At the Risk of Further Upsetting Ms. Rashida Tlaib - by Shoshana Bryen

Israelis live not only with checkpoints, but with intrusive security in airports, schools, shopping centers, concert halls, and other places because all have been attacked by people — Palestinians, not Costa Ricans or Laotians or Nepalese — intent on killing them. And yet Israel is here, strong, vibrant, growing, democratic, and tolerant of everyone except those openly dedicated to its destruction. If that further upsets Ms. Tlaib, so be it.

Shoshana Bryen..
Jewish Policy Center..
21 August '19..

Rashida Tlaib was in tears over the conditions in which her grandmother lives in the West Bank, and furious that her mother, an American citizen, was forced to go through a “checkpoint” from Israel once in order to visit her. “As a young girl, visiting Palestine to see my grandparents, I watched as my mother had to go through dehumanizing checkpoints — even though she was a United States citizen and proud American.” She was so sad. Teary. Emotional. Distraught.

In light of that …

Is it insensitive to point out that international Arab wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, terror wars (so-called intifadas) in 1989 and 2001, and rocket wars in 2006, 2009, and 2014 have all been started by Arab states or Palestinian leaders against the state of Israel with the intention of destroying it?

It is, perhaps, rude to point out that in the 1949 war of annihilation he declared on Israel, the King of Jordan scooped up the territory that had been allocated for a Palestinian-Arab state. It’s probably uncharitable to mention that he annexed the Palestinian-allotted territory in a move recognized only by Great Britain and Pakistan, but no one was moved to do anything about it. And pitiless to mention that Tlaib’s grandmother was thus illegally occupied from 1949 – 1967. By Jordan. And thick-skinned, perhaps, to point out that Israel only entered the Palestinian picture when the Jordanian king — in a mind-bogglingly stupid moment — entered 1967’s Six-Day War on the fourth day and managed to lose all of his illegally held possessions.

And given what Ms. Tlaib considers to be her grandmother’s suffering, it seems hardhearted to point out that there were no checkpoints during the Jordanian occupation because no Israeli person — no Jewish person — ever passed from Israel into Jordanian-held Jerusalem at all between 1949 and 1967. No Jewish person could pray at the holiest of Jewish sites and 58 synagogues on the eastern side of the city were dynamited and destroyed. And no Jordanian or Palestinian person was permitted by Jordan to pass from Jordan into Israel during that period for work, medical care, or school.

It really is harsh to point out that after Israel acquired the West Bank territory and, in the course, defending itself from the king’s weak-mindedness, Palestinian workers were permitted to travel to and work in Israel — and still are. Some 100,000 – 110,000 Palestinians currently work in Israel and another 30,000 work in West Bank communities. Is it callous to note that those checkpoints were the result of Palestinian terrorism that ended any hope of free or casual passage?

No. It is not.

Amidst the Tlaib/Omar Uproar — Terror Victims Risk Being Forgotten - by Karen Harradine

Malki Roth is a real victim, not Omar or Tlaib. Those who wish to show that they care about justice must not stand shoulder to shoulder with those who hate Israel. Instead, they should pressure Jordan into extraditing Tamimi to account for her crimes in a US court. These wise words from Deuteronomy — “justice, justice shall you pursue” -– have never been more relevant than this week.

Karen Harradine..
Algemeiner..
22 August '19..
Link: https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/08/22/amid-tlaib-omar-uproar-terror-victims-risk-being-forgotten/

August 20 was no ordinary day. It marked the 18th Hebrew memorial date of the murder of Malki Roth and 15 other innocents at the hands of the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi and her collaborators.

Malki’s parents, Arnold and Frimet Roth, have yet to see justice done. As I previously wrote, Tamimi remains free in Jordan, living a life of comfort and privilege.

Malki’s story is being lost amid the roar of misguided support for Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar after they were banned from Israel.

During her response to the ban, Tlaib wasted no time in spreading lies and smears about Israel. She tearfully recounted her “memories” of a visit to her family there as a “young girl,” and watching her mother go through “dehumanizing checkpoints.” Tlaib is 43 years old. This means she must have visited Israel either in the 1980s or the 1990s — when the security checkpoints did not exist.

