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Israel News for June 30, 2016

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Terror Attack
This morning a Palestinian terrorist scaled a security fence, broke into a house in Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, and stabbed a 13 year old girl to death while she was sleeping in her bed. The town’s civilian security patrol arrived at the house moments later and broke down the door. The terrorist stabbed one of the patrol members in the face before being shot and killed by the other security guard.

The 13 year old girl was Hallel Yaffa Ariel. The 31 year old security guard suffered serious wounds and was evacuated to Hadassah Ein Karem hospital in Jerusalem.

The terrorist was identified as Mohammed Tra’ayra, 19, from the nearby village Bani Na’im. He is a relative of the man who carried out a car ramming attack in Kiryat Arba in March. The IDF has surrounded the village and is searching it and interrogating relatives of the terrorist.

Over the weekend Tra’ayra posted a message on his Facebook page saying, “Death is a merit, and I desire to claim my merit.” His sister praised him in an interview on Palestinian TV, calling him a martyr and saying that he will enjoy his beard in heaven. She also called for divine retribution against the Jews.

The funeral for Hallel Yaffa Ariel will be held in Hebron later today. May her memory be a blessing.

For further reading click here and here.

Attacked in Ramallah
Nine Israeli left-wing activist illegally entered Ramallah to celebrate the nightly breaking of the Ramadan fast at the home of a Palestinian who is working to strengthen ties between leftist Israelis and Palestinians. But before they could get to the house, the Israeli’s were attacked by locals throwing rocks and firebombs. One of the cars burst into flames.

Eight of the Israelis were able to escape back into Israeli territory via the Qalandiya checkpoint. The ninth was rescued by PA security forces and questioned, before before being released to Israeli authorities near Beit El.

All nine are being questioned by security forces for violating a military order prohibiting entry of Israelis to areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

For further reading click here.

Take Two
Several months ago the Brazilian government refused to accept the credentials Dani Danon, whom the Prime Minister had appointed as ambassador to Brazil. The Brazilians objected to Danon because he had been a leader in the settlement movement. After a long standoff the PM backed down and appointed Danon as Israel’s UN Ambassador.

Well, it looks like the Prime Minister’s second try at appointing an ambassador might not be much more successful. This time the PM has appointed Yossi Sheli, a former business who was indicted and found guilty of perjury and fraud in 2008. In 2012 he signed a plea bargain agreement in which he admitted to a lesser charge and was forbidden from serving in public office until June of 2015. To top off his impressive resume, Sheli has zero diplomatic experience.

Sounds like the perfect choice.

For further reading click here.

Mein Kampf
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has been publishing Mein Kampf, the infamous manifesto by Adolf Hitler, since 1933. Since 2000, the company has donated the proceeds from the sale of the book to combat anti-semitism. Last year the company announced that they would widen their scope and include cultural organizations as recipients of the funds. This caused an outcry from Jewish advocates. It worked.

Going forward, the proceeds from Mein Kampf will be donated to Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Boston for “direct support of the health and human services needs of [Holocaust] survivors.”

By the way, between 1979 and 2000, the company kept all the proceeds for itself. Apparently, business is still business.

For further reading click here.

Israel News for October 21, 2015

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New Terror Attacks
A Palestinian driving a car with Israeli license plates rammed into a police officer at a checkpoint near the settlement of Ofra in the West Bank. The officer was lightly wounded and the assailant fled on foot to the nearby village of Silwad.

Earlier this morning a Palestinian woman approaching the settlement of Yitzhar wielding a knife was shot and wounded by IDF troops.

Two Palestinian terrorists, aged 15 and 17, stabbed an IDF soldier near Beit Hashalom in Hebron last night, lightly wounding him, before a fellow soldier managed to shoot and kill both of the assailants.

Earlier yesterday, a terrorist tried to ram his car into Israelis waiting at a bus stop at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank, but was stopped by the concrete blocks placed there for just that purpose. He was, however, able to lightly wound a 20-year-old IDF soldier and a 21-year-old Israeli civilian. The terrorist then left his car with a knife drawn and tried to stab the injured Israelis. Thankfully, an IDF soldier stationed in the area shot and killed him.

Near the Gaza border fence, dozens of Gazans clashed with IDF forces, who fired tear gas and live ammunition. One Palestinian was killed and 14 wounded.

According to a high ranking IDF officer, the man killed was part of a sniper cell that was preparing to fire on IDF forces. The cell was responsible for several recent shootings at Israeli vehicles.

Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv special anti terror police squads are raiding building sites in search of illegal Palestinian workers. The raids are meant to calm the fears of the Israeli public and scare the hell out of Arab workers to dissuade inciters and potential trouble makers. We’ll see how well this strategy works.

