[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 01/04 Links: Fatah website posts photo of Netanyahu next to noose with ICC logo

From Ian:

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Alleged Islamic State terror cell arrested in West Bank

The cell members were arrested in November 2014 by operatives of the Shin Bet security service and stand accused of launching an unsuccessful attack against IDF soldiers and conspiring to kidnap and kill civilians and military personnel in the West Bank, according to a press release disseminated Monday by the security apparatus.
News of the arrests of the three men, Muhammad Zerrue, 21, Ahmad Shehadeh, 22, and Qusai Meswadeh, 23, was previously under gag order.
Investigators claim that Shehadeh intended to establish a militarized wing of the Islamic State group.
Shehadeh additionally admitted that he, along with Maswadeh, created multiple explosive devices and deployed one against IDF soldiers, causing no casualties.
The two also conspired to acquire an Israeli military uniform and rifle by killing an IDF soldier, with the intention of using the gear in shooting attacks, but later backed out of the idea.

Fatah website posts photo of Netanyahu next to noose with word 'soon' and ICC logo

Days after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Facebook page of his Fatah movement displayed a picture of Netanyahu next to a noose, with the word "soon," written both in Arabic and Hebrew.
The post also displayed the words International Criminal Court, with the body's scales of justice symbol.
Upon signing the Rome Statute on Wednesday, Abbas said that he intended to file war crimes complaints against Israelis.

PA to Submit Request to Join Interpol

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has decided to join the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), an official told the Ma’an news agency on Saturday.
The head of the international relations and cooperation department in the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Interior told Ma'an that the PA plans to submit a request to join the group in 2015, ahead of Interpol's annual meeting.
Ahmad al-Rabie said that the PA submitted a request to join the Interpol in 2011 but that it was only accepted as an observer and not as a full member because it had not been recognized as a state at the time and did not have control over its borders.
This time, however, the PA is sure that 128 countries will vote in favor of the state joining Interpol, four above the required threshold, al-Rabie told Ma’an.
He said joining Interpol will result in several international benefits for the PA, including the ability to take part in fighting cross-border crimes and fighting terrorism, money laundering, corruption, arms trade, and human trafficking. (h/t Bob Knot)

Netanyahu: Israeli troops won’t be hauled to court in Hague

Speaking to his cabinet hours after Jerusalem announced financial sanctions in response to the Palestinian move, Netanyahu vowed Israel would take action and that the country would not sit back and allow IDF soldiers to be prosecuted abroad.
“The Palestinian Authority has chosen confrontation with Israel and we will not sit idly by,” Netanyahu said at his office in Jerusalem. “We will not allow IDF soldiers and commanders to be hauled before the International Criminal Court in the Hague.”
Last week, the Palestinians filed an application to join the ICC after a failed bid to pass a UN Security Council resolution on Palestinian statehood demanding an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines by the end of 2017. The resolution did not gain the necessary nine council member votes it needed for approval, though it would have likely been vetoed by the United States in any case.
Netanyahu said Palestinians leaders were the ones who should be prosecuted in the ICC over their unification with rival faction Hamas.
“It is the Palestinian Authority leaders – who have allied with the war criminals of Hamas – who must be called to account,” he said. “IDF soldiers will continue to protect the State of Israel with determination and strength, and just as they are protecting us we will protect them, with the same determination and strength.” Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas are backers of the current Palestinian unity government. Hamas, the terror group that controls Gaza, calls for the destruction of Israel.

NY Times likens Netanyahu to Churchill in sympathetic op-ed

It isn't every day that Benjamin Netanyahu receives a sympathetic article in The New York Times, which usually doles out harsh criticism against the Israeli prime minister. But this week, Netanyahu received rare approval in an article titled "The Age of Bibi."
In Friday's op-ed, columnist David Brooks, who attests to having visited Israel nearly 20 times, compares Netanyahu to several prominent historical figures, including one of Netanyahu's own heroes, Winston Churchill. "Netanyahu obviously lacks many of Churchill's qualities, like playful charm, but he has a profound nationalist passion and a consuming historical consciousness," Brooks writes.
"Bellicose in words yet cautious in action, Benjamin Netanyahu is a man of contrasts, and he is subtly reshaping Israel," Brooks writes, noting the prime minister's long-term effect on the country he leads.
Brooks lauds Netanyahu's instincts, saying that "like Churchill, he is wisest when things are going wrong. As the Arab Spring has deteriorated, as Palestinian democracy led to Hamas, as run-of-the-mill extremists have lost ground to the Islamic State, Bibi's instincts have basically been proved correct," he writes.

