and without determination of fault or sanction. . . . Thank you for your cooperation.”

First of all, if Mr. Philip was all that upset about what Mr. Mael was saying on social media, he could easily have blocked him. Second of all, Mr. Philip needs to learn that other people are also entitled to their opinions. Thirdly, I think Justice Brandeis would be turning over in his grave if he know what was going on in the college named after him.

Do We Need To Support Terrorists When They Are Running Things?

According to the Congressional Research Service:

Since the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in themid-1990s, the U.S. government has committed approximately $5 billion in bilateral assistance to the Palestinians, who are among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign

aid. Successive Administrations have requested aid for the Palestinians in apparent support of at least three major U.S. policy priorities of interest to Congress:

1.  Preventing terrorism against Israel from Hamas and other militant organizations.

2.  Fostering stability, prosperity, and self-governance in the West Bank that inclines Palestinians toward peaceful coexistence with Israel and a “two-state solution.”

3.  Meeting humanitarian needs

Those are noble aims, but what exactly what are we supporting?

CBN News reported today on some recent statements by Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, President of the Palestinian Authority since 2005 and Fathi Hamad:

“It is not enough for us to say that there are defenders. We must all become defenders of al-Aksa [meaning the Temple Mount]. It is not enough for us to say the settlers [Israeli Jews] might come to al-Aqsa mosque. They did come and they must not be allowed into the complex. We must prevent their entrance into the complex by any means possible.”

 Hamas, a partner in the P.A. unity government, was more explicit. Fathi Hamad, a member of the Hamas political bureau, spoke about a vehicular attack in Jerusalem on the group’s al-Aksa TV last week.

“We, the Hamas movement, applaud this operation and encourage anyone who can carry out more [such operations],” Hamad told his interviewer.

“Even he who owns nothing but his faith has a kitchen in his house in which he has a knife. He must grab his knife and confront the Zionist enemy,” he continued. “Another one owns no weapon, but does own a car, he must push down on the gas pedal in order to take a revenge of the settlers who corrupt the land and defile the al-Aqsa Mosque,” he said.

“I say, there must be an uprising now, a raging uprising first of all against the [P.A.’s] security coordination [with Israel] so there should be no restrictions; then, the Islamic Palestinian armies committed to al-Aqsa will set out toward al-Aqsa and Jerusalem until the Jews abandon their intentions,” Hamad said.

America needs answers to some basic questions about our aid to Gaza. Is the money actually going to humanitarian aid or is it going to weapons? Why are we sending money to people who clearly promote violence? With comments like the above, is there any hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority?

 

The Propaganda Machine Rolls On

On Saturday, Haaretz reported that a Palestinian-American was killed on Friday in the West Bank as he attempted to throw a firebomb.

The story reports:

According to the military, the boy, 14, was about to throw a firebomb towards Route 60; an IDF unit positioned nearby opened fire after he had lit the firebomb’s fuse, and was preparing to hurl it. Palestinian officials denied these claims.

A relative identified the teen as Orwa Abd al-Wahhab Hammad and said he was born in New Orleans and came to the West Bank at age six. Hammad’s cousin Moath said he was among a group of Palestinians who were throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers.

An Israeli army spokesman told Reuters Israeli forces “managed to prevent an attack when they encountered a Palestinian man hurling a molotov cocktail at them on the main road next to Silwad. They opened fire and they confirmed a hit.”

This is the U. S. State Department response:

The United States expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a U.S. citizen minor who was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces during clashes in Silwad on October 24.  Officials from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem are in contact with the family and are providing all appropriate consular assistance. We call for a speedy and transparent investigation, and will remain closely engaged with the local authorities, who have the lead on this investigation.  We continue to urge all parties to help restore calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of the tragic recent incidents in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

How about telling the Palestinians not to train their children to throw rocks and firebombs at soldiers? This was not a ‘tragic recent incident.’ It is the result of years of indoctrination of hatred toward Israel in the Palestinian educations system.

Below is a picture of some kindergarten children at the graduation in Palestine that I posted in June 2012. Until this sort of training in school stops, there will not be peace between Israel and its so-called Palestinian neighbors.

As usual, the State Department is on the wrong side of this conflict.