Tlaib’s insistence that Israel dismantle the security checkpoints, which protect Israelis from Islamist terrorism, could easily lead to more Jewish blood being spilled.

In response to Tlaib and Omar, Frimet Roth said that if the security checkpoints had been built much earlier, the life of her daughter Malki, and thousands of others, could have been saved.

This should have been the real story, not the false heroics of Tlaib and Omar. Their anti-Israel and antisemitic agenda to vilify Jews is there for all to witness.

Fear and loathing at IDF checkpoints: There is nothing more fitting than to fight fire with fire - by Douglas Altabef

The idea that foreign nationals are allowed to harass soldiers protecting their own country seems inconceivable, yet until recently it has been a common Israeli reality, devoid of pushback.

Douglas Altabef..
JNS.org..
12 March '19..

A critical function of the Israel Defense Forces is to secure borders and sensitive locations, in addition to the transition points in and through such areas.

Guard duty is deceptively routine and simple. Like other military functions, most of the time there is a familiar routine that can seem mind-numbing to the casual observer.

However, the trained soldier knows all too well that the seemingly mundane and insignificant can be a ruse—a cover for something intended to be deadly. Therefore, vigilance and skepticism are part of a checkpoint soldier’s professional DNA.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see groups, often from Europe, hovering around checkpoints with a very different orientation and objective from those who come to support soldiers with pizzas and good wishes. These folks come with loathing, and an unvarnished hatred of who the soldiers are and what they are doing.

These people are there to play the game of “gotcha.” They come armed with video cameras, often planted just inches from the face of the guarding soldier, and hope to catch the soldier doing something—anything—that can, out of context, look like some heinous act.

Whether it’s a scowl at an uncooperative Palestinian passing through a checkpoint or an attempt to search a suspicious-looking person, there are ample opportunities to create a context in which the soldier appears to be the personification of an oppressive Israel.

This is cynical manipulation, but sadly, with the Internet, social media, and Photoshop and other apps, we live in a world increasingly filled with such out of context videography.

Yet the situation at a checkpoint is far more fraught with risk, rather than just embarrassment from manipulated misrepresentation.

There are life-and-death implications at checkpoints, and no one knows that better than the soldiers on duty. Besides obtrusive and invasive cameras, there is often verbal harassment as young soldiers are being demonized for doing their duty.

(Continue to Full Column)

Visit Im Tirtzu. Join the Aim Click and Shoot Campaign!

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. 

.

(Thumbs-Up) Checking Both Moshe and Mohammed: Moral Relativism is Not Equality - by Varda Meyers Epstein

...I really hoped that Sarah would see my point and speak to it. But she didn’t deign to respond. She’d doubled down, reiterated her talking points, and closed shop. Which is a pity. Because I want security and equality every bit as much as she. I want both Moshe and Mohammed to be safe. I want the terror and the fear to end. And that requires true equality, equality under the law, and not some silly superficial spectacle masquerading as the same.

Varda Meyers Epstein..
Judean Rose/Elder of Ziyon..
15 February '18..

New Media Editor Sarah Tuttle-Singer, of the Times of Israel introduced her newest blog, Why I want the security guy at the train station to search me, on the Times of Israel bloggers’ Facebook page with these words, “There are two things I care about when it comes to Israel: Security and equality. And this is why I say with no hesitation: Search Muhammed. And search me. Search everyone.”

The fallacy of these words hit me with immediate clarity. I knew what her blog said without reading it. She was going to say that everyone has to be checked by security guards, both Jew and Arab, in order to protect democracy—that equality means checking everyone, irrespective of whether or not they might be guilty.

But that isn’t equality. Equality is about holding everyone to the same societal standards. If Moshe is a bad boy, he goes to jail. If Mohammed is a bad boy he goes to jail. Because everyone is supposed to be good and obey the law. And when they don’t, there are repercussions.

Because that is how the security apparatus protects our liberties. They have intel. They use it to protect everyone. The intel is what it is. It’s what Moshe or Mohammed make it. And should Moshe’s or Mohammed’s relatives tend to be rowdy, they then become “the usual suspects” and anyone who looks, sounds, or acts like them is identified and scrutinized.

