For the BBC, why is this Israeli planning decision different from others ?

...Now we see another example of the disturbing fact that the BBC’s issues with Israeli construction actually do not depend on the project’s location – or even on the topic of building itself – but upon the faith and ethnicity of the people it assumes will be moving into newly built apartments and houses in specific areas. There’s a word for that.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
04 April '15..

Whenever an Israeli planning body makes an announcement concerning some stage or other of the construction of apartments and houses in certain neighbourhoods of Jerusalem or towns and villages in Judea and Samaria, the BBC is usually very quick off the mark in producing a report which typically includes condemnation from PA officials, comment from at least one political NGO and the standard BBC insert designed to impress upon audiences that “settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this”.

Last week, however, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee approved the construction of 2,200 new apartments in a neighbourhood on the ‘wrong’ side of the 1949 Armistice Lines and yet not a word on that decision appeared on the BBC News website.

(Continue Reading)

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Kerry, Qatar and the poisonous tree by Caroline Glick

...Rather than recognize that they are being played by double-speaking Palestinians and their jihadist supporters, Washington and Brussels are going along with their deceit. Both the Obama administration and the EU firmly side with the Palestinian demand that Jews be denied civil rights in Jerusalem. Both have condemned and threatened Israel for not preventing Jews from lawfully purchasing homes in Silwan and for allowing contractors to build homes for Jews in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem. This places the Israeli government in an impossible position. It is being attacked by jihadist forces who seek its destruction. It is told by Washington and Europe that if it doesn’t appease those who cannot be appeased by denying protection and civil rights to Jews, then it will lose whatever is left of its good relations with the US and Europe.

Caroline Glick..
carolineglick.com..
38 October '14..

It would be interesting to know which Arab leaders are telling US Secretary of State John Kerry that the absence of peace between Israel and the Palestinians is “a cause of recruitment” to Islamic State.

Is that something he is hearing from Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani? The Qatari leader, whose kingdom has been cited by the US Treasury Department as a major funder of Islamic State (IS), is certainly one of Kerry’s favorite regional leaders.

If Thani did blame Israel for the rise of IS, then his statement would constitute yet another instance of the double game Qatar has been playing with the Americans. On the one hand, the regime is financing jihad, and other the other hand, it pretends to side with the West against the jihad that it is funding.

This is certainly the case in Jerusalem.

According to an investigative report published Friday in Yisrael Hayom , Qatar is financing the violence in the capital. Veteran Jerusalem affairs reporter Nadav Shragai wrote that the Islamic rioters who daily attack Jewish visitors and police forces on the Temple Mount are paid by Qatar through the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement.

The Qatari government and other Islamic funds are transferring vast sums of money to the Islamic Movement’s radical northern branch headed by Sheikh Ra’ed Salah. The Islamic Movement in turn is paying thousands of shekels every month to hundreds of women and men, mainly Muslim Israeli citizens, who call themselves the Murbitat.

The Murbitat presents itself as an Islamic prayer group, but according to Shragai, the group’s job is to harass Jews and police on the Temple Mount. They scream and curse at Jewish visitors and in recent months have escalated their violence against them, and their police escorts. These violent attacks include assaults with rocks, firebombs and firecrackers.

To prevent the police from blocking their entry to the Mount, members of the Murbitat enter the mosques in times of relative calm and then remain there for weeks at a time. The women are used as well to smuggle firecrackers and other weaponry onto the Temple Mount by hiding them in their burkas.

In a report published Sunday by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Palestinian affairs researcher Pinchas Inbari explained the goals of the violence.

The riots and assaults on the Temple Mount have two goals. First, they aim to incite the Islamic world against Israel and return attention to the Palestinians. And second, they seek to destabilize the regimes in Egypt and Jordan.

Regarding the goal of galvanizing support for jihad by attacking Israel, Inbari recalled how immediately after longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood’s most influential cleric, Qatar-based Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, gave a speech at a mass rally in Cairo and called for the Muslims to march on Jerusalem.

Good Question. Why Does the State Department Endorse Palestinian Fight to Exclude Jews?

...The reason is that their goal is to create a Jew free state whose purpose will be to perpetuate the conflict against Israel, not end it. The state they envision will be, as I wrote last week, the true apartheid state in the Middle East in which parts of Jerusalem will become legal no go zones for Jews in much the same way, white South Africans made it illegal for blacks to live in parts of their own country. It is exactly for this perverted vision that Palestinians are taking to the streets to lob lethal weapons at Jews while the State Department treats the perpetrators as innocent victims and the actual victims as aggressors. That is the racism that the U.S. is endorsing by making an issue of Jews building in Jerusalem.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
27 October '14..

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made headlines around the world again today with his assertion in the Knesset that he will defend the right of Jews to live in any part of his country’s capital. The statement and the expedited plans to build 1,000 new apartments in Jerusalem is drawing the usual condemnations from the international community as both an unnecessary provocation and a new obstacle to Middle East peace. But what Israel’s critics are missing is that the threats and actual violence coming from Palestinians about Jewish homes, is the best indicator that the sort of mutual coexistence that is essential to peace is currently not in the cards.