 The PA, the ICC, and a Moral Inversion of Staggering Dimensions

The idea of the Palestinian Authority taking Israel to court over war crimes is among the most grotesque and absurd developments imaginable, a moral inversion of staggering dimensions. The PA and Hamas, for example, intentionally target civilians–including using Palestinians as human shields–whereas Israel takes extraordinary steps to protect them.
The fact that this issue is even being considered points to how corrupt many international organizations are. (Why on earth should we have to debate why a malevolent organization doesn’t have the standing to condemn a nation characterized by excellence and extraordinary moral achievements?) In addition, the U.S. should certainly cut funding to the Palestinian Authority, to whom it currently provides more than $400 million in annual aid.
But beyond all that, this latest move by the PA is an example of the persistent unwillingness to address the pathologies that grip Palestinian society. These pathologies are the core reason for the tensions and conflict with Israel–and rather than dealing with them, the leadership of the Palestinians is, if anything, falling even deeper into denial. The more they fail, the more they blame Israel for their failures. This is an assault on reality, a slander of Israel, and a massive disservice to Palestinians. It would be helpful if more nations, starting with the United States, said so.

 Hillel Neuer: Human Rights Watch chief flip-flops on PLO’s ICC gambit

While Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth has emerged this week as the most prominent backer of the PLO’s controversial new bid to join the International Criminal Court in order to launch criminal complaints against Israel, it was not so long ago that Roth’s organization promised Americans that precisely this scenario would never happen.
The flip-flop seriously undermines Roth’s credibility on the subject of the ICC, and will only strengthen the cause of the court’s skeptics in the United States.
In a flurry of tweets over the past few days, Roth has sharply criticized statements of the U.S., France, and Canada that described the PLO’s ICC gambit as unilateral, counter-productive and provocative.

Neuer misses the point: Roth’s Problem Isn’t Flip-Flopping, it’s his worldview

Hillel Neuer was not wrong to point out Kenneth Roth’s flip-flopping on the ICC issue. The evidence is clear that Roth’s previous view has changed from close to 14 years ago. But is that really the story? To me it isn’t.
To me, the story is that Kenneth Roth, and those like him, are perpetuating a modern-day blood libel by accusing Israel of war crimes and are the real obstacles to a negotiated settlement of the conflict. The “war crime” view of settlements turns the conflict into one in which one side is fundamentally evil (Israel) and one side is fundamentally a victim (The Palestinians). In such a case, the solution to the conflict requires not negotiations, but apologies and concessions from Israel for all the alleged wrongs it has committed.
Roth, and those like him, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, know that accusing Israel of “war crimes” inevitably triggers Holocaust imagery and at some level draws an equation between Israel and Nazis. To use terminology like “war crimes” in relation to community building by the Nazis’ victims is nothing less than a blood libel. (And with his father’s Holocaust history, Roth should know better). Deep down, I believe Kenneth Roth knows the settlements are not war crimes, but his Jewish misplaced guilt compels him to rally against them.

Liberman: European parliaments lying like ‘Protocols’

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman launched a bitter attack against European and Palestinian leaders Sunday, saying Ramallah’s unilateral moves toward statehood proved the death of the Oslo Accords and accusing European parliaments of recreating anti-Semitic lies.
Speaking at a conference of Israel’s European ambassadors, Liberman denounced the attitudes of European lawmakers as comparable to a century-old anti-Semitic hoax.
“The lies told during debates in the European parliaments are reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Liberman said, referencing the document that claims a Jewish plan for world domination, which has been used as a canard for anti-Jewish attacks.
Liberman singled out Sweden and Ireland, both of which recently passed parliamentary votes calling for recognition of a Palestinian state, and likened their actions to the 1938 Munich agreement in which Britain and France ceded control of the Sudetenland region to Germany in an appeasement that ultimately failed to prevent World War II.
“The behavior of Sweden and Ireland toward us is comparable with that which led to the breakup of Czechoslovakia,” he said.
Lashing out at the Palestinians over their bids to impose terms on Israel at the United Nations Security Council and to pursue war crimes allegations by joining the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Liberman said this proved the Oslo Accords had “failed.”
He also called for Israel to take the initiative in launching a peace process, instead of reacting to Palestinian moves.