That’s how we protect equality. By making sure that everyone has the right to safety and security. And by setting standards of appropriate behavior. And making sure there are consequences to bad behavior.

And if Moshe or Mohammed don’t want their families scrutinized, they need to behave. Period.

But let’s say one relative doesn’t go along with the rowdy bunch. He’s a good guy. Is it fair that he be profiled, scrutinized, his liberties temporarily curtailed?

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

.

At a Jerusalem security checkpoint, a girl with knives and stabbing victims on her mind - by Arnold Roth

On the day our 15 year-old daughter Malki and 14 other innocents were murdered in the Hamas attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria, the terrorist bomber and her human bomb passed through this same security crossing, Qalandiya. Tragically, no one thought to stop and interrogate the young man with the guitar case slung across his back that afternoon. In those simpler times, we didn't know our neighbours included people with the monstrous capacity to conceal a massively-explosive, shrapnel-packed weapon-of-mass-destruction inside a musical instrument container and then go looking for Jewish children to kill and maim.

Qalandiya Crossing and some of its security
personnel who watch for attackers [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
28 December '17..

Barely noticed by reporters and overwhelmingly ignored by mainstream news editors, there has been a non-lethal security incident at one of the main entry points through which Palestinian Arabs pass on their way into Israel's capital city, Jerusalem.

But non-lethal was not the goal of the attacker.

A Palestinian teen was arrested Wednesday after trying to illegally enter Israel and allegedly carry out a terror attack, police said. The suspect, an 18-year-old female, was turned away at the Qalandiya crossing near Jerusalem, and later tried to cross again using her 7-year-old sister’s permit. When she was refused, she began arguing with border guards and tried to force her way in, a police spokesperson said. During subsequent questioning, the teen admitted to planning an attack in the Jerusalem area. A source with knowledge of the case told The Times of Israel that the Palestinian planned to buy a knife and stab a police officer. The woman, from the town of Qataneh, was jailed, pending a remand hearing. Her name was not released by police... ["Palestinian teen caught planning stabbing attack — police", Times of Israel, December 27, 2017]

You might want to note how:

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

.

Dennis Ross and ‘Restricted’ Palestinians who manage to reach their Israeli targets - by Stephen Flatow

...Former Mideast envoys whose lives are dedicated to creating a Palestinian state may not like to acknowledge it, but 26 of Israel’s 27 checkpoints are not in “Palestinian territory,” restricting the “movement” of Palestinians—they are at the border between Israel and PA-controlled territory. The purpose of Israel’s checkpoints is the same as the checkpoints that are located at every airport in the world—to make sure that passengers aren’t carrying any bombs, guns or other weapons with them.

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

The newly released details about a recent terrorist attack in Jerusalem show how easily Palestinian terrorists can enter Israel—thus contradicting the phony claims that Palestinians’ movements are severely restricted by Israel.

The attack in question took place June 16. Three Palestinian terrorists killed a teenage Israeli policewoman named Hadas Malka, in Jerusalem. They also stabbed and shot several other Israelis, before they were killed.

The BBC rubbed salt in the victims’ wounds by headlining its reports of the attack: “Three Palestinians Killed After Deadly Stabbing in Jerusalem.” After being deluged with complaints, the BBC changed it to “Israeli Policewoman Stabbed to Death in Jerusalem.” Notice how, even in the corrected version, the Palestinians were still not identified as the aggressors. Many journalists seem to be incapable of writing a simple factual headline such as “Palestinian Murders Israeli.” It’s just not in their vocabulary.

This week, the Israeli authorities released some important new details about the attack. It turns out that an Arab resident of Jerusalem served as an accomplice. The terrorists were residents of Ramallah and did not have the necessary permits to enter Israel. So, the accomplice, who did have permission to enter because he lives in Jerusalem, drove to Ramallah to pick up the killers.

Let me pause in the story to point something out. The reason the terrorists had to go all the way to Jerusalem to kill Israelis is because there are no Israelis in Ramallah.