As the New York Times reports:

“If Israel wants to live in a peaceful society, they need to take steps that will reduce tensions,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, told reporters in a briefing. “Moving forward with this sort of action would be incompatible with the pursuit of peace.”

The Israeli move is being blasted as yet another example of Netanyahu worsening the already tense relationship between Israel and the United States. But Psaki’s willingness to jump on Netanyahu after repeatedly refusing in the last week to condemn statements from Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in which he openly incited violence against Israelis, the State Department stand could easily be interpreted as an implicit approval of the PA position.

If so, then it should be understood that what the United States is doing here is saying that Palestinians are in the right when they demand that Jews be kept out of certain parts of Jerusalem. But far from disturbing the peace, the idea of building new apartments in existing Jewish neighborhoods in the city or moving into mixed or Arab majority areas not only repudiates the formula of territorial swaps that President Obama has repeatedly endorsed but also reinforces the notion that the Palestinian state that the State Department envisions will be one in which no Jew is allowed to live. That means the U.S. is backing a vision of a Palestinian apartheid state that is itself incompatible with any notion of peace and rationalizing the recent wave of Arab violence against Jewish targets in Jerusalem.

How Israel was Givat Hamatoasted by ‘peace’ groups

...The truth behind the Givat Hamatos scandal is that it was produced by the left-wing group Peace Now. Not a single one of the “breaking news” stories about this plan were real breaking news reports about a new neighborhood; rather the reports were manipulated from the beginning with the aim of generating maximum press coverage while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington.

Seth Frantzman..
Terra Incognita/JPost..
05 October '14..

The breeze was hot as we made our way through a parched field. Over the hill was what looked like a mechanic’s shop with a small field in the back that had some sheep in it. A young man working at the shop gestured toward us and shouted in Arabic. We continued on, past several caravans. A woman peered at us through a window. That was in 2010, the last time I visited Givat Hamatos. The severely impoverished Jewish community, and the Arab community of Beit Safafa that adjoined it, gave no impression of being of great political importance at the time. Yet today the place is at the heart of an international controversy.

On Friday the European Union claimed that new plans to build 2,610 housing units there threatened the bloc’s relations with the Jewish state. “This represents a further highly detrimental step that undermines prospects for a two-state solution and calls into question Israel’s commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians,” the EU claimed.

The US State Department said Wednesday that the plans called into question Israel’s commitment to peace and would “poison the atmosphere” between Israel, the Palestinians and US. In what commentators called a “striking rebuke,” a State Department spokesman claimed that it would distance Israel from “even its closest allies.” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius joined the outraged chorus, demanding Israel to “urgently reverse this decision.” He also claimed the plans “threaten the two-state solution...One cannot claim to support a solution and at the same time do things against without consequences being drawn, including at the European Union level.”

The issue is supposedly to do with geography. One report at Middle East Monitor claimed these housing units were “near Bethlehem.” Al-Jazeera’s Gregg Carlstrom claimed that the plans “could make it impossible to ever divide Jerusalem.” According to Carlstrom’s article the building would “cut the direct route between Bethlehem and Ramallah.” The new housing would also supposedly “close off the eastern approach” to Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood, meaning it “could not realistically become part of a future Palestinian state.”

The truth behind the Givat Hamatos scandal is that it was produced by the left-wing group Peace Now.

Not a single one of the “breaking news” stories about this plan were real breaking news reports about a new neighborhood; rather the reports were manipulated from the beginning with the aim of generating maximum press coverage while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington.

That this is not a new story becomes clear when one discovers the report at Terrestrial Jerusalem, a pro-Palestinian website, called “Looming Crises in East Jerusalem,” published on September 18, 2014.

The article described “town plan 13250, which provides for the construction of 2,610 units.” The report quotes a Walla article that noted “Netanyahu pulled all of these tenders at the very last moment, for fear of the international response at this point in time.”

Terrestrial Jerusalem noted, “If plans to build a settlement at the site are implemented, it will be the first new Israeli settlement neighborhood since construction commenced at Har Homa in the late 1990s.

Moreover, if Givat Hamatos is built, it will result – for the first time since 1967 – in a Palestinian neighborhood of east Jerusalem being completely surrounded by Israeli construction. This has dire implications for the possibility of any peace agreement. Namely: It will make the Clinton Parameters – or principles like them – impossible to implement in east Jerusalem.”

The wording of this earlier report is nearly identical to that of the initial press reports that caused the recent condemnations from Washington and Europe. It also reads like the Peace Now statements that were picked up by a compliant press. Peace Now’s Hagit Ofran claimed, “It’s a huge problem for any future agreement that divides the city...

It blocks the way for any capital the Palestinians might hope to have in east Jerusalem.” Parroting the Terrestrial Jerusalem claim, France’s foreign minister noted Givat Hamatos was the “first new neighborhood over the Green Line in 15 years.”