Liberman's secret meeting in Paris was not with Abbas rival Dahlan

The secret meeting that Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman had last month in Paris was not with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' rival Muhammad Dahlan, Maariv-Hashavua has learned.
In the meeting last month at the Raphael Hotel in the French capital, Mossad personnel were in attendance, which raises the likelihood that Liberman met with a prominent figure from the Arab or Muslim world. The meeting reportedly took place without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's approval.
All of the people who were exposed to information about Liberman's trip were made to sign strict confidentiality agreements, Maariv-Hashavua has further learned.
Dahlan, who lives in exile in the Gulf, was once a prominent official in Abbas's Western-backed Fatah movement but was ousted from the group in 2011 following accusations of corruption. He denied the charges and remains a powerful figure on the sidelines, forging ties with numerous Arab leaders and maintaining links with the splintered Fatah.
The 52-year-old Dahlan has been cited a possible future president of the Palestinian Authority.

Mohammed Dahlan Takes Revenge and Forms New Party to Get Rid of Abbas

Mahmoud Dahlan, former Fatah party strong man in Gaza, told Sky News on Saturday he is forming a movement to oppose his long-time enemy Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority.
Dahlan has thousands of reasons to take revenge, but his timing may have been determined by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who now has every legitimate reason to want to get rid of Abbas after he stopped acting out his part in the charades of the American-led “peace process” and went to the United Nations to try to force a PA state on Israel.
Dahlan was the undisputed leader of Gaza before Hamas staged a bloody coup in 2006 and slaughtered Fatah’s terrorist militia, which had been trained by U.S. Army commanders and who were under the thumb of Dahlan, who conveniently was out of the area at the time.
Abbas and Dahlan hate each other. Dahlan fled from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2011 after Abbas sought to bring him to trial for embezzlement and corruption, foundations of the Palestinian Authority. A PA court this year sentenced Dahlan in absentia to two years in prison on charges of defamation.
Dahlan’s day of revenge was Saturday.

Minister: Use Frozen PA Money to Pay Off Electric Debt

Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom on Saturday called on Israel to use the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) tax money it froze to pay off the PA’s enormous debt to the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC).
“Following the decision to freeze half a billion shekels in Palestinian tax money, I have asked that the funds will be transferred to cover the Palestinian debt to the IEC, which continues to rise every month,” Shalom wrote on Facebook.
“It is inconceivable that the people of Israel will pay the Palestinian debt and we will ensure that the Palestinians will pay their debt to the last shekel,” he declared.
The PA acquires 95% of its electricity in Judea and Samaria and 75% of its electricity in Gaza from Israel. The Israeli supply to the PA-assigned areas has continued despite the huge debt and despite the fact that Hamas continues to carry out terror attacks aimed at Israeli forces and civilians alike.

PreOccupied Territory: Meretz To Offset Israeli Withholding Of Palestinian Tax Revenues (satire)

Israel responded today to the abortive Palestinian statehood bid at the Security Council by announcing it would cease its transfer of tax revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority, prompting the political party Meretz to declare it would voluntarily reimburse the Palestinians for the nearly half-billion shekel sum currently outstanding.
Meretz Chairwoman Zahava Gal-On called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this afternoon to reassure him that her party would guarantee coverage of any deficit in Palestinian spending that results from the withheld revenues, saying it was only proper to enable the Authority to continue functioning as before.
“It is irresponsible and reckless for the Netanyahu government to act this way, as if it is up to them to dictate how the Palestinian government should or should not behave,” said Gal-On. “I told Mr. Abbas that we have his back, and that our coffers and those of our donors such as the New Israel Fund would be more than happy to provide this safety net.”