(Continue to Full Post)

Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

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. 

.

When a Journalist Shills For Palestinians; Slams Israel, Omits Basic Facts - by Daniel Pomerantz

...It is certainly fair for a journalist to explore the subjective experience of a Palestinian interviewee. It is even fair to investigate the very real burden that some checkpoints create in Palestinian daily life. Yet hiding context, covering up inconvenient facts, disguising opinions as news, and utterly neglecting to include any balancing statements, clearly violates the professional standards of ABC News, as well as basic common sense. Even worse: absolving Palestinians of all responsibility for a genuinely complex and dangerous situation, while utterly vilifying Israelis, is beyond unprofessional: it is just plain wrong.

Daniel Pomerantz..
Honest Reporting..
06 June '17..






Sophie McNeill has a history of advocacy journalism. She has openly dedicated herself to:

…frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering.”

McNeill made it clear that when she said “people who are really suffering,” she meant Palestinians. And while there’s nothing wrong with presenting one, agenda-driven side to a complex story, it is not journalism. It is activism. In fact, HonestReporting previously published an in-depth review of Sophie McNeill’s unsuitability to report actual news.

Which is why it is so disturbing that Australia’s ABC News employs a self proclaimed, and openly biased advocate to report from Israel and the Palestinian territories.

In fact, ABC News’s own ethical rules clearly require:

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

.

Ten ‘humiliating’ minutes at an Israeli checkpoint - Stephen M. Flatow

...Twenty-seven—in a region of more than 2,000 square miles. And 26 of the 27 are situated at the border between Israel and the disputed territories...Every year, there are hundreds of attempts by Palestinians to smuggle weapons into Israel. The last year for which I could find that statistic was 2012, when there were 475 such smuggling attempts. So: a 10-minute delay for Palestinians versus 475 terrorist attacks against Israel. Is that a justified trade-off? You decide.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
18 January '17..

Remember John Howard Griffin’s 1961 book “Black Like Me,” about a white journalist who posed as an African-American in order to experience what life was like for blacks in the South? An American journalist recently undertook a Palestinian version of that experiment.

Hearing complaints about Israeli checkpoints that supposedly restrict the movement of Arabs in Judea and Samaria, filmmaker Ami Horowitz of Fox News decided to see for himself. He hired a Palestinian driver and, traveling in a car with Palestinian license plates, they drove “throughout the West Bank.” How often did Israeli troops interrupt their journey? “We were never stopped,” Horowitz reported.

Next he decided to see what it’s like for Palestinians crossing at the checkpoints that separate Israel from Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.

(Continue to Full Article)

Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

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. 

.

(Video) Ami's Palestinian Road Trip! - by Ami Horowitz

"One of the main accusations against Israel is that they've installed countless amounts of checkpoints across the West Bank that disrupt their daily life, and make it difficult to travel between Palestinian cities. In order to better investigate the truth of these claims, we took a drive, a long drive."

Ami Horowitz..
09 January '17..






No freedom of movement for Palestinians?

No daily dignity for Palestinians?

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkpvaTy_1ZY



Visit Ami Horowitz's Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/amihorowitz/feed

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. 

.

At the crossings and road junctions: Scenes from a war - by Arnold Roth

...Not everyone sees things as we do. That's because not everyone sees security as a significant factor in keeping their own lives and those of their loved ones safe and intact. But those of us who do are very serious about it and very appreciative of those who make it happen.

Vehicles line up for security inspection at Huwwara 
(not yesterday) [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
01 August '16..

Israel's internal security arrangements tend to get very bad press despite - or is it because? - they frequently prevent acts of terror from taking place.

We happen to believe strongly in security arrangements because when we say "human rights" we actually mean to be thinking, first and foremost, the human right of staying alive. It's a right that was denied our daughter Malki, murdered in a Hamas attack when she was fifteen, and a right the breach of which aroused, in simple terms, very little outrage by the human rights industry.