Let's take a step back and review what we now know. Givat Hamatos is the name of a small hill adjacent to the Green Line and close to Kibbutz Ramat Rahel, just across Hebron Road, which goes to Bethlehem, from the Mar Elias monastery. After Israel annexed this area and it became part of the municipality of Jerusalem after the 1967 war, the neighborhood of Gilo was constructed next to it in the 1980s.

Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel: The unrepentant builder

...Housing Minister Uri Ariel is determined to continue building in West Bank despite international pressure and says economic incentives will help the Palestinians much more than construction freezes.

Gil Hoffman..
Frontlines/JPost..
02 October '14..

Going into Yom Kippur, if there is anyone in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s cabinet that US President Barack Obama’s administration would like to apologize, it’s Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel.

The Obama administration arguably has taken a tougher stance on construction over the pre-1967 borders than any of its predecessors. Its condemnation of the advancement of a building project in Jerusalem’s Givat Hamatos neighborhood was especially fierce.

While some Israeli analysts would say it is Obama’s obsession with settlements and not Israel’s construction in them that has prevented the advancement of a diplomatic process with the Palestinians, there is no doubt that the American president sees Ariel and his policies as a diplomatic obstacle.

It is extremely doubtful that Ariel will be granted entrance to the White House any time soon – just like his namesake, Ariel Sharon, was once boycotted in Washington when he had Ariel’s job.

Washington’s assessment of that Ariel ended up being way off course in retrospect. Could the same be true of this Ariel? The No. 2 man in Bayit Yehudi and the head of the Tekuma party that is expected to merge into it will apparently never make a Sharon-like shift. But he does want to reach out to the Palestinians.

In an interview at his office in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah – which for Obama, is on the wrong side of the Green Line – Ariel explains what socioeconomic incentives can be given to the Palestinians which could help them much more than another construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, or linking building to releasing more Palestinian prisoners.

“We don’t have a partner on the other side,” Ariel says.

“The possibility of getting to a deal in the future does not exist any more than in the past or present. The prime minister knows [Bayit Yehudi’s] opinion, and I hope he won’t be pressured by [Yesh Atid leader] Yair Lapid and [Hatnua head] Tzipi Livni to do things that are wrong and unhelpful.”

Ariel says he hopes Operation Protective Edge persuaded Israelis how important it is for the IDF to control all of Judea and Samaria, so they will not become launching pads for missiles like Gaza and Lebanon.

But he clarifies that the regional diplomatic process Lapid was pushing for at the time of the interview and Netanyahu called for at the UN and in the White House this week would not be a casus belli that would cause Bayit Yehudi to quit the coalition.

“There could be dialogue for the sake of dialogue so there won’t be a disconnect, but it will not bring results,” he says. “Talking is not a reason for dismantling the government. The question is what those talks would bring.

A building freeze would be a reason for a crisis.”

West Longs for "Judenfrei" Zones in Jerusalem

P. David Hornik..
frontpagemag.com..
27 December '12..

Israel plans to step up the building of residences within the settlement blocs and—drawing particular ire—in parts of Jerusalem that were under Jordanian occupation from 1949 to 1967. The Jerusalem plans include housing for both Jews and Arabs.

In this holiday season, those plans should be cause for rejoicing instead of heightened rebukes. The city’s status as a hub of three religions, and also of tolerance, pluralism, and across-the-board demographic growth, is being strengthened.

Instead, official Western reactions have been harshly critical (reports here, here, and here).

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: “We are deeply disappointed that Israel insists on continuing this pattern of provocative action.” The French Foreign Ministry called the building plans “a provocation that further undermines…trust…and leads us to question Israel’s commitment to the two-state solution.” British foreign secretary William Hague called the plans “a serious provocation and an obstacle to peace.”

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton even hinted at repercussions, saying the EU would “closely monitor the situation…and act accordingly.”

And 14 of the 15 countries on the UN Security Council—with the U.S. as the only exception—issued condemnations as well. Four of them—Britain, France, Germany, and Portugal—said in a joint statement that they were “extremely concerned by, and strongly opposed, the plans…all settlement activity, including in east Jerusalem, must cease immediately.”

It should be noted that, except the U.S., all of the above mentioned countries either voted aye or abstained in last month’s UN General Assembly vote conferring a watered-down form of statehood on the Palestinian Authority. It was partly in reaction to the Palestinians’ move, which blatantly violated the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords that the EU once sanctioned, that Israel announced the new building plans.

Israel, though, couldn’t win. It couldn’t persuade the European states to oppose the Palestinian move; and once it reacted to the move, it was roundly condemned.

Israel was particularly disappointed by Germany’s abstention in the UN vote, after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government had seemed to be intending to vote nay. Germany, as already mentioned, then joined three other countries in demanding that even “East Jerusalem”—where 200,000 Jews now live, 40 percent of Jerusalem’s total Jewish population—be treated as a Jew-free zone.

Beyond these specific points, though, stands the ongoing spectacle of the world’s leading Western powers seeming to pine for a redivided Jerusalem, this time with the Palestinians ruling the Jew-free part. Even if a Palestinian sovereign entity were to arise in the West Bank, “Ramallah,” as David Solway notes in his new book, “…is a good enough Palestinian capital.” Why, then, the insistence on East Jerusalem?

