Destruction and Uprootedness? Connecting to Tisha B'Av - by Nadav Shragai

...Our divisive past that has already brought destruction upon us prompts us to seek a better future. Tisha B'Av is a fitting time to do just that.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
31 July '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19577

In 1934, influential Labor Zionist Berl Katznelson heard that one of the youth movements was planning to begin its summer camping trip on the Tisha B'Av fast day, which marks the day that both Jewish temples were destroyed. Katznelson, one of the most prominent leaders of the Labor Movement in pre-state Israel, was appalled and consequently penned an article titled "Destruction and Uprootedness."

In the article, Katznelson wondered, "What value lies in a liberation movement that has no roots and that forgets?"

"If the Jewish people hadn't known to mourn our loss throughout the generations, none of [the Zionist pioneers Moses] Hess and [Leon] Pinsker, [Theodor] Herzl or [Max] Nordau would have arisen. ... Judah Halevi could not have created 'Zion, Do You Wonder?' and [Haim Nahman] Bialik could not have written 'The Scroll of Fire,'" he wrote.

It doesn't take too much effort to find signs of "destruction and uprootedness" today as well -- 1947 years after the Second Temple was destroyed, Tisha B'Av is unpopular among the general public. The mourning for the loss of our Temple is almost exclusively observed by the national religious and the haredim.

Balfour, indigenous rights and the Jewish People's more than two millennia in its ancestral homeland - by Amb. Alan Baker

...The Palestinian “Balfour Apology Campaign” to demand the annulment of the Balfour Declaration is part of a consistent policy of denying the rights of the Jews to their national homeland as a people indigenous to the area. Yet the Jewish People for more than two millennia has consistently maintained the strongest claim to be the aboriginal people in its ancestral homeland, and their existence and roots are widely documented, acknowledged, and recognized.

Amb. Alan Baker..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
No. 612..
August '17..

The present, ongoing, and cynical attempt to rewrite and manipulate historic and legal realities would appear to be part of today’s radicalized Arab and Muslim rejection of any non-Muslim historic or legal right to land or any religious heritage apart from Islam.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the character of the Jews as perhaps one of the oldest indigenous peoples who remains a distinct people and to consider the nature and implications of such distinctness in the practical realities of today’s international community.

With the 2017 centenary of the November 2, 1917 Balfour Declaration and its acknowledgment of the right of the Jewish people to their national homeland in Palestine, the international community is witnessing a concerted attempt by the Palestinian leadership to cast doubt and undermine the historic and legal basis, veracity, and justification for the indigenous character of the Jewish people and the rights of the Jews in the area.

This attempt to nullify the Balfour Declaration is not new.

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BBC World Service ME editor gives a partial portrayal of the Temple Mount story - by Hadar Sela

...While reporting that promotes the notion of ‘frustrated’, ‘angered’ Palestinians devoid of any agency or responsibility for their actions while avoiding uncomfortable facts such as the racist hatred, incitement and glorification of terror regularly promoted by Palestinian leaders may be conducive to being lauded as a “friend of the Palestinian people”, it certainly does not serve the interests of the BBC’s funding public or meet the BBC’s obligations. One would of course expect better from any BBC journalist – but in particular from one carrying the title BBC World Service Middle East editor.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
30 July '17..

When the BBC’s former Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza City in 2007, another BBC journalist gave an interesting view of his job description.

“”It is his job to bring us day after day reports of the Palestinian predicament in the Gaza Strip,” said the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams, himself a former Middle East reporter.” [emphasis added]

At the time, the BBC also reported the following statement:

“On Tuesday, Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said the government was making every effort it could to secure Mr Johnston’s release.

“We in the government are deeply sorry and ashamed that this kidnapping is ongoing, especially since he is a friend of our people and has done a lot for our cause.

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WCC and its creation of a whole family of offshoots devoted to the propagation of Palestinian aims - by Malcom Lowe

...If the WCC ceased to exist, few would miss it today. The WCC has become one more NGO that survives largely on magnifying the Arab-Israel conflict at the expense of other conflicts in the world. In contrast to the resources lavished on "Palestine," the WCC has devoted only occasional words -- and not a single "Ecumenical Accompanier" -- to the millions of Christians recently displaced from or killed in other Middle East countries.

Malcom Lowe..
Gatestone Institute..
30 July '17..

The World Council of Churches was founded with a noble aim: to overcome the divisions of Christianity and restore the unity of purpose of Christ's original followers. After the retirement of its founding spirit, Willem Visser 't Hooft, it drifted away from its original concerns, a development that accelerated after his death in 1985. Today it has shrunk in effect to a small secretariat in Geneva that draws inspiration from its obsession with the Palestinian problem and has little else currently to its credit or discredit.

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Fomenting anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism: Useful tools for promoting Erdogan's ambitious neo-Ottoman vision - by Dr. Efrat Aviv

Turkey continues to insert itself more and more into the ongoing clashes on the Temple Mount, almost as if it legally represents the Palestinians in the dispute. Turkey’s anti-Israel agitation, which garners wide support among Palestinians in both Gaza and the PA, is hardly new. But its patronage of the Palestinians hides more than religious sentiment. Turkish anti-Zionism, which aligns directly with anti-Semitism, is being expressed once again through the current friction.