PreOccupied Territory: Herzog Urges Goodwill Gesture Of Letting Pharaoh Slay Some Babies (satire)

Pithom, Ancient Egypt, January 4 – Israelite Opposition head Isaac Herzog criticized what he called his nation’s “intransigent” leadership, and called on his fellow Hebrews to make some concessions in their ongoing conflict with the Egyptian king. To kick off negotiations with Pharaoh on positive terms, this morning Herzog suggested that his people agree to kill at least some of their newborn sons.
Pharaoh issued an edict ordering Hebrew midwives to kill all male infants, but the midwives have defied the order, which escalated tensions. The king then instructed his own people to help enforce the edict by tossing all the Hebrew newborn males into the Nile, but the Israelites continued to resist, even illegally concealing pregnancies and births to circumvent the law. Herzog, concerned that such defiance will ostracize the Israelites from the international community, told his people that painful compromise is necessary in order to secure a lasting peace.
“We have to understand the Egyptian narrative and not look only at our own selfish need to survive,” said the Labor party leader. “They feel threatened, and rightly so, by our rapid growth. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing for them to levy extortionate taxes, draft all of us for hard labor, and try to reduce our population. We have to stop being so narrow-minded as to think that our desire to survive as a people trumps our neighbors’ need to feel secure in our subjugation.”

Yisrael Medad: An Insider’s Version of the Adei-Ad Incident

I received this piece from a resident I know and can vouch for and am publishing it anonymously as it also dovetails with the other information I have gathered.
So I guess the US Consulate thinks that they are in charge here, and not the IDF. Because they just came driving up near Adei Ad without telling anyone. When Arabs were sited, along with their helpers, the Adei Ad residents knew that they needed to distance them. Why? Because if our small community shows weakness towards the thousands of Arabs surrounding us, the next time they will push us another step back. If we let them steal a horse, and just let it go, the next time they’ll steal a car, and after that, try to kill someone.
But why this so-called ‘vigilantism’? Why not let the police take care of things? Well, you see there’s a little jurisdiction problem. The military takes care of terror. When the Arabs file a criminal complaint (and they love to file complaints, sometimes real, but very often contrived) the police call us in for interrogation. But the Arab villages are outside Israeli police jurisdiction. They steal whole herds of sheep, cars, destroy vineyards, harvest our olives, and the police? What police? Unless they try to kill someone, they have a free hand. And you can also count on the international press to ignore everything they do to us. So nature abhors a vacuum; without vigilantism, we could be done for.
So regarding the Consulate officials with the Arabs, I was told that the Adei Ad guys went down to confront the intruders as they should not be near here without an army escort. I was informed the Americans drew a pistol, and showed a rifle.

The Passion of the Olive Trees*: Settlers Pelt US Diplomatic Personnel in the West Bank

Now, hold it right there. We can certainly question the wisdom of roaming foreign territory, making independent inquiries into criminal allegations about property damage. We can question what exactly gives us a charter to do that.
But even before getting to that question, we have to question the wisdom of “investigating” one of these recurring, unsubstantiated allegations about settlers attacking Palestinian olive trees. Researching the matter reveals that the “information theme” about it is a big racket.
For one thing, there is never the slightest evidence that Israeli settlers did anything to the trees. It would take days of work to achieve the effects offered as “evidence” by the complaining Arabs: lopped-off old-growth branches, great piles of newer-growth branches, piles of burned branches, trunks cut back to a state of near-pristine nudity. The allegations about uprooted saplings – always “hundreds” or “thousands” of them – are not accompanied by affecting photos, as the allegations of attacks on more mature trees are. But uprooting thousands of saplings would also take days of work. Yet Israeli settlers are never caught on camera attacking olive trees. This is logically impossible. It’s impossible for settler posses to raid olive groves, wreaking havoc that would take them days of dedicated work to accomplish, and never be caught in the act.

'Deport US Consulate Staff Who Threatened Jews'

Acting Head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, has filed a request to the Minister of the Interior Gilad Erdan demanding he immediately expel the American Consulate staff members who entered the Samaria village of Adei Ad Friday and threatened Israeli Jews with an M-16.
"As revealed through Wikileaks few years ago, these supposed 'officials' are intelligence agents and spies in every respect," said Dagan, adding "this time, they went too far and participated in a provocative tour with the Palestinians in the southern Samaria and north Binyamin, without any coordination as required with the IDF and police, and pulled out a firearm and threatened Israeli civilians."
"This is a crossing of all red lines," he continued. "This event could have descended easily into bloodshed and only as a result of the settlers' responsible behavior was [a scenario like that] prevented."
"I request that in view of the serious and criminal conduct, that these [US] security guards and officials be deported," he added.