There Are Relationships And There Are Relationships

I24 News posted a story today about the deteriorating relationship between Israel and the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

Relations between Israel and the US are so bad now that the Obama administration has seen fit to tighten its control over wartime weapons shipments, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday morning. According to the report, citing unnamed senior officials, the White house had requested that the Pentagon put on hold a shipment of ‘Hellfire’ missiles Israel had requested and instructed them to “consult with policy makers at the White House and the State Department before approving any additional requests.”

The change in policy was related to the fact that a UN school was struck by an IDF missile.

This is a bit one-way. We are continuing aid to Hamas as they use human shields and deliberately target civilians. Secretary of State Kerry wanted the blockade of Gaza lifted so that Hamas could receive more concrete to build tunnels to attack Israel. And there has been no decrease in American aid to Hamas even after it became obvious that the aid was being used for weapons and tunnels–not to build hospitals, schools, and homes for the people of Gaza.

The article further reports:

US policymakers, were apparently fine with equipping the IDF with defensive equipment, especially the jointly funded and widely touted Iron Dome, but were concerned about the transfer of weapons of a more offensive nature. They were reportedly particularly worried by the IDF’s widespread use of artillery that provided cover for Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza, because of its less precise nature and higher risk of hurting innocent civilians.

The report quoted a senior Obama administration official saying that the weapons transfers shouldn’t have been a routine “check-the-box approval” process, given the context. “The official said the decision to scrutinize future transfers at the highest levels amounted to the United States saying ‘The buck stops here. Wait a second…It’s not OK anymore.’ “

“They decided to require White House and State Department approval for even routine munitions requests by Israel,” the article reads, citing officials. “Instead of being handled as a military-to-military matter, each case is now subject to review—slowing the approval process and signaling to Israel that military assistance once taken for granted is now under closer scrutiny.”

The Wall Street Journal report paints the weapons issue as part of a widening gulf between the Netanayahu and Obama administrations, which has reached “the lowest point” since Obama took office.

Note to White House–Hamas is a terrorist organization. Sending them money is supporting terrorism. Their charter includes the destruction of Israel. They are not the good guys. If Palestinians want their own state, they should not elect terrorists to run it.

A Hospital, A Mosque, A University, and An UNRWA Ambulance

What do a hospital, a mosque, a university and an UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees) ambulance have in common? According to Breitbart.com, they were all part of the killing of IDF Officer LT Hadar Goldin, 23.

The article reports:

An unnamed Israeli military source spoke to Breitbart News about the story of how Hamas used an UNRWA ambulance, a mosque, and the Islamic University to carry out the attack that killed the three IDF soldiers.

The officer explained how, after the suicide bombing that killed Lt. Goldin, a second kidnapping team of Hamas terrorists grabbed parts of his body and ran back into the tunnel from which the terrorists emerged. The tunnel led back into a mosque. From the mosque, they escaped in a clearly marked UNRWA ambulance. The terrorists then made contact with high-ranking Hamas officials hiding in the Islamic University. 

As a result Abu Marzook, a senior member of Hamas, announced in Cairo that Hamas had kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israeli intelligence intercepted a conversation between the kidnappers and the Hamas officials at the Islamic University and thus got all the particulars regarding the hiding place of the kidnappers. Within minutes, the IAF attacked both the kidnappers’ location and the Islamic University.

So what can we learn from this? Hamas has no problem using hospitals, universities and mosques to hide its activities and its tunnel network. Hamas has no problem using a clearly-marked UNRWA ambulance as part of a battle plan. I think it is time we stopped giving money to the United Nations to fund UNRWA. They seem to have forgotten their mission (as has the United Nations–we should stop funding them also).

The war in Gaza began with the constant rocket attacks on Israel and the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli students. We need to keep that in mind as the Palestinian propaganda machine ramps up its charges of crimes against humanity against Israel. War is actually supposed to conducted according to rules. Hamas and its cousin ISIS have broken every rule of civilized warfare in their attacks on Israel and on non-Muslims in other countries. There needs to be some outrage by the World Court, the United Nations, and other organizations that are always blaming Israel for war crimes. These organizations need to either speak out against what ISIS and Hamas or doing or they need to disband as useless. There really is no other option.