For further reading click here.

UN in Jerusalem
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid a surprise visit to Jerusalem yesterday to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an attempt to end the wave of violence. In a press conference with PM Netanyahu, Ban said that he deplored the terror attacks against civilians and hoped to find a way to end the violence. Was he referring to attacks against Israeli or Palestinian civilians? Anything is possible at the UN.

The PM told Ban that PA President Abbas “has joined ISIS and Hamas in claiming that Israel threatens the al-Aqsa mosque,” which he said was a blatant lie. He said that Abbas has incited the violence by saying that he, “welcomes every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem” and that he has not condemned a single one of the attacks.

The PM also reiterated that Israel has always protected the holy sites of all religions and is maintaining the “status quo” on the Temple Mount, whereas the Arabs are breaking it by bringing in explosives and preventing Jews and Christians from visiting.

For its part, the executive board of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is set to vote on a resolution proclaiming the Western Wall as part of the Al Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Unesco director general, Irina Bokova, reportedly appealed to the UN agency’s organizing committee to postpone the vote after meeting with Israeli and Palestinian UNESCO envoys. The vote was meant to take place yesterday but was postponed until today. Several countries are attempting to postpone the vote further. But the fact that this resolution is even on the table says it all.

What’s next, the Vatican? No, they probably wouldn’t go that far.

For further reading click here.

Silwan Synagogue
Enforcing a ruling by the High Court of Justice, police evicted Arab squatters from the historic Yemenite Great Synagogue in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Silwan, which is adjacent to the Old City of Jerusalem near the Temple Mount. Silwan is located above the ancient City of David, which is where Jerusalem was in the time of King David. The area now includes an archeological site.

The Yemenite synagogue was built in 1885, three years after 144 Yemenite Jewish families established a village in the area. The Jews were forced to leave in the late 1930’s due to Arab riots and violence. In 2004, Jews began to purchase property in the old Yemenite village from the Arab inhabitants and move back in.

The case to evict the Arab squatters from the legally purchased synagogue lasted for seven years until the High Court’s ruling in February and the final forcible eviction.

The synagogue will be renovated and its main sanctuary will be called Heichal Yonatan, in honor of Jonathan Pollard.

For further reading click here.

No Vigilantes
A Tel Aviv judge ordered police to arrest a man who kicked an Arab woman who was subdued and held on the ground by several people who saw her assault a man and thought that she was a terrorist.

A video of the incident taken by a witness shows one man kicking her in the head as she lay on the ground, her hands held behind her back. The woman wasn’t carrying a weapon and was sent for psychiatric evaluation. The judge said, “Even if the accused were a terrorist, it is unacceptable for Israeli citizens to kick in the head persons who pose no threat.”

Police released a statement saying, “We wish to emphasize to the public, required to be more vigilant these days, that when a danger is over and the suspect is disarmed or incapacitated, there is a strict prohibition on using violence — citizens are expected to refrain from taking the law into their hands.”

For further reading click here.

Christian Victim
One of the victims of the stabbing attack on bus #78 last week was a Dutch Christian woman, Marike Veldman. She left her home in Holland 37 years ago to volunteer in Israel, and never left. A few years after settling in Israel she opened a foster home for Arab children in East Jerusalem where, over the years, she raised 20 children.

Recounting the terror attack, Veldman said that she saw two men, “laughing, exchanging maybe a joke or something, and then all of sudden they got up and started screaming ‘Allahu Akbar,’ and then one of them started stabbing me and he stabbed me several times, I yelled ‘Jesus help me!’”

Feldman was moderately wounded in the attack. She says that although she pities the attackers and understands their frustrations, she feels that their actions were pure evil.

Regarding Arabs she said, “Right now I’m afraid of them. I have a lot of Arab friends, but it will take me some time to trust them, and I need to heal.”

Feldman said that we will not leave Israel. “The terror must not control my life.”

For further reading click here.

PM Blunders
Talk about rewriting history. In a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem yesterday, PM Netanyahu made a statement that’s caused just about everyone to say WTF. He basically said that it was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini who, in late 1941, gave Hitler the idea to exterminate the Jews. Before that, Hitler just wanted to expel them.

Granted the Mufti was an evil fellow who absolutely was in favor of wiping out the Jewish people, but have you read Mein Kampf? Hitler’s war against the Jewish people was one of the foundations of his ideology, if not the primary one. Netanyahu must know that. Everyone does. So why did he say what he said?

We’ll probably hear some sort of apology later today. I doubt he’ll try to explain his way out of this one. He better not.

For further reading click here.