Dr. Efrat Aviv..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 544..
29 July '17..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/erdogan-temple-mount-crisis/

In May 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the opening ceremony of a two-day conference in Istanbul called “The International Forum on al-Quds Waqf.” He condemned “Israeli crimes against the Palestinians” and called on Muslims to visit the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount as frequently as possible. “As a Muslim community, we need to visit the al-Aqsa Mosque often,” he said. “Each day that Jerusalem is under occupation is an insult to us.”

On July 20, 2017, responding to increased security measures on the Temple Mount following the murders of two Israeli policemen there at the holy site, he said: “Any restriction on Muslims entering the al-Aqsa Mosque is unacceptable…The protection of the Islamic character and sanctity of al-Quds [Jerusalem] and al-Haram al-Sharif [the al-Aqsa Mosque complex] is important for the whole Muslim world…The Muslim world cannot remain silent.”

In his capacity as term chairman of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Erdoğan condemned Israel’s supposed prevention of Muslims’ performing Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque. While extending condolences to those killed during the violent clashes in Jerusalem, he assailed the use of “excessive force” by Israeli security forces against those who had gathered for Friday prayers.

“The OIC was founded in 1969 during an attack on al-Haram al-Sharif, and today the Islamic world stands with our Palestinian brothers with the same spirit of unity and solidarity,” Erdoğan claimed. He said efforts to remove “restrictions on access to the al-Aqsa Mosque” would continue in coordination with the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Jordanian King Abdullah II, whom he phoned on July 24 to discuss the matter. At a press conference, the president’s spokesman İbrahim Kalın asserted, “al-Aqsa Mosque is not alone. It’s not for Israel. It belongs to the Palestinians and to all Muslims.”

The price of UNESCO's historical vandalism - by Alex Ryvchin

...Symbolism matters. The statements of international bodies like UNESCO matter. When ‎UNESCO is used to tactically scrub out Jewish history in ‎the Middle East to undermine ‎Israel's legitimacy, this is not only an act of historical vandalism, it provides an approving nod ‎to the Palestinians that frequently ends in bloodshed.

Alex Ryvchin..
Israel Hayom..
28 July '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19551

Veteran U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross observed that "the thing that plagues the Palestinian ‎national movement more than anything else has been a historic preoccupation with ‎symbols, ‎not substance. Instead of building a state, the Palestinians would like to get a flag at ‎the U.N. ‎The day after they get a flag at the U.N., nothing changes."‎

Recent Palestinian maneuvers in UNESCO, known for its listing of World Heritage Sites, have followed this very pattern ‎of ‎dogged pursuit of symbolic victories that fail to improve the life of a single Palestinian ‎or ‎build the institutions essential for statehood. ‎

In October 2016, the executive board of UNESCO passed a resolution that disregarded ‎the ‎connection between Judaism and the Temple Mount ‎and sought to deny the Jewish link to ‎the Western Wall.

The move drew swift condemnation from UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova, ‎who was ‎at pains to distance herself from the resolution, asserting that "to deny, conceal or ‎erase any of ‎the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site ‎and runs ‎counter to the reasons that justified its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage ‎list." ‎

But Bokova was powerless. Privately initiated by the Palestinians, the resolution passed ‎with ‎the support of predominantly nondemocratic states which are among the usual ‎automatic ‎majority that support every resolution favored by the Palestinian Authority, whose ‎government is now in ‎the 12th year of its elected four-year term.‎

In keeping with the strategy of pro-Palestinian activism in international forums, the ‎Palestinians ‎viewed the Jerusalem resolution not as the limit of what they sought to achieve, ‎but merely an ‎incremental gain in a broader project. ‎

Countering contemptuous Palestinians - by David M. Weinberg

...They think they can conduct guerrilla and diplomatic warfare against Israel with impunity. It’s time to disabuse Mahmoud Abbas and these gangs of such delusion, through resolute Israeli action.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
28 July '17..
Link: http://davidmweinberg.com/2017/07/27/countering-contemptuous-palestinians/

The Palestinian Authority and its fiendish intra-Palestinian Islamic rivals seem hell-bent on brinkmanship; on being belligerent adversaries with escalating, maximalist demands of Israel.

They really think they can roll Israel back by recourse to street brawls and international courts; by brow-beating Israel through aggression, isolation and criminalization; by demonizing Israel with outrageous lies like “al-Aqsa is in danger.” They think they can conduct guerrilla and diplomatic warfare against Israel with impunity.

It’s time to disabuse Mahmoud Abbas and these gangs of such delusion, through resolute Israeli action.

The holy war over Har HaBayit (the Temple Mount) that Abbas is promoting tells Israelis that Palestinian society has gone crazy-radical-rogue Islamic – just like much of the Arab Middle East. This spells the end of the two-state solution as Israelis (and most Western policy-makers) understood it. Because the one thing that Israel absolutely cannot countenance is the emergence of a madcap Islamic caliphate in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

Sinai-stan, Hamas-stan, Hezbollah-stan, and Syria-stan already have emerged on Israel’s southern and northern borders. This is more than enough for Israel to handle. A Pales-stan on Israel’s eastern border would be unbearable. Israel can’t and won’t let it rise.