Yesterday (Sunday), a balmy summer day when much of the country was vacationing, provided several insights into how security works and who benefits. This is true not because yesterday was a special day but because it actually was not. And what's striking is that for all the arguing that security barriers are pointless, worthless, useless, ineffective because terrorists can easly avoid them, and a torture for those forced to endure them, the uncomfortable fact remains: malevolent people with weapons of death on their bodies or in their bags or cars keep turning up and keep getting caught.

(Continue to Full Post)

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. 

.

Context, hypocrisy and checking people at the crossings

...We often think, too, about the hypocrisy that lets people feel perfectly comfortable with self-defense measures that protect their microwave oven and golf clubs, but cannot comprehend how or why people like us want to keep our children's lives safe.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
12 February '14..

Context, it is sometimes said, is everything.

We live in a country with a strongly multi-ethnic mix. The same for the city in which we make our home. Tragically, a significant number of certain parts of that mix have murder - literal, life-ending homicide - on their minds a great deal of the time.

Our political leadership along with the security establishment know that. So protective measures, calibrated as much as possible to minimize inconveniencing the innocent, are in place to keep the intending killers from their targets.

This tends to be reported in a very unfriendly way by parts of the reporting industry. They use words like apartheid, racism, land-theft and illegal.

As a family whose tranquility was permanently ended by an act of murder some years ago, we stay focused on the good that protective measures can bring. We try not to let the hypocritical reporting, often done by people who would never dream of allowing their own loved ones to be exposed to the evil plottings of human savages without aggressively pre-empting, upset us too much.

Occasionally, that hypocrisy becomes so plain that almost anyone can see it. Whether this causes laughter, a sense of wry cynicism or straight-out anger probably depends on how it fits into your own personal context.

At the BBC, there's a report today about checkpoints. They have been put up by the military. The British military. Their intention is to check people. Some will be kept out. And most will be allowed to pass through. Which is alright because this is in order to save lives, right?

(Continue)

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. Check-it out! 
.

Guess what? Israeli Checkpoints Stop Terrorists, not Elections.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
02 May '13..

Is it true that Palestinians cannot hold new elections because of Israeli security measures?

This is a claim, often made in the U.S., Canada and parts of Europe, is that the Palestinians have not been able to hold new presidential and parliamentary elections for the past five years because of Israeli army checkpoints in the West Bank, and that it will be impossible for the Palestinians to hold new elections in the future so long as Israel maintains checkpoints in various parts of the West Bank.

Another claim is that Israel is responsible for the fact that Palestinians enjoy no democracy in their two separate entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

First, it is worth noting that such claims are often made by people living in the West, and not by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

These people in the West like to think they are pro-Palestinian, but by their consistent distortion of facts, they seem in reality to be more anti-Israeli than pro-Palestinian. They never advocate against the repression and corruption that are actually stifling the Palestinians. Instead, they prefer to ignore the reality on the ground and often blame Israel for all that goes wrong in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Not surprisingly, many Palestinians seem to be much more pragmatic and realistic than the anti-Israel spokesmen sitting in Washington, New York and London.

The Palestinians know, for example, that were it not for the continued power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, they would have had free elections several years ago.

The Palestinians, moreover, know that Israeli checkpoints have nothing to do with restricting freedom of expression and voting. They are fully aware that the checkpoints are there to stop terror attacks and not democracy or reforms.

In the past, despite Israeli security measures and checkpoints, Palestinians did have free and democratic elections for the presidency and parliament.

A minor footnote but could have been today's main headline

IDF security checkpoint [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 March '13..





It's a tiny story; insignificant really, except for those of us with some imagination... and personal experience. It very likely was not reported at all in the news channels which reach most of our readers. But it happened, and it has implications.

A Palestinian Arab male (at this stage, no further details) was stopped at the IDF security checkpoint at Bekaot, south-east of Sh'chem (Nablus) in the northern Jordan Valley yesterday (Tuesday), the first day of Passover.

The personnel manning the checkpoint found four improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on him [Times of Israel]. Army sappers safely detonated the IEDs in a controlled explosion. The man is in the custody of the security forces who have some questions for him.

(Continue)

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.

.

Again, the security checkpoint system proves its worth

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
23 October '12..