Settlers Gone Wild?

And in a separate interview with his father, we are told that he and his son were simply planting peach trees when a settler mob descended on them and killed his son.
We may not know the details of what led to the death of Yousef Ikhlayyil back in 2011. What we do know is that CNN was unable to find a single example to back up the claim of “deadly attacks” by settlers against Palestinians among the 300 incidents last year. Yet they still broadcast the quotation that settlers are killing Palestinians every day.
What is really unprofessional and misleading is the attempt to equate Israelis’ very reasonable desire to take self-defense classes with old, uncorroborated allegations in the interests of appearing balanced.
And that’s how a good story can turn bad.

Israeli citizen released from Egyptian jail after serving two-year sentence

Pshenichnikov, 26, from Bat Yam, was originally ordered to be deported to Israel, but an Egyptian judge overturned that ruling.
Pshenichnikov’s mother told Army Radio in 2013 that her son got a visa to enter Egypt, and was scheduled to meet friends from France in Cairo.
The man was reportedly a left-wing activist, who lived in the Palestinian territories and was previously denied a request for Palestinian citizenship.
He was not carrying a passport when he entered Sinai and his name was not on tourist arrival lists, according to the official Egyptian MENA news agency.
Another Israeli citizen, Uda Tarabin, still languishes in an Egyptian jail. He was arrested in 2000 after infiltrating Sinai to visit relatives. He was indicted on espionage charges.

Jordan said to suspend talks with Israel over huge gas deal

Jordan said it was suspending talks with Israel over a proposed $15 billion deal for natural gas, Jordanian media reported Sunday, over a week after Israel barred a multinational consortium from developing offshore gas fields.
The cutting off of talks for the massive deal, the largest since Israel began developing the offshore fields expected to turn the country into a regional energy powerhouse, could herald what analysts say are likely jitters over doing business with Israel after its Anti-Trust Authority’s move to put the kibosh on the leasing arrangement.
The Jordanian paper al-Ghad reported that Amman cut off the talks after Israel’s anti-trust regulator said in late December that a partnership between the US-based Noble Energy and Israel’s Delek Group constituted a cartel and would have to be broken apart or sell off certain holdings.
The decision means that the deal between Israel and Jordan could be delayed and would have to be significantly amended.

PreOccupied Territory: Hip Hop Artist Snow Denies Plans To Visit Israel Wednesday (satire)

Toronto, January 4 – The reggae performer known as Snow expressed puzzlement today at Israelis’ excitement over his predicted arrival this Wednesday, saying he had no such travel plans and would remain in Canada the entire week.
Israeli media reported late last week that Snow was expected in parts of the country as early as Sunday, initially in the north and eventually visiting as far south as the Jerusalem area. Snow, the stage name of musician Darrin O’Brien, claimed he had no plans to go to the Middle East at all, and certainly scheduled no performances or appearances in the region.
Local television and internet media appeared oblivious to the protestations of the artist behind the 1990’s smash single “Informer,” continuing throughout Sunday to report that he had arrived in the Golan Heights in the morning and was moving gradually south. Jerusalem Municipality workers spent hours on Sunday trimming trees just so and preparing special equipment to prepare for Snow’s arrival, apparently ignorant of the fact that he intends to remain thousands of miles away.

Fatah Official Abbas Zaki: The U.S. Is the Enemy, the Head of the Serpent


Palestinians Burning US And UK Flags


Gaza Division Commander: War Was 'A Finger in Hamas's Eye'

IDF Gaza Division Commander Itai Virov is happy that Hamas remains in Gaza, he revealed in a Channel 10 interview Sunday, because, in his eyes, the alternative would be leaving a power vacuum that Islamic State (ISIS) would fill.
Virov began by noting that in his eyes, Operation Protective Edge wasn't an "operation"; it was a war.
"I do not know another way to refer to the 60-65 days we were in Gaza other than as a war," he said. "It was a political decision - whether it's a war whose purpose is to defeat Hamas in Gaza [or an operation], I think that it was a good one."
"Even though Hamas is a bitter and cruel enemy, and the prospect of another war is ominous, the alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza is worse," he explained. "I see what happens in the Sinai, with the network of ISIS [and ISIS-inspired groups - ed.], and it is good that these groups remain under the eye of the Egyptian army in the Sinai [which is fighting terror there - ed.] and that we will continue to fight our own battles [i.e. Gaza]."