The only Palestinian state in the West Bank that Israelis ever contemplated was a mature entity willing to reconcile ideologically with Israel, leading to the reasonable sharing of land, airspace, natural resources, and historical and religious sites.

The sharing includes the Temple Mount. Indeed, for there to be peace, Jewish prayer would have to be facilitated on the Temple Mount, alongside the prayers of other faith-traditions too!

Alas, Abbas has made it clear that the Palestinian national movement is far from understanding this.

Count To Three - Wadi Ara-Bloc Swap A Farce - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

...Avigdor Lieberman has been pushing this half baked idea for decades. Its part of his portfolio of half baked ideas that include handing over security responsibility for the Gaza Strip as well as most of Judea and Samaria (and the Triangle and Wadi Ara) to third parties.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
28 July '17..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=72673

You don't have to count to ten.

It should be enough to think for three seconds to realize that the idea of "swapping" Wadi Ara for the Etzion Bloc is a farce.

A third rate lawyer can readily come up with five ways to insure that the Israeli Arabs in Wadi Ara retain their Israeli citizenship even if the area is transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

The result?

"Auschwitz Minus" borders and no change in the demographic composition of the country.

Avigdor Lieberman has been pushing this half baked idea for decades. Its part of his portfolio of half baked ideas that include handing over security responsibility for the Gaza Strip as well as most of Judea and Samaria (and the Triangle and Wadi Ara) to third parties. Years ago Lieberman wanted Egyptian security forces deployed at the gates of Ashkelon (responsible for Gaza) while Jordanian forces patrolled the outskirts of Netanya and the suburbs of Jerusalem. Since then he's added the possibility of staking our survival on the efficacy of the deployment of NATO and/or other international groupings in a sovereign Palestinian state.

And he's labeled a "right winger"!!

Count to ten.

Yes. I am furious and disappointed that Israeli Arabs saw fit to give a hero's burial to three terrorists who murdered two Israeli Druze.

But I count to ten.

And I see a bright future.

7 Lessons From The Halamish Massacre - by Stephen M. Flatow

...The seventh and final lesson from the Halamish massacre is a history lesson. It turns out that Michal Salomon, the widow of one of the Halamish victims, is no stranger to terrorism. Members of her paternal grandmother’s family were murdered in the Palestinian Arab pogrom in Hebron in 1929. That’s right: 1929. There were no settlements, no “occupation,” no Jewish state at all. But they murdered Jews then, too. And they did it the same way Omar al-Abed did it last Friday night, with knives. Nearly a century later, the Palestinian Arab war against the Jews rages on.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JewishPress.com..
28 July '17..
Link: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/seven-lessons-from-the-halamish-massacre/2017/07/28/

The Friday night slaughter of three Jews in the Israeli town of Halamish encapsulates pretty much everything one needs to know about the conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel.

It takes a special kind of savagery to murder people the way Omar al-Abed did, repeatedly stabbing defenseless civilians at their dinner table. And there have been so many similar attacks. The Halamish massacre was not an aberration; it is exactly what countless Palestinians do, or aspire to do, or cheer and admire. That’s a sad statement, but it’s true.

And it takes a special kind of cold-heartedness to defend and excuse the murderer, as Omar’s parents did. His father said the stabbing was the fault of the “occupation,” even though the al-Abed family lives in a suburb of Ramallah, which is occupied by the Palestinian Authority, not Israel.

His mother told Israel’s Channel 2 that she is “proud of my son, may Allah save him and release him and look out for him.” Many other Palestinian parents have reacted the same way to the murderous deeds of their children.

So here’s lesson #1 of the Halamish slaughter. This is how Palestinian Arabs behave when they have self-rule and kitchen knives. Imagine what they would do if they had a sovereign state and shoulder-launched missiles (the kind that could take down a plane approaching Ben Gurion Airport).

The killer did not ask his victims their political or religious opinions. Like every Palestinian stabber or sniper or suicide bomber before him, he didn’t care whether they were Reform or Orthodox, left-wing or right-wing or anywhere in between. He murdered them because they were Jews.

Metal Detectors or Lie Detectors: Five Status Quo Violations - Who Is Violating What? - by Bassam Tawil

...To clarify what is actually going on: it is not the security measures that really anger the Palestinians; for them, this crisis is not about a metal detector or a security camera. It is not the security measures that the Palestinians want dismantled. It is Israel that they want dismantled.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone institute..
27 July '17..

The metal detectors that were supposed to prevent Muslims from smuggling weapons into the Temple Mount compound, and which were removed by the Israeli authorities this week, have a more accurate name: "lie detectors." They have exposed Palestinian lies and the real reason behind Palestinian anger.

Israel apparently removed the metal detectors from the gates of the Temple Mount as part of a deal to end an unexpected crisis with Jordan over the killing of two Jordanian men by an Israeli embassy security officer in Amman. The security officer says he was acting in self-defense after being attacked by one of the Jordanians with a screwdriver.