From Times of Israel this afternoon:

Border Police forces arrested a 20-year-old Palestinian carrying eight explosive devices at the Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah, on Tuesday. The man reportedly traveled to the checkpoint by taxi. A routine inspection of his bags revealed the bombs, which were assembled and ready for use. The man was taken into custody. The border crossing was closed and sappers disassembled the devices on the scene.

From other sources, we know the seizing of this terrorist happened around 12:15 this afternoon.

There are people who will read the news item above and see within it further confirmation that Israel maintains a cruel and strict regime of oppression over the Palestinian Arabs. They might include the film critic of the Observer/Guardian who this week cluelessly compared it to the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Soviet Berlin wall. The Arab media frequently refer to it as an apartheid wall, showing a fatal lack of comprehension of what it was that made Apartheid-era South Africa a racist and unjust regime.

We prefer to look at it this way. The young man arrested today knew he was going to have to pass through the security checkpoint. He may have done it before in the past. It was not suddenly thrown into his path - it's been there, in the same place, for years. He may have thought his luck would hold and he would get through. He had alternatives: the security barrier has never been completed and is not continuous; people regularly find ways to cross over without passing through the checkpoints.

Palestinian Arab with bag full of bombs is stopped at a racist, hateful security checkpoint ...

many lives are saved. Is this worth reporting?..

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
04 September '12..







You hear and read a lot about how cruel and oppressive Israel's system of barriers and security checkpoints is. The far-left activist women of Machsom Watch generate a good deal of the negative reporting on this theme, and to their credit they explain in a direct and clear way why they do it:

We regularly document what we see and hear. The reports of these observations are published on the Machsom Watch site, and sent to public officials and elected representatives. Through the documentation which discloses the nature of everyday reality, we are attempting to influence public opinion in the country and in the world, and thus to bring to an end the destructive occupation, which causes damage to Israeli society as well as to Palestinian society.

The word machsom is Hebrew for "barrier". A barrier manned by armed service personnel is never going to be a happy scene. But most of us who live here and have experienced terrorism first-hand understand why they are there and what they achieve each day, and look forward to when they will no longer be needed. At Machsom Watch, they don't agree with us. Then again, we have the impression they pay more attention to the influence-public-opinion part of their mission than to the cognitive challenge of grappling with what brings those barriers to be there and what they aim to do.

So here is a reminder from yesterday of why the Machsom phenomenon exists and what it does. There's not much ideological in the sentences that follow. But for those of us who relate to barriers in their common, non-ideological sense, what happened yesterday has considerable significance.

As Ynet tells it ["Man hurls bag containing four pipe bombs at security forces after being denied entrance to Israel; none injured"], a Palestinian Arab approached the IDF's Hashmona'im checkpoint yesterday around 2 pm. If you're not familiar with Israel's very compact geography, we're speaking of a controlled crossing that is next to the Haredi community of Kiryat Sefer/Modi'in Elit. It's a short way from the second most important of the highways that run from Tel-Aviv and the airport up to the national capital, Jerusalem and no more than 20 minutes drive from our Jerusalem home.

(+Video) Saving Lives, Endless Vigilance and Checkpoints

LOTL..
12 July '12..
H/T to Diana H.

The following article was originally posted on 28 May '12 by Frimet and Arnold Roth on their blog, This Ongoing War. By reading this first as background I believe we can then set a proper context to view the video below, What is an Israeli Checkpoint REALLY like?, and to understand the vital role it plays in protecting the lives of one and all.

Tapuah Junction: Yet another suspect nabbed with pipe bombs on him

The last time we posted here about suspected terrorists being apprehended the busy and strategic Tapuah Junction in Israel's Shomron (Samaria district) was less than two weeks ago. We wrote then that two Palestinian Arab men had been stopped by alert Border Police officers during Nakba Day and found to be carrying four pipe bombs, an improvised pistol and a large quantity of ammunition. Previous arrests and seizures in the area include: two men, 12 pipe bombs, a combat knife [January 8]; one man, multiple improvised explosive devices, three knives, 50 bullets [April 11]; two youths, with 5 pipe bombs, a gun, and ammunition [April 21]; two Arab men, 4 improvised bombs [April 24]; once more - two Arab men, 4 pipe bombs [April 28]; a youth, 3 pipe bombs [May 7].


jewsuss originally uploaded 13 July 2010

Roth - Security barrier proves yet again to be a life-saver

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
29 April '12..