Arlene Kushner from Israel - A Mixed Bag

Arlene Kushner..
26 December '12..

Today we'll start with the good news.

Ariel University has been an institution of higher learning, situated in Ariel -- a major city in Samaria, 25 miles east of Tel Aviv -- since 2005. At that time it was Ariel College and had the highest student enrollment of any public college in Israel. But the school's intention was to seek full university status -- which would provide it with the ability to grant doctoral degrees, as well as increase its funding for research and its prestige.

In 2010, it was granted the title Ariel University Center of Samaria, but was not yet accorded official university status. In July of this year, the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria granted it this status. In September, the Cabinet approved it.

~~~~~~~~~~

But it wasn't yet a done deal. Since Judea and Samaria are governed by a civil administration under the umbrella of the Ministry of Defense, yet another approval was needed. And this was not forthcoming.

It was politics. Ariel College had met all criteria for becoming a university. But, shock, horrors: A full Israeli university in Samaria? That suggests permanency and will lead to expansion of a "settlement." British Foreign Secretary William Hague actually had the gall to say in September that Israel should reconsider its decision on this school.

His attitude was not new. In 2009, for example, the Spanish Housing Ministry disqualified the university center from participation in an international architectural competition because it was located in "occupied territories."

At any rate, this week Defense Minister Barak instructed Major General Nitzan Alon, the Head of the IDF's Central Command, to grant the school final approval. This was after the attorney general had said there was no legal obstacle to doing so. General Alon signed the appropriate document yesterday, and it's a done deal.

I have been advised by someone directly involved in Ariel that this did not represent a softening of Barak's heart on this issue: a great deal of hard work behind the scenes went into achieving this.

However it was achieved, this is a cause for celebration. And I think it's good to know that with hard work nationalists can hold sway at least part of the time.

Ashton's problem evidently is with Jewish settlers, not Israeli Arabs

Elder of Ziyon..
21 December '12..






EU High Representative Catherine Ashton made this statement earlier this week:

The approval of an additional 2610 housing units in the settlement of Givat Hamatos is extremely troubling, coming in addition to announcements made at the end of November and Monday’s approval of 1500 units in Ramat Shlomo. This plan for Givat Hamatos would cut the geographic continuity between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. I strongly oppose this unprecedented expansion of settlements around Jerusalem.

First of all, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos are in Jerusalem, not "around" Jerusalem.

But more interestingly is how there is one set of announced housing that Ashton did not mention, namely, the plan to add 688 units to the neighborhood of Beit Safafa.

Why would she mention some neighborhoods and not mention Beit Safafa? Because Beit Safafa is Arab.

But which side of the Green Line is Beit Safafa on? The answer is - both. The Green Line divided it into two. Before 1967, residents who were literally across the street from each other - even within the same family - were separated.

The ones in the north are Israeli citizens, the ones in the south generally are not (unless they choose to become citizens, as any Jerusalem Arabs have the right to do.)

Since 1967, Israeli Arabs have moved to Beit Safafa, including Christians from Jaffa and Nazareth, on both sides of the Green Line. The residents themselves are adamant that their neighborhood never be divided again, and certainly most of the Israeli citizens will refuse to become citizens of "Palestine."

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Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem - No blinking, no fear

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
18 December '12..

We're finally getting back to normalcy in Jerusalem. Perhaps the 1,500 housing units that were approved for construction in Ramat Shlomo on Monday herald the dawning of a new era of sanity, a return to the kind of behavior a sovereign power is expected to display in its own capital. A new sanity because zoning and construction in Jerusalem in recent years reflected precisely the opposite: hesitation, fear and lack of decisiveness, punctuated by question marks over our justification.

Monday's decision and the discussion scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday on further construction in the southern Jerusalem community of Givat Hamatos (which will include housing for Arabs too, as it should and must), communicates a message to the world that Jerusalem is not a part of the game; that the construction freeze has come to an end here as well. Now what we have to do is restore independence to the city's zoning committees, releasing them of the obligation to get approval from the Prime Minister's Office for every plan of this kind. For four decades, the zoning committees were independent, and they made professional decisions based on a super-policy formulated by most of Israel's administrations.

This super-policy was that Jerusalem would never be divided again. We said it in the past (with the exception of the administrations of Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, both of whom betrayed their loyalty to Jerusalem), and we need to say it again, without feeling shame, without blinking and without stuttering. Construction in Har Homa, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos contributes to the unity of the city and diminishes the chances that it will be divided, and is good construction — for Jews and Arabs alike. It may temporarily cost us our good relations with the U.S. and Europe, it may even elicit sanctions, but for Jerusalem it would be worth it.

The United and Undivided Capital of the State of Israel

When a capital city with a growing population needs to expand, why does that set off international alarms?

Nir Barkat..
Wall Street Journal..
11 December '12..