Whitewashing Islamic terrorism

Three days before Christmas, one unsuspecting holiday shopper was killed and nine others wounded when a van plowed through a crowded market in Nantes, located in western France. The attack came a day after a man, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” rammed his car into crowds in the eastern city of Dijon, wounding 13 people; this, some 24 hours after an assailant stabbed and wounded three police officers in Joueles- Tours, central France, likewise while yelling “God is the greatest” in Arabic.
A day after the Dijon attack, which the perpetrator dedicated to the children of “Palestine,” France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, called on the public “to not draw hasty conclusions since... [the driver’s] motives have not been established.” Nevertheless, and despite the fact that “the investigation had barely begun,” Dijon’s public prosecutor, Marie-Christine Tarrare, made clear that the incident was “not a terrorist act at all.”
It took the third attack before French Prime Minister Manuel Valls came closest to accepting reality, conceding that, “there is, as you know, a terrorist threat to France.”
Leaving aside the virtually unreported incidents that same week of the drive-by-shootings in Paris targeting the David Ben Ichay Synagogue, the Al Haeche kosher restaurant and a Jewish-owned publishing house, only a Kafkaesque willful blindness could suggest that citizens being run down on the streets constituted a mere threat of terrorism rather than a terrorist problem of the first order.
The icing on the cake was an official French pronouncement that no link had been found between any of these events.

The Kippah Walk of Shame

Sweden might be a secular country, but most Swedes still have one faith: the orthodox religion of political correctness. This religion has worked its way into every nook and cranny of the Swedish society, including the Jewish Community. There’s a fear of speaking up, to have an opinion that’s not mainstream – officially we all have to be holier-than-thou and better than the rest of the world no matter what the cost. There’s absolutely no room for open, straight-forward discussions or for sticking your head out and telling it the way it is – if you do, you are immediately shunned by the establishment.
There’s no secret that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Sweden. But there’s an unwritten rule, a ban, on talking about where most of this new anti-Semitism is coming from. Yes, Neo-Nazis are part of the problem, but it’s not a coincidence that the city of Malmö has the largest Muslim population in the country, and is also the worst place for a Jew to live. The Rabbi of Malmö talks about it here and here.
Try bringing this issue up and you are immediately branded an evil racist. You see, in Sweden, it’s only politically correct to condemn Nazis or right-wing parties like Sverigedemokraterna (now Sweden’s third largest party), no one else. This denial, this stubborn refusal to discuss what’s happening, is political correctness at its worst – nothing good will come out of it – only more anti-Semitism going unnoticed.

“Libyan School” In Calgary Teaches “The Treachery Of The Jews” To 6th Graders

The Libyan School in Calgary has an interesting curriculum for it’s 6th graders, a section of Koran study dedicated to the treachery of the Jews.
The Arabic translates as:
Koran Worship – Biography of the Prophet
Treachery of the Jews and purge the city of them
Now in Canada we’re supposed to go beyond mere acceptance and in fact approve the quaint Muslim custom of rabid Jew Hate, because that’s what multiculturalism is all about in our fair nation.
But when is enough enough? Is it ever enough?

1.5 million visit Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2014

Officials say a record number of more than 1.5 million people from around the world visited the grounds of the former Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2014.
The Auschwitz museum said Sunday on its website most visitors came from within Poland, with large numbers of tourists also coming from Britain, the US, Italy and Germany. The website didn’t say what the previous record was.
Between 1940 and 1945, about 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, but also Poles, Roma and other nationals, were killed in gas chambers or died from forced labor, hunger and disease in the camp operated by Nazi Germans.
On January 27, ceremonies attended by survivors will mark the 70th anniversary of its liberation by the Soviet army.