We have more than enough reason to write here about the plain dishonesty that seems to characterize much of the criticism of Israel's security checkpoints strategy. We wrote about this last Saturday night when armed terrorists were stopped at a security crossing en route to carrying out an attack on Israeli civilians - see "21-Apr-12: Stopped two more armed jihadists".

That was only the latest in a terribly long line of occasions when the existence of the part-built barrier, plus the network of manned crossing points through which Palestinian Arabs are frequently required to pass, plus the alertness of service personnel, and especially Israel's Border Guard, all came together to prevent another terrorist outrage.

Tonight (Saturday) there's another.

Roth - Stopped two more armed jihadists

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
22 April '12..

The alertness of Mishmar Hagvul (translation: Border Guard) service personnel manning one of those despised security checkpoints averted more harm to Israeli civilians today. A pair of Palestinian Arab youths, seventeen years old, arrived at Tapu'ach Junction, just south of Nablus/Sh'chem this afternoon (Saturday) by taxi. It's an important regional cross-roads, with many public buses stopping there round the clock. Sgt Ihab Khatib, a Druze serving in the IDF, was stabbed to death there by terrorists two years ago.

Their nervous behaviour aroused suspicion, according to Ynet's report. The Border Guards and police stationed at the crossing called on them to stop and undergo a search. The suspects attempted to run from the scene. After a chase and a struggle, they were apprehended but not before dropping a pistol and a knife. They were bodily searched and were found to be carrying five pipe bombs as well as munitions. They are being interrogated this evening. Their bombs were safely disposed of by IDF sappers from the bomb squad. One of the young servicemen is quoted saying: "When it was all over and we realized what they had in their bags, I thought about the fact that we helped save people's lives. It's a great sense of satisfaction."

Roth - Evidently that cursed good-for-nothing security barrier is good for only one thing...

We snapped this from our picnic table at Mitzpe Ofir
on Tuesday.You can see, if you look very closely, some of
 the tens of thousands of picnickers and campers
 below on the shores of Lake Kinneret, aka
the Sea of Galilee.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
12 April '12..

Traveling this beautiful country, as hundreds of thousands of Israelis (our family among them) and tourists are during this Passover holiday week, you are struck by the compactness of the land.

We set out from Jerusalem in the south of Israel before seven one morning this week, and managed to get all the way up to the northern end of the Jordan Valley and into the Beit She'an Valley for a delightful breakfast beside a pool fed by the natural spring at Ein Moda before 8. We lunched at the stunning Mitzpe Ofir and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with friends a lovely spot on the Golan Heights as well as traveling the circumference of the Sea of Galilee. We were back home in Jerusalem around midnight.

The distances are much shorter than people unfamiliar with this land often comprehend. It's a tiny and vibrant land with a minor length and virtually no breadth.

We were reminded yesterday of what the close proximity of extremely hostile neighbours can mean in an environment like this. Thankfully this was just a reminder because no serious harm was done... though it could easily have ended in a far, far worse outcome.

Roth - Another day, another attempted murder-by-knifing

This knife, smaller than the one seized today,
was grabbedfrom another Palestinian Arab
at another security checkpointin a
previous terror attack [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
09 January '12..



A Palestinian Arab female arrived at the Bitunya security checkpoint south of Ramallah, near the edge of the city of Jerusalem, this morning. This Hebrew report says she came armed with a 30 cm knife that she pulled out of its concealed location and, blade unsheathed, threw herself at one of the Border Police.

One of the alert service personnel at the checkpoint then fired a warning shot into the air. Another leapt onto her, got her under his control and took her away for interrogation. No one was seriously injured, and the woman - evidently with murder on her mind - will be able to try this again in the future should the passion so move her. A Palestinian Arab news agency reports it briefly ("Israeli forces detain woman at Ramallah crossing") but it would be a mistake to think this is heading for the mainstream news because no one was killed.