Israel's government is under heavy criticism for recently approving building permits in what the international community calls "the settlements." Yet places like Ramat Shlomo, Gilo and Givat Ha'matos are well within the municipal borders of Jerusalem, and the virgin hills of "E-1"—between the city of Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim—have over three millennia of deep Jewish roots. Here in Jerusalem, we stand saddened and appalled by the European Union ministers who condemn these construction projects while ignoring calls from the leader of Hamas for the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.

When the people of Israel left Egypt and came to this region 3,500 years ago, each of the 12 tribes received a piece of land on which they built their cities and developed their ways of life. The exception to the rule was the holy city of Jerusalem, which wasn't divided or given to any of the tribes. Jerusalem served all 12 Jewish tribes equally, as it did the people of other faiths who came to worship here.

Jerusalem became the de facto center of the world, managed by Hebrew kings for 1,000 years. All residents and pilgrims entering her gates were treated with honor and respect.

After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70, the city traded hands from conqueror to conqueror—including the Babylonians, Assyrians, Turks, British and Jordanians—for two millennia. None of these rulers maintained the city's freedom of religion, Jerusalem's essence. These empires never adopted Jerusalem as their capital. The Jewish people, on the other hand—even in their darkest days, amid expulsions, pogroms, the Holocaust and waves of terror—have always comforted themselves with the saying: "Next year in Jerusalem."

Renewing the Vows - If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
06 December '12..

It's a shame. A shame that building up Jerusalem — the city that has protected Jews throughout the generations more than we have protected it — has become a form of punishment. A stick with which to hit others over the head.

After all, building in Jerusalem is a privilege and a duty, and also a true necessity. If there is a demand for homes in Jerusalem, they should be built. All year round. But not as a punishment. If there is no need for housing, then there should be no construction. Not yesterday, not today and not tomorrow.

Despite all that, the government should be commended. The current dispute with the U.S. and Europe is a good one, even if it has erupted too late. If the U.S. had not attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy on Jerusalem, then there would be room for concern.

After years in which the Israeli leadership kept raising Palestinian hopes over our capital city, it is about time that Netanyahu and his ministers begin lowering these hopes back down and repairing the serious damage. Netanyahu's government has been going about this slowly and hesitantly, but better late than never.

Israel's previous governments have left scorched earth behind. The administrations of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were willing to divide the city, betraying all their vows not to do so.

Netanyahu took his time in rectifying their mistakes. It was not easy to extricate the lamb from the wolf's jaw. Still, his government built in the city, even if it was too little and too slow, renewing the vows to Jerusalem.

Netanyahu faced many obstacles: Green activists blocked construction in western Jerusalem, while the U.S. blocked construction in the east. The result has been catastrophic: Only 1,700 housing units are being built annually in Jerusalem, while the demand for housing is at 4,500 per year. The city's Jewish residents have been voting with their feet. They had no place to live, so they left.

Meanwhile, the construction of the separation fence in northern Jerusalem prompted an influx of tens of thousands of Palestinians into Jerusalem. Contrary to European propaganda, Jerusalem's Arabs want to continue living under Israeli rule. Anyone who talks to them directly, and not to their leaders, will hear them say as much. Add the high birthrate among the city's Arabs, and you get a grave demographic crisis for the city's Jewish population.

The benchmarks, in any case, have remained skewed. But it is not too late to remedy this, even if it means a confrontation with Europe and the U.S. If this government still has any red lines, Jerusalem is one.

Snapshots from a country at war with a terrorist regime:

it's not so terribly well understood by most

Happy in Gaza [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
05 December '12..

Barely two weeks after our country and the terrorist regime in Gaza reached an understanding to bring the round-the-clock rocket firings at Israel's civilian communities to a temporary halt, there are some things we have learned that we want to share.

First, the Hamas clique that dominates Gaza is today welcoming back into its bosom several more convicted murderers.

Former prisoners deported to Qatar in Gaza for Hamas celebrations

Ma'an [Palestinian news agency based in Bethlehem] Published 05/12/2012
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) – A number of former Palestinian prisoners who were deported to Qatar as part of the prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israel have arrived in Gaza City to mark Hamas’ 25th anniversary. Sabir Abu Karsh, chief of the Waed prisoners association, told reporters that six former prisoners arrived in Gaza to join celebrations of Hamas' anniversary “and the triumph the Gaza Strip achieved against Israel in the last military offensive Israel launched against the coastal enclave.” Gaza-based former prisoner and senior Hamas’ leader Tawfiq Abu Naim greeted the returning former prisoners in a news conference held by Waed prisoners’ association... Abdul-Hakim Hanani, a former prisoner who arrived from Qatar, said the “future stage will be based on the principle hit for hit, and blood for blood.”

From our records, this Hanani (a native of Nablus, whose name appears as Abd al-Hakim Abd al-Aziz abd Hanaini in the walk-free list) is identified as prisoner number 273 in the long and ugly database of 1,027 murderers and assorted terrorists released in October 2011 as Israel's price for the return of the young hostage, Gilad Shalit. Hanani/Hanaini was serving a life sentence for (of course) homicide. Life in Qatar can't be too difficult for people like him, but Gaza is where he really fits right in. And having an abundance of convicted murderers present for their silver anniversary will help the Hamas overlords set just the right celebratory tone.