Israeli's survival story reaches Hollywood

American actor Kevin Bacon to star in 'Jungle,' a thriller based on the true story of adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg, who was lost in the Amazon rainforest for three weeks in 1981
He was almost eaten alive by beasts of prey, giant ants walked all over him and the jungle almost defeated him. Now, almost 30 years after he got lost in the Amazon rainforest in Bolivia, Israeli adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg's survival story will be adapted to a film starring American actor Kevin Bacon.
"Back to Tuichi," the first book written by Ghinsberg after he returned from the jungle, became one of the most popular books in Israel in the 1990s. It has been translated into 15 languages and published in several countries under different names. To this very day, it serves as the guide for the perplexed for many young people on their post-army trip to South America.

Alberto Gonzales: Israel protects followers of the cross while neighboring nations eradicate them

I celebrated Christmas last week with entirely new intention and understanding. In December, I visited Israel as part of a delegation of Hispanic-American leaders, under the auspices of a private educational organization called The Face of Israel. During our trip, I had the privilege to travel the country and to meet with the Rev. Gabriel Naddaf, a native Arabic-speaking Israeli Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth, the city where Jesus Christ began his own ministry.
As Father Naddaf spoke to us, we began to grasp that his presence in the Holy Land is more than a symbolic nod to the origins of Christianity. It is, in fact, one of the world’s most powerful and hopeful testaments to the continuity and living potential of Christian identity in the Middle East today. Father Naddaf’s very existence is a statement of courage and resolve in the face of an increasingly hostile and volatile region. What he told us has transformed my understanding of the Middle East, and of my responsibility to it as a Christian — and as an American — living in the 21st century.
At least since Sept. 11, 2001, when I served in the White House — and perhaps even more so in the past year with the emergence of the Islamic State — the world has been forced to reckon with the spread of Islamic extremism. Perhaps less obvious, however, are the implications of this violent threat for non-Muslims in the Middle East. Christians, in particular, have a rich and beautiful history in the region, extending all the way back to the life of Jesus. But according to Father Naddaf, in the past century Christians have gone from comprising 20 percent of the regional population to just 4 percent. Demographic changes may have many causes, but this dramatic downturn for Christians in the Middle East is owed in part to the rise of Muslim extremism.

Upgrading Israel’s Iron Dome with swarmware

If the summer war with Hamas in Gaza proved anything, it was the role the Iron Dome anti-missile system played in minimizing civilian deaths in Israel and keeping the war from escalating in response to greater casualties. But while Israel enjoyed the tactical advantage afforded by this technological marvel, Hamas, for its part, wasn’t just sitting idly by. It was learning how to beat it.
The qualitative edge that Israel has developed in the sky – offensively, with advanced jets and well-trained fighters and now UA Vs, and defensively with the Iron Dome and other layers of missile defense – is crucial to its survival, especially given its 20-milewide waist at the center of the country.
But as drone platforms begin to saturate foreign militaries and terror militias (just last week, Hamas once again launched its own drone from Gaza), Israel will have to sharpen that edge if it’s going to maintain an effective defensive shield.
One important part of this process is the development of something called “swarmware.” Marrying UA V technology with advanced software, swarmware allows dozens or even hundreds of drones to work together (much like the name suggests) as a swarm of individual units that coalesce or break away from the main body as needed.
In this, the swarm acts strategically in real time, operating as an effective mass.

Extensive poll finds Jews, Arabs proud to be Israeli

The poll of 1,007 respondents representing a statistical sample of the Israeli adult population has a margin of error of only 3.2%. Since 2003, the Index has served as a critical barometer of Israeli public opinion for Israeli politicians, government decision-makers, and newspapers of record around the world.
The poll found that 86% of Israeli Jews and 65% of Israeli Arabs described themselves as either very or quite proud to be Israeli. Only 13% of Israeli Jews and 34% of Israeli Arabs are not so proud or not proud at all to be Israeli.
When asked which institutions they trust the most, Israeli Jews said the IDF (88%), the president (71%), and Supreme Court (62%). The institutions trusted the least are the Knesset (35%), Chief Rabbinate (29%), and the media (28%).
Among Israeli Arabs, the most trusted institutions are the Supreme Court (60%), the police (57%), president (56%), and surprisingly, the IDF (51%). The institutions trusted least by Arabs are the media (37%), Knesset (36%), and religious leaders (36%).

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/04/2015 01:00:00 PM