The crisis erupted when the Jordanian authorities insisted on interrogating the officer -- a request that was rejected by Israel because the officer enjoys diplomatic immunity. US intervention and a phone call between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan's King Abdullah helped end the crisis peacefully and quickly, and the officer and the rest of the Israeli embassy staff were permitted to leave Jordan and head back to Israel.

Shortly after the embassy staff returned to Israel, the Israeli authorities started removing the metal detectors that were installed at the entrances to the Temple Mount after terrorists murdered two Israeli police officers on July 14. The move sparked a wave of rumors and speculation, according to which the Jordanians allowed the embassy staff to return home in exchange for the removal of the metal detectors.

Israel and Jordan have denied any link between the shooting incident in Amman and the removal of the metal detectors.

The crisis that erupted between Israel and Jordan over the killing of the two Jordanians was solved in less than 48 hours -- much to the dismay of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians were hoping to exploit the crisis to exacerbate tensions between Amman and Jerusalem. Their ultimate goal: to cause the Jordanians to scrap their peace treaty with Israel and return to the state of war with the "Zionist enemy." The Palestinians were also hoping to exploit the crisis to incite Jordanians against Israel and the Hashemite monarchy.

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We listened carefully to Jordan's minister and we have 10 questions - by Arnold Roth

...We assume these questions are going to be ignored as all our previous questions, comments and suggestions to the Jordanian ruling clique have been. We know how easily voices like ours can be brushed aside. But we hope to show the minister and his king that brushing aside the questions themselves is going to be less easy.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
26 July '17..

For reasons that regular readers will know, we watch events in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with more than the usual amount of interest.

Here's an article, under the headline "Jordan sees Israeli reactions to embassy case ‘absurd’" that gets prominence in today's Jordan Times:

AMMAN — A senior official on Tuesday described as “absurd” the Israeli reactions after a diplomat who killed two Jordanians on Sunday arrived back in Israel. Israeli media on Tuesday showed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving a hero’s welcome to the unidentified embassy staffer who killed a 16-year-old boy and a surgeon.
“Absurd [are] some of the reactions that are coming of Israel which are trying to show this as if the ambassador and the suspect were under siege and were somehow liberated and celebrating them as heroes coming back home. This is really absurd. This is a criminal case and I think it is in everybody’s interest that it is pursued as such,” Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told CNN in an interview on Tuesday.
Instead, he said, justice should be allowed to take its course, and to respect the fact that two Jordanians were killed, he added.
Safadi said: “Jordan acted legally and morally [by complying to international laws on diplomatic mission]. It is upon Israel to do the same and allow for justice to take its course and to stop provocative behaviours that distort the facts here.
“We respected our obligations under international law because the suspect enjoys diplomatic immunity. We agreed with his statement, which we did and we agreed with the Israelis that he goes back. So Jordan did what it had to do under international law and now it is incumbent upon Israel to also do what it has to do under the law, which is to allow for the criminal justice to take its course and also to act morally and allow for justice to happen.”
Safadi acknowledged that Jordan’s abidance by international law drew fire domestically, especially from MPs.
“The government is under pressure by deputies because it allowed the Israeli killer to leave,” he said, stressing that the decision had to be taken in this way out of Jordan’s commitments to international conventions.
["Jordan sees Israeli reactions to embassy case ‘absurd’", Jordan Times, July 26, 2017]

Interesting ideas, and some striking expressions that we highlighted. Now we have some questions for Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

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Instead of asking if they're pro-Israel, we should ask whether they are pro-Sarah - by Daniel Greenfield

...There is no pro-Sarah industry. But maybe there ought to be one. And in the future, if we want to determine whether someone is truly pro-Israel, we should ask whether they are pro-Sarah. Are they for doing whatever it takes to stop her from being murdered tomorrow? Because you can’t be pro-Israel if you aren’t pro-Sarah. You can’t be pro-Israel if you support funding the murderers of Israelis. You can’t support both Israel and her enemies or support Sarah and her killer. Then we’ll know who is and isn’t pro-Israel. Because pro-Israel will finally mean something.

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
25 July '17..

Chaya Salomon was murdered at a Sabbath dinner with her family. The 46-year-old Jewish woman was stabbed to death alongside her 70-year-old father Yosef and her 36-year-old brother Elad.

Photos show the kitchen of the Salomon house in the Israeli village of Neve Tsuf covered in blood. The youngest Salomon daughter had given birth to a new member of the family. The bottle of Glenfiddich on the table was never opened. Instead an Islamic terrorist burst in and stabbed the new grandfather. Tova, the new grandmother was badly wounded. Elad’s wife rushed the children to a safe room.

The smiling terrorist was taken away. He had come armed with a Koran and a knife. “I know that with Allah my dreams will come true," he had posted on Facebook. "I will go to heaven.”

His dreams coming true have more to do with the Palestinian Authority and American taxpayers. Like all terrorists who kill Israelis, he will be receiving a salary from the PA. And the PA is funded by you and me.