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Arlene Kushner From Israel: Saying No!

Arlene Kushner..
04 December '12..

There is a paucity of good news in this part of the world right now. But this qualifies. As I face down the bitter truths of what the governments of the Western world (Canada excepted) want from us, I know there is recourse only to Heaven, and to our own strength.

What the world demands of us is neither rational, nor fair, nor benign.

And so, when our prime minister faces the governments of the US and Britain and France, and refuses to back down, I feel a gladness. And, as always, I pray that this strength should continue and grow.

From a source in the Prime Minister's Office has come this statement:

Israel will "continue to stand up for its vital interests even in the face of international pressure.

"The Palestinian unilateral moves at the UN are a blatant and fundamental violation of agreements to which the international community was a guarantor. No one should be surprised that Israel is not sitting with its arms folded in response to the unilateral Palestinian steps."

What is more, the source stated that Israel would take further steps if the Palestinians went ahead with more unilateral moves.

According to Yisrael Hayom, Netanyahu said that "those who had voiced their opposition should have considered the ramifications before allowing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to embarrass Israel at the United Nations."

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=6622

All in all, members of the Israel government do not seem unduly distressed by the international furor.

The Fallacy of E-1 Contiguity Returns

TS..
Camera/Snapshots..
02 December '12..






With Israel's announcement that it plans to proceed with construction in Area E-1, east of Jerusalem, earlier falsehoods about that land reemerge. Thus, Ha'aretz reports that construction in E-1

would effectively bisect the West Bank and sever the physical link between the Palestinian territories and Jerusalem.

Similarly, the New York Times reports:

Construction in E1, in West Bank territory that Israel captured in the 1967 war, would connect the large Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem, dividing the West Bank in two. The Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem would be cut off from the capital, making the contiguous Palestinian state endorsed by the United Nations last week virtually impossible.

So is it true that construction in E-1 would bisect the West Bank, and severing Palestinian contiguity, and cutting off Palestinian areas from Jerusalem? The answer is no. As CAMERA pointed out in 2005 ("The Contiguity Double Standard"):

Palestinian contiguity in the West Bank would be no more cut off with the so-called E-1 corridor than would Israeli contiguity if Israel were to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, even with slight modifications.

Here's why. First, take a look at this map of the region:

Honig - Yesteryear’s peculiar predictions

Seven-year-old
Rachel Levy flees
Arab occupiers in
the old city of
Jerusalem as her
home goes up in flames.

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
14 October '11

http://sarahhonig.com/2011/10/14/another-tack-yesteryear%E2%80%99s-peculiar-predictions/

Back in 2003 I warned in several columns and editorials that by acquiescing (for seemingly pragmatic reasons) to the delegitimization of settlements we also delegitimize our standing in Jerusalem.

“For much of the world,” I noted in an editorial for Jerusalem Day 2003, “many sections of Jerusalem are settlements – no less than Ariel or Ofra. The neighborhood of Gilo, home to more than 45,000 Jerusalemites, is routinely described abroad as ‘the Gilo settlement.’ This can impact on the continued development of many city quarters. It’s not inconceivable that the Arabs will decry any development as an infringement of strictures set in the ‘Roadmap to Peace’ while the International Quartet, slated to oversee the process, may well agree.”

At the time, I recall, the reaction was that I had “exaggerated wildly” and “stretched things out of all proportion” to make a point that was in itself quite outlandish, if not outright scaremongering. No way would our claim to Gilo ever be compromised and no way would any friendly force ever dare insist we curtail construction in so quintessentially an Israeli neighborhood.

So a short while later, by way of defending my “peculiar predictions,” I elaborated on them in one of my Another Tack columns. “Too many professed Zionists regard settlers as enemies, frequently heaping more scorn upon them than on Arab terrorists,” I observed.

“Settlers are often political pariahs, whereas it’s politically incorrect to refer to any Arabs as enemies. There are only potential peace-partners on the other side, and they can be placated with the sacrifice of a few settlements we’ve never been to, inhabited by folks we don’t wish to associate with.

“And if the small sacrifices won’t do, they’ll be followed by bigger, more painful concessions … Via a process of rationalization we convince ourselves that what we cede is ‘undesirable.’ No beyond-the-Green-Line community is immune. This is why it behooves us to constantly bear in mind that overseas the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo is called the ‘the settlement of Gilo.’

Freund - The 'P' word

Michael Freund
Pundicity
Jerusalem Post
06 October '11

http://www.michaelfreund.org/10465/the-p-word

It is one of the international community's favorite adjectives to hurl at Israel. Time and again, whenever the Jewish state takes some action of one sort or another, a parade of world leaders turns to their lexicons and reaches for this old, reliable term of censure with which to berate us.

With little regard for the facts, they inevitably seek to lay the blame at Israel's doorstep by invoking one particular slur.

It is the 'P' word, as in "provocative" or "provocation."

Just last week, this prejudicial profanity was repeatedly flung at Israel in the wake of the Interior Ministry's decision to grant initial approval for 1,100 new housing units in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.

Barely had the gavel come down on the ruling before the leaders of the Free World rushed to outdo one another with their condemnation and criticism.