There Are Numbers And There Are Numbers

This graph is from an article in Tuesday’s New York Times. It has to do with the reporting of civilian casualties in Gaza.

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The New York Times reminds us that all civilian casualties reported in Gaza are not civilians:

But the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the Israeli group that analyzed the first Palestinian deaths, accused the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry of “concealment and deception” in order “to create an ostensibly factual infrastructure for a political, propaganda and legal campaign against Israel.”

The Times analysis, looking at 1,431 names, shows that the population most likely to be militants, men ages 20 to 29, is also the most overrepresented in the death toll: They are 9 percent of Gaza’s 1.7 million residents, but 34 percent of those killed whose ages were provided. At the same time, women and children under 15, the least likely to be legitimate targets, were the most underrepresented, making up 71 percent of the population and 33 percent of the known-age casualties.

We need to remember that Hamas soldiers do not always wear uniforms. Those infiltrating Israel through the tunnels wore IDF uniforms. As has been previously stated, Hamas routinely puts rocket launchers in heavily populated civilian areas. That is part of their strategy in the propaganda war. Now that the journalists are leaving Gaza, they are reporting rockets being fired from directly under their hotel rooms and in civilians areas. The world needs to understand the propaganda war being waged by Hamas and not fall prey to the misinformation that is being reported.

A website called Israellycool reports:

Tyler Hicks, the New York Times photographer, begins by telling us that Hamas fighters are hiding in civilian areas, embedded within the civilian population and firing rockets from residential neighborhoods:

I was stationed in Gaza, and covered the Palestinian side of the war where you saw most of the casualties.  One of the reasons for that is because the Hamas fighters are living among the civilian population. . . .  This is a situation where the fighters fire rockets from all over the Gaza Strip, from neighborhoods to cemeteries, from parking lots, from any number of places.

And no, the reason they do this is not because “Gaza is pretty small.”  Hicks next tells us that the fighters seek safety at the expense of the civilian population:

Hamas fighters are not able to expose themselves.  If they were to even step a foot on the street they would be spotted by an Israeli drone and immediately blown up.  We don’t see those fighters.  They are operating out of buildings and homes and at night.

Israel is fighting a terrorist neighbor. The world has a choice. They need to understand that this is a fight against terrorism and for democracy. They can choose to help Israel or they can ignore what is going on. The problem with ignoring what is going on is that the terrorists in Gaza are not a unique entity. They are linked (at least in philosophy) with Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS in Iraq and Syria, etc. We allow them to continue ruling Gaza at our own peril.

Booby Traps In An UNRWA Health Clinic

UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. They have hospitals, schools, and clinics in Gaza. Today the Times of Israel is reporting that three IDF soldiers were killed in a booby-trapped UNRWA health clinic that housed the opening of a tunnel. The soldiers were taking precautionary measures to limit the damage to the building while blowing up the tunnel when the explosives rigged by the Hamas fighters detonated, collapsing the building and killing the soldiers.

On July 20, I reported the following (rightwinggranny.com):

Here is the UNRWA’s “apology” for allowing rockets to be stored in one of their schools in Gaza and here is a follow-up article stating that they did not turn said weapons over for destruction to UN forces or some other legal body that respects human rights but rather gave them back to Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization that has to date committed numerous war crimes and various human rights violations according to the fourth Geneva Conventions.

UNRWA apologized for the incident, but obviously did not change its actions. The article at the Times of Israel reports that many of the buildings that house the tunnels have been booby trapped.

The Times of Israel also reports:

Turgeman ( IDF Southern Command head Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman) said the IDF is “days away” from completing the military goal of destroying all of the tunnels, though the process is complex. Four tunnels have been destroyed in the past 24 hours, he added.

Turgeman revealed that the IDF expanded its operation on Tuesday night, targeting new sites in the north and center of the coastal enclave.

With the amount of concrete Hamas poured into the tunnel project, two hospitals, 20 schools, 20 healthcare centers, and 100 kindergartens could have been built, he said.

It is a shame that the United Nations did not supervise Gaza to make sure that hospitals, schools, and healthcare centers were built instead of the tunnels used to attack Israel. I truly believe that with the building of these tunnels, Gaza has given up its right to be an independent state.