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Lliterally Getting Away With Murder: Palestinian Terrorism and the Culpability of the Int’l Community - by Aviva Klompas/Arsen Ostrovsky

...The outbreak of violence isn’t about a denial of freedoms and it’s certainly not about metal detectors. It’s about a society that has shackled its people with hatred, and an international community that literally lets them get away with murder.

Aviva Klompas/Arsen Ostrovsky..
thetower.org..
24 July '17..

The metal detectors have come down. Since this was never about metal detectors, it comes as no surprise that tensions have yet to subside.

Muslim leaders have instructed worshippers to continue to stay away from the Temple Mount. The Waqf, the Islamic Trust that governs the compound, says it will ‘conduct a study’ about restarting visits, with Sheikh Raed Dana saying, “We as Waqf listen to the street. The street says yes and we say yes; if the street says no, we will say no.” These are the words of a religions leadership that isn’t seeking to ease tensions, but rather further inflame them.

And what of the political leadership? President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party called for a day of rage and two days later a terrorist broke in the Salomon family home in Halamish and brutally murdered three members of the family. Afterwards, Fatah praised the attack, and issued a statement declaring, “[The] campaign for Jerusalem has effectively begun, and will not stop until a Palestinian victory and the release of the holy sites from Israeli occupation.”

Campaign for Jerusalem? Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are free. In fact, they are far freer to Muslims than to Jews.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Mr. Trump, please stop pressuring Israel - by Stephen M. Flatow

...Then came the announcement that Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s international negotiations representative, was rushed to the Middle East to seek “a mutually acceptable solution” to the Temple Mount controversy. You don’t seek a “mutually acceptable solution” between a cop and a robber. You don’t seek a “mutually acceptable solution” between a terrorist and his victims.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
24 July '17..

The pressure has begun.

The State Department’s “evenhanded” statement regarding the Temple Mount. The U.S.-backed Middle East Quartet’s call for “restraint.” President Donald Trump sending his international negotiations representative to the region to “mediate” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). It all adds up to one thing: American pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians.

The July 14 terror attack that killed two Israeli policemen is a clear-cut case of Palestinian aggression if ever there was one, and the Trump administration should have been clearly on Israel’s side from the beginning.

Instead, following Palestinian riots and terror attacks as well as the U.S. pressure, Israel decided Monday to discard the metal detectors in favor of “security measures based on advanced technologies.”

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Abbas's Security Doubletalk - by Bassam Tawil

...So, who is taking Abbas's threats to suspend security cooperation with Israel seriously? Not Israel, not the Americans, and certainly not many Palestinians. Abbas is caught between two bad places -- both of his very own making. On the one hand, he knows that security cooperation with Israel is his only insurance policy to remain in power and alive. On the other hand, Abbas is acutely aware of his status among many Palestinians, who would be more than happy to replace him with someone more... to their taste.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
25 July '17..

The conflicting reports emerging from Ramallah concerning security coordination with Israel serve as yet another reminder of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders' astounding hypocrisy.

Israel, for its part, has brushed aside reports about a suspension of the security coordination with the Palestinian Authority as yet another Abbas gimmick.

It is far from lost on Mahmoud Abbas and his PA that such security coordination is what stands between a very hungry Hamas and Abbas served up on toast for breakfast.

In the past, Abbas has rightly and reasonably described security coordination with Israel as "sacred," saying he will never succumb to pressure from Hamas and many Palestinians to stop working with Israel in the West Bank.

"I wish to say this openly – security coordination (with Israel) is sacred and will continue regardless of our political differences," Abbas declared in 2014.

Abbas's statement came amid reports that Israeli intelligence had thwarted a Hamas assassination plot against him in 2014.

Security coordination is indeed sacred for the Palestinian Authority president -- not to mention his family members and senior officials, who without such cooperation would also be dead, imprisoned or forced into exile.

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The cycle of rewarding Israel’s enemies for the suffering they bring upon themselves and everyone else - by Divest This!

...Needless to say, those “Friends of the Palestinian People” here on our shores have risen up to “stop the violence,” specifically the violence Israeli police, soldiers and citizens use to prevent their children from being stabbed, run over, shot and blown up. As for the killing spree itself, well – as usual – this crowd of Peace Warriors has little time for such trifles.

Divest This!..
Elder of Ziyon..
24 July '17..

Reward and repetition are two of the best ways to ensure certain types of behaviors continue. And if such motivations are in place long enough, behavior becomes permanent as rewards harden into entitlements and repetition becomes habit.

We’re seeing something like this play out in the latest iteration of what Ruth Wisse urges us to start calling “The Arab War Against the Jews,” a more descriptive title for what even Israel’s friends keep calling called the “Arab-Israeli” conflict, which presumes an inaccurate “cycle-of-violence” narrative.

This time, the so-called “cycle” consists of Palestinians (urged on by leaders in both official and popular media) using their own holy places as the launch-pad for murder, then using Israeli security measures at those same holy places as a pretext for riots, further murder and demands for global protest.

To any rational observer, this mini- or pre- Intifada III is ultimately destined to suffer the fate as have previous ones with lots of people – Jew and Arab – losing their lives, a degradation of whatever progress Palestinian society might have made since the last “uprising,” and hopes for co-existence pushed ever further away. These are actually important goals for those urging on the killing (even if those actually holding the knives are motivated primarily by the urge to kill any Jew they can reach).