Calling the move "counter-productive," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a news conference, "we have long urged both sides to avoid any kind of action which could undermine trust, including, and perhaps most particularly, in Jerusalem, any action that could be viewed as provocative" – there's that word – "by either side".

Going a step further, British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the move "illegal" and said, "This is a time when all parties should be striving to return to talks and responding to the Quartet statement call to refrain from" – here it comes… – "provocative actions."

It didn't seem to matter one whit that the approval of the Gilo proposal was just one small step in a lengthy bureaucratic process and that the bulldozers won't be starting work any time soon. The mere idea of Jewish homes being built in Jerusalem appears to be sufficient to evoke anger across the globe.

Clearly, both Clinton and Hague are suffering from "selective provocation syndrome," which is when one deems Israel's actions to be provocative while ignoring similar moves by the Palestinians.

Rennert - Wash. Post's silly semantics against Israel's rightful claims to Jerusalem

Leo Rennert
American Thinker
02 October '11

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/wash_posts_silly_semantics_against_israels_rightful_claims_to_jerusalem.html

Just when readers of the Washington Post might think that its reporters have exhausted all available semantic distortions to blacken Israel, here comes a new contorted Israel-bashing label that descends into the far reaches of utter silliness.

It's served up by Joel Greenberg, the Post's Jerusalem correspondent, in an Oct.2 article about a senior Palestinian official complaining that the Quartet of international mediators -- the U.S., the EU, the UN and Russia -- are too easy on Israel in pushing for resumption of negotiations ("Abbas aide presses for strong action by Quartet -- He portrays mediators' response to settlement plans as slap on wrist" page A14).

While the Quartet is pushing for a new round of talks without pre-conditions, the Abbas aide first wants an Israeli settlement freeze and Greenberg clearly sympathizes with him. Greenberg also writes that the dispute about how to proceed to negotiations was aggravated when Israel advanced building plans on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem," -- as he puts it in his lead paragraph.

Farther down in his piece, Greenberg more specifically reiterates that Israel has complicated matters with plans to build "1,100 homes in Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood built on West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem." It takes Greenberg a while to recognize the Jewish character of Gilo.

However, in Greenberg's view, it is not enough to simply label Gilo a Jewish neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. No, as far as he's concerned, Gilo doesn't belong to Israel and to these Jewish residents because it sits on "West Bank land annexed to Jerusalem." Such annexation, in his view, is Israel's original sin.
Consequently, Greenberg rejects any permissibility for Jerusalem, like many cities and capitals around the world, to grow by bursting its geographic boundaries -- a natural phenomenon elsewhere around the globe.

Which is utterly silly, when you think of it.

Fresnozionism - Stop indulging Arab fantasies

Fresnozionism.org
28 September '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/09/stop-indulging-arab-fantasies/


Everyone is disappointed with Israel again:

[EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine] Ashton urged Israel to “reverse” its decision to build 1,100 new housing units in Gilo, saying that “settlement activity” threatens the viability of a two-state solution.

Both Ashton and UK Foreign Secretary William Hague slammed Israel for seemingly ignoring the Quartet of Middle East mediators, which called last week for a resumption of peace talks and for both Israelis and Palestinians to resist “provocative actions” …

This new housing plan, Hague said, was just the kind of “provocative” move to be avoided. “Settlement expansion is illegal under international law [false -- ed.], corrodes trust and undermines the basic principle of land for peace,” Hague said, calling on Israel to “revoke this decision.”

Earlier, the United States said that Gilo plan was “counterproductive” and urged both Israel and the Palestinians not to take steps which could complicate resumption of direct peace talks. “We are deeply disappointed by this morning’s announcement by the government of Israel,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

And Mahmoud Abbas said this in his UN speech last week:

The occupation is racing against time to redraw the borders on our land according to what it wants and to impose a fait accompli on the ground that changes the realities and that is undermining the realistic potential for the existence of the State of Palestine.

So where is Gilo? Let’s see exactly how it is “provocative” and “redraws the borders”?

Tobin - Administration Refights the Battle of Gilo

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
27 September '11


http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/27/jerusalem-gilo-obama-housing-terror/

Those who believed the Obama administration’s attitude toward Israel has changed for the better got a rude wakeup call today when Washington condemned the start of a housing project in Jerusalem. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland expressed “disappointment” about the planned building of 1,100 homes in the Gilo section of the city. The Palestinian Authority also attacked the project as yet another “illegal settlement” built on Arab land.

While the administration’s defenders will say the comments from Foggy Bottom are nothing more than standard American criticism of settlement policy, attacks on the right of Jews to live in Gilo have a significance that may presage the outbreak of violence.


The first thing that needs to be understood is Gilo is no settlement. Built on the southern border of the city, it was established more than 40 years ago and is the home of approximately 40,000 residents of Israel’s capital. Up until Barack Obama took office, it was not the subject of much, if any comment, by any previous administration. By seeking to force Israel to cease building houses in existing Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Obama has legitimized Palestinian demands for not only a re-division of the city but also their desire to evict the more than 200,000 Jews who live in those parts that were illegally occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967.

But Gilo has a special importance that ought to have been remembered by the administration before they sought to make an issue of it. Gilo is more than just another place where the Palestinians wish to push the Jews out. Only a few short years ago during the second intifada, Gilo was the one section of the city that was under constant murderous sniper fire from the nearby Arab village of Beit Jala. Gilo was the laboratory where Palestinian terrorists sought to discover whether they could force Jews into abandoning their homes. They failed. Despite being subjected to murderous attacks for many months, the Jews of Gilo stood their ground and refused to be intimidated. Gilo became one of many symbols of the courage of the Israeli people and their determination to hold onto Jerusalem.

It should also be pointed out that far from being an obstacle to a putative peace deal, building in Gilo — or any other part of Jerusalem — would have no effect on the creation of a Palestinian state if a peace deal should ever be signed. It is generally understood that even according to President Obama’s idea of a border being created along the 1967 lines with land swaps that Jewish Jerusalem would remain under Israeli sovereignty. The only way homes in Gilo could be construed as an obstacle to peace is if the vision of peace being pursued is one in which every Jew is thrown out of much of the city.

Even worse, by branding Gilo as a place where Jews ought not to live and build, the State Department is doing more than just trying to appease the Palestinians. It is also illustrating that as far as the U.S. is concerned, this place where terror was decisively defeated is up for grabs. That’s a signal Palestinians may wrongly interpret as American indifference to a resumption of violence.

This latest episode is a reminder that no American leader has done more to chip away at Israel’s position on Jerusalem than Obama. Despite the hopeful signs about a rapprochement between the administration and Israel during the debate in the United Nations, the president is still holding on to dangerous misconceptions about Jerusalem and the goal of the Palestinians.

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Buying "Peace," Buying Israel

JINSA
18 November '10

During the Bush administration, an envoy was sent to ask what it would take for Israel to feel secure if a Palestinian state was established without a peace treaty with Israel. He had incentives in his pocket. The Israelis turned him down because without a treaty that addressed Israel's fundamental concerns, nothing could compensate for the security that would be lost by removing assets from the West Bank and accepting Palestinian independence.

They say the envoy returned to Washington frustrated and irritated with Israel, but the idea that you can buy people's strongly held beliefs lives on.

The Obama administration is presently offering Israel a variety of incentives to agree to a 90-day building freeze to jump start "peace talks" that the Administration has already announced are expected to result in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state next year. By the way, Ha'aretz reports that U.S. officials insist while the "freeze" doesn't exactly include Jerusalem, they expect that there will be no building there.

Israel, according to media reports, will get an American promise to oppose a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence; a possible lease deal for the IDF on the West Bank; a second squadron of F-35s free or at the regular price depending on which report you believe; and a promise that this freeze request will be the last freeze request. [The Israelis asked for the American position in a letter, which is ironic since President Bush provided Israel with certain assurances in a letter that the Obama administration immediately and in no uncertain terms repudiated.] Each promise comes with a string:

Is the United States itself opposed to the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state? If so, why does Israel have to "pay" for American support? If not, why think the Administration will do more than offer lip service? Does American opposition include a veto in the UN Security Council, or just a vote in the General Assembly? Will the United States work to bring allies along, or just cast a singular vote? Will it be a leader, or just one of 192 countries?

The proposal to lease land to leave the IDF extra-territorially in the West Bank assumes the Palestinians will live up to a lease agreement that violates their sovereignty. Really? Will Palestinian state be demilitarized? No country permits others to determine with whom it has alliances. Who will stop the Palestinians from making a "defensive" alliance with Syria or Iran?

F-35s are not responsive to the additional threat posed to Israel by an independent Palestinian state. So to what end are the additional planes? The United States has said that the $60 billion deal with Saudi Arabia doesn't change the military balance in the region. If Israel needs the planes to deal with regional threats - whether Saudi Arabia or Iran - should they hinge on whether Israel builds houses for Jews east of the 1949 armistice line? And who ensures that the planes will be built and delivered in a timely manner? Production is already being stretched and reduced, meaning Israel is unlikely to receive its first planes before 2016, and there is a move in Congress to eliminate the plane altogether for an alleged $1 trillion cost savings to the U.S. Treasury.

"This freeze is the last freeze, promise." Right.

Israel agreed long ago that a Palestinian state could be established under conditions that do not threaten Israel. Thus far, the Palestinians have decline to offer Israel even the most remote assurance that the legitimacy of the Jewish sovereignty in the region, the attachment of the Jewish people to its historical homeland and the right of Israel to "secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force" - the promise of UN Resolution 242 - will be part of the package. But the American bid/bribe appears focused solely on establishing "Palestine" in the President's time frame, regardless of the consequences to Israel.

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