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The ongoing commitment of the Palestinians to paying terrorists and terrorists’ families by the numbers - JCPA

The Palestinian Authority recently released its detailed budget for 2017, and it includes the usual allocations for salaries to imprisoned and released terrorists, as well as to the families of Palestinians who were killed (“martyrs”) or wounded in the “struggle against Zionism.”

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
Vol. 17, No. 19..
24 July '17..

According to the PA budget, salaries to incarcerated and released terrorists will amount in 2017 to 552 million shekels ($153.4 million), a rise of 13 percent over the original budget of 2016 and 11 percent more than the actual expenditure in 2016 (revised budget). The money will be transferred to the Palestinian National Fund, the financial arm of the PLO, which was designated by Israel as a terror organization due to its involvement in paying terrorist salaries.

The amount allocated for the families of those killed or wounded in the struggle against Zionism, rose by 4 – 8 percent and is set at 687 million shekels in 2017. Altogether, the expenditures for supporting terror in the 2017 Palestinian Authority budget is 1.240 billion shekels ($344 million). This sum constitutes 7 percent of the total budget, similar to the last several years, but amounts to 49.6 percent of foreign aid received by the PA due to diminishing amount of external aid expected in 2017.

The budget includes, like in previous years, funding for various benefits for the families of the killed and wounded, and for the families of the arrested terrorists. Among them, 500 families of the martyrs will receive a Hajj pilgrimage as part of the Saudi gift given to the PA. As in the 2016 budget, the 2017 budget points out that of more than 20,000 families who receive the monthly payments, which are referred to as salaries, there are 375 families that get special assistance.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Once again, BBC reporting on Jerusalem violence low on background, high on messaging - by Hadar Sela

...The BBC is obliged to “provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them”. The unchallenged amplification of one side’s baseless allegations and the repeated failure to properly explain the issues behind such highly inflammatory subject matter obviously do not meet that obligation.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
24 July '17..

On Friday July 21st pre-planned rioting took place in Jerusalem as well as at additional locations after yet another ‘Day of Rage’ had been called by Palestinian leaders. The BBC News website covered the day’s events in two reports – one written and one filmed.

The filmed report by Yolande Knell is titled “Clashes in Bethlehem over holy site” and its synopsis links to the written report, telling viewers that “[i]t follows tension over the place known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, and to Jews as the Temple Mount”.

In the first part of that report Knell describes the Israeli security forces’ response to what she terms “protests”.

Knell: “Now those unusual prayers are turned into protests very quickly. Already there’s been skunk water fired – a very stinky liquid – by the soldiers. They’re using stun grenades and tear gas as well.”

After the caption “How did we get here?” appears on screen, the report then goes on to show footage apparently filmed some time earlier, with Knell telling BBC audiences that:

Knell: “Palestinian worshippers across the West Bank aren’t praying inside their mosques today but they’ve come outside. Here in Bethlehem they’re on the streets, under the hot sun with their prayer mats. And this is a very symbolically important location because just along there, that’s the road to Jerusalem and it’s now blocked by Israel’s separation wall. You can see the Israeli military watchtower that’s just over there.”

Knell refrains from informing viewers that the anti-terrorist fence (which of course has nothing at all to do with the story she is supposedly reporting) had to be constructed because of Palestinian terrorism. Her claim that the road to Jerusalem is “blocked” is misleading: the checkpoint there is open 24 hours a day. She then goes on to uncritically parrot Palestinian messaging.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Now is the time for Israeli sovereignty to shine on the Temple Mount, for the benefit of Muslims and Jews alike - by Prof. Hillel Frisch

Regardless of its direct security merits, Israel’s decision to place metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount has been transformed by adversaries and Israel alike into an issue of sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Power-sharing there has always constituted a slippery slope to disaster. The murder of two Israeli policemen at the Temple Mount is an appropriate moment to rectify the situation by reasserting Israeli sovereignty over the holy site.

Prof. Hillel Frisch..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 539..
24 July '17..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israeli-sovereignty-temple-mount-crucial-peace/

Why is Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount so important? Because international “partnership” arrangements in political hotspots not only rarely (if ever) work, but make matters much more volatile and dangerous. At the Temple Mount, only exclusive Israeli sovereignty can work.

Many partnerships over contested areas have been attempted, and they have led to only one outcome: failure. In 1949, for example, the UN tried to broker deals between Israel and Syria over demilitarized zones delimited in the Armistice Agreement. The three areas were perennial hotspots over which much blood was shed. They were only resolved (as are most Middle Eastern political conflicts) by a decisive victory and the establishment of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Before that, it was bedlam. Since then, there have been 40 years of quiet.

In Jordan, after the 1967 Six Day War, Arab states tried to broker power-sharing arrangements over Jordanian territory between the beleaguered Hashemite monarchy and the Palestinian terrorist organizations. During three years of bargaining and meddling, massive firefights took place between the two sides in which hundreds if not thousands of civilians were killed.

This was but a prelude to the final showdown when the monarchy said enough is enough: sovereignty now. That period, dubbed Black September (1970), was in fact the beginning of a full year of bloodletting. It ended only when the Jordanian monarchy won a decisive victory.

The Jordanian victory was so decisively won that hundreds of Palestinian terrorists fled westward into Israeli hands to avert the fate that awaited them. Only then did the Jordanian state achieve the Biblical “40 years of peace.” Ironically, Amman is now demanding that Israel share sovereignty, a prescription that proved disastrous in its own political history.

A politically incorrect (but realistic) diagnosis - by Yoram Ettinger

...Arab attitudes toward Israel derive from the 14-century-old Islamic ‎intolerance of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and other "infidels," who claim ‎sovereignty in "the abode of Islam." The key issue has never been the size, ‎but the existence of the "infidel" Jewish state on land that is supposedly ‎divinely ordained to be ruled by Islamic believers.

Yoram Ettinger..
Israel Hayom..
17 July '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19443

Political correctness suggests that the resolution of the Palestinian issue is ‎predicated on a dramatic Israeli land concession and the establishment of a ‎Palestinian state: the two-state solution.‎

Moreover, political correctness has subordinated Middle East reality and long-‎term national security to the achievement of the holy grail of peaceful ‎coexistence between Jews and Arabs west of the Jordan River. In the process, ‎the "holy grailers" have oversimplified the highly complex, unpredictable, ‎violent, intolerant, fragmented Middle East. This is the same school of ‎thought that misperceived the Arab tsunami, in 2011, as an Arab Spring, a youth revolution and a transition toward democracy. ‎

Political correctness has preferred talk and assessment-based "hope" over ‎centuries-old, well-documented realism. ‎

While political correctness has failed to advance peaceful coexistence, it has ‎forced the Arabs to outflank Western pressure on Israel from the maximalist ‎side, radicalizing their demands, and further intensifying the obstacles to ‎peace.‎

Political correctness resembles a surgeon who focuses on the spot of the ‎surgery while ignoring the medical history of the entire body and its bearing upon ‎the surgery. ‎

For instance, the sustained Arab war against the Jewish state has taken place ‎in the Middle East, which has featured a systematic, regional state of war, ‎terrorism, subversion, provisional one-bullet regimes, tenuous agreements, ‎limited cease-fires and the lack of civil liberties since the seventh-century ‎appearance of Islam. These have been almost entirely intra-Islamic, intra-Arab ‎wars, reflecting the (so far) unbridgeable ethnic, tribal, cultural, religious, ‎historical, ideological battles that have dominated the region, totally unrelated ‎to Israel. ‎

The Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue are not "the Middle East ‎conflict" or the top priorities for Arab policymakers. ‎

(Video) If you can't bring your gun to Temple Mount, what's the point in praying? - by Daniel Pomerantz

This week a lot of people died in Israel. How did it all happen? What critical facts did the media leave out? And why do some headlines make it look like there's no moral difference between the victims and the attackers who killed them? We break down the events, the facts and the media failures.

Daniel Pomerantz..
Honest Reporting..
23 July '17..
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryKeoZaipDs

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Once again testing us to see just how attached we are to this land - by Dror Eydar

...A sovereign presence requires determination. Not a hesitant, indecisive presence that wishes to appease our enemies, but rather a clear and natural presence of a nation at its holiest site, a place of longing that brought us back home after 2,000 years.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
23 July '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19499

1.
Now that the metal detectors on the Temple Mount have been splattered with the blood of murdered Jews -- a grandfather, a father and a sister slaughtered at the hands of a miserable wretch who unfortunately stayed alive (why?!) -- to back down and remove them would be shameful and a disgrace, as well as a legitimization of bloodshed. Furthermore, anyone who thinks that removing the metal detectors will diminish the desire to murder Jews among those who wish to destroy us is dangerously mislead.

Pay no mind to the repeated accusations of "Jewish radicalism." They are part of what prominent poet Nathan Alterman described in a poem after the Six-Day War about the Devil's attempts to defeat the Jewish people not by use of force, but rather -- "only this shall I do: I will dull his mind and cause him to forget the justice of his cause."

2.
In reality, the weakness of our response (what the brainwashing machine calls "moderation") contains within it the seeds of terror. As early as the 1920s, Revisionist Zionist thinker Ze'ev Jabotinsky called for a physical as well as a psychological "iron wall" of security to ward off the Arabs. Only this way will we bring peace to the country, he asserted.

The source of Arab murderousness is not despair, but rather the delusional hope of kicking us out of our land. To our shame, this murderousness draws its power from our weak conduct, namely the public dispute among Israeli security bodies after the deed was already done and the metal detectors were put in place. Is it not yet clear to us that we must put up a united front and stand as a wall of fortitude against threats by the "voice of wrath" from Ramallah and the Islamist elements from within us? Is a century insufficient time to get to know this murderous pattern, fed by Jewish hesitancy?

As expected, BBC refrains from using the word terror in report on murdered family - by Hadar Sela

...In light of the long-standing double standard in language used when reporting acts of terror against Israelis, it is sadly unsurprising to see the BBC refusing to use the word terror to describe the brutal murders of members of a family doing no more than enjoying dinner in their own home – just as it has in the past refused to use the same term to describe Israelis murdered in their own beds, Israelis praying in their local synagogue or an Israeli painting her own front door. As predictable as that BBC practice is, it becomes no less repugnant and offensive with time.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
23 July '17..

On the evening of July 21st three members of the Salomon family were murdered in a terror attack in Halamish.

“According to a preliminary investigation, the terrorist, a Palestinian in his late teens from a nearby village, arrived in the settlement on foot armed with a knife, climbed a fence and chose the last house on a street near it.

The perpetrator broke a window and entered the home, surprising a family of about 10 inside as they were finishing their dinner, and launched his stabbing spree.

During the attack, another daughter hid several of the grandchildren in one of the rooms, where she called police and began shouting that a terrorist was inside the home.

Paramedics said the victims, a father in his 60s, his son in his 40s, and his daughter in her 40s, died of their wounds...

...

Roughly two hours after the attack took place the BBC News website published the first version of its report on the incident. Neither in the headline – “Three Israelis stabbed to death in West Bank attack” – nor in the body of the article did the BBC describe the incident as a terror attack.

As has been the case in the past, the report did however take care to inform readers of the BBC’s preferred political classification of the location of the incident.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Friday Night Carnage and Devastation in Neve Tzuf - by Arnold Roth

...Fatah, desperate not to fall too far behind in the terrorism stakes, issued its own statement praising the Arab-on-Israeli killings. Mahmoud Abbas who heads Fatah in addition to being the PA's President-for-Life may yet condemn the stabbing-killings because... well, because he can. And doing that, in a cruel, superficial and hypocritical world, has its uses. But also because the mainstream news media routinely avoid pointing out the brazen, chronic contradictions in the man's stance on terror: advocates for it in his Arabic messaging, while claiming to be against it when talking to the non-Arabic media. This works.

Elad Salomon Z"L, pictured with his
 wife Michal, was murdered at his parents'
Sabbath table on Friday night

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
22 July '17..

The Friday night news from Neve Tzuf (often called Halamish which is the Hebrew word for flint) is devastating.

A man, Omar al-Abed, 19, from a Palestinian Arab settlement called Kobar - the home village of the notorious convicted Palestinian Arab terrorist Marwan Barghouti - jumped the fence in the dark and made his way to one of the nearby, brightly-lit houses. He burst into the home around 9:30 pm brandishing a kitchen knife he had purchased earlier in the day for what he admitted to be an intended knife attack on Jews.

Finding a family seated at their Shabbat dinner, he launched a frenzied attack and managed to stab four family members. We know now that they are Yosef Zvi Salomon, 70: his wife Tova, 68; their daughter Haya Esther Salomon, 46; and their son El'ad Menachem Salomon, 36 and the father of five young children.

Tova is seriously injured and underwent emergency surgery in Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center last night. After surgery, she was told that her husband and two of their children had succumbed to their injuries. The older Salomons have three other children.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Murder, incitement and archaeological destruction on Temple Mount. What status quo? - by David M. Weinberg

...Jerusalem is a consensus issue in Israeli politics. The Netanyahu government would enjoy widespread public backing for action to parry Palestinian and Islamic incitement in Jerusalem and to solidify Israel’s rights on Har HaBayit. Only a forward-looking and affirmative Israeli stance can create a new situation of just compromise on the Temple Mount.

Arab editorial cartoon depicts Israeli
troops destroying the Dome of the Rock
 on the Temple Mount.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
20 July '17..

The so-called “status quo” on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been violated repeatedly in recent years by radical Palestinian and Islamic actors, turning the Mount into a base of hostile operations against Israel, instead of protecting it as zone of prayer and peace.

Wakf and Islamic movement provocateurs have attacked Jewish visitors to the Mount and Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall below the Mount; have greatly restricted visitation rights to the holy Mount for all non-Moslems; have hijacked the pulpits in the mosque on the Mount to preach hatred and violence against Israel; have purveyed a canard about the Al-Aqsa mosque being under attack from Israel in order to rile up the Palestinian public and broader Islamic world; and have conducted vast and illegal construction projects on the Mount and beneath it, willfully destroying centuries of Jewish archaeological treasures.

And last week, Palestinian terrorists smuggled machine guns onto the Temple Mount and attacked police guarding the gates of the Mount, killing two Israeli officers. The terrorists launched their attack from within the Temple Mount and then fled into the shrines on the Mount.

While Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the terrorist attack, he continues to roil the waters and foment violence against Israel by repeating the canard that “Al Aqsa is in danger.” Now, Abbas is choreographing resistance to the security measures put in place by Israel. His Fatah political party has called for “rage” in the streets of Jerusalem. Abbas must therefore assume grave responsibility for the clashes that have taken place in recent days between police and overheated Palestinian protesters.

In fact, Abbas has stoked a broad-scale campaign against the authenticity of Israel’s historic rights in Jerusalem. In September 2015 he screeched about “filthy” Jewish feet that were “desecrating” holy Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. “Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” he bellowed. “They (the Jews) have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem.”

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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